The Thursday Murder Club

by Richard Osman

  ‘Not unless I tell them where you are,’ says Elizabeth.

  Peter Ward leans forward. ‘And is that something you’d be likely to do?’

  Elizabeth leans forward too. ‘Not if you come and see us tomorrow, sit down with Jason and the police and tell them what you just told us.’

  81

  ‘Would you like a walnut?’ asks Ibrahim.

  Bernard Cottle looks at him and then down at the open bag of walnuts he is being offered.

  ‘No thank you.’

  Ibrahim withdraws the bag. ‘Very low carb, walnuts. In moderation, nuts are very healthy. But not cashews, cashews are an exception. Am I disturbing you, Bernard?’

  ‘No, no,’ says Bernard.

  ‘Just enjoying the view?’ asks Ibrahim. He can sense that Bernard feels uncomfortable sharing his bench.

  ‘Just taking the weight off,’ says Bernard.

  ‘What a place to be buried,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘If one has to be buried,’ says Bernard.

  ‘Sadly, it comes to the best of us, doesn’t it? However many walnuts we might eat.’

  ‘I mean no offence by this, but I’m very happy to sit in silence,’ says Bernard.

  ‘That’s not unreasonable,’ says Ibrahim, nodding. He eats a piece of walnut.

  The two men sit, taking in the view. Ibrahim turns, and sees Ron walking up the path, trying to hide his limp. He has a stick, but he won’t use it.

  ‘Well, this is nice,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Here comes Ron.’

  Bernard looks, there is the slightest pursing of the lips.

  Ron reaches the bench. He sits the other side of Bernard.

  ‘Afternoon, gents,’ says Ron.

  ‘Good afternoon, Ron,’ says Ibrahim.

  ‘So, Bernard, old son,’ says Ron. ‘You keeping guard?’

  Bernard looks at Ron. ‘Keeping guard?’

  ‘Of the graveyard. Sitting here like a gnome, “none shall pass”, all that. What’s up?’

  ‘Bernard wants to be left in silence, Ron,’ says Ibrahim. ‘That’s what he tells me.’

  ‘Fat chance of that with me around,’ says Ron. ‘So come on, mate. What are you hiding up here?’

  ‘Hiding?’ asks Bernard.

  ‘I don’t buy all this grief stuff, son. We all miss our wives, with the greatest respect. Something else is going on here.’

  ‘I think grief affects people in different ways, Ron,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Bernard’s behaviour is not unusual.’

  ‘I don’t know, Ib,’ says Ron, shaking his head and looking out over the hills. ‘Geezer gets killed the other day, when all he wanted to do was dig up the graveyard. Bernard sits here by that same graveyard all day, every day. That changes things for me.’

  ‘Is that what’s happening here?’ asks Bernard, voice calm and level, refusing to look at Ron. ‘You’re talking to me about the murder?’

  ‘That’s what’s happening, Bernard, yeah,’ says Ron. ‘Someone down there injected the guy and killed him. We all had our hands on him, remember? Any one of us could have done it.’

  ‘We simply need to eliminate some people from our inquiries,’ says Ibrahim.

  ‘Maybe you had a good reason?’ says Ron.

  ‘Is there ever a good reason to murder someone, Ron?’ asks Bernard.

  Ron shrugs. ‘Maybe you’ve got something hidden up there in the graveyard. You a diabetic? Good with a needle?’

  ‘We all are, Ron,’ says Bernard.

  ‘Where were you in the seventies, mate? Were you local?’

  ‘That’s a peculiar question, Ron,’ says Bernard. ‘If you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘All the same, were you?’ says Ron.

  ‘We’re just exploring avenues,’ says Ibrahim. ‘We’re asking everyone.’

  Bernard turns to Ibrahim. ‘Is this the game? Good cop, nasty cop?’

  Ibrahim considers this. ‘Well, yes, that is the idea. Psychologically, it is often very effective. I have a book you could read if you are interested?’

  Bernard lets out a long breath and turns to Ron. ‘Ron, you met my wife. You met Asima.’

  Ron nods.

  ‘And you were nothing but kind to her. She liked you.’

  ‘Well, I liked her, Bernard. You had a good one there.’

