1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“She’s had psychotic episodes. She’s on a lot of medication.”
“She didn’t give a shit when Lula died,” said Carrianne, suddenly. “She didn’t
give a flying fuck.”
Both men looked at her. She shrugged, as one who has simply expressed an
unpalatable truth.
“Listen, if Rochelle turns up again, will you give her my details and ask her to
call me?”
Strike gave both of them cards, which they examined with interest. While their
attention was thus engaged, he deftly twitched the gum-chewing woman’s News
of the World out of the small opening at the bottom of the grille and stowed it
under his arm. He then bade them both a cheerful goodbye, and left.
It was a warm spring afternoon. Strike strode on down towards Hammersmith
Bridge, its pale sage-green paint and ornate gilding picturesque in the sun. A
single swan bobbed along the Thames beside the far bank. The offices and shops
seemed a hundred miles away. Turning right, he headed along the walkway
beside the river wall and a line of low, riverside terraced buildings, some
balconied or draped in wisteria.
Strike bought himself a pint in the Blue Anchor, and sat outside on a wooden
bench with his face to the water and his back to the royal-blue and white
frontage. Lighting a cigarette, he turned to page four of the paper, where a color
photograph of Evan Duffield (head bowed, large bunch of white flowers in his
hand, black coat flapping behind him) was surmounted by the headline:
DUFFIELD’S DEATHBED VISIT TO LULA MOTHER.
The story was anodyne, really nothing more than an extended caption to the
picture. The eyeliner and the flapping greatcoat, the slightly haunted, spaced-out
expression, recalled Duffield’s appearance as he had headed towards his late
girlfriend’s funeral. He was described, in the few lines of type below, as
“troubled actor-musician Evan Duffield.”
Strike’s mobile vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out. He had received a
text message from an unfamiliar number.
News of the World page four Evan Duffield. Robin.
He grinned at the small screen before slipping the phone back in his pocket. The
sun was warm on his head and shoulders. Seagulls cawed, wheeling overhead,
and Strike, happily aware that he was due nowhere, and expected by no one,
settled to read the paper from cover to cover on the sunny bench.