54

Joyce
I tripped over a loose paving slab in Fairhaven a few weeks ago. I didn’t
mention it in my diary because of murders and trips to London and my pursuit of
Bernard. But it was a nasty tumble and I dropped my bag and my things went
everywhere. Keys, glasses case, pills, phone.
Now, here’s the thing. Every single person who saw me fall came over to
help. Every single one of them. A cyclist helped me to my feet, a traffic warden
picked up my things and dusted down my bag, a lady with a pushchair sat with
me at a pavement table until I’d got my breath back. The woman who ran the
café came out with a cup of tea and offered to drive me around to her GP.
Perhaps they only came to help because I look old. I look frail and helpless.
But I don’t think so. I think I would have helped if I saw a fit youngster take the
tumble I did. I think you would too. I think I would have sat with him, I think the
traffic warden would have picked up his laptop and I think the woman in the café
would still have offered to drive him to her GP.
That’s who we are as human beings. For the most part, we are kind.
However, I still remember a consultant I once worked with, at Brighton
General, up on the hill. A very rude, very cruel, very unhappy man, and he made
our lives a misery. He would shout and would blame us for mistakes he made.
Now, if that consultant had dropped dead in front of my eyes I would have
danced a jig.
You mustn’t speak ill of the dead, I know, but there are exceptions to every
rule and Ian Ventham was of the same type as this consultant. Come to think of
it, he was called Ian too, so that’s something to look out for.
You know those people. People who feel the world is theirs alone? They say
you see it more and more these days, this selfishness, but some people were
always awful. Not many, that’s what I’m saying, but always a few.
All of which is to say that, in one way, I’m sorry that Ian Ventham is dead,
but there is another way to look at it.
On any given day lots of people die. I don’t know the statistics, but it must
be thousands. So somebody was going to die yesterday and I’m just saying that I
would rather it was Ian Ventham who died in front of me than, say, the cyclist or
the traffic warden, or the mum with the pushchair, or the woman who ran the
café.
 I would rather it was Ian Ventham the paramedics failed to save, than that it
was Joanna, or Elizabeth. Or Ron, or Ibrahim, or Bernard. Without wanting to
sound selfish about it, I would rather it was Ian Ventham who was zipped into a
bag and wheeled into a coroner’s van, than me.
For Ian Ventham, though, yesterday was the day. We will all have one and
yesterday was his. Elizabeth says he was killed, and if Elizabeth says he was
killed then I expect he was. I don’t suppose he expected that when he woke up
yesterday morning.
I hope I don’t sound callous, it’s just that I have seen a lot of people die and
I have shed so many tears. But I have shed none for Ian Ventham and I just
wanted you to know why. It is sad that he is dead, but it hasn’t made me sad.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and help solve his murder.
 55

‘Well, here’s the big headline.’ Chris Hudson is standing at the front of the
briefing room, his team spread out in front of him. ‘Ian Ventham was murdered.’
Donna De Freitas looks around at the murder squad. There are a few new
faces. She simply cannot believe her luck. Two murders and here she is, right in
the middle of it all. She had to hand it to Elizabeth. She definitely owed her a
drink, or whatever else Elizabeth might prefer. A scarf? Who knew what
Elizabeth would like? A gun, probably.
Chris opens a folder. ‘Ian Ventham’s death was caused by fentanyl
poisoning. A massive overdose, delivered into the muscle of his upper arm.
Almost certainly in the moments leading up to his collapse. You’ll tell by the
speed that this is not official; this is me calling in a favour, OK? And they see
enough fentanyl overdoses at the path lab these days to know one when they see
one. We’re the only people who have that piece of information at present, so let’s
keep it that way as long as we can, please. No press, no friends and family.’
He gives Donna the briefest of looks.
 56

‘So, we were all witnesses to a murder,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Which, needless to

