She reaches the door of the Range Rover, throws it open and dives in. Straight into the lap of DCI Chris Hudson. She is cuffed before she can speak.
‘Hi Connie,’ says Chris. ‘You’re under arrest. You do not have to say anything, etc.’
In the front, Connie sees Ryan Baird, handcuffed in the passenger seat. Behind the wheel is Donna De Freitas. She turns to Connie.
‘I’ve never driven a Range Rover before, Connie, so forgive me if I’m a bit stop-start. I’ve put Fairhaven Police Station in the satnav though, so we won’t go far wrong. What’s that scent you’re wearing? It’s gorgeous.’
‘So we just need another word for a horse,’ says Ibrahim, crossword propped up on his laptop.
‘Horsey?’ says Kendrick, bouncing his way in and out of the FaceTime screen.
‘Too many letters,’ says Ibrahim.
‘I think it’s the only word though,’ says Kendrick. ‘So maybe they got it wrong?’
Ibrahim nods. ‘Perhaps, yes.’
He should have gone today. Should have driven Joyce and Elizabeth to the airport. Should have driven them down to the pier. Should be there now. Ron has texted. Two more people dead, but the right people, so everyone seems happy.
Mark from the taxi company is driving Ron home, and he’s bringing fish and chips with him. Elizabeth and Joyce still have a long night ahead of them.
‘Do you still hurt?’ asks Kendrick.
‘I do,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But not when I’m talking to your grandad, and not when I’m talking to you.’
Through the windscreen of the Range Rover, Donna sees Elizabeth and Joyce climbing out the back of the white van. Elizabeth sees Donna behind the wheel and gives her a hopeful look. Donna responds with a thumbs-up, and Elizabeth nods and mouths ‘well done’.
Ron now appears at her open driver’s window.
‘Oh, they’re all here today,’ says Donna. ‘Pensioners’ outing?’
‘That’s Vic Vincent,’ says Connie, lunging forward as far as her cuffed hands will allow. ‘These are his drugs. Arrest him.’
Ron looks at Connie. ‘Never heard of him, love. Sounds like a right wrong ’un.’ He then looks at Chris. ‘What she do, then?’
‘Murder,’ says Chris. ‘All on camera. Plus a big bag of coke.’
‘That’s her dealt with then, eh?’ says Ron. He then looks over at Ryan Baird.
‘You all right there, Ryan?’
Ryan Baird is quietly crying.
‘You have a good cry,’ says Ron. ‘And I’ll tell you a story. Couple of weeks ago, you nicked a bloke’s phone. My sort of age, the bloke, but looks older, losing a bit of hair. You gave him a nasty little kick to the back of the head, do you remember? No reason I can make out. I’ve seen him cry too, you know, since you done that, and I don’t like it, Ryan. I know you don’t care, old son, but he’s my best mate, this fella. I want you to remember his name for me. Will you do that? Ibrahim Arif. You remember that name every night you’re locked up. No one messes with Ibrahim Arif.’
Connie leans forward again, getting as close to Ron as she possibly can. She hisses, ‘When I get out, you’re a dead man.’
Ron looks back at her. ‘Well I’m seventy-five, and you’ll be doing thirty years so, yeah, agreed.’
Donna sees Bogdan approach. Oh boy. He walks up behind Ron and pulls him away from the window.
‘Time to go,’ says Bogdan, and Ron nods, giving the weeping Ryan Baird one final look.
‘Ibrahim Arif,’ says Ron. ‘Don’t you forget now, Ryan.’
Bogdan looks at Donna. ‘You are Donna?’
‘Yes,’ confirms Donna.
‘I am Bogdan,’ says Bogdan.
‘I know,’ says Donna.
Bogdan nods. ‘OK.’ He then looks into the back seat, and says, ‘Hello, Connie.’
‘You’re all dead,’ says Connie. ‘Every single one of you.’
‘Sooner or later, for sure,’ agrees Bogdan, and Donna watches him walk away, his arm around Ron.
75
Elizabeth has been a fool, but at least she knows why.
It was all Marcus Carmichael’s fault, really.
