1 The Cuckoo's Calling

She did not answer.
“Did you call it, and not get an answer?”
She sipped her port in simmering silence.
“In fairness, it would break the mood, taking a call from your secretary while
you’re on the job.”
He thought that she would find this offensive, and was not disappointed.
“You’re disgusting. You’re really disgusting,” she said thickly, her cheeks a
dull dark red with the prudishness she tried to disguise under a show of
superiority.
“Do you live alone?” he asked her.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked, completely off-balance now.
“Just wondered. So you don’t see anything odd in Tony booking into an
Oxford hotel for the night, driving back to London the following morning, then
returning to Oxford again, in time to check out of his hotel the next day?”
“He went back to Oxford so that he could attend the conference in the
afternoon,” she said doggedly.
“Oh, really? Did you hang around and meet him there?”
“He was there,” she said evasively.
“You’ve got proof, have you?”
She said nothing.
“Tell me,” said Strike, “would you rather think that Tony was in bed with
Ursula May all day, or having some kind of confrontation with his niece?”
Over at the bar, Aunt Winifred was straightening her knitted hat and retying
her belt. She seemed to be preparing to leave.
For several seconds Alison fought herself, and then, with an air of unleashing
something long suppressed, she said in a ferocious whisper:
“They aren’t having an affair. I know they aren’t. It wouldn’t happen. Ursula
only cares about money; it’s all that matters to her, and Tony’s got less than
Cyprian. Ursula wouldn’t want Tony. She wouldn’t.”
“Oh, you never know. Physical passion might have overpowered her
mercenary tendencies,” said Strike, watching Alison closely. “It can happen. It’s
hard for another man to judge, but he’s not bad-looking, Tony, is he?”