Alec and Yvette Bristow’s adoption of Lula took place after the death of their son Charlie, joining Lula to a family still shaped by grief and by conflicting ideas about what made someone belong. The adoption was presented not simply as an act of care but as a decision whose motives and consequences were disputed: Tony Landry called it a mistake, while Guy Somé later described Lula as someone still searching for a surrogate family. Its consequences re-emerge in the investigation through Lula’s will, which names her biological half-brother rather than her adoptive brother as her heir.

Background and Adoption

When Strike asks Tony Landry whether the Bristows adopted Lula after Charlie died, Tony confirms the timing and condemns the decision. In his account, Yvette had already proved herself a disastrous mother and was grieving intensely; Alec agreed to the adoption because Yvette wanted a daughter, and he was devoted to giving her what she wanted. Tony reduces the child to a desired role in the household, describing Yvette’s wish for a baby to dress in pink. His bitter account suggests that Lula entered a family whose adults’ needs and grief were already shaping the meaning of her place there.

Tony also portrays the adoption as enabled by Alec’s wealth and influence. He says the authorities had concerns about Yvette’s mental health and the couple’s age, but believes Alec’s resources and contacts helped secure approval; he speculates, without claiming proof, that money may have changed hands. Tony further says that Alec could not manage to adopt a Caucasian child and instead brought a child of unknown provenance into the household. His account is prejudiced as well as accusatory: he invokes Lula’s and her brothers’ supposed inherited instability to explain what he calls the catastrophic result. The interview establishes what Tony believes, not an independently verified account of the adoption process or of the children’s character.

A Family Told Through Conflicting Accounts

Tony’s view of the adoption is inseparable from his anger toward Yvette. He insists that he and his sister get along, yet says he is not blind to her faults and blames her for much of her own misfortune. His account casts the adoption as another instance of Alec indulging Yvette, and frames Lula’s upbringing as a failure before describing any particular incident in her life. The certainty of this judgment contrasts with the limits of what Tony says he knows: he admits he does not know the details of how Alec secured approval.

Somé offers a different, though also critical, interpretation. He says the Bristows had “fucked her up good” and claims they adopted Lula as a toy for Yvette. He also characterizes Lula as someone who was always looking for people to love and for a surrogate family. Somé’s remarks arise while he is recalling the five-million-pound contract he had designed around Lula and his belief that their association had helped launch her career. His perspective therefore mixes affection, business grievance, and judgment of the adoptive family; it adds another account of Lula’s need for belonging without settling what her childhood was like.

Adoption, Inheritance, and Belonging

The adoption’s significance resurfaces in evidence about Lula’s final intentions. Ciara Porter’s statement says Lula had mentioned that afternoon that she intended to leave everything to her brother, a remark that made her sound morbid to Strike because no context was recorded. John Bristow later insists that Lula would never have left everything solely to him: he says that excluding their mother would have been deeply hurtful, and that the meaning of a will can matter as much as its money. His response shows how he interprets inheritance through the relationships of the adoptive family.

That interpretation is overturned when Strike finds a folded pale-blue paper hidden beneath the base of Lula’s white handbag, inside its lining. The paper is Lula’s handwritten will. When Strike tells John that she left her entire estate to her brother, Lieutenant Jonah Agyeman of the Royal Engineers, John asks who Jonah is. The reveal identifies Lula’s biological half-brother as the intended heir, distinguishing her biological kinship from her adoptive relationship with John. The adoption thus remains consequential after Lula’s death: it shaped the family’s account of her loyalties, while the will exposed a connection and choice that account had not contained.