The Last Devil To Die полностью

Her gang of pals are knocking back the wine, and Wolf Hall is starting to get better and better reviews. Gill, who works at the vet’s on the square, says she would have given Thomas Cromwell a piece of her mind had she been around at the time. Do they know what Samantha does for a living? They must have an idea at least. Bronagh from the deli, for example, once got lost on her way to the loo and walked into a room where a newly painted Jackson Pollock was drying. Also, no one else in Petworth has a Ferrari Testarossa. The clues are there.

Samantha retires to the kitchen to make coffee. She received a phone call just before everyone arrived, and it has been worrying her. Worrying her? Perhaps that’s pushing it. Playing on her mind perhaps.

A woman named Elizabeth. Very sure of herself. Sorry to trouble you, I wonder if you might have heard of a man named Kuldesh Sharma? Samantha declined to volunteer this information to Elizabeth. Never volunteer information unless you have to. That’s something Samantha has learned in the last few years. Ahh, Elizabeth had sighed, that is a shame, I felt sure you would have. Something in Elizabeth’s manner made Samantha defensive. Like she was being interrogated by a great spymaster. What did Samantha know about heroin dealers, Elizabeth wanted to know next. Well, that was quite a question. Samantha could have given her the long answer but instead chose the short answer of ‘nothing’. Elizabeth paused again, as if she were writing this down. Elizabeth then asked what the parking was like in Petworth, and Samantha, glad finally to have a question she could give a straight answer to, said, It could be the devil’s own work, and Elizabeth said, They won’t like that, but they’ll have to take their chances, I’m afraid. To which Samantha replied, quite naturally, Who will have to take what chances? Elizabeth had informed her that ‘they’ were Joyce and Ibrahim, that they would be coming to see her very soon, and that they could both be very chatty in different ways, but they both meant well. Samantha said that she wasn’t around for the next few days, as she would be at a fair in Arundel, and wasn’t that a pity, and to this Elizabeth said, Samantha, never lie to a liar.

She then wished Samantha a very good evening, and rang off.

What to think? Samantha walks back in with the coffees and gets gratified oohs in response. Perhaps she should just make herself scarce for the next few days? Keep out of harm’s way?

Samantha has a nose for trouble, but she also has a nose for opportunity. It’s the same nose, if truth be told.

Elizabeth hadn’t sounded like a police officer. Too old, and not nearly polite enough for that. So perhaps she should talk to this Joyce and Ibrahim? What was there to lose? They surely didn’t know anything? But perhaps they knew something?

The ladies have moved off the subject of the book and onto the subject of post-menopausal sex. Samantha raises her coffee cup and says she has no complaints. Which is true – her big Canadian bear never does anything by halves.

During the phone call, Elizabeth had dangled some very tempting fruit. Kuldesh Sharma. Heroin. Maybe Samantha would learn something to her advantage? She will talk it over with Garth, but she knows what he will say. What he always says.

‘Babe, is there money in it?’

And, on this occasion, there just might be.

The lights are low, the music is low, and, if he is being entirely honest, Chris is low too. Joyce is finishing an anecdote about Dom Holt, the heroin dealer.

‘With a golf club, if you can believe that,’ says Joyce. ‘And a big knife for the tyres. It was like a documentary. I would have taken a photo, but I didn’t get the chance to ask, and I didn’t want to be rude.’

‘You don’t feel like pressing charges, I suppose?’ asks Chris, sipping a lime and slimline tonic.

‘Oh, take a day off once in a while,’ says Elizabeth, and Patrice laughs into her whisky.

Chris is frustrated. He’d love to arrest Dom Holt for a bit of criminal damage. That would throw the cat among the pigeons back at Fairhaven nick. He walked past the Incident Room the other day, just to catch a peek, but all the blinds were drawn. Patrice has taken him and Donna to the pub to cheer them up, and Elizabeth and Joyce have joined them.

Why was the investigation taken from them? He still has no answer to that.

‘Dominic Holt’s offices are near Newhaven,’ says Joyce. ‘Elizabeth says we should break in and have a look around.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ says Chris. ‘I’m honestly in the mood to arrest someone, and you’ll do.’

‘Well, somebody has to do something, Chris,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Any news from SIO Regan?’

‘She asked Chris to move his car so she can park in his space the other day,’ says Donna. ‘If that counts as news?’

‘The teacher at my old school had her own private cubicle in the toilets,’ says Patrice. ‘FOR THE USE OF DOROTHY THOMPSON ONLY was Blu-Tacked to the door.’

‘I’m guessing you used it?’ says Donna.