The Reaper

by Peter Lovesey

  "That's a gift from God, being able to fit your words to the occasion like that," said Geoff Elliott. "Not that I recall what was said, but I found it moving at the time. Beautiful words, yes."

  "And not the same words he used at poor Stanley's funeral. Not the same at all."

  "Different man," Elliott pointed out.

  "Yes, but two funerals coming so soon, one after the other, it would be easy to repeat yourself."

  "No, no, Peg. He thinks it through. Next time someone goes, it will be different again. You'll see."

  "I hope no one else is going," she said. "Two in just over a month is more than we can afford to lose."

  "And that's not counting the bishop."

  "The bishop wasn't a Foxford man."

  "No, but he was our bishop. It's a connection. Rector remembered him in church, if you were there."

  "I was-and he said just the right thing in the circumstances."

  "In the circumstances, yes." Geoff Elliott's eyes widened slightly at the memory of the bend-over bishop, so slightly that no one else noticed.

  Two of the confirmation class were drinking orange squash and talking with approval about the service. "Considering Gary wasn't a church-goer, it was wonderful," Ann Porter remarked to Burton Sands. "I said a prayer for him, hoping he gets to heaven."

  "If he wasn't a believer, he won't," said Burton flatly. "You know what the Te Deum tells us. 'Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.' "

  "We don't know what he believed," Ann pointed out.

  "Just because he didn't come to church every Sunday, it doesn't mean he was a heathen."

  "It's unlikely."

  "Well, I wouldn't count him out," said Ann. "As a matter of fact, he may have been on the point of joining the church. I saw him walk through the rectory gates on the day he died."

  "What, like a ghost?" said Burton.

  "No, silly. Before he died. This was about five in the afternoon. He must have been calling on the rector, and it wouldn't surprise me if he'd seen the light."

  "You're guessing."

  "Maybe he had some kind of message from God that he hadn't got long to go."

  "Maybe," Burton echoed, but with a heavy note of scepticism.

  "We can't really ask Otis, but I'd give anything to know."

  Across the room, Cynthia Haydenhall was being helpful, topping up people's glasses. "She'll manage, I'm sure," she confided to Mary Todd from the shop. "She'll go through a period of grief of course, but she's a survivor. She'll bounce back." She checked where Rachel was, making sure she was too far away to hear. "And they weren't as close as some couples are, if you understand me."

  "I'd noticed that."

  "She'll miss him, of course, but…"

  "She's just a young thing," said Mary Todd. "She won't be alone for long, if I'm any judge."

  "Do you think so?"

  "If she looks after herself, keeps her hair nice."

  "She's in the Frome Troupers. They're a lively lot. Not many men, though."

  "It's always the problem in amateur dramatics."

  "She was all set to star in There Goes the Bride on Friday. 1 suppose they'll have to find a replacement now."

  "Shame. She must have been looking forward to it, learning the part and all."

  "Well, you can't act in a farce the same week you bury your husband."

  The rector put his head around the door, and Cynthia shimmied through the crush to offer him a drink. He'd taken off his cassock and was wearing a dark suit. He said, rather curtly, she thought, that he wished to speak to Rachel first.

  "1 think she's handing out sausage rolls. She's bearing it very well."

  "Good."

  "Everyone agrees you excelled yourself in church, Otis. You gave a wonderful address."

  "Doing my job, Mrs. Haydenhall. Where exactly is she? I don't see her."

  "In the kitchen, I expect."

  He went in search of her.

  The party in the Foxford Arms continued past closing time and the last coach left Norman Gregor's field after midnight. Rachel heard it pass the cottage, music still being played and audible between the gear shifts. It would be a long time before she chose to listen to jazz again.

  Alone now, she had nothing to do. The guests had insisted on washing and wiping every last teaspoon. Everything was put away. They had emptied the ashtrays and vacuumed the carpets. The place looked better than it had in weeks. The possibility hadn't occurred to them that she would have liked something to keep her busy.

