The Thursday Murder Club

by Richard Osman

  ‘My inquiries are ongoing,’ says Elizabeth.

  ‘No need, Elizabeth, we’ve cracked that one for you,’ says Donna. ‘It’s Doctor Mackie. Not a priest, never has been, never will be. A doctor in Ireland, moved over here in the nineties.’

  ‘That’s very curious,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Why pretend to be a priest?’

  ‘Told you he was a wrong ’un,’ says Ron to Ibrahim.

  ‘So, he might have killed Ian Ventham,’ says Donna. ‘And he’s certainly up to something. But I doubt it’s because of your bones.’

  ‘Is it worth my pointing out any more that this is all confidential?’ says Chris.

  ‘You are quite safe with us. You know that, don’t you? Nothing ever leaves this room,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Shall we just forget this ever happened, the business with the bones and what have you, and pool our knowledge?’

  ‘I think we’ve pooled quite enough for one day, Elizabeth,’ says Donna.

  ‘Oh really?’ says Elizabeth. ‘And yet, you haven’t even told us about the Tony Curran photograph yet. We had to find that out for ourselves.’

  Donna and Chris both look at Elizabeth. Chris lets out a theatrical sigh.

  ‘By way of a peace offering,’ says Ibrahim, ‘perhaps you would like to know who took the photograph?’

  Chris looks up to the heavens. Or Joyce’s Artex ceiling. ‘I would actually like to know that, yes.’

  ‘Lad named Turkish Gianni,’ says Ron.

  ‘Although he’s not Turkish,’ adds Joyce.

  ‘You’ve seen the photo, Ron?’ asks Donna.

  Ron nods.

  ‘Nice one of Jason, eh?’

  ‘You want my view, for what it’s worth?’ says Ron. ‘You find Turkish Gianni or Bobby Tanner, you find Tony Curran’s killer.’

  ‘Well then, if we’re laying all our cards on the table,’ says Chris, ‘has Jason explained away his phone calls to Tony Curran on the morning of the murder? And has he explained away the presence of his car in the area at the exact moment that Tony Curran was murdered?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Elizabeth. ‘To our satisfaction.’

  ‘Anything you’d like to share?’ asks Donna.

  ‘Listen, I’ll get him to give you a bell and explain, don’t worry,’ says Ron. ‘But shall we get on and find this Gianni fella and Bobby Tanner?’

  ‘Just leave that with us, please,’ says Chris.

  ‘I think we’re unlikely to just leave that with you, Chris,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I’m ever so sorry.’

  ‘Would you like some sherry?’ asks Joyce. ‘It’s only Sainsbury’s, but it’s Taste the Difference.’

  Chris sinks back into his chair and submits.

  ‘If any of this ever gets back to my superintendent, I will personally arrest you and march you into court myself. I swear, on my life.’

  ‘Chris, no one will ever find out,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You know how I used to make my living?’

  ‘Well, not really, if I’m honest.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  As a complicit silence falls over the room, it seems the evening’s drinking can now begin in earnest.

  ‘I am very proud of how we all work together as a team,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Cheers.’

  77

  Joyce

  I’m glad we told Chris and Donna about the bones. It seems right. Now everyone can keep an eye out. Who was here in the 1970s and is still here today? That should keep them all occupied for a bit.

  Everyone knows everything now and that seems fair.

  So where are Gianni and Bobby? Now we’ve dealt with the bones, I know Elizabeth will be thinking about how we track them down. That’s right up her street, isn’t it? I will get a call in the morning and it will be, ‘Joyce, we’re going to Reading,’ or, ‘Joyce, we’re going to Inverness, or Timbuktu,’ and bit by bit she’ll tell me why and before you know it we’ll be having a cup of tea with Bobby Tanner, or a café au lait with Turkish Gianni. You wait and see. Tomorrow morning, before 10 a.m. Guaranteed.

  The only time I ever use my passport is when I need to pick up a parcel, but I’ve just checked and it has three years left. I remember when I first got it, wondering if it would be my last ever. The odds on it being renewed are with me now I think. Anyway, that’s just to say that if Gianni or Bobby Tanner are abroad somewhere, then I wouldn’t put it past Elizabeth to hop on a plane. We’re only a drive from Gatwick here.

