The Last Devil To Die полностью

‘And you are not a poet?’ Bob asks.

There is an urgent knocking on Ibrahim’s door.

Ibrahim goes to open it and walks back in with Joyce and Ron. Joyce looks excited.

‘You’ll never guess?’ says Joyce.

Ron looks at Bob and Ibrahim. ‘You boys doing Tatiana without me?’

‘You weren’t in,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I called for you.’

Joyce notices Bob for the first time. ‘Hello, Computer Bob!’

‘It’s just Bob,’ says Computer Bob.

‘But I thought we were doing this together?’ says Ron.

‘Bob and I are friends too,’ says Ibrahim. ‘So what’s this news?’

‘Dominic Holt is dead,’ says Ron. Ibrahim gives a low whistle.

‘And on a Saturday!’ says Joyce, with wonder.

‘Dominic Holt?’ says Bob.

‘Drug dealer,’ says Ron, with a wave of his hand.

‘You’ll know this,’ says Joyce to Bob. ‘If we have photos on a mobile phone, can we show them on a television screen? I’m sure Joanna did that when she came back from Chile.’

‘Oh, certainly,’ says Bob. ‘Couldn’t be simpler. You screenshare them from your phone. Is it an iPhone or an Android?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s in a yellow case?’

‘No matter,’ says Bob. ‘For an iPhone, go into “Settings”, then “Control Centre”. You’ll see an option called “Screen Mirroring”. Now, I’m going to also assume you have Apple TV. If so, then select it from the list, which should –’

‘Do you think you could come and do it for us?’ Joyce asks. ‘Are you terribly busy?’

‘No, I’m sure I could help, if you don’t mind a stranger tagging along?’

‘You’re not a stranger,’ says Joyce. ‘You’re Computer Bob.’

‘Come on, Bobby boy,’ says Ron. ‘You’ll fit right in.’

‘Lead the way,’ says Bob.

‘Before we go though,’ says Joyce, ‘most of the pictures are just of files, but how are you with looking at pictures of a corpse?’

‘Umm,’ says Bob. ‘I honestly don’t know. It’s never come up before.’

‘You get used to it,’ says Ibrahim, pulling on his coat.

Snow is starting to fall, and Coopers Chase is bathed in a silver, electric glow. The troops have been gathered, even Elizabeth has been raised, via an urgent knocking on her door, and the promise of crime-scene photos. ‘Can’t I have a single day off?’ she had sighed.

The Television Room is almost always empty on a Saturday evening, but on this particular occasion a woman named Audrey, whose husband was a light-fingered grocer, is sitting front and centre, insisting that she wants to watch The Masked Singer on the big-screen TV. There is a short, fruitless negotiation. Money is offered. Though, in retrospect, not enough money, given how much Audrey’s husband had embezzled from Tesco before he was asked to take early retirement. Ibrahim tries to appeal to Audrey’s better nature, but is unable to locate it. At one point Audrey threatens to call the police, to which Chris replies, ‘I am the police,’ only to be given a withering stare by Audrey and told, ‘In a t-shirt? I don’t think so.’

In one hand Audrey is holding the remote control like she was holding her mother’s hand at a traffic light, and in the other a vodka and tonic. She is not for moving.

There is a further delay as Joyce tries to explain the format of The Masked Singer to a horrified Elizabeth, and then more time is wasted as Ibrahim wants to see if the singer dressed as a dustbin is Elaine Paige. ‘I can just sense it,’ he says, before being dragged away.

And so, although Joyce’s flat is far too small for them, it is here that they have all gathered. Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim – still muttering about Elaine Paige – Chris and Patrice, Donna and Bogdan, and, still looking in thrall to the novelty of the thing, Computer Bob. Bogdan had popped into Ron’s to get extra chairs.

Alan is doing the rounds, making sure he gets all the attention he warrants. Computer Bob is new to him, and Alan spends a little extra time with him, just to ensure he’s onside.

On Joyce’s television screen is a photograph, front-facing, of Dom Holt, slumped back in his chair with a bullet hole in his forehead.

‘You told me you were going to the garden centre,’ says Donna to her mum. ‘Then this.’

‘I was just keeping lookout,’ says Patrice. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’

‘As you can see,’ says Joyce, ‘another death, another professional hit. A single bullet through the skull.’

Bob tentatively raises a hand.

‘Yes, Bob,’ says Joyce.

‘Another death?’

‘Our friend Kuldesh was shot by drug dealers,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Alan, would you please leave Bob in peace? They shot him in a country lane because he stole some heroin from them.’

‘Any other questions, Bob?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Or can we get on?’

Bob fans his hands as if to say, ‘No, please, don’t mind me.’

‘So,’ says Joyce, ‘who killed him, and why?’

‘Must have been Mitch Maxwell,’ says Ron. ‘Dom loses the heroin, however that’s happened, and Mitch can’t have that so fires one into his nut.’

‘And Mitch would know where to find Dom, I suppose,’ says Joyce.

‘One problem with that,’ says Chris. ‘When I broke in …’

Donna rolls her eyes.