“Nonsense, Jasper,” said a deep, melodious Welsh voice close at hand. “We celebrate military victories all the time. This is a different kind of celebration.”
Della Winn, the Minister for Sport, was standing just outside Chiswell’s door, holding the leash of her near-white Labrador. A woman of stately appearance, with gray hair swept back off a broad forehead, she wore sunglasses so dark that Robin could make out nothing behind them. Her blindness, Robin knew from her research, had been due to a rare condition in which neither eyeball had grown in utero. She sometimes wore prosthetic eyes, especially when she was to be photographed. Della was sporting a quantity of heavy, tactile jewelry in gold, with a large necklace of intaglios, and dressed from head to foot in sky blue. Robin had read in one of Strike’s printed profiles of the politician that Geraint laid out Della’s clothes for her every morning and that it was simplest for him, not having a great feel for fashion, to select things in the same color. Robin had found this rather touching when she read it.
Chiswell did not appear to relish the sudden appearance of his colleague and indeed, given that her husband was blackmailing him, Robin supposed that this was hardly surprising. Della, on the other hand, gave no sign of embarrassment.
“I thought we might share the car over to Greenwich,” she said to Chiswell, while the pale Labrador snuffled gently at the hem of Robin’s skirt. “Give us a chance to go over the plans for the twelfth. What are you doing, Gwynn?” she added, feeling the Labrador’s head tugging.
“She’s sniffing me,” said Robin nervously, patting the Labrador.
“This is my goddaughter, ah…”
“Venetia,” said Robin, as Chiswell was evidently struggling to remember her name.
“How do you do?” said Della, holding out her hand. “Visiting Jasper?”
“No, I’m interning in the constituency office,” said Robin, shaking the warm, be-ringed hand, as Chiswell walked away to examine the document held by a hovering young man in a suit.
“Venetia,” repeated Della, her face still turned towards Robin. A faint frown appeared on the handsome face, half-masked behind the impenetrable black glasses. “What’s your surname?”
“Hall,” said Robin.
She felt a ridiculous flutter of panic, as though Della were about to unmask her. Still poring over the document he had been shown, Chiswell moved away, leaving Robin, or so it felt, entirely at Della’s mercy.
“You’re the fencer,” said Della.
“Sorry?” said Robin, totally confused again, her mind on posts and rails. Some of the young people around the space-age coffee machine had turned around to listen, expressions of polite interest on their faces.
“Yes,” said Della. “Yes, I remember you. You were on the English team with Freddie.”
Her friendly expression had hardened. Chiswell was now leaning over a desk while he struck through phrases on the document.
“No, I never fenced,” said Robin, thoroughly out of her depth. She had realized at the mention of the word “team” that swords were under discussion, rather than fields and livestock.
“You certainly did,” said Della flatly. “I remember you. Jasper’s goddaughter, on the team with Freddie.”
It was a slightly unnerving display of arrogance, of complete self-belief. Robin felt inadequate to the job of continuing to protest, because there were now several listeners. Instead, she merely said, “Well, nice to have met you,” and walked away.
“Again, you mean,” said Della sharply, but Robin made no reply.
16
… a man with as dirty a record as his!… This is the sort of man that poses as a leader of the people! And successfully, too!
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
After four and a half hours in the driving seat, Strike’s exit from the BMW in Manchester was far from graceful. He stood for a while in Burton Road, a broad, pleasant street with its mixture of shops and houses, leaning on the car, stretching his back and leg, grateful that he had managed to find a parking space only a short way from “Stylz.” The bright pink shopfront stood out between a café and a Tesco Express, pictures of moody models with unnaturally tinted hair in the window.
With its black and white tiled floor and pink walls that reminded Strike of Lorelei’s bedroom, the interior of the small shop was determinedly trendy, but it did not appear to cater to a particularly youthful or adventurous clientele. There were currently only two clients, one of whom was a large woman of at least sixty, who was reading Good Housekeeping in front of a mirror, her hair a mass of foil. Strike made a bet with himself as he entered that Dawn would prove to be the slim peroxide blonde with her back to him, chatting animatedly to an elderly lady whose blue hair she was perming.
“I’ve got an appointment with Dawn,” Strike told the young receptionist, who looked slightly startled to see anything so large and male in this fug of perfumed ammonia. The peroxided blonde turned at the sound of her name. She had the leathery, age-spotted skin of a committed sunbed user.
“With you in a moment, cock,” she said, smiling. He settled to wait on a bench in the window.
Five minutes later, she was leading him to an upholstered pink chair at the back of the shop.
“What are you after, then?” she asked him, inviting him with a gesture to sit down.
“I’m not here for a haircut,” said Strike, still standing. “I’ll happily pay for one, I don’t want to waste your time, but,” he pulled a card and his driver’s license from his pocket, “my name’s Cormoran Strike. I’m a private detective and I was hoping to talk to you about your ex-husband, Jimmy Knight.”
She looked stunned, as well she might, but then fascinated.
“Strike?” she repeated, gaping. “You aren’t him that caught that Ripper guy?”
“That’s me.”
“Jesus, what’s Jimmy done?”
“Nothing much,” said Strike easily. “I’m just after background.”
She didn’t believe him, of course. Her face, he suspected, was full of filler, her forehead suspiciously smooth and shiny above the carefully penciled eyebrows. Only her stringy neck betrayed her age.
“That’s over. It was over ages ago. I never talk about Jimmy. Least said, soonest mended, don’t they say?”
But he could feel the curiosity and excitement radiating from her like heat. Radio 2 jangled in the background. She glanced towards the two women sitting at the mirrors.
“Sian!” she said loudly, and the receptionist jumped and turned. “Take out her foils and keep an eye on the perm for me, love.” She hesitated, still holding Strike’s card. “I’m not sure I should,” she said, wanting to be talked into it.
“It’s only background,” he said. “No strings.”
Five minutes later she was handing him a milky coffee in a tiny staffroom at the rear of the shop, talking merrily, a little haggard in the fluorescent overhead light, but still good-looking enough to explain why Jimmy had first shown interest in a woman thirteen years his senior.
“… yeah, a demonstration against nuclear weapons. I went with this friend of mine, Wendy, she was big into all that. Vegetarian,” she added, nudging the door into the shop closed with her foot and taking out a pack of Silk Cut. “You know the type.”
“Got my own,” said Strike, when she offered the pack. He lit her cigarette for her, then one of his Benson & Hedges. They blew out simultaneous streams of smoke. She crossed her legs towards him and rattled on.
“… yeah, so Jimmy gave a speech. Weapons and how much we could save, give to the NHS and everything, what was the point… he talks well, you know,” said Dawn.
“He does,” agreed Strike, “I’ve heard him.”
“Yeah, and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Thought he was some kind of Robin Hood.”
Strike heard the joke coming before she made it. He knew it was not the first time.