The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1)(35)
Author: J.K. Rowling

Landry threw a ten-pound note down on the table.

“I’ll expect you back at the office soon, John.”

He stood in clear expectation of a response, but Bristow was not paying attention. He was staring, wide-eyed, at the picture on the news story that Strike had been reading when Landry arrived; it showed a young black soldier in the uniform of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

“What? Yes. I’ll be straight back,” he told his uncle distractedly, who was looking at him coldly. “Sorry,” Bristow added to Strike, as Landry walked away. “It’s just that Wilson—Derrick Wilson, you know, the security guard—he’s got a nephew out in Afghanistan. For a moment, God forbid…but it’s not him. Wrong name. Dreadful, this war, isn’t it? And is it worth this loss of life?”

Strike shifted the weight off his prosthesis—the trudge across the park had not helped the soreness in his leg—and made a noncommittal noise.

“Let’s walk back,” said Bristow, when they had finished eating. “I fancy some fresh air.”

Bristow chose the most direct route, which involved navigating stretches of lawn that Strike would not have chosen to walk, on his own, because it demanded much more energy than tarmac. As they passed the memorial fountain to Diana, Princess of Wales, whispering, tinkling and gushing along its long channel of Cornish granite, Bristow suddenly announced, as though Strike had asked:

“Tony’s never liked me much. He preferred Charlie. People said that Charlie looked like Tony did, when he was a boy.”

“I can’t say he spoke about Charlie with much fondness before you arrived, and he doesn’t seem to have had much time for Lula, either.”

“Didn’t he give you his views on heredity?”

“By implication.”

“No, well, he’s not usually shy about them. It made an extra bond between Lula and me, the fact that Uncle Tony considered us a pair of sow’s ears. It was worse for Lula; at least my biological parents must have been white. Tony’s not what you’d call unprejudiced. We had a Pakistani trainee last year; she was one of the best we’ve ever had, but Tony drove her out.”

“What made you go and work with him?”

“They made me a good offer. It’s the family firm; my grandfather started it, not that that was an inducement. No one wants to be accused of nepotism. But it’s one of the top family law firms in London, and it made my mother happy to think I was following in her father’s footsteps. Did he have a go at my father?”

“Not really. He hinted that Sir Alec might have greased some palms to get Lula.”

“Really?” Bristow sounded surprised. “I don’t think that’s true. Lula was in care. I’m sure the usual procedures were followed.”

There was a short silence, after which Bristow said, a little timidly:

“You, ah, don’t look very much like your father.”

It was the first time that he had acknowledged openly that he might have been sidetracked on to Wikipedia while researching private detectives.

“No,” agreed Strike. “I’m the spitting image of my Uncle Ted.”

“I gather that you and your father aren’t—ah—I mean, you don’t use his name?”

Strike did not resent the curiosity from a man whose family background was almost as unconventional and casualty-strewn as his own.

“I’ve never used it,” he said. “I’m the extramarital accident that cost Jonny a wife and several million pounds in alimony. We’re not close.”

“I admire you,” said Bristow, “for making your own way. For not relying on him.” And when Strike did not answer, he added anxiously, “I hope you didn’t mind me telling Tansy who your father is? It—it helped get her to talk to you. She’s impressed by famous people.”

“All’s fair in securing a witness statement,” said Strike. “You say that Lula didn’t like Tony, and yet she took his name professionally?”

“Oh no, she chose Landry because it was Mum’s maiden name; nothing to do with Tony. Mum was thrilled. I think there was another model called Bristow. Lula liked to stand out.”

They wove their way through passing cyclists, bench-picnickers, dog walkers and roller skaters, Strike trying to disguise the increasing unevenness in his step.

“I don’t think Tony’s ever really loved anyone in his life, you know,” said Bristow suddenly, as they stood aside to allow a helmeted child, wobbling along on a skateboard, to pass. “Whereas my mother’s a very loving person. She loved all three of her children very much, and I sometimes think Tony didn’t like it. I don’t know why. It’s something in his nature.

“There was a breach between him and my parents after Charlie died. I wasn’t supposed to know what was said, but I heard enough. He as good as told Mum that Charlie’s accident was her fault, that Charlie had been out of control. My father threw Tony out of the house. Mum and Tony were only really reconciled after Dad died.”

To Strike’s relief, they had reached Exhibition Road, and his limp became less perceptible.

“Do you think there was ever anything between Lula and Kieran Kolovas-Jones?” he asked, as they crossed the street.

