1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“She had an aunt, remember?” said Strike.
Wardle rang off in what Strike suspected was disgust.
Bristow called Strike later that morning with the time and place of Rochelle’s
funeral.
“Alison managed to find out all the details,” he told the detective on the
telephone. “She’s super-efficient.”
“Clearly,” said Strike.
“I’m going to come. To represent Lula. I ought to have helped Rochelle.”
“I think it was always going to end this way, John. Are you bringing Alison?”
“She says she wants to come,” said Bristow, though he sounded less than
enamored of the idea.
“I’ll see you there, then. I’m hoping to speak to Rochelle’s aunt, if she turns
up.”
When Strike told Robin that Bristow’s girlfriend had discovered the time and
place of the funeral, she appeared put out. She herself had been trying to find out
the details at Strike’s request, and seemed to feel that Alison had put one over on
her.
“I didn’t realize you were this competitive,” said Strike, amused. “Not to
worry. Maybe she had some kind of head start on you.”
“Like what?”
But Strike was looking at her speculatively.
“What?” repeated Robin, a little defensively.
“I want you to come with me to the funeral.”
“Oh,” said Robin. “OK. Why?”
She expected Strike to reply that it would look more natural for them to turn
up as a couple, just as it had seemed more natural for him to visit Vashti with a
woman in tow. Instead he said:
“There’s something I want you to do for me there.”
Once he had explained, clearly and concisely, what it was that he wanted her
to do, Robin looked utterly bewildered.
“But why?”