Absolute Poison

by Evans, Geraldine

  “You're at least fairly confident that this place name is a three syllable word?” Llewellyn asked. Ada Collins looked blankly at him and he explained. “Birmingham makes three distinctly separate sounds. Are you sure the name Mrs Flowers mentioned had the same?”

  Ada Collins shook her head and told him apologetically, “I can't be sure. I'm sorry. Dot Flowers had a coughing spasm while she was talking to me and the middle part of the name was obliterated by her spluttering. It didn't help that there was some sort of echo on the line.”

  Rafferty stifled a groan. He even managed a faint smile when Ada Collins said encouragingly, “Still, there can't be that many place names beginning with a ‘B’ and ending with a ‘ham’. It should be easy enough to check.” He hoped she was right. He thanked her for her help and the unwelcome information and they left her to her work. With witnesses and possibile suspects disappearing at the rate they were, this case was rapidly turning into an Agatha Christie saga. He could only hope his suspects didn't continue to disappear ‘until there were none’ as had the characters in Mrs Christie's famous novel.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  With his mind still wrestling with the suit problem and his body plagued by what seemed to be turning into a particularly virulent form of influenza, Rafferty was finding it increasingly difficult to summon the energy to give the enquiry the lead it demanded. Llewellyn wasn't similarly troubled and he had apparently decided he had to take the initiative. He took to it like a duck to water.

  Rafferty let him get on with it. After all, if he didn't manage to come up with a solution to the wedding suit problem it might be the only taste of rank and responsibility Llewellyn got.

  Llewellyn had checked out the NHS website for a listing of all the hospitals in the country as well as using various search engines to check on possible place names. Not satisfied with these, he was currently working his efficient way through various atlases and gazetteers checking on place names that began with ‘B’ and ended with ‘ham’. He had already collected quite an impressive list, Rafferty noted. But, if they were to eliminate Mrs Flowers from the enquiry they had no choice but to check with the hospitals of each place on the list. He knew he should be grateful that Llewellyn had not only thought of the possibility that Mrs Collins had misheard the name of the place where Mrs Flowers’ son was hospitalized, but had also taken upon himself the responsibility of following it up. He wasn't, of course. And his conscience, which, like him, had been subdued of late, bestirred itself sufficiently to tell him he was an ingrate.

  Pausing to wipe his streaming nose, Rafferty peered over Llewellyn's shoulder. Burnham, Bookham, Brookham, he read. And Beckenham, Balham, Balcome, Bulphan, Burham…He drew back with a sigh when he saw that Llewellyn's growing list still scarcely extended beyond the Greater London area.

  “I presume we're doing this phonetically as well as alphabetically?” Llewellyn asked.

  “What?”

  “Balcome isn't spelt ‘ham’ at the end, but it sounds as if it is and Bulphan is also pretty close.”

  “I suppose so.” Rafferty waved his hand over the list of names. “You don't think this is a total waste of time?”

  “Probably. But it looks worse than it is. Most of the smaller places won't even have hospitals, so will be quickly eliminated. But we've got to check.”

  “I know that.” Rafferty paused, then burst out, “But do you have to be the one to do all this? It's taking far too much time. We're neglecting our more likely suspects; the staff of Aimhursts. We haven't even got around to asking Hal Gallagher about the argument he's supposed to have had with Barstaple yet. Maybe we're wrong to become so obsessed with a couple of off-the-books cleaners who weren't even on the payroll at Aimhursts.”

  Rafferty thought of all the other checking that was still to be done and felt more ill and depressed than ever. “I could use your help checking them out, not in doing glorified clerical work.”

  For once, mercifully, Llewellyn didn't pull him up by pointing out the obvious—that if he had been doing any such checking he'd kept it very quiet. Instead, in a long-suffering voice, he asked, “Who do you suggest replaces me? Smales?”

  Rafferty didn't even bother to answer that one. He tried and failed to come up with the name of one officer who could not only be spared for the task, but who could be relied upon to be as painstaking as Llewellyn. Half of them spelt even worse than Rafferty himself and would be likely to miss half of the possible sound-alike names.

