Elizabeth takes another sip of wine. ‘I’m assuming you want something from me? As ever.’
The man sits back in his armchair. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I do. But nothing too taxing – in fact, something you might think is rather fun. You remember fun, Elizabeth?’
‘I’m already having my fair share of fun around here, but thank you.’
‘Well, yes, so I hear. Dead bodies and so on. Read the whole file.’
‘File?’ asks Elizabeth. A sinking feeling.
‘Oh yes, you’ve caused quite a stir in London, asking for all kinds of favours over the last couple of months. Financial records, forensics reports, I believe you even had a retired pathologist down here, digging up bones? You thought that might go unnoticed?’
Elizabeth realizes she has been short-sighted. She had certainly called in favours while she and the Thursday Murder Club were investigating the deaths of Tony Curran and Ian Ventham. And when they were identifying the other corpse they’d found, buried in the graveyard up on the hill. She should have known that somebody, somewhere was taking notes. You can’t expect favours without being asked to repay them. So what was it to be?
‘What do you need from me?’ she asks.
‘Just some babysitting.’
‘Babysitting who?’
‘Babysitting me.’
‘And why would someone need to babysit you?’
The man nods, takes a sip of his wine and leans forward. ‘The thing is, Elizabeth, I’m afraid I’ve got myself in a spot of bother.’
‘Some things never change, do they? Why don’t you tell me about it?’
There is the sound of a key in the lock and the door swings open.
‘Bang on time for once,’ says the man. ‘Here’s just the woman to help me tell the story. Meet my handler.’
Into the room walks Poppy, the new waitress from the restaurant. She nods to them both. ‘Sir, ma’am.’
‘Well, that explains an awful lot,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Poppy, I hope you’re a better operative than you are a waitress.’
Poppy blushes. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure I am, I’m afraid. But between the three of us I expect we can muddle through it all and stay safe.’
Safe houses, in Elizabeth’s experience, rarely stayed safe for long. Poppy moves the flowers in the kettle to one side. ‘Lovely flowers.’ She perches on the windowsill.
‘Safe from what, exactly?’ asks Elizabeth.
‘Well, let me start at the beginning,’ says the man.
‘I wish you would, Douglas,’ says Elizabeth, and downs her glass of wine. ‘You were an awful husband, but you always knew how to tell a good story.’
5
Ibrahim has just finished lunch with Ron. He had tried to persuade Ron to try hummus, but Ron was intractable. Ron would eat ham, eggs and chips every day if you let him. And to be fair, he was seventy-five and still going strong, so who’s to say he was wrong? Ibrahim pulls the car door shut and buckles his seatbelt.
Ron had been excited because his grandson, Kendrick, is coming to stay next week, and Ibrahim is excited too.
Ibrahim would have made a wonderful father, a wonderful grandfather, too. But it wasn’t to be, like so much else in his life. You silly old man, he thinks, as he turns the key in the ignition, you made the biggest mistake of them all. You forgot to live, you just hid away, safe and sound.
What good has it done him, though? Those decisions he had been too cautious to make? The loves he had been too timid to pursue? Ibrahim thinks of the many lives he has missed, somewhere along the way.
Ibrahim has always been good at ‘thinking things through’, but, now, he is choosing to take the proverbial bull by the horns. He has decided to live in the moment a little more. He is choosing to learn a lesson from Ron’s chaotic freedom, from Joyce’s joyful optimism and from the forensic wrecking ball that is Elizabeth.
Don’t buy a dog, Joyce. That’s what he had said. But of course she should. He will tell her when he gets back. Will she let him walk it? Surely she will. Terrific cardiovascular exercise. Everyone should buy dogs. Men should marry the women they loved, and not run away to England in fear. Ibrahim has had a lifetime to think about that decision. Has never even discussed it with his friends. Perhaps one day he should?
He turns left out of the gate of Coopers Chase. After checking, and then checking again, naturally.
There is a whole world out here, and, however frightened it makes him feel, he has decided he needs to get out of Coopers Chase every now and again. So here he is, out among the noise and the traffic and the people.
