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Back The Cuckoo's Calling Save as PDF
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

‘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.’

‘Guy Somé thinks that Lula wouldn’t have got back with Duffield if he hadn’t been out of the country.’

Ciara glanced towards the door, and dropped her voice.