  ‘Everyone liked her, Ron,’ says Bernard. ‘And yet you still ask me why I sit here? It’s nothing to do with the graveyard and it’s nothing to do with needles. Or where I lived fifty years ago. I’m just an old man who misses his wife. So spare me.’

  Bernard stands.

  ‘Gentlemen, you have spoiled my morning. Shame on you both.’

  Ibrahim looks up at Bernard. ‘Bernard, I don’t believe you, I’m afraid. I want to, but I don’t. You have a story you are desperate to tell. So, any time you want to talk, you know where to find me.’

  Bernard smiles and shakes his head. ‘Talk? To you?’

  Ibrahim nods. ‘Yes, talk to me, Bernard. Or to Ron. Whatever has happened, the worst thing you could do is to stay silent.’

  Bernard tucks his paper under his arm. ‘With respect, Ibrahim, Ron, you have no idea what the worst thing I could do is.’

  And with that, Bernard starts a slow walk down the hill.

  82

  Joyce

  Well, that was jolly good fun. For starters, I had never been to Folkestone.

  Peter Ward is Bobby Tanner’s name now, but we are sworn to secrecy. He owns a florist.

  I suppose I have two things to write about then. Why was Peter Ward a florist? And, florist or not, who did he think killed Tony Curran?

  I might write about Bernard too, but I will leave that to the end, because I want to think about it while I write the rest.

  Peter Ward – I will call him Peter – left Fairhaven shortly after his brother died, for reasons you can imagine. He got himself a new passport. It’s easily done if you listen to Elizabeth and Peter, but I wouldn’t know how to go about it, would you? He ended up in Amsterdam, doing odd jobs. Not odd jobs as we would think about them, like clearing your gutters or painting a fence, but taking cocaine across the Channel on ferries. Or, I suppose, threatening people. You could see that in him, underneath everything.

  He fell in with a gang from Liverpool. He wouldn’t tell us the name, as if I would have any sway if he had. Their ruse was to smuggle drugs in the backs of those big flower lorries you see coming over from Holland and Belgium. That was their ‘angle’.

  At first, Peter would do the loading. A driver would be paid such and such to stop his lorry in a lay-by in Belgium, and Peter and a few cronies would hop in the back and stash what they could, where they could. Over the lorry would go, another stop in Kent and Bob’s your uncle. These lorries were back and forth all the time. It’s a daily schedule, isn’t it? Has to be, because of fresh flowers. So it was perfect.

  They just had the odd driver here and there and that’s how it worked at first. Until the penny dropped and they bought one of the nurseries. The business ran as usual, but Peter was on hand to ‘inspect’ every shipment as it went out, and to add that little special something to each one. So now they had three lorries a day travelling through Zeebrugge and they could do what they liked with them. Clever, really.

  Peter would spend all his time at the nursery, and the young lad who ran it was paid to turn a blind eye. They’d play cards and chat and whatever else you do all day in Belgium.

  (Off-subject for a minute, but there was a notice pinned up the other day about a trip to Bruges and I thought of signing up. Joanna went a few years ago and her verdict was, ‘It’s too twee, Mum, but you would love it,’ so I might take the plunge. Would Elizabeth like it?)

  That’s by the by, because here’s what happened next. There was an error, no one knows how or why, or at least Peter doesn’t, but the upshot was that a small florist’s shop in Gillingham accidentally took delivery of two kilograms of cocaine alongside their begonias and promptly reported it to the police.r />
  The police, who are no fools at times, didn’t rush straight in and arrest the driver, they followed him instead and saw where he headed and what was what. There was a whole team on it eventually, and one by one they worked out who was doing what and arrested everyone they could.

  The way Peter told it, he and the young lad running the nursery had seen the police coming a mile off (Belgium is as flat as Holland, says Peter) and they hid in a field of sunflowers for six hours as the police stripped the place bare. In Amsterdam, one of the Liverpudlians was killed by a Serbian shortly afterwards and that was that.

  You can see where it’s going, I’m sure. Peter had never really risen through the ranks, he wasn’t really the type, but he’d made a bit of money and he had learned an awful lot about flowers. And he saw them at their most beautiful, of course. He described the colours and so on and got quite lyrical. Elizabeth had to hurry him along eventually.

