Absolute Poison

by Evans, Geraldine

  “Thank God for small mercies,” Rafferty commented. “At least we're now in a position to see the wood for the trees, which is more than I hoped for when I got here this morning. Now, apart from your alphabet hunt through the country's gazetteers for Dot Flowers, and Lilley's continuing search for ancient grudge-holders, we should be able to concentrate our attentions on the main suspects.

  “Fortunately, that holds good for both murders, as, from all we've learned about her, it's clear Amy Glossop's life consisted of work, home, and duty visits to her mother, so it seems unlikely she had the opportunity to learn anyone else's guilty secrets.”

  Again, Rafferty felt a stab of pity for Amy Glossop. A pity that only increased his feelings of guilt. He'd visited her mother the previous evening. She'd been exactly as Marian Steadman had implied; selfish, demanding, enormous and more concerned about what would happen to her than about her daughter's ghastly death. He had cut the visit as short as decency permitted.

  Llewellyn raised his head from the final report and interrupted his unhappy breast-beating. “I know we're digging deeper into the backgrounds of Aimhurst's staff, particularly that of Hal Gallagher and also that of Albert Smith, but we seem to have ignored Eric Penn entirely. We haven't spoken to him again since that initial interview and I think we should question him once more. I agree that it's unlikely he killed either of them, but,” Llewellyn added before Rafferty could interrupt, “he was one of those with the opportunity to put the poison in Barstaple's yoghurt as well as switch the pots. He struck me as being unnaturally excited over this case. Almost as though he knew something we didn't and was determined to hold on to it. You noticed the way he hugged himself when we interviewed him as though he was hugging a secret?”

  Rafferty waved away the last part of Llewellyn's observation and addressed the earlier one. “Of course he was excited,” he retorted. “You know what a child he is. This is probably the biggest thing that's even happened to him. He must think it's Christmas, Easter, and his birthday all rolled into one. Anyway, why would he murder Amy Glossop?”

  “We don't know for certain that she was murd-”

  Rafferty waved an irritable hand as, once again, the Welshman quibbled over the second death. He was aware he was letting his private anxieties spill over into the work area; the thing was, they were connected. That was the trouble.

  The wedding was getting closer with no resolution to the suit problem in sight. He was becoming more irritated by Llewellyn's holier-than-thou attitude concerning law and the lawbreakers. Why couldn't the bloody man be more flexible? he asked himself for the hundredth time. If he was, I wouldn't still be distracted from the murder investigation by this farcical iffy whistle dilemma. Wouldn't still be following a dithering line between rapidly reducing alternative solutions.

  It wasn't as if he, too, didn't believe the law shouldn't apply to everyone. He did. But, even if he were willing to sacrifice himself and Llewellyn on Bradley's altar, he could hardly let his mother be banged up. And if all the ‘taken into considerations’ were brought into the equation, that was a distinct possibility. Apart from anything else, if the worst came to the worst and ma did end up doing time, it would be sure to be his fault; everything else was. She'd make sure he never heard the end of it.

  Conscious that his own judgement was shot to pieces, Rafferty knew he ought to listen to Llewellyn's. “You're right,” he now lamely admitted. “We should question Eric Penn again. Though if he did kill Barstaple, which I doubt, I would have expected even Eric to have sufficient sense not to let us know he hated him.”

  “Possibly. Possibly not.”

  Rafferty stared at him. “You think he had something to do with it, don't you?”

  Llewellyn shrugged. “I don't know. But there's something about him that's been niggling me. It's not just that he seemed excited; as you said, that can easily be explained away. It's more than that. You said he was a child in a man's body. It's true. But he reminds me of a child nursing a secret. A very big secret. Of course, it may be nothing to do with Barstaple's murder. But, before we dismiss him as a suspect, we should try to find out what it is.”

  Rafferty nodded and checked his watch, surprised to find that it was still only 9.30. “Why don't we go and see him now? He lives with his mother. I think she should be present when we question him. Give her a quick bell, will you? Who knows? She may be better equipped that we are to prise Eric's secret out of him.”

