1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“Oh God, yeah, well why wouldn’t she be? Her mum had cancer, didn’t she?”
“Did Lula discuss her mother, when she saw you?”
“No, not really. I mean, she said she’d just been sitting with her, because she
was a bit, you know, pulled down after her op, but nobody thought then that Lady
Bristow was going to die. The op was supposed to cure her, wasn’t it?”
“Did Lula mention any other reason that she was feeling less happy than she
had been?”
“No,” said Ciara, slowly shaking her head, the white-blonde hair tumbling
around her face. She raked it back again and took a deep drag on her cigarette.
“She did seem a bit down, a bit distracted, but I just put it down to having seen
her mum. They had a weird relationship. Lady Bristow was, like, really
overprotective and possessive. Looly found it, you know, a bit claustrophobic.”
“Did you notice Lula telephoning anyone while she was with you?”
“No,” said Ciara, after a thoughtful pause. “I remember her checking her
phone a lot, but she didn’t speak to anyone, as far as I can remember. If she was
phoning anyone, she was doing it on the quiet. She was in and out of the room a
bit. I don’t know.”
“Bryony thought she seemed excited about Deeby Macc.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Ciara impatiently. “It was everyone else who was
excited about Deeby Macc—Guy and Bryony and—well, even I was, a bit,” she
said, with endearing honesty. “But Looly wasn’t that fussed. She was in love
with Evan. You can’t believe everything Bryony says.”
“Did Lula have a piece of paper with her, that you can remember? A bit of
blue paper, which she’d written on?”
“No,” said Ciara again. “Why? What was it?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Strike, and Ciara looked suddenly thunderstruck.
“God—you’re not telling me she left a note? Oh my God. How fucking mad
would that be? But—no! That would mean she’d have, like, already decided she
was going to do it.”
“Maybe it was something else,” said Strike. “You mentioned at the inquest
that Lula expressed an intention to leave everything to her brother, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Ciara earnestly, nodding. “Yeah, what happened was,
Guy had sent Looly these fabby handbags from the new range. I knew he
wouldn’t have sent me any, even though I was in the advert too. Anyway, I
unwrapped the white one, Cashile, you know, and it was just, like, beautiful; he
does these detachable silk linings and he’d had it custom-printed for her with this
amazing African print. So I said, ‘Looly, will you leave me this one?’ just as a