A Shock to the System

by Simon Brett

  ‘No, no,’ Laker reassured him. ‘No, just sorting out a few details about your mother-in-law.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Of course, after that letter, you had no reason to love her.’ Graham shrugged magnanimously. ‘She was a rather foolish old woman. I’m not one to bear grudges.’

  ‘No. Good.’ There was a pause. ‘She left no note.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She did on the occasions of her two previous attempts.’

  ‘Oh. Well, perhaps she thought those signalled her intentions sufficiently.’

  ‘Perhaps. Seems strange, though, for someone as dedicated to the dramatic gesture as she was, not to leave a note.’

  ‘People committing suicide are hardly rational.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’ Laker gave a little grunt, perhaps even a laugh. ‘Mr. Marshall, I think it quite possible that you were one of the last people to see Mrs. Hinchcliffe alive. Except for the ambulance and hospital staff.’

  ‘Oh, really? I don’t actually know the details of how she did it, or where or. . My sister-in-law just told me it was suicide.’

  Laker did not take his cue to fill in the background, but went on, ‘We reckon Mrs. Hinchcliffe came to see you on Saturday morning.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe this, Inspector, but she attacked me with a knife.’

  ‘Uhuh.’

  ‘She was absolutely mad.’ He took pleasure in returning the aspersion she had cast on him. He felt supremely confident and dared to continue, ‘She was still going on about Merrily’s death, convinced that I’d killed her. I’m afraid she really was round the twist.’

  ‘And she attacked you with a knife?’

  ‘Yes.’ He drew back his sleeve to show the scratch on his arm. ‘Did this. Would have done worse if I’d given her the chance.’

  ‘So you fought her off?’

  ‘What else did you expect me to do?’

  ‘Thus sustaining the injuries I can see on your face.’

  Graham’s hand went up to the raw lines of scratches on his cheek. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time did this attack take place?’

  ‘I don’t know. Round midday, I suppose.’

  ‘Uhuh. And what did you do then?’

  ‘What did I do then?’

  ‘Yes. Your mother-in-law came round and attacked you with a knife, you fought her off. . what did you do then?’

  ‘Well, I got dressed.’ In reply to Laker’s raised eyebrow, he added, ‘She had woken me up. I got dressed and went out.’

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘Well, first I went down by the river and had lunch.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Just by the river. A picnic.’

  ‘With anyone?’

  ‘No. On my own.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I walked over Hammersmith Bridge and went to the cinema.’

  ‘Oh yes. What did you see?’

  ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian.’

  ‘Ah. I saw that a few weeks back. Not sure that I approve from the religious point of view, but it had some funny sequences.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you like that moment after he’d been to bed with the girl. .?’

  ‘Um. .’

  ‘You know, he opened the window and. .’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember that bit.’

  ‘No? One of the best moments, I thought,’

  ‘Yes. To be quite frank, Inspector, I missed most of the film. Fell asleep.’

  ‘Oh yes? So what did you do after that?’

  ‘I took a train to Oxford.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘No. I just needed a break. I’ve had a tough few weeks. I needed a little pampering.’

  ‘I see. And what did you do when you got to Oxford?’

  ‘I checked into a hotel.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The Randolph.’

  ‘Without luggage?’

  ‘I had bought what I needed in Hammersmith. I had a case.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean — why?’

  ‘Why did you check into a hotel?’

  ‘I like hotels. I feel at home in hotels. When I need a treat I go to an hotel.’

  The Detective-Inspector nodded very slowly. ‘I see. Do you know how your mother-in-law died?’

  ‘No. As I say, I only just heard the news that. .’

  ‘She was killed by paraquat.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Very nasty death. Vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pains, local inflammation of the mouth and throat, leading to multiorgan failure.’

  Graham winced. ‘As you say, nasty.’

  ‘And a very unusual way of committing suicide.’

  Graham shrugged. ‘If someone’s determined to do it. .’

  ‘Have to be very determined to do it the way Mrs. Hinchcliffe did.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Detective-Inspector Laker didn’t speak as he reached into his briefcase and produced a polythene bag. Carefully and slowly, he opened the bag and placed the familiar sherry bottle on the table by his chair.

  The bottle was empty, though there was a dark sediment at the bottom.

  ‘That was how she did it, Mr. Marshall. Dissolved in the sherry were the contents of eight sachets of weed killer containing paraquat.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Well, I say “dissolved”. That’s hardly the word. It doesn’t dissolve, just sinks to the bottom really. Very difficult to swallow that lot, you know. Virtually have to crunch your way through it.’

  Graham let out a little nervous laugh. ‘As I said, she was very determined.’

  ‘Unpleasant stuff to swallow, too. Can inflame the throat tissues.’

