The Last Devil To Die

1

Wednesday, 26th December, lunchtime-ish

‘I once married a woman from Swansea,’ says Mervyn Collins. ‘Red hair, the lot.’

‘I see,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Sounds like there’s quite a story there?’

‘A story?’ Mervyn shakes his head. ‘No, we split up. You know women.’

‘We do know them, Mervyn,’ says Joyce, cutting into a Yorkshire pudding. ‘We do.’

Silence. Not, Elizabeth notes, the first silence during this meal.

It is Boxing Day, and the gang, plus Mervyn, are at the Coopers Chase restaurant. They are all wearing colourful paper crowns from the crackers Joyce has brought along. Joyce’s crown is too big and is threatening to become a blindfold at any moment. Ron’s is too small, the pink crêpe paper straining at his temples.

‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you to a drop of wine, Mervyn?’ asks Elizabeth.

‘Alcohol at lunchtime? No,’ says Mervyn.

The gang had spent Christmas Day separately. It had been a difficult one for Elizabeth, she would have to admit that. She had hoped that the day might spark something, give her husband Stephen a burst of life, some clarity, memories of Christmas past fuelling him. But no. Christmas was like any other day for Stephen now. A blank page at the end of an old book. She shudders to think about the year ahead.

They had all arranged to meet for a Boxing Day lunch in the restaurant. At the last minute, Joyce had asked if it might be polite to invite Mervyn to join them. He has been at Coopers Chase a few months and has, thus far, struggled to make friends.

‘He’s all alone this Christmas,’ Joyce had said, and they had agreed that they should ask him. ‘Nice touch,’ Ron had said, and Ibrahim had added that if Coopers Chase was about anything, it was about ensuring that no one should feel lonely at Christmas.

Elizabeth, for her part, applauded Joyce’s generosity of spirit, while noting that Mervyn, in certain lights, had the type of handsome looks that so often left Joyce helpless. The gruff Welshness of his voice, the darkness of his eyebrows, the moustache and that silver hair. Elizabeth more and more is getting the hang of Joyce’s type, and ‘anyone plausibly handsome’ seems to cover it. ‘He looks like a soap-opera villain,’ was Ron’s take, and Elizabeth was happy to accept his word on the matter.

Thus far they have tried to speak to Mervyn about politics (‘not my area’), television (‘no use for it’) and marriage (‘I once married a woman from Swansea’, etc.).

Mervyn’s food arrives. He had resisted the turkey, and the kitchen agreed to make him scampi and boiled potatoes instead.

‘Scampi fan, I see,’ says Ron, pointing to Mervyn’s plate. Elizabeth has to hand it to him, he’s trying to help things along.

‘Wednesdays I have the scampi,’ agrees Mervyn.

‘Is it a Wednesday?’ says Joyce. ‘I always lose track around Christmas. Never know what day it is.’

‘It’s Wednesday,’ confirms Mervyn. ‘Wednesday, the 26th of December.’

‘Did you know that “scampi” is the plural?’ says Ibrahim, his paper crown fashionably askew. ‘Each individual piece is a “scampo”.’

‘I did know that, yes,’ says Mervyn.

Elizabeth has cracked harder nuts than Mervyn over the years. She once had to question a Soviet general who had not uttered a single word in more than three months of captivity, and within the hour he was singing Noël Coward songs with her. Joyce has been working on Mervyn for a few weeks now, since the end of the Bethany Waites case. She has so far gleaned that he has been a headteacher, he has been married, he is on his third dog, and he likes Elton John, but this does not amount to all that much.

Elizabeth decides to take the conversation by the scruff of the neck. Sometimes you have to shock the patient into life.

‘So, our mysterious friend from Swansea aside, Mervyn, how’s your romantic life?’

‘I have a sweetheart,’ says Mervyn.

Elizabeth sees Joyce raise the most subtle of eyebrows.

‘Good for you,’ says Ron. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Tatiana,’ says Mervyn.

‘Beautiful name,’ says Joyce. ‘First I’ve heard of her though?’

‘Where’s she spending Christmas?’ asks Ron.

‘Lithuania,’ says Mervyn.

‘The Jewel of the Baltic,’ says Ibrahim.

‘I’m not sure we’ve seen her at Coopers Chase, have we?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Since you’ve moved in?’

‘They’ve taken her passport,’ says Mervyn.

‘Goodness,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That sounds unfortunate. Who has?’

‘The authorities,’ says Mervyn.

‘Sounds about right,’ says Ron, shaking his head. ‘Bloody authorities.’

‘You must miss her terribly,’ says Ibrahim. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘We haven’t, just as yet, met,’ says Mervyn, scraping tartare sauce off a scampo.

‘You haven’t met?’ asks Joyce. ‘That seems unusual?’

‘Just been unlucky,’ says Mervyn. ‘She had a flight cancelled, then she had some cash stolen, and now there’s the passport thing. The course of true love never did run smooth.’

‘Indeed,’ agrees Elizabeth. ‘Never did it.’

‘But,’ says Ron, ‘once she’s got her passport back, she’ll be over?’

‘That’s the plan,’ says Mervyn. ‘It’s all under control. I’ve sent her brother some money.’

The gang nod and look at each other as Mervyn eats his scampi.

‘Apropos of nothing, Mervyn,’ says Elizabeth, adjusting her paper crown just a jot, ‘how much did you send him? The brother?’

‘Five thousand,’ says Mervyn. ‘All in all. Terrible corruption in Lithuania. Everyone bribing everyone.’

‘I wasn’t aware of that,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I have had many good times in Lithuania. Poor Tatiana. And the cash she had stolen? Was that from you too?’

Mervyn nods. ‘I sent it, and the customs people nicked it.’

Elizabeth fills up the glasses of her friends. ‘Well, we shall look forward to meeting her.’

‘Very much,’ agrees Ibrahim.

‘Though, I wonder, Mervyn,’ says Elizabeth, ‘next time she gets in touch asking for money, perhaps you might let me know? I have contacts and may be able to help?’

‘Really?’ asks Mervyn.

‘Certainly,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Run it past me. Before you have any more bad luck.’

‘Thank you,’ says Mervyn. ‘She means a great deal to me. Been a long time since someone paid me any attention.’

‘Although I’ve baked you a lot of cakes in the last few weeks,’ says Joyce.

‘I know, I know,’ says Mervyn. ‘But I meant romantic attention.’

‘My mistake,’ says Joyce, and Ron drinks to stifle a laugh.

Mervyn is an unconventional guest, but Elizabeth is learning to float on the tides of life these days.

Turkey and stuffing, balloons and streamers, crackers and hats. A nice bottle of red, and what Elizabeth assumes are Christmas pop songs playing in the background. Friendship, and Joyce flirting unsuccessfully with a Welshman who appears to be the subject of a fairly serious international fraud. Elizabeth could think of worse ways to spend the holidays.

‘Well, Happy Boxing Day, everyone,’ says Ron, raising his glass.

They all join in the toast.

‘And a Happy Wednesday, 26th of December, to you, Mervyn,’ adds Ibrahim.

2

Mitch Maxwell would normally be a million miles away when a consignment was unloaded. Why take the risk of being in the warehouse when the drugs were present? But, for obvious reasons, this is no ordinary consignment. And the fewer people involved, the better, given his current circumstances. The only time he has stopped drumming his fingers is to bite his nails. He is not used to being nervous.

Visit iDEB.io for more books - Also it’s Boxing Day, and Mitch wanted to be out of the house. Needed to be out, really. The kids were playing up, and he and his father-in-law had got into a fist fight about where they’d seen one of the actors on the Call the Midwife: Christmas Special before. His father-in-law is currently in Hemel Hempstead Hospital with a fractured jaw. His wife and his mother-in-law are both blaming Mitch, for reasons he can’t fathom, and so he thought discretion might be the better part of valour, and driving the hundred miles to East Sussex to oversee things himself turned out to be very convenient.

Mitch is here to ensure one simple box containing a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of heroin is unloaded from a truck straight off the ferry. Not a lot of money, but that wasn’t the point.

The shipment had made it through customs. That was the point.

The warehouse is on an industrial estate, haphazardly constructed on old farmland about five miles from the South Coast. There were probably barns and stables here hundreds of years ago, corn and barley and clover, horses’ hooves clattering, and now there are corrugated-iron warehouses, old Volvos and cracked windows on the same footprint. The old creaking bones of Britain.

A high metal fence surrounds the whole plot to keep out petty thieves, while, inside the perimeter, the real villains go about their business. Mitch’s warehouse bears the aluminium sign SUSSEX LOGISTICS SYSTEMS. Next door, in another echoing hangar, you’ll find FUTURE TRANSPORT SOLUTIONS LTD, a front for stolen high-performance cars. To the left is a Portakabin with no sign on the door, which is run by a woman Mitch has yet to meet, but who apparently churns out MDMA and passports. In the far corner of the lot is the winery and storage warehouse of BRAMBER – THE FINEST ENGLISH SPARKLING WINE, which Mitch recently discovered is actually a genuine business. The brother and sister who run it could not be more charming, and had given everyone a crate of their wine for Christmas. It was better than Champagne, and had led, in no small part, to the fist fight with his father-in-law.

Whether the brother and sister at Bramber Sparkling Wine had their suspicions that they were the only legitimate company in the whole compound, Mitch couldn’t guess, but they had certainly once seen him buying a crossbow from Future Transport Solutions Ltd and hadn’t batted an eyelid, so they were sound enough. Mitch suspected there was good money to be made in English sparkling wine, and had thought about investing. In the end he hadn’t taken the plunge, because there was also good money to be made in heroin, and sometimes you should stick to what you know. He’s beginning to revise that opinion now, however, as his troubles keep piling up.

The warehouse doors are shut, and the back door of the lorry is open. Two men – well, a man and a boy, really – are unloading plant pots. The minimum crew. Again, because of the current situation, Mitch has already had to tell them to be careful. Sure, the little box hidden deep among the pallets is the most important cargo, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make a few quid off the plant pots too. Mitch sells them to garden centres around the South East, a nice legitimate business. And no one is going to pay for a cracked plant pot.

The heroin is in a small terracotta box, made to look old, like a tatty piece of garden junk, in case anyone comes snooping. A boring ornament. It’s their regular trick. Somewhere in a farmhouse in Helmand, the heroin has been placed in the box, and the box has been wedged shut. Someone from Mitch’s organization – Lenny had drawn the short straw – had been in Afghanistan to oversee it, to make sure the heroin was pure and no one was trying to pull a fast one. The terracotta box had then made its way in Lenny’s care to Moldova, to a town that knew how to mind its own business, and there it had been carefully concealed among hundreds of plant pots and driven across Europe, by a man called Garry with a prison record and not much to lose.

Mitch is in the office, on a makeshift mezzanine level at the far end of the warehouse, scratching the ‘God Loves a Trier’ tattoo on his arm. Everton are losing 2–0 to Man City, which is inevitable but still annoying. Someone had once asked Mitch to join a consortium to buy Everton Football Club. Tempting, to own a piece of his boyhood club, his lifelong passion, but the more Mitch looked into the business of football, the more he thought, once again, that he should probably stick to heroin.

Mitch gets a text from his wife, Kellie.

Dad’s out of hospital. He says he’s going to kill you.

