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

by Richard Osman

Kuldesh Sharma sees the flash of the gunshot, but is dead before he can hear the noise.

:(

Friendship, and Joyce flirting unsuccessfully with a Welshman who appears to be the subject of a fairly serious international fraud. Elizabeth could think of worse ways to spend the holidays.

an angel Joanna made at primary school. It’s a toilet roll, some aluminum foil, lace and a face drawn on a wooden spoon. It’s been on top of the tree for forty-one years now. Half a lifetime!

I keep thinking he’s going to melt, but I fear I might be barking up the wrong tree with this one. I just hope I can bark up the right tree one of these days. Before I run out of trees. Or before I stop barking altogether.

So, all in all, I’ve had a lovely Boxing Day, and am going to fall asleep in front of a Judi Dench film. All that’s missing is Gerry working his way through a tin of Quality Street and leaving the wrappers in the tin. Irritating at the time, but I’d give everything I own to have him back. 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.

I love her

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

better. My lovely friends, my lovely daughter. My husband gone, his silly smile gone. I feel like I should drink to something, so I suppose let’s drink to “No murders next year.”

There is only so much reading you can do, so many cups of tea you can make, before the loneliness crowds in around you. You breathe it in, you cry it out, and the clock ticks slowly, slowly, until you are allowed to sleep.

Donna holds out a comforting hand for Mervyn to take, but it remains untaken, as Ibrahim could have told her. Mervyn is not one of life’s hand-takers. He lives life at a safe distance.

“And, I agree, we are flawed, as individuals, and as a group, and, in my view, you are probably right to single out Ron as the worst of us.

How can you celebrate New Year’s Eve with your friends, and still get to bed early?

So a very happy New Year to one and all and, best of all, it is still only ten p.m., so I can get into bed at a reasonable hour.

“Of course you did,” says Chris. “Maybe we can keep Elizabeth and the gang out of this one?” “Ah,” says Donna. “The impossible dream.

“I’m Joyce, and this is Elizabeth, who is also sort of my boss.”

We might see a million white swans, and yet we are not able to say that all swans are white. Yet we see just one black swan, and we can say with absolute certainty that not all swans are white.”

Snowy, the sofa, Elizabeth. Stephen is loved and safe. Whatever else is going on, and something most definitely is, Stephen is loved and Stephen is safe. That’s a starting point. A rock on which to stand.

She walks to the sofa and kisses Stephen. And what a kiss. Boy, oh boy, oh boy, are they ever married!

But here he is, in the dead of night, in a comfortable armchair, drinking good whisky with four pensioners.

“First rule of the antiques game,” says Jonjo. “Never fall in love with things.” “Sound advice for life,” says Ibrahim.

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.

The real secret was that when they looked at each other, they each thought they had the better deal.

Wherever he is, and whatever he is doing, the primary thought in Ibrahim’s mind is always “How will I get home?”

Ibrahim has stuck a Post-it note on both his printer and his laminator saying What would Greta Thunberg do?

Garth holds up a hand to stop Ibrahim. “I need you to talk less. I have a low boredom threshold. I was born with it, the doctors can’t do nothing.”

If given the choice between men who pay women no attention and men who pay them too much attention, Donna will always take the former.

Forgive me, Chris, someone has to be a maverick sometimes, and it’s never going to be you.

And, wherever the Thursday Murder Club are today, perhaps starting a gunfight in a hollowed-out volcano, he knows they won’t be breaking into Sussex Logistics.

“I’m very gray,” says Stephen, examining himself. “Nonsense,” says Anthony. “Elizabeth’s gray, you’re ‘Burnished Platinum.’ ”

“Don’t you dare,” says Anthony. “The handsome

ones are free.”

“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.”

“In love?” Ibrahim thinks. “Bob, you and I are cut from the same cloth.” “Which cloth is that?” asks Bob. “The world of systems, and patterns, of zeroes and ones. The binary instructions that make sense of life. We may be able to see the advantages and disadvantages of love, but to regard it as an objective entity, that is for the poets.”

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

Nina seemed terrified and thrilled in equal measure. Which, I suppose, is also how I’ve felt nonstop since I met

Elizabeth.

this heroin before SIO Ronson finds it.” “Regan,” says Luca.

how does he know this?

I think the Queen and I would have got on. She reminded me a lot of Elizabeth. A bit more approachable maybe.

Sometimes Alan sees Rosie out of the window and he loses his mind. Starts rolling around and showing his belly. He really reminds me of myself sometimes.

Watching Bogdan dig a grave is one of the few things that could change my mind about wanting to be cremated when I die.

Elizabeth loves him so utterly, and is loved by him so utterly, and that is being stolen from her.

I know from experience that grief rides alone.

So forgive me if, for just a while longer, I choose to imagine that Elizabeth is going to the Palace to see the King.

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” says Joyce, pulling on her coat. “There’s always something just out of reach. Love, money. Alan’s tail. The heroin. Everyone chasing the thing they don’t have. Going mad until they get it.”

Actually, that’s not fair. There are bits of the job she does like. She likes the reading, curling up in an armchair, delving into the sexual politics of Mesopotamia, that bit is fun. And she likes the travel, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, she’s been all over. She’s quite happy sleeping with colleagues at conferences too. What she really doesn’t like, pay aside, is the teaching. And, more specifically, the students.

“I don’t care,” says Garth. “Again, not like ‘I don’t care what film we see,’ I literally do not care, I can’t overemphasize that.

“Ain’t no luck involved,” says Garth. “You just gotta keep grinding.”

“Yeah, those cutie-pies would give it straight to the cops. OK, deal,” says Garth.

So you wouldn’t get married?” “Things to do first,” says Donna. “Never been to India, never jumped out of a plane. Never really punched anyone.”

I’ll text the boss.” “The boss?” says Donna. “Elizabeth,” says Chris. “Silly me,” says Donna.

The two men both give a merry wave to the police officers watching them from high up on the hill.