The Cuckoo's Calling

Patting the sobbing woman on the back, Robin maneuvered her, by minuscule increments, back into the outer office.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Hook, it’s all right,” she said soothingly, lowering her into the sofa. “Let me get you a cup of tea. It’s all right.”

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Hook,” said Strike formally, from the doorway into his office. “It’s never easy to get news like this.”

“I th-thought it was Valerie,” whimpered Mrs. Hook, her disheveled head in her hands, rocking backwards and forwards on the groaning sofa. “I th-thought it was Valerie, n-not my own—n-not my own sister.”

“I’ll get tea!” whispered Robin, appalled.

She was almost out of the door with the kettle when she remembered that she had left Jonny Rokeby’s life story up on the computer monitor. It would look too odd to dart back to switch it off in the middle of this crisis, so she hurried out of the room, hoping that Strike would be too busy with Mrs. Hook to notice.

It took a further forty minutes for Mrs. Hook to drink her second cup of tea and sob her way through half the toilet roll Robin had liberated from the bathroom on the landing. At last she left, clutching the folder full of incriminating photographs, and the index detailing the time and place of their creation, her breast heaving, still mopping her eyes.

Strike waited until she was clear of the end of the street, then went out, humming cheerfully, to buy sandwiches for himself and Robin, which they enjoyed together at her desk. It was the friendliest gesture that he had made during their week together, and Robin was sure that this was because he knew that he would soon be free of her.

“You know I’m going out this afternoon to interview Derrick Wilson?” he asked.

“The security guard who had diarrhea,” said Robin. “Yes.”

“You’ll be gone when I get back, so I’ll sign your time sheet before I go. And listen, thanks for…”

Strike nodded at the now empty sofa.

“Oh, no problem. Poor woman.”

“Yeah. She’s got the good on him anyway. And,” he continued, “thanks for everything you’ve done this week.”

“It’s my job,” said Robin lightly.

“If I could afford a secretary…but I expect you’ll end up pulling down a serious salary as some fat cat’s PA.”

Robin felt obscurely offended.

“That’s not the kind of job I want,” she said.

There was a slightly strained silence.

Strike was undergoing a small internal struggle. The prospect of Robin’s desk being empty next week was a gloomy one; he found her company pleasantly undemanding, and her efficiency refreshing; but it would surely be pathetic, not to mention profligate, to pay for companionship, as though he were some rich, sickly Victorian magnate? Temporary Solutions were rapacious in their demand for commission; Robin was a luxury he could not afford. The fact that she had not questioned him about his father (for Strike had noticed Jonny Rokeby’s Wikipedia entry on the computer monitor) had impressed him further in her favor, for this showed unusual restraint, and was a standard by which he often judged new acquaintances. But it could make no difference to the cold practicalities of the situation: she had to go.

And yet he was close to feeling about her as he had felt towards a grass snake that he had succeeded in trapping in Trevaylor Woods when he was eleven, and about which he had had a long, pleading argument with his Auntie Joan: “Please let me keep it…please…”

“I’d better get going,” he said, after he had signed her time sheet, and thrown his sandwich wrappers and his empty water bottle into the bin underneath her desk. “Thanks for everything, Robin. Good luck with the job hunt.”

He took down his overcoat, and left through the glass door.

At the top of the stairs, on the precise spot where he had both nearly killed and then saved her, he came to a halt. Instinct was clawing at him like an importuning dog.

The glass door banged open behind him and he turned. Robin was pink in the face.

“Look,” she said. “We could come to a private arrangement. We could cut out Temporary Solutions, and you could pay me directly.”

He hesitated.

“They don’t like that, temping agencies. You’ll be drummed out of the service.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got three interviews for permanent jobs next week. If you’d be OK about me taking time off to go to them—”

“Yeah, no problem,” he said, before he could stop himself.

“Well then, I could stay for another week or two.”

A pause. Sense entered into a short, violent skirmish with instinct and inclination, and was overwhelmed.

“Yeah…all right. Well, in that case, will you try Freddie Bestigui again?”

“Yes, of course,” said Robin, masking her glee under a show of calm efficiency.

“I’ll see you Monday afternoon, then.”

It was the first grin he had ever dared give her. He supposed he ought to be annoyed with himself, and yet Strike stepped out into the cool early afternoon with no feeling of regret, but rather a curious sense of renewed optimism.

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