The Cuckoo's Calling(77)

“I don’t like swimming. I don’t like water over m’face. I went in the jacuzzi. And we went shoppin’ an’ stuff.”

“Did she ever talk to you about her neighbors; the other people in her building?”

“Them Bestiguis? A bit. She din’ like them. That woman’s a bitch,” said Rochelle, with sudden savagery.

“What makes you say that?”

“Have you met ’er? She look at me like I wuz dirt.”

“What did Lula think of her?”

“She din’ like ’er neither, nor her husband. He’s a creep.”

“In what way?”

“He jus’ is,” said Rochelle, impatiently; but then, when Strike did not speak, she went on. “He wuz always tryin’ ter get her downstairs when his wife wuz out.”

“Did Lula ever go?”

“No f*ckin’ chance,” said Rochelle.

“You and Lula talked to each other a lot, I suppose, did you?”

“Yeah, we did, at f—Yeah, we did.”

She looked out of the window. A sudden shower of rain had caught passersby unawares. Transparent ellipses peppered the glass beside them.

“At first?” said Strike. “Did you talk less as time went on?”

“I’m gonna have to go soon,” said Rochelle, grandly. “I got things to do.”

“People like Lula,” said Strike, feeling his way, “can be spoiled. Treat people badly. They’re used to getting their own—”

“I ain’t no one’s servant,” said Rochelle fiercely.

“Maybe that’s why she liked you? Maybe she saw you as someone more equal—not a hanger-on?”

“Yeah, igzactly,” said Rochelle, mollified. “I weren’t impressed by her.”

“You can see why she’d want you as a friend, someone more down-to-earth…”

“Yeah.”

“…and you had your illness in common, didn’t you? So you understood her on a level most people wouldn’t.”

“And I’m black,” said Rochelle, “and she wuz wanting to feel proper black.”

“Did she talk to you about that?”

“Yeah, ’course,” said Rochelle. “She wuz wanting to find out where she come from, where she belong.”

“Did she talk to you about trying to find the black side of her family?”

“Yeah, of course. And she…yeah.”

She had braked almost visibly.

“Did she ever find anyone? Her father?”

“No. She never found ’im. No f*ckin’ chance.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

She began eating fast. Strike was afraid that she would leave the moment she had finished.

“Was Lula depressed when you met her at Vashti, the day before she died?”

“Yeah, she wuz.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“There don’t ’ave to be a reason why. It’s uh nillness.”

“But she told you she was feeling bad, did she?”

“Yeah,” she said, after a fractional hesitation.

“You were supposed to be having lunch together, weren’t you?” he asked. “Kieran told me that he drove her to meet you. You know Kieran, right? Kieran Kolovas-Jones?”

Her expression softened; the corners of her mouth lifted.

“Yeah, I know Kieran. Yeah, she come to meet me at Vashti.”

“But she didn’t stop for lunch?”

“No. She wuz in a hurry,” said Rochelle.

She bowed her head to drink more coffee, concealing her face.

“Why didn’t she just ring you? You’ve got a phone, have you?”

“Yeah, I gotta phone,” she snapped, bristling, and drew from the fur jacket a basic-looking Nokia, stuck all over with gaudy pink crystals.

“So why d’you think she didn’t call to say she couldn’t see you?”

Rochelle glowered at him.

“Because she didn’t like using the phone, because of them listenin’ in.”

“Journalists?”

“Yeah.”

She had almost finished her cookie.

“Journalists wouldn’t have been very interested in her saying that she wasn’t coming to Vashti, though, would they?”

“I dunno.”

“Didn’t you think it was odd, at the time, that she drove all the way to tell you she couldn’t stay for lunch?”

“Yeah. No,” said Rochelle. And then, with a sudden burst of fluency:

“When ya gotta driver it don’t matter, does it? You jus’ go wherever you want, don’t cost you nothing extra, you just get them to take you, don’t ya? She was passing, so she come in to tell me she wasn’t gonna stop because she ’ad to get ’ome to see f*cking Ciara Porter.”

Rochelle looked as though she regretted the traitorous “f*cking” as soon as it was out, and pursed her lips together as though to ensure no more swear words escaped her.

“And that was all she did, was it? She came into the shop, said ‘I can’t stop, I’ve got to get home and see Ciara’ and left?”