TOBIN, MIRIAM (1947 – 2006) Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator, Loudmouth. More than a year after Miriam's unexpected death, a myth persists that she and I were rivals. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of our respective qualifications recognises that Miriam wasn't equipped to inhabit such a role. She was an occasional irritant, but only to the extent that she insisted on expounding on matters outwith her own limited realm of expertise. The fact that our disputes on the Crime Time Radio show occasionally became heated, can be attributed to her habit of rolling her eyes and muttering "for the love of Mike" whenever confronted by an opinion that confounded her own worldview. While I'm normally slow to anger, Miriam's tendency to labour idiotic points combined with an habitual insolence goaded me into losing my temper on three separate occasions. This does me no credit, but I could refer the reader to letters from regular listeners congratulating me on my customary forbearance. (Over the same timescale, admittedly, I received other letters accusing me of rudeness and bullying, but the recurrence of similar points and the fact that they are written on the same lilac paper suggest a co-ordinated campaign. A typical Tobin ploy: cunning but shabbily executed.)

It's unfortunate that, in the immediate aftermath of Miriam's death, Rob McAskill chose to commemorate her meagre contribution by replaying 'highlights' of these contretempts, ruthlessly edited to give the impression of a plucky underdog (Tobin) beleaguered by an overbearing blowhard (Coe). If anything, he made matters worse by imploring the Open University to posthumously grant her the psychology degree she claimed to possess until my investigations proved otherwise. This deceit might seem harmless until one considers its purpose: to undermine the testimony of Coe and, more importantly, the victims I've represented over the course of my investigative career. McAskill's ludicrous campaign against truth merely adds insult to injury.

The Tobin family claimed that the humiliation of exposure contributed to an existing heart condition and precipitated Miriam's demise. In their indignation, they overlooked the fact that she would never have been exposed had she not chosen to lie in the first place, a fairly obvious point I struggled to put across when my presence at her funeral (in itself a magnanimous gesture) provoked a disgraceful reaction from several of her relatives.

 

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