As Robin turned away from the window she caught a whiff of a strong, heady scent that gave her an unaccountable feeling of tension until she spotted the vase of stargazer lilies standing on a table behind a sofa. They matched the faded curtains, once scarlet and now a washed-out pale rose, and the frayed fabric on the walls, where two patches of darker crimson showed that pictures had been removed. Everything was threadbare and worn. Over the mantelpiece hung one of the few remaining paintings, which showed a stabled horse with a splashy brown and white coat, its nose touching a starkly white foal curled in the straw.
Beneath this painting, and standing so quietly that they had not immediately noticed him, was Raphael. With his back to the empty grate, hands in the pockets of his jeans, he appeared more Italian than ever in this very English room, with its faded tapestry cushions, its gardening books piled in a heap on a small table and its chipped Chinoiserie lamps.
“Hi, Raff,” said Robin.
“Hello, Robin,” he said, unsmiling.
“This is Cormoran Strike, Raff,” said Izzy. Raphael didn’t move, so Strike walked over to him to shake hands, which Raphael did reluctantly, returning his hand to his jeans immediately afterwards.
“Yah, so, Fizz and I were just talking about Winn,” said Izzy, who seemed greatly preoccupied with the news of the Winns’ split. “We just hope to God he’s going to keep his mouth shut, because now Papa’s gorn, he can say whatever he likes about him and get away with it, can’t he?”
“You’ve got the goods on Winn, if he tries,” Strike reminded her.
She cast him a look of glowing gratitude.
“You’re right, of course, and we wouldn’t have that if it weren’t for you… and Venetia—Robin, I mean,” she added, as an afterthought.
“Torks, I’m downstairs!” bellowed a woman from just outside the room, and a woman who was unmistakably Izzy’s sister backed into the room carrying a laden tray. She was older, heavily freckled and weather-beaten, her blonde hair streaked with silver, and she wore a striped shirt very like her husband’s, though she had twinned hers with pearls. “TORKS!” she bellowed at the ceiling, making Robin jump. “I’M DOWN HERE!”
She set the tray with a clatter on the needlepoint ottoman that stood in front of Raff and the fireplace.
“Hi, I’m Fizzy. Where’s Kinvara gorn?”
“Faffing around with the horses,” said Izzy, edging around the sofa and sitting down. “Excuse not to be here, I expect. Grab a pew, you two.”
Strike and Robin took two sagging armchairs that stood side by side, at right angles to the sofa. The springs beneath them seemed to have worn out decades ago. Robin felt Raphael’s eyes on her.
“Izz tells me you know Charlie Campbell,” Fizzy said to Strike, pouring everybody tea.
“That’s right,” said Strike.
“Lucky man,” said Torquil, who had just re-entered the room.
Strike gave no sign he had heard this.
“Did you ever meet Jonty Peters?” Fizzy continued. “Friend of the Campbells? He had something to do with the police… no, Badger, these aren’t for you… Torks, what did Jonty Peters do?”
“Magistrate,” said Torquil promptly.
“Yah, of course,” said Fizzy, “magistrate. Did you ever meet Jonty, Cormoran?”
“No,” said Strike, “afraid not.”
“He was married to what’s-her-name, lovely gel, Annabel. Did masses for Save the Children, got her CBE last year, so well-deserved. Oh, but if you knew the Campbells, you must have met Rory Moncrieff?”
“Don’t think so,” said Strike patiently, wondering what Fizzy would have said if he’d told her that the Campbells had kept him as far from their friends and family as was possible. Perhaps she was equal even to that:
Torquil pushed the fat Labrador away from the biscuits and it ambled away into a corner, where it flopped down for a doze. Fizzy sat down between her husband and Izzy on the sofa.
“I don’t know whether Kinvara’s intending to come back,” said Izzy. “We might as well get started.”
Strike asked whether the family had heard any more about the progress of the police investigation. There was a tiny pause, during which the distant shrieks of children echoed across the overgrown lawn.
“We don’t know much more than I’ve already told you,” said Izzy, “though I think we all get the sense—don’t we?” she appealed to the other family members, “that the police think it’s suicide. On the other hand, they clearly feel they have to investigate thoroughly—”
“That’s because of who he was, Izz,” Torquil interrupted. “Minister of the Crown, obviously they’re going to look into it more deeply than they would for the bloke in the street. You should know, Cormoran,” he said portentously, adjusting his substantial weight on the sofa, “sorry, gels, but I’m going to say it—personally, I think it
