by Tim Hoy
We’d gone through all of the substances in Hayworth’s possession; that I knew, including those in his gym locker.
DI Lazarus, seated across from me, set down the lab report in his hand. I had asked him to give it a read. “What about the CCTV in the garage lift? Have we gotten that yet?”
“No, but anyone in that lift would first have to gain access to the garage.”
“They sneak in on foot when the gate’s opening for someone else.”
“And get captured by CCTV at the gate,” I said.
“Not if they’re quick about it, crouching behind the car or something,” said Peter, “but they’d need to know that the CCTV in the lift was dodgy at the time.”
“There are stairs too. And we don’t know that the CCTV in the lift was off; we just haven’t gotten the footage.”
“Despite repeated requests. I’ll go over there and act tough if you like,” Peter offered.
“Which will work miracles, no doubt,” I said. “Like a visit to Lourdes.”
Lazarus pointed a raised middle finger my way. “I know the guy was neat, but where’s the damn poison? Did he flush it down the toilet before killing himself? Everything’s been tested. Where the hell is it?”
“Wait,” I said, “everything? Did we?”
Peter looked up, waiting for me to continue. I rang the lab and put it on speaker.
“This is Detective Inspector Grantley. I’m phoning about the Hayworth matter. I need to confirm you tested all of the vitamins and supplements in his flat.”
The technician who’d run the tests came on the line. I repeated the question. “Yes, I can confirm that,” she said.
“But did you test every pill and capsule?”
“In every bottle? Of course not.”
“Excuse me, but what would be the point of testing just one vitamin capsule in a bottle if each individual capsule could hold enough poison to kill someone?”
Silence, followed by a weary response: “What do you want us to do, Detective Inspector?”
“Your job! Okay, start, please, with the ones called thyroid supplement pills. It’s on the label. Every pill in the bottle. If any of them look odd, tampered with, they’re first in line. Then keep going.”
“We’re up to our eyeballs at the moment. This might take a while. When do you need this?”
“Soon as you can; the sooner the better.” I put the phone down.
“And what if they find nothing?” Peter asked. “What fucking difference does it make?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“If it was just one of these pills, if our murderer only planted one, we’re not going to find anything, right?”
I nodded. “True. Like Russian roulette.”
“Once the gun’s fired, the bullet disappears.”
“Like being stabbed with an icicle,” I said.
“Pretty ingenious,” Peter said.
“Which is going to make it all the more satisfying to catch the bastard.”
Peter nodded once. For the first time since he saw Hayworth dead in that posh bathroom, my partner looked a tiny bit intrigued.
It took over a week for the results to come back. Not one capsule or pill contained cyanide, not even in trace amounts. If it was a pill that killed Freddy Hayworth, it was one of a kind. But what else could it have been?
A week or two later, Jabirah rang to ask if she could stop by with a young friend. This was a Sunday, I recall; Jonathan and I had nothing planned so I suggested she come anytime in the afternoon. She asked if Ogueri would be home. I didn’t know.
“I’ll ring them,” Jabirah said.
“How about I ask them, seeing as Ben just walked in.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Seconds later I had her answer. “He’ll be here.”
“Perfect,” Jabirah said.
“What are you up to, my friend?” I asked.
“Patience is a virtue, Detective Inspector. Later.” She hung up.
That afternoon I opened the front door to Jabirah, a young boy who looked a little older than my son, and a woman likely in her mid-thirties. She held the boy’s hand like any mother might. The woman wore expensive clothes. The boy did not.
“You needn’t have knocked,” I said to Jabirah, a smile on my face as I turned to the guests.
“This is Mrs. Nye,” Jabirah said.
I extended my hand and shook Mrs. Nye’s.
“Patricia, please,” she said. She seemed uncomfortable. “And this is my son, Miles. Miles, say hello to Ms. Grantley.”
“Hello,” said Miles. Sullen. He was blind, a fact I only then noticed. Patricia held her son’s hand. Miles didn’t look around, as one with sight would when in new surroundings.
“Please come in,” I said, as I wondered why these people were even in my house.
Jonathan poked his head around the gadget room door and warily walked to us. I introduced him to the Nyes. Jabirah suggested Jonathan run upstairs and bring Ogueri down.
“The blind meeting the blind,” said Miles. It was funny, but none of us laughed.
I led them to the kitchen, where I put on the kettle.
“I have stronger things if you’d prefer, Patricia,” I said. Mrs. Nye perked up a bit. I was onto something. “There’s a nice bottle of rosé crying out for attention in my refrigerator. I’d join you.”
“That sounds lovely,” said Patricia. It did indeed.
“I like wine,” said Miles.
He seemed a handful. “I’ll remember that when you turn eighteen, young man.” The kettle boiled. Miles got a mug of milky tea. “Sugar’s on the table,” I said, and then I remembered he couldn’t see anything on the table or elsewhere. I nudged the sugar bowl so it brushed his hand. He stopped at the second heaping spoonful, just as his mum was set to intervene.
