1 The Cuckoo's Calling

huge weeping willow caressed the side of the restaurant and brushed the water’s
surface.
Though it was a cool, breezy day, the view over the lake was splendid in the
sunlight. Strike chose an outdoor table right beside the water, ordered a pint of
Doom Bar and read his paper.
Bristow was already ten minutes late when a tall, well-made, expensively
suited man with foxy coloring stopped beside Strike’s table.
“Mr. Strike?”
In his late fifties, with a full head of hair, a firm jaw and pronounced
cheekbones, he looked like an almost-famous actor hired to play a rich
businessman in a miniseries. Strike, whose visual memory was highly trained,
recognized him immediately from the photographs that Robin had found online
as the tall man who had looked as though he deplored his surroundings at Lula
Landry’s funeral.
“Tony Landry. John and Lula’s uncle. May I sit down?”
His smile was perhaps the most perfect example of an insincere social grimace
that Strike had ever witnessed; a mere baring of even white teeth. Landry eased
himself out of his overcoat, draped it over the back of the seat opposite Strike and
sat.
“John’s delayed at the office,” he said. The breeze ruffled his hair, showing
how it had receded at the temples. “He asked Alison to call you and let you
know. I happened to be passing her desk at the time, so I thought I’d come and
deliver the message in person. It gives me an opportunity to have a private word
with you. I’ve been expecting you to contact me; I know you’re working your
way slowly through all my niece’s contacts.”
He slid a pair of steel-rimmed glasses out of his top pocket, put them on and
took a moment to consult the menu. Strike drank some beer and waited.
“I hear you’ve been speaking to Mrs. Bestigui?” said Landry, setting down the
menu, taking off his glasses again and reinserting them into his suit pocket.
“That’s right,” said Strike.
“Yes. Well, Tansy is undoubtedly well intentioned, but she is doing herself no
favors at all by repeating a story the police have proven, conclusively, could not
have been true. No favors at all,” repeated Landry portentously. “And so I have
told John. His first duty ought to be to the firm’s client, and what is in her best
interests.
“I will have the ham hock terrine,” he added to a passing waitress, “and a still
water. Bottled. Well,” he continued, “it’s probably best to be direct, Mr. Strike.