“She was trouble, Donna,” said Elizabeth. “And I can think of no finer compliment. That’s why Penny enjoyed looking over the old cases. She could finally be in charge. Could finally be the bull in the china shop. She didn’t have to be polite and laugh at the jokes and make the tea.”
Donna saw Elizabeth’s hand close around Penny’s.
Elizabeth looked at her and nodded. “We fight on, though, do we not? Penny took it all, sucked it up, as they say, and put on the uniform day after day, without complaint.”
“She complained a lot.” This was John. “With respect, Elizabeth.”
“Well, yes, she had an impressive temper on her when she wanted to.”
“Very focused,” John had agreed.
As they had left, generations apart but shoulder-to-shoulder and inperfect step, Elizabeth had turned to Donna and said, “You will know better than me, Donna, but I think perhaps not all the battles have been won?”
“I think perhaps too,” Donna had agreed. They had continued in companionable silence, out through the front doors of Willows, grateful to be breathing the air of the outside world.
Back at home—was this really home now?—Donna is not fully concentrating on Instagram anymore. The visit to Penny has made her proud and sad. She would love to have met her. Really met her. There are many reasons why Donna would like to be the one to crack these murders, and she adds making Detective Inspector Penny Gray proud to her list.
Johnny for the Tony Curran murder? Matthew Mackie for Ventham? Elizabeth had told her to look into another of the residents, a Bernard Cottle. She had written the name down.
And the bones? Are they important? What do you say, Penny Gray?
It would be nice to wrap it all up. A nice tribute to someone who has gone before. She should get back to those passenger lists.
Donna scrolls through some final pictures. Poppy has just been bungee jumping for Cancer Research. Well, of course she has, that’s so Poppy.
87.
Joyce
I don’t often write in the morning, I know. But today I just felt I should.
Yesterday was all very interesting, wasn’t it? Those boys, and all the murders and the drugs and what have you. I bet they had a lot to talk about when they headed off afterward. I wonder who they were meeting?
I wonder if... Oh, stop it, Joyce, just stop it. You’re putting it off. You don’t want to write it.
All right, then. So I have had some sad news, and the sad news is this.
I made my “All’s Well” call to Bernard this morning.
Lots of people have an “All’s Well” arrangement. You buddy up with a pal, ring them at eight a.m., let it ring twice, and put the phone down. Then they do the same back. So you each know the other is okay, without it costing you a penny. And, of course, you don’t have to have a conversation.
So I rang Bernard this morning. Two rings, letting him know I was safe and sound, hadn’t had a fall or what have you. But nothing back. I never worry too much; sometimes he forgets, and I wander round and ring his buzzer and he shuffles to the window in his dressing gown and gives me a guilty thumbs-up. I always think, “Oh, let me in, you silly old man, let’s have some breakfast, I don’t mind the dressing gown,” but that’s not Bernard.
So over I trotted. Did I know? I suppose I did, but I also didn’t, because it’s too big a thing to know. But I suppose I did know, becauseMarjorie Walters saw me on my way over, and she said she’d waved but I hadn’t seen, just lost in a world of my own, which isn’t like me. So yes, I suppose I knew.
I buzzed and looked up at the window. The curtains were drawn. Perhaps he was asleep? Had a touch of the flu and stayed in bed. “Man flu,” someone had said onThis Morningthe other day. It had tickled me and I’d told Joanna, but she said the expression had been around for years, and had I really never heard it? Which put me in my place.
I’m stalling, I know. Let’s get on to it.
I let myself into the block with the spare key fob. I walked up the flight of stairs and saw an envelope taped to Bernard’s door. On the front of it he had written “Joyce.”
Sorry, I have to finish there.
There was even a smiley face in the “O.” You really never knew with Bernard.
88.
Joyce opens up the envelope and slips out a handwritten letter, maybe three or four pages. She is grateful that her friends have come to her flat. She didn’t want to go out there again today.
