The Bullet That Missed

20

‘I’m afraid that our systems show there’s no fault in your area, so there’s not a great deal I can do.’

Viktor Illyich nods. ‘I understand, I understand, but still the television, it isn’t working. So you see the position in which I find myself.’

The young man on the other end of the line is beginning to sound exasperated, and has clearly had enough of this intellectual cut and thrust.

‘I’m trying to tell you, Mr Ill … Mr Ill …’

‘Illyich,’ says Viktor Illyich.

‘Yes, as you say,’ says the voice. ‘I’m trying to tell you that, as far as our system can tell, it is working. And so I wouldn’t be able to send an engineer to you today.’

‘Not today, then?’ says Viktor. ‘No TV today?’

But Bake Off is on tonight. And it’s the semi-final. Viktor scans the London skyline, laid out before him through his floor-to-ceiling windows. Viktor can see out, but no one can see in, which makes an old spy very happy.

‘Not today, sir, no. If you log in to your Virgin Media app –’

‘I don’t have the app,’ says Viktor. ‘I don’t work for Virgin Media, you see. I pay you to do the work.’

‘Understood, understood,’ says the voice. ‘You can do it online too. Log in to your account, find the “Book an engineer” page and choose the next date that is convenient for you.’

‘OK, the next date convenient for me is today,’ says Viktor. He looks across his terrace. From his penthouse you can see the swimming pool suspended between two buildings. It caused quite a stir when they unveiled it. A swimming pool floating a hundred feet up in the air? Viktor doesn’t use it much. Currently the only person in the pool is a Saudi princess. She is taking a picture of herself. No one really swims, it is too cold.

‘As we’ve discussed, sir,’ says the voice, ‘today is impossible.’

‘“Impossible” is a big word,’ says Viktor, lifting his legs onto his sofa and settling in. When Viktor worked for the KGB, they had a nickname for him. ‘The Bullet’. If you wanted to question someone, the basic protocol was always to send in two operatives. ‘Good cop, bad cop,’ they called it in Great Britain. Usually they would get what they needed. Sometimes there was torture, though Viktor never approved. Torture got you nowhere. Sure, people would talk, but you had no way of knowing if it was the truth. Most people would talk to keep their teeth, their fingernails, to avoid the electrodes.

‘Well, yes, I understand that …’

But sometimes people wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t crack, whatever you did to them. However you tried to break them. And on those occasions a call would go out to Moscow. Send for the Bullet. Viktor just had a way. He had a manner about him.

‘I am an old man,’ says Viktor. ‘I live alone.’ He pours himself a brandy.

‘I can quite appreciate that, sir, but it doesn’t –’

‘And computers? I don’t understand them so much.’ Viktor was the first man in Russia to hack into the IBM mainframe computers in the Pentagon.

‘The system is simple: I can guide you through it if you have your computer there?’

Viktor’s technique would always be the same. Enter the room, sit, chat. Build a rapport, maybe clear up a bit of blood, light a cigarette and find a consensus.

‘You sound like my son, Aleksandar,’ says Viktor. Viktor never married, never had children, although the KGB encouraged it. They liked you to have a family, something they could leverage, something to keep you in Russia should you ever be tempted to stray. Many women were put in his path. Funny, brave, beautiful women. But Viktor’s life was made of lies, and love doesn’t blossom among lies. If it wasn’t to be love, then Viktor wasn’t interested. And now that he is out of the game, it is too late.

‘Are you maybe twenty-one? Twenty-two? What is your name?’

‘Umm, I’m Dale,’ says the voice. ‘I’m twenty-two. Would you like me to take you through the process?’

‘You finished university, Dale? You didn’t go, maybe?’ asks Viktor. Viktor likes people, and he wants the best for them. These days that is seen as a weakness, but, over the years, it has been his greatest strength.

‘I, I was at uni, but I dropped out,’ says Dale.

‘Loneliness?’ asks Viktor. He can hear it in the voice. ‘You found it difficult to make friends maybe?’

‘Uh, I have to finish this call in under five minutes or there’s a report,’ says Dale.

‘There’s always a report,’ says Viktor. ‘I have written many, and no one looks at them. So at uni, there were no friends? I too was very shy at twenty-two.’

‘Well, I suppose, yes,’ says Dale. ‘I didn’t really know where to start. It got to me. Are you on the website?’

Sometimes you would walk into a room, and there would be a young man slumped in his chair, blood down his shirt, eyes swollen closed, and you just had to make a connection. Any interrogation is a conversation, and there have to be two people in a conversation. If you want something, you cannot take it; you have to let somebody give it to you.

‘I was the same, this was many years ago though,’ says Viktor, as he looks out of the window. The Saudi princess is no longer in the pool. Now there is a young man eyeing the water. Viktor recognizes him: the man has a radio show, and once helped Viktor with his bags. Viktor likes him and tried to listen to his programme once. It wasn’t for him, but he couldn’t fault the young man’s enthusiasm. They gave a caller a thousand pounds for knowing the capital of France. And there were three options. ‘You think everyone around you knows some secret about how to live life. That there was a lesson you missed somewhere.’

‘Yeah,’ agrees Dale. ‘Are you on the website, I can take you through –’

‘I still feel it, Dale. These people who know how to live. They can dance, they know what clothes to wear, how to cut their hair. I am not one of them, are you?’

‘No,’ says Dale.

‘It passes though,’ says Viktor. ‘It passes, and you become yourself. You were a boy, and now you have to be a man, and that’s not easy.’

‘Right,’ says Dale. ‘My dad left, and, well, I always felt lonely after that. We used to do all sorts together.’

‘You swim alone, Dale, we all do. And you have to keep swimming until you reach the far shore. You can’t turn around and swim back.’

‘I wish I could,’ says Dale.

‘It’s not an option. You don’t want to work on the phones talking to old men like me, Dale – right?’

‘Right,’ says Dale. ‘No offence.’

Viktor giggles, high and tinkling. ‘None taken. What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Dale.

‘Yes, you do,’ says Viktor.

‘I want to work with animals, maybe,’ says Dale.

‘Then you will,’ says Viktor. ‘You will work with animals. But you might have to wait. Might have to do this job for a while. Wait for the various pieces of you to come together and settle.’

‘You think?’ says Dale. ‘I feel like I’ve already messed it up.’

‘You are young,’ says Viktor. ‘And I can hear that you are bright and kind. As the years go by, you will find that people need someone who is bright and kind more than they need someone who knows how to dance and has got the right haircut.’

‘So just –’ says Dale.

‘Just be patient and show yourself the same kindness you show others. It’s difficult, and it takes time, but you can practise until you get good … Now, shall we go through this process and see when I can get an engineer?’

There is an encouraging pause on the other end of the line. ‘Look …’ starts Dale, ‘I shouldn’t really do this, but I can put an “Urgent Need” flag on your request, and it’ll jump to the front of the queue.’

‘Oh, I don’t want to get you into trouble,’ says Viktor. This year on Bake Off there is a woman from Kyiv, called Vera, so he is even more invested than usual.

‘We’re only supposed to do it if someone is either clinically vulnerable or a celebrity. Are you either of those?’

‘In my way, I am both,’ says Viktor.

‘OK,’ says Dale, and Viktor hears the tapping of buttons. ‘You’ll have someone out to you in the next ninety minutes.’

‘Thank you, Dale,’ says Viktor.

‘No, thank you,’ says Dale. ‘Thank you for listening.’

That’s all it was in the end. People were always trying to tell you something, and all you really had to do was let them.

‘My pleasure,’ says Viktor. ‘And good luck – it’s all there ahead of you.’

Viktor puts his phone down. He catches sight of himself in the mirror. That bald head, too big for his shoulders. Those pebbly glasses, too big for his face. A face he has grown to love. If you are disappointed with your face, eventually it shows.

An email alert pings on Viktor’s computer and he turns towards the sound.

Viktor has an elaborate system of alerts. An alert for day-to-day emails, of course, the Gardeners’ Question Time newsletter, Waitrose offers and so on. Then different sounds for different clients. For different levels of urgency. There were certain email addresses that were completely unique for, say, an important Colombian client or an impatient Kosovan. In all, Viktor had over a hundred and twenty email accounts, all changing, all the time. But the sound alert for each client would stay the same.

He also has an alert for an email address that he has given nobody. It was a line of security, hidden deep on the dark web. It was an early-warning system really. If anyone ever found this email address, he would know his security had been compromised. And if his security had been compromised, he knew he was in trouble.

The alert for the secret email is a gunshot. Viktor’s little joke. A gunshot for the Bullet.

The alert that now rings around Viktor Illyich’s apartment is a gunshot. Viktor pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

He scans the skyline. Anything? Anyone? In the pool, the radio DJ is also now taking a selfie.

Viktor lights a cigarette. You would have to look long and hard to detect the slightest of trembles in his hand.

He opens the email. There are two photographs attached.

21: Joyce

Heather Garbutt has been murdered.

The fraudster, not the hockey player.

They found her in her cell, where she had been killed in a very unpleasant way. Chris wouldn’t go into the details, but it involved knitting needles.

She left a note in one of her drawers:

THEY ARE GOING TO KILL ME. ONLY CONNIE JOHNSON CAN HELP ME NOW.

It seems to tell us two things.

Heather has been murdered. Though by who, and for what? Is it a coincidence that this has happened so shortly after we started investigating?

Connie Johnson has some information. But what information?

Elizabeth suggested that Ibrahim might like to return to Darwell Prison and ‘be a bit more thorough this time’. He took that about as well as you’d imagine.

There is another question here of course. Did whoever murdered Bethany Waites also murder Heather Garbutt?

Ron said, ‘What if Connie Johnson killed her?’ It was agreed that she would certainly have had the opportunity. But what would her motive have been?

Plenty to think about, then. Just the way we like it.

Chris was excited to meet Mike Waghorn, and, as he was leaving, he said, ‘You won’t remember this, but I breathalysed you once. You were clean as a whistle,’ and Mike thanked him for his service.

We are doing a Zoom with Joanna tomorrow, to see if she’s managed to uncover anything in Heather Garbutt’s financial files, but I think we should also be looking at the notes Bethany had been sent? I know they seem fairly gentle, but that’s how bullies start. One minute it’s ‘nobody likes you’, the next you are being pushed off a cliff. I’m being melodramatic, but you take my point? Things escalate.

So who sent the notes? A jealous lover? Someone from the newsroom? Fiona Clemence?

To be honest, wouldn’t that be more fun than a VAT fraud? I will ask Elizabeth to let me look into it. I bet Pauline knows a few stories from the time, and questioning her would be a nice way for me to get to know her a bit better. I’m not saying she’s here to stay, but Ron was wearing moisturizer today. He had a bit left over behind his ear. First Banoffee Pie, then moisturizer. That’s all I’m saying about that.

Alan has just walked in, tongue out, and tail thumping the doorposts on his way. I know we sometimes credit our dogs with too much intelligence, but I honestly think he can tell there’s been a murder.

22

‘Mum, you’re muted,’ says Joanna.

‘She’s saying we’re muted,’ says Joyce to Elizabeth.

‘Yes, I heard,’ says Elizabeth. ‘She’s not muted.’

‘Press the microphone button, Mum,’ says Joanna. Elizabeth notes it is all Joanna can do to not roll her eyes. Joanna has little patience for her mother. Elizabeth knows the feeling sometimes.

‘I don’t understand it at all,’ says Joyce, looking for whatever the microphone button might be. ‘It always works with Ibrahim.’

‘It sometimes works,’ corrects Ibrahim. ‘You are always sideways, for example.’

‘Let me look at it,’ says Ron.

Ron stares at the screen for four, perhaps five seconds, then sits back. ‘No, beats me.’

‘It is the little picture of the microphone, Joyce,’ says Ibrahim, leaning forward and moving the computer mouse.

‘Ooh, I’ve never seen that before. Can you hear us?’ asks Joyce.

‘We can hear you now, Mum,’ says Joanna. ‘Hallelujah. Hello, everyone.’

She gets hellos from everyone in return. Elizabeth recognizes the boardroom of Joanna’s office, with its table made from the wing of an airplane, and its expensively terrible abstract art. She also recognizes Cornelius, Joanna’s American colleague, who has a large pile of papers in front of him. The financial records from the trial.

‘And hello, Cornelius,’ says Joyce. ‘Did Joanna tell me you’re getting married?’

‘No, my wife is leaving me,’ says Cornelius. ‘Close enough.’

‘Oh, I am sorry,’ says Joyce. ‘I knew it was something.’

‘Mum, you’ve got us for fifteen minutes,’ says Joanna. ‘Shall we start?’

‘Of course,’ says Joyce. ‘Would you like to say hello to Alan?’

Joanna’s mouth moves to form the word ‘no’, then Elizabeth sees the faintest trace of a smile. ‘OK, but quickly though.’

Joyce pats her dining-room table, and Alan puts his paws up, excited about whatever it is that might be happening now. Joanna and Cornelius wave. Alan licks Ron.

‘Leave it out, Al,’ says Ron, though Elizabeth notices he doesn’t push him away.

‘I’ll kick this off,’ says Cornelius, and places his palms each side of the pile of papers. ‘Here are the headlines. This scam pulled in upwards of ten million pounds in three years, very quickly, and all tax-free. The money goes into a single account, in the name of Heather Garbutt, then heads off into all sorts of directions. Jersey, the Caymans, the British Virgin Islands, Panama, all over.’

‘Still in Heather Garbutt’s name?’ asks Joyce.

‘None of it in Heather Garbutt’s name,’ says Cornelius. ‘None of it in anyone’s name.’

‘Well, except …’ says Joanna.

‘Yes, except …’ says Cornelius. ‘But we will get to that.’

‘It’s basic money-washing,’ says Joanna. ‘The money goes all over the world, into different accounts, all in places where you can keep your banking secret. Made-up companies, anonymous directors. You’re not suddenly going to find the name of her killer here. We can only look for clues.’

Cornelius rifles through a few of the papers. ‘Here’re just a few examples for you, all from a single month in 2014. Eighty-five thousand paid to Ramsgate Cement & Aggregates, sixty thousand to Masterson Financial Holdings in Aruba, one hundred and fifteen thousand to Absolute Construction in Panama, seventy thousand to Darwin Securities in the Cayman Islands.’

‘And when you look into these companies?’ says Elizabeth, knowing the answer already.

‘Nothing,’ says Cornelius. ‘Just a registered office, and no accounts available to access. Unless you’re the world’s greatest expert on money-laundering, which I’m not.’

‘Don’t do yourself down,’ says Joyce.

‘And that’s where the trail goes cold,’ says Cornelius.

Elizabeth takes charge. ‘So there’s plenty we don’t know, and you were right to start with that, but that’s a big pile of papers, so I’m hoping there are some things we do know.’

‘Right as always, Elizabeth,’ says Joanna, which Elizabeth knows is designed purely to wind up her dear mother. ‘We know a couple of things. Heather Garbutt’s bank records were made available to the court, and, as far as we can tell, she didn’t see a penny of the ten million. There are no unusual outgoings, no big purchases. She stays in the same house, she drives the same car, her mortgage remains the same. If Heather Garbutt was the one laundering all this money, she hasn’t spent any of it.’

‘And what else?’ asks Elizabeth. She is distracted by her phone.

I have sent the photographs to Viktor Illyich. The clock is ticking. Two weeks. You kill Viktor, or I kill Joyce. Tick tock. Tick tock.

One thing at a time please, thinks Elizabeth. I’m solving a murder here.

Cornelius steps up again. ‘All in all it’s a pretty slick operation. The lawyers couldn’t untangle it in court, and I couldn’t untangle it. But the further back you go, the less sophisticated it becomes. That’s usually the way. The longer a scam goes on, the better the scammers get at hiding the money. So the earlier in the scam you look, the more chance there is of spotting a mistake.’

‘What sort of mistake?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘The most common one is this,’ says Cornelius. ‘Obviously you have to invent names for all these imaginary companies. The rookie error is to choose a name that has some significance for you, however tangential. Now, the first few payments, and this is in the early days of the scam, were paid to a series of secret accounts in Jersey, namely Trident Capital, Trident Investments and Trident Infrastructure International.’

‘We did a little more digging,’ says Joanna. ‘And we found another company registered in Jersey, called Trident Construction.’

‘And that company,’ says Cornelius, ‘is completely legitimate. Information publicly available.’

‘Trident Construction had only one director,’ says Joanna. ‘Can you guess who?’

‘Heather Garbutt!’ says Joyce, rising from her chair.

‘No, Mum,’ says Joanna, and Joyce deflates.

‘Jack Mason,’ says Ibrahim.

‘Jack Mason,’ confirms Joanna.

‘So money goes out of Heather Garbutt’s account, straight into an account run by her boss,’ says Ron.

‘Probably run by her boss,’ says Joanna.

‘And then disappears for good,’ says Cornelius. ‘Also worth noting too that when Heather Garbutt’s house is sold, it’s one of Jack Mason’s companies that buys it.’

‘Jack Mason buys Heather Garbutt’s house?’ says Elizabeth.

‘There are two further slip-ups,’ says Cornelius. ‘Very early on. A couple of payments that both go to named beneficiaries. Both seem to be fake identities, but, again, if they’ve been careless, those fake identities might give us a clue to somebody involved in the scam. One for forty thousand pounds is paid to a “Carron Whitehead”, and one for five thousand is paid to a “Robert Brown Msc”. The first two payments that ever left the account. But, as the scam gets bigger, everything just gets locked down tight, and there are no more named beneficiaries. Heather Garbutt or Jack Mason must have worked out they needed to start hiding the money better.’

‘Carron Whitehead and Robert Brown,’ muses Elizabeth. She sees that Ibrahim is already writing down the two names in his notebook.

‘What a splendid job you’ve done, Cornelius,’ says Joyce.

‘And me, Mum,’ says Joanna. ‘I helped too. I’m not fifteen.’

‘Well, I already know you’re wonderful,’ says Joyce.

‘Wouldn’t kill you to tell me now and again,’ says Joanna.

‘Couldn’t have done it without her,’ says Cornelius.

‘So perhaps we need to pay Jack Mason a visit,’ interrupts Elizabeth. ‘Ask him about Heather Garbutt and Bethany Waites. Maybe even ask him about Carron Whitehead and Robert Brown. See how he reacts. And I think our fifteen minutes are up, Joanna, thank you.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ says Joanna. ‘Mum knows she can rely on me whenever there’s a murder.’

‘I do,’ agrees Joyce. ‘And I know you’ll find another lovely woman soon, Cornelius.’

‘Oh, I’m not looking,’ says Cornelius. ‘But thank you.’

‘Nonsense,’ says Joyce.

‘Nonsense,’ agrees Ibrahim, nodding. ‘You must look.’

After quite some rigmarole they manage to sign off the call and retire to softer chairs for tea.

‘So,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Jack Mason?’

‘Leave him to me,’ says Ron. ‘We move in similar circles.’

‘Ooh,’ says Joyce, ‘get you.’

‘Ibrahim and I will look into Carron Whitehead and Robert Brown,’ says Elizabeth.

‘And I’ll look into the notes that Bethany was being sent,’ says Joyce. ‘Ron, I might talk to Pauline – would you mind?’

‘Don’t need my permission,’ says Ron. ‘It’s not like she’s my girlfriend.’

‘Oh, Ron,’ says Elizabeth.

23

‘Parking fine yesterday,’ says Mike Waghorn, the moment Chief Constable Andrew Everton takes his seat in the studio.

‘Hello, Mike,’ says Andrew Everton, as a woman adjusts his lapel mic.

‘On the front in Fairhaven,’ continues Mike Waghorn. ‘I was opening a charity shop – a charity shop, bear that in mind. Out I come, and there’s a ticket.’

‘I see,’ says Andrew Everton. The South East Tonight studio is much smaller than it seems on TV. There are three cameras, two are fixed in place and one has a camera operator, who is currently scrolling through her phone. ‘Were you parked illegally?’

‘Barely,’ says Mike Waghorn. The floor manager tells them it is two minutes until their interview. ‘Hardly at all. And, as I say, a charity shop, which I don’t have to do. Goodness of my … whatever.’

Andrew Everton sees himself on the studio TV monitor. Looking good. Salt-and-pepper hair, closely cut, the faintest remains of a tan from a Cyprus mini-break, topped up in a Fairhaven tanning salon this afternoon. He’s aware that this is pure vanity, but, equally, he’s pushing sixty now and has decided he should probably get all the help he can.

‘One minute to studio,’ says the floor manager.

Andrew Everton goes on South East Tonight once a month. A Chief Constable needs to be accountable. A live chat with Mike is always combative but always fair. There’s no Paxman nonsense unless it’s really necessary, which sometimes it is. Andrew Everton is the friendly face of policing, when it needs all the friendly faces it can get. He likes Mike. Mike acts the fool, but is far from it.

‘Anything you can give me on Heather Garbutt?’ Mike asks.

‘Heather Garbutt?’ Andrew Everton replies.

‘The one who died in Darwell Prison?’

‘Not really across it,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘How long were you parked for, Mike?’

‘Three hours, absolute tops,’ says Mike.

‘Three hours to open a shop?’

‘I went for a drink afterwards,’ says Mike. There is now a VT playing on the studio monitor. An older guy is being interviewed. He appears to be wearing a West Ham top under a suit jacket. ‘Just a couple of pints on the pier. I come back, ticket. Daylight robbery. I got a speeding fine for doing forty in a thirty the other day. Everybody does forty in a thirty.’

On the monitor there is now a shot of the man with the West Ham top walking through some sort of village, very green, but with modern buildings. He has three friends with him, and they are laughing and joking together as they walk. Probably for the cameras, but they seem genuinely happy. Andrew wonders where it is. Looks nice.

‘If I send the ticket your way, can you have a word with someone?’ asks Mike, now looking through the list of questions he is about to ask.

‘Jeopardize my career for a parking fine,’ says Andrew. ‘No.’

Mike looks up and smiles. ‘Good lad. I was only having you on. I was banged to rights to be fair. I even wrote “Mike Waghorn – South East Tonight” on a card in the windscreen. Works sometimes. You ready?’

Andrew nods, then glances over to the monitor again. Something catches his attention, and he looks closer. The four friends walking through the village. He recognizes one of them. That surely can’t be … His eyes stay on the screen.

‘What’s this report, Mike?’ he asks. ‘Where is this place?’

Mike glances over to the monitor. ‘A retirement village, Coopers Chase. That’s Ron Ritchie, the union guy from years back. You recognize him?’

Andrew Everton shakes his head. No, that’s not whom he recognizes.

‘Will you have a look at the Heather Garbutt thing for me?’ Mike asks. ‘Just as a favour?’

Andrew Everton nods; he certainly will. The friends disappear from the screen, and the VT ends, with beautiful shots of the English countryside. The floor manager counts down from five to cue the live interview. Andrew sits up, straightens his tie and prepares himself. But his mind is elsewhere.

‘What a wonderful place,’ says Mike to camera. ‘I have to admit I stayed behind for a drink or two afterwards! A timely reminder that age is nothing but a number. And, talking of numbers, the crime statistics for Kent have just been published and they show …’

Chief Constable Andrew Everton, waiting to answer, knows exactly what the statistics show. They show he is doing a very good job. No complacency of course – things can always go wrong, he knows that very well – but he’s proud of what he’s achieving. He turns on his smile, but really he is thinking of the face he has just recognized. He really, really must pay a visit to this ‘Coopers Chase’. And quickly.

24

Jack Mason is strong and squat, but showing his age. Like a last defiant East End house standing alone in the rubble of a demolished street. Ron knows that feeling.

Grey hair shaved to the scalp, deep brown eyes never missing a moment of action – you’d never kill Jack with a bullet, you’d have to use a bulldozer.

Ron’s route to meet him has been fairly straightforward, all things considered.

Ron simply spoke to his son, Jason, who spoke to one of his old boxing pals, Danny Duff, who messaged a man named Pump-Action Dave, who happened to drink with a man who declined to be named, who happened to do some work from time to time with Jack Mason.

A message had come back along that same line – pausing briefly at Danny Duff, who had been arrested on suspicion of cocaine importation and wasn’t allowed his phone for a couple of hours – and Jack had suggested he and Ron meet for a game of snooker in Ramsgate.

Ibrahim offered to drive Ron, but at the last minute Pauline said she’d drive, as Ramsgate had a number of interesting antique shops, and a tattoo parlour, so she was keen to ‘make a morning of it’. She suggested Ibrahim come along too, but Ibrahim had decided to stay at home. Is Ibrahim acting a bit strange around Pauline, Ron wonders?

Ron asks for Jack Mason at the reception of Stevie’s Sporting Lounge and is shown through to a private room, where Jack has already set up the balls on the table.

‘Ron Ritchie, is it?’ says Jack, holding out a hand. ‘The lad himself?’

Ron shakes Jack’s hand. ‘Thanks for seeing me, Jack – know you didn’t have to.’

‘Intrigued, aren’t I,’ says Jack Mason. ‘What’s does an old bugger like you want with an old bugger like me?’

‘Your name came up,’ says Ron.

‘Did it now?’ Jack replies.

Jack takes his first shot. Ron is glad they are playing snooker. It can be quite hard for two men to have a conversation together, but snooker, or golf, or darts, always seemed to make it easier. Men didn’t really meet for a coffee. Perhaps they did these days? Perhaps the coffee shops of Ramsgate were full of men chatting about their hopes and dreams, but Ron doubts it. Ron bends down over the table and takes his shot.

‘Used to drink with your brother,’ says Ron, tutting as a red ball rattles in the jaws of a pocket. ‘Lenny. I was sorry to hear about him.’

‘We all go sometime,’ says Jack, potting the red Ron had missed. ‘I know he liked you, I wouldn’t be here otherwise. So my name happened to come up? Any particular reason?’

‘Heather Garbutt,’ says Ron. If Jack Mason is fazed hearing the name, he doesn’t show it. He pots a black with ease and lines himself up for his next red.

‘Heard she died,’ says Jack Mason.

‘You heard right,’ says Ron. ‘Wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?’

‘Nope,’ says Jack Mason. ‘Ain’t heard a peep.’

‘Where were you Thursday morning?’

Jack stops playing for a moment. ‘Where was I Thursday morning? I’m meeting you as a favour, Ron. You get that? We’ve both been around the block, eh, so I’m not going to disrespect you. But make your next question a good one, or we’re going to fall out.’

Ron smiles. This is home ground for him, two men arguing, grievances being aired. You can’t beat a bit of conflict. He lets Jack take his next shot. A miss.

Ron leans a hand on the table. ‘Here’s where I am, Jack. Heather Garbutt worked for you, and fiddled millions while she did. Some of that money went into an account that sounds an awful lot like it belonged to you.’

‘What account?’ asks Jack.

‘Trident Construction,’ says Ron.

Jack nods, looking interested. ‘You got evidence of that?’

‘Yup,’ says Ron, and misses another red.

‘And that evidence,’ continues Jack. ‘Anybody else got it?’

‘Nope,’ says Ron. ‘But we made the connection to you easy enough, so if anyone really starts poking around Heather Garbutt’s death, someone else will find it too.’

‘Who’s “we”?’ asks Jack, as he pots yet another ball.

‘It would honestly take too long to explain,’ says Ron. ‘You’re thrashing me here.’

‘I think you’re a bit nervous,’ says Jack, potting a blue, and chalking his cue.

‘You read me wrong, then,’ says Ron. ‘And I haven’t finished. Just before Heather Garbutt goes to trial, a young journalist dies. Bethany Waites, from the local news. Drives herself off a cliff.’

‘Hell of a way to go,’ says Jack Mason, making another pot.

‘Never found her killer,’ says Ron. ‘But, a few weeks before she dies, Bethany messages her guv’nor because she’s just cracked a big story. Found a smoking gun.’

‘And the story is Heather Garbutt?’ asks Jack, game forgotten for the moment.

‘More than Heather Garbutt. Something bigger, someone connected to her,’ says Ron. ‘And you were connected to her, Jack. Coincidence, innit?’

‘No such thing as coincidence,’ says Jack.

‘Well, that’s what we think. So there are minds cleverer than mine who say Heather Garbutt is stealing money for you, Bethany Waites uncovers the connection – maybe in the same way we have – so you have Bethany Waites killed.’

Jack nods. ‘Thank you for bringing this to my attention.’

‘Just, people might start asking, you know,’ says Ron.

‘I’d imagine they might,’ agrees Jack.

‘And I wondered,’ says Ron, ‘between you and me, what you make of that story?’

Now it’s Jack’s turn to smile. ‘Between you and me? I’d say this. Look, I was up to my eyes in the VAT thing, course I was. No proof, no, nothing, till you mentioned this Trident thing, but that could be a coincidence. They won’t get me on that. I’m locked tight, Ronnie – they’ll never find the money. Even I’ve lost track of it.’

Ron nods. He really wants to play his next shot, but Jack hasn’t finished.

‘And this Bethany Waites. I won’t pretend I haven’t heard the name, I have, lots of the evidence in Heather’s case came from her. But this message you’re saying she sent before she died? Where would I have heard about it from? Makes no sense.’

‘You never met Bethany Waites?’

‘Never.’

‘Never even spoke to her?’

‘Never, God’s honest,’ says Jack.

‘You’re not offended I asked though?’ says Ron, and misses yet another red.

‘No, I get it, I get it,’ says Jack. ‘But you must have thought this was a bit too amateurish for me? Leaving a loose end, killing a journalist. Bit offended if you thought that’d be my style.’

‘We all make mistakes, Jack,’ says Ron. ‘Especially when the pressure’s on. But you’re right, I figured it wasn’t you. She might not even be dead, Jackie. They never found the body.’

Jack Mason lines up another shot. He doesn’t look at Ron.

‘Oh, she’s dead.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Ron thinks he must have misheard.

‘I said she’s dead.’ Jack pots another ball, then chalks his cue.

‘You know that for a fact?’

‘I know that for a fact,’ confirms Jack Mason, lining up his next shot.

‘How can you know it for certain?’ says Ron. ‘Unless you killed her?’

‘Listen, Ron. I know she’s dead,’ says Jack Mason. ‘And I didn’t kill her. But that’s all you’re getting from me. You work it out if you want to.’

How can Jack Mason be sure that Bethany Waites is really dead? Unless he killed her. Or at least unless he knows exactly who did?

Ron bends over the table and pots his first ball of the game. He nods casually as if it was never in doubt. Two men playing snooker – you can’t beat it. Fewer and fewer people to play against these days though. There used to be a whole gang of them, London, Kent, wherever you were you could get a game. But between death, prison and living in exile on the Costa del Sol, the gang were all gone. Ron now relied on Jason taking pity from time to time and playing against his old man. Ron pots a black. This is more like it.

‘You do know who killed her, then?’ Ron asks.

Jack smiles. ‘That’s enough chit-chat, I think. I’m always up for a game though, Ron. If you’re ever free.’

Ron looks up at Jack again, and sees another old man whose friends have died around him. ‘Me too, Jack.’

It’ll be just Ron’s luck if his potential new snooker partner turns out to be a murderer.

25

Chief Constable Andrew Everton gazes out at the sea of faces all looking up at him. Well, a couple of them are asleep, and two elderly gentlemen at the back are having a private discussion, but, other than that, everybody is looking up at him. He loves this sort of thing, he really does. Giving readings. He is not asked often and, in fairness, he has arranged this one himself, but it is still a thrill. Also, he spots the face he is looking for almost immediately. Bit of luck there.

He wears his uniform, of course, because it gives a sense of theatre, and it also gives him a bit of authority. He knows it will give his reading extra power. Not that it needs it, his writing is very powerful. This is a generation who respect you if you are a chief constable. Not like this new generation, but then you reap what you sow, and trust has to be a two-way street.

The woman who had just introduced him was called Marjory. Marjory had been surprised when Andrew had written to her, offering to do this reading, but she had given a quick ‘yes’ and promised to rally the troops, and so here they were. The last thing Marjory had said to him was that the previous speaker at the Coopers Chase Literary Society had been a woman who had written a book about fish, and she had gone down very well, so please don’t let us down. Andrew Everton didn’t intend to. He has chosen to read from his fourth book, Remain Silent. It is a follow-up to his previous works, Given in Evidence, Harm Your Defence and his first book, before he’d stumbled upon his elegant new system of titles, The Bloody Death of Archibald Devonshire.

His eyes scan the room, biding his time. He knows his silence, and his uniform, and his deep, brown eyes, are all building anticipation. He starts to read.

‘The corpse was mutilated beyond all recognition …’

He hears several ‘oohs’ and sees a woman in the front row wearing a tweed jacket and pearls lean forward eagerly.

‘Black-red blood pooled around the body, limbs were splayed at grotesque angles, like a swastika of death. Chief Constable Catherine Howard liked to keep a cool head while, all around, others were losing theirs –’

A hand shoots up. That doesn’t normally happen at readings. Andrew Everton decides to take the question, even though it is interrupting the narrative. He motions to the questioner, a woman in her nineties.

‘Sorry, dear, did you say Catherine Howard? Like the Queen? Henry VIII’s wife?’

‘Yes,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Well, I suppose so.’

‘The same name?’ asks a man further back in the room. ‘Or the same person?’

‘Just the same name,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘The book is set in 2019.’

There are murmurs as this is discussed. An unofficial spokesperson seems to emerge. It is the woman with the tweed jacket in the front row.

‘Two things,’ says the woman in the front row. ‘I’m Elizabeth, by the way. Firstly, it’s confusing that she’s called Catherine Howard.’

Agreement from the room.

‘Well, I –’ begins Andrew Everton.

‘No, it is. And secondly,’ continues Elizabeth, ‘I suspect a series of books in which the real Catherine Howard were a detective might well be a bestseller. Are your books bestsellers, Chief Constable?’

‘In their field, yes,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Google would disagree with you there,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But do go on, we are enjoying it.’

‘Are you sure?’ says Andrew Everton, and the audience make it clear that they actually are.

‘We just interrupt a lot,’ says the very man that Andrew Everton is here to see. Ibrahim Arif. Andrew had recognized him immediately from the VT on South East Tonight. ‘It’s in our nature. Please, return to the spreadeagled corpse.’

‘Thank you …’

‘Although,’ says Ibrahim, a new thought having clearly occurred to him, ‘when you say she keeps her head, is that an allusion to the beheading of the real Catherine Howard?’

‘No,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I hadn’t really … no.’

‘I thought it might have been a literary trick,’ says Ibrahim. ‘You hear about them.’

‘She –’

‘Am I the only one who hasn’t heard of Catherine Howard?’ asks a man in a West Ham shirt.

‘Yes, Ron,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Now, let the Chief Constable continue.’

‘She takes –’

‘Will there be a signing afterwards?’ asks a small, white-haired woman sitting next to Elizabeth. ‘The fish woman did a signing, didn’t she?’

The room agrees that the fish woman had indeed done a signing.