This would be a figure of speech to some, but Mitch’s father-in-law is the head of one of Manchester’s largest gangs, and once bought Mitch a police-issue Taser as a Christmas present. So you had to be careful with him. But doesn’t everyone have to be careful with their in-laws? Mitch is sure it’ll be fine – his marriage to Kellie had been the love that conquered all, the Romeo and Juliet that had united Liverpool and Manchester. Mitch texts back.

Tell him I’ve bought him a Range Rover.

There is a hollow knock at the flimsy office door, and his second-in-command, Dom Holt, comes in.

‘All good,’ says Dom. ‘Pots unloaded, box in the safe.’

‘Thanks, Dom.’

‘You wanna see it? Ugly-looking thing.’

‘No thanks, mate,’ says Mitch. ‘This is as close as I ever want to get.’

‘I’ll send you a picture,’ says Dom. ‘Just so you’ve seen it.’

‘When’s it heading out?’ Mitch is aware that they are not yet home and dry. But his big worry had been customs. Surely it was safe now? What else could go wrong?

‘Nine in the morning,’ says Dom. ‘The shop opens at ten. I’ll send the boy over with it.’

‘Good lad,’ says Mitch. ‘Where’s it going? Brighton?’

Dom nods. ‘Antiques shop. Geezer called Kuldesh Sharma. Not our usual, but the only one we could find open. Shouldn’t be a problem.’

Man City score a third goal, and Mitch winces. He switches off his iPad – no need for any further misery.

‘I’ll leave you to it. Better head home,’ says Mitch. ‘Could your lad nick the Range Rover parked outside the Sparkling Wine place and drive it up to Hertfordshire for me?’

‘No problem, boss,’ says Dom. ‘He’s fifteen, but those things drive themselves. I can drop the box off myself.’

Mitch leaves the warehouse through a fire exit. No one but Dom and the young lad has seen him, and he and Dom had been at school together, been expelled together, in fact, so no worries there.

Dom had moved to the South Coast ten years ago after setting fire to the wrong warehouse, and he looks after all the logistics out of Newhaven. Very useful. Good schools down here too, so Dom is happy. His son just got into the Royal Ballet. All turned out nicely. Until the last few months. But they’re across it. So long as nothing goes wrong with this one. And, so far, so good.

Mitch rolls his shoulders, getting ready for the journey home. His father-in-law won’t be happy, but they’ll have a pint and watch a Fast & Furious and all will be well. He might get a black eye for his troubles – he’s got to give the guy a free punch after what he did – but the Range Rover should placate him.

One little box, a hundred grand in profit. Nice work for a Boxing Day.

What happens after tomorrow is not Mitch’s business. His business is to get the box from Afghanistan to a small antiques shop in Brighton. As soon as someone picks it up, Mitch’s job is done. A man, maybe a woman, who knows, will walk into the shop the next morning, buy the box and walk out. The contents will be verified, and the payment will hit Mitch’s account immediately.

And, more importantly, he’ll know that his organization is secure again. It’s been quite a few months. Seizures at the ports, arrests of drivers, arrests of errand boys. That’s why he’s kept this one so quiet, talking just to the people he can trust. Testing the waters.

From tomorrow, he hopes he will never have to think about the ugly terracotta box again. That he can just bank the money and move on to the next one.

Had Mitch looked over the road to his left as he was leaving the business park, he would have seen a motorcycle courier parked up in a lay-by. And the thought might then have occurred to him that this was an unusual place at an unusual time on an unusual day for the man to be parked there. But Mitch doesn’t see the man, so this thought does not occur, and he drives merrily on his way back home.

The motorcyclist stays where he is.

3: Joyce

Hello again!

I didn’t write my diary yesterday because it was Christmas Day, and it all caught up with me. It does, doesn’t it? Baileys and mince pies and television. The flat was a bit too hot, according to Joanna, and then, once I’d done something about it, a bit too cold. Joanna has underfloor heating throughout, as she isn’t shy of reminding you.

The decorations are up all around me, making me smile. Reds and golds and silvers glinting off the light bulbs, cards on the walls from friends old and new. On top of my tree (it’s not real, don’t tell anyone, it’s John Lewis and you wouldn’t honestly know the difference), an angel Joanna made at primary school. It’s a toilet roll, some aluminium foil, lace and a face drawn on a wooden spoon. It’s been on top of the tree for forty-odd years now. Half a lifetime!

For the first four or five years Joanna was so proud and excited to see her angel on top of the tree, then there were two or three years of increasing embarrassment, leading to, I’d say, thirty years of outright hostility towards the poor angel. In the last few years, though, I’ve noticed there has been a thawing, and this year I came back into the room with Jaffa Cakes on a plate to find Joanna touching the angel, tears in the corners of her eyes.

Which took me by surprise, but, then, I suppose it’s been there almost a whole lifetime for her.

Joanna came down with her beau, Scott, the football chairman. I had been expecting to go to theirs – Joanna’s house looks so lovely and Christmassy on Instagram. Flowers and bows, and a real tree. Candles too close to the curtains for my liking, but she’s her own woman.

Joanna left it until December 20th to announce they would be spending Christmas at mine, and told me not to worry about food, as they’d be bringing everything down, all precooked, from some restaurant in London. ‘No need for you to cook a thing, Mum,’ she had said, which was a shame, as I would have looked forward to cooking.

Why were they at mine? Well, they were flying out to St Lucia on Christmas evening and, at the last minute, their flight had been changed from Heathrow, near them, to Gatwick, near me.

So I was convenient. Which is the best you can ask for sometimes, isn’t it?

Let me tell you something else, while it’s on my mind. We had goose for Christmas dinner. Goose! I said I had a turkey and I could put it on, but Joanna told me that goose is actually more traditional than turkey, and I said, My foot is goose more traditional than turkey, and she said, Mum, Christmas wasn’t invented by Charles Dickens, you know, and I said, I knew that very well (I wasn’t really sure what she meant, but I sensed the argument was slipping away from me, and I needed a foothold), and she said, Well, then, goose it is, and I said, I’ll get the crackers, and she said, No crackers, Mum, it’s not the eighties. Other than that it was a nice Christmas, and we watched the King’s Speech even though I knew Joanna didn’t want to. In truth I didn’t really want to either, but we both knew I was due a victory. I thought Charles did a good job – I remember my first Christmas without my mum.

Joanna bought me a lovely present: it’s a flask they use in space, and it has Merry Christmas, Mum! Here’s to no murders next year engraved onto it. I wonder what they made of that in the shop? She brought flowers too, and the football chairman bought me a bracelet that I would describe as a nice thought.

It’s lovely to open presents though. I bought Joanna the new Kate Atkinson book, and some perfume she had emailed me the name of, and I bought the football chairman some cufflinks, which I suspect he would also describe as a nice thought. I always put the receipts in with things. My mother used to do the same. But I don’t imagine he’ll be taking them back, as they were from the M & S in Brighton, and he always seems to be either in London or Dubai.

Lunch with the gang today, so I finally managed to have my turkey and crackers. I insisted. You could see Elizabeth beginning to object to both, but she thought better of it, so I must have looked determined. However, I made what I suspect was an error by inviting Mervyn to join us. I keep thinking he’s going to melt, but I fear I might be barking up the wrong tree with this one. I just hope I can bark up the right tree one of these days. Before I run out of trees. Or before I stop barking altogether.

We retired to Ibrahim’s flat afterwards, and Mervyn headed home. He revealed he has an online girlfriend, Tatiana, who he has never met but seems to be funding nonetheless. Ibrahim says Mervyn is a victim of ‘romance fraud’ and is going to speak to Donna and Chris about it. When do the police start work again after Christmas? Gerry used to go back somewhere around the 4th of January, but the police are probably different to West Sussex County Council.

I will detail the presents we all bought each other.

Elizabeth to Joyce – A foot spa. The one they advertise on TV. I am in it now. My feet anyway.

Joyce to Elizabeth – M & S vouchers.

Elizabeth to Ron – Whisky.

Ibrahim to Ron – An autobiography of a footballer I hadn’t heard of. Not David Beckham or Gary Lineker.

Ron to Elizabeth – Whisky.

Joyce to Ron – M & S vouchers.

Ibrahim to Elizabeth – A book called The Psychopath Test.

Elizabeth to Ibrahim – A painting of Cairo, which made Ibrahim cry, so they have obviously had a conversation at some point that I wasn’t party to.

Joyce to Ibrahim – M & S vouchers. And this was after Elizabeth’s present, so I felt I could have done better.

Ibrahim to Joyce – M & S vouchers. Phew!

Ron to Joyce – The Kama Sutra. Very funny, Ron.

Ibrahim to Alan – A telephone that squeaks.

Alan to Ibrahim – A clay tablet with Alan’s paw print on it. Ibrahim cried again. Yes!

Ron to Ibrahim – A fake Oscar statue with My Best Mate on it. Which set us all off.

We drank, we had a little singalong – Elizabeth doesn’t know the words to ‘Last Christmas’, if you can believe that? But then I suppose I don’t know the words to ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. We listened to Ron rail against the monarchy for about twenty-five minutes, and then we went our separate ways.

When I got back I unwrapped a present that Donna had sent me, which was lovely of her, as I don’t really know how much police constables earn. It was a little brass dog, which, if you squint, looks a bit like Alan. She bought it at Kemptown Curios in Brighton. It’s run by Stephen’s friend Kuldesh, who helped us in our last case. Sounds like my type of place. Perhaps I’ll visit, because now I have to buy Donna something in return. I do like having people to buy for.

So, all in all, I’ve had a lovely Boxing Day, and am going to fall asleep in front of a Judi Dench film. All that’s missing is Gerry working his way through a tin of Quality Street and leaving the wrappers in the tin. Irritating at the time, but I’d give everything I own to have him back. Gerry liked the Strawberry Delights and Orange Crèmes, and I liked the Toffee Pennies, and if you want to know the recipe for a happy marriage it is that.

Joanna gave me a big hug when she left and told me she loved me. She may be wrong about turkey and crackers, but she still has a few tricks up her sleeve. What is it about Christmas? Everything that’s wrong seems worse, and everything that’s right seems better.

My lovely friends, my lovely daughter. My husband gone, his silly smile gone.

I feel like I should drink to something, so I suppose let’s drink to ‘No murders next year’.

4

Thursday, 27th December, ten a.m.

Kuldesh Sharma is glad that Christmas is over. Glad to be back in his shop. Lots of the other small businesses in the area were shut for the duration, but Kuldesh was opening Kemptown Curios bright and early on December 27th.

He is dressed up for the shop, as always. Purple suit, cream silk shirt. Yellow brogues. Running a shop is theatre. Kuldesh looks at himself in an antique mirror, nods his approval and takes a small bow.

Would anyone come in? Probably not. Who needed an Art Deco porcelain figurine or a silver letter opener two days after Christmas? No one. But Kuldesh could have a little spruce-up, rearrange some bits and bobs, trawl the online auctions. Basically, he could keep himself busy. Christmas Day and Boxing Day pass very slowly when you are by yourself. There is only so much reading you can do, so many cups of tea you can make, before the loneliness crowds in around you. You breathe it in, you cry it out, and the clock ticks slowly, slowly, until you are allowed to sleep. He hadn’t even dressed up on Christmas Day. Who was there to dress up for?

The hardware store opposite is open. Big Dave who runs it lost his wife to cancer in October. The coffee shop further down the hill is also open. It is run by a young widow.

Kuldesh sips his cappuccino in the back office of his shop. He only opened up a matter of minutes ago, and he is taken by surprise when he hears the jingle of the shop bell.

