The Wimbledon Poisoner

by Nigel Williams

  ‘Hang on! Shall we just run a lab test on this chicken!’

  In fact she said: ‘Give it to Tibbles.’

  Tibbles was Henry’s cat. Or, more accurately, she was Maisie’s cat. Or, even more accurately, she was no one’s cat. Responsibility for Tibbles was a free-floating affair, mainly consisting of whoever didn’t want to feed her saying to whoever they thought should be feeding her, ‘She’s your cat!’ She was, of course, in the way of cats, no one’s but her own. A small, thin tabby, she spent her life trying to work out the central dilemmas of her life – how to get in and out of the house, and why the fat man called Henry tried to kick her every time the two other people in the house were out of the way. Henry hated Tibbles. He had fantasized about her death almost as much as he had fantasized about Elinor’s. Why, now her end was so imminent, did he feel a desire to avert it?

  ‘Why not?’ he said, and taking both plate and chicken he hurried out to the scullery. ‘I’ll cut you some leg!’ he called.

  How much had Donald eaten? Enough to kill him? And, if he had, what was the antidote?

  He very much did not want Donald to die. Donald was boring, sensationally incompetent at his job, complacent, vain, narcissistic, almost aggressively narrow-minded. But he was a forty-year-old Englishman. He was someone to drink with, for Christ’s sake! He did not deserve death by heavy metal poisoning.

  There was a poisons unit at Charing Cross Hospital, wasn’t there? Some years ago Maisie had swallowed a whole bottle of vitamin pills and, although Henry had suggested that in his view Maisie’s stomach could probably have stood a diet of broken glass, aspirin and raw steak, Elinor had insisted on ringing Charing Cross Hospital. As far as Henry could remember they gave advice over the phone. But he couldn’t possibly phone from the house. He could go to a phone box. ‘. . . Er . . . I seem to have swallowed a bit of thallium . . .’ How could he put it? ‘I’m doing some work on optical lenses with a high refractive index and I seem to have got some . . . er . . . thallium on my sandwiches . . .’ They would want to know where and how, wouldn’t they? They were probably in close touch with the police. Oh, Jesus Christ, how long had he got? How long had Donald got? Not long, from the look of the chicken. One thing was for certain. Tibbles had got hardly any time left at all. She was bum up in the air, small head to one side, gnawing her way through Donald’s portion and then on to the rest of the poisoned carcass of the chicken, which Henry added to her plate.

  If she was well enough to formulate a view on the question – and at the present rate of progress it looked as if she might be – Elinor would take a dim view of the poisoning of Tibbles. Cats did not rate quite as high on her scale of things worth fighting for as, say, dolphins, but their stock certainly stood higher than that of the middle-aged, white, heterosexual male. She seemed unable to appreciate the fact that Henry himself was one of a threatened species, even though that threat was treated with contempt by most ecologists and nearly all women. Perhaps this was why, increasingly, Henry saw life as a struggle between him and the things his wife cared for so passionately – whales, seals, Aborigines, dolphins . . . If it came to a straight choice between a dolphin and Henry (and in Henry’s view things had already got that serious) he would go for Henry every time. Would Elinor though?

  He stood looking down at Tibbles, breathing heavily. Blood pressure, Henry. Blood pressure. Don’t think about animals. Don’t think about anything that disturbs you. Think about what your mother used to call ‘nice things’. Think about Wimbledon. Think about the rows of quiet houses. Think about the rattle of the electric trains on their way to Southfields and Putney. Think about the neatly kept front gardens and the commuters clacking their way back in the twilight towards the carefully assembled innocence of home.

  He was all right now. He cut Donald a generous slice of untainted leg, and went back to the dining table. Now. How was he going to make this phone call? He could not think of a single convincing excuse that would get him out of the house. He would have to use the phone in the hall. Now, while they were eating. He got to his feet.

  ‘Just got to . . . er . . .’ Elinor and the doomed man looked at him oddly.

  ‘Make a call,’ said Henry with a crispness that surprised him. ‘It’s a work problem. Tricky conveyancing thing. I think a tort may be involved.’

