1 The Cuckoo's Calling

Ten Days Later
THE BRITISH ARMY REQUIRES OF its soldiers a subjugation of individual needs and
ties that is almost incomprehensible to the civilian mind. It recognizes virtually
no claims higher than its own; and the unpredictable crises of human life—births
and deaths, weddings, divorces and illness—generally cause no more deviation to
the military’s plans than pebbles pinging on the underbelly of a tank.
Nevertheless, there are exceptional circumstances, and it was due to one such
circumstance that Lieutenant Jonah Agyeman’s second tour of duty in
Afghanistan was cut short.
His presence in Britain was urgently required by the Metropolitan Police, and
while the army does not generally rate the claims of the Met higher than its own,
in this case it was prepared to be helpful. The circumstances surrounding the
death of Agyeman’s sister were garnering international attention, and a media
storm around a hitherto obscure Sapper was deemed unhelpful both to the
individual and the army he served. And so Jonah was put on a plane back to
Britain, where the army did its impressive best to shield him from the ravenous
press.
It was assumed by considerable numbers of the news-reading public that
Lieutenant Agyeman would be delighted, firstly to be home from combat, and
secondly to have returned in the expectation of wealth beyond his wildest
imaginings. However, the young soldier that Cormoran Strike met in the
Tottenham pub one lunchtime, ten days after the arrest of his sister’s murderer,
was almost truculent, and seemed still to be in a state of shock.
The two men had, for different periods of time, lived the same life, and risked
the same death. It was a bond that no civilian could understand, and for half an
hour they talked about nothing but the army.
“You were a Suit, yeah?” Agyeman said. “Trust a Suit to fuck up my whole
life.”
Strike smiled. He saw no ingratitude in Agyeman, even though the stitches in
his arm pulled painfully every time he raised his pint.
“My mother wants me to come out,” said the soldier. “She keeps saying, that’ll
be one good thing to come out of this mess.”
It was the first, oblique reference to the reason they were here, and that Jonah
was not where he belonged, with his regiment, in the life he had chosen.
Then, quite suddenly, he began to talk, as though he had been waiting for
Strike for months.
“She never knew my dad had another kid. He never told her. He was never
even sure that Marlene woman was telling the truth about being pregnant. Right