1 The Cuckoo's Calling

7
THE SHOOT LASTED FOR ANOTHER three hours. Strike waited in the garden, smoking
and consuming more bottled water, while dusk fell. From time to time he
wandered back into the building to check on progress, which seemed immensely
slow. Occasionally he glimpsed or heard Somé, whose temper seemed frayed,
barking instructions at the photographer or one of the black-clad minions who
flitted between clothes racks. Finally, at nearly nine o’clock, after Strike had
consumed a few slices of the pizza that had been ordered by the morose and
exhausted stylist’s assistant, Ciara Porter descended the stairs where she had been
posing with her two colleagues, and joined Strike in the makeup room, which
Bryony was busy stripping bare.
Ciara was still wearing the stiff silver minidress in which she had posed for the
last pictures. Attenuated and angular, with milk-white skin, hair almost as fair,
and pale blue eyes set very wide apart, she stretched out her endless legs, in
platform shoes that were tied with long silver threads up her calves, and lit a
Marlboro Light.
“God, I can’t believe you’re Rokers’ son!” she said breathlessly, her
chrysoberyl eyes and full lips both wide. “Just beyond weird! I know him; he
invited Looly and me to the Greatest Hits launch last year! And I know your
brothers, Al and Eddie! They told me they had a big brother in the army! God.
Mad. Is that you done, Bryony?” Ciara added pointedly.
The makeup artist seemed to be making a laborious business of gathering up
the tools of her trade. Now she sped up perceptibly, while Ciara smoked and
watched her in silence.
“Yep, that’s me,” said Bryony brightly at last, hoisting a heavy box over her
shoulder and picking up more cases in each hand. “See you, Ciara. Goodbye,”
she added to Strike, and left.
“She is so bloody nosy, and such a gossip,” Ciara told Strike. She threw back
her long white hair, rearranged her coltish legs and asked:
“D’you see a lot of Al and Eddie?”
“No,” said Strike.
“And your mum,” she said, unfazed, blowing smoke out of the corner of her
mouth. “I mean, she’s just, like, a legend. You know how Baz Carmichael did a
whole collection two seasons back called ‘Supergroupie,’ and it was like, Bebe
Buell and your mum were the whole inspiration? Maxi skirts and buttonless shirts
and boots?”
“I didn’t,” said Strike.