Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling

“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 desire to control the encounter, his comfortable air of superiority, vanished entirely, leaving him clothed in nothing but temper and shock.

“John hasn’t—can he really have been so…? That is strictly confidential business of the firm!”

“It wasn’t John,” said Strike. “Mrs. Ursula May mentioned that there’s been a bit of trouble around Mr. Oates’s estate.”

Clearly thrown, Landry spluttered, “I am very surprised—I wouldn’t have expected Ursula—Mrs. May…”

“So will John be along at all? Or have you given him something that will keep him busy all through lunch?”

He enjoyed watching Landry wrestle his own temper, trying to regain control of himself and the encounter.

“John will be here shortly,” he said finally. “I hoped, as I said, to be able to lay certain facts in front of you, in private.”

“Right, well, in that case, I’ll need these,” said Strike, removing a notebook and pen from his pocket.

Landry looked quite as put out by the sight of these objects as Tansy had.

“There’s no need to take notes,” he said. “What I’m about to say has no bearing—or at least, no direct bearing—on Lula’s death. That is,” he added pedantically, “it will add nothing to any theory other than that of suicide.”

“All the same,” said Strike, “I like to have my aide-memoire.”

Landry looked as though he would like to protest, but thought better of it.

“Very well, then. Firstly, you should know that my nephew John was deeply affected by his adopted sister’s death.”

“Understandable,” commented Strike, tilting the notebook so that the lawyer could not read it, and writing the words deeply affected, purely to annoy Landry.

“Yes, naturally. And while I would never go so far as to suggest that a private detective refuse a client on the basis that they are under strain, or depressed—as I said, we all have our livings to make—in this case…”

“You think it’s all in his head?”

“That’s not how I’d have phrased it, but bluntly, yes. John has already suffered more sudden bereavements than many people experience in a lifetime. You probably weren’t aware that he’s already lost a brother…”

“Yeah, I knew. Charlie was an old schoolmate of mine. That’s why John hired me.”

Landry contemplated Strike with what seemed to be surprise and disfavor.

“You were at Blakeyfield Prep?”

“Briefly. Before my mother realized she couldn’t afford the fees.”

“I see. I did not know that. Even so, perhaps you’re not fully aware…John has always been—let’s use my sister’s expression for it—highly strung. His parents had to bring in psychologists after Charlie died, you know. I don’t claim to be a mental health expert, but it seems to me that Lula’s passing has, finally, tipped him over the…”

“Unfortunate choice of phrase, but I see what you mean,” said Strike, writing Bristow off rocker. “How exactly has John been tipped over the edge?”

“Well, many would say that instigating this reinvestigation is irrational and pointless,” said Landry.

Strike kept his pen poised over the notepad. For a moment, Landry’s jaws moved as though he was chewing; then he said forcefully:

“Lula was a manic depressive who jumped out of the window after a row with her junkie boyfriend. There is no mystery. It was goddamn awful for all of us, especially her poor bloody mother, but those are the unsavory facts. I’m forced to the conclusion that John is having some kind of breakdown, and, if you don’t mind me speaking frankly…”

“Feel free.”

“…your collusion is perpetuating his unhealthy refusal to accept the truth.”

“Which is that Lula killed herself?”

“A view that is shared by the police, the pathologist and the coroner. John, for reasons that are obscure to me, is determined to prove murder. How he thinks that will make any of us feel any better, I could not tell you.”

“Well,” said Strike, “people close to suicides often feel guilty. They think, however unreasonably, that they might have done more to help. A murder verdict would exonerate the family of any blame, wouldn’t it?”

“None of us has anything to feel guilty about,” said Landry, his tone steely. “Lula received the very best medical care from her early teens, and every material advantage her adoptive family could give her. ‘Spoiled rotten’ might be the phrase best suited to describe my adopted niece, Mr. Strike. Her mother would have literally died for her, and scant repayment she ever received.”

“You thought Lula ungrateful, did you?”

“There’s no need to bloody write that down. Or are those notes destined for some tawdry rag?”

Strike was interested in how completely Landry had jettisoned the suavity he had brought to the table. The waitress arrived with Landry’s food. He did not thank her, but glared at Strike until she had passed on. Then he said:

“You’re poking around where you can only do harm. I was stunned, frankly, when I found out what John was up to. Stunned.”