The best thing to do, all round, would be to find that heroin. That’ll settle everyone. He and Dom had absolutely taken the shop apart, and found nothing. It must be somewhere. More to the point, some
It’s about four a.m., and he has to take his daughter ice skating at seven a.m. That’s when the rink opens for serious practice.
‘Are we done?’ Mitch asks.
‘For now,’ says Luca. ‘One of the boys will give you a lift home.’
Mitch stretches his shoulders. He needs to take some Nurofen, watch some ice skating, and then find a box full of heroin.
As it happens, he already has an unlikely lead. Dom says a group of pensioners had been hanging around, asking questions. One of them works for Connie Johnson. Mitch will find out where they live, and pay them a little visit.
No rest for the wicked.
‘I wish I had gone to university,’ says Joyce, as they wait outside Nina Mishra’s office.
Elizabeth knew the effect that Canterbury would have. Medieval walls, cobblestones, tea shops called ‘tea shoppes’. It was absolute catnip to Joyce. She has been in a trance since they got off the train.
‘What would you have studied?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘Oh, I don’t know about studying,’ says Joyce. ‘I just would have liked to have swanned about on a bicycle, with a scarf. Did you enjoy it?’
‘As much as I ever enjoy anything,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Did you have love affairs with older men?’
‘Not everything is about sex, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. There had been older men, of course, and one or two younger ones. Not so much ‘love affairs’ as ‘occupational hazards’. There had been twelve women at her college, and around two hundred men. Which had very neatly prepared her for the world of espionage. Elizabeth had long told herself that she preferred the company of men, though it has occurred to her more recently that she’d had very little choice in the matter. She was happy, as they’d walked through the University of Kent campus earlier, to see there were as many young women as men.
‘I can just see you, in the library,’ says Joyce. ‘Opposite a shy boy in glasses.’
‘Stop projecting, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth, looking out through the waiting-room window, across the stone buildings under silver skies. Students bunched and hunched against the cold, scurrying towards warmth. But Joyce is not to be stopped.
‘You catch his eye, and he blushes, and looks down at his book. His hair falls over his eyes, like Hugh Grant. You ask him what he’s reading …’
Through the window Elizabeth sees a young woman drop her books. In Joyce’s world, a fellow student would stop to pick them up for her, and their eyes would meet.
‘And he says, I don’t know, “A book about history,” or something, and you say, “Forget history, let’s talk about our future.”’
‘For goodness’ sake, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. Annoyingly a handsome young man is now helping the woman pick up her books. She is tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
‘And you put your hand on the table, and he puts his hand on your hand. Then he slips off his glasses, and he’s very handsome, like Colin Firth, and he asks you to dinner.’ Joyce continues her story as the clumsy girl and the handsome boy go their separate ways. In Joyce’s world they would each glance over their shoulder, moments apart. Which is exactly what they do. Typical.
‘And you say no. But then you say, “I shall be here again tomorrow, and again the day after, and one day I shall say yes,” and he says, “I don’t even know your name,” and you say, “One day you will.”’
Elizabeth looks at her friend. ‘Have you been reading books again?’
‘Yes,’ admits Joyce.
The door opens and Elizabeth takes in Nina Mishra. Tall, elegant, an unnecessary purple streak in her hair, but she looks fun enough.
Nina smiles. ‘Elizabeth and Joyce? So sorry to have kept you.’
‘Not at all,’ says Elizabeth, standing. The appointment is taking place seven minutes late, and that is absolutely within the realms of acceptability. Twelve minutes is the cut-off for rudeness. Nina ushers them into her office and sits down behind her desk, as Elizabeth and Joyce take seats across from her.
‘I love the purple streak in your hair,’ says Joyce.
‘Thank you,’ says Nina. ‘I love your earrings.’
Elizabeth hadn’t noticed that Joyce was wearing earrings. They look fine.
‘You want to talk to me about Kuldesh?’ says Nina. ‘What a horrible shock. Were you friends?’
‘He was a friend of my husband,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Were you friends?’
‘He was a friend of my parents, really,’ says Nina. ‘But he would ask for favours from time to time. And, for Kuldesh, I would always say yes. He had that effect on people.’
‘Favours?’
‘Things he had come across,’ says Nina. ‘What was my view.’
‘As an historian?’ asks Elizabeth.
‘As a wise friend,’ says Nina. ‘Kuldesh was not always after my opinion on antiques. Sometimes …
‘So not so much valuations, as –’
‘It was more questions concerning’ – she is picking a word carefully – ‘provenance.’