  Eric Penn's mother was a widow. And, although tiny in body, scarcely more than 4’11” by Rafferty's reckoning, her mind more than made up for any bodily limitations. She seemed not only strong, but very sensible.

  Rafferty imagined that if she hadn't possessed such strength originally, being solely responsible for a backward son would have forced its development.

  In response to Rafferty's questions, she had told them that she had cared for Eric alone for ten years, ever since her husband had died. Eric was their only child.

  She ushered them into the sparse, but spotless living room of the terraced house. There were no ornaments or vases of flowers in the room. No decorative touches of any kind, Rafferty noted. And, as he watched Eric's jerky arm movements as he lay sprawled full length on the floor playing with an extensive collection of toy cars, he realized why. They wouldn't have lasted long.

  Eric seemed far too engrossed in his apocalyptic car smashes to notice them. His mother had to touch his shoulder and speak loudly to him before he realized they were there.

  “Tidy your cars away, Eric,” his mother told him firmly. “There's a good boy. These policemen want to speak to you.”

  It was clear the interruption had annoyed Eric. He glanced sullenly over his shoulder at them, his lips pulled downwards like a child whose game had been spoilt.

  Mrs Penn obviously drew the line at petulance because she spoke sternly to him. Amazingly, her giant son obeyed her immediately.

  Mrs Penn seemed even tinier beside her son's bulk. It was sheer force of personality, combined with Eric's accustomed obedience that gave her the upper hand in their relationship. God knew what would happen, thought Rafferty, if the day ever came when Eric realized his mother had nothing stronger than a sharp tongue and a quietly authoritative manner to keep him in check

  Eric put his cars in a lidded box under the window and sat on the same box rocking and muttering quietly to himself.

  Rafferty spoke his name. The rocking and muttering stopped, but Eric wouldn't look at him. “Eric,” Rafferty said again. “We want to ask you some more questions about Mr Barstaple's death. Will you help us?”

  Eric darted a brief glance at him and quickly away again. The rocking recommenced.

  Mrs Penn intervened. “Eric. If you know anything about it, I want you to tell these gentlemen.” She paused and added in a sharper tone, “Are you listening to me, Eric?”

  He darted an even briefer glance at his mother, then jerked his head up and down several times.

  Mrs Penn turned towards them and said quietly, “He'll answer your questions. Only,” her voice dropped lower, “please keep them simple. Otherwise you'll get no good out of him. Any you'll need to ask him direct questions if you want answers. It's no good expecting him to pick up hints. He's never been able to understand them. I know.”

  This last was said with feeling and Rafferty nodded to show he had understood. He already knew that talking to Eric was like talking to a small child. And children took everything adults said at face value. They had no appreciation of nuances or subtleties. Eric Penn would be the same.

  He took a deep breath and began, conscious that if Llewellyn was right, what Eric told them might lead to a killer. “You remember Wednesday evening, Eric? The evening Mr Barstaple died?”

  Eric shot him another sullen look. “Course I do.”

  “That's good. Now, Eric, can you tell me what you remember about that evening? Anything at all.”

  Mrs Penn interrupted. “It's no good expecting him to answer general questions like
that. I told you, keep it simple. Eric doesn't do descriptions. You'll have to be specific.”

  Chastened, Rafferty tried again. He remembered Llewellyn's talk of secrets and asked, “Did anyone ask you to keep a secret that day, Eric?”

  He shook his head vigorously.

  “You're sure?”

  Eric nodded equally as vigorously.

  “What about at other times?” Llewellyn put in. “Did anyone ask you to keep a secret at any other time?”

  Eric paused, then shook his head again.

  Realizing that unless someone had actually specified the word ‘secret’ to Eric, he mightn't think to mention any euphemisms for same, Rafferty tried another tack. “Did anyone ask you not to speak about something you saw?”

