1 The Cuckoo's Calling

personally involved. A man in a pub in Trescothick had once said to Strike:
“Fuck, I know your old man better than you do!” because he was able to name
the session musician who had played on the Deadbeats’ biggest album, and
whose tooth Rokeby had famously broken when he slapped the end of his
saxophone in anger.
It was one in the morning. Strike had become almost deaf to the constant
muffled thuds of the bass guitar from two floors below, and to the occasional
creaks and hisses from the attic flat above, where the bar manager enjoyed
luxuries like showers and home-cooked food. Tired, but not yet ready to climb
into his sleeping bag, he managed to discover Guy Somé’s approximate address
by further perusal of the internet, and noted the close proximity of Charles Street
to Kentigern Gardens. Then he typed in the web address www.arrse.co.uk, like a
man turning automatically into his local after a long shift at work.
He had not visited the Army Rumor Service site since Charlotte had found
him, months previously, browsing it on his computer, and had reacted the way
other women might had they found their partners viewing online porn. There had
been a row, generated by what she took to be his hankering for his old life and
his dissatisfaction with the new.
Here was the army mindset in its every particular, written in the language he
too could speak fluently. Here were the acronyms he had known by heart; the
jokes impenetrable to outsiders; every concern of service life, from the father
whose son was being bullied at his school in Cyprus, to retrospective abuse of the
Prime Minister’s performance at the Chilcot Inquiry. Strike wandered from post
to post, occasionally snorting in amusement, yet aware all the time that he was
lowering his resistance to the specter he could feel, now, breathing on the back of
his neck.
This had been his world and he had been happy there. For all the
inconveniences and hardships of military life, for all that he had emerged from
the army minus half his leg, he did not regret a day of the time he had spent
serving. And yet, he had not been of these people, even while among them. He
had been a monkey, and then a suit, feared and disliked about equally by the
average squaddie.
If ever the SIB talk to you, you should say “No comment, I want a lawyer.”
Alternatively, a simple “Thank you for noticing me” will suffice.
Strike gave a final grunt of laughter, and then, abruptly, shut down the site and
turned off the computer. He was so tired that the removal of his prosthesis took
twice the time it usually did.