  I could send Joanna a postcard. ‘Who, me? Oh, I’m in Cyprus for a couple of days. Tracking down a fugitive. Possibly armed, but you mustn’t worry.’ Though no one sends postcards any more, do they? Joanna has shown me how to send photos on my phone, but I’m beggared if it’s ever worked when I tried. I just get that spinning circle.

  Perhaps I could ask Bernard to come along with me. ‘A couple of days in the sun? Last-minute thing. We just fancied it.’ I think it might frighten the poor man to death.

  I don’t like to give up on a chase, but Bernard seems to be drifting further and further away from me. He was not a bundle of fun at lunch and there was plenty of steak and kidney left over.

  And don’t think I don’t know what the others think. What they suspect. They’ll be checking whether Bernard was here fifty years ago. They haven’t spoken to me about it, but you mark my words. Check away, don’t mind me.

  Timbuktu is a real place by the way. Did you know that? It came up in a quiz once. Ibrahim will remember where it is, but I did think that was interesting.

  78

  Chris Hudson is cradling a whisky. He likes a real log fire and they have a nice one in Le Pont Noir. He’s never eaten here, because who would he eat with, but he likes the bar. The fire has a vintage tile surround, very tasteful. If you’d asked him twenty years ago, he would have imagined this was the sort of place he might live. Leather armchair, whisky on the go, wife reading some sort of book opposite him. Something prize-winning and beyond him, but she’d be turning the pages, smiling wryly. A love story set against the backdrop of the Raj. He could be looking at murder case notes. Slowly solving something.

  He is still sure that Mackie is guilty as hell. It added up. But these bones? Did they change things? Had there been two murders, fifty-odd years apart, one to protect the other? If so, then Mackie wasn’t their man, they’ve been through the records, he hadn’t left Ireland until the nineties.

  His mind drifts back to his dream life. Were there kids sleeping upstairs? In new pyjamas. A boy and a girl, two years apart. Good sleepers. But no, none of that, just a fireplace in a bar that wasn’t doing enough business, in a restaurant that he had no one to take to. Then a walk home, stop at the all-night shop for a Dairy Milk. A proper big one. Then the key fob, the apartment block, the three flights up, the flat that the cleaner kept clean, that no one ever cooked in, the spare room that was never used. If he opened his window he could hear the sea, but couldn’t see it. Didn’t that just sum it up?

  There was a life that Chris hadn’t been able to take in his grasp. Families, driveways, trampolines, friends round for dinner, all the stuff you’d see on adverts. Was this for ever now? The lonely flat with the neutral walls and the Sky Sports? Maybe there was a way out, but Chris couldn’t immediately spot it. Treading water, getting fatter, laughing less. Chris was out of rocket fuel. It was lucky that Chris loved his job. Was good at his job. Chris always found it easy to get up in the morning. He just found it hard to go to sleep at night.

  Leave Mackie be for a minute and focus on Tony Curran’s murder. Jason Ritchie had rung him earlier. Told his tale. Explained away the calls and the car. If he was lying, then he’d done a good job of it. But then he would, wouldn’t he?

  Bobby Tanner was still proving elusive. After Amsterdam, there was no more Bobby Tanner on any official record. But he’d be somewhere. Maybe Brussels, living under some name or other, plenty of gangs could use him out there. He’d be doing what he’d always done. Smuggling, fighting, making himself useful. Not a big enough fish for anyone to worry about. Burned of
ten enough to be careful. They’d catch him coming out of some expat gym one day, put their hand on his shoulder and fly him back for a few questions.

  Though, of course, there was a good chance that Bobby Tanner was dead too. Steroids, pub fight, fell off a ferry, so many ways to go and the only way to identify him a false passport. But Chris thinks Bobby is still out there somewhere, and if he’s still out there somewhere, then who’s to say he hadn’t just paid a visit to Tony Curran for some long-forgotten reason? Something to do with his brother drowning with that boat full of drugs? Who knew?

  And then the new name, Turkish Gianni. Chris had found plenty on record for him. Gianni Gunduz was his real name. Fled the country in the early 2000s after a tip-off he’d murdered the cabbie in the Black Bridge shooting. Everything kept coming back to that one night. In this very bar.

  Had Gianni come back to town?