  “I don't know why you've got such a bee in your bonnet about those blasted lists, anyway,” he complained, and repeated, “it's not as if we haven't got enough else to do.”

  “It's just that I've a feeling,” Llewellyn told him.

  “A feeling? You?” Weakened by flu and self-pity, this was too much for Rafferty and before he went on he had to subside into a chair. “Since when has Llewellyn the Logical let feelings lead him by the nose? Let me give you a bit of advice,” he continued. “You stick to logic and leave the feelings to me and Smales. And as for those lists.” He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Just don't bother me with any feelings you might have about them. I don't want to know. And you needn't think you're going to spend all your time playing word games. You can have half-an-hour a day till next Wednesday and then we'll see.”

  Stiffnecked, Rafferty strode to the door, consulted his watch and said, “You've got thirty minutes, then I want you to come with me to see, first Bob Harris’ wife and then Hal Gallagher before they go out for the evening. We've been sidetracked on these damn illegals long enough. I, for one, think it's high time we found out more about the main suspects. First, if his wife had given Harris an ultimatum and whether he believed she meant it.

  “And second, what story Hal Gallagher has come up with to convince us that his argument with Barstaple wasn't a prelude to murder.” After these self-righteous pronouncements, Rafferty stamped out, muttering ‘feelings’ to himself as he banged the door behind him.

  Rafferty was surprised to see that Eileen Harris still displayed her wedding photos on the living room cabinet. He would have expected them to be packed away along with the wreck of her marriage.

  “How full of hope and optimism we were, Inspector,” she commented as she caught the direction of his gaze. “How young and stupid.”

  They had certainly looked the first three of those things, Rafferty thought as he studied the happy faces of the young couple as they smiled into each others’ eyes. Tragically, life had in the intervening years succeeded in transforming hope into disappointment, optimism into despair, and—in Eileen Harris’ case at least—youth into middle-aged cynicism. The sweetly smiling mouth in the photograph was now surrounded by lines of bitterness.

  But as the disappointments of life, marriage, and everything, were too close to home for comfort, Rafferty was not inclined to dwell on them. He cleared his sore throat and said, “We're here about the murder of your husband's boss, Clive Barstaple. You're aware he was found murdered on Wednesday evening?”

  She nodded, but made no other comment.

  “Your husband-”

  Impatiently, she brushed back her dull brown hair and broke in “Estranged husband, Inspector.”

  “Your estranged husband,” he corrected, “told me you and he had a lunch appointment on Wednesday. “I wonder could you confirm that?”

  She nodded. “Or perhaps I should say that I thought we had a lunch appointment. Bob obviously thought differently, seeing as he stood me up.” She shrugged. “He's left me hanging around on my own at parties and restaurants often enough in the past because he won't stand up to his bosses, so I suppose I half-expected it. Anyway, I issued the latest in a long line of ultimatums and told him that this time, if he did it again, it would be the last.”

  “And was your hus-estranged husband aware that this time you meant it?”

  She hesitated. Perhaps she still felt something for the fresh-faced boy she had married, even if he was now flabby, anxious,
middle-aged and bedevilled by ulcers, because she smiled faintly and gazed at the wedding photo as if reminiscing and said, “I really don't know. I'd told him the same thing so often, you see. How could he know that this time I meant it?”

  It was as neat and evasive an answer as Rafferty had ever heard. And it told them precisely nothing. Somehow, Rafferty doubted she would reveal anything more.

  “I think we should have another chat with Harris himself before we see Gallagher,” Rafferty said when they were back in the car. “I get the feeling Harris won't be quite so discreet on his own behalf.”

  Nor was he. They found him at home. Harris was in his pyjamas and he told them he was on sick leave; the sick leave he hadn't dared take before Barstaple's death, Rafferty thought to himself. He couldn't help but wonder if it was significant.

  Bob Harris lived in a bedsit just round the corner from the marital home and Rafferty concluded that he either couldn't afford something better than the cheap rented accommodation or had put off buying anything else because hope and uncertainty stopped him; hope that he would get back with his wife and uncertainty that he would succeed in clinging to his job for much longer.

  Rafferty remembered he'd meant to ask Harris why Barstaple had called him in to his office for a chat on the day of his murder. And before he asked anything else, he questioned him about it.