  Elinor was looking at him with what might have been respect. He almost never discussed his work with her, while she, like many other progressive people, regarded the law as a sinister conspiracy to defraud the laity.

  ‘It all hinges on Prosser v. Prosser,’ went on Henry, in a world-weary voice, ‘as usual . . .’

  And, with the purposeful stride of a great barrister on his way to a confrontation in the Old Bailey, he went out into the hall.

  It was curious. His attempt to murder her seemed to have given him a new strength in the relationship. He was, suddenly, almost decisive. And that was what was needed. Even as he closed the door behind him, the thallium was on its way down through Donald’s oesophagus, slithering towards his stomach and digestive tract, where his body chemicals would turn it into a disease Donald would have difficulty in recognizing. There was no time to lose.

  11

  Henry dialled the number of Charing Cross Hospital and asked in low tones for the Poisons Unit.

  ‘The what?’ said the girl on the switchboard.

  ‘The Poisons Unit!’ hissed Henry, in what he realized was a distinctly suspicious manner.

  ‘Can’t hear you, caller . . .’

  ‘The Poisons Unit!’ said Henry, as loudly as he dared. He tried to say this in a way that suggested that he was always ringing up for a natter about arsenic and thallium, that there was nothing odd about his request.

  At that moment Elinor came into the hall. She stood in the darkness, looking at him curiously.

  ‘Hullo,’ said a voice at the other end, ‘the Poisons Unit.’

  ‘Hullo,’ said Henry breezily, ‘Henry Farr here from Harris, Harris and Overdene . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ said the voice cautiously. Elinor was still looking at him.

  ‘I’ve got a problem,’ said Henry, ‘with the conveyancing papers on 56 Northwood Road. I have a real difficulty in locating who has responsibility for the dustbins.’

  ‘This is the Poisons Unit,’ said the voice, cautiously.

  ‘I know,’ said Henry, ‘and I am sorry to bother you at this time of night but my client has given me to understand that this is when you would be available. Tell me, in the lease as originally drawn up would you be able to let my client know whether there was specific reference to the controversy over the dustbins or did this develop after the Maltese took over?’

  Elinor folded her arms.

  ‘Tell your client,’ said the voice at the other end of the phone, ‘that he or she would have a better chance of establishing who is or is not responsible for his or her dustbins if he or she employed a lawyer who didn’t address his enquiries to people whose principal concern is pharmacology.’ The line went dead.

  ‘Thank you very much indeed!’ said Henry with what sounded like genuine enthusiasm. ‘That really is most helpful in our terms. I will of course let my client know that Mr Makaroupides takes full responsibility for this and that will take a weight off his mind. Have a nice day!’

  He put the phone down and stared coolly at Elinor. ‘It’s four o’clock in New York!’ he said.

  ‘So what?’ said Elinor.

  ‘That’s where I was phoning. Glyn, Harwood and Schmeiss operate almost entirely out of New York.’

  Elinor goggled at him. She had never heard Henry talk like this before. Neither had Henry. But desperation could do strange things to a man. Donald was dying in there, for God’s sake. Hadn’t there been something in that book about Graham Young? Graham had got him into this. He could get him out of it. Young had, as far as Henry could remember, suggested the antidote for one of his victims himself. Dyner— something . . . dyner—

  ‘Are you all right?’ sai
d Elinor.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Henry, ‘but this means I’d better just pop out for a second.’

  Elinor’s eyes were wide with concern. Henry never popped out anywhere. Especially after nine o’clock at night.

  ‘I’ll have to go and see Martin Rubashon. He’s only just down the road, but this is a face-to-face matter, I’m afraid.’

  Who, Elinor’s expression seemed to be saying, is Martin Rubashon? And why have I never heard his name before?

  ‘What’s a face-to-face matter?’ she said.

  ‘The dustbins, of course,’ said Henry testily, ‘this is a nine-million-dollar contract. I’m not letting it slip over a few measly dustbins!’ And with a calm purpose that he did not feel he went out into the street.

