“Oh, I’m glad,” said Robin inadvertently.
“—and he wasn’t overjoyed to have us turning up at first, but he ended up being very frank and helpful. Said he found that disturbed lad—Billy, is it?—on the street, wanting to see his boss, shouting about a dead child, strangled and buried on Chiswell’s land. Took him home with the idea of getting him to hospital, but he asked Geraint Winn’s advice first. Winn was furious. Told him on no account to call an ambulance.”
“Did he, now?” said Strike, frowning.
“From what Mallik’s told us, Winn was worried association with Billy’s story would taint his own credibility. He didn’t want the waters muddied by a psychotic tramp. Blew up at Mallik for taking him into a house belonging to the Winns, told him to turf him out on the street again. Trouble was—”
“Billy wouldn’t go,” said Strike.
“Exactly. Mallik says he was clearly out of his mind, thought he was being held against his will. Curled up in the bathroom most of the time. Anyway,” Layborn took a deep breath, “Mallik’s had enough of covering up for the Winns. He’s confirmed that Winn wasn’t with him on the morning of Chiswell’s death. Winn told Mallik afterwards, when he put pressure on Mallik to lie, he’d had an urgent phone call at 6 a.m. that day, which is why he left the marital home early.”
“And you’ve traced that call?” said Strike.
Layborn picked up the printout of phone records, rifled through them, then handed a couple of marked pages to Strike.
“Here you go. Burner phones,” he said. “We’ve got three different numbers so far. There were probably more. Used once, never used again, untraceable except for the single instance we got on record. Months in the planning.
“A single-use phone was used to contact Winn that morning, and two more were used to call Kinvara Chiswell on separate occasions during the previous weeks. She ‘can’t remember’ who called her, but both times—see there?—she talked to whoever it was for over an hour.”
“What’s Winn got to say for himself?” asked Strike.
“Closed up like an oyster,” said Layborn. “We’re working on him, don’t worry. There are porn stars who’ve been fucked fewer different ways than Geraint W—sorry, love,” he said, grinning, to Robin, who found the apology more offensive than anything Layborn had said. “But you take my point. He might as well tell us everything now. He’s screwed every which w—well,” he said, floundering once more. “What interests me,” he started up again, “is how much the wife knew. Strange woman.”
“In what way?” asked Robin.
“Oh, you know. I think she plays on this a bit,” said Layborn, with a vague gesture towards his eyes. “Very hard to believe she didn’t know what he was up to.”
“Speaking of people not knowing what their other halves are up to,” interposed Strike, who thought he detected a martial glint in Robin’s eye, “how’s it going with our friend Flick?”
“Ah, we’re making very good progress there,” said Layborn. “The parents have been helpful in her case. They’re both lawyers and they’ve been urging her to cooperate. She’s admitted she was Chiswell’s cleaner, that she stole the note and took receipt of the crate of champagne right before Chiswell told her he couldn’t afford her anymore. Says she put it in a cupboard in the kitchen.”
“Who delivered it?”
“She can’t remember. We’ll find out. Courier service, I shouldn’t wonder, booked on another burner phone.”
“And the credit card?”
“That was another good spot of yours,” admitted Layborn. “We didn’t know a credit card had gone missing. We got details through from the bank this morning. The same day Flick’s flatmate realized the card was gone, somebody charged a crate of champagne and bought a hundred quid’s worth of stuff on Amazon, all to be sent to an address in Maida Vale. Nobody took delivery, so it was returned to the depot where it was picked up that afternoon by someone who had the failed delivery notice. We’re trying to locate the staff who can identify the person who collected it and we’re getting a breakdown on what was bought on Amazon, but my money’s on helium, tubing and latex gloves.
“This was all planned months in advance. Months.”
“And that?” Strike asked, pointing to the photocopy of the note in Chiswell’s handwriting, which was lying on the side in its polythene bag. “Has she told you why she nicked it yet?”
“She says she saw ‘Bill’ and thought it meant her boyfriend’s brother. Ironic, really,” said Layborn. “If she hadn’t stolen it, we wouldn’t have cottoned on nearly so fast, would we?”
The “we,” thought Robin, was daring, because it had been Strike who had “cottoned on,” Strike who had finally cracked the significance of Chiswell’s note, as they drove back to London from Chiswell House.
“Robin deserves the bulk of the credit there, too,” said Strike. “She found the thing, she noticed ‘Blanc de Blanc’ and the Grand Vitara. I just pieced it together once it was staring me in the face.”
“Well, we were just behind you,” said Layborn, absentmindedly scratching his belly. “I’m sure we’d have got there.”
Robin’s mobile vibrated in her pocket again: somebody was calling, this time.
“I need to take this. Is there anywhere I can—?”
“Through here,” said Layborn helpfully, opening a side door.
It was a photocopier room, with a small window covered in a Venetian blind. Robin closed the door on the others’ conversation and answered.
“Hi, Sarah.”
“Hi,” said Sarah Shadlock.
She sounded totally unlike the Sarah whom Robin had known for nearly nine years, the confident and bombastic blonde whom Robin had sensed, even in their teens, was hoping that some mischance might befall Matthew’s long-distance relationship with his girlfriend. Always there through the years, giggling at Matthew’s jokes, touching his arm, asking loaded questions about Robin’s relationship with Strike, Sarah had dated other men, settling at last for poor tedious Tom, with his well-paid job and his bald patch, who had put diamonds on Sarah’s finger and in her ears, but never quelled her yen for Matthew Cunliffe.
All her swagger had gone today.
“Well, I’ve asked two experts, but,” she said, sounding fragile and fearful, “and they can’t say for sure, not from a photograph taken on a phone—”
“Well, obviously not,” said Robin coolly. “I said in my text, didn’t I, that I wasn’t expecting a definitive answer? We’re not asking for a firm identification or valuation. All we want to know is whether somebody might have credibly believed—”
“Well, then, yes,” said Sarah. “One of our experts is quite excited about it, actually. One of the old notebooks lists a painting done of a mare with a dead foal, but it’s never been found.”
“What notebooks?”
“Oh, sorry,” said Sarah. She had never sounded so meek, so frightened, in Robin’s vicinity. “Stubbs.”
“And if it is a Stubbs?” asked Robin, turning to look out of the window at the Feathers, a pub where she and Strike had sometimes drunk.
“Well, this is entirely speculative, obviously… but if it’s genuine, if it’s the one he listed in 1760, it could be a lot.”
“Give me a rough estimate.”
“Well, his ‘Gimcrack’ went for—”
“—twenty-two million,” said Robin, feeling suddenly light-headed. “Yes. You said so at our house-warming party.”
Sarah made no answer. Perhaps the mention of the party, where she had brought lilies to her lover’s wife’s house, had scared her.
“So if ‘Mare Mourning’ is a genuine Stubbs—”
“It’d probably make more than ‘Gimcrack’ at auction. It’s a unique subject. Stubbs was an anatomist, as much scientist as artist. If this is a depiction of a lethal white foal, it might be the first recorded instance. It could set records.”
Robin’s mobile buzzed in her hand. Another text had arrived.
“This has been very helpful, Sarah, thanks. You’ll keep this confidential?”
“Yes, of course,” said Sarah. And then, in a rush:
“Robin, listen—”