Everyone knows everything now, and that only seems fair. So where are Johnny and Bobby? Now we’ve dealt with the bones, I know Elizabeth will be thinking about how we track them down. That’s right up her street, isn’t it? I will get a call in the morning and it will be “Joyce, we’re going to Reading,” or “Joyce, we’re going to Inverness, or Timbuktu,” and bit by bit she’ll tell me why, and before you know it we’ll be having a cup of tea with Bobby Tanner, or a café au lait with Turkish Johnny. You wait and see. Tomorrow morning, before ten a.m. Guaranteed.
The only time I ever use my passport is when I need to pick up a parcel, but I’ve just checked and it has three years left. I remember when I first got it, wondering if it would be my last ever. The odds on it being renewed are with me now, I think. Anyway, that’s just to say that if Johnny or Bobby Tanner are abroad somewhere, then I wouldn’t put it past Elizabeth to hop on a plane. We’re only a drive from Gatwick here.
I could send Joanna a postcard. “Who, me? Oh, I’m in Cyprus for a couple of days. Tracking down a fugitive. Possibly armed, but you mustn’t worry.” Though no one sends postcards anymore, do they? Joanna has shown me how to send photos on my phone, but I’m beggared if it’s ever worked when I tried. I just get that spinning circle.
Perhaps I could ask Bernard to come along with me? “A couple of days in the sun? Last-minute thing. We just fancied it.” I think it might frighten the poor man to death.
I don’t like to give up on a chase, but Bernard seems to be drifting further and further away from me. He was not a bundle of fun at lunch, and there was plenty of steak and kidney left over.
And don’t think I don’t know what the others think. What they suspect. They’ll be checking whether Bernard was here fifty years ago. They haven’t spoken to me about it, but you mark my words. Check away, don’t mind me.
Timbuktu is a real place, by the way. Did you know that? It came up in a quiz once. Ibrahim will remember where it is, but I did think that was interesting.
78.
Chris Hudson is cradling a whisky. He likes a real log fire, and they have a nice one in Le Pont Noir. He’s never eaten here, because who would he eat with, but he likes the bar. The fireplace has a vintage tile surround, very tasteful. If you’d asked him twenty years ago, he would have imagined this was the sort of place he might live. Leather armchair, whisky on the go, wife reading some sort of book opposite him. Something prize-winning and beyond him, but she’d be turning the pages, smiling wryly. A love story set against the backdrop of the Raj. He could be looking at murder case notes, slowly solving something.
He is still sure that Mackie is guilty as hell. It added up. But these bones? Did they change things? Had there been two murders fifty-odd years apart, one to protect the other? If so, then Mackie wasn’t their man—they’ve been through the records; he hadn’t left Ireland until the nineties.
His mind drifts back to his dream life. Were there kids sleeping upstairs? In new pajamas. A boy and a girl, two years apart. Good sleepers.
But no, none of that, just a fireplace in a bar that wasn’t doing enough business, in a restaurant that he had no one to talk to. Then a walk home, stop at the all-night shop for a chocolate bar. A proper big one. Then the key fob, the apartment block, the three flights up, the flat that the cleaner kept clean, that no one ever cooked in, the spare room that was never used. If he opened his window he could hear the sea, but couldn’t see it. Didn’t that just sum it up?
There was a life that Chris hadn’t been able to take in his grasp. Families, driveways, trampolines, friends round for dinner, all the stuff you’d see on adverts. Was this forever now? The lonely flat with the neutral walls and theSky Sports? Maybe there was a way out, but Chris couldn’t immediately spot it. Treading water, getting fatter, laughing less. Chris was out of rocket fuel.
It was lucky that Chris loved his job, was good at his job. He always found it easy to get up in the morning; he just found it hard to go to sleep at night.
Leave Mackie be for a minute and focus on Tony Curran’s murder. Jason Ritchie had rung Chris earlier. Told his tale. Explained away the calls and the car. If he was lying, then he’d done a good job of it. But then he would, wouldn’t he?
Bobby Tanner was still proving elusive. After Amsterdam, there was no more Bobby Tanner on any official record. But he’d be somewhere. Maybe Brussels, living under some name or other; plenty of gangs could use him out there. He’d be doing what he’d always done. Smuggling, fighting, making himself useful. Not a big enough fish for anyone to worry about. Burned often enough to be careful. They’d catch him coming out of some expat gym one day, put their hand on his shoulder, and fly him back for a few questions.
Though, of course, there was a good chance that Bobby Tanner was dead too. Steroids, pub fight, fell off a ferry—so many ways to go, and the only way to identify him was a false passport. But Chris thinks Bobby is still out there somewhere, and if he’s still out there somewhere, then who’s to say he hadn’t just paid a visit to Tony Curran for some long-forgotten reason? Something to do with his brother drowning with that boat full of drugs? Who knew?
And then the new name, Turkish Johnny. Chris had found plenty on record for him. Johnny Gunduz was his real name. Fled the country in the early 2000s after a tip-off he’d murdered the cabbie in the Black Bridge shooting. Everything kept coming back to that one night. In this very bar.
Had Johnny come back to town?
Chris finishes his whisky, and looks at the tiles once again. Beautiful, really.
He should probably go home.
79.
Joyce
Just two quick things this morning, as I find myself in a hurry.
Firstly, Timbuktu is in Mali. I bumped into Ibrahim on my way back from the postbox and I asked him. I also saw Bernard walking slowly up the hill. It’s every day now, but never mind.
And as I say, Mali. So now you know.
Secondly, Elizabeth rang at 9:17, and we’re off to Folkestone. From the looks of it, it’s two changes on the train, one at St. Leonards and one at Ashford International, so we’re setting off nice and early. I haven’t been to Ashford International, but I doubt a station would have “International” in its name and not have a Marks & Spencer. Maybe even an Oliver Bonas candle store. Fingers crossed.
I promise I will report back later.
80.
In many ways, Peter Ward’s neighbors owed him a debt of thanks, and to be fair, most of them knew it.
