The Cuckoo's Calling

note, read once in the depths of his blinding hangover.
    “So,” said Robin, a little breathlessly, “first of all I went along to Russell Square, to SOAS; the School of Oriental and African Studies. That’s what your notes meant, isn’t it?” she added. “I checked a map: it’s walking distance from the British Museum. Isn’t that what all those scribbles meant?”
    Strike nodded again.
    “Well, I went in there and pretended I was writing a dissertation on African politics, and I wanted some information on Professor Agyeman. I ended up speaking to this really helpful secretary in the politics department, who’d actually worked for him, and she gave me loads of information on him, including a bibliography and a brief biography. He studied at SOAS as an undergraduate.”
    “He did?”
    “Yes,” said Robin. “And I got a picture.”
    From inside the notebook she pulled out a photocopy, and passed it across to Strike.
    He saw a black man with a long, high-cheekboned face; close-cropped graying hair and beard and gold-rimmed glasses supported by overlarge ears. He stared at it for several long moments, and when at last he spoke, he said:
    “Christ.”
    Robin waited, elated.
    “Christ,” said Strike again. “When did he die?”
    “Five years ago. The secretary got upset talking about it. She said he was so clever, and the nicest, kindest man. A committed Christian.”
    “Any family?”
    “Yes. He left a widow and a son.”
    “A son,” repeated Strike.
    “Yes,” said Robin. “He’s in the army.”
    “In the army,” said Strike, her deep and doleful echo. “Don’t tell me.”
    “He’s in Afghanistan.”
    Strike got up and started pacing up and down, the picture of Professor Josiah Agyeman in his hand.
    “Didn’t get a regiment, did you? Not that it matters. I can find out,” he said.
    “I did ask,” said Robin, consulting her notes, “but I don’t really understand—is there a regiment called the Sappers or some—”
    “Royal Engineers,” said Strike. “I can check up on all that.”
    He stopped beside Robin’s desk, and stared again at the face of Professor Josiah Agyeman.
    “He was from Ghana originally,” she said. “But the family lived in Clerkenwell until he died.”
    Strike handed her back the picture.
    “Don’t lose that. You’ve done bloody well, Robin.”
    “That’s not all,” she said, flushed, excited and trying to keep from smiling. “I took the train out to Oxford in the afternoon, to the Malmaison. Do you know, they’ve made a hotel out of an old prison?”
    “Really?” said Strike, sinking back on to the sofa.
    “Yes. It’s quite nice, actually. Well, anyway, I thought I’d pretend to be Alison and check whether Tony Landry had left something there or something…”
    Strike sipped his tea, thinking that it was highly implausible that a secretary would be dispatched in person for such an inquiry three months after the event.
    “Anyway, that was a mistake.”
    “Really?” he said, his tone carefully neutral.
    “Yes, because Alison actually did go to the Malmaison on the seventh, to try and find Tony Landry. It was incredibly embarrassing, because one of the girls on reception had been there that day, and she remembered her.”
    Strike lowered his mug.
    “Now that,” he said, “is very interesting indeed.”
    “I know,” said Robin excitedly. “So then I had to think really fast.”
    “Did you tell them your name was Annabel?”
    “No,” she said, on a half-laugh. “I said, well, OK then, I’ll tell the truth, I’m his girlfriend. And I cried a bit.”
    “You cried?”
    “It wasn’t actually that hard,” said Robin, with an air of surprise. “I got right into character. I said I thought he was having an affair.”
    “ Not with Alison? If they’ve seen her, they wouldn’t believe that…”
    “No, but I said I didn’t think he’d really been at the hotel at all…Anyway, I made a bit of a scene and the girl who’d spoken to Alison took me aside and tried to calm me down; she said they couldn’t give out information about people without a good reason, they had a policy, blah blah…you know. But just to stop me crying, in the end she told me that he had checked in on the evening of the sixth, and checked out on the morning of the eighth. He made a fuss about being given the wrong newspaper while he was checking out, that’s why she remembered. So he was definitely there. I even asked her a bit, you know, hysterically,