by Cathy Ace
‘I know exactly what she means. Tell her she has my sympathies, and send her my best, Evan,’ said the doctor.
‘Will do. She keeps telling me to ask you and Gareth over to our house. And I do, as you know. Please let’s try to work out a date?’
‘You know we’d love to come, Evan, but you of all people understand how difficult it is to set a date for something as simple as a dinner. But let’s try. You, me, our calendars, and a promise of Betty’s lamb ragout, and we should get something sorted within the next month or so, right?’
Glover chuckled ruefully. ‘We’ll see, eh? Anyway, Rakel, back to the matter at hand; what exactly is a large dose of nicotine, and did she eat it, or drink it?’
‘We’re talking about the woman taking in about a teaspoon full of pure nicotine. Someone could have boiled down cigarettes to produce a horrifically bitter potion, or maybe they could have got her to swallow one of those bottles of nicotine liquid you can buy almost anywhere these days for those vaping devices. Of the two – if I were a poisoner, or someone contemplating taking their own life – I’d go for the latter; spending a few quid on a bottle of colorless, tasteless liquid that can kill someone is a lot easier than boiling up packets and packets of ciggies for hours on end. But I cannot yet tell you which method was chosen by our killer – if that’s what we’re talking about. You see, I cannot say for sure the woman didn’t do this to herself, then phone for an ambulance when she had second thoughts. What I am certain about is that her stomach contents – the remains of some biscuits and what I believe was a ham sandwich – were negative for nicotine when tested, so I think it’s unlikely she ate or drank the poison in one hit. I believe it was absorbed gradually through the lining of her mouth.’
‘Sounds like a conundrum,’ observed Glover, his heart sinking. ‘Isn’t there anything you can tell me that might be helpful?’
Souza swore in Welsh; she was well-known for doing so when talking to monoglots, and Glover was certainly one of those – though his years of playing rugby meant he was more than passingly familiar with Souza’s exclamation. ‘The skin’s the most efficient way for the poison to enter the body, but the amount on the victim’s hands was pretty small – far too small to have done the damage, and there weren’t large patches of the stuff painted onto her, or anything like that. No puncture marks, either. She definitely ingested it. I’ll admit I’m puzzled, but there are still a few tests I can do. I’ll get you whatever I can as soon as possible. But you can’t rush science.’
Glover recognized one of Dr Souza’s favorite ways of shutting down a conversation, but he decided to add, ‘Listen Rakel, you’ve just caught a suspicious death – feel proud. Who knows what happened here – that’s up to us to find out – but without your diligence, we’d never have known a thing about it. So, thanks.’
He hoped Souza was mollified, but was also aware that a six-day-old trail to what might be a murder – or possibly an intentional overdose – meant a long day, or week, lay ahead of him. Even though it was only Monday, he sighed as he visualized the weekend trip to the Brecon Beacons he’d planned with his beloved Betty disappearing over the horizon, maybe never to be retrieved.
He weighed the idea of stopping to grab a quick coffee, but realized if he could get away from HQ quickly he’d stand a better chance of missing the afternoon school rush, when the streets of Swansea became a nightmare knot of traffic. So, instead of bothering to sit down behind his desk, he patted his pockets to check he had all his communication devices, and called into the cramped office across the hallway, ‘Stanley, with me right now, please.’
As he continued toward the staircase a youthful blond head popped out of the office door into which Glover had shouted. ‘Sir?’
‘Suspicious death, Stanley. Drop everything. I’ll drive, and you can gather all the salient details as we go, okay?’
It wasn’t a question, and Detective Sergeant Liz Stanley knew it. The Welsh habit of finishing a statement of fact with what sounded like a question was something she’d quickly noted after moving to South Wales from her native Bristol; it had been bad enough being an Englishwoman in a Welsh police service, to not understand the way her colleagues used the language she’d always assumed they shared would have been an affront she’d never have overcome.
Stanley gathered up her jacket and followed her boss to the small car park behind the police station. They sped from the courtyard with Glover driving, passing information to Stanley as she made notes. She also opened the files Dr Souza had emailed, and read them aloud to her boss.
