The Cuckoo's Calling

“That fucking rapper. I wanted her to move in with me while he was staying in her building. ‘Don’t be silly, don’t you trust me?’ ” His imitation of Lula’s voice and expression was disingenuously girlish. “I said to her, ‘Don’t you be fucking silly. Show me I got nothing to worry about, and come and stay with me.’ But she wouldn’t. So then I thought, two can play at that fucking game, darling. Let’s see how you like it. So I got Ellie Carreira over to my place, and we did a bit of writing together, and then I brought Ellie along to Uzi with me. Lu couldn’t fucking complain. Just business. Just songwriting. Just friends, like her and that rapper-gangster.”

“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?”