‘Yes, it’s Yorkshire,’ shouts Joyce from the kitchen. ‘I knew it.’
Joyce had been insistent that she was coming round to visit. And it doesn’t matter how high up one might have been in MI5 or MI6, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been shot at by a sniper, or met the Queen, you won’t stop Joyce once she has her mind set on something. Elizabeth had acted quickly.
Stephen’s dementia is getting worse, Elizabeth knows that. But the more he slips from her grasp, the tighter she wants to hold him. If she is looking at him, surely he can’t disappear?
Stephen is at his very best when Bogdan comes around to play chess, so Elizabeth has invited Bogdan over, and taken the risk with Joyce. Perhaps he will be on fine form. And perhaps that will be enough to keep the charade going for another few weeks. She has given Stephen a shave and washed his hair. He no longer finds this unusual. Elizabeth looks over to the chessboard.
Bogdan has his chin in his hands, contemplating his next move. There is something different about him.
‘Are you using a different shower gel, Bogdan?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘Don’t put the boy off,’ says Stephen. ‘I have him in a funk here.’
‘I used an unperfumed body scrub,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is new.’
‘Hmm,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s not it.’
‘It’s very feminine,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s not unperfumed.’
‘I play chess,’ says Bogdan. ‘No distractions please.’
‘I feel like you’re keeping a secret,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Stephen, is Bogdan keeping a secret?’
‘Lips are sealed,’ says Stephen.
Elizabeth returns to the documents. Something here got Bethany Waites killed. By Heather Garbutt? Elizabeth doubts it very much. Heather Garbutt’s boss, Jack Mason, is ostensibly a scrap-metal dealer, but in reality is one of the most well-connected criminals on the South Coast. Heather Garbutt seems like a soldier, not a general. So was Jack Mason the General? Is his name somewhere in these papers? Time for her plan B.
‘How’s Joanna, Joyce?’ Elizabeth asks. Joanna is Joyce’s daughter.
‘She’s doing a Skydive for Cancer,’ says Joyce.
‘Be lovely to catch up with her,’ says Elizabeth.
Joyce sees straight through this. ‘Do you mean, it would be lovely for her to take a look through those documents, because you don’t understand them?’
‘Wouldn’t do any harm, would it?’ Joanna, and her colleagues, will get through this stuff in no time, Elizabeth is sure. Maybe turn up a name or two.
‘I’ll ask her,’ says Joyce. ‘I’m in her bad books because I said I didn’t see the point of sushi. Why do you keep looking at your phone, by the way?’
‘Don’t be tiresome, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You’re not Miss Marple.’
On cue, Elizabeth’s phone buzzes. She doesn’t look. Joyce nails her with the minutest raise of an eyebrow, then turns to Stephen, with a much gentler look.
‘It’s very nice to see you, Stephen,’ says Joyce.
‘Always nice to meet one of Elizabeth’s friends,’ says Stephen, looking up. ‘You pop round any time. New faces always welcome.’
Joyce doesn’t react, but Elizabeth knows what she has heard.
Bogdan makes a move, and Stephen gives a gentle round of applause.
‘He might smell different,’ says Stephen. ‘But he doesn’t play different.’
‘I don’t smell different,’ says Bogdan.