‘What does the box the heroin was smuggled in look like?’ asks Samantha. ‘I don’t imagine that the heroin stayed in it for very long, so it’s probably somewhere. Perhaps the box will show up one day in someone’s shop? And there’s your killer?’
‘That’s a very long shot,’ says Nina.
Mitch laughs. ‘You’re telling me. I’ll show you it, wait a minute. I don’t think anyone’s going to be selling it in an antiques shop.’
Ibrahim takes the reins. ‘We still haven’t addressed the murder of Dominic Holt. The who and the why.’
Mitch has scrolled through his phone and found the photo he’s looking for. He slides it across to Samantha. She takes off her glasses and holds the screen up close. ‘You really put a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of heroin in a thing like that? No class.’
She passes it to Garth, who pulls a face. ‘Junk shop maybe. But good idea, babe. Keep an eye out for it.’ He slides the phone back to Mitch.
‘It certainly wasn’t in his lock-up,’ says Nina. This is a line that Elizabeth has dictated to her.
‘In his what?’ says Mitch.
‘That’s just what he called the back of his shop,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We had a root around.’
‘No one calls that a lock-up,’ says Luca. ‘You’re saying Kuldesh had a lock-up?’
‘Sorry,’ says Nina to Elizabeth. Again, note perfect.
‘All right,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Yes, Kuldesh had a council lock-up, no, I’m not going to tell you where it is –’
Garth raises his hand.
‘No, Garth, not even if you threaten to kill me.’
No one looks happy with this situation. Which is perfect.
‘All in all though,’ says Elizabeth, ‘I would like to find this heroin before SIO Ronson finds it.’
‘Regan,’ says Luca.
‘My mistake,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It goes without saying that if everyone here is telling the truth, there will be no problems. Because we all have a common goal. We can join forces to find the heroin and the person, or people, behind the murders.’
‘But if everyone here isn’t telling the truth –’ starts Ibrahim.
‘Then, sooner or later, there’s going to be a bloodbath,’ says Ron. ‘And maybe donkey rides, can you still do donkey rides or are they banned?’
The waitresses have come in to clear away the coffee cups, and lunch draws to a close.
Off they all go to their plots and their schemes – Elizabeth would put good money on that – and, as Nina Mishra gets up to leave, she asks, ‘What now?’
‘Now we see who survives the week,’ says Elizabeth.
We had a lunch yesterday with some very unsavoury characters, and it was a lot of fun. We hired the private room, and you could tell that put some people’s noses out of joint. I heard someone whisper, ‘Who does she think she is?’ as I went to the loo.
There was Mitch Maxwell, the heroin dealer, Luca Buttaci, also a heroin dealer, who sounds like he should be Italian but isn’t. Then Samantha and Garth, who we met in Petworth. Samantha gave me a peck on the cheek, but Garth just said, ‘Where’s Alan?’ and then ‘That’s not what I had hoped for,’ when I told him he was snoozing in front of one of my radiators. Nina Mishra came too and cooed over Coopers Chase. The winter sun was out, and I have to admit the whole place did look rather lovely. She is already planning to move in in thirty-five years’ time.
We learned nothing, but learning nothing was the whole point of the lunch. Elizabeth just wanted to get everybody together, to shake the tree.
Give them enough rope, was what we used to say, but ‘Let’s see who kills whom next,’ was how Elizabeth actually put it.
It felt to me like everyone there knew a part of the picture, but no one knew all of it, and I suppose that is what Elizabeth is banking on.
So now we wait. Let them tear each other apart, and see what secrets fall out of their pockets while they do it.
Afterwards Elizabeth told me she is going to be out of circulation for a couple of days. Uncontactable. She says she has business to attend to, and perhaps she does.
Her business is not my business, and of course we all need a bit of privacy from time to time. Especially round here. We can sometimes be in each other’s pockets a little, which I know is not everyone’s cup of tea. I like it. I like to be around people. I like to chat, and I don’t really mind about what.
But Elizabeth is different, and I have learned to respect that. To give her a bit of space, and resist the temptation to spy. That said, I saw out of my window that Anthony the hairdresser was heading into her block the other day, and, as he always makes a point of telling us, he never makes house calls, so something must be going on. I might take the scenic route when I walk to the shop later, just to see if her curtains are drawn. That will tell its own story.