Who has come calling, at such an hour, on such a day?

He pushes himself out of his chair, his arms doing the work his knees used to, walks through the office door into the shop and sees a well-dressed, powerfully built man in his forties. Kuldesh nods, then looks away, finding something he can pretend to be busy with.

You must only ever glance at new customers. Some people want eye contact, but most do not. You must treat customers like cats, and wait for them to come to you. Look too needy and you’ll scare them off. If you do it right, the customers end up thinking you are doing them some sort of favour, allowing them to buy something in your shop.

Kuldesh doesn’t have to worry with this particular customer though. He’s not a buyer, he’s a seller. Close-cropped hair, expensive tan, teeth too bright for his face, as seems the fashion these days. And in his hand a leather holdall that looks more expensive than anything in the shop.

‘You the guy who owns this place?’ A Scouse accent. Unafraid. Threatening? A touch perhaps, but nothing that scares Kuldesh. Whatever is in that expensive bag will be interesting, Kuldesh knows that. Illegal, but interesting. See what he would have missed if he’d stayed at home?

‘Kuldesh,’ Kuldesh says. ‘I trust you had an enjoyable Christmas?’

‘Idyllic,’ says the man. ‘I’m selling. Got a box for you. Very decorative.’

Kuldesh nods; he knows the score. Not really his racket, this, but perhaps all the regular places are shut until New Year. Still, no need to give in without a fight.

‘I’m not buying, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘No room for anything – got to clear some stock out first. Perhaps you’d like to buy a Victorian card table?’

But the man isn’t listening. He places the bag, carefully, on the counter and half unzips it. ‘Ugly box, terracotta, all yours.’

‘Travelled a long way, has it?’ Kuldesh asks, taking a peek inside at the box. Dark and dull, some carving hidden by a layer of grime.

The man shrugs. ‘Haven’t we all. Give me fifty quid, and a lad’ll be in early tomorrow morning and buy it off you for five hundred.’

Is there a point in discussing it? In arguing with this man? Attempting to send him on his way? There is not. They have chosen Kuldesh’s shop, and that is all there is to it. Give the man his fifty, keep the bag under the counter, hand it over in the morning and don’t lose any sleep thinking about what’s in the box. This is just how things are done sometimes, and it’s best to play nice.

Either that or you’ll get a petrol bomb through your front window.

Kuldesh takes three tens and a twenty from the till and hands them to the man, who quickly buries them deep in his overcoat. ‘You don’t look like you need fifty pounds?’

The man laughs. ‘You don’t look like you need five hundred, but here we both are.’

‘Your overcoat is exquisite,’ says Kuldesh.

‘Thank you,’ says the man. ‘It’s Thom Sweeney. I’m sure you know this already, but if that bag goes missing someone will kill you.’

‘I understand,’ says Kuldesh. ‘What is in the box, by the way? Between you and me?’

‘Nothing,’ says the man. ‘It’s just an old box.’

The man laughs again, and this time Kuldesh joins him.

‘God speed, young man,’ says Kuldesh. ‘There’s a homeless woman on the corner of Blaker Street who might appreciate that fifty pounds.’

The man nods, says, ‘Don’t touch the bag,’ and disappears through the door.

‘Thank you for calling,’ says Kuldesh, noting that the man is heading down the hill in the direction of Blaker Street. A motorcycle courier passes in the opposite direction.

An interesting start to the morning, but many interesting things happen in this business. Kuldesh had recently been involved in tracking down some rare books and catching a murderer with his friend Stephen and Stephen’s wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth runs a ‘Murder Club’, of all things.

This box will be in new hands tomorrow, and the whole episode will be forgotten, just one of those things that happen in a trade that is not always beyond reproach.

Trinkets and trouble, that was the antiques business.

Kuldesh lifts the bag onto the counter and unzips it again. The box has a sort of squat charm, but is not the sort of thing he could sell. He shakes it. It is certainly full of something. Cocaine or heroin is his best guess. Kuldesh scrapes some dirt from the lid. What is this worthless box now worth? More than five hundred pounds, that is for certain.

Kuldesh zips the bag up and puts it under his desk in the back room. He will Google the street price of heroin and cocaine. That will make the day go a little quicker. He will then lock the bag in his safe. It would be a very bad day for a burglary.

5

‘Mervyn, there isn’t an easy way to say this. Tatiana isn’t real.’ Donna holds out a comforting hand for Mervyn to take, but it remains untaken, as Ibrahim could have told her. Mervyn is not one of life’s hand-takers. He lives life at a safe distance.

They have asked Donna to visit Mervyn’s flat, to have a chat about his apparent new love, Tatiana. Joyce felt that a police officer might make more of an impact on him, though something in Mervyn’s eyes at the Boxing Day lunch had told Ibrahim that very little ever had an impact on Mervyn.

Mervyn gives a little smile. ‘I’m afraid I have photographs and emails to suggest otherwise.’

‘I wonder if we might take a look at those photographs, Mervyn?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘I wonder if I might look at your personal emails?’ Mervyn replies.

‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I know it’s difficult,’ says Donna. ‘And I know it might feel embarrassing –’

‘Not embarrassing in the slightest,’ says Mervyn. ‘You couldn’t be further from the truth there. You’re miles from the truth, my love.’

‘But perhaps a misunderstanding?’ says Joyce.

‘A crossing of wires? Simply that,’ says Ibrahim.

Mervyn shakes his head in amusement. ‘It might be unfashionable, but I have a little thing called faith, which, I venture, is undervalued these days. In the police force, and elsewhere.’

Mervyn looks at the whole gang as he says this.

‘I know that the four of you are very much the “cool kids” around here, I get that …’

Ibrahim notes that Joyce looks thrilled.

‘… but you don’t always know everything.’

‘I keep telling them that, Merv,’ says Ron.

‘You’re the worst of them,’ says Mervyn. ‘If it wasn’t for Joyce, I wouldn’t put up with any of you. I gave up Boxing Day lunch to keep you lot company, don’t forget that.’

‘It was greatly appreciated, Mervyn,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And, I agree, we are flawed, as individuals, and as a group, and, in my view, you are probably right to single out Ron as the worst of us. But I believe Donna would like to show you a few things that might sway you.’

‘I will not sway,’ says Mervyn.

Donna turns on a laptop and starts the business of opening some windows.

‘It is very kind of you to visit us on your day off,’ says Joyce.

‘Not at all,’ says Donna.

‘Do you know Donna arrested someone on Christmas Day?’ Joyce tells Mervyn. ‘I didn’t know you could do that.’

‘What was it?’ asks Ron. ‘Reindeer rustling?’

‘Soliciting a sexual act,’ says Donna.

‘At Christmas,’ says Joyce, shaking her head. ‘You’d think people would be too full.’

Donna has found what she is looking for, and she angles the screen towards Mervyn. ‘Now, Mervyn, Joyce forwarded me a photograph of Tatiana that you sent her –’

‘Did she indeed?’

‘I did,’ says Joyce. ‘Don’t act irked. You only sent it to me to show off.’

‘Male vanity,’ agrees Ibrahim, glad to have something to add.

‘She’s a cracker,’ says Ron. ‘Whoever she is.’

‘She is Tatiana,’ says Mervyn. ‘And your opinions are unwelcome.’

‘Well, that’s just it,’ says Donna. She shows Mervyn his photograph on her computer screen, next to another identical photograph. Same woman, same photograph. ‘You can do a reverse-image search of any photograph on the internet, so I did that with your photograph of Tatiana, and you’ll see that, far from being a photograph of somebody named Tatiana, the photograph is actually of a woman named Larissa Bleidelis, a Lithuanian singer.’

‘So Tatiana is a singer?’ says Mervyn.

‘No, Tatiana isn’t real,’ says Donna.

They can all see that this is as clear as day, but Mervyn is having none of it.

As Ibrahim listens, he thinks this is like trying to talk to Ron about football. Or about politics. Or about anything else. Mervyn calls this new theory ‘preposterous’. He even calls it ‘poppycock’, which, Ibrahim judges, is as close to swearing as Mervyn would ever go. Mervyn fights, says he has plenty more photographs, private messages, proclamations of love. The lot. He even keeps them in a file, which makes Ibrahim warm to him slightly more.

Joyce takes the baton now. ‘Have you ever heard of something called “romance fraud”?’

‘No, but I’ve heard of love,’ says Mervyn.

‘There’s a television programme all about it,’ continues Joyce. ‘It’s on after BBC Breakfast.’

‘I don’t watch television,’ says Mervyn. ‘I call it the gogglebox.’

‘Yes, I think lots of people do,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You didn’t invent that expression.’

‘This is a tangent,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And I mean nothing by it, but a surprising number of serial killers don’t own a television.’

Joyce’s dog, Alan, is licking Ibrahim’s hand, a favourite hobby of his. The others see it as a bond between the two of them, without realizing that Ibrahim always keeps a Polo mint in his pocket, after discovering Alan has a fondness for them.

Donna opens another window on the laptop, and more photos appear. ‘The fraudsters use the same photos over and over again. There’s a Canadian pilot, there’s a lawyer from New York, there’s Larissa, and plenty of others like her. The romance-fraud gangs just pass them around. The look they like is beautiful but unthreatening.’

‘That’s the look I like,’ says Joyce.

Donna shows Ibrahim the pilot and Ibrahim could see the appeal. Very steadfast.

Mervyn is still unmoved, and protests that he has been speaking to Tatiana for five or six months. Many times a day.

‘Speaking?’

‘You know, writing, same thing,’ says Mervyn.

Ibrahim can imagine the lonely man filling his hours. No one calling, no one needing him.

Joyce then points out to Mervyn that he has also sent Tatiana five thousand pounds, and he blusters that of course he has, and that if someone you love needs a new car, say, or a visa, you help out. That this is simply manners.

‘You’ll all see,’ he adds. ‘She’s coming over on January the 19th, and, when she does, there will be plenty of humble pie eaten in Coopers Chase. Apologies will be expected.’

Everyone feels it is best to leave it there for now, and they gather up their things and start the walk back to Joyce’s with a quandary to consider. Elizabeth heads home to Stephen, so Joyce takes the opportunity to ask Donna about her Christmas with Bogdan.

‘And is he tattooed everywhere?’

‘Pretty much, yes,’ confirms Donna.

‘Even …?’

‘No, not there,’ says Donna. ‘Joyce, has anyone ever called you a pervert?’

‘Don’t be such a prude,’ says Joyce.

Ibrahim wonders what they should do about Mervyn. He was a difficult man, that much was certain, and he had come into their orbit only because Joyce couldn’t resist a deep voice and a sense of mystery. But he was a lonely man, and he was being taken advantage of. And, besides, it might be nice for the Thursday Murder Club to have a new project that moved at a gentler pace than usual. Something a bit less murdery would be quite a novelty.

6

Samantha Barnes is drinking a late-night gin and tonic and adding Picasso’s signature and an edition number to some pencil drawings of a dove. Samantha has signed Picasso’s name so often over the years that once, by accident, she signed it instead of her own on a mortgage-application form.

Her mind is wandering. This is the fun part of the job. This, and the money.

Forging a Picasso is a lot easier than you’d think. Not the big paintings, sure, that takes a skill Samantha doesn’t have, but the sketches, the lithographs, the stuff people will buy online without looking too closely – that’s a breeze.

There is money in real antiques, of course there is, but there is a lot more money in fake antiques. In fake furniture, in fake coins, in fake sketches.

