Читаем The Cuckoo's Calling полностью

Just outside the VIP area, two drunk girls ran at Duffield; one of them pulled up her top and begged him to sign her breasts.

“Don’t be dirty, love,” said Duffield, pushing past her. “You gotta car, Cici?” he yelled over his shoulder, as he plowed his way through the crowds, ignoring shouts and pointing fingers.

“Yes, sweetie,” she shouted. “I’ll call him. Cormoran, darling, have you got my phone?”

Strike wondered what the paparazzi outside would make of Ciara and Duffield leaving the club together. She was shouting into her iPhone. They reached the entrance; Ciara said, “Wait—he’s going to text when he’s right outside.”

Both she and Duffield looked slightly nervy; watchful, self-aware, like competitors waiting to enter a stadium. Then Ciara’s phone gave a little buzz.

“OK, he’s there,” she said.

Strike stood back to let her and Duffield out first, then walked rapidly to the front passenger seat as Duffield ran around the back of the car in the blinding popping lights, to screams from the queue, and threw himself into the backseat with Ciara, whom Kolovas-Jones had helped inside. Strike slammed the front passenger door, forcing the two men who had leaned in to take shot after shot of Duffield and Ciara to jump backwards out of the way.

Kolovas-Jones seemed to take an unconscionable amount of time to return to the car; Strike felt as though the Mercedes’ interior was a test tube, simultaneously enclosed and exposed as more and more flashes fired. Lenses were pressed to the windows and windscreen; unfriendly faces floated in the darkness, and black figures darted back and forth in front of the stationary car. Beyond the explosions of light, the shadowy crowd-queue surged, curious and excited.

“Put your foot down, for fuck’s sake!” Strike growled at Kolovas-Jones, who revved the engine. The paparazzi blocking the road moved backwards, still taking pictures.

“Bye-bye, you cunts,” said Evan Duffield from the backseat as the car pulled away from the curb.

But the photographers ran alongside the vehicle, flashes erupting on either side; and Strike’s whole body was bathed in sweat: he was suddenly back on a yellow dirt road in the juddering Viking, with a sound like firecrackers popping in the Afghanistan air; he had glimpsed a youth running away from the road ahead, dragging a small boy. Without conscious thought he had bellowed “Brake!” lunged forwards and seized Anstis, a new father of two days’ standing, who was sitting right behind the driver; the last thing he remembered was Anstis’s shouted protest, and the low metallic boom of him hitting the back doors, before the Viking disintegrated with an ear-splitting bang, and the world became a hazy blur of pain and terror.

The Mercedes had rounded the corner on to an almost deserted road; Strike realized that he had been holding himself so tensely that his remaining calf muscles were sore. In the wing mirror he could see two motorbikes, each being ridden pillion, following them. Princess Diana and the Parisian underpass; the ambulance bearing Lula Landry’s body, with cameras held high to the darkened glass as it passed; both careered through his thoughts as the car sped through the dark streets.

Duffield lit a cigarette. Out of the corner of his eye, Strike saw Kolovas-Jones scowl at his passenger in the rearview mirror, though he made no protest. After a moment or two, Ciara began whispering to Duffield. Strike thought he heard his own name.

Five minutes later, they turned another corner and saw, ahead of them, another small crowd of black-clad photographers, who began flashing and running towards the car the moment it appeared. The motorbikes were pulling up right behind them; Strike saw the four men running to catch the moment when the car doors opened. Adrenalin erupted: Strike imagined himself exploding out of the car, punching, sending expensive cameras crashing on to concrete as their holders crumpled. And as if he had read Strike’s mind, Duffield said, with his hand poised on the door handle:

“Knock their fucking lights out, Cormoran, you’re built for it.”

The open doors, the night air and more maddening flashes; bull-like, Strike walked fast with his big head bowed, his eyes on Ciara’s tottering heels, refusing to be blinded. Up three steps they ran, Strike at the rear; and it was he who slammed the front door of the building in the faces of the photographers.

Strike felt himself momentarily allied with the other two by the experience of being hunted. The tiny, dimly lit lobby felt safe and friendly. The paparazzi were still yelling to each other on the other side of the door, and their terse shouts recalled soldiers recceing a building. Duffield was fiddling at an inner door, trying a succession of keys in the lock.