Chapter 89
It is too late to be in the Fairhaven police station, but Donna and Chris have nowhere else to be.
Chris kneels and unblocks the paper jam in the photocopier. He finds it hard to kneel without cramping up these days. He isn’t sure what that is. Too much salt, or not enough salt? It’s one or the other.
“Fixed it,” he tells Donna.
Donna presses “Print” and makes a series of copies of the reports she’s been sent by the Cypriot Police Service.
“I’ll bind them all together for you,” she says. “It’ll take a while, but it’ll be easier for you.”
“Very kind, Donna,” says Chris. “But you’re still not coming to Cyprus with me.”
She sticks out her tongue.
Chris has a very interesting interview lined up. One that should tell them once and for all where Johnny Gunduz is.
Johnny’s name had not appeared on any of the passenger lists that Donna had waded through.
No flight, no boat, no train, either in or out of the UK.
But Chris supposes that Johnny is unlikely to still be using his old name.
Not when the police had been hunting him down for the murder of the young cabbie and Tony Curran had been hunting him down for the hundred grand he had stolen.
But no one could simply disappear. There would be a trace somewhere.
Chris shuts down his computer. He feels sure that Turkish Johnny is their man; he’s been around long enough to sense when something fits perfectly. Evidence is another thing, but he hopes the trip to Nicosia will help him out there.
“Shall we call it a night?”
“Quick drink?” says Donna. “Pont Noir?”
“Six-fifty flight in the morning,” says Chris.
“Don’t rub it in.”
He stands and pulls down his office blinds.
Johnny was one thing, but Ian Ventham? That was harder.
Was he really connected to a murder from fifty years ago?
Surely not? How many people could there be?
Chris even had two DIs tracking down nuns in case they could remember anything.
Surely some of them had left at some point?
Lost their calling and gone out into the real world?
What would they be now? Eighty-odd? Records were sketchy, though, and he held out little hope.
Or were they all missing something simpler?
“Don’t crack the case while I’m gone, please.”
“I can’t promise anything,” says Donna.
Chris picks up his briefcase. Time to go home. Always the worst time. His dream life remains just one stone away. But in his briefcase there is a packet of McCoy’s salt and vinegar crisps, a Wispa chocolate bar, and a Diet Coke. Diet Coke? Who did Chris think he was kidding?
Sometimes Chris thinks he should join a dating website. In his mind his perfect date would be a divorced teacher who had a small dog and sang in a choir. But he’d be happy to be proved wrong. Just someone kind and funny, really.
He holds the door open for Donna, then follows her out.
What kind of woman would want him? Did women really mind a bit of extra timber these days? Well, yes, he was sure they did, but even so? He was just about to solve a murder, and surely somewhere in the whole of Kent there was someone who might find that attractive?