by Sarah Rayne
Driving away, the recipe in her bag, Ella was increasingly nervous about what was ahead, but it had to be faced. She parked outside Clem’s house, and saw with mingled relief and apprehension that the curtains were all closed exactly as they had been last night, and that a pint of milk stood on the front doorstep.
Again, it was important to behave naturally, so Ella rang the doorbell and then, when there was no response, plied the knocker. She stepped back, looked up at the curtained windows, then consulted her watch, frowning slightly. Anyone watching would think she was calling on Clem by arrangement and was annoyed to find him either not at home or still in bed.
Ella tried the doorbell again, then walked around the side of the house, trying to quell the nervous clenching of her stomach muscles. This was going to be the tricky bit, the unpleasant bit. She pushed open the wrought-iron gate, which Clem’s fancy had led him to paint a virulent pink. Here was the back of the house, with its little terrace and the pink chairs that matched the gate. There was the big patio window that opened off the dining room. Ella looked through the window, shading her eyes against the sky’s reflection in the glass.
Nothing seemed to be out of place in the dining room. That left the kitchen window to be looked through, and the kitchen, it had to be said, was the likeliest place for Clem to be. Ella stepped back and looked up at the bedroom windows, and again she looked at her watch in case anyone was in sight. Then, taking a deep breath, she stepped up to the small kitchen window with its looped and swagged blind and the row of African violets in pots on the sill.
For a moment she thought there was nothing to see, and the possibility that Clem had got himself to bed last night and died or was lying helplessly ill in his bedroom rose up. He might not even have eaten the food at all, although Ella did not think that was very likely. She leaned closer to the window, trying to see the entire room.
Oh God, he was there all right. He was lying on the floor by the kitchen table, and there were all kinds of mess round him: crockery that had crashed to the floor, the results of sickness . . . Ella found herself gripping the window ledge. Stupid, she said. You know what you’ve got to do. Everything’s worked out.
She went quickly to the patio window and, taking off one of her shoes, smashed it as hard as she could against the glass, as close to the latch as possible. The tough double-glazed glass splintered, and several splinters showered out and stuck in the leather driving gloves Ella had been careful to wear. She brushed them off and dealt a second blow, then a third. At the third blow, a large section of the glass fell inwards, smashing onto the floor, and she was able to knock out several more and step through.
She walked warily across the dining room and opened the door into the kitchen. The first thing to strike her was the stench. Dreadful. She snatched a tissue from her pocket and clapped it over her mouth, and, trying to remain calm, leaned over to feel for a pulse in Clem’s wrist. There was a bad moment when she thought something fluttered under his skin, then she realized it was her own pulse, skittering like a trapped bird. He was lying half on his front, hunched over. Should she move him to check for a heartbeat? But his skin was cold and flaccid, and when Ella lifted his wrist there was a board-like stiffness to his arm. Rigor mortis? She was annoyed to realize she had not thought of that, and it was not the kind of thing one knew about instinctively. But she had the impression that it generally set in six or eight hours after death. She had left Clem shortly after half-past eight. If he had eaten the poisoned food soon after she left, he had presumably died around nine or a bit after. That seemed to fit.
Ella straightened up, and looked round the kitchen. In a minute she would phone for an ambulance but first she must find the diaries, Clem’s stupid self-indulgent journals with God knew what damning content. She was still not entirely sure if they existed, but she went systematically through the house, opening cupboards and wardrobes, peering under the beds. She was starting to panic. Supposing after all he had put them on a computer? But when she went into the little boxroom, there they were, potential dynamite, neatly stacked inside a small cupboard. Ella’s first reaction was relief and then shock that there were so many. Had he written one a year, for pity’s sake? No, there looked to be about twenty or twenty-five of them – one book would cover roughly two years.
They were not diaries in the strict sense, but leather-bound notebooks. Ella took several out at random and sat on the edge of a chair, looking at them. Morning sunshine streamed into the bedroom and dust motes danced in the light. There were faint sounds from the street – the slam of a car door, somebody calling out a greeting, the bark of a dog in a neighbouring garden.
