The Cuckoo's Calling

As the warehouse door swung closed behind Strike, he heard Somé call to the tomato-haired girl at the desk: “I know what you’re thinking, Trudie. You’re imagining him taking you roughly from behind, aren’t you? Aren’t you, darling? Big rough soldier boy,” and Trudie’s squeal of shocked laughter.

2

CHARLOTTE’S ACCEPTANCE OF STRIKE’S SILENCE was unprecedented. There had been no further calls or texts; she was maintaining the pretense that their last, filthy, volcanic row had changed her irrevocably, stripped away her love and purged her of fury. Strike, however, knew Charlotte as intimately as a germ that had lingered in his blood for fifteen years; knew that her only response to pain was to wound the offender as deeply as possible, no matter what the cost to herself. What would happen if he refused her an audience, and kept refusing? It was the only strategy he had never tried, and all he had left.

Every now and then, when Strike’s resistance was low (late at night, alone on his camp bed) the infection would erupt again: regret and longing would spike, and he saw her at close quarters, beautiful, naked, breathing words of love; or weeping quietly, telling him that she knew she was rotten, ruined, impossible, but that he was the best and truest thing she had ever known. Then, the fact that he was a few pressed buttons away from speaking to her seemed too fragile a barricade against temptation, and he sometimes pulled himself back out of his sleeping bag and hopped in the darkness to Robin’s abandoned desk, switching on the lamp and poring, even for hours, over the case report. Once or twice he placed early-morning calls to Rochelle Onifade’s mobile, but she never answered.

On Thursday morning, Strike returned to the wall outside St. Thomas’s, and waited for three hours in the hope of seeing Rochelle again, but she did not turn up. He had Robin call the hospital, but this time they refused to comment on Rochelle’s non-attendance, and resisted all attempts at getting an address for her.

On Friday morning, Strike returned from an outing to Starbucks to find Spanner sitting not on the sofa beside Robin’s desk, but on the desk itself. He had an unlit roll-up in his mouth, and was leaning over her, apparently being more amusing than Strike had ever found him, because Robin was laughing in the slightly grudging manner of a woman who is entertained, but who wishes, nevertheless, to make it clear that the goal is well defended.

“Morning, Spanner,” said Strike, but the faintly repressive quality of his greeting did nothing to moderate either the computer specialist’s ardent body language or his broad smile.

“All right, Fed? Brought your Dell back for you.”

“Great. Double decaff latte,” Strike told Robin, setting the drink down beside her. “No charge,” he added, as she reached for her purse.

She was touchingly averse to charging minor luxuries to petty cash. Robin made no objection in front of their guest, but thanked Strike, and turned again to her work, which involved a small clockwise swivel of her desk chair, away from the two men.

The flare of a match turned Strike’s attention from his own double espresso to his guest.

“This is a non-smoking office, Spanner.”

“What? You smoke like a fucking chimney.”

“Not in here I don’t. Follow me.”

Strike led Spanner into his own office and closed the door firmly behind him.

“She’s engaged,” he said, taking his usual seat.

“Wasting my powder, am I? Ah well. Put in a word for me if the engagement goes down the pan; she’s just my type.”

“I don’t think you’re hers.”

Spanner grinned knowingly.

“Already queuing, are you?”

“No,” said Strike. “I just know her fiancé’s a rugby-playing accountant. Clean-cut, square-jawed Yorkshireman.”

He had formed a surprisingly clear mental image of Matthew, though he had never seen a photograph.

“You never know; she might fancy rebounding on to something a bit edgier,” said Spanner, swinging Lula Landry’s laptop on to the desk and sitting down opposite Strike. He was wearing a slightly tatty sweatshirt and Jesus sandals on bare feet; it was the warmest day of the year so far. “I’ve had a good look at this piece of crap. How much technical detail do you want?”

“None; but I need to know that you could explain it clearly in court.”

Spanner looked, for the first time, truly intrigued.

“You serious?”

“Very. Would you be able to prove to a defending counsel that you know your stuff?”

“ ’Course I could.”

“Then just give me the important bits.”

Spanner hesitated for a moment, trying to read Strike’s expression. Finally he began:

“Password’s Agyeman, and it was reset five days before she died.”

“Spell it?”

Spanner did so, adding, to Strike’s surprise: “It’s a surname. Ghanaian. She bookmarked the homepage of SOAS—School of Oriental and African Studies—and it was on there. Look here.”