“Almost right, but you’re not quite Miss Marple. Is she, Joyce?”
Joyce pipes up. “Oh yes, that boy Mark is gay, Elizabeth. You’d have to be fairly blind to miss that.”
Donna smiles. “Lucky you have your friend with you, sister.” She likes that Elizabeth is attempting to hide a smile of her own.
“I’ll need your mobile number, by the way, Donna,” says Elizabeth. “I don’t really want to fake a crime every time I need to see you.”
Donna slides a card over the table.
“I hope that’s a personal number and not an official one,” says Elizabeth. “It would be nice to have some privacy.”
Donna looks at Elizabeth, shakes her head, and sighs. She writes down another number on the card.
“Lovely,” says Elizabeth. “I suspect between us we can find whoever killed Tony Curran. It can’t be beyond the wit of man. Or rather woman.”
Donna stands. “Should I ask how you can get me on the investigating team, Elizabeth? Or don’t I want to know?”
Elizabeth checks her watch. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with. Ron and Ibrahim should be taking care of it about now.”
Joyce waits for Elizabeth to stand too, then leans into the tape recorder once again. “Interview terminated, twelve forty-seven p.m.”
19.
DCI Chris Hudson swings his Ford Focus onto the long, broad driveway leading up to Coopers Chase. The traffic hasn’t been at all bad, and he is hoping this won’t take too long.
As he takes in his surroundings, Chris wonders why this place needs quite so many llamas. There are no spaces in the visitors’ car park, so he eases the Focus onto a verge and steps out into the Kent sun.
Chris has been to retirement communities before, and this was not at all what he had been expecting. This was a whole village. He wanders past a lawn bowls match, wine chilling in coolers at each end. One of the players is an extremely elderly woman smoking a pipe. He follows a meandering path through a perfect British garden flanked by three stories of flats. There are people gossiping on patios and balconies, enjoying the sunshine. Friends sit on benches, bees buzz around bushes, light breezes play tunes with ice cubes. Chris finds the whole thing deeply infuriating. He’s a wind-and-rain guy, a turn-up-the-collar-on-your-overcoat man. If Chris had his way he would hibernate for the summer. He has not worn shorts since 1987.
Chris crosses a residents’ car park, past a red postbox looking picture-perfect, annoying him further, and finds Wordsworth Court.
He rings the buzzer for flat 11. Mr. Ibrahim Arif.
After being buzzed up, walking across a lushly carpeted hallway and up a lushly carpeted staircase, and knocking on a solid oak door, Chris finds himself in that flat of Ibrahim Arif, sitting opposite the man himself, and also opposite Ron Ritchie.
Ron Ritchie. Well, wasn’t that quite the thing? Chris was taken aback the moment they were introduced. The father of a man Chris was investigating?What was that? Luck? Something more sinister? Chris decides he will just let it play out. He trusts that if there is an angle, he will spot it.
Strange that this is where Red Ron ended up, though. The scourge of the bosses, the Beast of British Leyland, and British Steel, and British whatever else you’d care to mention? Amid the honeysuckle and Audis of Coopers Chase? Chris would have barely recognized him, to be honest. Ron Ritchie is wearing mismatched pajamas, an unzipped tracksuit top, and dress shoes. He is looking around vacantly, mouth open. He is a mess, and Chris feels awkward, as if he is imposing on a private scene.
Ibrahim is explaining the situation to Chris. “It can be very stressful for elderly people to talk to police officers. You mustn’t think that’s your fault, though. This is why I suggested you conduct the interview here.”
Chris nods gently, because he has done the training. “I can assure you that Mr. Ritchie is not in trouble, but if, as you say, he has information, I need to ask him a couple of questions.”
Ibrahim turns to Ron. “Ron, he just wants to ask you about the argument you saw. Remember, we talked about it?” He looks back to Chris. “He forgets things. He’s very old, Detective Inspector. A very, very old man.”
“All right, Ibrahim,” says Ron.
Ibrahim pats Ron’s hand and speaks to him slowly. “I think it’s quite safe, Ron. We’ve seen this gentleman’s warrant card. I rang the number on it, then I googled him. Remember?”
“I just—I just don’t think I can,” says Ron. “I don’t want to get into any trouble.”
“There won’t be any trouble, Mr. Ritchie,” says Chris Hudson. “I guarantee it. It’s just that you might have important information.” Red Ron is a shadow of his former self, and Chris is very aware that he must play this carefully. Certainly don’t mention Jason yet. The possibility of a pub lunch is also rapidly vanishing. “Mr. Arif is right, you can tell me anything.”
Ron looks at Chris, then back to Ibrahim for signs of reassurance. Ibrahim squeezes his friend’s arm, and Ron looks back to Chris.
Ron leans forward. “I think I’d be happier talking to the lady.”
Chris is taking his first sip of the mint tea Ibrahim has made for him. “The lady?” He looks at Ron and then at Ibrahim. Ibrahim helps him out.