‘I’m afraid my books are e-books, and so are impossible to sign, unless you want me to make a terrible mess of your Kindle,’ says Andrew Everton. A line he has perfected in the backrooms of several Kent pubs and bookshops over the last few years. Though it has yet to get a laugh, he now realizes. ‘But I will give everyone a QR code after the reading to buy any of my books at a substantial discount.’

A number of hands shoot up at this. Ibrahim turns and faces the rest of the crowd. ‘A QR code is a “Quick Response” code that can be read by a computer and link you to a specific URL. A type of matrix barcode would be the simplest way of putting it.’

Most of the hands go down, but three or four remain. Ibrahim turns back to Andrew Everton. ‘The remaining questions will be about the specific nature of the discount.’

‘Fifty per cent,’ says Andrew Everton, and the remaining hands go down.

‘Do continue,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We’re holding you up.’

‘Not at all,’ says Andrew Everton. He will find a way to speak to Ibrahim Arif after the reading. Just engage him in conversation. Establish a rapport, and ask what needs to be asked. He’s here, that’s the main thing. He looks back at his notes.

‘Should I start again from the beginning?’

‘No, dear,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Mutilated corpse, Catherine Howard keeping her head. I think we’re up to speed.’

Andrew Everton nods.

‘She took in the scene around her. Howard could see experienced officers turn ghostly pale –’

From the side of the stage, Marjory, the woman who had introduced him, chooses to interrupt.

‘Is it confusing that she’s a woman, but her surname is a man’s first name? I’d be thinking, “Who’s Howard?”’

There are nods in the audience at this.

‘Is it too late to change it?’ asks the white-haired woman with friendly concern.

‘Well, yes, the book has been out for several years already,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘She’s the hero of all my books, and no one seems to have minded yet.’

A few raised eyebrows.

‘Carry on,’ says Elizabeth.

Andrew turns back to the text. He will sell a few copies, he thinks. Then he will thank Ibrahim for his questions, and ask a few of his own. He takes a sip of the water provided on the lectern. It turns out to be a vodka and tonic. Probably for the best.

‘No one present had ever witnessed a crime scene this awful, this macabre, this depraved. No one except Catherine Howard. Because Catherine Howard had seen this exact crime scene before. Just three nights ago, in fact. In a dream.’

Hands shoot up again.

26

Andrew Everton settles into a battered old armchair, underneath a painting of a boat. Looking around, he sees glass-fronted shelves, absolutely stacked with box files.

‘That was most enjoyable,’ says Ibrahim, walking in with the mint tea. ‘Most enjoyable. You have a rare talent.’

‘You just write one word, then another, and you pray that no one finds you out,’ says Andrew Everton. He had once heard Lee Child say something similar, and had liked it. ‘You have a lot of files. Is that a work thing?’

Ibrahim settles onto a sofa. ‘A life’s work, yes. Well, many lives. I’m a psychiatrist, Chief Constable.’

‘Call me Andrew,’ says Andrew Everton, well aware that Ibrahim is a psychiatrist. ‘I’m afraid I need something from you, and so I want to appear as unthreatening as possible.’

Ibrahim chuckles. ‘A fine tactic. Was the reading a ruse? Simply to come and see me?’

‘Partly. I saw you on television,’ says Andrew Everton. Saw him on television, dug into his files. ‘With your friends. I recognized you. So two birds with one stone really,’ he says, blowing on his tea. ‘I wanted an informal chat with you, and I also thought perhaps I might sell a few books.’

‘I’m certain you will,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Chief Constable Catherine Howard is very tough. Haunted, but tough.’

‘I describe her as “teak-tough” in Given in Evidence.’

‘Quite so, Andrew,’ says Ibrahim. ‘“Teak-tough”. Enough of literature though. You say you recognized me? I am intrigued.’

‘A couple of days ago, you made a visit to Darwell Prison, I believe?’ Andrew Everton sees all the details of Connie’s visitors. Lovely close-up from the prison security cameras too.

‘Ah,’ says Ibrahim.

‘Ah,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘You gave your profession as “journalist”, though I could find no trace of you in relation to that. You visited a prisoner named Connie Johnson. A particularly brutal drug baron, currently on remand for a number of very serious crimes. You stayed with her for around half an hour, chatting, and I quote an official report here, “animatedly at times”. Correct?’

‘Well, I would say drug baroness, although I must learn to degender job titles,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But, other than that, correct.’

‘I wonder if I might ask what you and Connie Johnson spoke about?’

Ibrahim considers this. ‘I wonder if I might ask, in return, what business that is of yours?’

‘You might also be aware that another prisoner, Heather Garbutt, was found dead shortly afterwards, Mr Arif. And that Connie’s name was mentioned in a note found in her cell. That makes it my business.’

‘Indeed. Crime, and excellent writing, are your business,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Cigar?’

Andrew Everton shakes his head; he is having none of it. ‘Connie Johnson is possibly, in fact probably, the most dangerous woman my force has ever had to deal with. With luck she will be convicted and sent to prison for a very long time. If you jeopardize that in any way, I could make life very difficult for you, so I would counsel against it. If you’re in a position to help me, however, I would strongly recommend you do so.’

‘I understand your position,’ says Ibrahim. ‘That is admirably clear. I see why people like you. I see why you are Chief Constable. In America they sometimes vote for their chiefs of police, did you know that? It’s one of many idiosyn–’

‘So I’m going to ask you politely, one more time,’ interrupts Andrew Everton. ‘Why were you visiting Connie Johnson, and what did you speak about?’

Ibrahim drums his fingers on the arm of his sofa. ‘You place me in a quandary, Andrew. If I might still call you Andrew?’

Andrew Everton nods, and takes a sip of his tea.

‘You see, when I have a client,’ says Ibrahim, ‘everything we speak about is covered by patient-confidentiality laws.’

‘She is your client?’ asks Andrew Everton.

‘Well, that’s just it,’ says Ibrahim. ‘At the start of the meeting she wasn’t. But by the end of the meeting she was. So where does that leave us? Can I tell you what I spoke about, or can I not? Is the confidentiality retrospective, as it were? A thorny one, Andrew, no?’

‘A thorny one,’ nods Andrew. ‘Let me see if I can help with your dilemma.’

‘You are most kind,’ says Ibrahim.

‘The gentleman you were sitting with in the reading …’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Ron,’ says Ibrahim.

‘I also saw him on the television,’ says Andrew Everton, ‘so I’m aware you’re close. You will know, as I do, that today a pungent air of cannabis hung about him.’

‘I will take your word for that,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Ron always smells of something.’

‘You’ll also know that searches for cannabis in my force, and in most other forces, disproportionately fall on young black men. Something I have tried to address in the last few years, with some, if not enough success. So believe me it would really help my statistics if I were to sanction a drugs search on an old, white man. I can have officers in Ron’s flat within an hour.’

‘Goodness,’ says Ibrahim. ‘That’s very forthright.’

‘Would Ron like a team of officers rooting through his underwear?’

‘I don’t think anyone would like that,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Least of all the officers. But, also, I don’t think you’d do it. Ron would kick up a fuss, we’d all be there to take photos. I might even get our friend Mike Waghorn to take an interest. All too visible and messy, I think.’

Andrew Everton refuses to be outmanoeuvred. ‘Then your other friends. The ladies?’

‘Joyce and Elizabeth?’

‘You might be comfortable with a chief constable questioning you. Ron might take it in his stride. But two elderly women? How do you think the two of them would react if I decided to question them? Because if I have to, I will.’

Ibrahim laughs. ‘I wish you the very best of luck with that, Andrew. I must tell Elizabeth what you said – she will hoot. Of all the nuts to crack around here, I assure you I am very much the easiest.’

‘I need you to help me here, Ibrahim,’ says Andrew Everton.

Ibrahim leans forward. ‘Chief Constable. Andrew. I recognize it seems like I’m being obstructive. Really I understand that, and I can be very difficult at times. Unyielding, I was once described as. So I won’t be telling you what I have spoken to Connie Johnson about, and, assessing the situation as best I can, I don’t think you are particularly in a position to compel me to do so. But I can assure you that there is nothing that would concern you, and nothing that you need to worry about. Whether Connie Johnson is guilty or not is for the courts to decide. Whether she had some involvement with the death of Heather Garbutt, I doubt very much. But I can plainly assert to you that my chat with her, at the very least, was innocent.’

‘When will you see her next?’

‘No plans,’ says Ibrahim.

Andrew Everton nods. He is not quite sure what to do next.

One thing he is sure of, however, is that Ibrahim Arif has just lied to him.

27: Joyce

Carron Whitehead and Robert Brown Msc.

I have been googling, but there’s not much out there. I got so desperate I even used Bing, but the results were the same, if a bit slower. Ibrahim says there’s no use searching. He thinks the names will be in some kind of code. But, then, Ibrahim thinks that everything is in code.

I have Mike Waghorn’s email address now, but I am trying not to abuse it. I sent him what I thought was a very funny clip of a squirrel tasting almonds for the first time, but he replied saying that this was his work email and it wasn’t for clips from the internet and, besides, he had already seen it.

I hadn’t been brave enough to email him after that, so I was glad of the opportunity to send him the names. Whitehead and Brown? Ring any bells?

He thanked me, but said he’d never heard either name before. So perhaps they really are in code. He has passed them on to Pauline.

My big news is that we just had a reading at the Literary Society. And a good one too. The Chief Constable of Kent, if you can believe that? I have downloaded his books onto my Kindle. Ninety-nine pence each, thank you very much.

Ibrahim is going to Darwell Prison on Wednesday, to talk to Connie Johnson. He asked me what magazine she might like to read, but I wasn’t sure. I like Woman & Home, but I didn’t think it would be Connie’s thing, so I asked Joanna, and I told her that Connie was a thirty-something drug dealer who always wore lovely shoes, and she suggested Grazia.

Ron reported back from Jack Mason. Jack Mason says he knows for a fact that Bethany is dead. And he can only know that if he knows who killed her. Elizabeth has told Ron to go back and find out more, but it has focused all of our minds.

I might watch A Place in the Sun. Yesterday they were looking for a house in Crete. The wife fell in love with a little farmhouse, but there was no room for the husband to keep his hang-glider, and so they didn’t put in an offer. You could see the wife was heartbroken, but she married him, and so she must shoulder some of the blame.

I am also thinking about how we might be able to talk to Fiona Clemence. I know she doesn’t fit in with Jack Mason, but if she wrote those notes to Bethany years ago, she is still a suspect. And all suspects must be questioned.

But how? I sent her a message on Instagram, but I don’t know if she got it.

Even as I write this down, I know what Elizabeth will say. That I only wanted to look into the Bethany Waites case as a way of meeting Mike Waghorn, and now I only want to accuse Fiona Clemence as a way of meeting her. That there’s no way of knowing if she wrote those notes all those years ago. And, yes, that is true. But just because I’d like to meet Fiona Clemence doesn’t mean she isn’t a murderer. Lots of famous people are murderers. The Krays for example.

Joanna is coming down for lunch on Sunday, so I will ask her how someone might go about meeting Fiona Clemence. I know you can apply to get tickets to watch Stop the Clock being filmed, but I suspect you are not allowed to shout out questions about murders from the audience.

Perhaps I’ll pop to the shop? They have almond milk now. Last time Joanna came down she brought her own milk, because ‘No one drinks cow’s milk any more, Mum.’ I protested and said I think quite a few people do still drink cow’s milk, dear, but Joanna’s definition of ‘no one’ and my definition of ‘no one’ are probably different. I wanted to say, ‘Do you mean no one in London,’ but it wasn’t worth the fuss.

Either way, I can’t wait to see her face when she opens the fridge. Unless no one drinks almond milk any more either, which I’m prepared to admit might also be a possibility. It is very hard to keep up.

She’s useful when you have to choose the right magazine for a drug dealer though. I will give Joanna that.

I’ve arranged to meet Pauline tomorrow, and am very much looking forward to it. Pauline suggested afternoon tea at a hotel by the pier. I looked it up and they give you a glass of Prosecco. I will feel like Jackie Collins.

28

Jack Mason is looking at helicopters online. It would be nice to buy one. He can certainly afford it, but, really, how much use would he get out of one?

In the old days, sure, back and forth to Amsterdam, up to Liverpool, sitting in traffic, stuck in the Channel Tunnel. Helicopter would have been lovely. Would really have hit the spot.

But now? Where does he really go now? Down to the scrapyard? That’s fifteen minutes in the Bentley. Maybe twenty minutes if there’re temporary traffic lights. He pops up to London now and then, visits the few pals he has left. The few pals who aren’t in Spain, or dead.

The clock in the hall chimes six, so Jack pours himself a scotch.

Had he told Ron Ritchie too much? It was just nice to talk to someone his own age. Jack knows who killed Bethany Waites, but no one would hear the name from his lips. You had to maintain standards, and grassing was grassing, no matter who you’re speaking to.

But Jack had wanted to say something. Because, when you really thought about it, the whole thing was an absolute liberty. There’d been no need for Bethany Waites to die.

Jack’s scrapyard still ticks along nicely, a few bits and pieces come his way now and again, favours are asked, favours are granted. He’s sold most of his casino, and the bit that remains still makes him nice money. But the phone doesn’t ring the way it used to. People don’t need him. That’s OK. Who has the energy to run drugs any more? Leave all that to the kids. Jack has his house, his view over the English Channel, his snooker table. He even has stables, should he ever want a horse. And he doesn’t start drinking till six. No grassing, and no whisky till six. Rules to live by.

Jack has plenty of room for a helicopter, that’s for sure. He could land it on the croquet lawn. Buy a little golf buggy to drive him up to the house. And, really, there were some beauties. Someone in Estonia was selling a Bell 430 in gold and purple. That would impress a few people.

Though would it? Jack knocks back the rest of his scotch. Who would even see it these days? Who comes to visit? Jack wonders if he could invite Ron over to the house for a game of snooker? Would Ron like that? They got on.

Jack has made an awful lot of money in his life, but he hasn’t, he realizes, made very many friends. One thing he has come to understand, after a lifetime in crime, is that your henchmen are not real friends.

Does he really want to spend six hundred grand on a helicopter he’ll use twice a year? To watch it rusting on the lawn? Hmm.

He is typing ‘golf buggy how much uk’ into Google, when an email alert pops up on his screen.

He recognizes the address. The email is from Bethany Waites’s killer. They used to be in contact quite often. Less so now, which has been something of a relief. Though, with everything that has happened in the last few days, he has been expecting a message.

The email reads:

Long time no see. Just a friendly warning to keep your eyes open. Talk soon.

You’re telling me, thinks Jack. Jack Mason hasn’t left too many loose threads in his life, but this is definitely one of them.

Jack wonders if, perhaps, it might be time to tell the truth?

29

Juniper Court, the building they’d identified from their work with the CCTV cameras, is only fifteen minutes or so from Fairhaven police station, so Chris and Donna walk there.

‘Who’s the mystery man, then?’ Chris asks.

‘Haven’t heard back from forensics yet,’ says Donna. ‘Nothing on the body, no ID, photo circulated to the press. You know all this?’

‘Not the man in the minibus, Jesus,’ says Chris. ‘The guy you’re seeing?’

‘Some priorities you have there,’ says Donna. ‘Wow.’

They turn onto Foster Road. Juniper Court is a purpose-built 1980s block, which might begin to look retro-fashionable in twenty years. A hundred or so flats, lawns to the front and, crucially, a large car park underneath.

Juniper Court has not cropped up often in police records. A few stolen bikes, the odd noise complaint, a man selling fake Banksys by post, and some graffiti about the Mayor that they’d had to take seriously. They can’t even find the details of the management company online. It is the very definition of quiet and nondescript. But it could hold the key to who murdered Bethany Waites.

It’s nice and near the station, so home to plenty of commuters into London or Brighton. That means it’s deserted as they approach.

‘You nervous about your audition?’ Donna asks Chris. He’s doing his screen-test for South East Tonight, just around the corner from here, on Wednesday.

‘No, I chase villains for a living,’ says Chris. ‘You think a TV camera’s going to frighten me?’

‘I do, yes,’ says Donna.

‘You’re right,’ says Chris. ‘I’m terrified. You think they’ll let me pull out?’

‘I won’t let you pull out,’ says Donna. ‘You’ll be amazing.’

Through wide double doors, Chris and Donna see a desk in the entrance hall of Juniper Court, and a man in brown overalls sitting behind it, reading the Daily Star.

‘In London, they’d call him a concierge,’ says Chris, as he buzzes to be let in. He flashes his warrant card, but there is no need, as the man lets them in without looking up.

‘Morning,’ says Chris. The man still doesn’t look up. ‘Is there a building manager we can talk to?’

The man finally looks up. ‘That’s me. I don’t love talking though.’

Chris flashes his warrant card again. ‘Kent Police.’

The man puts down his paper. ‘This about my neighbour? You going to arrest him?’

‘I’m … no, I don’t think so,’ says Chris. ‘What’s he done?’

‘Built a conservatory,’ says the man. ‘No planning permission. I’m Len. I keep ringing you lot about it, and this is the first time I’ve seen you.’

‘That’s more for the council, Len,’ says Donna. ‘Not the police.’

‘That right?’ says Len. ‘I suppose if I killed him though, you’d be round soon enough?’

‘Well, yes, obviously,’ says Chris. ‘If you murdered him we’d come round. Murders, yes; conservatories, no. We’re looking for the details of the management company for this place, and we wondered if you could help?’

‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,’ says Len. ‘You come round and have a word with my neighbour, and maybe I’ll remember –’

‘Arlington Properties,’ says Donna, reading the notice board and copying down a number.

Chris starts taking a look in some of the post pigeonholes, noting down names. Illegal, really, but Len behind the desk seems to have a fairly loose relationship with legality.

‘You allowed to be doing that?’ Len asks.

‘With a warrant, yes,’ says Chris. He obviously doesn’t have one. Chris sometimes thinks the Thursday Murder Club are a bad influence on him.

‘Anyone cause you any particular trouble?’ Donna asks.

‘The guy in seventeen broke two toilet seats,’ says Len.

‘Thank you for your help, Len,’ says Chris. ‘We’ll let you get on.’

As they leave, the man calls after them. ‘Well, don’t blame me if I kill him. That’ll be on you.’

Back out in the cold air, Chris and Donna start noting down car registration numbers. There is a car Chris is sure he recognizes, a white Peugeot with flames on the number plate. He notes down the number.

Chris would love to find a clue that Elizabeth has missed. Should he really be that competitive with a woman in her late seventies?

But he understands that this is a fishing expedition. Even if someone lives in Juniper Court now, it’s meaningless unless they lived there ten years ago, on the night Bethany died.

He keeps noting down the numbers regardless. Most of police work is jotting down numbers.

30

‘He liked motorbikes,’ says Pauline. ‘He liked tinkering. He’d take them apart, and forget to put them together again.’

‘Gerry was like that with jigsaws,’ says Joyce. ‘I’d forever be telling him, don’t start a jigsaw and not finish it, Gerry. If you’ve done the opera house, then, for goodness’ sake, do the bridge. I’d end up having to finish them off. I don’t suppose you can do that with a motorbike.’

‘He’d ride off with his mates at the weekend,’ says Pauline. ‘A whole gang of them – the Outlaws of Death, they were called. Two of them were accountants.’

‘But he looked after you,’ says Joyce.

‘Did he, Joyce? I don’t know,’ says Pauline. ‘He loved me, as far as it went, and it would have been a lot of trouble to get rid of him. But –’

‘But?’

‘Look, we got along fine. I’ve seen worse,’ says Pauline. ‘I don’t know if it was love’s young dream though. You had to get married in those days, didn’t you? Had to find someone.’

‘I’m afraid I was terribly boring,’ says Joyce. ‘I wanted to get married.’

‘God, that’s not boring, Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘To really mean it, that’s the dream. How did you fall in love with Gerry, can you remember?’

‘Oh, I didn’t fall in love with him,’ says Joyce. ‘Nothing like that. I just walked into a room and there he was, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and that’s all there was to it. Like I had always been in love with him, no falling necessary. Like finding the perfect pair of shoes.’

‘Christ, Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘You’ll have me crying.’

‘I mean, he had his bad points,’ says Joyce.

‘Did he ever cheat on you with a tattoo artist called Minty?’

‘No, but he’d always leave his used teabags in the sink,’ says Joyce. ‘And then there were the jigsaws.’

The two women laugh. Pauline raises her glass in a toast.

‘To Gerry,’ says Pauline. ‘I wish I’d met him.’

Joyce clinks Pauline’s glass. ‘And to … I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your husband’s name?’

‘He called himself Lucifer,’ says Pauline. ‘He was a roadie for Duran.’

‘What was his real name?’

‘Clive,’ says Pauline.

‘Well, I wish I’d met Clive too,’ says Joyce. ‘I wonder if he and Gerry would have got along?’

There is a pause, and both women laugh again. A waiter brings them a cake stand, loaded with tiny pastries and sandwiches. Joyce claps her hands.

‘I love a cream tea,’ says Pauline. ‘Now, while I eat a tiny eclair, why don’t you tell me why we’re here?’

‘I thought it would be nice to have a chat,’ says Joyce. ‘Get to know you, have a gossip.’

Pauline holds her hand up. ‘Joyce, spare me.’

‘OK,’ says Joyce, taking her first bite out of a two-bite sandwich. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Bethany Waites.’

‘You shake me to my core in surprise, Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘Do you think you will want your eclair? I could swap it for a beef and horseradish?’

They make the trade.

‘I keep thinking back to the notes that Mike mentioned,’ says Joyce.

‘OK,’ says Pauline. ‘Do you think you’ll want your lemon tart by the way?’

‘No, please,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s just that you don’t always find things in the most obvious place, do you? I lost my tape measure the other day, for example, and it’s always in my kitchen drawer. Always. But I needed it, to settle an argument with Ibrahim about whose television was bigger, and I opened the drawer, and was it there? It was not. It was not in the obvious place. In the end it was on the bookshelf, heaven knows why. I didn’t put it there, and it certainly wasn’t Alan, was it?’

‘Have you lost your train of thought, Joyce?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ says Joyce. ‘I just mean that while everyone is off looking at Jack Mason, I wondered if I might look at South East Tonight, and see if anyone there might have killed her? For an entirely different reason. Does that make sense?’

‘As much sense as any of you make,’ says Pauline. ‘Ask me anything.’

‘So someone was leaving threatening notes for Bethany. In her bag, on her desk.’

‘So I hear,’ says Pauline.

‘Could it have been you?’

‘No.’

Could it have been Fiona Clemence?’

‘Could have been Fiona Clemence,’ says Pauline. ‘I doubt it, but not impossible.’

‘Jealousy?’

‘I don’t think jealousy is the right word,’ says Pauline. ‘They were both strong women. And in those days people liked to make strong women compete with each other. Like you couldn’t have two strong women in the same room at the same time. The world would explode.’

‘Perhaps I should speak to Fiona Clemence,’ says Joyce. ‘Do you think?’

‘I think you would like to speak to her, Joyce. That’s what I think.’

Joyce passes Pauline her lemon tart. ‘No harm in it. Now, the other day. What were you saying about Bethany’s clothes?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ says Pauline.

‘Houndstooth jacket and yellow trousers,’ says Joyce. ‘You asked who would wear that?’

‘Well, you know,’ says Pauline.

‘I don’t know,’ says Joyce. ‘Why mention it?’

‘Can I tempt anyone to another Prosecco?’ asks a waiter.

‘Yes, please,’ say Joyce and Pauline. As he pours, the two women are politely silent, save for the odd ‘ooh’ as the glasses fill.

‘Odd thing to wear, is all,’ says Pauline, and takes a healthy glug. ‘Not her style.’

‘Pauline,’ says Joyce. ‘Do you know something you’re not telling me?’

‘I think you’d work that out, don’t you?’

‘I’m not sure I would with you, no,’ says Joyce. ‘You’re not protecting someone?’

‘By talking about Bethany’s clothes? No,’ says Pauline. ‘I’m just interested in clothes. That’s the thing I would look at.’

‘They’re all concentrating more on offshore accounts than trousers,’ says Joyce.

‘Well, that’s why you’re a gang,’ says Pauline. ‘You don’t all have to concentrate on the same thing.’

‘And you mentioned that the CCTV was very blurry? That was an unusual thing to say.’

‘Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘You were all sitting around with your theories and I just wanted to join in. Just wanted to have something to contribute. You’re quite an intimidating bunch when you get together.’

Joyce laughs. ‘I suppose. That’s mainly Elizabeth though, not me.’

‘Sure,’ says Pauline. ‘Tell me about Ron.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘The bad stuff,’ says Pauline. ‘Anything I’ve missed while I’ve been staring into those beautiful eyes.’

‘Where to begin,’ says Joyce. ‘He can’t dress, he refuses to eat healthily, you can’t disagree with him, he’s too loud sometimes, especially in public, some of his attitudes are outdated, and he once gave me an hour-long lecture when I said I’d voted Lib Dem at the local elections.’

‘But is –’

‘Sometimes he teases me, although when he teases Elizabeth I like it, so perhaps that’s not a fault. He’s very slow at responding to messages, he gets grumpy easily, especially if he hasn’t eaten. He passes wind often. He once sulked for an entire day because we didn’t ask him to see the corpse of an assassin someone had shot at Coopers Chase. He has terrible taste in music and, if he ever comes round in the evening, he talks when the TV is on.’

‘There was an assassin at Coopers Chase?’

Joyce waves this away. ‘If you ever send him to the shop, he’ll get the wrong thing. And I don’t mean dark chocolate digestives instead of milk chocolate digestives. I mean you’ll ask for a four-pack of loo roll and you’ll get a pineapple.’

‘That’s fairly comprehensive,’ says Pauline. ‘Any good points?’

‘That’s a longer list,’ says Joyce. ‘So I’ll boil it down for you. He’s loyal, he’s kind, he’s funny, and I am very, very proud that, for whatever reason, he has chosen to be my friend. He is, and this is just an opinion, a prince. I sometimes daydream, and this will sound silly, but I sometimes daydream about Ron sitting there on my sofa, and Gerry is in his armchair, and the two of them just laughing and arguing until all hours. I can play the whole thing out in my head. Gerry would have loved him, and that’s the greatest compliment I have.’

There are tears in Joyce’s eyes, and Pauline takes her hand. ‘It sounds like you love him too, Joyce.’

‘Of course I do,’ says Joyce. ‘How could you not love Ron? I mean, he is not the man for me, Pauline, for the many reasons listed. But if you like pineapple, and you’ve already got enough loo roll, he’s the man for you.’

‘You know, you could just be right,’ says Pauline.

Joyce is smiling through her tears now. ‘How lovely, how lovely. I shall look for a wedding hat.’

‘Let’s not go that far,’ says Pauline, smiling. ‘Early days.’

Pauline lets Joyce’s hand go. But Joyce now places it over Pauline’s. She looks her directly in the eye.

‘You promise me you’re telling me everything, Pauline?’

‘It looks like you ladies might need another top-up,’ says the waiter.

‘Yes, please,’ say Joyce and Pauline.

31

‘You’ve put them through the old computer?’ Stephen asks. ‘Nothing doing?’

‘Nothing doing,’ says Elizabeth. A friend still in the Service had run the names for her. ‘Carron Whitehead’ throwing up no matches, ‘Robert Brown’ throwing up far too many. They have promised to look through them all, but there are only so many favours you can ask, and Elizabeth has asked rather a lot recently. Perhaps she should pay a visit to the Chief Constable, and see if he knew anything they didn’t? Could she get an appointment? There must be a way.

‘Your pal will crack it,’ says Stephen. ‘The one with the crosswords.’

Ibrahim. He and Stephen used to be good friends. Ibrahim still asks to come round, and Elizabeth still puts him off.

‘I’m trying to play chess here,’ says Bogdan. ‘There is a lot of talking.’

Bogdan has come down from the construction site at the top of the hill to keep Stephen company.

‘You still smell rather nice,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And the same smell as before. Almost as if you are seeing someone regularly?’ Elizabeth has room for more than one mystery at a time.

Bogdan makes a move and sits back. ‘What are you going to do about the guy you have to kill?’

‘I asked a question first, Bogdan,’ says Elizabeth.

She will get nothing from Bogdan. Perhaps she should start following him. Is that a bit much? She contemplates for a moment, and decides that, yes, that probably is a bit much. But, really, Elizabeth hates not knowing secrets. Spies are like dogs. They cannot stand a closed door.

‘Wonderful books the Viking chap had,’ says Stephen, pondering his move. ‘Really quite extraordinary.’

Stephen is her secret of course. Her closed door. For now.

‘You going to use the gun I gave you?’ Bogdan asks. ‘The woman I got it from said it had been buried for a while, so make sure it works.’

‘He’s giving me advice about guns now,’ says Elizabeth. She will actually have to check though. She’ll take it out into the woods this evening. Scare the owls and the foxes.

‘Bogdan, old chap,’ says Stephen, frowning at the chessboard. ‘Looks like you’ve got me again. Must be losing my marbles.’

‘Only thing you are losing is the game,’ says Bogdan.

Carron Whitehead and Robert Brown. The very first transactions with the stolen money. There must be a clue there, but Elizabeth feels like she’s hit a dead end.

Ironically she can think of one person who might be able to help.

Viktor Illyich. A whizz at this sort of thing. Delving into records, following money trails.

It’s time to put up or shut up though. Eliminate Viktor, and, thus, eliminate the risk from the Viking. Elizabeth will go into the woods tonight and test the gun. And then she will have to message Joyce, and tell her they are going to London tomorrow. Though she won’t tell her why.

It is time to kill Viktor Illyich. And Elizabeth will need Joyce there when she does it.

32

The morning rush-hour has passed, but the train is still busy. Elizabeth has just come clean about her kidnapping.

‘But why a bag over your head and a blindfold?’ asks Joyce, as the train races through the horizontal English rain. ‘That’s a bit much.’

‘Belt and braces,’ says Elizabeth.

Joyce nods. ‘I suppose I’ve packed a raincoat and an umbrella today, so I can hardly talk. How was Staffordshire?’

‘I didn’t see a great deal of it, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I was driven there at speed, then forced into a house with a gun at my head, and eventually dumped on a freezing roadside at two a.m.’

Elizabeth’s phone buzzes, a message from a withheld number.

I see you are on the train to London, Elizabeth. I have people everywhere. Please don’t let me down.

It is meant to sound threatening, but it is starting to come across as needy. Elizabeth takes a look along the carriage, though, judging every face in turn.

‘I’m not sure I’ve ever been to Staffordshire,’ Joyce continues. ‘But I must have been through it at some point, mustn’t I?’

The ideal scenario would be to not have to murder Viktor Illych. But the Viking would kill Joyce in two weeks, unless given a good reason not to. The choice was Viktor or Joyce, and that was no choice at all.

So here they were, on the 09.44 from Polegate to London Victoria. She is still choosing not to tell Joyce about the threat against her. Was that right? Could Joyce handle a death threat? Elizabeth had yet to see Joyce’s limits, but surely she must have some?

‘You’ll have been through Staffordshire, Joyce, yes. It’s quite broad.’

Joyce has been telling Elizabeth her new theory. That Fiona Clemence had been involved in Bethany Waites’s murder and wouldn’t it, all things being considered, be worth talking to her? Nice to think about that for a while, rather than what she is about to do.

Elizabeth feels the weight of the gun in the handbag sitting on her lap. A gun, a pen, some lipstick and a crossword book. Just like the good old days.

‘Is there a trolley on this train?’ Joyce asks. ‘Or do we have to go to the buffet car?’

‘There’s a trolley,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Oh, good,’ says Joyce, and looks over her shoulder, to see if, perhaps, the trolley is on its way. ‘And is this trip to London connected to your adventure?’ Joyce continues. ‘Or are we shopping?’

‘It is connected. I will take you shopping another day to make up for it.’

Another message on Elizabeth’s phone.

Nice day for it, by the way!

Does the Viking have nothing else to do? They both sit back and take in the grey, wet view out of the window. Oh, England, you really know how to be drab when you want to.

Joyce finally cracks. ‘So where are we off to, then?’

‘To meet an old friend of mine,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Viktor.’

‘We used to have a milkman called Victor,’ says Joyce. ‘Any chance it’s the same Victor?’

‘Very possible. Was your milkman also the head of the Leningrad KGB in the eighties?’

‘Different Victor,’ says Joyce. ‘Though they finish milk-rounds very early, don’t they? So perhaps he was doing two jobs?’

They laugh, and the trolley arrives. Joyce asks the woman behind the trolley a series of questions. Was the tea free? Were there biscuits? Were those free? Were those bananas she could spot? Was there much of a trade in bananas on the train, or were the biscuits the big draw? How much hotter would the coffee be at one end of the train than at the other? There were then a few supplementary questions, which elicited that the woman pushing the trolley had recently returned to work after having a baby, and that her husband, who worked in construction at the airport, was not really pulling his weight at home, and that his mother was being impossible and defending him at every turn. At the end of the questions Joyce had decided that, actually she was fine, and wouldn’t have anything, thank you. Elizabeth took a water, and the trolley, and the woman, continued on their way, wishing them both a safe journey.

‘So why are we going to see Viktor?’

Elizabeth makes sure the trolley is out of sight.

‘I’m afraid I have to kill him.’

‘Don’t joke, Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘We’re right in the middle of an investigation. And we’ve been through a lot recently.’

Joyce is right. Elizabeth thinks all the way back to the murder of Tony Curran. To Ian Ventham, and to Penny in Willows, with John holding her hand. It had all seemed a bit of a jape, but it was simply the start of a long series of events which has culminated in her sitting on the 09.44 from Polegate, with her best friend, and a gun in her handbag. ‘Best friend’? That was a new thought. She nods her agreement at Joyce.

‘I know. And I’m afraid we’re going to have to go through a little more, before this is all done.’

‘But you can’t kill someone, Elizabeth.’

‘We both know that’s not true, Joyce. And on this occasion I have to.’

‘Why? What happens if you don’t kill him?’

‘Someone will kill me.’ (Someone will kill you, Joyce. And I won’t allow that to happen.)

‘You really are ridiculous sometimes,’ says Joyce. ‘Since when do you do what you’re told? Who is telling you to kill Viktor?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘MI5?’

‘It would probably be MI6, Joyce, with respect. But no. A tall Swedish man.’

‘They’re all tall in Sweden,’ says Joyce. ‘It was on The One Show. So is he paying you?’

‘No, just the threat of death.’ (Your death, my lovely, kind, hugely over-talkative friend.)

‘OK, well, I’m assuming I don’t have the full picture, but I suppose I’m here to help, that’s what best friends are for.’

‘I rather think we are best friends, Joyce, aren’t we? It hadn’t really occurred to me.’

‘Of course we’re best friends,’ says Joyce. ‘Who did you think my best friend was? Ron?’

Elizabeth smiles again. Has she had a best friend before? Penny? Perhaps, but, really, they just shared a common hobby and a mutual respect. She’s had husbands and lovers. Field partners, cell mates, bodyguards. But a best friend?