Let’s say Samantha buys a mid-century Arne Vodder desk for £3,200, and sells it for £7,000; her profit is £3,800, very nice thank you.

However, if Samantha pays £500 to a man called Norman, who works out of an old dairy shed in Singleton, to knock up an exact replica of an Arne Vodder desk, and then sells it for £7,000, her profit is £6,500. You, as her Garth insists on saying, do the maths.

Equally, if Samantha spends her evening forging limited-edition Picasso lithographs, as she has been doing this evening, after coming home from Bridge Club, her cost of materials might be £200 or so, but, by the time she’s sold them all online to people from London who like the idea of having Picasso’s signature on their wall, and aren’t too fussy about the provenance, her profit will be about £16,000.

All of which goes to explain why Samantha Barnes no longer has a mortgage.

She starts taking photographs of the Picassos for her online store. She’ll advertise them for £2,500, and she’ll happily take £1,800.

Samantha used to be legit, she really did. Back when it was her and William. Their little shop in Petworth, their trips around the country building their stock, their loyal customers, the haggling, all good fun, all mildly profitable. But, as they got older, the shop grew too familiar, it closed in on them. What was once cosy and safe became constraining, like a childhood home. The trips around the country became chores, the same faces selling the same porcelain cats.

So they started to play little games, Samantha and William. Sam and Billy. Purely for fun, nothing else. One must get through the day, mustn’t one? And one particular game led her to exactly where she is now. And where is she now? Pretending to be Picasso while listening to the Shipping Forecast, in the finest house in West Sussex.

She often thinks back to how it all started.

William brought home an inkwell, a duff, dull runt among a haul of goods he’d picked up on Merseyside. They were about to throw it away when William suggested a bet. William bet that he could sell the worthless inkwell for £50 before Samantha could. Not to any of their regulars of course, and not to anyone who looked like they couldn’t afford it, but just as a bit of sport between the two of them. They shook on their bet and continued unpacking the real antiques.

The next day William had put the inkwell in its own locked glass display case, and with a tag saying, Ink stand, possibly Bohemian, possibly eighteenth century, please enquire about price. Serious offers only.

Was this naughty? Yes, a bit. Should they have done it? No, they shouldn’t have, but they were bored, and in love, and they were looking to entertain each other. It’s not one of the worst crimes you could commit in the antiques business. As Samantha knows well, having now committed them all.

Regulars would come in, take a look at the case and ask what was special about the ordinary-looking inkwell. Samantha and William would give a little shrug – ‘Probably nothing, just a hunch’ – but all parties soon forgot about it. Until three weeks later when a large Canadian man, who had parked in the disabled space outside the shop, bought it for £750. ‘He haggled me down from a thousand,’ William had confided.

Samantha signs another Picasso and lights a cigarette. Two things there, smoking and wide-scale forgery, that she didn’t do before Garth. But the cigarette smoke is actually rather good for ageing the paper.

They repeated the ‘inkwell’ trick a few times. A broken clock, a vintage-style plate, a one-armed teddy bear. The ‘antiques’ went to grateful homes, and the money, most of it anyway, to charity. They would eagerly rifle through job lots of antiques to pick out the new challenge: the next occupant of the glass display case with the lock. A secret game between the two of them.

And then William died.

They were on holiday, in Crete. He went out swimming after lunch, and was carried away by the tide. Samantha returned to England with the coffin in the hold, and was dragged away by a tide of her own.

She spent her next few years too sad to live but too scared to die, reeling through a haze of grief and madness, always quick with a cup of tea and a smile for her customers, accepting their well-meaning sympathies, playing bridge, tending the shop, reciting from memory the pleasantries and the platitudes, while hoping every day might be her last.

Then one morning, three years or so after William had died, the large Canadian man who had bought the inkwell came back into her shop, with a gun.

And everything changed again.

She hears Garth coming through the door now. Even though he is able to be quiet, he chooses not to be.

It’s the middle of the night, and she wonders where he has been, but it doesn’t really do to ask sometimes. You must let Garth be Garth. He has never let her down yet.

He will see that her studio light is on, and he will be up with a whisky and a kiss for her before long.

A couple more Picassos and she will call it a night.

7: Joyce

OK, I have a riddle for you.

How can you celebrate New Year’s Eve with your friends, and still get to bed early?

Because I have done just that this evening.

We’ve had the most wonderful New Year’s Eve bash. We drank, we counted down to midnight and watched the fireworks on TV. We sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’, Ron fell over a coffee table, and we all went home.

So a very happy New Year to one and all and, best of all, it is still only ten p.m., so I can get into bed at a reasonable hour.

And here’s how.

There is a lovely man called Bob Whittaker from Wordsworth Court – not my type, before you get ideas – and he was something in computers, before everyone was something in computers. He eats lunch by himself, but is very approachable. Last year he built a drone and flew it over Coopers Chase and invited us all into the lounge to watch the film. It was wonderful – he’d even put music on it. You could see the llamas and the lakes, and you could see that the Ocado delivery vans had OCADO written on their roofs – they really have thought of everything. I think that was in the summer, before the first murder, but you lose track, don’t you? After the film he gave a talk about drones, which was less well attended but, according to Ibrahim, very good.

So this was Bob’s idea. He hired out the lounge, and the big screen, and everyone was invited. In the end there must have been about fifty of us. Sometimes when you’re in a group like that you really see how old you are, like walking through a hall of mirrors.

We all brought along food and, mainly, drink, and watched some episodes of Only Fools and Horses that Bob had illegally downloaded.

Then, at about 8.50, Bob switched the screen to a Turkish television channel, where they were counting down to the New Year three hours ahead of us. I don’t know where he found it, on the internet, I imagine. They would have Turkish television there, wouldn’t they?

They had music, dancers, and a host who we couldn’t understand, but you absolutely knew the type, so you had a rough idea of the sort of thing he’d be saying. A countdown clock appeared on the screen – Turkish numbers are the same as ours – and a brass band started playing the Turkish national anthem or something similar. When it reached ‘10’ we all joined in counting down; and, as it hit nine p.m. here it hit midnight in Turkey and they set off the fireworks and we all hugged and cheered and wished each other a Happy New Year. A rock band started playing on the TV so Bob turned it down, and Ron started ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and we linked arms and thought of old acquaintances, and thanked our lucky stars for seeing another New Year. Ten minutes or so later, we drifted home, New Year celebrated and ready for an early night.

To look at Bob in the restaurant, or wandering through the village, you might dismiss him as boring. He is quiet and shy, and is always in a grey jumper over a stiff white shirt. But this man had the wherewithal to give us all a wonderful evening. To be able to get Turkish TV on an English telly, and also to have the kindness to understand how much everyone would enjoy it, well, that takes quite a man.

And I know what you’re thinking, but, again, he’s not my type. I wish that he was.

I texted ‘Happy New Year’ to Joanna, and she texted back ‘HNY’, as if the effort of spelling out the words was a bit too much. I texted ‘Happy New Year’ to Viktor too, and he texted back ‘May you be granted health and wealth and wisdom, and may you see your beauty reflected in those around you,’ which was much more like it. I then raised a glass to Gerry, as I always do.

I also raised a glass to Bernard, here last New Year, and gone now. We won’t all be here this time next year, that’s just the facts of the matter. Those at the back of the line will fall, and no one will tell you where you are in the line. Though at my age I have a rough idea. As Ibrahim always says, ‘The numbers don’t look good.’

There are plenty of things to look forward to though, and that’s the key. What’s the point of another year if you don’t fill it? I am looking forward to Donna’s scheme to help Mervyn, even if I’ve rather given up on Mervyn himself. Why can’t Bob from Wordsworth Court have Mervyn’s eyebrows and his deep voice, and why can’t Mervyn have Bob’s kindness and cleverness? I’m so shallow, I wish I wasn’t.

When I think about it, Gerry had kindness and cleverness and eyebrows, so perhaps you are only gifted one of those men in a lifetime?

I can hear Alan’s tail thumping against the leg of my desk, even though the man himself is fast asleep.

A very Happy New Year to you. May you see many more.

8

The victim is a man called Kuldesh Sharma, and the body has been here for some days. An antiques dealer from Brighton. The car had been found at around six thirty this morning, by a local man walking his dog. Walking his dog in the dark on New Year’s Day? I mean, sure mate, whatever you say. Not Chris’s problem though – he has a corpse to deal with.

And so here they are. It’s so nearly a lovely view, thinks Chris, his breath frosty in the early-morning air.

A narrow, deeply pitted track cuts through the Kent woods, ridged with frost, ending at a wooden fence, penning in winter sheep. A scene from across the centuries, unbroken for generations. Silver-white branches reach out overhead, latticing a brilliant blue sky.

It might be a Christmas postcard, but for the extreme violence.

Chris has had a few days off over Christmas. Patrice had come down from London, and Chris had cooked her a turkey, which was much too big and had taken far too long to cook, but which seemed to be greatly appreciated. Briefly, possibly during The Sound of Music, with Patrice in tears, Chris had been tempted to propose, but bottled it at the last moment. What if she thought it ridiculous? Too soon? The ring remains in his jacket pocket at home. There for when the courage strikes.

Donna had been at work. Christmas at the station is often quite good fun though. Mince pies, the odd arrest, double pay. She had joined them in the evening, with Bogdan. Chris had suddenly panicked that Bogdan might have proposed. And with a nicer ring? But that really would be too soon.

The frost crunches underfoot.

If the birds had been disturbed by the gunshot, their disturbance was long forgotten, and their happy noise echoes above. Even the sheep are back about their business. It is serene and peaceful, and the pure-white overalls of the forensic officers shine in the low winter sun. Chris and Donna duck under the police tape and walk towards the small car, plump and berry-red in this Christmas grotto.

The track is off a lane, which is off a hedge-canyoned road, which meanders slowly and peacefully from a Kent village. The village itself was so beautiful that Chris had been surfing Rightmove up to the moment they finally reached the scene. £1.8m for a farmhouse. The village was described as ‘tranquil’.

Even the finest estate agent in Kent would be hard-pressed to describe it as that today.

‘Mum said you had no Quality Street?’ says Donna. ‘The whole Christmas?’

‘No Quality Street, no Terry’s Chocolate Orange, no Baileys,’ says Chris. The foods of Christmas Past. Ghosts to him. On the plus side, he almost has abs now.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t propose though,’ says Donna.

‘Early days,’ says Chris. ‘And I’d have to buy a ring first.’

The smell hits them before anything else. The best estimate was the body had been here since late on the 27th. Five days ago now. Chris and Donna reach the car. A forensic officer named Amy Peach greets them.

‘Happy New Year,’ says Amy, carefully placing a bloodied headrest into a plastic container.

‘Glad tidings,’ says Chris. ‘This is Mr Sharma?’

‘According to his heavily embossed business card,’ says Amy. ‘And his monogrammed handkerchief.’

The bullet had passed straight through the driver’s- side window, and then straight through the skull of poor Kuldesh Sharma. The blood spattered on the passenger-side window had long since formed into rosé ice crystals in the brutal cold.

Chris can see by the frozen tyre marks that there had been two cars here. Two cars had pulled up down this quiet track, leading to nowhere, a few days after Christmas. For what reason? Business? Pleasure? Whichever it was, it had ended in death.

Judging by the tyre marks, Chris concludes one car had reversed back out, business over, back to life. The other had reached its final destination.

