The Bullet That Missed

70: Joyce

I am in Staffordshire. We all are, pretty much. Everyone who needs to be, at least.

Elizabeth and Stephen are here: they are down the hallway, though they haven’t emerged yet this morning. Ron and Pauline are in the East Wing. This house has wings. Ibrahim drove them, and he is staying at the gatehouse at the end of the drive.

Henrik is here, naturally, it is his house. It’s like Downton Abbey, but with a pinball machine, and a hot tub.

Mike Waghorn is also here. I suggested he join us for a brandy in the library last night, but he wanted an early night as we have given him a job to do today. He is taking it seriously.

In the end it was just me and Ibrahim, sitting up, drinking and chatting. He is feeling very perky because he has cracked the identity of ‘Carron Whitehead’. He worked it out in the car on the way up here. When he told me, I double-checked and triple-checked, but he was quite right.

He really can be very clever. I’m still taking credit for ‘Michael Gullis’ though. That’s what really cracked the case.

I told Joanna I had worked it out and she said, ‘Well done’ and sounded like she meant it. There was even a thumbs-up emoji.

As for ‘Robert Brown Msc’, we are still none the wiser, but it doesn’t matter so much now. I’m sure we will work it out sooner or later.

Stephen had been given a guided tour of the library when he arrived. He looked like a boy, eyes wide, smile even wider. The years dropped away from him.

Viktor is having breakfast in his room, and making notes for later. Interesting to see how he plans these things out. Andrew Everton is on his way up too. It was the Kent Police Awards last night and he couldn’t miss it. They were giving Chris and Donna a commendation. I saw it on Donna’s Instagram. I think Bogdan should probably have been with her, but he had to drive Elizabeth and Stephen up here. I wonder if Donna minded? No one else seems to have spotted they are dating, but Pauline and I had a quiet gossip about it earlier. Donna certainly wasn’t smiling in the photographs.

One person who isn’t here is Fiona Clemence, but that’s not to say she isn’t involved.

Alan has stayed at home.

I make that sound as if it was his choice, as if he had a few things he wanted to catch up on. If we are all up here in Staffordshire, who is looking after him, you ask?

There is a new resident in the village. He is called Mervyn, and he is Welsh. I have always had a soft spot for the Welsh. He used to be the headmaster of a school. You can tell that too. Strict but fair. Grey hair, dark moustache, you know the look. Don’t mind if I do. I have shown him to Pauline at a distance and got a thumbs-up. I thought Pauline might have got a little upset about the way I questioned her at our afternoon tea, but not a bit of it. I suppose she just wanted the truth to come out as much as the rest of us.

Now, Mervyn has a Cairn Terrier called Rosie, and we bumped into each other a couple of days ago on a walk. Alan sniffed around Rosie and, I daresay if Alan were asked, he’d tell you I sniffed around Mervyn too. Long story short, we got chatting, and the same afternoon I dropped around a cherry Bakewell for him, just to say welcome to the village. Mervyn is going to feed and walk Alan while I’m gone. I told him I would be very grateful, and he gave me a little smile.

And, before you ask, yes, Mervyn is heterosexual. He’s had two wives and five kids, and there was a Top Gear DVD on one of his shelves.

We should only be here for twenty-four hours or so, unless something goes very wrong. Which reminds me, I must make sure that Ibrahim moves his car round to the back of the house. Bogdan didn’t need telling – his is hidden away.

We’re planning to kick off at about midday. I think everyone knows what they’re doing. I don’t really have a role as such, I just get to watch.

Which I think I’ve earned, given I worked out who murdered Bethany Waites.

Very soon the whole world will know.

I gave Mervyn my phone number, ‘You know, in case you want to send me a picture of Alan,’ but so far he hasn’t used it. I keep checking, but nothing.

71

It was an indignity to be dumped at the gates in a blindfold, but, if that’s the price of entry, so be it. Paranoia is to be expected.

The approach to the house is magnificent. Long, gravel driveway, topiary hedges, fountains, statues of lions. But today there are no staff tending to it. No gardeners or chauffeurs poking their noses in, able to tell what they’ve seen. It’s exactly as was promised. Looking up at windows ahead, no movement there either. You have to allow for the possibility that this is a trap, but, thus far, it doesn’t look like one.

The house itself is too big. Way too big if this man, the Viking, lives here alone. Given the secrecy involved in this whole operation, and given the monosyllabic nature of their email exchanges, that’s a fair bet. It will be just the two of them, and it will have to be played exactly right. Get what you’ve come for and go. Not easy, not easy at all, but the rewards will be worth it.

A push on the bell, and the sound of it reverberates deep inside this lonely house. How much would the Viking have paid for this place? Twenty million? At least.

Footsteps approach, and the huge oak front door opens. There he is, the man himself. What is he? Six six? Huge beard, Foo Fighters t-shirt clinging to a huge torso.

An offered hand, a shake.

‘You must be the Viking?’

‘And you,’ says the Viking, ‘must be Andrew Everton. Let me take you to my library.’

Andrew Everton follows the huge figure through a marble entrance hall, and into a carpeted corridor. Every wall is covered in art, most of it too modern for the Chief Constable’s tastes, but the odd sailing ship or Norman church here and there make up for it. The Viking leads him into a library, a cocoon of dark wood and red leather and soft lighting. Andrew Everton thinks about the sign on his office wall, CRIME DOESN’T PAY. We’ll see about that.

The Viking gestures to the walls, lined from floor to ceiling with books. ‘Are you a reader, Chief Constable?’

‘Love writing books more than reading them, if I’m honest,’ says Andrew Everton, and sits in an armchair indicated by his host. ‘We can probably skip all this chat if you’d rather? It’s a lovely house, it was a pleasant journey, I don’t need the loo, and I’m OK for water.’

The Viking nods. ‘OK.’ He sits on, and nearly fills, a two-seater leather sofa, and switches on a lamp beside him. ‘What do you need from me, Mr Andrew Everton?’

72: Joyce

The lamp is the key to the whole thing.

Once you switch it on, you switch on the cameras and microphones. We’re all in the staff kitchen at the back of the house, quiet as church mice, and now we can see the live images from inside the library. We can’t see Henrik, because he didn’t want to be on camera. Because of his criminal empire, not because he is shy. Although he is also quite shy, I think.

By the way, I checked my crypto account the other day, and it’s now worth fifty-six thousand pounds. So thank you, Henrik.

Andrew Everton looks very sure of himself. Has no idea of what he is walking into. Elizabeth gave him a tip-off – ‘absolutely between us, Andrew’ – about the Viking. The money-launderer who had been trying to kill us. ‘I can get you a meeting, don’t ask me how, and don’t ask me where, just thank me. Perhaps you could pay him a visit?’

And paying him a visit is exactly what Andrew Everton is doing now. Not to gather evidence, not to arrest him, but simply because he is a man in great need of a money-launderer.

Because Andrew Everton was the brains behind the VAT fraud. Andrew Everton killed Bethany Waites and blackmailed Jack Mason and Heather Garbutt into silence.

In his book Given in Evidence, I think I told you about it, the main character is a gangland boss called Big Mick. And Big Mick’s full name?

Michael Gullis.

A silly error very early on in the scam. We all make mistakes.

And in case you’re wondering if it might be a coincidence, the name of the other early payee also crops up in one of Andrew Everton’s books.

I told you Ibrahim cracked ‘Carron Whitehead’. It was simple really.

It’s an anagram of ‘Catherine Howard’. The teak-tough detective. Clever Ibrahim.

So our guess was that Andrew Everton, so far unable to unlock any of the proceeds of the fraud, might like to have a private chat with the Viking.

And that ‘private chat’ is what we’re watching right now.

73

‘I’m a police officer,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘You understand that, of course?’

‘I understand,’ says the Viking. ‘So long as you are not filming me or recording me, we are cool.’

‘Likewise,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Though if you are taping me, not a single word of it would be admissible in court anyway, so you’d be wasting your time.’