  Harris seemed to shrivel at the question. Of course this didn't necessarily indicate guilt, Rafferty knew. How could Harris not react suspiciously when Amy Glossop had gone out of her way to make Harris and everyone else aware that, of them all, he had a very good reason for wanting Barstaple dead?

  “Mr Harris?” Llewellyn prompted, when Harris failed to respond.

  Slowly, Harris looked up. “What did he want to talk about?” he repeated. Slowly, he shook his head. “What he always wanted to talk about, of course. The same old things; my inadequacy, my lack of team spirit, my poor grasp of new office technology.”

  He shrugged wearily. “It was his usual technique for getting rid of the older members of staff and it was very effective. I suppose you could say that I knew my days at Aimhursts were numbered. I'd already listened to the same monologue twice before; this was my third, my final warning. I'm surprised he didn't make sure the letter was written and posted that afternoon. But it's all on my file,” he added. “Mr Barstaple was always scrupulous about covering his tracks. I had to sign yet another file note agreeing that I was useless.”

  Rafferty had read it and an embarrassed silence fell after Harris’ pathetic admission. Rafferty felt desperately sorry for him and, aware that more humiliation was in store, was reluctant to resume the questioning.

  Although not lacking compassion, Llewellyn was made of sterner stuff and it was he who broke the silence. “We went to see your estranged wife earlier, sir,” he told Harris.

  “She seemed adamant that your separation will now become permanent. You realized this was how she felt?”

  Harris didn't even attempt to deny it. He freely admitted that he'd been aware his wife had been determined to make a stand this time. He raised mournful spaniel eyes to Llewellyn's face. “She's become so much harder in the last year or so. Always before, when she issued ultimatums, she softened them with a smile or a joke.” His voice cracked as he told them, “This time she didn't.”

  “And how did you feel about that?”

  “How did I feel?” For the first time during the interview Bob Harris seemed jerked into a semblance of passion. “How do you think I felt? I felt sick. I still do.” He stared intently at Llewellyn. “I love my wife very much, Sergeant. I don't want to lose her.” As if the realization that she was already lost to him had hit him anew, Harris’ voice flattened. “But you see she either couldn't or wouldn't understand that the employment market has become a lot tougher, especially for men of my age. She would never accept that I had no choice but to put in long hours when the job demanded it.”

  His hand sketched a despairing gesture. “Oh, I know I'm weak and let people walk all over me, but, with Barstaple, what choice did I have? If I'd stood up to him, I'd have lost my job for certain. And if I'd been rash enough to tell him what I thought of him he'd make sure I could never get another job.” He met Rafferty's eyes. “I wasn't so desperate, Inspector, that I'd risk that. It's a mistake to lose control, especially with someone like Clive Barstaple. There's always the risk that you'll go too far.”

  Rafferty nodded. He could imagine that Bob Harris would have a lot more than ulcers burning away in his gut. And when the worm turns…

  Next on the list was Hal Gallagher. And not before time, thought Rafferty. The trouble was, of course, that they had so many angles to cover they had somehow managed to get sidetracked off the main drag of the investigation. It wouldn't have been so bad had not all of the side alleys so far turned up little or nothing. Their failure rate on the case was one hundred percent. It didn't help either that Llewellyn seemed obsessed with chasing after even more nebulous elements…

  Rafferty sighed, only too aware that they should have spent more time on the staff at Aimhursts than they had so far managed. He was surprised Bradley hadn't yet bawled him out over his handling of the investigation. If only he wasn't so preoccupied with the iffy suit and the trouble it was causing him, he might have his mind more on the job.

  Hal Gallagher had a small flat just round the corner from the train station. Its location brought Ross Arnold to Rafferty's mind. Arnold's alibi had checked out; not that Rafferty had really considered him a serious suspect. But the memory of the man made Rafferty wonder, after what Amy Glossop had told them about his argument with Barstaple, whether Gallagher, too, had selected a home in such a location for the purposes of speedy relocation.

  Bluff King Hal, as Rafferty had come to think of him, had just finished his evening meal when they arrived. He seemed to live a sparse, bachelor existence, and his home seemed to contain few softening touches such as a woman would bring. Of course, Gallagher had lost his wife, so had perhaps put away pictures or ornaments in order to reduce the painful memories.

