At seven a.m.Father Matthew Mackie gets his call from Maureen Gadd. By seven thirty he is up and dressed, dog collar front and center, waiting for a cab to the station.
47.
In front of the gate that leads to the Garden of Eternal Rest, there are now twenty chairs. Mainly sun loungers, but also one dining chair because of Miriam’s back.
As a barricade it is unorthodox, but effective. Trees crowd in on either side of the gate, so the only way up to the Garden of Eternal Rest is now through a phalanx of pensioners, some of whom are taking the opportunity to stretch out in the morning sun and have a well-earned nap. The diggers are not getting past for a while.
Ian Ventham is back in his car, watching the scene. Karen Playfair has stepped outside and is merrily vaping away on an apple and cinnamon e-cigarette.
Ian sees picnic tables, ice coolers, and parasols. Tea is being fetched and carried on padded trays. Photographs of grandchildren are being swapped. The Garden of Eternal Rest is a sideshow; for most of the residents this is just a street party in the midsummer sun. No need for Ian to get involved. They will fold like their loungers the moment the police arrive, and they’ll wander off to do whatever they do.
Ian is sure this little display will blow over, but he hopes the police show up soon. With the amount of tax he hypothetically pays, it’s really not too much to ask.
48.
Elizabeth is not at the scene. Instead, after dropping Stephen at home, she has taken a route up through Blunts Wood, and as she clears the tree line, she steps onto the broad path leading up to the Garden of Eternal Rest. She walks up the path until she reaches the wooden bench, Bernard Cottle’s bench, where she sits and waits.
She looks down toward Coopers Chase. The path curves toward the bottom, so the barricade is out of sight, but she can hear the polite disturbance at the bottom of the hill. Always look where the action isn’t, because that’s where the action is. A part of her is surprised that Joyce hasn’t made the walk up the hill too. Perhaps she lacks some of Elizabeth’s instincts after all.
Elizabeth hears a rustling coming from the trees about twenty yards down on the other side of the path, and that rustling very soon turns into the figure of Bogdan emerging from the trees, with a shovel over his shoulder.
He heads up the path, nodding to Elizabeth as he passes. “Missus,” he says. If he had a cap, Elizabeth felt sure he would doff it.
“Bogdan,” she replies. “I know you have work to do, but I wonder if I might ask you a question.”
He stops his walk, lowers the shovel from his shoulder, and rests his weight on the handle. “Please,” he replies.
Elizabeth was thinking things through last night. Really—Ventham arrives, gets inside, makes his way to the kitchen, and then kills Tony Curran within two minutes? She’d seen it done before, but not by an amateur. So what was she missing?
“Did Mr. Ventham tell you he wanted Tony Curran murdered?” asks Elizabeth. “After their row? Perhaps he asked you to help? Perhaps you did help?”
Bogdan considers her for a moment, not fazed.
“I know that’s three questions—forgive an old woman,” adds Elizabeth.
“Well, is only one answer, so is okay,” begins Bogdan. “No, he didn’t tell me, and no he didn’t ask, so no I didn’t help.”
Elizabeth gives this her consideration. “All the same, it’s worked out nicely for you? You have a lucrative new job, don’t you?”
“Yes,” agrees Bogdan, nodding.
“Can I ask if you fitted Tony Curran’s alarm system?”
Bogdan nods. “Sure, Ian gets me to do all that stuff for people.”
“So you could have got in, very easily? Waited for him?”
“Sure. Would have been simple.”
Elizabeth hears more cars pulling up at the bottom of the path.
“I know I’m being rude in asking, but if Ian Ventham had wanted Tony Curran dead, might he have asked you to do it? Is that the sort of relationship you have?”
“He trust me,” says Bogdan, thinking. “So I think maybe he would ask me, yes.”
“And what might you have said? If he had asked you?”
“There are some jobs I do, like fix alarms, tile swimming pools, and there are some jobs I don’t do, like kill people. So, if he ask, I say, ‘Listen, maybe you have good reason,’ but I would say, ‘Kill him yourself, Ian.’ You know?”
