Chapter 18
Donna motions for her two visitors to sit.
They are in interview suite B, a boxy windowless room with a wooden table bolted to the floor.
Joyce looks around her with the excitement of a tourist. Elizabeth looks at home.
Donna has her eyes on the heavy door, waiting for it to swing shut.
The moment it clicks into place, she looks straight at Elizabeth.
“So you’re a nun now, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth nods quickly, raising a finger to acknowledge that this is a good question.
“Donna, like any modern woman, I am any number of things, as and when the need arises. We have to be chameleons, don’t we?
” She takes a notepad and pen from an inside coat pocket and places them on the table.
“But Joyce takes the credit for that one.”
Joyce is still staring around the room. “This is exactly like you see on television, PC De Freitas. How wonderful. It must be so much fun to work here.”
Donna is not sharing in the sense of awe. “So, Elizabeth. Have you had a bag stolen?”
“No, dear,” says Elizabeth. “Good luck to anyone trying to steal my bag. Can you imagine?”
“Then can I ask what the two of you are doing here? I have work that needs finishing.”
Elizabeth nods. “Of course; that’s very reasonable. Well, I’m here because I wanted to talk to you about something. And Joyce was here for shopping, I presume. Joyce? I realize I haven’t asked.”
“I like to go to Anything with a Pulse, the vegan café, if you know it?”
Donna looks at her watch, then leans forward. “Well, here I am. If you want to talk, go ahead. I’ll give you two minutes before I go back to catching criminals.”
Elizabeth gives a light clap of her hands. “Excellent. Well, first I will say this. Stop pretending you are not pleased to see us again, because I know that you are. And we’re pleased to see you again. This will be so much more fun if we can all just accept that.”
Donna does not reply. Joyce leans into the tape recorder sitting on the table. “For the purposes of the tape, PC De Freitas refuses to answer but is attempting to hide a slight smile.”
“Secondly, but connected to that,” continues Elizabeth, “whatever it is we are keeping you from, I know one thing for certain, it isn’t catching criminals. It is something boring.”
“No comment,” deadpans Donna.
“Where are you from, Donna? May I call you Donna?”
“You may. I’m from South London.”
“Transferred from the Met?”
Donna nods. Elizabeth makes a note in her book.
“You’re taking notes?” asks Donna.
Elizabeth nods. “Why so? And why to Fairhaven?”
“That’s a story for another day. You have one more question before I leave the room. Fun though this is.”
“Of course,” replies Elizabeth. She shuts her notebook and adjusts her glasses. “Well, I have a statement, really, but I promise it ends with a question.”
Donna turns up her palms, inviting Elizabeth to continue.
“This is what I see, and I know you’ll stop me if I misspeak.
You are in your midtwenties, you give the impression of being clever and intuitive.
You also give the impression of being very kind, yet very handy should a fight erupt.
For reasons we will get to the bottom of, almost certainly a doomed relationship, you have left London, where I would have thought the life and the work would have suited you to a T.
You find yourself here, in Fairhaven, where the crime is minor and the criminals are petty.
And you are pounding the streets. Maybe a junkie steals a bicycle, Donna; maybe someone drives off from a petrol station without paying; maybe there’s a fight, over a girl, in a pub.
Goodness me, what a bore. For reasons that are not of importance, I once worked in a bar in the former Yugoslavia for three months, and my brain was screaming out for excitement, for stimulation, for something extraordinary to happen.
Does that sound familiar? You are single, you are living in a rented flat, you have not found it easy to make friends in the town.
Most of your colleagues in the station are a bit old for you.
I’m sure that young PC, Mark, has asked you out, but there’s no way he could handle a South London girl, so you had to say no.
You both still find it awkward. That poor boy.
Your pride won’t allow you to go back to the Met for a good while, and so you’re stuck here for the time being.
You’re still the new girl, so promotion is a pretty distant prospect, added to the fact you’re not all that popular because, deep down, everyone can tell you’ve made a mistake and you resent being here.
You can’t even quit. Why throw away these years on the force, the tough years, just because of a wrong turn?
So you strap on the uniform and you turn up, shift after shift, teeth gritted, just waiting for something extraordinary to happen.