‘Wait, is Stoke in Staffordshire?’ says Joyce.

‘Yes,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Then I have been to Staffordshire. We did a coach trip to Stoke, years back. Lovely ceramics. I bought a pot with Gerry’s name on it. It was spelt with a “J”, but it was the closest they had.’

‘Glad to get that cleared up,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Where does Viktor live?’

‘Somewhere you’re going to like very much,’ says Elizabeth.

Joyce nods. ‘You’re not really going to kill him, Elizabeth? I don’t think you’d bring me if you were really going to kill him?’

Elizabeth studies Joyce for a moment. ‘Who on earth do you think I would bring? Ron?’

She hoped that might make her friend laugh, but, instead, Joyce looks scared.

The train begins to slow, as it approaches London.

33

‘They are going to kill me,’ reads Ibrahim. ‘Only Connie Johnson can help me now.’

‘She was frightened, I can tell you that,’ says Connie Johnson, her feet up on the desk. They have been allowed a private meeting room, because of the importance of ‘good mental health’.

‘Frightened,’ repeats Ibrahim. ‘Frightened of you?’

Connie shakes her head. ‘I know when people are frightened of me. Frightened of someone though.’

‘Perhaps you like it when people are frightened of you?’ Ibrahim is making notes on his pad. ‘What would you say to that?’

‘Are we doing therapy?’ says Connie. ‘Or are we investigating a murder?’

‘I thought we could mix the two,’ says Ibrahim. ‘In therapy you must never waste a crisis.’

‘People being frightened is not my thing,’ says Connie. ‘Thank you for my Grazia by the way, it’s perfect. I don’t get a kick out of people being scared of me, I just do it because it’s easy to monetize.’

‘So who was she frightened of,’ says Ibrahim, ‘do you think?’

Connie shrugs and sips at the cappuccino a warder has made for her. It even has chocolate sprinkles. ‘Felt like she had a secret she was scared to tell.’

‘A secret that she seems to believe you know,’ says Ibrahim. ‘“Only Connie Johnson can help me.” What did she say to you? She gave you a clue, perhaps?’

‘If she did, I didn’t pick up on it,’ says Connie. ‘But I’ll keep thinking.’

‘If you would,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Do you have secrets, Connie?’

‘Nah,’ says Connie. ‘The combination to the safe in my lock-up, I suppose, but I don’t think that counts, does it? What are your secrets?’

‘That’s for another day,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Let’s start from the beginning. When you heard what had happened –’

‘With the knitting needles?’

‘With the knitting needles, yes,’ says Ibrahim. ‘What did you think?’

Connie takes a pause, and breaks off a piece of the KitKat another warder had brought in. On a tray. ‘Well, first off, I admired the ingenuity. Not easy to kill someone with knitting needles.’

‘Agreed,’ says Ibrahim.

‘And, second, I thought I shouldn’t have given her the knitting needles,’ says Connie. ‘But you can’t be ruled by hindsight, can you?’

‘That is a wise thing to say.’

‘Too late for her now,’ says Connie, draining the last of her cappuccino with a wince. ‘If I look into it a bit more, do you think you could bring me a new coffee-maker? I’ve got a Nespresso, but I’d like a De’Longhi.’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ says Ibrahim.

Connie nods. ‘Well, try your best. Here’s the only thing I can remember: when I went into her cell, Heather was writing something.’

Ibrahim stops writing and looks up at her. ‘What sort of thing?’

Connie shrugs. ‘She hid it away pretty quickly. Worth looking for though. They’ll have bagged up all her stuff.’

‘And what she was writing?’ says Ibrahim. ‘It wouldn’t have been the note she left?’

Connie shakes her head. ‘It was lots of writing. She was scribbling away.’

‘So what do you think, Connie? Why kill Heather Garbutt, and why kill her now?’

‘What I think is this,’ says Connie. ‘I think this doesn’t feel like the therapy I’m paying for. This feels like I’m an unpaid member of your gang.’

‘Well, we are all unpaid, but your point is valid,’ says Ibrahim. ‘It is a legitimate observation. Let’s talk a little about you. Would you like to start, or shall I?’

‘You start,’ says Connie.

Ibrahim thinks for a moment. ‘I think you are unhappy.’

‘Wrong,’ says Connie.

‘I think you make other people unhappy,’ says Ibrahim.

‘I’ll give you that,’ says Connie.

‘So you know you make other people unhappy, and yet you are happy? It must be hard to make peace with that fact?’

‘Other people are their own responsibility,’ says Connie.

‘Connie. You are very bright, you are hard-working. You spot opportunities. I think it is fair to say you are more powerful than many other people.’

Connie drums her fingers on the table. ‘Maybe.’

‘So therefore you are a bully,’ says Ibrahim. ‘If you are strong, you have a choice in life: to protect the weak, or to prey on the weak. You use the strengths you have been given to prey on the weak.’

‘So does everyone,’ says Connie.

‘I don’t,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Only sociopaths do.’

‘Well, then, I’m a sociopath,’ says Connie. ‘You should try it, it’s very lucrative.’

‘You sensed Heather Garbutt was frightened, Connie. And you sensed she was unable to tell the truth. And I think you cared about that.’

Connie pauses. ‘Not especially.’

‘You didn’t care?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘“Not really, no.” Yet you think I should find out what Heather was writing? You think maybe there’s more to her death than meets the eye?’

‘Maybe,’ says Connie.

‘I have good news and bad news for you, Connie,’ says Ibrahim, shutting his pad.

‘Enlighten me,’ says Connie.

‘The good news is that you care. So you are not a sociopath.’

‘And the bad news?’

‘The bad news is that means, at some point, you are going to have to come to terms with everything you’ve done in your life.’

Connie stares at Ibrahim for a long while. Ibrahim stares back.

‘You’re a fraud,’ says Connie, finally. ‘Nice suits, I’ll give you that, but a fraud.’

‘Perhaps so.’ There is a series of beeps on Ibrahim’s phone.

‘And that’s our hour up. More next week, or is that us done? It’s always your choice. Perhaps I am too much of a fraud for you?’

Connie gathers up her magazine and places the rest of the KitKat in her Hermès clutch bag. She stands, and holds out her hand to Ibrahim.

‘More next week,’ she says. ‘Please.’

‘As you wish,’ say Ibrahim.

‘I’ll keep digging for you,’ says Connie.

‘And I shall do the same for you,’ says Ibrahim.

34

‘What did you make of Pauline?’ asks Elizabeth.

‘I like her,’ says Joyce.

‘Well, I like her too,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But what did you make of her?’

‘I asked her about the comments from the other day,’ says Joyce. ‘About Bethany’s clothes. But she batted them away. And she said she had no memory of the notes.’

‘It’s almost as if she were trying to lead us to something,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Or away from something.’

‘She agreed we should talk to Fiona Clemence though,’ says Joyce. ‘She thought that was a tremendous idea.’

Elizabeth raises a doubtful eyebrow to her friend.

The black cab pulls in, and Elizabeth and Joyce step out. Elizabeth takes a good look around. Who is watching? There are guards at the door of the American Embassy up ahead, and there’s a group of young women going through the revolving doors of a publisher’s building on her left. Looking up, she can see plenty of windows, plenty of places in which to hide and watch. A sniper’s paradise. Joyce is also looking around, but with an entirely different focus.

‘There’s a swimming pool!’ says Joyce.

‘I know,’ confirms Elizabeth.

‘In the sky,’ says Joyce, looking up and shielding her eyes from the bright winter sun.

‘I told you you’d like it,’ says Elizabeth.

The swimming pool runs between the tops of two tall, residential buildings. Its glass floor makes it seem suspended in mid-air. Elizabeth is unimpressed. It’s just engineering plus money. Perhaps some imagination too, but she bets they copied it from somewhere. Perhaps if someone had built it for the public to use, she would marvel at it. But you can only swim in the sky if you have money, and if you have money you can do pretty much anything, so forgive her for not getting excited.

‘And this is where he lives?’ asks Joyce. ‘Viktor?’

‘That’s the information I have.’

‘Do you think he’ll let us have a go in the pool?

‘Do you have your costume, Joyce?’

‘I didn’t think to. Do you think we’ll be coming back any time?’

Elizabeth feels the weight of the gun in her handbag again. ‘Not for a while, no.’

They walk in through the huge double doors of one of the residential buildings, and make their way across the marble lobby, to the burnished walnut-and-copper concierge desk. The whole place feels very expensive yet deeply inoffensive, like a business hotel a divorcee might choose to kill himself in.

The concierge is very beautiful, East African, perhaps? Elizabeth gives her friendliest smile. She’s no Joyce, but she does her best.

‘We’re here to see Mr Illyich.’

The concierge looks at Elizabeth very pleasantly, but very certainly. ‘I’m afraid we have no Mr Illyich in the building.’

That would actually make sense, thinks Elizabeth. Viktor Illyich had a hundred names. Why use the real one here?

‘You’re very beautiful,’ says Joyce to the concierge.

‘Thank you,’ says the concierge. ‘As are you. Is there anything else I can do to help you today?’

Elizabeth’s phone buzzes. The Viking again. She looks at the message.

I hear you are in his building. Killing him at home is a nice touch. I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

How to get upstairs?

‘Have you ever used the pool?’ Joyce asks the concierge.

‘Many times,’ says the concierge. ‘Just to let you know, a member of our staff is on his way to escort you to the exit at your earliest convenience.’

‘I think I’m more impressed with it than Elizabeth,’ says Joyce.

‘Elizabeth?’ says the concierge. ‘Elizabeth Best?’

‘Yes, dear,’ says Elizabeth. Things are looking up.

‘Mr Illyich told me if an Elizabeth Best were to visit, to show her up straight away. He said she might also be called’ – the concierge looks down at a list – ‘Dorothy D’Angelo, Marion Schulz, Konstantina Plishkova or the Reverend Helen Smith. He also told me to watch and learn, because Elizabeth Best is the cleverest woman he has ever known.’

Elizabeth sees Joyce roll her eyes.

‘You didn’t think, when we walked in, asking for Viktor Illyich, that I might be Elizabeth Best? That didn’t cross your mind?’

‘I’m terribly sorry, no. The way Mr Illyich spoke about you, I thought Elizabeth Best must be a much younger woman.’

‘Well,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I used to be much younger, so you’re excused.’

‘Mr Illyich is in the penthouse. I will show you up myself.’ The concierge turns to Joyce. ‘And I will show you the swimming pool when you leave. There are spare costumes for guests.’

Elizabeth sees the delight on her friend’s face. There will be no swimming today. But they might need towels.

After the trip up in a lift the size of a suburban sitting room, Viktor Illyich answers the door himself, thanks the concierge, and lets Elizabeth and Joyce into his penthouse. He couldn’t look more thrilled to see them.

‘There she is! How did I get so lucky? How long has it been, Elizabeth?’

‘Twenty years?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Twenty years, twenty years,’ nods Viktor, and kisses her on both cheeks. ‘I look so terribly old. Don’t you think?’

‘You always looked terribly old,’ says Elizabeth.

Viktor laughs. ‘I did! Always! Finally I am old. Finally I make sense. Now, I think you are Joyce Meadowcroft?’

Joyce reaches out a hand, but Viktor kisses her on each cheek.

‘Lovely to meet you, Viktor,’ says Joyce. ‘Do you know they kiss three times in Belgium? I only found that out recently.’

Viktor smiles, and takes her elbow.

‘Please, come with me and sit. It is too cold to sit outside, but we can enjoy the view. I hope you like grey clouds and red buses?’

Viktor leads Joyce over to a sunken sofa which, hypothetically, looks out over a huge vista of London. The grey clouds obscure most of the view today. The only things near enough to be made out are the building sites of Battersea Power Station, as a whole new swathe of London takes shape on the banks of the river. Elizabeth follows behind them.

‘Joyce,’ says Viktor. ‘I think you would like a gin and tonic? That’s what I think. Tell me if I’m right?’

‘You’re right!’ says Joyce.

‘Then that’s what we will have. I am so happy to have you both here. Elizabeth, you will join us?’

‘Sit down, Viktor,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I will, I will,’ says Viktor. ‘Come on, I’m excited. Let me make the drinks, then we can sit and talk. Two old spies. We can make Joyce’s hair curl with our tales!’

‘Sit down, Viktor,’ says Elizabeth again, her gun now in her hand.

35

‘I speak, then you speak,’ says the producer. He is called Carwyn Price, and DCI Chris Hudson has been left in no doubt of that, because Carwyn Price likes to refer to Carwyn Price in the third person. ‘I speak, you speak; I speak, you speak; I speak, you speak.’

‘Got it,’ says Chris.

‘I speak, you speak, that’s my only rule. That’s the Carwyn Price rule,’ says Carwyn Price.

‘Do I look at the camera?’ asks Chris.

‘No, look at me, that’s the other rule,’ says Carwyn. ‘Unless you’re making an appeal, “Have you seen this man?”, that sort of thing. You can do that down the barrel.’

‘Down the barrel?’

‘Straight into the lens,’ says Carwyn. ‘That’s what we call it in news.’

‘Down the barrel means something very different in the police force,’ says Chris.

Carwyn is wearing a woollen beanie hat indoors. Donna will have an opinion on that. Donna is watching from a chair at the side of the small South East Tonight studio. When Chris had received the call, come and screen-test, the guy on the phone had said, ‘Let’s see if Carwyn Price likes you.’ ‘Who’s Carwyn Price?’ Chris had asked, and the guy on the phone had said, ‘I am.’

‘OK, I’m going to shoot a few questions,’ says Carwyn. ‘You zing back with a few answers, and we’ll find out if the camera loves you.’

‘Good luck,’ calls Donna, from the side of the studio.

‘Quiet on set,’ says Carwyn. ‘We’re not in a zoo.’

Why had he agreed to this, Chris wonders, a little too late now of course. His mouth is drier than he had imagined possible. It’s like he has just woken from a fitful sleep on a long-haul flight.

‘I’m joined by Detective Sergeant Chris –’

‘Detective Chief Inspector,’ says Chris with difficulty.

‘Don’t ever interrupt,’ says Carwyn. ‘I speak, you speak.’

‘Sorry,’ says Chris. ‘I just thought, you know, for accuracy.’

‘On live TV?’ says Carwyn. ‘That’s what you thought, was it? If I put you on my show, this is what I get? You piping up every five seconds?’

‘We’re not on live TV though,’ says Chris. ‘I promise I wouldn’t do it if we were.’

Carwyn mutters ‘Jesus Christ’ under his breath. This seems to be going badly. Chris realizes he needs the loo too. How can he need the loo when his mouth feels so dry? He looks over at Donna. She gives him a thumbs-up, but it lacks conviction.

‘I’m joined by Detective Chief Inspector Chris Hudson, of Kent Police,’ says Carwyn, not even looking up now. ‘Detective Inspector, robberies are up, violent crime is up, surely the people of Kent deserve better than this?’

‘That’s a very fair question, Mike, I think –’

‘Mike?’ says Carwyn. Which feels like an interruption, but Chris thinks it best to let it go.

‘Yes, I thought you were being Mike Waghorn,’ says Chris. ‘Sorry.’

‘I’m Carwyn Price, mate,’ says Carwyn. ‘So I’m being Carwyn Price.’

‘Sorry,’ says Chris again. ‘I just thought you were the producer, so –’

‘So I don’t exist?’ says Carwyn. ‘Because you haven’t seen me on TV?’

‘No, I just …’ Chris looks over at Donna again, but she is pretending to look at her phone. ‘Sorry, I haven’t done this before.’

‘That’s coming across,’ says Carwyn. ‘I’m doing this as a favour to Mike, you understand that? I’m missing ju-jitsu for this.’

Chris nods. ‘Sorry. Of course.’

To his surprise, Chris realizes at this point that, actually, he really would like to be on television. He doesn’t like Carwyn, sure, with his hat, and the chips on his shoulders, but he likes being in this studio, likes the camera pointed at him. It’s quite a surprise for a man who would have avoided a mirror a few months ago. He sees Carwyn puff out his cheeks. Last chance, Chris, let’s nail this.

‘I’m Carwyn Price, and I’m joined by Detective Chief Inspector Colin Hudson of Kent Police …’

Chris lets this go. How much he has learned already.

‘Robberies are up, violent crime is up, surely the people of Kent deserve better than this?’

‘They do, Carwyn,’ says Chris. ‘It’s the right question to ask, and if I had a simple answer I would give it. I’ll start by saying we live in a very safe part of the world – I don’t want your viewers to worry themselves too much. But one robbery is a robbery too many, one instance of violent crime is …’

Chris catches Donna out of the corner of his eye. A real thumbs-up this time.

‘… one too many. So I give this promise: my fellow officers and I will not rest –’

The studio door swings open, and Mike Waghorn saunters in, tossing his bag onto a chair.

‘Here he is! My great find!’

Carwyn seems to find a politeness around Mike Waghorn that he hadn’t been able to muster around Chris.

‘Mikey boy!’ Carwyn says. ‘Yep, just putting him through his paces!’

‘I’ll bet, I’ll just bet,’ says Mike. ‘Hello, Chris, what do you make of all this?’

‘Love it,’ says Chris. ‘To be honest. Didn’t think I would, but I do.’

Mike sees Donna. ‘And your better half? What do you think, Donna?’

‘He’s actually very good,’ says Donna.

‘No need to screen-test him, Carwyn, I’ll vouch for him – you know my instincts,’ says Mike.

‘Of course, Mike,’ says Carwyn. ‘He’s definitely got the X-factor.’

‘We’re talking about knife crime in a couple of days,’ says Mike. ‘Put him on. That all right with you, Chris?’

‘Umm, yes,’ says Chris. In a couple of days? On TV? Knife crime? It’s like all his Christmases have come at once. He can’t wait to tell Patrice.

‘Well done, boss,’ says Donna, rising from her chair and giving Chris a hug.

Chris’s mind is galloping ahead. Perhaps this will turn into a regular slot. Your friendly bobby, dispensing advice, perhaps a little bit of wisdom along the way. Chris looks at the monitor on the studio floor. He looks good. Do his eyes twinkle? He could swear they do. He sees Mike look at the monitor too. But he realizes that Mike is not looking at him.

‘Donna,’ says Mike. ‘You really pop on camera. I mean really pop.’

‘Pop?’ says Donna. Chris has a sinking feeling.

‘Shine, zing, pop,’ says Mike. ‘Last time I saw anything like this it was a young Phillip Schofield. Wow.’

‘I … uh … thank you,’ says Donna.

‘What do you know about knife crime? I want you on instead of Chris,’ says Mike.

Donna holds up her hands in protest, Chris will give her that. ‘Sorry, Mike. Choose Chris.’

Mike puts his hands on Donna’s shoulders. ‘I don’t choose anyone, Donna. The camera chooses. And it’s chosen you.’

Mike turns to Carwyn. ‘Carwyn, take Donna into wardrobe, see what we’ve got.’

Carwyn takes Donna out of the studio. She gives an apologetic look over her shoulder as she goes. Mike places a hand on Chris’s shoulder.

‘Sorry, Chris,’ he says. ‘That’s showbusiness.’

Chris nods, the warmth of potential fame leaving his body.

36

‘Elizabeth, don’t even joke,’ says Viktor Illyich, the gun pointed at his head.

‘I wish I were joking, Viktor,’ says Elizabeth, and watches Viktor sit. Joyce is open-mouthed.

‘Elizabeth,’ says Joyce.

‘Don’t get involved, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Not this time. I need you to trust me. Killing Viktor is the only option we have.’

‘There are many options, Elizabeth,’ says Viktor. ‘Sit and talk, we will work it out. I chose not to kill you after I received the photographs. I could have, you know?’

‘What photographs?’ says Joyce.

‘I know you could, Viktor, and I’m sorry,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You should have done. But the man who wants you dead knows I’m here. He has people watching everywhere.’

She takes her phone from her bag and holds it up. ‘I can show you messages to prove it. So I have to kill you. I’ll make it quick, and we’ll bury you properly.’

‘Elizabeth …’ says Joyce.

‘Sorry, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth, putting her phone down on the table beside her. ‘I truly am. Now you get to see what I’m really capable of if my hand is forced. Where shall we do this, Viktor? Where is quietest? I don’t want to alert your lovely concierge.’

‘If it was me, then the bathroom. Is quiet. And you can clean it easily,’ suggests Viktor. ‘But you really don’t have to do this. We are friends, no?’

‘We are friends, Viktor, yes,’ says Elizabeth.

‘The guy who sent you,’ says Viktor. ‘He’s Swedish, right?’

‘I can’t tell you, Viktor,’ says Elizabeth. ‘After this, I don’t want to hear from him or think about him again.’

‘We team up together? We kill him? That’s a better plan. Come on.’

‘It’s all too late,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I don’t know who he is, and you don’t seem to know who he is, and I just want this over with. I want peace at home with my husband. I’m so sorry. Let’s head to the bathroom. You lead the way.’

Viktor stands. Joyce stands too.

‘He’s going nowhere,’ says Joyce. ‘Not while I’m here.’

Viktor places a hand on Joyce’s shoulder. ‘Joyce Meadowcroft, you have my thanks. But this is business. Someone is going to shoot me one day, and at least Elizabeth is a friend. This Swedish guy wants me dead, and maybe this is the best way.’

Joyce looks at Elizabeth, and Elizabeth nods. ‘It can’t always be a game, Joyce. I’m sorry.’

‘I will never forgive you,’ says Joyce.

‘You have to trust me, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Best friends.’

‘Not any more,’ says Joyce.

She turns away from Elizabeth. Elizabeth is surprised at how much this stings, but she understands.

Viktor walks towards the bathroom, Elizabeth following behind, gun raised.

‘No sudden movements, Viktor, let’s just get this over with.’

‘Last chance to stop this now. You know I loved you, Elizabeth?’ says Viktor.

‘Where does love ever get us?’ says Elizabeth, following Viktor from the room. ‘Tied up in the back of a van. Shot in a penthouse. I’m done with love.’

Viktor opens the door to the bathroom. His voice is now loud, imploring. ‘Please, let me turn around and we can –’

Elizabeth pulls the trigger.

37

The truth is, you simply don’t get enough vitamin D in prison, and, in Connie Johnson’s view, that contravenes her human rights.

She doesn’t like the story her mirror is telling her one bit. She’s too pale. When she gets out of here she is going to the Maldives. Life can’t just be about work, and perhaps it’s time to spend a bit of that money she’s made? Perhaps St Lucia? Or France? Where do civilians go on holiday?

Connie has been abroad only twice in her life. Once on a school trip to Dieppe, where she had been sick on the ferry and a Geography teacher had tried to kiss her behind a hypermarket, and once locked in the boot of a BMW and driven to Amsterdam by two Liverpudlian brothers with whom she had had a difference of opinion. The Liverpudlian brothers and the Geography teacher had all soon regretted their actions.

Slap on the fake tan all you like, have your Botox and your fillers, but the three things the skin can’t survive without are vitamin D, vegetables and plenty of water, preferably sparkling. They don’t serve fresh vegetables in prison, but, through the contact of a contact, Connie has an Abel & Cole box delivered once a week, and another of her contacts, in the kitchens, can work wonders with a parsnip and an aubergine. She takes her vitamin D tablets, but there’s no real substitute for sunshine when you’re supposed to be locked up for twenty-three hours a day. She has a machine for sparkling water.

Connie is thinking prison would be very, very difficult without a bit of money and some VIP status. It’s still not great, but, much like travelling first class on the train, she’s going to be stuck there for a while and the toilets aren’t ideal, but at least someone brings her a cup of tea every now and again.

Either way, she’s going to have to get out of here sooner or later. Sunshine on her face, a gun in her waistband and a gym where you can do Reformer Pilates. She doesn’t need much.

Through the security gates and on to D-Wing now, Connie thinks about Ibrahim, that wise old owl. On the whole, Connie has not had good experiences with authority figures telling her what she should and shouldn’t do. But Ibrahim? With his nice suits and his kind eyes? For once in her life she doesn’t feel like she is being told off.

Connie passes a cell that is being hosed down with a pressure-washer. She gives the spray a wide berth, as she is wearing suede, and there is only so much the prison laundry can do, however much cannabis you smuggle in for them.

Connie has never really spoken to anyone the way she is speaking with Ibrahim. What is it? Honesty, perhaps? Connie can be a number of very different people, when the mood takes her. She puts on different faces if she wants to scare you, if she wants to sleep with you, or if she wants a prison warder to bring her a Nando’s. But doesn’t everyone? Isn’t everyone doing that all the time? Presenting a certain side of themselves to other people?

So what side is she presenting to Ibrahim, and why does it feel so different? Connie climbs the metal staircase to Heather Garbutt’s landing. Someone is shouting in their cell further down the corridor, something incoherent about asylum seekers. If you took everyone with mental-health issues out of this place they’d have to shut it down. Most people in here were, one way or another, just taking another step in a life of chaos, pulled by the tides of a world which neither wanted them nor needed them. Very few people in here were like Connie. Just plain bad.

Connie reaches the door of Heather’s cell. It is still ` because of the internal investigation into Heather’s death. The man in the admin block, the one with the Volvo from Tinder, has assured her that it has been left open. Connie walks into the cell, cold and empty in Heather’s absence.

‘ONLY CONNIE JOHNSON CAN HELP ME NOW.’ Well, let’s see what we can do, Heather. Let’s see if we can find what you were writing.

There are very few places to hide anything in a cell. Connie starts knocking on the walls, trying to hear a hollow sound. But the walls are too thick. No way through.

Connie reaches her arm around the U-bend of Heather Garbutt’s toilet. Nothing.

Connie can fool anyone and everyone. She is very, very good at it, and it has served her well for many years. When her dad left, Connie kept smiling, just so someone in the house was. When her mum died, Connie ploughed on, building the business. No one was any the wiser about Connie’s pain.

The bed frame is made from tubes of cheap metal. Hollow tubes.

Of course, even while she’s thinking it through, Connie knows what Ibrahim is doing. The mirror he’s providing. He’s letting Connie speak to herself. To see herself. And he’s helping her understand that if you’re fooling everyone, you’re really only fooling one person, and that’s yourself. Ibrahim had said to her, ‘Our great strengths are also our great weaknesses,’ and Connie had rolled her eyes. But, for some reason, that thought is with her all the time now.

Connie upends the bunk beds and pulls a loose rubber stopper out from one of the metal legs. Nothing but an empty space. Keep looking.

What if she wasn’t just plain bad? What if that’s a lie she has told herself all these years? That would be too much to take. She could just stop seeing Ibrahim, but it feels like he has opened a door that can never be shut again.

She pulls the stopper from the second leg of the bed. Nothing.

Plenty of people have dealt with an awful lot worse than Connie Johnson, she knows that. What she does for a living is despicable: how she makes her money, how she treats people, how she shuts off her brain to the pain that she has caused. It has always felt inevitable to her, though. As if she were born this way, and as if different rules applied to her.

She pulls out the third stopper. Still nothing.

But what if none of that is true? Does she really want to be confronted with everything she has done?

Connie pulls the stopper from the final leg.

On balance, no, she doesn’t want to find that out – it is probably best to just keep on lying to herself. Best to remain the Connie Johnson that the little girl invented when her dad left her all those years ago. She will let Ibrahim know she doesn’t want any more sessions with him. Thank you, but no thank you.

Connie hooks a finger into the hollow bed leg and feels the paper immediately. Rolled up tight. There are five or six pages perhaps, all tied with a rubber band, and she slides them out. Connie slips off the rubber band and flattens the pages as best she can. They are covered in neat handwriting. Blue ink. She reads the first line:

Through the bars I hear the birds

In the bare cell, with the thick walls, Connie has surely found something that will interest Ibrahim. Ibrahim had set her a task, and she has achieved it. She quickly scans what Heather Garbutt has written, but it seems to be, of all things, a poem. She was hoping for a nice, simple confession, or the naming of a co-conspirator, something to help solve the murder of Bethany Waites, but no such luck yet. Connie knows it could still be helpful though, feels it in her bones.

And, even if she can’t make sense of it right now, she knows someone who will. She should probably do one more session with Ibrahim. Show him the poem. Just until they’ve worked out what’s going on here.

38: Joyce

Where to begin?

Sitting on my sofa, watching a programme about trains, is a man called Viktor Illyich. He’s a former KGB agent. He’s Ukrainian.

I told him I wanted to write my diary and he laughed and said I had plenty to write about today. I have left him with a glass of sherry and a slice of cherry-and-dark-chocolate cake. I saw it on Instagram and thought it had Ron’s name all over it. But, as it turns out, Viktor is getting the first slice, which goes to show how plans can change. The rest is in Tupperware for Ron though.

Hold on one second.

OK, I’m back. I just went through to the living room and asked, and Viktor says the cake is very good. I know he would say that anyway, but he’s had the whole slice, so let’s assume he’s telling the truth. I don’t normally like dark chocolate, as a rule, but it really works here. It has Kirsch in it too, so that helps. The programme Viktor is watching is about a train that goes through the Rockies in Canada. You should see the views. Viktor said they just spotted a bear.

I went to London today with Elizabeth. She told me we were going to see an old friend of hers, and that she was going to kill him. Which I didn’t quite believe, but Elizabeth had been bundled in a van a few nights ago with Stephen, so things were certainly afoot, one way or another. As I say, I didn’t know quite what to think, but I trust Elizabeth. Also, there was a trolley service on the train, rather than a buffet car.

When we arrived in London, we went to the flats where Viktor lives. There is a swimming pool, but I will tell you about that another time, because I think I should get on with telling you what happened.

Wait another moment.

I’m back again. Viktor has just been to the loo, and couldn’t get the flush to work. There is a knack, and I told him. Gentle, gentle, gentle, then all at once. I told him you can pause the TV when you go to the loo, but he already knew. I pause the TV during Countdown, just to make it less stressful. If ever I watch it with Ibrahim, he doesn’t let me. He says I am only cheating myself.

Viktor lives on the top floor of the flats, the penthouse, and he’s a funny-looking little thing. Like a very happy tortoise. He was delighted to see Elizabeth, and he even gave me two kisses, so I thought there was no way Elizabeth was going to kill him, and I was just waiting to hear what was up. Viktor offered me a gin and tonic, but then Elizabeth pulled out her gun. I had words with her about it, but she wasn’t for backing down, and Viktor seemed to take the whole thing in his stride.

Honestly, I was scared, and I was angry with Elizabeth. I even told her I would never forgive her, which she reminded me of on the journey home. ‘You should always trust me,’ was her take on the thing, but, as it happens, I think my anger was useful.

Off they both went, to the bathroom, Viktor yelled out something or other, and there was a gunshot, and I heard Viktor fall to the floor.

I was shaking, I admit it. In fact, if I’m admitting everything, I was crying. Which, again, as it turns out, was also useful.

Elizabeth rushed back into the room and issued instructions. It was something like, ‘No time for tears, Joyce, I had to do it, and Viktor knew it, but now I need your help.’ She said she was on cleaning duties in the bathroom, which I was glad of at least, but she needed me to make a couple of calls. I was to call Bogdan on her phone and say, ‘Elizabeth needs a taxi,’ and then I was to take the SIM card out of her phone and cut it into pieces, and then wipe the phone clean and put it into the waste-disposal unit in the kitchen. There must be no physical or electronic evidence that we had ever been in the flat. I thought to ask about the concierge, but I didn’t, because I feared the answer.

Off she disappears again and I call Bogdan, and he says hello, and I say Elizabeth needs a taxi, and he asks if I’m crying, and I say I’m not, and he says good, there is nothing to cry about, and he will be with us in an hour. Then I ask how he is, but he has already rung off.

So I took out the SIM card, which was difficult, because I was shaking, and cut it into pieces, and then took the phone into the kitchen and threw it into the chute. I heard Elizabeth call out, ‘Have you done it, Joyce?’ and I called back, very quietly, that I had, and that’s when Elizabeth and Viktor walked back into the living room, casual as you like.

I looked like I’d seen a ghost, and who can blame me? Then Elizabeth talked me through it all.

The text messages from the Viking had been the key. He knew our every move. He said he had people watching us at every step. But Elizabeth saw through it. She says she can’t be followed without noticing, she’s too canny. There was no one on the train, for example. So she knew the Viking had pulled a much simpler trick. He had simply cloned her mobile phone while she was at his house (I say ‘simply’, you know what I mean) and was able to hear, and occasionally see, everything that happened right up to the moment I destroyed the phone.

That’s why she had to keep me in the dark, so my reactions were natural, and believable, to the Viking. In fact, that’s why I was there in the first place, to make the whole thing sound completely real. I told Elizabeth I could have acted, but she laughed. I asked if Viktor was in on it, and he said that, as soon as she held the phone up and told him about the messages, he understood her plan. I asked Viktor if he was worried before then that she was really going to kill him, and he said that he was assuming she wouldn’t, but with Elizabeth you could never tell for sure. Elizabeth scoffed and said ‘as if’ she would kill him, and Viktor said ‘you would’, and, while Elizabeth kept protesting, Viktor finally poured me the gin and tonic I’d been promised.

An hour or so later, the concierge came up with Bogdan, who was carrying a very large holdall. Viktor told the concierge that he was dead, and she nodded and asked how long he would be dead for, so he looked at Elizabeth, and she said that a couple of weeks or so should do it.

The concierge works for Viktor, it turns out, and, in the end, she even helped Bogdan carry the holdall to the car, with Viktor keeping as still as possible inside, in case the Viking had someone watching the building. Viktor took two very heavy-duty sleeping pills, because he has been in this sort of situation before, and it was the only way through being locked up in a confined space.

After twenty miles or so, when Elizabeth was certain we weren’t being followed, we went to the very top of a multi-storey car park in East Croydon, opened the boot, unzipped the bag and let Viktor out. I promise you this is true: he was fast asleep, and we had to slap him awake. I said I wouldn’t mind one of his sleeping pills, but he said they’re too strong for me. You have to get them from America.

So here we are. Viktor couldn’t stay with Elizabeth, so he will be in my spare room for as long as he is dead. The plan is to find out who this Viking is, and then find out where he is. After that I suppose the plan is to kill him, I don’t know. I don’t think we can keep Viktor dead forever.

I have questions about the Viking, and about Viktor, but tomorrow is Thursday, so they can wait until the whole gang is here.

Where does this leave us with the Bethany Waites investigation? It feels like it might be a distraction, but Elizabeth says it’s actually enormous luck, as Viktor can help us while he’s here.

Alan usually pops in to see me while I’m writing, but he is conspicuous by his absence, now there’s a new, interesting, Ukrainian man in the flat. How fickle he is. I will go and shake a packet of biscuits in a bit, and then we’ll see who’s boss.

I can hear from the other room that the train programme has finished and Viktor is on his feet. It sounds like he is doing his own washing-up, which bodes well.

I know I was a stooge today, and I know it was important, but I’m not entirely at ease. Something isn’t sitting right. There was the shock, of course, that can knock you sideways, but also something else, which I’ve been trying to put my finger on all afternoon. I think it’s this.

