1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“I grant you, that doesn’t necessarily rule out her uncle, or Duffield, because
calling them on the alternative number might have been a signal they’d organized
between them. Alternatively, she was using Rochelle’s number to speak to
somebody else; someone she didn’t want the press to know about. I’ve got
Rochelle’s mobile number. Find out what network she was with and you’ll be
able to check all this. The unit itself is a crystal-covered pink Nokia, but you
won’t find that.”
“Yeah, because it’s at the bottom of the Thames,” said Wardle.
“Course it isn’t,” said Strike. “The killer’s got it. He’ll have got it off her
before he threw her into the river.”
“Fuck off!” jeered Carver, and Wardle, who had seemed interested against his
better judgment, shook his head.
“Why did Landry want Rochelle there when she made the call?” Strike
repeated. “Why not make it from the car? Why, when Rochelle was homeless,
and virtually destitute, did she never sell her story on Landry? They’d have given
her a great wad for it. Why didn’t she cash in, once Landry was dead, and
couldn’t be hurt?”
“Decency?” suggested Wardle.
“Yeah, that’s one possibility,” said Strike. “The other’s that she was making
enough by blackmailing the killer.”
“Boll-ocks,” moaned Carver.
“Yeah? That Muppet coat she was pulled up wearing cost one and a half
grand.”
A tiny pause.
“Landry probably gave it to her,” said Wardle.
“If she did, she managed to buy her something that wasn’t in the shops back in
January.”
“Landry was a model, she had inside contacts—fuck this shit,” snapped
Carver, as though he had irritated himself.
“Why,” said Strike, leaning forwards on his arms into the miasma of body
odor that surrounded Carver, “did Lula Landry make a detour to that shop for
fifteen minutes?”
“She was in a hurry.”
“Why go at all?”