“No problem,” said the two women, at the same time.
“You’re Izzy,” said Billy, sitting down beside her. “Haven’t seen you ’n a long time.”
“No,” said Izzy, a little over-heartily. “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?”
Robin held out a hand across the table.
“Hi, Billy, I’m Robin.”
“Hello,” he said again, shaking it.
“Would you like some wine, Billy?” offered Izzy. “Or beer?”
“Can’t drink on my meds,” he told her.
“Ah, no, of course not,” said Izzy, flustered. “Um… well, have some water, and there’s your menu… we haven’t ordered yet…”
Once the waitress had been and gone, Strike addressed Billy.
“I made you a promise when I visited you in hospital,” he said. “I told you I’d find out what happened to the child you saw strangled.”
“Yeah,” said Billy apprehensively. It was in the hopes of hearing the answer to the twenty-year-old mystery that he had traveled from East Ham to Chelsea in the rain. “You said on the phone that you’d worked it out.”
“Yes,” said Strike, “but I want you to hear it from someone who knew, who was there at the time, so you get the full story.”
“You?” Billy said, turning to Izzy. “You were there? Up at the horse?”
“No, no,” said Izzy hastily. “It happened during the school holidays.”
She took a fortifying gulp of wine, set down her glass, drew a deep breath and said:
“Fizz and I were both staying with school friends. I—I heard what happened, afterwards…
“What happened was… Freddie was home from university and he’d brought a few friends back with him. Papa left them in the house because he had some old regimental dinner to attend in London…
“Freddie could be… the truth is, he was awfully naughty sometimes. He brought up a lot of good wine from the cellar and they all got sloshed and then one of the girls said she’d wanted to try the truth of that story about the white horse… you know the one,” she said to Billy, the Uffington local. “If you turn three times in the eye and make a wish…”
“Yeah,” said Billy, with a nod. His haunted eyes were huge.
“So they all left the house in the dark, but being Freddie… he was naughty… they made a detour through the woods to your house. Steda Cottage. Because Freddie wanted to buy some, ah, marijuana, was it, your brother grew?”
“Yeah,” said Billy, again.
“Freddie wanted to get some, so they could smoke it, up at the horse while the girls were making wishes. Of course, they shouldn’t have been driving. They were already drunk.
“Well, when they got to your house, your father wasn’t there—”
“He was in the barn,” said Billy suddenly. “Finishing a set of… you know.”
The memory seemed to have forced its way to the front of his mind, triggered by her recital. Strike saw Billy’s left hand holding tightly to his right, to prevent the recurrence of the tic that seemed for Billy to have something of the significance of warding off evil. Rain continued to lash the restaurant windows and Serge Gainsbourg sang, “Oh, je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes… ”
“So,” said Izzy, taking another deep breath, “the way I heard it, from one of the girls who was there… I don’t want to say who,” she added a little defensively to Strike and Robin, “it’s a long time ago and she was traumatized by the whole thing… well, Freddie and his friends clattering into the cottage woke you up, Billy. There was quite a crowd of them in there, and Jimmy rolled them a joint before they set off… Anyway,” Izzy swallowed, “you were hungry, and Jimmy… or maybe,” she winced, “maybe it was Freddie, I don’t know… they thought it would be funny to crumble up some of what they were smoking and put it in your yogurt.”
Robin imagined Freddie’s friends, some of them perhaps enjoying the exotic thrill of sitting in that dark workman’s cottage with a local lad who sold drugs, but others, like the girl who had told Izzy the story, uneasy about what was going on, but too young, too scared of their laughing peers to intervene. They had seemed like adults to the five-year-old Billy, but now Robin knew that they had all been nineteen to twenty-one at most.
“Yeah,” said Billy quietly. “I knew they’d gave me something.”
“So, then, Jimmy wanted to join them, going up the hill. I heard he’d taken a bit of a fancy to one of the girls,” said Izzy primly. “But you weren’t very well, after being fed that yogurt. He couldn’t leave you alone in that state, so he took you with him.
“You all piled into a couple of Land Rovers and off you went, to Dragon Hill.”
“But… no, this is wrong,” said Billy. The haunted expression had returned to his face. “Where’s the little girl? She was already there. She was with us in the car. I remember them taking her out when we got to the hill. She was crying for her mum.”
“It—it wasn’t a girl,” said Izzy. “That was just Freddie’s—well, it was his idea of humor—”
“It was a girl. They called her by a girl’s name,” said Billy. “I remember.”
“Yes,” said Izzy miserably. “Raphaela.”
“That’s it!” said Billy loudly, and heads turned across the restaurant. “That’s it!” Billy repeated in a whisper, his eyes wide. “Raphaela, that’s what they called her—”
“It wasn’t a girl, Billy… it was my little—it was my little—”
Izzy pressed the napkin to her eyes again.
“So sorry… it was my little brother, Raphael. Freddie and his friends were supposed to be babysitting him, with my father away from home. Raff was awfully cute when he was little. He’d been woken up by them, too, I think, and the girls said they couldn’t leave him in the house, they should take him with them. Freddie didn’t want to. He wanted to leave Raff there on his own, but the girls promised they’d take care of him.
“But once they were up there, Freddie was awfully drunk and he’d had a lot of weed and Raff wouldn’t stop crying and Freddie got angry. He said he was ruining everything and then…”
“He throttled him,” said Billy, with a panicked expression. “It was real, he killed—”
“No, no, he didn’t!” said Izzy, distressed. “Billy, you know he didn’t—you must remember Raff, he came to us every summer, he’s alive!”
“Freddie put his hands round Raphael’s neck,” said Strike, “and squeezed until he was unconscious. Raphael urinated. He collapsed. But he didn’t die.”
Billy’s left hand was still gripping his right tightly.
“I did see it.”
“Yeah, you did,” said Strike, “and, all things considered, you were a bloody good witness.”
The waitress returned with their meals. Once everyone was served, Strike with his rib-eye steak and chips, the two women with their quinoa salads and Billy with the soup, which was all he seemed to have felt confident ordering, Izzy continued her story.
“Raff told me what had happened when I got back from the holidays. He was so little, so upset, I tried to bring it up with Papa, but he wouldn’t listen. He just sort of brushed me off. Said Raphael was whiny and always… always complaining…
“And I look back,” she said to Strike and Robin, her eyes filling with tears again, “and I think about it all… how much hate Raff must’ve felt, after things like that…”
“Yeah, Raphael’s defense team will probably try and use that kind of thing,” said Strike briskly, as he attacked his steak, “but the fact remains, Izzy, that he didn’t act on his desire to see your father dead until he found out there was a Stubbs hanging upstairs.”