You see, when Elizabeth pulled that trigger, I really did believe it. I really did believe she was murdering Viktor. That my best friend was capable of murdering a man she has known for many years, just to save her skin.

In fact, I didn’t just believe it, I knew it.

So what does that say about Elizabeth? And what does it say about me?

39

The Thursday Murder Club like to meet at eleven a.m. in the Jigsaw Room. That is how things should be. It moves around from time to time, Ibrahim understands that, of course he does. There have been murders to deal with, and let no one say he is not flexible.

But, really, calling a meeting of the Thursday Murder Club at eight a.m. at Joyce’s flat? When they have an active murder investigation ongoing? Words will have to be had.

He calls for Ron on the way, and he tells Ron that this is very much the thin end of the wedge. Ron agrees, or at least doesn’t seem to strongly disagree, and so Ibrahim feels emboldened.

A schedule is a schedule is a schedule. A laminated schedule even more so. Again, Ron raises no objection to this point. In fact, Ron is unusually quiet all round.

‘Do you smell of cannabis, Ron?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘I might do,’ concedes Ron.

‘I’m of half a mind to declare this meeting unofficial, you know? Unless I’m given a good reason.’

‘Well within your rights, old son,’ says Ron. ‘You give ’em hell.’

‘Thanks, Ron, I will,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Why do you smell of cannabis all the time now?’

‘Pauline,’ says Ron.

‘Oh, I see,’ says Ibrahim. ‘That covers it.’

‘It’s a lot stronger than I’m used to,’ says Ron. ‘I keep falling asleep on her bathroom floor.’

Ibrahim presses the buzzer to Joyce’s building, and the friends are let in.

‘Lift or stairs?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘Lift? Why not?’ says Ron. Ibrahim has noticed that he is trying to hide a limp. Still not using his stick.

They exit the lift, knock on the first door on the right, and Joyce lets them in. She gives them both a hug in turn.

‘Ooh, Ron, are you wearing perfume?’ asks Joyce. ‘It reminds me of something Joanna used to wear.’

Ron grunts, and takes off his coat. Alan has approached him with interest, and starts to lick his hand with professional thoroughness. Ibrahim spots Elizabeth seated in the living room.

‘Now, forgive me, but I must speak –’

‘Must you?’ asks Elizabeth.

‘I must. Good morning, Elizabeth. And a very early morning, if I might be allowed the observation.’

‘And to you,’ replies Elizabeth, motioning for him to continue.

‘We are the Thursday Murder Club, that is not news to anybody. We meet at eleven a.m. each Thursday in the Jigsaw Room. Let me take those three data points one by one –’

‘Cup of tea?’ asks Joyce.

‘Thank you, Joyce, yes,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Point one, we meet on Thursdays. On this point I am satisfied, it is indeed Thursday, we need discuss this no further –’

‘Ron, you absolutely reek of very high-grade skunk,’ says Elizabeth.

‘It stays in the hair,’ says Ron.

‘Point two, we meet at eleven a.m., and here, you see, our paths diverge, as it is eight a.m. Is there a reason, is there an explanation? None has been forthcoming.’

‘How is Pauline?’ calls Joyce from the kitchen as she fills the kettle.

Ron grunts a non-committal reply.

‘And from there onto point three,’ continues Ibrahim. ‘We meet in the Jigsaw Room, and, without putting the point too bluntly, I see no jigsaws.’

‘Skunk is very good for arthritis,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I don’t have arthritis,’ says Ron.

‘And I’ve never seen the classified files on the assassination of JFK,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Pull the other one, Ron, it’s got bells on.’

‘So before we go any further,’ continues Ibrahim, ‘I want to know if there is a good reason – and my definition of “good” will be strict – as to why we are meeting here and now. Because it plays havoc with my spreadsheet.’

Alan lollops into the room from the hallway, tail wagging, and makes an immediate beeline for Ibrahim. He starts tugging at Ibrahim’s sleeve.

‘Here is another man who is confused,’ says Ibrahim, now ruffling Alan’s head. ‘Another man who understands the importance of consistency. A man who knows it is walk time, not meeting time.’

Alan lies on the floor and exposes his belly for Ibrahim to tickle. Joyce puts his cup of tea on a side table.

‘Thank you, Joyce. And so my point is this. I was expecting to meet at eleven a.m. to talk through the latest developments in the Bethany Waites case. To discuss, perhaps, the note left by Heather Garbutt. To hear from Ron about Jack Mason. I even have some exciting news for you from my source at Darwell Prison. Joyce, is Alan’s collar a little tight?’

‘No,’ says Joyce. ‘Unless you know better than the Supervet.’

‘So, unless something fairly spectacular has happened in the last twenty-four hours, and I think I might have spotted that, I see no reason why we can’t move the meeting back to its regular time, and its regular place.’

‘You would spot it?’ says Elizabeth. ‘If something had happened?’

‘I am observant, yes,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Now, I want to show you something …’

‘How many pairs of shoes were there in the hall?’

‘I am not observant of shoes,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I am not perfect, Elizabeth.’

‘Why are we meeting at eight a.m.?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘And why are we meeting at Joyce’s? You want a good reason?’

‘Were there four pairs?’ asks Ibrahim. ‘That’s my first guess.’

‘A number of days ago,’ starts Elizabeth, ‘while you were fluttering your eyelashes at Connie Johnson, and Ron was, I don’t know, being seduced perhaps …’

Ron raises his cup of tea in a toast to that. ‘I’ve played a bit of snooker as well though.’

‘… I was kidnapped, alongside Stephen, and driven to, of all places, Staffordshire. Not now, Alan, I’m talking. After regaining consciousness I met a very large gentleman we are calling the Viking, real identity as yet unknown, but we are working on it. He had a proposition for me. I was to kill a man named Viktor Illyich, a former KGB station head. And, if I failed to kill him, or I chose not to, I would be killed.’

‘OK,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But even so.’

‘I haven’t finished, dear. Yesterday morning, Joyce and I travelled up to London to visit Viktor Illyich.’

‘Wait till you hear about the swimming pool,’ says Joyce, Alan curled uncomfortably on her lap now, his eyes darting around, thrilled by all this unexpected company.

‘Quite so,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We entered the penthouse apartment of Mr Illyich, whereupon I proceeded to pretend to shoot him dead in one of his many bathrooms.’

‘I didn’t know it was pretend at this point,’ says Joyce.

‘Bogdan then kindly made his way up to London, and we stuffed Viktor Illyich into a holdall and he drove us all back here.’

‘Good lad, Bogdan,’ says Ron.

‘As far as we are aware, the Viking believes that Viktor is dead, so we are out of immediate danger, but that situation will not last for long, and we need to find, and neutralize, the Viking, before he realizes what we’ve done. So we are meeting at eight a.m., because we don’t have a second to spare, and we are meeting at Joyce’s flat, because she is hiding a former KGB colonel and criminal kingpin in her spare room. He also has a great deal of experience in money-laundering and interrogation, so I will set him straight to work on the deaths of Bethany Waites and Heather Garbutt. Is that an explanation you find acceptable, Ibrahim?’

Ibrahim nods. ‘I knew it would be something like that, yes. Given the circumstances, I waive my objections.’

‘That is good of you, thank you,’ says Elizabeth.

Ibrahim looks up, and in the doorway sees Viktor Illyich with a cup of tea and some toast. Viktor gives him a huge smile.

‘Everybody is here! The whole gang, now. Alan, you are too big for Joyce’s lap, I think!’

‘Viktor, I am Ibrahim.’

‘I have been told you were handsome,’ says Viktor. ‘But I didn’t expect you to be this handsome.’

Ibrahim nods. ‘Yes, it takes people by surprise sometimes. What is it like to be dead? Is it freeing?’

‘Yes. This is my first slice of toast as a dead man, and it is delicious,’ says Viktor.

‘It’s Waitrose multi-seeded,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s in the freezer for special occasions, so don’t get used to it.’

‘I should get shot more often,’ says Viktor. ‘Maybe in heaven Joyce makes the breakfast?’

‘I don’t think either of us will be going to heaven to find out, Viktor,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Maybe in hell, Ron makes you breakfast?’ says Ibrahim, and everyone laughs, except Ron.

‘Hello, I’m Ron,’ says Ron.

‘A man with the heart of a lion,’ says Viktor.

‘If you say so,’ says Ron.

‘Ron is harder to compliment than Ibrahim,’ Elizabeth tells Viktor.

When Elizabeth first met Viktor, which would have been sometime around 1982, and somewhere around Gdańsk, he already had a fearsome reputation. A reputation for intelligence, rather than for violence, which marked him out as someone to worry about. He had risen from the ranks of the Leningrad KGB at that point, and was running agents in Scandinavia. He would later rise and rise until he was at the very top table of the KGB. Which was no mean feat. He had eventually fallen out of love with the whole system, however, and gone freelance. Which explained why he owned a penthouse.

They had met in a bar by the port to exchange prisoners without rigmarole, and, several bottles of vodka later, their friendship had been established. Eventually they were as close friends as sworn enemies could possibly be. Elizabeth had never imagined she would end up faking Viktor’s death in a London penthouse, but neither had Elizabeth imagined having a best friend who didn’t listen to Radio 4. Sometimes you simply have to swim with the tide.

‘I think I should like to ask, if I may have the floor,’ says Ibrahim, ‘why did Elizabeth have to kill you? Not now, Alan.’

‘The criminal underworld, is all linked,’ says Viktor. ‘The Colombians, the Albanians, the New York mob. They all do different things, they all fight, but sometimes they need each other. Sometimes they need someone to bring them together. Someone they trust with their money when it moves through the system. And that’s me. I make sure everyone plays nice, everyone makes money, and I make sure people don’t kill each other.’

‘But they do kill each other, old son,’ says Ron.

‘I know,’ says Viktor. ‘But not as much as they would. I do what I can. Now, in every country I have men like Martin Lomax, who work for me.’

Elizabeth thinks back to Martin Lomax. That beautiful house they went to visit.

‘So, you see, you killed one of my guys,’ says Viktor.

‘Sorry, Viktor,’ says Joyce.

‘You probably had your reasons,’ says Viktor.

‘We did,’ says Elizabeth.

‘What happened to his diamonds?’ asks Viktor.

‘Long story,’ says Elizabeth.

‘So who is the Viking?’ asks Ron. ‘Why does he want to kill you?’

‘The new generation of criminals are different. And they like to launder their money in a new way. No gold, no diamonds, no bureaux de change or car factories, which is how I launder money.’

Alan sneezes.

‘Bless you, Alan,’ says Viktor. ‘The new generation clean all their money through cryptocurrency.’

‘Ah, like Bitcoin,’ says Joyce, nodding.

‘Yes, like Bitcoin,’ says Viktor.

‘And like Dogecoin and Ethereum,’ adds Joyce, taking a sip of her tea. ‘And Binance Coin, which is rocketing up this morning.’

Elizabeth looks at her friend. They will have a conversation about this later.

‘And cryptocurrency is the Viking’s business? That’s the story here?’

Viktor nods. ‘But I tell people to steer clear of cryptocurrency. Is too risky. I’m just doing my job, nothing personal. So I cost him a lot of money, and he would make a great deal more if I died. Of course, he could just wait a few years until everyone trusts cryptocurrency –’

‘Why wouldn’t you trust cryptocurrency?’ asks Joyce.

‘But I guess he wants me out of the way now. I get it, he’s young. He’s impatient.’

‘I’m not reading anything that suggests that cryptocurrency is going to collapse,’ says Joyce. ‘Quite the opposite.’

‘So we have to get to the big lad before he works out you’re still alive,’ says Ron.

‘Yes, or he will kill me,’ says Viktor. ‘And, if I understand correctly, he will also kill Elizabeth.’

Elizabeth nods. And he will kill Joyce. Joyce who is currently trying to hide the fact that she is secretly feeding a piece of croissant to an adoring Alan.

‘This is certainly one of the most unusual meetings of the Thursday Murder Club,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Am I to assume that I shouldn’t be writing up the minutes of today’s meeting?’

‘I think that might be for the best,’ says Elizabeth.

‘What is the Thursday Murder Club?’ asks Viktor. ‘I like the sound of it.’

‘We meet up every Thursday,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Usually at eleven in the Jigsaw Room, but you are forgiven on this occasion. And we try to solve murders. Though today seems to be about committing murders, so the remit is elastic.’

‘What are you working on now?’ asks Viktor.

‘We were supposed to be talking about a news reporter called Bethany Waites. She was murdered in 2013.’

‘I wondered, Ron,’ says Elizabeth, ‘if it might be fun to take Viktor with you the next time you see Jack Mason? See if Jack might open up?’

‘He won’t open up,’ says Ron. ‘We’ve got everything we’re going to get from him.’

‘Well, who knows,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And, Viktor, I also have a pile of paperwork for you to look through. Might as well set you to work while you’re here.’

‘I am at your service,’ says Viktor.

‘But first things first,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I need to send a photograph of your dead body to the Viking, to prove I’ve killed you.’

‘Excellent,’ says Viktor. ‘Let us dig a shallow grave and throw me in it.’

‘And for a final touch,’ says Elizabeth, turning to Ron, ‘I wonder if anybody knows a make-up artist who might be able to help us out? I don’t suppose you’re seeing Pauline today?’

‘Umm … yeah,’ says Ron, but without conviction. ‘Probably going tenpin bowling. Should probably head off actually.’

Elizabeth nods, and wonders where Ron is really going.

40

Ron wishes he was tenpin bowling. Wishes he was anywhere but here.

Pauline has persuaded Ron that he might like to have a massage.

The air is scented with eucalyptus, heavy and warm, and it thrums and trills with the sounds of the rainforests. He is wrapped, fairly insecurely, in a thick white towel, as he treads, barefoot, across Moroccan floor tiles, beside an azure pool, and he is deeply anxious about how relaxed he is supposed to be feeling. To think he could be interviewing Jack Mason about the murder, rather than going through this ordeal.

Pauline had asked him if he liked massages, and Ron had told her he had never had one, and Pauline had laughed, and Ron had told her, no, he was serious, what would he want a massage for, and she said to treat yourself, and then Ron laughed and said if he was going to treat himself he’d have a pint, and Pauline said, I’m taking you to a spa, and Ron said not on your nelly, not in a million years, and then Pauline kissed him and said just try it once for me and he said no, and then she kissed him again, and now here they are.

Susie is the name of the woman. She came to meet Ron and Pauline at the front desk of Elm Grove Spa and Sanctuary, and seems to be their gentle guide through this awful process.

Apparently aromatic herbal scrubs and Turkish cleansing rituals were real things that real people paid real money for. Every time Ron has walked past this spa before, he had just assumed it was a brothel. Neither spas nor brothels were of any interest to Ron. If someone wants to touch you, they had better be your doctor or your wife, or, at a push, a stranger next to you in the pub when England score.

Pauline holds his hand and tells him he can relax, and that there is nothing to be worried about. Nothing to worry about? What if his towel slips? What if he’s too heavy for the massage table? What if the masseur is a woman? What then? Or, even worse, what if the masseur is a man? What will they make of his naked body? Do you keep the towel on? Do you have to turn over? Ron has seen himself in the mirror, and wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Will he have to make conversation? What do masseurs talk about? Can you talk about football, or is it all essential oils and wind chimes? As he feels the seaweed-and-burnt-umber face mask melt into his skin, Ron prays for his torture to end. Are the gentle sounds of the rainforest ever going to stop?

Ron reassures Pauline that he is relaxed, and that worries are the furthest thing from his mind. He can’t wait. Pauline laughs and tells him he will enjoy it when it gets going, and Ron tells her that he is sure he will. Susie pours them both a glass of ‘deoxidizing watermelon juice’ and bids them sit on an avalanche of cushions which Ron very much doubts he will ever be able to get up from.

‘So you’re booked in for the forty-five-minute couples’ massage, in the Java Suite. Ricardo and Anton will be your masseurs.’

Blokes, OK. Maybe that’s for the best. They’ll get that this whole thing is weird, surely?

‘We’ll start with the full body, then a gentle facial, and then a couples’ steam bath to finish.’

She is talking so quietly and calmly, it makes Ron want to fling himself out of a window. Except there are no windows. The walls are hung with ornate Persian throws, and mirrors reflecting the soft, warm light of the scented candles. There is no escape. He is going to have to be touched, and make conversation. He is going to have to relax, God help him.

Ron was once locked in the back of a police van with Arthur Scargill for eight hours, and that was more relaxing than this.

He takes a sip of his watermelon juice. It’s actually not bad.

Over protests that he is quite capable of getting up by himself, Pauline helps Ron up from the sofa. Susie leads them through to the Java Suite. Two massage tables sit side by side, but no sign of Ricardo and Anton yet.

Good news, the sounds of the rainforest have stopped. Bad news, they have been replaced by the sound of whale song.

‘If you lie face down on the beds, Anton and Ricardo will be with you presently. Namaste to you both.’

‘Namaste,’ says Pauline.

‘Thank you,’ grunts Ron, as he plants his face through the hole in the massage table and grimly hopes for the best.

‘You all right there, lover?’ asks Pauline, as Susie leaves them alone.

‘Yeah,’ says Ron. ‘I liked the watermelon juice.’

‘Anything you need?’

‘Nah, nothing,’ says Ron. ‘Except, are we supposed to talk to them? The massagers?’

‘Can if you want,’ says Pauline. ‘I usually just fall asleep. Land of nod, dream of horses.’

‘OK,’ says Ron. One thing he knows he won’t be doing is falling asleep. Absolute vigilance will be the key here.

‘Or just let your thoughts wander,’ says Pauline.

Let his thoughts wander? Wander where? Ron’s thoughts don’t do wandering. Whenever Ron is forced into actually doing some thinking, it’s for a good reason. For example, what were the Tories up to today? Where did West Ham need to strengthen during the January transfer window? Why had they stopped doing omelettes at the restaurant? He loves omelettes. Was there an egg shortage he hadn’t heard about, or was somebody taking a liberty? Important stuff. And when his mind wasn’t thinking about important things, it was doing nothing. Recharging, for the next issue which needed his attention. Wandering was never on the agenda.

He looks over at Pauline, her eyes already shut. ‘You ever heard of a Carron Whitehead? Or a Robert Brown?’

‘Just relax, Ronnie,’ she says, eyes still closed.

He senses Anton and Ricardo glide into the room. He is thankful that the towel is around his waist. God knows what his backside looks like these days. A moon landscape. He hopes these lads are well paid. Do they have a union? He waits for a greeting, but it doesn’t come, just the feel of two warm, oiled hands on his shoulders. OK, it seems the forty-five minutes are starting right now. The hands draw long, deep strokes down his back. Ron reminds himself that, at some point, the agony will end.

Ricardo, or Anton, gets to work on Ron’s neck and shoulders. Ron cannot avoid the fact that this is actually happening. Outside there will be cars and shops and dogs barking and mums shouting at kids. But in here, just the terrible whale sounds. Maybe he should think about the Bethany Waites case? Perhaps that could use up some time? He hears Pauline sigh in deep satisfaction. That, at least, makes him happy.

A hand is now drawing its way down his spine. Ricardo or Anton seem to be going about their business, and not, Ron will admit, without skill. Fair play. Perhaps they’ve seen worse than Ron in their time? The whales continue to sing, and, actually, when you get used to it, it’s not so bad. He read once that whales were lonely.

He’ll have a little think about Jack Mason, maybe. He likes him. Jack was always up to something, buying things, selling things, setting light to things. Now here he is, years later, legitimate business, lovely big house, lorries going here, there and everywhere. Still up to something? Of course, of course. How does he know Bethany is dead?

Two hands start to pummel Ron’s thigh now. He’ll go and see Jack again, that’s what he’ll do, take the KGB fella, talk about old times, buying and selling, all of them youngsters. Big house he has, Lenny. No, that’s the brother, fell through a warehouse roof and died. Years ago. When you think about it, have West Ham ever had a better captain than Mark Noble? When you really think about it? Billy Bonds, yeah, Bobby Moore, course, but Noble’s in with a shout. He’ll ask Jack, Jack’ll know.

Ron’s swimming with the whales now, keeping them company, we all get lonely, son, everything’s gonna be all right, floating on the warm currents. Pulled by the tides like Bethany Waites. Poor Bethany. Who killed her, all those years ago? Jack Mason knows all right. Jack Mason. Ron knew his brother … what was his name?

‘Ronnie.’ It’s his mum waking him for school. Just a couple more minutes, Mum. I won’t miss the bus, I promise.

Ron feels so warm, cocooned. Maybe Jack Mason killed Bethany Waites himself? Ron doesn’t buy it though. Was it really the story that got Bethany Waites killed, or something else? Something occurs to Ron in that moment, something he’s missed … Robert Brown? He knows that name.

‘It’s me, Ronnie.’ A hand is stroking his hair, and Ronnie opens his eyes. Has he died? He’s fairly sure he’s died. Had to come sooner or later. Good knock.

‘You were sleeping,’ says Pauline. ‘I told them not to do your front, you looked so peaceful.’

‘Just resting my eyes,’ says Ron, his body singing a new tune. What’s that feeling? There’s something familiar in it, from the old days. Ron tries to pinpoint it.

‘For forty-five minutes, I know, lover,’ says Pauline. ‘Snoring like a little piglet. Now, shall we go to the steam room?’

Ron turns his head, and sees Pauline’s smile. He has to catch a breath. You only get sent so many of those smiles in a lifetime. Ron reaches out a hand, and Pauline takes it. Ron realizes what the feeling is. He is not in pain. Not a single bit of his battered old body is nagging at him.

‘Thanks for persuading me to come,’ says Ron.

‘Told you you’d like it,’ says Pauline. ‘Maybe we can do it again?’

‘Never,’ says Ron, shaking his head. A man has his limits.

‘Let’s see if you’re still saying that after the steam room,’ says Pauline.

Ron levers himself off the massage table. What had he been thinking about just before he woke up? He tries to get hold of it, but it’s not there.

No matter. If it’s important it’ll come back to him.

41

‘But how do you murder someone in a prison?’ asks Mike Waghorn.

Andrew Everton has done what he promised and made a few enquiries about Heather Garbutt. They are on the pier in Fairhaven, cups of tea in hand. Mike nods ‘hello’ to a few excited passers-by.

‘Easier than you’d think,’ says Andrew Everton, trying to blow through the tiny hole in the lid of his cup. ‘Though I’ve got the Home Office asking me the same questions now.’

‘There was no CCTV? Someone going into her cell?’ Mike is opening a skate park at eleven a.m., and Andrew Everton agreed to meet him beforehand. Mike is aware that not everybody has the Chief Constable at their beck and call. Perks of the job.

‘CCTV everywhere,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘But the one we need has mysteriously gone “missing”. Two hours of Heather Garbutt’s landing just erased.’

‘Jesus,’ says Mike. ‘That sort of thing common?’

‘Used to be more common,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘But it still happens. A few quid in someone’s pocket to erase the data.’

‘But that suggests definitely murder,’ says Mike. ‘That and the note she wrote?’

‘You’d think so,’ agrees Andrew Everton.

‘It must be connected to Bethany,’ says Mike, waving to a woman on a mobility scooter. ‘Has to be, doesn’t it? Heather Garbutt’s about to get out of prison, she fears for her life, and then she’s dead?’

‘Honestly,’ says Andrew Everton, ‘in prison, you never know. It’s its own world. But, put me on the spot and I’d say yes, it has to be connected. That’s not my official line, that’s as a friend.’

‘Appreciate it, Andrew,’ says Mike. ‘So catch whoever killed Heather Garbutt and maybe we catch whoever killed Bethany?’

‘Maybe,’ says Andrew Everton. He watches a young man in a tracksuit idle his way along the pier, hands in deep pockets. Where’s he off to this early in the morning? What’s in those pockets of his? The end of the pier is a good place for a private meeting. Who’s this lad meeting? Andrew misses being out on the streets sometimes, back in the thick of things, trusting his instincts. He likes being a politician, but he misses being a detective.

‘So who could get access to her cell?’ Mike asks.

‘Warders,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘We’re looking into them. Other prisoners, if they’re trusted.’

‘Another prisoner could have murdered her?’

‘Lot of murderers in prison,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘But to disable the CCTV as well? Surely a prisoner couldn’t do that?’

‘Some prisoners are better connected than others,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘So another prisoner could just walk into her cell, pick up the knitting needles, and –’

‘Do you mind?’ asks a man in decorators’ overalls, holding out a phone. ‘I wouldn’t normally, but my mum’s such a fan.’

Mike nods, then smiles for a selfie with the man.

‘I’ll keep at it, Mike,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I promise.’

The man in the overalls walks on towards the café. He stops to put a tin down by some ornate ironwork covered in peeling paint, begins scraping it away and rubbing it down. The boy in the tracksuit joins him, takes a brush from his deep pockets and starts painting. Andrew smiles to himself. Can’t win ’em all. Talking of which.

‘I might …’ Andrew Everton hesitates. ‘I might need a favour too, Mike, only if you can.’

‘Name it,’ says Mike.

‘I don’t really know very much about television, but it’s just, I don’t suppose you know anyone at Netflix? I keep sending them my books, but they haven’t got back to me.’

42

‘Throw a bit more earth over me,’ says Viktor to Bogdan. ‘Just for warmth.’

Viktor, being a professional to his bones, has insisted on being buried naked. He knows that any self-respecting murderer would leave as few clues in the grave as possible. If they are to raise no suspicions with the Viking, then it is the right thing to do. He had waited until the last possible moment of course, nicely wrapped up as he watched Bogdan dig the grave. Viktor has seen many people dig many graves over the years, but few with the speed and efficiency of Bogdan. When this is all over, he wonders if Bogdan might like a job.

‘I could pour you a cup of tea,’ says Joyce, looking down on him over the lip of the grave, flask in hand. ‘But I’m not sure how you’d drink it down there.’

‘It is a kind offer, Joyce,’ says Viktor, as another clod of earth from Bogdan’s spade lands on his chest. ‘Perhaps later.’

‘Hold still,’ says Pauline, kneeling beside him with a brush, and a palette of red-and-black goop. She has been carefully painting a bullet hole on his forehead for five minutes or so.

‘Sorry to make you work on a naked man in a freezing hole,’ says Viktor.

Pauline shrugs. ‘I work in television, darling.’

‘You smell lovely though,’ says Viktor. ‘Eucalyptus.’

Pauline had originally painted on the bullet wound in the comfort of Joyce’s flat. The situation had been explained to her, by Ron, and she had taken it in her stride. She had asked if what they were doing was illegal, and Elizabeth had said ‘define illegal’, and that had been good enough for Pauline. She had also caked his face in powder, making him paler and paler, thinner and thinner, until they all agreed they were staring into the eyes of a ghost. They had then bundled Viktor back into his familiar holdall, and Bogdan had carried him out to a quad bike and driven him up to the woods. The others had followed, at a discreet distance, in the event that the Viking was somehow watching.

‘And we’re done,’ says Pauline, with a final flourish. She gives Viktor a last once-over, looking from every angle. ‘You look terrible.’

It was Joyce who had spotted the original mistake. Pauline had first painted an entry wound on Viktor’s forehead. The recording heard by the Viking would leave him in no doubt that Elizabeth had shot Viktor from behind. Which is why Pauline was now kneeling beside him in a grave, turning an entry wound into an exit wound. If Pauline had been surprised at how accurately both Viktor and Elizabeth could describe the exit wound of a bullet, it didn’t show in her face.

Ron and Bogdan help Pauline out of the hole. Mainly Bogdan, Viktor notices, but done in such a way as to make it look like Ron is doing most of the work. Viktor sees the faces peering down at him.

Bogdan is now throwing down more earth onto Viktor’s body. The idea is to give him a ‘just-dug-up’ look. Ibrahim has his phone out, and now trains it on Viktor at the bottom of the hole. ‘Landscape or portrait?’

‘Landscape,’ says Viktor. ‘Is grittier.’

‘Portrait,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I’m taking the photo, and I prefer portrait.’

‘You are insufferable, Elizabeth,’ shouts Viktor from the bottom of the hole.

Ibrahim has another question. ‘Close-up of the face, or the whole body?’

‘Both,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But not too close to the face, just in case.’

‘Just in case what?’ says Pauline. ‘You zoom in all you like, Ibrahim, that’s good work.’

‘Yeah, zoom in,’ says Ron, and squeezes Pauline’s hand.

‘Of course we will need to talk about filters,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Personally I think Clarendon would be perfect, because of the earthy browns.’

‘If it is not too much bother,’ says Viktor. ‘Perhaps we discuss this after?’

Ibrahim nods. ‘Hypothermia, I understand completely. I also want to speak to you about Heather Garbutt’s poem, but that can also wait until you are clothed.’

Viktor looks up at the faces peering down. Elizabeth, his great love, how happy he is to spend a little more time with her. People drift in and out of your life, and, when you are younger, you know you will see them again. But now every old friend is a miracle.

Ron and Pauline. They are holding hands now. Viktor remembers Ron’s name from many years ago. He was on a list. It was a long list, but he was on it. Someone, at some point, would have spoken to him, ‘sounded him out’, seen if he was sympathetic with the Soviet way. Meeting him now, Viktor wouldn’t fancy their chances. Bogdan, leaning on his spade, waiting patiently to fill the hole back in. Ibrahim, trying to find the perfect angle. Joyce, his flat-mate, his new protector, currently trying to stop Alan jumping into the hole.

Looking up, Viktor realizes just how lonely his penthouse is. How lonely his life has become. Young, beautiful people taking photos in a pool that everyone could see, but no one could visit. Where were his friends?

Perhaps he could just stay here? Perhaps this photo will be enough to satisfy the Viking, and Viktor can just change his name, leave his old world behind and move down to Coopers Chase? Nothing like lying in your grave with a bullet hole through your head to make you think about your life.

Did he really need multibillion-pound deals, when there was Joyce and Elizabeth and Alan, and a whole gang to be a part of? Perhaps they will solve this murder? Perhaps he can walk Alan through the woods? And Ron had mentioned snooker. Viktor had no one to play snooker with any more. He used to play with an old Kazakh who had a jeweller’s in Sydenham, but he had died, what, three years ago. He looks up at the faces above him once more. Maybe he just got lucky.

‘For God’s sake, Viktor,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Stop smiling and shut your eyes. You’re dead.’

I think I was dead, yes, I think I was. Viktor shuts his eyes and, with some difficulty, stops smiling.

43

The others are warming up somewhere, with cups of tea and blankets and gossip. But Ibrahim has work to do.

He has Heather Garbutt’s poem spread out in front of him. There is a secret in these pages, no doubt about that. A hidden message, artfully concealed. Who was Heather Garbutt afraid of? Who was going to kill her?

Deciphering Heather Garbutt’s poem and discovering that secret will take some time, Ibrahim is sure of that. He had wanted to talk the whole thing through with somebody, but Elizabeth, Joyce and Ron are not biting. They see it as a red herring.

He even tried Viktor, after they had dug him up again. You don’t get that senior in the KGB without knowing a few things about cryptography. But Viktor had taken a look, with dirt-stained fingers, then handed it back, saying, ‘No message here. Just a poem.’

As so often, Ibrahim’s is a lone voice in the wilderness. So be it, that is his cross to bear. The prophet is often unheralded in his own land. There will be apologies aplenty when he uncovers Heather’s message. He will nod, magnanimously, head bowed a little perhaps, as the plaudits rain down on him. He imagines the scene: Elizabeth is congratulating him (‘I was quite wrong, quite wrong’), Joyce is handing him a plate of biscuits, while Alan sits in quiet, proud respect. Even Viktor will have to admit that Ibrahim has bested him.

He is lost in this reverie for a moment, and then the thought strikes him. Ibrahim knows exactly whom he should talk to. Someone who never judges him, someone who is always full of ideas. Someone who will help.

He looks at his watch. It is four thirty, which means that Ron’s grandson, Kendrick, will be out of school, but won’t yet be having his tea. The golden hour for any eight-year-old boy.

Ibrahim FaceTimes Kendrick. He is remembering the happy time the two of them spent together, spooling through hours of CCTV, looking for a diamond thief and a murderer.

‘Uncle Ibrahim!’ says Kendrick, and bounces on his chair.

‘Are you quite well?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘I am quite well, yes,’ confirms Kendrick.

Ibrahim outlines the task at hand. That there had been a murder a few years before Kendrick was born (‘Not another one, Uncle Ibrahim’) and more recently another murder in prison (‘Millie Parker’s mum is in prison, she was off school’). The lady in the prison, Heather Garbutt, not Millie Parker’s mum, had left a poem, which Ibrahim believes to be in code (a low, impressed whistle at this) and if Kendrick and he could decipher the code, they might find out just who had murdered her, and the whereabouts of a great deal of money stolen in a VAT fraud (a brief sidebar here, as Ibrahim explains VAT, having to start Kendrick off with the basic principles of universal taxation). They are now hard at it. Ibrahim has a brandy and a cigar; Kendrick has an orange squash (‘It’s less sugar, but you don’t even know when you drink it’).

Ibrahim reads:

My heart needs to reel like the eagles at wing

It wants to be heard, like the blackbirds that sing

But my heart she is broke, cleft in two ’round the wheel

The eagle can’t fly, still my heart needs to reel.

‘Well, you see why this is interesting, Kendrick. Terrifically bad, technically, but interesting. Her heart wishes to reel like an eagle, she says’ – Ibrahim has sent Kendrick a copy of the text, and is reading from his own copy – ‘but two lines later that heart is “cleft in two ’round the wheel”.’

‘There are golden eagles and bald eagles, and black eagles,’ says Kendrick. ‘They eat mice. Do you know any other kinds of eagle? I don’t know any more.’

‘A goshawk is a type of eagle,’ says Ibrahim, and Kendrick writes this down.

‘Now I know four eagles,’ says Kendrick.

‘If you break a heart around a wheel,’ says Ibrahim, ‘and I’m just thinking out loud here, Kendrick, are we to take it that Heather Garbutt wants us to take an anagram of the word “heart” and combine it with another word for “wheel”?’

‘Maybe,’ says Kendrick. ‘Maybe she might do.’

‘Or,’ says Ibrahim, ‘if it is “cleft in two”, perhaps she wants us to place a word for “wheel” within the two broken parts of “heart”.’

‘Perhaps,’ nods Kendrick. ‘She has messy handwriting, doesn’t she? I have good handwriting, but only if I concentrate.’

‘We need another word for “wheel”,’ says Ibrahim. ‘As a noun we have “disc”, “hoop”, at a push, “circle”. As a verb –’

‘A verb is a doing word,’ says Kendrick.

‘Quite so,’ agrees Ibrahim. ‘Which would give us “rotate”, “revolve” and, again, “circle”, such are the joys of the English language.’

‘What’s a hundred, times a hundred, times a hundred?’ asks Kendrick.

