Absolute Poison

by Evans, Geraldine

  “Not a very nice woman”, was how Marian Steadman had described Amy Glossop's mother. He guessed it was a description she would not bestow lightly. And as he studied a photograph of someone he assumed could only be Amy's mother, he felt she was right. If character showed up in the face, “not very nice” hardly covered it.

  Simply put, the woman looked a monster. She must weigh at least 20 stone and, in shape and colour, her face resembled nothing so much as a pasty suet pudding. From somewhere above the middle of this heavy slab of a face two cold eyes gazed with animal slyness rather than true intelligence. She must have had her hair styled especially for the photo, he noted, because, incongruously, her light brown hair was a mass of candyfloss curls.

  Rafferty shuddered. Under the shapeless brown dress he could trace the outline of her thighs and each looked as thick as his waist. He wondered why Amy Glossop had the photo on such prominent display. Perhaps, he thought, it was used as a reminder of what would return if she could no longer keep up the payments for the home that caged the monster mother.

  Now he understood why Amy Glossop had behaved as she had. He'd have sold his soul to keep such a mother at arms’ length.

  Under Llewellyn's introductory chat, Rafferty became aware that Amy Glossop's sharp, bird-bright eyes were studying him. The realization brought him up short. He might feel sorry for her but that didn't mean he had to lower his guard. Quickly he interrupted

  Llewellyn and brought the conversation round to Barstaple's murder and how he thought she could help them.

  Unlike Hall Gallagher, Amy Glossop was obviously willing to spill any number of beans, though, like Gallagher, she seemed to find his question puzzling and didn't trouble to hide the fact.

  “But why should it matter who was in his office? The kitchen was where he kept the food for his lunch. When you questioned me before you hardly seemed interested in that. Surely you should be more interested in who was in the kitchen and had occasion to tamper with the food than-”

  Rafferty decided to be frank with her. He guessed it was likely to be the most rewarding route. She was the kind of woman who liked to be in the know. It would encourage her—if she needed encouragement—to share whatever information she had.

  “Knowing who had been in the kitchen before lunch on the day of Mr Barstaple's death wouldn't be much help, Ms Glossop. The poison that killed him was in the yoghurt, not the prawns, and that could have been tampered with at any time since Mr Barstaple put it in the fridge last Friday.” He didn't bother mentioning Sam Dally's suggestion that someone could also have bought the same make of yoghurt and added the poison at home.

  She stared at him with narrowed eyes and then slowly nodded. “Of course.” With her head tilted to one side just like the bird to which Rafferty had likened her, she added,

  ”Now I understand why you want to know who was in his office that afternoon. There were two pots of yoghurt, weren't there?”

  She didn't wait for Rafferty to answer but went on eagerly. “That's why you want to know who was alone in his office yesterday afternoon. I can't imagine why I didn't realize before. As I told you, Mr Barstaple brought half-a-dozen yoghurts into the office on Friday. Since he started his diet he always ate one a day. He was very regular in his habits, which meant there should still be two yoghurts left. But there aren't are there? There's only one.”

  Llewellyn broke in and quickly asked, “How do you know that?”

  “It's perfectly simple,” she answered. “I always make—made—Mr Barstaple's tea and coffee, so I know there were three pots of yoghurt in the fridge yesterday morning and two in the afternoon, hazelnut and raspberry. Yet I overheard that young policeman, Smales I think his name is, say something about a hazelnut yoghurt being the only carton in his bin. It struck me as odd and I've been thinking about it ever since.” She sat back, and, with a brief animation, added, “It's obvious somebody switched the pots.” She frowned. “But why would they? I don't understand.”

  Rafferty, impressed by her natural powers of observation and deduction, waited to see if she would find even more clinching answers to explain the switch than Dally had managed. But, not being privy to Dally's other confidences placed her at a disadvantage in this respect. She was unable to either answer the question herself or encourage Rafferty to divulge his thoughts on the subject. He was surprised she didn't press him about it.

