The Cuckoo's Calling(41)

When he had decided that the streets surrounding Barrack had no more to tell him, Strike continued on foot, making notes of yellow lines in the vicinity, of Friday-night parking restrictions and of those establishments nearby that also had their own security cameras. His notes complete, he felt that he had earned a cup of tea and a bacon roll on expenses, both of which he enjoyed in a small café, while reading an abandoned copy of the Daily Mail.

His mobile rang as he was starting his second cup of tea, halfway through a gleeful account of the Prime Minister’s gaffe in calling an elderly female voter “bigoted” without realizing that his microphone was still turned on.

A week ago, Strike had allowed his unwanted temp’s calls to go to voicemail. Today, he picked up.

“Hi, Robin, how’re you?”

“Fine. I’m just calling to give you your messages.”

“Fire away,” said Strike, as he drew out a pen.

“Alison Cresswell’s just called—John Bristow’s secretary—to say she’s booked a table at Cipriani at one o’clock tomorrow, so that he can introduce you to Tansy Bestigui.”

“Great.”

“I’ve tried Freddie Bestigui’s production company again. They’re getting irritated. They say he’s in LA. I’ve left another request for him to call you.”

“Good.”

“And Peter Gillespie’s telephoned again.”

“Uh huh,” said Strike.

“He says it’s urgent, and could you please get back to him as soon as possible.”

Strike considered asking her to call Gillespie back and tell him to go and f*ck himself.

“Yeah, will do. Listen, could you text me the address of the night-club Uzi?”

“Right.”

“And try and find a number for a bloke called Guy Somé? He’s a designer.”

“It’s pronounced ‘ghee,’ ” said Robin.

“What?”

“His Christian name. It’s pronounced the French way: ‘Ghee.’ ”

“Oh, right. Well, could you try and find a contact number for him?”

“Fine,” said Robin.

“Ask him if he’d be prepared to talk to me. Leave a message saying who I am, and who’s hired me.”

“Fine.”

It was borne in on Strike that Robin’s tone was frosty. After a second or two, he thought he might know why.

“By the way, thanks for that text you sent yesterday,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you; it would have looked strange if I’d started texting, where I was. But if you could call Nigel Clements, Duffield’s agent, and ask for an appointment, that would be great too.”

Her animosity fell away at once, as he had meant it to; her voice was many degrees warmer when she spoke again; verging, in fact, on excited.

“But Duffield can’t have had anything to do with it, can he? He had a cast-iron alibi!”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” said Strike, deliberately ominous. “And listen, Robin, if another death threat comes in—they usually arrive on Mondays…”

“Yes?” she said eagerly.

“File it,” said Strike.

He could not be sure—it seemed unlikely; she struck him as so prim—but he thought he heard her mutter, “Sod you, then,” as she hung up.

Strike spent the rest of the day engaged in tedious but necessary spadework. When Robin had texted him the address, he visited his second nightclub of the day, this time in South Kensington. The contrast with Barrack was extreme; Uzi’s discreet entrance might have been to a smart private house. There were security cameras over its doors, too. Strike then took a bus to Charles Street, where he was fairly sure Guy Somé lived, and walked what he guessed to be the most direct route between the designer’s address and the house where Landry had died.

His leg was aching badly again by late afternoon, and he stopped for a rest and more sandwiches before setting out for the Feathers, near Scotland Yard, and his appointment with Eric Wardle.

It was another Victorian pub, this time with enormous windows reaching almost from floor to ceiling, looking out on to a great gray 1920s building decorated with statues by Jacob Epstein. The nearest of these sat over the doors, and stared down through the pub windows; a fierce seated deity was being embraced by his infant son, whose body was weirdly twisted back on itself, to show his genitalia. Time had eroded all shock value.

Inside the Feathers, machines were clinking and jingling and flashing primary-colored lights; the wall-mounted plasma TVs, surrounded with padded leather, were showing West Bromwich Albion versus Chelsea with the sound off, while Amy Winehouse throbbed and moaned from hidden speakers. The names of ales were painted on the cream wall above the long bar, which faced a wide dark-wood staircase with curving steps and shining brass handrails, leading up to the first floor.

Strike had to wait to be served, giving him time to look around. The place was full of men, most of whom had military-short hair; but a trio of girls with tangerine tans stood around a high table, throwing back their over-straightened peroxide hair, in their tiny, tight spangled dresses, shifting their weight unnecessarily on their teetering heels. They were pretending not to know that the only solitary drinker, a handsome, boyish man in a leather jacket, who was sitting on a high bar seat beside the nearby window, was examining them, point by point, with a practiced eye. Strike bought himself a pint of Doom Bar and approached their appraiser.