  Her brain was too active for sleep. It fairly fizzed with words said in the past twelve hours, things meant to cheer or console, most of them hopelessly wide of the mark. The only true comment- and it sounded tasteless, however it was put-was that Gary would have been happy with his own funeral. "You could almost say he was a lucky man," someone said. "It softens the blow, doesn't it?" Another remarked, "You did him proud, Rachel. You'll always be able to say you sent him off in style."

  She put on the kettle for a cup of tea, and went round checking that the doors were locked and bolted. She wasn't afraid to be alone. Just wanted the chance to come to terms with her changed life and get over the feeling of numbness that had gripped her since the moment of Gary's death.

  She had to keep telling herself she was free.

  Gary was gone, six feet under. Out of her life.

  In the eyes of the village, she was not far short of a saint. Bravely she'd suppressed her own grief to arrange this spectacular funeral. She'd held back the tears all day.

  She was no saint, and she didn't feel very brave.

  In a curious way, she felt as if she was outside her own body, looking at herself, trying to understand how she could have done what she had. The decision to do away with Gary had been made quickly, impulsively. There was none of that malice aforethought. Not much, anyway.

  He had made the fatal mistake of asking for a strong curry and she'd had this sudden prospect of release like the clouds parting. An end to a gruesome marriage and a new life with Otis, the man she loved.

  With astonishing clarity she'd seen how much she despised her husband and wanted to be rid of him. He was unattractive, oafish, selfish, messy, abusive, shabby, conceited, undersexed and old, old, old. His return from New Orleans had brought it home to her, literally. She couldn't bear to be close to him any longer. She knew the man she wanted, and she'd seen the unattached women of the village closing in on him. She knew how urgent it was to set herself free.

  She also knew her plants and their properties. She had monkshood in the garden, a thriving clump that grew waist high and produced pretty purple flowers in May and June, and she knew of its reputation. In the medical centre where she worked she'd checked the book they kept for emergencies: The Dangerous Plants of Britain.

  Aconkum napellus, the source of aconitine, also known as monkshood, wolfsbane, leopard's bane, women's bane, blue rocket and devil's helmet, is without doubt the most poisonous plant in Britain. Every part of it, the flower, the leaves, the stems, the roots, is potentially deadly. As little as one-fiftieth of a grain has been known to cause death, and one-tenth is certain to prove fatal.

  Significantly, though, only one case of murder by aconitine was listed, and that was from over a century before, a Dr. Lam-son who had foolishly given himself away by buying the stuff from a chemist. Surely if the plant was so deadly and so common in gardens, it must have been used on other occasions. If so, it had not been detected in a hundred years.

  Apparently Dr. Thomas Stevenson, a leading Victorian toxicologist, was giving evidence in a murder case when he was asked if he knew of any poison that was undetectable. He answered, "There is only one that I can recall and that is-" "Stop!" cried the judge. "The public must never hear of it." That poison, Stevenson later disclosed in a lecture to medical students, was aconitine, the extract of aconite.

  Rachel's decision to do away with Gary had been quickened by opportunity. He'd asked for a curry worthy of the name. So he got it
.

  The blue rocket.

  She'd used the tubers of a rootstock of monkshood from the garden, chopping them like any root vegetable and adding them to the curry before she put it in to warm. The only difference from horse-radish root was that it slowly turned red when cut, rather than staying white. At first he wouldn't have been troubled by the tingling and burning sensation in the mouth characteristic of aconite. What else does one expect from a good, strong curry?

  He'd gone through some of the symptoms before she got home from the harvest supper, yet it had still been a terrible test of her nerve watching him in dire pain losing his faculties while she tried to judge the exact moment to call Dr. Perkins. Gary had to be alive when the doctor came, yet beyond medical help. She'd timed it right, thank God. The last symptoms of aconite poisoning, after hours of pains and nausea, are loss of speech, impairment of vision and convulsions-readily diagnosed as a heart attack. In fact, the cause of death is cardiac failure resulting from paralysis of the centres in the brain. Dr. Perkins didn't know anything about aconite poisoning, but he could recognise a heart attack, and he was dealing with one by the time he was called to Gary. Poisoning didn't cross the old doctor's mind. Why should it have? You don't expect a poisoner to call the doctor to her victim.

