Poison

by Charlot King

  “Oh Godric. This is all... I’m not sure I have the strength for it.”

  Godric smiles, completely out of his depth with Rebecca. “It’s all very sad.”

  Rebecca continues, wanting to share with him the feelings building up inside her, of hurt, of anger and now shock.

  “I really did want her dead, the viper. And now she’s gone. She can’t hurt me anymore. Does that make me a bad person?”

  Godric wonders what is behind her watery eyes. “You could never be a bad person, Rebecca. You are so pretty. Pretty people are immune to horridness, don’t you think? I love your dress.” He touches the delicate fabric, wondering what it feels like against her body.

  “You won’t let anyone hurt me, will you, Godric? You will protect me.”

  Godric is finding this all a bit odd. They know each other from choir, but she is being over familiar in a most unwelcome way. He puts it down to grief. Then again, maybe he encourages it too. He’s always friendly to strangers, and always gets himself into corners he can’t get out of.

  “Who’s going to hurt you?”

  Rebecca looks around then kisses Godric on the lips, and they stare at each other. Godric is horrified and gently holds her arms to stop her doing it again. She pulls back and starts walking away.

  “Rebecca? I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.”

  Rebecca stops when she gets to Elizabeth, who notices some beautiful hollyhocks and starts a conversation.

  “Super flowers. It must be lovely out here in the country. You can’t hear all the traffic. I wouldn’t swap my garden for the world, but the city does intrude somewhat. And the police really haven’t helped, traipsing all their muddy boots up and down my lawn. They are still there you know. I can’t fault them on thoroughness. But they haven’t caught the thief of my grapes either. Still being taken right under their noses.”

  “I hate gardens.” Rebecca isn’t sure she wants to stay with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth holds the conversation.

  “Flowers are so cheering though, don’t you think? The vivid poppies, their petals like paper. This one, called Lady Diana, isn’t easy to grow. How beautifully delicate and fragile it is.”

  Rebecca picks the poppy and then pulls out the petals and crushes them in her hands.

  “Susan has a lot to answer for.”

  Elizabeth tries hard to ignore the plant vandalism she has just witnessed, yet can’t help herself watch Rebecca a little more closely as she shares her news.

  “It must have been a shock to learn that Susan was also carrying Edward’s baby?”

  There is a pause. Elizabeth can see that this information has knocked Rebecca for six, and feels just a little bit less empathy due to the poppy massacre. Elizabeth continues, “That must have come as some surprise?”

  Rebecca starts to visibly shake, then feels her knees go and reaches for a garden chair and falls back into it. Kara arrives with refreshments and Godric joins them, nervously perching on a chair a little way back from the table. Both he and Kara have heard Elizabeth’s question and are looking at Rebecca for a response. But it doesn’t come. Rebecca stares wide eyed into the distance, not listening to a word anyone else is saying. She then slowly closes her eyes, trying to block out the truth. Kara tries to continue as if nothing is happening. “Let’s drink tea. Godric, I have a beer for you. I love how the English always drink tea when there is a stressful situation. I do believe it really works. Professor Green, do you take sugar?”

  Then suddenly, Rebecca opens her eyes and blurts out, “Did you know that I can’t have children. Did my brother tell you that??”

  There is a momentary pause around the table. Kara, Godric and Elizabeth all digest Rebecca’s words. Elizabeth is quite surprised, replying. “But your pregnancy?”

  Rebecca says nothing, as before she continues to stare into the distance, seemingly at nothing.

  Kara speaks on behalf of Rebecca. “There is no baby, Professor. Rebecca and Edward have tried since before they were married. The doctor confirmed that they are unable to conceive.”

  There is a pause. Godric looks most awkward and tries to change the subject.

  “This beer is lovely. Bunny, would you like to split it?”

  Elizabeth nods and takes Godric’s glass, while Godric keeps the remains in the bottle. He knows she doesn’t drink ordinary tea, just peppermint.

  Rebecca turns to Elizabeth, with utter horror on her face. “I bet you have lots of children. I bet you’re a good mother. You look like a good mother. Kind eyes. Good family, handsome grandson.”

