The Man Who Died Twice (The Thursday Murder Club)

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The Man Who Died Twice (The Thursday Murder Club) Page 17

by Richard Osman


  Lance supposes that even people with twenty million pounds in their hands still look at houses they’ll never be able to afford. A hollowed-out volcano, maybe. No one ever buys a house without secretly wanting one ten per cent more expensive.

  Money is a trap, for sure. But, to Lance’s mind, there are worse traps you could find yourself in.

  He looks over and sees Sue Reardon through her open door. She’s engrossed in something. Working? He doubts it. Who starts working before eleven these days?

  She is frowning at her screen. Does she know something? Is she in there, cracking the case?

  More likely she’ll be ordering shrubs, or arranging care for an elderly relative, or watching pornography. Nothing about anyone ever surprised Lance any more. Twenty years working with the security services and he has seen it all. Those two women in their seventies? What was the story there? The smaller one, the less scary one, had kept looking at him as if she had something to say. The other one, Elizabeth Best – Sue seemed respectful and wary around her. Was there some history?

  Lances glances up at Sue again. She seems deep in thought. Though she’s probably just looking at that same house in Wiltshire and working out what she’d do with the stable block. Thinking about the twenty million.

  Lance currently lives in a one-bedroom flat in Balham. There is an argument with his ex about buying her half of the property. He can’t afford to buy her out, he can’t afford to move, and she doesn’t much care. He was a poor boy who bought a flat with a rich girl, which was romantic and hopeful at first, but is less fun now their only contact is letters from her dad’s solicitor. For now he is paying rent to her. That’s the temporary compromise. Paying rent he can’t afford to someone who doesn’t need the money. To someone who, until six months ago, would tell him every day how much she loved him. Not so much of that in the solicitor’s letters. No arm across his chest and sleepy morning kisses from Roebuck Harrington & Lowe.

  Had she fallen out of love with him, or had she never been in love? Either way she had slept with their builder, and was now dating an investment banker called Massimo.

  Lance’s mum had loved her. Everybody loved her. And so now Lance doesn’t see his mum so much either. He bets they’re still in touch.

  Balham was, at least, handy for Millbank, where Lance usually works. But it definitely wasn’t handy for this ridiculous set-up in Godalming where he was seconded until this investigation was over. It was all well and good to be investigating two assassinations. But not if you have to stand all the way on the 8.21 train from Waterloo to Godalming in order to do it.

  And, to top it all, he is losing his hair. The superpower that had served him so well over the years, the hair that would dance over his eyes, that he would effortlessly run his hand through on dates, knowing that wherever it sprang back to it would look great. It was on its way out. It was thinning, it was greying, it was receding. Just when he was single again.

  Sometimes, when they let Lance have a gun, he thinks about just shooting himself in the head.

  He should probably do some work.

  Lance shuts down the Rightmove property page and opens his emails. He has worked for both MI5 and 6, so he gets all sorts of rubbish. The emails were always a mix of security briefings and the results of the in-house bake-off competition held by the China desk.

  Sue has emailed him. She’s ten feet away, through an open door, but OK. Can he check on the credentials of Doctor Carter from the mortuary the other night? Send her a report? Of course. Sue is stressed, he can see that. She is under pressure to get this whole mess cleared up.

  Grey men have been ghosting in and out of her office for the last few days. About the same age as Sue, he guessed, early sixties perhaps, but more male and more senior. That was still the way it went, despite what all the glossy brochures told you. Lance is aware that he is about as unsuccessful as it is possible for a forty-two-year-old man to be in MI5. But there was time to change that, and he should probably start now.

  After reading that the competition to name the MI6 canteen has been won by Priya Ghelani from counter-terrorism, with the entry ‘Would You Like Spies With That?’, he sees an alert about a flight from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Lance clicks it open.

  Sue Reardon’s reputation was high. If there was trouble, she found it, and then she would find the troublemakers making that trouble. She was hard, she could be brutal, that was what the job did to you. But this investigation had been a disaster. Two operatives shot dead in a safe house? Including the chief suspect in the original investigation? No doubt that’s why so many grey-haired men were in and out of Sue’s office.