  This brought another emphatic shake of the head. Their other questions brought no more informative answers. Rafferty was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Llewellyn had been mistaken. Eric Penn knew nothing at all. Even if he had, he looked so unhappy, cornered, tormented that Rafferty doubted he'd have had the heart to continue pressing him. Rafferty was inclined to think they'd been wasting their time. Admittedly, his copper's nose was too distracted to be its usually reliable self, so he couldn't feel certain of this. But as Llewellyn's copper's nose was non-existent and the rest of him permanently infected with the germ of logic, his instincts couldn't be relied on either.

  Still, Rafferty told himself as Mrs Penn showed them out, he'd done what Llewellyn wanted and questioned Eric again; was it his fault if it had been the futile exercise he'd expected? Apart from requesting Mrs Penn to continue to probe Eric for anything he might know, Rafferty wasn't prepared to waste any more time on him.

  If only my nose was its naturally efficient self, he thought, we might be well on the trail of the murderer by now, almost certainly a double murderer. Unfortunately, his nose was as off-colour as the rest of him, its sniffability to a large extent blocked by other little problems…

  They got back to the office about 10.15. Llewellyn, his nose out of joint, retired for consolation to a spare interview room and his daily stint with his gazetteers.

  Rafferty was heading for his own office when Sergeant Beard on the desk shouted after him that he had a visitor. A Mr Alistair Plumley. He'd put him in interview room 1.

  Rafferty's surprise at the identity of his visitor was soon overtaken by another; that the previously self-confident Plumley should seem strangely ill at ease. It seemed unlikely to be a feeling with which the boss of Watts And Cutley would be familiar. That he should feel it now made Rafferty curious.

  “Did you want to see me about anything important, Mr Plumley?” he asked encouragingly as Plumley seemed reluctant to begin.

  Plumley immediately lost his unnatural diffidence. “Only about these.” He pulled an envelope from his inside breast pocket and dropped it on the table between them. “I think you'll agree they could be important. They arrived in the post.”

  “They?”

  “I suggest you look at them.”

  Plumley's voice was tight, and Rafferty stared at him before he opened the envelope. It contained several photos and he pulled them out. As he did so he realized why Plumley was not quite himself. The man was embarrassed. And no wonder. The first sight of the photographs was enough to make Rafferty's toes curl.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The photographs were of Clive Barstaple and looked as though they had been taken from outside his bedroom window; Rafferty could just detect what looked like a window frame and the edge of a curtain.

  Barstaple was dressed up in the bondage gear that Lilley had found, but there was no doubt it was him. His face in the first snap was turned away from the camera, but each succeeding shot showed it turning further towards it as if someone had tapped on the glass to gain his attention. The last shot showed him full face, his expression startled and the beginnings of fear in his eyes.

  Rafferty checked the envelope. The postmark was smeared, but he was able to make out that it was a local one. “There was no message with these?” he asked Plumley.

  “None was necessary, was it?” Plumley replied. “The message seems obvious to me. Someone was threatening to expose his…peccadilloes. Obviously Barstaple didn't react in the way the sender expected so, to fulfil their presumed threat, they sent copies to me. Probably hoped I'd get rid of him when I saw what he got up to in his leisure hours.”

  “When did you say these photos arrived?”

  “I didn't say.”

  Rafferty waited.

  After a few moments, Plumley admitted, “They arrived about a month ago.”

  “So why didn't you show them to me immediately after Clive Barstaple was killed?”

  Plumley shrugged. “Let's just say I was considering the situation. Anyway, I'm showing them to you now.”

  Rafferty suspected Plumley had debated long and hard about the pros and cons of showing them to him at all. He must be aware that if the photographer turned out to have been implicated in Barstaple's murder, there was no way such pictures could be kept secret. There again, Rafferty frowned, it was possible that Plumley wanted to direct his suspicions elsewhere. Maybe he had discovered Barstaple's side deal with Ross Arnold and resented it. Just because Barstaple had claimed during his argument with Hal Gallagher that Plumley was aware of it and had okayed it didn't make it true. But if Barstaple's claim was true it still might have been the case that the dead man had cheated Plumley of his share and Plumley had found out. Who knew what these oh-so-ethical business types got up to?