  ‘If you’re going to kill yourself, you don’t fuss about a little discomfort, surely.’

  ‘Maybe not. Why do you think she mixed the stuff with sherry?’

  ‘To make it more palatable.’

  Laker nodded, digesting this idea. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s reasonable.’ He paused. ‘On the other hand, if that were the case, why did she put a label on it, marking it as poison?’

  ‘Well, er. .’ Graham felt he was losing ground. ‘So that nobody else would drink it, thinking it was sherry. .?’

  ‘Hmm.’ The Detective-Inspector continued to take his time. ‘Interesting things, fingerprints,’ he announced suddenly.

  Graham expressed surprise at the non sequitur.

  ‘You see, Mr. Marshall, as you would expect, your mother-in-law’s prints are all over that bottle. There are also others.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The strange thing is that the fingerprints on the label are not Mrs. Hinchcliffe’s. Or not many of them. It seems certain that someone else put that label on.’

  Graham was silent.

  ‘You wouldn’t object to having your fingerprints taken, Mr. Marshall?’

  It was time for anger. ‘Now listen, Inspector, if you’re accusing me of having a hand in my mother-in-law’s death — ’

  ‘Not accusing you of anything, Mr. Marshall. But when a strange death like this occurs, it’s my job to imagine the events that could have led up to it.’

  Yes. O.K.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d allow me to spell out a possible scenario to you, Mr. Marshall. Suppose we take the starting-point that Mrs. Hinchcliffe’s death wasn’t suicide, but that it was murder.’

  ‘Pretty botched-up, messy murder, if it was.’

  ‘Most murders are botched-up and messy, Mr. Marshall.’

  Not the ones I’m involved in! It was with difficulty that Graham restrained himself from actually saying the words.

  ‘Right, my scenario. . Let’s not just say it was murder, let’s also say that you killed Lilian Hinchcliffe.’

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  A hand was raised for quiet. ‘Hypothesis, Mr. Marshall, just hypoth
esis. Right, let’s start with the facts. Mrs. Hinchcliffe came staggering out of the front door of this house at about three o’clock on Saturday afternoon. She was very ill, vomiting, hardly able to stand. A passer-by phoned for an ambulance. She was taken to hospital and died there at one thirty-five yesterday morning. While she could still speak, she said the same thing to the passer-by who found her, to the ambulance man, and to the doctor at casualty. What she said was: “Graham did it”.’

  ‘She was probably talking about her insane idea that I killed Merrily.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe. But for my hypothesis, let’s read it the other way. And let’s think of motive. That anonymous letter didn’t endear her to you.’

  ‘No, certainly not, but — ’

  ‘I agree. Not a sufficient motive for murder, no. On the other hand, you have had financial problems recently, Mr. Marshall. I checked yesterday with your bank manager and I gather there have been times when — ’

  ‘But that’s all over.’

  ‘I have also discovered,’ Laker continued inexorably, ‘that Mrs. Hinchcliffe recently changed her will, cutting out her elder daughter, and leaving everything to her younger daughter and husband. With your wife’s death, Mr. Marshall, that meant that you — ’

  ‘But — ’

  ‘No, I agree. There wasn’t much to gain, was there?’ He stopped. ‘Until the news of the actor William Essex’s bequest.’

  ‘But I didn’t know about that. I only discovered this afternoon that — ’

  ‘Charmian Hinchcliffe left the message for you on Friday evening.’

  ‘But I didn’t hear it till this afternoon.’

  Laker cocked his head dubiously. ‘No? That seems rather strange. You spent Friday night here. Still, never mind, let’s press on with my scenario. Your mother-in-law did come round here on Saturday morning, as you say, and by then you had decided to kill her. Two suicide attempts in the past, so you thought you’d make it look like suicide.’

  ‘I don’t know what makes you think — ’

  ‘You have shown interest in poison before, Mr. Marshall. Some weeks ago. The girl at the library remembered you very clearly.’

  ‘But — ’

  ‘And the young man at the garden centre said that you were very specific about wanting a weed killer containing paraquat.’ Laker smiled. ‘But on with the scenario. Let’s say you experimented with weed killer in sherry. First, perhaps you thought you could get Mrs. Hinchcliffe to drink the treated sherry by mistake, but then you realised that she’d never be fooled. So you had to force her to drink it.’

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘She put up quite a fight. Hence the scratches on your face. But you forced the bottle to her lips repeatedly until she had swallowed all of it.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘There were bruises on her face consistent with her mouth being forced open. Her lip had been cut where the bottle was jammed against it.’

  ‘That wasn’t how it happened.’

  ‘I suggest that it took you some time to make her swallow it all. I suggest that you left the house round three o’clock.’

  ‘I left before one.’

  ‘No one saw you.’

  ‘Did anyone see me at three?’

