by M. J. Trow
‘Thank you for the translation,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it as read next time. If there is a next time?’ He looked questioningly at Ninja. ‘Are there more?’
‘Loads,’ she said with relish. ‘I can’t remember them all and, of course, some of the poisonous ones are really quite rare, so you just don’t find them outside a botanical garden. But, hold on, here’s one I remember. Hydrangea.’
‘We’ve got those as well,’ Jacquie said. ‘And Mrs Troubridge’s garden is awash with them.’
‘Well,’ said her mother, ‘it’s the leaves and buds with those, I think, but if you ate enough you would sink into a coma. Let’s see … oh, yes, there’s the Swiss cheese plant. Do you remember Jacquie, when you lived with … oh, you know, nice boy, what was his name? Anyway,’ she hurried on with a glance at her daughter’s face, ‘he had a huge one, do you remember?’
Jacquie just raised an admonishing finger to Maxwell without even meeting his eye. He subsided without speaking.
‘It sat on the dining table, if memory serves. Well, that contains calcium oxalate, that I do know. It causes loss of voice. Then you get to the really nasty ones.’
‘Ninja, I must interrupt here,’ Maxwell said. ‘How the hell do you know all this?’
She smiled at Jacquie, the smile all daughters know. It is used in the application of A-Level guilt, but can be taken on to degree level in extreme cases. Jacquie’s mother had nothing less than a doctorate. ‘I spend a lot of time on my own, Max,’ she leant forward with a martyred smile. ‘I am a member of the Women’s Institute, the Townswomen’s Guild, the Soroptimists, the Stitch and Bitch Club and, of course, the Royal Horticultural Society. And before you ask, it was the WI that had the lecture on poisonous plants. I always make notes.’
Maxwell threw her a look that contained at least some admiration. She was not his favourite woman, never would be, but there were certain points at which they very nearly met.
‘Max?’ She closed her eyes and held out her hand to him.
He chuckled. ‘Then you get to the really nasty ones,’ he said.
She smiled at Jacquie. ‘So clever,’ she murmured. ‘Anyway, to get on, because I’m sure Henry will be phoning soon.’
‘Hope so,’ muttered Jacquie.
‘Then you get to the really nasty ones. I can’t remember many of those but the two I can remember are really quite horrid. There’s the Jerusalem cherry – do you remember, Jacquie, Granny Carpenter used to give me one each Christmas and it was dead by New Year? Anyway, Max, I’m not sure whether you’re familiar with it, but it is a member of the deadly nightshade family and the fruit is very poisonous, causes abdominal pain, vomiting and all the rest. I can’t remember what the poison is called.’
‘Solanocapsine,’ Maxwell offered. He’d been to a good school.
‘No, dear, stop making it up,’ she admonished. ‘Then there’s oleander, which is such a pretty plant and that one really scared us, I can tell you. Every single piece of it is poisonous and can kill you. Even, and this is the bit I think is very sneaky of it, even the smoke if you put it on a bonfire.’
There was a silence as her list of horticultural horror stopped.
‘So,’ Jacquie said at last, ‘basically, darling heart, you are right and I am wrong. You can get poison very easily on the net. Just type in Thompson & Morgan or Suttons Seeds and you’re away.’
‘It certainly looks that way,’ Maxwell said, standing up. ‘Ninja, dear, can you do us a favour? Can you babysit Nole this evening?’
Jacquie’s eyes widened and she also stood up. ‘Don’t you think …?’
‘I don’t expect there’ll be random walking parties in here, do you, my little cabbage?’ He turned to his mother-in-law-to-be. ‘Would you like Mrs Troubridge in here for company? I’m sure you’ll get on like houses on fire.’
‘Max, how thoughtful. I would love that. And thank you both so much for letting me mind Nolan after … well, you know. But might Mrs Troubridge not be busy already? It is Saturday night.’
A whole range of late-night activities flashed through Maxwell’s brain: pole dancing at Big Willie’s; sniffing lighter fluid on the Flyover with half of Leighford High; standing on the corner of Knocking Shop Lane earning her last five bob.