“No, that’s just Tony leaping to the most unsavory conclusion he can think of. He always thought the worst when it came to Lula. Oh, I’m sure Kieran would have been only too eager, but Lula was smitten by Duffield—more’s the pity.”

They walked on down Kensington Road, with the leafy park to their left, and then into the white-stuccoed territory of ambassadors’ houses and royal colleges.

“Why do you think your uncle didn’t come and say hello to you, when he called at your mother’s the day she got out of hospital?”

Bristow looked intensely uncomfortable.

“Had there been a disagreement between you?”

“Not…not exactly,” said Bristow. “We were in the middle of a very stressful time at work. I—ought not to say. Client confidentiality.”

“Was this to do with the estate of Conway Oates?”

“How do you know that?” asked Bristow sharply. “Did Ursula tell you?”

“She mentioned something.”

“Christ almighty. No discretion. None.”

“Your uncle found it hard to believe that Mrs. May could have been indiscreet.”

“I’ll bet he did,” said Bristow, with a scornful laugh. “It’s—well, I’m sure I can trust you. It’s the kind of thing a firm like ours is touchy about, because with the kind of clients we attract—high net worth—any hint of financial impropriety is death. Conway Oates held a sizable client account with us. All the money’s present and correct; but his heirs are a greedy bunch and they’re claiming it was mismanaged. Considering how volatile the market’s been, and how incoherent Conway’s instructions became towards the end, they should be grateful there’s anything left. Tony’s irritable about the whole business and…well, he’s a man who likes to spread the blame around. There have been scenes. I’ve copped my share of criticism. I usually do, with Tony.”

Strike could tell, by the almost perceptible heaviness that seemed to be descending upon Bristow as he walked, that they were approaching his offices.

“I’m having difficulty contacting a couple of useful witnesses, John. Is there any chance you’d be able to put me in touch with Guy Somé? His people don’t seem keen on letting anyone near him.”

“I can try. I’ll call him this afternoon. He adored Lula; he ought to want to help.”

“And there’s Lula’s birth mother, too.”

“Oh yes,” sighed Bristow. “I’ve got her details somewhere. She’s a dreadful woman.”

“Have you met her?”

“No, I’m going on what Lula told me, and everything that was in the papers. Lula was determined to find out where she came from, and I think Duffield was encouraging her—I strongly suspect him of leaking the story to the press, though she always denied that…Anyway, she managed to track her down, this Higson woman, who told her that her father was an African student. I don’t know whether that was true or not. It was certainly what Lula wanted to hear. Her imagination ran wild: I think she had visions of herself being the long-lost daughter of a high-ranking politician, or a tribal princess.”

“But she never traced her father?”

“I don’t know, but,” said Bristow, displaying his usual enthusiasm for any line of inquiry that might explain the black man caught on film near her flat, “I’d have been the last person she’d have told if she did.”

“Why?”

“Because we’d had some pretty nasty rows about the whole business. My mother had just been diagnosed with uterine cancer when Lula went searching for Marlene Higson. I told Lula that she could hardly have chosen a more insensitive moment to start tracing her roots, but she—well, frankly, she had tunnel vision where her own whims were concerned. We loved each other,” said Bristow, running a weary hand over his face, “but the age difference got in the way. I’m sure she tried to look for her father, though, because that was what she wanted more than anything: to find her black roots, to find that sense of identity.”

“Was she still in contact with Marlene Higson when she died?”

“Intermittently. I had the feeling that Lula was trying to cut the connection. Higson’s a ghastly person; shamelessly mercenary. She sold her story to anyone who would pay, which, unfortunately, was a lot of people. My mother was devastated by the whole business.”

“There are a couple of other things I wanted to ask you.”

The lawyer slowed down willingly.

“When you visited Lula at her flat that morning, to return her contract with Somé, did you happen to see anyone who looked like they might have been from a security firm? There to check the alarms?”

“Like a repairman?”

“Or an electrician. Maybe in overalls?”

When Bristow screwed up his face in thought, his rabbity teeth protruded more than ever.

“I can’t remember…let me think…As I passed the flat on the second floor, yes…there was a man in there fiddling with something on the wall…Would that have been him?”

“Probably. What did he look like?”

“Well, he had his back to me. I couldn’t see.”

“Was Wilson with him?”

Bristow came to a halt on the pavement, looking a little bewildered. Three suited men and women bustled past, some carrying files.