The Cuckoo's Calling

“Why are you so sure it wasn’t suicide? Lula had had mental health problems, hadn’t she?”

“Yeah, but we had a pact, like Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. We’d sworn that if either of us was thinking seriously of killing themselves, we’d call the other. She would’ve called me.”

“When did you last hear from her?”

“She phoned me on the Wednesday, while I was still in Tokyo,” said Somé. “Silly cow always forgot it was eight hours ahead; I had my phone on mute at two in the morning, so I didn’t pick up; but she left a message, and she was not suicidal. Listen to this.”

He reached into his desk drawer again, pressed several buttons, then held the mobile out to Strike.

And Lula Landry spoke close and real, slightly raw and throaty, in Strike’s ear, in deliberately affected mockney.

“Aw wight, darlin’? Got something to tell you, I’m not sure whether you’re going to like it but it’s a biggie, and I’m so fucking happy I’ve gotta tell someone, so ring me when you can, OK, can’t wait, mwah mwah.”

Strike handed back the phone.

“Did you call her back? Did you find out what the big news was?”

“No.” Somé ground out his cigarette and reached immediately for another one. “The Japs had me in back-to-back meetings; every time I thought of calling her, the time difference was in the way. Anyway…to tell you the truth, I thought I knew what she was going to say, and I wasn’t any too fucking pleased about it. I thought she was pregnant.”

Somé nodded several times with the fresh cigarette clutched between his teeth; then he removed it to say:

“Yeah, I thought she’d gone and got herself knocked up.”

“By Duffield?”

“I hoped to fuck not. I didn’t know at the time that they’d got back together. She wouldn’t have dared hook up with him if I’d been in the country; no, she waited till I was in Japan, the sneaky little bitch. She knew I hated him, and she cared what I thought. We were like family, Cuckoo and me.”

“Why did you think she might be pregnant?”

“It was the way she sounded. You’ve heard it—she was so excited…I had this feeling. It was the kind of thing Cuckoo would’ve done, and she’d have expected me to be as pleased as she was, and fuck her career, fuck me, counting on her to launch my brand-new accessories line…”

“Was this the five-million-pound contract her brother told me about?”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet the Accountant pushed her to hold out for as much as she could get, too,” said Somé, with another flash of temper. “It wasn’t like Cuckoo to try and wring every last penny out of me. She knew it was going to be fabulous, and would take her to a whole new level if she fronted it. It shouldn’t have been all about the money. Everyone associated her with my stuff; her big break came on a shoot for Vogue when she wore my Jagged dress. Cuckoo loved my clothes, she loved me, but people get to a certain level, and everyone’s telling them they’re worth more, and they forget who put them there, and suddenly it’s all about the bottom line.”

“You must’ve thought she was worth it, to commit to a five-million-pound contract?”

“Yeah, well, I’d pretty much designed the range for her, so having to shoot around a fucking pregnancy wouldn’t have been funny. And I could just imagine Cuckoo going silly afterwards, throwing it all in, not wanting to leave the fucking baby. She was the type; always looking for people to love, for a surrogate family. Those Bristows fucked her up good. They only adopted her as a toy for Yvette, who is the scariest bitch in the world.”

“In what way?”

“Possessive. Morbid. Didn’t want to let Cuckoo out of her sight in case she died, like the kid she’d been bought to replace. Lady Bristow used to come to all the shows, getting under everyone’s feet, till she got too ill. And there was an uncle, who treated Cuckoo like scum until she started pulling in big money. He got a bit more respectful then. They all know the value of a buck, the Bristows.”

“They’re a wealthy family, aren’t they?”

“Alec Bristow didn’t leave that much, not relatively speaking. Not compared to proper money. Not like your old man. How come,” said Somé, swerving suddenly off the conversational track, “Jonny Rokeby’s son’s working as a private dick?”

“Because that’s his job,” said Strike. “Go on about the Bristows.”

Somé did not appear to resent being bossed around; if anything, he seemed to relish it, possibly because it was such an unusual experience.

“I just remember Cuckoo telling me that most of what Alec Bristow left was in shares in his old company, and Albris has gone down the pan in the recession. It’s hardly fucking Apple. Cuckoo had out-earned the whole fucking lot of them before she was twenty.”

“Was that picture,” said Strike, indicating the enormous “Fallen Angels” image on the wall behind him, “part of the five-million-pound campaign?”