  A flight has been flagged. On the passenger list is the name Andre Richardson. The flight, on a Gulfstream G65R, takes off from Teterboro and is due to land at Farnborough Airfield on the morning of Monday the eight.

  Lance closes the email, walks over to Sue’s door and knocks. She looks up and closes whatever it was she’d been looking at. ASOS? Paintings of horses?

  ‘Lance?’

  ‘Flight leaving New Jersey on Sunday week. Under the name “Andre Richardson”, a known alias of Frank Andrade Jr. Landing at Farnborough, not a million miles from here, not a million miles from Martin Lomax’s home.’

  ‘So the man whose diamonds have been stolen is visiting the man they were stolen from?’

  ‘Mmm,’ agrees Lance. He is wondering if Priya Ghelani is still single. He has to get back out there, hair or no hair. ‘Perhaps I should join the surveillance team for the next week, ma’am? Make sure we don’t miss a trick?’

  ‘Good idea, Lance. They’re stationed up in Andover. You OK to stay up there?’

  A whole week away from the Balham flat. A week away from the commute, and from this office. Maybe some glory and some diamonds at the end of it?

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ says Lance, then raises his hand to push it through his hair, before thinking better of it.

  41

  Elizabeth is not the sentimental type, but even so.

  She is about to find out if her ex-husband is dead. She knows – or knew? – Douglas well enough to know he wouldn’t have revealed the true location of the diamonds to anybody else. Whatever false trail he laid would have been a good one. No one else knows about locker 531. That was a secret hidden in a hole in a tree high above Coopers Chase.

  If the diamonds are not in this locker, then Douglas has them.

  If the diamonds are there, that means Douglas hasn’t been to collect them. And that means Douglas is dead. Quite the day she is having.

  If Douglas is alive then he is on the run and very rich. And, of course, if Douglas is alive, then he killed Poppy. He killed Poppy, and he faked his own death with a corpse taken from goodness knows where. A fresh corpse, though, there was no hiding that. It wasn’t like the corpse of Marcus Carmichael they had pulled from the Thames so many years ago. No one was checking Marcus Carmichael too closely, everybody had their job to do. But Elizabeth had seen Douglas’s body. Seen it up close. It was very fresh indeed. So perhaps Douglas had killed two people? That’s the only way he could have got away with it.

  So, in the grand scheme of things, Elizabeth is hoping that Douglas is dead. No offence meant, but she would rather her ex-husband was a dead thief than a living murderer.

  The minibus is full. Carlito, the driver, has a cigarette hanging out of his window. This is not a group who minds if you smoke. And, in return, Carlito doesn’t mind if you don’t wear a seatbelt. The whole scene might have been from the 1970s, when, if you wanted to die of lung cancer, or in a road accident, then that was your choice.

  Joyce is quiet, which is unlike her. It’s almost unnerving.

  At first Elizabeth thought it was because of Poppy. Joyce and Poppy had bonded, that was for certain. Or perhaps because of Siobhan? Being so close to a mother’s grief?

  But then Elizabeth realizes that the last time the two of them had been on this minibus together, Bernard had been on the back seat. Just before Joy
ce and Bernard had become close. Joyce misses him, although they never talk about him. Just like they never talk about Stephen, or Penny. In fact what do she and Joyce talk about? The English countryside passes by outside the minibus window.

  ‘What do you and I talk about, Joyce?’ asks Elizabeth.

  Joyce thinks. ‘It’s been mainly murder, hasn’t it? Since we met?’

  Elizabeth nods. ‘I suppose it has. What do you think we’ll talk about when there are no murders?’

  ‘Well, we’ll find out at some point, won’t we?’

  Joyce looks out of the window again. Elizabeth doesn’t like seeing her friend unhappy. What do normal people say in these situations? Here goes nothing.

  ‘Would you like to talk about Bernard?’

  Joyce turns to look at her and gives her a tiny smile. ‘No, thank you.’

  Joyce returns to her view and, without turning, puts her hand on Elizabeth’s.

  ‘Would you like to talk about Stephen?’ asks Joyce.

  ‘No, thank you,’ says Elizabeth. Joyce gives her hand a squeeze, and leaves it there. Elizabeth looks down at her friendship bracelet. A very ugly thing that means the world to her. Elizabeth’s life has been one of classmates and cousins, of professors, of colleagues and of husbands. She has always found friends harder. What did friends want from you? What did they expect you to do? Her great brain hadn’t worked it out.

