The Cuckoo's Calling

the clinging green dress, and in consequence he had literally averted his eyes. He acquitted her of any deliberate provocation, but he was realistic, all the same, about the precarious balance that must be maintained for his own sanity. She was the only human with whom he was in regular contact, and he did not underestimate his current susceptibility; he had also gathered, from certain evasions and hesitations, that her fiancé disliked the fact that she had left the temping agency for this ad hoc agreement. It was safest all round not to let the burgeoning friendship become too warm; best not to admire openly the sight of her figure draped in jersey.
    Strike had never been to the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen. It was set on the boating lake, a striking building that was more like a futuristic pagoda than anything he had ever seen. The thick white roof, looking like a giant book that had been placed down on its open pages, was supported by concertinaed glass. A huge weeping willow caressed the side of the restaurant and brushed the water’s surface.
    Though it was a cool, breezy day, the view over the lake was splendid in the sunlight. Strike chose an outdoor table right beside the water, ordered a pint of Doom Bar and read his paper.
    Bristow was already ten minutes late when a tall, well-made, expensively suited man with foxy coloring stopped beside Strike’s table.
    “Mr. Strike?”
    In his late fifties, with a full head of hair, a firm jaw and pronounced cheekbones, he looked like an almost-famous actor hired to play a rich businessman in a miniseries. Strike, whose visual memory was highly trained, recognized him immediately from the photographs that Robin had found online as the tall man who had looked as though he deplored his surroundings at Lula Landry’s funeral.
    “Tony Landry. John and Lula’s uncle. May I sit down?”
    His smile was perhaps the most perfect example of an insincere social grimace that Strike had ever witnessed; a mere baring of even white teeth. Landry eased himself out of his overcoat, draped it over the back of the seat opposite Strike and sat.
    “John’s delayed at the office,” he said. The breeze ruffled his hair, showing how it had receded at the temples. “He asked Alison to call you and let you know. I happened to be passing her desk at the time, so I thought I’d come and deliver the message in person. It gives me an opportunity to have a private word with you. I’ve been expecting you to contact me; I know you’re working your way slowly through all my niece’s contacts.”
    He slid a pair of steel-rimmed glasses out of his top pocket, put them on and took a moment to consult the menu. Strike drank some beer and waited.
    “I hear you’ve been speaking to Mrs. Bestigui?” said Landry, setting down the menu, taking off his glasses again and reinserting them into his suit pocket.
    “That’s right,” said Strike.
    “Yes. Well, Tansy is undoubtedly well intentioned, but she is doing herself no favors at all by repeating a story the police have proven, conclusively, could not have been true. No favors at all,” repeated Landry portentously. “And so I have told John. His first duty ought to be to the firm’s client, and what is in her best interests.
    “I will have the ham hock terrine,” he added to a passing waitress, “and a still water. Bottled. Well,” he continued, “it’s probably best to be direct, Mr. Strike.
    “For many reasons, all of them good ones, I am not in favor of raking over the circumstances of Lula’s death. I don’t expect you to agree with me. You make money by digging through the seamy circumstances of family tragedies.”
    He flashed his aggressive, humorless smile again.
    “I’m not entirely unsympathetic. We all have our livings to make, and no doubt there are plenty of people who would say my profession is just as parasitic as yours. It might be helpful to both of us, though, if I lay certain facts in front of you, facts I doubt John has chosen to disclose.”
    “Before we get into that,” said Strike, “what exactly is keeping John at the office? If he isn’t going to make it, I’ll arrange an alternative appointment with him; I’ve got other people to see this afternoon. Is he still trying to sort out this Conway Oates business?”
    He knew only what Ursula had told him, that Conway Oates had been an American financier, but this mention of the firm’s dead client had the desired effect. Landry’s pomposity, his