He surveys the scene. Fantastically secluded. No one for miles around. No CCTV en route – you couldn’t pick a better spot for a murder. He looks at the car window. The single gunshot.

‘Looks professional,’ he says. Donna is staring at the body. Has she spotted something that Amy Peach has missed?

Chris and Amy Peach had once shared a drunken night together after a colleague’s leaving party, and neither of them had been at their brilliant best. Amy had been sick on Chris’s sofa, but only because Chris had fallen asleep on the bathroom floor, wedging the door shut. They have been quietly awkward around each other ever since. No one would ever know, but their mortified dance would no doubt continue until one of them retired, or died. Better that than ever mentioning it.

‘That’s your job, not mine,’ says Amy. ‘But you’re right that it’s very clean.’

Amy is now married to a solicitor from Wadhurst. Chris had eventually had to get rid of the sofa altogether.

Further back up the lane, casts of the tyre tracks, preserved in the ice, are being taken as pattern evidence. If this was a professional job, these would lead to nothing. A stolen car wiped of prints would eventually surface somewhere. Left in a car park with no security cameras. Or crushed by the local friendly wrecker’s yard. Chris had learned a long time ago never to assume, but this has all the hallmarks of a falling-out between drug dealers.

Actually, not all the hallmarks. Drug dealers important enough to be killed would usually be driving a black Range Rover, not a red Nissan Almera. So perhaps there was more to this than met the eye.

‘I met him,’ says Donna.

‘Kuldesh Sharma?’

‘When we were investigating the Viking,’ says Donna.

‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘So recently?’

Donna nods. ‘Met him with Stephen. Elizabeth’s husband.’

‘Of course you did,’ says Chris. ‘Maybe we can keep Elizabeth and the gang out of this one?’

‘Ahh,’ says Donna. ‘The impossible dream. He was a nice guy. Did you really buy my mum gardening gloves for Christmas?’

‘That’s what she said she wanted,’ says Chris.

Donna shakes her head. ‘Every time I think I’ve got you trained up, I realize how far we’ve got to go.’

They walk back along the track together. Donna is deep in thought.

‘You thinking about Kuldesh?’ Chris asks. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No,’ says Donna. ‘I’m thinking, what’s the deal between you and the forensic officer?’

‘The deal? Nothing,’ says Chris. ‘We’re colleagues.’

Donna waves this away. ‘Sure, to be discussed.’

‘Not a word of this to Bogdan, by the way,’ says Chris. ‘He’ll only tell Elizabeth.’

‘I promise,’ says Donna. ‘If you promise me there was never anything between you and the forensic officer.’

9

‘They shot him in the head,’ says Bogdan, hunched over the chessboard. ‘A single bullet.’ Today is a good day. Stephen remembers him, and Stephen remembers chess. A nice start to the year.

‘Awful,’ says Stephen. ‘Poor Kuldesh.’

‘Awful,’ agrees Elizabeth, walking into the room with two teas. ‘Bogdan, I’ve given you only five sugars, you should cut down. New Year’s resolution. Any suspects?’

‘Donna says was professional,’ says Bogdan. ‘A hit.’

‘Hmm,’ says Elizabeth, and turns to her husband, happy to see the spark in his eyes, so often missing now. ‘Kuldesh the type to get mixed up in things?’

Stephen nods. ‘Oh, absolutely. Kuldesh? Absolutely. I saw him the other day, you know?’

‘We saw him together, Stephen,’ says Bogdan. ‘He was very helpful. Very nice gentleman.’

‘Whatever you say, old chap,’ says Stephen. ‘Always up to something though.’

‘And they’d broken into his shop too?’ says Elizabeth. ‘Did I hear that correctly? Before or after they’d killed him?’

‘After they killed him, says Donna.’

‘Didn’t find what they were looking for,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Still, strange to kill him. What else did Donna have to say for herself?’

‘I’m not allowed to tell you,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is police business.’

‘Nonsense,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Won’t do any harm to have another brain on the job. Any witnesses at the shop? CCTV?’

Bogdan holds up a finger. ‘Wait!’ He takes out his phone, scrolls to a voice note and presses play. Donna’s voice fills the room.

‘Elizabeth, hello, it’s Donna here. I know that Kuldesh was a friend of Stephen, hello, Stephen by the way –’

‘Absolute cracker, that one,’ says Stephen.

‘Bogdan is under the strictest instructions not to share details of this case with you, so please don’t play your usual tricks –’

‘Tricks …’ says Elizabeth, offended.

‘He is aware of the consequences for him if he chooses to tell you details of the case. You are a woman of the world, Elizabeth, and you can probably guess what those consequences are …’

Stephen raises an eyebrow at Bogdan, and Bogdan nods in confirmation.

‘… so I would be enormously grateful if you could just let us get on with our job. Love to everyone, bye for now!’

Bogdan puts down the phone and gives Elizabeth an apologetic shrug.

‘Bogdan, she’s bluffing. If I were having sex with you, I would be shooting myself in the foot to withdraw it, look at you. No offence, Stephen.’

‘Oh, none taken,’ says Stephen. ‘Look at the man.’

‘I gave my word,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is my bond.’

‘God, men can be so noble when it suits them,’ huffs Elizabeth. ‘Bogdan, will you be here for the next couple of hours?’

‘I can be,’ says Bogdan. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to pick up Joyce, and pay a visit to Kuldesh’s shop. I don’t see that I have an alternative.’

‘You could just leave it to Donna and Chris?’

‘Honestly,’ says Elizabeth, pulling on her coat. ‘What a perfect waste of everyone’s time.’

‘Darling, you will enjoy it,’ says Stephen.

‘That is beside the point,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Give Kuldesh my love,’ says Stephen. ‘Tell him he’s an old dog from me.’

Elizabeth walks over to her husband and kisses him on the top of the head. ‘I will, my darling.’

10

Kuldesh’s shop is unrecognizable. Ransacked, smashed to pieces. Someone was looking for something, and hadn’t been in a good mood about it. Donna doesn’t want to think too much about everything that must have been lost here. She wants to think happier thoughts.

‘Any resolutions?’ she asks Chris. Donna’s New Year’s resolution is to pretend to learn Polish, putting in just enough effort for Bogdan to understand when she eventually gives up.

‘I’m going to go sea-swimming every day,’ says Chris. ‘Unbelievably good for you. Circulation, joints, the lot.’

‘You’ll never do that every day,’ says Donna.

‘You underestimate me,’ says Chris. ‘Big mistake.’

‘You’re going to go sea-swimming today?’

‘Well, no, not today,’ says Chris. ‘We’re working, aren’t we?’

‘Did you go yesterday?’

‘We were uncovering a murder scene, Donna,’ says Chris. ‘So no. But every other day I will.’

They walk through to the back office, also upended: they find drawers pulled out, papers strewn across the floor and a large, green floor safe forced open.

‘Jesus,’ says Donna. In her mind she can still see the corpse of Kuldesh Sharma, in his suit, silk shirt unbuttoned rakishly low. In truth she had recognized him from behind, that shiny head still intact. Last time Donna had seen him – and indeed the first time – had been in this very shop, with Bogdan and Stephen, asking for his help in tracking down some rare books. Was Kuldesh dodgy? Certainly. Involved in drugs? Donna couldn’t see it. But here they were, in a smashed-up shop, investigating his very professional murder.

Subtle signs that perhaps he was involved in something.

‘Someone was looking for something, eh?’ says Chris.

‘And after they killed him too,’ says Donna. The local police had been called to the shop at around noon on December 28th – hours after someone had put a bullet through Kuldesh’s head. Donna thinks about the statue Bogdan had bought for her. The statue Kuldesh had ended up giving him for a pound in the name of love. Does that make the statue bad luck? Donna hopes not.

Christmas with Bogdan had been everything she could have hoped for and more. Well, maybe not everything: his present to her had been quad-bike lessons.

‘So someone arranges to meet Kuldesh,’ says Chris.

‘Kuldesh has something for them, they have something for Kuldesh. Money, let’s assume.’ Donna is now flicking through a book of receipts.

‘The cars drive down the lane, pull up. Our killer walks out of their car, one bullet through the window, then picks up whatever Kuldesh has for them?’

‘Except he doesn’t have it, it’s not in his car. He’s kept it back here. For insurance.’

The receipts show that Kuldesh’s shop was very quiet on the 27th. Three sales. A lantern, seventy-five pounds in cash; an ‘unsigned seascape’, ninety-five pounds on the credit card of a ‘Terence Brown’; and ‘assorted spoons’ for a fiver.

Donna spots a mobile phone wedged behind a radiator. She wonders why Kuldesh hadn’t taken it with him, then remembers he was eighty. Either way, he has gone to the trouble of hiding it, so perhaps it contains something of interest. She eases it out and places it in an evidence bag.

Of course Kuldesh might have sold any number of things off the books. CCTV would give them a better idea. Though if that CCTV was linked to Kuldesh’s hard drive, they are out of luck, as it lies smashed to pieces next to the empty safe.

‘So the question is, what were they looking for? What did Kuldesh have?’

‘And,’ says Donna, looking at the empty safe again, ‘did they find it?’

As they walk out of the office, Donna looks at the cameras rigged up inside the shop. They seem serious, and she hopes they are backed up somewhere other than on the shattered computer in the office.

She hears familiar voices outside. Chris has heard them too.

‘Shall we?’ Donna asks.

‘I suppose we’ll have to,’ says Chris.

11

Elizabeth and Joyce have been unable to get inside Kuldesh’s shop. The police tape was still wrapped across the front, and large boards had been nailed across the broken windows. This being Brighton, the boards had already been graffitied with the words WATCH CAPITALISM BURN and plastered with flyers for the seafront nightclubs. Elizabeth tries to get some purchase under one of the boards, but no luck.

‘You should have brought an axe,’ says Joyce. ‘I could just see you with an axe.’

‘Don’t be facetious, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth.

Joyce looks up and sees CCTV cameras.

‘CCTV cameras!’

‘Contain your excitement,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Anyone professional enough to kill a man with a single bullet through a car window is professional enough to disable a CCTV camera. We’re not dealing with children.’

Donna and Chris emerge from a side alley.

‘Can I help you, ladies?’ asks Donna. ‘We’re from the police, we investigate crime for a living, how lovely to meet you.’

‘Window shopping,’ explains Elizabeth.

‘Happy New Year!’ says Joyce. ‘Thank you for my brass dog, Donna.’

‘My pleasure,’ says Donna, then turns to Elizabeth. ‘I thought I was quite polite when I asked you to leave it to us? Polite for me at least?’

‘Impeccably polite,’ agrees Elizabeth. ‘I was very proud of you.’

‘And yet’ – Chris gestures to the two women, and to the ransacked shop – ‘here we all are.’

‘I realized I had never been to Kuldesh’s shop,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I thought I should put that right. Donna, you have been recently, of course, with Bogdan and Stephen. That was an unauthorized little adventure, so I thought I might have one of my own.’

‘I don’t think Stephen needs you to authorize his adventures,’ says Donna.

‘I meant you and Bogdan, dear,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I don’t think I need –’

‘And I do like antiques,’ says Joyce. ‘Gerry collected horseshoes. He had seven or eight of them by the end.’

‘Well, as ever, you seem to attract corpses,’ says Chris.

‘Always have,’ says Elizabeth. ‘They seem drawn to me. Any luck with the CCTV?’

‘Too early to tell,’ says Chris. ‘Also none of your business. Choose whichever answer you prefer.’

