Читаем The Thursday Murder Club полностью

Contents

PART ONE: Meet New People and Try New Things

Chapter 1: Joyce

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4: Joyce

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13: Joyce

Chapter 14

Chapter 15: Joyce

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20: Joyce

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23: Joyce

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26: Joyce

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35: Joyce

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43: Joyce

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49: Joyce

Chapter 50

Chapter 51: Joyce

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

PART TWO: Everyone here has a Story to Tell

Chapter 54: Joyce

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64: Joyce

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72: Joyce

Chapter 73

Chapter 74: Joyce

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77: Joyce

Chapter 78

Chapter 79: Joyce

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82: Joyce

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87: Joyce

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90: Joyce

Chapter 91

Chapter 92: Joyce

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98: Joyce

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103: Joyce

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115: Joyce

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Richard Osman is a British television producer and presenter. The Thursday Murder Club is his first and, so far, best novel.

To my mum, ‘the last surviving Brenda’, with love

Killing someone is easy. Hiding the body, now that’s usually the hard part. That’s how you get caught.

I was lucky enough to stumble upon the right place, though. The perfect place, really.

I come back from time to time, just to make sure everything is still safe and sound. It always is, and I suppose it always will be.

Sometimes I’ll have a cigarette, which I know I shouldn’t, but it’s my only vice.

Part One

MEET NEW PEOPLE AND TRY NEW THINGS

1

Joyce

Well, let’s start with Elizabeth, shall we? And see where that gets us?

I knew who she was, of course; everybody here knows Elizabeth. She has one of the three-bed flats in Larkin Court. It’s the one on the corner, with the decking? Also, I was once on a quiz team with Stephen, who, for a number of reasons, is Elizabeth’s third husband.

I was at lunch, this is two or three months ago, and it must have been a Monday, because it was shepherd’s pie. Elizabeth said she could see that I was eating, but wanted to ask me a question about knife wounds, if it wasn’t inconvenient?

I said, ‘Not at all, of course, please,’ or words to that effect. I won’t always remember everything exactly, I might as well tell you that now. So she opened a manila folder, and I saw some typed sheets and the edges of what looked like old photographs. Then she was straight into it.

Elizabeth asked me to imagine that a girl had been stabbed with a knife. I asked what sort of knife she had been stabbed with, and Elizabeth said probably just a normal kitchen knife. John Lewis. She didn’t say that, but that was what I pictured. Then she asked me to imagine this girl had been stabbed, three or four times, just under the breastbone. In and out, in and out, very nasty, but without severing an artery. She was fairly quiet about the whole thing, because people were eating, and she does have some boundaries.

So there I was, imagining stab wounds, and Elizabeth asked me how long it would take the girl to bleed to death.

By the way, I realize I should have mentioned that I was a nurse for many years, otherwise none of this will make sense to you. Elizabeth would have known that from somewhere, because Elizabeth knows everything. Anyway, that’s why she was asking me. You must have wondered what I was on about. I will get the hang of writing this, I promise.

I remember dabbing at my mouth before I answered, like you see on television sometimes. It makes you look cleverer, try it. I asked what the girl had weighed.

Elizabeth found the information in her folder, followed her finger and read out that the girl had been forty-six kilos. Which threw us both, because neither of us was sure what forty-six kilos was in real money. In my head I was thinking it must be about twenty-three stone? Two to one was my thinking. Even as I thought that, though, I suspected I was getting mixed up with inches and centimetres.