1 The Cuckoo's Calling

doors opened. Adrenalin erupted: Strike imagined himself exploding out of the
car, punching, sending expensive cameras crashing on to concrete as their holders
crumpled. And as if he had read Strike’s mind, Duffield said, with his hand
poised on the door handle:
“Knock their fucking lights out, Cormoran, you’re built for it.”
The open doors, the night air and more maddening flashes; bull-like, Strike
walked fast with his big head bowed, his eyes on Ciara’s tottering heels, refusing
to be blinded. Up three steps they ran, Strike at the rear; and it was he who
slammed the front door of the building in the faces of the photographers.
Strike felt himself momentarily allied with the other two by the experience of
being hunted. The tiny, dimly lit lobby felt safe and friendly. The paparazzi were
still yelling to each other on the other side of the door, and their terse shouts
recalled soldiers recceing a building. Duffield was fiddling at an inner door,
trying a succession of keys in the lock.
“I’ve only been here a couple of weeks,” he explained, finally opening it with
a barging shoulder. Once over the threshold, he wriggled out of his tight jacket,
threw it on to the floor by the door and then led the way, his narrow hips
swinging in only slightly less exaggerated fashion than Guy Somé’s, down a
short corridor into a sitting room, where he switched on lamps.
The spare, elegant gray and black decor had been overlaid by clutter and stank
of cigarette smoke, cannabis and alcohol fumes. Strike was reminded vividly of
his childhood.
“Need a slash,” announced Duffield, and called over his shoulder as he
disappeared, with a directive jab of the thumb, “Drinks are in the kitchen, Cici.”
She threw a smile at Strike, then left through the door Duffield had indicated.
Strike glanced around the room, which looked as though it had been left, by
parents of impeccable taste, in the care of a teenager. Every surface was covered
in debris, much of it in the form of scribbled notes. Three guitars stood propped
against the walls. A cluttered glass coffee table was surrounded by black-andwhite
seats, angled towards an enormous plasma TV. Bits of debris had
overflowed from the coffee table on to the black fur rug below. Beyond the long
windows, with their gauzy gray curtains, Strike could make out the shapes of the
photographers still prowling beneath the street light.
Duffield had returned, tugging up his fly. On finding himself alone with
Strike, he gave a nervous giggle.
“Make yourself at home, big fella. Hey, I know your old man, actually.”