Why is Chris so happy? The answer is simple, but also complicated.
Chris is in love with someone, and that same someone is in love with him.
No doubt it will all implode at some point, but it hasn’t imploded yet. A crisp packet, performing acrobatics in the air, blows into his face. Love, you just can’t beat it.
Perhaps it won’t implode at all? Is that possible? Perhaps this is it now? Chris and Patrice. Patrice and Chris. Chris narrowly avoids stepping on one of the many needles strewn alongside the minibus. Heroin addicts love the beach. Perhaps he will grow old with Patrice? Watching box sets and going to farmers’ markets? One hand, one heart. She has just made him watch
He looks over at PC Donna De Freitas, almost doubled up against the wind, face barely visible through the hood of her waterproof coat. She is his partner – officially still his ‘shadow’, but that doesn’t seem to be how their relationship works – and she is Patrice’s daughter. What a lot he owes her already.
Donna also seems quite happy despite the weather. She turns her back to the wind and, pulling off a glove with her teeth, starts to reply to a message she has just been sent. Donna had a date last night and is being very coy about the whole thing. Chris is not
The minibus, now just a twisted, melted frame, coal-black against the grey of the sea and sky, had belonged to a children’s home. The corpse in the driver’s seat is, as yet, unidentified. Chris has never really thought about how beautiful the sea is before. His foot crunches the broken neck of a beer bottle. The wind picks up still further, blowing icy needles into Chris’s face. Glorious, when you stop to look at it. When you drink it all in.
Chris has also lost a stone and a half in weight. He recently bought himself a t-shirt in size L, instead of his usual XL, or occasional, shameful XXL. He eats salmon and broccoli now. He eats so much broccoli he can spell it without looking it up. When was the last time he had a Toblerone? He can’t even remember.
Chris’s phone buzzes. Donna is not the only one who can be sent mystery messages. Checking the name, he sees it is from Ibrahim. If Elizabeth messages, you know you should worry. When it’s Ibrahim, it’s fifty-fifty. He reads:
Good afternoon, Chris, it is Ibrahim here. I hope I haven’t messaged you at an inconvenient time? One never knows the schedules of others, let alone those working in law enforcement, where hours are irregular at best.
There are dots, indicating Ibrahim is working his way through a second message. Chris can wait. Six months ago none of this was his. There was no Patrice, there was no Donna, there was no Thursday Murder Club. In fact, he realizes, it all started with them. They carried a kind of magic, the four of them. Sure, they recently condemned two men to their death on Fairhaven Pier, and stole an unimaginable amount of money, but they carried a kind of magic all the same.
‘Who are you texting?’ he calls to Donna, over the sound of the wind. Might as well give it a go.
‘Beyoncé,’ shouts Donna, and keeps typing.
Chris’s phone buzzes. Ibrahim again.
I was wondering, and forgive me if this is outside the ambit of our friendship, if you might be able to look into two old cases for me? I believe you might also find them interesting, and I hope you understand that I wouldn’t ask, were it not that the situation in which we find ourselves requires it.
Dots indicate there is a part three.
Chris and Donna have recently been in to see the Chief Constable of Kent, a man named Andrew Everton. Good copper, sticks up for his troops, but merciless if anyone crosses the line. He writes novels in his spare time too, under a pen-name. The Chief Constable publishes the books himself, and you can get them only on Kindle. Another officer was telling Chris that’s where the real money is these days, but Andrew Everton still drives an old Vauxhall Vectra, so it may not be true.
Andrew Everton told them they are both going to get a commendation at the Kent Police Awards. For their work catching Connie Johnson. Nice to get a bit of recognition. The walls of the Chief Constable’s office were garlanded with portraits of proud police officers. Heroes all. Chris looks at this sort of thing through Donna’s and Patrice’s eyes these days, and had noticed the portraits were all of men, save for one of a woman, and one of a police dog. The police dog had a medal. Chris sees a used condom curled up in a seashell. Life is a miracle.
Another text from Ibrahim. Cutting to the chase, hopefully.
