“Someone give me a hand out of the grave,” says Austin. “Bogdan, old chap?”
Bogdan nods, but seems to want to get something clear first. “Listen, I just need to say one thing. Is okay? In case maybe I go mad. This is not normal? Right? An old man in a grave looking at bones. Someone is murdered maybe, but no one tells the police?”
“Bogdan, you didn’t tell the police when you first dug up the bones,” says Joyce.
“Yes, but I am me,” says Bogdan. “I’m not normal.”
“Well, we’re us,” says Joyce, “and we’re not normal either. Although I used to be.”
“Normal is an illusory concept, Bogdan,” adds Ibrahim.
“Bogdan, trust us,” says Elizabeth. “We just want to find out whose remains these might be, and who buried it, and that will be a lot easier without the police poking their noses in until absolutely necessary. If the police have the bones first, you can bet that will be the last we hear about them. And that seems unfair, after all our hard work.”
“I trust you,” says Bogdan, then screws up his face as a thought occurs. “Though if it goes wrong I bet it’s me sent to prison.”
“I won’t let that happen; you’re too useful,” says Elizabeth. “Now, please help Austin out of the grave, and grab those bones for me. I suggest we all go back to Joyce’s for a nice cup of tea.”
“Splendid,” says Austin, placing his selection of bones on the edge of the grave before reaching out for Bogdan’s arms.
“You lead the way, Lizzie,” says Ron, finishing off his can of Stella.
72.
Joyce
There was a jolly atmosphere, but when Austin laid the pile of bones on my dining table, while we still knew it was an adventure, I think they began to have a sobering effect on all of us. Even Ron.
It is all very well, the Thursday Murder Club, and all our derring-do, and the freedom of age, and whatever we like to tell ourselves. But someone had died, however long ago it might have happened.
There was no way around it, we couldn’t conjure a single good reason why the extra body was there. On closer inspection, fueled by orange drizzle cake (Nigella), Austin was fairly sure that the body was a man, so it wasn’t a nun.
But who was he? And who had killed him? The first step to finding out the answers would be to discover when he had been killed. Thirty years ago? Fifty years ago? There was a big difference.
Austin explained he would take the bones away and do further tests. After everybody had left, I googled him and it turns out he is a Sir. I can’t say I was surprised; he really did know a great deal about bones. Quite what he made of standing in a grave at ten at night in his eighties is his business, but I suppose any friend of Elizabeth is probably used to these things. Three sugars in his tea too, though you wouldn’t know by looking at him.
And then the biggest question of all, of course. You’ll be ahead of me here. Had the motive been found for one much more recent murder? Didsomeone else know the bones were hidden there? Was Ian Ventham killed to protect the Garden of Eternal Rest and the secret of those bones?
We talked for around an hour, I suppose. Were we right not to involve the police? We will have to tell them eventually, but the feeling was that this is our story, our graveyard, our home, and just for the time being, we wanted to keep it for ourselves. As soon as we get the results from Austin we will have to tell all, of course.
So we are trying to solve two murders—possibly three, if the skeleton was murdered. Or, I should say, if the skeleton is of someone who was murdered. Is a skeleton a person? That’s a question for greater minds than mine.
I know Elizabeth is keen to track down Bobby and Johnny, but we all agreed the bones have to take precedence for now.
I wonder if Chris and Donna are making any progress? We certainly haven’t heard if they have. I do hope they’re not keeping anything from us.
73.
Chris and Donna are walking the three flights of stairs up to Chris’s office. Donna has pretended to be frightened of lifts, to force Chris to walk.
“So, Jason Ritchie for the Tony Curran murder,” says Chris. “And Matthew Mackie for Ian Ventham?”
“Unless we’re missing something,” says Donna.
“Well, I wouldn’t put that past us,” says Chris. “So let’s work it through. We know Matthew Mackie was there, and we know he’s a liar. He’s a doctor, not a priest.”
“So we know he could get ahold of fentanyl, and he’d know how to use it,” says Donna.
“Agreed. I think we’ve got everything except a motive.”
