Have you ever bought any Polonium-210? Do they have it in Sainsburys? Will Ocado deliver it? Amazon, maybe?? No. Generally radioactive substances are not in common circulation. For fairly obvious reasons. And, like all radioactive stuff, they don’t exactly grow on trees. They have to be made. Created in labs. Polonium can in fact be processed, but the largest quantity ever made by this produced 9mg of the stuff from 37 tons of radium residues. What could be called ‘a poor yield’. And not really something you could do in a hotel room. Well, maybe if the room was on the ground floor near the car park. “I’m expecting a delivery today, will you have it sent to my room please”.

So we’ll establish that Polonium-210 is not readily available. You need to have it. And who is more likely to have some, ready prepared and pre-dissolved in acid (the only way to transport it)? A vicar? A traffic warden? A waiter on the staff of a west end hotel? A chambermaid (with or without requisite uniform)? Or a former (ish) KGB agent? Answers on a postcard…

Furthermore, Comrade Lugavoy, the KGB man, had flown in from Moscow that very morning. And it must be understood that Lugavoy, though doubtless deadly with a kalashnikov, a garrote-wire, ice-pick or blade, is something of a klutz. Because his hotel room was covered in radioactive residue. Not available in the mini-bar. So whilst preparing his poison of choice, Andrei splashed it all over the fucking place. Mel hates it when I splash shower gel all over the sink, can you imagine how she’d be with radioactive isotopes??

The trail then moves to the Milennium Hotel. And its an easy trail. By the very nature of radioactivity; its active. In the case of Polonium-210, it has a half-life of 138 days. Which means in that period, it loses half its potency. In the next 138 days it halves again, becoming a quarter the potency of the original. You following this? You should know it from year 9 physics, ya dipstick.

The teapot used for the victim’s tea set the geiger counter into a frenzy. As did the cup. And, later, Litvinenko’s body. And then, as would be expected by any murderer, thug, hit-man, traitor, no-goodnik or any other vile and evil creature; they went to the Emirates to watch Arsenal. Where the trail of radioactivity continued. And oddly, this trail ended only when Lugavoy left the country the following day. What a coincidence.

As a ‘whodunnit’ its not a very good one. As a ‘why-dunnit’, Litvinenko was basically a traitor to Russia and hated by them all. The only interesting bit is the ‘who-sanctioned-it’? And when it comes to such things, in fact to everything, there’s only one man for whom the buck stops. Vladimir Putin.

We should… we should… hit men on British soil!!!!… we should… British subjects (he’d acquired his citizenship just days before the event) murdered in broad daylight!!!… we should…

I don’t know. What should we do?

Happy Friday

A xxxx