1 The Cuckoo's Calling

learned that he was a newly qualified accountant called Matthew; that it was to
live with Matthew that Robin had moved to London from Yorkshire the previous
month, and that the temping was a stopgap measure before finding a permanent
job.
“D’you think she could be in one of these pictures?” Robin asked, after a
while. “The girl from the treatment center?”
She had brought up a screen full of identically sized photographs, each
showing one or more people dressed in dark clothes, all heading from left to
right, making for the funeral. Crash barriers and the blurred faces of a crowd
formed the backdrop to each picture.
Most striking of all was the picture of a very tall, pale girl with golden hair
drawn back into a ponytail, on whose head was perched a confection of black net
and feathers. Strike recognized her, because everyone knew who she was: Ciara
Porter, the model with whom Lula had spent much of her last day on earth; the
friend with whom Landry had been photographed for one of the most famous
shots of her career. Porter looked beautiful and somber as she walked towards
Lula’s funeral service. She seemed to have attended alone, because there was no
disembodied hand supporting her thin arm or resting on her long back.
Next to Porter’s picture was that of a couple captioned Film producer Freddie
Bestigui and wife Tansy. Bestigui was built like a bull, with short legs, a broad
barrel chest and a thick neck. His hair was gray and brush-cut; his face a
crumpled mass of folds, bags and moles, out of which his fleshy nose protruded
like a tumor. Nevertheless, he cut an imposing figure in his expensive black
overcoat, with his skeletal young wife on his arm. Almost nothing could be
discerned of Tansy’s true appearance, behind the upturned fur of her coat collar
and the enormous round sunglasses.
Last in this top row of photographs was Guy Somé, fashion designer. He was a
thin black man who was wearing a midnight-blue frock coat of exaggerated cut.
His face was bowed and his expression indiscernible, due to the way the light fell
on his dark head, though three large diamond earrings in the lobe facing the
camera had caught the flashes and glittered like stars. Like Porter, he appeared to
have arrived unaccompanied, although a small group of mourners, unworthy of
their own legends, had been captured within the frame of his picture.
Strike drew his chair nearer to the screen, though still keeping more than an
arm’s length between himself and Robin. One of the unidentified faces, half
severed by the edge of the picture, was John Bristow, recognizable by the short
upper lip and the hamsterish teeth. He had his arm around a stricken-looking
older woman with white hair; her face was gaunt and ghastly, the nakedness of
her grief touching. Behind this pair was a tall, haughty-looking man who gave the
impression of deploring the surroundings in which he found himself.