  Godric blushes and now truly wishes he was elsewhere. Rebecca continues. “I would have been a good mother. That bitch would have been a slutty mother. But her poor baby. Edward’s baby. I could have looked after the baby. Did it die with Susan?”

  Slowly tears start to fall on Rebecca’s cheek, joined by quiet sobs. Kara makes to hold Rebecca’s hand.

  “Come on Rebecca darling. Don’t upset yourself. There, there, darling. No use crying over that now. Try to put it out of your mind.”

  Then as if a wind has crossed Rebecca’s face, her soft tears are replaced by a hardened scowl. “Dirty, slutty bitch. She would never have been a good mother. But, my Edward. He’s not a bad man for being duped by her. Vixen.”

  Kara becomes apologetic to Godric and Elizabeth, perturbed by Rebecca’s honesty.

  “Rebecca doesn’t mean it, do you? It’s the shock.” Kara smiles at Elizabeth, who raises her eyebrows and looks at the flowers in a nearby border. Elizabeth was running over in her mind whether Rebecca could have killed Susan. She had the motive, but surely that would have meant killing her own husband and Elizabeth didn’t think she was capable of that, though a woman scorned. Maybe she was wrong. While Elizabeth had waited for Godric and the Talbot to pick her up earlier to bring her here with Rebecca, she had popped into the porter’s lodge to see if Susan had contacted Rebecca and if Rebecca had been lying. There was a recorded call from Susan to Rebecca’s rooms before the Chapel, and the porter remembered telling Susan Rebecca was at choir. She had left a message and it was in Rebecca’s pigeon hole. It just said, ‘Call me.’

  Kara gets up to fetch some cakes, fussing that sugar might be good for everyone. Elizabeth stands and offers to help. As she walks into the house, Elizabeth spots an ornate box, quite large, open on the sofa with bits and pieces in white and creams, flowers and cards. Kara sees her looking.

  “My plans. They have taken a bit of a backseat over the past couple of days. We are supposed to marry soon. But Jonathan won’t let me plan the wedding, just some party favours and the dresses. He’s taking care of the rest.”

  Elizabeth thinks the murders might put a damp feeling on anyone’s wedding, and can’t believe how stoic Kara is being.

  “What do you think it was that Susan Bunt wanted to tell Rebecca, Kara?”

  Godric looks back at his nanna and picks up a croquet mallet.

  “Come on Rebecca, I’ll give you a game.”

  Kara replies to Elizabeth.

  “Please call me Kat. I didn’t know Susan, so I don’t know, I’m sure. Sorry.”

  Having given a plate of cakes to Elizabeth to take to the table, Kara starts to walk away from Elizabeth and back towards Godric and the croquet, “Wait for me, I love this. Such an English game, isn’t it?”

  Elizabeth is very weary of these companions, who have no idea how to host tea. How can she be carrying the cakes right now? That is not a guest’s job.

  “Croquet may have come over from France with Charles II, or indeed from Ireland.” Elizabeth says to herself huffily, as she watches Rebecca in a tizzy throw a ball into the flower borders, knocking out some more beautiful blooms.

  ✧

  When Elizabeth gets home later that evening she is greeted by piles of cat sick everywhere and a sorry looking Bertie. It appears he has t
hrown up his entire dinner. Poor Bertie. She puts down fresh water and he sits over it, like an individual deeply regretting having eaten so ravenously. The smell is so strong that Elizabeth opens the French terrace doors. The police tape is still over the garden but aside from the police officer parked up in a car in front of her house, the garden is empty of SOCOs. She notices her greenhouse and wanders over to take a look. The door remains locked, so she turns the key which she took care to remove last time and add to her back door key chain, something she has never ever had to do in the past. Curiously, despite the lock there are more grapes missing. She must find time to listen to the tape recording from the dictaphone, to hear who is stealing them. Elizabeth walks round the front of the house and taps on the window of the police car.

  “You say you are a police man, and this is the scene of a crime, yes?”

