He ground out his cigarette on a loose playing card on the edge of the table and began hunting for more tobacco. Strike, who wanted to oil the flow of conversation, offered him one of his own.
“Oh, cheers. Cheers. Yeah. Well, I got the driver to drop me off and I went to visit my friend, who has since given the police a full statement to that effect, as Uncle Tony might say. Then I wandered around a bit, and there’s camera footage in that station to prove that, and then about, I dunno…threeish? Fourish?”
“Half past four,” said Ciara.
“Yeah, I went to crash at Ciara’s.”
Duffield sucked on the cigarette, watching the tip burn, then, exhaling, said cheerfully:
“So my arse is covered, is it not?”
Strike did not find his satisfaction likeable.
“And when did you find out that Lula was dead?”
Duffield drew his legs up to his chest again.
“Ciara woke me up and told me. I couldn’t—I was fucking—yeah, well. Fucking hell.”
He put his arms over the top of his head and stared at the ceiling.
“I couldn’t fucking…I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t fucking believe it.”
And as Strike watched, he thought he saw realization wash over Duffield that the girl of whom he spoke so flippantly, and who he had, by his own account, provoked, taunted and loved, was really and definitely never coming back; that she had been smashed into pulp on snow-covered asphalt, and that she and their relationship were now beyond the possibility of repair. For a moment, staring at the blank white ceiling, Duffield’s face became grotesque as he appeared to grin from ear to ear; it was a grimace of pain, of the exertion necessary to beat back tears. His arms slipped down, and he buried his face in them, his forehead on his knees.
“Oh, sweetie,” said Ciara, putting her wine down on the table with a clunk, and reaching forward to place a hand on his bony knee.
“This has fucked me up proper,” said Duffield thickly from behind his arms. “This has fucked me up good. I wanted to marry her. I fucking loved her, I did. Fuck, I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”
He jumped up and left the room, sniffing ostentatiously and wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Ciara whispered to Strike. “He’s a mess.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He seems to have cleaned up his act. Off heroin for a month.”
“I know, and I don’t want him to fall off the wagon.”
“This is 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 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 fucking 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 i
n African studies. That was gonna be Daddy, the whole fucking continent of Africa. Fucking Somé was behind that, shit-stirring as usual.”
“In what way?”
“Anything that took her away from me was good. Anything that bracketed them together. He was one possessive bastard where she was concerned. He was in love with her. I know he’s a poof,” Duffield added impatiently, as Ciara began to protest, “but he’s not the first one I’ve known who’s gone funny over a girlfriend. He’ll fuck anything, man-wise, but he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He threw hissy fits if she didn’t see him, he didn’t like her working for anyone else.
“He hates my fucking guts. Right back atcha, you little shit. Egging Lu on with Deeby Macc. He’d’ve got a real kick out of her fucking him. Doing me over. Hearing all the fucking details. Getting her to introduce him, get his fucking clothes photographed on a gangster. He’s no fucking fool, Somé. He used her for his business all the time. Tried to get her cheap and for free, and she was dumb enough to let him.”
“Did Somé give you these?” asked Strike, pointing at the black leather gloves on the coffee table. He had recognized the tiny gold GS logo on the cuff.
“You what?”
Duffield leaned over and hooked one of the gloves on to an index finger; he dangled it in front of his eyes, examining it.
“Fuck, you’re right. They’re going in the bin, then,” and he threw the glove into a corner; it hit the abandoned guitar, which let out a hollow, echoing chord. “I kept them from that shoot,” said Duffield, pointing at the black-and-white magazine cover. “Somé wouldn’t give me the steam off his piss. Have you got another fag?”
“I’m all out,” lied Strike. “Are you going to tell me why you invited me home, Evan?”
There was a long silence. Duffield glared at Strike, who intuited that the actor knew he was lying about having no cigarettes. Ciara was gazing at him too, her lips slightly parted, the epitome of beautiful bewilderment.
“What makes you think I’ve got anything to tell you?” sneered Duffield.
“I don’t think you asked me back here for the pleasure of my company.”
“I dunno,” said Duffield, with a distinct overtone of malice. “Maybe I hoped you were a laugh, like your old man?”
“Evan,” snapped Ciara.
“OK, if you haven’t got anything to tell me…” said Strike, and he pushed himself up out of the armchair. To his slight surprise, and Duffield’s evident displeasure, Ciara set her empty wineglass down and began to unfold her long legs, preparatory to standing.
“All right,” said Duffield sharply. “There’s one thing.”
Strike sank back into his chair. Ciara thrust one of her own cigarettes at Duffield, who took it with muttered thanks, then she too sat down, watching Strike.
“Go on,” said the latter, while Duffield fiddled with his lighter.
“All right. I dunno whether it matters,” said the actor. “But I don’t want you to say where you got the information.”
“I can’t guarantee that,” said Strike.
Duffield scowled, his knees jumping up and down, smoking with his eyes on the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Strike saw Ciara open her mouth to speak, and forestalled her, one hand in the air.
“Well,” said Duffield, “two days ago I was having lunch with Freddie Bestigui. He left his BlackBerry on the table when he went up to the bar.” Duffield puffed and jiggled. “I don’t wanna be fired,” he said, glaring at Strike. “I need this fucking job.”
“Go on,” said Strike.
“He got an email. I saw Lula’s name. I read it.”
“OK.”
“It was from his wife. It said something like, ‘I know we’re supposed to be talking through lawyers, but unless you can do better than £1.5 million, I will tell everyone exactly where I was when Lula Landry died, and exactly how I got there, because I’m sick of taking shit for you. This is not an empty threat. I’m starting to think I should tell the police anyway.’ Or something like that,” said Duffield.
