‘I noticed the café on the way up,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Cakes in the window …’
‘Wonderful,’ says Joyce. ‘I haven’t eaten since elevenses.’
‘… and a CCTV camera outside.’
Joyce smiles at her friend. ‘Something for us both, then?’
‘Quite so,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And we’ve just agreed that we don’t always have to share.’
12
Connie Johnson unwraps her Christmas present from Ibrahim. It is a small, black leather-bound notebook.
‘You often see it on television, don’t you?’ says Ibrahim. ‘Drug dealers like to keep notebooks. Numbers and transactions and so on. You can’t trust computers, because of law enforcement. So when I saw it I thought of you.’
‘Thank you, Ibrahim,’ says Connie. ‘I would have bought you something, but all you can buy in prison is Ecstasy and SIM cards.’
‘Not at all,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Besides, you are not supposed to buy presents for your therapist.’
‘And are therapists supposed to buy notebooks for drug dealers?’
‘Well, it was Christmas,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Although if you really wanted to give me a present, there are a couple of questions I might ask you?’
‘I’m guessing not questions about my childhood?’
‘Questions about a murder. Elizabeth made me write them down.’ Yesterday’s meeting of the Thursday Murder Club had been an absolute barnstormer. In Ibrahim’s view it had really done exactly what it said on the tin. ‘I promise we will get to your childhood in time.’
‘Go on,’ says Connie Johnson.
‘Let me describe a scenario,’ says Ibrahim. ‘We are at the end of a remote country lane, in deep woodland. It is late at night. There are two cars.’
‘Dogging,’ says Connie.
‘Not dogging, I think,’ says Ibrahim. ‘The driver of Car A, an antiques dealer …’
‘The worst,’ says Connie.
‘… remains in his seat, while somebody from Car B walks up to the window and fires a bullet through his head.’
‘One shot?’ asks Connie. ‘Kill shot?’
‘Kill shot,’ confirms Ibrahim. He enjoys saying it.
‘This is good,’ says Connie. ‘Let’s talk about my childhood another time.’
‘Car B disappears, back whence it came …’
‘No one else I know says “whence”,’ says Connie.
‘Then you must widen your social circle,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Some hours later, the shop belonging to the antiques dealer is burgled.’
Connie nods. ‘OK, OK.’
‘No useful prints, either at the scene or at the shop.’
‘There wouldn’t be,’ says Connie, making a note in her new book.
‘Oh, I’m so happy to see it’s already useful,’ says Ibrahim.
‘CCTV though?’
‘None at the shop, but at a café down the hill, at which Joyce says there were excellent macaroons, CCTV captures a man in an expensive overcoat. We know about this, but the police, as yet, don’t.’
‘Big surprise there,’ says Connie.
‘He comes in to eat and has a conversation with the lady who runs the café. Louise, if you need her name.’
‘I don’t,’ says Connie. ‘When I need information I’ll ask.’
‘The good news is that Louise said she prefers not to speak to the police because Covid was a hoax,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Words to that effect. Now, while we don’t know for certain that he had been to the antiques shop, that is the direction he came from, and he had fifty pounds or so in cash in his pocket, which he took out when he paid, so Louise surmised that he might have done. I’m led to believe that people rarely pay in cash these days.’
‘It’s a nightmare,’ says Connie. ‘Even I have to take Apple Pay now. Did he have an accent, the man?’
‘Liverpudlian,’ says Ibrahim. ‘From Liverpool.’
Connie nods again. ‘You know you over-explain sometimes?’
‘Thank you,’ says Ibrahim. ‘The prevailing wisdom, which one must not always follow, but occasionally it prevails for good reason, is that this murder carried the hallmarks of a professional execution, and I was wondering if that was something on which you might have a view?’
‘I do have a view, yes,’ says Connie. ‘You came to the right woman. Country lane, one shot, professional hit. Antiques dealer, perfect fence for stolen goods if nothing else is available. You promise the police don’t have this information yet?’
‘They remain clueless,’ says Ibrahim.
‘OK, then well-dressed Scouser suggests a man called Dominic Holt, runs heroin through Newhaven. Lives down here now, house by the sea. They’ll have used the shop as a drop-off: “Look after our heroin for twenty-four hours,” that sort of thing. Dom Holt wouldn’t normally do a delivery himself, but we all get careless.’
‘Does he have a boss?’ Ibrahim asks.
‘Another Scouser, Mitch Maxwell.’
‘And are they the type to murder someone?’
‘Oh, God, absolutely,’ says Connie. ‘Or the type to hire someone else to murder someone.’
‘Same thing,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Uhh, not really,’ says Connie. ‘Killing someone and hiring a hitman to kill someone are completely different.’
‘OK, well, we will cover this in our session,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Because it is very much the same thing.’
‘Let’s agree to disagree,’ says Connie.
‘Do you know where I might find them, this Dominic Holt and Mitch Maxwell?’
Yes,’ says Connie.
‘Would you care to elaborate?’
‘No, I think I can leave the rest up to you,’ says Connie. ‘You tell me an antiques dealer is murdered on the day he gives cash to a sharp dresser from Liverpool. I tell you heroin, and the names Dominic Holt and Mitch Maxwell. Anything further is grassing, Ibrahim. You’re not the only one who swears an oath.’
‘I don’t think you swear an actual oath,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And Dom Holt is not a rival of yours?’
‘No, he’s a heroin dealer; I’m a cocaine dealer.’
‘Do the worlds not intersect from time to time?’
Connie looks at Ibrahim as if he is mad. ‘Why on earth would they? Christmas drinks maybe. Not this year of course.’
Ibrahim nods. ‘But if I find out more information, would you like to be kept informed?’
‘Very much,’ says Connie. ‘Shall we get on with the session? I’ve been thinking about my dad, like you asked.’
Ibrahim nods again. ‘And are you angry?’
‘Very,’ says Connie.
‘Splendid,’ says Ibrahim.
13: Joyce
In the Coopers Chase newsletter, Cut to the Chase, they often have the names of new residents moving in. They have permission from the people of course, and it can be a nice way of introducing yourself to the community before you turn up with the removal van. It gives us a chance to be nosy too.
Anyway, there is a man moving in next week called Edwin Mayhem.
Edwin Mayhem!
It must be a stage name, mustn’t it? Perhaps he was a magician or a stuntman? Or a sixties popstar? Either way he would be a good subject for my ‘Joyce’s Choices’ column. This month I interviewed a woman who swam the Channel, but they forgot to time her so she had to do it again a month later. She still swims now, in the pool.
I shall certainly be beating a path to Edwin Mayhem’s door. I’ll give him a couple of days to settle in, get his furniture how he likes it, and I’ll be round with a lemon meringue and a notepad.
It is late, and I’m looking out of the window at the lights going off in random windows. There are a few of us still awake though. Coopers Chase looks like an advent calendar.