The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)(8)

Who am I? I’m Joyce Meadowcroft, and that will do me to be getting on with.

Night-time is for questions without answers, and I have no time for questions without answers. Leave that to Ibrahim. I like questions you can answer.

Who killed Bethany Waites? Now that’s a proper question.





6





Morning has broken at Coopers Chase. From the window of Elizabeth’s flat you can see the dog-walkers, and a few latecomers rushing to Over-Eighties Zumba. The air hums with friendly greetings, and the sounds of birdsong and Amazon delivery vans.

‘Why you keep looking at your phone?’ asks Bogdan. He is sitting across the chessboard from Stephen, but has been distracted by Elizabeth.

‘I get messages, dear,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I have friends.’

‘You only get messages from Joyce,’ says Bogdan. ‘Or me. And we are both here.’

Stephen makes a move. ‘There you go, champ.’

‘He’s quite right,’ says Joyce, sipping from a mug. ‘Is this tea Yorkshire?’

Elizabeth gives a ‘How on earth would I know?’ shrug, and goes back to the documents laid out in front of her. Evidence from the trial of Heather Garbutt. Readily available to the public if you’re happy to wait three months or so. Or readily available in a couple of hours if you are Elizabeth. She must stop looking at her phone. The last message had read:

You can’t ignore me forever, Elizabeth. We have a lot to speak about.



She has started receiving threatening messages, from an anonymous number. The first had arrived yesterday, and it read:

Elizabeth, I know what you’ve done.



Well, you could narrow it down a bit, she had thought. More had come through since. Who was sending her these messages? And, more importantly, why? No point worrying about it now though. No doubt all would become clear eventually, and, in the meantime, she has the murder of Bethany Waites to solve.

‘I really think it is Yorkshire.’ Joyce again. ‘I’m almost sure. You must know?’

Elizabeth continues to look through the documents. Financial records, dense and unyielding. Paper trails showing non-existent mobile phones leaving the docks at Dover, and the same non-existent phones coming back weeks later. Reams and reams of VAT claims. Bank statements totalling millions. Money disappearing to offshore accounts, and then nothing. Bethany Waites had uncovered the lot. You had to admire it.

‘Never mind,’ says Joyce. ‘You’re busy. I’ll take a look in the cupboard.’

Elizabeth nods. This paperwork was enough to get Heather Garbutt convicted of fraud. But did it also contain a clue to Bethany Waites’s death? If it did, no one had yet found it. Elizabeth didn’t fancy her own chances either, not really her area, all this. So what to do? She has a thought.

‘Yes, it’s Yorkshire,’ shouts Joyce from the kitchen. ‘I knew it.’

Joyce had been insistent that she was coming round to visit. And it doesn’t matter how high up one might have been in MI5 or MI6, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been shot at by a sniper, or met the Queen, you won’t stop Joyce once she has her mind set on something. Elizabeth had acted quickly.

Stephen’s dementia is getting worse, Elizabeth knows that. But the more he slips from her grasp, the tighter she wants to hold him. If she is looking at him, surely he can’t disappear?

Stephen is at his very best when Bogdan comes around to play chess, so Elizabeth has invited Bogdan over, and taken the risk with Joyce. Perhaps he will be on fine form. And perhaps that will be enough to keep the charade going for another few weeks. She has given Stephen a shave and washed his hair. He no longer finds this unusual. Elizabeth looks over to the chessboard.

Bogdan has his chin in his hands, contemplating his next move. There is something different about him.

‘Are you using a different shower gel, Bogdan?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘Don’t put the boy off,’ says Stephen. ‘I have him in a funk here.’

‘I used an unperfumed body scrub,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is new.’

‘Hmm,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s not it.’

‘It’s very feminine,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s not unperfumed.’

‘I play chess,’ says Bogdan. ‘No distractions please.’

‘I feel like you’re keeping a secret,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Stephen, is Bogdan keeping a secret?’

‘Lips are sealed,’ says Stephen.

Elizabeth returns to the documents. Something here got Bethany Waites killed. By Heather Garbutt? Elizabeth doubts it very much. Heather Garbutt’s boss, Jack Mason, is ostensibly a scrap-metal dealer, but in reality is one of the most well-connected criminals on the South Coast. Heather Garbutt seems like a soldier, not a general. So was Jack Mason the General? Is his name somewhere in these papers? Time for her plan B.

‘How’s Joanna, Joyce?’ Elizabeth asks. Joanna is Joyce’s daughter.

‘She’s doing a Skydive for Cancer,’ says Joyce.

‘Be lovely to catch up with her,’ says Elizabeth.

Joyce sees straight through this. ‘Do you mean, it would be lovely for her to take a look through those documents, because you don’t understand them?’