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The Cuckoo's Calling
Part One - 6
When her self-appointed lunch hour was over, Robin washed and returned Mr Crowdy’s cups and tray, and his biscuits. Noting how eagerly he attempted to detain her in conversation on her second appearance, his eyes wandering distractedly from her mouth to her breasts, she resolved to avoid him for the rest of the week.
Still Strike did not return. For want of anything else to do, Robin neatened the contents of her desk drawers, disposing of what she recognised as the accumulated waste of other temporaries: two squares of dusty milk chocolate, a bald emery board and many pieces of paper carrying anonymous telephone numbers and doodles. There was a box of old-fashioned metal acro clips, which she had never come across before, and a considerable number of small, blank blue notebooks, which, though unmarked, had an air of officialdom. Robin, experienced in the world of offices, had the feeling that they might have been pinched from an institutional store cupboard.
The office telephone rang occasionally. Her new boss seemed to be a person of many names. One man asked for ‘Oggy’; another for ‘Monkey Boy’, while a dry, clipped voice asked that ‘Mr Strike’ return Mr Peter Gillespie’s call as soon as possible. On each occasion, Robin contacted Strike’s mobile phone, and reached only his voicemail. She therefore left verbal messages, wrote down each caller’s name and number on a Post-it note, took it into Strike’s office and stuck it neatly on his desk.