The Cuckoo's Calling (19 page)

Robin did not know where the invention was coming from; she felt inspired. Stepping out of her jumper and skirt, she began to wriggle into a clinging poison-green dress. Sandra was becoming real to her as she talked: a little spoiled, somewhat bored, confiding in her sister-in-law over wine that her brother (a banker, Robin thought, though Strike did not really look like her idea of a banker) had no taste at all.

“So she said to me, take him to Vashti and get him to crack open his wallet. Oh yes, this is nice.”

It was more than nice. Robin stared at her own reflection; she had never worn anything so beautiful in her life. The green dress was magically constructed to shrink her waist to nothingness, to carve her figure into flowing curves, to elongate her pale neck. She was a serpentine goddess in glittering viridian, and the assistants were all murmuring and gasping their appreciation.

“How much?” Robin asked the redhead.

“Two thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine,” said the girl.

“Nothing to him,” said Robin airily, striding out through the curtains to show Strike, whom they found examining a pile of gloves on a circular table.

His only comment on the green dress was “Yeah.” He had barely looked at her.

“Well, maybe it’s not Sandra’s color,” said Robin, with a sudden feeling of embarrassment; Strike was not, after all, her brother or her boyfriend; she had perhaps taken invention too far, parading in front of him in a skintight dress. She retreated into the changing room.

Stripped again to bra and pants she said:

“The last time Sandra was here, Lula Landry was in your café. Sandra said she was gorgeous in the flesh. Even better than in pictures.”

“Oh yeah, she was,” agreed the pink-haired girl, who was clutching to her chest the gold jacket she had fetched. “She used to be in here all the time, we used to see her every week. Do you want to try this?”

“She was in here the day before she died,” said the cotton candy–haired girl, helping Robin to wriggle into the gold jacket. “In this changing room, actually in this one.”

“Really?” said Robin.

“It’s not going to close over the bust, but it looks great open,” said the redhead.

“No, that’s no good, Sandra’s a bit bigger than me, if anything,” said Robin, ruthlessly sacrificing her fictional sister-in-law’s figure. “I’ll try that black dress. Did you say Lula Landry was here actually the day before she died?”

“Oh yeah,” said the girl with pink hair. “It was so sad, really so sad. You heard her, didn’t you, Mel?”

The tattooed redhead, who was holding up a black dress with lace inserts, made an indeterminate noise. Watching her in the mirror, Robin saw no eagerness to talk about what she had, whether deliberately or accidentally, overheard.

“She was speaking to Duffield, wasn’t she, Mel?” prompted the chatty pink-haired girl.

Robin saw Mel frown. Tattoos notwithstanding, Robin had the impression that Mel might well be the other two girls’ senior. She seemed to feel that discretion about what took place in these cream silk tents was part of her job, whereas the other two bubbled with the desire to recount gossip, particularly to a woman who seemed so eager to spend her rich brother’s money.

“It must be impossible not to hear what goes on in these—these tent things,” Robin commented, a little breathlessly, as she was inched into the lacy black dress by the combined efforts of the three assistants.

Mel unbent slightly.

“Yeah, it is. And people just come in here and start mouthing off about whatever they fancy. You can’t help overhearing stuff through this,” she said, pointing towards the stiff curtain of raw silk.

Now heavily constricted in a lace-and-leather straitjacket, Robin gasped:

“You’d think Lula Landry would be a bit more careful, with the press following her around wherever she went.”

“Yeah,” said the redhead. “You would. I mean, I’d never pass on anything I heard, but some people might.”

Disregarding the fact that she had evidently shared whatever she’d heard with her colleagues, Robin expressed appreciation for this rare sense of decency.

“I suppose you had to tell the police, though?” she said, pulling the dress straight and bracing herself for the raising of the zip.

“The police never came here,” said the girl with cotton candy hair, regret in her voice. “I said Mel should have gone and told them what she’d heard, but she didn’t want to.”

“It wasn’t anything,” said Mel, quickly. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. I mean, he wasn’t there, was he? That was proven.”

Strike had moved as close as he dared to the silk curtain, without arousing suspicious looks from the customers and remaining assistants.

Inside the changing cubicle, the pink-haired girl was heaving on the zip. Slowly Robin’s ribcage was compressed by a hidden boned corset. The listening Strike was disconcerted that her next question was almost a groan.

“D’you mean that Evan Duffield wasn’t at her flat when she died?”

“Yeah,” said Mel. “So it didn’t matter what she was saying to him earlier, did it? He wasn’t there.”

The four women considered Robin’s reflection for a moment.

