The Cuckoo's Calling

a lot gentler than he would have had from the police. This is polite.”
    “You’ve got an awful look on your face, though. Really, like, stern and as if you don’t believe a word he’s saying.”
    “D’you think he’s going to come back?”
    “Yes, of course he is. Please be a bit nicer…”
    She sat quickly back in her seat as Duffield walked back in; he was grim-faced and his camp strut was very slightly subdued. He flung himself into the chair he had previously occupied and said to Strike:
    “I’m out of fags. Can I have another one of yours?”
    Reluctantly, because he was down to three, Strike handed it across, lit it for him, then said:
    “All right to keep talking?”
    “About Lula? You can talk, if you want. I dunno what else I can tell you. I ain’t got any more information.”
    “Why did you split up? The first time, I mean; I’m clear on why she ditched you in Uzi.”
    Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ciara make an indignant little gesture; apparently this did not qualify as “nicer.”
    “What the fuck’s that got to do with anything?”
    “It’s all relevant,” said Strike. “It all gives a picture of what was going on in her life. It all helps explain why she might’ve killed herself.”
    “I thought you were looking for a murderer?”
    “I’m looking for the truth. So why did you break up, the first time?”
    “Fuck, how’s this fucking important?” exploded Duffield. His temper, as Strike had expected, was violent and short-fused. “What, are you trying to make out it’s my fault she fucking jumped off a balcony? How can us splitting up the first time have anything to do with it, knucklehead? That was two fucking months before she died. Fuck, I could call meself a detective and ask a lot of fuckass questions. Bet it pays all right, dunnit, if you can find some fuckwit rich client?”
    “Evan, don’t,” said Ciara, distressed. “You said you wanted to help…”
    “Yeah, I wanna help, but how’s this fucking fair?”
    “No problem, if you don’t want to answer,” said Strike. “You’re under no obligation here.”
    “I ain’t got nothing to hide, it’s just fucking personal stuff, innit? We split up,” he shouted, “because of drugs, and her family and her friends putting down poison about me, and because she didn’t trust nobody because of the fucking press, all right? Because of all the pressure.”
    And Duffield made his hands into trembling claws and pressed them, like earphones, over his ears, making a compressing movement.
    “Pressure, fucking pressure, that’s why we split up.”
    “You were taking a lot of drugs at the time, were you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And Lula didn’t like it?”
    “Well, people round her were telling her she didn’t like it, you know?”
    “Like who?”
    “Like her family, like fucking Guy Somé. That little pansy twat.”
    “When you say that she didn’t trust anybody because of the press, what do you mean by that?”
    “Fuck, innit obvious? Don’t you know all this, from your old man?”
    “I know jack shit about my father,” said Strike coolly.
    “Well, they were tapping her fucking phone, man, and that gives you a weird fucking feeling ; haven’t you got any imagination? She started getting paranoid about people selling stuff on her. Trying to work out what she’d said on the phone, and what she hadn’t, and who mighta given stuff to the papers and that. It fucked with her head.”
    “Was she accusing you of selling stories?”
    “No,” snapped Duffield, and then, just as vehemently, “Yeah, sometimes. How did they know we were coming here, how did they know I said that to you, yadda yadda yadda …I said to her, it’s all part and fucking parcel of fame, innit, but she thought she could have her cake and eat it.”
    “But you didn’t ever sell stories about her to the press?”
    He heard Ciara’s hissing intake of breath.
    “No I fucking didn’t,” said Duffield quietly, holding Strike’s gaze without blinking. “No I fucking did not. All right?”
    “And you split up for how long?”
    “Two months, give or take.”
    “But you got back together, what, a week before she died?”
    “Yeah. At Mo Innes’s party.”
    “And you had this commitment ceremony forty-eight hours later? At Carbury’s house in the Cotswolds?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And who knew that was going to happen?”
    “It was a spontaneous thing. I bought the bangles and we just did it. It was beautiful, man.”
    “It