The Cuckoo's Calling

  A LARGE MAGNOLIA TREE STOOD in the front garden of Lucy’s house in Bromley. Later in the spring it would cover the front lawn in what looked like crumpled tissues; now, in April, it was a frothy cloud of white, its petals waxy as coconut shavings. Strike had only visited this house a few times, because he preferred to meet Lucy away from her home, where she always seemed most harried, and to avoid encounters with his brother-in-law, for whom his feelings were on the cooler side of tepid.

  Helium-filled balloons, tied to the gate, bobbled in the light breeze. As Strike walked down the steeply sloping front path to the door, the package Robin had wrapped under his arm, he told himself that it would soon be over.

  “Where’s Charlotte?” demanded Lucy, short, blonde and round-faced, immediately upon opening the front door.

  More big golden foil balloons, this time in the shape of the number seven, filled the hall behind her. Screams that might have denoted excitement or pain were issuing from some unseen region of the house, disturbing the suburban peace.

  “She had to go back to Ayr for the weekend,” lied Strike.

  “Why?” asked Lucy, standing back to let him in.

  “Another crisis with her sister. Where’s Jack?”

  “They’re all through here. Thank God it’s stopped raining, or we’d have had to have them in the house,” said Lucy, leading him out into the back garden.

  They found his three nephews tearing around the large back lawn with twenty assorted boys and girls in party clothes, who were shrieking their way through some game that involved running to various cricket stumps on which pictures of pieces of fruit had been taped. Parent helpers stood around in the weak sunlight, drinking wine out of plastic cups, while Lucy’s husband, Greg, manned an iPod standing in a dock on a trestle table. Lucy handed Strike a lager, then dashed away from him almost immediately, to pick up the youngest of her three sons, who had fallen hard and was bawling with gusto.

  Strike had never wanted children; it was one of the things on which he and Charlotte had always agreed, and it had been one of the reasons other relationships over the years had foundered. Lucy deplored his attitude, and the reasons he gave for it; she was always miffed when he stated life aims that differed from hers, as though he were attacking her decisions and choices.

  “All right, there, Corm?” said Greg, who had handed over the control of the music to another father. Strike’s brother-in-law was a quantity surveyor, who never seemed quite sure what tone to take with Strike, and usually settled for a combination of chippiness and aggression that Strike found irksome. “Where’s that gorgeous Charlotte? Not split up again, have you? Ha ha ha. I can’t keep track.”

  One of the little girls had been pushed over: Greg hurried off to help one of the other mothers deal with more tears and grass stains. The game roared on in chaos. At last, a winner was declared; there were more tears from the runner-up, who had to be placated with a consolation prize from the black bin bag sitting beside the hydrangeas. A second round of the same game was then announced.

  “Hi there!” said a middle-aged matron, sidling up to Strike. “You must be Lucy’s brother!”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “We heard all about your poor leg,” she said, staring down at his shoes. “Lucy kept us all posted. Gosh, you wouldn’t even know, would you? I couldn’t even see you limping when you arrived. Isn’t it amazing what they can do these days? I expect you can run faster now than you could before!”

  Perhaps she imagined that he had a single carbon-fiber prosthetic blade under his trousers, like a Paralympian. He sipped his lager, and forced a humorless smile.

  “Is it true?” she asked, ogling him, her face suddenly full of naked curiosity. “Are you really Jonny Rokeby’s son?”

  Some thread of patience, which Strike had not realized was strained to breaking point, snapped.

  “Fucked if I know,” he said. “Why don’t you call him and ask?”

  She looked stunned. After a few seconds, she walked away from him in silence. He saw her talking to another woman, who glanced towards Strike. Another child fell over, crashing its head on to the cricket stump decorated with a giant strawberry, and emitting an ear-splitting shriek. With all attention focused on the fresh casualty, Strike slipped back inside the house.