  But of course it had been necessary to have a physician attend him, make the diagnosis and, crucially, sign the certificate.

  She had jamazed herself by her self-control. Now it was all over she couldn't believe she had done it, murdered her own husband and watched him die. Was this really the woman who prayed in church each Sunday and went round the village collecting for Christian Aid? She dreaded her own symptoms now: the numbness wearing off and the full horror flooding in. There was going to be a reaction soon. Her personal hell.

  She forced herself to concentrate on practicalities.

  How will I live with what I have done?

  A term of mourning-or what appeared as mourning-would follow. Respect was more accurate. Not respect for Gary, but for the conventions of village life. A widow didn't have to drape herself in black these days, but some show of solemnity was wanted, whatever her private feelings.

  What a change in her life. No more fun with the Frome Troupers. All those weeks of learning her part and rehearsing There Goes the Bride had gone out of the window.

  The months to come had to be endured. Low key. Smiles but no laughs. The one consolation would be the visits from Otis. The beauty of it was that he would come openly, in his capacity as priest, doing his duty, comforting the bereaved.

  She craved his comfort.

  And in time, maybe as soon as the spring of next year, she and Otis could begin to be seen together at village events. She didn't want to wait much longer just to satisfy decorum. This was her life ticking away. Why waste so much of it for fear of a few mean-minded gossips who would say she'd hardly seen one husband off before she was taking up with the rector? They'd say the same if she waited till the autumn, or the year after. Some people were like that. Their disapproval had to be faced.

  She warmed the teapot and put in some dried camomile. Camomile tea is a great calmer. She'd harvested it from the garden a long time ago. Gary had never cared for it. He'd often told her he didn't trust her country remedies. She smiled at the memory.

  While the camomile was infusing she switched her thoughts to Otis.

  He had come looking for her as soon as he reached the cottage after the burial and she could recall their short conversation with total accuracy.

  "Can't stay long, I'm afraid. Just want to say how bravely you coped today."

  "Everyone is helping me."

  "Yes, but none of us had any idea what a huge event it would turn out to be."

  "Don't I know it."

  "You're almost certain to feel a reaction later, and I'm going to help you through it. Count on me, Rachel. Call me any time. I'll come and see you anyway, but you may want to pick up the phone. Day or night, don't hesitate."

  "Thanks."

  His eyes locked with hers and she was certain they conveyed much more.

  Here she was then, at almost one a.m., extremely tempted to call him, yet resisting. She didn't trust herself in this state. She might blurt out everything. She was going to have to button her lip. Of all things, she didn't want Otis finding out that she had committed murder.

  So she drank the camomile tea and tried listening to the radio for a bit, thinking she'd get a sense of what else had happened in the world while she had been so preoccupied, bring some balance back into her thoughts. Much earlier, some of the television programmes would have reported the funeral, the perfect off-beat item to finish the newscast. "And finally, a funeral with a difference. When the Wiltshire village of Foxford took leave of jazz enthusiast Gary Jansen earlier today, it did so in New Orleans style, and hundreds came to see it."

  She'd missed all that, and she wasn't sorry. The radio was more serious in tone-a dramatic fall in share prices, more evidence of global warming, a plane missing somewhere and a drugs find in a yacht off the south coast. The world moved on, and she was just an insignificant part of it, calmer now and ready-she hoped-for sleep.

  Fourteen

  Rachel spent the morning answering letters of condolence and the afternoon in the garden uprooting things. She was glad she had so much to do out there. The physical work shut out unwanted thoughts and she would get better sleep that night after all the digging. She had decided to clear the jungle around the pond and, as always, each job took longer than she expected. For obvious reasons, the monkshood had to go, but it was a struggle. The root system was well established and went deeper than she expected.