Right from the very beginning. The dead man by the River Thames who never was. The unclaimed body collected from a London hospital and dressed up by her operatives. That reminder of the grand illusions of her trade. Making people believe exactly what you wanted them to believe. Making things complicated. Taking pains.
Elizabeth had been a master of it. Douglas had been a master too. Somewhere in a drawer is a photograph of their wedding day. Elizabeth and Douglas with smiles so broad you would swear it was the happiest day of their lives.
Nothing was ever how it seemed.
Except, Elizabeth realizes now, sometimes things are exactly how they seem. At least she has realized this in time.
She is sitting on bench seating in the back of the coroner’s van. They are heading to the morgue at Godalming. The same morgue where Douglas and Poppy’s bodies had been identified.
Next to her is Joyce. She is doing a word search on her phone. Elizabeth knows she should listen to Joyce more often. Of course, Poppy hadn’t done it. Poppy hadn’t murdered Douglas, then murdered some poor young woman and had the body identified as her own.
Poppy hadn’t hatched a plot with her mother to steal the diamonds. There was another explanation for Siobhan.
Who on earth would ever believe that Poppy had done it? Only someone very stupid. Or someone too clever by half.
Elizabeth is coming to understand that perhaps, just sometimes, things are exactly what they seem. When Ron gives her a hug, or Joyce bakes her a cake, or Ibrahim laminates a document for her, they are not playing a game. They don’t need anything in return other than her happiness and her friendship. They just like her. It has taken Elizabeth a long time to accept the truth of that.
On the bench opposite her is Sue Reardon. Sue Reardon has a mind like hers. They had laughed about it. Peas in a pod. Elizabeth hadn’t realized the half of it.
Between the benches, along the length of the van lies the corpse of Martin Lomax. Frank Andrade’s is being dealt with by MI6. His is in a different van, travelling down a different motorway.
Poppy and Douglas were both shot dead. There were no fake corpses, there was no grand cover-up. They were both shot dead by Sue Reardon. For a very obvious reason. And Sue Reardon had spun Elizabeth a line she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.
How to prove it though?
Elizabeth looks over at Joyce, tongue sticking out as she circles words with her finger. Like butter wouldn’t melt. She is recording everything on her phone. Just as she has been told.
The first part of the journey had been the expected barrage of questions from Sue about the diamonds, and who on earth was Connie Johnson, and why did she have a bag full of cocaine with her? Elizabeth had answered all the queries as politely as she felt able. But now it was her turn to ask the questions.
‘So,’ she begins, leaning forward and smiling at Sue over the draped corpse of Martin Lomax. ‘We didn’t find Poppy then?’
‘No,’ says Sue. ‘Nowhere to be seen.’
‘Curious,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Perhaps she really is dead. Do you think, Sue?’
‘Perhaps,’ says Sue. ‘But we still can’t explain her mum looking for the diamonds.’
‘You nearly had me, you know?’ says Elizabeth.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says Sue.
‘You killed Douglas and Poppy. You knew where they were, you walked in, you shot them, and you walked straight out again.’
‘Sounds very simple,’ says Sue.
‘It was simple. But you knew simple wouldn’t be interesting enough for me. So you led me on a piece of string around all sorts of wonderful theories. Just to buy yourself a bit of time to find the diamonds. Or for me to find the diamonds for you. Keeping me interested.’
‘Well, now it sounds outlandish,’ says Sue. ‘What an i
magination you have, Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth shakes her head. ‘My imagination was my downfall here, I’m afraid. As soon as I realized it was you who slipped Siobhan’s phone number into Joyce’s pocket, the whole thing fell into place.’
‘Oh, I wondered why you asked about that,’ says Joyce.
Sue Reardon’s phone buzzes. She opens a message and smiles.
‘Well, speak of the devil – there’s Poppy’s mum now. With some good news.’
‘Do tell,’ says Elizabeth.
‘I’m told we’ve found the diamonds. In Joyce’s microwave of all places. How pleasingly suburban. But I suppose the gloves are off at least.’
Sue Reardon presses an intercom button and talks to the driver. ‘A change of plan. Coopers Chase retirement village. It’s not far.’
An echoing electronic voice replies. ‘Postcode?’
Sue thinks for a moment, takes a gun from her bag and points it at Joyce. ‘Joyce, what’s the postcode?’
