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Once the door had closed on Jack, he turned back to Lucy, and said quietly, and almost sincerely,
‘I wish you’d told me this before.’
‘It would’ve upset you. Anyway, you’ve always wanted to believe Leda was wonderful.’
‘I haven’t,’ he said, now being completely honest. ‘She was… what she was.’
‘She wasn’t fit to be a mother,’ said Lucy angrily.
‘No,’ said Strike heavily. ‘I think you’re probably right, there.’
Lucy stared at him for a few seconds in blank astonishment.
‘I’ve waited years to hear you say that. Years.’
‘I know you have,’ said Strike. ‘Look, I know you think I think she was perfect, but of course I bloody don’t. D’you think I look at the kind of mother you are, and remember what she was, and can’t see the difference?’
‘Oh Stick,’ said Lucy tearfully.
‘She was what she was,’ repeated Strike. ‘I loved her, I can’t sit here and say I didn’t. And she might’ve been a fucking nightmare in loads of ways, but I know she loved us, too.’
‘Did she?’ said Lucy, wiping her eyes with kitchen roll.
‘You know she did,’ said Strike. ‘She didn’t keep us safe, because she was so bloody naive she was barely fit to open a front door on her own. She fucked up our schooling because she hated school herself. She dragged fucking terrible men into our lives because she always thought this one was going to be the love of her life. None of it was malicious, it was just bloody careless.’
‘Careless people do a lot of damage,’ said Lucy, still drying her tears.
‘Yeah, they do,’ said Strike. ‘And she did. Mostly to herself, in the end.’
‘I didn’t – I didn’t want her to die,’ sobbed Lucy.
‘Jesus, Luce, I know you didn’t!’
‘I always thought one day I’d have it all out with her – and then it was too late, and she was g-gone… and you say she loved us, but—’
‘You know she did,’ said Strike. ‘You do, Luce. Remember that serial story she used to make up for us? What the fuck was it called?’
‘The Moonbeams,’ said Lucy, still sobbing.
‘The Moonbeam family,’ said Strike. ‘With Mummy Moonbeam and…’
‘… Bombo and Mungo…’
‘She didn’t show love like most mothers,’ said Strike, ‘but she didn’t do anything like other people. Doesn’t mean love wasn’t there. Doesn’t mean she wasn’t fucking irresponsible, either.’
For a couple of minutes there was silence again, but for Lucy’s steadily decreasing sniffs. At last, she wiped her face with both of hands and looked up, eyes red.
‘If you’re investigating that so-called church – what’s it called?’
‘The UHC.’
‘Just make sure you get that bitch Mazu,’ said Lucy in a low voice. ‘I don’t care if she was abused herself. I’m sorry, I don’t. She enabled them to do it to other girls. She was pimping for them.’
Strike considered telling her that getting Mazu wasn’t what he’d been hired to do, but instead said,
‘If I get the opportunity, I definitely will.’
‘Thank you,’ mumbled Lucy, still wiping her puffy eyes. ‘Then it’d be worth you taking the job.’
