1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“I’m not joking, Ciara. You’ll notice when I am, because it’ll be fucking
funny.”
The brunette giggled.
“I said I’m not joking,” snapped Duffield.
The brunette looked as though she had been slapped. The rest of the group
seemed imperceptibly to withdraw, even in the cramped space; they began their
own conversation, temporarily excluding Ciara, Strike and Duffield.
“Evan, not nice,” said Ciara, but her reproach seemed to caress rather than
sting, and Strike noticed that the glance she threw the brunette held no pity.
Duffield drummed his fingers on the edge of the table.
“So, what kind of a detective are you, Cormoran?”
“A private one.”
“Evan, darling, Cormoran’s been hired by Looly’s brother…”
But Duffield had apparently spotted someone or something of interest up at the
bar, for he leapt to his feet and disappeared into the crowd there.
“He’s always a bit ADHD,” said Ciara apologetically. “Plus, he’s still really,
really fucked up about Looly. He is,” she insisted, half cross, half amused, as
Strike raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly in the direction of the
voluptuous brunette, who was now cradling an empty mojito glass and looking
morose. “You’ve got something on your smart jacket,” Ciara added, and she
leaned forwards to brush off what Strike thought were pizza crumbs. He caught a
strong whiff of her sweet, spicy perfume. The silver material of her dress was so
stiff that it gaped, like armor, away from her body, affording him an unhampered
view of small white breasts and pointed shell-pink nipples.
“What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”
She thrust a wrist under his nose.
“It’s Guy’s new one,” she said. “It’s called Éprise—it’s French for ‘smitten,’
you know?”
“Yeah,” he said.
Duffield had returned, holding another drink, cleaving his way back through
the crowd, whose faces revolved after him, tugged by his aura. His legs in their
tight jeans were like black pipe cleaners, and with his darkly smudged eyes he
looked like a Pierrot gone bad.