1 The Cuckoo's Calling

passing, so she come in to tell me she wasn’t gonna stop because she ’ad to get
’ome to see fucking Ciara Porter.”
Rochelle looked as though she regretted the traitorous “fucking” as soon as it
was out, and pursed her lips together as though to ensure no more swear words
escaped her.
“And that was all she did, was it? She came into the shop, said ‘I can’t stop,
I’ve got to get home and see Ciara’ and left?”
“Yeah. More uh less,” said Rochelle.
“Kieran says they usually gave you a lift home after you’d been out together.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Well. She wuz too busy that day, weren’ she?”
Rochelle did a poor job of masking her resentment.
“Talk me through what happened in the shop. Did either of you try anything
on?”
“Yeah,” said Rochelle, after a pause. “She did.” Another hesitation. “Long
Alexander McQueen dress. He killed hiself and all,” she added, in a distant voice.
“Did you go into the changing room with her?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened in the changing room?” prompted Strike.
Her eyes reminded him of those of a bull he had once come face to face with
as a small boy: deep-set, deceptively stoic, unfathomable.
“She put on the dress,” said Rochelle.
“She didn’t do anything else? Didn’t call anyone?”
“No. Well, yeah. She mighta.”
“D’you know who she called?”
“I can’t remember.”
She drank, obscuring her face again with the paper cup.
“Was it Evan Duffield?”
“It mighta bin.”
“Can you remember what she said?”
“No.”