1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“They also allege that you’d taken cocaine.”
Tansy made a little noise of impatience, a soft “cuh.”
“Look,” she said, “I had some earlier, during dinner, OK, and they found it in
the bathroom when they looked around the flat. The fucking boredom of the
Dunnes. Anyone would have done a couple of lines to get through Benjy
Dunne’s bloody anecdotes. But I didn’t imagine that voice upstairs. A man was
there, and he killed her. He killed her,” repeated Tansy, glaring at Strike.
“And where do you think he went afterwards?”
“I don’t know, do I? That’s what John’s paying you to find out. He sneaked
out somehow. Maybe he climbed out the back window. Maybe he hid in the lift.
Maybe he went out through the car park downstairs. I don’t bloody know how he
got out, I just know he was there.”
“We believe you,” interjected Bristow anxiously. “We believe you, Tansy.
Cormoran needs to ask these questions to—to get a clear picture of how it all
happened.”
“The police did everything they could to discredit me,” said Tansy,
disregarding Bristow and addressing Strike. “They got there too late, and he’d
already gone, so of course they covered it up. No one who hasn’t been through
what I went through with the press can understand what it was like. It was
absolute bloody hell. I went into the clinic just to get away from it all. I can’t
believe it’s legal, what the press are allowed to do in this country; and all for
telling the truth, that’s the bloody joke. I should’ve kept my mouth shut,
shouldn’t I? I would have, if I’d known what was coming.”
She twisted her loose diamond ring around her finger.
“Freddie was asleep in bed when Lula fell, wasn’t he?” Strike asked Tansy.
“Yah, that’s right,” she said.
Her hand slid up to her face and she smoothed nonexistent strands of hair off
her forehead. The waiter returned with menus again, and Strike was forced to
hold back his questions until they had ordered. He was the only one to ask for
pudding; all the rest had coffee.
“When did Freddie get out of bed?” he asked Tansy, when the waiter had left.
“What do you mean?”
“You say he was in bed when Lula fell; when did he get up?”
“When he heard me screaming,” she said, as though this was obvious. “I woke
him up, didn’t I?”