1 The Cuckoo's Calling

camera at the end of Bellamy Road an hour and a half later. He tanked back past
it about ten minutes after Landry jumped, sprinted up Bellamy Road and most
probably turned right down Weldon Street. There’s some footage of a guy more
or less meeting his description—tall, black, hoodie, scarf round the face—caught
on Theobalds Road about twenty minutes later.”
“He made good time if he got to Theobalds Road in twenty minutes,”
commented Strike. “That’s out towards Clerkenwell, isn’t it? Must be two, two
and a half miles. And the pavements were frozen.”
“Yeah, well, it might not’ve been him. The footage was shit. Bristow thought
it was very suspicious that he had his face covered, but it was minus ten that
night, and I was wearing a balaclava to work myself. Anyway, whether he was in
Theobalds Road or not, nobody ever came forward to say they’d recognized
him.”
“And the other one?”
“Sprinted off down Halliwell Street, about two hundred yards down; no idea
where he went after that.”
“Or when he entered the area?”
“Could’ve come from anywhere. We haven’t got any other footage of him.”
“Aren’t there supposed to be ten thousand CCTV cameras in London?”
“They aren’t everywhere yet. Cameras aren’t the answer to our problems,
unless they’re maintained and monitored. The one in Garriman Street was out,
and there aren’t any in Meadowfield Road or Hartley Street. You’re like
everyone else, Strike; you want your civil liberties when you’ve told the missus
you’re at the office and you’re at a lap-dancing club, but you want twenty-fourhour
surveillance on your house when someone’s trying to force your bathroom
window open. Can’t have it both ways.”
“I’m not after it either way,” said Strike. “I’m just asking what you know
about Runner Two.”
“Muffled up to the eyeballs, like his mate; all you could see were his hands. If
I’d been him, and had a guilty conscience about the Maserati, I’d have holed up
in a bar and exited with a bunch of other people; there’s a place called Bojo’s off
Halliwell Street he could’ve gone and mingled with the punters. We checked,”
Wardle said, forestalling Strike’s question. “Nobody recognized him from the
footage.”
They drank for a moment in silence.
“Even if we’d found them,” said Wardle, setting down his glass, “the most we
could’ve got from them is an eyewitness account of her jumping. There wasn’t