1 The Cuckoo's Calling

walking in the direction of Landry’s house, at 1:39 a.m. He had paused on
camera and appeared to consult a piece of paper (poss an address or directions?
Bristow had added helpfully in his notes) before walking out of sight.
Footage taken from the same CCTV camera shortly after showed the Runner
sprinting back past the camera at 2:12 and out of sight. Second black man also
running—poss lookout? Disturbed in car theft? Car alarm went off around the
corner at this time, Bristow had written.
Finally there was CCTV footage of a black man closely resembling the Runner
walking along a road close to Gray’s Inn Square, several miles away, later in the
morning of Landry’s death. Face still concealed, Bristow had written.
Strike paused to rub his eyes, wincing because he had forgotten that one of
them was bruised. He was now in that light-headed, twitchy state that signified
true exhaustion. With a long, grunting sigh he considered Bristow’s notes, with
one hairy fist holding a pen ready to make his own annotations.
Bristow might interpret the law with dispassion and objectivity in the office
that had provided him with his smart engraved business card, but the contents of
this envelope merely confirmed Strike’s view that his client’s personal life was
dominated by an unjustifiable obsession. Whatever the origin of Bristow’s
preoccupation with the Runner—whether because he nursed a secret fear of that
urban bogeyman, the criminal black male, or for some other, deeper, more
personal reason—it was unthinkable that the police had not investigated the
Runner, and his (possibly lookout, possibly car thief) companion, and certain that
they had had good reason for excluding him from suspicion.
Yawning widely, Strike turned to the second page of Bristow’s notes.
At 1:45, Derrick Wilson, the security guard on duty at the desk overnight, felt
unwell and went into the back bathroom, where he remained for
approximately a quarter of an hour. For fifteen minutes prior to Lula’s death,
therefore, the lobby of her building was deserted and anybody could have
entered and exited without being seen. Wilson only came out of the bathroom
after Lula fell, when he heard Tansy Bestigui screaming.
This window of opportunity tallies exactly with the time the Runner would
have reached 18 Kentigern Gardens if he passed the security camera on the
junction of Alderbrook and Bellamy Roads at 1:39.
“And how,” murmured Strike, massaging his forehead, “did he see through the
front door, to know the guard was in the bog?”
I have spoken to Derrick Wilson, who is happy to be interviewed.