‘But it was important,’ says Bogdan. ‘It was an award. What if you never win another award?’
‘Thank you for the vote of confidence,’ says Donna. ‘Here’s the basic rule: if I’m up for an award, I want you to be there – unless you’re catching a murderer by livestreaming a confession from the Instagram account of a famous television presenter. Then you’re excused.’
Carwyn Price has just been charged with threatening behaviour. Donna saw him slip a note into her bag. It read: We all hate you. You’re a joke. A man who doesn’t respond well to being turned down. Bethany, Fiona, Donna, probably countless more over the years. He’ll only get a slap on the wrist, but he won’t be back at South East Tonight any time soon.
They haven’t solved the mystery of Juniper Court though. So perhaps she and Chris had got that wrong all along?
Bogdan parks carefully. The Coopers Chase Parking Committee have lost none of their power. If anything, it has only increased after a recent failed coup. Elizabeth is going to a cliff today, and Bogdan has promised to visit Stephen. He knows Stephen will be happy to see Donna too.
Before he gets out of the car, Bogdan turns to Donna.
‘I have an award for you.’
‘You have an award for me?’
‘Sure,’ says Bogdan. ‘I feel bad.’
Bogdan reaches into a holdall in the back of the car and presents Donna with the statue of Anahita, goddess of love and battle.
‘Donna, I highly commend you.’
‘Bogdan!’ says Donna.
‘I wanted to get it engraved, but apparently you’re not supposed to.’
Donna can’t believe what she’s holding. ‘Bogdan, it was two thousand quid! We could have had two weeks in Greece for that.’
Bogdan smiles. ‘Kuldesh sold it to me for one pound. And he said to tell you to keep dodging the bricks.’
Donna looks at her statue, her award. And then back at Bogdan.
‘Why did he sell it to you for one pound?’
‘Well,’ says Bogdan, opening his car door. ‘He asked me if I was in love with you. And I said yes.’
83
Ron had suggested it, for his owns reasons, admittedly, and now here they all were. Freezing cold, that was for sure, but he was right. They stand high on the top of Shakespeare Cliff, the English Channel stretching away forever. Angry waves batter the foot of the cliff, hundreds of feet below, the noise rising to greet them like a muffled argument from a downstairs flat.
It’s not where Bethany had died, they know that now, but it’s the best place they have to drink to her memory.
Andrew Everton is keeping quiet about the whole thing. No surprises there. So they still don’t know what really happened that night. Where had Bethany gone? Where had Andrew Everton killed her? Who were the two figures in Bethany’s car as it approached this very cliff? No one had cracked the mystery of ‘Robert Brown Msc’ either. Ibrahim had driven himself half mad with anagrams.
Other questions had been answered, though. One of the guards at the prison says that Andrew Everton visited Heather Garbutt on the night of her death. He denies it, but of course he would.
And Jack Mason. Ron has thought back to their last evening together. The guilt Jack had spoken about.
They each have a single rose to throw into the sea below. Elizabeth and Joyce, Ibrahim, Mike and Pauline. Even Viktor has come down to pay his respects. They had asked Henrik, but he had said, ‘I don’t understand, I didn’t know her, why would I throw a rose into the sea?’ He had a point. Not everyone wants to be in a gang, do they?
One by one they throw their roses. Joyce’s is blown back into her face by the wind, so she has to have another go. The sky is cloudless, so if Bethany is in a position to look down, she’d see them all today. Ron doesn’t hold with that sort of thing in his head, but there is plenty of room for it in his heart.