The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)

by Richard Osman

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 backward glance. Alan is many things, but he is clearly not a Buddhist.

Sometimes you would walk into a room, and there would be a young man slumped in his chair, blood down his shirt, eyes swollen closed, and you just had to make a connection. Any interrogation is a conversation, and there have to be two people in a conversation. If you want something, you cannot take it; you have to let somebody give it to you.

He catches sight of himself in the mirror. That bald head, too big for his shoulders. Those pebbly glasses, too big for his face. A face he has grown to love. If you are disappointed with your face, eventually it shows.

Elizabeth hates not knowing secrets. Spies are like dogs. They cannot stand a closed door.

They walk in through the huge double doors of one of the residential buildings, and make their way across the marble lobby, to the burnished walnut-and-copper concierge desk. The whole place feels very expensive yet deeply inoffensive, like a business hotel a divorcé might choose to kill himself in.

If you took everyone with mental-health issues out of this place they’d have to shut it down. Most people in here were, one way or another, just taking another step in a life of chaos, pulled by the tides of a world that neither wanted them nor needed them.

“You just have to be yourself,” says Donna. “Ignore the cameras.” “I’ve never been good at being myself,” says Chris. “I wouldn’t know where to start.” “Mum says you cried last night when you were watching Sex and the City.” “I did,” agrees Chris. “Well, don’t start there,” says Donna.

“It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?” says Viktor. “It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.”

It is far too cold to swim, but Joyce would not be dissuaded. Elizabeth had told her not to be so silly, and that the pool would still be here in the summer. “Ah, but we may not be,” Joyce had replied, and she was right. It was best to grab everything while you could. Who knows when your final swim might come, your final walk, your final kiss? Elizabeth has an idea what secret Bogdan is keeping from her. So be it. Joyce sees Elizabeth looking, and gives her a wave. Elizabeth waves back. You keep swimming, Joyce. You keep swimming, my beautiful friend. You keep your head above the water for as long as you can.