Glover wrapped up their exchange as they parked. ‘So we’ll talk to the husband who has no idea we know about the poison. I want to keep it that way for as long as I can.’
‘Yes, sir.’ This was Stanley’s standard reply to pretty much all of Glover’s statements and questions, not just because Glover was her boss, but because she had enormous respect and admiration for him; he was an instinctive detective, rather than a slave to procedure, but he also managed to retain the support of his bosses by doing just enough to keep on the right side of the politics at HQ.
Having been assigned to Glover for about six months, Stanley was still in awe of him as she watched him swoop down on the facts of a case and make sense of them in a way no one else could. There was no question about it, the man saw connections and disparities that escaped his colleagues, and he was able to draw the right conclusions from what it seemed he alone had observed. Stanley knew she’d been lucky to be put to work with him, and she always hoped some of Glover’s ‘magic’ would rub off on her. But she doubted it; she knew she was bright, but accepted she was a slogger – a woman good at keeping facts straight and following up on leads, but somehow she couldn’t make sense of them the way Glover could.
‘You ready for this then, Stanley?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the DS as they stood at the door of 65 Plasmarl Park Terrace.
‘Say next to nothing, follow my lead, and look as thick as possible, right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Not that looking thick should be a problem for a Bristolian, eh?’ joked Glover. He quickly added, ‘Don’t tell HR I said that unkindly. I meant it as a witticism – you understand that, right? We just had that seminar on respect in the workplace, didn’t we? Sorry.’
‘Not a problem, sir, I get it,’ replied Stanley, stifling a smile.
Glover rearranged his features to look suitably grave when a short, balding man, aged somewhere around the mid-fifties, opened the door to them.
‘Mr John Kitts?’ Glover and Stanley showed their official IDs, which the man peered at through thick-lensed spectacles as Glover introduced himself and his DS. Glover cut across the man’s hesitant ‘Yes’ with a businesslike, ‘We’re here about your wife, Mrs Emily Kitts, sir. Our condolences for your loss. I wondered if we might have a few words? Just wanting to get the facts of her demise straight. I’m sure you understand – an unexpected death in the home and all that . . .’ Glover’s voice trailed off into a warm yet polite smile – a smile that disarmed most people.
John Kitts invited Glover and Stanley into the house, where Glover detected the nauseous bouquet of any number of cleaning products. He wondered whether Emily Kitts had been an ‘obsessive compulsive deodorizer’, which was how his wife referred to women who just couldn’t stop trying to make things smell like something they weren’t; Betty hated toilets perfumed with citrus fruits, and carpets redolent of summer florals.
Considering John Kitts’ generally unkempt appearance, Glover suspected personal hygiene hadn’t been top of the list of things the man had attended to in the past several days, something he reckoned the late wife would never have let him get away with. He spotted a mound of dirty dishes peeping over the top of the kitchen sink, and half-full mugs were dotted on every available coaster in the living room.
‘I’d offer you tea, or coffee, but I’m out of milk.’ Kitts sounded as though he couldn’t have cared less
about the tea, the coffee, or the milk.
Glover was running all the standard questions in his head as he took the seat he was offered. Had this man killed his wife? Might he have wanted to? Could he have? How would her death change his life? Glover had to find out the answers to all those questions, and more – and without letting on he knew that anything untoward had happened. He’d have to tread a fine line, with care.
‘Don’t worry about us, Mr Kitts – we’re just fine without a cup of anything, aren’t we, Stanley?’ Glover beamed at his sergeant, who nodded and beamed back – inanely, as requested. ‘I’m sure you’ve got much more important things to be thinking about than buying milk, Mr Kitts,’ continued Glover. ‘I understand your wife’s death must have been a terrible shock for you. Might I ask what happened, exactly?’
Kitts seemed to be immediately engaged, excited even, and leaned forward in his chair as though to take the officers into his confidence. He looked around the room before he began to speak, and when he did so it was in not much more than a whisper. Glover wondered just how controlling Emily Kitts had been.
‘It’s been awful. I never imagined being without her, you see. She’s been the love of my life since we were fourteen. Well, she was fourteen, I was a few years older. We met in school and we’ve never been apart since. And now? Well, I don’t know, really.’ The man seemed deflated, genuinely despondent, and confused.
