1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“Why was that?”
“He thinks I take too many pills,” said Lady Bristow, like a little girl. “I know
he wants the best for me, poor John, but he doesn’t realize…he couldn’t…I’ve
had so much pain in my life. He sat with me for a long time that night. We talked
about Charlie. We talked into the early hours of the morning. And while we were
talking,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, “at the very time we were
talking, Lula fell…she fell off the balcony.
“So it was John who had to break the news to me, the next morning. The
police had arrived on the doorstep, at the crack of dawn. He came into the
bedroom to tell me and…”
She swallowed, and shook her head, limp, barely alive.
“That’s why the cancer came back, I know it. People can only bear so much
pain.”
Her voice was becoming more slurred. He wondered how much Valium she
had already taken, as she closed her eyes drowsily.
“Yvette, would it be all right if I used your bathroom?” he asked.
She assented with a sleepy nod.
Strike got up, and moved quickly, and surprisingly quietly for a man of his
bulk, into the walk-in wardrobe.
The space was lined with mahogany doors that reached to the ceiling. Strike
opened one of the doors and glanced inside, at overstuffed railings of dresses and
coats, with a shelf of bags and hats above, breathing in the musty smell of old
shoes and fabric which, in spite of the evident costliness of the contents, evoked
an old charity shop. Silently he opened and closed door after door, until, on the
fourth attempt, he saw a cluster of clearly brand-new handbags, each of a
different color, that had been squeezed on to the high shelf.
He took down the blue one, shop-new and shiny. Here was the GS logo, and
the silk lining that was zipped into the bag. He ran his fingers around it, into
every corner, then replaced it deftly on the shelf.
He selected the white bag next: the lining was patterned with a stylized
African print. Again he ran his fingers all around the interior. Then he unzipped
the lining.
It came out, just as Ciara had described, like a metal-edged scarf, exposing the
rough interior of the white leather. Nothing was visible inside until he looked
more closely, and then he saw the line of pale blue running down the side of the
stiff rectangular cloth-covered board holding the base of the bag in shape. He