Ella only half heard these noises, because her whole attention was on the notebooks. ‘My Jottings’ Clem had called them. Sometimes, if he had had a drink, he would call them ‘chronicles’. Whatever they were called, Ella supposed you might, if you were of a romantic disposition, consider that fragments of the past were captured inside these books, although having murdered the author twelve hours earlier, romantic was the last thing she was feeling.
She opened the topmost book and saw at once that Clem had not made an entry every day; he had simply written accounts of events that seemed to him interesting, a couple of pages here, an odd sentence there, all with a date heading at the top. Sometimes he had not written anything for several weeks. Ella turned the pages, realizing that even though she would be able to find Clem’s original account of the man’s death at Cadence Manor, removing that one book would not be enough, because it looked as if Clem had sprinkled references to it through the whole of his journals.
Even on his fiftieth birthday he had harked back to it. ‘A landmark birthday this one,’ he had written.
A time for retrospection, for taking stock. Writing this, I look back over the things I’ve done and wonder if decisions were made rightly and if actions taken were correct. That last day when we were all in Priors Bramley, for instance . . . Could we have acted differently when that man chased us . . .? And how much were we to blame for his death? That’s an uncomfortable thought, but it’s one that sticks in my mind. The past is always distorted when one views it from the present – and memory spins its own illusions – but as I grow older I find myself wondering if we fought that man too hard – if one of us gave him one push too many . . .
One of us gave him one push too many . . .
I’ve even wondered at times if his purpose was not as sinister as we believed. What if he was simply some poor soul whose wits were not entirely sound – some remnant of the Cadence family, even – trying to be clumsily friendly, maybe trying to tell us to get out before the Geranos bomb was dropped?
Ella closed the book with a snap. Clem’s notes were absolute rubbish; that man had been evil and malevolent, and even though Clem could not have known that, Ella had certainly known it. She had no qualms at all about having killed him.
She had no qualms about having killed Clem, either, particularly now she had read this. And she was deeply relieved she had found these notebooks because if Clem had been able to hand them to the police, the truth of that day would certainly have come out. There would have been probings into the past – into Ella’s childhood. The never-forgotten image of Serena Cadence, dead and terrible in the dim over-sweet room, rose up. It should have faded with the years, that ghost, but it never had.
All these notebooks would have to be destroyed. Ella had been prepared for this and had brought two folded-up plastic carriers in her handbag. The diaries would make a fairly bulky package, but anyone seeing the bags would assume, if they thought about it at all, that it was shopping.
The first diary had been written shortly before Clem’s ninth birthday, and had ended when he was eleven. Ella thought Clem had probably got bored with it at times, only returning to it when something of real interest had happened. There was an account of the school play – that had been the year that Veronica played the princess and Ella got to know Derek. She frowned, closed the book, and began to pu
t the whole lot into the carrier, checking the dates as she did so to make sure they were complete.
But they were not. The diaries ended with an entry dated last year and the book was written to the last page. So unless Clem had suddenly stopped writing, which seemed unlikely, there must be another one somewhere. He would surely have described recent events: the opening up of the village and the finding of the bodies. Ella frowned and rechecked, but there was definitely not a current one. The possibility that it might be in his desk at the library or that he had, after all, begun using a computer occurred to her. She would search again, but first, she moved a pile of magazines onto the empty shelf of the cupboard so it would not look as if anything had been removed.
She checked the bedrooms again, even looking under Clem’s pillow this time, but found nothing. By now she should be phoning the paramedics. If anyone had seen her break in they might later remember there had been quite a long delay before the ambulance arrived. She scoured the dining room and then the sitting room, again opening cupboards and cabinets. Nothing. Finally, she stood in the hall, unwilling to re-enter the kitchen. Don’t be squeamish, said her mind sharply. You know you’ve got to go in. Do it. Don’t think about what’s lying there on the floor. Don’t even look at it.
