Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling

They were both as pristine and polished as life-size dolls recently removed from their cellophane boxes; rich-girl thin, almost hipless in their tight jeans, with tanned faces that had a waxy sheen especially noticeable on their foreheads, their long, gleaming dark manes with center partings, the ends trimmed with spirit-level exactitude.

When Strike finally chose to look up from his menu, Tansy said, without preamble:

“Are you really” (she pronounced it “rarely”) “Jonny Rokeby’s son?”

“So the DNA test said,” he replied.

She seemed uncertain whether he was being funny or rude. Her dark eyes were fractionally too close together, and the Botox and fillers could not smooth away the petulance in her expression.

“Listen, I’ve just been telling John,” she said curtly. “I’m not going public again, OK? I’m perfectly happy to tell you what I heard, because I’d love you to prove I was right, but you mustn’t tell anyone I’ve talked to you.”

The unbuttoned neck of her thin silk shirt revealed an expanse of butterscotch skin stretched over her bony sternum, giving an unattractively knobbly effect; yet two full, firm breasts jutted from her narrow ribcage, as though they had been borrowed for the day from a fuller-figured friend. “We could have met somewhere more discreet,” commented Strike.

“No, it’s fine, because nobody here will know who you are. You don’t look anything like your father, do you? I met him at Elton’s last summer. Freddie knows him. D’you see much of Jonny?”

“I’ve met him twice,” said Strike.

“Oh,” said Tansy.

The monosyllable contained equal parts of surprise and disdain.

Charlotte had had friends like this; sleek-haired, expensively educated and clothed, all of them appalled by her strange yen for the enormous, battered-looking Strike. He had come up against them for years, by phone and in person, with their clipped vowels and their stockbroker husbands, and the brittle toughness Charlotte had never been able to fake.

“I don’t think she should be talking to you at all,” said Ursula abruptly. Her tone and expression would have been appropriate had Strike been a waiter who had just thrown aside his apron and joined them, uninvited, at the table. “I think you’re making a big mistake, Tanz.”

Bristow said: “Ursula, Tansy simply—”

“It’s up to me what I do,” Tansy snapped at her sister, as though Bristow had not spoken, as though his chair was empty. “I’m only going to say what I heard, that’s all. It’s all off the record; John’s agreed to that.”

Evidently she too viewed Strike as domestic class. He was irked not only by their tone, but also by the fact that Bristow was giving witnesses assurances without his say-so. How could Tansy’s evidence, which could have come from nobody but her, be kept off the record?

For a few moments all four of them ran their eyes over the culinary options in silence. Ursula was the first to put down her menu. She had already finished a glass of wine. She helped herself to another, and glanced restlessly around the restaurant, her eyes lingering for a second on a blonde minor royal, before passing on.

“This place used to be full of the most fabulous people, even at lunchtime. Cyprian only ever wants to go to bloody Wiltons, with all the other stiffs in suits…”

“Is Cyprian your husband, Mrs. May?” asked Strike.

He guessed that it would needle her if he crossed what she evidently saw as an invisible line between them; she did not think that sitting at a table with her gave him a right to her conversation. She scowled, and Bristow rushed to fill the uncomfortable pause.

“Yes, Ursula’s married to Cyprian May, one of our senior partners.”

“So I’m getting the family discount on my divorce,” said Tansy, with a slightly bitter smile.

“And her ex will go absolutely ballistic if she starts dragging the press back into their lives,” Ursula said, her dark eyes boring into Strike’s. “They’re trying to thrash out a settlement. It could seriously prejudice her alimony if that all kicks off again. So you’d better be discreet.”

With a bland smile, Strike turned to Tansy:

“You had a connection with Lula Landry, then, Mrs. Bestigui? Your brother-in-law works with John?”

“It never came up,” she said, looking bored.

The waiter returned to take their orders. When he had left, Strike took out his notebook and pen.

“What are you doing with those?” demanded Tansy, in a sudden panic. “I don’t want anything written down! John?” she appealed to Bristow, who turned to Strike with a flustered and apologetic expression.

“D’you think you could just listen, Cormoran, and, ah, skip the note-taking?”

“No problem,” said Strike easily, removing his mobile phone from his pocket and replacing the notebook and pen. “Mrs. Bestigui—”

“You can call me Tansy,” she said, as though this concession made up for her objections to the notebook.

“Thanks very much,” said Strike, with the merest trace of irony. “How well did you know Lula?”

“Oh, hardly at all. She was only there for three months. It was just ‘Hi’ and ‘Nice day.’ She wasn’t interested in us, we weren’t nearly hip enough for her. It was a bore, to be honest, having her there. Paps outside the front door all the time. I had to put on makeup even to go to the gym.”

“Isn’t there a gym in the building?” asked Strike.

“I do Pilates with Lindsey Parr,” said Tansy, irritably. “You sound like Freddie; he was always complaining that I didn’t use the facilities at the flat.”

“And how well did Freddie know Lula?”

“Hardly at all, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. He had some idea about luring her into acting; he kept trying to invite her downstairs. She never came, though. And he followed her to Dickie Carbury’s house, the weekend before she died, while I was away with Ursula.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Bristow, looking startled.

Strike noticed Ursula’s quick smirk at her sister. He had the impression that she had been looking for an exchange of complicit glances, but Tansy did not oblige.

“I didn’t know until later,” Tansy told Bristow. “Yah, Freddie cadged an invitation from Dickie; there was a whole group of them there: Lula, Evan Duffield, Ciara Porter, all that tabloidy, druggie, trendy gang. Freddie must have stuck out like a sore thumb. I know he’s not much older than Dickie, but he looks ancient,” she added spitefully.

“What did your husband tell you about the weekend?”

“Nothing. I only found out he’d been there weeks later, because Dickie let it slip. I’m sure Freddie went to try and make up to Lula, though.”

“Do you mean,” asked Strike, “that he was interested in Lula sexually, or…?”

“Oh yah, I’m sure he was; he’s always liked dark girls better than blondes. What he really loves, though, is getting a bit of celebrity meat into his films. He drives directors mad, trying to crowbar in celebrities, to get a bit of extra press. I’ll bet he was hoping to get her signed up for a film, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Tansy added, with unexpected shrewdness, “if he had something planned around her and Deeby Macc. Imagine the press, with the fuss there was already about the two of them. Freddie’s got a genius for that stuff. He loves publicity for his films as much as he hates it for himself.”

“Does he know Deeby Macc?”

“Not unless they’ve met since we separated. He hadn’t met Macc before Lula died. God, he was thrilled that Macc was coming to stay in the building; he started talking about casting him the moment he heard.”

“Casting him as what?”