Lula Landry’s history of drug abuse

Lula Landry’s history of drug abuse shaped both her family’s fears and the official interpretation of her death, but the novel distinguishes that history from proof of why she died. Her adoptive brother John describes drug use, homelessness, and treatment in her youth; later, her medication and diagnosis become part of the reasoning by which police and the coroner accept suicide, even as John contests that conclusion.

Background and treatment

According to John, Lula’s difficulties began around the time their father died. She was expelled from school for drug use, left for London, and was found by their mother living rough among addicts. John says drugs worsened her mental-health problems and that she later absconded from a treatment centre. The family eventually learned that she had bipolar disorder and found medication that helped: in his account, she was well when she took her tablets, and the autopsy established that she had been taking them before her death.

John’s account joins substance use and mental illness in a family history of crisis, but it does not make them interchangeable. He says Lula had once put their mother through prolonged difficulty, while also insisting that treatment had brought her condition under control. His recollection therefore supplies a history of serious problems and recovery, not evidence that she remained in the same state at the end of her life.

Family conflict and relationships

John’s concern about Lula’s past informs his opposition to her renewed relationship with Evan Duffield, whom he describes as an addict and a damaging influence. The family had been relieved when the couple separated. After they got back together, John argued with Lula by telephone and again when he visited her the following morning. He admits that he may have been heavy-handed and says he felt protective because he was eleven years older than her.

Lula, in turn, told John that he did not understand her. She spoke of the difficulties of being adopted and of being Black in a white family, and said that he had had life easier. Their disagreement over Duffield thus also exposes a difference in how they understood Lula’s circumstances: John emphasizes the dangers he associated with addiction, while Lula objected to his assumption that he could interpret her life for her.

The history as evidence—and as a label

John uses Lula’s past to challenge the suicide ruling. He argues that the police and coroner could not see beyond her history of poor mental health, and disputes their view that she was depressed when she died. As evidence of her future plans, he points to her career prospects: she had recently signed a contract worth five million over two years, had work booked for months, and was due to travel to Morocco for a shoot. He had reviewed the contract for her, and says she was doing well when he saw her the morning before her death.

Strike does not treat a hopeful appearance or plans for the future as decisive evidence against suicide. His experience has shown him that a person can appear engaged with life and still die by suicide; he recalls a serviceman who had been the life of his own birthday gathering before later taking his life. That counterpoint prevents John’s interpretation from settling the question. The account places his recollection, the medical findings, and Strike’s professional caution alongside one another rather than treating Lula’s past as a complete explanation.

How others interpret her history

The case repeatedly shows the consequences of attaching an identity label to distress. The detective in charge, John says, was convinced from the outset that Lula’s death was suicide because she took lithium. John believes this led investigators to overlook evidence, while Strike recognizes that a history of mental illness can become a lens through which all later conduct is read. Lula’s medication is therefore both evidence of treatment and, in the police account described by John, a shortcut to a conclusion.

Other people’s accounts reinforce the danger of confusing vulnerability with unreliability. Eric Wardle dismisses Tansy Bestigui’s claim that she heard an argument, citing her cocaine use and the investigators’ test of whether shouting could be heard between the flats. Rochelle, who has depression, describes it as an illness that can take over; Strike registers the importance of her imperfectly spoken word for it but continues asking questions without taking out his notebook, because he fears she would stop speaking. These encounters do not establish Lula’s cause of death. They show how drug use and mental-health difficulties affect whether a person’s statements are believed—and how quickly a diagnosis or history can displace attention from the evidence itself.