“I don’t think,” said Robin, observing the way that two thirds of her breasts were squashed flat by the straining material, while the upper slopes overflowed the neckline, “Sandra’s going to fit into this. But don’t you think,” she said, breathing more freely as the cotton candy–haired girl unzipped her, “you ought to have told the police what she said, and let them decide whether it was important?”

“I said that, Mel, didn’t I?” crowed the pink-haired girl. “I told her that.”

Mel was immediately on the defensive.

“But he wasn’t there! He never went to her flat! He must’ve been saying he had something on and he didn’t want to see her, because she was going, ‘Come after, then, I’ll wait up, it don’t matter. I probably won’t be home till one anyway. Please come, please.’ Like, begging him. Anyway, she had her friend in the cubicle with her. Her friend heard everything; she would’ve told the police, wouldn’t she?”

Robin was pulling on the glittering coat again, for something to do. Almost as an afterthought, as she twisted and turned in front of the mirror, she asked:

“And it was definitely Evan Duffield she was talking to, was it?”

“Of course it was,” said Mel, as though Robin had insulted her intelligence. “Who else would she’ve been asking round to her place in the early hours? She sounded desperate to see him.”

“God, his eyes,” said the girl with the cotton candy hair. “He is so gorgeous. And massive charisma in person. He came in here with her once. God, he’s sexy.”

Ten minutes later, Robin having modeled a further two outfits for Strike, and agreed with him in front of the assistants that the sequined coat was the best of the bunch, they decided (with the assistants’ agreement) that she ought to bring Sandra in to have a look at it the following day before they committed themselves. Strike reserved the five-thousand-pound coat under the name of Andrew Atkinson, gave an invented mobile phone number and left the boutique with Robin in a shower of friendly good wishes, as though they had already spent the money.

They walked fifty yards in silence, and Strike had lit up a cigarette before he said:

“Very, very impressive.”

Robin glowed with pride.

STRIKE AND ROBIN PARTED AT
New Bond Street station. Robin took the underground back to the office to call BestFilms, look through online telephone directories for Rochelle Onifade’s aunt, and evade Temporary Solutions (“Keep the door locked” was Strike’s advice).

Strike bought himself a newspaper and caught the underground to Knightsbridge, then walked, having plenty of time to spare, to the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen, which Bristow had chosen for their lunch appointment.

The trip took him across Hyde Park, down leafy walkways and across the sandy bridle path of Rotten Row. He had jotted down the bare bones of the girl called Mel’s evidence on the Tube, and now, in the sun-dappled greenery, his mind drifted, lingering on the memory of Robin as she had looked in the clinging green dress.

He had disconcerted her by his reaction, he knew that; but there had been a weird intimacy about the moment, and intimacy was precisely what he wanted least at the moment, most especially with Robin, bright, professional and considerate as she was. He enjoyed her company and he appreciated the way that she respected his privacy, keeping her curiosity in check. God knew, thought Strike, moving over to avoid a cyclist, he had come across that particular quality rarely enough in life, particularly from women. Yet the fact that he would, quite soon, be free of Robin was an inextricable part of his enjoyment of her presence; the fact that she was going to move on imposed, like her engagement ring, a happy boundary. He liked Robin; he was grateful to her; he was even (after this morning) impressed by her; but, having normal sight and an unimpaired libido, he was also reminded every day she bent over the computer monitor that she was a very sexy girl. Not beautiful; nothing like Charlotte; but attractive, nonetheless. That fact had never been so crudely presented to him as when she walked out of the changing room in the clinging green dress, and in consequence he had literally averted his eyes. He acquitted her of any deliberate provocation, but he was realistic, all the same, about the precarious balance that must be maintained for his own sanity. She was the only human with whom he was in regular contact, and he did not underestimate his current susceptibility; he had also gathered, from certain evasions and hesitations, that her fiancé disliked the fact that she had left the temping agency for this ad hoc agreement. It was safest all round not to let the burgeoning friendship become too warm; best not to admire openly the sight of her figure draped in jersey.

Strike had never been to the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen. It was set on the boating lake, a striking building that was more like a futuristic pagoda than anything he had ever seen. The thick white roof, looking like a giant book that had been placed down on its open pages, was supported by concertinaed glass. A huge weeping willow caressed the side of the restaurant and brushed the water’s surface.

Though it was a cool, breezy day, the view over the lake was splendid in the sunlight. Strike chose an outdoor table right beside the water, ordered a pint of Doom Bar and read his paper.

Bristow was already ten minutes late when a tall, well-made, expensively suited man with foxy coloring stopped beside Strike’s table.

“Mr. Strike?”

