The Cuckoo's Calling

Strike bought a second pint, and then a third. He wanted to drown the impulses, crackling like electrical charges, to go and find her, to bellow, to rampage, to break Jago Ross’s jaw.

He had not eaten at the Ordnance Arms, nor since, and it had been a long time since he had consumed so much alcohol in one sitting. It took him barely an hour of steady, solitary, determined beer consumption to become properly drunk.

Initially, when the slim, pale figure appeared at his table, he told it thickly that it had the wrong man and the wrong table.

“No I haven’t,” said Robin firmly. “I’m just going to get myself a drink too, all right?”

She left him staring hazily at her handbag, which she had placed on the stool. It was comfortingly familiar, brown, a little shabby. She usually hung it up on a coat peg in the office. He gave it a friendly smile, and drank to it.

Up at the bar, the barman, who was young and timid-looking, said to Robin: “I think he’s had enough.”

“That’s hardly my fault,” she retorted.

She had looked for Strike in the Intrepid Fox, which was nearest to the office, in Molly Moggs, the Spice of Life and the Cambridge. The Tottenham had been the last pub she was planning to try.

“Whassamatter?” Strike asked her, when she sat down.

“Nothing’s the matter,” said Robin, sipping her half-lager. “I just wanted to make sure you’re OK.”

“Yez’m fine,” said Strike, and then, with an effort at clarity, “I yam fine.”

“Good.”

“Jus’ celebratin’ my fiancée zengagement,” he said, raising his eleventh pint in an unsteady toast. “She shou’ never’ve left’m. Never,” he said, loudly and clearly, “have. Left. The Hon’ble. Jago Ross. Who is’n outstanding cunt.”

He virtually shouted the last word. There were more people in the pub than when Strike had arrived, and most of them seemed to have heard him. They had been casting him wary looks even before he shouted. The scale of him, with his drooping eyelids and his bellicose expression, had ensured a small no-go zone around him; people skirted his table on the way to the bathrooms as though it was three times the size.

“Shall we take a walk?” Robin suggested. “Get something to eat?”

“D’you know what?” he said, leaning forwards with his elbows on the table, almost knocking over his pint. “D’you know what, Robin?”

“What?” she said, holding his beer steady. She was suddenly possessed of a strong desire to giggle. Many of their fellow drinkers were watching them.

“Y’re a very nice girl,” said Strike. “Y’are. Y’re a very nice p’son. I’ve noticed,” he said, nodding solemnly. “Yes. ’Ve noticed that.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling, trying not to laugh.

He sat back in his seat, closed his eyes and said:

“Sorry. ’M’pissed.”

“Yes.”

“Don’ do it much these days.”

“No.”

“Haven’ eat’n anything.”

“Shall we go and get something to eat, then?”

“Yeah, we c’do,” he said, with his eyes still shut. “She tol’ me she was pregnant.”

“Oh,” said Robin, sadly.

“Yeah. Tol’ me. An’ then sh’said it was gone. Can’t’ve been mine. Nev’ added up.”

Robin said nothing. She did not want him to remember that she had heard this. He opened his eyes.

“She left ’im for me, an’ now she’s left ’im…no, she’s lef’ me fr’im…”

“I’m sorry.”

“…lef’ me fr’im. Don’t be sorry. Y’re a nice person.”

He pulled cigarettes out of his pocket, and inserted one between his lips.

“You can’t smoke in here,” she reminded him gently, but the barman, who seemed to have been waiting for a cue, came hurrying over towards them now, looking tense.

“You need to go outside to do that,” he told Strike loudly.

Strike peered up at the boy, bleary-eyed, surprised.

“It’s all right,” Robin told the barman, gathering up her handbag. “Come on, Cormoran.”

He stood, massive, ungainly, swaying, unfolding himself out of the cramped space behind the table and glaring at the barman, whom Robin could not blame for taking a step backwards.

“There’z no need,” Strike told him, “t’shout. No need. Fuckin’ rude.”

“OK, Cormoran, let’s go,” said Robin, standing back to give him space to pass.

“Juz a moment, Robin,” said Strike, one large hand held aloft. “Juz a moment.”

“Oh God,” said Robin quietly.

“ ’V’ you ever done any boxing?” Strike asked the barman, who looked terrified.

“Cormoran, let’s go.”

“I wuzza boxer. ’Narmy, mate.”

Over at the bar, some wisecracker murmured, “I could’ve been a contender.”

“Let’s go, Cormoran,” said Robin. She took his arm, and to her great relief and surprise he came along meekly. It reminded her of leading the enormous Clydesdale her uncle had kept on his farm.

Out in the fresh air Strike leaned back against one of the Tottenham’s windows and tried, fruitlessly, to light his cigarette; Robin had to work the lighter for him in the end.

“What you need is food,” she told him, as he smoked with his eyes closed, listing slightly so that she was afraid he would fall over. “Sober you up.”

“I don’ wanna sober up,” Strike muttered. He overbalanced and only saved himself from falling with several rapid sidesteps.