Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling

Strike began to explain what he wanted from her, but she cut him off.

“Guy’s told me everything. Want a ciggie? We can smoke in here if we open this.”

So saying, she wrenched open the door that led directly on to a paved area of the garden.

She made a small space on one of the cluttered makeup tables and perched herself on it; Strike took one of the vacated chairs and drew out his notebook.

“OK, fire away,” she said, and then, without giving him time to speak, “I’ve been thinking about that afternoon nonstop ever since, actually. So, so sad.”

“Did you know Lula well?” asked Strike.

“Yeah, pretty well. I’d done her makeup for a couple of shoots, made her up for the Rainforest Benefit. When I told her I can thread eyebrows…”

“You can what?”

“Thread eyebrows. It’s like plucking, but with threads?”

Strike could not imagine how this worked.

“Right…”

“…she asked me to do them for her at home. The paps were all over her, all the time, even if she was going to the salon. It was insane. So I helped her out.”

She had a habit of tossing back her head to flick her overlong fringe out of her eyes, and a slightly breathy manner. Now she threw her hair over to one side, raked it with her fingers and peered at him through her fringe.

“I got there about three. She and Ciara were all excited about Deeby Macc arriving. Girlie gossip, you know. I’d never have guessed what was coming. Never.”

“Lula was excited, was she?”

“Oh God, yeah, what d’you think? How would you feel if someone had written songs about…Well,” she said, with a breathy little laugh, “maybe it’s a girl thing. He’s so charismatic. Ciara and I were having a laugh about it while I did Lula’s eyebrows. Then Ciara asked me to do her nails. I ended up making them both up, as well, so I was there for, must’ve been three hours. Yeah, I left about six.”

“So you’d describe Lula’s mood as excited, would you?”

“Yeah. Well, you know, she was a bit distracted; she kept checking her phone; it was lying in her lap while I was doing her eyebrows. I knew what that meant: Evan was messing her around again.”

“Did she say that?”

“No, but I knew she was really pissed off at him. Why do you think she said that to Ciara about her brother? About leaving him everything?”

This seemed a stretch to Strike.

“Did you hear her say that too?”

“What? No, but I heard about it. I mean, afterwards. Ciara told us all. I think I was in the loo when she actually said it. Anyway, I totally believe it. Totally.”

“Why’s that?”

She looked confused.

“Well—she really loved her brother, didn’t she? God, that was always obvious. He was probably the only person she could really rely on. Months before, around the time she and Evan split up the first time, I was making her up for the Stella show, and she was telling everyone her brother was really pissing her off, going on and on about what a freeloader Evan was. And you know, Evan was jacking her around again, that last afternoon, so she was thinking that James—is it James?—had had him right all along. She always knew he had her interests at heart, even if he was a bit bossy sometimes. This is a really, really exploitative business, you know. Everyone’s got an agenda.”

“Who do you think had an agenda for Lula?”

“Oh my God, everyone,” said Bryony, making a wide sweeping gesture with her cigarette-holding hand, which encompassed all of the inhabited rooms outside. “She was the hottest model out there, everyone wanted a piece of her. I mean, Guy—” But Bryony broke off. “Well, Guy’s a businessman, but he did adore her; he wanted her to go and live with him after that stalker business. He’s still not right about her dying. I heard he tried to contact her through some spiritualist. Margo Leiter told me. He’s still devastated, he can barely hear her name without crying. Anyway,” said Bryony, “that’s all I know. I never dreamed that afternoon would be the last time I saw her. I mean, my God.”

“Did she talk about Duffield at all, while you were—er—threading her eyebrows?”

“No,” said Bryony, “but she wouldn’t, would she, if he was really hacking her off?”

“So as far as you can remember, she mainly spoke about Deeby Macc?”

“Well…it was more Ciara and me talking about him.”

“But you think she was excited to meet him?”

“God, yeah, of course.”

“Tell me, did you see a blue piece of paper with Lula’s handwriting on it when you were in the flat?”

Bryony shook her hair over her face again, and combed it with her fingers.

“What? No. No, I didn’t see anything like that. Why, what was it?”

“I don’t know,” said Strike. “That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“No, I didn’t see it. Blue, did you say? No.”

“Did you see any paper at all with her writing on it?”

“No, I can’t remember any papers. No.” She shook her hair out of her face. “I mean, something like that could’ve been lying around, but I wouldn’t have necessarily noticed it.”

The room was dingy. Perhaps he only imagined that she had changed color, but he had not invented the way she twisted her right foot up on to her knee and examined the sole of the leather ballet slipper for something that was not there.

“Lula’s driver, Kieran Kolovas-Jones…”

“Oh, that really, really cute guy?” said Bryony. “We used to tease her about Kieran; he had such a gigantic crush on her. I think Ciara uses him now sometimes.” Bryony gave a meaningful little giggle. “She’s got a bit of a rep as a good-time girl, Ciara. I mean, you can’t help liking her, but…”

“Kolovas-Jones says that Lula was writing something on blue paper in the back of his car, when she left her mother’s that day…”

“Have you talked to Lula’s mother yet? She’s a bit weird.”

“…and I’d like to find out what it was.”

Bryony flicked her cigarette stub out of the open door and shifted restlessly on the desk.

“It could have been anything.” He waited for the inevitable suggestion, and was not disappointed. “A shopping list or something.”

“Yeah, it could’ve been; but if, for the sake of argument, it was a suicide note…”

“But it wasn’t—I mean, that’s silly—how could it’ve been? Who’d write a suicide note that far in advance, and then get their face done and go out dancing? That doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“It doesn’t seem likely, I agree, but it would be good to find out what it was.”

“Maybe it had nothing to do with her dying. Why couldn’t it have been a letter to Evan or something, telling him how hacked off she was?”

“She doesn’t seem to have become hacked off with him until later that day. Anyway, why would she write a letter, when she had his telephone number and was going to see him that night?”

“I don’t know,” said Bryony restlessly. “I’m just saying, it could’ve been something that doesn’t make any difference.”

“And you’re quite sure you didn’t see it?”

“Yes, I’m quite sure,” she said, her color definitely heightened. “I was there to do a job, not go snooping around her stuff. Is that everything, then?”

“Yeah, I think that’s all I’ve got to ask about that afternoon,” said Strike, “but you might be able to help me with something else. Do you know Tansy Bestigui?”

“No,” said Bryony. “Only her sister, Ursula. She’s hired me a couple of times for big parties. She’s awful.”

“In what way?”