In his late fifties, with a full head of hair, a firm jaw and pronounced cheekbones, he looked like an almost-famous actor hired to play a rich businessman in a miniseries. Strike, whose visual memory was highly trained, recognized him immediately from the photographs that Robin had found online as the tall man who had looked as though he deplored his surroundings at Lula Landry’s funeral.

“Tony Landry. John and Lula’s uncle. May I sit down?”

His smile was perhaps the most perfect example of an insincere social grimace that Strike had ever witnessed; a mere baring of even white teeth. Landry eased himself out of his overcoat, draped it over the back of the seat opposite Strike and sat.

“John’s delayed at the office,” he said. The breeze ruffled his hair, showing how it had receded at the temples. “He asked Alison to call you and let you know. I happened to be passing her desk at the time, so I thought I’d come and deliver the message in person. It gives me an opportunity to have a private word with you. I’ve been expecting you to contact me; I know you’re working your way slowly through all my niece’s contacts.”

He slid a pair of steel-rimmed glasses out of his top pocket, put them on and took a moment to consult the menu. Strike drank some beer and waited.

“I hear you’ve been speaking to Mrs. Bestigui?” said Landry, setting down the menu, taking off his glasses again and reinserting them into his suit pocket.

“That’s right,” said Strike.

“Yes. Well, Tansy is undoubtedly well intentioned, but she is doing herself no favors at all by repeating a story the police have proven, conclusively, could not have been true. No favors at all,” repeated Landry portentously. “And so I have told John. His first duty ought to be to the firm’s client, and what is in her best interests.

“I will have the ham hock terrine,” he added to a passing waitress, “and a still water. Bottled. Well,” he continued, “it’s probably best to be direct, Mr. Strike.

“For many reasons, all of them good ones, I am not in favor of raking over the circumstances of Lula’s death. I don’t expect you to agree with me. You make money by digging through the seamy circumstances of family tragedies.”

He flashed his aggressive, humorless smile again.

“I’m not entirely unsympathetic. We all have our livings to make, and no doubt there are plenty of people who would say my profession is just as parasitic as yours. It might be helpful to both of us, though, if I lay certain facts in front of you, facts I doubt John has chosen to disclose.”

“Before we get into that,” said Strike, “what exactly is keeping John at the office? If he isn’t going to make it, I’ll arrange an alternative appointment with him; I’ve got other people to see this afternoon. Is he still trying to sort out this Conway Oates business?”

He knew only what Ursula had told him, that Conway Oates had been an American financier, but this mention of the firm’s dead client had the desired effect. Landry’s pomposity, his desire to control the encounter, his comfortable air of superiority, vanished entirely, leaving him clothed in nothing but temper and shock.

“John hasn’t—can he really have been so…? That is strictly confidential business of the firm!”

“It wasn’t John,” said Strike. “Mrs. Ursula May mentioned that there’s been a bit of trouble around Mr. Oates’s estate.”

Clearly thrown, Landry spluttered, “I am very surprised—I wouldn’t have expected Ursula—Mrs. May…”

“So will John be along at all? Or have you given him something that will keep him busy all through lunch?”

He enjoyed watching Landry wrestle his own temper, trying to regain control of himself and the encounter.

“John will be here shortly,” he said finally. “I hoped, as I said, to be able to lay certain facts in front of you, in private.”

“Right, well, in that case, I’ll need these,” said Strike, removing a notebook and pen from his pocket.

Landry looked quite as put out by the sight of these objects as Tansy had.

“There’s no need to take notes,” he said. “What I’m about to say has no bearing—or at least, no direct bearing—on Lula’s death. That is,” he added pedantically, “it will add nothing to any theory other than that of suicide.”

“All the same,” said Strike, “I like to have my aide-memoire.”

Landry looked as though he would like to protest, but thought better of it.

“Very well, then. Firstly, you should know that my nephew John was deeply affected by his adopted sister’s death.”

“Understandable,” commented Strike, tilting the notebook so that the lawyer could not read it, and writing the words deeply affected, purely to annoy Landry.

“Yes, naturally. And while I would never go so far as to suggest that a private detective refuse a client on the basis that they are under strain, or depressed—as I said, we all have our livings to make—in this case…”

“You think it’s all in his head?”

“That’s not how I’d have phrased it, but bluntly, yes. John has already suffered more sudden bereavements than many people experience in a lifetime. You probably weren’t aware that he’s already lost a brother…”

“Yeah, I knew. Charlie was an old schoolmate of mine. That’s why John hired me.”

Landry contemplated Strike with what seemed to be surprise and disfavor.

“You were at Blakeyfield Prep?”

“Briefly. Before my mother realized she couldn’t afford the fees.”