  As the autumn air met his face, he remembered. Dynercaprol and potassium chloride. That was it. Young had actually suggested its use to the police at one stage of their investigations. All he had to do was stroll down to Underwoods and pick up a bit of dynercaprol and potassium chloride. He didn’t fancy another trip to the chemist’s he had visited that morning. There was something scary about the place, something, well, Maltbyish . . .

  He had, of course, still got a few sheets of Donald’s prescription pad. With a quick glance back at the house he ran to the car. Once inside he groped for the sheets in his pocket. He must be careful to disguise his handwriting. Wasn’t doctors’ handwriting supposed to be hard to read? Henry normally wrote a neat, italic script; it was, according to the more malicious of his colleagues, his only real legal qualification. How much though? How much would Donald need to get him back on the road? And how, come to think of it, was Henry going to get him to absorb the stuff, short of creeping up on him while he was asleep and forcing it down his throat or up his arse? He stopped for a moment, the crumpled sheet of prescription pad on his knee, and wondered whether Donald was really worth all this effort. Might it not be simpler just to let him go? He had had a pretty good life. A pleasant wife (in his terms anyway), a nice house in the suburbs. He had had six glorious years with Arfur.

  No. He couldn’t do it to Donald. Henry filled in the form and drove down to Underwoods.

  Although the pharmacist seemed to have some trouble deciphering the prescription, and Henry had to go through a nerve-wracking pantomime of ignorance about the nature of the chemicals he required, it wasn’t long before he was standing once again on the doorstep of 54 Maple Drive.

  It might be possible to slip the antidote in some pudding or dessert wine or digestif. He had a few hours anyway. And Elinor was just going to have to wait for her merciful release. Henry wondered whether dynercaprol and potassium chloride taken without thallium might be poisonous. He could slip some to Elinor as well. But no, even as he thought this, he realized the hopelessness of the task ahead of him. Killing Elinor was the kind of thing you would need years of study to accomplish. You couldn’t just walk into it casually, as he had done, drop home from the office and decide to eradicate her on the spur of the moment. As her mother was fond of saying – it had taken a lot of trouble to get her this far, and this last little step was going to take a deal of organizing as well.

  On the doorstep of number 54, Henry stood for a moment in the gloom, flexing his fingers. The Wimbledon Strangler. Inside he could see Elinor talking, with some animation, to Donald, her long hair falling across her face. Donald was nodding eagerly as she talked. She was gesturing about something now, some issue that had excited her, dolphins probably, and as she waved her arms Donald gave her an admiring smile. She was, undoubtedly, in good physical shape. She had a fairly thick neck and her forearms, well, the only way to describe them was meaty.

  You could use tights of course. Or piano wire. Like the SAS.

  With this comforting thought Henry rang the doorbell, hard, and watched his wife heave herself out of the chair and stump through to the hall. Go for it, Henry! he said, once again to himself, Go for it! The evening has a new agenda. Detoxification followed by strangulation. Go for it, Henry! he said, for the last time, Go for it!

  12

  Both of them refused all offers of food and drink.

  The conversation had turned to law and order. Elinor had begun, Donald told him, by discussing her problems. It appeared she had something called the Madonna Complex. Either she was a Madonna and people didn’t give her credit for being one, or else she was trying to be one and people were trying to stop her or possibly she was being forced to be one against her better judgement. Henry couldn’t work out, from Donald’s description, which of these alternatives was best described by the Madonna Complex, indeed he didn’t really listen to a word either of them said. All of his energies were devoted to bringing the conversation round to the topic of food and drink, but Donald, once he had explained, or failed to explain, the Madonna Complex, moved swiftly on to what he described as his problem, which turned out to be law and order.

  ‘Say what you like!’ he said. ‘Say what you like. If a yobbo attacks my home and family. If some coloured youth breaks into my house and tries to rape my wife . . .’ Henry goggled at him. ‘I’d strangle the bastard with my bare hands. I don’t see why coloured youths should have carte blanche to steal my stereo and shit all over my compact-disc player and rape my wife. I don’t see it.’

