1 The Cuckoo's Calling

aiment suitable for her fiancé; he remembered her beaming at him as he stared at
his unfamiliarly well-styled self in a full-length mirror. The suit and shirt had
hung in their carry case ever since, because he and Charlotte had not gone out
much after last November; because his birthday had been the last truly happy day
they had spent together. Soon afterwards, the relationship had begun to stagger
back into the old familiar grievances, into the same mire in which it had
foundered before, but which, this time, they had sworn to avoid.
He might have incinerated the suit. Instead, in a spirit of defiance, he chose to
wear it, to strip it of its associations and render it mere pieces of cloth. The
tailoring of the jacket made him look slimmer and fitter. He left the white shirt
open at the throat.
Strike had had a reputation, in the army, for being able to bounce back from
excessive alcohol consumption with unusual speed. The man staring at him out of
the small mirror was pale, with purple shadows under his eyes, yet in the sharp
Italian suit he looked better than he had done in weeks. His black eye had
vanished at last, and his scratches had healed.
A cautiously light meal, copious amounts of water, another evacuatory trip to
the restaurant bathroom, more painkillers; then, at five o’clock, a prompt arrival
at number 1, Arlington Place.
The door was answered, after his second knock, by a cross-looking woman in
black-framed glasses and a short gray bob. She let him in with an appearance of
reluctance, then walked briskly away across a stone-floored hall which
incorporated a magnificent staircase with a wrought-iron banister, calling “Guy!
Somebody Strike?”
There were rooms on both sides of the hall. To the left, a small knot of people,
all of whom seemed to be dressed in black, were staring in the direction of some
powerful light source that Strike could not see, but which illuminated their rapt
faces.
Somé appeared, striding through this door into the hall. He too was wearing
glasses, which made him look older; his jeans were baggy and ripped and his
white T-shirt was emblazoned with an eye that appeared to be weeping glittering
blood, which on closer examination proved to be red sequins.
“You’ll have to wait,” he said curtly. “Bryony’s busy and Ciara’s going to be
hours. You can park yourself in there if you want,” he pointed towards the righthand
room, where the edge of a tray-laden table was visible, “or you can stand
around and watch like these useless fuckers,” he went on, suddenly raising his
voice and glaring at the huddle of elegant young men and women who were
staring towards the light source. They dispersed at once, without protest, some of
them crossing the hall into the room opposite.