The Cuckoo's Calling

would be late.
    “Do you know who his father is?” asked Mrs. Hook.
    “No, I don’t,” said Robin, thinking that they were talking about the poor woman’s husband.
    “Jonny Rokeby,” said Mrs. Hook, with a kind of dramatic relish.
    “Jonny Roke—”
    Robin caught her breath, realizing simultaneously that Mrs. Hook meant Strike, and that Strike’s massive frame was looming up outside the glass door. She could see that he was carrying something very large.
    “Just one moment, Mrs. Hook,” she said.
    “What?” asked Strike, peering around the edge of the cardboard box, as Robin darted out of the glass door and closed it behind her.
    “Mrs. Hook’s here,” she whispered.
    “Oh, for fuck’s sake. She’s an hour early.”
    “I know. I thought you might want to, um, organize your office a bit before you take her in there.”
    Strike eased the cardboard box on to the metal floor.
    “I’ve got to bring these in off the street,” he said.
    “I’ll help,” offered Robin.
    “No, you go and make polite conversation. She’s taking a pottery class and she thinks her husband’s sleeping with his accountant.”
    Strike limped off down the stairs, leaving the box beside the glass door.
    Jonny Rokeby; could it be true?
    “He’s on his way, just coming,” Robin told Mrs. Hook brightly, resettling herself at her desk. “Mr. Strike told me you do pottery. I’ve always wanted to try…”
    For five minutes, Robin barely listened to the exploits of the pottery class, and the sweetly understanding young man who taught them. Then the glass door opened and Strike entered, unencumbered by boxes and smiling politely at Mrs. Hook, who jumped up to greet him.
    “Oh, Cormoran, your eye!” she said. “Has somebody punched you?”
    “No,” said Strike. “If you’ll give me a moment, Mrs. Hook, I’ll get out your file.”
    “I know I’m early, Cormoran, and I’m awfully sorry…I couldn’t sleep at all last night…”
    “Let me take your cup, Mrs. Hook,” said Robin, and she successfully distracted the client from glimpsing, in the seconds it took Strike to slip through the inner door, the camp bed, the sleeping bag and the kettle.
    A few minutes later, Strike re-emerged on a waft of artificial limes, and Mrs. Hook vanished, with a terrified look at Robin, into his office. The door closed behind them.
    Robin sat down at her desk again. She had already opened the morning’s post. She swung side to side on her swivel chair; then she moved to the computer and casually brought up Wikipedia. Then, with a disengaged air, as though she was unaware of what her fingers were up to, she typed in the two names: Rokeby Strike.
    The entry appeared at once, headed by a black-and-white photograph of an instantly recognizable man, famous for four decades. He had a narrow Harlequin’s face and wild eyes, which were easy to caricature, the left one slightly off-kilter due to a weak divergent squint; his mouth was wide open, sweat pouring down his face, hair flying as he bellowed into a microphone.
Jonathan Leonard “Jonny” Rokeby, b. August 1st 1948, is the lead singer of 70s rock band The Deadbeats, member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, multi– Grammy Award winner…
    Strike looked nothing like him; the only slight resemblance was in the inequality of the eyes, which in Strike was, after all, a transient condition.
    Down the entry Robin scrolled:
… multi-platinum album Hold It Back in 1975. A record-breaking tour of America was interrupted by a drugs bust in LA and the arrest of new guitarist David Carr, with whom…
    until she reached Personal Life:
Rokeby has been married three times: to art-school girlfriend Shirley Mullens (1969–1973), with whom he has one daughter, Maimie; to model, actress and human rights activist Carla Astolfi (1975–1979), with whom he has two daughters, television presenter Gabriella Rokeby and jewelry designer Daniella Rokeby, and (1981–present) to film producer Jenny Graham, with whom he has two sons, Edward and Al. Rokeby also has a daughter, Prudence Donleavy, from his relationship with the actress Lindsey Fanthrope, and a son, Cormoran, with 1970s supergroupie Leda Strike.
    A piercing scream rose in the inner office behind Robin. She jumped to her feet, her chair skittering away from her on its wheels. The scream became louder and shriller. Robin ran across the office to pull open the inner door.
    Mrs. Hook, divested of orange coat and purple beret, and wearing what