The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)(35)

‘In London, they’d call him a concierge,’ says Chris, as he buzzes to be let in. He flashes his warrant card, but there is no need, as the man lets them in without looking up.

‘Morning,’ says Chris. The man still doesn’t look up. ‘Is there a building manager we can talk to?’

The man finally looks up. ‘That’s me. I don’t love talking though.’

Chris flashes his warrant card again. ‘Kent Police.’

The man puts down his paper. ‘This about my neighbour? You going to arrest him?’

‘I’m … no, I don’t think so,’ says Chris. ‘What’s he done?’

‘Built a conservatory,’ says the man. ‘No planning permission. I’m Len. I keep ringing you lot about it, and this is the first time I’ve seen you.’

‘That’s more for the council, Len,’ says Donna. ‘Not the police.’

‘That right?’ says Len. ‘I suppose if I killed him though, you’d be round soon enough?’

‘Well, yes, obviously,’ says Chris. ‘If you murdered him we’d come round. Murders, yes; conservatories, no. We’re looking for the details of the management company for this place, and we wondered if you could help?’

‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,’ says Len. ‘You come round and have a word with my neighbour, and maybe I’ll remember –’

‘Arlington Properties,’ says Donna, reading the notice board and copying down a number.

Chris starts taking a look in some of the post pigeonholes, noting down names. Illegal, really, but Len behind the desk seems to have a fairly loose relationship with legality.

‘You allowed to be doing that?’ Len asks.

‘With a warrant, yes,’ says Chris. He obviously doesn’t have one. Chris sometimes thinks the Thursday Murder Club are a bad influence on him.

‘Anyone cause you any particular trouble?’ Donna asks.

‘The guy in seventeen broke two toilet seats,’ says Len.

‘Thank you for your help, Len,’ says Chris. ‘We’ll let you get on.’

As they leave, the man calls after them. ‘Well, don’t blame me if I kill him. That’ll be on you.’

Back out in the cold air, Chris and Donna start noting down car registration numbers. There is a car Chris is sure he recognizes, a white Peugeot with flames on the number plate. He notes down the number.

Chris would love to find a clue that Elizabeth has missed. Should he really be that competitive with a woman in her late seventies?

But he understands that this is a fishing expedition. Even if someone lives in Juniper Court now, it’s meaningless unless they lived there ten years ago, on the night Bethany died.

He keeps noting down the numbers regardless. Most of police work is jotting down numbers.





30





‘He liked motorbikes,’ says Pauline. ‘He liked tinkering. He’d take them apart, and forget to put them together again.’

‘Gerry was like that with jigsaws,’ says Joyce. ‘I’d forever be telling him, don’t start a jigsaw and not finish it, Gerry. If you’ve done the opera house, then, for goodness’ sake, do the bridge. I’d end up having to finish them off. I don’t suppose you can do that with a motorbike.’

‘He’d ride off with his mates at the weekend,’ says Pauline. ‘A whole gang of them – the Outlaws of Death, they were called. Two of them were accountants.’

‘But he looked after you,’ says Joyce.

‘Did he, Joyce? I don’t know,’ says Pauline. ‘He loved me, as far as it went, and it would have been a lot of trouble to get rid of him. But –’

‘But?’

‘Look, we got along fine. I’ve seen worse,’ says Pauline. ‘I don’t know if it was love’s young dream though. You had to get married in those days, didn’t you? Had to find someone.’

‘I’m afraid I was terribly boring,’ says Joyce. ‘I wanted to get married.’

‘God, that’s not boring, Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘To really mean it, that’s the dream. How did you fall in love with Gerry, can you remember?’

‘Oh, I didn’t fall in love with him,’ says Joyce. ‘Nothing like that. I just walked into a room and there he was, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and that’s all there was to it. Like I had always been in love with him, no falling necessary. Like finding the perfect pair of shoes.’

‘Christ, Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘You’ll have me crying.’

‘I mean, he had his bad points,’ says Joyce.

‘Did he ever cheat on you with a tattoo artist called Minty?’

‘No, but he’d always leave his used teabags in the sink,’ says Joyce. ‘And then there were the jigsaws.’

The two women laugh. Pauline raises her glass in a toast.

‘To Gerry,’ says Pauline. ‘I wish I’d met him.’

Joyce clinks Pauline’s glass. ‘And to … I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your husband’s name?’

‘He called himself Lucifer,’ says Pauline. ‘He was a roadie for Duran.’