“Which lady, Ron?”
“The lady, Ib. The one who comes and talks to us. The woman copper.”
“Oh yes!” says Ibrahim. “PC De Freitas! She often comes to talk to us, Detective Inspector. Window locks. Do you know her?”
“Of course, yes. She is one of my team.” Chris is trying to remember if the young PC with the nonexistent shoelaces was Donna De Freitas. He was fairly sure she was. She’d come from the Met, and no one knew why. “We work very closely together.”
“So she is part of the investigation? Well, this is excellent news,” says Ibrahim, beaming. “We love PC De Freitas here.”
“Well, she’s not officially part of the investigation team, Mr. Arif,” says Chris. “She’s on other important duties. Catching criminals and... so on.”
Ron and Ibrahim don’t say a word; they just look expectantly at Chris.
“But it is a terrific idea. I would love her to be on the team,” says Chris, trying to work out whom he would need to speak to. Surely someone owed him a favor?
“She is a fine officer,” says Ibrahim. “She does you credit.”
He becomes serious again and turns to Ron. “So if the handsome detective here, and our friend PC De Freitas came to talk to you together? Would you be happy, Ron?”
Ron takes his first sip of tea. “That’d be perfect, Ib. I’d like that. I’ll talk to Jason too.”
“Jason?” asks Chris, on alert.
“Do you like boxing, son?” asks Ron.
Chris nods. “Very much, Mr. Ritchie.”
“My boy is a boxer. Jason.”
“I know him, sir,” says Chris. “You must be very proud.”
“Only, he was with me, so he should be here. He saw the row too.”
Chris nods. Well, that was very interesting. The trip has not been wasted. “Well, I’m sure I can come back and talk to you both.”
“And you’ll bring PC De Freitas with you? How wonderful,” says Ibrahim.
“Of course,” says Chris. “Whatever gets us to the truth.”
20.
Joyce
So it seems we are investigating a murder. And better still, I have been in a police interview room. This diary is bringing me luck.
It was interesting watching Elizabeth in action. She is very impressive. Very calm. I wonder if we would have got along if we’d met thirty years ago. Probably not; we are from different worlds. But this place brings people together.
I do hope I’ll be of some help to Elizabeth in the investigation. Help to catch Tony Curran’s killer. Perhaps I will, in my own way.
I think that if I have a special skill, it is that I am often overlooked. Is that the word? Underestimated, perhaps?
Coopers Chase is full of the great and the good, people who have done something or other with their lives. It’s really a lot of fun. There’s someone who helped design the Channel Tunnel, someone who has a disease named after them, and someone who was the ambassador to Paraguay or Uruguay. You know the type.
And me? Joyce Meadowcroft? What do they make of me, I wonder? Harmless, certainly. Chatty? Guilty, I’m afraid. But I think they know, deep down, that I’m not one of them. A nurse, not a doctor, not that anyone would say that to my face. They know that Joanna bought my flat here. Joanna is one of them. Me, not so much.
And yet, if there’s a row at Catering Committee, or if there’s a problem with the lake pumps, or if, as happened very recently, one resident’s dogimpregnates another and all hell breaks loose, then who is there to fix it? Joyce Meadowcroft.
I am very happy to listen to the grandstanding, watch the chests puffing out, hear the furious threats of legal action, and wait for them to blow themselves out. Then I step in and suggest that maybe there’s a way through, and perhaps there is a compromise to be reached, and perhaps dogs will be dogs. Nobody here feels threatened by me, nobody sees me as a rival. I’m just Joyce—gentle, chatty Joyce, always has her nose in everything.