Pressing the tissue to her mouth again, she opened the door and went in. Terror engulfed her at once. He had moved – Clem had moved. Oh God, thought Ella, staring at the twisted figure, oh God, he’s still alive and he knows I’m here and he’s trying to crawl towards me for help. And then she saw that of course he had not moved. It was just that the clouds had cleared and a spear of sunlight had fallen across the kitchen, giving an eerie semblance of movement to the prone figure.
She opened cupboards and drawers. Nothing. She dare not waste any more time; she would have to make that phone call to the ambulance. And then she saw it – the missing journal, thrust behind a plate rack, clearly done hastily because several corners of the pages were slightly creased. Ella seized it thankfully, and glanced inside. Yes, it was the current one. The final entry read, ‘Dear Diary, yesterday noticed definite frisson between our visiting Oxford don and a certain young lady who helps out in the library . . . May well try to promote good relations and more closeness between them – if only to annoy E.H.’
Fury rose up in Ella. You thought someone was your friend – you trusted him – and all the time he had been sniggering and plotting behind your back. She thrust the journal into the bag with the others, then headed for the phone in the hall.
‘Emergency, which service, please?’
Ella had thought this out, just as she had thought out the other parts of her plan. No longer troubling to quench panic, she asked for ambulance. ‘Quickly.’
When the ambulance service, calm and efficient, came on, she said in a breathless voice, ‘I’m at a friend’s house. Mr Clement Poulter. I’ve had to break in. He was lying on the floor and I thought – oh God, I thought he had just fainted, but now I think he might be dead – anyway, deeply unconscious. So please can you come . . .’
‘That’s all right, madam,’ said the voice. ‘Can you give me the address?’ A pause while a note was made. ‘We’ll be with you in about eight minutes. Can I just get your name and address in the meantime? And can you give me any more details about Mr Poulter’s condition?’
Ella knew they generally kept you talking while the paramedics were on their way. It was something to do with maintaining calm or making sure you were not a hoaxer. Or, if you were the sufferer, making sure you stayed conscious, of course. Whatever it was, it meant she could sit down on the little hall chair, and establish some of the details of her plan.
‘I’d arranged to call,’ she said. ‘Some dishes I was lending Clem – Mr Poulter. Only he didn’t answer the door and the milk was still on the step and curtains drawn . . . So I went round the back and I saw him through the kitchen window, lying on the floor.’
‘You did the right thing phoning at once,’ said the voice, and Ella thought, oh, if only you knew!
She said, ‘I just thought he’d fallen over – broken an ankle or something. I smashed the window to get to him.’
‘Very resourceful.’ The voice was warm and approving. Ella remembered that these calls were usually automatically recorded.
She gave a half-sob and said, ‘But I saw almost at once that he was – um, well, if he isn’t dead he’s deeply – deeply – unconscious. I said that, didn’t I? And he’s been dreadfully sick and – and so on.’
‘Our people are used to all that kind of thing,’ said the voice.
‘You’re very kind,’ said Ella, meaning it. ‘And, oh, wait, I can hear the ambulance now. Do I ring off?’
‘Just let them in and then come back to me when they’re in the house.’
As Ella unlocked the front door, admitting a burly gentleman and a youngish woman, she thought that you heard all kinds of horror stories about the NHS and the emergency services, but they certainly seemed to be coming up to scratch for Clem. Fortunately, however, it would be much too late for them to save his life.
Amy was horrified when Gran returned home white-faced and tearful, with a dreadful story of how she had found Clem Poulter dead on the floor of his own kitchen. Amy was not entirely unfamiliar with people zonking out on the floor and paramedics having to be called, but in her world the cause was usually drink or drugs. It was impossible to associate Clem Poulter with either of these things, however.
‘You broke into his house?’ she said, rushing to make Gran a cup of tea. ‘You actually smashed a window and climbed in? Gran, you’re amazing.’
‘I did it without thinking,’ Gran said. ‘Oh, that’s a nice cup of tea, Amy. I think I’ll take a couple of paracetamol as well.’ She drank the tea gratefully. ‘I could see him quite clearly through the patio windows,’ she said. ‘He was lying on the floor in a dreadful huddle. I suppose I could have phoned the police right away – in fact that’s probably what I should have done – but all I could think was of getting to him at once.’