‘My view,’ says Joyce, ‘is that anyone professional enough to kill Kuldesh with a single gunshot in a country lane is also professional enough to disable the CCTV.’

‘That’s your view, is it, Joyce?’ asks Elizabeth.

Joyce is now staring at a colourful nightclub flyer pasted onto the wooden boards. ‘I wonder what “Ket Donk” is?’

‘I think there’s a café further down the road,’ says Chris. ‘You might like that.’

‘Ooh, a café,’ says Joyce.

‘We’re working, Chris,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Stephen’s friend has been murdered. You think you can palm us off with a café?’

‘We’re working too,’ says Chris. ‘It’s our actual job. I’m sure you understand.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We shall let you get on. Will you let us know if you find anything?’

‘I don’t work for you, Elizabeth,’ says Chris.

‘Sorry,’ says Donna. ‘He finds you quite emasculating. Even I do – I don’t know how that works. Perhaps just let us deal with this one.’

‘As you wish,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We don’t always have to share.’

Elizabeth slips her arm through Joyce’s and leads her down towards the café.

‘You took that lying down,’ says Joyce. ‘I thought you’d kick up more of a fuss.’

‘I noticed the café on the way up,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Cakes in the window …’

‘Wonderful,’ says Joyce. ‘I haven’t eaten since elevenses.’

‘… and a CCTV camera outside.’

Joyce smiles at her friend. ‘Something for us both, then?’

‘Quite so,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And we’ve just agreed that we don’t always have to share.’

12

Connie Johnson unwraps her Christmas present from Ibrahim. It is a small, black leather-bound notebook.

‘You often see it on television, don’t you?’ says Ibrahim. ‘Drug dealers like to keep notebooks. Numbers and transactions and so on. You can’t trust computers, because of law enforcement. So when I saw it I thought of you.’

‘Thank you, Ibrahim,’ says Connie. ‘I would have bought you something, but all you can buy in prison is Ecstasy and SIM cards.’

‘Not at all,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Besides, you are not supposed to buy presents for your therapist.’

‘And are therapists supposed to buy notebooks for drug dealers?’

‘Well, it was Christmas,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Although if you really wanted to give me a present, there are a couple of questions I might ask you?’

‘I’m guessing not questions about my childhood?’

‘Questions about a murder. Elizabeth made me write them down.’ Yesterday’s meeting of the Thursday Murder Club had been an absolute barnstormer. In Ibrahim’s view it had really done exactly what it said on the tin. ‘I promise we will get to your childhood in time.’

‘Go on,’ says Connie Johnson.

‘Let me describe a scenario,’ says Ibrahim. ‘We are at the end of a remote country lane, in deep woodland. It is late at night. There are two cars.’

‘Dogging,’ says Connie.

‘Not dogging, I think,’ says Ibrahim. ‘The driver of Car A, an antiques dealer …’

‘The worst,’ says Connie.

‘… remains in his seat, while somebody from Car B walks up to the window and fires a bullet through his head.’

‘One shot?’ asks Connie. ‘Kill shot?’

‘Kill shot,’ confirms Ibrahim. He enjoys saying it.

‘This is good,’ says Connie. ‘Let’s talk about my childhood another time.’

‘Car B disappears, back whence it came …’

‘No one else I know says “whence”,’ says Connie.

‘Then you must widen your social circle,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Some hours later, the shop belonging to the antiques dealer is burgled.’

Connie nods. ‘OK, OK.’

‘No useful prints, either at the scene or at the shop.’

‘There wouldn’t be,’ says Connie, making a note in her new book.

‘Oh, I’m so happy to see it’s already useful,’ says Ibrahim.

‘CCTV though?’

‘None at the shop, but at a café down the hill, at which Joyce says there were excellent macaroons, CCTV captures a man in an expensive overcoat. We know about this, but the police, as yet, don’t.’

‘Big surprise there,’ says Connie.

‘He comes in to eat and has a conversation with the lady who runs the café. Louise, if you need her name.’

‘I don’t,’ says Connie. ‘When I need information I’ll ask.’

‘The good news is that Louise said she prefers not to speak to the police because Covid was a hoax,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Words to that effect. Now, while we don’t know for certain that he had been to the antiques shop, that is the direction he came from, and he had fifty pounds or so in cash in his pocket, which he took out when he paid, so Louise surmised that he might have done. I’m led to believe that people rarely pay in cash these days.’

‘It’s a nightmare,’ says Connie. ‘Even I have to take Apple Pay now. Did he have an accent, the man?’

‘Liverpudlian,’ says Ibrahim. ‘From Liverpool.’

Connie nods again. ‘You know you over-explain sometimes?’

‘Thank you,’ says Ibrahim. ‘The prevailing wisdom, which one must not always follow, but occasionally it prevails for good reason, is that this murder carried the hallmarks of a professional execution, and I was wondering if that was something on which you might have a view?’

‘I do have a view, yes,’ says Connie. ‘You came to the right woman. Country lane, one shot, professional hit. Antiques dealer, perfect fence for stolen goods if nothing else is available. You promise the police don’t have this information yet?’

‘They remain clueless,’ says Ibrahim.

‘OK, then well-dressed Scouser suggests a man called Dominic Holt, runs heroin through Newhaven. Lives down here now, house by the sea. They’ll have used the shop as a drop-off: “Look after our heroin for twenty-four hours,” that sort of thing. Dom Holt wouldn’t normally do a delivery himself, but we all get careless.’

‘Does he have a boss?’ Ibrahim asks.

‘Another Scouser, Mitch Maxwell.’

‘And are they the type to murder someone?’

‘Oh, God, absolutely,’ says Connie. ‘Or the type to hire someone else to murder someone.’

‘Same thing,’ says Ibrahim.

‘Uhh, not really,’ says Connie. ‘Killing someone and hiring a hitman to kill someone are completely different.’

‘OK, well, we will cover this in our session,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Because it is very much the same thing.’

‘Let’s agree to disagree,’ says Connie.

‘Do you know where I might find them, this Dominic Holt and Mitch Maxwell?’

Yes,’ says Connie.

‘Would you care to elaborate?’

‘No, I think I can leave the rest up to you,’ says Connie. ‘You tell me an antiques dealer is murdered on the day he gives cash to a sharp dresser from Liverpool. I tell you heroin, and the names Dominic Holt and Mitch Maxwell. Anything further is grassing, Ibrahim. You’re not the only one who swears an oath.’

‘I don’t think you swear an actual oath,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And Dom Holt is not a rival of yours?’

‘No, he’s a heroin dealer; I’m a cocaine dealer.’

‘Do the worlds not intersect from time to time?’

Connie looks at Ibrahim as if he is mad. ‘Why on earth would they? Christmas drinks maybe. Not this year of course.’

Ibrahim nods. ‘But if I find out more information, would you like to be kept informed?’

‘Very much,’ says Connie. ‘Shall we get on with the session? I’ve been thinking about my dad, like you asked.’

Ibrahim nods again. ‘And are you angry?’

‘Very,’ says Connie.

‘Splendid,’ says Ibrahim.

13: Joyce

In the Coopers Chase newsletter, Cut to the Chase, they often have the names of new residents moving in. They have permission from the people of course, and it can be a nice way of introducing yourself to the community before you turn up with the removal van. It gives us a chance to be nosy too.

Anyway, there is a man moving in next week called Edwin Mayhem.

Edwin Mayhem!

It must be a stage name, mustn’t it? Perhaps he was a magician or a stuntman? Or a sixties popstar? Either way he would be a good subject for my ‘Joyce’s Choices’ column. This month I interviewed a woman who swam the Channel, but they forgot to time her so she had to do it again a month later. She still swims now, in the pool.

I shall certainly be beating a path to Edwin Mayhem’s door. I’ll give him a couple of days to settle in, get his furniture how he likes it, and I’ll be round with a lemon meringue and a notepad.

It is late, and I’m looking out of the window at the lights going off in random windows. There are a few of us still awake though. Coopers Chase looks like an advent calendar.

I had a Cadbury’s advent calendar this year, and I sent one to Joanna too, at the end of November. Joanna says that Cadbury’s have changed the way they make their chocolate and she won’t eat it, but I can’t taste any difference. She used to love a Dairy Milk, she really did, but you’d wait a long time to hear that from her now. Perhaps next year I’ll get her an advent calendar full of diamonds or hummus.

I am looking at my flask now. Here’s to no murders next year. That would have been nice. Or would it? I’m beginning to forget what I did before all the murders started happening. I remember I was going to learn to play bridge, but that’s gone on the back burner. I’ve also got more episodes of Morse backed up on my Sky Plus than I know what to do with. Poor Kuldesh though.

There are so many ways to die when you’re almost eighty, it seems unfair to add murder to the list. They shot him, so he’d obviously upset someone. I asked Elizabeth how she knew all the details, and she said she’s on a WhatsApp group that gets to hear things. I have only recently discovered WhatsApp groups. I’m in the ‘Dog Walkers’ group and the ‘Local Celebrities Seen in Kent’ group. I have had to mute the ‘Things My Grandchildren Say’ group, because I think it is mainly showing off. An eight-year-old saying, ‘Granny, you look like a princess’? I’m sorry, I don’t believe it. I know I shouldn’t be so cynical.

Our first line of enquiry in the murder is a man named Dominic Holt. He runs a company called Sussex Logistics on an industrial estate conveniently near to all the big ports, so the day after the funeral Ibrahim is going to drive us down there and we shall see what there is to see. Like a stakeout. Elizabeth will be the brains, Ibrahim will be the driver, and I’ll be in charge of snacks. Ron complained that he wouldn’t have anything to do, but Elizabeth says he’s there to add colour, and that seemed to placate him.

Ron has been grumpy, or grumpier, for the last week or so. He had a row with Pauline at Christmas. He won’t tell me what it was about, but Ibrahim says it was to do with when you’re supposed to open presents. Ron said it’s straight after breakfast, but Pauline said not till after lunch, and the whole thing got heated. When Ibrahim went round there on Christmas evening they wouldn’t even play charades with him, and Ron knows that Ibrahim loves to play charades, so it must have been serious. I remember Ibrahim once mimed Fifty Shades of Grey for Elizabeth, and you’ve never seen anything like it.

Ibrahim had Christmas dinner alone, which he says is how he likes it. I had invited him to mine – there was more than enough goose to go around – but he said he doesn’t really buy into Christmas. It’s too sentimental. It’s worth noting, though, that when he came over to take Alan for a walk, he was wearing a Santa hat.

Elizabeth had stayed in with Stephen, of course. I got very little out of her, except that she gave some turkey to the little fox that has taken to visiting them. They call him ‘Snowy’ because he has white tips to his ears. When he lies on the ground he thinks he is camouflaged, but his little ears always give him away. He comes a bit nearer to their patio every day. He’ll be out there now, somewhere in the dark.

I will see them all at Kuldesh’s funeral tomorrow. We didn’t really know him, but he had no family left, so you want to fill the pews out a bit, don’t you? You’d want someone to do it for you.

So much for ‘no murders’, Joanna, although I will be using my flask tomorrow. Crematoriums are often very draughty.

14

It’s eight thirty a.m., January 4th, and the troops have been told to gather in the Incident Room at Fairhaven police station to discuss their progress on the murder of Kuldesh Sharma.

Chris should be out front, giving orders, discussing theories, in charge of the marker pens and the whiteboard, but this morning had brought a surprise.