Dimly, through the curtained window, came the sound of a couple of the paparazzi outside laughing together.
“That’s very useful information,” Strike told Duffield. “Thank you.”
“I don’t want Bestigui to know it was me who told you.”
“I don’t think your name’ll need to come into it,” said Strike, standing up again. “Thanks for the water.”
“Hang on, sweetie, I’m coming,” said Ciara, her phone pressed to her ear. “Kieran? We’re coming out now, Cormoran and me. Right now. Bye-bye, Evan darling.”
She bent over and kissed him on both cheeks, while Duffield, halfway out of his chair, looked disconcerted.
“You can crash here if you—”
“No, sweetie, I’ve got a job tomorrow afternoon; need my beauty sleep,” she said.
More flashes blinded Strike as he stepped outside; but the paparazzi seemed confused this time. As he helped Ciara down the steps, and followed her into the back of the car, one of them shouted at Strike: “Who the fuck are you?”
Strike slammed the door, grinning. Kolovas-Jones was back in the driver’s seat; they were pulling away from the curb, and this time they were not pursued.
After a block or so of silence, Kolovas-Jones looked in the rear-view mirror and asked Ciara:
“Home?”
“I suppose so. Kieran, will you turn on the radio? I fancy a bit of music,” she said. “Louder than that, sweetie. Oh, I love this.”
“Telephone” by Lady Gaga filled the car.
She turned to Strike as the orange glow of street lights swept across her extraordinary face. Her breath smelled of alcohol, her skin of that sweet, peppery perfume.
“Don’t you want to ask me anything else?”
“You know what?” said Strike. “I do. Why would you have a detachable lining in a handbag?”
She stared at him for several seconds, then let out a great giggle, slumping sideways into his shoulder, nudging him. Lithe and slight, she continued to rest against him as she said:
“You are funny.”
“But why would you?”
“Well, it just makes the bag more, like, individual; you can customize them, you see; you can buy a couple of linings and swap them over; you can pull them out and use them as scarves; they’re beautiful. Silk with gorgeous patterns. The zip edging is very rock-and-roll.”
“Interesting,” said Strike, as her upper leg moved to rest lightly along his own, and she gave a second, deep-throated giggle.
Call all you want, but there’s no one home, sang Lady Gaga.
The music masked their conversation, but Kolovas-Jones’s eyes were moving with unnecessary regularity from road ahead to rear-view mirror. After another minute, Ciara said:
“Guy’s right, I do like them big. You’re very butch. And, like, stern. It’s sexy.”
A block later she whispered:
“Where do you live?” while rubbing her silky cheek against his, like a cat.
“I sleep on a camp bed in my office.”
She giggled again. She was definitely a little drunk.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll go to mine, then, shall we?”
Her tongue was cool and sweet and tasted of Pernod.
“Have you slept with my father?” he managed to say, between the pressings of her full lips on to his.
“No…God, no…” A little giggle. “He dyes his hair…it’s, like, purple close up…I used to call him the rocking prune…”
And then, ten minutes later, a lucid voice in his mind urging him not to let desire lead on to humiliation, he surfaced for air to mutter:
“I’ve only got one leg.”
“Don’t be silly…”
“I’m not being silly…it got blown off in Afghanistan.”
“Poor baby…” she whispered. “I’ll rub it better.”
“Yeah—that’s not my leg…It’s
helping, though…”
9
ROBIN RAN UP THE CLANGING metal stairs in the same low heels that she had worn the previous day. Twenty-four hours ago, unable to dislodge the word “gumshoe” from her mind, she had selected her frumpiest footwear for a day’s walking; today, excited by what she had achieved in the old black shoes, they had taken on the glamour of Cinderella’s glass slippers. Hardly able to wait to tell Strike everything she had found out, she had almost run to Denmark Street through the sunlit rubble. She was confident that any lingering awkwardness after Strike’s drunken escapades of two nights previously would be utterly eclipsed by their mutual excitement about her dazzling solo discoveries of the previous day.
But when she reached the second landing, she pulled up short. For the third time, the glass door was locked, and the office beyond it unlit and silent.
She let herself in and made a swift survey of the evidence. The door to the inner office stood open. Strike’s camp bed was folded neatly away. There was no sign of an evening meal in the bin. The computer monitor was dark, the kettle cold. Robin was forced to conclude that Strike had not (as she phrased it to herself) spent the night at home.
She hung up her coat, then took from her handbag a small notebook, turned on the computer and, after a few minutes’ hopeful but fruitless wait, began to type up a precis of what she had found out the day before. She had barely slept for the excitement of telling Strike everything in person. Typing it all out was a bitter anticlimax. Where was he?
As her fingers flew over the keyboard, an answer she did not much like presented itself for her consideration. Devastated as he had been at the news of his ex’s engagement, was it not likely that he had gone to beg her not to marry this other man? Hadn’t he shouted to the whole of Charing Cross Road that Charlotte did not love Jago Ross? Perhaps, after all, it was true; perhaps Charlotte had thrown herself into Strike’s arms, and they were now reconciled, lying asleep, entwined, in the house or flat from which he had been ejected four weeks ago. Robin remembered Lucy’s oblique inquiries and insinuations about Charlotte, and suspected that any such reunion would not bode well for her job security. Not that it matters, she reminded herself, typing furiously, and with uncharacteristic inaccuracy. You’re leaving in a week’s time. The reflection made her feel even more agitated.