Chapter 2
PC Donna De Freitas would like to have a gun. She would like to be chasing serial killers into abandoned warehouses, grimly getting the job done despite a fresh bullet wound in her shoulder. Perhaps developing a taste for whisky and having an affair with her partner.
But for now, twenty-six years old, and sitting down for lunch at eleven forty-five in the morning, with four pensioners she has only just met, Donna understands that she will have to work her way up to all that. And besides, she has to admit that the past hour or so has been rather fun.
Donna has given her talk, “Practical Tips for Home Security,” many times.
And today there was the usual audience of older people, blankets across knees, free biscuits, and a few happy snoozers at the back.
She gives the same advice each time. The absolute, paramount importance of installing window locks, checking ID cards, and never giving out personal information to cold-callers.
More than anything, she is supposed to be a reassuring presence in a terrifying world.
Donna understands that; also, it gets her out of the station and gets her out of paperwork, so she volunteers.
Fairhaven’s police station is sleepier than Donna is used to.
Today, however, she found herself at the Coopers Chase Retirement Village. It seemed innocuous enough. Lush, untroubled, sedate, and on her drive in she spotted a nice pub for lunch on the way home. So getting serial killers in headlocks on speedboats would have to wait.
“Security,” Donna began, though she was really thinking about whether she should get a tattoo. A dolphin on her lower back? Or would that be too cliché? “What do we mean when we say the word security? Well, I think that word means different things to different . . .”
A hand shot up in the front row. Which was not normally how this went, but in for a penny. An immaculately dressed woman in her eighties had a point to make.
“Dear, I think we’re all hoping this won’t be a talk about window locks.” The woman looked around her and picked up murmured support.
A gentleman hemmed in by a walking frame in the second row was next. “And no ID cards, please; we know about ID cards. ‘Are you really from the gas board, or are you a burglar?’ We’ve got it, I promise.”
A free-for-all had commenced.
“It’s not the gas board anymore. It’s Centrica,” said a man in a very smart three-piece suit.
The man sitting next to him, wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a West Ham United shirt, took this opportunity to stand up and stab a finger in no particular direction. “It’s thanks to Thatcher that, Ibrahim. We used to own it.”
“Oh, do sit down, Ron,” the well-dressed woman had said. Then she looked at Donna and added, “Sorry about Ron,” with a slow shake of her head. The comments had continued to fly.
“And what criminal wouldn’t be able to forge an ID document?”
“I’ve got cataracts. You could show me a library card and I’d let you in.”
“They don’t even check the meter now, dear. It’s all on the web.”
“It’s on the cloud, dear.”
“I’d welcome a burglar. It would be nice to have a visitor.”
There had been the briefest of lulls. An atonal symphony of whistles began as some hearing aids were turned up, while others were switched off. The woman in the front row had taken charge again.
“So . . . and I’m Elizabeth, by the way . . . no window locks, please, and no ID cards, and no need to tell us we mustn’t give our PIN to Nigerians over the phone. If I am still allowed to say Nigerians.”
Donna De Freitas had regrouped. She was aware she was no longer contemplating pub lunches or tattoos, but was instead thinking about a riot training course back in the good old days in South London.
“Well, what shall we talk about, then?” Donna asked. “I have to do at least forty-five minutes, or I don’t get the time off in lieu.”
“Institutional sexism in the police force?” said Elizabeth.
“I’d like to talk about the illegal shooting of Mark Duggan, sanctioned by the state and—”
“Sit down, Ron!”
So it went on, enjoyably and agreeably, until the hour was up, whereupon Donna was warmly thanked, shown pictures of grandchildren, and then invited to stay for lunch.
And so here she is, picking at her salad, in what the menu describes as a “contemporary upscale restaurant.” Eleven forty-five is a little early for her to have lunch, but it wouldn’t have been polite to refuse the invitation.
She notes that her four hosts are not only tucking in to full lunches but have also cracked open a bottle of red wine.
“That really was wonderful, Donna,” says Elizabeth. “We enjoyed it tremendously.” Elizabeth looks to Donna like the sort of teacher who terrifies you all year but then gives you a grade A and cries when you leave. Perhaps it’s the tweed jacket.
“It was blinding, Donna,” says Ron. “Can I call you Donna, love?”
“You can call me Donna, but maybe don’t call me love,” says Donna.
“Quite right, darling,” agrees Ron. “Noted. That story about the Ukrainian with the parking ticket and the chainsaw, though? You should do after-dinner speaking; there’s money in it. I know someone, if you’d like a number?”
