Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
Catherine smiled at Marco, the square-jawed waiter. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.
“I’m sure my friends won’t be long.” Catherine thought she had to start dragging the others out once in a while.
The fancy café with the tattooed staff was as adventurous as it had got.
They were in London, for heaven’s sake. Hampstead was on their doorstep, with its charming little Italian restaurants, and Vietnamese and Indian and Greek and Lebanese and Turkish, and yet when they ate together they always ate here, in the home’s on-site restaurant, the Apple Tree.
It felt sanitary to Catherine, as if everything had been bought from a website called .
They could have been in a four-star chain-hotel restaurant anywhere in the world. It had no character.
There was also the fact that every one of the diners was elderly.
Catherine was to blame, of course. She’d chosen to be here, but she’d retired from work, not the world.
She had not intended to sequester herself like this.
She was an old person and she was in an old person’s development, but that wasn’t all she was.
She’d have liked to be around young people, too, and yet she’d voluntarily hidden herself away from them.
It was all Nigel’s fault, of course. Bastard.
They’d always planned on retiring to the South of France together.
They’d never got as far as buying a place, but Annecy looked nice.
Catherine had even been brushing up on her French in preparation, diligently hitting her targets on the app on her phone.
Then Nigel left her.
For a younger woman.
On Christmas Day.
Bastard.
Everyone agreed that Nigel was making a fool of himself, he was being an idiot, embarrassing—“a total wally” was a common phrase.
And they were right but that didn’t make it any less heartbreaking.
Heartbreak, actual heartbreak, in her midseventies.
She was prepared for grief—with Nigel’s diet she’d thought it inevitable that he’d go first—but heartbreak? It was ridiculous.
Emily was her name. Fiftyish, blond, pretty but in a way, Catherine thought, that you could tell she put rather a lot of effort into it.
What galled Catherine most was how Emily reduced her.
Catherine had been blond and pretty in her day, still got compliments now, but that wasn’t all she was.
She was a doctor and a mother and bloody good company, actually.
All this time, despite everything she’d achieved, had she been nothing more than a trophy wife to Nigel?
Sure, they’d had fun together, good conversations, some lovely children, some lovely holidays, but ultimately once the wrinkles had set in and the hair had gone gray, had she lost her value in his eyes? Like one of his stocks?
Bastard.
So Sheldon Oaks had seemed like a good choice.
She didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to be the old lady on the street everyone smiled at but never spoke to.
Didn’t want to be a burden on her children.
Jack, her eldest, had suggested here, and Catherine wasn’t too proud to see that it made sense.
Still in London, near two of her three kids, pleasant, close to theaters and whatnot and with its own little community.
“Sorry we’re late,” said Margaret, waddling up to the table and putting down her handbag. “We bumped into each other in the foyer and there was an electrician fixing something and Geoffrey started explaining to him how to rewire a plug and why British plugs are the best in the world.”
“They are,” said Geoffrey, sitting down. “Nothing will make you more patriotic than an American socket. Evening, Catherine.”
“Evening.”
They ordered and ate. Cod for Catherine, chicken for Margaret, lamb for Geoffrey, a bottle of sauvignon blanc between them, of which Geoffrey had the bulk.
Belinda’s performance in the hall was the first topic of conversation.
“Did you know that they were an item?” asked Catherine.
“I’m not sure they were,” said Margaret. “Not exclusively, anyway. Belinda seems to have worked her way through every gentleman here.”
“Not this one,” said Geoffrey proudly.
“I bet you would, though, wouldn’t you?” said Catherine.
“Please. My years of carnal desire have long gone.” Then, after a pause for consideration, Geoffrey conceded, “Yes, probably.”
“Urgh, honestly,” said Catherine. “You disappoint me.”
“Is she on our list of suspects, do we think?” said Margaret.
“You can start a list, if you like, but I’m telling you now, Carol did it,” said Geoffrey.
Catherine frowned. “That seems like a rush to judgment. I can see why she’s a suspect, a big one, but we don’t actually have any evidence, do we? Geoffrey, I felt a little sorry for her when you spoke about her in the hall.”