Glover had to admit that, if Kitts was acting, he was doing a good job of it.
‘You see, I wasn’t here when it happened,’ Kitts continued, bleakly. ‘I could have helped her if I’d been here, I’m sure of it. I’ll never forgive myself. If only I hadn’t forgotten that stupid newspaper. I always buy the newspaper on my way home from work.’
‘And where exactly do you work, Mr Kitts?’
Kitts seemed surprised by the question, but answered promptly, ‘I work in the City Archives down at the Brangwyn Hall. I’ve always been an archivist – it’s fascinating work, you know.’ He seemed to be about to try to convince Glover that poring over old papers and filing them away was an intriguing job, but Glover helped him get back to the point.
‘So you usually get the newspaper on the way home, you were saying?’ he pressed.
‘Yes, that is my habit,’ replied Kitts breathlessly. ‘I pass the shop at the end of the road on my way from the bus stop, so it’s no trouble, and it means we don’t have to pay that silly paper boy a weekly delivery fee. Anyway, I forgot it; I remembered I’d forgotten it just as I got about halfway up the road. I knew how disappointed Emily would be, because she loves – loved – to keep up with the local news, you see, so I turned around and went back to get it. One thing led to another, and I suppose I was in the shop for a fair bit, just having a general chit chat. When I came along the road the second time, there was an ambulance at our front door, and a bit of a crowd had gathered; all the neighbors were trying to find out what was happening. I rushed in, and there was poor Emily white in the face on the floor in the kitchen, and they were trying to get her heart to start. But they couldn’t. They tried and tried, but they couldn’t make it work. And then I couldn’t get hold of Dr Jenkins, because he was on holiday, and the young lady doctor they sent instead of him wouldn’t sign the death certificate. It was all most upsetting.’
‘I know this must be difficult for you, going over it all again, but I’m sure you understand we have to make some sort of investigation in the case of an unexpected death.’ Glover thought he’d leave it at that and see what happened.
Once again, Kitts scanned the room before he bent his head forward and whispered, ‘Yes, I understand, and so you should. I can’t understand it, you see. Emily was never ill a day in her life. Never complained of anything ever being wrong with her whatsoever. She was as healthy as a horse. Ask anyone.’ Kitts leaned even closer to Glover and added, ‘But you do hear about these things, don’t you? You know, an apparently healthy person dropping dead with no warning, then you find out they’ve been living with some sort of undiagnosed condition hanging over their head all their life, unbeknownst to them. I expect to hear something like that when they’ve had a chance to examine poor Emily. Mind you, I wish they’d hurry up – there are so many things to plan, and I still don’t know when I’ll be able to have the funeral. They seem to be terribly slow at that hospital.’ Kitts reached out a hand and laid it upon one of Glover’s. ‘I don’t suppose you could help with that at all, could you, inspector? I’d be ever so grateful. There’s such a lot to get done, you see.’
Glover withdrew his hand from Kitts’ moist grip, which made him think of damp putty, and straightened in his seat. ‘I’ll do what I can, of course, Mr Kitts, but I need to clarify a few things first. Now, about your wife; do you know what she’d been doing while you were out at work that day?’
Kitts reflected for a moment and stared hard at Stanley, who sat with her pen poised above her notepad.
Licking the tip of his thumbnail, Kitts replied, ‘Well, it was Tuesday, so I suppose she’d have cleaned the bathroom, then she’d have done the ironing and starching. That was Tuesday, Monday being laundry day.’
The widower obviously felt he’d answered the question fully, but Glover followed up with: ‘Might I see the bathroom, and wherever she’d have been doing the ironing and starching, please, Mr Kitts?’