  It was yet another angle to be considered, Rafferty realized with dismay. He gazed appraisingly at Plumley for a few moments before dropping his gaze back to the photographs.

  They had yet to check Plumley out thoroughly. On the face of it he was in the clear. Like Ross Arnold's alibi, Plumley's had stood up to initial scrutiny. But he was a wealthy man and well able to bribe his way out of trouble. Apart from any other considerations, Plumley was one of only three people apart from the victim himself to have keys to Aimhurst's premises. He could have visited the offices at any time, disconnected the alarm system with his own set of keys and poisoned Barstaple's food with nobody any the wiser.

  There again, Rafferty reminded himself, he would hardly be likely to know much about Barstaple's personal dietary arrangements; it was unlikely he and Barstaple had discussed the finer points of the F Plan or any other diet. As far as Plumley was concerned the food in the fridge could have belonged to any member of staff.

  Besides, he couldn't imagine a man like Alistair Plumley murdering one of his own hirelings just because he might have drawn the short straw in one minor crooked deal.

  Now Rafferty commented, “I hate to say this, but it's possible that whoever sent you these photographs hadn't attempted to blackmail Barstaple at all. Their aim could have been totally different—using you to get rid of Barstaple. Maybe, after they sent you these photos they tired of waiting for you to break his contract and got rid of him themselves.”

  Plumley nodded. “I have to agree it's a bit of a coincidence that Barstaple should be murdered a mere month after I received them. I can't believe there's no connection.”

  Neither could Rafferty.

  A few minutes later he escorted Plumley downstairs and made for his office. He spread the photos out on his desk and gazed at them again. As he did so, into his mind came a picture of the display of photos in Aimhurst's staff room. Like these, they were crisp, sharp, professional. He knew Albert Smith, the Guardian Security guard had taken them. Had he taken these, too?”

  Rafferty shook his head. What possible motive could he have? Further digging had made clear that Smith had never been a victim of Barstaple's previous rationalizing. And, although Smith's shifty denial that he had heard Barstaple shout for help was curious, Rafferty doubted Smith would have had the opportunity to get to know Barstaple well enough to discover such secrets as the photographs revealed. And even if Barstaple had homosexual leanings, he thought it unlikely that Al
bert Smith would have been his type.

  Rafferty was still brooding over the photos when Llewellyn returned, scrupulous as ever to take no more than his allotted half-hour on his personal obsession with the country's gazetteers.

  Rafferty told him about his visitor and handed over the photographs.

  After studying them for a few seconds, Llewellyn commented, “These were taken by someone who knew what they were doing. Shooting through glass is not something a weekend amateur is likely to have mastered. The reflections would have ruined most such attempts.”

  Rafferty had forgotten that Llewellyn was something of a camera buff. It certainly moved Albert Smith further into the frame…or did it? He'd told Alistair Plumley that an aggrieved member of staff was probably responsible for the photos. But who, amongst the staff was likely to have known of the way Barstaple spent his leisure hours? And Smith wasn't even on the staff. Rafferty certainly couldn't see a man like Clive Barstaple exchanging such chitchat with a lowly security guard. Barstaple would have kept his little hobby quiet. It was hardly the sort of thing he'd want bruited about. Having others in his power was what he enjoyed; he would have taken care that none of his victims got the chance to reverse roles.

  No, Rafferty thought, whoever had taken the photos surely knew Barstaple longer than the three months he'd worked at Aimhursts, and more intimately than a mere underling at work. With what people are you most yourself? he silently questioned. Who did you let your guard down with? Back came the answer—with your family, that was who. He frowned as he remembered their investigations had revealed that not only had Barstaple never married, he had no brothers or sisters either, and both his parents were dead.