“Good lad,” says Jason. “You deserve it.”
“We both do,” agrees Bobby. “One way or another.”
“Well, we do, and we don’t,” says Jason.
Bobby nods. Maybe so.
They are on dessert, still waiting for their guest, and a bottle of Le Pont Noir’s finest Malbec has been dispatched.
“I mean, it must have been Johnny, right?” asks Bobby. “I’ve always thought he was dead somewhere.”
“I’ve always thought that you were dead somewhere,” says Jason. “I’m glad you’re not, though.”
“Thanks, Jase.”
Jason looks at his watch. “We’ll know for sure soon enough.”
“You reckon he’ll know?” asks Bobby.
“If Johnny’s been over, then he’ll know. That’s where he’d have stayed.”
“I can’t do lunchtime drinking anymore, can you?” asks Bobby.
“We’re old men now, Bob,” agrees Jason. “Time for another bottle, though?”
They agree that they do have time for another bottle. And then in walks Steve Ercan.
86.
Donna has spent the evening looking through airplane passenger lists to and from Cyprus for the past two weeks. As if Johnny Gunduz would be using his own name these days. But you never knew.
Fun though the passenger lists had been, however, Donna is now back on Instagram.
Toyota was history already, but Carl wouldn’t wait around. Who was he seeing now? Donna was nothing if not a natural detective. Was he seeing that woman from his work, Poppy? Poppy, whose photo he liked on Facebook? Not just liked, but replied to with a wink emoji? Poppy who seemed incapable of having her photo taken without being shot from the left and pouting? Yes, she was obvious enough for Carl. Donna had run her name through the Home Office computer on the off chance, but nothing.
She knows it is time for bed, but she is still thinking about Penny Gray.
After the Thursday Murder Club meeting, Elizabeth had told her she wanted her to meet someone and then had led her into Willows, the nursing home attached to Coopers Chase.
They had walked down quiet beige corridors with dim strip lighting and seaside watercolors lining the walls. It all carried an appalling weight, and the hopeful sprigs of flowers on cheap MDF side tables were powerless against it. Who brought the flowers in every day? That was a losing battle, but what was the alternative? Donna had gulped for air at one point. Willows was a prison from which no escape was possible. Where release could mean only one thing.
They had walked into the room and Elizabeth had said, “Constable De Freitas, I’d like you to meet Detective Inspector Penny Gray.”
Penny had been lying in bed, a light sheet covering her to the neck, a blanket farther down, folded back. Tubes running from her nose and from her wrists. Donna had once been on a school trip to the Lloyd’s Building, where everything that should be on the inside was on the outside. She preferred everything tidied away.
Donna saluted. “Ma’am.”
“Take a seat, Donna. I thought it would be nice for the two of you to get to know each other. I do think you’ll get along.”
Elizabeth had taken Donna through Penny’s career. Smart, resilient, opinionated, thwarted at every turn by her gender and by her temperament. Or, rather, by the unacceptable combination of them both.
“She’s a wrecking ball,” Elizabeth had said. “I’m a thin blade, you understand. Penny is all brute force. I don’t know if you could tell that now.”
Donna looked at Penny and fancied that she could.
“It was fashionable in the police back then,” Elizabeth had gone on. “A bit of blunt force. Fashionable if you were a man, at least, but it never helped Penny; she never made it higher than detective inspector. Absurd if you knew her. I’m right, John—absurd, wasn’t it?”
John had looked up and nodded. “A waste.”