  She had yet to answer his original question he realized and now he asked again, “Can you remember who was alone in Mr Barstaple's office on Wednesday afternoon? If you noticed, that is.”

  This was a direct challenge to her observational skills, something she evidently took great pride in and she told him sharply, “Of course, I noticed. All of my colleagues were in Mr Barstaple's office alone at some time yesterday afternoon. Mr Gallagher, Bob Harris, and Marian Steadman; in that order.”

  “And do you remember the times?”

  She nodded. “They were all in there after three o'clock. I remember because that's when I made Mr Barstaple's coffee. He drank it, closed up his lap-top and went downstairs for his monthly meeting with the sales team.”

  “So it was when you made Mr Barstaple's coffee that you noticed there were definitely still two yoghurts in the fridge?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you notice if any of those three members of staff were in the kitchen after you'd made Mr Barstaple's coffee?” They'd have had to be, Rafferty realized, if one of them was the murderer and if the hazelnut yoghurt pot was to be emptied and put in Barstaple's bin.

  “No,” Amy Glossop admitted. “But that's not to say they weren't. I left the main office several times that afternoon to go to the cloakroom or to use the photo-copier which is in a little cubbyhole at the far end of the office, so any one of them could easily have gone in there then and, apart from Mr Barstaple himself who was downstairs talking to Albert Smith when I left, Marian Steadman and Hal Gallagher were the last to leave that night. Which would have given them even more opportunity to switch the yoghurt pots.” She sat back with the air of having emptied her own pot. Her efforts seemed to have tired her.

  Rafferty didn't bother to point out that she had forgotten to mention that, by being able to supply such information, she must also have been one of the last to leave on Wednesday evening. And, if she discovered that she had served her purpose and would soon be thrown on the scrapheap with the rest of her middle-aged colleagues, she would have a strong motive for murdering Barstaple herself. He glanced again at the picture of her mother and felt the same revulsion. Anything that would postpone the return of the monster would, he was sure, be grabbed with both hands. And, whatever else it did, Barstaple's death and the apparent disappearance of the report would certainly delay the carrying out of Watts And Cutley's rationalization plans.

  Amy Glossop had one of those strangely fluid faces that made the concealment of her real emotions difficult. She seemed unaware of this, but Rafferty found he could trace the direction of her thoughts in the changing expressions; loneliness, anger, resentment. The last-but-one expression to cross her face was one of determination; a resolve to get revenge on the colleagues who had cold-shouldered her that morning, Rafferty guessed.

  As though following the thought with the deed, she said, “There is one thing I thought I ought to mention.” She paused and assumed a reluctant air. “But I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm sure it's not important at all and I wouldn't want to get poor Bob Harris into trouble…“ She broke off. Rafferty adopted a look of polite enquiry and waited.

  She simpered. “But there, I suppose it's my duty to tell you. You know why he really lost his appetite on Wednesday, don't you?”

  She didn't wait for Rafferty's response, but carried on quickly as if she had managed to convince herself that the disloyalty would somehow be lessened if she told them as speedily as possible. “You already know that he'd arranged to meet his estranged wife just after midday and this was the first time he'd managed to persuade her to meet him.�
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  Rafferty nodded and Llewellyn then asked the logical question. “Surely such a meeting would have been better arranged in the evening? If it was so important to him, I would have thought he would wish to devote more time than he could take during the working day.”

  “But that's just it, you see, he did. He tried to get his wife to agree to an evening meeting, but she insisted the meeting was held during lunchtime on a weekday. I got the impression it was a kind of test, as I gather that one of the reasons they separated was because Bob's weakness had, in the past, infuriated her. She felt he put work before her and had often let her down on social occasions because work demands kept him late in the office. She knew we're kept very busy because several staff have left and that we often have to skip lunch to get through the work. She probably wanted to see if he would put her first this time and defy Mr Barstaple if he asked him to skip lunch again.” She broke off and with a sigh probably owing more to spite than sorrow, added, “I think she'd given him some kind of ultimatum.”