‘I think it was brilliant of you,’ said Amy warmly.
‘Well, I’ve known him so long, oh dear, since we were children. I’ll have to phone Veronica, and somebody will have to let the people at the library know . . . I think I’ll just give your grandfather a ring first. He’ll know what’s best.’
‘I could tell them at the library,’ said Amy. ‘The girls there would know who to contact.’
‘No, I’d better do it,’ said Gran. ‘It’s my responsibility, Amy. He was one of my oldest friends. He’d want me to do everything I could for him.’
Everyone in Bramley was deeply saddened at the death of nice Mr Poulter from the library. Shocking, they said. Some kind of food poisoning, seemingly. It just went to show you could not be too careful with shellfish. The Red Lion removed its seafood platter from the bar menu at once, and chalked spaghetti bolognaise on the board instead, which, as the harassed manager said, could surely offend no one – well, apart from people who knew how it should be spelled, so would somebody please find a dictionary and rewrite it correctly.
But when the results of the autopsy were made known, it appeared that nice Mr Poulter had not died from food poisoning at all, but from a different kind of poisoning altogether. The leaves of Nerium oleander, the Mediterranean plant from the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. The inquest followed three days later, at which it was concluded that Mr Poulter, eagerly trying out a new recipe for a dinner party, had mistaken the very harmful toxic oleander leaves for the entirely harmless and flavoursome bay leaves.
Ella, wearing a grey outfit (black, she felt, would have been overdoing it), gave subdued evidence of having called at Clem Poulter’s house early in the evening to discuss recipes, and of arranging to return early the following morning with a recipe and some dessert dishes. Mr Poulter had been cooking the meal then, she said, and had told her he would be eating some for his supper that night. She had not particularly looked at the dish, but she had though
t it smelled very tasty and she had . . . she paused to stifle a sob . . . she had thought how much they would enjoy eating it at the little party. She would like to add her appreciation of the paramedics who had come out very promptly and been very kind.
‘Thank you very much,’ said the coroner approvingly.
A member of the local Exotic Plants Society testified to having seen Mr Poulter plucking bay leaves from the tree in her garden on several occasions. Pressed for more detail, she said, with reluctance, that it was without her permission, although she would certainly have given it if asked, and she had never bothered to confront him with it. A few bay leaves were neither here nor there. Well, yes, she said, with even more reluctance, she did have an oleander bush growing near the bay.
‘Could Mr Poulter have mistaken one for the other?’ asked the coroner.
‘Not if he was paying attention,’ said the Exotic Plants woman. ‘There’s a definite difference.’
‘But if he wasn’t paying attention? If, for instance, he was taking the leaves furtively, trying not to be seen. Looking up and down the road.’
‘I suppose it’s possible.’
The coroner supposed so, as well. He drew a little thumbnail sketch for the Court of Clem Poulter standing outside the Exotic Plants house, sliding one hand over the hedge to what he thought was the bay tree, his eyes on the road in case anyone came along, not paying sufficient attention to the leaves he was actually taking. He then directed the jury to bring in a verdict of Death by Misadventure, and himself added a rider to the effect that it was very dangerous to steal plants and experiment with them for cooking purposes. The body, he said, could now be released for interment.
Ella had gone to sit in the town hall’s little public gallery by that time – Veronica had saved her a seat. It was annoying to see that Veronica had had no qualms about wearing black, in fact add a lace veil and she would look like a Victorian widow, apart from the skirt, which was unsuitably short, and the heels, which were impractically high. Amy, surprisingly, had turned up in a black pinstripe trouser suit with a cream silk shirt. Ella had not even known Amy had brought such a garment with her, but she noticed how well the outfit suited her, even with her slightly outlandish looks, which were, of course, down to Amy’s mother, the girl Andrew had married entirely against Ella’s advice, and whom Ella had never much liked, although Derek always said she was lovely.
