Chapter 48
Elizabeth is not at the scene. Instead, after dropping Stephen at home, she has taken a route up through Blunts Wood, and as she clears the tree line, she steps onto the broad path leading up to the Garden of Eternal Rest. She walks up the path until she reaches the wooden bench, Bernard Cottle’s bench, where she sits and waits.
She looks down toward Coopers Chase. The path curves toward the bottom, so the barricade is out of sight, but she can hear the polite disturbance at the bottom of the hill.
Always look where the action isn’t, because that’s where the action is.
A part of her is surprised that Joyce hasn’t made the walk up the hill too.
Perhaps she lacks some of Elizabeth’s instincts after all.
Elizabeth hears a rustling coming from the trees about twenty yards down on the other side of the path, and that rustling very soon turns into the figure of Bogdan emerging from the trees, with a shovel over his shoulder.
He heads up the path, nodding to Elizabeth as he passes. “Missus,” he says. If he had a cap, Elizabeth felt sure he would doff it.
“Bogdan,” she replies. “I know you have work to do, but I wonder if I might ask you a question.”
He stops his walk, lowers the shovel from his shoulder, and rests his weight on the handle. “Please,” he replies.
Elizabeth was thinking things through last night. Really—Ventham arrives, gets inside, makes his way to the kitchen, and then kills Tony Curran within two minutes? She’d seen it done before, but not by an amateur. So what was she missing?
“Did Mr. Ventham tell you he wanted Tony Curran murdered?” asks Elizabeth. “After their row? Perhaps he asked you to help? Perhaps you did help?”
Bogdan considers her for a moment, not fazed.
“I know that’s three questions—forgive an old woman,” adds Elizabeth.
“Well, is only one answer, so is okay,” begins Bogdan. “No, he didn’t tell me, and no he didn’t ask, so no I didn’t help.”
Elizabeth gives this her consideration. “All the same, it’s worked out nicely for you? You have a lucrative new job, don’t you?”
“Yes,” agrees Bogdan, nodding.
“Can I ask if you fitted Tony Curran’s alarm system?”
Bogdan nods. “Sure, Ian gets me to do all that stuff for people.”
“So you could have got in, very easily? Waited for him?”
“Sure. Would have been simple.”
Elizabeth hears more cars pulling up at the bottom of the path.
“I know I’m being rude in asking, but if Ian Ventham had wanted Tony Curran dead, might he have asked you to do it? Is that the sort of relationship you have?”
“He trust me,” says Bogdan, thinking. “So I think maybe he would ask me, yes.”
“And what might you have said? If he had asked you?”
“There are some jobs I do, like fix alarms, tile swimming pools, and there are some jobs I don’t do, like kill people. So, if he ask, I say, ‘Listen, maybe you have good reason,’ but I would say, ‘Kill him yourself, Ian.’ You know?”
“Well, I agree,” says Elizabeth, nodding. “You’re absolutely sure you didn’t kill Tony Curran, though?”
Bogdan laughs. “I am absolutely sure. I would remember.”
“This has turned into a lot of questions, Bogdan, I’m sorry,” says Elizabeth.
“Is okay,” says Bogdan, looking at his watch. “Is still early, and I like to talk.”
“Where are you from, Bogdan?”
“Poland.”
“Yes, I’d got that. Which part?”
“Near Krakow. You heard of Krakow?”
Elizabeth certainly has heard of Krakow. “I have, yes; it’s a very beautiful city. In fact I went there, many years ago.”
It was in 1968, to be exact, to conduct an informal interview on trade delegation business with a young Polish army colonel.
The Polish army colonel later went on to very happily run a bookmakers in Coulsdon, and had an MBE for services to the British State, which stayed in a locked drawer until the day he died.
Bogdan looks out over the Kent hills. He then holds out a hand. “I should work. It is nice to meet you.”
“It is nice to meet you too. My name is Marina,” says Elizabeth as she shakes his huge hand.
“Marina?” repeats Bogdan. His smile returns once again, like a baby deer attempting to walk. “Marina is my mother’s name.”
“How lovely,” says Elizabeth. She’s not proud of herself, but you never know when this sort of thing could come in handy. And really, if someone is going to have so much personal information tattooed on his body, what is she expected to do? “I hope to see you again, Bogdan.”
“I hope to see you too, Marina.”
Elizabeth watches as he continues up the path, swings open the heavy iron gates, and takes his shovel into the Garden of Eternal Rest.
There is more than one type of digger, thinks Elizabeth, as she starts to walk back down the hill.
She thinks of another question she should have asked.
Does Ian Ventham have the same alarm system as Tony Curran?
If so, it would have been an easy job for him to get into Tony Curran’s house.
Had he needed to. She would bet he does.
She will ask Bogdan the next time she sees him.
When Elizabeth reaches the barricade, she finds that the gate has been padlocked, and that the padlock is being guarded by three women, including Maureen Gadd, who plays bridge with Derek Archer. Very badly, in Elizabeth’s view.
Elizabeth climbs the gate and makes the small jump on the other side back into the heart of the action.
How many more years of that? Three or four?
She spies Ian Ventham climbing out of his car as Chris Hudson and Donna De Freitas approach.
Time to join in the fun, she thinks, and taps Joyce on the shoulder.
Bernard is asleep in the chair next to her, which at least explains why Joyce hadn’t come snooping.
In theory, she approves of chasing after men, if that’s what you wanted to do, but surely Joyce must find it exhausting?