Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling

“I didn’t think she’d ever met Deeby Macc.”

“She hadn’t, but he’d made his intentions pretty fucking public, hadn’t he? Have you heard that song he wrote? She was creaming her panties over it.”

“‘Bitch you ain’t all that…’ ” Ciara began to quote obligingly, but a filthy look from Duffield silenced her.

“Did she leave you voicemail messages?”

“Yeah, a couple. ‘Evan, will you call me, please. It’s urgent. I don’t want to say it on the phone.’ It was always fucking urgent when she wanted to find out what I was up to. She knew I was pissed off. She was worried I might’ve called Ellie. She had a real hang-up about Ellie, because she knew we’d fucked.”

“She said it was urgent, and that she didn’t want to say it on the phone?”

“Yeah, but that was just to try and make me call. One of her little games. She could be fucking jealous, Lu. And pretty fucking manipulative.”

“Can you think why she’d be calling her uncle repeatedly that day as well?”

“What uncle?”

“His name’s Tony Landry; he’s another lawyer.”

“ Him? She wouldn’t be calling him, she fucking hated him worse than her brother.”

“She called him, repeatedly, over the same period that she was calling you. Leaving more or less the same message.”

Duffield raked his unshaven chin with dirty nails, staring at Strike.

“I dunno what that was about. Her mum, maybe. Old Lady B going into hospital or something.”

“You don’t think something might have happened that morning which she thought was either relevant to or of interest to both you and her uncle?”

“There isn’t any subject that could interest me and her fucking uncle at the same time,” said Duffield. “I’ve met him. Share prices and shit are all he’d be interested in.”

“Maybe it was something about her, something personal?”

“If it was, she wouldn’t call that fucker. They didn’t like each other.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She felt about him like I feel about my fucking father. Neither of them thought we were worth shit.”

“Did she talk to you about that?”

“Oh, yeah. He thought her mental problems were just attention-seeking, bad behavior. Put on. Burden on her mother. He got a bit smarmier when she started making money, but she didn’t forget.”

“And she didn’t tell you why she’d been calling you, once she got to Uzi?”

“Nope,” said Duffield. He lit another cigarette. “She was fucked off from the moment she arrived, because Ellie was there. Didn’t like that at all. In a right fucking mood, wasn’t she?”

For the first time he appealed to Ciara, who nodded sadly.

“She didn’t really talk to me,” said Duffield. “She was mostly talking to you, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Ciara. “And she didn’t tell me there was anything, like, upsetting her or anything.”

“A couple of people have told me her phone was hacked…” began Strike; Duffield talked over him.

“Oh yeah, they were listening in on our messages for fucking weeks. They knew everywhere we were meeting and everything. Fucking bastards. We changed our phone numbers when we found out what was going on and we were fucking careful what messages we left after that.”

“So you wouldn’t be surprised, if Lula had had something important or upsetting to tell you, that she didn’t want to be explicit over the phone?”

“Yeah, but if it was that fucking important, she woulda told me at the club.”

“But she didn’t?”

“No, like I say, she never spoke to me all night.” A muscle was jumping in Duffield’s chiseled jaw. “She kept checking the time on her fucking phone. I knew what she was doing; trying to wind me up. Showing me she couldn’t wait to get home and meet fucking Deeby Macc. She waited until Ellie went off to the bog; then got up, came over to tell me she was leaving, and said I could have my bangle back; the one I gave her when we had our commitment ceremony. She chucked it down on the table in front of me, with everyone fucking gawping. So I picked it up and said, ‘Anyone fancy this, it’s going spare?’ and she fucked off.”

He did not speak as though Lula had died three months previously, but as though it had all happened the day before, and there was still a possibility of reconciliation.

“You tried to restrain her, though, right?” asked Strike.

Duffield’s eyes narrowed.

“Restrain her?”

“You grabbed her arms, according to witnesses.”

“Did I? I can’t remember.”

“But she pulled free, and you stayed behind, is that right?”

“I waited ten minutes, because I wasn’t gonna give her the satisfaction of chasing her in front of all those people, and then I left the club and got my driver to take me to Kentigern Gardens.”

“Wearing the wolf mask,” said Strike.

“Yeah, to stop those fucking scumbags,” he nodded towards the window, “selling pictures of me looking wasted or pissed off. They hate it when you cover your face. Depriving them of making their fucking parasitic living. One of them tried to pull Wolfie off me, but I held on. I got in the car and gave ’em a few pictures of the Wolf giving them the finger, out the back window. Got to the corner of Kentigern Gardens and there were more paps everywhere. I knew she must’ve got in already.”

“Did you know the key code?”

“Nineteen sixty-six, yeah. But I knew she’d’ve told security not to let me up. I wasn’t gonna walk in in front of all of them and then get chucked out on me arse five minutes later. I tried to phone her from the car, but she wouldn’t pick up. I thought she’d probably gone downstairs to welcome Deeby fucking Macc to London. So I went off to see a man about pain relief.”

He ground out his cigarette on a loose playing card on the edge of the table and began hunting for more tobacco. Strike, who wanted to oil the flow of conversation, offered him one of his own.

“Oh, cheers. Cheers. Yeah. Well, I got the driver to drop me off and I went to visit my friend, who has since given the police a full statement to that effect, as Uncle Tony might say. Then I wandered around a bit, and there’s camera footage in that station to prove that, and then about, I dunno…threeish? Fourish?”

“Half past four,” said Ciara.

“Yeah, I went to crash at Ciara’s.”

Duffield sucked on the cigarette, watching the tip burn, then, exhaling, said cheerfully:

“So my arse is covered, is it not?”

Strike did not find his satisfaction likeable.

“And when did you find out that Lula was dead?”

Duffield drew his legs up to his chest again.

“Ciara woke me up and told me. I couldn’t—I was fucking—yeah, well. Fucking hell.”

He put his arms over the top of his head and stared at the ceiling.

“I couldn’t fucking…I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t fucking believe it.”

And as Strike watched, he thought he saw realization wash over Duffield that the girl of whom he spoke so flippantly, and who he had, by his own account, provoked, taunted and loved, was really and definitely never coming back; that she had been smashed into pulp on snow-covered asphalt, and that she and their relationship were now beyond the possibility of repair. For a moment, staring at the blank white ceiling, Duffield’s face became grotesque as he appeared to grin from ear to ear; it was a grimace of pain, of the exertion necessary to beat back tears. His arms slipped down, and he buried his face in them, his forehead on his knees.

“Oh, sweetie,” said Ciara, putting her wine down on the table with a clunk, and reaching forward to place a hand on his bony knee.