1 The Cuckoo's Calling

leaning up against the wall, staring blankly towards the commercial center barely
five minutes’ walk away, and when Strike pressed the buzzer for admission to the
hostel, she gave him a look of deep calculation, apparently assessing his
potentialities.
A small, fusty, grimy-floored lobby with shabby wooden paneling lay just
inside the door. Two locked glass-paneled doors stood to left and right, affording
him glimpses of a bare hall and a depressed-looking side room with a table full of
leaflets, an old dartboard and a wall liberally peppered with holes. Straight ahead
was a kiosk-like front desk, protected by another metal grille.
A gum-chewing woman behind the desk was reading a newspaper. She
seemed suspicious and ill-disposed when Strike asked whether he could speak to
a girl whose name was something like Rachel, and who had been a friend of Lula
Landry’s.
“You a journalist?”
“No, I’m not; I’m a friend of a friend.”
“Should know her name, then, shouldn’t you?”
“Rachel? Raquelle? Something like that.”
A balding man strode into the kiosk behind the suspicious woman.
“I’m a private detective,” said Strike, raising his voice, and the bald man
looked around, interested. “Here’s my card. I’ve been hired by Lula Landry’s
brother, and I need to talk to—”
“Oh, you looking for Rochelle?” asked the bald man, approaching the grille.
“She’s not here, pal. She left.”
His colleague, evincing some irritation at his willingness to talk to Strike,
ceded her place at the counter and vanished from sight.
“When was this?”
“It’d be weeks now. Coupla months, even.”
“Any idea where she went?”
“No idea, mate. Probably sleeping rough again. She’s come and gone a good
few times. She’s a difficult character. Mental health problems. Carrianne might
know something though, hang on. Carrianne! Hey! Carrianne!”
The bloodless young girl with the scabbed lip came in out of the sunshine, her
eyes narrowed.
“Wha’?”