‘A million,’ says Ibrahim, with a puff on his cigar. ‘Let’s say that an anagram of “heart” is “Ath er …” and we add a word for “wheel”, I wonder would “hoop” work here? We fold “Ath er” around “hoop” and we come up with the name “Ath Hooper”. Not a name, Kendrick. And the word “around” can often signify the letter c in a cryptic crossword, from the Latin circa.’

‘The gladiators spoke in Latin,’ says Kendrick. ‘And Julius Caesar.’

‘So we add the c to the front of our answer. I wonder if you might search the name “Cath Hooper” for me, and report back on anyone from either the Kent and Sussex area, or anyone with links to organized crime.’

Kendrick busies himself for a moment. ‘There’re about a thousand.’

‘Hmm – give me the top two,’ says Ibrahim.

‘OK,’ says Kendrick. ‘One is in Australia, and one is dead.’

‘Hmm,’ says Ibrahim again. ‘The dead one. Did she die recently? Was she murdered?’

Kendrick scrolls down his page. ‘She died in 1871. In Aberdeen. Where’s Aberdeen?’

‘Scotland,’ says Ibrahim.

‘Maybe that’s a clue?’

Ibrahim continues to read the poem, with the awful realization that perhaps it is just a poem. Then he sees it.

‘Did she write anything else?’ asks Kendrick. ‘Because this seems quite a hard one.’

‘She wrote a note, before she died,’ says Ibrahim, still looking over his new clue, testing it for strength.

‘A note?’

‘A note, yes,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Foretelling her death. But I don’t think your grandad would want me to show you it.’

‘Pleeeeease,’ says Kendrick. ‘I won’t tell Grandad.’

‘I don’t suppose it will do any harm,’ says Ibrahim. It’ll keep Kendrick occupied for a few moments while he cracks the code. He finds Chris’s original email and sends over the image of Heather Garbutt’s note. He then returns to the matter at hand, and begins to read out loud from the poem again.

I recall, as a child, in the brook where we played

When our secrets were kept, and our promises made

Where the sun never ceased, and the rain never fell

In the brook where we played, I remember it well.

‘“Where our secrets were kept”, well, that’s worth investigating. Repeat of “brook”, that suggests “Brooks” of course. And “Where the sun never ceased”, could that suggest the word “sun” without the n? So “Su”.’ Were they looking for someone called Su Brooks?

‘Kendrick, Google Su Broo–’

‘You played a trick on me, Uncle Ibrahim,’ says Kendrick.

‘A trick?’ says Ibrahim. Su Brooks. Su Brooks. Was she one of Heather’s fellow accountants perhaps? A pseudonym?

Kendrick looks up from the note. ‘Well, the handwriting is different, isn’t it? On the poem and on the note. The poem is so messy, and the note is so neat. So the note and the poem were written by different people.’

Ibrahim looks back and forth between the note and the poem. Yes. Well. It couldn’t have been much more obvious. Ibrahim was the only person who had seen both the note and the poem. But Ibrahim had seen things that were not there, instead of seeing what was right in front of him.

There was no secret message, there was just a lonely poem written by a woman who had given up hope. And a note, warning of death, appealing to Connie Johnson. Written by someone else entirely.

‘I’m glad you picked up on that, Kendrick,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I knew you would.’

‘It was just a test, I know,’ says Kendrick. ‘What did you want me to Google?’

Ibrahim hears Kendrick’s mum, Ron’s daughter, Suzi, calling him down for his tea. Su Brooks indeed. Ibrahim recognizes, not for the first time, that he is given to over-complicating things at times.

‘No need to Google anything. And maybe we keep the handwriting between ourselves for now,’ suggests Ibrahim.

‘Great, like a secret,’ agrees Kendrick. ‘Bye, Uncle Ibrahim, I love you.’

Kendrick’s screen goes blank. ‘I love you too,’ says Ibrahim. Kendrick was, once again, the right man for the job. If life ever seems too complicated, if you think no one can help, sometimes the right person to turn to is an eight-year-old.

Heather Garbutt had written the poem, of that there was little doubt: Connie had seen her write it. Which meant that Heather Garbutt had not written the note. So who had? And why?

Ibrahim will report his news to the gang immediately.

Though he might skip over a few details as to how his conclusion was reached.

44

‘You happy?’ asks Mike Waghorn. ‘You look great.’

‘Happy as I’ll ever be,’ says Donna, eyeing herself in the studio monitor. She doesn’t look bad. Pauline had insisted on coming in on her day off to do Donna’s make-up.

‘Two minutes on this VT,’ says the floor manager. South East Tonight is showing a report on a gluten-free bakery currently taking Folkestone by storm.

‘I’ll say, knife crime is on the up,’ Mike says to her. ‘You’ll say it isn’t as simple as that, Mike; I’ll say come off it, don’t give us that flannel; you’ll say something reassuring, and then we’ll play a VT of some people complaining in Fairhaven. Then I’ll ask if you have a message for those people, and you’ll say don’t have nightmares, or whatever comes to mind. You really look great, don’t be nervous.’

‘Thank you,’ says Donna. Is she nervous? She doesn’t feel nervous. Should she be? She looks around the small studio. The floor manager with her clipboard, the camera operator on Tinder, Carwyn, the producer, skulking, and, like a loyal hound, Chris, sitting and watching. This time he is giving her the thumbs-up. She returns it. If he is unhappy at being usurped, he is not showing it.

The floor manager has started a ten-second countdown. The camera operator reluctantly puts down her phone, mid-flirt.

‘You got anywhere with the Heather Garbutt thing?’ asks Mike, in a whisper this time.

‘Trying,’ says Donna. ‘Not really our case, but we’ve got a lead we’re working on.’ Donna has spent all morning looking through the vehicle registrations from Juniper Court.

‘It’s just –’ says Mike.

‘I know,’ says Donna. ‘I know what Bethany Waites meant to you.’

‘She was the real deal,’ says Mike. ‘Have you looked into –’

The floor manager cues the studio.

‘Plenty of knives in a bakery, that’s for sure,’ says Mike to camera. ‘And plenty of knives on the streets of Kent too. But this is less a case of “our daily bread” and more a case of “our daily dead”. To talk us through our area’s latest worrying knife-crime statistics, I’m joined by PC Donna De Freitas from Fairhaven Police. PC De Freitas, knife crime is on the up?’

‘Well, it isn’t quite as simple as that,’ says Donna. ‘It’s –’

‘Oh, come off it,’ says Mike. ‘Either knife crime is going up or it isn’t. That seems pretty simple to me, and it’ll seem pretty simple to South East Tonight viewers.’

‘I wonder if you should give South East Tonight viewers a little more credit,’ says Donna, and Mike gives her a little thumbs-up out of shot. ‘We have targeted knife crime in the last six months, thrown an awful lot of resources at it. That means more investigating, and more reporting, and more convictions. So obviously the numbers are up. But knife crime is vanishingly rare on the streets of Fairhaven, or Maidstone or … Folkestone. And, by the way, next time I’m in Folkestone I’ll be visiting that bakery, didn’t it look delicious?’

‘I’ll join you, PC De Freitas, I’ll join you,’ says Mike. ‘Makes you wish we had smell-o-vision.’

‘And call me Donna, by the way,’ says Donna, then looks straight into camera. ‘And that goes for everyone at home too. I work for you.’

‘First time on South East Tonight, Donna,’ says Mike, ‘but, I suspect, not the last. Let’s see what the people of Fairhaven itself have to say about knife crime.’

The VT begins. Mike wags his index finger in admiration. ‘You’re good. You’re good.’

‘Thanks, Mike,’ says Donna. ‘It’s quite fun, isn’t it?’

Chris approaches, crouching over, as if he might otherwise be caught on camera.

‘Wow,’ says Chris.

‘You think?’

‘I do think. The bakery thing, the look into camera. When did you plan all that?’

‘I didn’t plan it,’ says Donna. ‘I just felt it.’

‘Thirty seconds on this VT,’ says the floor manager. ‘Clear the floor please.’

‘You’re a natural,’ says Chris. ‘Your mum just took a screenshot and sent it to me.’

‘People are much more impressed when you’re on TV than when you’re catching criminals,’ says Donna.

‘You’re good at both,’ says Chris.

‘And we’re back on in ten …’ says the floor manager. Carwyn Price, the producer, approaches Donna.

‘Brilliant, just brilliant,’ says Carwyn. ‘You and me, little drink afterwards?’

‘Plans, I’m afraid,’ says Donna. And then berates herself for how apologetic she tried to sound.

Donna gets a message on her phone. It is from Bogdan, watching her at home. She sneaks a peek as the studio count reaches five. His text is three emojis.

A star, a heart, a thumbs-up.

A heart, eh? The camera is just in time to catch Donna’s beam.

45

The photo looks good – very real. Viktor Illyich dead and buried. Well, Viktor Illyich buried, that much was for sure. The Viking is now using it as the lock screen on his phone.

Could it have been faked? Of course it could. Everything could. Scratching his beard, the Viking remembers he was once introduced to Brad Pitt at a party in Silicon Valley. Brad had refused a selfie, saying, ‘It’s a private party, just relax,’ or some such other Hollywood nonsense. So, when he got home, the Viking Photoshopped a picture of Brad and himself, Brad laughing uproariously at a joke he was telling. It’s in his kitchen now, and if anyone were ever to visit him, they wouldn’t know the difference. Meeting people, not meeting people, it’s all the same these days. Reality is for civilians.

As the Viking spies the building up ahead, he realizes that he has to stop being annoyed with Brad Pitt for a moment and concentrate on the matter at hand. He also feels shy, being out and about on the street. People look at him. He was born too big. He can’t wait to get home again.

The killing itself? It certainly sounded real to him, as he sat listening, far away, in his library in Staffordshire. But why had Elizabeth Best thrown her phone away afterwards? It could just have been admirable caution. Or Elizabeth and Viktor could be playing him. Two old spies thinking they can take a newcomer for a ride. Sometimes the Viking lacks confidence in himself. He curses his impostor syndrome.

The Viking looks up and sees the swimming pool, suspended in the sky high above him. If you fired a rocket launcher at it, the whole structure would collapse, and everyone would plunge to their deaths. Though no one is currently in it, so it would be a waste of a rocket. He thinks about firing a rocket launcher at Brad Pitt. ‘It’s a private party, Brad. Just relax.’ Then, kablammo, maybe treat your fans with a bit of respect next time.

But, however tempting it is to kill people, it is also bad. And difficult.

Getting into the building is easy. The Viking has a client, a luxury car thief, on the twelfth floor. The client sends the Viking money, the Viking turns it into Bitcoin, or whichever crypto is riding high that week, then sends it back to the client perfectly washed. It was more complicated than that, of course it was. Otherwise everyone would do what the Viking was doing. But his genius was an algorithm that layered the transactions through the dark web, making his scheme virtually untraceable. In truth it has proved completely untraceable thus far. The Viking says only ‘virtually untraceable’ because he is a Swede, and Swedes never like to show off.

His client base has grown and grown, and, with it, his personal wealth. The Viking gets a cut of every deal, and the bigger and more complicated the deal, the bigger the cut he takes. Ten years ago the Viking was working for an AI pornography start-up in Palo Alto. Today he is worth somewhere north of three billion dollars.

The Viking bypasses the twelfth floor and takes the lift up to the penthouse level, to the former home of Viktor Illyich. Anywhere you asked, Viktor was trusted, revered almost, a straight shooter in a spinning world. When he spoke, criminals listened, and when he gave advice, criminals took it.

Which is why the Viking needed him dead. Viktor always recommended laundering money the old-fashioned way. Through real estate, through casinos, through ‘smurfs’ and ‘mules’ and shell companies. Through gems or gold, or through good bureaux de change, which was very retro. It was all pretty safe, sure, but so time-consuming, and it cost lots of money. Rather than investing in cryptocurrency, which actually made you money.

Viktor is costing the Viking an awful lot of money. Sure, he’s worth three billion, and that was probably enough to be getting on with, but Jeff Bezos is worth two hundred billion, and the Viking doesn’t like being a hundred and ninety-seven billion poorer than anyone. Viktor knows that the Viking exists, and knows his business, but has no idea of his identity.

Viktor’s immense front door was bought from, and installed by, an Israeli technology company. The lock is unbreakable, blockchain technology, graphene and Kevlar, all with a choice of veneer. Viktor has gone for Alaskan teak. The company has done very nicely indeed, servicing the security needs of international mafiosi. As the Viking knows well, as it’s his company.

He lets himself in.

He’s there for reassurance. Elizabeth Best had been highly motivated to kill Viktor Illyich. Threatening to kill her friend had been the masterstroke. But it is always worth checking these things. And Viktor’s apartment is close to the heliport at Battersea, so it’s an easy trip for the Viking. After this perhaps he will go for sushi, which is hard to come by in Staffordshire. There is a good place called Miso in Stoke, but the Viking is banned from there after he accidentally discharged a firearm in the bathroom. He is not good with guns. Shouldn’t have one really.

The Viking looks around the penthouse. It is nice, sure. Perhaps lacking a feminine touch. The view is very pleasant. There’s the London Eye, there’s Big Ben, there’s the Bank of England. You could launch a rocket attack on any of them from Viktor’s balcony. Wouldn’t that cause a stir? The Viking realizes he is thinking a lot about rocket attacks at the moment. Mainly because he has just bought a rocket launcher. It was an impulse buy, because, when you have as much money as he does, there are very few novelties left, and also because you can buy rocket launchers directly with Bitcoin. So far all he has done is blow up a barn.

The Viking works out the geography of the shooting, from the live audio he heard. He realizes that Elizabeth must have walked Viktor through a large open archway to his right, then down the carpeted corridor and into the shower room. He traces these steps.

No one has heard from Viktor since the shooting, which bodes well. The rumour mill is suggesting he is dead. It is causing some panic in certain circles, which is lovely to see. The Viking walks into the shower room.

It has been tidied up, of course it has, Elizabeth Best is a professional. At some point someone with a bit of authority will notice that Viktor is missing, and at that point the penthouse will be searched for clues. The Viking assumes that Elizabeth will not have left any. There will be no crimson blood spattered up the wall, no brain stuck in a plughole.

But there should be a bullet hole somewhere, maybe even the bullet.

The Viking holds out an imaginary gun, and points it at Viktor’s imaginary head. He pulls the trigger, and estimates the path the bullet would have taken. It should really have passed straight through the shower screen, but it clearly hasn’t. It should have lodged itself somewhere deep inside the Turkish marble wall tiles, but, again, it clearly hasn’t.

The Viking knows that the bullet passed through Viktor Illyich; he has seen evidence of the exit wound. So where is it? Is Elizabeth Best taller than Viktor? Was she shooting downwards? The Viking looks lower, scanning the walls. Nothing.

Was the gun angled upwards? Was that how spies killed you? The Viking raises his gaze, but still there is no bullet hole. As his eyes scan the mirror on the far wall, he spots it. The hole in the ceiling. The Viking looks up, almost directly above the spot where he is standing. The spot where Elizabeth Best would have stood. A bullet hole. The bullet fired directly into the ceiling.

The Viking stares at the hole. He recognizes that it means a number of things.

It means, firstly, that Viktor Illyich is not dead. The bullet he heard was fired into the ceiling, not into Viktor Illyich. Which further means that Elizabeth Best takes him for a fool. She has misunderstood his abilities. The Viking does not like that one bit. He sighs.

Because the most important thing it means is that he will now have to kill Viktor Illyich himself. And, of course, to punish Elizabeth, it means he will also have to kill Joyce Meadowcroft.

Which is vexing. Most vexing.

46: Joyce

Joanna came down for lunch today with her man, the football chairman, and I, of course, have an ex-KGB colonel in my spare room. So I had some explaining to do.

I’m only glad she wasn’t here the other day when Viktor was covered in mud. I know I have a power shower, but even that struggled.

I explained that Viktor was an old friend of Elizabeth, and that he was staying, temporarily, while he was having work done on his flat. Joanna asked Viktor where his flat was, and Viktor replied that it was in Embassy Gardens, and Joanna said, is that the one with the swimming pool, and Viktor agreed that it was, and the football chairman (he is called Scott) said those places were worth millions, and Viktor agreed again, and Joanna said, so you’re having a million-pound apartment done up but you’re staying with my mum, and Viktor said he couldn’t imagine a finer place to stay in all of England, and Joanna said, level with me, is something dodgy going on here, and we admitted that, yes, something dodgy was going on, and I showed Joanna the photo of Viktor in his grave and said we would tell her all about it at lunch. Joanna turned to Scott and said, well you can’t say I didn’t warn you, she didn’t use to be like this. Scott asked Viktor which football team he supported and Viktor said Chelsea, so Scott said he knew people at Chelsea and could get Viktor a special hospitality box and to come and watch a game sometime, and Viktor said not to worry, he already has one.

I sent Joanna to the fridge on a pretext, and she clocked the almond milk straight away. She said I should really buy the low-sugar almond milk, but you could tell she thought it was a step in the right direction.

Alan likes Scott, by the way, which I’m taking as a good sign. Although, thus far, Alan has liked everyone.

They have just left. Scott has a Porsche; he showed it to Viktor, and Viktor nodded in that way men do. Joanna took me aside and asked me if there was anything going on between me and Viktor, and I told her there wasn’t, and she gave me a look halfway between relief and disappointment. He is very lovely, Viktor, very kind, but he’s not my type. Gerry was my type, Bernard was my type. Perhaps another one will be along one day. He’d better get a move on though, I’m nearly seventy-eight.

Ibrahim had us all round to his last night. He showed us Heather Garbutt’s poem, the one that Connie Johnson found, and he showed us the note. The note that was not written by Heather Garbutt. So who wrote it?

I have persuaded Elizabeth to come on a little trip with me. To Elstree, where Fiona Clemence films Stop the Clock. You can get there on the train. Joanna knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, and I’m hoping we might get the chance to say hello. And, you know us, a chance is all we need.

By the way, I am reading Given in Evidence. One of the books by the Chief Constable. I only picked it up because there’s a Hilary Mantel looming on my bedside table, and I didn’t feel up to it yet.

It is not at all bad, he really draws you in.

Someone tries to murder the boss, Big Mick, in some gangland family in Glasgow, but the bodyguard dives in the way of the bullet. So the book is all about the gangland boss trying to work out who tried to shoot him. It sparks this big gang war, and you can tell Andrew Everton is a policeman, because it all sounds real.

The fun thing in the end, after all this bloodshed and plenty of swearing, is we find out that the bodyguard was the intended victim after all: his girlfriend caught him cheating. So no one was trying to kill Big Mick, and all the carnage was for nothing.

I’ve read a lot worse, that’s all I’ll say. I can still see the Hilary Mantel out of the corner of my eye. I know I’ll enjoy it, but I’m going to need a run-up.

Do you know another thing I thought when I was reading Andrew Everton’s novel? I thought maybe I should write a book.

47

The text comes through as Elizabeth is getting into bed. It is the Viking.

You have made a big mistake.

Has she? Elizabeth thinks about the photo.

The bullet. The bullet that missed.

The Viking has been into Viktor’s apartment. How is that possible? He has seen the bullet hole. She has been sloppy. But, really, how on earth could he have got in?

This is my final message. I am coming for you all.

So now they will have to find the Viking. Find him before he finds them. Stephen looks over towards her.

‘Trouble?’

‘Joyce can’t get her thermostat to work,’ says Elizabeth.

‘You have to reset it,’ says Stephen. ‘Losing battle otherwise, mind of its own.’

What did Elizabeth know? Precious little. She has seen the Viking, of course. That is an advantage. But that he has let himself be seen suggests he is very safe and secure. He’s somewhere in Staffordshire, for reasons best known to him. And in a very big house. The house has a library. That’s about the extent of her knowledge. She remembers Stephen’s eyes, widening as he scanned the library.

‘What did you make of the Viking’s library?’

‘Come again?’ says Stephen.

‘The Viking’s library? You seemed taken with it. Any reason?’

‘Not getting your drift at all, dear,’ says Stephen. ‘Vikings? Libraries? You been on the gin?’

‘You were looking at his books,’ says Elizabeth.

‘You’ve either got the wrong stick, or the wrong end of the right one,’ says Stephen.

Elizabeth sits up and looks at him. ‘Stephen, the other night. The van, the man with the beard? You do remember?’

Stephen chuckles. ‘Even for you this is a strange one. What are we up to tomorrow? Thought I might pop over and see my mum. You know how she gets.’

Elizabeth tries to control her breathing once more, but she is unable to. She feels like she is going to sob. Stephen puts his arm around her.

‘What’s got into you all of a sudden?’ says Stephen. ‘I’m here, silly one, I’m here. If something’s broken you know I’ll fix it.’

Elizabeth swings her feet out of bed and hurries to the bathroom. She locks the door and slumps back against it. The tears come now. Not easily, because tears never come easily to Elizabeth. Even now Elizabeth remembers crying when her dad would hit her. Because he loved her, because he loved her so. How he would keep hitting, and keep hitting until she stopped. Until one day she stopped crying forever.

She remembers too sitting by her dad’s bedside, many years later, she on leave from Beirut, he dying of cancer in a Hampshire hospice. She held his bony, vicious hand, and thought of everything this man might have had in life. Everything she might have had. But still she didn’t cry, frightened of what he might do if she did.

Will she be holding Stephen’s hand in a hospice someday soon? Of course she will. But she will laugh with him, and she will love him, and she will give thanks for him, and for the woman he has made her. And she will cry the lifetime of tears she has denied herself.

48

Bogdan is in love. There are no two ways about it. He is certain.

Or is he?

It feels like it.

But should you ever trust feelings?

They are off to see Jack Mason. With Viktor in tow this time. Bogdan is driving Ron’s Daihatsu.

Bogdan wishes somebody would just tell him how to handle this. He had been in love at school, he remembers that, but there has been nothing that simple since. He needs to play chess with Stephen soon. Stephen will know.

He certainly likes Donna very, very, very much. But how many ‘verys’ turn ‘like’ into ‘love’? Four? Five? Bogdan wishes there were a definitive answer. There are six bullets in a gun, you can fit twelve bricks on a hod, there are thirteen grams of protein in an egg. But love? Try Googling it. There aren’t any answers, Bogdan has tried.

Ron is in the passenger seat. He turns his head to the back seat to talk to Viktor.

‘You know her from way back,’ says Ron. ‘Elizabeth?’

Viktor Illyich is stretching himself, and clicking his joints. They have just let him out of the boot of the car, and unzipped him from his holdall. They did this on a rutted track in the woods about a mile from Coopers Chase, as soon as Bogdan was sure they weren’t being followed. Elizabeth had given him strict instructions.

‘Way back,’ says Viktor. ‘A different lifetime.’

‘Tell us a secret, then,’ says Ron. ‘Something she wouldn’t want us to know.’

Viktor contemplates this for a moment.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Elizabeth is the greatest lover I ever had.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ says Ron. ‘I meant something about shooting Russian spies or something.’

‘She was so tender,’ says Viktor. ‘But also a caged animal.’

Ron turns the radio on: talkSPORT.

Viktor is lost in memories. ‘She did things to me that no woman –’

Ron nods down towards the radio. ‘Liverpool are buying Sanchez? Waste of money.’

Bogdan is tempted to join in the conversation. To talk about love. To ask a question maybe? But without giving anything away. Would he look foolish? The big Polish brute, what could he know about love? He decides to say something. He won’t know what it is until it is out of his mouth.

‘How much are they paying for Sanchez, Ron?’ Oh, Bogdan.

‘Thirty mill,’ says Ron. ‘In instalments, but still.’

Bogdan nods. He’s really only here to drive, and to carry Viktor to and from the car.

While Ron is telling a joke about a parrot that used to live in a brothel, Bogdan thinks a little more about the case. Viktor had taken him through a few things before being zipped into his holdall. He now has a cushion in there, and also a copy of the Economist and a small torch.

Viktor had explained the basics of money-laundering, the complex network of anonymous shell companies and offshore accounts that could turn dirty money into clean money via a trail almost impossible to follow. Almost impossible.

Bogdan has missed the punchline of the parrot joke, and Ron has moved on to one about a nun on a train.

The real secret was to dig back in time, to follow the money back and back and back to try to find the original sin. The first transactions were the vulnerable ones. Viktor said it was like pulling up a carpet. You just needed to get your fingernail under a tiny fragment in the corner, and sometimes you could lift the whole thing up in one go. That’s what had happened with Trident: an early transaction, a mistake. But that had led nowhere. So maybe they had to track back even further.

They reach the house at around two. It is an Elizabethan manor perched high on a Kent clifftop, the English Channel stretching off into the distance beyond. They park in a copse around a mile away, and zip Viktor back into his bag. How they will explain this Ukrainian in a holdall to Jack Mason is not Bogdan’s concern. He just has to carry it.

Bogdan drives the Daihatsu up the long drive, and parks as close to the stone entrance steps as he can. The holdall sneezes, and Bogdan says, ‘Bless you.’

If Jack Mason is surprised to see a large Polish man unzip a small Ukrainian man from a holdall, he hides it well.

‘I will come back for you this evening,’ Bogdan tells Ron and Viktor.

‘Thanks, old son,’ says Ron. ‘I’m not going back to Coopers Chase though. Staying at Pauline’s place, but it’s in Fairhaven if that’s easy for you?’

‘Is no problem at all,’ says Bogdan.

‘You’re a good lad,’ says Ron. ‘It’s Juniper Court, just off Rotherfield Road.’

49

Joyce is combining business and pleasure. There was an advert on TV years ago, for sweets maybe, and the song went ‘These are two of my favourite things in one.’ And here she was, about to watch a television show being recorded, and, she hopes, interviewing a murder suspect.

Last time she and Elizabeth were on a train, Elizabeth had had a gun in her bag. Perhaps she has one today? She is certainly looking distracted.

‘You seem distracted,’ says Joyce, as Elizabeth peers up and down the carriage.

‘I seem what?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Distracted,’ says Joyce.

‘Nonsense,’ says Elizabeth.

‘My mistake,’ says Joyce.

They had changed trains at London Bridge, and then again at Blackfriars. Blackfriars Station is on a bridge, and Joyce was thrilled about it. Although there was only a Costa Coffee. Apparently there was also a WHSmith, but it was down the escalator, and Joyce didn’t want to risk missing the next train. She would catch it on the way back. They spoke about Ibrahim’s discovery. That the note found in Heather Garbutt’s drawer was written by someone else. The killer presumably, but why would the killer mention Connie Johnson? Unless the killer was Connie Johnson, and even then it would make no sense.

They are now on a commuter service up to Elstree & Borehamwood, which is where Fiona Clemence films Stop the Clock. Joyce explains the rules to Elizabeth for the umpteenth time.

‘Really, for an educated woman, you can be very slow, Elizabeth,’ she says. ‘Four players each have a hundred seconds on their clock at the start of the game. The longer they take to answer questions, the more time they lose, and once they get down to zero seconds they’re out of the game.’

‘No, that much I understand,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s all the other nonsense.’

‘Nonsense? Hardly,’ says Joyce. ‘They each have four lifelines. They can steal ten seconds from an opponent, they can freeze their own clock, they can speed up an opponent’s clock, or they can swap a question. Steal, Freeze, Speed or Swap, simple as that. Though if your opponent steals from you or speeds you up, you receive an additional lifeline, Revenge, which you can play even when you’re out of the game. All the winner’s remaining seconds are converted to money, and to win the money they have to answer twelve questions, working their way around the clock from one to twelve before their time runs out. It couldn’t be simpler.’

‘And they put this on television?’ Elizabeth watches closely as a man walks past them.

‘Every day,’ says Joyce. ‘You can watch it instead of the news, that’s why it’s so popular.’

The train stops at Hendon, home of the famous police training college. Joyce texts Chris to say, Guess where we are? Hendon!’, but Chris texts back and says, I didn’t train at Hendon. Joyce texts the same thing to Donna but no reply yet.

‘Tell me about Fiona Clemence,’ says Elizabeth.

‘She was a junior producer when Bethany was the presenter of South East Tonight,’ says Joyce. ‘When Bethany died, she became the presenter. Ever so ambitious, but they only use “ambitious” as a criticism about women, don’t they?’

‘I have been called ambitious many times,’ says Elizabeth.

‘She hosted the show for about two years – you could really see she was starting to bed in – and then she went to work for Sky News. I always liked to keep up with her, you know, just in case she mentioned the South East. Then she started doing Breakfast News on the BBC, and now she presents everything. I even saw her doing Crufts the other day.’

‘I’m sure she’s famous, Joyce, but I’m really only interested in what she can tell us about Bethany Waites.’

‘You have honestly never heard of her? I find that very hard to believe.’

‘Have you heard of Beryl Deepdene?’

‘No,’ says Joyce.

‘Then you see that different people have different interests,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Who is Beryl Deepdene?’

‘It was the cover name for a particularly brave British operative in Moscow in the nineteen seventies,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Well known in my circles.’

‘I doubt that Beryl Deepdene has won a TV Choice Award,’ says Joyce.

‘And I doubt that Fiona Clemence has won a George Cross,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s horses for courses, isn’t it? Ah, look, we’re here.’

It is a ten-minute walk from Elstree & Borehamwood Station to Elstree Studios. Joyce likes nothing more than a high street she has never walked down before, and points out a number of things to Elizabeth. ‘Starbucks, Costa and Caffè Nero, as you’d hope’, ‘Does that Holland & Barrett look bigger than usual?’, ‘My goodness, they still have a Wimpy, Elizabeth.’

A queue snakes from the security gates of the studio, but Joyce and Elizabeth are able to walk straight to the front. Joanna has a friend whose sister is a production manager, whatever that might be, on the show, and they have special guest tickets. They are ushered straight into a bar and offered tea or coffee. Joyce is wide-eyed.

‘Isn’t this something? Have you ever been on television, Elizabeth?’

‘I was once called to give evidence to the Defence Select Committee,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But, legally, they had to blur my face. And I was once in a hostage video.’

They are called through to the studio and given seats in the front row. It is freezing cold, but they are asked to remove their gloves (‘Otherwise we won’t be able to hear you when you clap’). There is no food allowed in the studio, but Joyce opens her bag wide enough to show Elizabeth that she has sneaked in some Fruit Pastilles. While they wait, Joyce gets her phone out of her bag. She spots a security guard.

‘Are we allowed to take photos?’

‘No,’ says the security guard.

‘Righto,’ says Joyce.

‘You’re not going to stand for that Joyce, surely?’ says Elizabeth.

‘I’m certainly not,’ says Joyce, taking a photo. ‘This is going straight on Instagram.’

‘Makes me wonder why you asked,’ says Elizabeth. ‘In a way.’

‘It’s just polite, isn’t it,’ says Joyce, taking another photograph. ‘Did you know Fiona Clemence has three million followers on Instagram? Can you imagine?’

‘Barely,’ says Elizabeth.

As Joyce puts her phone away, she finally gets a reply from Donna. I didn’t train at Hendon, Joyce. Where was everyone training these days, Joyce wonders.

She hopes Ron and Viktor are having a nice day too; she waved them off, with Bogdan driving, this morning. Jack Mason has a snooker table, and apparently that means they’ll be gone for the day. Joyce can see the appeal of snooker. The waistcoats and so on. She thinks she would marry Stephen Hendry were the opportunity to arise.

The music being played into the studio fades now, and the crowd applauds as Fiona Clemence walks onto the set.

‘Flawless skin,’ says Joyce to Elizabeth. ‘Flawless, isn’t it?’

‘How long is all this going to take?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘I’m really only here to ask questions.’

‘Not long,’ says Joyce. ‘Three hours or so.’

The famous theme tune starts up.

50

They are fighting out a hard-earned draw. Bogdan with his bishop and his pawns, Stephen with his rook. They have played each other enough to know exactly where it is heading, but each is having fun regardless. Stephen is looking thin. He forgets to eat when no one is in the flat with him, and Elizabeth has been busy lately. He wolfed down the sandwiches Bogdan made for him. There is a shepherd’s pie on the kitchen worktop, and Bogdan will put that on in an hour or so.

‘Can I ask you something, as a pal?’ says Stephen, eyes not leaving the chessboard.

‘Whatever you need,’ says Bogdan.

‘It’s a ridiculous one,’ says Stephen. ‘Just to warn you.’

‘I am used to this already,’ says Bogdan. ‘You’re a ridiculous man.’

Stephen is nodding, and looking between his pieces and Bogdan’s, looking for avenues that aren’t there. He speaks without looking up. ‘Am I all right, do you suppose?’

Bogdan waits a beat. They have had this conversation before. Variations of it at least. ‘No one is all right. You’re OK.’

‘If you say so,’ says Stephen, eyes still avoiding contact. ‘But something is muddled somewhere. Something isn’t straight. You know the feeling?’

‘Sure, I know the feeling,’ says Bogdan.

‘Here’s a for instance,’ says Stephen, and then waits a moment. ‘I don’t know where Elizabeth is today.’

‘She’s gone to a TV show,’ says Bogdan. ‘With Joyce.’

‘Ah, I met Joyce,’ says Stephen. ‘The other day. Where does she know Elizabeth from?’

‘She’s a neighbour,’ says Bogdan. ‘She’s very nice.’

‘That came across,’ agrees Stephen. ‘But even so. Queer that I didn’t know where Elizabeth was? Unusual?’

Bogdan shrugs. ‘Maybe she didn’t tell you? She likes her secrets.’

‘Bogdan.’ Stephen finally looks up. ‘I’m not a fool. Well, no more than any of us. I miss things from time to time, people don’t quite make the sense they did.’

Bogdan nods.

‘My father, God rest him, lost himself towards the end. In those days they said he went doolally – probably that’s not what we say these days.’

‘I don’t think we do,’ agrees Bogdan.

‘“Where’s your mother?” he would ask me sometimes.’ Stephen moves a piece on the board. A holding move, nothing risked, nothing gained. ‘Only, my mother had died, many years previously.’

Bogdan is looking down at the board now. Let Stephen talk. Only answer a question if one is asked.

‘So, you see,’ says Stephen, ‘why it might worry me that I don’t know where Elizabeth is today?’

OK, that sounds like a question. Bogdan looks up. ‘Some things we remember, Stephen, and some things we forget.’

‘Hmm,’ says Stephen.

‘The first time I ever thought I was in love,’ says Bogdan. He has been thinking about this recently. ‘You know, when it makes you sick …’

‘Don’t I just,’ says Stephen.

‘It was a girl from school, we were nine, in Mr Nowak’s class. She sat in front of me and to the left, and she would arrange her pencils so neatly. When she wrote, the tip of her tongue poked between her lips. She lived on the next street from mine, and sometimes we would walk home together, when I could make it happen, and she had silver buckles on her shoes, so she didn’t like to go in puddles. I liked to go in puddles, but when I walked with her I would pretend I didn’t. I was sick, Stephen, sick. Her father was in the air force, and they sent him overseas, so she left school, didn’t even say goodbye, because she didn’t know we were in love – why would she? But I still remember how I felt, still remember how she smelled, her laugh, all these tiny details. I remember them all.’

