ELIZABETH: Pauline?
FIONA: If you say so.
ME: Would you ever do Strictly?
FIONA: Only if I was hosting it.
So, you see, she wasn’t rude exactly, given the circumstances, but she wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute. I just looked up how to do those live videos on Instagram, but I couldn’t really make head nor tail of it. I will stick to photographs, I think. Ron made me post a picture of Alan today with two balls in his mouth. Joanna liked it, which is a first.
We made our way back to the station via the Wimpy, and I had a snooze on the train. I told Elizabeth she could snooze, and I would keep an eye out for our stop, but she wanted to stay awake.
I wonder when Viktor will be back? I hope he is having luck with Jack Mason. Elizabeth seems to have great faith in him. I asked her if they had ever slept together, and she said that she honestly couldn’t remember, but they probably did. I told her I carry around a picture of everyone I’ve ever slept with in my purse. Then I opened it, and showed her that the only picture in my purse was one of Gerry, and she said, ‘Yes, I got it the first time, Joyce.’
I wonder if Viktor will remember if he slept with Elizabeth. I think one probably would.
54
The three men are sitting on Jack Mason’s verandah in the moonlight, with a strip heater and a tumbler of whisky each, keeping them warm. Lights blink out at sea. Ron feels the whisky warm his chest, and his eyelids begin to droop. Give him this over a massage any day of the week.
What a lovely day they’ve had. BBQ on the heated terrace, snooker, cards. Couldn’t wish for more. Viktor gently prodding here and there, Jack avoiding his questions.
The snooker is over for the evening. The first, everyone hopes, of a regular game. Three old men, three new friends. The gangster, the KGB colonel and the trades union official.
‘It must be a burden, Jack,’ says Viktor.
‘What’s that?’ Jack asks.
‘Your scheme,’ says Viktor. ‘It should have been so clean. Then Bethany dies. And now Heather dies. That must weigh on you. Your responsibility?’
Jack nods, and raises his glass.
‘I don’t kill people, Viktor,’ says Jack. ‘Some people do, but I’ve never got a thrill from it. I like breaking the law, I like making money, I like getting one over on people.’
‘A man after my own heart,’ says Viktor. ‘Perhaps it haunts you,’ says Viktor. ‘Just a touch.’
‘A touch,’ agrees Jack.
‘I understand,’ says Viktor. ‘And you must be angry, I think I would be, with the killer?’
‘It was stupid,’ says Jack. ‘It was unnecessary.’
‘Just the thought,’ says Viktor, ‘of Bethany going over that cliff. It must wake you at times?’
‘Nah,’ says Jack. ‘You got it wrong.’
‘I sometimes do get it wrong,’ agrees Viktor. ‘I am eager to know why I am wrong now though? That vision would trouble me.’
‘Lads,’ says Jack, with a small smile, ‘can I tell you something? Unburden myself a bit?’
This sounds like it might get uncomfortably close to discussing feelings, Ron thinks, but he sees that’s how Viktor works. And they’re investigating a crime, so he’s going to have to put up with it.
‘This is not for the police,’ says Jack. ‘It’s for the three of us. What you choose to do with it, that’s your business.’
‘No one here is speaking to the police,’ says Ron. ‘Go on, Jack.’
‘There was no one in the car when it went over the cliff,’ says Jack Mason, and takes another sip of his whisky. ‘Bethany Waites was dead hours before that.’
Ron is awake now, that’s for sure. He looks at Viktor, knowing the KGB officer might have better questions than he does.
‘Well, this is an interesting development,’ says Viktor. ‘You know this for a fact, Jack?’
‘I know it for a fact,’ says Jack Mason. ‘I know who killed her, I know why, and I know where she’s buried. I know where the grave is.’
‘It sounds an awful lot like you killed her, Jack? Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I would agree,’ says Jack. ‘But that’s just the point, isn’t it? More whisky, gents?’
Viktor and Ron both agree that’s exactly what the doctor ordered. Jack Mason pours the drinks, and settles back again.
‘You’re missing someone,’ says Jack. ‘Someone else involved in my little scheme.’
‘Man? Woman?’ asks Viktor, very casually.
‘One of those, yeah,’ says Jack Mason. If you want someone to resist questioning from a KGB officer, a Cockney isn’t a bad choice, Ron thinks.
‘So this person,’ begins Ron. ‘Probably a fella, let’s face it. They’ve killed Bethany Waites?’
‘Here’s what it is,’ says Jack Mason. ‘The scheme was coming apart. Bethany Waites was all over it – you’ve got to know when to quit? Right?’
‘Crucial,’ says Viktor.
‘I figure I’m covered. Whatever she’s got, she hasn’t got it on me, so I can just shut it down and move on.’
‘But this partner of yours?’
‘My partner was more worried,’ says Jack Mason. ‘Left me in no doubt about that. I hadn’t made any big mistakes, but my partner had. He – I’m going to say “he” but don’t read anything into it, I’ve been in this game a long time – he was worried about me talking, about Heather talking.’
‘You’d never talk,’ says Ron.
‘Never have, never will,’ agrees Jack.
‘You’re talking now, Jack,’ says Viktor, very gently. Jack waves this away.
‘So,’ says Ron. ‘This partner of yours kills Bethany Waites?’
‘Before she caused more trouble,’ says Jack. ‘Killed her, drove to Shakespeare Cliff, pushed the car off. My partner wasn’t the type at all, but he panicked. Happens to the best of us.’
‘But why wasn’t the body in the car?’ asks Viktor. ‘I wonder if you have an explanation for that?’
‘Here’s the thing,’ says Jack Mason. ‘Here’s the big problem, the thing no one’s seeing. My partner comes to me, tells me he’s murdered Bethany Waites, tells me to switch on the news and see if it’s true. Which I do, and it is. I’m not happy.’
‘Who would be?’ says Ron.
‘Who would be, like you say,’ agrees Jack. ‘I’m angry, of course I am, fly off the handle a bit. No one needed to die, we could have walked away, and he gives me a little smile and says, no one’s walking away, and I think he’s going to kill me too. Which is a bit rich, but these things happen.’
Ron and Viktor both nod.
‘Then he says, “You wanna see the body”, and I’m “Wasn’t the body in the car?”, and he’s “No, the body’s buried somewhere safe.”’
‘Jesus,’ says Ron. The whisky is giving him a bit of a headache. The lights blinking out at sea now look cold and lonely.
‘And here’s what he’s done,’ says Jack. ‘He’s killed Bethany, and he’s buried her, and he’s told me exactly where. And, here’s the clever bit, I’ll give him that, he’s buried Bethany with a phone covered in Heather Garbutt’s fingerprints, which has a call history from one of my personal phones. And he’s shot her with a gun that’s buried somewhere else, also covered in Heather’s fingerprints.’
Viktor sits forward. ‘So Bethany is dead, she can meddle no longer. And your partner has framed Heather for the murder, and linked you as an accessory?’
‘You’re getting it,’ says Jack Mason. ‘He says to Heather, this fraud is going to trial. I need you to plead guilty, to admit everything, but not a word on who you were working for.’