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

by Richard Osman

Merry Christmas, Mum! Here’s to no murders next year

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

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.

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.

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.”

You understand that these people are still alive? Everyone who dies is alive. We call people ‘dead’ because we need a word for it, but ‘dead’ just means that time has stopped moving forward for that person? You understand? No one dies, not really.”

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

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.

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.

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

“I think it’s all weird,” says Mitch. “Why are you driving on the wrong side of the road?” “When nothing’s coming, I drive where I like,” says Garth.

“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.”

“And it was religious?” Elizabeth asks. “This long ago, everything was religious,” says Jonjo. “All the gods and devils were loose. This, I would say, was a sin box. It would have been outside an important tomb, to ward off the spirits. It will have been looted many years ago. The Iraqis will know for sure.”

How young and beautiful she was, how old and ugly she felt. She feels young and beautiful now—Stephen made sure of that. Made sure she understood who she was. Whether today, or sixty years ago, Stephen was right, as he so often was: our memories are no less real than whatever moment in which we happen to be living.

Mankind finds futility very hard to stomach. People find all sorts of things to give their brief lives meaning. Religion, football, astrology, social media. Valiant efforts all, but everyone knows, deep, deep down, that life is both a random occurrence and a losing battle. None of us will be remembered. These days will all be covered, in time, by the sands. Even the five million pounds Garth is going to pay for the box will be dust. Enjoy it while you can.

“This box was six thousand years old,” says Nina. “Can you even begin to comprehend that? None of us matters, Garth. We pretend that we do, we pretend that we have a purpose, but this planet existed without us for millions of years, and it will exist for millions of years more without us. Every breath we take is a dying breath. Human life isn’t sacred.”