They found the gun wrapped in a pale blue cloth, buried about thirty feet or so into the woodland. Elizabeth had taken a look before it had been driven away for examination. When she’d heard the word ‘gun’, she had expected a revolver, some sort of handgun at least. But this was an assault weapon, semi-automatic. Andrew Everton looked as surprised as she did – it was a hell of a gun. There was no ammunition, but there was a metal box, which looked to contain around a hundred thousand pounds or so in cash.
So perhaps they had found the murder weapon, and, finally, some of the proceeds of the scam. Time and forensics would tell. The Forensic Officer on scene should presumably be heading back fairly soon, but is currently being monopolized by Joyce. They are sitting together on Joyce’s raincoat, which has been spread over a mossy bench. What they are talking about, heaven only knows. Elizabeth is walking out of the woods with Andrew Everton.
‘Seems like you owe us one,’ says Elizabeth.
‘I’ll owe you one when we find Bethany’s body,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘We’ll start concentrating the search in the same spot.’
‘Feels like it should be enough to arrest Jack Mason,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Ask him a few questions?’
‘Leave that with me,’ says Andrew Everton. ‘You can’t do everything.’
That was a moot point, but Elizabeth doesn’t feel the need to argue. ‘Do keep us informed though.’
Andrew Everton bows to her, a little sarcastically for Elizabeth’s liking. ‘Ma’am.’
Elizabeth veers off in the direction of Joyce and the Forensic Officer. She hears Joyce’s conversation as she approaches.
‘But say that three bodies are left in a cellar for many years,’ Joyce is saying. ‘At what stage would the smell disappear?’
Is Joyce asking her about the case in Rye?
‘Do they have wounds?’ asks the Forensic Officer.
‘They have been dismembered by a chainsaw,’ says Joyce.
That doesn’t sound like the case in Rye.
‘Well, they would bleed out very quickly,’ says the Forensic Officer. ‘So putrefaction would also occur fairly quickly. The smell would be awful for the first, let’s say two months, then gradually things would return to normal.’
‘Bit of Febreze every now and again,’ says Joyce.
Elizabeth reaches the bench and addresses the Forensic Officer. ‘Is my friend bothering you? She does that sometimes.’
‘Not at all,’ says the FO. ‘I’m helping her with her story.’
‘With her story?’ Elizabeth takes a look at Joyce, who won’t meet her gaze.
‘I thought I might give it a try,’ says Joyce to the flowerbed. ‘You know I like to write.’
‘Three bodies in a cellar,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That sounds familiar.’
‘You’re allowed to base things on real cases,’ says Joyce. ‘Andrew Everton does it all the time.’
‘Where do the chainsaws come in?’
‘You have to add bits of your own too,’ says Joyce.
‘And you added chainsaws?’
Joyce nods, and gives a little smile. Elizabeth wonders, not for the first time, just how well she knows her friend.
‘Shall we head home and see how the boys are getting on?’ says Elizabeth. ‘And tell them we’ve found a gun?’
66
Pauline and Mike have arrived for lunch.
Alan literally can’t believe his luck. Even more people! If only Joyce were here, the whole scene would be perfect. Surely she won’t be much longer. Pauline is tickling his belly as Mike Waghorn takes a seat.
‘This is Henrik,’ says Ibrahim. ‘He is a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, and Swede.’
Mike holds his hands together and says, ‘Namaste, Henrik.’
‘Henrik is also very good with money-laundering,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And this is Viktor, a former KGB colonel.’
‘Pauline has told me a lot about you, Viktor,’ says Mike.
‘Has she now?’ says Ron, and Pauline blows him a kiss.
‘It’s good to meet you, Mike Waghorn,’ says Viktor. ‘I will confess that two weeks ago I hadn’t known who you were, but I am now very familiar with your work. Though often I don’t catch everything you’re saying, because Joyce likes to keep up a running commentary through the local news.’
‘Any news on the search?’ asks Mike.
