The room turns to him as one, and he blushes.
‘Well, maybe I have something.’
‘I knew you’d come in handy,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Spit it out, and we’ll decide if it’s something or not.’
‘Mike,’ says Henrik. ‘In her message Bethany says that her news is “absolute dynamite”。 Did she like to play little tricks?’
‘It amused her to fool me from time to time, let’s say that,’ agrees Mike.
‘Because what she found wasn’t “absolute dynamite”，’ says Henrik. ‘It was “Absolute Dynamite”。’
‘Absolute Dynamite?’ says Mike.
‘Very early in the money trail a hundred and fifteen thousand pounds is paid into an “Absolute Construction” in Panama,’ says Henrik. ‘That money is still there, as far as I am able to tell, which is actually quite far, because I am very good at this sort of thing.’
‘Not so good at killing pensioners,’ says Joyce, and gets a ‘Hear, hear’ from Viktor.
‘When “Absolute Construction” is set up, it seems that a web of subsidiary companies is set up beneath it, but no money was ever paid into them, so we have ignored them up to now. There is an “Absolute Demolition”， an “Absolute Cement”， an “Absolute Scaffolding” and, in Cyprus, a company called –’
‘“Absolute Dynamite”，’ says Ron.
Elizabeth looks around her. She puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder. ‘And when you look into “Absolute Dynamite”？’
‘You find two named directors,’ says Henrik. ‘One is our old friend Carron Whitehead, so that doesn’t really lead us anywhere. But finally we have a new name. The other director is a Michael Gullis.’
‘Michael Gullis?’ says Elizabeth. ‘Pauline, Mike? Anything?’
They look at each other, then back at Elizabeth, and shake their heads.
‘There was a Michael Gilkes who played for Reading,’ says Ron. ‘Midfielder.’
‘Thank you, Ron,’ says Elizabeth. Pauline taps Ron’s hand.
The room falls quiet once again, save for the tip-tapping of Henrik’s keyboard and Alan’s happy panting as he moves from person to person to receive his due attention.
‘Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘I don’t suppose you could join me outside for a moment?’
Elizabeth gestures that she certainly could, and they wander out to Ibrahim’s hallway.
‘Ask me,’ says Joyce.
‘Ask you what?’ says Elizabeth.
‘Ask me if I know the name Michael Gullis,’ says Joyce.
67
The team digging up the garden at Heather Garbutt’s old house had dug up the gun this afternoon. They were still digging now, under the searchlights as evening turned to night. Andrew Everton thought they had enough evidence at least to talk to Jack Mason. Chris and Donna had got the call.
‘You were so good again, I mean it,’ says Chris, reviewing Donna’s latest appearance on South East Tonight. She had discussed online fraud and flirted with a vicar who was in the studio, raising money for a ramp. Chris thinks about overtaking someone on a blind bend, then remembers it’s the dead of night, and he’s a police officer.
‘You just have to be yourself,’ says Donna. ‘Ignore the cameras.’
‘I’ve never been good at being myself,’ says Chris. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’