The Cuckoo's Calling

Strike had never moved in the kinds of circles that dined at Cipriani. It was only as he walked up Davies Street, the sun warm on his back and imparting a ruddy glow to the red-brick building ahead, that he thought how odd it would be, yet not unlikely, if he ran into one of his half-siblings there. Restaurants like Cipriani were part of the regular lives of Strike’s father’s legitimate children. He had last heard from three of them while in Selly Oak Hospital, undergoing physiotherapy. Gabi and Danni had jointly sent flowers; Al had visited once, laughing too loudly and scared of looking at the lower end of the bed. Afterwards, Charlotte had imitated Al braying and wincing. She was a good mimic. Nobody ever expected a girl that beautiful to be funny, yet she was.

The interior of the restaurant had an art deco feeling, the bar and chairs of mellow polished wood, with pale yellow tablecloths on the circular tables and white-jacketed, bow-tied waiters and waitresses. Strike spotted his client immediately among the clattering, jabbering diners, sitting at a table set for four and talking, to Strike’s surprise, to two women instead of one, both with long, glossy brown hair. Bristow’s rabbity face was full of the desire to please, or perhaps placate.

The lawyer jumped up to greet Strike when he saw him, and introduced Tansy Bestigui, who held out a thin, cool hand, but did not smile, and her sister, Ursula May, who did not hold out a hand at all. While the preliminaries of ordering drinks and handing around menus were navigated, Bristow nervous and over-talkative throughout, the sisters subjected Strike to the kind of brazenly critical stares that only people of a certain class feel entitled to give.

They were both as pristine and polished as life-size dolls recently removed from their cellophane boxes; rich-girl thin, almost hipless in their tight jeans, with tanned faces that had a waxy sheen especially noticeable on their foreheads, their long, gleaming dark manes with center partings, the ends trimmed with spirit-level exactitude.

When Strike finally chose to look up from his menu, Tansy said, without preamble:

“Are you really” (she pronounced it “rarely”) “Jonny Rokeby’s son?”

“So the DNA test said,” he replied.

She seemed uncertain whether he was being funny or rude. Her dark eyes were fractionally too close together, and the Botox and fillers could not smooth away the petulance in her expression.

“Listen, I’ve just been telling John,” she said curtly. “I’m not going public again, OK? I’m perfectly happy to tell you what I heard, because I’d love you to prove I was right, but you mustn’t tell anyone I’ve talked to you.”

The unbuttoned neck of her thin silk shirt revealed an expanse of butterscotch skin stretched over her bony sternum, giving an unattractively knobbly effect; yet two full, firm breasts jutted from her narrow ribcage, as though they had been borrowed for the day from a fuller-figured friend. “We could have met somewhere more discreet,” commented Strike.

“No, it’s fine, because nobody here will know who you are. You don’t look anything like your father, do you? I met him at Elton’s last summer. Freddie knows him. D’you see much of Jonny?”

“I’ve met him twice,” said Strike.

“Oh,” said Tansy.

The monosyllable contained equal parts of surprise and disdain.

Charlotte had had friends like this; sleek-haired, expensively educated and clothed, all of them appalled by her strange yen for the enormous, battered-looking Strike. He had come up against them for years, by phone and in person, with their clipped vowels and their stockbroker husbands, and the brittle toughness Charlotte had never been able to fake.

“I don’t think she should be talking to you at all,” said Ursula abruptly. Her tone and expression would have been appropriate had Strike been a waiter who had just thrown aside his apron and joined them, uninvited, at the table. “I think you’re making a big mistake, Tanz.”

Bristow said: “Ursula, Tansy simply—”

“It’s up to me what I do,” Tansy snapped at her sister, as though Bristow had not spoken, as though his chair was empty. “I’m only going to say what I heard, that’s all. It’s all off the record; John’s agreed to that.”

Evidently she too viewed Strike as domestic class. He was irked not only by their tone, but also by the fact that Bristow was giving witnesses assurances without his say-so. How could Tansy’s evidence, which could have come from nobody but her, be kept off the record?

For a few moments all four of them ran their eyes over the culinary options in silence. Ursula was the first to put down her menu. She had already finished a glass of wine. She helped herself to another, and glanced restlessly around the restaurant, her eyes lingering for a second on a blonde minor royal, before passing on.

“This place used to be full of the most fabulous people, even at lunchtime. Cyprian only ever wants to go to bloody Wiltons, with all the other stiffs in suits…”

“Is Cyprian your husband, Mrs. May?” asked Strike.

He guessed that it would needle her if he crossed what she evidently saw as an invisible line between them; she did not think that sitting at a table with her gave him a right to her conversation. She scowled, and Bristow rushed to fill the uncomfortable pause.

“Yes, Ursula’s married to Cyprian May, one of our senior partners.”

“So I’m getting the family discount on my divorce,” said Tansy, with a slightly bitter smile.

“And her ex will go absolutely ballistic if she starts dragging the press back into their lives,” Ursula said, her dark eyes boring into Strike’s. “They’re trying to thrash out a settlement. It could seriously prejudice her alimony if that all kicks off again. So you’d better be discreet.”