say, is wonderful.’
Fifteen winding miles away, the Thursday Murder Club is in extraordinary
session. Elizabeth is laying out a series of full-colour photos of the corpse of Ian
Ventham, alongside every conceivable angle of the scene. She had taken them on
her phone while pretending she was calling for an ambulance. She then had them
privately printed by a chemist in Robertsbridge who owed her a favour, due to
her keeping quiet about a criminal conviction from the 1970s that she had
managed to uncover.
‘Tragic too, in its way, if we wanted to be traditional about our emotions,’
adds Ibrahim.
‘Yes, if we wanted to be melodramatic, Ibrahim,’ says Elizabeth.
‘First question, then,’ says Ron. ‘How do you know it was a murder?
Looked like a heart attack to me.’
‘And you’re a doctor, Ron?’ asks Elizabeth.
‘As much as you are, Liz,’ says Ron.
Elizabeth opens a folder and takes out a sheet of paper. ‘Well, Ron, I’ve
already been over this with Ibrahim, because I had a job for him, but listen
carefully. The cause of death was an overdose of fentanyl, administered very
shortly before death. This information is straight from a man who has access to
the email correspondence of the Kent Police Forensic Service, but it hasn’t yet
been confirmed by Donna, even though I have texted her repeatedly. Happy,
Ron?’
Ron nods. ‘Yeah, I’ll give you that. What’s fentanyl? That’s a new one on
me.’
‘It’s an opioid, Ron, like heroin,’ says Joyce. ‘They use it in anaesthesia,
pain relief, all sorts of things. Very effective, patients rave about it.’
‘Also you can mix it with cocaine,’ says Ibrahim. ‘If you were a drug
addict, say.’
‘And the Russian security services use it for all sorts of things,’ says
Elizabeth.
Ron nods, satisfied.
Ibrahim says, ‘And, as it must’ve been administered very shortly before his
death, then we are all suspects in his murder.’
Joyce claps her hands. ‘Splendid. I’m not sure how any of us would have
got hold of fentanyl, but splendid.’ She is arranging Viennese whirls on a plate
commemorating Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s wedding, something
Joanna had assumed she would like many years ago.
Ron is nodding, looking at the photos of the scene. Looking at the faces of
the residents craning for a better view of Ian Ventham’s slumped body. ‘So,
someone at Coopers Chase killed him? Someone in these pictures?’
‘And we are all in the pictures,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Except for Elizabeth, of course,’ says Joyce. ‘Because she was taking the
photos. But she would still be a suspect for any half-decent investigation.’
‘I would hope so,’ agrees Elizabeth.
Ibrahim walks over to a flip chart. ‘Elizabeth asked me to make a few
calculations.’
Elizabeth, Joyce and Ron settle into the Jigsaw Room chairs. Ron takes a
Viennese whirl, to the relief of Joyce, who now feels able to do the same. They
are own-brand, but there had been a Gregg Wallace programme which had said
they were made in the same factory as the proper ones.
Ibrahim begins. ‘Somebody in that crowd administered an injection to Ian
Ventham which killed him, almost certainly within a minute. There was a
puncture wound found on his upper arm. I asked you all to compile a list of
everybody you remembered seeing, which you kindly did, although not all of
your lists were alphabetized in the way I had asked.’
Ibrahim looks at Ron. Ron shrugs. ‘Honestly, I get mixed up somewhere
around F, H and G and then I give up.’
Ibrahim continues. ‘If we combine those lists – an easy job if you know
your way around an Excel spreadsheet – then in total there were sixty-four
residents at the scene, ourselves included. Then we add DCI Hudson and PC De
Freitas, the builder Bogdan, who went missing …’
‘He was up on the hill,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Thank you, Elizabeth,’ says Ibrahim. ‘We add the driver of the low-loader
whose name was Marie, another Pole if that is of interest. She also teaches yoga,
but that’s by the by. Karen Playfair, the lady who lives at the top of the hill, was
there, as she was supposed to teach us about computers yesterday. And then, of
course, Father Matthew Mackie.’
‘That makes seventy, Ibrahim,’ says Ron, now onto his second biscuit,
whatever diabetes might say.
‘And Ian Ventham makes seventy-one,’ explains Ibrahim.
‘So you think he might have driven up, started a ruck, then killed himself?
All right, Poirot,’ says Ron.
‘This isn’t thinking, Ron,’ says Ibrahim. ‘This is just a list. So no
impatience please.’
 ‘Impatience is all I got,’ says Ron. ‘It’s my superpower. You know Arthur
Scargill once told me to be patient? Arthur Scargill!’
‘So one of these seventy people killed Ian Ventham. Now these are nicer
odds than the Thursday Murder Club usually faces, but can we narrow down the
field still further?’
‘It would have to be someone with access to needles and drugs,’ suggests
Joyce.
‘That’s everyone here, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Quite so, Elizabeth,’ agrees Ibrahim. ‘If I might be permitted a visual
image, that would be like looking for a needle in a haystack made entirely of
needles.’
Ibrahim pauses, under the assumption there might be applause at this point.
In its absence, he continues.
‘Now, the injection would be the work of a split second to anyone
experienced in intramuscular injections, which, again, is all of us. But the drug
would need to be administered at very close quarters. So, I have deleted the
names of anyone we know, for a fact, was never in close proximity to Ian
Ventham. That loses a lot of the supporting cast. The fact that many of the crowd
suffer from severe mobility issues has played into our hands here, as we know
they couldn’t have managed a quick dash when none of us were looking.’
‘No Zimmers,’ agrees Ron.
‘We lose eight names on Zimmer frames alone,’ agrees Ibrahim. ‘Mobility
scooters are also our friends here, as are cataracts. There are also many people,
such as Stephen, I hope you agree, Elizabeth, who never found themselves close
to Ian Ventham on that morning. They are struck from the list. Also, three
residents were padlocked to the gate until someone thought to call the fire
brigade, sometime later in the day. And so here we find ourselves.’
Ibrahim turns over the top sheet of the flip chart to reveal a list of names.
‘Thirty names. Ourselves included. And one of them is the killer. I pause
only to note that, alphabetically, by surname, I am first on the list.’
‘Well done, Ibrahim,’ says Joyce.
‘So that’s the list,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And I’m guessing it’s now time for the
thinking?’
‘Yes, I think between us we can trim down the list a little further,’ says
Ibrahim.
‘Who wanted him dead?’ says Ron. ‘Who gained? Did the same person kill
Curran and Ventham?’
‘Funny to think, isn’t it?’ says Joyce, wiping crumbs from the front of her
blouse. ‘That we know a murderer? I mean, we don’t know who it is, but we
know we definitely know one.’
‘It’s brilliant,’ agrees Ron. He is considering biscuit three, but knows there’s
no way he would get away with it.
‘Well, we had better get started,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Conversational French are
due in at twelve.’