‘Probably a woman,’ says Joyce. ‘You know what we’re like.’
Ron nods. ‘Probably, yeah.’
He watches his son depart into the distance. He’s worried. But then there’s never been a day with Jason, whether in the ring, or out, when Ron hasn’t worried.
9
The consultation went well. Ian Ventham is no longer worried about The Woodlands; it’s a done deal. The loud guy from the meeting? He’d met his type before. Let him blow himself out. He’d also seen a priest at the back of the room. What was that? The cemetery, he guessed, but it was all above board, he had all the permits. Let them try and stop him.
And sacking Tony Curran? Well, he hadn’t been happy, but he hadn’t killed him either. Advantage Ian.
So, Ian Ventham is already thinking ahead. After The Woodlands is up and running there will be another, final phase of the development, Hillcrest. He has driven the five minutes up a rough track from Coopers Chase and is now sitting in the country kitchen of Karen Playfair. Her father, Gordon, owns the farmland at the top of the hill, adjoining Coopers Chase, and he seems in no mood to sell. No matter, Ian has his ways.
‘I’m afraid nothing has changed, Ian,’ says Karen Playfair. ‘My dad won’t sell, and I can’t make him.’
‘I hear you,’ says Ian. ‘More money.’
‘No, I think –’ says Karen, ‘and I think you know this already – I think he just doesn’t like you.’
Gordon Playfair had taken one look at Ian Ventham and disappeared upstairs. Ian could hear him stomping about, proving whatever point he was proving. Who cared? Sometimes people didn’t like Ian. He has never quite worked out why, but over the years has learned to live with it. Certainly, it was their problem. Gordon Playfair was just another in a long line of people who didn’t get him.
‘But listen, leave it with me,’ says Karen. ‘I’ll find a way. It’ll work for everyone.’
Karen Playfair gets him. He has been talking her through the sort of money she could expect if she persuades her dad to sell up. Her sister and brother-in-law have their own business, organic raisins in Brighton, and Ian has already tried this line on them, and failed. Karen Playfair is a much better bet. She lives alone in a cottage on the land and she works in IT, which you can tell just by looking at her. She is wearing make-up, but in a subtle, understated way that Ian honestly can’t see the point of.
Ian wonders exactly when Karen had given up on life and started wearing trainers and long, baggy jumpers. And you’d think, given that she works in IT, she could have googled ‘Botox’. She must be fifty, Ian thinks, same age as him. Different for women, though.
Ian is on a lot of dating apps, and sets a strict upper age limit of twenty-five. He finds the dating apps useful, because it can be hard to meet exactly the right kind of women these days. They need to understand that his time is limited and his work demanding, and that commitment is hard for him. Women over twenty-five don’t seem to get that, in his experience. What happens to them, he wonders. He tries to imagine why someone would choose to date Karen Playfair, but draws a blank. Conversation? That runs out soon enough, doesn’t it? She’ll be rich soon, of course, when Ian buys the land. That will help her.
Hillcrest will be a real life-changer for Ian, too. It will eventually double the size of Coopers Chase, and so double Ian’s profits. Profits he will no longer have to share with Tony Curran. If that meant having to flirt with a fifty-year-old for a couple of weeks then so be it.
On dates, Ian has his tried-and-tested material. He’ll impress young women with pictures of his pool, and the time he was interviewed on Kent Tonight. He had already shown Karen a picture of his pool, because you never knew, but she had simply smiled politely and nodded. No wonder she was single.
He could do business with her, though. She knew the upsides here, and she knew the obstacles, and they end their conversation with a handshake and a plan of action. As he shakes Karen’s hand, Ian thinks that using a bit of hand cream every now and again wouldn’t kill her. Fifty! He wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
The thought briefly occurs to Ian that the only woman over twenty-five he spends any time with at all is his wife.
Oh well, time to go. Things to do.
10
Tony Curran has made up his mind. He brings his BMW X7 to a halt on his heated driveway. There is a gun buried under the sycamore in the back garden. Or is it under the beech? It’s one or the other, but that’s something he can think about with a nice cup of tea. And he can try to remember where his spade is, while he’s at it.