‘No one is taping anyone,’ says the Viking. ‘That’s not how I work. You say you need my help?’

Andrew Everton leans forward. ‘I have ten million pounds in various accounts around the world. I currently have no way of retrieving it without questions. I am hoping you might be able to help me.’

‘Ten million? Yes, easy,’ says the Viking. ‘What’s in it for me?’

‘Half a million,’ says Andrew Everton.

The Viking laughs.

‘And a chief constable on your payroll. You look after me, I’ll look after you.’

The Viking nods. ‘I need to know where the money is from. Some money I won’t touch.’

‘A VAT fraud, from about ten years ago. Mobile phones in and out of Dover. Easy money.’

‘Your idea? asks the Viking.

‘Guilty,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I was writing a book. I write, for my sins, and I came up with this scheme, just a plot really. But the more I thought about it, I realized, you know what, I’m not going to put it in the book, I’m going to do it for real.’

‘Clever.’

‘Well, sometimes I use real crimes for my plots. This time I used one of my plots for a real crime.’

‘How did you do it?’ asks the Viking.

‘I wasn’t a chief constable back then, but I knew a few people. Talked to a man called Jack Mason. Ran all sorts of dodgy enterprises, but he was always too smart to get caught. And that’s exactly what I needed. I told him the plan, and we went into business together.’

‘And you made ten million?’

‘Thereabouts,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Why did you stop?’

‘A journalist was looking into it. She was getting a little too close for comfort. Managed to send one of our team to jail, so we backed off.’

‘And did the journalist back off?’

‘Well, no,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘She died.’

74: Joyce

Elizabeth and Viktor look very happy with how this is all going.

You have to hand it to Henrik. ‘Your idea?’ ‘How did you do it?’ ‘You made ten million?’ ‘Why did you stop?’ All the questions that they drummed into him. The perfect confession.

Elizabeth knew Andrew Everton would be completely honest. He needs the Viking to trust him and help him, he has the ego to want credit for his own scheme, and, as he said himself, nothing on the tape could be used in a court of law.

But, of course, it doesn’t have to be. That’s the beauty of Elizabeth’s plan. Andrew Everton will be found guilty long before he sees the inside of a court.

Mike is pacing up and down the kitchen, practising his lines for later.

75

Fiona Clemence has so many messages from concerned friends.

Fi u been hacked

Insta hacked!

Have u seen ur Insta?

Fi, WTF?????

Fiona gets a few influential friends to spread the word.

Guys, @FionaClemClem has been hacked. Don’t watch!

summin weirdz going down on @FionaClemClem.

Some crazy hack.

Before you knew it there were over two hundred and fifty thousand people watching her Instagram Live, with the number rising by the second. And what they were all watching was not Fiona Clemence shopping for make-up, or giving hot yoga tips.

Instead, they were all watching the Chief Constable of Kent Police admitting to a multimillion-pound fraud on a livestreamed video.

You couldn’t see who he was talking to, but he was in some sort of library, and he was talking about mobile phones, and doing deals with criminals. The viewership continues to rise and rise as word is getting out. Insta, Twitter, TikTok, even people’s dads are WhatsApping now. They’re all watching, they’re all commenting, they’re all calling for the head of this Andrew Everton guy.

Even the hair-straightening technician she is with this morning shows Fiona his phone, and says, ‘You seen this?’

Apropos of nothing, Fiona also sees her number of Instagram followers race above four million as the saga unfolds on her ‘hacked’ account. At the moment, the Chief Constable is looking around the room, and you can hear someone tapping on a keyboard. The comments section is going crazy.

That’s all Elizabeth had asked for. The login and password for Fiona’s Instagram. ‘Only for an hour or so, dear,’ she had said. ‘I’m sure you won’t even notice.’

76

Andrew Everton sits patiently while the Viking types something into his laptop. So far, so good. He likes the Viking; the Viking seems to like him. More importantly, he trusts the Viking, and he feels safe in this cosy room, in the middle of nowhere. Andrew Everton gets the feeling he is going to leave here considerably richer than when he entered it.

The Viking closes his laptop. ‘You kill anyone?’

‘No,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘It was clean.’

‘You sure?’

‘Listen, I made money, I broke the law, I did bad things, but I didn’t kill anyone.’ What if the Viking decides this is too risky for him?

‘It says the journalist was called Bethany Waites,’ says the Viking. ‘Bethany Waites, she used to work at South East Tonight, she was the journalist who reported your story?’

‘That’s the one, yes,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘And she died,’ says the Viking. ‘Someone killed her?’

‘Yup,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Not me though. You’ve got no worries with me.’

‘I think I do have worries maybe,’ says the Viking. ‘The woman who went to jail, she was called Heather Garbutt?’

‘That’s right,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘And she died too?’

‘Again, yes, she did,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘And, again, nothing to do with me. She killed herself. Tragic, but –’

‘And your accomplice, Jack Mason?’

‘Let me stop you there,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Yes, he died too.’

‘A lot of people dying around you,’ says the Viking. ‘That worries me.’

‘Of course, absolutely, it should do,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘So I need you to be honest,’ says the Viking. ‘There’s just you and me here, and I need to trust you. Did you kill them?’

‘No,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Perhaps you killed one or two of them,’ says the Viking.

‘I didn’t kill any of them,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘It’s a big coincidence,’ says the Viking.

‘Yes,’ agrees Andrew Everton. ‘It’s a big coincidence. But you can trust me.’

77: Joyce

Ibrahim has everything open in front of him. Thousands of people are watching Fiona’s hacked livestream. ‘Bethany Waites’ is trending at number one on Twitter. People are sharing clips of her, posting newspaper articles from the time she disappeared. Her face is everywhere.

As is the face of Andrew Everton. The comments section is really going to town on ‘You can trust me.’ Kent Police have had to disable their Twitter account. It’s even on Sky News. They’re not allowed to show pictures, but they’re talking people through it.

So he’s admitted to the fraud, admitted to being Jack Mason’s partner, but he hasn’t admitted to the killings yet. I can’t say I expected him to. Even when there’re just two of you in a room no one wants to admit they’re a murderer, do they?

But that’s what we really want. For Andrew Everton to admit to what he has done. To tell the world the truth. To get justice for Bethany.

Elizabeth and Viktor are conferring in a corner. Whatever Elizabeth is saying, Viktor is nodding. I think it is time to send in the Bullet!

78

Behind the Viking is a closed door, which now opens. A man walks into the library. He is short and bald, and wears glasses too big for his face. What is going on here?

‘No,’ says Andrew Everton to the Viking. ‘No. It’s just you and me.’

‘This is my associate,’ says the Viking. ‘His name is Yuri.’

‘A pleasure to meet you, Chief Constable,’ says Viktor. ‘You have been a busy man.’

‘I didn’t agree to this,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘Give me one minute,’ says Viktor. ‘If you don’t like what I have to say, then I leave, and you may also leave too. You are quite safe.’

‘One minute,’ says Andrew Everton, his eyes looking for an exit.

‘My friend here, they call him the Viking, he is the genius in the room. Though you may be a genius too, Andrew. Might I call you Andrew?’

‘Certainly, Yuri,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘It is clear you are very clever, Andrew. A chief constable, congratulations. An acclaimed author, also, under the pen-name Mackenzie McStewart. I have recently read, and much enjoyed, To Remain Silent, a tour de force, in my opinion. Like John Grisham. Further to this list of accomplishments, we now discover you are a master criminal? Cop, crime writer, master criminal. I imagine the skills overlap somewhat?’

Andrew Everton nods. There is something about this man he likes. And he is right about To Remain Silent. It is very Grisham-esque.

‘Well, you are almost a master criminal, shall we say? You pulled off the robbery, very simple, very elegant, but have yet to see the proceeds. Which is where we come in. Can we track down your money? Yes, at least my friend can. Would we like to be in business with you? Again, yes, you are a powerful man, and you would be able to help us, I think, in a number of areas. Should you be willing?’

