It was set on the boating lake, a striking building that was more like a futuristic pagoda than anything he had ever seen. The thick white roof, looking like a giant book that had been placed down on its open pages, was supported by concertinaed glass. A huge weeping willow caressed the side of the restaurant and brushed the water’s surface.
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith.
Strike meets Lula’s Uncle, Tom Landry, and her brother John Bristow for lunch at the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen. Strike doesn’t think much of Tom, who is against any further enquiry into Lula’s death, and takes a certain pleasure in puncturing his pomposity while they wait for John to arrive. After lunch, they walk towards John’s offices through Hyde Park and Strike tells him he now believes Lula was murdered, and not a suicide as the police concluded.
The Serpentine Bar is a rare survival of the work of architect Patrick Gwynne, a British modernist architect who died in 2003 and its swooping lines have won it many admirers other than Strike. It is located in the south east of Hyde Park on the edge of Mayfair, on the edge of the Serpentine where Londoners and visitors can hire rowing boats in the summer months to enjoy some cool and peace in the city.
Hyde Park itself was created in the sixteenth century on land Henry VIII took from Westminster Abbey and is the largest of the Royal Parks, but was for many years plagued with highway men and became a favourite spot for duels. Rotten Row, which Strike crosses on his way to meet Bristow, gets its name from a corruption of route de roi – the King’s Road and was the first road in England to be illuminated at night. As well as the famous Speaker’s corner, the park holds the Princess Diana memorial fountain – a circular granite channel suggesting both peace and turbulence. The uneven ground around the fountain is difficult for Strike to manage and he’s relieved when they reach Exhibition Road.
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