The Cuckoo's Calling

The girl looked around as though surprised at being spoken to, as though she had forgotten that Robin was there.

“No thanks,” she said, in a deep voice that was surprisingly melodious. “I knew he’d get upset,” she added, with an odd kind of satisfaction. “I’ve tried to talk him out of doing this, but he wouldn’t listen. Sounds like this so-called detective is turning him down. Good for him.”

Robin’s surprise must have shown, because Alison went on, with a trace of impatience:

“It’d be better for John if he’d just accept the facts. She killed herself. The rest of the family have come to terms with it, I don’t know why he can’t.”

There was no point pretending that she did not know what the woman was talking about. Everyone knew what had happened to Lula Landry. Robin could remember exactly where she had been when she had heard that the model had dived to her death on a sub-zero night in January: standing at the sink in the kitchen of her parents’ house. The news had come over the radio, and she had emitted a little cry of surprise, and run out of the kitchen in her nightshirt to tell Matthew, who was staying for the weekend. How could the death of someone you had never met affect you so? Robin had greatly admired Lula Landry’s looks. She did not much like her own milkmaid’s coloring: the model had been dark, luminous, fine-boned and fierce.

“It hasn’t been very long since she died.”

“Three months,” said Alison, shaking out her Daily Express. “Is he any good, this man?”

Robin had noticed Alison’s contemptuous expression as she took in the dilapidated condition, and undeniable grubbiness, of the little waiting room, and she had just seen, online, the pristine, palatial office where the other woman worked. Her answer was therefore prompted by self-respect rather than any desire to protect Strike.

“Oh yes,” she replied coolly. “He’s one of the best.”

She slit open a pink, kitten-embellished envelope with the air of a woman who daily dealt with exigencies much more complex and intriguing than Alison could possibly imagine.

Meanwhile, Strike and Bristow were facing each other across the inner room, the one furious, the other trying to find a way to reverse his position without jettisoning his self-respect.

“All I want, Strike,” said Bristow hoarsely, the color high in his thin face, “is justice.”

He might have struck a divine tuning fork; the word rang through the shabby office, calling forth an inaudible but plangent note in Strike’s breast. Bristow had located the pilot light Strike shielded when everything else had been blown to ashes. He stood in desperate need of money, but Bristow had given him another, better reason to jettison his scruples.

“OK. I understand. I mean it, John; I understand. Come back and sit down. If you still want my help, I’d like to give it.”

Bristow glared at him. There was no noise in the office but the distant shouts of the workmen below.

“Would you like your—er, wife, is she?—to come in?”

“No,” said Bristow, still tense, with his hand on the doorknob. “Alison doesn’t think I ought to be doing this. I don’t know why she wanted to come along, actually. Probably hoping you’d turn me down.”

“Please—sit down. Let’s go over this properly.”

Bristow hesitated, then moved back towards his abandoned chair.

His self-restraint crumbling at last, Strike took a chocolate biscuit and crammed it, whole, into his mouth; he took an unused notepad from his desk drawer, flicked it open, reached for a pen and managed to swallow the biscuit in the time it took Bristow to resume his seat.

“Shall I take that?” he suggested, pointing to the envelope Bristow was still clutching.

The lawyer handed it over as though unsure he could trust Strike with it. Strike, who did not wish to to peruse the contents in front of Bristow, put it aside with a small pat, which was intended to show that it was now a valued component of the investigation, and readied his pen.

“John, if you could give me a brief outline of what happened on the day your sister died, it would be very helpful.”

By nature methodical and thorough, Strike had been trained to investigate to a high and rigorous standard. First, allow the witness to tell their story in their own way: the untrammeled flow often revealed details, apparent inconsequentialities, that would later prove invaluable nuggets of evidence. Once the first gush of impression and recollection had been harvested, then it was time to solicit and arrange facts rigorously and precisely: people, places, property…

“Oh,” said Bristow, who seemed, after all his vehemence, unsure where to start, “I don’t really…let’s see…”

“When was the last time you saw her?” Strike prompted.

“That would have been—yes, the morning before she died. We…we had an argument, as a matter of fact, though thank God we made it up.”

“What time was this?”

“It was early. Before nine, I was on my way in to the office. Perhaps a quarter to nine?”

“And what did you argue about?”