‘Well, I don’t know. I mean, I do less acid these days? So that’s something, isn’t it? And I got about four hundred new followers on Insta. That’s my point, really. I don’t know what they did to your hair in hospital. I’m guessing no conditioner?’
‘I asked Ron to get me some, but he said he wasn’t sure what to ask for.’
‘Well, you’ve got me now.’
‘Anyway, I don’t think this has made me stronger. I am rattled, Anthony.’
‘Of course,’ says Anthony. ‘Post-traumatic whatever.’
‘But I will get over it eventually.’
‘Of course you will. Look at what Oprah’s been through over the years.’
‘Unless I die before I get over it. And then I will never get over it. That’s how I feel right now. Perhaps I will never heal.’
‘I’ll tell Joyce you were being morose if you keep this up.’
‘It is fine to say “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. It is admirable. But it no longer applies when you’re eighty. When you are eighty whatever doesn’t kill you just ushers you through the next door, and the next door and the next, and all of these doors lock behind you. No bouncing back. The gravitational pull of youth disappears, and you just float up and up.’
‘Well,’ says Anthony, putting his palms on Ibrahim’s temples and lifting his head to look into the mirror, ‘I’ve just knocked ten years off you, so I’m doing the best I can to help. Do they know who mugged you?’
Ibrahim nods. ‘They have a name, yes. But no evidence.’
‘And what’ll happen?’
‘I suspect Elizabeth will happen.’
‘Well, let’s hope so,’ says Anthony, holding up a mirror behind Ibrahim’s head and getting another nod. ‘No one touches my friends and gets away with it. You tell Elizabeth if she needs any help, just ask.’
‘I will pass that on.’
‘For what it’s worth, and I do listen sometimes, you won’t die before you get better, I promise.’
‘Impossible to say.’
‘Ibrahim, you’re talking to someone who once dreamt the lottery numbers. Four of them. Three hundred and sixty quid. If I tell you you won’t die yet, you won’t die yet.’
‘That is a comfort, thank you.’
Anthony is packing up his kit. ‘We all know the order you lot will die. Ron first …’
Ibrahim nods.
‘Then Elizabeth, probably shot. Then it’s tough to call between you and Joyce.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be the last one left,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I have always tried to never get attached to people, but I have got attached to these three.’
‘Well, let’s say you third and Joyce last then.’
‘I wouldn’t want Joyce to be on her own either,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Oh, I don’t think Joyce would be on her own for long, do you?’
‘Well, I suppose not,’ smiles Ibrahim.
‘Such a naughty girl, that one.’
Ibrahim reaches into the pocket of his jacket, hanging behind the door, and pulls out his wallet. ‘Card, I’m afraid, Anthony – I used my last cash for the taxi.’ Ibrahim frowns as he opens the wallet. ‘Well, that’s peculiar, my card isn’t in here.’
‘I’ve heard it all now,’ chuckles Anthony.
‘I must have mislaid it, I’m ever so sorry. Can I owe you?’
Anthony walks over to Ibrahim and gives him a hug. ‘This one’s on me. Now, off you pop, handsome, they’ll all be dropping like flies when they see you.’
Ibrahim looks at his reflection, moving his head to see both profiles. He nods. ‘Thank you, Anthony. I rather think they will.’
27
Elizabeth walks out of the kitchen. If someone has been in the house, Elizabeth is sure they have gone. That’s her instinct, but she still puts a finger to her lips and motions for Joyce to stay exactly where she is. She nudges open the living-room door with her foot. Nothing. Two armchairs, two side tables, a sideboard with a radio and a vase of flowers on it. No body, no blood – that was something. That gave Elizabeth some hope. She knows she will have to climb the stairs. If anyone is here then she knows how vulnerable she will be. No weapon. She turns back into the hallway and sees that Joyce is no longer there. There is a momentary panic until she sees Joyce emerge silently from the kitchen, a knife in either hand. Elizabeth nods.
Joyce hands over the bigger knife to Elizabeth. As she is handing it over she whispers, ‘Careful, handle first.’