  The front room was blandly comfortable, with a beige three-piece suite, an Impressionist print over the mantelpiece and framed photographs of his three nephews in their bottle-green school uniform displayed on shelves. Strike closed the door carefully on the noise from the garden, took from his pocket the DVD Wardle had sent, inserted it into the player and turned on the TV.

  There was a photograph on top of the set, taken at Lucy’s thirtieth birthday party. Lucy’s father, Rick, was there with his second wife. Strike stood at the back, where he had been placed in every group photograph since he was five years old. He had been in possession of two legs then. Tracey, fellow SIB officer and the girl whom Lucy had hoped her brother would marry, was standing next to him. Tracey had subsequently married one of their mutual friends, and had recently given birth to a daughter. Strike had meant to send flowers, but had never got round to it.

  He dropped his gaze to the screen, and pressed “play.”

  The grainy black-and-white footage began immediately. A white street, thick blobs of snow drifting past the eye of the camera. The 180° view showed the intersection of Bellamy and Alderbrook Roads.

  A man walked, alone, into view, from the right side of the screen; tall, his hands deep in his pockets, swathed in layers, a hood over his head. His face looked strange in the black-and-white footage; it tricked the eye; Strike thought that he was looking at a stark white lower face and a dark blindfold, before reason told him that he was in fact looking at a dark upper face, and a white scarf tied over the nose, mouth and chin. There was some kind of mark, perhaps a blurry logo, on his jacket; otherwise his clothing was unidentifiable.

  As the walker approached the camera, he bowed his head and appeared to consult something he drew out of his pocket. Seconds later, he turned up Bellamy Road and disappeared out of range of the camera. The digital clock in the lower right-hand portion of the screen registered 01:39.

  The film jumped. Here again was the blurred view of the same intersection, apparently deserted, the same heavy flakes of snow obscuring the view, but now the clock in the lower corner read 02:12.

  The two runners burst into view. The one in front was recognizable as the man who had walked out of range with his white scarf over his mouth; long-legged and powerful, he ran, his arms pumping, straight back down Alderbrook Road. The second man was smaller, slighter, hooded and hatted; Strike noticed the dark fists, clenched as he pelted along behind the first, losing ground to the taller man all the way. Under a street lamp, a design on the back of his sweatshirt was briefly illuminated; halfway along Alderbrook Road he veered suddenly left and up a side street.

  Strike replayed the few seconds’ footage again, and then again. He saw no sign of communication between the two runners; no sign that they had called to each other, or even looked for each other, as they sprinted away from the camera. It seemed to have been every man for himself.

  He replayed the footage for a fourth time, and froze it, after several attempts, at the second when the design on the back of the slower man’s sweatshirt had been illuminated. Squinting at the screen, he edged closer to the blurry picture. After a minute’s prolonged staring, he was almost sure that the first word ended in “ck,” but the second, which he thought began with a “J,” was indecipherable.

  He pressed “play” and let the film run on, trying to make out which street the second man had taken. Three times Strike watched him split away from his companion, and although its name was unreadable onscreen, he knew, from what Wardle had said, that it must be Halliwell Street.

  The police had thought that the fact that the first man had picked up a friend off-camera diminished his plausibility as a killer. This was assuming that the two were, in
deed, friends. Strike had to concede that the fact that they had been caught on film together, in such weather, and at such an hour, acting in an almost identical fashion, suggested complicity.

  Allowing the footage to run on, he watched as it cut, in almost startling fashion, to the interior of a bus. A girl got on; filmed from a position above the driver, her face was foreshortened and heavily shadowed, though her blonde ponytail was distinctive. The man who followed her on to the bus bore, as far as it was possible to see, a strong resemblance to the one who had later walked up Bellamy Street towards Kentigern Gardens. He was tall and hooded, with a white scarf over his face, the upper part lost in shadow. All that was clear was the logo on his chest, a stylized GS.

  The film jerked to show Theobalds Road. If the individual walking fast along it was the same person who had got on the bus, he had removed his white scarf, although his build and walk were strongly reminiscent. This time, Strike thought that the man was making a conscious effort to keep his head bowed.

