The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)(15)

‘I’ll pay you two hundred an hour,’ says Connie.

‘No, it’s just sixty.’

‘If you charge less for someone who can’t afford it, then charge more for someone who can. You’re a businessman. How often can we meet?’

‘Once a week is best at first. And my schedule is pretty flexible.’

‘OK, I’ll sort it here. They lap this sort of thing up, mental health. And I’ll look into Heather Garbutt in the meantime. Girly chat, what’s your star sign, did you push a car off a cliff.’

‘Thank you. I shall look forward to speaking with you,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And seeing if I can persuade you not to murder Ron.’

‘Great,’ says Connie. ‘Let’s do Thursdays.’

‘Actually,’ says Ibrahim, ‘can we do Wednesdays? Thursdays are the one day I have something on.’





12





The last time Elizabeth had a bag and blindfold pulled from her head was in 1978. She was in the harshly lit administration block of a Hungarian abattoir, and was about to be questioned and tortured by a Russian Army general with a chest of bloodstained medals. As events transpired, there was to be no torture, as the General had left his tool bag in the car, and the car had driven off for the evening. So, in the end, she had got away with light bruising and an anecdote for dinner parties.

What had he wanted, the General? Elizabeth forgets. Something which no doubt seemed terribly important at the time. She knew people who had died for the blueprints to agricultural machinery. Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.

As her blindfold is removed this time, there is no glare of strip lights, no grinning General and no blood-smeared filing cabinets. She is in a library, in a soft leather chair. The room is lit by candles, the kind Joyce buys. The man who removed her blindfold and uncuffed her has silently left the room and is out of her sight.

Elizabeth looks over to Stephen. He arches an eyebrow at her, and says, ‘Well, this is a to-do.’

‘Isn’t it?’ she agrees. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Right as rain, darling, you just keep your wits about you. I’m out of the old comfort zone here. Bash on the bonce, but no harm done. Probably knocked some sense into me.’

‘Your back all right?’

‘Nothing a Panadol won’t fix. Any idea what’s afoot here? Anything I can do to help?’

Elizabeth shakes her head. ‘This might be one for me.’

Stephen nods. ‘I’ll look after morale, and follow your lead. I don’t suppose we’d be in such comfortable chairs if they meant to kill us? You’d know better than me?’

‘I suspect they want to speak to me about something or other.’

‘And decide whether to kill us based on what you have to say?’

‘Possibly.’

They are both silent for a minute.

‘I love you, Elizabeth.’

‘Don’t be so sentimental, Stephen.’

‘Well, either way, there’s never a dull moment,’ says Stephen.

The door to the library opens, and a very tall, bearded man stoops through the doorway.

‘Viking, is it?’ Stephen whispers to Elizabeth.

The man takes his place in an armchair opposite Elizabeth and Stephen. His frame overflows the chair, like a teacher sitting on a classroom chair.

‘So you are Elizabeth Best?’ he asks.

‘That rather depends on who you are,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Have we met?’

The man takes something from his pocket. ‘Do you mind if I vape?’

Elizabeth holds out her palms in invitation.

‘Terribly bad for you,’ says Stephen. ‘I read a thing.’

The man nods, takes a drag on his vape and turns to Stephen.

‘And you must be Stephen? Sorry to drag you into this.’

‘Not a bit of it. Par for the course with this one. Afraid I didn’t catch your name?’

The man ignores Stephen’s question, and returns his attention to Elizabeth.

‘You have been very busy for an old woman.’

What is the accent? Swedish?

Elizabeth notices that Stephen is scanning the shelves of the library, eyes opening in wonder from time to time.

‘Now, Elizabeth,’ says the Viking. ‘To business. I believe you stole some diamonds?’

‘I see,’ says Elizabeth. At least she knows where she is now. No ancient history, simply their last little adventure. It felt like she had wrapped the whole thing up with a pretty little bow, but no good deed goes unpunished. ‘Am I to take it that I stole them from you, and not from Martin Lomax after all?’

‘No, no,’ says the Viking. ‘You stole them from a man named Viktor Illyich.’

‘Viktor Illyich?’ Elizabeth takes it all back. Ancient history at its very finest. ‘The most dangerous man in the Soviet Union’, they used to call him. She has to hand it to herself, however. Whatever jolt of electricity passed through her body at the mention of the name ‘Viktor Illyich’, no outside observer would have guessed she had ever heard it before.

‘And you work for this Viktor Illyich?’