He has decided, once a week, to take Ron’s Daihatsu out for a spin and visit Fairhaven. He passes the town sign. It is quite a buzz. Just him, by himself. He’s going to do a bit of shopping, sit in a Starbucks with a coffee and read the paper. And while he’s here, he’s going to look and listen. What are people saying these days? Do they look unhappy?
Ibrahim is anxious that he won’t be able to find anywhere to park, but he finds a space easily. He worries that he won’t be able to work out how to pay for the parking, but that is a cinch too.
What sort of psychiatrist is frightened of life? All psychiatrists he supposes, I mean, that’s why they became psychiatrists. Even so, it wouldn’t do any harm to let the world in. A mind could calcify at Coopers Chase, if you let it. The same people, the same conversations, the same grumbles and gripes. Investigating the murders has done Ibrahim a world of good.
He quickly discovers both self-service checkouts and contactless payments. The absolute minimum of human interaction. You don’t have to nod hello to someone you have never met. To think he might have missed out on all this!
He finds a lovely independent bookshop where no one minds if you sit in an armchair and read for an hour. Of course, he buys the book he has been reading. It is called You, and is about a psychopath called Joe, for whom Ibrahim has a great deal of sympathy. He buys three other books too, because he wants the bookshop still to be here when he comes back next week. There was a sign behind the till saying ‘Your Local Bookshop – Use It Or Lose It’.
Use It Or Lose It. That was quite right. That is why he is here. Out in the noise, with cars speeding by, with teenagers shouting and builders swearing. He feels good. He feels less frightened. His brain feels alive. Use it or lose it.
He looks at his watch. Three hours have gone by in a rush and it is time to head home, his head full of adventure. After telling Joyce that she should get a dog, he will tell her all about contactless payments. She will know about them already, but perhaps she won’t have looked into the technology behind them, which he just has. Time flies when you are living it.
He has parked Ron’s Daihatsu near Fairhaven Police Station, because surely that’s the safest place to park. Perhaps one week he will pop in and see Chris and Donna. Are you allowed to visit police officers at work? He is sure they would be delighted to see him, but he wouldn’t want to hold up, say, an arson investigation while they felt they had to make small talk. But those worries were old Ibrahim. New Ibrahim would just take the chance. You want to see someone? Just go and see them. That’s what Ron would do. Though Ron would also go to the bathroom and leave the door open, so Ibrahim must remember there are limits.
He passes three teenagers on a corner near the police station, all on bikes, and all three with hoods up. He smells cannabis. A lot of people at Coopers Chase smoke cannabis. Supposedly to relieve glaucoma, but statistically not that many people can have glaucoma, surely? As a young man, Ibrahim had been persuaded by some of his richer friends to smoke opium. He had been too much of a coward ever to try it again, but perhaps that was another thing he should put on his list? He wonders where you can buy opium. Chris and Donna would know. It was very useful, knowing police officers.
These three youths are exactly the sort of people that Ibrahim should be scared of, he knows that. But they don’t frighten him at all. Young men had always hung around on street corners on bicycles, and they alwa
ys would. In Fairhaven, in London, in Cairo.
Ibrahim sees the Daihatsu up ahead. He will take it through the car wash on the way back. Firstly, to say thank you to Ron, but also because he likes car washes. He takes out his phone. This was the first thing he learned today. You can pay for your parking on a mobile phone app, which is short for application. Perhaps it’s OK that everyone is looking at their phones? Perhaps if you have the entire history of human knowledge and achievement in your pocket it’s OK to spend your time looking at –
Ibrahim doesn’t hear the bicycle approach, but he feels it rushing past him, sees the hand grabbing his phone, ripping it from his grasp with a jerk that sends him tumbling to the ground.
Ibrahim lands on his side and rolls until he hits the kerb. The pain is immediate, in his arm, in his ribs. His jacket sleeve is torn. Will he be able to get it mended? He hopes so – it is a favourite jacket, but the rip looks bad, the white lining shining through like bone. He hears footsteps, running, and teenage laughter. As the footsteps reach him, he feels two kicks. One in the back and one to the back of the head. His head hits the kerb once more.