  Last night, awake with Stephen at around 4 a.m., he had been showing off about some mountain or other he had climbed when he was a young man. She had then invented an even bigger mountain she had climbed – ‘without a single Sherpa, darling’ – and he then upped the ante and was climbing Everest without Sherpas or oxygen, and then she was climbing Everest carrying a grand piano, and the two of them were in fits of giggles. It was love, of course, but it was also friendship. Stephen was the first person she had ever met who refused to take her seriously.

  Joyce doesn’t take her seriously, Ibrahim doesn’t take her seriously, Ron certainly doesn’t take her seriously. They respect her, she thinks, they know they can rely on her, they take care of her – shudder – but they refuse to take her seriously. Who knew that was the secret all along?

  Now she really thinks about it, Chris and Donna don’t take her seriously either. First Stephen, then the Thursday Murder Club, now Chris and Donna? Why this sudden wave of people who refused to be taken in by her casual brilliance and brusque efficiency?

  She knows the answer, of course. After meeting Stephen she took herself less seriously. The moment she had done that, a door was opened, which true friends could walk through. And in they walked. She squeezes Joyce’s hand back.

  ‘You know, I would like to talk about Stephen. I just don’t know how yet.’

  Joyce turns away from the window and smiles at her friend.

  ‘Well, the kettle is always on at mine.’

  The minibus pulls to a stop outside Ryman’s, and everyone starts gathering their belongings. Carlito swivels himself in his chair.

  ‘I see you back here in three hours. No shoplifting, no graffiti.’

  Elizabeth stands, then ushers Joyce to the exit in front of her. As she passes, Joyce says, ‘Before we talk about your current husband, let’s find out if your ex-husband is dead.’

  ‘Yes, let’s,’ says Elizabeth. That’s what friends were for.

  The station was a ten-minute walk from Ryman’s, down towards the seafront. As the shops peter out, Fairhaven gets a bit grittier. They pass by the end of a road full of lock-up garages, teenagers on bicycles skidding up and down. Fairhaven in autumn is beginning to hunker down, to prepare for winter, no day trippers, no tourists, everyone having to find different ways to make their money. Elizabeth knows that if you opened up all of those garages you would find a thing or two.

  Should Elizabeth have told Sue Reardon about the letter? Well, yes, of course she should, that was a silly question, but Elizabeth wanted to be the one to open the locker. Sue would understand that. And if she didn’t understand, then they would cross that bridge in time. Elizabeth suspected there would be few complaints if she handed Sue a bag of diamonds.

  As they approach the station they pass Le Pont Noir, which used to be the Black Bridge. Ron’s son, Jason, had told them many tales of the Black Bridge. They haven’t seen Jason for a while. He is dating Gordon Playfair’s daughter, Karen, and is very happy by all accounts. The more love the better as far as Elizabeth is concerned these days.

  They reach Fairhaven station. It is much as Joyce had described it. Morning rush hour has passed, but it is still lively. Everyone living their own story. Students with backpacks trying to find platforms, men in suits running for connections, pre-schoolers in pushchairs wailing for raisins.

  And, standing, looking up at the station signs, a silly old spy and her friend, looking for twenty million pounds’ worth of diamonds stolen from the New York mafia.

  Elizabeth sees the arrow pointing to ‘Left-Luggage Lockers’.

  42

  Ron sits on the back seat of the taxi, next to his grandson, Kendrick. He always asks for the same cabbie, Mark, because Mark supports West Ham and has a ‘Vote Labour’ sticker in his back window.

  Ron has just picked Kendrick up from the station. Suzi, his daughter, didn’t stop, because she was going on to Gatwick. Ron managed to ask her how she was, but all she managed was ‘Don’t worry about me’ before the train started moving again, and he and Kendrick waved it into the distance.

  Kendrick is currently hugging his backpack and looking out of each window in turn, excited at every new house, every new road sign and every new tree.

  ‘Grandad, a shop!’ says Kendrick.

  Ron looks. ‘You’re right there, Kenny.’

  ‘Call me Kendrick, Grandad,’ says Kendrick.