  Rafferty nodded. His late wife had made similar difficulties. Poor Harris, he thought; with the demands of a wife on the one hand and Barstaple on the other, he had been in a no-win situation. “Please go on.”

  “Bob being Bob, had built up his hopes that this meeting would be the start of a full reconciliation. I doubt there's any chance of that now. As he told you, Mr Barstaple called him into his office just as he was leaving to meeting his wife and kept him back for half-an-hour.”

  Rafferty hunched forward. “Let me get this clear. Are you saying that Clive Barstaple knew about this meeting and deliberately wrecked it?” From what Rafferty had learned of the victim's character it was the sort of thing he might try.

  Whether to conceal her real feelings about Barstaple or because she really felt she owed him her loyalty, when asked to do the dirty on him, she immediately went into denial. “Oh, no, I'm sure Mr Barstaple wouldn't have done such a thing. Admittedly, the state of Bob's marriage was common knowledge in the office and so was the lunch date he'd arranged and his hopes for a reconciliation, but I really don't believe that Mr Barstaple would deliberately prevent him going.”

  As though she recognised that this last took some swallowing, she gave up trying to defend the indefensible and instead went on the attack. “But it doesn't really matter, does it, whether Mr Barstaple knew of this meeting or not? Surely, the question is whether Bob Harris thought Mr Barstaple had deliberately ruined his hopes?”

  She had a point, Rafferty conceded. Though it seemed unlikely that Harris had brought poison into the office on the, admittedly, fifty/fifty chance that Barstaple would do just that. And although he couldn't say that he hadn't, Amy Glossop's spiteful tittle-tattle made him point it out. “He would hardly have come to the office that day prepared to poison Mr Barstaple. He can't have been sure he'd have reason to do so.”

  Artlessly, she told him, “But he had other reasons. Lots of them; weeks of worry as to whether he would keep his job, the accompanying stress and strain. He was never the most competent man and I'm afraid Mr Barstaple found poor Bob's indifferent performance something of a trial. He often complained to me about it. And then I know Bob's ulcers give him a great deal of pain.”

  Perhaps she felt she had burned her bridges and might as well tell all. For whatever reason, her earlier show of reluctance had certainly vanished and now she proceeded to strengthen the case against Harris. “I once read of a case where a man took to carrying poison around with him as some kind of talisman, as a morale-boosting reminder that he could rid himself of his tormentor at any time, without ever intending to actually use it. Then his boss did something that this man regarded as beyond the pale and he killed him.”

  Her words reminded Rafferty that Bob Harris had mentioned he'd got a glass of milk from the kitchen that day for his lunch, and that he'd got it immediately after his little chat with Barstaple. If he'd come prepared, the impulse to inject the poison through the plastic bottom of the yoghurt carton would take a matter of moments.

  They already knew that Bob Harris had been alone in Barstaple's office that afternoon, which meant that he had had the opportunity to both administer the poison and swap the yoghurt containers in the bin. And it had been his name on the rota that afternoon for making the tea for the other staff. He had made this after Amy Glossop had made Clive Barstaple's, whose needs always took precedence.

  Admittedly, according to Amy Glossop, whom he was beginning to dislike all over again, two more of the staff had had similar opportunities. But, so far, Harris was the only one Barstaple was known to have damaged that important six hours before he had died; the six hours the particular poison took to produce its deadly effect.

  Of course it might mean nothing. They'd already concluded that the poison could have been put into the carton of yoghurt at any time. Still, for Harris, it was a damaging discovery. It was also interesting that Amy Glossop should try so hard to incriminate her colleagues. Was resentment of them her only motive? Or was there some other demon driving her? She was the type to go in for eavesdropping. In order to have something to offer Barstaple so that he would give her preferential treatment, she would have had no choice but to poke and pry. Maybe all her poking and prying had revealed Barstaple's true intentions with regard to her future; that he intended to rationalize her, too. How would such a woman feel at the discovery? Rafferty wondered. Enraged and vengeful? Or fearful and despairing?

