Chapter 115
Joyce
Sorry I haven’t written for a while; it’s been very busy around here. But I have a gooseberry crumble on the go, and I thought there might be a few things you’d want to know.
They buried Penny and John the Tuesday before last. It was quite a quiet one, and it rained, which seemed about right.
There were a few old colleagues of Penny’s there.
In fact, more than you would think, considering.
It had been in the papers, Penny and John.
They hadn’t got the whole story straight, but they were near enough.
The news had got wind that Penny was a friend of Ron’s too.
He was interviewed on Kent Today, and they even showed it on the normal news later.
Someone came down from The Sun to talk to him, but Ron was having none of that.
He told them to park outside Larkin Court and then had them clamped.
Elizabeth wasn’t at the funeral. We haven’t discussed it, so that’s that, I’m afraid. I wonder if she had already said her good-bye. She must have, mustn’t she?
I don’t even know if Elizabeth has forgiven Penny. I’m afraid I take the Old Testament view that what Penny did was right. That’s just me, and it’s not something I would say out loud, but I’m glad she did what she did. I hope Peter Mercer was alive long enough to know what was happening to him.
Elizabeth is a good deal cleverer than me, and will have thought about it more. But I can’t see that she could really blame Penny for what she did. Would Elizabeth have done the same? I think so. I think Elizabeth would have got away with it, though.
But I do think Elizabeth must be sad at the secret. There were the two girls, Elizabeth and Penny, and their mysteries, and all the while Penny was the biggest mystery of all. That must hurt Elizabeth. Perhaps one day we’ll talk about it.
Penny killed Peter Mercer, and she kept it from John all her life.
Until dementia broke her. And once John knew, he had to protect her.
That’s love, isn’t it? That’s what Gerry would have done for me.
Because Peter Mercer murdered Annie Madeley, Penny murdered Peter Mercer.
Because Penny murdered Peter Mercer, John murdered Ian Ventham.
So it goes, I suppose. And at least now it’s done.
I wish peace on Penny and John, and I wish peace on poor Annie Madeley.
For Peter Mercer, and for everything he caused, I wish nothing but torment.
The police have yet to find Turkish Johnny, by the way, but they’re looking.
Chris and Donna have popped over here a couple of times.
Chris has a new lady friend, but is being coy about it for now, and we can’t get Donna to talk.
Chris says they’ll catch up with Johnny eventually, but Bogdan was round to fix my power shower the other day, and he says Johnny is too smart for that.
If you really want my view, Johnny is far too convenient. He came over and killed Tony for informing on him all those years ago? Why would Tony have informed on him? For his part in cleaning up a murder that Tony committed? That makes no sense to me.
No, the only person too smart to be caught around here is Bogdan.
Don’t you think he killed Tony Curran? I do.
I’m sure he had a good reason, and I look forward to asking him.
But not until he’s fitted my new replacement window, because what if he takes offense?
I wonder if Elizabeth suspects him too. She certainly hasn’t mentioned chasing down Johnny recently, so perhaps she does.
I will have to check the crumble in a bit. Shall we get on to more pleasant tidings?
Hillcrest is already up and running; there are cranes and diggers up on the hill.
They say Gordon Playfair got ￡4.2 million for his land, and by “they” I mean Elizabeth, so you can take it as gospel.
He said good-bye to the house he’d lived in for seventy years and packed his belongings into a Land Rover and trailer.
Then he drove the four hundred–odd yards down the hill and unpacked it all at a nice two-bedroom in Larkin Court.
Bramley Holdings gave him the flat as part of the deal, which brings us on to another bit of news.
Bramley Holdings? It wasn’t about apples after all. I told you, though, that the name had rung a bell. Well, here’s why.
When she was very young, Joanna had a little toy elephant, pink with white ears, and she would never let me wash it.
I can’t imagine the germs it carried, but I think that’s not necessarily a bad thing with children.
And the name of that elephant? Bramley. I had quite forgotten.
She had so many toys, and I’m a terrible mother.
Perhaps you see where this is going, though.
You remember we had taken Ventham’s accounts to Joanna, of course, back when Elizabeth wondered if Ian Ventham had murdered Tony Curran?
Anyway, Joanna and Cornelius had looked through the accounts for us, and they’d reported back, and that was the end of the matter.
But for Joanna it hadn’t been the end of the matter at all. Not a bit of it.
Joanna and Cornelius had liked what they saw in the accounts.
And they had liked what they read about Hillcrest. So Joanna had made a presentation to the other board members—this scene, in my head, is around the airplane wing table—and then they bought the company.
She was planning to buy it from Ian Ventham but, of course, ended up buying it from his widow, Gemma. So isn’t that a turn up?
Joanna owns the whole place. Or Joanna’s company, but that’s the same thing, isn’t it?
Now, this leads me on to Bernard, and you’ll see why.
Joanna and I had never talked about Bernard, but she came down to be with me at the funeral, so had Elizabeth told her, perhaps?
Or did she just know? I think she just knew.
So she came down and she held my hand, and in a weaker moment I put my head on her shoulder, and that was nice.
After the funeral she told me about Bramley Holdings.
I pretended I had known all along, because I felt guilty about forgetting the elephant, but Joanna sees straight through me.
We talked, and I told her I didn’t think this was the sort of business they bought, and she agreed, but she said it was “a sector we have been keen to get into.” I see straight through her too, though, and she admitted that was a lie.
