Chapter 81

Ibrahim joins Bernard Cottle on a bench overlooking the graveyard and tries to make conversation with him, offering walnuts and commenting on the view. Bernard is polite but plainly uncomfortable, saying he would prefer to sit in silence.

Ron arrives and sits on Bernard’s other side. Unlike Ibrahim’s gentle approach, Ron immediately challenges Bernard, suggesting that Bernard’s daily presence by the graveyard may be more than grief, especially now that Ian was killed after wanting to dig there.

Ron presses Bernard about whether Bernard might have had a motive, access to needles, or a connection to the area in the 1970s. Ibrahim frames the questioning as an attempt to eliminate suspects, even admitting they are using a good-cop, nasty-cop approach.

Bernard responds by invoking his late wife, Asima, whom Ron knew and liked. Bernard insists that he sits by the graveyard because he misses her, not because he is hiding anything connected to the murders or the old bones.

As Bernard leaves, Ibrahim tells him he does not believe the explanation and thinks Bernard has a story he is desperate to tell. Bernard warns that Ibrahim and Ron have no idea what the worst thing he could do is, suggesting that Bernard is still concealing something serious.