The Cuckoo's Calling(92)
“Do me a favor,” said Strike, when he had finished trawling through all two hundred and twelve pictures. “Go through these for me, and try and at least identify the famous people, so we can make a start on finding out who might have wanted the photos off her laptop.”
“But there’s nothing incriminating here at all,” said Robin.
“There must be,” said Strike.
He returned to his inner office, where he placed calls to John Bristow (in a meeting, and not to be disturbed; “Please get him to call me as soon as you can”), to Eric Wardle (voicemail: “I’ve got a question about Lula Landry’s laptop”) and to Rochelle Onifade (on the off-chance; no answer; no chance of leaving a message: “Voicemail full.”)
“I’m still having no luck with Mr. Bestigui,” Robin told Strike, when he emerged from his inner office to find her performing searches related to an unidentified brunette posing with Lula on a beach. “I phoned again this morning, but he just won’t call me back. I’ve tried everything; I’ve pretended to be all sorts of people, I’ve said it’s urgent—what’s funny?”
“I was just wondering why none of these people who keep interviewing you have offered you a job,” said Strike.
“Oh,” said Robin, blushing faintly. “They have. All of them. I’ve accepted the human resources one.”
“Oh. Right,” said Strike. “You didn’t say. Congratulations.”
“Sorry, I thought I’d told you,” lied Robin.
“So you’ll be leaving…when?”
“Two weeks.”
“Ah. I expect Matthew’s pleased, is he?”
“Yes,” she said, slightly taken aback, “he is.”
It was almost as if Strike knew how little Matthew liked her working for him; but that was impossible; she had been careful not to give the slightest hint of the tensions at home.
The telephone rang, and Robin answered it.
“Cormoran Strike’s office?…Yes, who’s speaking, please?…It’s Derrick Wilson,” she told him, passing over the receiver.
“Derrick, hi.”
“Mister Bestigui’s gone away for a coupla days,” said Wilson’s voice. “If you wanna come an’ look at the building…”
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” said Strike.
He was on his feet, checking his pockets for wallet and keys, when he became aware of Robin’s slight air of dejection, though she was continuing to pore over the unincriminating photographs.
“D’you want to come?”
“Yes!” she said gleefully, seizing her handbag and closing down her computer.
3
THE HEAVY BLACK-PAINTED FRONT door of number 18, Kentigern Gardens, opened on to a marbled lobby. Directly opposite the entrance was a handsome built-in mahogany desk, to the right of which was the staircase, which turned immediately out of sight (marble steps, with a brass and wood handrail); the entrance to the lift, with its burnished gold doors, and a solid dark-wood door set into the white-painted wall. On a white cubic display unit in the corner between this and the front doors was a vast display of deep pink oriental lilies in tall tubular vases, their scent heavy on the warm air. The left-hand wall was mirrored, doubling the apparent size of the space, reflecting the staring Strike and Robin, the lift doors and the modern chandelier hung in cubes of crystal overhead, and lengthening the security desk to a vast stretch of polished wood.
Strike remembered Wardle: “Flats done up with marble and shit like…like a f*cking five-star hotel.” Beside him, Robin was trying not to look impressed. This, then, was how multimillionaires lived. She and Matthew occupied the lower floor of a semidetached house in Clapham; its sitting room was the same size as that designated for the off-duty guards, which Wilson showed them first. There was just enough room for a table and two chairs; a wall-mounted box contained all the master keys, and another door led into a tiny toilet cubicle.
Wilson was wearing a black uniform that was constabular in design, with its brass buttons, black tie and white shirt.
“Monitors,” he pointed out to Strike as they emerged from the back room and paused behind the desk, where a row of four small black-and-white screens was hidden from guests. One showed footage from the camera over the front door, affording a circumscribed view of the street; another displayed a similarly deserted view of an underground car park; a third the empty back garden of number 18, which comprised lawn, some fancy planting and the high back wall Strike had hoisted himself up on; and the fourth the interior of the stationary lift. In addition to the monitors, there were two control panels for the communal alarms and those for the doors into the pool and car park, and two telephones, one attached to an outside line, the other connected only to the three flats.
“That,” said Wilson, indicating the solid wooden door, “goes to the gym, the pool an’ the car park,” and at Strike’s request he led them through it.
The gym was small, but mirrored like the lobby, so that it appeared twice as big. It had one window, facing the street, and contained a treadmill, rowing and step machines and a set of weights.
A second mahogany door led to a narrow marble stair, lit by cubic wall lights, which took them on to a small lower landing, where a plain painted door led to the underground car park. Wilson opened it with two keys, a Chubb and a Yale, then flicked a switch. The floodlit area was almost as long as the street itself, full of millions of pounds’ worth of Ferrari, Audi, Bentley, Jaguar and BMW. At twenty-foot intervals along the back wall were doors like the one through which they had just come: inner entrances to each of the houses of Kentigern Gardens. The electric garage doors leading from Serf’s Way were close by number 18, outlined by silvery daylight.