Stephen smiles. ‘You old romantic, Bogdan. What was her name?’

Bogdan raises his eyes from the board, and raises his hands in a slow shrug. ‘We all forget things, Stephen.’

Stephen smiles, and nods. ‘Very clever. But you would tell me? You would tell me if something was up? I can’t ask Elizabeth. I don’t want to worry her.’

Again, Stephen has asked Bogdan this question a number of times. And Bogdan always answers in the same way.

‘Would I tell you? Honestly, I don’t know. What would you do, if it was someone you loved?’

‘I suppose if I felt it would help, then I would tell them,’ says Stephen. ‘And if I felt it wouldn’t help, then I wouldn’t tell them.’

Bogdan nods. ‘I like that. I think that is right.’

‘But you think I’m all right? A bit of fuss over nothing?’

‘That’s exactly what I think, Stephen,’ says Bogdan, and moves one of his pawns further up the board.

Stephen stares at the board. ‘But it leads me to another question. A worse question.’

‘We have all day,’ says Bogdan.

‘Is Elizabeth OK?’

‘Sure,’ says Bogdan. ‘I mean, Elizabeth is never OK, you know. But she is well.’

‘She was in a tizz,’ says Stephen. ‘The other night. She was talking about a library and a Viking, making no real sense, and when I questioned her about it, she took herself off. Dose of the waterworks, which she tried to cover up. Very unlike her. What’s that, do you think?’

‘Doesn’t ring a bell at all?’ asks Bogdan.

‘Good question actually,’ says Stephen, making his next move. ‘The question of the day, I’d say. “The Viking” – your guess is very much as good as mine, but the library. I didn’t think about it at the time, but I have been in a library recently. I’m sure I hadn’t told Elizabeth about it though.’

‘What library?’ asks Bogdan.

‘Friend of mine,’ says Stephen. ‘Bill Chivers, you know him?’

‘Bill Chivers? No,’ says Bogdan.

‘Where do I know you from, Bogdan?’ asks Stephen. ‘Where did we meet?’

‘I came to fix something in the flat,’ says Bogdan. ‘I saw the chessboard, and we started playing.’

‘That’s it,’ says Stephen. ‘That’s it. No reason why you’d know Bill Chivers, then. He’s a book dealer. Bent as a nine-bob note, between you and me.’

Bent as a nine-bob note. Bogdan always likes to discover a nice new idiom.

‘Only he invited me up to his place, forget where, got Staffordshire in my head, but that can’t be right. But big old pile, doing well for himself, and there I am in his library, and I’m looking around, Bogdan, being nosy, you know me …’

‘You never know what you might see,’ says Bogdan.

‘Always been that way,’ agrees Stephen. ‘And, anyway, I finally come to my point, there are books on the shelf that shouldn’t be there.’

‘Shouldn’t how?’

‘Expensive,’ says Stephen. ‘Famously expensive. Not first editions but one-offs. Should be in museums, but some are in private collections. Worth tens of millions if you want to add them all together, but there they are in Bill Chivers’s library. So what do we make of that?’

‘In a library, in a big house in Staffordshire? You saw these books?’

‘I feel like I did, yes,’ says Stephen.

‘You remember the names of the books?’

‘Of course,’ says Stephen. ‘He had the Timurid Quran, for goodness’ sake, and a volume of the Yongle Encyclopaedia. Not my area, but he had a Shakespeare First Folio. So, yes, I remember the names. I haven’t gone loco.’

‘I know,’ says Bogdan.

‘“Doolally”, they used to call it.’

Bogdan nods. Elizabeth needs to find out the identity of the Viking. Could this help? Could they track him through these books? He will tell Elizabeth as soon as she is back, and Elizabeth will have a plan.

‘I don’t know when it would have been,’ says Stephen. ‘But recently, I think. Though I feel as if I don’t go out so much any more?’

‘You’re always out and about,’ says Bogdan. ‘Walking with Elizabeth. All sorts.’

‘This will seem another very silly question to you,’ says Stephen. ‘And forgive me. But do I have a car?’

Bogdan shakes his head. ‘Lost your licence.’

‘Blast it,’ says Stephen. ‘Do you have a car?’

‘I have access to cars, yes,’ says Bogdan.

‘When is Elizabeth back?’

‘This evening,’ says Bogdan.

‘Righto,’ says Stephen. ‘Could you run me down to Brighton?’

‘To Brighton?’

‘Old pal of mine runs an antique shop. Dodgy as they come –’

‘Bent as a nine-bob note?’ says Bogdan.

‘Never a truer word spoken,’ says Stephen. ‘I want to ask him about these books. See how Bill Chivers came to have them. Bit of detective work, if you fancy it?’

OK, perhaps Bogdan won’t have to wait for Elizabeth to come up with a plan.

‘And, speaking of detectives and fancying,’ says Stephen, ‘why don’t we invite your pal Donna along too? Been dying to meet her. Elizabeth really hasn’t clocked that you two are dating?’

‘She knows something is up, but she hasn’t worked out what,’ says Bogdan.

‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ says Stephen. ‘You can see why I worry about her?’

Bogdan and Stephen shake hands on a draw. Now to get Stephen changed and shaved, and then a trip to Brighton. Should he ask Elizabeth’s permission?

No, he has Stephen’s permission. He will do as Stephen wishes.

51

‘I’m a dreadful nuisance, I can’t apologize enough,’ says Elizabeth, stretched out on a sofa in an Elstree Studios dressing-room.

‘Don’t be silly,’ says a paramedic, removing a blood-pressure sleeve from Elizabeth’s arm. ‘Blood pressure all normal, but people faint for all sorts of reasons. It happens all the time.’

‘Silly sums it up,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A silly old woman spoiling everyone’s fun. I think it’s because they don’t let you have any food. I’m elderly, you see.’ Elizabeth tries to sit up, but the paramedic is having none of it.

‘Not a bit of it,’ says the paramedic, turning to Joyce. ‘She’s not spoiling anyone’s fun, is she?’

‘I mean, I was enjoying it,’ says Joyce. ‘But these things happen.’

‘Must have been a bit of a shock for you too?’ says the paramedic. ‘Your friend keeling over twenty minutes into the recording?’

‘Yes and no,’ says Joyce, then looks straight at Elizabeth. ‘Yes and no.’

‘I’ll leave you in peace for a bit,’ says the paramedic. ‘I’ll come back and check on you in a while. I’m sure someone from production will come and see how you are between shows too.’

‘You’ve been so kind,’ says Elizabeth, and tries to raise her hand to thank her. ‘I should have had something to eat; it’s my own fault.’

Elizabeth watches the paramedic leave and, as soon as she hears the door shut, removes the cold towel from her forehead and sits up.

‘What a nice woman,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A credit.’

‘You really couldn’t have waited?’ says Joyce. ‘Twenty minutes? I barely saw the first round.’

‘You could have stayed,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Fine friend I would have looked then,’ says Joyce. ‘They don’t know you’re a terrible fake, do they? I couldn’t say, oh, she’s a spy, she does this sort of thing all the time. Honestly, slumping to the floor and groaning. You might have warned me.’

‘Oh, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth, helping herself to a banana from the dressing-room fruit bowl. ‘How were we ever going to be able to ask questions from the audience?’

‘We can’t ask questions from here either,’ says Joyce. ‘I’ve missed the whole thing.’

‘You’ll thank me when Fiona Clemence walks through that door to check on me,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Joyce, a frail old woman just collapsed on the set of her show,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A frail old woman who collapsed because she wasn’t allowed anything to eat. A frail old woman who would be mollified by Fiona Clemence simply popping her head around the door between shows and asking after her health.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then we play it by ear, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘As we always do.’

‘I will bet half my Bitcoin account that Fiona Clemence won’t –’

There is a knock at the door. Elizabeth springs back onto the sofa and lies down, just in time for a man in a headset to poke his head around the door.

‘Now, you ladies must be Elizabeth and Joan?’

‘Joyce,’ says Joyce.

‘We are the laughing stock, I know,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Not a bit of it. A little someone wanted to say hello,’ says the man. ‘If you’re up to it?’

‘She is,’ says Joyce.

‘Right you are,’ says the man, and disappears again. Now the door opens, and Fiona Clemence pops her head around it. That auburn hair, so famous from the shampoo adverts, the full smile, so famous from the toothpaste adverts, and the cheekbones honed by genetics and Harley Street.

‘Knock, knock, guess who,’ says Fiona Clemence. ‘You must be Elizabeth and Joan?’

‘Yes,’ says Joyce. Elizabeth sees she is mesmerized.

‘Just wanted to check there was no lasting damage?’ Fiona gives a warm laugh. She is leaning around the door, not troubling the threshold. Clearly not planning to stay. ‘Before I head back out.’

‘If we could detain you for just one moment?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Have to get back,’ says Fiona, smiling. ‘Bosses cracking the whip. Just wanted to check in.’

‘Perhaps we could get a photo?’ Joyce suggests. Good Joyce, good. Elizabeth sees indecision in Fiona’s eyes, and then resignation.

‘Of course,’ says Fiona. ‘Quick one. Forgive the rush.’

Fiona commits to the room, albeit reluctantly, and perches by Elizabeth on the sofa, as Joyce rummages in her cardigan pocket for her phone. Fiona’s photograph smile is already fixed in place.

‘Now,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Time is short, and I need to convey a lot of information to you.’

‘I’m sorry?’ says Fiona, smile still in place. For now.

‘I didn’t faint, I’m not ill, and I don’t want a photograph,’ says Elizabeth quickly. ‘I also pose you no risk, wish you no harm and, indeed, before today, I had no idea who you were.’

‘I …’ says Fiona, smile now drifting off. ‘Really need to be getting off.’

‘I won’t keep you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Myself and my friend Joyce, by the way, not Joan …’

‘You can call me Joan,’ says Joyce.

‘… are here to investigate the murder of Bethany Waites, who, I know, you knew –’

‘OK, I don’t know what this is …’ says Fiona.

‘Fiona, Fiona,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I won’t be a second. We’re very happy to wait around and speak to you later.’

‘I’m going to talk to security,’ says Fiona. ‘Come on, you know this isn’t right.’

‘Oh, gosh, right, wrong,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Who cares? Two harmless old women, a couple of questions about a murder I’m sure you had nothing to do with.’

‘No one’s saying I had anything to do with it,’ says Fiona. ‘And this is … weird.’

‘A colleague is murdered, and you step into her job,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Threatening notes had been written. You would be a clear suspect, Joyce has left me in no doubt about that.’

‘Well, no, I didn’t exactly say –’ says Joyce.

‘And another woman, Heather Garbutt, has also just been murdered,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Now we’ve spoken to Mike Waghorn, your erstwhile colleague, and we would love to speak to you. I had to fake a fainting fit to get the opportunity, so what do you say?’

‘I say no,’ says Fiona. ‘Obviously.’

There is a knock at the door. ‘Fiona? Back on floor please.’

‘I have to get changed,’ says Fiona, getting up.

Elizabeth stands with her. ‘Fiona, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I mention it in case you find it interesting. My friend Joyce here would not be able to tell you herself, for obvious reasons, but she was, for many years, a very highly decorated member of the British security services.’

Fiona looks at Joyce.

‘I know, you wouldn’t believe it to look at her,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I actually would believe it,’ says Fiona.

‘So we are many things,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A nuisance, yes. Something you could live without, certainly. A pain in the backside, spot on, you’ve got us. But we are also serious, we are also no threat, and we are, believe it or not, once you get to know us, rather a lot of fun.’

There is a knock on the door again. ‘Fiona?’

‘So what I’d love,’ says Elizabeth, ‘is for you to go out and finish your shows, for Joyce to sit in the audience and watch, and then afterwards the three of us can have a drink and a chat, and see if you can help us solve the murder of Bethany Waites.’

Fiona looks between the two of them.

‘There’s a Wimpy on Borehamwood high street,’ says Joyce.

‘Admit it,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We do seem fun? And we are investigating two murders.’

Fiona looks at Joyce. ‘You were really in MI5?’

‘I can’t say,’ says Joyce. ‘I wish that I could.’

‘Take a look in her bag if you don’t believe her,’ says Elizabeth.

Joyce, understandably, looks puzzled as Fiona peeks into her bag. There, in pride of place, is Elizabeth’s gun.

‘Whoah,’ says Fiona.

‘I know,’ says Elizabeth. ‘The worst thing I’ve got in my bag is a packet of Fruit Pastilles.’

Elizabeth sees Joyce take a quick look into her own bag, and, seeing the gun Elizabeth recently slipped into it, shakes her head and gives her friend a despairing look.

‘And you’ve spoken to Mike Waghorn?’ says Fiona.

‘We do little else these days,’ says Elizabeth.

Fiona’s mind is made up. ‘OK, done. A quick drink after the show. I was very fond of Mike Waghorn.’

‘And Bethany?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘You were fond of her?’

Fiona is about to respond, but thinks better of it. ‘Well, we can discuss that after the show, can’t we?’

‘You have been very patient with us, Fiona, thank you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I promise you will enjoy talking to us.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ says Fiona.

‘Unless you murdered Bethany Waites,’ says Elizabeth. ‘In which case we will be your worst nightmare.’

‘I should think if I murdered Bethany Waites and have been smart enough to get away with it all these years,’ says Fiona, her brilliant smile filling the dressing-room once more, ‘then I might just be your worst nightmare.’

Elizabeth nods. ‘Well, I must say I’m looking forward to this immensely. See you anon. Break a leg.’

52

‘That’s impossible,’ says Kuldesh Sharma, pushing eighty, handsomely bald, and wearing a lilac suit and a white silk shirt unbuttoned to a point beyond the confidence of any ordinary man.

‘Improbable, certainly,’ says Stephen. ‘But not impossible. I saw them with my own eyes. Book after book, all just sitting there.’

Donna is browsing at the back of the dark shop. ‘This is beautiful,’ she says, holding up a bronze figurine.

‘Anahita,’ says Kuldesh, looking over. ‘The Persian goddess of love and battle.’

‘Love and battle, good for you, Anahita,’ says Donna. ‘I love her.’

‘Unless you love her two thousand pounds, I might have to ask you to put her down,’ says Kuldesh.

Donna places Anahita down very carefully, her eyebrows rising in counterweight as she does so.

‘Is full of stuff, your shop,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is very beautiful. Very beautiful.’

‘One acquires things,’ says Kuldesh. ‘Over the years.’

‘And if I put everything you’ve acquired through a police computer,’ says Donna, ‘is there anything that would raise an alarm?’

‘Save yourself the time,’ says Kuldesh. ‘The only dodgy old things in this shop are Stephen and me.’ Donna smiles. ‘Now, shall we get to the business at hand?’

Stephen shows Kuldesh the list he wrote in the car. ‘And these were just the ones I could identify. Books everywhere.’

Kuldesh runs a finger down the list, puffing his cheeks as he goes. ‘The Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies?’

‘A few million?’ guesses Stephen.

‘At least,’ says Kuldesh, still reading the list. ‘This list is completely insane. You would need billions to buy all of these. The Monypenny Breviary? How does Billy Chivers have all of these?’

Bogdan pulls up a wooden chair to sit with Kuldesh and Stephen.

‘I wouldn’t sit on that,’ says Kuldesh. ‘It’s worth fourteen grand, and you are tremendously large. There’s a milking stool somewhere.’

Bogdan locates and pulls up the milking stool. ‘Maybe don’t worry about Billy Chivers. Maybe someone else bought them.’

‘Chivers is just looking after them,’ agrees Stephen.

Kuldesh folds the list up and puts it in the pocket of his suit jacket. ‘I will ask around. But this is pretty big, even for me.’ He looks over to Donna. ‘I am but a humble shopkeeper, I don’t really know any criminals.’

‘And I’m the goddess of love and battle,’ says Donna, now looking at a pewter inkwell in the shape of a chihuahua.

‘But you might know someone who knows someone?’ Stephen asks Kuldesh.

‘I might,’ says Kuldesh. ‘I would like to help.’

Donna wanders over. ‘And would you ever be tempted to help the police, Mr Sharma?’

Kuldesh shrugs a little. ‘Let me tell you a story, Donna. A story that I suspect will not surprise you. I’ve been in this shop for nearly fifty years, opened up in the nineteen seventies, Kemptown Curios, proprietor Mr K. Sharma, written so beautifully over the window. Like a British shop, you know? Like the shops I’d seen in films; I did it myself. The first night, bricks through the window. I fixed, I repainted, I reopened. The moment I reopen, bricks through the window. Every night until they got bored, until they moved on to someone new.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Donna.

‘Not at all,’ says Kuldesh. ‘A long time ago. But perhaps you can guess how helpful the Brighton police were to me in the nineteen seventies?’

‘Not particularly?’ guesses Donna.

‘Not particularly,’ agrees Kuldesh. ‘If you’d told me the bricks were theirs, it wouldn’t have shocked me. And so I have steered clear of them ever since and, largely, they have steered clear of me. Best for everyone, I think.’

Donna nods. She can only imagine.

‘Stephen,’ says Bogdan. ‘I need to speak to Kuldesh by myself for a moment. Is OK?

‘You know best,’ says Stephen. ‘I’ll fetch the car.’

‘Maybe …’ Bogdan says. ‘Maybe Donna could go with you? Keep you company.’

Donna gives Bogdan a wink, and takes Stephen by the arm.

‘Thank you, Kuldesh, old chap,’ says Stephen. ‘Knew you’d be the man for the job. Give my love to Prisha. Dinner soon?’

‘Dinner soon,’ says Kuldesh, rising and embracing Stephen. ‘I will tell Prisha I saw you, and I will see her face light up, I know.’

‘You’re a lucky sod with that one,’ says Stephen.

Donna leads Stephen from the shop. Bogdan and Kuldesh wait until the final reverberations of the shop bell have silenced.

‘Prisha is dead, I think?’ asks Bogdan.

‘Fifteen years ago,’ says Kuldesh. ‘But I will tell her I saw Stephen, and she will smile.’

Bogdan nods.

‘And I was a lucky sod, he’s right there. How ill is he? Getting worse? I cannot tell you how kind Stephen has been to me over the years. Lucrative too, but the kindness is the real treasure.’

‘He remembers what he remembers,’ says Bogdan. ‘And for now he doesn’t really know what he forgets.’

‘That’s a mercy,’ says Kuldesh. ‘For now.’

‘You can help with Stephen’s list?’ asks Bogdan.

‘If one person owns all of these books,’ says Kuldesh, ‘then I might be able to find out who. Difficult. I’m guessing it’s not Bill Chivers, though?’

‘No, is not Bill Chivers,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is someone who wants to kill Stephen’s wife.’

‘Elizabeth?’

Bogdan nods. ‘Elizabeth.’

‘Then I will find out,’ says Kuldesh. ‘That is my promise. She’s still firing on all cylinders I hope?’

‘Most of them,’ says Bogdan. ‘I’m sorry I brought a police officer into your shop. But is only Donna.’

‘A friend of Stephen is my friend,’ says Kuldesh. ‘Even if they’re in a uniform. Give me a couple of days to see what I can find.’

Kuldesh shakes Bogdan’s hand and starts to usher him to the door. But Bogdan seems reluctant to leave.

‘Is there something else?’ asks Kuldesh.

Bogdan is shifting his weight from foot to foot. Then he nods his head towards the back of the shop.

‘The statue that Donna liked?’ asks Bogdan. ‘How much for cash?’

53: Joyce

I met Fiona Clemence today, that’s my big news. Also, I had a gun in my handbag which, on any other day, would probably be the big news. Thirdly, Blackfriars Station has the tiniest branch of WHSmith you’ve ever seen in your life.

What a day we’ve had of it, though. We left at about ten, and we weren’t back till gone seven. Viktor is still not back from seeing Jack Mason. All his bits of paper are scattered all over the floor. The financial records. This morning I asked him if he’d had any luck, and he said there was no luck involved, and I said, well, I was just making conversation, and he said, yes, I was quite right, and then he put the kettle on. We rub along just fine.

Normally Alan would have a field day with all those bits of paper. Chewing them, tearing them. But he was stepping around them politely. Viktor has explained their importance to Alan, and asked him to be very careful with them. Viktor does have a persuasive tone. For example, he had me watching the Formula 1 the other day, even though there was a Poirot on ITV3. He makes everything feel like it was your idea in the first place. Alan and I just sit there nodding half the time.

Before I come into the flat now, I have to do a special knock so Viktor knows it’s me. It’s just four quick knocks, and it sort of matches the rhythm of the moonpig.com advert. Viktor says that if he hears the door open without the knock, I will find him behind the sofa with a handgun. ‘I don’t want to shoot you by accident,’ he said, ‘but I will.’

Elizabeth and I have been to watch Stop the Clock being filmed. They filmed three episodes, and I saw the second and third one. The first one was interrupted by Elizabeth pretending to faint. All in a good cause, as it turns out. The couple in the second show won two thousand seven hundred pounds, and they are getting married, so it is going towards their wedding. He must have been fifteen years older than her. I know you shouldn’t judge but really. I wanted to shout to her, ‘Get out while you can!’

Through a combination of pretending to faint and showing her a gun, Elizabeth persuaded Fiona to speak to us afterwards. We sat in her dressing-room, and somebody who can’t have been long out of school brought us all a herbal tea. I had chamomile and raspberry, because it was the first one I was offered and my brain switches off when someone reads me a long list.

Now, I didn’t dislike Fiona Clemence, let me say that. She is not as warm as you might think when you watch her on TV. I think some of that is just for the cameras, but she wasn’t rude, even though she had every right to be after the fainting and the gun.

She had only half an hour, because she was heading off to interview Bono, so Elizabeth and I took it in turns to ask questions. I left all the Bethany Waites questions to Elizabeth, because I probably won’t get another chance to meet Fiona Clemence, and I wanted to make the most of it.

So the whole thing went something like this.

ELIZABETH: Tell me about your relationship with Bethany Waites.

FIONA: We disliked each other.

ME: What’s the most money anyone has ever won on Stop the Clock?

FIONA: I don’t know. About twenty grand, I think.

ELIZABETH: Why did you dislike each other?

FIONA: She disliked me because she thought I was an airhead. And I disliked her because she thought I was an airhead.

ME: A few weeks ago on the show you were wearing red shoes, I don’t know if you remember them? But I wondered where they were from?

FIONA: I don’t know, sorry.

ELIZABETH: Were you aware you might be next in line to present the show were Bethany ever to leave?

FIONA: I’d done a screen-test. I knew they liked me. But, and forgive me here, Joyce, co-hosting South East Tonight was not a particular ambition of mine.

ELIZABETH: Didn’t do you any harm though?

FIONA: OK, I murdered her so I could read the local news.

ME: Are people talking to you through an earpiece on the show?

FIONA: Yes.

ME: What are they saying?

FIONA: All sorts. Reminding me of the scores, telling me to cheer up, letting me know someone in the audience has fainted.

ELIZABETH: Where were you on the night of Bethany’s death?

FIONA: I was doing coke in a hotel with a cameraman.

ME: We bought ten thousand pounds’ worth of cocaine recently. Who’s the nicest person you’ve ever interviewed?

FIONA: Tom Hanks.

ELIZABETH: What do you know about notes that Bethany received before her death? At work?

FIONA: What sort of notes?

ELIZABETH: ‘Get out’, ‘Everybody hates you’. That sort of thing.

FIONA [laughing]: She got those too? I thought it was just me.

ELIZABETH: You got the same notes? Any idea from whom?

FIONA: No idea, but no one pushed me off a cliff, did they?

ME: What was it about Tom Hanks?

ELIZABETH [tiring of me, I think]: Is there anyone else you can think of who might have had reason to kill Bethany?

FIONA: The fashion police?

ME: You know on Instagram, where you do your live videos, and everyone can watch and comment? How do you do that? I can’t find the button for it.

FIONA: It’s called ‘Stories’, you can look it up.

ELIZABETH: Is there anyone else we should talk to who was there at the time?

FIONA: Carwyn, the producer. Even if he didn’t kill her, they should lock him up. And Mike’s make-up artist. Pamela, something like that. Always a weird atmosphere there.

ELIZABETH: Pauline?

FIONA: If you say so.

ME: Would you ever do Strictly?

FIONA: Only if I was hosting it.

So, you see, she wasn’t rude exactly, given the circumstances, but she wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute. I just looked up how to do those live videos on Instagram, but I couldn’t really make head nor tail of it. I will stick to photographs, I think. Ron made me post a picture of Alan today with two balls in his mouth. Joanna liked it, which is a first.

We made our way back to the station via the Wimpy, and I had a snooze on the train. I told Elizabeth she could snooze, and I would keep an eye out for our stop, but she wanted to stay awake.

I wonder when Viktor will be back? I hope he is having luck with Jack Mason. Elizabeth seems to have great faith in him. I asked her if they had ever slept together, and she said that she honestly couldn’t remember, but they probably did. I told her I carry around a picture of everyone I’ve ever slept with in my purse. Then I opened it, and showed her that the only picture in my purse was one of Gerry, and she said, ‘Yes, I got it the first time, Joyce.’

I wonder if Viktor will remember if he slept with Elizabeth. I think one probably would.

54

The three men are sitting on Jack Mason’s verandah in the moonlight, with a strip heater and a tumbler of whisky each, keeping them warm. Lights blink out at sea. Ron feels the whisky warm his chest, and his eyelids begin to droop. Give him this over a massage any day of the week.

What a lovely day they’ve had. BBQ on the heated terrace, snooker, cards. Couldn’t wish for more. Viktor gently prodding here and there, Jack avoiding his questions.

The snooker is over for the evening. The first, everyone hopes, of a regular game. Three old men, three new friends. The gangster, the KGB colonel and the trades union official.

‘It must be a burden, Jack,’ says Viktor.

‘What’s that?’ Jack asks.

‘Your scheme,’ says Viktor. ‘It should have been so clean. Then Bethany dies. And now Heather dies. That must weigh on you. Your responsibility?’

Jack nods, and raises his glass.

‘I don’t kill people, Viktor,’ says Jack. ‘Some people do, but I’ve never got a thrill from it. I like breaking the law, I like making money, I like getting one over on people.’

‘A man after my own heart,’ says Viktor. ‘Perhaps it haunts you,’ says Viktor. ‘Just a touch.’

‘A touch,’ agrees Jack.

‘I understand,’ says Viktor. ‘And you must be angry, I think I would be, with the killer?’

‘It was stupid,’ says Jack. ‘It was unnecessary.’

‘Just the thought,’ says Viktor, ‘of Bethany going over that cliff. It must wake you at times?’

‘Nah,’ says Jack. ‘You got it wrong.’

‘I sometimes do get it wrong,’ agrees Viktor. ‘I am eager to know why I am wrong now though? That vision would trouble me.’

‘Lads,’ says Jack, with a small smile, ‘can I tell you something? Unburden myself a bit?’

This sounds like it might get uncomfortably close to discussing feelings, Ron thinks, but he sees that’s how Viktor works. And they’re investigating a crime, so he’s going to have to put up with it.

‘This is not for the police,’ says Jack. ‘It’s for the three of us. What you choose to do with it, that’s your business.’

‘No one here is speaking to the police,’ says Ron. ‘Go on, Jack.’

‘There was no one in the car when it went over the cliff,’ says Jack Mason, and takes another sip of his whisky. ‘Bethany Waites was dead hours before that.’

Ron is awake now, that’s for sure. He looks at Viktor, knowing the KGB officer might have better questions than he does.

‘Well, this is an interesting development,’ says Viktor. ‘You know this for a fact, Jack?’

‘I know it for a fact,’ says Jack Mason. ‘I know who killed her, I know why, and I know where she’s buried. I know where the grave is.’

‘It sounds an awful lot like you killed her, Jack? Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I would agree,’ says Jack. ‘But that’s just the point, isn’t it? More whisky, gents?’

Viktor and Ron both agree that’s exactly what the doctor ordered. Jack Mason pours the drinks, and settles back again.

‘You’re missing someone,’ says Jack. ‘Someone else involved in my little scheme.’

‘Man? Woman?’ asks Viktor, very casually.

‘One of those, yeah,’ says Jack Mason. If you want someone to resist questioning from a KGB officer, a Cockney isn’t a bad choice, Ron thinks.

‘So this person,’ begins Ron. ‘Probably a fella, let’s face it. They’ve killed Bethany Waites?’

‘Here’s what it is,’ says Jack Mason. ‘The scheme was coming apart. Bethany Waites was all over it – you’ve got to know when to quit? Right?’

‘Crucial,’ says Viktor.

‘I figure I’m covered. Whatever she’s got, she hasn’t got it on me, so I can just shut it down and move on.’

‘But this partner of yours?’

‘My partner was more worried,’ says Jack Mason. ‘Left me in no doubt about that. I hadn’t made any big mistakes, but my partner had. He – I’m going to say “he” but don’t read anything into it, I’ve been in this game a long time – he was worried about me talking, about Heather talking.’

‘You’d never talk,’ says Ron.

‘Never have, never will,’ agrees Jack.

‘You’re talking now, Jack,’ says Viktor, very gently. Jack waves this away.

‘So,’ says Ron. ‘This partner of yours kills Bethany Waites?’

‘Before she caused more trouble,’ says Jack. ‘Killed her, drove to Shakespeare Cliff, pushed the car off. My partner wasn’t the type at all, but he panicked. Happens to the best of us.’

‘But why wasn’t the body in the car?’ asks Viktor. ‘I wonder if you have an explanation for that?’

‘Here’s the thing,’ says Jack Mason. ‘Here’s the big problem, the thing no one’s seeing. My partner comes to me, tells me he’s murdered Bethany Waites, tells me to switch on the news and see if it’s true. Which I do, and it is. I’m not happy.’

‘Who would be?’ says Ron.

‘Who would be, like you say,’ agrees Jack. ‘I’m angry, of course I am, fly off the handle a bit. No one needed to die, we could have walked away, and he gives me a little smile and says, no one’s walking away, and I think he’s going to kill me too. Which is a bit rich, but these things happen.’

Ron and Viktor both nod.

‘Then he says, “You wanna see the body”, and I’m “Wasn’t the body in the car?”, and he’s “No, the body’s buried somewhere safe.”’

‘Jesus,’ says Ron. The whisky is giving him a bit of a headache. The lights blinking out at sea now look cold and lonely.

‘And here’s what he’s done,’ says Jack. ‘He’s killed Bethany, and he’s buried her, and he’s told me exactly where. And, here’s the clever bit, I’ll give him that, he’s buried Bethany with a phone covered in Heather Garbutt’s fingerprints, which has a call history from one of my personal phones. And he’s shot her with a gun that’s buried somewhere else, also covered in Heather’s fingerprints.’

Viktor sits forward. ‘So Bethany is dead, she can meddle no longer. And your partner has framed Heather for the murder, and linked you as an accessory?’

‘You’re getting it,’ says Jack Mason. ‘He says to Heather, this fraud is going to trial. I need you to plead guilty, to admit everything, but not a word on who you were working for.’

‘Or I send the police in the direction of Bethany’s grave?’

‘Where all the evidence says Heather did it. So, do you want ten years in prison, or do you want life? It’s blackmail, buried six feet underground.’

‘And that’s been hanging over her the whole time she’s been in prison?’ asks Ron.

‘She never said a word, and she never made a penny,’ says Jack Mason. ‘She just sat and did her time, knowing that one false move and she’d be a murderer.’

‘All that waiting,’ says Ron. ‘Then someone kills her too. That’s, whatcha call it, bad luck.’

The men nod, like the three wise monkeys.

‘And what did he want from you?’ asks Viktor.

‘He wanted his money,’ says Jack Mason. ‘It was ten mill or so, and he couldn’t access it.’

‘And you could?’

‘Turns out no,’ says Jack Mason. ‘The rules changed back in 2015, everything had to be declared, hoops to jump through. And then other obstacles kept popping up, never really seen anything like it. Do you know much about money-laundering?’

‘Yes,’ says Viktor.

‘We washed it so thoroughly it was scattered to the winds. Heather was very good at her job. But when we needed it to start coming back the other way, as clean money, some of the things we needed to do to get it back were no longer legal. And some of the money had just vanished. We’d hid it so well even we couldn’t find it.’

‘So it’s still out there?’ asks Viktor.

‘Presumably,’ says Jack Mason.

‘Any chance you’re going to tell us who your partner was?’ asks Ron.

‘Course not,’ says Jack Mason. ‘I shouldn’t have told you as much as I have, but, if you can work it out, good luck to you.’

‘We’ll work it out,’ says Ron. He can hear the car approaching in the distance.

‘She shouldn’t have died,’ says Jack Mason. ‘It’s on me. And Heather shouldn’t have died either, that’s on me too.’

‘I’d like to disagree, Jack,’ says Ron. ‘But I can’t.’

Jack nods, and looks around him, at his house, his gardens, that view. ‘There was no need for any of it.’

The headlights of Ron’s Daihatsu sweep across the lawn. Bogdan is here. Jack rises to wish his friends farewell. But Viktor has a final question.

‘Why did you not just dig the body up yourself? Problem solved.’

‘I tried to find it,’ says Jack Mason. ‘Over the years. Believe me, I tried. I knew where it was, and I’ve dug and dug, but –’

‘Will you tell us where she’s buried?’ Viktor asks.

‘I’ve told you enough to be getting on with,’ says Jack. ‘You buggers can work it out.’

‘Your candour has been admirable,’ says Viktor.

Jack puts an arm around Viktor’s shoulders. ‘I can’t help thinking these revelations have taken the edge off your snooker victory this evening. And Ron’s shocking performance.’

‘Will we still be invited back?’ asks Viktor.

‘I can’t think of anything more fun,’ says Jack Mason. ‘A couple of mates, a glass of whisky, a game of snooker. Everything else is ego and greed. It’s taken me a long time to work that out.’

‘You still owe Viktor a tenner for winning though,’ says Ron.

‘Among my many debts,’ says Jack Mason with a bow. ‘Among my many debts.’

55

Elizabeth is wide awake and thinking.

Viktor had rolled back late this evening, full of news and whisky. Ron was elsewhere, which is becoming an increasingly regular occurrence. A quick council of war had convened at Ibrahim’s. Joyce and Alan had joined them, both excited to be out late.

The case had blown wide open.

So Bethany Waites hadn’t been in the car at all. She had been buried somewhere else by her killer, as an insurance policy. Buried with evidence linking both Heather Garbutt and Jack Mason to her murder.

It was a neat trick. No one was looking for the body; it was assumed that it had been swept out to sea many years ago. But if Jack or Heather ever felt inclined to help the police with their enquiries, the killer would just have to remind them that their future was in his hands. Or her hands. Keep quiet about my involvement, or face the consequences. But there would be a flaw somewhere. A fatal mistake.

As Elizabeth had walked home, she had felt a plan forming. Her eyes had also been alert for the Viking. It would be rather bad timing to be killed now, just when things were getting interesting.

