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“I’ve seen YouTube footage of hi a hoodie with studs on it, like that,” said Strike, pointing at So a fist”
“Yeah, that was one of them Someone must’ve sent the stuff on to hiun, and some of his lyrics on the backs”
“Did Lula talk to you about Deeby Macc co to stay in the flat downstairs?”
“Oh yeah She wasn’t nearly excited enough I kept saying to her, babes, if he’d written three tracks about ot in” So sideways at Strike “I like ’eh,” he said “But Cuckoo didn’t Well, look what she hooked up with I kept telling her, you’re the one -and-dance about your roots; find yourself a nice black boy and settle down Deeby would’ve been fucking perfect; why not?
“Last season’s show, I had her walking down the catwalk to Deeby’s ‘Butterface Girl’ ‘Bitch you ain’t all that, get a irl, ’cause you ain’t no fuckin’ Lula’ Duffield hated it”
Somé sraphs Strike asked:
“Where do you live? Around here?” though he knew the answer
“No, I’ton,” said So way fro silly, I had to leave Too rew up in Hackney,” he explained, “back when I was plain old Kevin Owusu I changed my name when I left home Like you”
“I was never Rokeby,” said Strike, flicking over a page in his notebook “My parents weren’t married”
“We all know that, dear,” said Somé, with another flash ofStone shoot last year: skinny suit and broken bowler D’you see him much?”
“No,” said Strike
“No, well, you’dold, wouldn’t you?” said Soeted in his seat, lit yet another cigarette, clah billows of menthol smoke
“Why are we talking aboutyou their life stories when you get out that notebook?”
“Sometimes”
“Don’t you want your tea? I don’t blame you I don’t knohy I drink this shit My old dad would have a coronary if he asked for a cup of tea and got this”
“Is your family still in Hackney?”
“I haven’t checked,” said Somé “We don’t talk I practice what I preach, see?”
“Why do you think Lula changed her name?”
“Because she hated her fucking family, same as me She didn’t want to be associated with them anymore”
“Why choose the same name as her Uncle Tony, then?”
“He’s not faood name Deeby couldn’t have written ‘Double L U B Mine’ if she’d been Lula Bristow, could he?”
“Charles Street isn’t too far froern Gardens, is it?”
“About a twenty-minute walk I wanted Cuckoo to move in with me when she said she couldn’t stand her old place any five-star prison instead, just to get away from the press They drove her into that place They bear responsibility”
Strike remembered Deeby Macc: The motherfuckin’ press chased her out that
“She took me to see it Mayfair, full of rich Russians and Arabs and bastards like Freddie Bestigui I said to her, sweetie, you can’t live here; marble everywhere,in your own tomb…”
He faltered, then went on:
“She’d been through this head-fuck for a fewletters through her front door at three in theThe things he said he wanted to do to her, it scared her Then she split up with Duffield, and she had the paps round the front of her house all the bloody ti all her calls And then she had to go and find that bitch of atoo much She wanted to be away from it all, to feel secure I told her tomausoleum
“She took it because it felt like a fortress with the round-the-clock security She thought she’d be safe froet at her
“But she hated it froo I knew she would She was cut off fro she liked Cuckoo loved color and noise She liked being on the street, she liked walking, being free
“One of the reasons the police said it wasn’t murder was the open s She’d opened them herself; it was only her prints on the handles But I knohy she opened the cold, because she couldn’t stand the silence She liked being able to hear London”
Somé’s voice had lost all its slyness and sarcasm He cleared his throat and went on:
“She was trying to connect with so real; we used to talk about it all the tiet involved with bloody Rochelle It was a case of ‘there but for the grace of God’ Cuckoo thought that’s what she’d have been, if she hadn’t been beautiful; if the Bristows hadn’t taken her in as a little plaything for Yvette”
“Tell me about this stalker”
“Mental case He thought they wereorder and compulsory psychiatric treatment”
“Any idea where he is now?”
“I think he was deported back to Liverpool,” said Somé “But the police checked hiht she died”
“Do you know the Bestiguis?”
“Only what Lula toldork I don’t need to know her I know her type Rich girls spending their ugly husbands’ money They come to my shows They want to be my friend Gimme an honest hooker any day”
“Freddie Bestigui was at the same country-house weekend as Lula, a week before she died”
“Yeah, I heard He had a hard-on for her,” said Somé dismissively “She knew it, as well; it wasn’t exactly a unique experience in her life, you know He never got further than trying to get in the sah, from what she told me”
“You never spoke to her after their weekend at Dickie Carbury’s, did you?”
“No Did he do soui, do you?”
So
“Fuck…Freddie Bestigui? Well, he’s a shit, I know that This little girl I knoell, friend of a friend…she orking for his production coerating,” said Somé “Literally Rape Got her a bit drunk after work and had her on the floor; sootten his ui paid thees, but she took the money and ran They say he used to discipline his second wife in so kinky ways; that’s why she walked aith three mill; she threatened him with the press But Cuckoo would never have let Freddie Bestigui into her flat at two in the irl”
“What do you know about Derrick Wilson?”
“Who’s he?”
“The security guard as on duty the night she died”
“Nothing”
“He’s a big guy, with a Jamaican accent”
“This ht shock you, but not all the black people in London know each other”
“I wondered whether you’d ever spoken to him, or heard Lula talk about him”
“No, we had uard”
“Does the sa
me apply to her driver, Kieran Kolovas-Jones?”
“Oh, I knoho Kolovas-Jones is,” said So little poses whenever he thought Ifeet too short to model”
“Did Lula ever talk about him?”
“No, ould she?” asked Somé restlessly “He was her driver”
“He’s told iven hined Worth nine hundred quid”
“Big fucking deal,” said Sooes for upwards of three grand a coat I slap the logo on shell suits and they sell like crazy, so it’d be silly not to”
“Yeah, I was going to ask you about that,” said Strike “Your—ready-to-wear line, is it?”
Somé looked amused
“That’s right That’s the stuff that isn’t ht off the rack”