Jacquie shook her head as if she was reading his mind. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find her waiting for our call, Mum. I’ll just go and see, shall I?’ She went to the top of the stairs and crouched down slightly so that she could see through the frosted glass of the front door, one floor below. Sure enough, she could see the faint outline of Mrs Troubridge’s elbow, pruning, pruning, always pruning the hedge between their houses.
She trotted down the stairs and opened the door a crack. ‘Mrs T, do you fancy an evening in with my mother? We’re going out.’
‘Your mother, dear? I didn’t know your mother was here.’
‘Gosh, didn’t you? Well, I did tell you this afternoon.’ Jacquie’s heart dropped. Perhaps this wasn’t one of Max’s better ideas. ‘You know,’ she added. ‘Boot-faced?’
Mrs Troubridge laughed the girlish trill which had won her Mr Troubridge all those years ago from under her sister’s nose. ‘My dear, I will have my little joke, you know. I’ll just pop back indoors and powder my nose and I’ll be right along.’
Jacquie climbed the stairs and stuck her head round the sitting room door. ‘She’s on her way. Have fun now, Mum. Open a bottle. Let down your hair. Oh, and, can we borrow your car? Henry was supposed to get mine sent back but I suppose, what with one thing and another, he forgot.’
‘Of course, dear. The keys are in my bag on the landing.’
Maxwell sketched a wave as he went out to join her on said landing. ‘Just remember Thelma and Louise and make sure you behave.’ He closed the door.
‘Which one is which?’ Jacquie giggled.
‘Hard to say,’ he said and handed her a jacket. Although the nights were still warm, there was a slight Septembral dampness in the air. ‘Let’s go and see Nole, and I suppose we’d better move the Count.’
They crept up the stairs and peeped round the door. They had no chance of moving the cat, who was stretched out alongside his Boy, who had an arm firmly round his neck. The great beast had one paw protectively on the child’s chest and, old warrior that he was, one eye permanently and disconcertingly half open.
‘Let’s hope that neither of them checks on the chaps,’ whispered Maxwell as they crept back down the stairs. ‘They’ll freak out.’
Jacquie did a very creditable impression of her mother, ‘Darling, that animal will sleep on his face. He’ll get fleas.’
Maxwell was outraged, but his Mrs Troubridge was immaculate. ‘As if my boy would give anyone fleas. The idea!’ And he almost threw out a ‘tcha’ again, but thought better of it. They crept right on past the sitting room door and down the stairs. The real Mrs Troubridge was waiting on the step, about to ring the bell.
‘Just go on up, Mrs Troubridge,’ Maxwell bowed low and ushered her in. ‘Mrs Carpenter is all set to open a bottle.’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Troubridge pitched her voice low. ‘Is she a drinker, my dear? What a worry for you. It probably explains the …’ she waved a hand vaguely in front of her face, ‘… expression.’ She patted Jacquie’s hand. ‘Off you go, you youngsters. Well, Mr Maxwell, I know you won’t mind me saying, youngster and Mr Maxwell. I’ll look after her. Have a nice time, now.’
Wearing the usual expressions of those who had tangled with the weird and wonderful world of Troubridge, they got in the car and drove away.
‘Where are we going, Max?’ Jacquie asked, at her first T-junction. Her mother’s Peugeot was a bit of a bitch until you knew how to handle it; bit like its owner, really. ‘Left or right would be enough information right now, if you are still undecided. But be quick, because I have a bus on my tail.’
‘Hmm?’ Maxwell looked up and glanced behind him. ‘Oh, sorry. Miles away. Make it left. That will do as well as any other di
rection.’
‘You don’t mind me saying that this seems a little random, do you? Am I right in assuming we’re not just out for a drive to get away from the wedding planning? To watch the branches stir across the moon at Grantchester?’
Maxwell smiled. So she had been taking in the snatches of his favourite poem that he lobbed into the conversation from time to time. He made no comment, of course; he’d rather die than let her know he was impressed.
‘Well, that was part of it, of course. But, no, I had a bit of a think in the bath. Like you do. There was Nole, blowing bubbles as if nothing had happened, and it struck me that – and I restrained myself from shouting “Eureka Stockade” – with the exception of the Barlows, this hasn’t been as random as it at first might seem. So I gave some thought to the Barlows and where their shop is, and the answer to that one is obvious.’