The salad is delicious, thinks Donna, and it’s not often she thinks that.
“I would have made a terrific heroin smuggler, I think.” This was Ibrahim, who earlier raised the point about Centrica.
“It’s just logistics, isn’t it? There’s all the weighing too, which I would enjoy, very precise.
And they have machines to count money. All the mod cons.
Have you ever captured a heroin dealer, PC De Freitas? ”
“No,” admits Donna. “It’s on my list, though.”
“But I’m right that they have machines to count money?” asks Ibrahim.
“They do, yes,” says Donna.
“Wonderful,” says Ibrahim, and downs his glass of wine.
“We bore easily,” adds Elizabeth, also polishing off a glass. “God save us from window locks, WPC De Freitas.”
“It’s just PC now,” says Donna.
“I see,” says Elizabeth, lips pursing. “And what happens if I still choose to say WPC? Will there be a warrant for my arrest?”
“No, but I’ll think a bit less of you,” says Donna. “Because it’s a really simple thing to do, and it’s more respectful to me.”
“Damn, checkmate, okay,” says Elizabeth, unpursing her lips.
“Thank you,” says Donna.
“Guess how old I am,” challenges Ibrahim.
Donna hesitates. Ibrahim has a nice suit, and he has great skin. He smells wonderful. A handkerchief is artfully folded in his breast pocket. Hair thinning but still there. No paunch, and just the one chin. And yet underneath it all? Hmmm. Donna looks at Ibrahim’s hands. Always the giveaway.
“Eighty?” she ventures.
She sees the wind depart Ibrahim’s sails. “Yes, spot-on, but I look younger. I look about seventy-four. Everyone agrees. The secret is Pilates.”
“And what’s your story, Joyce?” Donna asks the fourth member of the group, a small white-haired woman in a lavender blouse and mauve cardigan.
She is sitting very happily, taking it all in.
Mouth closed but eyes bright. Like a quiet bird, constantly on the lookout for something sparkling in the sunshine.
“Me?” says Joyce. “No story at all. I was a nurse, and then a mum, and then a nurse again. Nothing to see here, I’m afraid.”
Elizabeth gives a short snort. “Don’t be taken in by Joyce, PC De Freitas. She is the type who ‘gets things done.’”
“I’m just organized,” says Joyce. “It’s out of fashion. If I say I’m going to Zumba, I go to Zumba. That’s just me. My daughter is the interesting one in the family. She runs a hedge fund, if you know what one is?”
“Not really,” admits Donna.
“No,” agrees Joyce.
“Zumba is before Pilates,” says Ibrahim. “I don’t like to do both. It’s counterintuitive to your major muscle groups.”
A question has been nagging at Donna throughout lunch. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, I know you all live at Coopers Chase, but how did the four of you become friends?”
“Friends?” Elizabeth seems amused. “Oh, we’re not friends, dear.”
Ron is chuckling. “Christ, love, no, we’re not friends. Do you need a top-up, Liz?”
Elizabeth nods and Ron pours. They are on a second bottle. It is twelve fifteen.
Ibrahim agrees. “I don’t think friends is the word. We wouldn’t choose to socialize; we have very different interests. I like Ron, I suppose, but he can be very difficult.”
Ron nods. “I’m very difficult.”
“And Elizabeth’s manner is off-putting.”
Elizabeth nods as well. “There it is, I’m afraid. I’ve always been an acquired taste. Since school.”
“I like Joyce, I suppose. I think we all like Joyce,” says Ibrahim.
Ron and Elizabeth nod their agreement again.
“Thank you, I’m sure,” says Joyce, chasing peas around her plate. “Don’t you think someone should invent flat peas?”
Donna tries to clear up her confusion. “So if you aren’t friends, then what are you?”
She sees Joyce look up and shake her head at the others, this unlikely gang.
“Well,” says Joyce. “Firstly, we are friends, of course; this lot are just a little slow catching on. And secondly, if it didn’t say on your invitation, PC De Freitas, then it was my oversight. We’re the Thursday Murder Club.”
Elizabeth is going glassy-eyed with red wine, Ron is scratching at a West Ham tattoo on his neck, and Ibrahim is polishing an already-polished cufflink.
The restaurant is filling up around them, and Donna is not the first visitor to Coopers Chase to think this wouldn’t be the worst place to live.
She would kill for a glass of wine and an afternoon off.
“Also I swim every day,” concludes Ibrahim. “It keeps the skin tight.”
What was this place?