1 The Cuckoo's Calling

He thought that she was going to tell him to mind his own business, but
instead she said:
“ ’Er family ’asn’t noticed they’re still payin’ for it.”
And this thought seemed to give her a slightly malicious pleasure.
“Did Lula buy you that jacket?” Strike asked.
“No,” she snapped, furiously defensive. “I got this myself, I’m working now.”
“Really? Where are you working?”
“Whut’s it to you?” she demanded again.
“I’m showing polite interest.”
A tiny, brief smile touched the wide mouth, and she relented again.
“I’m doing afternoons in a shop up the road from my new place.”
“Are you in another hostel?”
“No,” she said, and he sensed again the digging in, the refusal to go further
that he would push at his peril. He changed tack.
“It must have been a shock to you when Lula died, was it?”
“Yeah. It wuz,” she said, thoughtlessly; then, realizing what she had said, she
backtracked. “I knew she wuz depressed, but you never ’spect people tuh do
that.”
“So you wouldn’t say she was suicidal when you saw her that day?”
“I dunno. I never saw ’er for long enough, did I?”
“Where were you when you heard she’d died?”
“I wuz in the hostel. Loadsa people knew I knew her. Janine woke me up and
told me.”
“And your immediate thought was that it was suicide?”
“Yeah. An’ I gotta go now. I gotta go.”
She had made up her mind and he could see that he was not going to be able to
stop her. After wriggling back into the ludicrous fur jacket, she hoisted her
handbag onto her shoulder.
“Say hullo to Kieran for me.”
“Yeah, I will.”