Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling

“Yeah,” said Ciara, “the Saturday before.”

“And it was just an exchange of poems and bangles. No vows, no officiant?”

“No, it wasn’t legally binding or anything, it was just, like, this lovely, this perfect moment. Well, except for Freddie Bestigui, he was being a bit of a pain. But at least,” Ciara drew hard on her cigarette, “his bloody wife wasn’t there.”

“Tansy?”

“Tansy Chillingham, yeah. She’s a bitch. It’s so not a surprise they’re divorcing; they led, like, totally separate lives, you never saw them out together.

“To tell you the truth, Freddie wasn’t too bad that weekend, seeing what a nasty rep he’s got. He was just a bore, the way he kept trying to suck up to Looly, but he wasn’t awful like they say he can be. I heard a story about this, like, totally naive girl he promised a bit part in a film…Well, I don’t know whether it was true.” Ciara squinted for a moment at the end of her cigarette. “She never reported it, anyway.”

“You said Freddie was being a pain; in what way?”

“Oh God, he kept, like, cornering Looly and going on about how great she’d be on screen, and like, what a great bloke her dad was.”

“Sir Alec?”

“Yeah, Sir Alec, of course. Oh my God,” said Ciara, wide-eyed, “if he’d known her real father, Looly would’ve, like, flipped out completely! That would have been, like, the dream of her life! No, he just said he’d known Sir Alec years and years ago, and they came from, like, the same East End manor or something, so he should be considered, like, her godfather or something. I think he was trying to be funny, but not. Anyway, everyone could tell he was just trying to work out how to get her into a film. He was a jerk about the commitment ceremony; he kept shouting ‘I’ll give away the bride.’ He was pissed; he drank like crazy all through dinner. Dickie had to shut him up. Then after the ceremony, we all had champagne back at the house and Freddie had, like, another two bottles on top of everything he’d already put away. He kept yelling at Looly that she’d make such a great actress, but she didn’t care. She just ignored him. She was cuddled up with Evan on the sofa, just, like…”

And suddenly, tears were sparkling in Ciara’s kohled eyes, and she squashed them out of sight with the flat palms of her pretty white hands.

“… crazy in love. She was so fucking happy, I’d never seen her happier.”

“You met Freddie Bestigui again, didn’t you, on the evening before Lula died? Didn’t the two of you pass him in the lobby, on your way out?”

“Yeah,” said Ciara, still dabbing at her eyes. “How did you know that?”

“Wilson, the security guard. He thought Bestigui said something to Lula that she didn’t like.”

“Yeah. He’s right. I’d forgotten about that. Freddie said something about Deeby Macc, about Looly being excited about him coming, how he really wanted to get them on film together. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but he made it sound dirty, you know?”

“Did Lula know that Bestigui and her adoptive father had been friends?”

“She told me it was the first she’d ever heard of it. She always stayed out of Freddie’s way at the flats. She didn’t like Tansy.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, Looly wasn’t interested in that whole, like, whose husband’s got the biggest fucking yacht crap, she didn’t want to get into their crowd. She was so much better than that. So not like the Chillingham girls.”

“OK,” said Strike, “can you talk me through the afternoon and evening you were with her?”

Ciara dropped her second fag end into the Coke can, with another little spitting fizz, and immediately lit another.

“Yeah. OK, let me think. Well, I met her at her place in the afternoon. Bryony came over to do her eyebrows and ended up giving us both manicures. We just had, like, a girlie afternoon together.”

“How did she seem?”

“She was…” Ciara hesitated. “Well, she wasn’t quite as happy as she’d been that week. But not suicidal, I mean, no way.”

“Her driver, Kieran, thought she seemed strange when she left her mother’s house in Chelsea.”

“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 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.”