Elizabeth feels her heart thumping against her ribcage. Fast, but strong. How lucky she is.
Is there someone in the house? Has she walked into a trap? Worse than that, has she brought Joyce into the trap with her?
She motions for Joyce to stay downstairs and she begins to climb.
28
Say what you like about Ron, but you can’t say he doesn’t look like a plumber. Ryan Baird had let him in without a second glance. Housing Association sent me round, water pressure. Hold up the bag, here’s my tools. It’s all free, don’t worry.
So this was Ryan Baird?
This was the kid who kicked Ron’s best friend in the back of the head and left him for dead?
What was he? Seventeen? Eighteen? Skinny, hair dyed blond, electric-blue tracksuit bottoms and bare top. He’d had a games controller in his hand, and had gone straight back to playing a game after Ron had asked him where the bathroom was. A few years ago Ron would have decked him there and then. But sometimes Elizabeth’s way was the best way, so he’ll do what he’s told. And perhaps he’ll still get his chance to smack Ryan Baird right in that gaping mouth before this is all over. Ron hopes so. He has a lot of respect for Gandhi and his ilk, but sometimes you have to cross the line.
Ron lifts the lid from the cistern and takes the brown package from his sports holdall. He wedges it down as far as it will go. Ten grand really doesn’t buy you that much coke, he thinks. He’ll talk to his son, Jason, about it when he next sees him.
Ron checks that the lid will fit back on the cistern, then removes it again. He puts his hand into the pocket of his overalls. He doesn’t know where Elizabeth got hold of the overalls, but boy were they comfortable. He wonders if he’s allowed to keep them. Wearing overalls every day would be a slippery slope though. There’s a thin line between wearing overalls and going to the shop in your pyjamas.
He pulls out Ibrahim’s debit card and places it carefully inside the cistern.
Lid back on, Ron zips his bag back up. He realizes he actually needs to use the loo, but decides to wait. Who knows what happens when you flush a loo with a kilo of cocaine in the cistern?
Ron goes back into the hallway, calls out, ‘All done, mate!’ to no response from Ryan Baird and leaves the flat.
He gives it a minute or so, as you never know who’s listening, before pulling out his phone. It is a burner phone, untraceable. Jason had lots of them and hadn’t batted an eyelid when his dad had asked for one. He rings the number of PC Donna De Freitas. She answers on the third ring.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, is that Donna De Freitas?’
‘Hi, Ron, is that you?’
‘No, no, I don’t know a Ron. I just got some information.’
‘Well, OK, I’ll play along. But quick, I’m watching CCTV of someone driving a Renault into a Greggs.’
‘It’s just I’m a plumber …’
‘Right.’
‘And I’ve just been doing a job, flat eighteen, Hazeldene Gardens.’
‘Eighteen Hazeldene Gardens?’
‘Yep, only I found something when I was there. It’s in the toilet cistern, first door off the hallway when you break your way in.’
‘I see … sir. And is the resident of the flat at home right now?’
‘He is. He’s not even wearing a top, Donna. Jesus. I was going to deck him.’
‘Well, Fairhaven Police would like to thank you for your help, sir. But we can’t break into a private residence without due cause.’
‘Wh
at sort of thing?’
‘Like, someone being attacked.’
‘Oh yeah, and someone was being attacked. Screams, the lot.’
‘OK. We’ll be right over.’
‘Good, take Chris with you, too.’
‘Could I take your name, then?’
‘I prefer to remain anonymous.’
‘Make one up, just for me.’
Ron thinks. ‘Jonathan Ovaltine.’
‘Thank you, Mr Ovaltine.’
‘Thanks, darling, you go get him. See you soon.’
Ron ends the call and walks out of the estate, whistling as he goes.
Job done. Elizabeth will be pleased. Perhaps he’ll give her a ring, too. A pint first, though.
29
Elizabeth is grasping the handle of the knife firmly with an overhand grip, the way she was taught more than fifty years before. An underhand grip, favoured by the Soviets, was briefly fashionable in the seventies, but overhand was back now. It allowed for much greater force, particularly if your assailant was bigger than you.