Tony Curran is going to kill Ian Ventham, that’s a given now. Surely Ian knows it too? You can only take so many liberties before even the most calm and rational man snaps.
Tony whistles a tune from an advert and heads indoors.
He moved in about eighteen months ago, on the first real profits from Coopers Chase. It was the type of house he had always dreamed of. A house built on hard work, on making the right choices, cutting the right corners and backing his own talent. A monument to what he had achieved, in brick, glass and tempered walnut.
Tony lets himself in and sets to work switching off the alarm. Ventham had got some of his gang to fit it last week. Polish, the lot of them, but then who isn’t these days? Tony gets the four-digit code right on the third attempt. A new record.
Tony Curran has always taken his security very seriously. For many years Tony’s building company had really just been a front for his drugs business. A way to explain away his income. A way to wash his dirty money. But it slowly got bigger, took up more of his time, brought in more and more money. If you’d told young Tony he would end up living in this house, he wouldn’t have been at all surprised. If you’d told him he’d be buying it with money earned legally, he’d have keeled over there and then.
His wife, Debbie, is not back, but that suits him fine for now. Gives him time to concentrate, really think it all through.
Tony rewinds to the row with Ian Ventham, and his fury rises again.
Ian was cutting him out of The Woodlands? Just like that? A conversation on the way to his car? Outdoors, just in case Tony felt like swinging a punch. He would love to have smacked him there and then, but that was the old Tony. So they’d had a little row, nice and quiet. No one could possibly have noticed, and that’s good for Tony. When Ventham turns up dead, no one can say they saw Tony Curran and Ian Ventham having a ding-dong. Keeps it clean.
Tony sits on a bar stool, pulls it up to the island in his vast kitchen and slides open a drawer. He needs to get a plan down on paper.
Tony is not a believer in luck, he’s a believer in hard work. If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. An old English teacher of Tony’s had once told him that, and he’d never forgotten it. The next year he had torched the same teacher’s car, following an argument about a football, but Tony still had to hand it to the guy. If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.
As it turns out, there is no paper in the drawer, so Tony decides to work out the plan in his head instead.
Nothing needs to be done tonight. Let the world continue for a while, let the birds keep singing in the garden, let Ventham think he has won. And then strike. Why did people ever mess with Tony Curran? When had that ever worked out for anyone?
Tony hears the noise a second too late. He turns to see the spanner as it swings towards him. A big one too, real old-school stuff. There’s no way of avoiding the swing and, in the brief moment of realization he has, Tony Curran gets it. You can’t win ’em all, Tony. That’s fair enough, he thinks, that’s fair enough.
The blow catches Tony on the left temple and he collapses to the marble floor. The birds in the garden stop singing for the briefest of moments and then continue their merry tune. High up in the sycamore tree. Or is it the beech?
The killer places a photograph on the worktop, as Tony Curran’s fresh blood begins to form a moat around his walnut kitchen island.
11
Coopers Chase always
wakes early. As the foxes finish their nightly rounds and the birds begin their roll-call, the first kettles whistle and low lamps start to appear in curtained windows. Morning joints creak into life.
Nobody here is grabbing toast before an early train to the office, or packing a lunchbox before waking the kids, but there is much to do nonetheless. Many years ago, everybody here would wake early because there was a lot to do and only so many hours in the day. Now they wake early because there is a lot to do and only so many days left.
Ibrahim is always up by six. The swimming pool doesn’t open until seven, for health-and-safety reasons. He has argued, unsuccessfully, that the risk of drowning while swimming unsupervised is dwarfed by the risk of dying from cardio-vascular disease or respiratory or circulatory illness due to lack of regular exercise. He even produced an algorithm proving that keeping the pool open twenty-four hours a day, would make residents thirty-one point seven per cent safer than closing it overnight. The Leisure & Recreation Amenities Committee remained unmoved. Ibrahim could see that their hands were tied by various directives and so held no grudge. The algorithm was neatly filed away, should it ever be needed again. There was always a lot to do.
