‘Oh, fabulous, if you would,’ deadpans Patrice, and she and Donna laugh.
‘A couple of months ago,’ says Chris, ‘Donna and I get a call. First thing in the morning. A garage owner in Rye has been found dead in his workshop. Nasty bang on the head, been hit by something a couple of hours before. Murder, no doubt about it.’
‘And you’re saying Elizabeth did it?’ Patrice suggests.
Chris ignores her. He’s on a roll. ‘We visit the workshop, Donna and me. Scenes of crime are there, and they find nothing they can use, so we’re probably dealing with a professional. Back we head to the office, and do our usual digging. Watkins, the guy was called: is he on our radar, who does he know, who might have a motive? And we draw another blank. Happens all the time.’
‘That chicken smells amazing, Mum,’ says Donna.
‘The secret is to kill it yourself,’ says Patrice. ‘Go on, darling, you were saying?’
‘So no forensics and no intelligence. Fine. A bit of old-fashioned police work, then. We go door-to-door –’
‘Well, I went door-to-door,’ says Donna.
‘That’s true,’ says Chris. ‘Rank has certain privileges. Donna goes door-to-door with a little crew, but no one has heard anything, so everybody trudges back to the station. We’re having our lunch and one of the junior PCs says he was harangued for twenty minutes by an elderly woman whose door he knocked on. She’d had her milk stolen that morning, and what was he going to do about it? The PC explains that he’s investigating a murder and her milk isn’t top of his priority list, and she whacks him with a walking stick and says, “What about my Crunchy Nut Cornflakes?” which gets the laugh he was looking for.’
‘I can feel a lesson coming on,’ says Patrice.
Chris nods. ‘You’re right. I’m listening to this PC, and I look at Donna. I want to get her attention, but she’s already looking at me. The two of us get up from the table, drive back to Rye and pay another visit to the woman with the stolen milk. She’s delighted we’re taking it seriously and invites us in. We ask what time her milk is usually delivered, and she says five thirty in the morning. We ask her if she has CCTV and she says no, but the neighbour across the road does.’
‘She said, “Because he’s a pervert,”’ adds Donna.
‘Over we pop and take a look, and there’s a man coming from the direction of Watkins’s garage at about quarter to six in the morning, all in black, gloves, you know the drill. He spots the milk on the doorstep, trots up and pinches it. As he walks back down the driveway, we get a clear shot of his face. Surely that’s our guy?’
‘What has this got to do with the Thursday Murder Club?’ Patrice asks.
‘We circulate the screenshot from the CCTV,’ continues Chris. ‘And a DI in Worthing gets in touch and says, I know this guy, Johnny Jacks, record as long as your arm, muscle for hire, GBH, all sorts, so off we go and talk to Johnny Jacks. He’s quiet, as they always are. Never heard of Watkins, never heard of Rye, only reluctantly admits he’s heard of milk. We search his car, and there’s a receipt for a petrol station just outside Rye, and there’s a hammer covered in Watkins’s DNA.’
‘There was even an empty milk bottle,’ says Donna.
‘So we arrest him, we charge him, he’s on remand, and when he comes to trial he’s going to prison for a long time. And all because we figured that the sort of man who’d murder in cold blood is also the sort of man who’d steal a bottle of milk from a doorstep.’
‘Congratulations,’ says Patrice. ‘That’s terrific work.’
‘Thank you,’ says Chris. ‘But I tell this story for one reason only. This year I’ve been involved in eight murder investigations. Solved five of them, know who did two of them but I’m still looking for evidence. A lot of hard work, a lot of wrong turns, a lot of late nights. But in that time, not once have I been visited by any pensioners demanding information from me, hiding evidence from me, intellectually undermining me, or in any other way interfering in any murder investigation. And, I’ll be honest, I haven’t missed it, and I haven’t missed them.’
Chris sits back. He looks exhausted. Point made.
Donna and Patrice look at each other.
‘Yeah, you have,’ says Patrice.
‘You have,’ agrees Donna.
‘Donna,’ says Chris, ‘you do Elizabeth’s bidding if you want. But I’m made of stronger stuff. I’m a good investigator – I don’t need the Thursday Murder Club to help me.’
‘What if they need you to help them?’ Donna asks.
‘They never need me to help them,’ says Chris.
Matter closed.
‘Anyway, he’s too busy shooting guns with the boys,’ says Patrice.
‘There’s a woman there too,’ protests Chris.
‘Let me guess,’ says Donna. ‘You all underestimated her and it turned out she’s the best shot of the lot of you?’
‘I don’t want to be gendered about it,’ says Chris. ‘But she’s actually coming joint twelfth out of fifteen.’
‘And where are you?’ Donna asks.
‘Also joint twelfth,’ says Chris. ‘I’d be eighth, but I shot a mum pushing a pram instead of a terrorist.’
MONDAY
35
Bogdan has insisted on driving them and waiting outside.
Joyce honestly can’t see the point. ‘We could have got a taxi, Bogdan. You don’t need to give up your morning for us.’
‘I wait,’ says Bogdan. ‘In case he kills you.’
‘He’s not going to kill us,’ says Joyce. ‘He’s a lord.’
‘What about Lord Lucan?’ says Bogdan. ‘He killed someone. I saw a documentary.’
‘I once met Lord Lucan,’ says Elizabeth.
‘How long before the murder?’ asks Bogdan.
‘Oh, it was after the murder,’ says Elizabeth, at which point Bogdan turns into the driveway of Headcorn Hall.
The house squats before them at the end of the long driveway. The driveway itself is starting to lose the battle with the nature around it, weeds and wild flowers poking through the gravel. Joyce wonders why the gardeners haven’t taken care of that. You wouldn’t see a weed on Downton Abbey. The grasslands around the house have also seen better days, but perhaps Lord Townes is an environmentalist and goes for the ‘untamed’ look. A lot of very rich people are environmentalists now. Ron says it’s the ones who can’t afford helicopters any more. It was Ron who told them Lord Townes had booked in for a visit to The Compound on Wednesday morning. Elizabeth is keen to meet him before he goes.
Joyce is hoping that a butler might greet them outside. Not that she would say it out loud, but on the journey down, as Elizabeth and Bogdan were talking about the best things to do if you got kidnapped, Joyce imagined a butler with a deep voice who had served the Townes family for generations and been unable to find love, after a doomed, fleeting romance with a scullery maid forty years earlier made him close his heart. Many years later the man – Henderson perhaps, Phillips, Brabazon – meets a woman in a mauve cardigan, and is transported back in time. Nothing is said, but there is a glance, a stolen look, and, as she leaves, he bows his head and says, ‘Madam,’ and she bows her head and says, ‘Henderson.’ What happens after that is a mystery, as she’d fallen asleep, to be woken by Elizabeth saying, ‘The key thing if you’re tied up in the boot is to kick out the brake lights.’