1 The Cuckoo's Calling

Looking even more perplexed, Bristow said:
“I’m afraid I didn’t really register. I suppose…” He screwed up his face again
in concentration. “I remember he was wearing blue. I mean, if pressed, I’d say he
was white. But I couldn’t swear to it.”
“I doubt you’ll have to,” said Strike, “but that’s still a help.”
He pulled out his notebook to remind himself of the questions he had wanted
to put to Bristow.
“Oh, yeah. According to her witness statement to the police, Ciara Porter said
that Lula had told her she wanted to leave everything to you.”
“Oh,” said Bristow unenthusiastically. “That.”
He began to amble along again, and Strike moved with him.
“One of the detectives in charge of the case told me that Ciara had said that. A
Detective Inspector Carver. He was convinced from the first that it was suicide
and he appeared to think that this supposed talk with Ciara demonstrated Lula’s
intent to take her own life. It seemed a strange line of reasoning to me. Do
suicides bother with wills?”
“You think Ciara Porter’s inventing, then?”
“Not inventing,” said Bristow. “Exaggerating, maybe. I think it’s much more
likely that Lula said something nice about me, because we’d just made up after
our row, and Ciara, in hindsight, assuming that Lula was already contemplating
suicide, turned whatever it was into a bequest. She’s quite a—a fluffy sort of
girl.”
“A search was made for a will, wasn’t it?”
“Oh yeah, the police looked very thoroughly. We—the family—didn’t think
Lula had ever made one; her lawyers didn’t know of one, but naturally a search
was made. Nothing was found, and they looked everywhere.”
“Just supposing for a moment that Ciara Porter isn’t misremembering what
your sister said, though…”
“But Lula would never have left everything solely to me. Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would have explicitly cut out our mother, which would have
been immensely hurtful,” said Bristow earnestly. “It isn’t the money—Dad left
Mum very well off—it’s more the message that Lula would have been sending,
cutting her out like that. Wills can cause all kinds of hurt. I’ve seen it happen
countless times.”