The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)

by Richard Osman

Elizabeth more and more is getting the hang of Joyce’s type, and “anyone plausibly handsome” seems to cover it.

“Thank you,” says Mervyn. “She means a great deal to me. Been a long time since someone paid me any attention.” “Although I’ve baked you a lot of cakes in the last few weeks,” says Joyce. “I know, I know,” says Mervyn. “But I meant romantic attention.” “My mistake,” says Joyce, and Ron drinks to stifle a laugh.

She brought flowers too, and the football chairman bought me a bracelet that I would describe as a nice thought.

Gerry liked the Strawberry Delights and Orange Crèmes, and I liked the Toffee Pennies, and if you want to know the recipe for a happy marriage it is that.

What is it about Christmas? Everything that’s wrong seems worse, and everything that’s right seems better.

“What do we make of that?” he says. “Surely no one’s that obnoxious in real life?” says Donna.

Stephen begins to read. He used to read to her in bed. Dickens, Trollope. Jackie Collins when he was in the mood.

“So I’ve got a dodgy cockney, a coke dealer, some old bird with a shooter, and . . .” He looks at Joyce again. “Joyce,” says Joyce.

“You know all this is making me think you killed Kuldesh Sharma,” says Elizabeth. Dom shrugs. “Couldn’t care less. This is my place of work, and I don’t like being disturbed. Especially by a cockney West Ham fan who’s too cheap to pay for AA membership, a coke dealer who hangs out with Connie Johnson, an old woman too scared to use her gun, and Joyce.

Everything is on tape, your overpaid solicitor gets to sit next to you shaking her head at the questions, and, by law, they have to make you a cup of tea.

Wolf Hall

As it is a Thursday, the gang are in the Jigsaw Room. There is a half-demolished Victoria sponge on the jigsaw table.

“If we start with the basics,” says Jonjo. “An antique is anything over one hundred years old. Everything else is vintage, or collectible.”

He knows, in his heart, that Ron is right, but he doesn’t feel able to let go of his laminating machine. This must be how America feels about coal-fired power stations.

Professor Brian Cox

The real secret was that when they looked at each other, they each thought they had the better deal. But, however much life teaches you that nothing lasts, it is still a shock when it disappears. When the man you love with every fiber starts returning to the stars, an atom at a time.

He downloaded the menu for her, but he has not printed it out, because you have to start somewhere. Ibrahim has stuck a Post-it note on both his printer and his laminator saying What would Greta Thunberg do?

He wants to make Donna proud. Christmas had been a dream, waking up late, watching Australian reality TV shows, losing at board games. Bogdan has not wanted to make anyone proud since his mother died. He likes it.

“We love a plan,” says Ron. “Half an hour ago I had my feet up, watching the curling, and now look at me. Warehouse, corpse, the lot.”

Garth has turned his hand to all sorts of things in his life. Went to art college, once stole a herd of bison, played a little bass guitar. He also committed Canada’s largest ever bank robbery. Though not by himself—his cousin Paul helped. And his grandmother laundered a lot of the money.

Because he was so big, he had grown up careful. He’s big as a bear but quiet as a mouse. If Garth disturbs something, then Garth puts it back.

He’d been to take a look at Elizabeth’s flat, but she had a hairdresser there, and she also had an alarm system he’s never seen outside of a maximum-security prison.

“It was a present from my son,” cries Ron. “A voucher.” All right, Ron, don’t build your part. Then Joyce realizes that, as she has become Elizabeth, Ron is having to become her. She would definitely have said something about vouchers. Everybody is stepping up today—carry on, Ron.

Bob looks over to Ibrahim. “You write very beautifully.” Ibrahim shrugs. “In my business you hear a thing or two about love. I find it easy to replicate. It is largely a willing abandonment of logic.”

“Safe now, old chum. Out of the cold soon, and no more sleeping with one eye open. It was lovely knowing you.”

Now let me help you down from your high horse, because I think you wanted to ask me about Luca Buttaci?”

It’s healthy fun, which is the second-best sort of fun there is.

at the head of the table, the proud hosts, a former nurse, a former spy, a former trades union official and an occasionally still-practicing psychiatrist.

“I didn’t shoot no one,” says Luca. “That’s a double-negative,” says Ibrahim. “It might be better to—” Ron puts his hand on Ibrahim’s arm. “Not now, mate, he’s a heroin dealer.” Ibrahim nods, and tucks into his buffalo mozzarella.