  The film ended in a blank black screen. Strike sat looking at it, deep in thought. When he recalled himself to his surroundings, it was a slight surprise to find them multicolored and sunlit.

  He took his mobile out of his pocket and called John Bristow, but reached only voicemail. He left a message telling Bristow that he had now viewed the CCTV footage and read the police file; that there were a few more things he would like to ask, and would it be possible to meet Bristow sometime during the following week.

  He then called Derrick Wilson, whose telephone likewise went to voicemail, to which he reiterated his request to come and view the interior of 18 Kentigern Gardens.

  Strike had just hung up when the sitting-room door opened, and his middle nephew, Jack, sidled in. He looked flushed and overwrought.

  “I heard you talking,” Jack said. He closed the door just as carefully as his uncle had done.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in the garden, Jack?”

  “I’ve been for a pee,” said his nephew. “Uncle Cormoran, did you bring me a present?”

  Strike, who had not relinquished the wrapped parcel since arriving, handed it over and watched as Robin’s careful handiwork was destroyed by small, eager fingers.

  “Cool,” said Jack happily. “A soldier.”

  “That’s right,” said Strike.

  “He’s got a gun an’ dev’rything.”

  “Yeah, he has.”

  “Did you have a gun when you were a soldier?” asked Jack, turning over the box to look at the picture of its contents.

  “I had two,” said Strike.

  “Have you still got them?”

  “No, I had to give them back.”

  “Shame,” said Jack, matter-of-factly.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be playing?” asked Strike, as renewed shrieks erupted from the garden.

  “I don’t wanna,” said Jack. “Can I take him out?”

  “Yeah, all right,” said Strike.

  While Jack ripped feverishly at the box, Strike slipped Wardle’s DVD out of the player and pocketed it. Then he helped Jack to free the plastic paratrooper from the restraints holding him to the cardboard insert, and to fix his gun into his hand.

  Lucy found them both sitting there ten minutes later. Jack was making his soldier fire around the back of the sofa and Strike was pretending to have taken a bullet to the stomach.

  “For God’s sake, Corm, it’s his party, he’s supposed to be playing with the others! Jack, I told you you weren’t allowed to open any presents yet—pick it up—no, it’ll have to stay in here—no, Jack, you can play with it later—it’s nearly time for tea anyway…”

  Flustered and irritable, Lucy ushered her reluctant son back out of the room with a dark backwards look at her brother. When Lucy’s lips were pursed she bore a strong resemblance to their Aunt Joan, who was no blood relation to either of them.

  The fleeting similarity engendered in Strike an uncharacteristic spirit of cooperation. He behaved, in Lucy’s terms, well throughout the rest of the party, devoting himself in the main to defusing brewing arguments between various overexcited children, then barricading himself behind a trestle table covered in jelly and ice cream, thus avoiding the intrusive interest of the prowling mothers.

  3

  STRIKE WAS WOKEN EARLY ON Sunday morning by the ringing of his mobile, which was recharging on the floor beside his camp bed. The caller was Bristow. He sounded strained.

  “I got your message yesterday, but Mum’s in a bad way and we haven’t got a nurse for this afternoon. Alison’s going to come over and keep me company. I could meet you tomorrow, in my lunch hour, if you’re free? Have there been any developments?” he added hopefully.

  “Some,” said Strike cautiously. “Listen, where’s your sister’s laptop?”

  “It’s here in Mum’s flat. Why?”

  “How would you feel about me having a look at it?”

  “Fine,” said Bristow. “I’ll bring it along tomorrow, shall I?”

  Strike agreed that this would be a good idea. When Bristow had given him the name and address of his favorite place to eat near his office, and hung up, Strike reached for his cigarettes, and lay for a while smoking and contemplating the pattern made on the ceiling by the sun through the blind slats, savoring the silence and the solitude, the absence of children screaming, of Lucy’s attempts to question him over the raucous yells of her youngest. Feeling almost kindly towards his peaceful office, he stubbed out the cigarette, got up and prepared to take his usual shower at ULU.