‘I would be willing,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘You get me that ten million and you can have whatever you want.’

‘We are of like minds, I see,’ says Viktor. ‘I imagined we would be. We both like money, certainly we do, but we are both moral men. We bend the rules at times, that is undeniable, but rules aren’t for everyone, are they?’

‘Agreed, agreed,’ says Andrew Everton. He is going to get his money, he can just feel it. All those years slogging away, and it’s finally going to come good. A house in Spain, a room to write in, overlooking the sea. He’ll pretend he’s signed a lucrative publishing deal, very hush-hush, and he’ll quit his job for good. This man, with his oversized glasses, is the final piece of the jigsaw.

‘But I need to trust you too,’ says Viktor. ‘I feel that I will. I feel that we are similar men. That we believe similar things about this tough world we live in.’

‘Goes without saying,’ says Andrew Everton. He saw a place online, on the Costa Dorada. It had two swimming pools, for goodness’ sake.

‘So I need you to tell me the truth,’ says Viktor. ‘About the journalist. And about your two friends. Three deaths, all connected to your fraud. I want to trust you, so I need you to come clean with me. You killed them, yes? It’s OK.’

Andrew Everton mulls over his reaction. What does this man want to hear? That he killed them? That he didn’t kill them? What is the ‘moral’ answer here? He makes up his mind.

‘I didn’t kill them,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘I am not a killer.’

Viktor nods. ‘So they each just died?’

Andrew Everton nods. ‘Yes they each … just died.’

‘I am disappointed, Chief Constable,’ says Viktor. ‘I had hoped for the truth.’

This puts Andrew Everton in a bind. Can this man possibly know the truth? He weighs up the different lies he might tell. He’s so close. Don’t blow it now. Stick to your guns; he will respect that.

‘I didn’t kill them.’

Viktor pulls a pained face. ‘Andrew, that is hard for me to hear. Given the information I have.’

‘What information?’ says Andrew. This has to be a bluff. It’s just a test. Keep denying, keep denying, and you’ll be in Spain before you know it.

‘That you murdered Bethany Waites. You buried her body in the garden of a house in Sussex, and used it to blackmail your co-conspirators, Jack Mason and Heather Garbutt, into keeping quiet about your fraud. That you had Heather Garbutt murdered in Darwell Prison, and, further, that you murdered Jack Mason two evenings ago.’ The Jack Mason bit is guesswork, but Andrew Everton doesn’t need to know that.

Andrew Everton is stunned, paralysed. Where could he possibly have got the information about Bethany’s body and the blackmail? It was impossible. Jack Mason would never have named him, not in a million years. And Heather Garbutt was too scared of what he could do. So how did he know?

‘Just the truth, Andrew,’ says Viktor. ‘And then we are sure what we’re dealing with. Then we can move forward with trust.’

Andrew Everton has to make a big decision. Confess? How can he stick to his version of the story when this Yuri seems to know the whole truth? Trust Yuri, and trust the Viking? Say the words? It’s just three men in a room, miles from nowhere. He’s very aware that the next sentence out of his mouth could make him ten million pounds.

‘OK,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘And you guarantee this information never leaves this room?’

‘No one is watching,’ says Viktor. ‘And no one is listening.’

Andrew Everton clasps his hands together, as if in a prayer of forgiveness.

‘I murdered Bethany Waites.’

79

Connie Johnson is watching the action unfold on her flat-screen TV. The Wi-Fi is behaving itself for once, and she is watching a feed of the action on YouTube.

That was that, then, all wrapped up. Andrew Everton in the frame. The Chief Constable. She’d met him a couple of times, seemed nice enough. But a killer? Who’d have thought? And how handy for Connie.

One person he definitely hadn’t killed was Heather Garbutt.

Connie had found Heather’s body when she’d gone back to visit her for another chat. Knitting needles and all. There had been a suicide note by the body, a few last goodbyes, etc. Heather Garbutt was terrified of something, and, watching Andrew Everton on screen, Connie now at least knows what.

Connie had thought quickly. Ibrahim and his gang were on the trail of Bethany Waites’s killer, and, in her estimation, would probably find the killer. She was right about that, wasn’t she? Connie figured it wouldn’t do any harm to get involved. To help out. The court might look a bit more kindly on her if she’d helped track down a murderer.

So she’d torn up Heather’s note – Farewell, can’t take it any more, something or other like that, she’d only skimmed it – and written her own. Made Heather sound like a murder victim, and cast herself as someone with information. A saviour.

Now Connie knows that Andrew Everton killed Bethany Waites, she can put part two of the plan into action. She just has to invent a bit of evidence to show he killed Heather Garbutt too. The guy in the admin block, the one with the Volvo who had wiped the tapes of her going into Heather’s cell that night? She bets he might just remember Andrew Everton visiting the prison that evening. And Connie will, no doubt, remember something Heather had said to her. Something innocuous about the police. ‘This goes right to the top,’ some nonsense. She’ll have fun inventing the memory.

Everton will be convicted, and Connie will get a few years knocked off her sentence for cooperating with the authorities. Beautiful. And the sooner she’s out, the sooner she’ll deal with Ron Ritchie.

She had to hand it to Ibrahim, he really came good.

Though she remembers him telling her that she cared about Heather Garbutt. And the fact that she cared was proof she wasn’t a sociopath.

And, all the while, she had Heather Garbutt’s torn-up suicide note in her pocket.

Therapy really is a fascinating process. She can’t wait for more.

80: Joyce

You can imagine the hullaballoo here when he said it.

‘Viktor strikes again,’ Elizabeth said. ‘The Bullet never misses.’

There are now more than three million people watching Fiona’s Instagram Live. They have all just heard the same thing, and they are not being shy in giving their opinion. They all want to see what happens next.

I’m typing as I watch. It’s all very relaxed now, the three of them just chatting about bank accounts. Viktor is pouring them each a scotch.

Ron has just been telling a story about a policeman in Yorkshire who hit him with a truncheon. I asked if a lot of people hit him in those days, and he agreed that they did.

Even for us, this was a hell of a team effort. Cracking the names on the financial documents, getting Jack Mason to open up, making friends with Fiona Clemence. ‘Friends’ might be pushing it, although, looking at the numbers on her Instagram account now, perhaps we will be. Henrik doing his bit, lovely Viktor getting the confession. And Pauline and Mike still to come. Pauline is having to reapply Mike Waghorn’s make-up, because he’s been crying. I’ve just told him that three million people are watching, and he says he’s ready.

Earlier, I asked Bogdan how Donna was, and he said how do you mean, and I said how do you think I mean, and he gave me the cutest little smile and a thumbs-up.

Talking of which, a text came through from Mervyn. I was excited to see his name on my phone, and all a flutter as I opened the message.

Alan OK.

Well, we can work on him. We’ve all just wished Mike luck. Time to get back to the action.

81

Donna and Chris are watching on Donna’s computer. Everyone in their office is watching. Everyone in Fairhaven police station is watching. Everyone in Fairhaven is watching. Everyone, full stop, is watching.

It is safe to say that Andrew Everton is today’s newest ‘Most hated man in Britain’. Though Donna notes that To Remain Silent is currently number one in Amazon’s ‘Movers and Shakers’ book chart.

What a masterstroke from whoever hacked Fiona Clemence’s Instagram. Speculation is rife as to who it might be. As if Chris and Donna couldn’t work out exactly who it was.

The latest development for the crowd huddled around Donna’s computer, all desperate not to be called away to some sort of crime or other, is that the old guy from South East Tonight, Mike Waghorn, has just walked into the Viking’s library.

‘There’s your mate, Donna!’ says DS Terry Hallet.

‘He was my mate first,’ says Chris. ‘I breathalysed him!’

On the screen, Mike takes a chair, opposite an incredulous-looking Andrew Everton. Mike looks straight into whatever hidden camera is filming the scene.

