1 The Cuckoo's Calling

6
ROBIN HAD WAITED TEN MINUTES, to make sure that Strike was not about to come
back, before making several delightful telephone calls from her mobile phone.
The news of her engagement was received by her friends with either squeals of
excitement or envious comments, which gave Robin equal pleasure. At
lunchtime, she awarded herself an hour off, bought three bridal magazines and a
packet of replacement biscuits (which put the petty cash box, a labeled shortbread
tin, into her debt to the tune of forty-two pence), and returned to the empty office,
where she spent a happy forty minutes examining bouquets and bridal gowns,
and tingling all over with excitement.
When her self-appointed lunch hour was over, Robin washed and returned Mr.
Crowdy’s cups and tray, and his biscuits. Noting how eagerly he attempted to
detain her in conversation on her second appearance, his eyes wandering
distractedly from her mouth to her breasts, she resolved to avoid him for the rest
of the week.
Still Strike did not return. For want of anything else to do, Robin neatened the
contents of her desk drawers, disposing of what she recognized as the
accumulated waste of other temporaries: two squares of dusty milk chocolate, a
bald emery board and many pieces of paper carrying anonymous telephone
numbers and doodles. There was a box of old-fashioned metal acro clips, which
she had never come across before, and a considerable number of small, blank
blue notebooks, which, though unmarked, had an air of officialdom. Robin,
experienced in the world of offices, had the feeling that they might have been
pinched from an institutional store cupboard.
The office telephone rang occasionally. Her new boss seemed to be a person of
many names. One man asked for “Oggy”; another for “Monkey Boy,” while a
dry, clipped voice asked that “Mr. Strike” return Mr. Peter Gillespie’s call as
soon as possible. On each occasion, Robin contacted Strike’s mobile phone, and
reached only his voicemail. She therefore left verbal messages, wrote down each
caller’s name and number on a Post-it note, took it into Strike’s office and stuck
it neatly on his desk.
The pneumatic drill rumbled on and on outside. Around two o’clock, the
ceiling began to creak as the occupant of the flat overhead became more active;
otherwise, Robin might have been alone in the whole building. Gradually
solitude, coupled with the feeling of pure delight that threatened to burst her
ribcage every time her eyes fell on the ring on her left hand, emboldened her. She
began to clean and tidy the tiny room under her interim control.
In spite of its general shabbiness, and an overlying grubbiness, Robin soon
discovered a firm organizational structure that pleased her own neat and orderly
nature. The brown card folders (oddly old-fashioned, in these days of neon
plastic) lined up on the shelves behind her desk were arranged in date order, each