The Cuckoo's Calling

could have sprung from the same genetic pool as the bronze-skinned, colt-limbed, diamond-cut beauty that had been Lula Landry.
    “My parents adopted her,” said Bristow meekly, as though he knew what Strike was thinking. “We were all adopted.”
    “Uh huh,” said Strike. He had an exceptionally accurate memory; thinking back to that huge, cool, well-ordered house, and the blazing acres of garden, he remembered a languid blonde mother presiding at the picnic table, the distant booming voice of an intimidating father; a surly older brother picking at the fruit cake, Charlie himself making his mother laugh as he clowned; but no little girl.
    “You wouldn’t have met Lula,” Bristow went on, again as though Strike had spoken his thoughts aloud. “My parents didn’t adopt her until after Charlie had died. She was four years old when she came to us; she’d been in care for a couple of years. I was nearly fifteen. I can still remember standing at the front door and watching my father carrying her up the drive. She was wearing a little red knitted hat. My mother’s still got it.”
    And suddenly, shockingly, John Bristow burst into tears. He sobbed into his hands, hunch-shouldered, quaking, while tears and snot slid through the cracks in his fingers. Every time he seemed to have himself under some kind of control, more sobs burst forth.
    “I’m sorry—sorry—Jesus…”
    Panting and hiccoughing, he dabbed beneath his glasses with a wadded handkerchief, trying to regain control.
    The office door opened and Robin backed in, carrying a tray. Bristow turned his face away, his shoulders heaving and shaking. Through the open door Strike caught another glimpse of the besuited woman in the outer office; she was now scowling at him from over the top of a copy of the Daily Express.
    Robin laid out two cups, a milk jug, a sugar bowl and a plate of chocolate biscuits, none of which Strike had ever seen before, smiled in perfunctory fashion at his thanks and made to leave.
    “Hang on a moment, Sandra,” said Strike. “Could you…?”
    He took a piece of paper from his desk and slid it on to his knee. While Bristow made soft gulping noises, Strike wrote, very swiftly and as legibly as he could manage:
Please google Lula Landry and find out whether she was adopted, and if so, by whom. Do not discuss what you are doing with the woman outside (what is she doing here?). Write down the answers to questions above and bring them to me here, without saying what you’ve found.
    He handed the piece of paper to Robin, who took it wordlessly and left the room.
    “Sorry—I’m so sorry,” Bristow gasped, when the door had closed. “This is—I’m not usually—I’ve been back at work, seeing clients…” He took several deep breaths. With his pink eyes the resemblance to an albino rabbit was heightened. His right knee was still jiggling up and down.
    “It’s just been a dreadful time,” he whispered, taking deep breaths. “Lula…and my mother’s dying…”
    Strike’s mouth was watering at the sight of the chocolate biscuits, because he had eaten nothing for what felt like days; but he felt it would strike an unsympathetic note to start snacking while Bristow jiggled and sniffed and mopped his eyes. The pneumatic drill was still hammering like a machine gun down in the street.
    “She’s given up completely since Lula died. It’s broken her. Her cancer was supposed to be in remission, but it’s come back, and they say there’s nothing more they can do. I mean, this is the second time. She had a sort of breakdown after Charlie. My father thought another child would make it better. They’d always wanted a girl. It wasn’t easy for them to be approved, but Lula was mixed race, and harder to place, so,” he finished, on a strangled sob, “they managed to get her.
    “She was always b-beautiful. She was d-discovered in Oxford Street, out shopping with my mother. Taken on by Athena. It’s one of the most prestigious agencies. She was modeling f-full time by seventeen. By the time she died, she was worth around ten million. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You probably know it all. Everyone knew—thought they knew—all about Lula.”
    He picked up his cup clumsily; his hands were trembling so much that coffee slopped over the edge on to his sharply pressed suit trousers.
    “What exactly is it that you would like me to do for you?” Strike asked.
    Bristow replaced the cup shakily on the desk, then