A Very British Witch Boxed Set

by Isobella Crowley

  Ronnie shook his head. “When I was inside, giving my statement, I overheard the police saying she was probably poisoned.”

  This made sense to Tim. He’d handled a few poisoning cases before that had presented in a similar way.

  “Could be,” he agreed, “judging from the foaming at the mouth.”

  “Maybe she’ll pull through,” Carla said, her voice filled with hope. “The medics got here quick, and I’m sure they’ve seen this a thousand times, whatever it is.”

  Ronnie couldn’t take it anymore. “She’s dead,” he stated flatly.

  It was kinder to tell them.

  A heavy silence seized the group. Then, Carla whimpered softly and put a hand up to cover her mouth. “Oh my god.”

  She turned her back to the others, putting her face in her hands. A moment later, her shoulders shook with quiet sobs.

  “Are you sure?” Tim asked Ronnie. “Who told you that?”

  “The inspector.”

  “Did they say what kind of poison it was?” Cliff asked.

  Ronnie shook his head. “No. I don’t think they know yet. I’m sure they’ll have to do a bunch of tests. Toxicology. A post-mortem. It could be a while before we find out. If we find out.”

  “We have to find out,” said Tim.

  “It’s probably best to let the professionals handle it,” Cliff said.

  I am a professional, Tim thought. He knew how to run an investigation, and now that he was wrapped up in this, he needed to get to the bottom of it. A woman had died on his watch. Right next to him.

  This one was personal. Even if there was also a hostile on the loose he needed to catch.

  Tim’s mind raced with questions. If it was poison, that might explain the foaming at the mouth. It was also a strong lead that could bring out the truth of what happened, whether it was an intentional crime or an accident.

  Tim turned to face Ronnie directly. “She said something about lunch. She had lunch and she was thirsty.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Ronnie said. “I was in my office with the door closed.”

  “I know, but I heard it and Scarlett heard it.”

  “So?”

  “Did you see her eat anything?”

  “No, I was in my office. I told you that.”

  “I mean before. You weren’t in your office all day, were you?”

  “No, I usually leave it open, but I had to talk to Carla about something, so I shut the door.”

  “Talk to her about what?”

  “None of your business, that’s what.”

  Tim could see Ronnie starting to become hostile. “No need to get defensive,” he said.

  “I’m not getting defensive,” Ronnie responded. “But if you’re going to go on the attack, maybe I should reconsider.”

  “What was your relationship with her like?”

  “My relationship?” Ronnie’s voice got louder. “I was her boss. She was an employee. That’s the only relationship. What the hell are you getting at?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what happened here.”

  “What happened here is you let a woman fall to the floor without doing a damn thing about it until she was half-dead.”

  “That’s unfair, and you know it.”

  “You don’t even know her,” Ronnie said. “You don’t even know anything about this place. You’re the client. You walk in here, pretending to buy a property—”

  Tim interrupted him. “I fully intended to buy a property.”

  “Or maybe you were intending to poison her.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “She was standing right next to you. You were the closest one to her. And you did nothing but watch her fall.”

  “I didn’t see her fall,” Tim repeated.

  “Stop it!” Carla shouted. “Just stop it. Bickering isn’t going to bring Jade back.”

  Ronnie put a hand on Carla’s shoulder to comfort her. Carla leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around her as she wept. He stared daggers at Tim.

  “We should just let the investigators handle this,” Cliff said gently.

  “I am an investigator,” Tim said.

  “Maybe,” Ronnie said, “but this isn’t your jurisdiction.”

  “Got something to hide?” Tim pressed.

  “No, but you were with her when she dropped dead.”

  “It wasn’t me who gave her the glass of water.”

  “What glass of water?” Ronnie asked.

  Just then, Scarlett stepped out of the office. “Stop. Just stop. Everyone can hear you arguing from inside. This isn’t helping. We have to stop turning on each other. We have work to do, and we need to do it together.”

  Carla stepped away from Ronnie to stand on her own.

  “What are you talking about?” Cliff asked Scarlett.

  “We need to find out who killed her.”

  “Agreed,” said Tim.

  Scarlett turned to him. “You’re an investigator, right?”

  “For the military, yes.”

  “I know it’s not your jurisdiction, but if it was, what would you do? How would you handle it?”

  Tim glanced around. “The police seem to be doing a reasonable job with evidence collection and interviewing.”

  “I mean in terms of thinking it through,” she said. “What are the reasonable assumptions?”

  “There are no reasonable assumptions,” Tim said. “In the case of a suspected murder you don’t want to assume anything. You can’t afford to. That’s where mistakes get made and killers go free. You have to look at the evidence.”

  “But there are patterns, right?” Ronnie asked.

  “Sure,” Tim agreed. “In a poisoning case, normally your prime suspect would be the person closest to the victim at the time of the poisoning.”

  “That would be you,” Ronnie said curtly.