  Elinor was looking at Donald, her mouth open. There was, Henry knew, an unspoken contract between them. She was allowed to talk about herself if he was allowed to rave on about black men. The fact that he was soon going to die, thought Henry, gave his words a special poignancy.

  ‘England,’ he was saying, ‘used to be the most civilized country in the world. Say what you like, you were safe in Wimbledon. Right?’

  ‘Right!’ said Henry.

  ‘But now,’ said Donald, ‘England is a country run by yobbos for yobbos. A country in which respect for law and order takes second place to the problems of some illiterate chocco.’

  Henry wasn’t sure how to answer this. Hadn’t Mrs Thatcher solved this kind of problem? Wasn’t it OK to be racist these days? Donald seemed to be describing the bad old days before Mrs Thatcher, as far as Henry could see. Perhaps his memory, like Henry’s, was buckling under the strain of being forty. Or else, possibly, the thallium was starting to affect his brain. It would be difficult to assess things like that with Donald. Whatever was the case he, Henry, had better get something down him.

  ‘Whisky, Donald?’

  ‘I won’t, thanks.’

  ‘Beer? Brandy?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Cup of tea? Coffee?’

  ‘Not for me.’

  Wine? Ouzo? Vodka? Mead? Mineral water? Hot chocolate? Dynercaprol? Potassium chloride?

  ‘Bugger off, friend chocco, I say. Bugger off, friendly neighbouring Paki. And bugger off, Greek and Arab while you’re at it. We don’t need you. England used to be a country with red pillar boxes and policemen with red noses and decent law-abiding citizens you could eat your dinner off. Now it’s a refugee camp!’

  Elinor looked pained. Her anguish, Henry noted, went down rather well with Donald.

  ‘Shouldn’t we,’ said Elinor, ‘welcome the refugee? Shouldn’t people of all races and nationalities be welcomed by a caring country?’

  Donald chose not to confront this vague, if morally positive statement. He was grinning, in a fatherly sort of way, and wagging his hands at Elinor.

  ‘My point, Elly, is this—’ (Elly? Elly?) ‘Where is the space in all this for the little man? The ordinary, average Englishman. What I would call the little man. Me and Henry, say, who just want a mortgage and a little house and get on with it!’

  Elinor started to make more anguished noises.

  ‘How about a cool glass of orange juice?’ said Henry. ‘Or a sandwich?’

  They both looked at him oddly. Elinor narrowed her eyes.

  ‘Washing up, Henry!’ she said.

  ‘Yes, m’love!’ said Henry lightly.

  Oh well. Donald had had a good innings. His time had quite
obviously come.

  ‘How about some mineral water?’

  ‘No thanks, old man,’ said Donald, ‘we’re setting the world to rights here.’

  Henry started to pack the plates into the washing-up machine. Smeared with grease, fragments of chicken and edenwort, they reminded him, as so often, of his life. Quite decent things, hopelessly botched, needing to be made clean again. That awful doubt came at him again. Maybe Wimbledon wasn’t such a great place. Maybe The Complete History was what that publisher said it was – a boring load of old rubbish. Maybe – but these were the kind of thoughts that kept Henry awake sometimes at four in the morning, longing for the dawn. They were not to be contemplated. That way lay madness.

  Even as a poisoner, not, you would have thought, the most demanding of professions, he seemed to be a complete failure. Seeing him engaged in domestic activity, Tibbles came up to him and began to rub her harsh fur against his legs. In a curious way he would miss Tibbles. Who was going to go first? Her or Donald?

  ‘What the English have given the world,’ said Donald, ‘is a respect for law and order and decency. I’m talking about justice, you get me? A people who care passionately about fair play, whose legal system is – Christ!’

  Henry jerked round.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Just got a blast in the gut.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Henry, ‘have a drink of something!’ But Donald was doubled up on the sofa.

  Henry rushed through to the kitchen, poured the dynercaprol and potassium chloride into a small glass of water and hurried back to Donald.

  ‘Here,’ he said, trying to keep his voice jolly, ‘some new tummy thing for you. It’ll set you right in no time.’

  Donald looked at him suspiciously.