‘Hi, I’m Mike Waghorn, reporting for South East Tonight –’

‘Mike, what are you –’ says Andrew Everton, but Mike hushes him.

‘I wanted to say a few words to the millions of people currently watching this livestream. The millions who have just heard the confessions of Chief Constable Andrew Ev–’

Andrew Everton leaps out of his chair and almost out of shot. He is caught and brought down by a muscled arm. You wouldn’t know whose arm it was unless you recognized the tattoos. Donna recognizes them instantly. So that’s where he was last night. ‘Trust me,’ he had said. Perhaps she should start making a habit of trusting him? She wonders if the whole gang is up there? Of course they are.

Mike Waghorn, ever the professional, waits for Andrew Everton’s muffled cries to disappear into the distance, before continuing.

‘This is a five-minute wonder, I understand that. To see a man confess to terrible crimes. To see a chief constable confess to fraud, to corruption, to blackmail and to murder. It certainly seems to have caused the stir we hoped for. At some point there will be a trial, no doubt complicated by the very scenes you are witnessing, but a trial at the very least. Andrew Everton will go to prison, of that we can be fairly sure, even with the lenient, molly-coddling justice system we seem to have in this country at the moment. But let’s not get started on that. We will cut this feed fairly soon, and return Fiona’s Instagram to its rightful owner. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Fiona, for your help today. I can’t think of a finer tribute you could have paid to Bethany. You will all go back to work soon, you’ll have your dinner, you’ll watch a bit of TV, whatever you have planned for today. You will talk about what you have seen, I am sure of that. And you will talk about it tomorrow too, although a little less. And maybe you’ll have the odd word about it the day after, but then it will be gone. That’s how news works. There will be other excitements to replace it. One of the Kardashians will have a baby, perhaps. So I am aware I have your attention only for a short while. Some of you will be drifting away already, as our main business is done here: Andrew Everton is being handcuffed in the hallway to my left, and the Staffordshire constabulary are on their way. But if I could ask of you just a minute or so more? It will be quick, I promise. I want to tell you about a friend of mine, Bethany Waites, who was murdered almost ten years ago. If she hadn’t been murdered, you would know the name already, I’m sure. She was a grafter, Bethany, a worker, no one ever handed her a thing. She could argue all night long, beat you in an arm wrestle, and she could drink you under the table. Northern, you see. If I’m allowed to say that. Bethany Waites was a fine journalist, but above all else she was a fine friend, and I loved her. I don’t even mean I loved her, I mean I love her. So when your attention moves on, when your interest is piqued by the next shiny story, I’d just ask that you remember her name from time to time. Bethany Waites. Because she deserves to be remembered long after Andrew Everton has been forgotten. Well, that’s all the news we have for you this lunchtime. So from me, Mike Waghorn, thank you all for watching, take care of yourselves, and take care of each other.’

82

All of Kent is shivering in the cold air, and Christmas isn’t far away.

‘I’ve told you before,’ says Donna. ‘You’re forgiven.’

‘But it was important,’ says Bogdan. ‘It was an award. What if you never win another award?’

‘Thank you for the vote of confidence,’ says Donna. ‘Here’s the basic rule: if I’m up for an award, I want you to be there – unless you’re catching a murderer by livestreaming a confession from the Instagram account of a famous television presenter. Then you’re excused.’

Carwyn Price has just been charged with threatening behaviour. Donna saw him slip a note into her bag. It read: We all hate you. You’re a joke. A man who doesn’t respond well to being turned down. Bethany, Fiona, Donna, probably countless more over the years. He’ll only get a slap on the wrist, but he won’t be back at South East Tonight any time soon.

They haven’t solved the mystery of Juniper Court though. So perhaps she and Chris had got that wrong all along?

Bogdan parks carefully. The Coopers Chase Parking Committee have lost none of their power. If anything, it has only increased after a recent failed coup. Elizabeth is going to a cliff today, and Bogdan has promised to visit Stephen. He knows Stephen will be happy to see Donna too.

Before he gets out of the car, Bogdan turns to Donna.

‘I have an award for you.’

‘You have an award for me?’

‘Sure,’ says Bogdan. ‘I feel bad.’

Bogdan reaches into a holdall in the back of the car and presents Donna with the statue of Anahita, goddess of love and battle.

‘Donna, I highly commend you.’

‘Bogdan!’ says Donna.

‘I wanted to get it engraved, but apparently you’re not supposed to.’

Donna can’t believe what she’s holding. ‘Bogdan, it was two thousand quid! We could have had two weeks in Greece for that.’

Bogdan smiles. ‘Kuldesh sold it to me for one pound. And he said to tell you to keep dodging the bricks.’

Donna looks at her statue, her award. And then back at Bogdan.

‘Why did he sell it to you for one pound?’

‘Well,’ says Bogdan, opening his car door. ‘He asked me if I was in love with you. And I said yes.’

83

Ron had suggested it, for his owns reasons, admittedly, and now here they all were. Freezing cold, that was for sure, but he was right. They stand high on the top of Shakespeare Cliff, the English Channel stretching away forever. Angry waves batter the foot of the cliff, hundreds of feet below, the noise rising to greet them like a muffled argument from a downstairs flat.

It’s not where Bethany had died, they know that now, but it’s the best place they have to drink to her memory.

Andrew Everton is keeping quiet about the whole thing. No surprises there. So they still don’t know what really happened that night. Where had Bethany gone? Where had Andrew Everton killed her? Who were the two figures in Bethany’s car as it approached this very cliff? No one had cracked the mystery of ‘Robert Brown Msc’ either. Ibrahim had driven himself half mad with anagrams.

Other questions had been answered, though. One of the guards at the prison says that Andrew Everton visited Heather Garbutt on the night of her death. He denies it, but of course he would.

And Jack Mason. Ron has thought back to their last evening together. The guilt Jack had spoken about.

They each have a single rose to throw into the sea below. Elizabeth and Joyce, Ibrahim, Mike and Pauline. Even Viktor has come down to pay his respects. They had asked Henrik, but he had said, ‘I don’t understand, I didn’t know her, why would I throw a rose into the sea?’ He had a point. Not everyone wants to be in a gang, do they?

One by one they throw their roses. Joyce’s is blown back into her face by the wind, so she has to have another go. The sky is cloudless, so if Bethany is in a position to look down, she’d see them all today. Ron doesn’t hold with that sort of thing in his head, but there is plenty of room for it in his heart.

Mike Waghorn says a few words, a number of which have to be repeated because the wind is picking up. He then suggests a little walk along the clifftop. Ron had known that he would.

‘I’ll sit this one out,’ Ron says. ‘You know what my knee’s like.’

A few raised eyebrows – they all know Ron doesn’t talk about his knees. But it shuts them up, and they are soon on their way. Pauline sits with him, as he knew she would.

‘You all right, lover?’ she asks.

‘I’m not so bad,’ says Ron. ‘Just thinking about my bathroom.’

‘You never fail to surprise me, Ronnie. You thinking about getting an air freshener?’

Ron smiles, but a little sadly. ‘Nah, just not used to having a woman around, am I? All the gear, you know, the creams, all the make-up and what have you.’

‘I’m taking up too much room, am I? You got no space for your Lynx Africa?’

‘I love it, if I’m honest,’ says Ron. ‘Feels intimate, doesn’t it? I’ve always been honest with you, you know, Pauline?’

‘I know, darling,’ says Pauline, looking concerned. ‘What’s all this about?’

‘Have you always been honest with me?’

‘Course,’ says Pauline. ‘I have the odd fag when you’re not looking, but apart from that.’

‘Robert Brown Msc,’ says Ron.

‘What about him?’

‘I know I’m not the clever one,’ says Ron. ‘But it’s about time I cracked something.’

‘Ron?’

‘It’s the make-up,’ says Ron. ‘It’s been sitting there in the bathroom all this time. All lined up under the mirror where I shave. Staring me in the face.’