  “Er, yes madam.”

  “Then what are you going to do about the theft of my prize grapes?”

  The police officer looks bemused as Elizabeth’s beady eyes stare back at him.

  32. Back in the Game

  ‘There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.

  Aristotle

  Beside the River Cam, the first punts are being untied from their shackles at Mill Pond on this fine Wednesday morning. Nonchalant chauffeurs chatting with cappuccinos in hand, wipe down the seats before placing cushions and blankets aboard. At The Anchor pub the landlord steps out from French doors to hang beer mats over chairs and open parasols to burn off dew. Up on Queen’s Bridge a sweeper vehicle does a doughnut around an old telephone box, catching last night’s takeaway polystyrene and cola bottles. Cyclists shoot along Silver Street, dicing with death against the snake of speeding cars to make it to their departments for first lectures. A young graduate is sprawled out on her coat on the grass at Sheep’s Green, reading the morning newspaper. From her vantage point if she had looked up at Darwin College directly in front of the river, instead of being absorbed by the headlines of death and destruction, she would have noticed a window with light flooding in, illuminating an early supervision taking place. She would also have spotted a tall man with a friendly manner closing Darwin College gate behind him, crunching over gravel and across a small garden to climb outside steps to reach the same rooms. But she continues to read, turning the page in her paper to page two, as the headline has made her want to read on. It is about a politician’s personal grief following a possible murder of his brother-in-law, and how despite this he feels it is his public duty to continue to toil for Queen and country, should he be picked in the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle. There is a photo of him looking sad and next to it he is quoted as saying that death comes to us all and when it does it is tragic, and he thanks everyone for their support. The graduate thinks how sad it is the academic died, but what a slimy Tory wanker he had as a relative, then turns the page to read a fashion article about how yellow is the new black this summer.

  In the meantime, the tall man with a friendly manner has made it up the steps to the college rooms which overlook the river, and knocks for Elizabeth.

  “Come in.”

  Poking his head around the door, he says, “Sorry. I was hoping to have a word.”

  “That’s fine. We’re just finishing, Inspector.” Elizabeth turns to the student. “I want you to have another stab at that essay. By next week, okay? And when I mean stab I don’t mean with a javelin, I mean with those things inside your head called neurons, brain cells, grey matter. Capeesh?”

  The student nods, a bit disappointed in having to repeat the work.

  “Come on MacKenzie, think about the exotic species transfer in ship ballast water, and other avenues you’ve completely overlooked. What about small island hopping through tourism?” Putting a finger to her head. “Try this time. I know it’s in there.”

  Elizabeth ushers Mackenzie out as Inspector Abley walks past him and enters Elizabeth’s college rooms. He hasn’t been here for over a year and has missed the view from the window, a profusion of trees and long lawns backing down to the river, with a cluster of college punts chained up by a small bridge.

  “See Inspector, I’m resting, just as you advised.”

  Elizabeth plonks herself down on one of two huge comfy sofas facing each other, between them a low coffee table, with pretty photography hardback books of plants, piled up like Jenga. Abley sits opposite Elizabeth, on the other sofa and leans back, relaxing. A bay window is wide open as Elizabeth always prefers a fresh, cold room to a stuffy, warm one. Most noticeably, the jungle of plants he remembers from before have increased in size. Tall ones, fat ones, thick ones, thin ones. Ones with scary looking spikes, others with leaves like petals. On every table, on every spare space of floor. So much so that Inspector Abley feels like he’s just walked into an oxygen bar. He looks at Elizabeth’s face closely. She’s thinner than he remembers. A little more grey, perhaps a few more wrinkles. With all the rushing about over the past day he hasn’t been able to observe her so carefully, but in this light he also thinks how frail she looks. Yet, her piercing impatient eyes are staring straight at him. There is no mistaking that nothing has changed on the inside.

  “Are you enjoying taking it easy, Liz?”

  “Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “There have been no fresh complaints about you. I wondered if you really have been leaving the case alone?”

  Elizabeth knows Abley doesn’t think for a minute that she has.