Jacquie changed gear for the next junction, cursing under her breath as it crunched ever so slightly. ‘Well?’
‘Left again.’
‘Max, this is heading for Leighford High.’
‘In a way. All roads lead there, don’t they? In fact, we’re heading for the Barlows’ corner shop. The shop where I, and I have to admit this, dear heart, drop in on the occasional morning for a bag of sticky buns or some other comestible to keep the troops sweet in tutor meetings, or chocolate to schmooze Helen or even a nice bar of something for my good self. As the song goes, chocolate makes the world go around, the world go around, the …’
‘You go to the poisoned shop?’
‘You’ve caught the media idiom pretty well, you adman’s dream. Yes, I do, or perhaps that should be did, sadly enough, go to the poisoned shop. Which leaves us with several options. Either, it is a coincidence and, as Henry would say,’ and they broke into choral speaking, ‘there are no such things as coincidences. Or,’ he continued, solo, ‘someone has a preternaturally detailed knowledge of my lifestyle.’
‘Assuming you’re the target?’
‘For the moment, yes.’ He reached across and patted her knee. ‘It’s not always about you, you know,’ he teased.
‘So, they targeted a shop you use.’ She played along, a raised eyebrow to mark the moment.
‘Correct. The odd thing is that they chose to do it on a Friday night, when I wouldn’t be using it for another two days.’
‘It might have been done before, hoping to catch you on your way back from school. No, wait, that doesn’t work. The cakes had only been delivered that afternoon; well, call it early evening, really. So much for bakery fresh.’
‘Well, I suppose they were, once. Unless of course, your boys in blue should be out looking for that well-known Napoleon of crime Le Crust or that pair of criminal masterminds, the Brake Brothers. Um, next left, talking of brakes, and we’re there. I wonder, and of course, Juliet Bravo, I bow to your superior judgement here as in all things,’ he paused to wait for the light punch on the arm, ‘but I wonder if Chummy is dragging it out on purpose. For his own amusement, as it were.’
‘You mean he’s enjoying it, like you said?’
‘Yes. But also, if he makes it too obvious, we will fine down the search too quickly and we’ll catch him too soon.’
Jacquie pulled up outside the dark shop and pulled on the handbrake. She turned to him. ‘But surely, he doesn’t want to be caught at all. He’s killed someone, Max, and may well kill again. He’ll be looking at a life sentence for that. No one wants one of those just to piss you off.’
‘Point taken, but I think that this is some kind of game and he doesn’t care what the consequences are. I think I am the ultimate target, Jacquie, because the first outbreak hit the school. Nolan came later. A sort of homing in, narrowing down, call it what you will. But if he takes out others on the way, that’s fine by him. The thing is, he targeted Nolan too soon in the game. I’m already mad. Now I want to get even.’
‘But what about Margaret? You hardly know her, so it can’t be an attempt to get at you, well, not just you.’ She didn’t want the target to be Hall any more than she wanted it to be Maxwell, but straws were there to be clutched at.
He looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, I know. That’s the fly in my ointment. We’ll have to find out where she got the cake.’
‘Locally, I assume. You don’t drive for miles to get a cake for your tea.’
‘True, but she might have bought it when she did a bigger shop, so we might be looking at closing supermarkets, now. Can you imagine the publicity that will bring? Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury, all like ghost towns. The press will have a field day. Stock markets will crash. Farmers will go bust. Governments will fall …’ He was on a roll.
‘Earth to Maxwell, Earth to Maxwell. Come in. Over.’
He gave himself a mental shake. ‘Possibly I exaggerate. I’m pretty sure she bought it up the road. So, bearing in mind that the Halls live nowhere near school and nowhere near us, that means that Henry was also a specific target, since, as you say, I barely know Margaret and so her poisoning wouldn’t be an attack on me personally.’
Jacquie pointed at the shop. ‘Are we going in?’
‘No, no. No need. I just need to get a map of some sort in my head. I’m an historian, my dear, not a …’ and he shuddered gently, ‘… geographer. No, drive on, James, and don’t spare the horses.’