  People came by as she worked and she noticed once again how many of them avoided saying anything-when normally at least a friendly "hello" was exchanged. Bereavement had turned her into an untouchable. What did they think-that she would burst into tears?

  There were no such inhibitions for Cynthia. "Great idea, darling," she said, parking her bike against the wall. "Go for it, I say. Come and do mine when you've finished."

  Rachel straightened up and leaned on her spade. "There's more than enough here to keep me going."

  "If you'd like to break off for a cuppa, I'm about to make one."

  "I'm in a disgusting state."

  "Don't worry. You can leave your wellies outside the door."

  Nice to be reminded she still belonged to the human race. To call on Cynthia was to lay yourself open to the third degree, but after the last few days there was little that was not public knowledge already. She hadn't often been inside the thatched cottage at the other end of the street. And she felt the need of company. She went indoors to wash and put on something presentable.

  A gas-flame fire was going merrily in Primrose Cottage by the time she'd walked up the street. Cynthia liked the country life on her own convenient terms, so it was her repeated pestering of South West Gas that had persuaded them to lay on a supply for the village. Her cottage was as comfortable as any town house. The thatch was kept tidy with a wire mesh covering and heaven help any wild-life that tried to make a home in it. The mullioned windows were double-glazed. Round the back was a satellite dish for one of the new wide-screen digital TV sets. She hadn't yet succeeded in bringing cable TV to Foxford, but no one put it past her.

  She poured tea through a strainer into a porcelain cup. "If that cushion troubles you, toss it out."

  Rachel tugged out the cushion awkwardly placed behind her and rearranged it. Embroidered on it was the slogan Good Girls Go to Heaven.

  For a while they went over the detail of the funeral. Cynthia now regretted being inside the church because she hadn't seen the street procession. "You caught the march-past and the service. You saw it all, did it all," she told Rachel as if she was talking about a trip to Disneyland. "You were in the march."

  "I had no choice."

  Cynthia smiled. "True. We couldn't have swapped. I thought the place to be was inside the church, and I boobed. It wasn't. Th
e story of my life. I've sat through funerals before, but I've never seen one of those death marches. Is that what they call them?"

  "You must have seen it when we came back."

  "Yes, but by then the whole thing was too hyper for my liking. Carnival time. I wanted to see the slow, dignified stuff. Mind you, the service was lovely. Didn't Otis hit the spot?"

  "You mean …?"

  "That bit about the trumpet sounding on the other side. Gave me goose pimples."

  "Brilliant, yes."

  Cynthia leaned back in her chair and grinned wickedly. "I could play some good notes on his trumpet, given half a chance."

  Rachel didn't find that amusing.

  Cynthia continued, "He still has enemies in the village, you know. You wouldn't believe it, but he does."

  "Anyone with a fresh approach is going to upset some people. He upset you not long ago."

  "I don't remember that."

  "You've got a short memory. After the fete, when you didn't get invited back for a cup of tea," Rachel reminded her. "That was a laundry-basket offence, you told me."

  The colour flooded into Cynthia's cheeks. "Lawdy! Did I? Well, I think the man is absolutely gorgeous. I could pleasure him at breakfast, lunch and tea, but it's unrequited passion up to now. He doesn't give me any encouragement at all. It's you he fancies."

  Now Rachel blushed. "Oh, come on."

  "I can see it in the way he looks at you. His eyes follow you long after you've gone by. Now that you're a merry widow, he'll be on the case. Just see if he isn't. Listen, hand me that ruddy cushion. There isn't room in that chair for both of you."

  As she passed it across, Rachel read the message on the reverse: Bad Girls Go Anywhere. "You say the daftest things, Cyn."

  "Want a bet? Has he been round to comfort you?"

  "Of course not."

  "He will. It's his job, comforting widows."

  "He has more important things to do."