Ron looks at Pauline. He doesn’t want to say it, but he has to.

‘Your mascara,’ says Ron. ‘Bobbi Brown, your favourite. Bobbi Brown Mascara. “Robert Brown Msc”.’

84

Donna and Bogdan kiss outside the car, they kiss in the hallway, they kiss by Elizabeth and Stephen’s front door. Bogdan is unused to public displays of affection. What if somebody sees? Also, he has a bag full of food that needs to go in the fridge.

But he is in love, and he accepts that will bring its own challenges. Bogdan knocks, then opens the door, calling Stephen’s name.

Stephen is sitting on the sofa in his pyjamas, which is not in the least unusual.

‘Here’s the happy couple,’ he says. ‘Look at you both.’

‘The very happy couple,’ says Donna. ‘Hello, Stephen.’

Donna is still holding her statue. Stephen levers himself up, and walks over to take a look.

‘Our old friend Anahita,’ says Stephen, his eyes lighting up. ‘Goddess of love and battle. Most appropriate.’

Donna smiles, and pops into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

Bogdan loves to see Stephen’s eyes sparkle. Loves to see that intelligence. Bogdan had seen the list that Stephen made of Henrik’s books. So detailed, so beautiful. He will give Stephen a shave later, and then a post-shave balm. Then a moisturizer. Stephen has never had a skin-care regime before – ‘Soap and water, old boy’ – but it is never too late to start. Maybe he should start giving him vitamins too? Would Elizabeth object? Just C and D to start with. He doesn’t get out enough.

‘Speaking of battle,’ says Bogdan, taking his seat by the chessboard. ‘We play?’

Stephen waves this away.

‘We don’t play today?’ says Bogdan. Maybe they will watch a film instead? Or just tell stories. Bogdan will cook a paella.

‘Not me, old chap,’ says Stephen. ‘Elizabeth’s the chess player round here.’

‘Elizabeth?’

‘I tried chess a few times,’ says Stephen. ‘Never got the hang of it. You play?’

‘Yes, I play,’ says Bogdan.

‘Any good?’ says Stephen.

‘Depends,’ says Bogdan, determined to stop the tears forming. ‘In chess you’re only really ever as good as the person you play against.’

Stephen nods and looks down at the board. Bogdan wonders what he is seeing.

‘Better man than I,’ says Stephen. ‘Devil’s own job, that game.’

Donna walks back in with two mugs of tea. Stephen beams.

‘That’s the stuff, all right,’ says Stephen. ‘Cup of tea. That’s the stuff.’

85

Ron can see the others returning. But they’re in the distance, and their walk back is uphill. They will be a while yet. Joyce has her arm linked with Mike Waghorn’s.

‘The whole truth?’ says Pauline.

‘I think I’m due that,’ says Ron.

‘I think you are too, Ronnie,’ says Pauline. ‘But I don’t want the others to know. I don’t want Mike to know.’

Ron gives a small shrug. Is this where it all ends? On a clifftop high above a wild sea?

‘It was about half ten,’ Pauline begins, barely able to look Ron in the eye. ‘I was getting ready for bed, believe it or not, early start the next day. There’s a ring on the door. I ignore it, nothing good comes at night unless you’ve ordered it. It rings again, and again, and eventually I’m “bugger this” and I look on the entry camera and there she is.’

‘Bethany Waites?’

‘Bethany Waites. I buzz her up and wait for her to knock. In you come, I say, what’s all this about? I could see something was up, else I’d have just sent her packing. She’s wearing a houndstooth jacket and yellow trousers, looked like she’d just picked them up from a jumble sale. No make-up. She sits, and she says, Pauline, I need a favour, and I say, at ten thirty at night, and she tells me to sit down and listen to a story. I say, should I ring Mike, and she says, you can’t ring Mike, I don’t want him to worry.’

‘What was the story?’

‘Bethany says, you gotta believe this, Pauline, someone’s trying to kill me. I’ve got this story they don’t want coming out, I’ve just had this message, threatening me, and you know me, Ronnie, I’ve heard it all in my time, but I don’t know what to believe. But something in her eyes tells me I’m hearing the truth. Close to the truth at least, so I’m like, what can I do? What’s the favour? If I can help, I’ll help.’

‘And what was the favour?’ asks Ron. He can just hear Joyce’s laugh now, the top notes carrying on the wind.

‘She’s going to meet someone, she says. And she needs to look different. She knows I can’t work miracles, but can I make her up, lend her a wig? Change her appearance just enough to fool someone. She had a picture she showed me, and it didn’t look impossible.’

‘So you said yes?’

‘First off, I tried to talk her out of it. If you’re in trouble, go to the police. Not really my style, as you know, but they have their uses sometimes. She says she can’t go to the police, she just needs this one favour, and the whole thing will be over soon enough. She says trust me, I know what I’m doing, and I’ll pay you too.’

‘Five grand?’ says Ron.

‘I say I don’t want money, come on, if you’re in trouble, let’s get started. So I make her up, like the picture. I get one of my wigs, fit it, give it a bit of a trim, and, ninety minutes later, it ain’t bad. Really not bad. She’s happy. She’s looking at her watch the whole time, and now she says, Pauline, that’s us, wish me luck, and I say where are you going, and she says, if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow morning, call the police, anonymous though, and I said I don’t want you going out there, I’m calling Mike, and she says, I have to. She gives me a hug, which she never does, and she gives me a bit of paper with numbers on it and says, “That’s the money for you,” and she takes off.’

Ron drums his fingers. ‘That’s the story?’

‘That’s the story,’ says Pauline. ‘You believe me, Ronnie?’

‘I believe you, Paul,’ Ron says. ‘I believe you’re telling me the truth. But you’re missing something out, darling. You’re missing out why you’ve never told anyone all this before. You knew where she was those missing hours. You knew she was heading off to meet someone. And you never told a soul? That doesn’t make any sense. You’d have been straight on to Mike, and straight on to the police. Come on.’

Ron sees Pauline glance towards the advancing walkers.

‘There was one more thing,’ says Pauline. ‘When we were fitting the wig. I have my wigs and a few costumes on dummies see, you know, mannequins, and before she leaves, Bethany says, can I borrow one? And I say, borrow a mannequin, you mad? But the whole thing’s been mad, so in the end I say go ahead.’

‘A mannequin?’

‘The next morning, they find her car at the bottom of the cliff, release the CCTV, all that, so I’m ready to ring Mike, but before I do, I have a little think. I think about the make-up, the photo she showed me, I think about the wig, I think about the mannequin, and the CCTV of the two figures in the car. I think about the clothes she’s wearing, Ronnie. I think I even said to her, “I wouldn’t be seen dead in those.”’

‘So, you think –’

‘I don’t think, I know. And, Ron, Mike was destroyed when Bethany died. He loved her, she loved him. And I took the view, for better or for worse, it would be a hundred times worse for him if he knew she’d faked the whole thing, run off to goodness knows where, with goodness knows what money, and not told him a dicky bird. Why on earth did she do it? I’ve never worked that out.’

Pauline looks out to sea.

‘There was no comeback. No one was accused of the murder, no harm done to anyone, and I kept quiet. Then you lot showed up, and there’re people dying left, right and centre, so I tried to drop a few hints. I knew I couldn’t tell the truth after all this time, but I thought you lot might figure it out, and Mike might have to face the truth. Thought it was about time.’

‘Stone me,’ says Ron.

‘I just tried to do what was best,’ says Pauline.

‘And the money?’

‘Never touched it,’ says Pauline. ‘Threw the piece of paper away, never thought about it again. Robert Brown Msc was Bethany’s joke, not mine.’

‘A pretty good one too,’ says Ron.

‘Yeah, you’d have liked her,’ says Pauline. ‘Can you forgive me, Ron?’

‘Nothing to forgive,’ says Ron.

‘Massage tomorrow? Little treat?’

‘Don’t push it,’ says Ron.

