‘The guy in seventeen broke two toilet seats,’ says Len.
‘Thank you for your help, Len,’ says Chris. ‘We’ll let you get on.’
As they leave, the man calls after them. ‘Well, don’t blame me if I kill him. That’ll be on you.’
Back out in the cold air, Chris and Donna start noting down car registration numbers. There is a car Chris is sure he recognizes, a white Peugeot with flames on the number plate. He notes down the number.
Chris would love to find a clue that Elizabeth has missed. Should he really be that competitive with a woman in her late seventies?
But he understands that this is a fishing expedition. Even if someone lives in Juniper Court now, it’s meaningless unless they lived there ten years ago, on the night Bethany died.
He keeps noting down the numbers regardless. Most of police work is jotting down numbers.
30
‘He liked motorbikes,’ says Pauline. ‘He liked tinkering. He’d take them apart, and forget to put them together again.’
‘Gerry was like that with jigsaws,’ says Joyce. ‘I’d forever be telling him, don’t start a jigsaw and not finish it, Gerry. If you’ve done the opera house, then, for goodness’ sake, do the bridge. I’d end up having to finish them off. I don’t suppose you can do that with a motorbike.’
‘He’d ride off with his mates at the weekend,’ says Pauline. ‘A whole gang of them – the Outlaws of Death, they were called. Two of them were accountants.’
‘But he looked after you,’ says Joyce.
‘Did he, Joyce? I don’t know,’ says Pauline. ‘He loved me, as far as it went, and it would have been a lot of trouble to get rid of him. But –’
‘But?’
‘Look, we got along fine. I’ve seen worse,’ says Pauline. ‘I don’t know if it was love’s young dream though. You had to get married in those days, didn’t you? Had to find someone.’
‘I’m afraid I was terribly boring,’ says Joyce. ‘I wanted to get married.’
‘God, that’s not boring, Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘To really mean it, that’s the dream. How did you fall in love with Gerry, can you remember?’
‘Oh, I didn’t fall in love with him,’ says Joyce. ‘Nothing like that. I just walked into a room and there he was, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and that’s all there was to it. Like I had always been in love with him, no falling necessary. Like finding the perfect pair of shoes.’
‘Christ, Joyce,’ says Pauline. ‘You’ll have me crying.’
‘I mean, he had his bad points,’ says Joyce.
‘Did he ever cheat on you with a tattoo artist called Minty?’
‘No, but he’d always leave his used teabags in the sink,’ says Joyce. ‘And then there were the jigsaws.’
The two women laugh. Pauline raises her glass in a toast.
‘To Gerry,’ says Pauline. ‘I wish I’d met him.’
Joyce clinks Pauline’s glass. ‘And to … I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your husband’s name?’
‘He called himself Lucifer,’ says Pauline. ‘He was a roadie for Duran.’
‘What was his real name?’
‘Clive,’ says Pauline.
‘Well, I wish I’d met Clive too,’ says Joyce. ‘I wonder if he and Gerry would have got along?’