Chapter 72
Joyce
There was a jolly atmosphere, but when Austin laid the pile of bones on my dining table, while we still knew it was an adventure, I think they began to have a sobering effect on all of us. Even Ron.
It is all very well, the Thursday Murder Club, and all our derring-do, and the freedom of age, and whatever we like to tell ourselves. But someone had died, however long ago it might have happened.
There was no way around it, we couldn’t conjure a single good reason why the extra body was there. On closer inspection, fueled by orange drizzle cake (Nigella), Austin was fairly sure that the body was a man, so it wasn’t a nun.
But who was he? And who had killed him? The first step to finding out the answers would be to discover when he had been killed. Thirty years ago? Fifty years ago? There was a big difference.
Austin explained he would take the bones away and do further tests.
After everybody had left, I googled him and it turns out he is a Sir.
I can’t say I was surprised; he really did know a great deal about bones.
Quite what he made of standing in a grave at ten at night in his eighties is his business, but I suppose any friend of Elizabeth is probably used to these things.
Three sugars in his tea too, though you wouldn’t know by looking at him.
And then the biggest question of all, of course. You’ll be ahead of me here. Had the motive been found for one much more recent murder? Did someone else know the bones were hidden there? Was Ian Ventham killed to protect the Garden of Eternal Rest and the secret of those bones?
We talked for around an hour, I suppose.
Were we right not to involve the police?
We will have to tell them eventually, but the feeling was that this is our story, our graveyard, our home, and just for the time being, we wanted to keep it for ourselves.
As soon as we get the results from Austin we will have to tell all, of course.
So we are trying to solve two murders—possibly three, if the skeleton was murdered. Or, I should say, if the skeleton is of someone who was murdered. Is a skeleton a person? That’s a question for greater minds than mine.
I know Elizabeth is keen to track down Bobby and Johnny, but we all agreed the bones have to take precedence for now.
I wonder if Chris and Donna are making any progress? We certainly haven’t heard if they have. I do hope they’re not keeping anything from us.