The dank shadow that had lain on the terrace when she had first arrived was moving incrementally backwards. The warm sun slid over Robin’s table as she eked out her coffee, waiting for Strike to call back. At last her phone vibrated to show that she had a text: heart leaping, she picked it up, but it was only Matthew.
Fancy a drink with Tom and Sarah tonight after work?
Robin contemplated the message with a mixture of lassitude and dread. Tomorrow was the charity cricket match about which Matthew was so excited. After-work drinks with Tom and Sarah would doubtless mean plenty of banter on the subject. She could already picture the four of them at the bar: Sarah, with her perennially flirtatious attitude towards Matthew, Tom fending off Matthew’s jokes about his lousy bowling with increasingly clumsy, angry ripostes, and Robin, as was increasingly the case these days, pretending to be amused and interested, because that was the cost of not being harangued by Matthew for seeming bored, or feeling superior to her company or (as happened during their worst rows) wishing that she were drinking with Strike instead. At least, she consoled herself, it couldn’t be a late or drunken night, because Matthew, who took all sporting fixtures seriously, would want a decent sleep before the match. So she texted back:
OK, where?
and continued to wait for Strike to ring her.
After forty minutes, Robin began to wonder whether Strike was somewhere he couldn’t call, which left open the question of whether she ought to inform Chiswell of what she had just found out. Would Strike consider that a liberty, or would he be more annoyed if she failed to give Chiswell his bargaining chip, given the time pressure?
After debating the matter inwardly for a while longer, she called Izzy, the upper half of whose office window she could see from where she sat.
“Izzy, it’s me. Venetia. I’m calling because I can’t say this in front of Raphael. I think I’ve got some information on Winn for your father—”
“Oh, fabulous!” said Izzy loudly, and Robin heard Raphael in the background saying, “Is that Venetia? Where is she?” and the clicking of computer keys.
“Checking the diary, Venetia… He’ll be at DCMS until eleven, but then he’s in meetings all afternoon. Do you want me to call him? He could probably see you straight away if you hurry.”
So Robin replaced her mobile, notebook and pen in her bag, gulped down the last of her coffee and hurried off to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Chiswell was pacing up and down his office, speaking on the phone, when Robin arrived outside the glass partition. He beckoned her inside, pointed to a low leather sofa at a short distance from his desk, and continued to talk to somebody who appeared to have displeased him.
“It was a gift,” he was saying distinctly into the receiver, “from my eldest son. Twenty-four-karat gold, inscribed Nec Aspera Terrent. Bloody hell’s bells!” he roared suddenly, and Robin saw the heads of the bright young people just outside the office turning towards Chiswell. “It’s Latin! Pass me to somebody who can speak English! Jasper Chiswell. I’m the Minister for Culture. I’ve given you the date… no, you can’t… I haven’t got all bloody day—”
Robin gathered, from the side of the conversation that she could hear, that Chiswell had lost a money clip of sentimental value, which he thought he might have left at a hotel where he and Kinvara had spent the night of her birthday. As far as she could hear, the hotel staff had not only failed to find the clip, they were showing insufficient deference to Chiswell for having deigned to stay at one of their hotels.
“I want somebody to call me back. Bloody useless,” muttered Chiswell, hanging up and peering at Robin as though he had forgotten who she was. Still breathing heavily, he dropped down on the sofa opposite her. “I’ve got ten minutes, so this had better be worthwhile.”
“I’ve got some information on Mr. Winn,” said Robin, taking out her notebook. Without waiting for his response, she gave him a succinct summary of the information she had gleaned from Sir Kevin.
“… and,” she concluded, barely a minute and a half later, “there may be further impropriety on Mr. Winn’s part, but that information is allegedly held by Dr. Elspeth Curtis-Lacey, whose number is unlisted. It shouldn’t take us long to find a way of contacting her, but I thought,” Robin said apprehensively, because Chiswell’s tiny eyes were screwed up in what might have been displeasure, “I should bring you this immediately.”
For a few seconds he simply stared at her, his expression petulant as ever, but then he slapped his thigh in what was clearly pleasure.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “He told me you were his best. Yerse. Said so.”
Pulling a crumpled handkerchief out of his pocket he wiped his face, which had become sweaty during his phone call with the unfortunate hotel.
“Well, well, well,” he said again, “this is turning out to be a rather good day. One by one, they trip themselves up… so Winn’s a thief and a liar and maybe more?”
“Well,” said Robin cautiously, “he can’t account for the twenty-five thousand pounds, and he’s certainly promised things he can’t deliver…”
“Dr. Elspeth Curtis-Lacey,” said Chiswell, following his own train of thought. “Name’s familiar…”
“She used to be a Liberal Democrat councilor from Northumberland,” said Robin, who had just read this on the Level Playing Field’s website.
“Child abuse,” said Chiswell suddenly. “That’s how I know her. Child abuse. She was on some committee. She’s a bloody crank about it, sees it everywhere. Course, it’s full of cranks, the Lib Dems. It’s where they congregate. Stuffed to the gunnels with oddballs.”
He stood up, leaving a smattering of dandruff behind him on the black leather, and paced up and down, frowning.
“All this charity stuff’s bound to come out sooner or later,” he said, echoing Sir Kevin’s wife. “But, my Christ, they wouldn’t want it to break right now, not with Della up to her neck in the Paralympics. Winn’s going to panic when he finds out I know. Yerse. I think this might well neutralize him… in the short term, anyway. If he’s been fiddling with children, though—”
“There’s no proof of that,” said Robin.
“—that would stymie him for good,” said Chiswell, pacing again. “Well, well, well. This explains why Winn wanted to bring his trustees to our Paralympian reception next Thursday, doesn’t it? He’s clearly trying to keep them sweet, stop anyone else deserting the sinking ship. Prince Harry’s going to be there. These charity people love a royal. Only reason half of them are in it.”
He scratched his thick mop of gray hair, revealing large patches of underarm sweat.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “We’ll add his trustees to the guest list and you can come too. Then you can corner this Curtis-Lacey, find out what she’s got. All right? Night of the twelfth?”
“Yes,” said Robin, making a note, “Fine.”
“In the meantime, I’ll let Winn know I know he’s had his fingers in the till.”
Robin was almost at the door when Chiswell said abruptly:
“You don’t want a PA’s job, I suppose?”
“Sorry?”
“Take over from Izzy? What does that detective pay you? I could probably match it. I need somebody with brains and a bit of backbone.”
“I’m… happy where I am,” said Robin.
Chiswell grunted.
“Hmm. Well, perhaps it’s better this way. I might well have a bit more work for you, once we’ve got rid of Winn and Knight. Off you go, then.”
He turned his back to her, his hand already on the phone.