  Chris finishes his whisky and looks at the tiles once again. Beautiful really.

  He should probably go home.

  79

  Joyce

  Just two quick things this morning, as I find myself in a hurry.

  Firstly, Timbuktu is in Mali. I bumped into Ibrahim on my way back from the post box and I asked him. I also saw Bernard walking, slowly, up the hill. It’s every day now, but never mind.

  And, as I say, Mali. So now you know.

  Secondly, Elizabeth rang at 9.17 and we’re off to Folkestone. From the looks of it it’s two changes, one at St Leonards and one at Ashford International, so we’re setting off nice and early. I haven’t been to Ashford International, but I doubt a station would have ‘International’ in its name and not have an M&S. Maybe even an Oliver Bonas. Fingers crossed.

  I promise I will report back later.

  80

  In many ways, his neighbours owed Peter Ward a debt of thanks and, to be fair, most of them knew it.

  Pearson Street had always been a little down at heel. A newsagent with no papers, a mini-mart, with a mountain of cheap alcohol behind the counter, a travel agent with fading posters of the sun, two bookies, a pub on its last legs, a party accessories shop, a nail bar and a boarded-up café.

  And then The Flower Mill had moved in. Peter Ward’s shop, bursting with colour, a little rainbow explosion on this grey street.

  And what flowers! Peter Ward knew his stuff and when you know your stuff in a small town, word soon gets around. People would start making detours from the town centre. And they would tell their friends, who would tell their friends and, before you know it, someone down from London has spotted the boarded-up café and bought the lease and now there were two reasons to visit Pearson Street. Then a bride ordering flowers from Peter and enjoying a latte in the café, sees this little street is on the up and wonders if it might be the place to open a small hardware store? So now The Tool Chest sits next to The Flower Mill, opposite Casa Café. The travel agent suddenly has people walking past, feels the need to change those posters and those people start walking in. Under-thirties mainly, who have no idea what a travel agent might be. The Londoner with the café buys the pub and starts doing food. Terry at the newsagent starts ordering in more papers, more milk, more everything. The nail bar paints more nails, the party shop sells more balloons, the mini-mart starts stocking gin alongside the vodka. John from the butcher’s counter at Asda takes the leap and opens a store of his own, taking his customers with him. A local art group hires out a vacant storefront and takes it in turns to buy pieces of each other’s art.

  All thanks to Peter Ward’s orchids and sweet peas and Transvaal daisies.

  Pearson Street is just what you want a shopping street to be. Busy, friendly, local and happy. Joyce thinks it’s so perfect, that it’s surely only six months away from having a Costa and losing what it now has. Which would be sad, but Joyce has to admit that she likes a Costa, so must shoulder some of the blame.

  Joyce and Elizabeth are sitting in Casa Café. Peter Ward has just bought them both a cappuccino. Becky from The Tool Chest will keep an eye out for customers while he takes half an hour off. It’s that sort of street.

  Peter Ward is greying and smiling and has the easy air of a man who has made a series of good decisions in life. A Folkestone florist, whom karma has rewarded for a lifetime of kindness and calmness, a man whose good deeds have delivered him the prize of happiness.

  This impression is misleading. As the scar under his right eye and the bulge of the biceps will tell you, Peter Ward is Bobby Tanner. Or perhaps Peter Ward has left Bobby Tanner behind? That is what they have come to find out. Is the fighter still there? The killer perhaps? Has he recently made the short trip along the coast to Fairhaven and bludgeoned to death his former boss? Elizabeth lays the photograph on the table between them and Peter Ward picks it up, smiling.

  ‘The Black Bridge,’ says Peter. ‘We had a few nights in there. Where’d you get this from?’

  ‘A number of places,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Well, two places, in fact. One was sent to Jason Ritchie and one was found by the corpse of Tony Curran.’

  ‘I read about Tony,’ nods Peter Ward. ‘That was about time.’

  ‘You’ve never seen this photograph before?’ asks Elizabeth.

  Peter looks again, then says, ‘Never have.’

  ‘You weren’t sent one?’ asks Joyce, and sips her cappuccino.

  Peter shakes his head.

  ‘Well, that’s either good news for you, or it’s good news for us,’ says Elizabeth.

