Then he spotted a link to a story titled:
Viscountess Arrested for Assault on Billionaire Boyfriend
He clicked on the link. A dishevelled Charlotte appeared on the phone screen, flanked by a policewoman on a dark street.
Former nineties It-Girl Charlotte Campbell, 41, now Viscountess Ross, has been arrested on a charge of assault against billionaire American hotelier, Landon Dormer, 49.
Dormer’s Mayfair neighbours called police in the early hours of June 14th, concerned about the noises coming from the residence. One, who asked not to be named, told The Times,
‘We heard screams, shouting and breaking glass. We were really concerned, so we called 999. We weren’t sure what was going on. We thought it might have been a break-in.’
Ross, whose marriage to the Viscount of Croy ended in divorce last year, is the mother of twins and has a well-documented history of substance abuse. Previously admitted to Symonds House, a psychiatric facility patronised by the wealthy and famous, the part-time model and journalist has been a staple of the gossip columns ever since running away from Cheltenham Ladies’ College in her teens. With by-lines at Harpers & Queen and Vogue, she makes frequent appearances in the front row at both London and Paris fashion weeks, and was voted London’s Most Eligible Singleton in 1995. She was previously in a long-term relationship with Cormoran Strike, private detective and son of rock star Jonny Rokeby.
Rumours of an imminent engagement to billionaire Dormer have circulated in gossip columns for months, but a source close to the hotelier told The Times, ‘Landon wasn’t intending to marry her even before this happened, but after this, believe me, they’ll be finished. He isn’t a man who likes drama or tantrums.’
Ross’s sister, interior decorator Amelia Crichton, 42, told The Times,
‘This is now a legal matter, so I’m afraid I can’t say any more than that I’m confident that if this comes to court Charlotte will be fully exonerated.’
The Times approached both Charlotte Ross and Landon Dormer for comment.
There were multiple links below the article: Charlotte at the launch of a jewellery collection the previous year, Charlotte admitted to Symonds House the year before that, and Landon Dormer’s acquisition of one of the oldest five-star hotels in London. Strike ignored these, instead scrolling back up the page to look again at the photograph at the top. Charlotte’s make-up was smeared, her hair tousled, and she faced the camera defiantly as she was led away by the policewoman.
Strike glanced up at the table his glasses were filming. The elderly woman was feeding her companion something. As his chicken salad was deposited in front of him, his phone rang. Recognising the Spanish country code, he picked up.
‘Cormoran Strike.’
‘Leonard Heaton here,’ said a jocular voice with a strong Norfolk accent. ‘I hear you’re ahter me.’
‘After information, anyway,’ said Strike. ‘Thanks for calling me back, Mr Heaton.’
‘I navver strangled anyone. I wus home all night with the wife.’
Evidently Mr Heaton considered himself something of a card. Somebody – Strike assumed his wife – was chortling in the background.
‘Did you neighbour tell you what this is about, Mr Heaton?’
‘Ah, the little gal that drowned,’ said Heaton. ‘Wut’re you digging around in that fur?’
‘A client of mine’s interested in the Universal Humanitarian Church,’ said Strike.
‘Ah,’ said Heaton. ‘All right, we’re game. We’ll be home in a week, that suit you?’
After agreeing a time and date, Strike hung up and began to eat his salad, still letting his glasses do the surveillance for him, his mind unavoidably on Charlotte.
While she’d generally done most damage to herself when angry or distressed, Strike still bore a small scar over his eyebrow from the ashtray Charlotte had thrown at him as he walked out of her flat for the last time. She’d launched herself at him many times during rows, attempting to either claw his face or punch him, but this had been far easier to deal with than flying missiles, given that he was considerably larger than her and, as an ex-boxer, good at parrying attacks.
Nevertheless, at least four of their break-ups had come in the aftermath of her attempting to physically hurt him. He remembered the sobs afterwards, the desperate apologies, the vows made never to do it again, vows she sometimes kept for as much as a year.
Barely noticing what he was eating, Strike’s eyes roamed over the chattering lunchers, the stained-glass windows and tasteful grey upholstery. Between Bijou and her QC lover, and Charlotte’s alleged assault of a billionaire, his name was appearing a little too frequently in the press for his liking. He picked up the glasses concealing the hidden camera, and rammed them back on.
‘Excuse me.’
He looked up. It was the woman in black, who’d stopped at his table on her way out.
‘You aren’t Corm—?’