  “Not necessarily,” Tim pointed out. “She could have been poisoned at lunch, either accidentally or on purpose. To be honest, my money is on the husband.”

  Ronnie looked skeptical. “She told you she was married?”

  “I noticed her ring. We didn’t talk about her husband and I know nothing about her marriage, but you asked about patterns. A wife gets poisoned, it could be the husband. Usually is.”

  “But isn’t poison a woman’s weapon?” Scarlett asked. “I must have read that in a dozen novels.”

  “No, not necessarily.”

  Ronnie scowled. “But why would Frank kill her?”

  “That’s the husband?”

  “Frank Hogarth, yeah. I know him, and I don’t buy it. Why would he do something like that?”

  “Could be a few reasons. If it were rage it probably wouldn’t be poison. I’d rule out the domestic violence angle. A poisoning is a calm, calculated crime. It takes planning.”

  “And a motivation,” Ronnie said. “What’s the motivation?”

  Tim shrugged. “Jade told me about the house she owned. Insurance money is a common motive for spousal murders.”

  The sound of a phone buzzing prompted everyone to check their pockets.

  “It’s mine,” said Ronnie. “Amanda. I’m already running late. I need go pick her up at the train station.”

  Scarlett reached into her purse. “Oh, I still need to give you this.” She handed him an ID.

  “Right, thanks,” Ronnie said.

  “Scarlett Slater.” A booming voice called out from the doorway of the estate agent’s office. The group turned to see the inspector staring intensely at Scarlett.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Come with us, please.”

  In a matter of seconds, two uniformed officers flanked her, each taking one of her arms. They marched her toward one of three parked police cars.

  “Am I under arrest?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  “We just need to ask you a few more questions,” the inspector said as they helped her into the car.

  Chapter Six

  Police Station,
Police House, Queens Ave, Bicester

  The room Scarlett found herself in was the size of a walk-in closet. There was a small metal table pressed up against one wall, leaving three sides of the table open. At two adjacent sides were metal chairs that were so uncomfortable that they could reasonably be classified as torture devices.

  Scarlett sat in the chair with the best view of the door. She was left alone in the room for a while. The constables had brought her in and sat her down telling her to wait. For what, she didn’t know. But given the label “Interrogation 1” on the door, interrogation seemed to be the order of the day.

  A full five minutes passed before she remembered her job.

  Karl!

  She had stepped out for a short afternoon break with the intention of returning in fifteen minutes. She was just going to drop off the ID to Ronnie and head straight back, but then Jade had dropped dead right in front her, and suddenly the world went mad with medics and police and witnesses all pointing fingers at each other. Now she was alone in a sterile metal cage waiting to be questioned.

  I need to text Karl.

  Though she had passed through a metal detector on her way into the police station, they hadn’t taken her phone away from her, for which she was thankful.

  “Sorry, I’m at the police station,” she wrote to Karl. “Someone died in Ronnie’s building and I’m a witness. I’ll be back to work ASAP.”

  The day had already stretched into late afternoon and it was looking like she wouldn’t be able to get back to the shop before closing.

  The door swung open and in walked the detective inspector. It was the same man who had been at Ronnie’s. His name was something Rogerson, she had caught.

  “Thanks for coming down to the station,” he said, closing the door. He took the only other seat.

  “Not that I had much choice,” she said pointedly.

  He opened his notebook and clicked his pen. “Actually, Ms. Slater, you do have choices. Choosing to cooperate, for example, would be a great choice.”

  Scarlett ignored him. “Am I under arrest?”

  “No,” he replied. “If you were, believe me you’d know it.”

  It wasn’t very reassuring, but at least it was an answer.

  “Then I’m free to go?” she asked.

  “The door’s not locked. But you should understand that the government grants significant powers to the police force to investigate crimes. There’s the easy way and the hard way. This is the easy way. Cooperation. Questions and answers. The hard way takes longer and is a much bigger pain for everyone involved, believe me.” He paused. “I need to make sure that you understand your rights. You’re not under arrest. You have the right to a lawyer. Would you like a lawyer at this time?”

  Scarlett knew she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was here as a witness, not a suspect. She wanted to help in any way she could, and as he had said, doing things the hard way would cause pain and delays on all sides. She couldn’t afford a private lawyer even if she needed one, so the prospect of getting one seemed extravagant and unnecessary.

  Just tell the truth and you’ll be okay, she told herself.

  “No,” she said.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions. I know we spoke briefly at the crime scene, but I need to be thorough. Please don’t be offended if I repeat some questions. That’s standard. It helps us get to the facts. A woman died today, and we need to make sure we know the truth.”

  Scarlett frowned. “Then she really is dead?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. I know she was a friend of yours.”

  Jade had been more a friend of Amanda’s, truth be told. Scarlett had known her, but not well. She wondered now if anyone had told Amanda that Jade was dead. Ronnie would be at the train station soon, so she imagined he would break the news to her.