  So, now, every day, one of those big lorries pulls up in Pearson Street and Peter gets in the back, like he always used to, but this time he just unloads his flowers and carries them into his shop. And the lorry continues on its rounds and heads back to Belgium, to the nursery run by the young lad he’d played cards with and hidden in a sunflower field with.

  So that’s a nice story. I bet the Liverpudlians and the Serbians are still shooting each other left, right and centre in Amsterdam, but Peter has his beautiful shop, in that lovely street, where everybody knows his name. Or doesn’t know his name, but you take my point. And the benefit of going straight was that no one has ever come looking for him, no one has ever arrested him and taken a closer look at that passport, so Peter Ward had left his past behind and found some peace, which is not easy to do.

  Just to satisfy Elizabeth’s curiosity, Peter took her to The Flower Mill and showed her the CCTV from the day Tony Curran was murdered. There he was, Peter, I mean, plain to see, behind the till. Which I think rules him out. He is sure that Turkish Gianni is our man. Tony had betrayed him to the police and Gianni had stolen from Tony in turn. That would do it, I suppose.

  Elizabeth and I talked about it on the train. And we had half an hour at Ashford International, where, believe it or not, there are no shops. Perhaps there are shops beyond passport control? There must be, surely?

  So that’s Bobby Tanner. Time for bed, Joyce. I wonder what Ron and Ibrahim were up to today?

  I know I was going to say something about Bernard, but it hasn’t really formulated, so I won’t.

  I bought Bernard some freesias from Peter Ward’s shop. I wanted to buy something but I couldn’t think who to buy them for and I thought perhaps Bernard would like them. Do women give men flowers? Not where I’m from, but perhaps that’s not where I am any more. So they’re in the sink, and I will take them over tomorrow morning.

  Bernard would like Bruges. Don’t you think?

  83

  The path is uneven, but by shining a torch at the ground he is able to make his way up to the allotments without drawing attention to himself. It is late, and everyone will be asleep, but why take a risk? He reaches the shed. There is a padlock, but it’s a cheap one and his wife’s hatpin soon springs it open.

  The shed is shared by all the residents who have an allotment at Coopers Chase. A select band. There are a couple of folding chairs for nice weather and there’s a kettle for colder weather. There are bags of fertilizer and mulch along one wall. These are bought from the kitty and Carlito carries them in whenever the minibus comes back from the Garden Centre. Pinned above the fertilizer are the rules of the Coopers Chase Allotment Users Association. They are lengthy and they are enforced with vigour. It is cold, even on a summer’s night. The torch continues its circuit. There are no windows, which makes it easier.

  The spade rests against the back wall inside the shed.

  One look tells him all he needs to know. All he already knew, if he was honest, as he walked up the path. But what to do? You have to try.

  He lifts it by the handle, but is quickly beaten by its weight. When did he get so weak? What happened to his body? It was never much to write home about, but to think he could now barely lift a spade? Digging was out of the question.

  So what now? Who could help? Who would understand? It was hopeless.

  Bernard Cottle sits in a folding chair and weeps for what he has done.

  84

  Chris and Donna are sitting in the Jigsaw Room, with mugs of tea. Opposite them are Jason Ritchie and Bobby Tanner. Bobby Tanner, whom detectives across eight forces had failed to locate. Elizabeth has repeatedly refused to say where or how she found him.

  Elizabeth and Joyce have both seen evidence that Bobby was busy elsewhere when Tony Curran was murdered. Chris had wondered if he might see that evidence and Elizabeth had told him he certainly could, the moment he produced a warrant. Bobby’s deal was that he would tell them everything he knew and then slip back into the crowd, never to be seen again.

  ‘A hundred grand, bit more than that,’ says Bobby Tanner. ‘Gianni had it at his flat, used to keep it safe for Tony.’

  ‘Did he have a nice flat?’ asks Joyce.

  ‘Uhh, one of the big ones on the front?’ says Bobby.

  ‘Oh yes, with the picture windows,’ says Joyce. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘And Tony went out to Cyprus looking for him?’ asks Chris.

  ‘A couple of times, yeah. Never found a thing. Nothing was the same after that. Jason, you drifted off, didn’t you? Started doing telly and all that.’

  Jason nods. ‘It wasn’t for me any more, Bobby.’