Elizabeth has still not heard a sound. This was very bad news. Should she alert the driver outside? Would she have a gun? She continues to climb the stairs. No sign of a disturbance anywhere. It all looked so staged, the silence, the open back door. Was Douglas playing a little trick? Ask Elizabeth to come and meet him and give her the fright of her life?
Elizabeth reaches the landing. She looks down and sees Joyce at the bottom of the stairs. Knife in an overhand grip. What a natural that woman is.
There are three doors leading off the landing. A bathroom door is half open. Elizabeth gives it a nudge and it swings further open. Nothing there. Underwear hanging on an airer. Toilet seat up, so she knows who used it last.
The two bedroom doors are shut. She slowly turns the handle of the first door, knife poised and ready. Won’t she look a fool if Douglas and Poppy are hiding behind the door giggling away? Why is she thinking this is all a trick? All so neat? It doesn’t look like a crime scene, it looks like an exercise. Was that it? Was this a test? See if the old girl has still got it?
She flings the door open and jumps into the room, flattening her back against the nearest wall. Nothing but a perfectly made bed, a Philip Larkin poetry book and a Jo Malone candle. Poppy’s room. But no Poppy. There is a bookmark in the middle of the Philip Larkin, ready for Poppy to return.
Elizabeth turns back onto the landing. Only one more room to go. The bedroom at the front of the house. Douglas’s room. The last remaining option.
She tightens her grip on the knife, and then has a thought. Poppy had been upset at shooting Andrew Hastings; it was traumatic, and she had even asked Joyce to contact her mother. What if Poppy had decided she’d had enough? Waited for Douglas to fall asleep. You could always tell when Douglas had fallen asleep. My God, the snoring. Perhaps she decided to make a run for it, and left the back door open as she went? All too much for her? She would know there was still an officer stationed outside the house to keep Douglas safe.
Her hand is on the door knob. She starts to turn it.
Elizabeth opens the door. She freezes. Just for a second. It wasn’t an exercise, and it wasn’t a trick. Of course Poppy would never have left the back door open. And, of course, Douglas could never be silently asleep.
Poppy’s body is slumped in the armchair, a bullet having made a mess of her face and turned that beautiful blonde hair red. One arm lies across her body, no doubt her attempt to shield herself from the bullet. The other arm lies limply by her side. Blood has run down the arm and dried. The white daisy, which had so secretly thrilled her grandmother, is now a crimson red.
Douglas is propped up on the bed. His bullet wound has caused even more damage than Poppy’s. He would be unrecognizable if you hadn’t once been married to him. The wall behind his head is black with blood.
Whatever Douglas had wanted her to see, surely it wasn’t this?
Elizabeth breathes deeply. She has to remain calm. This will not be her crime scene for long, so she takes out her phone and photographs it from every possible angle.
Elizabeth hears a noise behind her. She turns, knife raised, to see Joyce in the doorway. Joyce looks from Poppy’s body to Douglas’s body and back again.
‘Oh, Poppy,’ says Joyce. ‘Oh, Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth nods. ‘Don’t touch a thing. Downstairs, let’s go.’
Elizabeth ushers Joyce in front of her. She is glad that Joyce is not weak-minded; the last thing they need now is tears. Elizabeth opens the front door, telling Joyce to stay where she is. She rushes down the path and across to the Virgin Media van. Realizing she is still carrying her knife, she slips it into her handbag and knocks on the window. The bored driver winds it down once again.
‘You done, are you? That was quick.’
Elizabeth takes out her phone and shows her a photograph. ‘Both dead. While you’re sitting here reading.’
The driver is out of the van in a shot and races to the house. No doubt thinking about her once-promising career every step of the way.
Holding her phone, Elizabeth realizes she will be straight off for questioning as soon as the troops arrive, and that won’t be long. Her phone will be taken off her, the photographs deleted. She scans the front garden walls of St Albans Avenue until she sees what she needs two houses up. The driver has run into the house, so Elizabeth takes a brisk walk, dislodges a loose brick from the low wall, slides her mobile phone into the gap and then replaces the brick. The perfect dead-letter drop.
