‘I understand perfectly,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We shall let you get on. Will you let us know if you find anything?’
‘I don’t work for you, Elizabeth,’ says Chris.
‘Sorry,’ says Donna. ‘He finds you quite emasculating. Even I do – I don’t know how that works. Perhaps just let us deal with this one.’
‘As you wish,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We don’t always have to share.’
Elizabeth slips her arm through Joyce’s and leads her down towards the café.
‘You took that lying down,’ says Joyce. ‘I thought you’d kick up more of a fuss.’
‘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.’
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
‘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?’