76
Chris Hudson munches on a carrot baton. When you got used to them they actually weren’t so bad. Well, they were, but it seemed to matter less. Connie Johnson is in her cell. Her interview had been terminated fairly quickly. It consisted almost entirely of threats to kill him, Donna, Bogdan and whoever she imagined Ron to be. Bogdan came in for some particularly graphic abuse. No mention of Patrice though, that particular threat forgotten. He will never mention it to Patrice or Donna. And he knows Ron or Bogdan won’t either.
Ryan Baird’s interview had been a quieter affair. Eight minutes of silent, shoulder-shaking sobbing, before his solicitor suggested they might reconvene in the morning. Perfect. An evening off for Chris.
Ryan Baird’s solicitor, Chris couldn’t help but notice, was still dressing better, now had a nicer haircut and was even starting to lose some weight. He was doused in Lynx Africa, but, as Chris well knows, you can’t change everything all at once. After the interview the solicitor had taken Donna aside and asked her out for a drink. His wedding ring in his pocket, no doubt. Donna had told him she would love to, but that they should probably wait, so as not to jeopardize the ongoing investigation. Even at the end of a long day, Donna was a quick thinker.
Chris’s mind goes back to the table outside Maidstone Crown Court. The promises Ron and Bogdan had made him. They had come good, thank you, gents. Patrice will come down to Fairhaven again next Sunday and this time Chris will tell her that he loves her. Sometimes the universe turns your way. He hopes that Elizabeth and Joyce got what they wanted from today too.
A man voluntarily eating carrot batons. That really was someone to be.
77
Now it is Elizabeth who is staring down the barrel of Sue Reardon’s gun. How many gun barrels had she stared down in her career? Twenty? Thirty? None of them had killed her yet.
The basic rule is, if they don’t kill you immediately, they’re not going to kill you. There are always exceptions, but no point worrying about them for now.
The coroner’s van is heading towards Coopers Chase. How had Siobhan found the diamonds at Joyce’s? Someone had told her exactly where they were. Ibrahim? Stephen? Been forced to tell her? Please no. She has to keep calm.
‘Can I tell you what I think happened?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Just to pass the time. Or is that all a bit “James Bond” for you?’
‘Please do,’ says Sue. ‘I can’t tell you how delighted I was to fool you.’
‘Poppy found the letter,’ Elizabeth begins. ‘Just as Joyce said. But she didn’t go after the diamonds, and she didn’t give it to her mum. She gave it to you, because that’s what Poppy would do. She did her job. So you read the letter, you read Douglas’s confession. But the confession part wasn’t news to you, you’d known all along. You and Douglas had planned the whole thing together. Yes?’
‘A little retirement plan, yes,’ agrees Sue.
‘I had a brief, awful thought at one point that Douglas and Poppy were lovers,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You and Douglas were lovers.’
‘Ooh, yes,’ says Joyce. ‘I can see that.’
‘Have I got that right?’ asks Elizabeth.
‘You have,’ says Sue.
Joyce looks between the two of them. ‘He definitely had a type, didn’t he?’
‘I see the appeal, I promise,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I was almost ten years older than him, you ten years younger. He very neatly spanned our generations, didn’t he?’
‘He was very handsome,’ says Joyce. ‘Not my type at all, no offence to either of you, but very handsome.’
Elizabeth looks straight into Sue’s eyes. ‘So you were reading the letter, saw the key, the locker number and what have you. I assume he hadn’t told you where he’d hidden them?’
‘He told me they were safe,’ says Sue.
Elizabeth nods. ‘So, it was interesting information to you. Lucrative at the very least. But the big news came further down in the letter, didn’t it? When he said he still loved me? That he would wait for me if needs be. That must have been the moment you realized the two of you weren’t in this together? That you and Douglas weren’t about to head off into the sunset with the twenty million? That was the moment you realized you would have to kill him?’
Sue shrugs. The barrel of the gun shrugs with her.
‘He wanted it all for himself,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Or worse, he wanted it for him and me. Though you’re bright enough to know that would never happen. Originally the two of you were just going to see out the investigation, let it fizzle down to nothing and cash in. So now you needed a change of plan.’
