1 The Cuckoo's Calling

6
“JOHN,” SAID STRIKE, AS HIS client approached them.
“Hi, Cormoran.”
Landry did not look at his nephew, but picked up his knife and fork and took a
first bite of his terrine. Strike moved around the table to make room for Bristow
to sit down opposite his uncle.
“Have you spoken to Reuben?” Landry asked Bristow coldly, once he had
finished his mouthful of terrine.
“Yes. I’ve said I’ll go over this afternoon and take him through all the deposits
and drawings.”
“I’ve just been asking your uncle about the morning before Lula died, John.
About when he visited your mother’s flat,” said Strike.
Bristow glanced at Landry.
“I’m interested in what was said and done there,” Strike continued, “because,
according to the chauffeur who drove her back from her mother’s flat, Lula
seemed distressed.”
“Of course she was distressed,” snapped Landry. “Her mother had cancer.”
“The operation she’d just had was supposed to have cured her, wasn’t it?”
“Yvette had just had a hysterectomy. She was in pain. I don’t doubt Lula was
disturbed at seeing her mother in that condition.”
“Did you talk much to Lula, when you saw her?”
A minuscule hesitation.
“Just chit-chat.”
“And you two, did you speak to each other?”
Bristow and Landry did not look at each other. A longer pause, of a few
seconds, before Bristow said:
“I was working in the home office. I heard Tony come in, heard him speaking
to Mum and Lula.”
“You didn’t look in to say hello?” Strike asked Landry.
Landry considered him through slightly boiled-looking eyes, pale between the
light lashes.