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I just finished reading The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling (and I very much enjoyed it, by the way), but the one thing I still didn't understand after finishing was this: when Strike visits Lady Bristow at her home towards the end of the book, he waits in the sitting room for a few minutes. Just before he opens the drawer to find the blue paper on which Lula wrote her will, he readjusts the telephone on the table. Later he lies to the nurse that he forgot something so he can go back and readjust the phone. What was he doing? All I could think was maybe he was picking up the phone so that they wouldn't get any phone calls to interrupt his visit, but I feel like it must be something more significant.

It's lucky for me that this is the book of the month, so there are lots of people who are likely to be reading it

I know what part you're talking about, but I can't remember what he was doing. Hadn't he unplugged the phone so that Lady Bristow couldn't be telephoned by her son and warned not to talk to Strike, and then when he left he went to replug it? I'll have to retrieve the book and see if I can find that passage again.

You are correct Carrie R. He had unplugged the telephone so her son couldn't call her while they were talking. Because he suspected him at that point and her son had been VERY insistent that he NOT talk to her without him there.

Ah, thank you. Now I don't have to look it up!