1 The Cuckoo's Calling

joke. And she said, like, really seriously, ‘I’m leaving everything to my brother,
but I’m sure he’d let you have anything you want.’ ”
Strike was watching and listening for any sign that she was lying or
exaggerating, but the words came easily and, to all appearances, frankly.
“That was a strange thing to say, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I s’pose,” said Ciara, shaking the hair back off her face again. “But
Looly was like that; she could go a bit dark and dramatic sometimes. Guy used to
say, ‘Less of the cuckoo, Cuckoo.’ Anyway,” Ciara sighed, “she didn’t take the
hint about the Cashile bag. I was hoping she’d just give it to me; I mean, she had
four.”
“Would you say you were close to Lula?”
“Oh God, yeah, super-close, she told me everything.”
“A couple of people have mentioned that she didn’t trust too easily. That she
was scared of confidences turning up in the press. I’ve been told that she tested
people to see whether she could trust them.”
“Oh yeah, she did get a bit, like, paranoid after her real mum started selling
stories about her. She actually asked me,” said Ciara, with an airy wave of her
cigarette, “whether I’d told anyone she was back with Evan. I mean, come on.
There was no way she was going to keep that quiet. Everyone was talking about
it. I said to her, ‘Looly, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being
talked about.’ That’s Oscar Wilde,” she added, kindly. “But Looly didn’t like that
side of being famous.”
“Guy Somé thinks that Lula wouldn’t have got back with Duffield if he hadn’t
been out of the country.”
Ciara glanced towards the door, and dropped her voice.
“Guy would say that. He was just, like, super-protective of Looly. He adored
her; he really loved her. He thought Evan was bad for her, but honestly, he
doesn’t know the real Evan. Evan’s, like, totally fucked up, but he’s a good
person. He went to see Lady Bristow not long ago, and I said to him, ‘Why, Evan,
what on earth did you put yourself through that for?’ Because, you know, her
family hated him. And d’you know what he said? ‘I just wanna speak to
somebody who cares as much as I do that she’s gone.’ I mean, how sad is that?”
Strike cleared his throat.
“The press have totally got it in for Evan, it’s just so unfair, he can’t do
anything right.”
“Duffield came to your place, didn’t he, the night she died?”