1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“Lula made this girl travel all the way from Hammersmith to Notting Hill,
spent fifteen minutes with her and then walked out. Why didn’t she stay? Why
meet for such a short space of time? Did they argue? Anything out of the
ordinary that happens around a sudden death could be relevant.”
“I see,” said Bristow hesitantly. “But…well, that sort of behavior wasn’t really
out of the ordinary for Lula. I did tell you that she could be a bit…a bit selfish. It
would be like her to think that a token appearance would keep the girl happy. She
often had these brief enthusiasms for people, you know, and then dropped them.”
His disappointment at Strike’s chosen line of inquiry was so evident that the
detective felt it might be politic to slip in a little covert justification of the
immense fee his client was paying.
“The other reason I was calling was to let you know that tomorrow evening
I’m meeting one of the CID officers who covered the case. Eric Wardle. I’m
hoping to get hold of the police file.”
“Fantastic!” Bristow sounded impressed. “That’s quick work!”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got good contacts in the Met.”
“Then you’ll be able to get some answers about the Runner! You’ve read my
notes?”
“Yeah, very useful,” said Strike.
“And I’m trying to fix up a lunch with Tansy Bestigui this week, so you can
meet her and hear her testimony first hand. I’ll ring your secretary, shall I?”
“Great.”
There was this to be said for having an underworked secretary he could not
afford, Strike thought, once he had rung off: it gave a professional impression.
St. Elmo’s Hostel for the Homeless turned out to be situated right behind the
noisy concrete flyover. A plain, ill-proportioned and contemporaneous cousin of
Lula’s Mayfair house, red brick with humbler, grubby white facings; no stone
steps, no garden, no elegant neighbors, but a chipped door opening directly on to
the street, peeling paint on the window ledges and a forlorn air. The utilitarian
modern world had encroached until it sat huddled and miserable, out of synch
with its surroundings, the flyover a mere twenty yards away, so that the upper
windows looked directly out upon the concrete barriers and the endlessly passing
cars. An unmistakably institutional flavor was given by the large silver buzzer
and speaker beside the door, and the unapologetically ugly black camera, with its
dangling wires, that hung from the lintel in a wire cage.
An emaciated young girl with a sore at the corner of her mouth stood smoking
outside the front door, wearing a dirty man’s jumper that swamped her. She was