The basic facts are these. Bethany had been investigating a huge VAT fraud. To do with importing and exporting mobile phones. The scheme had made millions.
A woman named Heather Garbutt had been behind it. She worked for a man named Jack Mason, a local crook, and it was widely believed that she was managing the operation on his behalf. Heather later went to jail for the fraud, but Jack Mason did not. Lucky Jack Mason.
One March evening, Bethany had sent Mike a text message, and Mike had expected to see her bright and breezy the next morning. But the next morning was never to come for Bethany.
That night she had been seen leaving her apartment building – we used to call it a block of flats, didn’t we – at about ten p.m., and had then gone AWOL for several hours, no one knows where. She next reappeared on a CCTV camera near Shakespeare Cliff at nearly three a.m. She had an unidentified passenger in her car.
The next time the car is seen is at the bottom of Shakespeare Cliff, wrecked, and containing her blood and her clothes but not her body. Which makes me suspicious, but is apparently common, with the tides around there. A year later, without the faintest sign of her, and with her bank accounts having not been touched, a Presumption of Death certificate had been issued. Again, par for the course, but still you must ask yourself, where’s the body? I didn’t say that out loud to Mike, because you can tell Bethany Waites means a great deal to him.
He gave us one new piece of information. A text message Bethany had sent him. She had discovered some new evidence, something important. Mike never found out what it was.
Heather Garbutt was obviously the key suspect, with all the evidence Bethany had been gathering about her, but they couldn’t link her to Bethany’s death in any way. Try as they might, they couldn’t link Jack Mason either. Soon enough, Heather Garbutt was in prison for the fraud, and everyone moved on to something else.
But Mike never moved on. The key questions, as Mike sees them, are:
What was the new evidence Bethany messaged him about? It was nowhere in the court documents, but had she kept a record somewhere? Would it link Jack Mason to the crime maybe? He is still a free man today. A very rich one too.
Why did Bethany leave her apartment at ten p.m. that evening? Was she going to meet someone? To confront someone? And why did it take her more than four hours to reach Shakespeare Cliff? She must have stopped somewhere, but where? Did she meet someone?
And finally, of course, who was the passenger in her car?
There’s enough for us to be getting on with there. I could tell even Elizabeth was taking an interest by the end.
After that we all had a few more drinks. Pauline and Ron shared a dessert, which might sound normal to you, but I’ve never seen Ron willingly share food, let alone a Banoffee Pie. So watch this space.
Before we knew it, it was nearly eight p.m.! Alan was beside himself when I got in. I say ‘beside himself’: he was curled up on the sofa and raised an eyebrow at me that said, ‘What sort of time is this for my dinner, you dirty stop-out?’ You know how dogs can be. I had brought him back some steak though, so that soon changed his tune. He wolfed it down without a backwards glance. Alan is many things, but he is clearly not a Buddhist.
I am Googling Heather Garbutt and listening to the World Service. She is difficult to Google, because there’s also an Australian hockey player called Heather Garbutt, and most of the results are about her. I actually ended up quite interested in the hockey player, and I follow her on Instagram now. She has three very beautiful children.
Heather Garbutt is still in prison (not the hockey player, but you know that). In fact, it turns out she is in Darwell Prison, which might work out very nicely for all concerned. Because, of course, we already know someone in Darwell Prison. I’ve messaged Ibrahim with an idea that he will like very much.
They are talking about cryptocurrency on the World Service now, so I’m going to look that up too. Bitcoin, that’s the big one. It sounds very interesting, and it’s all the rage according to this programme, but quite risky. They just spoke to someone who made a million from it before his sixteenth birthday, and he was all in favour.
Gerry and I used to have some Premium Bonds, but that’s as far as I’ve experimented with money. Maybe I should live a little? Do something different? Be someone different? Different to what, though? Who am I?
Who am I? I’m Joyce Meadowcroft, and that will do me to be getting on with.
Night-time is for questions without answers, and I have no time for questions without answers. Leave that to Ibrahim. I like questions you can answer.
Who killed Bethany Waites? Now that’s a proper question.
6
Morning has broken at Coopers Chase. From the window of Elizabeth’s flat you can see the dog-walkers, and a few latecomers rushing to Over-Eighties Zumba. The air hums with friendly greetings, and the sounds of birdsong and Amazon delivery vans.
‘Why you keep looking at your phone?’ asks Bogdan. He is sitting across the chessboard from Stephen, but has been distracted by Elizabeth.
‘I get messages, dear,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I have friends.’
‘You only get messages from Joyce,’ says Bogdan. ‘Or me. And we are both here.’
Stephen makes a move. ‘There you go, champ.’
‘He’s quite right,’ says Joyce, sipping from a mug. ‘Is this tea Yorkshire?’
Elizabeth gives a ‘How on earth would I know?’ shrug, and goes back to the documents laid out in front of her. Evidence from the trial of Heather Garbutt. Readily available to the public if you’re happy to wait three months or so. Or readily available in a couple of hours if you are Elizabeth. She must stop looking at her phone. The last message had read:
You can’t ignore me forever, Elizabeth. We have a lot to speak about.
She has started receiving threatening messages, from an anonymous number. The first had arrived yesterday, and it read:
Elizabeth, I know what you’ve done.
Well, you could narrow it down a bit, she had thought. More had come through since. Who was sending her these messages? And, more importantly, why? No point worrying about it now though. No doubt all would become clear eventually, and, in the meantime, she has the murder of Bethany Waites to solve.
‘I really think it is Yorkshire.’ Joyce again. ‘I’m almost sure. You must know?’
Elizabeth continues to look through the documents. Financial records, dense and unyielding. Paper trails showing non-existent mobile phones leaving the docks at Dover, and the same non-existent phones coming back weeks later. Reams and reams of VAT claims. Bank statements totalling millions. Money disappearing to offshore accounts, and then nothing. Bethany Waites had uncovered the lot. You had to admire it.
‘Never mind,’ says Joyce. ‘You’re busy. I’ll take a look in the cupboard.’
Elizabeth nods. This paperwork was enough to get Heather Garbutt convicted of fraud. But did it also contain a clue to Bethany Waites’s death? If it did, no one had yet found it. Elizabeth didn’t fancy her own chances either, not really her area, all this. So what to do? She has a thought.
‘Yes, it’s Yorkshire,’ shouts Joyce from the kitchen. ‘I knew it.’
Joyce had been insistent that she was coming round to visit. And it doesn’t matter how high up one might have been in MI5 or MI6, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been shot at by a sniper, or met the Queen, you won’t stop Joyce once she has her mind set on something. Elizabeth had acted quickly.
Stephen’s dementia is getting worse, Elizabeth knows that. But the more he slips from her grasp, the tighter she wants to hold him. If she is looking at him, surely he can’t disappear?