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; 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 stroller 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 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.
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, we can all agree on that, but it hasn’t made me sad. I wonder if it has made anyone sad? Will anyone miss him? Poor Ian.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to 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 favor, okay? 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 session. Elizabeth is laying out a series of full-color 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 developed by a chemist in Robertsbridge who owed her a favor 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.