So now there are diamonds and killers to be found.
Part Two
* * *
AT TIMES, YOU WON’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES
30
Patrice is on half-term and is staying with Chris. Chris still can’t quite get used to it. He is pretending to eat healthily, which, after a couple of days, he realizes is the same as actually eating healthily. An apple is an apple whether you are eating it because you like to take care of yourself or you are eating it to impress a new girlfriend. The nutrients are the same. Chris hasn’t had a Snickers since Monday.
Tonight they had been due to go to Le Pont Noir for dinner. Formerly a dive called the Black Bridge, it is now Fairhaven’s leading, if only, gastropub. On Tuesdays they have a jazz trio playing in the dining room. Chris has never enjoyed jazz, never even quite worked out which bit he was supposed to be enjoying, but he does know that people who like jazz seem to enjoy life, and that he needs to pretend to enjoy life a bit more than he does. And what if it’s the same as apples? What if pretending to enjoy life is the same as actually enjoying it? He has been smiling from the moment Patrice arrived, so perhaps there was something in it.
Patrice got things from him too, he knew that. He could objectively see that he was kind and funny. He had a proper job, catching criminals. Anything else? He had been told he had nice eyes. He was a good kisser.
Everything else could be covered up for now. Don’t run before you can walk, Chris. And do all women tell all men they are good kissers? Chris supposes so. What does it cost them?
The call from Donna came at around six thirty. Ryan Baird had been arrested and was on his way to Fairhaven Police Station. No jazz for Chris, which was a relief; that new leaf could wait.
Patrice had been very understanding. Suspiciously understanding, in fact. What if Patrice didn’t like jazz either? What if they were both pretending? That was something to explore. It would certainly be an enormous relief.
Chris had driven to the station, interviewed Ryan Baird, who had screamed blue murder about being framed by a plumber, and had eventually been charged with possession with intent to supply as well as robbery and led to a cell. His solicitor looked a little perkier than last time, too, so either he enjoyed seeing Ryan being sent down, or he too had escaped an evening of jazz.
Chris had texted Patrice, and they are now sitting in the snug of Le Pont Noir, the only evidence of the evening’s jazz a solitary drumstick on a walnut barstool.
‘The Thursday Murder Club?’ asks Patrice.
‘There’s four of them,’ says Donna. ‘Ibrahim was the one who had his phone stolen. Ron was the plumber.’
‘And who got hold of ten grand’s worth of coke?’
Donna looks at Chris. ‘I’m guessing Elizabeth?’
Chris nods. ‘I’d have thought so. I mean, never rule out Joyce.’
‘But isn’t it all illegal?’
‘Very.’
‘And wouldn’t you get in trouble if it came out?’
‘Mum,’ says Donna, ‘I got a call from a plumber saying he’d found cocaine and a stolen bank card at a flat. There were screams. I went to the flat and found the cocaine and the bank card. I arrested the youth present at the scene. Chris and I questioned him. He denied all charges …’
‘Which they often do,’ says Chris.
‘Which they often do. We felt there was sufficient evidence to charge him, and so we charged him.’
‘And what about when it comes to court? When they call this plumber as a witness and he isn’t a plumber?’
Donna shrugs. ‘I’m guessing Elizabeth will have thought of that.’
Patrice raises her whisky glass and the ice cubes tinkle in salute. ‘They sound like a hell of a gang. I’d love to meet them.’
‘We’re keeping you a secret for now,’ says Chris.
‘Are we?’ says Patrice, stretching a leg across Chris’s lap.
‘I’m involved about as much as I want to be with the Thursday Murder Club. If they can plant cocaine in someone’s cistern, I don’t want to think about what they’d do with my love life.’
‘Cute you said “love life” and not “sex life”,’ says Patrice.
‘Don’t say “sex”, Mum,’ says Donna. ‘Stop showing off.’
The Man Who Died Twice (The Thursday Murder Club) Page 11