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Scribbling away for Landry’s benefit, Strike wondered whether his belief in genetic predetermination accounted for some of Bristow’s preoccupation with Lula’s black relatives Doubtless Bristow had been privy to his uncle’s views through the years; children absorbed the views of their relatives at some deep, visceral level He, Strike, had known in his bones, long before the words had ever been said in front of him, that his mother was not like other mothers, that there was (if he believed in the unspoken code that bound the rest of the adults around hi shameful about her
“You saw Lula the day she died, I think?” Strike said
Landry’s eyelashes were so fair they looked silver
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah…” Strike flicked back through his notebook ostentatiously, coe “…you met her at your sister’s flat, didn’t you? When Lula called in to see Lady Bristow?”
“Who told you that? John?”
“It’s all in the police file Isn’t it true?”
“Yes, it’s perfectly true, but I can’t see how it’s relevant to anything we’ve been discussing”
“I’ to hear froot the impression you were happy to answer questions”
Landry had the air of a man who has found himself unexpectedly snookered
“I have nothing to add to the stateave to the police,” he said at last
“Which is,” said Strike, leafing backwards through blank pages, “that you dropped in to visit your sister that , where you met your niece, and that you then drove to Oxford to attend a conference on international developments in family law?”
Landry was chewing on air again
“That’s correct,” he said
“What time would you say you arrived at your sister’s flat?”
“It must have been about ten,” said Landry, after a short pause
“And you stayed how long?”
“Half an hour, perhaps Maybe longer I really can’t remember”
“And you drove directly from there to the conference in Oxford?”
Over Landry’s shoulder, Strike saw John Bristow questioning a waitress; he appeared out of breath and a little disheveled, as though he had been running A rectangular leather case dangled frohtly, and when he spotted the back of Landry’s head, Strike thought that he looked frightened
6
“JOHN,” SAID STRIKE, AS HIS client approached them
“Hi, Cormoran”
Landry did not look at his nephew, but picked up his knife and fork and took a first bite of his terrine Strike moved around the table to make room for Bristow to sit down opposite his uncle
“Have you spoken to Reuben?” Landry asked Bristow coldly, once he had finished his mouthful of terrine
“Yes I’ve said I’ll go over this afternoon and take his”
“I’ve just been asking your uncle about thebefore Lula died, John About when he visited your mother’s flat,” said Strike
Bristow glanced at Landry
“I’m interested in as said and done there,” Strike continued, “because, according to the chauffeur who drove her back from her mother’s flat, Lula seemed distressed”
“Of course she was distressed,” snapped Landry “Her mother had cancer”
“The operation she’d just had was supposed to have cured her, wasn’t it?”
“Yvette had just had a hysterectomy She was in pain I don’t doubt Lula was disturbed at seeing her mother in that condition”
“Did you talk much to Lula, when you saw her?”
A minuscule hesitation
“Just chit-chat”
“And you two, did you speak to each other?”
Bristow and Landry did not look at each other A longer pause, of a few seconds, before Bristow said:
“I orking in the ho to Mum and Lula”
“You didn’t look in to say hello?” Strike asked Landry
Landry considered hiht lashes
“You know, nobody here is obliged to answer your questions, Mr Strike,” said Landry
“Of course not,” agreed Strike, and he made a s at his uncle Landry seemed to reconsider
“I could see through the open door of the home study that John was hard at work, and I didn’t want to disturb higy from the painkillers, so I left her with Lula I knew,” said Landry, with the faintest undertone of spite, “that there was nobody Yvette would prefer to Lula”
“Lula’s telephone records show that she called your mobile phone repeatedly after she left Lady Bristow’s flat, Mr Landry”
Landry flushed
“Did you speak to her on the phone?”
“No I had my mobile switched to silent; I was late for the conference”
“They vibrate, though, don’t they?”
He wondered what it would take to make Landry leave He was sure that the laas close
“I glanced at my phone, saas Lula and decided it could wait,” he said shortly
“You didn’t call her back?”
“No”
“Didn’t she leave any kind of e, to tell you what she wanted to talk about?”
“No”
“That seems odd, doesn’t it? You’d just seen her at hervery important passed between you; yet she spentto contact you Doesn’t that seeent to say to you? Or that she wanted to continue a conversation you’d been having at the flat?”
“Lula was the kind of girl ould call somebody thirty times in a row, on the flimsiest pretext She was spoiled She expected people to juht of her name”
Strike glanced at Bristow
“She was—sometimes—a bit like that,” her brother muttered
“Do you think your sister was upset purely because your mother eak from her operation, John?” Strike asked Bristow “Her driver, Kieran Kolovas-Jones, is emphatic that she came away from the flat in a dramatically altered mood”
Before Bristow could answer, Landry, abandoning his food, stood up and began to put on his overcoat
“Is Kolovas-Jones that strange-looking colored boy?” he asked, looking down at Strike and Bristow “The one anted Lula to get hi work?”
“He’s an actor, yeah,” said Strike
“Yes On Yvette’s birthday, the last before she became ill, I had a probleive me a lift to the birthday dinner Kolovas-Jones spentLula to use her influence with Freddie Bestigui to get hi man Very familiar in his manner Of course,” he added, “the less I knew about my adopted niece’s love life, the better, as far as I was concerned”
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 Bristoas 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 uniforiment of Fusiliers
“What? Yes I’ll be straight back,” he told his uncle distractedly, as 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 aname Dreadful, this war, isn’t it? And is it worth this lo
ss 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