Love always finds a language. Elizabeth hasn’t come to ask me for help or advice, and I understand that completely. I know from experience that grief rides alone.

The boy doesn’t need asking twice, and shoots for the door. Garth puts out a massive arm to stop him. “Three things before you go though. One, if that essay isn’t done by next week, I’ll kill you. I mean that. Not like ‘Your mom will kill you if you don’t tidy your room.’ Actually kill you. You believe me?” The boy nods. “Good, stop wasting this opportunity, brother, I swear. Two, if you tell anyone I threatened you, I will also kill you. OK? Not a word.” “OK,” says the boy. “It better be OK. God cries every time someone lies to a Canadian. And three, the best Nirvana song is ‘Sliver’ or ‘Heart-Shaped Box.’ Understand?”

Damien Hirst is her absolute favorite, both for how beautiful she finds his work, and for how easy she finds it to forge.

We think time travels forward, marches on in a straight line, and so we hurry alongside it to keep up. Hurry, hurry, mustn’t fall behind. But it doesn’t, you see. Time just swirls around us. Everything is always present. The things we’ve done, the people we’ve loved, the people we’ve hurt, they’re all still here.”

“Grief doesn’t need an answer, any more than love does,” says Elizabeth. “It isn’t a question.”

Love can mean so many different things, can’t it? And just because it’s precious doesn’t mean it can’t be tough.

I will cling, kicking and screaming, to every second life has in store for me. I want the full picture, for good or for ill.

We had some English sparkling wine that Chris had brought with him. Patrice bought it, even after Dominic Holt had been murdered, “because it was thirty percent off if you’d been on the tour.” She is a woman after my own heart.

Days of death are days when we weigh our relationship with love in our bare hands. Days when we remember what has gone, and fear what is to come. The joy love brings, and the price we pay. When we give thanks but also pray for mercy.

It is five to three in the morning. Anyone who has ever worked nights or been kept awake night after night will tell you that three a.m. to four a.m. is always the longest hour. The hour when brutal loneliness takes total control. Where every tick of the clock is agony.

Waiting for the last devil to die? What a joke. New devils will always spring up, like daffodils in springtime.

The life she had with Stephen will always mean more to her than the life she will now have going forward. She will spend more time there, in that past, she knows that. And, as the world races forward, she will fall further and further back. There comes a point when you look at your photograph albums more often than you watch the news. When you opt out of time, and let it carry on doing its thing while you get on with yours. You simply stop dancing to the beat of the drum.

“Grub’s up,” says Chris, carrying a steaming pot of curry to the table. The table that, for so many years, sat unloved, covered in takeaway menus, old newspapers and, occasionally, crime-scene photographs. And now look at it. People sitting around with knives and forks, ladling rice onto their plates. What a long way he has come. He does note, however, that there is a large photo of the dead body of Samantha Barnes right next to the okra, so some things don’t change.

“In Poland, Love Island is called Love Mountain,” says Bogdan. “And one time someone froze to death.”

“Where’s the heroin now? Out of interest?” says Chris. “Somewhere safe,” says Joyce. “That usually means your kettle, Joyce,” says Donna. “There was too much for the kettle,” says Joyce. “So it’s in my microwave.”

“I thought you only knew about cocaine,” says Ibrahim. “A fisherman needs to know the price of chips,” says Connie.

Garth drives like he lives. With an absolute, calm certainty that the rules don’t apply to him.

His father-in-law had told him once that the first three things to go are the knees, the eyesight and the confidence.

By this stage of the evening, Alan has sat through three door buzzes and is absolutely beside himself with joy.

“You came down on the train, as a favor for a mate, to meet an old man, and you brought a gun with you?” “I’m careful like that,” says Jeremmy. “I don’t buy it, but OK,” says Ron. “OK, OK. Let’s play ‘Hands up if you’ve got a gun in your bag.’ ” The man puts up his hand, and then sees Elizabeth do the same. Ron looks pleasantly surprised. “Wasn’t certain you’d have one today, Lizzie.” “I’m grieving, Ron,” says Elizabeth. “I’m not dead.”

You have a beautiful home,” Garth says to Joyce, his gun pointing straight at her. He’s been here before of course. They should have got here much earlier, but, as they’d arrived, there had been a long argument with a woman who said she was from the Coopers Chase Parking Committee and Garth, knowing when he had finally met his match, had had to park back out on the main road.