1 The Cuckoo's Calling

11
“EVAN DUFFIELD’S AGENT SAYS HIS client isn’t taking any further calls or giving any
interviews about Lula Landry,” said Robin next morning. “I did make it clear that
you’re not a journalist, but he was adamant. And the people in Guy Somé’s office
are ruder than Freddie Bestigui’s. You’d think I was trying to get an audience
with the Pope.”
“OK,” said Strike. “I’ll see whether I can get at him through Bristow.”
It was the first time that Robin had seen Strike in a suit. He looked, she
thought, like a rugby player en route to an international: large, conventionally
smart in his dark jacket and subdued tie. He was on his knees, searching through
one of the cardboard boxes he had brought from Charlotte’s flat. Robin was
averting her gaze from his boxed-up possessions. They were still avoiding any
mention of the fact that Strike was living in his office.
“Aha,” he said, finally locating, from amid a pile of his mail, a bright blue
envelope: the invitation to his nephew’s party. “Bollocks,” he added, on opening
it.
“What’s the matter?”
“It doesn’t say how old he is,” said Strike. “My nephew.”
Robin was curious about Strike’s relations with his family. As she had never
been officially informed, however, that Strike had numerous half-brothers and -
sisters, a famous father and a mildly infamous mother, she bit back all questions
and continued to open the day’s paltry mail.
Strike got up off the floor, replaced the cardboard box in a corner of the inner
office and returned to Robin.
“What’s that?” he asked, seeing a sheet of photocopied newsprint on the desk.
“I kept it for you,” she said diffidently. “You said you were glad you’d seen
that story about Evan Duffield…I thought you might be interested in this, if you
haven’t already seen it.”
It was a neatly clipped article about film producer Freddie Bestigui, taken
from the previous day’s Evening Standard.
“Excellent; I’ll read that on the way to lunch with his wife.”
“Soon to be ex,” said Robin. “It’s all in that article. He’s not very lucky in
love, Mr. Bestigui.”
“From what Wardle told me, he’s not a very lovable man,” said Strike.