‘I have a job for you, Ibrahim,’ says Elizabeth, sipping a mint tea. ‘Well, a job for you and Ron, but I’m putting you in charge.’
‘Very wise,’ says Ibrahim, nodding. ‘If I might say?’
Elizabeth had rung him the night before with the news about Tony Curran. She had heard from Ron, who had heard it from Jason, who had heard it from a source yet to be documented. Dead in his kitchen, blunt force trauma to the head, found by his wife.
Ibrahim usually likes to spend this hour looking through old case notes and sometimes even new ones. He still has a few clients and, if they are ever in need, they will make the trip out to Coopers Chase and sit in the battered chair under the painting of the sailing boat, both of which have followed him around for nearly forty years now. Yesterday, Ibrahim had been reading the notes of an old client of his, a Midland Bank manager from Godalming who took in stray dogs and killed himself one Christmas Day. No such luck this morning, Ibrahim thinks. Elizabeth had arrived with the sunrise. He is finding the break in his routine challenging.
‘All I need you to do is to lie to a senior police officer,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Can I trust you with that?’
‘When can you not trust me, Elizabeth?’ says Ibrahim. ‘When have I let you down?’
‘Well, never, Ibrahim,’ agrees Elizabeth. ‘That’s why I like to keep you around. Also, you make very good tea.’
Ibrahim knows he is a safe pair of hands. Over the years he has saved lives and saved souls. He was good at what he did, and that’s why, even now, some people will drive for miles, past the old phone box and the farm shop, turning right just after the bridge and left by the wooden bus stop, just to speak to an eighty-year-old psychiatrist, long retired.
Sometimes he fails – who doesn’t, in this world? – and those are the files that Ibrahim will reach for in those early mornings. The bank manager who sat in the battered chair and cried and cried and could not be saved.
But this morning there are different priorities, he understands that. This morning the Thursday Murder Club has a real-life case. Not just yellowing pages of smudged type from another age. A real case, a real corpse and, somewhere out there, a real killer.
This morning Ibrahim is needed. Which is what he lives for.
12
PC Donna De Freitas carries a tray of teas into the incident room. A local builder, Tony something, has been murdered, and judging by the size of the assembled team it’s a big deal. Donna wonders why. If she takes her time with the teas, maybe she can find out.
DCI Chris Hudson is addressing the team. He always seems nice enough. He once opened some double doors for her without looking like he wanted a medal for it.
‘There are cameras at the property, and plenty of them. Get the footage. Tony Curran left Coopers Chase at 2 p.m. and he died at 3.32, according to his Fitbit. That’s only a small window to search.’
Donna has placed the tea tray on a desk while she stoops to tie her shoelace. She hears Coopers Chase mentioned, which is interesting.
‘There are also cameras on the A214, around 400 metres south of Curran’s home, and half a mile north, so let’s get hold of that footage too. You know the time frame.’ Chris stops for a moment and looks over at where Donna De Freitas is crouching.
‘Everything all right, Constable?’ he asks.
Donna straightens up. ‘Yes, sir, just tying my shoelaces. Wouldn’t want to trip with a tray of tea.’
‘Very wise,’ agrees Chris. ‘Thank you for the tea. We’ll let you get on now.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ says Donna, and walks towards the door.
She realizes that Chris – a detective of course – has probably spotted that her shoes have no laces. But surely he wouldn’t blame a young constable for a bit of healthy curiosity?
As she opens the door to leave she hears Chris Hudson continue.
‘Until we get all that, the biggest lead is the photograph the killer left by the body. Let’s take a look.’
Donna can’t resist turning and sees, projected onto the wall, an old photograph, three men in a pub, laughing and drinking. Their table is covered in banknotes. She only has a moment, but she recognizes one of the men immediately.
Things would be very different when Donna was part of a murder squad; very different. No more visiting primary schools to write serial numbers on bikes in invisible ink. No more politely reminding local shopkeepers that overflowing bins were actually a criminal off–
‘Constable?’ says Chris, snapping Donna from her train of thought. Donna takes her eyes off the photo and looks at Chris. Firmly, but kindly, he motions that she is free to leave. Donna smiles at Chris and nods. ‘Daydreaming. Sorry, sir.’
