1 The Cuckoo's Calling

knew what she was going to say, and I wasn’t any too fucking pleased about it. I
thought she was pregnant.”
Somé nodded several times with the fresh cigarette clutched between his teeth;
then he removed it to say:
“Yeah, I thought she’d gone and got herself knocked up.”
“By Duffield?”
“I hoped to fuck not. I didn’t know at the time that they’d got back together.
She wouldn’t have dared hook up with him if I’d been in the country; no, she
waited till I was in Japan, the sneaky little bitch. She knew I hated him, and she
cared what I thought. We were like family, Cuckoo and me.”
“Why did you think she might be pregnant?”
“It was the way she sounded. You’ve heard it—she was so excited…I had this
feeling. It was the kind of thing Cuckoo would’ve done, and she’d have expected
me to be as pleased as she was, and fuck her career, fuck me, counting on her to
launch my brand-new accessories line…”
“Was this the five-million-pound contract her brother told me about?”
“Yeah, and I’ll bet the Accountant pushed her to hold out for as much as she
could get, too,” said Somé, with another flash of temper. “It wasn’t like Cuckoo
to try and wring every last penny out of me. She knew it was going to be
fabulous, and would take her to a whole new level if she fronted it. It shouldn’t
have been all about the money. Everyone associated her with my stuff; her big
break came on a shoot for Vogue when she wore my Jagged dress. Cuckoo loved
my clothes, she loved me, but people get to a certain level, and everyone’s telling
them they’re worth more, and they forget who put them there, and suddenly it’s
all about the bottom line.”
“You must’ve thought she was worth it, to commit to a five-million-pound
contract?”
“Yeah, well, I’d pretty much designed the range for her, so having to shoot
around a fucking pregnancy wouldn’t have been funny. And I could just imagine
Cuckoo going silly afterwards, throwing it all in, not wanting to leave the fucking
baby. She was the type; always looking for people to love, for a surrogate family.
Those Bristows fucked her up good. They only adopted her as a toy for Yvette,
who is the scariest bitch in the world.”
“In what way?”
“Possessive. Morbid. Didn’t want to let Cuckoo out of her sight in case she
died, like the kid she’d been bought to replace. Lady Bristow used to come to all
the shows, getting under everyone’s feet, till she got too ill. And there was an