1 The Cuckoo's Calling

2
FOOTSTEPS ON THE METAL STAIRS. Strike sat bolt upright, not knowing whether he
had been asleep five minutes or fifty. Somebody rapped on the glass door.
“Come in, it’s open!” he shouted, and checked that the unattached prosthesis
was covered by his trouser leg.
To Strike’s immense relief, it was John Bristow who entered the room,
blinking through his thick-lensed glasses and looking agitated.
“Hi, John. Come and sit down.”
But Bristow strode towards him, blotchy-faced, as full of rage as he had been
the day that Strike had refused to take the case, and gripped the back of the
offered chair instead.
“I told you,” he said, the color waxing and waning in his thin face as he
pointed a bony finger at Strike, “I told you quite clearly that I didn’t want you to
see my mother without me present!”
“I know you did, John, but—”
“She’s unbelievably upset. I don’t know what you said to her, but I’ve had her
crying and sobbing down the phone to me this afternoon!”
“I’m sorry to hear that; she didn’t seem to mind my questions when—”
“She’s in a dreadful state!” shouted Bristow, his buck teeth glinting. “How
dared you go and see her without me? How dared you?”
“Because, John, as I told you after Rochelle’s funeral, I think we’re dealing
with a murderer who might kill again,” said Strike. “The situation’s dangerous,
and I want an end to it.”
“You want an end to it? How do you think I feel?” shouted Bristow, and his
voice cracked and became a falsetto. “Do you have any idea of how much
damage you’ve done? My mother’s devastated, and now my girlfriend seems to
have vanished into thin air, which Tony is blaming on you! What have you done
to Alison? Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Have you tried calling her?”
“She’s not picking up. What the hell’s been going on? I’ve been on a wild
goose chase all day, and I come back—”
“Wild goose chase?” repeated Strike, surreptitiously shifting his leg to keep
the prosthesis upright.