1 The Cuckoo's Calling

through the years; children absorbed the views of their relatives at some deep,
visceral level. He, Strike, had known in his bones, long before the words had ever
been said in front of him, that his mother was not like other mothers, that there
was (if he believed in the unspoken code that bound the rest of the adults around
him) something shameful about her.
“You saw Lula the day she died, I think?” Strike said.
Landry’s eyelashes were so fair they looked silver.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah…” Strike flicked back through his notebook ostentatiously, coming to a
halt at an entirely blank page. “…you met her at your sister’s flat, didn’t you?
When Lula called in to see Lady Bristow?”
“Who told you that? John?”
“It’s all in the police file. Isn’t it true?”
“Yes, it’s perfectly true, but I can’t see how it’s relevant to anything we’ve
been discussing.”
“I’m sorry; when you arrived, you said you’d been expecting to hear from me.
I got the impression you were happy to answer questions.”
Landry had the air of a man who has found himself unexpectedly snookered.
“I have nothing to add to the statement I gave to the police,” he said at last.
“Which is,” said Strike, leafing backwards through blank pages, “that you
dropped in to visit your sister that morning, where you met your niece, and that
you then drove to Oxford to attend a conference on international developments in
family law?”
Landry was chewing on air again.
“That’s correct,” he said.
“What time would you say you arrived at your sister’s flat?”
“It must have been about ten,” said Landry, after a short pause.
“And you stayed how long?”
“Half an hour, perhaps. Maybe longer. I really can’t remember.”
“And you drove directly from there to the conference in Oxford?”
Over Landry’s shoulder, Strike saw John Bristow questioning a waitress; he
appeared out of breath and a little disheveled, as though he had been running. A
rectangular leather case dangled from his hand. He glanced around, panting
slightly, and when he spotted the back of Landry’s head, Strike thought that he
looked frightened.