Of course, even while she’s thinking it through, Connie knows what Ibrahim is doing. The mirror he’s providing. He’s letting Connie speak to herself. To see herself. And he’s helping her understand that if you’re fooling everyone, you’re really only fooling one person, and that’s yourself. Ibrahim had said to her, ‘Our great strengths are also our great weaknesses,’ and Connie had rolled her eyes. But, for some reason, that thought is with her all the time now.
Connie upends the bunk beds and pulls a loose rubber stopper out from one of the metal legs. Nothing but an empty space. Keep looking.
What if she wasn’t just plain bad? What if that’s a lie she has told herself all these years? That would be too much to take. She could just stop seeing Ibrahim, but it feels like he has opened a door that can never be shut again.
She pulls the stopper from the second leg of the bed. Nothing.
Plenty of people have dealt with an awful lot worse than Connie Johnson, she knows that. What she does for a living is despicable: how she makes her money, how she treats people, how she shuts off her brain to the pain that she has caused. It has always felt inevitable to her, though. As if she were born this way, and as if different rules applied to her.
She pulls out the third stopper. Still nothing.
But what if none of that is true? Does she really want to be confronted with everything she has done?
Connie pulls the stopper from the final leg.
On balance, no, she doesn’t want to find that out – it is probably best to just keep on lying to herself. Best to remain the Connie Johnson that the little girl invented when her dad left her all those years ago. She will let Ibrahim know she doesn’t want any more sessions with him. Thank you, but no thank you.
Connie hooks a finger into the hollow bed leg and feels the paper immediately. Rolled up tight. There are five or six pages perhaps, all tied with a rubber band, and she slides them out. Connie slips off the rubber band and flattens the pages as best she can. They are covered in neat handwriting. Blue ink. She reads the first line:
Through the bars I hear the birds
In the bare cell, with the thick walls, Connie has surely found something that will interest Ibrahim. Ibrahim had set her a task, and she has achieved it. She quickly scans what Heather Garbutt has written, but it seems to be, of all things, a poem. She was hoping for a nice, simple confession, or the naming of a co-conspirator, something to help solve the murder of Bethany Waites, but no such luck yet. Connie knows it could still be helpful though, feels it in her bones.
And, even if she can’t make sense of it right now, she knows someone who will. She should probably do one more session with Ibrahim. Show him the poem. Just until they’ve worked out what’s going on here.
38
Joyce
Where to begin?
Sitting on my sofa, watching a programme about trains, is a man called Viktor Illyich. He’s a former KGB agent. He’s Ukrainian.
I told him I wanted to write my diary and he laughed and said I had plenty to write about today. I have left him with a glass of sherry and a slice of cherry-and-dark-chocolate cake. I saw it on Instagram and thought it had Ron’s name all over it. But, as it turns out, Viktor is getting the first slice, which goes to show how plans can change. The rest is in Tupperware for Ron though.
Hold on one second.
OK, I’m back. I just went through to the living room and asked, and Viktor says the cake is very good. I know he would say that anyway, but he’s had the whole slice, so let’s assume he’s telling the truth. I don’t normally like dark chocolate, as a rule, but it really works here. It has Kirsch in it too, so that helps. The programme Viktor is watching is about a train that goes through the Rockies in Canada. You should see the views. Viktor said they just spotted a bear.
I went to London today with Elizabeth. She told me we were going to see an old friend of hers, and that she was going to kill him. Which I didn’t quite believe, but Elizabeth had been bundled in a van a few nights ago with Stephen, so things were certainly afoot, one way or another. As I say, I didn’t know quite what to think, but I trust Elizabeth. Also, there was a trolley service on the train, rather than a buffet car.
When we arrived in London, we went to the flats where Viktor lives. There is a swimming pool, but I will tell you about that another time, because I think I should get on with telling you what happened.
Wait another moment.
I’m back again. Viktor has just been to the loo, and couldn’t get the flush to work. There is a knack, and I told him. Gentle, gentle, gentle, then all at once. I told him you can pause the TV when you go to the loo, but he already knew. I pause the TV during Countdown, just to make it less stressful. If ever I watch it with Ibrahim, he doesn’t let me. He says I am only cheating myself.
Viktor lives on the top floor of the flats, the penthouse, and he’s a funny-looking little thing. Like a very happy tortoise. He was delighted to see Elizabeth, and he even gave me two kisses, so I thought there was no way Elizabeth was going to kill him, and I was just waiting to hear what was up. Viktor offered me a gin and tonic, but then Elizabeth pulled out her gun. I had words with her about it, but she wasn’t for backing down, and Viktor seemed to take the whole thing in his stride.
Honestly, I was scared, and I was angry with Elizabeth. I even told her I would never forgive her, which she reminded me of on the journey home. ‘You should always trust me,’ was her take on the thing, but, as it happens, I think my anger was useful.
Off they both went, to the bathroom, Viktor yelled out something or other, and there was a gunshot, and I heard Viktor fall to the floor.
I was shaking, I admit it. In fact, if I’m admitting everything, I was crying. Which, again, as it turns out, was also useful.
Elizabeth rushed back into the room and issued instructions. It was something like, ‘No time for tears, Joyce, I had to do it, and Viktor knew it, but now I need your help.’ She said she was on cleaning duties in the bathroom, which I was glad of at least, but she needed me to make a couple of calls. I was to call Bogdan on her phone and say, ‘Elizabeth needs a taxi,’ and then I was to take the SIM card out of her phone and cut it into pieces, and then wipe the phone clean and put it into the waste-disposal unit in the kitchen. There must be no physical or electronic evidence that we had ever been in the flat. I thought to ask about the concierge, but I didn’t, because I feared the answer.
Off she disappears again and I call Bogdan, and he says hello, and I say Elizabeth needs a taxi, and he asks if I’m crying, and I say I’m not, and he says good, there is nothing to cry about, and he will be with us in an hour. Then I ask how he is, but he has already rung off.
So I took out the SIM card, which was difficult, because I was shaking, and cut it into pieces, and then took the phone into the kitchen and threw it into the chute. I heard Elizabeth call out, ‘Have you done it, Joyce?’ and I called back, very quietly, that I had, and that’s when Elizabeth and Viktor walked back into the living room, casual as you like.
I looked like I’d seen a ghost, and who can blame me? Then Elizabeth talked me through it all.