Jonathan returned with Ogueri. Introductions were made. Now what? Why was this meeting taking place?
Jabirah had such a grin on her face.
“Boys, Miles is the culprit!” she exclaimed. If she was expecting an ardent response, she was disappointed. Neither Ogueri nor my son said a thing.
“ ‘Help’?” Jabirah said. “The message in the books! This young man is the guilty party!”
“How do you know that?” asked Ogueri.
“I made a full confession,” Miles said. “It was forced out of me.”
“Miles,” said his mother. “Nobody forced anything, and you know it. And you also know that if you deface any more books you’re going to get more than a good talking to.”
“Says who?” said Miles.
“Says my mum,” Jonathan said.
“Yeah,” said Ogueri.
“She’s a detective with Scotland Yard, you know,” added Jonathan.
“So I’ve heard,” said Miles. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“I think we’ll let you off with a warning this time,” I said.
“Which is just what I told you, Miles,” said Jabirah.
Young Miles seemed to be a bit of a brat. Or perhaps he was just unhappy. His mother, I liked. We weren’t going to be fast friends, but we were all glad to make their acquaintance. In what little free time she had, Jabirah had played detective. She told us it stemmed from telling Benazir about the hand-pricked pleas in the books. We’d seen them as a nuisance, most likely the act of a mischief-maker. It was Benazir who raised the warning flag. What if it was a real plea, she asked Jabirah; what if someone was trying to communicate with the outside world? Jabirah knew to listen to her wise, not-so-little sister. Benazir dealt heroically with her disability, but she had formed a fear of being helpless, which seemed understandable. The seed was planted in Jabirah’s brain. What if some poor soul really did need help? She took it upon herself to find out.
She’d gon
e back to the library and asked about two of the braille books in which the message appeared. Just to make certain all of the volumes had been returned, she explained. She had found a single, beat-up book of braille in the house where she worked. Not true of course, but whatever. Its cover was missing so she couldn’t identify it. The librarian checked the records, which indicated that all of the volumes of each book, The Secret Garden and Charlotte’s Web, had indeed been returned. She even showed Jabirah the details as they came up on the screen. What also appeared was a list of those who had checked out each book, at least for the past decade. Only two names appeared on each list. Jabirah wrote them down as soon as she left the library. Then it was all about online research, and even Jabirah’s brother helped with that, she said, which surprised me. When I said so, she bit back.
“Why?” she asked.
It flustered me. “I don’t know, I just am.”
“He’s a good person, Tessa. Maybe a bit archaic in his views on women’s rights, but still. Let’s try not to stereotype, okay?”
“Hold on,” I said. “I just said I was surprised. Don’t read too much into it, okay?”
We eyed one another, and then we both smiled. I winked at Jabirah; she returned it. Game over.
Returning to her story, Jabirah related how she’d dug up contact information for two parties named Nye. She spoke with a Mrs. Nye, a sightless woman in her early eighties who read them with her grandchildren, none of whom had vision issues. Then Jabirah, our twenty-first-century Sherlock Holmes, paid the Nyes a visit in Holland Park.
“Was that the house you showed me that time, Jabirah?” Jonathan asked.
Jabirah nodded. “With the pretty blue door. Exactly.”
It wasn’t so much that Jabirah had actually found this mischievous Miles, it was more that she had the confidence, the drive, the what-you-will to take on the task. Jabirah Rahman was becoming the fierce, brilliant woman she was destined to be. I couldn’t have been more proud of her, even though I knew better than to say so. She wasn’t a child, she would have reminded me had I done so. She certainly was not.
* * *
—
The next day, the chief inspector stopped me in the hall, led me to his office, and gave me a talking to.
“Do you know how much time and money it took to test every bloody pill in the Hayworth flat?” he asked, not expecting I would.
“It needed doing, sir,” I said.
“So you say,” Vernon replied, his voice dripping with doubt.
“And you seem to be saying that if we have to choose between money and justice, money wins.”
CI Vernon stared me down. He said nothing for too long, which showed how irritated he was. Then, addressing me as if I were deranged—slowly, like one would a child—he said, “Of course it does, Grantley. Don’t be naïve. Welcome to the real world. Now get back to work.”
I headed to his office door.
“And don’t break the bank,” he added.
Around eleven-thirty I stopped by Tamir Hussein’s establishment in Soho, hoping to pick his brain about his late friend Freddy’s pill-popping habits. I timed my visit prior to the lunch rush. Things were busy when I entered, but it was prep work, setting tables, laying cutlery. A waitress glanced up as I entered. With an annoyed look, she checked her watch.
“We’re not open yet,” she said.
“I’m a friend of Mr. Hussein,” I said. “Is he in?”
Without responding, she walked off to fetch him. Tamir looked surprised to see me but not annoyed.
“Hello, Detective Inspector.” We shook hands. “Not here to dine, I presume?”
“Not today. One or two questions, if you don’t mind. I’ll only keep you a minute.”
“Certainly,” he said. He sat on a barstool, bidding me to join him on the one adjacent. The bartender, setting up for the day, went on as if we weren’t there.