  It was impossible to know. Maybe it would be a mixture of all four. He just wished they could find the damn rationalization report that Barstaple had been working on. Then they'd know for certain what Barstaple's intentions had been not only for Amy Glossop but for the rest of the staff.

  Llewellyn polite as ever, said as they stood up to go, “You've been very helpful, Ms Glossop. If there's anything else you remember…“

  Rafferty was sure there was plenty, but he suspected she would dole out any information piece by piece so as to increase the period of her self-importance.

  To his surprise, he found he had misjudged her. And as if she now regretted directing their suspicions to Bob Harris who would make poor sport, she said, “In spite of what I've said to you, I can't believe Bob Harris would have the gumption to kill. Besides, it wasn't Bob who had the furious row with Clive. That was Mr Gallagher. And he'd have the gumption for anything.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rafferty and Llewellyn glanced at one another then sat down again. Rafferty wondered how much more tittle-tattle Amy Glossop had stored in her mouse-brown head. He suddenly felt impelled to warn her that if she knew anything else that might be damaging to a possible murderer she ought to tell them now.

  But she insisted there was nothing else. He wasn't sure he believed her.

  “When was this argument?” he asked.

  Amy Glossop paused as if considering. Rafferty guessed this was for show. She probably knew to the minute and had hugged the information to herself since she had known of Barstaple's murder. “It was last Friday. After everybody else had gone home.” Her bright brown eyes narrowed. “I suppose Mr Gallagher waited till then so there would be no witnesses. He didn't count on me coming back.”

  Rafferty wondered what Gallagher had done to earn this stab in the back and thought he could guess. Amy Glossop was a soured, embittered woman. An attractive, outgoing male like Hal Gallagher would have found it hard to hide his contempt for her; that would be enough to earn her hatred.

  Bob Harris wouldn't be much of a threat to her sexual dignity; he would, Rafferty thought again, be poor sport. Not that that had stopped her supplying them with damaging information. But Hal Gallagher was a different matter. No doubt that was why she had saved her most damaging evidence till last.

  Rafferty eased his buttocks off the sagging cushion, and asked, “Do you know what this argument was about?”

  She looked disappointed to have to admit that she didn't. “I'd already left the office once, you see, but had forgotten my umbrella. And as I'
m sure one of these cleaners stole the last one I'd left here, I came back for it. I heard them as I came up the stairs. Going at it hammer and tongs, they were. They were both shouting, though, of course, Mr Gallagher has such a huge bellow that his voice quite drowned out whatever Clive was saying. It was only as I reached the top of the stairs that Hal Gallagher paused for breath and I was able to make out what Clive said. It certainly shut Hal Gallagher up.”

  Amy Glossop obviously had a heightened sense of drama because now she paused and looked expectantly at them. Obligingly Rafferty offered the required prompt.“And what did he say?”

  “I'll never forget it.” She looked as though she was preparing to break off again, but a glance at Rafferty's impatient expression had her hurrying on. “Clive told Hal Gallagher he'd better be careful as he—Clive, that is—wasn't the only one with something to hide. And that if it came to it he had something on Hal Gallagher that was far more damaging than a few questionable deals, which anyway, Mr Plumley already knew about. Perks, he called them.”

  Amy Glossop pulled a face. “That's all I caught. They must have heard me then as they both shut up. At least, Hal Gallagher slammed out of Clive's office right away. Though he was still at his own desk when I left.” She broke off again and gazed from one to the other eagerly as she suggested, “Perhaps he'd already decided on more drastic measures. After all, Clive's dead. Whatever damaging knowledge he had on Hal Gallagher died with him—and less than a week after their row. Bit of a coincidence, don't you think?”