  Bobby nods. ‘I left town a couple of months after, when my brother died. Nothing left for me here then.’

  ‘But someone would have seen Gianni, surely?’ asks Donna. ‘If he’d come back to town recently? Someone would have seen him, someone would be talking?’

  Bobby thinks about this. ‘Not too many faces left from those days.’

  ‘Hard to know who Gianni would turn to if he needed a place to stay,’ says Jason.

  Bobby looks at Jason. ‘Unless, Jase …?’

  Jason looks back at Bobby, thinks for a moment, then nods. ‘Of course, of course. Unless …’

  Jason starts composing a text.

  ‘Are you going to share this with the group?’ asks Elizabeth.

  ‘Just someone me and Bobby need to talk to,’ says Jason. ‘Someone who’d know for sure. Leave it with us. It’s not fair if you get to solve everything, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Perhaps you could share it with the police?’ suggests Donna.

  ‘Oh come on,’ says Bobby, laughing.

  ‘Worth a try,’ says Donna.

  Jason’s phone pings. He looks down, then turns to Bobby.

  ‘He can meet us at two. That OK for you?’

  Bobby nods and Jason starts another message.

  ‘Only one place for it, eh?’

  85

  Lunch at Le Pont Noir. Just like old times and yet, of course, not like them at all.

  ‘Astronaut?’ guesses Jason Ritchie.

  Bobby Tanner smiles, and shakes his head.

  ‘Jockey?’ guesses Jason.

  Bobby Tanner shakes his head again. ‘I ain’t gonna tell you, even if you guess.’

  Fair enough, fair enough.

  ‘You happy though, Bobby?’ asks Jason.

  Bobby nods his head.

  ‘Good lad,’ says Jason. ‘You deserve it.’

  ‘We both do,’ agrees Bobby Tanner. ‘One way or another.’

  ‘Well, we do and we don’t,’ says Jason.

  Bobby Tanner nods. Maybe so.

  They are on desserts, still waiting for their guest, and a bottle of Le Pont Noir’s finest Malbec has been dispatched.

  ‘I mean, it must have been Gianni, right?’ asks Bobby. ‘I’ve always thought he was dead somewhere.’

  ‘I’ve always thought that you were dead somewhere,’ says Jason. ‘I’m glad you’re not though.’

  ‘Thanks, Jase,’ says Bobby.

&
nbsp; Jason looks at his watch. ‘We’ll know for sure soon enough.’

  ‘You reckon he’ll know?’ asks Bobby.

  ‘If Gianni’s been over, then he’ll know. That’s where he’d have stayed.’

  ‘I can’t do lunchtime drinking any more, can you?’ asks Bobby.

  ‘We’re old men now, Bob,’ agrees Jason. ‘Time for another bottle though?’

  They agree that they do have time for another bottle. And then in walks Steve Georgiou.

  86

  Donna has spent the evening looking through aeroplane passenger lists to and from Cyprus for the last two weeks. As if Gianni Gunduz would be using his own name these days. But you never knew.

  Fun though the passenger lists had been, however, Donna is now back on Instagram.

  Toyota was history already, but Carl wouldn’t wait around. Who was he seeing now? Donna was nothing if not a natural detective. Was he seeing that woman from his work, Poppy? Poppy, whose photo he’d liked on Facebook? Not just liked, but replied to with a wink emoji? Poppy, who seemed incapable of having her photo taken without being shot from the left and pouting? Yes, she was obvious enough for Carl. Donna had run her name through the Home Office computer on the off-chance, but nothing.

  Donna knows it is time for bed, but she is still thinking about Penny Gray.

  After the Thursday Murder Club meeting, Elizabeth had told her she wanted her to meet someone and had led her into Willows, the nursing home attached to Coopers Chase.

  They had walked down quiet beige corridors, with dim strip lighting and seaside watercolours lining the walls. It all carried an appalling weight, and the hopeful sprigs of flowers on cheap MDF side tables were powerless against it. Who brought the flowers in every day? That was a losing battle, but what was the alternative? Donna had gulped for air at one point. Willows was a prison from which no escape was possible. Where release could mean only one thing.

  They had walked into the room and Elizabeth had said, ‘Constable De Freitas, I’d like you to meet Detective Inspector Penny Gray.’