The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club #3)(81)

‘You should be glad,’ says Viktor, taking his seat once again. ‘I would be throwing your body off a North Sea ferry round about now.’

Ibrahim has buzzed his door open, and Elizabeth and Joyce walk into the room. Alan leaps at Joyce, and she gives him a cuddle.

‘Anything?’ asks Mike.

‘No body,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Not yet. But Jack Mason said there would be a gun, and there was. A big one.’

‘Was it the murder weapon?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘Yes, Ibrahim, it was,’ says Elizabeth. ‘The police handed me the gun, and I completed a full forensics check on it in the taxi on the way back.’

Ibrahim turns to Mike. ‘She is being sarcastic.’ Mike thanks him.

‘We will know soon enough,’ says Elizabeth.

‘And they found money too,’ says Joyce. ‘They think around a hundred thousand. Just buried in a tin.’

‘Andrew Everton thinks they have enough to bring Jack Mason in,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Money and a gun in his back garden. Might be enough to get him to talk. Tell us who buried them there.’

‘Good luck with that,’ says Ron.

Henrik has been ignoring this conversation, tapping away at his computer. ‘Umm … OK, I have something.’

The room turns to him as one, and he blushes.

‘Well, maybe I have something.’

‘I knew you’d come in handy,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Spit it out, and we’ll decide if it’s something or not.’

‘Mike,’ says Henrik. ‘In her message Bethany says that her news is “absolute dynamite”. Did she like to play little tricks?’

‘It amused her to fool me from time to time, let’s say that,’ agrees Mike.

‘Because what she found wasn’t “absolute dynamite”,’ says Henrik. ‘It was “Absolute Dynamite”.’

‘Absolute Dynamite?’ says Mike.

‘Very early in the money trail a hundred and fifteen thousand pounds is paid into an “Absolute Construction” in Panama,’ says Henrik. ‘That money is still there, as far as I am able to tell, which is actually quite far, because I am very good at this sort of thing.’

‘Not so good at killing pensioners,’ says Joyce, and gets a ‘Hear, hear’ from Viktor.

‘When “Absolute Construction” is set up, it seems that a web of subsidiary companies is set up beneath it, but no money was ever paid into them, so we have ignored them up to now. There is an “Absolute Demolition”, an “Absolute Cement”, an “Absolute Scaffolding” and, in Cyprus, a company called –’

‘“Absolute Dynamite”,’ says Ron.

Elizabeth looks around her. She puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder. ‘And when you look into “Absolute Dynamite”?’

‘You find two named directors,’ says Henrik. ‘One is our old friend Carron Whitehead, so that doesn’t really lead us anywhere. But finally we have a new name. The other director is a Michael Gullis.’

‘Michael Gullis?’ says Elizabeth. ‘Pauline, Mike? Anything?’

They look at each other, then back at Elizabeth, and shake their heads.

‘There was a Michael Gilkes who played for Reading,’ says Ron. ‘Midfielder.’

‘Thank you, Ron,’ says Elizabeth. Pauline taps Ron’s hand.

The room falls quiet once again, save for the tip-tapping of Henrik’s keyboard and Alan’s happy panting as he moves from person to person to receive his due attention.

‘Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘I don’t suppose you could join me outside for a moment?’

Elizabeth gestures that she certainly could, and they wander out to Ibrahim’s hallway.

‘Ask me,’ says Joyce.

‘Ask you what?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Ask me if I know the name Michael Gullis,’ says Joyce.





67





The team digging up the garden at Heather Garbutt’s old house had dug up the gun this afternoon. They were still digging now, under the searchlights as evening turned to night. Andrew Everton thought they had enough evidence at least to talk to Jack Mason. Chris and Donna had got the call.

‘You were so good again, I mean it,’ says Chris, reviewing Donna’s latest appearance on South East Tonight. She had discussed online fraud and flirted with a vicar who was in the studio, raising money for a ramp. Chris thinks about overtaking someone on a blind bend, then remembers it’s the dead of night, and he’s a police officer.

‘You just have to be yourself,’ says Donna. ‘Ignore the cameras.’

‘I’ve never been good at being myself,’ says Chris. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘Mum says you cried last night when you were watching Sex and the City.’

‘I did,’ agrees Chris.

‘Well, don’t start there,’ says Donna.

Chris especially loves his Ford Focus now there are no empty crisp packets in the footwell. He even had it shampooed the other day. Was that being himself?

‘How is Jack Mason going to take it, do you reckon?’ asks Chris. ‘An assault rifle and a hundred grand is tough to talk your way out of.’