  Even so, given what Gallagher had said about missing his wife, Rafferty was surprised that, unlike Eileen Harris, Gallagher chose not to display his wedding photographs. He concluded that Gallagher must simply prefer to keep his memories in his head rather than displayed on his furniture.

  “You've been very frank with us up to press, Mr Gallagher,” Rafferty began, after Hal Gallagher had settled them in his living room. “So why didn't you choose to tell us that you had had a row with Clive Barstaple on the Friday before his murder?”

  Gallagher didn't seem overly-worried by Rafferty's abrupt question. He grinned, perched himself on the edge of his dining table, and asked, with every appearance of amusement, “Why do you think? You got this tidbit from Amy Glossop, right? Just my luck that it had to be her who caught me arguing with him. I deliberately waited till everyone had gone to have it out with him.”

  Rafferty and Llewellyn exchanged glances. So, they said, it seems as if our engaging American is ready to be as frank as ever.

  This cautioned Rafferty to be wary. Such apparent openness was a perfect way to conceal things of a more damaging nature, he knew.

  “Have what out with him, exactly?” he asked.

  Gallagher raised bushy eyebrows. “I thought you knew. Hey, are you guys getting me to incriminate myself?”

  “Nothing of the kind, Mr Gallagher,” Llewellyn soothed. “We'd just like to hear your version.”

  Gallagher shrugged. “It's simple enough. I wanted him to ease off Bob Harris. Poor guy was about at the end of his tether. I was scared he might do something desperate.”

  It was Rafferty's turn to raise his eyebrows. “Like murder Barstaple, for instance?” Rafferty was beginning to think that the entire office was trying to pin the murder on Harris. But it seemed he was wrong, because Gallagher immediately contradicted him.

  “No. Bob's not the type for that. I was scared he might damage himself
, not someone else. I assumed even Clive wouldn't like to have that on his conscience.” He pulled a face. “Seems I was wrong, though. He didn't give a damn. Was real hard-nosed about it. Had the poor bastard in his office again Wednesday and gave him another roasting. The bottom line with Clive was always the profit margin, the next dollar.” Gallagher gave Rafferty a twisted smile. “You get the picture?”

  Rafferty nodded and smiled. “I certainly do. You're a real Rembrant.”

  “Not me. Clive was the artist. You've gotta hand it to the guy, he was a Master at what he did. He painted most of us into one hell of a corner.” He shrugged. “Seems one of us decided to break out, that's all and a piece of trash died. Too bad.”

  “And what about you, Mr Gallagher? Did he paint you into a corner, too? It seems pretty clear that most of the staff had good reason to wish Barstaple out of the way. Did you?”

  “Me? No, not me. I'm just a dumb guy, but I was smart enough to play Clive's game. That's why I'm still on the payroll. Funny really, I'm the only one who didn't need the job.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I did a few deals when I was younger and was able to stash a few dollars away. But a man's gotta have something to occupy him.”

  Rafferty wondered by what means Gallagher had managed to ‘stash a few dollars’ and how large was the stash. He reminded himself to get Llewellyn to make a few enquiries about it. He was curious, too, about Gallagher's relationship with the late Robert Aimhurst, and he asked, “How did you and Robert Aimhurst meet? I admit, I thought it strange that you, an American, should work in such a small British firm. Hardly your style, I would have thought.”

  “I was bumming around the continent at the time, France, Italy, places like that, and met Robert Aimhurst there. He was doing some kind of grand tour and his car had broken down. I fixed it for him. I've always been handy that way.” He paused. “I guess he took a kinda shine to me. Told me to look him up if I was ever in this neck of the woods. Well, I was down on my luck—this was before I made my pile—so I did. That would be back in ‘67, or thereabouts. Anyway, I've been here ever since. At first, I used to chauffeur him around in that fancy Roller of his and then I guess I graduated to other jobs.” He grinned. “As Robert Aimhurst's son, Gareth was more interested in spending the firm's money than in earning it, I ended up running the office.” His grin abruptly faded. “Till the takeover, anyway.”