1 The Cuckoo's Calling

Matthew, who was staying for the weekend. How could the death of someone
you had never met affect you so? Robin had greatly admired Lula Landry’s
looks. She did not much like her own milkmaid’s coloring: the model had been
dark, luminous, fine-boned and fierce.
“It hasn’t been very long since she died.”
“Three months,” said Alison, shaking out her Daily Express. “Is he any good,
this man?”
Robin had noticed Alison’s contemptuous expression as she took in the
dilapidated condition, and undeniable grubbiness, of the little waiting room, and
she had just seen, online, the pristine, palatial office where the other woman
worked. Her answer was therefore prompted by self-respect rather than any
desire to protect Strike.
“Oh yes,” she replied coolly. “He’s one of the best.”
She slit open a pink, kitten-embellished envelope with the air of a woman who
daily dealt with exigencies much more complex and intriguing than Alison could
possibly imagine.
Meanwhile, Strike and Bristow were facing each other across the inner room,
the one furious, the other trying to find a way to reverse his position without
jettisoning his self-respect.
“All I want, Strike,” said Bristow hoarsely, the color high in his thin face, “is
justice.”
He might have struck a divine tuning fork; the word rang through the shabby
office, calling forth an inaudible but plangent note in Strike’s breast. Bristow had
located the pilot light Strike shielded when everything else had been blown to
ashes. He stood in desperate need of money, but Bristow had given him another,
better reason to jettison his scruples.
“OK. I understand. I mean it, John; I understand. Come back and sit down. If
you still want my help, I’d like to give it.”
Bristow glared at him. There was no noise in the office but the distant shouts
of the workmen below.
“Would you like your—er, wife, is she?—to come in?”
“No,” said Bristow, still tense, with his hand on the doorknob. “Alison doesn’t
think I ought to be doing this. I don’t know why she wanted to come along,
actually. Probably hoping you’d turn me down.”
“Please—sit down. Let’s go over this properly.”