The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club #3)(37)

‘But is –’

‘Sometimes he teases me, although when he teases Elizabeth I like it, so perhaps that’s not a fault. He’s very slow at responding to messages, he gets grumpy easily, especially if he hasn’t eaten. He passes wind often. He once sulked for an entire day because we didn’t ask him to see the corpse of an assassin someone had shot at Coopers Chase. He has terrible taste in music and, if he ever comes round in the evening, he talks when the TV is on.’

‘There was an assassin at Coopers Chase?’

Joyce waves this away. ‘If you ever send him to the shop, he’ll get the wrong thing. And I don’t mean dark chocolate digestives instead of milk chocolate digestives. I mean you’ll ask for a four-pack of loo roll and you’ll get a pineapple.’

‘That’s fairly comprehensive,’ says Pauline. ‘Any good points?’

‘That’s a longer list,’ says Joyce. ‘So I’ll boil it down for you. He’s loyal, he’s kind, he’s funny, and I am very, very proud that, for whatever reason, he has chosen to be my friend. He is, and this is just an opinion, a prince. I sometimes daydream, and this will sound silly, but I sometimes daydream about Ron sitting there on my sofa, and Gerry is in his armchair, and the two of them just laughing and arguing until all hours. I can play the whole thing out in my head. Gerry would have loved him, and that’s the greatest compliment I have.’

There are tears in Joyce’s eyes, and Pauline takes her hand. ‘It sounds like you love him too, Joyce.’

‘Of course I do,’ says Joyce. ‘How could you not love Ron? I mean, he is not the man for me, Pauline, for the many reasons listed. But if you like pineapple, and you’ve already got enough loo roll, he’s the man for you.’

‘You know, you could just be right,’ says Pauline.

Joyce is smiling through her tears now. ‘How lovely, how lovely. I shall look for a wedding hat.’

‘Let’s not go that far,’ says Pauline, smiling. ‘Early days.’

Pauline lets Joyce’s hand go. But Joyce now places it over Pauline’s. She looks her directly in the eye.

‘You promise me you’re telling me everything, Pauline?’

‘It looks like you ladies might need another top-up,’ says the waiter.

‘Yes, please,’ say Joyce and Pauline.





31





‘You’ve put them through the old computer?’ Stephen asks. ‘Nothing doing?’

‘Nothing doing,’ says Elizabeth. A friend still in the Service had run the names for her. ‘Carron Whitehead’ throwing up no matches, ‘Robert Brown’ throwing up far too many. They have promised to look through them all, but there are only so many favours you can ask, and Elizabeth has asked rather a lot recently. Perhaps she should pay a visit to the Chief Constable, and see if he knew anything they didn’t? Could she get an appointment? There must be a way.

‘Your pal will crack it,’ says Stephen. ‘The one with the crosswords.’

Ibrahim. He and Stephen used to be good friends. Ibrahim still asks to come round, and Elizabeth still puts him off.

‘I’m trying to play chess here,’ says Bogdan. ‘There is a lot of talking.’

Bogdan has come down from the construction site at the top of the hill to keep Stephen company.

‘You still smell rather nice,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And the same smell as before. Almost as if you are seeing someone regularly?’ Elizabeth has room for more than one mystery at a time.

Bogdan makes a move and sits back. ‘What are you going to do about the guy you have to kill?’

‘I asked a question first, Bogdan,’ says Elizabeth.

She will get nothing from Bogdan. Perhaps she should start following him. Is that a bit much? She contemplates for a moment, and decides that, yes, that probably is a bit much. But, really, Elizabeth hates not knowing secrets. Spies are like dogs. They cannot stand a closed door.

‘Wonderful books the Viking chap had,’ says Stephen, pondering his move. ‘Really quite extraordinary.’

Stephen is her secret of course. Her closed door. For now.

‘You going to use the gun I gave you?’ Bogdan asks. ‘The woman I got it from said it had been buried for a while, so make sure it works.’

‘He’s giving me advice about guns now,’ says Elizabeth. She will actually have to check though. She’ll take it out into the woods this evening. Scare the owls and the foxes.

‘Bogdan, old chap,’ says Stephen, frowning at the chessboard. ‘Looks like you’ve got me again. Must be losing my marbles.’

‘Only thing you are losing is the game,’ says Bogdan.

Carron Whitehead and Robert Brown. The very first transactions with the stolen money. There must be a clue there, but Elizabeth feels like she’s hit a dead end.

Ironically she can think of one person who might be able to help.

Viktor Illyich. A whizz at this sort of thing. Delving into records, following money trails.

It’s time to put up or shut up though. Eliminate Viktor, and, thus, eliminate the risk from the Viking. Elizabeth will go into the woods tonight and test the gun. And then she will have to message Joyce, and tell her they are going to London tomorrow. Though she won’t tell her why.