“Trust me. When you were in the game as long as I was, you learned to spot the murderer. All we have to do now is construct a case against her.”
“And how many convictions did you have overturned, Geoffrey?” asked Margaret pointedly.
Geoffrey mumbled.
“Say it a little louder, Geoffrey. I don’t think Catherine heard you.”
“Eleven.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to withhold judgment for a little longer,” said Margaret.
Marco, the waiter, arrived.
Geoffrey, affronted, got in one childish jab. “She did it.”
“Would you like to see the dessert menu?”
Margaret feigned disinterest. “I mean, I don’t…”
“No, thank you,” said Catherine and Geoffrey simultaneously, and Margaret’s shoulders slumped.
“Have a dessert, if you like, Margaret,” said Catherine.
“No, no, no. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“I take it you both read Desmond’s obituary in The Times,” said Catherine.
Margaret and Geoffrey both mmmed, suggesting, to Catherine, that there was more to say.
“Did you know him, Geoffrey?”
“That I did, that I did.”
“I knew him too,” said Margaret, with a conspiratorial smile.
“Oh, yes?” said Catherine.
“Geoffrey, what did you think of Desmond?” asked Margaret. “Not in here. I mean when you worked with him.”
Geoffrey checked that nobody else was listening in before he spoke ill of the dead. “It doesn’t feel right saying this, not now, but Desmond was corrupt.”
“That’s why I asked,” said Margaret. “I heard allegations in the Home Office.”
“What kind of allegations?” asked Catherine, leaning forward.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Margaret. “Just murmurs. I think I asked them to put it into a report for me but nobody wanted to write anything down. Honestly, it was impossible to get anything done. Ever.”
“He was on the payroll,” said Geoffrey. “Couple of the big London organized crime gangs. The people at the top paid him to turn a blind eye. The foot soldiers, they’d still get cuffed, but the ones at the top, he had them covered.”
“I never really thought about it,” said Catherine. “Sounds like something from a film, but of course that sort of thing happens, I suppose.”
“The world isn’t all roses, I’m afraid, my dear Catherine,” said Geoffrey, as if he were speaking to a grandchild.
I know that perfectly well, thought Catherine. I was a pathologist. I’ve seen things that would turn you green. But she let it slide. Geoffrey meant well and something had just occurred to her.
“Wasn’t Jim, the chap who likes to sing, wasn’t he a bit of a…” She lowered her voice. “Criminal?”
“Jim. Oh, yes, he most certainly was. Top of the tree in his day. Ran North London for a time,” said Geoffrey.
“Lovely voice. Charming man. Shame about the crime,” said Margaret.
“And was he paying Desmond off, do you think?” asked Catherine.
Geoffrey was looking away, into the middle distance, his mind on another time, Catherine supposed. They all had pasts.
“I couldn’t say for sure, but it would surprise me if he wasn’t.”
Margaret looked at Catherine. They were having the same thought at the same time. The three of them were leaning in together now in conspiracy, their heads nearly touching at the center of the table. Catherine spoke first. “Jim and Desmond had a shouting match the other night,” she said.
“Did they now?” said Geoffrey. “What about?”
“Yes! They did!” said Margaret, excited. “I saw it! I don’t know what they were arguing about but they were both rather animated. I’d never seen Desmond like that before. He was always so lovely and placid at baking.”
“Let me introduce you to a little saying,” said Geoffrey. “There’s more to some people than meets the eye.”
“Thank you, Geoffrey,” said Catherine, deadpan. “I’d never heard that one before.”
“Surely you’d both agree that Jim requires looking into,” said Margaret. “I mean, an ex-criminal, who was seen arguing with the victim a couple of nights before the murder.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to question him,” said Geoffrey. “He plays croquet most mornings. We could approach him then, although I do insist on taking the lead.”
“We can’t do it tomorrow morning. We’re busy.” Catherine sat back. Time to give them her news. She surprised herself with how excited she was. “I still keep in touch with a few old colleagues and, well, I managed to get us tickets to Desmond’s autopsy.”
Margaret clapped her hands together and let out a yelp of delight. “Oh, come on, let’s have dessert to celebrate!”