Donna sits up, concerned. ‘Are you crying?’
Bogdan nods.
‘Why are you crying? What’s happened?’
Bogdan looks at her through his gentle tears. ‘I’m so happy you’re here.’
Donna kisses a tear from his cheek. ‘Has anyone ever seen you cry before?’
‘A dentist once,’ says Bogdan. ‘And my mother. Can we go on another date?’
‘Oh, I think so, don’t you?’ says Donna.
‘I think so,’ agrees Bogdan.
Donna rests her head on his chest again, comfortably settling on a tattoo of a knife wrapped in barbed wire. ‘Maybe next time we do something other than Nando’s and Laser Quest though?’
‘Agreed,’ says Bogdan. ‘Next time perhaps I should choose instead?’
‘I think that’s for the best, yes,’ says Donna. ‘It’s not my strong point. But you had fun?’
‘Sure, I liked Laser Quest.’
‘You really did, didn’t you?’ says Donna. ‘That children’s birthday party didn’t know what had hit them.’
‘It’s a good lesson for them,’ says Bogdan. ‘Fighting is mainly hiding. It’s good to learn that early.’
Donna looks over at Bogdan’s bedside table. There is a body-builder’s hand-grip, a can of Lilt and the plastic gold medal he won at Laser Quest. What has she found herself here? A fellow traveller?
‘Do you ever feel different from other people, Bogdan? Like you’re outside looking in?’
‘Well, English is my second language,’ says Bogdan. ‘And I don’t really understand cricket. Do you feel different?’
‘Yes,’ says Donna. ‘People make me feel different, I suppose.’
‘But sometimes you like to feel different maybe? Sometimes it’s good?’
‘Sometimes, of course. I’d like to choose those times myself. Most days I just want to blend in, but in Fairhaven I don’t get the chance.’
‘Everyone wants to feel special, but nobody wants to feel different,’ says Bogdan.
Just look at those shoulders. Two questions come to her at once: are Polish weddings like English weddings? And would it be OK if I rolled over and went to sleep?
‘Can I ask you a question, Donna?’ Bogdan suddenly sounds very serious.
Uh oh.
‘Of course,’ says Donna. ‘Anything.’ Anything within reason.
‘If you had to murder someone, how would you do it?’
‘Hypothetically?’ asks Donna.
‘No, for real,’ says Bogdan. ‘We are not children. You’re a police officer. How would you do it? To get away with it?’
Hmm. Is this Bogdan’s downside? He’s a serial murderer? That would be tough to overlook. Not impossible though, given those shoulders.
‘What’s happening here?’ asks Donna. ‘Why are you asking me that?’
‘It’s homework for Elizabeth. She wanted to know my thoughts.’
OK, that makes sense. What a relief. Bogdan is not a homicidal maniac; Elizabeth is. ‘Poison, I suppose,’ says Donna. ‘Something undetectable anyway.’
‘Yes, make it look natural,’ agrees Bogdan. ‘Make it look like not a murder.’
‘Maybe drive a car at them, late at night,’ says Donna. ‘Anything where you don’t have to touch the body, that’s where forensics will get you. Or a gun, nice and simple, one shot, blam, and get out quick, the whole thing away from security cameras. Plan your escape route of course, that’s essential too. No forensics, no witnesses, no body to bury, that’s how I’d do it. Phone off, or leave your phone in a cab, so it’s miles away when you’re committing the murder. Bribe a nurse, maybe get vials of blood from strangers and leave them on the body. Or …’
Bogdan is looking at her. Has she overshared there? Maybe move the conversation on.
‘What’s Elizabeth up to?’
‘She says someone got murdered.’
‘Of course she does,’ says Donna.
‘But murdered in a car, pushed off a cliff. Is not how I’d murder someone.’
‘A car over a cliff? OK, I can see that,’ says Donna. ‘Why is Elizabeth investigating it?’
Bogdan shrugs. ‘Because Joyce wanted to meet someone off the TV, I think. I didn’t really understand.’
Donna nods – that sounds about right. ‘Were there any marks on the body? Like they’d been killed before the car went over the cliff?’
‘No body, just some clothes and some blood. The body was thrown from the car.’
‘That’s convenient for the killer.’ Donna was not used to this type of post-coital talk. Usually you had to hear about someone’s motorbike, or the ex whom they’d just realized they still loved. Or you had to give a reassuring pep-talk. ‘Spectacular though. If the killer wanted to send a message to someone. Difficult to ignore.’
‘I think it’s too complicated,’ says Bogdan, ‘For a murder. A car, a cliff, come on.’
‘And you’re an expert in murder now?’
‘I read a lot,’ says Bogdan.
‘What’s your favourite book ever?’
‘The Velveteen Rabbit,’ says Bogdan. ‘Or Andre Agassi’s autobiography.’
Maybe Bogdan could kill Carl, her ex? She’s fantasized about killing Carl a few times. Could Bogdan push Carl’s stupid Mazda over a cliff? But, even as the thought flashes through her mind, and she stretches like a cat finding a patch of sunshine, she realizes she no longer cares about Carl. Be the bigger person, Donna. Let Carl live.
‘She could have asked me and Chris to help,’ says Donna. ‘We’d have been able to take a look at it. Do you remember the name?’
Bogdan shrugs. ‘Bethany something. But they like to do these things by themselves.’
‘Don’t they just,’ agrees Donna and throws her arm across his endless chest. Rarely has she felt so thrillingly puny. ‘I like talking about murder with you, Bogdan.’
‘I like talking about murder with you too, Donna. Although I don’t think this was murder. Too convenient.’
Donna looks up, one more time, into those eyes. ‘Bogdan, do you promise that’s not the last time we’re ever going to have sex? Because I’d really like to go to sleep now, and then wake up with you and do it again.’
‘I promise,’ says Bogdan, his hand stroking her hair.
This is how you’re supposed to fall asleep, thinks Donna. How has she not known about this before? Safe and happy and sated. And murders and Elizabeth, and tattoos, and being different and being the same, and cars and cliffs and clothes, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
5: Joyce
I will admit that the murder of Bethany Waites was my idea.
We were all looking through the files for a new Thursday Murder Club case. There was a spinster in Rye in the early eighties, for example, who had died, leaving three unidentified skeletons and a suitcase containing fifty thousand pounds in her cellar. That was Elizabeth’s favourite and, I agree, it would have been quite jolly, but, as soon as I saw the name ‘Bethany Waites’ on another file, my mind was made up. I don’t put my foot down often, but, when I do, it stays down. Elizabeth sulked, but the others knew not to argue. I’m not just here for tea and biscuits you know.
I remembered Bethany Waites, of course, and I had read a piece Mike Waghorn had written in the Kent Messenger about her murder, so I thought to myself, hello, Joyce, this looks suspicious, and you might get to meet Mike Waghorn.
Is that so wrong?
I have been watching Mike Waghorn on South East Tonight for as long as I can remember. If anyone gets murdered or opens a fête anywhere in the South East, Mike will be there, with that big smile on his face. Actually, he doesn’t smile for the murders. Then he does a serious face, which he is also very good at. I actually prefer his serious face, so if there has been a murder, at least that’s a silver lining. He looks a little bit like if Michael Bublé were more my age.