1 The Cuckoo's Calling

3
“AND YOU’RE SURE HE’S A detective, are you? Because anyone can do that. Anyone
can google people.”
Matthew was irritable after a long day, a disgruntled client and an
unsatisfactory encounter with his new boss. He did not appreciate what struck
him as naive and misplaced admiration for another man on the part of his fiancée.
“He wasn’t googling people,” said Robin. “I was the one doing the googling,
while he was working on another case.”
“Well I don’t like the sound of the set-up. He’s sleeping in his office, Robin;
don’t you think there’s something a bit fishy there?”
“I told you, I think he’s just split up with his partner.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet he has,” said Matthew.
Robin dropped his plate down on top of her own and stalked off into the
kitchen. She was angry at Matthew, and vaguely annoyed with Strike, too. She
had enjoyed tracking Lula Landry’s acquaintance across cyberspace that day; but
seeing it retrospectively through Matthew’s eyes, it seemed to her that Strike had
given her a pointless, time-filling job.
“Look, I’m not saying anything,” Matthew said, from the kitchen doorway. “I
just think he sounds weird. And what’s with the little afternoon walks?”
“It wasn’t a little afternoon walk, Matt. We went to see the scene of the—we
went to see the place where the client thinks something happened.”
“Robin, there’s no need to make such a bloody mystery about it,” Matthew
laughed.
“I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement,” she snapped over her shoulder. “I
can’t tell you about the case.”
“The case.”
He gave another short, scoffing laugh.
Robin strode around the tiny kitchen, putting away ingredients, slamming
cupboard doors. After a while, watching her figure as she moved around,
Matthew came to feel that he might have been unreasonable. He came up behind
her as she was scraping the leftovers into the bin, put his arms around her, buried
his face in her neck and cupped and stroked the breast that bore the bruises Strike
had accidentally inflicted, and which had irrevocably colored Matthew’s view of
the man. He murmured conciliatory phrases into Robin’s honey-colored hair; but
she pulled away from him to put the plates into the sink.