  “I have just been quicker and smarter than my accusers. More nimble on my feet.” She smiles at him.

  “Well, I have to admit it, we’re struggling. Despite Leedham’s best efforts, he can’t find what actually poisoned Edward. And as for Susan, she was asphyxiating, but it appears to be a symptom not the cause of death. He’s saying he needs more time and wants to run more tests. But I know how this goes. We end up waiting ages for a result.”

  Elizabeth watches a swift build a nest in the eaves of her window.

  “Leedham is thorough, Bob. You’ll get the right result in the end. Better than convicting an innocent person.”

  Elizabeth looks out the window and wonders what Abley wants. This isn’t usual, for him to admit they are ‘struggling’.

  “Yes, but we don’t have time. This is a big case, the press are on our backs, my Superintendent is getting grief from his Super.”

  “And you came just to tell me, after making me feel this big.” Elizabeth holds her finger and thumb an inch apart. “No look, Inspector, this big.” Elizabeth holds her fingers even closer and smaller, to make her point.

  “Not to beat about the bush, I wondered if you’d consider coming back?”

  Elizabeth is stunned, but doesn’t move a muscle apart from shift her eyes from the window to the Inspector. Of course she wants to come back. Of course! This is her dream, to be useful again, to be needed. But after the fuss of telling her she wasn’t ready she isn’t going to make this easy for Abley, and she knows he wouldn’t expect her to. One needs to maintain standards.

  “You were adamant you didn’t want me?”

  “Look, if you are going to be like that. You’re all over this case, and you know it.”

  “You said, if I remember correctly ‘it’s too soon’, and to ‘leave the case alone’. You said it to me in my own garden and then in front of Leedham, no less. In fact I think I can recall at least two other times where you have told me to ‘butt out.’”

  “Elizabeth, don’t do this. I’ve come over here with an olive branch, and you’re choosing to make it difficult.”

  “Ask me.”

  “I just did.”

  “Ask me properly. In fact beg me.”

  “What? No, I’m not going to beg you. This isn’t some weird show. This is real, Elizabeth. We have two people murdered and we don’t even know how, I mean with what.”

  Elizabeth looks out the window and sighs.
She is silent and won’t make eye contact with the Inspector. She’s not going to ask him again, and she knows, as does he, that she holds all the cards. What a refreshing change Elizabeth thinks to herself. Elizabeth picks up a journal from the table and casually starts to leaf through it. Inspector Abley leans over, so as to be closer to Elizabeth’s face.

  “Elizabeth. Professor Green, my most annoying, most infuriating, most talented of friends,” Abley smiles, “would you do me the great honour of coming back to work as an,” Abley labours the word ‘expert’, “expert consultant on poisons for the Cambridgeshire police force?”

  Elizabeth doesn’t bat an eyelid, but immediately gets up from her sofa, and goes to the book shelf. She takes down an old tome, with painted illustrations of plants. She looks in the index and opens the book to a specific page.

  “Abrus precatorius. The Leguminosae family. Poisoned with rosary peas, also known as bead vine, crab’s eyes, love bead or,” Liz pauses, “black eyed Susan.”

  “What, what is it?”

  “Found abrin in some remains of his vomit on the lawn. Abrin, Inspector, is a plant lectin, toxalbumin, related to ricin. Very toxic.”

  “So this isn’t Susan we’re talking about?”

  “I’m talking about what killed Edward. Abrin, a powerful toxin, Inspector.”

  “Did you say rosary peas, aren’t they religious? What have they got to do with abrin?”

  “Rosary peas had the abrin in. They are used in jewellery among other things. Look like beads? What did we find on my lawn?”

  Inspector Abley puts two and two together.

  “The necklace! Made of rosary peas?”

  “Exactly, Bob. As you say, a necklace. They’re okay if not broken, the seeds that is. The poison is inside the seed, or beads in this case. Of course, idiotically, tourists wear the poison around their necks as necklaces, and indeed the beads are broken when they are threaded into a necklace as the string goes right through the centre of each seedy bead, you see?”