The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club #3)(78)



Mike got the text from Pauline an hour or so ago. They start digging for the body tomorrow. Digging for Bethany’s body. His wonderful, talented, headstrong friend. She could have done anything, she could have been anything. The world would have known her name.

Bethany saved Mike’s life, and Mike was never able to repay that debt in her lifetime. But he could repay it now. With the help of the Thursday Murder Club. Find her killer, bring her peace. Heather Garbutt? Jack Mason? Someone they have yet to consider? Mike feels he is about to find out.

And that is the least he could do for Bethany Waites.





63





Heather Garbutt’s home is on an ugly road with a pretty name. To the front there is a driveway lined with hedges, now overgrown, that bends away from the road, hiding the house from the traffic. You could drive past this spot every day and never see the slow decline of a once-handsome house. To the back there is a garden, and then woodland, separating it from a municipal golf course.

The house itself is a bungalow. It had been pleasant enough at one point: they looked up the estate agent’s pictures of the last time it had sold on Rightmove. Four beds, big sitting room overlooking the garden, a kitchen that the estate agents said was ‘in need of modernization’, but which Joyce rather liked. Perhaps not the house of someone rich, but the house of someone who worked with someone rich. Comfortable, in every sense. It had been listed at three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds, though a quick house-price search revealed that Jack Mason had paid four hundred and twenty-five thousand for it. He was clearly a motivated buyer, as Joyce supposes she would be if there was evidence that could send her to prison buried in the garden.

The whole place is running wild now. Jack Mason might have bought it, but it seems he doesn’t visit it. Ron had rung Jack last night, to see if he could give them the keys, but Jack wasn’t answering. Is he already regretting telling Ron and Viktor about the body? He hadn’t named his co-conspirator, but, other than that, he had come dangerously close to grassing. Ron knows that won’t have come naturally. And, if they do find something, what will that mean for Jack?

Two constables force open the door, pushing it unwillingly back against a pile of mail. Who is still delivering mail, Joyce wonders? Who takes a look at this house, clearly abandoned, returning to nature, and delivers a pizza leaflet? Joyce sees a National Trust magazine on top of the pile. She suspects she might have rather liked Heather Garbutt.

Elizabeth has gone around the side of the building with Chief Constable Andrew Everton, but Joyce goes through the front door because she wants to be nosy. And the lovely thing about investigating a murder is that you can be nosy and call it work. Joyce is disappointed that there is not much to see, however. All traces of Heather Garbutt are gone. The only clue she was ever here are the paler squares of wallpaper where pictures had once hung. At least there is no need to be careful, to tiptoe around and not touch. Joyce has free rein. The house had been searched many years ago, and any evidence there might have been here is long gone.

But no one had searched the garden. Why would you? With a body washed out to sea, what was there to dig for? Joyce walks into the sitting room, lovely patio doors framing the view of a large yellow digger, police tape flapping, and Chief Constable Andrew Everton, in a peaked cap and a hi-vis jacket, taking command of the scene. One of the constables slides open the doors, and Joyce walks out onto the patio decking. Joyce watches her step: decking gets too slippery, you are so much better off with stone. She has to admit, though, that this decking looks in better shape than the rest of the overgrown garden and fading house.

The digger has been here since eight this morning. The garden, and even bits of the woodland beyond, are pocked with holes. Two men in hard hats are just beginning to dismantle the decking. Tiny coloured flags mark where holes have been dug and where they are yet to be dug. Joyce spots Elizabeth. She is, surprise, surprise, monopolizing the Chief Constable.

‘What a lot of holes,’ says Joyce. ‘And I was right about that kitchen, even now it’s very liveable. Lots of storage.’

‘The holes are not all ours,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘Someone, let’s assume Jack Mason, has been doing their own digging over the years. Especially as you get into the woods.’

Joyce looks into the woodland behind the garden. There are uniformed officers digging with shovels.

‘That’s a lot of police officers,’ she says.

‘I’m the Chief Constable,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘People tend to jump when I ask for something. I’m told the only skeleton we’ve found so far was a guinea pig’s.’

‘We were digging in Vladivostok once,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I forget why, a warlord had buried something or other. Anyway, we uncovered a prehistoric moose. Intact, antlers and all. We were all set to fill the hole back in, but the head of the Russian Service at the time was on the board of the Natural History Museum, and in the end we released a Russian spy from Belmarsh Prison in return for the moose. It’s on display if you go there now.’

‘Right,’ says Andrew Everton.

‘You stop listening after a while,’ says Joyce. ‘She’s always digging something up, or upsetting Russia. Do you believe Jack Mason’s story? About the partner?’

Andrew Everton considers the question. ‘It’s an unusual thing to make up. And, if he’s lying, he’s lying for a reason, and I wouldn’t mind finding out what that reason is.’

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