The man seemed puzzled, but answered politely, ‘I don’t see what good it will do, but you’re more than welcome.’ He led the two detectives up the narrow, steep stairs to the bathroom. Other than a couple of globs of toothpaste in the bowl of the sink, and a few items being out of place, it was dazzlingly clean and exuded some sort of sickly scent Glover couldn’t place. Kitts then led them to what would have been a spare bedroom, had it not been turned into a repository of what Glover assumed to be the epitome of clothing care; a large ironing board with a fierce looking iron sitting upon it dominated the center of the room, beside which stood two smaller boards that seemed ready be to locked into place on top of the larger one. Beneath the net-curtained window that looked across to the terrace of houses opposite was a low rail, upon which hung a wide selection of men’s shirts – mainly white or blue – and a veritable rainbow of women’s blouses. On the right-hand side of the room was a rail carrying an assortment of dresses, skirts and trousers; all perfectly pressed, each item was covered with a clear plastic bag to protect it from the non-existent dust in the house. The final wall, to the left, was filled from the floor to the ceiling with an open-fronted organizing system comprising small cupboards, cubby holes, and shelves bearing plastic bins with labels that read ‘Black Shoes’, ‘Brown Shoes’, ‘Canvas Shoes’, and ‘Evening Shoes’. A further array of shelves was filled with piles of immaculately folded garments. Glover smiled inwardly at what Betty would think of all this; anal was a word that came to mind.
‘Your wife seems to have been an admirably well-organized woman, Mr Kitts,’ commented Glover, wisely keeping the sarcasm out of his voice.
‘Indeed she was,’ gushed Kitts, ‘like I said, I don’t know what I’ll do without her – she kept me so well-turned out.’ The front door bell pealed in the hall below; Kitts seemed uncertain about what he should do.
Glover spoke casually, ‘Why don’t you see who’s at the door, Mr Kitts? We’ll be just fine here. You’ll know where to find us.’ He smiled his special smile.
Kitts bowed his way, backwards, out of the room and Glover and Stanley could hear vague sounds coming from the hallway. Stanley quickly and quietly pulled out plastic bins, poked around in and behind the hanging clothes, and made a dash for the other bedroom. At the same time Glover was making himself at home in the bathroom, checking the contents of the medicine cabinet, and of the alarmingly well-stocked cupboard full of cleaning products beneath the sink.
By the time John Kitts rejoined them they were both standing in the laundry room nonchalantly admiring the view of the houses across the street.
‘A neighbor calling?’
asked Glover, as he watched the woman who had just left the Kitts’ home enter a house across the road.
‘Yes, Mrs Roberts. Mary. She’s been such a help, I don’t know where I’d have been without her stews and pasta dishes. I’ve never been much use in the kitchen; Emily always said I got under her feet. I only know how to make bacon and eggs, and I’m not very good at the eggs. You can’t live on that, can you?’
Glover knew it was best to refrain from making a crack about hardening arteries to a man who possibly believed his wife to have died of a heart attack, so asked, ‘Were Mrs Roberts and your wife good friends?’
Kitts considered his answer briefly, then said, ‘I don’t think Emily had any real friends, in the normal sense of the word. She didn’t like to be close with anyone except me. But I know Mary always came here for tea and so forth on a Thursday morning. Wednesday was Emily’s baking day, so Thursday was the best day to have someone over, you see.’
‘I do,’ replied Glover. As the threesome descended the stairs he considered the regimented way in which the Kittses had lived their lives. He wondered if there might be a list of daily duties hanging on a noticeboard somewhere in the house, or whether the routine had been so well-known by the couple after years of endless repetition that one wasn’t needed.
They arrived back at the kitchen, which had obviously proved too much for Kitts; as Glover had suspected, Kitts wasn’t a washer-upper, he was a stacker, and the stack had reached toppling point.
‘That’s what Mary was after – her casserole dish,’ said Kitts pointing at a ceramic pot caked with something brown, half-poking out of the sink. He looked sheepish as he whispered, ‘I told her I hadn’t finished it – I suppose I’d better give it a bit of a rinse before I give it back. She’s been so solicitous these past few days, but Emily always said she was a bit overly fussy about that sort of thing.’
Glover wondered how a woman to whom cleanliness was clearly such a priority could say that someone else was ‘overly fussy’, and decided he’d like to meet this Mrs Mary Roberts, so it was with the information that she lived at number 64 that Glover and Stanley took their leave of John Kitts, with Glover promising the man he’d telephone him as soon as he had any information about the release of his wife’s body.
