46
… I should have handled the affair more judiciously.
Four days later, at lunchtime, Strike was to be found leaning up against a counter in a tiny takeaway pizza restaurant, which was most conveniently situated for watching a house directly across the street. One of a pair of brown brick semi-detached houses, the name “Ivy Cottages” was engraved in stone over the twin doors, which seemed to Strike more fitting for humbler dwellings than these houses, which had graceful arched windows and corniced keystones.
Chewing on a slice of pizza, Strike felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He checked to see who was calling before answering, because he had already had one fraught conversation with Lorelei today. Seeing that it was Robin, he answered.
“I’m in,” said Robin. She sounded excited. “Just had my interview. The owner’s dreadful, I’m not surprised nobody wants to work for her. It’s a zero-hours contract. Basically, she wants a couple of people to fill in whenever she fancies not working.”
“Flick still there?”
“Yes, she was manning the counter while I was talking to the shop owner. The woman wants to give me a trial tomorrow.”
“You weren’t followed?”
“No, I think that journalist has given up. He wasn’t here yesterday either. Mind you, he probably wouldn’t have recognized me even if he’d seen me. You should see my hair.”
“Why, what have you done with it?”
“Chalk.”
“What?”
“Hair chalk,” said Robin. “Temporary color. It’s black and blue. And I’m wearing a lot of eye makeup and some temporary tattoos.”
“Send us a selfie, I could do with some light relief.”
“Make your own. What’s going on your end?”
“Bugger all. Mallik came out of Della’s house with her this morning—”
“God, are they living together?”
“No idea. They went out somewhere in a taxi with the guide dog. They came back an hour ago and I’m waiting to see what happens next. One interesting thing, though: I’ve seen Mallik before. Recognized him the moment I saw him this morning.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he was at Jimmy’s CORE meeting. The one I went to, to try and find Billy.”
“How weird… D’you think he was acting as a go-between for Geraint?”
“Maybe,” said Strike, “but I can’t see why the phone wouldn’t have done if they wanted to keep in touch. You know, there’s something funny about Mallik generally.”
“He’s all right,” said Robin quickly. “He didn’t like me, but that was because he was suspicious. That just means he’s sharper than most of the rest of them.”
“You don’t fancy him as a killer?”
“Is this because of what Kinvara said?”
“‘My husband provoked somebody, somebody I warned him he shouldn’t upset,’” Strike quoted.
“And why should anyone be particularly worried about upsetting Aamir? Because he’s brown? I felt sorry for him, actually, having to work with—”
“Hang on,” said Strike, letting his last piece of pizza fall back onto the plate.
The front door of Della’s house had opened again.
“We’re off,” said Strike, as Mallik came out of the house alone, closed the door behind him, walked briskly down the garden path, and set off down the road. Strike headed out of the pizzeria in pursuit.
“Got a spring in his step now. He looks happy to be away from her…”
“How’s your leg?”
“It’s been worse. Hang on, he’s turning left… Robin, I’m going to go, need to speed up a bit.”
“Good luck.”
“Cheers.”
Strike crossed Southwark Park Road as quickly as his leg permitted, then turned into Alma Grove, a long residential street with plane trees planted at regular intervals, and Victorian terraced houses on both sides. To Strike’s surprise, Mallik stopped at a house on the right, with a turquoise door, and let himself inside. The distance between his place of residence and that of the Winns’ was five minutes’ walk at most.
The houses in Alma Grove were narrow and Strike could well imagine loud noises traveling easily through the walls. Giving Mallik what he judged to be sufficient time to remove his jacket and shoes, Strike approached the turquoise door and knocked.
After a few seconds’ wait, Aamir opened up. His expression changed from pleasant inquiry to shock. Aamir evidently knew exactly who Strike was.
“Aamir Mallik?”
The younger man did not speak at first, but stood frozen with one hand on the door, the other on the hall wall, looking at Strike with dark eyes shrunken by the thickness of the lenses in his glasses.
“What do you want?”
“A chat,” said Strike.
“Why? What for?”
“Jasper Chiswell’s family have hired me. They aren’t sure he committed suicide.”
Appearing temporarily paralyzed, Aamir neither moved nor spoke. Finally, he stood back from the door.
“All right, come in.”
In Aamir’s position, Strike too would have wanted to know what the detective knew or suspected, rather than wondering through fretful nights why he had called. Strike entered and wiped his feet on the doormat.
The house was larger inside than it had appeared outside. Aamir led Strike through a door on the left into a sitting room. The décor was, very obviously, the taste of a person far older than Aamir. A thick, patterned carpet of swirling pinks and greens, a number of chintz-covered chairs, a wooden coffee table with a lace cloth laid over it and an ornamental edged mirror over the mantelpiece all spoke of geriatric occupants, while an ugly electric heater had been installed in the wrought iron fireplace. Shelves were bare, surfaces denuded of ornaments or other objects. A Stieg Larsson paperback lay on the arm of a chair.
Aamir turned to face Strike, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“You’re Cormoran Strike,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“It was your partner who was pretending to be Venetia, at the Commons.”
“Right again.”
“What d’you want?” Aamir asked, for the second time.
“To ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“OK if I sit down?” asked Strike, doing so without waiting for permission. He noticed Aamir’s eyes drop to his leg, and stretched out the prosthesis ostentatiously, so that a glint of the metal ankle could be seen above his sock. To a man so considerate of Della’s disability, this might be sufficient reason not to ask Strike to get up again. “As I said, the family doesn’t think Jasper Chiswell killed himself.”
“You think I had something to do with his death?” asked Aamir, trying for incredulity and succeeding only in sounding scared.
“No,” said Strike, “but if you want to blurt out a confession, feel free. It’ll save me a lot of work.”
Aamir didn’t smile.
“The only thing I know about you, Aamir,” said Strike, “is that you were helping Geraint Winn blackmail Chiswell.”
“I wasn’t,” said Aamir at once.
It was the automatic, ill-considered denial of a panicked man.
“You weren’t trying to get hold of incriminating photographs to use against him?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The press are trying to break your bosses’ super-injunction. Once the blackmail’s out in the public domain, your part in it won’t remain hidden for long. You and your friend Christopher—”