1 The Cuckoo's Calling

“What other man was that?”
“The singer,” said Lady Bristow vaguely. “The singer who’d written songs
about her. When you are young, and beautiful, you can be very cruel. I felt very
sorry for him. He told me he felt guilty. I told him he had nothing to feel guilty
about.”
“Why did he say he felt guilty?”
“For not following her into her apartment. For not being there, to stop her
dying.”
“If we could just go back for a moment, Yvette, to the day before Lula’s
death?”
She looked reproachful.
“I’m afraid I can’t remember anything else. I’ve told you everything I
remember. I was just out of hospital. I was not myself. They’d given me so many
drugs, for the pain.”
“I understand that. I just wanted to know whether you remember your brother,
Tony, visiting you that day?”
There was a pause, and Strike saw something harden in the weak face.
“No, I don’t remember Tony coming,” said Lady Bristow at last. “I know he
says he was here, but I don’t remember him coming. Maybe I was asleep.”
“He claims to have been here when Lula was visiting,” said Strike.
Lady Bristow gave the smallest shrug of her fragile shoulders.
“Maybe he was here,” she said, “but I don’t remember it.” And then, her voice
rising, “My brother’s being much nicer to me now he knows that I’m dying. He
visits a lot now. Always putting down poison about John, of course. He’s always
done that. But John has always been very good to me. He has done things for me
while I’ve been ill…things no son should have to do. It would have been more
appropriate for Lula…but she was a spoiled girl. I loved her, but she could be
selfish. Very selfish.”
“So on that last day, the last time you saw Lula—” said Strike, returning
doggedly to the main point, but Lady Bristow cut across him.
“After she left, I was very upset,” she said. “Very upset indeed. Talking about
Charlie always does that to me. She could see how distressed I was, but she still
left to meet her friend. I had to take pills, and I slept. No, I never saw Tony; I
didn’t see anyone else. He might say he was here, but I don’t remember anything
until John woke me up with a supper tray. John was cross. He told me off.”