The Thursday Murder Club

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
thought that, though, I suspected I was getting mixed up with inches and
centimetres.