With a bland smile, Strike turned to Tansy:

“You had a connection with Lula Landry, then, Mrs. Bestigui? Your brother-in-law works with John?”

“It never came up,” she said, looking bored.

The waiter returned to take their orders. When he had left, Strike took out his notebook and pen.

“What are you doing with those?” demanded Tansy, in a sudden panic. “I don’t want anything written down! John?” she appealed to Bristow, who turned to Strike with a flustered and apologetic expression.

“D’you think you could just listen, Cormoran, and, ah, skip the note-taking?”

“No problem,” said Strike easily, removing his mobile phone from his pocket and replacing the notebook and pen. “Mrs. Bestigui—”

“You can call me Tansy,” she said, as though this concession made up for her objections to the notebook.

“Thanks very much,” said Strike, with the merest trace of irony. “How well did you know Lula?”

“Oh, hardly at all. She was only there for three months. It was just ‘Hi’ and ‘Nice day.’ She wasn’t interested in us, we weren’t nearly hip enough for her. It was a bore, to be honest, having her there. Paps outside the front door all the time. I had to put on makeup even to go to the gym.”

“Isn’t there a gym in the building?” asked Strike.

“I do Pilates with Lindsey Parr,” said Tansy, irritably. “You sound like Freddie; he was always complaining that I didn’t use the facilities at the flat.”

“And how well did Freddie know Lula?”

“Hardly at all, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. He had some idea about luring her into acting; he kept trying to invite her downstairs. She never came, though. And he followed her to Dickie Carbury’s house, the weekend before she died, while I was away with Ursula.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Bristow, looking startled.

Strike noticed Ursula’s quick smirk at her sister. He had the impression that she had been looking for an exchange of complicit glances, but Tansy did not oblige.

“I didn’t know until later,” Tansy told Bristow. “Yah, Freddie cadged an invitation from Dickie; there was a whole group of them there: Lula, Evan Duffield, Ciara Porter, all that tabloidy, druggie, trendy gang. Freddie must have stuck out like a sore thumb. I know he’s

not much older than Dickie, but he looks ancient,” she added spitefully.

“What did your husband tell you about the weekend?”

“Nothing. I only found out he’d been there weeks later, because Dickie let it slip. I’m sure Freddie went to try and make up to Lula, though.”

“Do you mean,” asked Strike, “that he was interested in Lula sexually, or…?”

“Oh yah, I’m sure he was; he’s always liked dark girls better than blondes. What he really loves, though, is getting a bit of celebrity meat into his films. He drives directors mad, trying to crowbar in celebrities, to get a bit of extra press. I’ll bet he was hoping to get her signed up for a film, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Tansy added, with unexpected shrewdness, “if he had something planned around her and Deeby Macc. Imagine the press, with the fuss there was already about the two of them. Freddie’s got a genius for that stuff. He loves publicity for his films as much as he hates it for himself.”

“Does he know Deeby Macc?”

“Not unless they’ve met since we separated. He hadn’t met Macc before Lula died. God, he was thrilled that Macc was coming to stay in the building; he started talking about casting him the moment he heard.”

“Casting him as what?”

“I don’t know,” she said irritably. “Anything. Macc’s got a huge following; Freddie wasn’t going to pass that chance up. He’d probably have had a part written specially for him if he’d been interested. Oh, he would have been all over him. Telling him all about his pretend black grandmother.” Tansy’s voice was contemptuous. “That’s what he always does when he meets famous black people: tells them he’s a quarter Malay. Yeah, whatever, Freddie.”

“Isn’t he a quarter Malay?” asked Strike.

She gave a snide little laugh.

“I don’t know; I never met any of Freddie’s grandparents, did I? He’s about a hundred years old. I know he’ll say anything if he thinks there’s money in it.”

“Did anything ever come of these plans to get Lula and Macc into his films, as far as you’re aware?”

“Well, I’m sure Lula was flattered to be asked; most of these model girls are dying to prove they can do something other than stare into a camera, but she never signed up to anything, did she, John?”

“Not as far as I know,” said Bristow. “Although…but that was something different,” he mumbled, turning blotchily pink again. He hesitated, then, responding to Strike’s interrogative gaze, he said:

“Mr. Bestigui visited my mother a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue. She’s exceptionally poorly, and…well, I wouldn’t want to…”

His glance at Tansy was uncomfortable.

“Say what you like, I don’t care,” she said, with what seemed like genuine indifference.

Bristow made the strange jutting and sucking movement that temporarily hid the hamsterish teeth.

“Well, he wanted to talk to my mother about a film of Lula’s life. He, ah, framed his visit as something considerate and sensitive. Asking for her family’s blessing, official sanction, you know. Lula dead barely three months…Mum was distressed beyond measure. Unfortunately, I was not there when he called,” said Bristow, and his tone implied that he was generally to be found standing guard over his mother. “I wish, in a way, I had been. I wish I’d heard him out. I mean, if he’s got researchers working on Lula’s life story, much as I deplore the idea, he might know something, mightn’t he?”

