The Cuckoo's Calling

laid them carefully on the half-moon table, next to the bowl of potpourri. Strike’s face in the glass was creviced and dirty-looking; his right eye still puffy; yellow and mauve. A voice from seventeen years before came to him in the silence: “How the fuck did a pube-headed trog like you ever pull that, Strike?” And it seemed incredible that he ever had, as he stood there in the hall he would never see again.
    One last moment of madness, the space between heartbeats, like the one that had sent him hurtling after her five days previously: he would stay here, after all, waiting for her to return; then cupping her perfect face in his hands and saying “Let’s try again.”
    But they had already tried, again and again and again, and always, when the first crashing wave of mutual longing subsided, the ugly wreck of the past lay revealed again, its shadow lying darkly over everything they tried to rebuild.
    He closed the front door behind him for the last time. The braying neighbor had vanished. Strike lifted the four boxes down the steps on to the pavement, and waited to hail a black cab.

5
    STRIKE HAD TOLD ROBIN THAT he would be late into the office on her last morning. He had given her the spare key, and told her to let herself in.
    She had been very slightly hurt by his casual use of the word “last.” It told her that however well they had got along, albeit in a guarded and professional way; however much more organized his office was, and how much cleaner the horrible washroom outside the glass door; however much better the bell downstairs looked, without that scrappy piece of paper taped beneath it, but a neatly typed name in the clear plastic holder (it had taken her half an hour, and cost her two broken nails, to prize the cover off); however efficient she had been at taking messages, however intelligently she had discussed the almost certainly nonexistent killer of Lula Landry, Strike had been counting down the days until he could get rid of her.
    That he could not afford a temporary secretary was perfectly obvious. He had only two clients; he seemed (as Matthew kept mentioning, as though sleeping in an office was a mark of terrible depravity) to be homeless; Robin saw, of course, that from Strike’s point of view it made no sense to keep her on. But she was not looking forward to Monday. There would be a strange new office (Temporary Solutions had already telephoned through the address); a neat, bright, bustling place, no doubt, full of gossipy women as most of these offices were, all engaged in activities that meant less than nothing to her. Robin might not believe in a murderer; she knew that Strike did not believe either; but the process of proving one nonexistent fascinated her.
    Robin had found the whole week more exciting than she would ever have confessed to Matthew. All of it, even calling Freddie Bestigui’s production company, BestFilms, twice a day, and receiving repeated refusals to her requests to be put through to the film producer, had given her a sense of importance she had rarely experienced during her working life. Robin was fascinated by the interior workings of other people’s minds: she had been halfway through a psychology degree when an unforeseen incident had finished her university career.
    Half past ten, and Strike had still not returned to the office, but a large woman wearing a nervous smile, an orange coat and a purple knitted beret had arrived. This was Mrs. Hook, a name familiar to Robin because it was that of Strike’s only other client. Robin installed Mrs. Hook on the sagging sofa beside her own desk, and fetched her a cup of tea. (Acting on Robin’s awkward description of the lascivious Mr. Crowdy downstairs, Strike had bought cheap cups and a box of their own tea bags.)
    “I know I’m early,” said Mrs. Hook, for the third time, taking ineffectual little sips of boiling tea. “I haven’t seen you before, are you new?”
    “I’m temporary,” said Robin.
    “As I expect you’ve guessed, it’s my husband,” said Mrs. Hook, not listening. “I suppose you see women like me all the time, don’t you? Wanting to know the worst. I dithered for ages and ages. But it’s best to know, isn’t it? Best to know. I thought Cormoran would be here. Is he out on another case?”
    “That’s right,” said Robin, who suspected that Strike was actually doing something related to his mysterious personal life; there had been a caginess about him as he had told her he