Page 389 of The Running Grave

A week after they’d visited the Edensors, Strike, with a heavy heart but a sense of obligation, agreed to meet Amelia Crichton, Charlotte’s sister, at her place of work.

He’d asked himself whether he was truly honour-bound to do this. The UHC case had mercifully relegated Charlotte’s suicide to the back of his mind, but now that it was over – now that the shattered lives and suicides were being tallied, and the storm which had caught these people up had passed, leaving them broken in an unfamiliar landscape – he was left with his own personal debt to the dead, one he didn’t particularly want to pay. He could imagine optimistic souls telling him that, much like Lucy with regards to Leda and the Aylmerton Community, he’d find some kind of resolution in this meeting with Charlotte’s sister, but he had no such expectation.

No, he thought, as he dressed in a sober suit – because military habits of proper respect for the dead and bereaved are hard to overcome, and however little he liked Amelia or the prospect of this meeting, he owed her this, at least – it was far more likely that Charlotte’s sister was the one who’d achieve resolution today. Very well, then: he’d give Amelia satisfaction, and in doing so, offer Charlotte one more chance at a clean sucker punch via her proxy, before they were finally done.

Strike’s BMW, from which the police had now dug out a bullet, remained in the repair shop, so he took a taxi to Elizabeth Street in Belgravia. Here, he found Amelia’s eponymous shop, which was full of expensive curtain fabrics, tasteful ceramics and chinoiserie table lamps.

She emerged from a back room on hearing the bell over the door ring. Dark-haired like Charlotte, she had similar hazel-flecked green eyes, but there the resemblance ended. Amelia was thin-lipped, with a patrician profile she’d inherited from her father.

‘I’ve booked us a table at the Thomas Cubitt,’ she told him, in lieu of any greeting.

So they walked the short distance to the restaurant, which lay just a few doors down from the shop. Once seated at a white-clothed table, Amelia asked for two menus and a glass of wine, while Strike ordered a beer.

Amelia waited for the drinks to arrive and the waiter to disappear again before drawing a deep breath and saying,

‘So: I asked you to meet me, because Charlotte left a note. She wanted me to show it to you.’

Of course she fucking did.

Amelia took a large swig of Pinot Noir and Strike a similarly large slug of his beer.

‘But I’m not going to,’ said Amelia, setting down her glass. ‘I thought I had to, immediately after—I thought I owed it to her, whatever… whatever it said. But I’ve had a lot of time to think things over while I’ve been in the country, and I don’t think… maybe you’ll be angry,’ said Amelia, taking a deep breath, ‘but when the police were done with it… I burned it.’

‘I’m not angry,’ said Strike.

She looked taken aback.

‘I… I can still tell you, broadly, what she said. Your bit, anyway. It was long. Several pages. Nobody was spared.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’ she said, with a trace of the acerbity he remembered from their prior acquaintance.

‘Sorry your sister killed herself,’ said Strike. ‘Sorry she left a letter you’re probably finding it hard to forget.’

Unlike Sir Colin Edensor, who’d been born working class, and unlike Lucy, whose childhood had been unclassifiable, Amelia Crichton didn’t cry in public. However, she did press her thin lips together and blink rather rapidly.

‘It was… horrible, seeing it all written down, in her handwriting,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Knowing what she was about to do… but, as I say, if you want me to tell you what she said about you, I can, and then I’ll have done what she asked – more or less.’

‘I’m pretty sure I know,’ said Strike. ‘She said, if I’d picked up the phone, it would all have been different. That after all the pain and abuse I doled out to her, she still loved me. That she knows I’m now having an affair with my detective partner, which started days after I walked out on her, proving how little I valued our relationship. That I’ve fallen in love with Robin because she’s biddable, and unchallenging, and hero-worships me, which is what men like me want, whereas Charlotte stood up to me, which was the root of all our problems. That one day I’ll get bored with Robin and realise what I’ve lost, but it’ll be too late, because I hurt Charlotte so deeply she’s done with life.’

He knew just how accurately he’d guessed the contents of Charlotte’s note by Amelia’s expression.

‘It wasn’t just you,’ said Amelia, now with a softer and sadder look than he’d ever seen on her face before. ‘She blamed everyone. Everyone. And only a single line about James and Mary: “Show them this, when they’re old enough to understand.” That’s the main reason I burned it, I can’t… I couldn’t let…’

‘You did the right thing.’

‘Ruairidh doesn’t think so,’ said Amelia miserably. Strike only vaguely remembered her husband: a Nicholas Delaunay type, but ex-Blues and Royals. ‘He said she wanted it kept, and I had a duty to—’

‘She was full of drink and drugs when she wrote that letter, and you’ve got a duty to the living,’ said Strike. ‘To her kids, above all. In her best moments – and she had them, as we both know – she always regretted the things she’d done when she was high, or angry. If there’s anything beyond, she’ll know she shouldn’t have written what she did.’

The waiter returned to take their food order. Strike doubted Amelia wanted food any more than he did, but social convention meant they both ordered a single course. Once they were alone again, Amelia said,

‘She was always so… unhappy.’

‘Yeah,’ said Strike. ‘I know.’

‘But she wouldn’t ever… there was a – a darkness in her.’