The Cuckoo's Calling

“I think I might have left my…” said Strike vaguely, wandering left into the yellow sitting room he had first visited, leaning over the sofa to block the nurse’s view and carefully replacing the telephone receiver he had taken off the hook.

“Yes, here it is,” he said, pretending to palm something small and put it in his pocket. “Well, thanks very much for the coffee.”

With his hand on the door, he turned to look at her.

“Her Valium addiction’s as bad as ever, then?” he said.

Unsuspicious, trusting, the nurse smiled a tolerant smile.

“Yes, it is, but it can’t hurt her now. Mind you,” she said, “I’d give those doctors a piece of my mind. She’s had three of them giving her prescriptions for years, from the labels on the boxes.”

“Very unprofessional,” said Strike. “Thanks again for the coffee. Goodbye.”

He jogged down the stairs, his mobile already out of his pocket, so exhilarated that he did not concentrate on where he was going, so that he took a corner on the stair and let out a bellow of pain as the prosthetic foot slipped on the edge; his knee twisted and he fell, hard and heavy, down six stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom with an excruciating, fiery pain in both the joint and the end of his stump, as though it was freshly severed, as though the scar tissue was still healing.

“Fuck. Fuck!”

“Are you all right?” shouted the Macmillan nurse, gazing down at him over the banisters, her face comically inverted.

“I’m fine—fine!” he shouted back. “Slipped! Don’t worry! Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he moaned under his breath, as he pulled himself back to his feet on the newel post, scared to put his full weight on the prosthesis.

He limped downstairs, leaning on the banisters as much as possible; half hopped across the lobby floor and hung on the heavy front door as he maneuvered himself out on to the front steps.

The sporting children were receding in a distant crocodile, pale and navy blue, winding their way back to their school and lunch. Strike stood leaning against warm brick, cursing himself fluently and wondering what damage he had done. The pain was excruciating, and the skin that had already been irritated felt as though it had been torn; it burned beneath the gel pad that was supposed to protect it, and the idea of walking all the way to the underground was miserably unappealing.

He sat down on the top step and phoned a taxi, after which he made a further series of calls, firstly to Robin, then to Wardle, then to the offices of Landry, May, Patterson.

The black cab swung around the corner. For the very first time, it occurred to Strike how like miniature hearses they were, these stately black vehicles, as he hoisted himself upright and limped, in escalating pain, down to the pavement.

Part Five

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things

Virgil, Georgics, Book 2

1

“I’D HAVE THOUGHT,” SAID ERIC Wardle slowly, looking down at the will in its plastic pocket, “you’d have wanted to show this to your client first.”

“I would, but he’s in Rye,” said Strike, “and this is urgent. I’ve told you, I’m trying to prevent two more murders. We’re dealing with a maniac here, Wardle.”

He was sweating with pain. Even as he sat here, in the sunlit window of the Feathers, urging the policeman to action, Strike was wondering whether he might have dislocated his knee or fractured the small amount of tibia left to him in the fall down Yvette Bristow’s stairwell. He had not wanted to start fiddling with his leg in the taxi, which was now waiting for him at the curb outside. The meter was eating steadily away at the advance Bristow had paid him, of which he would never receive another installment, for today would see an arrest, if only Wardle would rouse himself.

“I grant you, this might show motive…”

“Might?” repeated Strike. “Might? Ten million might constitute a motive? For fuck’s—”

“…but I need evidence that’ll stand up in court, and you haven’t brought me any of that.”

“I’ve just told you where you can find it! Have I been wrong yet? I told you it was a fucking will, and there,” Strike jabbed the plastic sleeve, “it fucking is. Get a warrant!”

Wardle rubbed the side of his handsome face as though he had toothache, frowning at the will.

“Jesus Christ,” said Strike, “how many more times? Tansy Bestigui was on the balcony, she heard Landry say ‘I’ve already done it’…”

“You put yourself on very thin ice there, mate,” said Wardle. “Defense makes mincemeat of lying to suspects. When Bestigui finds out there aren’t any photos, he’s going to deny everything.”