“What kind of thing?” asked Strike.

“I don’t know. Something about her early life, perhaps? Before she came to us?”

The waiter arrived to place starters in front of them all. Strike waited until he had gone, and then asked Bristow:

“Have you tried to speak to Mr. Bestigui yourself, and find out whether he knew anything about Lula that the family didn’t?”

“That’s just what’s so difficult,” said Bristow. “When Tony—my uncle—heard what had happened, he contacted Mr. Bestigui to protest about him badgering my mother, and from what I’ve heard, there was a very heated argument. I don’t think Mr. Bestigui would welcome further contact from the family. Of course, the situation’s further complicated by the fact that Tansy is using our firm for the divorce. I mean, there’s nothing in that—we’re one of the top family law firms, and with Ursula being married to Cyprian, naturally she would come to us…But I’m sure it won’t have made Mr. Bestigui feel any more kindly towards us.”

Though he had kept his gaze on the lawyer all the time that Bristow was talking, Strike’s peripheral vision was excellent. Ursula had thrown another tiny smirk in her sister’s direction. He wondered what was amusing her. Doubtless her improved mood was not hindered by the fact that she was now on her fourth glass of wine.

Strike finished his starter and turned to Tansy, who was pushing her virtually untouched food around her plate.

“How long had you and your husband been at number eighteen before Lula moved in?”

“About a year.”

“Was there anyone in the middle flat when she arrived?”

“Yah,” said Tansy. “There was an American couple there with their little boy for six months, but they went back to the States not long after she arrived. After that, the property company couldn’t get anyone interested at all. The recession, you know? They cost an arm and a leg, those flats. So it was empty until the record company rented it for Deeby Macc.”

Both she and Ursula were distracted by the sight of a woman passing the table in what, to Strike, appeared to be a crocheted coat of lurid design.

“That’s a Daumier-Cross coat,” said Ursula, her eyes slightly narrowed over her wineglass. “There’s a waiting list of, like, six months…”

“It’s Pansy Marks-Dillon,” said Tansy. “Easy to be on the best-dressed list if your husband’s got fifty mill. Freddie’s the cheapest rich man in the world; I had to hide new stuff from him, or pretend it was fake. He could be such a bore sometimes.”

“You always look wonderful,” said Bristow, pink in the face.

“You’re sweet,” said Tansy Bestigui in a bored voice.

The waiter arrived to clear away their plates.

“What were you saying?” she asked Strike. “Oh, yah, the flats. Deeby Macc coming…except he didn’t. Freddie was furious he never got there, because he’d put roses in his flat. Freddie is such a cheap bastard.”

“How well do you know Derrick Wilson?” Strike asked.

She blinked.

“Well—he’s the security guard; I don’t know him, do I? He seemed all right. Freddie always said he was the best of the bunch.”

“Really? Why was that?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask Freddie. And good luck with that,” she added, with a little laugh. “Freddie’ll talk to you when hell freezes over.”

“Tansy,” said Bristow, leaning in a little, “why don’t you just tell Cormoran what you actually heard that night?”

Strike would have preferred Bristow not to intervene.

“Well,” said Tansy. “It was getting on for two in the morning, and I wanted a drink of water.”

Her tone was flat and expressionless. Strike noticed that, even in this small beginning, she had altered the story she had told the police.

“So I went to the bathroom to get one, and as I was heading back across the sitting room, towards the bedroom, I heard shouting. She—Lula—was saying, ‘It’s too late, I’ve already done it,’ and then a man said, ‘You’re a lying fucking bitch,’ and then—and then he threw her over. I actually saw her fall.”

And Tansy made a tiny jerky movement with her hands that Strike understood to indicate flailing.

Bristow set down his glass, looking nauseated. Their main courses arrived. Ursula drank more wine. Neither Tansy nor Bristow touched their food. Strike picked up his fork and began to eat, trying not to look as though he was enjoying his puntarelle with anchovies.

“I screamed,” whisp

ered Tansy. “I couldn’t stop screaming. I ran out of the flat, past Freddie, and downstairs. I just wanted to tell security that there was a man up there, so they could get him.

“Wilson came dashing out of the room behind the desk. I told him what had happened and he went straight out on to the street to see her, instead of running upstairs. Bloody fool. If only he’d gone upstairs first, he might have caught him! Then Freddie came down after me, and started trying to make me go back to our flat, because I wasn’t dressed.

“Then Wilson came back, and told us she was dead, and told Freddie to call the police. Freddie virtually dragged me back upstairs—I was completely hysterical—and he dialed 999 from our sitting room. And then the police came. And nobody believed a single word I said.”

She sipped her wine again, set down the glass and said quietly:

“If Freddie knew I was talking to you, he’d go ape.”

“But you’re quite sure, aren’t you, Tansy,” Bristow interjected, “that you heard a man up there?”

“Yah, of course I am,” said Tansy. “I’ve just said, haven’t I? There was definitely someone there.”

Bristow’s mobile rang.

“Excuse me,” he muttered. “Alison…yes?” he said, picking up.