Depression

Depression in the novel is both a reported experience and an interpretive claim: it shapes how people describe Lula Landry before her death, while also becoming part of Rochelle Onifade’s account of her own illness. The contrast matters to the investigation. A history of mental-health problems is repeatedly invoked to make sense of Lula’s death and of Rochelle’s testimony, but neither diagnosis nor another person’s confidence establishes what caused Lula to fall.

Lula’s history and the question of diagnosis

Lula’s adoptive brother, John Bristow, recounts a history of distress beginning around the time their father died. He says Lula was expelled from school after experimenting with drugs, later ran away to London, and was found by her adoptive mother, Yvette Bristow, living rough with people who used drugs. John describes further episodes, including leaving a treatment centre, before saying that doctors eventually identified bipolar disorder and prescribed medication. In his account, Lula was well when she took her tablets, and the autopsy showed that she had been taking them at the time of her death.

John objects to the police and coroner interpreting Lula’s history as evidence that she was depressed. He says he saw her on the morning before she died and found her well, with her career going particularly well: she had recently signed a contract he describes as worth five million over two years, had work booked for months, and anticipated a shoot in Morocco. Those circumstances challenge a simple account of her as visibly despondent, but they cannot settle her state of mind. The detective, Cormoran Strike, recalls that people who die by suicide can still show interest in future plans; a person’s apparent good mood and plans are not proof that despair was absent.

Rochelle’s account of illness

When Strike asks Rochelle whether Lula was depressed, Rochelle answers that she was, and relates the question to her own experience: she says she is also taking medication and that illness can sometimes take over. Her speech briefly turns “illness” into “nillness,” a slip that Strike notices as he considers how illness can lead toward death. The moment links the two women without making their conditions identical: Rochelle speaks from personal experience, while Strike recognizes that the same word can be used to explain very different histories and outcomes.

Rochelle’s own history, which she gradually shares with Strike, includes early abuse, time in care and foster homes, severe mental illness, and violent outbursts. At sixteen she became homeless. She received proper treatment only after being hit by a car; while she was hospitalized, a psychiatrist was called in because her behaviour was making treatment for her physical injuries difficult. She now takes medication that greatly eases her symptoms when she takes it. Strike sees her weekly attendance at the outpatient clinic where she met Lula as a source of connection and routine, and notes her affection for the young psychiatrist who led the group. These details make Rochelle’s statements about depression more than a convenient label: they emerge from a long history of illness and treatment, while her account remains one person’s testimony rather than a clinical determination of Lula’s condition.

Lula’s last reported mood

Strike’s direct questions about Lula’s mood at Vashti, the day before she died, bring a brief but consequential exchange. Rochelle says Lula was depressed. Asked whether Lula explained why she felt bad, Rochelle replies that there need not be a reason, describing depression as an illness; when Strike asks whether Lula actually said she felt bad, Rochelle answers yes after a slight hesitation. Her response supports the possibility that Lula expressed distress, but the hesitation and lack of a stated reason leave the account limited. It does not establish how severe or enduring that distress was, or what happened the following day.

The evidence thus holds two claims in tension. John says Lula was not depressed and points to her apparent wellbeing and promising work; Rochelle says that Lula was depressed and recalls her saying she felt bad. The accounts differ, and the novel does not make either informant’s interpretation equivalent to certainty. The investigation’s caution is important: depression can be present without an obvious external cause, but a diagnosis or history of illness alone cannot demonstrate suicidal intent.

Testimony, stigma, and the investigation

The question of mental illness also affects whether witnesses are believed. Tansy Bestigui told police that she heard an argument above her flat, including words she attributed to Lula and a man. Eric Wardle says the police tested her account against the building’s soundproofing: even a man shouting from Lula’s balcony could not be heard in the flat below. Wardle dismisses Tansy’s report as auditory hallucinations and attributes them to her cocaine use. The practical test weakens her claim, but his explanation also shows how quickly a witness’s substance use and perceived mental state can become the frame through which her evidence is rejected.

Lula’s diagnosis and Rochelle’s depression therefore occupy a double role in the investigation. They are relevant parts of the women’s lives, not explanations that automatically resolve what happened. John invokes Lula’s history to contest the police conclusion that she was depressed; Rochelle’s account suggests distress before Lula’s death; Strike’s experience cautions him against treating future plans as proof of safety. Together, these perspectives resist the reduction of a death to a diagnostic label and expose the danger of allowing assumptions about mental illness to stand in for evidence.