  Scarlett’s mind was racing. “Someone overheard you thought poison might be involved,” she blurted out.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “We have reason to believe she may have been poisoned. We’ll know more when the lab results come in.”

  “She was foaming at the mouth. It was horrifying. I’ve never seen that before.”

  “Yes, I can imagine.”

  “Can you tell what kind of poison it might be then?”

  The inspector held up a hand. “Scarlett, this will go much faster if you let me ask the questions. There are things I need to learn, and once I’ve taken note of your answers you’ll be free to go. Do you understand?”

  Scarlett shrunk back into her chair. “Yes.”

  “Would you like to expedite this interview?” His tone was light now, almost friendly.

  “Very much.”

  “Good. Neither of us wants to be here all night.” He sighed and consulted his notes. “You were the last person to interact with the victim. Is that correct?”

  “I handed her the cup, yes.”

  “And she didn’t take anything from anyone else after that?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “So you were the last person to interact with her before she died.”

  “Before she fell, yes. Tim tried to help her after that, and I’m sure she was still alive at that point. She was struggling, and he was next to her.”

  “I understand. Now, there was something in the cup you gave the victim. Some water. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where did you get the water.”

  “From the water cooler in the office.”

  “Could someone have put something in the water?”

  “I… suppose. But I drank water from there too.”

  “Before she did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you drink before you filled her cup?”

  Scarlett thought back on it. “Yes, I’m pretty sure I did.”

  “You’re pretty sure, or you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  The inspector made more marks in his notebook, then flipped over to a fresh page and kept writing. Scarlett was close enough to see what he was writing, but his scrawl was indecipherable, especially from her upside-down vantage point.

  He looked back up at her. “So you drank first, then you poured a cup for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you could have put something in the water?”

  “Could have? Yes, I suppose. I mean, yes. I could have.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  He wrote in his notebook again.

  “Tell me about your relationship to the victim.”

  “I knew her. I considered her a friend. Not a close friend. More a friend of a friend.”

  “And who’s the go-between? The mutual close friend?”

  “My roommate, Amanda. She’s dating Ronnie and Jade works for Ronnie.”

  “So you knew her socially?”

  “Yes, you could say that. She was at a party Ronnie threw last Sunday. A barbeque. We didn’t really speak much.”

  “Any reason in particular reason you didn’t talk much with her?”

  “Not really. She was busy talking to her close friends. Same with me, I suppose.”

  “Was her husband at the party?”

  Scarlett tried to remember. “I think so, yes. Yes, I’m sure he was. But I didn’t talk with him. He was mostly hanging around some of his guy friends.”

  “Not with his wife?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. I remember seeing them both, but I’m not sure if I saw them together.”

  “Was there some tension in their marriage?”

  Rogerson’s question took her aback. “Oh, I wouldn’t know. She never confided in me about anything, but like I said, we weren’t that close. More acquaintances than close friends, I would say.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As a person. General impressions.”

  “I liked her. She was smart. You got the sense she was going places. She could be really friendly in social settings. Appr
oachable, you might say. Which is probably why she made such a good estate agent. There’s a type, you know?”

  “And Jade was that type.”

  “Yeah. Not a stereotype. She was her own person. But real estate was a good fit for her. She was a real people-person, you know? I liked that about her. I think that’s what I’m going to miss the most about her.”

  Thinking about missing Jade made Scarlett suddenly sad, like a wave of grief had surged over her heart and was receding much slower that it had come.

  Rogerson charged on with his questions. “And her husband, what did you think about him?”

  “I didn’t, really. I don’t know that I had much of an impression of him. I’m sure we must have spoken before, but I can’t remember anything specific. I mostly spoke with Jade, not Frank.”

  “If you had to give Frank a type—classify him—what type would he be?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t really know him very well.”

  The inspector jotted some more notes.

  “You seem very interested in the husband,” Scarlett observed.

  “I’m interested in finding the truth.” His reply was composed and devoid of any emotion.

  “If he poisoned his wife, then why do you think he’d do that?”

  Rogerson sighed. “I’m not here to speculate. I’m gathering facts. Following the trails where they lead, that’s all. When I have the evidence, then I’ll try to make better sense of it. Until then, I like to keep my mind open. In other words, I’m here to listen, not make judgments.”

  “Do you think he might have taken out a life insurance policy on her?” Scarlett felt herself sit up straighter. She would make the most of this time, one way or another. “I mean, if he’s the poisoner. That would be a motive, wouldn’t it?”

  “That would be a hypothetical,” he countered. “And it would also be a few too many questions from you to me. You’re driving the wrong direction in a one-way lane. The flow of questions is from me to you, remember?”

  “I remember,” Scarlett replied quietly.

  There was a knock at the door. It was one of the younger constables. “You’re needed in room two.”

  “Be right there,” Rogerson said. “Scarlett, wait here a few minutes.” He got up and left.