The others are nearly with them.

Ron looks over at Pauline. ‘Where do you think she is now?’

Pauline smiles, and stands to welcome the walkers back. ‘I think she’s in heaven looking down on us.’

Joyce takes Pauline’s seat next to Ron.

‘That was bracing,’ says Joyce. ‘I can’t believe you missed the whole thing.’

Ron puts his arm around his friend, and sees Pauline do the same with Mike.

86

For years she has had Google Alerts on her phone. If anyone anywhere mentioned the name ‘Bethany Waites’, she would know about it. She would take a quick look, assess any risks, and then continue on with her new life. Around the anniversary of her death, there would usually be a few mentions, but every year there had been fewer and fewer, until they eventually dried up altogether. To all intents and purposes, Bethany Waites had ceased to exist.

Until three days ago, when Bethany Waites suddenly became one of the most famous people in the world for a whole afternoon. Bethany Waites had seen all the fuss, of course she had, how could you miss it, even in Dubai.

She had stayed indoors, cancelled her appointments. There was no real need though, she knew that. Bethany has been Alice Cooper for many years now. People laughed at her name, but it serves a purpose.

Back when she was investigating the VAT fraud, Bethany had been learning everything she could about money-laundering. Taking professors and criminals out for lunch. Bothering all the experts. A German police investigator had told her that the best alias for a fraudster was that of a famous person. ‘It makes you impossible to Google,’ he had said. And he was quite right. Google ‘Alice Cooper’ now, and you will have to scroll through an awful lot of pages before you get to her ‘Media Training and PR Solutions’ company on the eighth floor of an office building in the Dubai Marina.

She learned an awful lot more than that little trick too. Learned so much, in fact, that not only could she follow the trail of the VAT money, but also access it herself.

And then Andrew Everton sent her the bullet. The bullet with the name scratched, crudely, into its side.

That’s when she knew she was in danger. Knew Andrew Everton had discovered she was on his tail. Knew that he meant her harm. He must have been bugging her phone. Seen the ‘absolute dynamite’ message to Mike.

So she had a choice. Keep digging, keep investigating, be brave. Or find a way out?

Was she ever going to be able to beat Andrew Everton? A high-ranking police officer. Someone with the resources to access her messages, someone with a heart cold enough to send her a bullet.

Really she had no choice at all.

So she did the next best thing. Over the next few weeks, using what she’d learned, she started to channel Andrew Everton’s money into new accounts. She didn’t take any out, that’s the real danger time, but she diverted it. She hid it.

After her death, poor Andrew Everton and Jack Mason had spent so long trying to retrieve their money, but the web they had devised was so opaque, and so clever, that they had no way of seeing that the money had already gone.

She had her plan in place. Her murder, her disappearance, the new passport with the new hair and make-up, taking her own blood with home-testing kits to smear in the car. She had picked up all sorts of tricks. But she didn’t believe she would really go through with it. Until the night she had received the email from Andrew Everton. ‘Come and meet me. I just want to talk.’

Bethany knew it was time to say goodbye. To her life, to her story, to Mike. And hello to Dubai, to a new life, and to ten million.

Bethany had waited a year or so before she started collecting her money. She’d siphoned off a hundred thousand from an obscure account in Panama, just to see her through, and to pay for the surgery. She’d reported, many years before, about a woman from Faversham who had made her fortune in plastic surgery, and the woman was only too glad to help, for a hefty cut. You could get pretty much anything you wanted in Dubai if you had ten million pounds in your pocket. And what Bethany Waites bought was anonymity.

She got away with it, sure. But got away with what?

She had regrets, certainly. Before she disappeared, she had received a couple of knockbacks from the BBC. Her confidence had been dented. Bethany had begun to think she would never make it, would never get out. That made the ten million, the new life, even more tempting. But maybe she should have stuck it out? Look at what happened with Fiona Clemence. But Bethany didn’t have Fiona’s confidence. Didn’t have Fiona’s looks either, although she resembles her a little bit more since the surgery. She could have toughed it out, but an opportunity came her way and she chose to take it. Mike had told her to keep fighting, told her she would make it, but she was too young to know that was true.

And Mike is the worst of all. The regret that still wakes her in the night. It would kill Mike to know she had left him voluntarily. She knows that, and she knew Pauline would know that too. She could have stuck around, been brave. She could have brought Andrew Everton to justice, could have risen through the ranks, enjoyed her career, popped in to visit Mike for a drink whenever she was in the area. That’s what she could have done.

But her mind keeps coming back to the bullet. The bullet, with the name scratched into the side, sent by Andrew Everton. Designed to scare her, no doubt, but a bullet that ultimately cost him ten million pounds.

After that Bethany really had no choice. She has the bullet in front of her now. She weighs it in her hand, just as she had done that night many years ago. Beware the bullet with your name on it.

And the name is what had finally made her mind up. Because the name scratched into the bullet was not ‘Bethany Waites’. She could have handled that.

The name was ‘Mike Waghorn’.

87

Mike Waghorn scrolls back through his emails. Every year, on the anniversary of Bethany’s death, viewers send him their condolences. Not many, and fewer and fewer as the years ticked by, but enough to make a difference.

This year, there had been just four. Three from regular correspondents, and one from an account he had never identified. With a ‘no-reply’ email address. It got lost among the throng for the first few years, but it is very visible now. The message would always comprise just a single red rose. Mike had never really thought anything of it.

They had never found Bethany’s body. All sorts of people had told him why, tides and so on, and Mike had accepted what he was told. There were plenty of similar cases if you looked into it, and Mike had looked into it.

Then they were told that Bethany had been buried in Heather Garbutt’s garden. But, despite the digging, the body has not been found there either. Andrew Everton continues to protest his innocence.

So what if? Mike has begun to think. What if?

Mike looks at the email with the red rose. He searches back. Same email every year. All from the same no-reply email address.

What could the red rose signify? Love, for one. Lancashire? That was a stretch. But Bethany liked to stretch things. Liked to tease him. ‘Absolute dynamite’ indeed. As if he were ever going to be the one to work that out.

Of course, the emails are not from Bethany, of course they’re not. They are just roses from a well-wisher. But it’s a nice fantasy. The idea that Bethany wasn’t dead, but living it up somewhere, perhaps on the proceeds of the VAT fraud? No one else seemed to have the money, and even Henrik has said that at some point the money seemed to just vanish. Had it vanished with her?

Would Bethany really have left him without saying goodbye?

For ten million, why not? It was foolish, and it was greedy, but who hasn’t been foolish and greedy in their life? Mike had been foolish his whole life, until Bethany had shown him the truth. He wishes Bethany could have hung around long enough for him to return the favour.

Maybe the emails are from Bethany. Mike can choose to believe it if he wishes. And, if they are, he hopes she saw the broadcast the other day. The tribute he paid her. He hopes she knows, wherever she is, up above, down below, or somewhere in between, that he loves her.

Mike pours himself a cider straight from the plastic bottle now. Why not? He raises his glass.

‘To absent friends.’

88: Joyce

A few days have passed since all the excitement. I should probably fill you in on everything that’s happened since.

I finished my short story. It is no longer called ‘Cannibal Bloodbath’. Instead it is called ‘Life is but a Dream – A Gerry Meadowcroft Mystery’. I sent it off to the Evening Argus, and they immediately responded to say that my submission had been received. I replied to say thank you, and to wish them a nice weekend, but that email didn’t get through. I haven’t heard anything back since.

I have started a new story in which Inspector Gerry Meadowcroft goes to Morocco. I have never been to Morocco, but I watched a Rick Stein documentary in which he went to Marrakesh, so I am basing a lot of the descriptions on that.

Andrew Everton is in prison. Belmarsh, high security. For his own protection as much as anything, I think. He’s been charged with the fraud, but they are still investigating the killings of Bethany, and Heather. It’s interesting that, in any normal case, the livestream video we did would have prejudiced the trial, but the reaction to it was so huge I think even the authorities worked out that justice was going to have to be seen to be done. Andrew is still protesting his innocence, but, whatever happens, he’ll be going to jail for a long time.

