The Cuckoo's Calling(119)
“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 f*ck’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 f*cking 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 f*cking jumped off a balcony? How can us splitting up the first time have anything to do with it, knucklehead? That was two f*cking months before she died. Fuck, I could call meself a detective and ask a lot of f*ckass questions. Bet it pays all right, dunnit, if you can find some f*ckwit rich client?”
“Evan, don’t,” said Ciara, distressed. “You said you wanted to help…”
“Yeah, I wanna help, but how’s this f*cking 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 f*cking 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 f*cking 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, f*cking 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 f*cking 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 f*cking phone, man, and that gives you a weird f*cking 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 f*cked 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 f*cking 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 f*cking didn’t,” said Duffield quietly, holding Strike’s gaze without blinking. “No I f*cking 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 really was,” echoed Ciara sadly.
“So, for the press to have found out so quickly, someone who was there must have told them?”
“Yeah, I s’pose so.”
“Because your phones weren’t being tapped then, were they? You’d changed your numbers.”
“I don’t f*cking know if they were being tapped. Ask the shits at the rags who do it.”
“Did she talk to you at all about trying to trace her father?”
“He was dead…what, you mean the real one? Yeah, she was interested, but it was no go, wannit? Her mother didn’t know who he was.”
“She never told you whether she’d managed to find out anything about him?”
“She tried, but she didn’t get anywhere, so she decided that she was gonna to do a course in African studies. That was gonna be Daddy, the whole f*cking continent of Africa. Fucking Somé was behind that, shit-stirring as usual.”