‘Still waiting,’ says Ron. Pauline told him that Mike had taken news of the garden search very badly. It was such an extraordinary story. The body buried as blackmail. The killer some unknown accomplice. Mike wants the murder to be solved, but it will be very final for him.
‘You arrive at an opportune moment, however,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Do you have the text of your message from Bethany to hand? About the new information? Viktor and Henrik would like to hear it in full. Perhaps it might unlock something.’
Mike takes out his phone and scrolls until he finds the message. He addresses Viktor and Henrik. Skipper. Some new info. Can’t say what, but it’s absolute dynamite. Getting closer to the heart of this thing.
Viktor nods. ‘She would call you “Skipper” normally? No clue there?’
‘Completely normal,’ says Mike.
‘And she would say “info” instead of “information”?’ asks Henrik. ‘It was normal for her to be informal?’
‘It was usually emojis and swear words, to be honest,’ says Mike.
‘Now, when she says –’
Alan starts jumping at the window and barking hysterically, as if he simply cannot begin to comprehend what he has just seen.
Viktor rolls off his chair, and crouches behind a sofa with his gun drawn. Mike raises one eyebrow. Henrik takes a moment, and then taps Viktor on the shoulder.
‘Viktor,’ he says. ‘You have to stop doing this. I’m the one who was trying to kill you. And I’m here.’
Viktor thinks for a moment, then accepts the truth of this observation, and puts the gun down the back of his trousers.
‘I’m glad I didn’t try to kill you,’ says Henrik, looking at the gun.
‘You should be glad,’ says Viktor, taking his seat once again. ‘I would be throwing your body off a North Sea ferry round about now.’
Ibrahim has buzzed his door open, and Elizabeth and Joyce walk into the room. Alan leaps at Joyce, and she gives him a cuddle.
‘Anything?’ asks Mike.
‘No body,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Not yet. But Jack Mason said there would be a gun, and there was. A big one.’
‘Was it the murder weapon?’ asks Ibrahim.
‘Yes, Ibrahim, it was,’ says Elizabeth. ‘The police handed me the gun, and I completed a full forensics check on it in the taxi on the way back.’
Ibrahim turns to Mike. ‘She is being sarcastic.’ Mike thanks him.
‘We will know soon enough,’ says Elizabeth.
‘And they found money too,’ says Joyce. ‘They think around a hundred thousand. Just buried in a tin.’
‘Andrew Everton thinks they have enough to bring Jack Mason in,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Money and a gun in his back garden. Might be enough to get him to talk. Tell us who buried them there.’
‘Good luck with that,’ says Ron.
Henrik has been ignoring this conversation, tapping away at his computer. ‘Umm … OK, I have something.’
The room turns to him as one, and he blushes.
‘Well, maybe I have something.’
‘I knew you’d come in handy,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Spit it out, and we’ll decide if it’s something or not.’
‘Mike,’ says Henrik. ‘In her message Bethany says that her news is “absolute dynamite”. Did she like to play little tricks?’
‘It amused her to fool me from time to time, let’s say that,’ agrees Mike.
‘Because what she found wasn’t “absolute dynamite”,’ says Henrik. ‘It was “Absolute Dynamite”.’
‘Absolute Dynamite?’ says Mike.
‘Very early in the money trail a hundred and fifteen thousand pounds is paid into an “Absolute Construction” in Panama,’ says Henrik. ‘That money is still there, as far as I am able to tell, which is actually quite far, because I am very good at this sort of thing.’
‘Not so good at killing pensioners,’ says Joyce, and gets a ‘Hear, hear’ from Viktor.
‘When “Absolute Construction” is set up, it seems that a web of subsidiary companies is set up beneath it, but no money was ever paid into them, so we have ignored them up to now. There is an “Absolute Demolition”, an “Absolute Cement”, an “Absolute Scaffolding” and, in Cyprus, a company called –’
‘“Absolute Dynamite”,’ says Ron.
Elizabeth looks around her. She puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder. ‘And when you look into “Absolute Dynamite”?’