The Cuckoo's Calling

“I’d rather not say that, either.”

Robin no longer saw Strike through Matthew’s eyes; no longer wondered whether he was faking, or showing off, or pretending to be cleverer than he was. She did him the credit, now, of discounting the possibility that he was being deliberately mysterious. All the same, she repeated, as though she must have heard him wrongly:

“Brian Mathers.”

“Yeah.”

“The Death Threat Man.”

“Yeah.”

“But,” said Robin, “what on earth can he have to do with Lula Landry’s death?”

“Nothing,” said Strike, honestly enough. “Yet.”

The north London crematorium where Rochelle’s funeral was held three days later was chilly, anonymous and depressing. Everything was smoothly nondenominational; from the dark-wood pews and blank walls, carefully devoid of any religious device; to the abstract-stained glass window, a mosaic of little jewel-bright squares. Sitting on hard wood, while a whiny-voiced minister called Rochelle “Roselle” and the fine rain speckled the gaudy patchwork window above him, Strike understood the appeal of gilded cherubs and plaster saints, of gargoyles and Old Testament angels, of gem-set golden crucifixes; anything that might give an aura of majesty and grandeur, a firm promise of an afterlife, or retrospective worth to a life like Rochelle’s. The dead girl had had her glimpse of earthly paradise: littered with designer goods, and celebrities to sneer at, and handsome drivers to joke with, and the yearning for it had brought her to this: seven mourners, and a minister who did not know her name.

There was a tawdry impersonality about the whole affair; a feeling of faint embarrassment; a painful avoidance of the facts of Rochelle’s life. Nobody seemed to feel that they had the right to sit in the front row. Even the obese black woman wearing thick-lensed glasses and a knitted hat, who Strike assumed was Rochelle’s aunt, had chosen to sit three benches from the front of the crematorium, keeping her distance from the cheap coffin. The balding worker whom Strike had met at the homeless hostel had come, in an open shirt and a leather jacket; behind him was a fresh-faced, neatly suited young Asian man who Strike thought might turn out to be the psychiatrist who had run Rochelle’s outpatient group.

Strike, in his old navy suit, and Robin, in the black skirt and jacket she wore to interviews, sat at the very back. Across the aisle were Bristow, miserable and pale, and Alison, whose damp double-breasted black raincoat glistened a little in the cold light.

Cheap red curtains opened, the coffin slid out of sight, and the drowned girl was consumed by fire. The silent mourners exchanged pained, awkward smiles at the back of the crematorium; hovering, trying not to add unseemly haste of departure to the other inadequacies of the service. Rochelle’s aunt, who projected an aura of eccentricity that bordered on instability, introduced herself as Winifred, then announced loudly, with an accusatory undertone:

“Dere’s sandwiches in the pub. I thought dere would be more people.”

She led the way outside, as if brooking no opposition, up the street to the Red Lion, the six other mourners following in her wake, heads bowed slightly against the rain.

The promised sandwiches sat, dry and unappetizing, on a metal foil tray covered in cling film, on a small table in the corner of the dingy pub. At some point on the walk to the Red Lion Aunt Winifred had realized who John Bristow was, and she now took overpowering possession of him, pinning him up against the bar, gabbling at him without pause. Bristow responded whenever she allowed him to get a word in edgewise, but the looks he cast towards Strike, who was talking to Rochelle’s psychiatrist, became more frequent and desperate as the minutes passed.

The psychiatrist parried all Strike’s attempts to engage him in conversation about the outpatients’ group he had run, finally countering a question about disclosures Rochelle might have made with a polite but firm reminder about patient confidentiality.

“Were you surprised that she killed herself?”

“No, not really. She was a very troubled girl, you know, and Lula Landry’s death was a great shock to her.”

Shortly afterwards he issued a general farewell and left.

Robin, who had been trying to make conversation with a monosyllabic Alison at a small table beside the window, gave up and headed for the Ladies.

Strike ambled across the small lounge and sat down in Robin’s abandoned seat. Alison threw him an unfriendly look, then resumed her contemplation of Bristow, who was still being harangued by Rochelle’s aunt. Alison had not unbuttoned her rain-flecked coat. A small glass of what looked like port stood on the table in front of her, and a slightly scornful smile played around her mouth, as though she found her surroundings ramshackle and inadequate. Strike was still trying to think of a good opener when she said unexpectedly: