1 The Cuckoo's Calling

Robin, who had already decided that the building was impenetrable, thought
that Strike was about to pour scorn on the theory, but she was wrong.
“If they did,” said Strike, eyes still on the door, “it was planned, and planned
well. Nobody could’ve got past photographers, a keypad, a security guard and a
closed inner door, and out again, on luck alone. Thing is,” he scratched his chin,
“that degree of premeditation doesn’t fit with such a slapdash murder.”
Robin found the choice of adjective callous.
“Pushing someone over a balcony’s a spur-of-the-moment thing,” said Strike,
as though he had felt her inner wince. “Hot blood. Blind temper.”
He found Robin’s company satisfactory and restful, not only because she was
hanging off his every word, and had not troubled to break his silences, but
because that little sapphire ring on her third finger was like a neat full stop: this
far, and no further. It suited him perfectly. He was free to show off, in a very
mild way, which was one of the few pleasures remaining to him.
“But what if the killer was already inside?”
“That’s a lot more plausible,” said Strike, and Robin felt very pleased with
herself. “And if a killer was already in there, we’ve got the choice between the
security guard himself, one or both of the Bestiguis, or some unknown person
who was hiding in the building without anyone’s knowledge. If it was either of
the Bestiguis, or Wilson, there’s no getting-in-and-out problem; all they had to do
was return to the places they were supposed to be. There was still the risk she
could have survived, injured, to tell the tale, but a hot-blooded, unpremeditated
crime makes a lot more sense if one of them did it. A row and a blind shove.”
Strike smoked his cigarette and continued to scrutinize the front of the
building, in particular the gap between the windows on the first floor and those
on the third. He was thinking primarily about Freddie Bestigui, the film producer.
According to what Robin had found on the internet, Bestigui had been in bed
asleep when Lula Landry toppled over the balcony two floors above. The fact
that it was Bestigui’s own wife who had sounded the alarm, and insisted that the
killer was still upstairs while her husband stood beside her, implied that she, at
least, did not think him guilty. Nevertheless, Freddie Bestigui had been the man
in closest proximity to the dead girl at the time of her death. Laymen, in Strike’s
experience, were obsessed with motive: opportunity topped the professional’s
list.
Unwittingly confirming her civilian status, Robin said:
“But why would someone pick the middle of the night to have an argument
with her? Nothing ever came out about her not getting on with her neighbors, did
it? And Tansy Bestigui definitely couldn’t have done it, could she? Why would