They would get nothing further out of Jack Mason, Elizabeth was sure of that. Viktor’s work with Jack was done. So there were two options left open.

Take another look at the financial documents, knowing there was a partner involved. They had the name ‘Carron Whitehead’ of course, but nothing else to connect her to the murder. Then there was the name Robert Brown Msc. But were there others? Viktor would be back on the case tomorrow morning. He has yet to make much progress.

The second option, just as difficult, but at least something Elizabeth could help with, was to find the grave that Jack Mason has spoken about. The general consensus is that it could be anywhere. But Elizabeth rarely lives her life by the general consensus.

A question that had been troubling her for a while has risen to the surface again. Why had Jack Mason bought Heather Garbutt’s house? The proceeds had gone straight to the government in lieu of the laundered money, so he hadn’t been buying Heather’s silence. He hadn’t lived in it, hadn’t rented it out, hadn’t renovated it and hadn’t sold it at a profit.

So it seemed that Jack Mason must have bought the house simply to stop anyone else from living there. From living there and, let’s say, re-laying the patio or deciding on a whim to dig a pond or two? Elizabeth wonders if it wouldn’t be fruitful to have a little dig in Heather Garbutt’s garden? Bogdan will have a spade to hand somewhere.

But how do you just dig up someone’s garden without permission? Jack Mason certainly won’t be inviting them onto the property if the body is there.

As Elizabeth lies in bed, Stephen’s hand interlaced with hers, she thinks of someone who might be able to help.

And now she really thinks about it, the same person might be able to help with her other problem too. Stopping the Viking. Stephen wakes and takes her in his arms. He says he is off to see his friend Kuldesh tomorrow, will probably take the car if she isn’t using it? Elizabeth agrees that sounds lovely and strokes his hair until he falls asleep again.

56

‘They must have gossiped on the way back?’ Donna says. Her head is in Bogdan’s lap. He wants to watch the International Biathlon on Eurosport, because someone he went to school with is in it. Biathlon is skiing followed by rifle shooting. She is getting into it.

‘They swore me not to tell,’ says Bogdan. He then gestures at the television. ‘Jerzy is having a nightmare here.’

‘But you can tell me,’ says Donna.

‘No police,’ says Bogdan.

‘I’m not police,’ says Donna. ‘I’m your girlfriend.’

‘You never said you were my girlfriend before,’ says Bogdan.

Donna turns her head to look up at him. ‘Well, get ready to hear it a lot.’

‘So I am your boyfriend?’

‘I honestly don’t know why people think you’re some sort of genius,’ says Donna. ‘Yes, you’re my boyfriend.’

Bogdan gives a smile of delight. ‘We are Donna and Bogdan.’

‘We are,’ says Donna, reaching up to touch his face. ‘Or Bogdan and Donna, I don’t mind.’

‘Donna and Bogdan sounds better,’ says Bogdan.

Donna props herself up and kisses him. ‘Donna and Bogdan it is, then. So, tell me what Ron and Viktor found out.’

‘No,’ says Bogdan. He is then distracted by the television again. ‘This Lithuanian guy is a cheat.’

‘Just tell me something,’ says Donna. ‘Throw me a bone.’

‘OK,’ says Bogdan. ‘Ron didn’t go home tonight. He is staying at Pauline’s.’

‘Oooh,’ says Donna. ‘That’s good. You’re forgiven.’

Bogdan is shaking his head at the screen. ‘If Jerzy doesn’t finish in the top four, he doesn’t qualify for the European Shootout in Malmö.’

‘Poor Jerzy,’ says Donna. ‘Pull your finger out, mate. Where does she live?’

‘Huh?’ Bogdan is distracted.

‘Pauline,’ says Donna sleepily. ‘She live round here?’

Bogdan nods. ‘Off Rotherfield Road, that big block. Juniper Court.’

‘Juniper Court?’

‘Yes. You heard of it?’

Donna certainly has heard of it. Pauline lives in the building Bethany Waites visited on the night of her murder.

57

The office is warm oak, and deep-red carpet. Elizabeth’s eye is drawn to the large painting of a dog wearing a Police Bravery Medal. Also, a framed sign saying CRIME DOESN’T PAY. She has learned over the years that this is nonsense. Look at Viktor’s penthouse for example.

It can be difficult to get an appointment with a chief constable. They are busy people, their diaries are carefully controlled. Try ringing 999 and asking to speak to a chief constable. See where that gets you.

Elizabeth had rung Andrew Everton’s office that morning, saying she was a literary agent, who had read and loved all the Mackenzie McStewart novels, and would he have a moment to spare for her?

The call came back within a minute, saying that a window had magically opened up in his diary that very afternoon. Whatever it was that Andrew Everton had planned on doing then, catching a serial killer perhaps, could be put on the back burner.

Elizabeth had seen the disappointment in his eyes when she walked in. He recognized her from the reading. There was a brief moment of regrouping hope, as he considered that, yes, this was the old woman from the reading the other day, but she might also actually be an agent, some grande dame of the literary world. But, as soon as she had said, ‘I haven’t actually read your books, though I know Joyce is enjoying one,’ she saw the wind depart his sails. By this point she had sat down, however, and she knew that common politeness would allow her a couple of questions.

‘Bethany Waites,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You remember the case?’

‘I remember the case,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I don’t remember asking you to come in and talk to me about it?’

Elizabeth waves this away. ‘We’re all taxpayers, aren’t we? Anything you can tell me? Any suspects at the time?’

‘Mmm,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Are you familiar with police procedure?’

‘Very,’ says Elizabeth.

Andrew Everton starts to tap a pen on his desk. ‘And does this conversation feel like it tallies with police procedure? Given what you know?’

‘Here’s what I think,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I think you’re the Chief Constable of Kent. I think you could probably tell me all sorts of things if you chose to. I also think you failed to close the Bethany Waites case –’

‘Not me personally,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘To be fair. I was a smaller cog in those days.’

‘Quite so,’ agrees Elizabeth. ‘But a high-profile case, still unsolved. I’m offering you some help, and it feels only fair that you offer me help in return.’

‘What help are you offering me?’

‘We’ll get to that in good time,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You’ll know that Heather Garbutt is dead. Was she your prime suspect?’

‘She was a suspect,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Again, what help can you give me? What do you know that I might not?’

‘And Jack Mason?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Another suspect?’

‘We spoke to him,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘He had an alibi, but he’s not the type of man to do the deed himself, so it was fairly meaningless. I don’t quite understand why we are having this conversation?’

‘Anyone else?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Anyone we’re missing?’

‘Who is we?’

‘My friends and I,’ says Elizabeth. ‘People you would like. I believe you’ve met Ibrahim, for instance.’

‘Ah, yes,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Ibrahim Arif. A friend of Connie Johnson?’

‘A professional acquaintance of hers,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We have fingers in pies, Chief Constable. I am sure you would find us useful.’

Andrew Everton is weighing her up. Elizabeth has seen it countless times before. People trying to get the measure of her. It’s a fruitless endeavour.

‘OK,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I’ll bite. Does Connie Johnson have anything to say about Heather Garbutt’s death? Is that information that you have?’

‘She thinks Heather Garbutt was frightened of someone,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Well, with respect we could gather that much from the note; that’s not new information,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I’ll need better than that. Did she say who?’

‘I’m afraid that is information I don’t have. But you’ll be delighted to hear I can help you with the note,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It wasn’t real.’

‘Wasn’t real?’ Elizabeth sees Andrew Everton think this through, working the angles. Experience tells her he is no fool. He might actually be useful to them.

‘She didn’t write it?’ Andrew Everton still looks confused. ‘Then who did?’

‘We’re working on that,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But until then I have a different question for you. Where do you think the money is? If we can’t find Bethany Waites’s body, can we at least find the money?’

‘You’re aware we did try,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘We’re not bumpkins. We had forensic accountants go through every page of every file. They covered their tracks.’

Elizabeth laughs. ‘Honestly, we’ve found out more about the money in two weeks than you did in your whole investigation.’

‘I doubt that,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Doubt away, dear,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It won’t change the facts. You didn’t find the forty thousand pounds paid to Carron Whitehead. You didn’t find the five thousand pounds paid to Robert Brown Msc. You didn’t find the connection to Jack Mason’s construction companies. You didn’t really find anything.’

Andrew Everton tries to form a reply. ‘I’m … I’m going to need those names. The details. Where you found them.’

‘There’s the answer to your question about how we can help you, and’ – Elizabeth takes out a file from her bag and puts it on his desk – ‘we can start with this.’

Andrew Everton looks at the file in front of him. ‘It’s all in here?’

‘It is,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And it’s all yours. But I will need a couple of favours in return.’

‘Yes, you have that air about you,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘If I can help, I will.’

‘Jack Mason bought Heather Garbutt’s house,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Over the odds too. Why do you think that might be?’

Andrew Everton has no answer. ‘Honestly? I wasn’t aware of that.’

‘Perhaps you should have been?’

‘Perhaps I should,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Agreed.’

‘Now that you know,’ says Elizabeth, ‘what do your detective instincts tell you?’

‘That perhaps he was hiding something there? Or knew that Heather was hiding something there?’

‘That’s what my instincts tell me too,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It feels like it wouldn’t do us any harm to go digging to see? If you could arrange that?’

Andrew Everton thinks for a moment. Elizabeth suspects there are all sorts of forms he would need to fill in to make this happen. Protocols.

‘I think I could,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I think that sounds a very good idea. See what we can see.’

‘See what we can see,’ agrees Elizabeth. ‘I knew we’d get along.’

‘What was the other favour?’ asks Andrew Everton.

‘There’s a money-launderer trying to kill me,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Trying to kill Joyce too, but that’s between us. I wonder if you might spare a couple of officers to guard us for a while?’

‘A money-launderer?’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Best in the world, they say. Let’s hope he’s not such a good assassin.’

‘Let me look into it,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘That might be quite hard to explain away.’

‘I’m sure you’ll try your best,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And you might just catch the biggest money-launderer in the world in the process. That feels like something that would be good for your career.’

Andrew Everton smiles. ‘This has been an unexpected pleasure.’

‘Well, strap in,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Next time I see you I expect you to have a spade in your hand.’

Elizabeth stands to leave. This has all been most satisfactory. If anyone can get permission to dig up a back garden, it’s a chief constable. Andrew Everton rises with her.

‘Before you go,’ says Andrew Everton, ‘I have a question for you.’

‘People usually do,’ says Elizabeth. She senses Andrew Everton is nervous. ‘Fire away.’

‘I need an honest answer,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘If an honest answer is available, you shall have it,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Your friend Joyce …’ says Andrew Everton.

‘What about her?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Did she really say she was enjoying my book?’

58

Donna has very quickly come to understand that one of the key functions of a television make-up room is to be a central hub for all and any gossip.

Though, on this occasion, she is going to have to tread carefully.

Donna is back on South East Tonight to discuss online fraud. Dodgy emails or texts pretending to be from banks. Fake dating profiles. Basically, any of the number of ways someone can part you from your cash without ever having to actually meet you. She has been doing homework all afternoon.

‘A little bird tells me you live in Juniper Court,’ says Donna.

Pauline pauses for a moment. Donna has to keep this as light as possible. They had run all the car registration numbers. The white Peugeot with flames on the number plate belongs to Pauline.

Pauline continues teasing Donna’s hair into shape. ‘That little bird wouldn’t be Bogdan, would it?’

‘Maybe,’ says Donna. ‘We’ve been trying to keep it quiet.’

‘Can’t hide anything from a make-up artist,’ says Pauline. ‘You landed on your feet there, what a fella. I’d climb him like a tree.’

Donna smiles and keeps it chatty. ‘You been there long?’

‘Juniper Court? Donkey’s years,’ says Pauline. ‘You can walk to the studio, it’s perfect.’

So there it is, the information she was here to get. Pauline has lived at Juniper Court for years. Which means she will have been living there the night Bethany died. Which, in turn, potentially makes her the chief suspect in the murder of Bethany Waites. Things are moving uncomfortably fast for Donna.

Pauline taps Donna’s forehead. ‘Relax, you’re frowning. The make-up chair isn’t for thinking.’

‘Sorry,’ says Donna. She takes the briefest of glances at Pauline in the mirror. Pauline gives her a reassuring smile.

What reason would Pauline have for murdering Bethany Waites? What was buried in the past? What about the notes? Had Pauline written them? Chris and Donna are keeping this new line of enquiry secret from the Thursday Murder Club. For a number of obvious reasons. But if Bethany had been visiting Pauline that night, they wouldn’t be able to keep it secret for much longer. It was too much of a coincidence, Bethany visiting the building where Pauline lived. There had to be a connection.

‘That’s why I moved to Juniper Court in the first place,’ says Pauline, over the sound of her hairdryer now. ‘Loads of the crew live there. Cameras, sound, all sorts. The show even keeps a couple of flats there, you know, freelancers come down for a few months, that’s where they get put up. Mike had a place there years back. It’s like a hall of residence half the time.’

Donna nods. Well, that complicates things. If it’s true. All sorts of people Bethany might have known. All sorts of people she might have been visiting. Donna needs more information.

‘Bethany ever visit?’ Donna asks. Trying to be casual, but over the sound of the hairdryer.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Would Bethany have ever visited Juniper Court?’

‘I’d have thought so,’ says Pauline. ‘People were in and out. Fiona Clemence had a thing with one of the camera ops who lived there. It was open house.’

‘Did she ever visit you there?’ Donna asks.

‘Me? No,’ says Pauline. She switches off her hairdryer. ‘Don’t think she even knew I lived there.’

‘You’d think she’d have bumped into you,’ says Donna. ‘At some point. If she was there a lot?’

‘I’m a bit more private than some of them,’ says Pauline, shrugging.

Donna had plenty to report back to Chris. The good news: Pauline had lived in Juniper Court when Bethany Waites disappeared. The bad news: so had everyone else. Convenient for Pauline. Too convenient?

‘That’s you done, darling,’ says Pauline. ‘Don’t you look a picture?’

Donna looks at herself in the mirror. Just perfect. Pauline is very, very good.

59

He thought he might have to kill the dog, but, in the end, there was no need. From the moment he broke in, the dog seemed very happy to see him. Had even licked his hand while he loaded the gun. He had been fast asleep until the key turned in the lock for the first time. The Viking would love a dog, but they take a lot of looking after. Walking and so on. And sometimes things go wrong with them. What if something went wrong and he didn’t notice? The Viking would never forgive himself. He has heard that cats are easier. Maybe he will get a cat.

The first person through the door is Joyce; he recognizes her from the photograph. Joyce has a shopping bag in her hand. She is swaying slightly, and is whistling a happy tune. She stops whistling when she sees the gun, which makes the Viking feel guilty, but powerful. Mainly guilty, but he couldn’t deny the powerful bit. He supposes that is why weak people like guns so much. Not that he is weak.

The dog bounds to greet her, and Joyce ruffles his coat without taking her eyes off the man with the beard and the gun who has just appeared in her living room.

‘Bless you,’ says Joyce. ‘You must be the Viking?’

The Viking is confused. ‘The Viking?’

‘You kidnapped Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘And Stephen, which was very cowardly. Put your gun down; I’m seventy-seven, what do you think I’m going to do?’

The Viking puts the gun down by his side, but keeps hold of it. It is around seven p.m., and dark outside. He has closed the curtains already. Joyce is less scared than he thought she might be. She even feeds the dog. ‘Alan’, he is called. She offers the Viking a cup of tea, but, wary of being poisoned, he declines. She sits opposite him while Alan eats, his metal bowl scraping noisily on the kitchen tiles.

‘So you’re here to kill Viktor?’ she asks. ‘He’s not in.’

‘I am here to kill Viktor, yes,’ says the Viking. ‘But also to kill you.’

‘Oh,’ says Joyce.

‘They didn’t tell you?’

‘They didn’t,’ confirms Joyce. ‘This seems like an awful lot of fuss. I hope it’s over something very important?’

‘It’s business,’ says the Viking. ‘I told Elizabeth to kill Viktor. She didn’t kill him. I told her I would kill you if she didn’t.’

‘Well, she kept that quiet,’ says Joyce. ‘Have you ever killed anyone before?’

‘Yes,’ says the Viking. His voice doesn’t even waver. He is very impressed with himself.

‘And yet you had to get Elizabeth to kill Viktor for you,’ says Joyce. ‘Have you really ever killed anyone?’

‘No,’ admits the Viking. How could she tell? ‘I have never needed to. But now I need to. And I will.’

‘So you’re going to start with me? That’s in at the deep end, I’d say. A pensioner.’

The Viking shrugs. ‘Maybe I’ll just kill Viktor, then.’

‘I’d sooner you didn’t kill either of us,’ says Joyce. ‘I’ve grown fond of him. Watches too many programmes about trains, but who doesn’t have faults? What’s your disagreement with him? Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea? We’ll be here some while if we’re waiting for Viktor, and I promise I’m not going to poison you. The last thing I need on my hands is an unconscious Swede.’

The Viking thinks he wouldn’t actually mind a cup of tea. His whole plan doesn’t seem at all right now he’s here, with a gun in his hand, and a tiny old woman asking him polite questions. ‘OK, yes, please, just with milk. I have a dispute with Viktor.’

Joyce walks through the open archway into the kitchen, and talks to him over her shoulder. ‘What sort of dispute?’

‘I launder money,’ says the Viking. ‘Through cryptocurrency. Viktor tells his clients to steer clear of me. Says it’s too risky. It is costing me a great deal of money. If I kill him, my problem is over.’

‘Oh, you poor love, that must be difficult,’ says Joyce. ‘Alan, I have literally just fed you.’

‘When are you expecting him?’

‘You tell me,’ says Joyce, teaspoon clinking in a mug. ‘He’s at an opera, if you can believe that. Might as well settle in. Can I ask you a question?’

‘You won’t persuade me not to kill him,’ says the Viking. ‘It is my destiny.’

‘No, no,’ says Joyce, walking back into the room with two mugs of tea, one with a picture of a motorbike on it, one with a floral scene. ‘Which mug do you fancy?’

‘Motorbike please,’ says the Viking. Joyce sits down with a satisfied sigh. ‘What’s your question?’

‘Cryptocurrency,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s not really all that risky, is it?’

‘Very risky,’ says the Viking. ‘Which is OK for money-laundering.’

‘Even Ethereum?’ asks Joyce. ‘Is that risky?’

The Viking takes a sip of his tea. ‘You know Ethereum?’

‘I have fifteen thousand pounds invested in it,’ says Joyce. ‘Everyone on Instagram seems very confident.’

‘Can you show me your account?’ says the Viking. Honestly, amateurs will be the death of him. Cryptocurrency is complicated. One day it will be very important, but today it is the wild west. Tiny old women should not be investing in Ethereum. Joyce opens up a page on her laptop and hands it to him.

‘I only use the laptop for trading and for writing my diary,’ she says. ‘You’ll be in it tonight if you don’t kill me.’

‘I’m not going to kill you,’ says the Viking, but he knows he still might have to. He checks Joyce’s Ethereum account, currently worth just under two thousand pounds. ‘Do you mind if I move things around a little? I will need your password.’

‘It’s Poppy82, capital p,’ says Joyce. ‘And be my guest. If you promise not to kill Viktor, then there are biscuits too.’

‘Sorry, mind made up,’ says the Viking, as he drinks more of his tea, and launches Joyce’s laptop into one of the more disreputable corners of the dark web. Playing on the computer relaxes him a little, as this is where he is at home. His heart rate slows, and he realizes how nervous he has been. The dog starts to lick his hand. He gently pushes Alan away, and rubs his eyes with his unlicked hand.

The Viking moves Joyce’s money into two separate accounts. There were still bargains to be had if you knew where to look. There was still gold glinting in the streams, but not where everyone else was panning. The Viking feels this is the least he can do after breaking into Joyce’s flat. If he doesn’t kill her, she will make a tidy profit. Joyce is saying something now, but it isn’t making sense. He is thirsty again. He looks up at Joyce, but his head is heavy. He starts a sentence.

‘Could I get a …’ Get a what? What’s the word? ‘Uh …’

Alan is licking his face now. Why is he on the floor?

60

Ron is aware that we live in a bright new world of sexual politics.

A rainbow of gender and sexuality, and freedoms unimagined by his generation. Ron is all for it. If you let people be themselves, you let them flourish. But even in these happier times if you offer a man a choice between a motorcycle mug and a flower mug, he’s going to choose the motorcycle mug. Lucky thing too: if Viktor’s tablets could floor the Viking, God knows what they would have done to Joyce.

‘You could have killed him, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth.

‘With sleeping pills and worming tablets? I doubt it,’ says Joyce.

The Viking is beginning to stir. Bogdan has tied him to one of Joyce’s dining-room chairs. After he had fallen asleep, Joyce had called the cavalry, and here they all were.

Bogdan for muscle, Viktor, back from the opera (‘Exquisite. Almost transcendent’) to face the man who wants to kill him, and Elizabeth, who has just had to explain why she hadn’t told Joyce that the Viking was planning to kill her too. Ron and Ibrahim are there, presumably, thinks Ron, because Joyce and Elizabeth would never hear the end of it if they hadn’t been invited.

Pauline is there because, well, because she is there an awful lot these days. Whether in Coopers Chase or Juniper Court, she and Ron like to be together. She’s come straight from work. Bogdan has disappeared somewhere for now.

Viktor is holding the Viking’s gun. Ron had asked to hold it briefly. He had pointed it at the wall, closed one eye, said, ‘Pow,’ and handed it back.

The Viking looks a bit of a mess. Huge beard. Semi-conscious. Ron had tried to grow a beard many years ago, but he was not successful. Some men just can’t grow beards, and you shouldn’t read anything into that. Doesn’t make them any less of a man.

Joyce has made them all a cup of tea, after thoroughly washing out the motorbike mug.

‘Hey, sleeping beauty,’ says Viktor, as the Viking wakes. ‘Hey.’

The Viking opens his eyes, just a touch. Then closes them again, unable to immediately accept what he sees.

‘It’s OK,’ says Viktor. ‘You can open them. You want some water?’

The Viking opens his eyes once again, and tries to focus on Joyce’s carpet. With effort, he raises his head and looks towards Joyce. ‘You drugged me.’

‘I did,’ admits Joyce.

‘You said you wouldn’t,’ says the Viking.

‘Forgive me,’ says Joyce. ‘You were going to kill Viktor. And you’re very imposing.’

‘That is a fine beard,’ says Ibrahim. ‘How do you go about growing a beard such as that? Do you use oils?’

‘Maybe a question for another time, Ibrahim,’ says Viktor.

‘Anyone can grow a beard,’ says Ron.

Viktor gets down on his haunches. Ron remembers a time when he could get down on his haunches. Viktor has been lucky with his knees. ‘What’s your name, Viking?’

‘No one shall ever know my name,’ says the Viking.

‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ says Viktor.

‘No one shall ever speak my name,’ says the Viking, and lets out a roar.

‘Well, someone’s woken up,’ says Joyce. Alan wanders in from the bedroom to investigate the noise.

Ron gives Pauline a reassuring wink. She is sitting forward, enjoying the theatre.

‘Best date ever, Ron,’ she says.

‘Let’s talk about why you want to kill me so much,’ says Viktor. ‘OK?’

‘You will regret this,’ says the Viking. ‘Every one of you will regret this.’

‘I cost you money, I understand that,’ says Viktor. ‘I refuse to recommend you. But you understand why? Cryptocurrency is risky.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ says Joyce. ‘Someone’s been reading the mainstream media.’ She ruffles Alan’s hair. ‘Haven’t they, Alan? Yes, they have.’

‘You’re living in the past,’ says the Viking.

‘There is truth in that,’ says Viktor. ‘I live where I am comfortable. I live where my skills are. You will be the same in thirty, forty years. Talking about cryptocurrency while the youngsters laugh at you. But you know what is good for you here? I live in the past because I’m old. I am old, my Viking friend, and you know what that means? It means you don’t have to kill me, you just have to be patient. The cells in my body, they atrophy as we speak. Everyone you see before you will be dead before you know it.’

‘Keep it light, Viktor,’ says Pauline.

‘So I’m a fool. So I’m in your way, I cost you some money.’ Viktor shrugs. ‘You’re doing OK, I heard about your house. Just go about your business – you do it well, I know. You know why no one has killed me yet?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I never kill anyone,’ says Viktor. ‘Honestly, once you start, that’s it, you have to keep killing.’

‘That’s like lip salve,’ says Pauline. ‘Once you start using it, your lips dry out, and so you have to keep using it.’

Viktor gestures towards Pauline to show his point is proven. ‘So here is my suggestion. You get on with your life, launder money, enjoy your house, don’t kill people. I’ll get on with my life, do my job, then die of natural causes in five to seven years if you’re lucky.’

‘And if I disagree? If I still think you cost me too much money?’

‘Then kill me,’ says Viktor. ‘I’ll put the word out today, to my many friends and associates, that you wish to kill me. And when my body is found, they will come to their own conclusions, and they will track you down and murder you.’

A key turns in Joyce’s door. Viktor throws himself on the ground, pointing his gun towards it. As it opens, Bogdan walks in, and Viktor reholsters the gun. Walking behind Bogdan is Stephen, looking very dapper in a suit. The Viking is focusing on Viktor, however.

‘Your friends won’t find me,’ says the Viking. ‘No one knows me. Look at you, a KGB colonel, and you have found out nothing about me. And you’ – he turns to Elizabeth – ‘an MI6 officer, you have found out nothing about me. I am a ghost. You can’t kill a ghost.’

As the Viking makes his speech, Ron sees Stephen take a seat on one of Joyce’s dining chairs. He pulls a notepad out of his pocket. Ron sees that Stephen’s hands are shaking. But not from fear.

‘Ghost are you, chief?’ says Stephen, tapping his notebook. He has the immediate attention of the room. ‘Nice to see you again by the way. This is the Viking you were talking about, then, Elizabeth.’

‘Yes, dear,’ says Elizabeth. ‘The very one.’

‘Henrik Mikael Hansen, born in Norrköping on 4 May 1989.’ Stephen reads from his notebook. ‘Mum a pastry chef, dad a librarian. What do you say to that?’

‘You are wrong,’ says Henrik Mikael Hansen of Norrköping. ‘You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m Swedish, but apart from that. No one is a pastry chef.’

‘You love books, Henrik,’ says Stephen. ‘I love them too. You have quite the collection. A lot of them unique. And with unique books you can usually find a record of their sale. Nowadays you buy them all through a holding company, but, when you first started collecting, you used your own name, and that’s how we discovered your identity. It was a first edition of Wind in the Willows that gave you away.’

‘No,’ says Henrik. ‘This is impossible.’

‘Far from it, Henrik. It is an admirable way to get caught, at least. Once we had the name, everything else fell into our laps. Your sister is currently skiing, for example,’ says Stephen. ‘That’s from Facebook.’

‘Stephen,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Stephen.’

‘Just doing my bit,’ says Stephen. ‘Mainly Kuldesh. We owe them dinner.’

‘You’ve really been to see Kuldesh?’

‘I told you I had,’ says Stephen.

‘Yes, I –’ says Elizabeth.

‘We drove down,’ says Bogdan. ‘Was a secret.’

Elizabeth fixes Bogdan with a stare. ‘Full of little secrets at the moment, aren’t you, Bogdan?’

Everyone else has turned to look at Henrik Hansen.

Ron is glad he was invited to witness this whole scene. Previously it’s the sort of thing Elizabeth and Joyce would have taken care of themselves, only to fill him in the next morning. He is aware he hasn’t yet been helpful, but he is grateful to be in the room.

‘I am not Henrik Hansen,’ says Henrik Hansen.

‘I think you probably are,’ says Elizabeth. ‘My husband doesn’t get an awful lot wrong.’

‘Henrik, we can be friends,’ says Viktor. ‘Or, if not friends, then acquaintances who choose not to kill each other. If you leave me in peace, I will make sure my many clients leave you in peace too.’

‘No, I am not Henrik,’ says Henrik again, his anger rising. ‘You are all wrong, and you are all dead. Every single one of you.’

‘Henrik,’ says Joyce, kindly, ‘you couldn’t even kill me.’

‘Then I won’t kill all of you. I will kill one of you,’ says Henrik. ‘Yes. As a lesson for the others. The second you let me go, the hunt begins.’

Henrik’s eyes scan the room, looking for prey. They settle on Ron.

‘You,’ says Henrik. ‘I will kill you.’

Ron rolls his eyes. ‘It’s always me.’

‘You will never see me coming,’ says Henrik.

Pauline stands, slowly and calmly. She walks over to Henrik and places a hand on either side of his face. The room falls silent.

‘Henrik, listen to me carefully, my darling. I’ve met a thousand men like you, and I know you need things spelled out for you. So here goes. If you even dream of touching a hair on Ron’s head, I will kill you. That man is under my protection, and if any harm comes to him I will put bullets in your knees, and then in your elbows, and then, when I’ve tired of hearing you screaming, which will take a long, long time, I will put a bullet in your head to finish you off. In fact, if Ron wakes up with so much as a cough, I will find you, and I will cut out your heart and eat it. And I will send the video evidence to your mum, the pastry chef. Do we have the beginnings of an understanding?’

Henrik is losing heart quickly. He points at Ibrahim now. ‘Then I will kill him.’

Pauline squeezes his face even tighter. ‘That’s Ron’s best friend. Which makes him my best friend too.’

Ron has not seen Ibrahim blush before.

‘No one dies here today,’ continues Pauline. ‘Viktor has been very reasonable, so stop pretending to be a psychopath.’

‘I am a psychopath,’ protests Henrik.

‘Darling,’ says Pauline, letting go of Henrik’s face, ‘a psychopath would have shot Alan.’

Alan gives a happy woof. He likes hearing his name.

Henrik looks beaten. ‘I thought this would be easier.’

‘I’m going to get you a water,’ says Joyce. ‘It will be quite safe, I promise you.’

‘Thank you, Joyce,’ says Henrik. ‘I should have chosen the flower mug. Even as I chose the motorbike mug, I thought, “Oh, come on, that’s so clichéd.”’

‘We’re all programmed,’ says Joyce. ‘Joanna made me watch a YouTube video about it.’

‘I’m going to untie you now,’ says Viktor. ‘I can trust you, yes? Even if I can’t, I have a gun, and I’m assuming Elizabeth has a gun too. Perhaps even Pauline has one.’

Viktor loosens the baling wire around Henrik’s wrists, and he wriggles his hands free. Joyce comes back in with the water and Henrik takes it from her.

‘Thank you, Joyce,’ he says.

‘I can take a sip of it if you’d like?’ says Joyce.

The room falls into a momentary, contented silence. It is broken by Pauline again.

‘Can I make an observation?’

Ron looks at Pauline, who, once again, has the attention of the room. My God, he’s got a hell of a woman on his hands here.

‘I love an observation,’ says Ibrahim. ‘It is grist to my mill. Especially coming from a good friend such as you, Pauline.’

‘OK, here’s how I see things,’ says Pauline. ‘And I’ve only known you a short while. But this is just my take, and who am I to say? But each and every one of you in the room, each and every one of you, in your own different way, is absolutely barking mad.’

Joyce looks at Elizabeth. Elizabeth looks at Ibrahim. Ibrahim looks at Ron. Ron looks at Joyce. Viktor and Alan look at each other.

Stephen surveys the room. ‘She has a point.’

‘I’ve known you for just over two weeks, and I’ve already been in a grave with a KGB colonel, I’ve seen a tiny old woman drug a Viking, and I’ve shared a bed with the most handsome man in Kent. For three or four years in the eighties I did a lot of magic mushrooms. I once did LSD in Bratislava with Iron Maiden. But nothing – nothing I’ve ever done – compares to a couple of days in your company. What else have you got in store?’

‘Well,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Tomorrow we’re digging up a garden with the Chief Constable of Kent, looking for a body and a gun.’

‘Bethany’s body?’ says Pauline. She is suddenly serious.

‘Bethany’s body,’ confirms Elizabeth. ‘Now, Henrik, I wonder if you might stick around here for a day or so? There’s a spare room at Ibrahim’s, if Ibrahim wouldn’t mind?’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Henrik has had a long and traumatic day.’

‘I just want to go home,’ says Henrik.

‘All in good time, Henrik,’ says Elizabeth. ‘There’s a task I think you might be able to help us with first.’

61: Joyce

Inspector Gerry Meadowcroft lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. A cloud of smoke drifted across his fierce blue eyes. Eyes that had seen too much killing, too much blood, too many widows. He felt the weight of a gun in his pocket. Would he have to use it?

Gerry could kill. He had killed before, and he would kill again if he was called upon. But not through choice, never through choice. Each time he killed, Gerry Meadowcroft lost a piece of his soul. How many pieces did he have left? Gerry was in no mood to find out.

He thought back to his training at Ashford Police College. Not everyone trained at Hendon, that was a misconception.

What do you think? I’ve been inspired to give writing a go. There is a short-story competition in the Evening Argus, first prize a hundred pounds and a Zoom call with a literary agent. I don’t really want to do any more Zoom calls than I absolutely have to, but I could give the hundred pounds to Alan’s rescue centre, and it might be fun, mightn’t it?

My detective is named after Gerry, though my Gerry had brown eyes, because you have to change some things. Also, my Gerry had hayfever, and I’ve changed that too. I can’t just have my Gerry pottering about solving a murder. So this Gerry has blue eyes and a gun, while my Gerry had brown eyes and an organ-donor card. But my Gerry often said, ‘Well, then, Bob’s your uncle,’ and I’m going to make that the detective’s catchphrase too.

At the moment, the story is called ‘Cannibal Bloodbath’, but I might change that, because it gives away too much of the plot.

62

So they think they know where Bethany might be buried. Buried. That just makes no sense at all. Oh, Bethany, what on earth did you get involved in?

Mike Waghorn pours himself a glass of cider. He doesn’t really drink cider in public, it doesn’t look right. In public, he drinks champagne, good wine, the sort of stuff people would expect Mike Waghorn to drink. A beer if he’s fitting in with the lads at a corporate do.

But when Mike was a teenager, he would only drink cider, and as he gets older he finds himself returning to it. He has tried expensive cider, you can get that now. Waitrose does one, but, really, the cheaper the better with cider. The one he is currently drinking is from a two-litre plastic bottle. He has poured it into a heavy cut-glass decanter, just for appearances, but he might stop doing that soon as well. Who is he trying to fool? There is no one here, so he can only be fooling himself.

He washes down his arthritis pills, then his beta-blockers, and his gout medication. You’re not really supposed to drink alcohol with any of them, but no one is going to stop him.

He is watching Stop the Clock on a very big television. Fiona Clemence looks wonderful. He thought he should probably give it a go, after Joyce mentioned it. Admit some professional jealousy, swallow a bit of pride, he has plenty to spare, and watch it once. See if Fiona Clemence is any good. He hoped not.