‘Ryan, come on!’
This is very bad, Ibrahim understands that. Something serious has happened. He wants to move, but he is unable to. The damp of the gutter is seeping through the wool of his trousers, and he tastes blood.
There are more footsteps running, but Ibrahim has no way of protecting himself. He feels the cold of the kerb against his face. The footsteps stop, but no kick this time, instead he feels hands on shoulders.
‘Mate? Mate? Jesus! Christine, call an ambulance.’
Yes, the adventure always ends with an ambulance, it doesn’t matter who you are. What was the damage here? Just broken bones? Bad enough at his age. Or worse? He had taken a kick to the back of the head. Whatever happened next he knew one thing was certain. He had made a mistake. He should have stayed safe. So now there will be no more trips to Fairhaven, no more sitting in the armchair in the bookshop. Where were his new books? In the street, getting wet? He is being shaken.
‘Mate, open your eyes, stay awake!’
But my eyes are open, thinks Ibrahim, before realizing they are not.
6
Elizabeth is sipping her second Malbec, and listening to her ex-husband, Douglas Middlemiss, talking about international money laundering. Explaining the story of why a man of his age might need babysitting.
‘We’d been looking at him for a while, this chap Martin Lomax, lovely big old house, plenty of money, but with the paperwork to prove where everything came from. The financial boys couldn’t touch him. But when you know, you know, don’t you?’
‘You do,’ agrees Elizabeth.
‘There would be all sorts turning up at his house, at all hours. Russians, Serbians, the Turkish mafia. All coming to this secluded house outside a sleepy village. Hambledon, if you know it? They invented cricket there.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Range Rovers, Bentleys, up and down the country lanes. Arabs in helicopters, the full works. An Irish Republican commander once parachuted out of a light aircraft and landed in his garden.’
‘What’s his business?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Unofficially?’
‘Insurance,’ says Poppy.
‘Insurance?’
‘He acts as a bank for major crime gangs,’ says Douglas, leaning forward. ‘Say the Turks are buying a hundred million pounds’ worth of heroin from the Afghans. They won’t pay the full amount.’
‘Just as you don’t have to pay the full amount for a freezer until it’s delivered,’ says Poppy.
‘Thank you, Poppy,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I’d be lost without you.’
‘So they’ll give a security deposit of, say, ten million to a trusted middleman,’ says Douglas. ‘As a gesture of good faith.’
‘And Martin Lomax is the middleman?’
‘Well, they all trust him. You’d trust him if you met him. He’s a peculiar fellow, quite evil, but solid. It is hard to find evil people who are also reliable. As you know.’
Elizabeth nods. ‘So he has a house stuffed with cash?’
‘Sometimes cash, sometimes far more exotic things. Priceless paintings, gold, diamonds,’ says Douglas.
‘An Uzbek drug dealer once brought in a first edition of The Canterbury Tales,’ adds Poppy.
‘Anything with a value,’ says Douglas. ‘And these things sit in a strongroom at our chap’s house. If all goes well with a deal, he returns the down payment, often to be used again. And if things go wrong, then the down payment is paid in compensation.’
‘So this strongroom is quite the place?’ asks Elizabeth.
‘I suspect at any one time you might find half a billion in cash, the same again in gold and stones, stolen Rembrandts, Chinese jade worth millions. Just sitting there, a few miles from Winchester if you please.’
‘And how do you know all of this?’
‘We’ve been in the house a number of times,’ says Poppy. ‘We have microphones drilled into walls, cameras in light switches.’
‘All the tricks you’d know,’ says Douglas.
‘Even in the strongroom?’
Poppy shakes her head. ‘We’ve never made it into the strongroom.’
‘But there’s plenty enough just lying about elsewhere,’ says Douglas. ‘When I broke in, there was a Van Eyck on a pool table.’
‘When you broke in?’
‘I had help, naturally. Poppy and one of the boys from the Special Boat Service.’
