1 The Cuckoo's Calling

She looked away from him, drawing hard on her Rothman’s; when her mouth
puckered into hard little lines around the cigarette, it looked like a cat’s anus.
“And Dez, me boyfriend, see, wasn’t too keen—you know, with ’er being
colored, it were obvious she weren’t ’is. They go darker, see; when she were
born, she looked white. But I still never woulda given ’er up if I ’adn’t seen a
chance for ’er to get a better life, and I fort, she won’t miss me, she’s too young.
I’ve gave ’er a good start, and mebbe, when she’s older, she’ll come and find me.
And me dream come true,” she added, with a ghastly show of pathos. “She
come’n’ found me.
“I’ll tell you somefing reely strange, right,” she said, without drawing breath.
“A man friend of mine says to me, just a week before I got the call from ’er, ‘You
know ’oo you look like?’ he says. I says, ‘Dahn be ser silly,’ but he says,
‘Straight up. Across the eyes, and the shape of the eyebrows, y’know?’ ”
She looked hopefully at Strike, who could not bring himself to respond. It
seemed impossible that the face of Nefertiti could have sprung from this gray and
purple mess.
“You can see it in photos of me when I were younger,” she said, with a hint of
pique. “Point is, I fort I was giving her a better life, and then they went an’ give
her to those bastards, pardon my language. If I’d’a known, I’d of kept ’er, and I
told ’er that. That made ’er cry. I’d of kept her and never let ’er go.
“Oh yeah. She talked to me. It all poured out. She got on all right wiv the
father, with S’Ralec. He sounded all right. The mother’s a right mad bitch,
though. Oh yeah. Pills. Poppin’ pills. Fackin’ rich bitches takin’ pills f’ their
fackin’ nerves. Lula could talk to me, see. Well, it’s a bond, innit. You can’ break
it, blood.
“She was scared what that bitch’d do, if she found out Lula was lookin’ for ’er
real mum. She was proper worried about what the cow was gonna do when the
press found out about me, but there you are, when yore famous like she was, they
find out ev’rythin’, don’ they? Oh, the lies they tell, though. Some o’ the things
they said abaht me, I’m still thinkin’ o’ suin’.
“What was I sayin’? ’Er mother, yeah. I says to Lula, ‘Why worry, love,
sounds to me like you’re better off wivout ’er anyway. Let ’er be pissed off if she
don’ want us to see each uvver.’ But she was a good girl, Lula, an’ she kep’
visitin’ ’er, outta duty.
“Anyway, she ’ad ’er own life, she was free to do what she wanted, weren’
she? She ’ad Evan, a man of ’er own. I told ’er I disapproved, mind,” said
Marlene Higson, with a pantomime of strictness. “Oh yeah. Drugs, I’ve seen too
many go that way. But I ’ave to admit, ’e’s a sweet boy underneath. I ’ave to
admit that. He di’n’t have nothin’ to do wiv it. I can tell ya that.”