Marlene Higson

Marlene Higson is Lula Landry’s biological mother and a crucial, though unreliable and incomplete, source in Strike’s investigation into Lula’s death. Lula sought her out in pursuit of information about her birth family and her Black roots. Marlene confirms that she identified Lula’s father as an African student, but the account never establishes whether that identification was true. Her story reaches the detective through competing accounts: John Bristow’s condemnation, the family’s distress over the publicity, and Marlene’s own self-justifying recollections.

Identity and Background

Marlene grew up poor and said she gave Lula up for adoption because she believed the Bristows could offer her daughter a better life. She recalled that her boyfriend, Dez, was unhappy about raising a child whose appearance made it clear Lula was not his. Marlene said Lula looked white when she was born and that she expected her to become darker as she grew older. She framed the adoption as a decision made for Lula’s benefit, while also acknowledging that she hoped her daughter might one day seek her out.

The reunion fulfilled what Marlene called her dream. She told Strike that Lula had found her, and described the call from Lula as a profound surprise after she had given her up for lost. Yet the reunion did not restore an uncomplicated mother-daughter relationship. By the time Strike asks about Marlene, John Bristow calls her a dreadful woman and says he knows her chiefly through what Lula told him and what appeared in the papers. The novel supplies no independent account of Marlene’s life beyond the details she gives Strike and the reports surrounding Lula’s search.

Lula’s Search and the Father’s Identity

Lula was determined to learn where she came from. John believed she wanted to find her biological father and understand her Black identity; he suspected Evan Duffield of encouraging her search and possibly leaking it to the press, though Lula denied that. He also said Lula imagined that her father might be a prominent politician or a tribal princess’s family connection. These possibilities are John’s characterization of her hopes, not established facts about what Lula discovered.

Marlene told Lula that her father was an African student who had lived upstairs from her on Barking Road with two other people. She described him as good-looking and said he had helped her with shopping. Strike’s question about Lula’s father prompts Marlene to recount what she says she knew; the evidence does not verify the student’s identity or establish what became of him. For Lula, the possibility of an African father mattered because she hoped to find her Black roots and a stronger sense of identity. Her pursuit therefore concerned more than a name: it was a search for family and belonging that her adoptive brother and biological mother understood in markedly different ways.

Reunion, Estrangement, and Publicity

John said that Lula remained in intermittent contact with Marlene, but he suspected she was trying to cut off the connection. In his view, Marlene was mercenary and sold her story to anyone willing to pay; he also said the publicity devastated his mother, Yvette Bristow. Yvette likewise knew Lula had found Marlene and said Lula continued seeing her, although she believed Lula understood how upsetting the situation was for her. These judgments come from members of the adoptive family, whose anger was sharpened by Yvette’s advanced cancer and treatment at the time Lula began searching for her birth relatives.

John and Tony Landry were angry that Lula pursued her biological mother while Yvette was seriously ill. John said he and Lula had argued about the timing, though he also insisted that they loved each other and that their age difference complicated their relationship. Yvette recalled that John drove her to chemotherapy and that both John and Tony rallied around her, while she felt Lula seemed focused on her own search. The accounts establish a real family conflict, but they do not make Marlene the sole cause of it: Lula’s decision to seek her origins, her adoptive family’s fear and grief, and the press attention all formed part of the rupture.

Lula’s connection with Marlene also became a public story. John suspected that Duffield had leaked information, while Marlene’s later willingness to speak to Strike was itself entangled with the prospect of renewed coverage. On the first attempts to arrange an interview, she initially agreed, asked whether her travel expenses would be paid, cancelled, tentatively agreed to meet at a local pub, and cancelled again by voicemail. Strike eventually told her that his investigation was nearing its end and that evidence would be given to the police, which he expected would bring another surge of publicity. He suggested that, if she could not help, she might be spared the press attention. Marlene immediately insisted on her right to tell what she knew and agreed to meet him at the Ordnance Arms in Canning Town.

Marlene’s Testimony and Narrative Role

At the interview, Marlene presents the adoption as an act of sacrifice and the reunion as the realization of a hope she had carried for years. Her account of the circumstances is shaped by her own perspective: she says she wanted Lula to have opportunities she had lacked and believed Lula was too young to miss her. She also recalls that Lula eventually came looking for her. The distance between this account and the adoptive family’s harsher descriptions leaves the reader without a neutral, complete history of their contact.

Marlene is important to the investigation not because she resolves Lula’s parentage, but because her testimony clarifies what Lula was seeking and how that search affected those around her. She gives Strike the African-student account that John had already repeated, while the uncertainty around it remains intact. Guy Somé had dismissed the story as false, according to Kieran Kolovas-Jones, and said he opposed the idea because he feared Lula would be disappointed; he had not met Marlene himself. The conflicting reactions underline that the father’s identity is not confirmed by any account presented here.

The novel also sets Marlene’s interview against the assumptions made about other witnesses and about Lula herself. The detective who initially handled Lula’s death treated her lithium prescription as sufficient reason to conclude that she had died by suicide, while overlooking matters later noticed by others. Likewise, a witness’s claim about the windows at the scene was checked against the locked, bolted windows and the absence of fingerprints, leading the police to conclude that the witness had lied. These strands do not establish anything about Marlene’s credibility by association; they do show the investigation’s broader problem of weighing testimony against evidence. Marlene’s story contributes context about Lula’s identity and family history, but does not settle the central questions of the case.