Lethal White Chapters 51-56:

From Flick's to Della's to Billy's, plus dumping the Flobberworm.

Both Robin and Barclay are remarkably adept at infiltrating leftist groups. It was impressive when Sam, in about six weeks, has become Jimmy's right-hand man, trusted not just to search Flick's apartment but to go to the hospital to see Billy. But "Bobbi Cunliffe" is so good that within 24 hours of meeting her, Flick is not only asking her to parties but inviting her to move in to her flat. By the end of the evening, Bobbi is walking out of the party with a photo of Jimmy's note in her pocket, while both Jimmy and Flick remark that she is the "real deal."

Strike is at home dreaming about buying Chiswell House with Charlotte when Robin calls with news of her discovery. After dissecting the letter, and recognizing the Catullus quotation on it, Strike sits down to go over the Chiswell file again, using his "People-places-things" methodology. He is struck by the unusual number of pairs among the people involved. He makes himself a lengthy to-do list. His thoughts go back to Charlotte right before he goes back to bed, but he drifts off thinking of a Catullus poem about throwing off long-established love; and his dream takes him back to Chiswell House, alone. The next day, Robin is relieved to have a day at home alone, with Matthew off allegedly playing football and atypically, turning down her offer to come and cheer him on. Strike calls, having run through his list in record time, and fills her in oin some interesting news:

• Chiswell received a payment of 40K pounds the previous year, exactly what Jimmy had originally asked for.

  • The family claims not to know from where this windfall came.

  • Unless this is one of the author's regular timeline mistakes, this indicates that either

    • the sale of the gallows occurred less that 6 years ago, in which case Chiswell's statement that he did not break the law was a lie OR

    • whatever government that received the gallows that wasn't stolen was really slow in paying for them.

  • Also, the gallows themselves must have been a deluxe model, because according to this article the basic system only costs about 12K pounds.

• Strike now suspects the helium and tubing arrived at Ebury Street disguised as a case of champagne.

• Freddie's gold money clip was found in Chiswell's pocket, but he never told the family he had found it.

• Strike has secured interviews with Billy Knight and Della Winn, the latter of which he has bartered for by agreeing to look for Aamir, who Della claims has "disappeared."

Robin is trying to remember where she had recently seen the term "Blanc de Blanc" when she steps on a diamond stud earring, which she immediately deduces was left in the bed by Sarah Shadlock. A little phone work shows that Matthew is not playing football with Tom, and the mysterious of the accidental texts she received the previous Saturday is solved.

We then jump to the evening and Strike's interview with Della Winn at her home. This conversation is given a vaguely sinister air by the "looming, ominous" Brahms music, which is a bit ironic given that Brahm's most familiar piece, to most, is a lullabye. An interesting choice for the self-proclaimed "bad mother."

To be honest, Della does seem to be a bit smothering of Aamir. She is a bit too quick to insist he has no one in the world but her, when Strike has evidence of a relationship with a sister, in whose home, it turns out, he is staying. I also find it hard to believe he would graduate with a first from the London School of Economics and not have at least a few friends in town.

Apart from more details about Aamir and the circumstances under which he left the Foreign Office and the knowledge of some sort of sexually inappropriate behavior by Geraint involving 15 year old girls, the most interesting information Strike gets from Della is that the previous year, on the same day of Lady's euthanasia and Kinvara's hammer attack on Chiswell, Kinvara had turned up at the ministry distressed because, as Della believes, her husband was having an affair. She also drops a big hint that Geraint's grudge against Chiswell relates to their late daughter's fencing career.

When readers list their favorite Robin Ellacott scenes, Chapter 55, where Robin confronts and finally walks out on Matthew, is usually in the top 10. This time, when listening to Chapters 55 and 56, I noticed a book 4-7 link that I hadn't seen before. One of the most magical moments in the very realistic Cormoran Strike series happens in The Running Grave, at the end of Robin's shift taking care of Jacob, when Emily Pirbright arrives to relieve her.

Robin stood up and had taken s couple of steps towards the door when something strange happened. She suddenly knew--didn't guess, or hope, but knew--that Strike had just arrived beside the blind spot by the perimeter fence. The conviction was so strong that it stopped her in her tracks.

This scene has been compared to Jane Eyre's supernaturally hearing Rochester's voice calling her, and him hearing her reply, a point supported by Niamh Doherty's Jane Eyre quotation sweatshirt earlier in the book.

In this re-read of Lethal White, I noticed a more subtle version of this same, almost otherworldly awareness, but in reverse: Strike seems to have an uncanny knowledge, or at least strong suspicion of what went on at Albury Street. Robin pauses, mid-confrontation, to take a call from Strike, and Matthew snatches the phone from her hand and cuts them off. Furious, she demands the phone and calls Strike back, claiming a dropped call and assuring him all was fine. Strike, naturally, has his doubts. When Matthew tries to stop her from leaving, Robin makes it clear she'll fight back physically, if necessary. She reminds him of both her experience with the Shacklewell Ripper and of the social consequences if he commits domestic violence.

"I'm leaving. You try and stop me, I'll retaliate. I've fought off far bigger, meaner men than you, Matthew. You haven't even got a bloody knife...You're going to have to hurt me if you want to stop me leaving, but I warn you, I'll prosecute you for assault if you do. That won't go down too well at the office, will it?"

That evening, and the next day when driving to see Billy. Strike doesn't just suspect, correctly, that Matthew had snatched the phone. His thought processes actually duplicate Robin's own statements; he notes both Robin's history of self-defense and Matthew's concern about his image.

Scowling and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, Strike fell back to ruminating on the question that had been nagging at him since the previous evening: whether or not the cut connection halfway through his call to Robin had really been due to Matthew snatching the phone out of her hand... Matthew was surely too careful of his own reputation and prospects to abandon all civilized norms. One of Strike's last thoughts before falling asleep the night before had been that Robin had successfully fought off the Shacklewell Ripper, a grisly reflection, perhaps, but one that brought a certain reassurance.

As if the duplicated thoughts weren't enough, there is actually another Jane Eyre reference when Strike arrives at the hospital.

Strike was faintly surprised to discover the double doors to the locked ward at the end of the ground floor corridor. Some vague association with belfries and Rochester's first wife had led him to picture it on an upper floor, perhaps in one of those pointed spires.

I have written previously about how Strike seemed to magically divine that Matthew had deleted Strike's apology message prior to the wedding, and how he seems to understand the toxicity of the Robin-Matthew relationship better than Robin does herself. This is another example of his insight.

As for the interview with Billy itself, it is another great example of Strike's compassion, recalling both his meeting with Leonora Quine in Holloway (The Silkworm) and his interview with the paralyzed Josh Blay in The Ink Black Heart. Just as his own experience as an amputee enabled him to give Josh the kind of care and encouragement that was needed, he recalled his own "rackety, unstable childhood," the many damaged children he had encountered and the fact that he could have turned out like Billy had Leta not "lived long enough, and loved him well enough, to stop him breaking when life threw terrible things at him." And, as with Leonora, he makes what many would consider a misguided promise; he promised to get Leonora out of jail, and he promised Billy he would find out the truth about the strangled child.

Comments welcome!

Coming up Thursday: My favorite scene of the series.