Cormoran Strike’s interview with Guy Somé is a pivotal witness encounter in the reinvestigation of Lula Landry’s death: Somé’s personal testimony challenges the assumption of suicide, preserves Lula’s final message, and helps Strike identify a clue in the change of her clothes. The interview moves between evidence and grief. Somé’s account is not conclusive proof of what happened, but his intimate knowledge of Lula gives Strike a new way to interpret the circumstances of her last evening.

The Interview and Its Stakes

Strike questions Somé about his movements around the time Lula died. Somé says that he had returned from Tokyo only a couple of hours earlier, landing at Heathrow around half past ten after eight days in Japan and little sleep. His account places him abroad during the period before his return, while also establishing that he was back in London on the night in question.

Strike asks why Somé is so certain that Lula did not die by suicide, given her mental-health problems. Somé answers that the two had made a pact: if either began seriously thinking of suicide, they would call the other. He believes Lula would have called him. This is a personal assurance rather than independent confirmation, but it rests on a specific understanding between the friends and becomes more substantial when Somé offers Strike evidence from their last communication.

Lula’s Last Message

Somé recalls that Lula phoned him on Wednesday while he was still in Tokyo. Because of the time difference, she called at about two in the morning his time; his phone was muted, so he did not answer. He says she left a message, and offers it to Strike as evidence of her state of mind. The voicemail is preserved on Somé’s mobile phone, which he retrieves from his desk drawer and plays for the detective.

In the recording, Lula says she has something important to tell Somé, is unsure whether he will like it, and is so happy that she needs to tell someone. She asks him to call her when he can and says she cannot wait. The message establishes that Lula sounded excited about news she had not yet shared with him. It does not disclose what the news was, and the interview does not establish whether Somé ever learned its substance. Its importance lies in the contrast between the eager anticipation captured in the message and the later assumption that Lula had been suicidal.

Somé’s Work and His Grief

The interview also touches on Somé’s decision to use a photograph of Lula in a campaign after her death. He insists that the image was intended as a tribute: he says she had never looked more beautiful and describes her as his muse. His anger at the press, whom he accuses of judging others by their own standards, shows how strongly he resents the public response to his choice. The episode places his commercial work and his friendship with Lula in uneasy proximity, without resolving how others should understand the campaign.

Somé confirms that the handbags sent to Lula the day before she died were his. He had sent her one of each, and he had also sent clothes to Deeby Macc by the same courier. This detail establishes the source of the gifts and links the delivery to Somé’s work, but the cited exchange does not establish that the handbags caused or explained Lula’s later change of clothes.

When Strike asks about the clothes in the last photograph of Lula entering her building, Somé identifies them as a dress called Maribelle and a coat called Faye. Strike then says that the police photographs show Lula wearing something different when she died. The difference in outfits brings the interview out of professional and circumstantial detail and into the painful fact of Lula’s death. Somé reacts immediately, raising an arm in refusal and taking offense at Strike’s reference to her as a body. He leaves his chair and turns toward the photographs of Lula displayed on the wall.

The Change of Clothes

Somé begins to cry silently. Strike waits while he composes himself, does not comment on the tears, and lets the questioning pause. After returning to his chair and smoking, Somé resumes in a practical tone. His response gives the clothing discrepancy a new significance: if Lula changed, he reasons, it was because she was expecting someone. He adds that she always dressed for the part. The inference turns a detail from the police photographs into a possible indication that Lula anticipated a visitor at home.

Strike says that this was also his thought, while acknowledging that he is no expert on women’s clothes. Somé answers with a brief, sardonic remark, then points Strike toward two further witnesses, Ciara Porter and Bryony Radford. His suggestion extends the investigation beyond his own testimony. The interview therefore ends not with a solution, but with a sharper question about whom Lula expected and an investigative lead to people who may know more.

Significance in the Investigation

The encounter contributes several distinct pieces of evidence without making any one of them definitive. Somé’s account of the suicide pact supplies the basis for his disbelief that Lula would have taken her own life without contacting him. The voicemail documents an excited message shortly before her death, although it leaves the anticipated news unidentified. His identification of Lula’s photographed outfit gives Strike a concrete comparison with the different clothes she wore when she died.

The interview’s most consequential turn comes through the contrast between Somé’s emotional response and his later reasoning. His grief is not merely an obstacle to questioning: after taking time to recover, he uses his familiarity with Lula’s habits of dress to offer an explanation for the discrepancy. That explanation does not prove that a visitor arrived, or identify one, but it redirects attention toward the possibility that Lula was waiting for somebody. Somé’s final recommendation to speak with Ciara and Bryony keeps that line of inquiry open.