‘You’re a housebreaker, too, Poppy?’ says Elizabeth to the young woman sitting on the windowsill, legs dangling.
‘I just dressed in black and did what I was told,’ says Poppy, shifting to get comfortable.
‘Well, that sums up a career in the security services,’ says Elizabeth. ‘So the two of you and some interested friends break into this house, stuffed to the gills with treasure?’
‘Precisely,’ says Douglas. ‘Just for a little look around, you know? Scope it out, take a few piccies, dash off with no one any the wiser. Nothing you and I haven’t done a hundred times before.’
‘I see, and does this have anything to do with why you’re in a flat with two armchairs and a padlocked bedroom, looking for your very happily ex-wife to babysit you?’
‘It’s fair to say it’s where my little problem began, yes. Are you ready?’
‘Fire away, Douglas,’ says Elizabeth, looking straight at him. That twinkle in his eye was undimmed. The twinkle that gave an entirely undeserved suggestion of wisdom and charm. The twinkle that could make you walk down the aisle with a man almost ten years your junior, and regret it within months. The twinkle you soon realize is actually the beam of a lighthouse, warning you off the rocks.
‘Can I ask you a question first?’ says Poppy from the windowsill. ‘Before we tell you everything?’
‘Of course, dear,’ says Elizabeth.
‘How much do they know about you around here? Quite a lot, I suppose, given what’s in the file?’
‘They know a thing or two about me, yes,’ says Elizabeth. ‘My close friends.’
‘And your close friends would be Joyce Meadowcroft, Ron Ritchie and Ibrahim Arif?’
‘They would. That’s quite a file you have, Poppy. Joyce will be thrilled when I tell her she’s in a file.’
‘Could I ask – I’ve been asked to ask – before we go any further. Have you at any point in the last four months broken the Official Secrets Act?’
Elizabeth laughs. ‘Oh, goodness me, yes. Over and over.’
‘OK, I’ll make a note of that. It’s very important that none of your friends learn about Douglas or me. Can you guarantee that at least?’
‘Certainly not. I shall tell them the moment I’m out of the door.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t allow that.’
‘I don’t see that you have a choice, Poppy.’
‘You will understand, ma’am, better than most people, that
I have orders.’
‘Poppy – firstly, call me Elizabeth. Secondly, I haven’t seen you get an order right in two weeks, so why change now? Now, let’s hear this story, and I’ll tell you if I accept the job. And then I’ll tell my friends, but you mustn’t worry yourself.’
Douglas is chuckling. ‘So your friends know everything about you?’
‘Everything they need to, yes,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Do they know that you’re Dame Elizabeth?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So not everything?’
‘Not everything.’
‘When was the last time you used your title, Elizabeth?’
‘When I needed to borrow a motorcycle to get out of Kosovo in a hurry. When was the last time you used yours, Sir Douglas?’
‘When I tried to get tickets for Hamilton.’
Elizabeth’s phone rings. Which is rare. She looks down. Joyce is calling her. Which is rarer still.
‘Forgive me, I have to take this.’
7
In a way, you had to admire Connie Johnson’s confidence. She did things with a bit of style. But the stakeout had been a colossal waste of time, and if they were going to catch Connie, they were going to have to think of something a great deal cleverer. Though quite what that clever thing might be is eluding DCI Chris Hudson for the moment. And, to add insult to injury, he is now on an exercise bike.
Of all the machines at the gym, the bike suits him best. For a start you’re sitting down, and you can look at your phone while you’re using it. You can take things at your own pace – sedate in Chris’s case – but you can also speed up to look more impressive any time a muscled man in a singlet or a muscled woman in Lycra walks by. A lot of Chris’s colleagues from Fairhaven Police Station use this same gym. He sees them sometimes, and his rank doesn’t seem to count for anything here. The other day a PC slapped him on the back and said, ‘Keep going, mate, you’ll get there.’ Mate? Next time Chris needs someone to sit through three days’ worth of CCTV from a twenty-four-hour garage, that young constable will see just who his mate is.
The Man Who Died Twice (The Thursday Murder Club) Page 3