  Peter Ward raises an inquiring eyebrow.

  ‘Well, it’s either good news for you, in that Tony Curran’s killer has no idea where you are. Or it’s good news for us, in that you killed Tony Curran yourself and we haven’t wasted a trip to Folkestone.’

  Peter Ward gives a half smile and looks at the photo again.

  ‘Not that the trip would really be wasted,’ says Joyce. ‘We’re having a very nice day.’

  ‘The police have the idea that Jason killed Tony Curran,’ starts Elizabeth. ‘And perhaps he did. But, for reasons of our own, we would prefer that he didn’t. Would you have a view on that, Bobby?’

  Peter Ward holds up a hand.

  ‘Peter around here, please.’

  ‘Would you have a view on that, Peter?’ asks Elizabeth.

  ‘I don’t see it,’ says Peter Ward. ‘Jason went nowhere near that side of things. He looks mean, but he’s a teddy bear.’

  Joyce looks up from her notes for a moment. ‘A teddy bear who funded a major drugs ring.’

  Peter acknowledges this with a nod.

  Elizabeth puts the photo back down on the table. ‘So, if not Jason, then perhaps you? Or perhaps Turkish Gianni?’

  ‘Turkish Gianni?’ says Peter.

  ‘He took the photo.’

  Peter Ward thinks for a while. ‘Did he now? I don’t remember, but that would make sense. I’m guessing you know the story? The boy Tony shot in the Black Bridge? Gianni shooting the taxi driver who got rid of the body?’

  ‘We know that story, yes,’ confirms Elizabeth. ‘Then Gianni disappears back to Cyprus.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t quite that simple,’ says Peter Ward.

  ‘I’m all ears,’ says Elizabeth.

  ‘Someone grassed Gianni up to the cops. They raided his flat, but he’d gone already.’

  ‘And who grassed him up?’ asks Elizabeth.

  ‘Who knows? Not me.’

  ‘No one likes a grass,’ says Joyce.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who,’ says Peter Ward. ‘What matters is that when Gianni legged it, he took a hundred grand of Tony’s cash with him.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Money he had lying around his flat. Tony’s money. All disappeared. Tony went mental. A hundred grand was a lot of money to Tony in those days.’

  ‘Did he try and find Gianni?’ asks Elizabeth.

  ‘You bet. Went off to Cyprus a couple of times. Didn’t find a thing.’

  ‘Not easy when it’s not your natural territory,’ says Elizabeth.


  ‘So I’m guessing you haven’t found Gianni either?’ asks Peter Ward.

  Elizabeth shakes her head.

  ‘How did you find me, by the way?’ he goes on. ‘If you don’t mind me asking? I don’t really want to be found by anyone if Gianni’s back in town, leaving photos of me next to bodies.’

  Elizabeth takes a sip of her coffee. ‘Woodvale Cemetery, where they buried your brother Troy?’

  Peter Ward nods.

  ‘I got access to the CCTV, thanks to a mortician whose uncle I once saved on a train,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s where I found you.’

  Peter Ward looks at Elizabeth.

  ‘Elizabeth, I’ve been there twice in a year. There’s no way you found me from the CCTV. That’d be a needle in a haystack.’

  ‘You went there twice, yes,’ agrees Elizabeth. ‘But on what days?’

  Peter Ward sits back, folds his arms, then nods and smiles. He sees it now.

  ‘Twelfth of March and seventeenth of September,’ continues Elizabeth. ‘Troy’s birthday and the anniversary of his death. I was hoping to see the same car both times, jot down a number plate, get the friend of a friend to run it through a computer somewhere. But on March the twelfth I saw a white van from a Folkestone flower shop, which I thought unusual at a cemetery in Brighton. Not impossible, but noteworthy. And I thought it very, very unusual to see the same van on September the seventeenth. I found that very noteworthy indeed. You see?’

  ‘I do see,’ nods Peter Ward. ‘And no need for a number plate.’

  ‘Because you had your name, your address and your telephone number signwritten on the side,’ says Elizabeth.

  Peter can’t help but give Elizabeth a quiet round of applause and she responds with a slight bow.

  ‘That’s very good, Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘She’s very good, Peter.’

  ‘I see that,’ says Peter. ‘So no one else knows where I am? No one else can find me?’