1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“You got forensics to check out her flat?”
“Oh yeah,” said Wardle, “but that was purely because the higher-ups wanted
to put the thing beyond reasonable doubt. We knew within the first twenty-four
hours it had to be suicide. We went the extra mile, though, with the whole
fucking world watching.”
He spoke with poorly disguised pride.
“The cleaner had been through the whole place that morning—sexy Polish
girl, crap English, but bloody thorough with a duster—so the day’s prints stood
out good and clear. Nothing unusual.”
“Wilson’s prints were in there, presumably, because he searched the place
after she fell?”
“Yeah, but nowhere suspicious.”
“So as far as you’re concerned, there were only three people in the whole
building when she fell. Deeby Macc should have been there, but…”
“…he went straight from the airport to a nightclub, yeah,” said Wardle. Again,
a broad and apparently involuntary grin illuminated his face. “I interviewed
Deeby at Claridges the day after she died. Massive bloke. Like you,” he said,
with a glance at Strike’s bulky torso, “only fit.” Strike took the hit without
demur. “Proper ex-gangster. He’s been in and out of the nick in LA. He nearly
didn’t get a visa to get into the UK.
“He had an entourage with him,” said Wardle. “All hanging around the room,
rings on every finger, tattoos on their necks. He was the biggest, though. One
scary fucker Deeby’d be, if you met him down an alleyway. Politer than Bestigui
by ten fucking miles. Asked me how the hell I could do my job without a gun.”
The policeman was beaming. Strike could not help drawing the conclusion that
Eric Wardle, CID, was, in this case, as starstruck as Kieran Kolovas-Jones.
“Wasn’t a long interview, seeing as he’d only just got off a plane and never set
foot inside Kentigern Gardens. Routine. I got him to sign his latest CD for me at
the end,” Wardle added, as though he could not help himself. “That brought the
house down, he loved it. The missus wanted to put it on eBay, but I’m
keeping…”
Wardle stopped talking with an air of having given away a little more than he
had intended. Amused, Strike helped himself to a handful of pork scratchings.
“What about Evan Duffield?”
“Him,” said Wardle. The stardust that had sparkled over the policeman’s
account of Deeby Macc was gone; the policeman was scowling. “Little junkie