The irony is his books are now huge bestsellers. Top of the Kindle charts, and some publishing company is rushing out real, physical copies too. Netflix have bought the TV rights. It’s true what they say about publicity. He’s not seeing a penny of the money, though. It’s all being held by the court until he pays back the ten million he stole.

I don’t think they’ll ever charge him with the murders. Where’s the evidence? They dug every inch of the garden and the woodland behind Heather’s house, and found no body. What they have found is many more guns, piles of cash, fake passports, stolen goods, everything you could think of. It seems that every time Jack Mason dug a hole over the years, looking for the body, he hid something in it before filling it back up again. The first gun we found, the assault rifle, had never been fired, and the hundred thousand was from a Post Office robbery in Tunbridge Wells.

I went shopping in Tunbridge Wells recently; Carlito took us all up there in the minibus. I had read in a book somewhere that Tunbridge Wells had a Waitrose, but it didn’t. It had a lovely big Waterstones, though, and I bought a book by Stephen King called On Writing, and a new Marian Keyes.

The biggest news is probably Mike Waghorn. The world and his wife watched his tribute to Bethany, and he says the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since. He’s signed up to do a series on ITV called Britain’s Most Notorious Serial Killers. He co-hosted The One Show – my favourite – for a week, and they’ve asked him back. And next week I’m going up to Elstree again to watch him on Stop the Clock – Celebrities! Elizabeth has a prior engagement apparently, so Pauline is going to come with me.

Fiona Clemence is taking us all out to dinner afterwards, as well she might, given she now has eight million Instagram followers and is about to film an American version of Stop the Clock.

Pauline and Ron have just got back from a long weekend in Stratford-upon-Avon. I asked Ron what Shakespeare they had seen, but he looked at me blankly, so I think they spent the whole weekend in the pub. Ibrahim looks a bit lost without Ron. I know he is very happy for him, but perhaps I need to keep an eye on him? We often walk Alan together, and he natters away quite happily, but even so.

And, talking of walking dogs, I do often bump into Mervyn and Rosie. Mervyn is so handsome I have to stop my tail from wagging when I’m around him. He doesn’t say much, but sometimes that can be a relief, can’t it? With some men you spend most of your time just nodding in agreement.

I take Mervyn a casserole every now and again, always enough for two, just to see if he takes the hint, but he just says, ‘Thank you, that’ll last me two days.’ But the way he says it, in that deep, commanding voice – well, it’s worth it just for that. He hasn’t yet shown any real sign of interest, though the other day he did bring round his copy of The Times and said, ‘There’s an article in there about Margaret Atwood. About how she writes her books. Thought you might be interested.’ That must be the longest sentence he has ever said to me, so you never know. I read the article, so we will have something to talk about next time I see him.

Christmas is just around the corner, and I’m hoping Joanna and Scott might come down. I haven’t really asked what everyone is doing. I wonder if Ron will be with Pauline? Perhaps they’d like to come round here? And Ibrahim, without question. I wonder what Viktor is doing for Christmas? I will ask him tomorrow, as we have all been invited for lunch at his. This time I will be bringing my swimming costume, I don’t care how cold it is.

My crypto account, which was somewhere over sixty-five thousand pounds at one point, is now worth eight hundred. I emailed Henrik, and he replied saying, ‘Joyce, you must believe.’ Believe what, I don’t know. But, whatever you might say about cryptocurrency, it’s more fun than Premium Bonds.

Such a lot has happened this year, and my favourite thing of all has just bounded into the room looking for trouble. Alan thinks it is time for bed, and, as so often, he is quite right.

89

Greed, that was the thing. The fatal flaw. Why wasn’t he happy with what he had?

Actually, it was greed and being too clever. The two fatal flaws.

Sitting here in Belmarsh, when he should be on a Spanish terrace with a cold beer and a hot typewriter.

‘A cold beer and a hot typewriter.’ Andrew Everton writes that down in his notebook. The new book, Guilty or Not Guilty, is going to be his best yet, just as soon as they let him use a computer. Perhaps after he’s been convicted they’ll let him use one? How many books will he have to sell to pay back ten million pounds under the Proceeds of Crime Act? A lot, that’s his guess.

The VAT scheme, so simple, so victimless. How had it gone so wrong? The plot for a book, turned into a real-life crime. He should have left it as a book. Trusted his writing. ‘Grisham-esque’, someone had called it, he forgets who.

He should never have sent the bullet to Bethany either. He had hoped it might scare her off. Never should have emailed asking to meet her. He should have stayed in the shadows. Life was not a book.

So many bodies and he had only murdered one of them. He’d told Jack and Heather he had murdered Bethany, sure. That was a masterstroke: blackmail them with a corpse that was never there. The coastguards had told him that if the body hadn’t washed up within a week, it was probably not going to be washed up at all, and that’s what gave him the idea. Such a clever idea. Too clever in the end; it was so unfair. You shouldn’t be penalized for being too clever.

And he’d told the guy with the pebbly glasses that he’d killed Bethany too. Because that’s what he thought the guy wanted to hear. That’s how he thought he was going to get his money.

Greed. And being too clever. Look where it gets you.

Who had killed Bethany Waites? Andrew Everton has no idea. It wasn’t him, and he knows it wasn’t Jack Mason, or his little blackmail scheme wouldn’t have worked. And where did all that money end up? He has no idea about that either. Who was the guy in the glasses? Was Elizabeth Best everything she seemed? His whole life had begun to unravel after he’d first met her. So many questions, and so few answers.

As he looks at the four walls of his cell, segregated from fellow prisoners, locked up for twenty-four hours a day for his own safety, and doing his business in a metal bucket bolted to a wall, it occurs to Andrew Everton that, for someone so clever, there seem to be an awful lot of things he doesn’t know.

There is some good news, and you should always focus on the good news. There was no material evidence to link him to Bethany’s or Heather’s death. His solicitor would make short work of the ‘eyewitness’ at Darwell Prison. Maybe he would beat the murder charges? The public was baying for his blood, but the public was always baying for something. They would move on soon enough, Mike Waghorn had been right about that.

Perhaps he would only be convicted of the fraud. And what would he serve? Maybe he’d do five years of a ten-year sentence? Write a series of bestselling books where a prisoner solves crimes from inside his cell? Call it ‘Hard Cell’ or ‘The Wing Man’.

Yes, focus on the good things.

Ironic that in the one murder he actually had committed, it looked like he wasn’t even going to be a suspect. The moment Jack Mason started talking, Andrew’d had to kill him. No choice. Make it look like a simple suicide. Jack knew it the second he opened the door.

‘Death Comes Knocking.’ Andrew Everton writes that down in his notebook too, under ‘Good Titles’.

If he can beat these murder raps, five years will just fly by.

90

Chris is celebrating solving the case in the way that all hard-bitten cops have done throughout the ages. He is drinking blueberry kombucha and dipping celery sticks into organic hummus, as he watches the darts.

He is thinking that murdering people must have been so much easier before the era of DNA evidence. You almost had to feel sorry for homicidal maniacs these days.

If you kill somebody, particularly at close range with a gun, then, and there’s no nice way of putting it, their DNA will spatter all over you. All over your hands and your clothes. And that DNA is then transferred to anything you might touch.

At the Kent Police Awards, Patrice had wondered who Chris could arrest next to get another commendation? To get another night of black tie and free Prosecco next year. Another cute, shiny badge in another cute, velvet pouch.

Well, after the message he has just received, Chris knows he will definitely be invited back next year. And it is all thanks to Patrice.

The start of the whole thing was this. The gun was just so small. It had been niggling at Chris. For a man with access to so many guns, legal and illegal, why would Jack Mason have shot himself with a gun small enough to be slipped into someone’s pocket?

