The Cuckoo's Calling(145)

“Are you all right?” shouted the Macmillan nurse, gazing down at him over the banisters, her face comically inverted.

“I’m fine—fine!” he shouted back. “Slipped! Don’t worry! Fuck, f*ck, f*ck,” he moaned under his breath, as he pulled himself back to his feet on the newel post, scared to put his full weight on the prosthesis.

He limped downstairs, leaning on the banisters as much as possible; half hopped across the lobby floor and hung on the heavy front door as he maneuvered himself out on to the front steps.

The sporting children were receding in a distant crocodile, pale and navy blue, winding their way back to their school and lunch. Strike stood leaning against warm brick, cursing himself fluently and wondering what damage he had done. The pain was excruciating, and the skin that had already been irritated felt as though it had been torn; it burned beneath the gel pad that was supposed to protect it, and the idea of walking all the way to the underground was miserably unappealing.

He sat down on the top step and phoned a taxi, after which he made a further series of calls, firstly to Robin, then to Wardle, then to the offices of Landry, May, Patterson.

The black cab swung around the corner. For the very first time, it occurred to Strike how like miniature hearses they were, these stately black vehicles, as he hoisted himself upright and limped, in escalating pain, down to the pavement.





Part Five

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.



Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things

Virgil, Georgics, Book 2





1



“I’D HAVE THOUGHT,” SAID ERIC Wardle slowly, looking down at the will in its plastic pocket, “you’d have wanted to show this to your client first.”

“I would, but he’s in Rye,” said Strike, “and this is urgent. I’ve told you, I’m trying to prevent two more murders. We’re dealing with a maniac here, Wardle.”

He was sweating with pain. Even as he sat here, in the sunlit window of the Feathers, urging the policeman to action, Strike was wondering whether he might have dislocated his knee or fractured the small amount of tibia left to him in the fall down Yvette Bristow’s stairwell. He had not wanted to start fiddling with his leg in the taxi, which was now waiting for him at the curb outside. The meter was eating steadily away at the advance Bristow had paid him, of which he would never receive another installment, for today would see an arrest, if only Wardle would rouse himself.

“I grant you, this might show motive…”

“Might?” repeated Strike. “Might? Ten million might constitute a motive? For f*ck’s—”

“…but I need evidence that’ll stand up in court, and you haven’t brought me any of that.”

“I’ve just told you where you can find it! Have I been wrong yet? I told you it was a f*cking will, and there,” Strike jabbed the plastic sleeve, “it f*cking is. Get a warrant!”

Wardle rubbed the side of his handsome face as though he had toothache, frowning at the will.

“Jesus Christ,” said Strike, “how many more times? Tansy Bestigui was on the balcony, she heard Landry say ‘I’ve already done it’…”

“You put yourself on very thin ice there, mate,” said Wardle. “Defense makes mincemeat of lying to suspects. When Bestigui finds out there aren’t any photos, he’s going to deny everything.”

“Let him. She won’t. She’s ripe to tell anyway. But if you’re too much of a * to do anything about this, Wardle,” said Strike, who could feel cold sweat on his back and a fiery pain in what remained of his right leg, “and anyone else who was close to Landry turns up dead, I’m gonna go straight to the f*cking press. I’ll tell them I gave you every bit of information I had, and that you had every f*cking chance to bring this killer in. I’ll make up my fee in selling the rights to my story, and you can pass that message on to Carver for me.

“Here,” he said, pushing across the table a piece of torn paper, on which he had scribbled several six-figure numbers. “Try them first. Now get a f*cking warrant.”

He pushed the will across the table to Wardle and slid off the high bar stool. The walk from the pub to the taxi was agony. The more pressure he put on his right leg, the more excruciating the pain became.





Robin had been calling Strike every ten minutes since one o’clock, but he had not picked up. She rang again as he was climbing, with enormous difficulty, up the metal stairs towards the office, heaving himself up with the use of his arms. She heard his ringtone echoing up the stairwell, and hurried out on to the top landing.

“There you are! I’ve been calling and calling, there’s been loads…What’s the matter, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“No you’re…What’s happened to you?”

She hastened down the stairs towards him. He was white, and sweaty, and looked, in Robin’s opinion, as though he might be sick.

“Have you been drinking?”

“No I haven’t been bloody drinking!” he snapped. “I’ve—sorry, Robin. In a bit of pain here. I just need to sit down.”

“What’s happened? Let me…”