1 The Cuckoo's Calling

any unexplained DNA in her flat. Nobody had been in that place who shouldn’t
have been in there.”
“It isn’t just the CCTV footage that’s giving Bristow ideas,” said Strike. “He’s
been seeing a bit of Tansy Bestigui.”
“Don’t talk to me about Tansy fucking Bestigui,” said Wardle irritably.
“I’m going to have to mention her, because my client reckons she’s telling the
truth.”
“Still at it, is she? Still hasn’t given it up? I’ll tell you about Mrs. Bestigui,
shall I?”
“Go on,” said Strike, one hand wrapped around the beer at his chest.
“Carver and I got to the scene about twenty, twenty-five minutes after Landry
hit the road. Uniformed police were already there. Tansy Bestigui was still going
strong with the hysterics when we saw her, gibbering and shaking and screaming
that there was a murderer in the building.
“Her story was that she got up out of bed around two and went for a pee in the
bathroom; she heard shouting from two flats above and saw Landry’s body fall
past the window.
“Now, the windows in those flats are triple-glazed or something. They’re
designed to keep the heat and the air conditioning in, and the noise of the hoi
polloi out. By the time we were interviewing her, the street below was full of
panda cars and neighbors, but you’d never have known it from up there except
for the flashing blue lights. We could’ve been inside a fucking pyramid for all the
noise that got inside that place.
“So I said to her, ‘Are you sure you heard shouting, Mrs. Bestigui? Because
this flat seems to be pretty much soundproofed.’
“She wouldn’t back down. Swore she’d heard every word. According to her,
Landry screamed something like ‘You’re too late,’ and a man’s voice said,
‘You’re a fucking liar.’ Auditory hallucinations, they call them,” said Wardle.
“You start hearing things when you snort so much coke your brains start
dribbling out of your nose.”
He took another long pull on his pint.
“Anyway, we proved beyond doubt she couldn’t have heard it. The Bestiguis
moved into a friend’s house the next day to get away from the press, so we put a
few blokes in their flat, and a guy up on Landry’s balcony, shouting his head off.
The lot on the first floor couldn’t hear a word he was saying, and they were
stone-cold sober, and making an effort.