1 The Cuckoo's Calling

She recalled the excitement she had felt mere moments ago when Strike had
hinted that there might, after all, have been a killer. Was he serious? Robin noted
that he was now staring hard at this massive assemblage of fripperies as though
they might be able to tell him something important, and this was surely (for a
moment she saw with Matthew’s eyes, and thought in Matthew’s voice) a pose
adopted for effect, or show. Matthew kept hinting that Strike was somehow a
fake. He seemed to feel that being a private detective was a far-fetched job, like
astronaut or lion tamer; that real people did not do such things.
Robin reflected that if she took the human resources job, she might never
know (unless she saw it, one day, on the news) how this investigation turned out.
To prove, to solve, to catch, to protect: these were things worth doing; important
and fascinating. Robin knew that Matthew thought her somehow childish and
naive for feeling this way, but she could not help herself.
Strike had turned his back on Vashti, and was looking at something in New
Bond Street. His gaze, Robin saw, was fixed on the red letter box standing
outside Russell and Bromley, its dark rectangular mouth leering at them across
the road.
“OK, let’s go,” said Strike, turning back to her. “Don’t forget, you’re my sister
and we’re shopping for my wife.”
“But what are we trying to find out?”
“What Lula Landry and her friend Rochelle Onifade got up to in there, on the
day before Landry died. They met here, for fifteen minutes, then parted. I’m not
hopeful; it’s three months ago, and they might not have noticed anything. Worth
a try, though.”
The ground floor of Vashti was devoted to clothing; a sign pointing up the
wooden stairs indicated that a café and “lifestyle” were housed above. A few
women were browsing the shining steel clothes racks; all of them thin and
tanned, with long, clean, freshly blow-dried hair. The assistants were an eclectic
bunch; their clothing eccentric, their hairstyles outré. One of them was wearing a
tutu and fishnets; she was arranging a display of hats.
To Strike’s surprise, Robin marched boldly over to this girl.
“Hi,” she said brightly. “There’s a fabulous sequined coat in your middle
window. I wonder whether I could try it on?”
The assistant had a mass of fluffy white hair the texture of cotton candy,
gaudily painted eyes and no eyebrows.
“Yeah, no probs,” she said.