The answer, as so often, was very simple. It was because the gun had been slipped into someone’s pocket.

When Andrew Everton had stolen it from the dig in Heather Garbutt’s garden, he had chosen the smallest gun possible. Simply because he was going to have to walk out, past any number of police officers, without a soul spotting it. He couldn’t have hidden an AK-47, even though they had actually found two of them.

Chris had asked for more tests on the gun, and those tests proved the gun had been buried alongside four others uncovered on the dig. Same fibres from the cloth they were wrapped in, same acids from the soil. The ammunition too. So Andrew Everton had seen the gun, stolen it, and had then used Jack Mason’s own gun to shoot him.

It was good evidence, that’s for sure. But it was not perfect. No one saw Andrew Everton pocket the gun. Anyone at the dig might have stolen it. Jack Mason himself might have dug it up weeks previously. Planning his suicide, Jack might have thought, ‘I know what I’ll do, I’ll dig up a tiny gun I buried ten years ago.’ In court a decent lawyer would soon throw doubt on the gun, and Andrew Everton will have a decent lawyer.

But it was good enough evidence for Chris to know that Andrew Everton had killed Jack Mason. He just needed to prove it.

He and Donna had talked it through. They didn’t want Everton taking the stand and wriggling out of a murder charge on a technicality. Chris needed to find some evidence that placed Everton directly at the scene of Jack Mason’s murder, and at the moment it was happening. Some DNA.

But where to find it?

It was Patrice who had the idea in the end. She made the suggestion about exactly where the DNA might be found. Chris was dubious. More than anything it would just be too ironic. But, after a few more prompts, he had contacted the forensics lab, and today the results had come back. She was right. He has just texted her at a Parents’ Evening to let her know.

Everton would have cleaned himself thoroughly, of course. The blood and the gore, and the DNA of Jack Mason they contained, should have been long gone. But Andrew Everton had been sloppy. Or, knowing the man a little now, Chris thought it more likely he had been cocky. Perhaps he hadn’t destroyed his clothes until the day after the murder? The day he was all laughs and smiles, sitting next to Chris and Patrice at the awards ceremony? Perhaps he recontaminated himself while he was disposing of them?

Whatever the reason, it is going to be very hard for Andrew Everton to explain where traces of Jack Mason’s DNA have just been found.

On the cute, shiny badge and the cute, velvet pouch Andrew Everton had handed to Chris at the Kent Police Awards.

Chris pops another celebratory celery stick into his mouth.

Get out of that one.

91

There is something Bogdan isn’t telling her, Elizabeth can see that. It’s not about Donna – three cheers for the two of them and all that – but it’s definitely something. She has left him with Stephen again today, regardless. They will discuss it when she gets home.

‘It has been an adventure,’ says Viktor. ‘I am grateful for that. I have been shot, buried and brought back to life. And I’ve played a lot of snooker.’

‘Welcome to the Thursday Murder Club,’ says Elizabeth.

They are sitting on Viktor’s terrace, laptop open and gin and tonic poured. London spreads out before them in a vast panorama of greens and blue and greys. The buses like red blood cells. It all looks so genteel from up here, but they both well know the secrets that lie beneath the roofs of London. The money, the murder, the evil that people do. It was simply their stock in trade. Where you saw a cosy family chimney, they saw a corpse being burned. Such is the way of things after nearly sixty years in the business.

It is cold, but the cold helps them both think. Andrew Everton is behind bars, awaiting trial. Jack Mason and Heather Garbutt are in the ground. Henrik is back in Staffordshire, but has started sending Viktor cat videos from the internet. That feels a lot like a ceasefire to Elizabeth. She is pleased. Now that she has found Viktor again, she would rather not lose him.

But Viktor and she were agreed it was a job half done. Viktor had made Andrew Everton confess; Viktor made everyone confess sooner or later. But it didn’t feel right. To either of them. They had discussed it at length. Had they uncovered the full story? Had they got the wrong man?

‘How is Stephen?’ asks Viktor.

‘Another time,’ says Elizabeth.

Henrik has kept up the search, but everywhere he looked, the money had simply disappeared. They had cleared up ‘Carron Whitehead’ and ‘Michael Gullis’. They had never got close to ‘Robert Brown Msc’. Perhaps there was some genius who could crack that one in time, but Elizabeth and Viktor have both stopped trying.

Henrik has uncovered one lead though. It was another early payment, this time for a hundred thousand pounds.

Viktor and Elizabeth scan the file in front of them. Henrik has tracked the payment as far as the British Virgin Islands, where it was further broken down into four separate payments. One of the payments found its way to the Cayman Islands, but that path has gone cold. One headed to Panama, and one to Liechtenstein, and into the endless corridors of banking secrecy. But the fourth payment was the interesting one. To the International Bank of Dubai. It seems out of place.

‘Why pay money to Dubai?’ says Elizabeth. ‘Surely there are plenty of places much safer, much darker.’

‘Access perhaps?’ says Viktor. ‘Was this a little bit of spending money for someone?’

Elizabeth thinks she might take some time investigating the Dubai connection. She knows people there. Ten million pounds has gone missing somewhere, but sometimes a hundred thousand is all you need to catch someone. And Elizabeth would love to catch whoever killed Bethany Waites.

But perhaps she is a fool? Perhaps she is missing something obvious – it certainly feels that way. In her bones she knows it’s not quite right. Are her powers waning? She is getting old. She uses a foot spa these days. She’s even going to get Joyce one for Christmas. Is it time to quit all this nonsense? All this running around after shadows?

Viktor shivers in the cold. Elizabeth adjusts his blanket.

‘Thank you,’ says Viktor. ‘Your country is so cold.’

‘So is yours,’ says Elizabeth, and Viktor concedes the point.

Time to quit all this nonsense? Elizabeth laughs to herself. What is there in life other than nonsense?

‘Perhaps,’ says Elizabeth, ‘a little winter sunshine would do us some good?’

‘Perhaps,’ agrees Viktor. ‘Any suggestions?’

‘I hear Dubai is very temperate this time of year.’

‘I hear that too,’ says Viktor. ‘And they say the shopping is very good. There are even art galleries.’

‘Well, we could have a poke around the art galleries, couldn’t we?’

‘Spot of shopping,’ says Viktor. ‘Soak up the sun?’

‘Wouldn’t do any harm, would it?’ says Elizabeth. She may be old, but she knows she will find something there. The missing piece.

‘You know,’ says Viktor, ‘I remember being at the bottom of that hole, having all that earth shovelled over me. I remember looking up at everybody, and wondering if this might be the life for me. Coopers Chase. The tea, and the cake, and the birds and the dogs, and the friends. If it might be where I belong. You will understand that.’

‘Only too well,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I was lonely,’ says Viktor. ‘You fixed that for me. You and your friends. My friends. They are quite something, aren’t they?’

‘They are quite something,’ agrees Elizabeth.

‘Did I tell you I’m going to get a snooker table?’

‘Ron spoke of little else in the car up here,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I had to feign sleep.’

‘It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?’ says Viktor. ‘It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.’

Elizabeth looks over to the swimming pool, suspended in the sky. There is Joyce swimming laps, her head above water so as not to get her hair wet. The boys, Ron and Ibrahim, are by the side of the pool, wearing overcoats on daybeds. Ibrahim is struggling to read the Financial Times in the wind. Ron is trying to work out how the lid goes back on his coffee cup.

It is far too cold to swim, but Joyce would not be dissuaded. Elizabeth had told her not to be so silly, and that the pool would still be here in the summer.

‘Ah, but we may not be,’ Joyce had replied, and she was right. It was best to grab everything while you could. Who knows when your final swim might come, your final walk, your final kiss? Elizabeth has an idea what secret Bogdan is keeping from her. So be it.

Joyce sees Elizabeth looking, and gives her a wave. Elizabeth waves back. You keep swimming, Joyce. You keep swimming, my beautiful friend. You keep your head above the water for as long as you can.