  ‘No, but then ordinary people are very bad witnesses, Mr. Marshall. They don’t notice who comes and goes most of the time, unless the people’s behaviour is very unusual.’

  It was true. The success of all Graham’s other murders had been based on that, just luck, the unobservance of ordinary people. And now the luck was working the other way.

  ‘But at three o’clock I was in the cinema.’

  ‘You don’t seem to have a very clear recollection of the film. And suddenly buying new clothes and going off to a hotel in Oxford seems strange behaviour. Could look like running away, Mr. Marshall.’

  Graham said nothing.

  ‘Very well, I’ve given you my scenario. All I’m asking you to do is to offer me some proof that it isn’t true. Anything you like. Go on, anything. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t arrest you for this particularly unpleasant and ill-managed murder?’

  Stung by the slight, he almost leapt to the defence of his murders. But he caught himself in time and had to be content with conditional justification. ‘If I ever committed a murder, it wouldn’t be mismanaged. It’d be good. I am good. I’m efficient, logical. . systematic. .’ He ran out of self-praise.

  ‘One reason, Mr. Marshall. That’s all I ask.’

  Graham felt the waters closing over his head. The pressure on his lungs was as real as it had been in the darkness of the sea at Bosham. Panic beat about inside him like a bird in a net. He felt sweat against his clothes. His eyes watered as he looked into the grave, unforgiving face of the Inspector.

  He wondered if Lilian had worked it all out, foreseen the consequences of her last actions, or if the suicide had been born of simple desperation. Either way, witting or unwitting, she had made her suicide a weapon against her son-in-law and demonstrated another transmutation of the power of death.

  And for her, as for him, the circumstances had all connived for success.

  Lilian was having her revenge. The old man on the bridge, Merrily, Robert Benham and George Brewer all shared in that revenge.

  And Graham Marshall was powerless to stop the adverse flow of his fortunes. There was nothing he could do.

  Unless. .

  The little glimmer of memory glowed into hope, then burst into confidence that filled him again with warmth and power.

  ‘Actually, Inspector,’ said Graham, ‘I do have a witness to my leaving the house before one on Saturday.’

  The announcement caught Laker wrong-footed. He could only gape.

  ‘A former secretary of mine was waiting for me. She claimed to have some grievance against me. We exchanged a few words when I came out of the house. She said then she was going to wait till I returned.’ He shrugged. ‘When I came back an hour ago, she had gone. Her name is Stella Davies. If you care to check, here’s her number.’

  Laker took the proffered address-book, and Graham treasured the stunned look of frustration on the Inspector’s face.

  As before, the relief after a close shave (and this had been the closest yet) made Graham light-headed. The Inspector had gone into the hall to telephone, but Graham still curbed the urge to laugh. He must play his last scene of triumph with becoming dignity.

  Stella. Good old Stella. The eternal alibi. For two of his real murders she had unwittingly stood surety, and now she could free him from suspicion for the one he had not committed.

  It had been a nasty moment, a tease from the gods of chance, a threat of overtaking in the final lap, but Graham had survived, fought off the challenge, and nothing now could stop his victory.

  He poured two large whiskies. He would recapture the previous intimacy with Detective-Inspector Laker. He would be magnanimous, forgiving the policeman’s accusations. He would move the conversation on to their late wives and compare symptoms of bereavement.

  He set the Inspector’s whisky ready at a convenient table and sipped his own as he awaited the apology.

  The door from the hall opened. He identified the Inspector’s expression as one of sourness.

  ‘Well?’ Graham raised a confident eyebrow.

  ‘I spoke to Miss Davies. She confirms that she arrived in her car about twelve on Saturday. She would have come to the house, but she saw Mrs. Hinchcliffe letting herself in.’

  ‘As I said.’

  ‘She stayed in her car until three when she saw Mrs. Hinchcliffe stagger out.’

  ‘Persistent, eh?’ Graham grinned and indicated the Inspector’s Scotch. ‘But what a useful witness.’

  Laker did not move. ‘Yes. What a useful witness. She saw you leave the house too, Mr. Marshall.’

  Graham allowed himself a little I-told-you-so shrug. ‘At about a quarter to one, right?’

  There was a silence. When he finally spoke, Laker’s vo
ice was cold and dull.

  ‘No. Miss Davies saw you run out of the house just before three.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She started her car to follow you, but was then distracted by Mrs. Hinchcliffe’s appearance staggering out of the front door. When she next looked, you had gone. You were running, she said, “like a man possessed”.’

  Graham Marshall mouthed, but no words came. The random gods of chance had changed their allegiance. For him, for so long, they had made what was false seem real; now, with savage impartiality, they were making the real seem false.

  He felt himself sinking, sinking.

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  Simon Brett

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