1 The Cuckoo's Calling

But she did not move. He wondered how poor she was, whether she ate
regularly or not. There was something about her, beneath the surliness, that he
found touching: a fierce pride, a vulnerability.
“Yeah, all right then,” she said, dropping her handbag and slumping back on to
the hard chair. “I’ll have a Big Mac.”
He was afraid she might leave while he was at the counter, but when he
returned with two trays, she was still there; she even thanked him grudgingly.
Strike tried a different tack.
“You know Kieran quite well, do you?” he asked, pursuing the glow that had
illuminated her at the mention of his name.
“Yeah,” she said, self-consciously. “I met him a lot with ’er. ’E wuz always
driving ’er.”
“He says that Lula was writing something in the back of the car, before she
arrived at Vashti. Did she show you, or give you, anything she’d written?”
“No,” she said. She crammed fries into her mouth and then said, “I ain’t seen
nuthin like that. Why, what was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it were a shopping list or something?”
“Yeah, that’s what the police thought. You’re sure you didn’t notice her
carrying a bit of paper, a letter, an envelope?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Kieran know you’re meeting me?” asked Rochelle.
“Yeah, I told him you were on my list. He told me you used to live at St.
Elmo’s.”
This seemed to please her.
“Where are you living now?”
“What’s it to you?” she demanded, suddenly fierce.
“It’s nothing to me. I’m just making polite conversation.”
This drew a small snort from Rochelle.
“I got my own place in Hammersmith now.”
She chewed for a while and then, for the first time, proffered unsolicited
information.