Oh, you clever man, thinks Elizabeth. Even in the fog you were shining a light for me.
Ever since Elizabeth left the Service, she has had certain protections. Panic buttons, hotlines, in case her past were ever to catch up with her. And, she realizes now, she herself almost certainly has an untraceable number. A Code 777.
She is a fool. The second call Kuldesh had made that afternoon was to her own home phone. To her beautiful Stephen.
Stephen is Elizabeth’s past now, and perhaps one day she might find a way to make that bearable. But perhaps, for a few days longer, Stephen can be her future too.
Elizabeth wonders if it is too late to ring Bogdan. And then she remembers that time has stopped altogether, and that Bogdan won’t be able to sleep any more than she can, and so she decides that she will.
First though she slips on some shoes and a coat, and walks up the hill, just to make absolutely certain. She picks the lock on the allotment shed and, all credit to Ron, there awaits a brand-new spade.
Part Three. THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
68
Joyce received the call around twenty minutes ago, and is already up on the hillside, engulfed by her winter coat. Elizabeth and Bogdan were there to meet her, and down below she sees Ibrahim, Ron and Pauline making their way up.
‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’ says Elizabeth.
‘You know you didn’t,’ says Joyce. ‘I was watching Antiques Road Trip and crying. Bogdan, you really should be wearing a jacket.’
‘Bogdan considers a jacket a sign of weakness,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Yes,’ agrees Bogdan.
‘I would have brought a flask if I’d known,’ says Joyce as Ibrahim, Ron and Pauline reach them. ‘I could pop back?’
‘Nice morning for it,’ says Ron, and gives Elizabeth a hug. Elizabeth accepts it reluctantly.
‘Let’s not make a habit of that,’ says Elizabeth, detaching herself. ‘Thank you all for coming.’
‘I thought we’d be giving up on the heroin,’ says Joyce. ‘After what you said.’
‘As did I,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But I was awake, as you’d imagine. Thinking about Stephen.’
‘Of course you were,’ says Joyce. ‘I was too. Well, Stephen and Gerry.’
‘I was thinking about all sorts of things, punishing myself with the happiness of it all. And then I starting to think about Kuldesh,’ says Elizabeth. ‘How nice it would have been to have him there. How much Stephen spoke about him lately.’
Joyce sees Ron, after taking a look at Bogdan, start to slip his jacket off. He will not be out-machoed.
Elizabeth continues. ‘But then my mind was off in all sorts of directions. Why was Stephen speaking about him quite so much? He said he’d seen Kuldesh recently, and we all assumed he was talking about his visit to the shop, with Bogdan and Donna.’
‘He wasn’t?’ Bogdan asks.
‘It just struck me,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Perhaps I had missed something. What if Stephen had seen Kuldesh more recently than that?’
‘Meaning?’ asks Ron, pretending not to shiver.
‘What if he saw Kuldesh after Christmas?’
‘After Kuldesh disappeared?’ says Joyce.
‘Well, we know Kuldesh was in trouble,’ says Elizabeth. ‘He rang Nina and told her so. And if Nina couldn’t help, who might Kuldesh ring next?’
‘Stephen,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Kuldesh was in a dilemma,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Had stumbled across some Class A drugs and decided, in his wisdom, to steal them.’
‘And needed someone he could trust?’ says Donna.
‘Precisely,’ says Elizabeth. ‘An old partner in crime. Someone he had seen recently. Someone he could trust completely. Someone who lived somewhere remote.’
‘But Stephen would have turned him down flat,’ says Joyce.
‘Maybe he would,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But I don’t think so. I think Kuldesh came over on the 27th, while we were with Donna and Mervyn. Two old men, a fortune in drugs and trouble on their tail. Where safer to hide the box than Coopers Chase?’
‘When we found Snowy,’ says Bogdan, ‘Stephen said this ground was rock-hard to dig. I didn’t even think of it.’
‘And he told me to take care of an allotment he has never had,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Over and over. Kuldesh and the allotment. Kuldesh and the allotment.’
‘So it’s buried here?’ says Donna. ‘That’s the theory?’
‘We’re about to find out,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Bogdan, could you do the honours?’
Bogdan lifts the new spade and starts to dig, as near to the radishes as he can.
‘You need a hand, Bogdan?’ asks Ron.
‘I’m OK, Ron,’ says Bogdan. ‘Thank you.’
As Bogdan continues digging, and metal scrapes against the ungiving earth, Ibrahim raises his hand like a schoolboy.
‘Forgive me,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I may be being a fool, but why would Stephen help Kuldesh?’
‘Mates, ain’t they?’ says Ron. ‘I’d help you.’
‘If I were burying heroin, you would help me?’ asks Ibrahim. ‘You wouldn’t say, Don’t bury heroin, Ibrahim? Take it to the police, Ibrahim? Give it back to the gangsters before they kill you, Ibrahim?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say take it to the police,’ says Ron.
‘Good boy,’ says Pauline.
‘But I take your point,’ says Ron. ‘Why would he do it, Lizzie? Messing about with drugs. That ain’t Stephen.’
‘Possibly friendship, Ron,’ says Elizabeth, ‘possibly foolhardiness. But most likely he didn’t fully understand what he was being asked to do.’
This quietens the group a little, and the only sound out on the dark hillside is Bogdan shovelling soil, and Ron putting his coat back on.
Bogdan strikes something solid.
‘Here we go,’ he says, shifting the loose earth around whatever the object is. He eventually kneels and tugs a small, squat, ugly box from the hole. He places it on the ground.
‘Stephen, you old bugger,’ says Ron.
The lid of the box has a slight lip. They all stare at it for a moment.
Joyce decides it is too cold to wait. She kneels next to the box and looks at the others. ‘Shall I be mother?’
Receiving nods, Joyce gently puts her fingers under the lip of the box, and it starts to give. She is sure it is going to be empty. She doesn’t know why, but she is sure. She lifts.
The box is not empty. The box is packed with white powder.
‘Are we sure it’s heroin?’ says Ron. ‘Could be washing powder?’
Pauline bends over the box, takes out her keys and cuts into the plastic packaging. She wets the tip of her finger, dips it into the powder and then tastes it.
‘It’s heroin,’ she says.
‘Good to have you on board, Pauline,’ says Elizabeth.
‘A hundred grand’s worth of heroin,’ says Ron.
‘That has already killed many people,’ says Ibrahim, looking around, as if for snipers in the trees.
Joyce shuts the lid of the box and tucks it under her arm. ‘May I say something? For the record?’
The others indicate that she has the floor. Joyce isn’t certain exactly how to put what it is that she wants to say. But here goes.
‘This is the sort of moment when Elizabeth would normally take charge. But I’m not allowing it. Elizabeth has more important things on her hands. So I am going to take charge again, forgive me, Elizabeth, and this is my position … Bogdan, would you please put on a jacket … We now have what everybody is looking for. And what everybody is killing for. This little box. Kuldesh, Dominic Holt, Samantha Barnes, goodness knows who else. And nobody knows we have it, which puts us in a strong position.’