  ‘I’ve always called you Kenny,’ says Ron. ‘It’s quicker.’

  ‘Uh, it’s the same, Grandad.’

  ‘Nah, it’s quicker,’ says Ron.

  ‘It’s not really, is it?’ asks Kendrick, straining forward against his seatbelt to get the taxi driver’s attention.

  ‘Not my business,’ says Mark, ‘but yeah, it’s got the same number of syllables, I’m afraid, Ron.’

  Can’t even get back-up from a West Ham fan. People were so soft around kids. ‘I’ll call you Ken, then. That’s quicker.’

  ‘Just call me Kendrick, maybe? Daddy calls me Ken.’

  ‘Kendrick it is then,’ says Ron. Ron’s son-in-law was not his favourite person in the world. Safe to say Danny didn’t have a ‘Vote Labour’ sticker on the back of his BMW.

  ‘Can I ask you a question, Grandad?’

  ‘Fire away,’ says Ron.

  ‘Do you have a smart TV?’

  ‘Um, I don’t think so,’ says Ron. ‘I doubt it. I only just got a microwave.’

  ‘You do, Ron,’ says Mark over his shoulder. ‘Your boy Jason brought it round for you. A friend of his had found a hundred of them in a field. You were trying to sell me one.’

  ‘I do have a smart TV then,’ says Ron to Kendrick. ‘Is that good?’

  ‘It’s really good, I think,’ confirms Kendrick. ‘I’ve got my iPad, and I know I’m lucky because not everyone has one, but with a smart TV we can all play Minecraft together. Do you know Minecraft, Grandad? Also, does anyone have cats where you live?’

  ‘There’s a few cats who pop in.’

  ‘Oh, I’m really happy about that.’

  ‘One of them killed a squirrel the other day and tried to bring it through my patio doors.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Yep. I wasn’t having any of it, he was out on his ear.’

  Kendrick thinks about this for a while. ‘But that’s just cats, they’re not trying to be mean. It’s sad for the squirrel, though. I hope I can see squirrels. So do you know Minecraft?’

  ‘Afraid not, son.’

  ‘That’s OK, because you can learn. You get to build new worlds and create all sorts of things, and sometimes you can
talk to people, but it’s important to be careful. I built a castle and it had a moat but it didn’t have a drawbridge, so no one could get in, but also no one could get out, so it was good and bad. Uncle Ibrahim can play too.’

  ‘Uncle Ibrahim’s not feeling too clever at the moment,’ says Ron. ‘Go easy on him.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine; he can still play though,’ says Kendrick. ‘What would you like to build, Grandad?’

  ‘What is it, use your imagination? Or are there instructions?’ asks Ron.

  ‘Imagination,’ says Kendrick, throwing his hands into the air.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about imagination. Is there fighting?’

  ‘You can fight, but I don’t like to.’

  ‘I’d build a unicorn farm, Kendrick,’ says Mark, from the front seat. ‘But with outbuildings that could bring in commercial revenue. Like a farm shop?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s so good,’ says Kendrick. ‘I’ll do that. And maybe slides?’

  ‘Slides and ice cream, perhaps?’ says Mark, and Kendrick nods vigorously.

  ‘Why don’t you and Uncle Ibrahim build it, and I’ll just watch,’ says Ron.

  Kendrick nods again. ‘It’s really fun to watch too. And then you can say if you see a cat, and we can stop.’

  Mark flicks on the indicator and turns left into the drive for Coopers Chase.

  ‘Here we are, Kenny, home sweet home.’

  Kendrick looks up at Ron, one eyebrow raised, legs jiggling. He tries to look out of all the windows at once.

  ‘Do you remember Joyce?’ asks Ron.

  ‘Uh huh,’ says Kendrick. ‘She’s nice.’

  ‘She says she’s made you a cake if you want to come and see her?’

  ‘Just for me?’ asks Kendrick.

  ‘So she says.’

  Kendrick nods his approval. ‘You can all have some though, I only need one bit. Mark, you can have some too.’

  ‘Love to, but I’ve got a pick-up in Tonbridge,’ says Mark.

  Kendrick thinks, then looks at his grandad. ‘I haven’t got a present for Joyce though, so I’ll do a drawing. Have you got paper?’

 

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