The Cuckoo's Calling (32 page)

“Hi,” she said, in a normal voice. “
God.
Talk about cutting the tension with a knife, eh? Guy’s always a perfectionist, but this is his first proper shoot since Lula died, so he’s, you know,
seriously
uptight.”

She had dark, choppy hair; her skin was sallow, her features, though large, were attractive. She was wearing tight jeans on long, slightly bandy legs, a black vest, several fine gold chains around her neck, rings on her fingers and thumbs, and also what looked like black leather ballet shoes. This kind of footwear always had a slightly anaphrodisiac effect on Strike, because it reminded him of the fold-up slippers his Aunt Joan used to carry in her handbag, and therefore of bunions and corns.

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?”

“Just one of those spoiled rich women—well,” said Bryony, with a twist to her mouth, “she isn’t
nearly
as rich as she’d like to be. Both those Chillingham sisters went for old men with bags of money; wealth-seeking missiles, the pair of them. Ursula thought she’d hit the jackpot when she married Cyprian May, but he hasn’t got
nearly
enough for her. She’s knocking forty now; the opportunities aren’t there the way they used to be. I suppose that’s why she hasn’t been able to trade up.”

Then, evidently feeling that her tone needed some explanation, she continued:

“I’m sorry, but she accused me of listening to her bloody voicemail messages.” The makeup artist folded her arms across her chest, glaring at Strike. “I mean,
please.
She chucked me her mobile and told me to call her a cab, without so much as a bloody please or thank you. I’m dyslexic. I hit the wrong button and the next thing I know, she’s screaming her bloody head off at me.”

“Why do you think she was so upset?”

“Because I heard a man she wasn’t married to telling her he was lying in a hotel room fantasizing about going down on her, I expect,” said Bryony, coolly.

“So she might be trading up after all?” asked Strike.

“
That’s
not up,” said Bryony; but then she added hastily, “I mean, pretty tacky message. Anyway, listen, I’ve got to get back out there, or Guy will be going ballistic.”

He let her go. After she had left, he made two more pages of notes. Bryony Radford had shown herself a highly unreliable witness, suggestible and mendacious, but she had told him much more than she knew.

THE SHOOT LASTED FOR ANOTHER
three hours. Strike waited in the garden, smoking and consuming more bottled water, while dusk fell. From time to time he wandered back into the building to check on progress, which seemed immensely slow. Occasionally he glimpsed or heard Somé, whose temper seemed frayed, barking instructions at the photographer or one of the black-clad minions who flitted between clothes racks. Finally, at nearly nine o’clock, after Strike had consumed a few slices of the pizza that had been ordered by the morose and exhausted stylist’s assistant, Ciara Porter descended the stairs where she had been posing with her two colleagues, and joined Strike in the makeup room, which Bryony was busy stripping bare.

Ciara was still wearing the stiff silver minidress in which she had posed for the last pictures. Attenuated and angular, with milk-white skin, hair almost as fair, and pale blue eyes set very wide apart, she stretched out her endless legs, in platform shoes that were tied with long silver threads up her calves, and lit a Marlboro Light.

“God, I can’t
believe
you’re Rokers’ son!” she said breathlessly, her chrysoberyl eyes and full lips both wide. “Just
beyond
weird! I know him; he invited Looly and me to the Greatest Hits launch last year! And I know your brothers, Al and Eddie! They
told
me they had a big brother in the army! God.
Mad.
Is that you done, Bryony?” Ciara added pointedly.

The makeup artist seemed to be making a laborious business of gathering up the tools of her trade. Now she sped up perceptibly, while Ciara smoked and watched her in silence.

“Yep, that’s me,” said Bryony brightly at last, hoisting a heavy box over her shoulder and picking up more cases in each hand. “See you, Ciara. Goodbye,” she added to Strike, and left.

“She is
so
bloody nosy, and
such
a gossip,” Ciara told Strike. She threw back her long white hair, rearranged her coltish legs and asked:

“D’you see a lot of Al and Eddie?”

“No,” said Strike.

“And your
mum,”
she said, unfazed, blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth. “I mean, she’s just, like, a
legend.
You know how Baz Carmichael did a whole collection two seasons back called ‘Supergroupie,’ and it was like, Bebe Buell and your mum were the
whole
inspiration? Maxi skirts and buttonless shirts and boots?”

“I didn’t,” said Strike.

“Oh, it was, like—you know that great quote about Ossie Clark dresses, how men liked them because they could just, like, open them up really easily and fuck the girls? That’s, like, your mum’s whole
era.”

She shook her hair out of her eyes again and gazed at him, not with the chilling and offensive appraisal of Tansy Bestigui, but in what seemed to be frank and open wonder. It was difficult for him to decide whether she was sincere, or performing her own character; her beauty got in the way, like a thick cobweb through which it was difficult to see her clearly.

“So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you about Lula.”

“God, yeah. Yeah. No, I really want to help. When I heard someone was investigating it, I was, like, well,
good. At last.”

“Really?”

“God, yeah. The whole thing was
so
fucking shocking. I just couldn’t believe it. She’s still on my phone, look at this.”

She rummaged in an enormous handbag, finally retrieving a white iPhone. Scrolling down the contact list, she leaned into him, showing him the name “Looly.” Her perfume was sweet and peppery.

“I keep expecting her to
call
me,” said Ciara, momentarily subdued, slipping the phone back into her bag. “I can’t delete her; I keep
going
to do it, and then just, like,
bottling
it, you know?”

She raised herself restlessly, twisted one of the long legs underneath her, sat back down and smoked in silence for a few seconds.

“You were with her most of her last day, weren’t you?” Strike asked.

“
Don’t
fucking remind me,” said Ciara, closing her eyes. “I’ve only been over it, like, a
million
times. Trying to get my head around how you can go from, like, completely bloody happy to
dead
in, like,
hours.”

“She was completely happy?”

“God, happier than I’d
ever
seen her, that last week. We got back from a job in Antigua for
Vogue,
and she and Evan got back together and they had the commitment ceremony; it was all
fantastic
for her, she was on cloud
nine.”

“You were at this commitment ceremony?”

“Oh yeah,” said Ciara, dropping her cigarette end into a can of Coke, where it was extinguished with a small hiss. “God, it was
beyond
romantic. Evan just, like,
sprang
it on her at Dickie Carbury’s house. You know Dickie Carbury, the restaurateur? He’s got this
fabulous
place in the Cotswolds, and we were all there for the weekend, and Evan had bought them both matching bangles from Fergus Keane,
gorgeous,
oxidized silver. He
forced
us all down to the lake after dinner in the freezing cold and the snow, and then he recited this
poem
he’d written to her, and put the bangle on her wrist. Looly was laughing her head off, but then she just, like, recited a poem she knew back to him. Walt Whitman. It was,” said Ciara, with an air of sudden seriousness, “honestly, like,
so
impressive, just to have the perfect poem to say, just like
that.
People think models are dumb, you know.” She threw her hair back again and offered Strike a cigarette before taking another herself. “I get
so bored
of telling people I’ve got a deferred place to read English at Cambridge.”

“Have you?” asked Strike, unable to suppress the surprise in his voice.

“Yeah,” she said, blowing out smoke prettily, “but, you know, the modeling’s going so well, I’m going to give it another year. It’s opening doors, you know?”

“So this commitment ceremony was when—a week before Lula died?”

“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.”

“Would you say you were close to Lula?”

“Oh God, yeah,
super
-close, she told me
everything.”

“A couple of people have mentioned that she didn’t trust too easily. That she was scared of confidences turning up in the press. I’ve been told that she tested people to see whether she could trust them.”

“Oh yeah, she did get a bit, like,
paranoid
after her real mum started selling stories about her. She actually asked me,” said Ciara, with an airy wave of her cigarette, “whether I’d told anyone she was back with Evan. I mean,
come on.
There was
no way
she was going to keep that quiet.
Everyone
was talking about it. I said to her, ‘Looly, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.’ That’s Oscar Wilde,” she added, kindly. “But Looly didn’t like that side of being famous.”