Guy Somé's interview with Strike

Guy Somé's interview with Cormoran Strike is both a recollection of the pressures surrounding Lula Landry and a crucial step in the investigation. Somé speaks as Lula's close friend and fashion collaborator, explaining how celebrity scrutiny and fear shaped her last months; his attention to her final change of clothes then gives Strike a concrete reason to think she was waiting for a visitor.

The Interview and Its Setting

Before meeting Guy Somé, Cormoran Strike prepares with unusual care. Knowing from Somé's website that the designer champions conspicuous, unconventional clothes, Strike nevertheless chooses the dark blue suit he had worn to Cipriani, a conventional outfit that carries a faint note of defiance. The contrast establishes the difference between the detective's restrained presentation and the fashion world he is entering.

Somé's studio occupies a disused nineteenth-century warehouse on the north bank of the Thames. The entrance is discreet and unmarked, and Strike must find a concealed bell before the door is opened electronically. This private, adapted workspace frames the interview as a conversation taking place away from the public image-making around Lula, even though fashion and publicity remain central to what is discussed.

Somé's Connection to Lula

Somé had a familiar nickname for Lula: he called her “Cuckoo,” and says she sometimes used the same name when teasing John Bristow. He also describes John as the “Accountant,” a disparaging joke tied to his belief that John scrutinized Lula's percentages and tried to extract money from others. The nicknames reveal the ease of Somé and Lula's private rapport, while his mockery of John makes clear that Somé did not view the family relationship without suspicion or friction.

His relationship to Lula was not only personal. As her designer, Somé recognizes what she was wearing in the last photograph of her walking into the building: a dress called Maribelle and a coat called Faye. That specific knowledge gives Strike a way to compare the photographed outfit with the clothes Lula wore when she died, turning a fashion detail into evidence about the sequence of her final actions.

Fear, Publicity, and the Apartment

Somé recalls a period in which Lula faced several sources of pressure at once. A stalker delivered letters through her front door at three in the morning, and the threats described in them frightened her. After she split up with Evan Duffield, paparazzi were persistently outside her home, and she learned that her calls were being hacked. In the same unsettled period, she went to find her birth mother, another difficult encounter in an already crowded succession of strains.

Somé says he urged Lula to move in with him, but she instead bought an apartment in Mayfair. He understood the choice as an attempt to feel secure: the building's round-the-clock security made it seem like a fortress, a place where no one could reach her. The luxury residence thus carried an irony in his account. Its apparent protection answered Lula's fears, but did not mean those fears had gone away.

This recollection complicates any simple account of Lula's state of mind. Somé connects her distress to identifiable circumstances—stalking, intrusive press attention, hacked calls, her separation from Duffield, and the visit to her birth mother—rather than treating her death as an event isolated from the pressures around her. His testimony does not establish what happened at the apartment, but it gives Strike a fuller picture of what Lula had been trying to escape.

From Grief to an Investigative Clue

Somé says he avoided the coverage that followed Lula's death: he did not want to read it or think about it, and asked the people around him to keep it from him. What he knew, he says, was that Lula was dead and Duffield was acting like someone with something to hide. His account is therefore emotionally involved but incomplete; he admits that he had kept himself away from information that might have altered his early impression.

When Strike points out that Lula wore something different at her death from the outfit in her last photograph, Somé initially responds by identifying the photographed clothes. The shift from public image to practical detail brings him back into the interview. After becoming overwhelmed, he turns away, cries silently, and trembles with his forehead against the wall. Strike waits without commenting on the tears. Somé wipes his face, returns to his chair, and lights a cigarette before resuming in a practical tone.

Somé then draws the inference that makes the clothing discrepancy significant: Lula changed because she was expecting someone, since she “always dressed the part.” Strike agrees that he had reached the same conclusion, while acknowledging that he is no expert on women's clothes. The interview does not identify the expected visitor, but it changes the question the evidence raises. Lula's final outfit becomes a sign of preparation and expectation, not merely a detail of appearance.

Significance to the Investigation

The interview contributes two distinct kinds of evidence. Somé's account situates Lula's last months amid threats, media intrusion, and a search for security; his expertise as a designer helps Strike recognize that the difference between her photographed clothes and her final clothes may matter. Neither recollection alone resolves the death, but together they connect the atmosphere surrounding Lula to a particular action shortly before it.

Somé's role is consequently more complex than that of a witness supplying a simple timeline. His affection for Lula is evident in his grief, his recollections, and his remembered offer to let her move in with him. Yet he also admits that he withdrew from news about her death and formed an impression of Duffield without knowing the full coverage. The scene preserves both sides: personal closeness gives Somé intimate knowledge, while grief and incomplete information limit what he can confidently tell Strike.