1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“Yeah, there is. I can’t remember much of what I did. I hope I wasn’t
obnoxious.”
“You weren’t.”
“You probably got the gist. My ex-fiancée’s just got engaged to an old
boyfriend. It took her three weeks after we split to get another ring on her finger.
That’s just a figure of speech; I never actually bought her a ring; I never had the
money.”
Robin gathered, from his tone, that there had been no reconciliation; but in that
case, where had he spent the night? She unfolded her arms and unthinkingly
picked up her tea.
“It wasn’t your responsibility to come and find me like that, but you probably
stopped me collapsing in a gutter or punching someone, so thanks very much.”
“No problem,” said Robin.
“And thanks for the Alka-Seltzer,” said Strike.
“Did it help?” asked Robin, stiffly.
“I nearly puked all over this,” said Strike, dealing the sagging sofa a gentle
punch with his fist, “but once it kicked in, it helped a lot.”
Robin laughed, and Strike remembered, for the first time, the note she had
pushed under the door while he slept, and the excuse she had given for her tactful
absence.
“Right, well, I’ve been looking forward to hearing how you got on yesterday,”
he lied. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
Robin expanded like a water blossom.
“I was just typing it up…”
“Let’s have it verbally, and you can put it into the file later,” said Strike, with
the mental reservation that it would be easy to remove if useless.
“OK,” said Robin, both excited and nervous. “Well, like I said in my note, I
saw that you wanted to look into Professor Agyeman, and the Malmaison Hotel
in Oxford.”
Strike nodded, grateful for the reminder, because he had not been able to
remember the details of the note, read once in the depths of his blinding
hangover.
“So,” said Robin, a little breathlessly, “first of all I went along to Russell
Square, to SOAS; the School of Oriental and African Studies. That’s what your