She did say there was plenty of money to be made, but she told me she had another reason too. Which I’ll tell you now.
She sat on the lounger that she bought me, and here is what she said.
“Remember when you moved in here, and I told you it was a mistake? I told you it would be the end of you? Sitting in your chair, surrounded by other people just waiting out their days? I was wrong. It was the beginning of you, Mum. I thought I would never see you happy again after Dad died.”
(We had never talked about this. Both our faults.)
“Your eyes are alive, your laugh is back, and it’s thanks to Coopers Chase, and to Elizabeth, and to Ron and Ibrahim, and to Bernard, God rest his soul.
And so I bought it—the company, the land, the whole development.
And I bought it to say thank you, Mum. Though I know what you’re going to say next, and I promise I will also make millions out of it, so don’t panic. ”
Well, I wasn’t panicking, but that was what I was going to say next.
And so a couple of things you will want to know.
The Garden of Eternal Rest is staying exactly where it is.
Joanna says they’ll make quite enough money out of Hillcrest, so the Woodlands has been quietly shelved.
The graveyard is now protected, even if Coopers Chase is sold again (Joanna says they will sell it again one day; that’s their job).
But just you try and buy it—you’ll see there are all sorts of covenants in place. It’s going nowhere.
By the way, just now, when I said it was both our faults that we hadn’t talked about Gerry? Of course it wasn’t both our faults. It was my fault. Sorry, Joanna.
We had a ceremony the other day. Elizabeth invited Matthew Mackie for lunch, and along he came, no dog collar this time.
We broke the news to him that Maggie was safe, and I thought he would cry, but he didn’t; he just asked to visit the grave.
We walked up the hill with him, then we sat on Bernard and Asima’s bench while he pushed open the iron gates and knelt beside the grave.
That was when the tears came, as we knew they would when he saw the headstone.
I had watched a couple of days ago as Bogdan had spent the best part of the morning gently cleaning up the inscription “Sister Margaret Anne, Margaret Farrell, 1948–1971,” before carving underneath, “Patrick, 1971.” There really is nothing Bogdan can’t do.
When Father Mackie broke down at this, we sent Ron to hold him, and the two of them stayed there quite some while. Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and I stayed on the bench and took in the view. I like it when men cry. Not too much, but this was just right.
There are always plenty of flowers on Maggie’s grave now. I’ve added some of my own, and I’m sure you can guess where I get them delivered from.
You’ll want to know about the bench too. Well, busy Bogdan took to the concrete with a pneumatic drill, then dug down until he found the tiger tea caddy, which he gave to me.
In Bernard’s final letter there was rather a moving postscript, in which he had asked that his ashes be scattered off the pier in Fairhaven. I have it here.
“Part of me and part of Asima will always be together right here. But she is floating free in holy waters, so let me drift on the tide until one day I find her again,” he had said. Very poetic, Bernard, I’m sure.
Too poetic.
You and I know Bernard well enough to know that this was sentimental bunk.
It was a message to me, and it wasn’t exactly the Enigma code.
I wonder if Bernard might have thought I was a little thick, but I suppose he wanted it spelled out, just in case.
Anyway, I knew Bernard had given me my instructions.
Sudhi and Majid had stayed at an airport hotel after the funeral, because that’s their way, and I had offered to keep Bernard’s ashes safe until they headed down to Fairhaven. When will these two learn?
I had Asima’s ashes in the tea caddy, and I had Bernard’s ashes in a simple wooden urn. I took out my scales. Proper ones, because I don’t trust the electronic ones.
I was very careful tipping out the ashes, because, much as I liked Bernard, I didn’t want him all over my worktop. Within minutes, and with the help of a couple of intermediary bits of Tupperware (I felt a bit guilty about that), the deed was done.
In the tiger tea caddy that they had both wanted to buy the other for Christmas was half Bernard and half Asima. The next day we buried the tea caddy back under the bench where it belonged. We asked Matthew Mackie to bless the site, and I think he was touched to be asked. He did a lovely job.
And in the urn, half Asima and half Bernard. And unbeknownst to them, that’s what Sudhi and Majid took to Fairhaven the following day, so Asima could finally float free, but still in the embrace of the man she loved. We didn’t join them, as we didn’t really want to interfere.
I honestly don’t know what to do with the Tupperware I used.
If you’ve used two Tupperware containers to help mix the ashes of a dear friend and the woman he loved without letting their child know, is it more disrespectful to keep them or to throw them away?
This is honestly not the sort of thing I had to worry about before I moved to Coopers Chase. Elizabeth will know what to do.
Talking of Elizabeth, she rang me earlier to tell me that someone had slid a very interesting note under her door. She wouldn’t say what it was, but she said she’d have to pay someone a little visit, and then she could tell me. What a tease.
Well, it is Thursday, so I must be on my way.
I worried that after Penny we might stop meeting, or perhaps it would feel different.
But that’s not really how things work around here.
Life goes on, until it doesn’t. The Thursday Murder Club goes on meeting, mysterious notes are pushed under doors, and murderers fit replacement windows. Long may it continue.
After the meeting I will pop over and see how Gordon Playfair is settling in. Just being a good neighbor, before you ask.
And right on time, there’s my crumble. I will let you know how everything goes.