Annoyingly, he watched an episode and is now hooked. Fiona is OK, friendly enough, good at reading out loud, but what a quiz. Mike imagines what he might have done with it. Every time a contestant says something, Mike thinks about how he would respond. Once or twice Fiona Clemence says the same thing as he would have done, and that irks him a little, but, overall, he thinks he’d be slightly better.

But isn’t that just the thing, Mike? You can think all you like, but you never did it. Never took the risks. He filmed a pilot once, the late eighties or so. It went well, everybody agreed, ITV loved it, commissioned a series, but wanted one little change. Could they get a different host? Someone younger, someone – and these words remained etched in his mind for a long time – ‘more authentic, more real’.

Mike never put his perfectly groomed head above the parapet again, never left the burrow, however much he could smell the air outside. ‘More authentic, more real’ – for years he had railed against this insult. Mike was real, Mike was authentic, and if some twenty-somethings from London with fashionable hair and trainers couldn’t see that, the problem was not with Mike, it was with them.

So there he sat, behind his desk, year in, year out, telling the people of Kent and Sussex about fires in care homes, building-society robberies in Faversham, or a Hastings man claiming to have the world’s largest bouncy castle. And he was real enough and authentic enough for the people of Kent and Sussex, thank you very much. Walk through the streets of Maidstone or East Grinstead and see who thinks Mike is real. Everyone.

There were a couple more approaches from national TV, never anything concrete or exciting, but approaches nonetheless. But Mike refused even to consider them. He was happy where he was, thank you.

Except, Mike thinks back, looking at his cider in the ridiculous decanter, he wasn’t happy at all. Did he know he wasn’t happy? No, he had enough booze, and enough local adulation to keep him sedated, to keep his train on the tracks. He’d started to become a little more irritable, sure, a little bit more demanding of those he worked with, probably less fun to be around. But that, to his mind, was just professionalism, in a world where the people around him started getting younger and younger. As the teams he was used to working with started drifting off to bigger things, to London, or, in one particularly galling case, to Los Angeles.

But Mike was not happy. And the reason that Mike was not happy was that Mike was not authentic, and Mike was not real.

And who taught him that lesson?

Bethany Waites.

How old was he when Bethany arrived? She was a researcher first, so maybe 2008? Wikipedia will tell you that Mike Waghorn was fifty-six in 2008, but he was sixty-one. Bethany would have been early twenties, he supposes, down from Leeds, with a Media Studies degree of all things. She would make him tea, he would tell her what a waste of time a Media Studies degree was, she would bring him stories her more experienced colleagues had missed, he would buy her a pint after work, she would challenge him, goad him, encourage him, and he would make sure she got safely into a taxi at the end of the night.

A year or so in, Mike told Bethany she should be appearing on air. Bethany, typically, did not disagree with this assessment. So she started filming reports. Then, every now and again, she’d pop into the studio to discuss those reports. Then, when Mike’s co-host was on an ill-advised holiday, Bethany would step in, and, before you knew it, Mike and Bethany were the team at South East Tonight.

One evening they had been having a pint near the studio, as they often did, and there was a copy of Kent Matters on the bar. It was a local magazine, just photos from events, adverts for spas and expensive houses, that sort of thing. There had been a picture of Mike in the magazine. He was looking very suave, wearing a tux, at some business event or other. The Kent Accountancy Awards maybe. He remembered that one because he had fatally mispronounced the name of the awards very early on, and had the crowd firmly on his side from thereon.

He had taken Pauline as his ‘plus one’, as he often did in those days. She liked a drink, and he liked having someone else to talk to other than an accountant from Sevenoaks who hadn’t heard of him but demanded a selfie nonetheless.

Bethany had pointed the picture out, his arm around Pauline’s waist, and Mike had smiled, and told her about the ‘Kent Accountancy’ slip-up. Bethany then began the long process of making Mike a better, happier man.

‘You should have been there with your boyfriend,’ she had said. Very matter of fact, bag of peanuts torn open and spatchcocked on the table in front of her. Mike can see it and hear it now.

They had another pint, and another, and another. Mike had never really spoken about being gay before. Not openly, in a pub, with a colleague. He was old enough to have kept his sexuality hidden, a rolled-up secret in a deep pocket. It had never seen the light of day before.

And why? Well, a hundred reasons. A thousand reasons. But those reasons were all tied together with a knot of shame. And it was that knot that Bethany began to unpick. Bethany refused to let Mike feel shame. She was from a different generation. A generation Mike envies. He sees them sometimes, out on the streets. He is certain they have their vulnerabilities and their insecurities, and they certainly still have many fights, but the joy with which they choose to present themselves – it makes Mike so proud and so jealous all at once.

The process wasn’t quick, and the process wasn’t easy, but Bethany was by his side throughout. Mike came out to friends. He came out to colleagues. He remembers telling Pauline for the first time. He was very serious, very solemn as he told her his secret. Pauline gave him a huge hug and just said, ‘At last, my love. At last.’

Mike sometimes wonders why Pauline hadn’t been the one to confront him, but, again, different generations.

Mike has never officially come out to the public, although they could find out if they really wanted. And he still goes to events with Pauline from time to time, but also with Steve, or Greg, or any of the other men he has managed to grasp but not hold.

And, bit by bit, he recognized that he was changing. He still looked amazing, sure, still wore the suits and the hairspray and flirted with the women, but he had started to become himself. To be authentic, and to be real. And, what do you know, happiness followed.

He became a better man, a better friend, a better colleague, a better presenter. If ITV had filmed their pilot now, Mike would get the job, without doubt.

The irony being that Mike wouldn’t want it any more. South East Tonight was no longer where Mike Waghorn hid, it was where he flourished. The building-society robberies, the bouncy castles and the twenty-five-year-old cats. He reported because he cared. Cared about himself, and about his community. Mike had Bethany to thank for that.

Was he still an idiot at times? Sure. Could he still be difficult? Yes, particularly when hungry. But he could look himself in the mirror without turning away.

Mike takes another swig of cider. He is waiting for the boxing to come on, and is currently having to sit through endless adverts for gambling companies. One of them is presented by Ron’s son, Jason Ritchie. A fine fighter, he was.

Mike got the text from Pauline an hour or so ago. They start digging for the body tomorrow. Digging for Bethany’s body. His wonderful, talented, headstrong friend. She could have done anything, she could have been anything. The world would have known her name.

Bethany saved Mike’s life, and Mike was never able to repay that debt in her lifetime. But he could repay it now. With the help of the Thursday Murder Club. Find her killer, bring her peace. Heather Garbutt? Jack Mason? Someone they have yet to consider? Mike feels he is about to find out.

And that is the least he could do for Bethany Waites.

63

Heather Garbutt’s home is on an ugly road with a pretty name. To the front there is a driveway lined with hedges, now overgrown, that bends away from the road, hiding the house from the traffic. You could drive past this spot every day and never see the slow decline of a once-handsome house. To the back there is a garden, and then woodland, separating it from a municipal golf course.

The house itself is a bungalow. It had been pleasant enough at one point: they looked up the estate agent’s pictures of the last time it had sold on Rightmove. Four beds, big sitting room overlooking the garden, a kitchen that the estate agents said was ‘in need of modernization’, but which Joyce rather liked. Perhaps not the house of someone rich, but the house of someone who worked with someone rich. Comfortable, in every sense. It had been listed at three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds, though a quick house-price search revealed that Jack Mason had paid four hundred and twenty-five thousand for it. He was clearly a motivated buyer, as Joyce supposes she would be if there was evidence that could send her to prison buried in the garden.

The whole place is running wild now. Jack Mason might have bought it, but it seems he doesn’t visit it. Ron had rung Jack last night, to see if he could give them the keys, but Jack wasn’t answering. Is he already regretting telling Ron and Viktor about the body? He hadn’t named his co-conspirator, but, other than that, he had come dangerously close to grassing. Ron knows that won’t have come naturally. And, if they do find something, what will that mean for Jack?

Two constables force open the door, pushing it unwillingly back against a pile of mail. Who is still delivering mail, Joyce wonders? Who takes a look at this house, clearly abandoned, returning to nature, and delivers a pizza leaflet? Joyce sees a National Trust magazine on top of the pile. She suspects she might have rather liked Heather Garbutt.

Elizabeth has gone around the side of the building with Chief Constable Andrew Everton, but Joyce goes through the front door because she wants to be nosy. And the lovely thing about investigating a murder is that you can be nosy and call it work. Joyce is disappointed that there is not much to see, however. All traces of Heather Garbutt are gone. The only clue she was ever here are the paler squares of wallpaper where pictures had once hung. At least there is no need to be careful, to tiptoe around and not touch. Joyce has free rein. The house had been searched many years ago, and any evidence there might have been here is long gone.

But no one had searched the garden. Why would you? With a body washed out to sea, what was there to dig for? Joyce walks into the sitting room, lovely patio doors framing the view of a large yellow digger, police tape flapping, and Chief Constable Andrew Everton, in a peaked cap and a hi-vis jacket, taking command of the scene. One of the constables slides open the doors, and Joyce walks out onto the patio decking. Joyce watches her step: decking gets too slippery, you are so much better off with stone. She has to admit, though, that this decking looks in better shape than the rest of the overgrown garden and fading house.

The digger has been here since eight this morning. The garden, and even bits of the woodland beyond, are pocked with holes. Two men in hard hats are just beginning to dismantle the decking. Tiny coloured flags mark where holes have been dug and where they are yet to be dug. Joyce spots Elizabeth. She is, surprise, surprise, monopolizing the Chief Constable.

‘What a lot of holes,’ says Joyce. ‘And I was right about that kitchen, even now it’s very liveable. Lots of storage.’

‘The holes are not all ours,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Someone, let’s assume Jack Mason, has been doing their own digging over the years. Especially as you get into the woods.’

Joyce looks into the woodland behind the garden. There are uniformed officers digging with shovels.

‘That’s a lot of police officers,’ she says.

‘I’m the Chief Constable,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘People tend to jump when I ask for something. I’m told the only skeleton we’ve found so far was a guinea pig’s.’

‘We were digging in Vladivostok once,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I forget why, a warlord had buried something or other. Anyway, we uncovered a prehistoric moose. Intact, antlers and all. We were all set to fill the hole back in, but the head of the Russian Service at the time was on the board of the Natural History Museum, and in the end we released a Russian spy from Belmarsh Prison in return for the moose. It’s on display if you go there now.’

‘Right,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘You stop listening after a while,’ says Joyce. ‘She’s always digging something up, or upsetting Russia. Do you believe Jack Mason’s story? About the partner?’

Andrew Everton considers the question. ‘It’s an unusual thing to make up. And, if he’s lying, he’s lying for a reason, and I wouldn’t mind finding out what that reason is.’

‘Any news back on Heather Garbutt’s death?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Any forensics?’

Andrew Everton shrugs. ‘Here’s the thing about dusting a prison cell for fingerprints. There are hundreds of them, and most of them belong to people with criminal records.’

Elizabeth snorts.

‘Honestly, ignore her,’ says Joyce.

A woman enters the garden from the side of the house. She wears white coveralls, and plastic sleeves over her shoes. Forensics. Just what Joyce has been looking for. She will let her settle and then go to speak to her. It never hurts to ask, does it?

There is activity in the woodland, and a constable in muddied uniform runs out towards them from the trees.

‘Sir,’ says the constable. ‘We’ve found something.’

Andrew Everton nods. ‘Good work.’ He turns to Elizabeth and Joyce. ‘You two stay here.’

This time they both snort.

64

‘I don’t know if there has ever been so much testosterone in this room,’ says Ibrahim, as he carries in a tray of sweet mint tea for everyone.

Viktor and Henrik are at the dining table, hunched over the financial documents from Heather Garbutt’s trial. Ron is sitting on the sofa, watching something on his phone, and Alan is looking out of the window, wondering when Joyce might be back. Occasionally he spots someone who might look a bit like her, and gets excited.

‘Five boys,’ says Ibrahim, pouring the tea. ‘Henrik, how is your murderous rage? Subsided?’

‘It is forgotten,’ says Henrik. ‘It was tactically naive.’

‘You fellas found anything?’ asks Ron.

‘Nothing,’ says Viktor.

‘Thought Henrik was the best money-launderer in the world?’

‘I am,’ says Henrik. ‘That is provable.’

‘Well, Bethany Waites found something in there that you’re missing,’ says Ron.

‘And it got her killed,’ says Ibrahim.

‘So at the moment you’re just a guy with a beard.’

‘Ron, Henrik is a guest,’ says Ibrahim.

‘A guest?’ says Ron, still not looking up from his phone. ‘Yesterday he wanted to kill Joyce, and now he’s a guest.’

‘And he wanted to kill me too,’ says Viktor.

‘Guys, it was an error,’ says Henrik. ‘I wanted to be tough. I cannot keep apologizing.’

‘No need to apologize if you find out who killed Bethany Waites,’ says Ron.

‘We will find out,’ says Henrik.

‘Did Bethany Waites say anything to anyone?’ asks Viktor. ‘About what she’d found?’

‘Nah,’ says Ron.

‘Nothing about “Carron Whitehead” or “Robert Brown Msc”?’

‘Nothing about anyone,’ says Ron. ‘Far as we know. Henrik, you rich enough to buy a football club?’

‘I already own one,’ says Henrik.

Ibrahim sits at the dining table. ‘Well, she did say something. To someone.’

‘What did she say?’ asks Viktor.

‘She sent a message to Mike Waghorn,’ says Ibrahim. ‘A couple of weeks before she disappeared.’

‘Do you have the message? It might be important,’ asks Viktor.

‘I don’t think there was anything in it,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But we could ask Pauline to ask Mike?’

‘They’re both coming over for lunch in a bit,’ says Ron.

‘You are taken with Pauline, Ron,’ says Viktor.

‘Well, you’re taken with Elizabeth,’ says Ron.

‘I know,’ says Viktor. ‘But I have no chance. You have every chance. What luck.’

Ron shrugs, a little embarrassed. ‘We’re friends.’

‘Love is very precious,’ says Viktor, and takes a sip of his mint tea.

‘I wonder if I could ask you to put a lace doily under your teacup,’ says Ibrahim. ‘To prevent the wood from marking.’

‘Could I use your bathroom?’ asks Henrik. ‘I forgot to moisturize this morning, and I can feel myself drying out.’

Ron looks at Ibrahim. ‘So much testosterone in one room, mate. So much testosterone.’

Alan barks at a chaffinch.

65

They found the gun wrapped in a pale blue cloth, buried about thirty feet or so into the woodland. Elizabeth had taken a look before it had been driven away for examination. When she’d heard the word ‘gun’, she had expected a revolver, some sort of handgun at least. But this was an assault weapon, semi-automatic. Andrew Everton looked as surprised as she did – it was a hell of a gun. There was no ammunition, but there was a metal box, which looked to contain around a hundred thousand pounds or so in cash.

So perhaps they had found the murder weapon, and, finally, some of the proceeds of the scam. Time and forensics would tell. The Forensic Officer on scene should presumably be heading back fairly soon, but is currently being monopolized by Joyce. They are sitting together on Joyce’s raincoat, which has been spread over a mossy bench. What they are talking about, heaven only knows. Elizabeth is walking out of the woods with Andrew Everton.

‘Seems like you owe us one,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I’ll owe you one when we find Bethany’s body,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘We’ll start concentrating the search in the same spot.’

‘Feels like it should be enough to arrest Jack Mason,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Ask him a few questions?’

‘Leave that with me,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘You can’t do everything.’

That was a moot point, but Elizabeth doesn’t feel the need to argue. ‘Do keep us informed though.’

Andrew Everton bows to her, a little sarcastically for Elizabeth’s liking. ‘Ma’am.’

Elizabeth veers off in the direction of Joyce and the Forensic Officer. She hears Joyce’s conversation as she approaches.

‘But say that three bodies are left in a cellar for many years,’ Joyce is saying. ‘At what stage would the smell disappear?’

Is Joyce asking her about the case in Rye?

‘Do they have wounds?’ asks the Forensic Officer.

‘They have been dismembered by a chainsaw,’ says Joyce.

That doesn’t sound like the case in Rye.

‘Well, they would bleed out very quickly,’ says the Forensic Officer. ‘So putrefaction would also occur fairly quickly. The smell would be awful for the first, let’s say two months, then gradually things would return to normal.’

‘Bit of Febreze every now and again,’ says Joyce.

Elizabeth reaches the bench and addresses the Forensic Officer. ‘Is my friend bothering you? She does that sometimes.’

‘Not at all,’ says the FO. ‘I’m helping her with her story.’

‘With her story?’ Elizabeth takes a look at Joyce, who won’t meet her gaze.

‘I thought I might give it a try,’ says Joyce to the flowerbed. ‘You know I like to write.’

‘Three bodies in a cellar,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That sounds familiar.’

‘You’re allowed to base things on real cases,’ says Joyce. ‘Andrew Everton does it all the time.’

‘Where do the chainsaws come in?’

‘You have to add bits of your own too,’ says Joyce.

‘And you added chainsaws?’

Joyce nods, and gives a little smile. Elizabeth wonders, not for the first time, just how well she knows her friend.

‘Shall we head home and see how the boys are getting on?’ says Elizabeth. ‘And tell them we’ve found a gun?’

66

Pauline and Mike have arrived for lunch.

Alan literally can’t believe his luck. Even more people! If only Joyce were here, the whole scene would be perfect. Surely she won’t be much longer. Pauline is tickling his belly as Mike Waghorn takes a seat.

‘This is Henrik,’ says Ibrahim. ‘He is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, and Swede.’

Mike holds his hands together and says, ‘Namaste, Henrik.’

‘Henrik is also very good with money-laundering,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And this is Viktor, a former KGB colonel.’

‘Pauline has told me a lot about you, Viktor,’ says Mike.

‘Has she now?’ says Ron, and Pauline blows him a kiss.

‘It’s good to meet you, Mike Waghorn,’ says Viktor. ‘I will confess that two weeks ago I hadn’t known who you were, but I am now very familiar with your work. Though often I don’t catch everything you’re saying, because Joyce likes to keep up a running commentary through the local news.’

‘Any news on the search?’ asks Mike.

‘Still waiting,’ says Ron. Pauline told him that Mike had taken news of the garden search very badly. It was such an extraordinary story. The body buried as blackmail. The killer some unknown accomplice. Mike wants the murder to be solved, but it will be very final for him.

‘You arrive at an opportune moment, however,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Do you have the text of your message from Bethany to hand? About the new information? Viktor and Henrik would like to hear it in full. Perhaps it might unlock something.’

Mike takes out his phone and scrolls until he finds the message. He addresses Viktor and Henrik. Skipper. Some new info. Can’t say what, but it’s absolute dynamite. Getting closer to the heart of this thing.

Viktor nods. ‘She would call you “Skipper” normally? No clue there?’

‘Completely normal,’ says Mike.

‘And she would say “info” instead of “information”?’ asks Henrik. ‘It was normal for her to be informal?’

‘It was usually emojis and swear words, to be honest,’ says Mike.

‘Now, when she says –’

Alan starts jumping at the window and barking hysterically, as if he simply cannot begin to comprehend what he has just seen.

Viktor rolls off his chair, and crouches behind a sofa with his gun drawn. Mike raises one eyebrow. Henrik takes a moment, and then taps Viktor on the shoulder.

‘Viktor,’ he says. ‘You have to stop doing this. I’m the one who was trying to kill you. And I’m here.’

Viktor thinks for a moment, then accepts the truth of this observation, and puts the gun down the back of his trousers.

‘I’m glad I didn’t try to kill you,’ says Henrik, looking at the gun.

‘You should be glad,’ says Viktor, taking his seat once again. ‘I would be throwing your body off a North Sea ferry round about now.’

Ibrahim has buzzed his door open, and Elizabeth and Joyce walk into the room. Alan leaps at Joyce, and she gives him a cuddle.

‘Anything?’ asks Mike.

‘No body,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Not yet. But Jack Mason said there would be a gun, and there was. A big one.’

‘Was it the murder weapon?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘Yes, Ibrahim, it was,’ says Elizabeth. ‘The police handed me the gun, and I completed a full forensics check on it in the taxi on the way back.’

Ibrahim turns to Mike. ‘She is being sarcastic.’ Mike thanks him.

‘We will know soon enough,’ says Elizabeth.

‘And they found money too,’ says Joyce. ‘They think around a hundred thousand. Just buried in a tin.’

‘Andrew Everton thinks they have enough to bring Jack Mason in,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Money and a gun in his back garden. Might be enough to get him to talk. Tell us who buried them there.’

‘Good luck with that,’ says Ron.

Henrik has been ignoring this conversation, tapping away at his computer. ‘Umm … OK, I have something.’

The room turns to him as one, and he blushes.

‘Well, maybe I have something.’

‘I knew you’d come in handy,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Spit it out, and we’ll decide if it’s something or not.’

‘Mike,’ says Henrik. ‘In her message Bethany says that her news is “absolute dynamite”. Did she like to play little tricks?’

‘It amused her to fool me from time to time, let’s say that,’ agrees Mike.

‘Because what she found wasn’t “absolute dynamite”,’ says Henrik. ‘It was “Absolute Dynamite”.’

‘Absolute Dynamite?’ says Mike.

‘Very early in the money trail a hundred and fifteen thousand pounds is paid into an “Absolute Construction” in Panama,’ says Henrik. ‘That money is still there, as far as I am able to tell, which is actually quite far, because I am very good at this sort of thing.’

‘Not so good at killing pensioners,’ says Joyce, and gets a ‘Hear, hear’ from Viktor.

‘When “Absolute Construction” is set up, it seems that a web of subsidiary companies is set up beneath it, but no money was ever paid into them, so we have ignored them up to now. There is an “Absolute Demolition”, an “Absolute Cement”, an “Absolute Scaffolding” and, in Cyprus, a company called –’

‘“Absolute Dynamite”,’ says Ron.

Elizabeth looks around her. She puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder. ‘And when you look into “Absolute Dynamite”?’

‘You find two named directors,’ says Henrik. ‘One is our old friend Carron Whitehead, so that doesn’t really lead us anywhere. But finally we have a new name. The other director is a Michael Gullis.’

‘Michael Gullis?’ says Elizabeth. ‘Pauline, Mike? Anything?’

They look at each other, then back at Elizabeth, and shake their heads.

‘There was a Michael Gilkes who played for Reading,’ says Ron. ‘Midfielder.’

‘Thank you, Ron,’ says Elizabeth. Pauline taps Ron’s hand.

The room falls quiet once again, save for the tip-tapping of Henrik’s keyboard and Alan’s happy panting as he moves from person to person to receive his due attention.

‘Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘I don’t suppose you could join me outside for a moment?’

Elizabeth gestures that she certainly could, and they wander out to Ibrahim’s hallway.

‘Ask me,’ says Joyce.

‘Ask you what?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Ask me if I know the name Michael Gullis,’ says Joyce.

67

The team digging up the garden at Heather Garbutt’s old house had dug up the gun this afternoon. They were still digging now, under the searchlights as evening turned to night. Andrew Everton thought they had enough evidence at least to talk to Jack Mason. Chris and Donna had got the call.

‘You were so good again, I mean it,’ says Chris, reviewing Donna’s latest appearance on South East Tonight. She had discussed online fraud and flirted with a vicar who was in the studio, raising money for a ramp. Chris thinks about overtaking someone on a blind bend, then remembers it’s the dead of night, and he’s a police officer.

‘You just have to be yourself,’ says Donna. ‘Ignore the cameras.’

‘I’ve never been good at being myself,’ says Chris. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘Mum says you cried last night when you were watching Sex and the City.’

‘I did,’ agrees Chris.

‘Well, don’t start there,’ says Donna.

Chris especially loves his Ford Focus now there are no empty crisp packets in the footwell. He even had it shampooed the other day. Was that being himself?

‘How is Jack Mason going to take it, do you reckon?’ asks Chris. ‘An assault rifle and a hundred grand is tough to talk your way out of.’

‘He’s a pro,’ says Donna. ‘He’ll be charming. It’ll be tougher for him if they find Bethany’s body.’

‘He’ll walk away,’ says Chris. ‘Don’t you think? Doesn’t matter if he owns the property; there’ll be no forensic evidence after all this time.’

‘I saw this Polish film where they dug up a body after thirty years or something, and a tattoo had imprinted itself on a leg bone,’ says Donna.

‘You’ve been to see a Polish film?’ Chris asks.

‘It’s left here,’ says Donna. They had given up on the sat nav some time ago. Jack Mason’s house was on a private road, leading off a private estate, leading off a small track, leading off a country road. Deliberately hard to find, especially in this pitch darkness. As they take wrong turn after wrong turn, Chris thinks it would be easier to approach by boat and climb the cliff face.

Also, Jack Mason would be able to see anyone approaching from a mile away. Has he seen the lights of the yellow Ford Focus yet? Is he waiting for them? Does he know what’s in store?

They finally reach a pair of iron gates. The gates remain firmly shut as they approach, so Chris leans out of his window and tries the intercom. He buzzes intermittently for thirty seconds or so, but there is no response. So perhaps Jack has seen them coming after all.

Old Chris would have got back in the car and driven the perimeter of the property wall, looking for a way in, tutting all the while. But new Chris, slim, athletic Chris, starts to climb the gates instead. This brings Donna out of the car. He feels the pleasing burn of his muscles as he climbs, the gratifying response of muscles doing what they’re told. He must look great, he thinks, just as he snags and rips his trousers on an iron spike. Donna climbs up after him, at twice the speed, unhooks him, and they both clamber over the top of the gates and down onto Jack Mason’s driveway. New security lights flick on with almost every step.

Chris’s trousers are ripped beyond repair, and Donna gets full sight of a pair of Homer Simpson boxer shorts.

‘Honestly,’ says Donna, as the seat of Chris’s trousers flaps in the wind. ‘This is a perfect example of you being yourself. Did my mum choose those boxer shorts?’

‘No, I forgot to take my washing out of the machine last night,’ says Chris. ‘These are my emergency boxers. Let’s just arrest Jack Mason, shall we?’

As Chris walks up the driveway, Donna stoops to tie a shoelace. He keeps walking, until he hears a click.

‘Donna, did you just take a photograph of my arse on your phone?’

‘Me? No,’ says Donna, putting her phone back into her pocket.

The house itself soon appears, a silhouette in the halogen security lights. It is huge. Chris has never seen a private house this big. The only time you ever saw a house like this it had a gift shop and a tea room.

The wind is whistling around Chris’s backside now. Perhaps Jack will have a sewing kit? Can you ask for a sewing kit when you’ve just arrested someone?

As they climb the stone front steps to Jack Mason’s front door, Chris makes sure he is a step behind Donna. As he reaches to press the baronial bell, he notices the door is ajar, light streaming through a small gap out into the night. He and Donna share a look.

Donna pushes open the door, revealing the vast entrance hallway. There are sofas and side tables, portraits of men in wigs, a locked cabinet full of shotguns, a suit of armour on a plinth.

And, on the hallway carpet, the body of Jack Mason.

Running, Donna reaches him first. He is on his back, a gunshot wound to the head. In his hand is a small gun. He is freezing cold, and very dead.

Donna starts to secure the scene as Chris calls it in. They will have a long wait with the body.

Chris takes a closer look. That really is a very small gun. Chris tucks this thought away.

‘You OK?’ he says to Donna.

‘Of course I’m OK,’ says Donna. ‘You?’

Chris looks down at the body. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m OK too.’

They are both OK, but they put an arm around each other regardless.

Chris is thinking. The Thursday Murder Club starts looking into the Bethany Waites case and, before you know it, the two main suspects in her killing are dead. Hell of a coincidence. He glances at Donna. It looks like she’s thinking the same thing.

‘I’m just thinking,’ says Donna, ‘that we should really do something about your trousers before the circus arrives.’

68

Fiona Clemence thought she had heard the last of Elizabeth Best.

With her questions about Bethany Waites. With her accusations.

How wrong she was.

It was no secret that Fiona and Bethany hadn’t got on. What of it? It doesn’t mean you are going to drive someone off a cliff, does it?

So what if Fiona hadn’t cried on the tribute show? There had been two letters in the Evening Argus about it, which was the South East Tonight equivalent of a Twitter storm. But it meant nothing. Everyone cried at everything these days. You got rewarded for it. Fiona had pretended to cry at the BAFTAs, for example, and it had gone down very well. The Mail Online headline had been ‘TV Fiona turns on waterworks as she flaunts gym-honed body in figure-hugging dress’.

Does anyone ever actually cry for real, or is it always for attention? Her mum cried when her dad died, and within a week she was on a yacht with a dentist from her golf club. So spare us the histrionics.

You could point the finger all you liked at Fiona, but you wouldn’t get what you wanted.

Fiona Clemence is still trying to work out how Elizabeth got her number. Presumably her friend Joyce had tracked it down through her government contacts. Either way, the message had turned up last night.

I wonder if you might be able to help us, dear?

A few messages later, and Fiona knew the score.

Does she trust Elizabeth and Joyce? No. Do they really know who killed Bethany Waites? Fiona doubts that very much. But will she help them? For reasons she can’t quite access at the moment, yes, she probably will.

Fiona is filming an advert for yoghurt this morning. Or for breakfast cereal. She forgets which. She knows she has to lick her famous lips and say, ‘It’s delicious,’ but she hasn’t looked into it beyond that. She sits on a plastic chair in a cavernous studio as lights are adjusted, and groups of men in glasses congregate, scratching their beards, while much younger people hand them coffees.

Fiona is scrolling through her Instagram. Three point five million followers now. She has promised her Instagram adviser, Luke, that she will post a story today. He is very strict with her, but, seeing as he can get her twenty-five thousand pounds a time to post about a free holiday to the Maldives, she lets him be. But it’s all very regimented and boring. She is a brand now, and everyone wants to tell her what to do. And, worse, what not to do. Maybe she should push back against that a little? Next to her, a man dressed as a banana is eating a banana. She looks at the time. Just gone eleven a.m. It’s make-your-mind-up time, Fiona.

Elizabeth isn’t asking for much, in the grand scheme of things, but, even so, Fiona has a number of objections. At first she had told Elizabeth to speak to her agent (‘Oh, I don’t think we’ll be doing that, dear, do you?’). Elizabeth did her very best to persuade her. What’s the worst that could happen, Elizabeth had said. Well, plenty, is the truth. That’s why Fiona remains in two minds.

A woman dressed as a yoghurt pot walks past, so it probably is an advert for yoghurt. Fiona doesn’t eat yoghurt, ever since Gwyneth Paltrow once said something or other about it on TikTok.

Was Fiona walking into some sort of trap? Should she just say no and have done with it? Why is she even entertaining the idea?

Elizabeth and Joyce had fired all sorts of questions at her when they first met, and, truth be told, Fiona had quite enjoyed it. Quite enjoyed being accused of murder by a woman who had pretended to faint, and another woman with a revolver in her handbag.

So, if they want her help, sure. Perhaps. Maybe. It will make a splash at the very least. Everything is about new content. Something new. Fiona wonders what the Mail Online headline will be this time.

One of the men with glasses and a beard approaches her.

‘Hi, Fiona, I’m Rory, we’ve just done the tiniest rewrite, and I wanted to check you’d be OK with us putting a dab of yoghurt on your nose? We think it could really work. You know, for humour?’

Fiona gives Rory her full-beam smile. ‘I won’t be putting yoghurt on my nose, Rory.’

Rory nods. ‘Yep, yep, great. Let’s do it without the yoghurt on the nose. Love it.’

He disappears. The man dressed as a banana asks her for a selfie, and Fiona lets him know, very gently, that he is being unprofessional.

She goes back to her phone, and types out the information that Elizabeth has asked for. For the final time she asks herself why? For fun, perhaps? For something new and interesting to do? To see how it all plays out, certainly.

And, maybe – maybe – for Bethany?

Fiona shakes her head. She is not the sentimental type. She is doing it for followers. That must be the explanation.

She presses send. The deed is done.

69

Chris is having trouble hearing what Andrew Everton is saying. The room is very busy, and there is excited chatter all around. People are drinking on a weekday evening, and the air is heavy with that heady thrill. As they make their way to the table, Andrew Everton speaks directly into his ear.

‘Suicide?’

‘Looked like it,’ says Chris.

‘I don’t trust anything connected with this case,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘A friend of yours came to visit me.’

‘Oh, yes?’ says Chris, back into Andrew Everton’s ear.

‘A woman named Elizabeth,’ says Andrew Everton.

No surprises there.

‘Sorry about her,’ says Chris, as they reach their table.

‘Not at all,’ says Andrew Everton. Chris searches for his name card. He is next to Patrice, thank goodness. Sometimes they split couples up at these things. ‘She has a job for me.’

‘That sounds like Elizabeth,’ says Chris.

‘I can trust her?’ he asks.

‘God, no,’ says Chris, but his laugh says otherwise, and Andrew Everton nods.

Chris pulls Patrice’s chair out for her and she sits.

‘I could get used to this,’ says Patrice to Andrew Everton. ‘Who does Chris have to arrest to get invited back next year?’

Andrew Everton laughs.

Chris and Donna will both be receiving a ‘Highly Commended in the Line of Duty’ medal. They are gold-plated. Terry Hallet has one and has shown Chris pictures.

Andrew Everton addresses Chris and Patrice. ‘Do you want to see the medal?’

‘Go on, then,’ says Patrice. ‘Teachers don’t see medals very often.’

Andrew Everton reaches into a pocket and pulls out a small velvet pouch. He opens a drawstring and pulls out the gold medal inside.

‘Worth a few bob on eBay, that,’ says Patrice. She squeezes Chris’s hand.

Across from them are two empty chairs. Donna is bringing Bogdan. She had to come clean in the end. Polish cinema indeed. Patrice has yet to meet him, but she has just seen photos, and, as far as Chris is concerned, is a little too enthusiastic.

Bogdan is making Donna very happy though, and that is Chris’s only concern.

Patrice kisses him. ‘You excited?’

‘Never won anything before,’ says Chris.

‘My heart?’ says Patrice.

‘I can’t put your heart in my downstairs loo to show off to visitors, can I?’ says Chris. ‘You excited about meeting Bogdan?’

‘Oh my God,’ says Patrice. ‘So excited.’

Again, a little over-enthusiastic. Chris suspects that Bogdan would be a tough stepson-in-law to match. A lot of weddings needed before that happened though. Well, two weddings. Stop thinking about weddings, Chris. Say something to impress Andrew Everton.

‘I haven’t had a Toblerone for three months now.’

‘Is that so,’ says Andrew Everton. Jesus, Chris.

The compère, a comedian Chris has seen on TV, Josh something, kicks things off with a monologue. He’s very funny, ripping into everyone, and dealing with the drunken heckles that come his way. Chris sees Donna making her way through the side door of the Grand Ballroom. She is alone. Uh oh. Both he and Patrice watch as she makes her way over, and sits, her face like a cliff in a dark storm. An empty chair beside her.

‘No Bogdan?’ asks Chris.

‘Elizabeth needed him,’ says Donna.

Well, quite a theme was developing.

Was something going on they didn’t know about?