“Now, the injection would be the work of a split second to anyone experienced in intramuscular injections, which, again, is all of us these days. 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 walkers,” agrees Ron.
“We lose eight names on walkers 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 herblouse. “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 noon.”
57.
Which means,” says Chris Hudson, “that the fentanyl must have been administered by someone who was there that morning. So, one way or another, we already know our killer. Today, we work on a full list of everyone who was there, which won’t be easy, but the sooner we have it, the sooner we’ll have the killer. And who knows, maybe Tony Curran’s killer too. Unless Ventham killed Curran and this was retaliation.”
Donna chances a quick peek out the briefing room window. Her uniformed colleague Mark is putting on a bicycle helmet, perfectly complementing his morose expression. Donna sips her tea—Murder Squad tea—and thinks about suspects. She thinks about Father Mackie. What do they really know about him? Then she thinks about the Thursday Murder Club. They were all there, all surrounding Ventham at one point or another. She could imagine them each, in their own particular way, being a murderer—hypothetically, anyway. But actually? She couldn’t see it. They would certainly have a view, though. Donna should probably head over and see them.
“In the meantime,” continues Chris, opening another folder, “I have some other fun jobs for you. Ian Ventham was not a popular man. His business dealings were complicated and wide reaching, and his phone has revealed a list of affairs, which must have been pretty tiring for him. Tell your loved ones they won’t be seeing much of you for a while.”
Loved ones. Donna thinks about her ex Carl, then realizes she hasn’t thought about him for a good forty-eight hours, which is a new record. Though she has thought about him now, which spoils it a little. She realizes, though, that soon she won’t have thought about him for ninety-six hours, and then a week, and before you know it, Carl will just seem like a character from a bookshe once read. Really, why had she left London? What happens when these murders are solved and she’s back in uniform?
“And the rest of you, no let-up on the Tony Curran case. The two could be connected; we can’t rule it out. We still need the speed camera info. I particularly want to know if Ian Ventham’s car was on that road that afternoon. I need to know where Bobby Tanner is, and I need to know who took that photograph. And I still need the information on the phone number that called Curran.”
Which reminds Donna of a little hunch she has been meaning to check.
58.
Elizabeth is back in Willows, sitting in her low chair in Penny’s room. She is filling in Penny on the drama.
“Simply everyone was there, Penny. You would have been in your element, swinging your truncheon and arresting everyone in sight, no doubt.”
Elizabeth looks over at John, in the chair where he spends most of his days. “I’m guessing you filled Penny in on the details, John?”
He nods. “I may have overstated my own bravery a little, but other than that, it was chapter and verse.”
Elizabeth, satisfied, pulls a notepad and ballpoint from her handbag. She taps a page of the notepad with her pen, like a conductor giving notice to her orchestra, and begins.
“So where are we, Penny? Tony Curran is bludgeoned to death, by person or persons unknown. As a side note, I will never tire of saying ‘bludgeoned.’ I bet you used to say that a lot in the police, you lucky thing. Now, Ian Ventham, meanwhile, dies within seconds of being injected with a huge dose of fentanyl. You know fentanyl, John?”
“Of course,” says John. “Used it all the time. Anesthetic, mainly.”
John the vet. Elizabeth remembers the fox that John nursed back to health with Ron. Once healthy, it had gone on to murder Elaine McCausland’s chickens. Not proven, but there were no other suspects. Ron had taken a lot of grief for it at the time, which had pleased him enormously.
“How easy would it be to get hold of it?” asks Elizabeth.
“For someone here?” John starts. “Well, not easy, but not impossible.Pharmacies would have it. You could break in here, I suppose, but you’d have to be very determined, or very lucky. And you can get it on the internet.”