A surprise in the form of Senior Investigating Officer Jill Regan of the National Crime Agency, who, it has become clear, is now in charge of the murder enquiry – for reasons none of them have yet been able to fathom.

An antiques dealer from Brighton has been murdered in Kent. What has that got to do with the National Crime Agency, and with SIO Jill Regan?

She is currently writing on Chris’s whiteboard, with Chris’s pens. Donna can feel Chris bristle.

‘So what do we have?’ says Jill Regan. ‘We have the square root of absolutely nothing. Just over a week since the murder, and we have no clues, certainly no evidence, and we have’ – Jill looks slowly around the squad assembled in the room – ‘no intelligence.’

‘She’s a charmer,’ Donna whispers to Chris.

Jill continues. ‘We’ve no CCTV from the shop – no use crying over it. The track marks from the lane led us nowhere – when do they ever? No fingerprints, no useful DNA, no eyewitnesses, and I’m in a room full of coppers sitting on their arses.’

‘You told us to sit down?’ says Donna.

‘I’m being metaphorical, if you’ve ever heard of it,’ says Jill. ‘Four days, no progress. That stops now. At midday, I have a team arriving from the NCA, and you will be relieved of duty. This room will be out of bounds. My office – Chris, I have authority to use your office – will also be out of bounds. Any questions?’

Chris starts to raise his hand. ‘Yeah, just –’

‘I’m joking,’ says Jill. ‘No questions. Thank you all for coming in early. Please find some other crime to solve, if you have any down here.’

The team begin to disperse, some glad of the opportunity of a quiet day. Chris hangs back, so Donna also chooses to.

‘What’s going on?’ Chris asks Jill.

‘Nothing,’ says Jill. ‘That’s just the problem.’

Chris shakes his head. ‘Nope. Something’s up. A murder in Kent, and they call in the NCA?’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Chris,’ says Jill.

‘Do you need a briefing from me? Everything we know so far?’

‘No, thank you,’ says Jill. ‘We’re fine. A bit of peace and quiet is all we need. Give us the chance to do our job. Did you find his phone?’

‘Whose phone?’ says Chris. ‘Kuldesh’s?’

‘Wow,’ says Jill. ‘What a razor-sharp mind. Yes, Kuldesh’s.’

‘Didn’t have it on him,’ says Chris.

‘Didn’t find it in the shop?’

‘If we’d found it in the shop, it would have been logged into evidence, ma’am,’ says Donna. She was supposed to log it in yesterday, but the evidence store was unmanned. Donna is thankful for police underfunding for once.

‘Is it an organized crime thing?’ guesses Chris. ‘Crosses over with an international drugs case you’re already investigating?’

‘If that were the case, I wouldn’t tell you, would I?’ says Jill. ‘Now, I’m sure you’ve got things to be getting on with.’

‘Not really,’ says Donna. ‘Someone near Benenden has had a horse stolen.’

‘Then investigate that,’ says Jill. ‘I don’t want to see either of you anywhere near this Incident Room. DCI Hudson, they’ve found a temporary office for you in the Portakabin in the car park. Off you toddle.’

‘And we just stop our investigation of Kuldesh Sharma’s murder?’ says Chris.

‘Leave it to the professionals,’ says Jill. ‘You track down that poor horse.’

Sensing this might be a battle best left for another day, Donna ushers Chris out, and follows him down the main stairwell of the station.

‘What do we make of that?’ he says.

‘Surely no one’s that obnoxious in real life?’ says Donna.

‘Just what I was thinking,’ says Chris. ‘That’s someone who really, really wants to be left alone. But why?’

‘There’s something about the murder she doesn’t want us to know?’

Chris nods. ‘Feels like that’s something we should investigate, doesn’t it?’

‘First things first,’ says Donna. ‘I’ll head down to my locker and get Kuldesh’s mobile phone.’

Chris nods again. ‘We’ll just put a quick trace on his calls. And then we can get straight on that horse theft in Benenden.’

15

There are only two rows of seats filled at the funeral. Kuldesh had not been a practising Hindu, or indeed a practising anything, and the only instructions he had left were that he would like a simple cremation, presided over by the local vicar his late wife had once met, and very much liked, on a Speed Awareness course (‘John something, from Hove, I’m sure you can look him up’).

In the front row sit Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim. In the row behind them are Chris, Donna, Bogdan and a man in a hat who has thus far only introduced himself as Big Dave. The vicar, surprised to be there at all, is trying his best.

‘Kuldesh was a shopkeeper, a man who loved antiques. He was from Brighton, so he must have loved the sea …’

Elizabeth decides she can probably skip this bit and turns to the row behind to address Chris.

‘Let’s share information,’ she whispers.

‘We’re at a funeral,’ Chris whispers back.

‘He lived in a bungalow in Ovingdean,’ the vicar continues. ‘Kuldesh was clearly not a man who enjoyed stairs –’

‘OK,’ says Chris, nodding to Elizabeth. ‘You go first.’

‘I think our information is better than your information,’ says Elizabeth. ‘So, with respect, you go first.’

‘Thank you for your respect,’ says Donna.

‘She is right, in this instance,’ says Ibrahim, turning to join the conversation. ‘We have a big piece of the puzzle that you don’t have.’

‘Is that right?’ says Chris. ‘I’ll take my chances. We’re progressing quite nicely.’

‘If you could all join me now in prayer,’ says the vicar. ‘If Kuldesh was a man of faith, he kept that faith quietly, but you never know. Our Father …’

As the vicar continues his prayer, Elizabeth and Chris continue their whispered conversation, heads now bowed.

‘CCTV come good?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘You know who visited Kuldesh on the day he died?’

‘Not yet,’ says Chris.

‘Interesting, because we do.’

‘No, you don’t,’ says Donna, eyes still closed and hands clasped together. ‘They’re bluffing, Chris.’

‘Amen,’ says everyone together as the prayer finishes.

‘And now,’ continues the vicar, ‘do please join me in a moment of silence as we remember our friend Kuldesh Sharma. Or just keep whispering away to each other. You knew him better than I did, though I did like his wife when we met.’

Chris gives it a couple of beats, then gets back to business.

‘Honestly,’ says Chris. ‘We’ve got this one. It’s only been five days. We’ve got a team on it, a good team, all with decent intelligence, and we’ve got forensics going over everything. Whatever’s happened here, we’ll solve it. Not by magic but by hard work.’

‘So you spoke to Louise at the café?’ asks Joyce, finally joining in. ‘That’s good.’

‘To … who?’ says Chris, momentarily off guard.

‘Louise,’ says Elizabeth. ‘The lady who runs the café down the road? The one where you sent us to get us out of the way? You spoke with her?’

‘Yes,’ says Donna. ‘I did speak with her. That’s what the police do.’

‘That’s the trouble though, isn’t it,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Not everyone trusts you, heaven knows why. I think you do a terrific job, few bad apples of course, but not everyone holds the same view. So perhaps she might have been more forthcoming to a couple of older women enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of cake?’

‘A macaroon, actually,’ says Joyce. ‘Details, Elizabeth.’

‘And now,’ says the vicar, ‘I believe a friend of Kuldesh would like to say a few words. Bogdan Jankowski.’

Joyce claps her delight as Bogdan walks to the front. No whispering from anyone now. Bogdan tests the microphone with his index finger. He is satisfied with the acoustics.

‘Kuldesh was a good man,’ says Bogdan. ‘And not everyone is a good man.’

‘Hear, hear,’ says Ron.

‘He was kind to me, and kind to Donna, and he was good friends with Stephen,’ says Bogdan. ‘I asked Stephen to tell me about him. Stephen says he was kind and loyal. That he would be called names in the street and keep on walking. Stephen says he was a piece of work, but in a good way. Always laughing, always helping. So I want to say this, in front of God …’

Bogdan looks at the tiny congregation before him.

‘Kuldesh, you were a friend of Stephen, and that means you are a friend of ours. And I promise we will find the person who shot you. We will hunt them down and kill them –’

‘Or arrest them, babe?’ suggests Donna.

Bogdan shrugs. ‘Kill them or arrest them. Thank you, Kuldesh. Please rest now.’ Bogdan crosses himself.

As he returns to his seat, Big Dave gives a whoop, and that leads everyone into a round of applause.

The ceremony continues with a little more reverence, even tears from Joyce, Bogdan and Ron.

As it ends, the vicar has a few final words. ‘I feel I’ve been a little surplus to requirements today. But I wish you all luck, and I do wish I had met him. Farewell, Kuldesh.’

The mourners start to file out.

‘What did this Louise tell you?’ Chris asks Elizabeth.

‘Forgive me,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I thought we weren’t sharing information? Here are the facts of the matter. We have an eyewitness description of a man who visited Kuldesh Sharma on the day he died. Do you?’

Chris and Donna look at each other, then shake their heads.

‘Furthermore, we have been given a name fitting that precise description, and that name was given to Ibrahim by one of the leading drug importers on the South Coast –’

‘Whom I am unable to identify,’ says Ibrahim.

‘Do you have a named suspect?’ asks Elizabeth.

Chris and Donna look at each other once more, and shake their heads again.

‘And, lastly, I am told that the National Crime Agency have taken over your investigation, so this bravado of yours is only for show. Which is perfectly understandable, but does slow things up.’

‘How do you –’ starts Chris, but Elizabeth waves this away.

‘Whatever case you are currently working on,’ she says, ‘it is not the murder of Kuldesh Sharma.’

‘Someone stole a horse in Benenden,’ says Donna.

‘Ooh,’ says Joyce.

‘So we have a great deal of information,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Do you have anything for us in return?’

Donna pulls a phone out of her bag. ‘We have his phone, Elizabeth. We shouldn’t, but we do.’

‘Sweet,’ says Ron.

Elizabeth claps her hands. ‘Wonderful, Donna, wonderful. Bogdan is very lucky to have you. I’m sorry if I was overbearing. I will work on that. Our assumption is that a shipment of heroin was delivered to Kuldesh’s shop by a Dominic Holt, and that Kuldesh, for reasons best known to himself, decided to steal it, and that, furthermore, someone then murdered him. Does that bring you up to speed, Chris?’

‘It confirms a lot of things I’d suspected –’

‘Nonsense,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Now, in return, what do we learn from the phone?’

‘He made two calls,’ says Chris. ‘At around four p.m. on the day he died.’

‘One to a woman named Nina Mishra,’ says Donna. ‘She’s a professor of historical archaeology, in Canterbury.’

‘A professor, goodness me,’ says Joyce.

‘Professors,’ says Ron, with a gentle eyeroll.

‘Have you been to see her?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘We only just got the records back this morning,’ says Donna. ‘So no.’

‘Feels like a job for us, perhaps?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ says Chris.

‘Splendid,’ says Joyce. ‘I was hoping we were going to go to Canterbury.’

‘And the second phone call?’ Ibrahim asks.

‘About ten minutes after the call to Nina Mishra,’ says Donna. ‘But untraceable, so far.’

‘Untraceable,’ says Elizabeth. ‘No such thing.’

‘It comes back as “Code 777”,’ says Donna. ‘We see it from time to time.’

‘Ah,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Code 777,’ says Joyce. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Happens with high-end criminals,’ says Chris. ‘It’s blocking software, highly illegal, very expensive, but means you don’t have to keep buying burner phones.’

‘Probably from the dark web,’ says Ibrahim, nodding sagely.

‘So Kuldesh rings a professor,’ says Joyce. ‘And straight afterwards rings a high-end criminal?’