She opens the door, walks through, back to the boredom. She strains to hear every last word before the door finally swings shut.
‘So, three men, all of whom we obviously know very well. Shall we take them one by one?’
The door clunks shut. Donna sighs.
13
Joyce
I hope you will forgive a morning diary entry, but Tony Curran is dead.
Tony Curran is the builder who put this place up. Perhaps he even laid the bricks in my fireplace? Who knows? I mean, probably not. He probably had someone else to do that for him, didn’t he? And all the plastering and what have you. He would have just overseen things, I suppose. But I bet his fingerprints are here somewhere. Which is quite a thrill.
Elizabeth rang me last night with the news. I would never describe Elizabeth as breathless, but, honestly, she wasn’t far off.
Tony Curran was bludgeoned, of all things, by hand, or hands, unknown. I told her what I’d seen with Ron and Jason, the row between Curran and Ian Ventham. She told me she already knew, so she must have spoken to Ron before she spoke to me, but she was polite enough to listen as I gave my view of it. I asked her if she was taking notes and she said she would remember it.
Anyway, Elizabeth seems to have some sort of plan. She said she is seeing Ibrahim this morning.
I asked her if there was any way I might be able to help and she said that there was. So I asked her what that way might be and she said if I held my horses, I would find out soon enough.
So I suppose I sit and wait for instructions? I’m going to take the minibus into Fairhaven later, but I shall keep my mobile on just in case.
I have become someone who has to keep their mobile on.
14
‘So who killed Tony Curran, and how do we catch him?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Or catch “him or her”, I know I should say, but it’s probably “him”. What kind of woman would bludgeon someone? A Russian woman, but that’s about it.’
After giving Ibrahim his instructions for the day, Elizabeth had headed straight over for this chat. She is in her usual chair.
‘He absolutel
y seems the type to have had enemies. Sleeveless vest, big house, more tattoos than Ron, so on and so forth. The police will be making a list of suspects right now and we’ll have to get our hands on it. In the absence of their list, though, why don’t we look at whether Ian Ventham killed Tony Curran? You remember Ian Ventham? With the after-shave? Ventham and Tony Curran had a little fight. Ron saw them, of course – when does he ever miss a thing? And Joyce said something about Pizza Express, but I knew what she meant.’
Elizabeth tries to mention Joyce more often these days, because why deny it?
‘Shall we make some reasonable assumptions? Let’s say that Ventham is unhappy with Curran, or Curran is unhappy with Ventham? It doesn’t much matter which. They have something to discuss, and yet they meet in public, which is peculiar.’
Elizabeth checks her watch. She is subtle about it, despite everything.
‘So, let’s say straight after the consultation meeting, Ventham has bad news to break. He fears Curran’s reaction so much that he meets him in public view. He hopes to placate him. But in Ron’s view he was “unsuccessful”. I’m paraphrasing Ron there.’
There is a small sponge cube on a stick next to the bed. Elizabeth places it in a jug of water and wets Penny’s dry lips. The metallic chirp of Penny’s heart monitor fills the silence.
‘So how would Ventham react, in that scenario, Penny? Facing Curran with a grudge? Switch to plan B? Follow Curran to his house? “Let me in, let’s just talk about this, perhaps I’ve been too hasty?” And then, wallop!, as simple as that, don’t you think? He kills Curran before Curran kills him?’
Elizabeth looks around for her bag. She places her hands on the arms of the chair, ready to leave.
‘But why? That’s the question I know you’d ask. I’m going to try and take a look at their financial relationship. Chase the money. There’s a man in Geneva who owes me a favour, so we should be able to get Ventham’s financial records by this evening. Either way, it sounds like fun, doesn’t it? An adventure. And I think we’ll have a few tricks that the police won’t. I’m sure they’d appreciate a bit of help, and that’s my task for this morning.’
The Thursday Murder Club Page 4