1 The Cuckoo's Calling

lobby’s empty—you run through it and out on to the street, where it’s snowing
thick and fast.
“And you ran, didn’t you; hoodie up, face covered, gloved hands pumping.
And at the end of the street, you saw another man running, running for his life,
away from the corner where he’d just seen his sister fall to her death. You didn’t
know each other. I don’t think you had a thought to spare for who he was, not
then. You ran as fast as you could, in Deeby Macc’s borrowed clothes, past the
CCTV camera that caught you both on film, and off down Halliwell Street, where
your luck caught up with you again, and there were no more cameras.
“I expect you chucked the hoodie and the gloves in a bin and grabbed a taxi,
did you? The police never bothered looking for a suited white man who was out
and about that night. You went home to your mother’s, you made food for her,
you changed the time on her clock and you woke her up. She’s still convinced
that the two of you were talking about Charlie—nice touch, John—at the precise
moment that Lula plunged to her death.
“You got away with it, John. You could have afforded to keep paying
Rochelle for life. With your luck, Jonah Agyeman might even have died in
Afghanistan; you’ve been getting your hopes up every time you’ve seen a picture
of a black soldier in the paper, haven’t you? But you didn’t want to trust to luck.
You’re a twisted, arrogant fucker, and you thought you could arrange things
better.”
There was a long silence.
“No proof,” said Bristow, at last. It was so dark in the office now that he was
barely more than a silhouette to Strike. “No proof at all.”
“I’m afraid you’re wrong there,” said Strike. “The police should have got a
warrant by now.”
“For what?” asked Bristow, and he finally felt confident enough to laugh. “To
search the bins of London for a hoodie that you say was thrown away three
months ago?”
“No, to look in your mother’s safe, of course.”
Strike was wondering whether he could raise the blind quickly enough. He
was a long way from a light switch, and the office was very dark, but he did not
want to take his eyes off Bristow’s shadowy figure. He was sure that this triple
murderer would not have come unprepared.
“I’ve given them a few combinations to try,” Strike went on. “If they don’t
work, I suppose they’ll have to call in an expert to open it. But if I were a betting
man, I’d put my money on 030483.”