1 The Cuckoo's Calling

Strike questioned her painstakingly about alleged rape, and Tracey manned the
video camera beside him.
“D’you know whether Lula tried to find her father?”
“Yeah, she tried,” said Marlene dismissively.
“How?”
“She looked up college records,” said Marlene.
“But if you couldn’t remember where he went…”
“I dunno, she thought she’d found the place or summit, but she couldn’t find
’im, no. Mebbe I wasn’ remembrin’ his name right, I dunno. She used to go on
an’ fuckin’ on; what did ’e look like, where was ’e studyin’. I said to ’er, he was
tall an’ skinny an’ you wanna be grateful you got my ears, not ’is, ’cause there
wouldna bin no fuckin’ modelin’ career if you’d got them fucking elephant lugs.”
“Did Lula ever talk to you about her friends?”
“Oh, yeah. There was that little black bitch, Raquelle, or whatever she called
’erself. Leechin’ all she could outta Lula. Oh, she did herself all right. Fuckin’
clothes an’ jew’lry an’ I-dunno-what-the-fuck else. I sez to Lula once, ‘I wouldn’
mind a new coat.’ But I wasn’ pushy, see. That Raquelle din’ mind askin’.”
She sniffed, and drained her glass.
“Did you ever meet Rochelle?”
“That was ’er name, was it? Yeah, once. She come along in a fuckin’ car with
a driver to pick Lula up from seein’ me. Like Lady Muck out the back window,
sneerin’ at me. She’ll be missin’ all of that now, I ’spect. In it for all she could
get.
“An’ there was that Ciara Porter,” Marlene plowed on, with, if possible, even
greater spite, “sleepin’ with Lula’s boyfriend the night she fuckin’ died. Nasty
fuckin’ bitch.”
“Do you know Ciara Porter?”
“I seen it in the fuckin’ papers. ’E wen’ off to ’er place, di’n’t ’e, Evan? After
he rowed with Lula. Went to Ciara. Fuckin’ bitch.”
It became clear, as Marlene talked on, that Lula had kept her natural mother
firmly segregated from her friends, and that, with the exception of a brief glimpse
of Rochelle, Marlene’s opinions and deductions about Lula’s social set were
based entirely on the press reports she had greedily consumed.
Strike fetched more drinks, and listened to Marlene describe the horror and
shock she had experienced on hearing (from the neighbor who had run in with
the news, early in the morning of the 8th) that her daughter had fallen to her
death from her balcony. Careful questioning revealed that Lula had not seen