‘No, sorry, you must have me confused with someone,’ he said, drowning out her voice, which was fairly loud. His target and her young friend seemed too immersed in their conversion to have noticed anything, but a couple of other heads had turned.
‘I’m sorry, I thought I recognised—’
‘You’re mistaken.’
She was blocking his view of his target.
‘Sorry,’ she said again, smiling. ‘But you do look awfully—’
‘You’re mistaken,’ he repeated firmly.
She pressed her lips together, but her eyes looked amused as she passed out of the restaurant.
60
Six in the third place means:
Contemplation of my life
Decides the choice
Between advance and retreat.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
On Friday night Robin waited until the women around her had fallen asleep before slipping out of the dormitory yet again. Tonight she was more nervous and stressed than she’d been since the very first time she’d journeyed through the dark to the plastic rock in the woods, because she was twenty-four hours late in producing her letter, so felt an increased pressure to reassure the agency that she was all right. She climbed over the five-bar gate as usual, hurried across the dark field and entered the woods.
Inside the plastic rock she found two Yorkie bars and letters from Strike, Murphy and Shah. She read the three men’s letters by the light of the pencil torch. Ryan’s was essentially a thinly veiled request to know when she’d be leaving Chapman Farm. Strike’s told her he’d soon be interviewing the Heatons, who’d met Cherie Gittins on the beach in the immediate aftermath of Daiyu’s drowning.
Shah’s note read:
I checked the rock last night and I’m still in the vicinity. Strike says if there’s nothing by midnight tomorrow he’s driving up and he’ll come in the front on Sunday.
‘For God’s sake, Strike,’ muttered Robin, pulling the top off the biro with her teeth. One day’s delay didn’t seem to justify such extreme measures. Hungry as she was, she had far more to write than usual, so she postponed eating the chocolate, instead taking out the paper and pen, putting the torch between her teeth and setting to work.
Hi Cormoran,
I’m sorry this is late, it was unavoidable, I’ll explain why below. A LOT has happened this week, so I hope this pen doesn’t run out.
1. Row between the Pirbright sisters
I overheard Emily accusing Becca of lying about Daiyu’s drowning. Emily seems really unhappy and I think if I can get friendly with her she might talk. Becca also accused Emily of collaborating with Kevin on his book, because of the writing on Kevin Pirbright’s walls – Becca’s seen the photo of his room.
NB: Apparently nobody’s told Emily Kevin was murdered. She thinks he committed suicide. Not sure whether Becca knows the truth.
2. Stolen Prophet’s Manifestation
This happened Weds night. Mazu led the service, telling us all about Alexander Graves and how he went to live at Chapman Farm because of his abusive family. A huge straw man, bigger than life size, was standing in the middle on a raised platform in a spotlight and
Robin now stopped writing. She hadn’t had time to fully process what had happened in the temple and with her fingers numb with cold she doubted she could convey to Strike just how frightening the Manifestation had been: the pitch darkness pierced by two spotlights, one trained on Mazu, in her blood red robes, the mother-of-pearl fish gleaming on its cord around her neck, the other on that towering straw figure. Mazu had commanded the straw figure to give proof that the Stolen Prophet lived on in the spirit world, and a hoarse shout had issued from the figure, echoing around the temple walls: ‘Let me stay in the temple! Don’t let them take me, don’t let them hurt me again!’
Robin resumed her letter.
when Mazu told it to, the figure spoke and lifted its arms. I saw it when they were building it: it was just a wire frame covered in straw, so how they made it move I don’t know. Mazu said the Prophet died to show members how vulnerable pure spirits are when they’re exposed to materialist wickedness again. Then a noose came snaking down from the ceiling
Robin saw it all again as she wrote: the thick rope snaking down out of the darkness, the noose falling around the figure’s neck, then tightening.
and the rope lifted the figure up into the air and it started thrashing around and screaming and trying to chant, then went limp.
Maybe this doesn’t sound as scary as it did when I was watching it, but it was terrif—
Robin second-guessed herself; she didn’t want Strike to think she was cracking up. Crossing out the word, she wrote instead,
very creepy.
1. Wan
Right after we’d got back to the women’s dormitory after the Manifestation, Wan went into labour. They’ve clearly got an established procedure for when women give birth because a group of the women, including Louise Pirbright and Sita (more on her below) snapped into action to help her. Becca ran out of the dormitory to tell Mazu, and then kept coming back every hour or so to see what was happening and to report back to the farmhouse.