1 The Cuckoo's Calling

gloves that have been left in the wardrobe for Deeby, as a precaution against
fingerprints. That looks fishy. Almost as though you’re starting to contemplate
violence.
“Finally, in the early afternoon, Lula comes back home, but unfortunately for
you—as you no doubt saw through the peephole of the flat—she’s with friends.
“And now,” said Strike, his voice hardening, “I think the case against you
starts to become serious. A defense of manslaughter—it was an accident, we
tussled a bit and she fell over the balcony—might have held water if you hadn’t
stayed downstairs all that time, while you knew she had visitors. A man with
nothing worse on his mind than bullying his sister into giving him a large check
might, just might, wait until she was alone again; but you’d already tried that and
it hadn’t worked. So why not go up there when she was, perhaps, in a better
mood, and have a go with the restraining presence of her friends in the next
room? Maybe she’d have given you something just to get rid of you?”
Strike could almost feel the waves of fear and hatred emanating from the
figure fading into the shadows across the desk.
“But instead,” he said, “you waited. You waited all that evening, having
watched her leave the building. You must have been pretty tightly wound by
then. You’d had time to formulate a rough plan. You’d been watching the street;
you knew exactly who was in the building, and who wasn’t; you’d worked out
that there might just be a means of getting clean away, without anyone being the
wiser. And let’s not forget—you’d killed before. That makes a difference.”
Bristow made a sharp movement, little more than a jerk; Strike tensed, but
Bristow remained stationary, and Strike was acutely aware of the unattached
prosthesis merely resting against his leg.
“You were watching out of the window and you saw Lula come home alone,
but the paparazzi were still out there. You must have despaired at that point, did
you?
“But then, miraculously, as though the universe really did want nothing more
than to help John Bristow get what he wanted, they all left. I’m pretty sure that
Lula’s regular driver tipped them off. He’s a man who’s keen to forge good
contacts with the press.
“So now the street’s empty. The moment has arrived. You pulled on Deeby’s
hoodie. Big mistake. But you must admit, with all the lucky breaks you got that
night, something had to go wrong.
“And then—and I’m going to give you full marks for this, because it puzzled
me for a long time—you took a few of those white roses out of their vase, didn’t
you? You wiped the ends dry—not quite as thoroughly as you should have done,