  He finally reached Derrick Wilson, after several more attempts, late on Sunday evening.

  “You can’t come this week,” said Wilson. “Mister Bestigui’s round a lot at the moment. I gotta think about mi job, you understand me. I’ll call you if there’s a good time, all right?”

  Strike heard a distant buzzer.

  “Are you at work now?” called Strike, before Wilson could hang up.

  He heard the security guard say, away from the receiver:

  “(Just sign the book, mate.) What?” he added loudly, to Strike.

  “If you’re there now, could you check the logbook for the name of a friend who used to visit Lula sometimes?”

  “What friend?” asked Wilson. “(Yeah, see yuh.)”

  “The girl Kieran talked about; the friend from rehab. Rochelle. I want her surname.”

  “Oh, her, yeah,” said Wilson. “Yeah, I’ll take a look an’ I’ll buzz y—”

  “Could you have a quick look now?”

  He heard Wilson sigh.

  “Yeah, all right. Wait there.”

  Indistinct sounds of movement, clunks and scrapings, then the flick of turning pages. While Strike waited, he contemplated various items of clothing designed by Guy Somé, which were arrayed on his computer screen.

  “Yeah, she’s here,” said Wilson’s voice in his ear. “Her name’s Rochelle…I can’ read…looks like Onifade.”

  “Can you spell it?”

  Wilson did so, and Strike wrote it down.

  “When’s the last time she was there, Derrick?”

  “Back in early November,” said Wilson. “(Yeah, good evenin’.) I gotta go now.”

  He put the receiver down on Strike’s thanks, and the detective returned to his can of Tennent’s and his contemplation of modern day-wear, as envisaged by Guy Somé, in particular a hooded zip-up jacket with a stylized GS in gold on the upper left-hand side. The logo was much in evidence on all the ready-to-wear clothing in the menswear section of the designer’s website. Strike was not entirely clear on the definition of “ready-to-wear”; it seemed a statement of the obvious, though whatever else the phrase might connote, it meant “cheaper.” The second section of the site, named simply “Guy Somé,” contained clothing that routinely ran into thousands of pounds. Despite Robin’s best endeavors, the designer of these maroon suits, these narrow knitted ties, these minidresses embroidered with mirror fragments, these leather fedoras, was continuing to turn a
corporate deaf ear to all requests for an interview concerning the death of his favorite model.

  4

  You think i wont fucking hurt you but your wrong you cunt I am comming for you I fucking trusted you and you did this to me. I am going to pull your fucking dick off and stuff it down you throat They will find you chocking on your own dick when ive finish with you your own mother wont no you i am going to fucking kill you Strike you peice of shit

  “It’s a nice day out there.”

  “Will you please read this? Please?”

  It was Monday morning, and Strike had just returned from a smoke in the sunny street and a chat with the girl from the record shop opposite. Robin’s hair was loose again; she obviously had no more interviews today. This deduction, and the effects of sunlight after rain, combined to lift Strike’s spirits. Robin, however, looked strained, standing behind her desk and holding out a pink piece of paper embellished with the usual kittens.

  “Still at it, is he?”

  Strike took the letter and read it through, grinning.

  “I don’t understand why you aren’t going to the police,” said Robin. “The things he’s saying he wants to do to you…”

  “Just file it,” said Strike dismissively, tossing the letter down and rifling through the rest of the paltry pile of mail.

  “Yes, well, that’s not all,” said Robin, clearly annoyed by his attitude. “Temporary Solutions have just called.”

  “Yeah? What did they want?”

  “They asked for me,” said Robin. “They obviously suspect I’m still here.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I pretended to be somebody else.”

  “Quick thinking. Who?”

  “I said my name was Annabel.”

  “When asked to come up with a fake name on the spot, people usually choose one beginning with ‘A,’ did you know that?”

  “But what if they send somebody to check?”

  “Well?”

  “It’s you they’ll try and get money from, not me! They’ll try and make you pay a recruitment fee!”