‘There will be other explanations,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I look forward to hearing them,’ says Chris.

‘There are two key questions,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Was Kuldesh trying to sell this heroin? And, if so, to whom?’

‘I don’t buy any of this,’ says Ron. ‘Sorry. Kuldesh gets a stash of heroin and decides to sell it? Nah. He’d be terrified. Someone else has come in and nicked it. I guarantee you. No way has Kuldesh stolen it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says a voice. ‘Couldn’t help overhearing.’

They turn to see Big Dave, the stranger from the funeral.

‘Only I think I was the last person to see him alive,’ says Big Dave.

‘When was this?’ asks Elizabeth.

‘Evening of the 27th,’ says Big Dave. ‘About five. I was closing up, not much business that day.’

‘Did he say anything?’ asks Chris. ‘Tell you where he was going?’

‘Nah, he just wished me Merry Christmas,’ says Big Dave, buttoning up his coat. ‘And then he bought a spade.’

16

The journey home from the funeral had been full of theories. Rival drugs gangs, blackmailers. Ron, as always, wondering if the Mafia might be involved. But certain interesting questions remained. Why had Kuldesh not simply done as he was told? Why had he rung Nina Mishra? And who was the second call to? The Code 777 call? Elizabeth had brushed off Chris’s comment about criminals, but he was right. To have a number that leaves no trace is a very difficult undertaking. And is a tactic used by a very particular type of person.

And, key to it all, of course: where was the heroin now?

Elizabeth yawns, her long day done, and opens her front door.

Instantly she can tell something is wrong. Senses that something very bad has happened. This is a sense she has learned to trust.

The TV is off, that’s unusual. Stephen will sit and watch all day now. The History Channel. He used to tell her about what he watched, but not so much these days. Sometimes she will watch with him in the evening. It is mainly Nazis and Ancient Egypt. Not bad.

She slips off her coat and hangs it on one of the hooks in the hall. It is next to Stephen’s waxed Barbour jacket. The walks they used to take, the two of them. Yomping for hours, then a pub with a fire and a friendly dog, help Stephen with the crossword. Now they try for an hour a day, through the woods. No country fireplaces. Another thing lost, and so little left. She touches the sleeve of the jacket.

It is quiet, but Stephen must be here. There is a smell she has smelled before. Familiar, but from where?

Has Stephen fallen? Had a heart attack? Is she about to find him on the floor? Grey face and blue lips. Is this how it ends, this beautiful affair? With her strong man slumped on a carpet? With Elizabeth alone. Without a goodbye?

‘Elizabeth?’ Stephen’s voice, from behind the door of his office. Elizabeth nearly buckles in relief. She pushes the door open and there he is. He’s fully dressed, shaved, his hair neat, sitting at the desk he has worked at for years. Surrounded by his books – Islamic art, Middle Eastern antiquities, a shelf of Bill Bryson. For hours she would hear him in here, bashing away on an old word processor he refused to upgrade. She always teased him that he typed like an elephant, but she knew the joy behind it. How he loved his work, writing, lecturing, teaching, corresponding. What she would give to hear his galumphing typing again.

‘Hello, dear,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We don’t often find you in here?’

Stephen motions for Elizabeth to sit down. She sees he has a letter on his desk.

‘I want …’ starts Stephen. ‘If you don’t mind, that is, I want to read you a letter I was sent today?’

She sees the envelope on his desk. The post had come after Elizabeth had left. ‘Please,’ she says.

Stephen picks up the letter from his desk, but before he starts reading he looks straight at Elizabeth. ‘And I need you to be honest, if you understand? I need you to love me and be straight with me.’

Elizabeth nods. What else is there to do? Who has sent Stephen a letter? And about what? Kuldesh perhaps? A clue to his murder? A plea for help to an old friend?

Stephen begins to read. He used to read to her in bed. Dickens, Trollope. Jackie Collins when he was in the mood.

‘Dear Stephen,’ he begins. ‘This is a difficult letter to write, but I know it will be a great deal more difficult to read. I will come straight to it. I believe you are in the early stages of dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s.’

Elizabeth can hear her heart beating through her chest. Who on earth has chosen to shatter their privacy this way? Who even knows? Her friends? Has one of them written? They wouldn’t dare, not without asking. Not Ibrahim, surely? He might dare.

‘I am not an expert, but it is something I have been looking into. You are forgetting things, and you are getting confused. I know full well what you will say – “But I’ve always forgotten things. I’ve always been confused!” – and you are right, of course, but this, Stephen, is of a different order. Something is not right with you, and everything I read points in just one direction.’

‘Stephen,’ says Elizabeth, but he gently gestures for hush.

‘You must also know that dementia points in just one direction. Once you start to descend the slope, and please believe me when I say you have started, there is no return. There may be footholds here and there, there may be ledges on which to rest, and the view may still be beautiful from time to time, but you will not clamber back up.’

‘Stephen, who wrote you this letter?’ Elizabeth asks. Stephen holds up a finger, asking her to be patient a few moments more. Elizabeth’s fury is decreasing. The letter is something she should have written to him herself. This should not have been left to a stranger. Stephen starts again.

‘Perhaps you know all this already, perhaps you are sitting reading this asking, “Why is this blasted fool telling me what I already know?” But I have to write, because what if you don’t know? What if you are already too far down the slope to know the truth of your slide? If these words seem distant, I hope, at least, that they will ring a bell deep within you, that you will recognize the truth of what I am saying. And you know you can trust me.’

‘Trust who?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Does it matter?’ Stephen asks her kindly. ‘I can see in your eyes that it’s true. I mean, I knew it was true, but I’m glad, I suppose, to see you confirm it. Let me carry on – it’s not a long letter.’

‘I have to write this letter now, because, Stephen, if that bell is ringing for you, I need you to do two things. I need you to read this letter aloud to Elizabeth, and I need you to make her promise that she will let you read this letter every day, should you forget it. Which, from what I understand, you will.’

Elizabeth knows now who wrote the letter, of course she does.

‘You wrote the letter to yourself?’ she says to Stephen.

‘It seems I did, yes,’ says Stephen. ‘A year ago to the day.’

It’s the least Elizabeth should have expected. ‘What did you do? Send the envelope to your solicitors, and tell them to post it to you in a year’s time?’

‘I must have done,’ says Stephen. ‘I must have done. But, more to the point, I assume it’s all true?’

‘It’s all true,’ says Elizabeth.

‘And it’s getting worse?’

‘Much worse, Stephen. This is a rare good day. We are clinging on.’

Stephen nods. ‘And what is to be done?’

‘That’s up to you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That will always be up to you.’

Stephen smiles. ‘What rot. Up to me. It’s up to us, and it sounds like we have rather small windows left open to us. Should I be living here? Is it impossible?’

‘It is difficult,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But not impossible.’

‘Soon it will be impossible.’

‘I don’t care about soon,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I care about now.’

‘Lovely though that thought is, I feel perhaps I don’t have that luxury,’ says Stephen. ‘There are places, I am sure, where I could receive care. Where you would be given some respite? I still have some money, I hope? Haven’t gambled it away?’

‘You do have money,’ says Elizabeth.

‘I sold some books recently,’ says Stephen. ‘Expensive ones.’

Stephen must have seen something cross her eyes.

‘I didn’t sell any books?’

‘You didn’t,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Though you helped to solve a murder by tracking some down.’

‘Did I indeed? I have quite the hinterland.’

‘Do you want to finish the letter?’

‘Yes,’ says Stephen, ‘I would like to.’ He picks up the page again.

‘Stephen, what a life you have led. You have filled every unforgiving minute and what a woman you have found in Elizabeth. You have led what they call a charmed life. What luck you have had, what opportunities, what sights you have seen. You are a lucky bugger, and you were probably due a sticky patch. And here it is. You must deal with it however you choose, and this letter is my gift to you, to let you know what you are facing, if everything else has failed. I am reading about dementia every day now, trying to cram while I can, and they say that in time you forget even the people closest to you. I am reading time and again of families where husbands forget wives, where mothers forget children, but, after the names and the faces disappear from your memory, what seems to hold on the longest is love. So whatever position you are in, I hope you know you are loved. Elizabeth will not send you away, we both know that. She will not lock you in a home, however bad you get, and however difficult things become. But you must persuade her that this is the right course of action. She cannot continue to care for you, for her sake or for yours. Elizabeth is not your nurse; she is your lover. Read her this letter, please, and then ignore her objections. I have left a page of suggestions tucked inside The Handbook of the Baghdad Archaeological Museum, on the third shelf to your right. I hope that something there should fit the bill.

‘Stephen, I am losing my mind – I feel it slipping away daily. I send you my love, dear man, a year into the future. I hope you are able to do something with this letter. I love you and, assuming you have done what you’re told and read this to Elizabeth, then, Elizabeth, I love you too. Yours faithfully, Stephen.’

Stephen puts down the letter. ‘So there we have it.’

‘There we have it,’ agrees Elizabeth.

‘Feels like we both should be crying?’

‘I think we both might need cool heads for a moment,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Crying can come later.’

‘And have we had this conversation before?’ Stephen asks. ‘Have we spoken about dementia?’

‘From time to time,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You certainly know something is up.’

‘And how long, impossible question I know, but how long until we’re not capable of having this discussion? How many windows like this do we have left?’

Elizabeth can fool herself no more, can keep Stephen to herself no longer. The day she knew must arrive is here. She has been losing him a paragraph at a time, but the chapter is done. And the book is close to its end.

Stephen, fully dressed and shaved, stands among his books. The urns and sculptures from his travels, things he found significant and beautiful, gathered over a lifetime. The awards, the photographs, old friends smiling on boats, boys at school dressed like men, Stephen on mountains, on desert digs, raising a glass in a far-off bar, kissing his wife on their wedding day. This room, this cocoon, every inch of it is his brain, his smile, his kindness, his friendships, his lovers, his jokes. His mind, fully on display.

And he knows it is now lost.

‘Not many,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Your good days are further apart, and your bad days are getting worse.’

Stephen puffs out his cheeks as his options dwindle. ‘You need to send me somewhere, Elizabeth. Somewhere they can care for me properly, twenty-four hours a day. I will look at my list of suggestions.’

‘I can care for you properly,’ says Elizabeth.

‘No,’ says Stephen. ‘I won’t have it.’

‘I hope I might have a say in the matter too.’

Stephen reaches across the desk and takes Elizabeth’s hand. ‘I need you to promise me you won’t destroy this letter.’

‘I won’t make a promise I can’t keep,’ says Elizabeth. My God, his hand, my hand, she thinks, the way they fit together, the two of them.

‘I need you to show me this letter every day,’ says Stephen. ‘Do you understand?’

Elizabeth looks at her husband. Then she looks at the letter that this clever man wrote to himself a year ago. What must he have been going through? One of those days of galumphing typing had been this letter. Probably came back into the living room with a big smile on his face. ‘Cup of tea, old girl?’

To show Stephen this letter every day would be to lose him. But to not show him would be to betray him. And that is no choice at all.

‘I promise,’ she says.

Now the tears come from Stephen. They stand and they embrace. Stephen is shaking and sobbing. He is saying ‘sorry’, she is saying ‘sorry’, but to whom, and for what, is lost on them both.

Elizabeth realizes what the smell was when she had walked into the flat, fifteen minutes earlier, a whole lifetime ago. She knew she had recognized it.

It was fear. Cold-blooded, sweat-soaked fear.