Like, perhaps, a woman who isn’t a nun pretending her bag has been stolen. ”
Elizabeth raises an eyebrow at Donna, looking for a response. Donna is utterly impassive, utterly unimpressed. “I’m still waiting for the question, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth nods, then opens her notebook again. “My question is this. Wouldn’t you like to be investigating the Tony Curran murder?”
There is silence as Donna slowly weaves her hands together and rests her chin on them. She considers Elizabeth very carefully before speaking.
“There is already a team investigating the Tony Curran murder, Elizabeth. A highly qualified murder squad. I recently delivered tea to it. They don’t really have a vacancy for a PC who tuts every time she gets asked to do the photocopying.
Have you ever thought it’s possible you don’t really understand how the police works? ”
Elizabeth notes this down, and talks as she writes. “Mmm, that is possible. How complicated it all must be. But a lot of fun, I imagine?”
“I imagine too,” agrees Donna.
“They say he was bludgeoned,” says Elizabeth. “With a spanner. Could you confirm that?”
“No comment, Elizabeth,” says Donna.
Elizabeth stops writing and looks up again. “Wouldn’t you like to be part of it, Donna?”
Donna starts to drum her fingers on the desk. “Okay. Let’s just suppose I would like to be involved in the murder investigation.”
“Yes, quite, let’s suppose that. Let’s start there, and see where we get to.”
“You do understand how CID works, Elizabeth? I can’t simply ask to be assigned to a particular investigation.”
Elizabeth smiles. “Oh, goodness, don’t you worry about that, Donna. We can take care of it all.”
“You can take care of it?”
“I should have thought so, yes.”
“How?” asks Donna.
“Well, there’s always a way, isn’t there? But you would be interested? If we could make it happen?”
Donna looks back to the heavy door, safely shut. “When could you make that happen, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth looks at her watch and gives a small shrug. “An hour, perhaps?”
“And this conversation never leaves this room?”
Elizabeth puts a finger to her lips.
“Then I would. Yes, please.” Donna holds up her hands, open and honest. “If this doesn’t sound too juvenile, I would really, really like to chase murderers.”
Elizabeth smiles and puts her notebook back in her pocket. “Well, this is smashing. I thought I had read the situation correctly.”
“What’s in it for you?” asks Donna.
“Nothing, other than a favor to a new friend. And we might have the odd question here or there, about the investigation. Just to satisfy our curiosity.”
“You know I couldn’t tell you anything confidential. That’s not a deal I can agree to.”
“Nothing unprofessional, I promise you.” Elizabeth crosses herself. “As a woman of God.”
“And in an hour, you say?”
Elizabeth looks at her watch. “I’d say about an hour. Depending on the traffic.”
Donna nods as if this makes complete sense. “About your little speech, though, Elizabeth. I don’t know if it was designed to impress me or to show off in front of Joyce, but it was pretty obvious stuff.”
Elizabeth concedes the point. “Obvious, but right, dear.”
“Almost right, but you’re not quite Miss Marple. Is she, Joyce?”
Joyce pipes up. “Oh yes, that boy Mark is gay, Elizabeth. You’d have to be fairly blind to miss that.”
Donna smiles. “Lucky you have your friend with you, sister.” She likes that Elizabeth is attempting to hide a smile of her own.
“I’ll need your mobile number, by the way, Donna,” says Elizabeth. “I don’t really want to fake a crime every time I need to see you.”
Donna slides a card over the table.
“I hope that’s a personal number and not an official one,” says Elizabeth. “It would be nice to have some privacy.”
Donna looks at Elizabeth, shakes her head, and sighs. She writes down another number on the card.
“Lovely,” says Elizabeth. “I suspect between us we can find whoever killed Tony Curran. It can’t be beyond the wit of man. Or rather woman.”
Donna stands. “Should I ask how you can get me on the investigating team, Elizabeth? Or don’t I want to know?”
Elizabeth checks her watch. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with. Ron and Ibrahim should be taking care of it about now.”
Joyce waits for Elizabeth to stand too, then leans into the tape recorder once again. “Interview terminated, twelve forty-seven p.m.”