‘Where to?’
‘To where?’ he corrected automatically. ‘The Halls’ house.’
‘Max! We can’t. For a start they are probably all round at the hospital.’
‘I know, that’s why we’re going there after the house. I just want to get the lie of the land and see where they are in relation to shops.’
‘I’m sure Henry has already thought of that, Max.’
‘Lie of the land, dear heart. Lie of the land. Henry may be a copper of above average intelligence, saving your presence, but he’s no military historian. You’ve got to have a feel for these things. Come on, now. Don’t shilly-shally. Unless you’d rather go home and discuss the Troubridges’ bridesmaidal requirements?’ He glanced at her stricken expression. ‘No, I thought not. Drive on.’ He waved a hand towards the windscreen as a teaching aid. ‘Off we go.’
And they left the sad, deserted corner shop, empty of customers for the first time in years, its stock quietly passing its sell-by date and the dust motes spiralling slowly down on newspaper and chocolate bar, on biscuits and instant coffee. The murderer had killed Mel Forman and he had also killed Barlow’s Eight Till Late Corner Shop.
The lights were going out all over Leighford.
Chapter Fifteen
Henry Hall sat quietly by his wife’s bedside, holding her hand. He had seen so many people, sitting just like this, victims of crime and circumstance. He had never actually put himself in their position, had never wondered what it felt like to be sitting next to the most beloved person in your life, feeling the faint flutter of a pulse in your fingers, not knowing whether it came from them or you, willing them to open their eyes. That wasn’t his job. His job was to be cool, detached, professional. He couldn’t help people otherwise. But he found, as all those people had found before him, that you don’t need instructions for moments like these. Hope, he was finding, really does spring eternal. It wasn’t in his nature to talk to her. Where some might have chatted about things, plans they would make, how things would be different if only they would turn their head, open their eyes, he found he had no regrets but one. And he didn’t want to waste this moment talking about the past. All the things he hadn’t done. All the times he hadn’t been there. And, as an honest man, he couldn’t promise things would change when she opened her eyes, when she turned her head. So he settled for squeezing her fingers every now and then and willing her to fight the poison inside her.
He was glad he had found her. It had not been a sight he would have wanted his boys to see. She had obviously been taken ill very suddenly but had managed to make it to the bathroom. Being a policeman’s wife, and knowing something was very wrong, she hadn’t flushed, and
he was proud of her for that. Unfortunately, the presence of umpteen different things to prevent limescale, smells and, for all he knew, infestation by termites, had made her gesture meaningless. So they were waiting for the blood toxicology and that could take too long. They were just rehydrating her and giving her various antidotes, to be sure. The problem they had was that they had to make sure that the antidotes without the antigens would do no harm.
He forced his mind back to the finding; there may yet be a clue there that he had missed. So, diarrhoea had been, as the doctors had it, present. But he had found her in her chair, in a coma from which she had shown no signs of emerging. The phone was in her hand, her hand was in her lap. It looked as though she had intended to ring, then just gave up. He had written all of these things down and now all he could do was sit here. He dropped his head onto their joined hands and muttered the nearest thing he could to a prayer. He was sure that God wouldn’t mind that it included threats to dismember whoever had done this, limb from limb and slowly. An eye for an eye, after all, he thought grimly. That was God’s spell too, wasn’t it?
A hand came down gently on his shoulder and a voice breathed in his ear.
‘Mr Hall, your sons are here. Would you like them to come in?’
He looked up into the nurse’s face. ‘I don’t know. Is that a good idea?’
She straightened up and said, ‘Well, sometimes it helps if the patient’s children come in. With no offence to you, Mr Hall, it is often their voices which bring a person round, especially a mother. And … well, you haven’t been saying much and we really do recommend …’ Her voice tailed away.
Hall stood up and pushed his chair tidily away. ‘Yes, nurse. Let the boys in. I’m sure she’d be pleased to see them.’ He brushed past her through the curtain round his wife’s bed and stalked down the ward. His sons were waiting outside the doors, brought home from their vacations by every means the police could conjure from squad car to helicopter. Even in his extremis, Hall was thinking of the paperwork it would entail.
