The Cuckoo's Calling

“Yeah, and individual alarm systems.”

“Was Lula’s set?”

“No.”

“What about the pool and the gym? Are they alarmed?”

“Jus’ keys. Everyone who lives in the building gets a set of pool and gym keys along with their flat keys. And one key to the door leading to the underground car park. That door’s got an alarm on it.”

“Was it set?”

“Dunno, I wasn’t there when they checked that one. It shoulda been. The guy from the security firm had checked all the alarms that morning.”

“Were all these doors locked that night?”

Wilson hesitated.

“Not all of them. The door to the pool was open.”

“Had anyone used it that day, do you know?”

“I can’t remember anyone using it.”

“So how long had it been open?”

“I dunno. Colin was on the previous night. He shoulda checked it.”

“OK,” said Strike. “You said you thought the man Mrs. Bestigui had heard was Duffield, because you’d heard them arguing previously. When was that?”

“Not long before they split, ’bout two months before she died. She’d thrown him out of her flat and he was hammerin’ on the door and kicking it, trying to break it down, calling her filthy names. I went upstairs to get him out.”

“Did you use force?”

“Didn’t need to. When he saw me coming he picked up his stuff—she’d thrown his jacket and his shoes out after him—and just walked out past me. He was stoned,” said Wilson. “Glassy eyes, y’know. Sweating. Filthy T-shirt with crap all down it. I never knew what the fuck she saw in him.

“And here’s Kieran,” he added, his tone lightening. “Lula’s driver.”

7

A MAN IN HIS MID-TWENTIES was edging his way into the tiny café. He was short, slight and extravagantly good-looking.

“Hey, Derrick,” he said, and the driver and security guard exchanged a dap greeting, gripping each other’s hands and bumping knuckles, before Kolovas-Jones took his seat beside Wilson.

A masterpiece produced by an indecipherable cocktail of races, Kolovas-Jones’s skin was an olive-bronze, his cheekbones chiseled, his nose slightly aquiline, his black-lashed eyes a dark hazel, his straight hair slicked back off his face. His startling looks were thrown into relief by the conservative shirt and tie he wore, and his smile was consciously modest, as though he sought to disarm other men, and preempt their resentment.

“Where’sa car?” asked Derrick.

“Electric Lane.” Kolovas-Jones pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “I got maybe twenty minutes. Gotta be back at the West End by four. Howya doing?” he added, holding out his hand to Strike, who shook it. “Kieran Kolovas-Jones. You’re…?”

“Cormoran Strike. Derrick says you’ve got—”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Kolovas-Jones. “I dunno whether it matters, probably not, but the police didn’t give a shit. I just wanna know I’ve told someone, right? I’m not saying it wasn’t suicide, you understand,” he added. “I’m just saying I’d like this thing cleared up. Coffee, please, love,” he added to the middle-aged waitress, who remained impassive, impervious to his charm.

“What’s worrying you?” Strike asked.

“I always drove her, right?” said Kolovas-Jones, launching into his story in a way that told Strike he had rehearsed it. “She always asked for me.”

“Did she have a contract with your company?”

“Yeah. Well…”

“It’s run through the front desk,” said Derrick. “One of the services provided. If anyone wants a car, we call Execars, Kieran’s company.”

“Yeah, but she always asked for me,” Kolovas-Jones reiterated firmly.

“You got on with her, did you?”

“Yeah, we got on good,” said Kolovas-Jones. “We’d got—you know—I’m not saying close—well, close, yeah, kinda. We were friendly; the relationship had gone beyond driver and client, right?”

“Yeah? How far beyond?”

“Nah, nothing like that,” said Kolovas-Jones, with a grin. “Nothing like that.”

But Strike saw that the driver was not at all displeased that the idea had been mooted, that it had been thought plausible.

“I’d been driving her for a year. We talked a lot, y’know. Had a lot in common. Similar backgrounds, y’know?”

“In what way?”

“Mixed race,” said Kolovas-Jones. “And things were a bit dysfunctional in my family, right, so I knew where she was coming from. She didn’t know that many people like her, not once she got famous. Not to talk to properly.”

“Being mixed race was an issue for her, was it?”

“Growing up black in a white family, what d’you think?”

“And you had a similar childhood?”

“Me father’s half West Indian, half Welsh; me mother’s half Scouse, half Greek. Lula usedta say she envied me,” he said, sitting up a little straighter. “She said, ‘You know where you come from, even if it is bloody everywhere.’ And on my birthday, right,” he added, as though he had not yet sufficiently impressed upon Strike something which he felt was important, “she give me this Guy Somé jacket that was worth, like, nine hundred quid.”

Evidently expected to show a reaction, Strike nodded, wondering whether Kolovas-Jones had come along simply to tell somebody how close he had been to Lula Landry. Satisfied, the driver went on: