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Chapters (57)
  1. COPYRIGHT
  2. The Cuckoo’s Calling
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Prologue
  6. Three Months Later
  7. Part One
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. 7
  15. Part Two
  16. 1
  17. 2
  18. 3
  19. 4
  20. 5
  21. 6
  22. 7
  23. 8
  24. 9
  25. 10
  26. 11
  27. Part Three
  28. 1
  29. 2
  30. 3
  31. 4
  32. 5
  33. 6
  34. 7
  35. 8
  36. 9
  37. 10
  38. Part Four
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. 13
  52. 14
  53. Part Five
  54. 1
  55. 2
  56. Epilogue
  57. Ten Days Later

‘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?’