“One of the supplements Freddy took, a thyroid support capsule, says it’s to be taken in the morning before eating.”
“I remember him going on about that one. We even had a little argument about it.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, most of these pills and potions are a waste, Detective Inspector; no proven benefit whatsoever. People are always looking for the easy way to keep fit, to look good, you know? But there’s no such thing.”
“Makes sense.”
“Right, so I usually let Freddy ramble on about whatever it was he’d just bought that was going to make him the perfect physical specimen. I’d shut up and let him go on.”
“Not this time?” I asked.
Tamir nodded. “Thyroid support? What does that even mean?” he said with an aggrieved smile, shaking his head. “Freddy, Freddy, what rubbish.”
“I presume you don’t use it?”
“Uh, no, that’s correct. I exercise, eat as clean as I can in this line of work, and I don’t throw money away on nonsense. Poor Freddy used to go crazy in the gym shop, always a sucker for the latest miracle cure, the newfound shortcut. I remember he took creatine for months before he admitted all it did was make him retain water and run to the toilet. So when he started going on about supplementing his thyroid, I finally sort of blew a gasket. I said something like ‘Freddy, my friend, you and your pills are both full of shit.’ It didn’t go over too well.”
I smiled and said nothing.
“May I ask why you’re asking?” he asked.
“We’re still trying to figure out how he came to swallow cyanide. Of all the pills and potions in his flat, this thyroid thing was the only one that came in a powder capsule form.”
“I’m not sure I understand; you mean someone could have doctored the capsules?”
“Possibly, but we’ve found no trace of cyanide in the bottle or the remaining pills, or anything else in his medicine cabinet.”
“Then you’re wrong? What am I not getting?” asked Tamir.
“I’m not sure,” I said and then thought a moment. “What if someone took one of the capsules, emptied it and replaced it with poison?”
“Poisoned just one and put it back in the bottle?”
“Something like that,” I said. I’d asked the question more for his reaction to it than anything. He looked suitably shocked.
“And waited for him to pick that particular pill and pop it in his mouth? Jesus, how big was the bottle?” Tamir asked.
“One hundred eighty pills, although assuming this actually happened, we have no way to know when the doctored pill was put in with the others.”
“One pill,” he said, “which would explain why you haven’t found traces of cyanide in the bottle. It was only in one pill.”
“Possibly.”
“My God. Who the hell could sit back and wait like that? It’s so cold-blooded. Amazing.”
“Murder’s always amazing. Each one in its own way,” I said as I rose from my perch. “Thank you for your time.”
“Have you had lunch?”
“I’ll get something on the way back to work,” I said.
Tamir motioned to the bartender. “Could you bring us a menu, Gerry?”
“I can’t…” I started.
“Yes, you can,” said Tamir. “And please stop calling me Mr. Hussein.”
We both ordered salads, which were delicious, and we finished before the full flow of the lunch crowd. He took no payment. I got up to leave.
“Thank you for that,” I said.
“Any possibility you could come back some evening when you’re not working?” he asked. “A question asked on the doubtful assumption that you’re single.”
I blushed. Then I turned to him and nodded. “I’d like that,” I said.
“So would I,” he said and gave me his card, which included the name of the establishment where we were sitting. �
�You’re welcome anytime, but if you call me in advance, I’ll make certain to be here.”
I left gladdened, even if I’d forgotten the drill. Walking away, I checked my reflection in a shop window and was reminded of how I gave 47 Hamilton Gardens its name. Tessa Grantley: needs work, but maybe, just maybe, has potential.
I became convinced that one of the many women Freddy Hayworth had angered through the years had it in for him, so much so that she planned his death—planted his death. Most likely it was someone who had been in Hayworth’s flat in the past two months before his demise. One hundred eight likely worthless thyroid remedy capsules were left in a bottle that once held one hundred eighty. Possibly he took more than one capsule a day; there was no way to know. The instructions on the bottle said “one to three a day before eating.” Assuming, though, that he ingested only one a day, he would have purchased the bottle a little over two months prior. Given his obsessive bent, it seemed likely he didn’t wait until he had run out of something before resupplying himself. Freddy Hayworth would keep a shopping list and fill it conscientiously. I’d bet good money Mr. Hayworth never ran out of toilet paper.
Hayworth’s credit card statement showed a £66.50 purchase at the Fitness First gym in Charing Cross twelve weeks prior. The gym shop had a copy of the receipt, which detailed the purchases, one of which was the thyroid support pills. The date of sale marked when we would start checking CCTV footage at Hayworth’s flat. One camera covered the front entrance; another spied on the lift doors in the underground car park. These were the only two ways to gain entry to Hayworth’s building, other than a locked service entrance or scaling the outside wall to a balcony. We would see who had come calling. There was, of course, also a possibility that spiking the bottle, had it even occurred, was done after he had purchased the capsules but before he’d brought them home. Someone in his office, someone with access to his locker or gym bag. So the timing of the purchase, the time of day, would be important.