1 The Cuckoo's Calling

8
STRIKE, FOREWARNED, WAS NOWHERE NEAR as surprised to see Kieran Kolovas-
Jones as the driver was to see him. Kolovas-Jones was holding open the left-hand
passenger door, faintly lit by the car’s interior light, but Strike spotted his
momentary change of expression when he laid eyes on Ciara’s companion.
“Evening,” said Strike, moving around the car to open his own door and get in
beside Ciara.
“Kieran, you’ve met Cormoran, haven’t you?” said Ciara, buckling herself in.
Her dress had ridden up to the very top of her long legs. Strike could not be
absolutely certain that she was wearing anything beneath it. She had certainly
been braless in the white jumpsuit.
“Hi, Kieran,” said Strike.
The driver nodded at Strike in the rearview mirror, but did not speak. He had
assumed a strictly professional demeanor that Strike doubted was habitual in the
absence of detectives.
The car pulled away from the curb. Ciara started rummaging again in her bag;
she removed a perfume spray and squirted herself liberally in a wide circle
around her face and shoulders; then dabbed lip gloss over her lips, talking all the
while.
“What am I going to need? Money. Cormoran, could you be a total darling and
keep this in your pocket? I’m not going to take this massive thing in.” She
handed him a crumpled wad of twenties. “You’re a sweetheart. Oh, and I’ll need
my phone. Have you got a pocket for my phone? God, this bag’s a mess.”
She dropped it on the car floor.
“When you said that it would have been the dream of Lula’s life to find her
real father…”
“Oh God, it would have been. She used to talk about that all the time. She got
really excited when that bitch—her birth mother—told her he was African. Guy
always said that was bullshit, but he hated the woman.”
“He met Marlene Higson, did he?”
“Oh no, he just hated the whole, like, idea of her. He could see how excited
Looly got, and he just wanted to protect her from being disappointed.”
So much protection, Strike thought, as the car turned a corner in the dark. Had
Lula been that fragile? The back of Kolovas-Jones’s head was rigid, correct; his
eyes flickering more often than was necessary to rest upon Strike’s face.