‘Perfect so far,’ says Sue. ‘Too late, of course, but perfect.’
‘So you decide you want the money for yourself,’ says Elizabeth.
‘I don’t blame you one bit,’ says Joyce.
Joyce is still doing her word search. You had to hand it to Joyce sometimes. Even with a gun pointed at her best friend, Joyce trusts her to get out of this situation. Does Elizabeth trust herself? That’s a very good question. What is going to face them back at Coopers Chase? Is Stephen safe? Is Ibrahim safe?
Elizabeth keeps thinking as she talks. ‘So how to kill him? Well, first attempt, you tell Martin Lomax where Douglas is, which is as good as signing Douglas’s death warrant. Cowardly, but you need him out of the way if you’re going to escape with the money yourself, and you’re angry. Lomax sends his man, Andrew Hastings, to kill Douglas, but poor Poppy gets in the way and shoots Hastings. Douglas very much still alive, a bump in the road, but never mind. You are still determined, and that’s understandable. We all fall out of love, don’t we?’
‘We most certainly do,’ says Sue.
‘Not me,’ says Joyce.
‘Nonsense, Joyce, you’re in and out of love monthly,’ says Elizabeth, then returns to staring into Sue Reardon’s gun. ‘So you still need Douglas out of the picture, and you realize you are going to have to do it yourself. You know you can move Douglas and Poppy to Hove. To a house you have used before, a house you can access easily. So killing him yourself will be easy. But how to get away with it? That was your question.’
‘It was,’ agrees Sue Reardon. ‘I didn’t need to get away with it for long. Just until I found the diamonds.’
‘And perhaps,’ says Elizabeth, ‘you were worried that I might work things out?’
‘I was,’ says Sue. ‘I just needed you to find the diamonds before you worked out I was the killer. And you didn’t let me down.’
‘She worked it out eventually, to be fair,’ says Joyce.
‘But I still get to the diamonds,’ says Sue. ‘As soon as I’ve picked them up, I’ll be off. I can disappear easily, Elizabeth, as you’ll know. So that’s what I’ll do. Feel free to tell everyone what I did. They won’t find me.’
‘You’re not going to shoot us?’ says Joyce.
‘Not if you behave yourselves,’ says Sue.
‘Not really our speciality,’ says Joyce.
‘I knew y
ou wouldn’t be able to resist a clever little mystery, Elizabeth,’ says Sue. ‘I knew I’d have you chasing your tail. You were having lunch with the killer, talking tactics, without even knowing. Isn’t that a hoot?’
Elizabeth nods. ‘Your plan forms, and you realize you are going to need help with it. So you call Siobhan. Now this is where I’m hazy. Who exactly is she? An old friend, I imagine? An old colleague who owed you a favour?’
‘Guess again,’ says Sue Reardon.
‘No matter,’ says Elizabeth. ‘She agrees to whatever terms you present her with. Help me with a double murder and … what?’
‘A million pounds,’ says Sue Reardon.
‘That would do it,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You come to Coopers Chase to take Andrew Hastings’s body away, and on your way out you slip a note into Joyce’s cardigan, simply saying “RING MY MUM”, with Siobhan’s phone number.’
‘Wait,’ says Joyce, ‘Siobhan isn’t Poppy’s mum?’
‘Keep up, Joyce,’ says Sue.
‘Don’t speak to Joyce like that,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ says Joyce.
Elizabeth feels the coroner’s van take a sharp left turn and slow down. It crosses a cattle grid. They are at Coopers Chase.
‘You send Siobhan to check the lockers for the diamonds. You’d been in before, I presume, to make sure there were security cameras?’
‘I had,’ says Sue.
‘Trusting that I would eventually check the recordings. And be led to Siobhan. And put two and two together?’
‘Which you were, and which you did,’ says Sue. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it! The idea of Poppy faking the whole thing. So unlikely. I knew you were just clever enough to fall for it.’
Sirens go past them at speed. Sue pauses, then visibly relaxes. Ambulances, not police. Elizabeth goes cold. Driving at speed from Coopers Chase. Who was in the ambulances? Stephen?
The Man Who Died Twice (The Thursday Murder Club) Page 28
