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Back The Cuckoo's Calling Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. COPYRIGHT
  2. The Cuckoo’s Calling
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Prologue
  6. Three Months Later
  7. Part One
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. 7
  15. Part Two
  16. 1
  17. 2
  18. 3
  19. 4
  20. 5
  21. 6
  22. 7
  23. 8
  24. 9
  25. 10
  26. 11
  27. Part Three
  28. 1
  29. 2
  30. 3
  31. 4
  32. 5
  33. 6
  34. 7
  35. 8
  36. 9
  37. 10
  38. Part Four
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. 13
  52. 14
  53. Part Five
  54. 1
  55. 2
  56. Epilogue
  57. Ten Days Later

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 candy-floss 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 modelled a further two outfits for Strike, and agreed with him in front of the assistants that the sequinned 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.

5

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.