“I see. I did not know that. Even so, perhaps you’re not fully aware…John has always been—let’s use my sister’s expression for it—highly strung. His parents had to bring in psychologists after Charlie died, you know. I don’t claim to be a mental health expert, but it seems to me that Lula’s passing has, finally, tipped him over the…”

“Unfortunate choice of phrase, but I see what you mean,” said Strike, writing Bristow off rocker. “How exactly has John been tipped over the edge?”

“Well, many would say that instigating this reinvestigation is irrational and pointless,” said Landry.

Strike kept his pen poised over the notepad. For a moment, Landry’s jaws moved as though he was chewing; then he said forcefully:

“Lula was a manic depressive who jumped out of the window after a row with her junkie boyfriend. There is no mystery. It was goddamn awful for all of us, especially her poor bloody mother, but those are the unsavory facts. I’m forced to the conclusion that John is having some kind of breakdown, and, if you don’t mind me speaking frankly…”

“Feel free.”

“…your collusion is perpetuating his unhealthy refusal to accept the truth.”

“Which is that Lula killed herself?”

“A view that is shared by the police, the pathologist and the coroner. John, for reasons that are obscure to me, is determined to prove murder. How he thinks that will make any of us feel any better, I could not tell you.”

“Well,” said Strike, “people close to suicides often feel guilty. They think, however unreasonably, that they might have done more to help. A murder verdict would exonerate the family of any blame, wouldn’t it?”

“None of us has anything to feel guilty about,” said Landry, his tone steely. “Lula received the very best medical care from her early teens, and every material advantage her adoptive family could give her. ‘Spoiled rotten’ might be the phrase best suited to describe my adopted niece, Mr. Strike. Her mother would have literally died for her, and scant repayment she ever received.”

“You thought Lula ungrateful, did you?”

“There’s no need to bloody write that down. Or are those notes destined for some tawdry rag?”

Strike was interested in how completely Landry had jettisoned the suavity he had brought to the table. The waitress arrived with Landry’s food. He did not thank her, but glared at Strike until she had passed on. Then he said:

“You’re poking around where you can only do harm. I was stunned, frankly, when I found out what John was up to. Stunned.”

“Hadn’t he expressed doubts about the suicide theory to you?”

“He’d expressed shock, naturally, like all of us, but I certainly don’t recall any suggestion of murder.”

“Are you close to your nephew, Mr. Landry?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“It might explain why he didn’t tell you what he was thinking.”

“John and I have a perfectly amicable working relationship.”

“ ‘Working relationship’?”

“Yes, Mr. Strike: we work together. Do we live in each other’s pockets outside the office? No. But we are both involved in caring for my sister—Lady Bristow, John’s mother, who is now a terminal case. Our out-of-hours conversations usually concern Yvette.”

“John strikes me as a dutiful son.”

“Yvette’s all he has left now, and the fact that she’s dying isn’t helping his mental condition either.”

“She’s hardly all he’s got left. There’s Alison, isn’t there?”

“I am not aware that that is a very serious relationship.”

“Perhaps one of John’s motives, in employing me, is a desire to give his mother the truth before she dies?”

“The truth won’t help Yvette. Nobody enjoys accepting that they have reaped what they have sown.”

Strike said nothing. As he had expected, the lawyer could not resist the temptation to clarify, and after a moment he continued:

“Yvette has always been morbidly maternal. She adores babies.” He spoke as though this was faintly disgusting, a kind of perversion. “She would have been one of those embarrassing women who have twenty children if she could have found a man of sufficient virility. Thank God Alec was sterile—or hasn’t John mentioned that?”

“He told me Sir Alec Bristow wasn’t his natural father, if that’s what you mean.”

If Landry was disappointed not to be first with the information, he rallied at once.

“Yvette and Alec adopted the two boys, but she had no idea how to manage them. She is, quite simply, an atrocious mother. No control, no discipline; complete overindulgence and a point-blank refusal to see what is under her nose. I don’t say it was all down to her parenting—who knows what the genetic influences were—but John was whiny, histrionic and clingy and Charlie was completely delinquent, with the result—”

Landry stopped talking abruptly, patches of color high in his cheeks.

“With the result that he rode over the edge of a quarry?” Strike suggested.

He had said it to watch Landry’s reaction, and was not disappointed. He had the impression of a tunnel contracting, a distant door closing: a shutting down.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, yes. And it was a bit late, then, for Yvette to start screaming and clawing at Alec, and passing out cold on the floor. If she’d had an iota of control, the boy wouldn’t have set out expressly to defy her. I was there,” said Landry, stonily. “On a weekend visit. Easter Sunday. I had been for a walk down to the village, and I came back to find them all looking for him. I headed straight for the quarry. I knew, you see. It was the place he’d been forbidden to go—so there he was.”