“Excellent,” beamed the doctor, as though promised a promotion. “Can you bring that in as soon as Possible? And check on whoever ate any of those chocolates yesterday?”
Both Sylvia and Harry had turned quite white. Harry said, “But it can’t have been actual purposeful poison? That’s impossible. Or do you mean some sort of mistake at the factory? Or even some worker who was sacked, getting his own back on the company? But maybe just Ruby drinking bleach instead of tonic water, or eating something contaminated in an unhygienic kitchen?”
“There are many interesting and possible hypothesis,” smiled the doctor. “But I need to examine those chocolates.”
Turning to Harry, still white-faced, Sylvia mumbled, “Harry, my love, could you nip back home and get the box Ruby gave me – on the chest in the bedroom. And see if anyone else is sick? I have to go and see Ruby.”
Ruby did not wake.
Shivering and gulping, Lionel lay on the straw, “Bloody help, silly bitch,” he yelled at his daughter. “Don’t just bloody stand there. I need you.”
“I’m not a doctor, Dad.” Tracy regarded her father. The hole in the middle of his face where once his nose had been prominent, was bleeding even more profusely than before and the flesh oozed some other liquid neither of them understood. “It’s your wickedness coming out,” Tracy smiled. “Cheer up, Dad, you’ll go off to Heaven like a saint. All cleansed and pure.”
“I ain’t wicked.” He mumbled through the blood. “That slimy muck’s from the sinuses or up the throat or something. But I never was wicked. I only do what I have to.”
“Rubbish,” sneered Tracy. “St. Paul won’t open the holy gates for you, you know. He’d lock that gate. Just like you used to do to me.”
“I’m not dying, stupid whore” Lionel shouted. “But I’m in pain, fucking horrible pain.”
“Look, if I hadn’t managed to nick a car and come up to find you, you’d be lying dead in a Welsh field. I’ve helped. But I’m no doctor, no surgeon, and no magician. I reckon all this stuff’ll heal in time. Just be patient. I’ll go and get you some painkillers if you like, but it won’t be strong stuff. You can’t buy morphine over the counter, you know.”
“You can nick it.”
“Where from? Just walk into a hospital and nip into their stores? You’re lucky you managed to phone me, and I’m doing what I can. I’ll go into the village and pick up Nurophen and Paracetamol and stuff. And some food, while I’m at it.”
Whisky, gin, anything strong.”
“I’ll try.”
Lionel attempted to roll over, but cried out suddenly, clasping both hands over his face, blood streaming between his fingers. His ear also bled, but it did not seem to hurt him. As he turned, Tracy saw that the wound in his hip was also widening and bleeding copiously. He was whimpering now. “I got a gun, Honey-Bunch. You could just finish me off.”
Tracy sat quickly beside him. “I know you don’t really mean that.” She watched him as he groaned, eyes hidden behind his huge trembling hands. “I nearly did it, you know, my last couple of weeks with Mum when she told me what you’d done to Karyn. I loved my big sister. She was the only sweet one in the family, and that included me. Mum sold me off to some bugger when I was eight. Told him I was virgin. I wasn’t, cos you’d started with me when I was seven. I bit the bastard’s nipple almost off, and Mum had to give him his money back. But I got whipped like some witch back in the old days. Then she sold me to someone else a week later. You weren’t there, so I thought you were the good one, till Mum told me what you did to Karyn. Then I had three years of you fucking me till you went away again. I never liked it you know. OK, so I didn’t object. Mum smashed me around and whipped me and chucked me down the stairs. But you cuddled me and kissed me and put those lovely big warm hands all tight and kind around me. You even used to say you loved me.”
“I did,” Lionel muttered. “I do.”
“I wanted so much to feel loved, I would have put up with anything. Well, I did, didn’t I – put up with anything.”
Lionel, snuffling violently through the widening hole in his face,. “I never meant to hurt Karyn. It wasn’t a proper beating, and your mum set it up. Besides, I always loved you the most.”
“Well thanks, but I don’t care anyway,” Tracy concluded. “Not now. I’ve worked the streets for so long, what I thought was kind cuddling back when I was seven is just yuck now and half the guys like weird stuff.”
“No weird stuff from me.”
“You reckon you’re not weird?” Tracy shrieked with laughter. “You’re sick. You know you are. More weird than anyone else. You like to fuck them when they’re dead. And you kill them first. But it’s the other stuff that’s even worse.”
He muttered, “Olga makes me.”
“Good excuse,” said Tracy. “But way back, before you started working for that coach company and disappeared all over the place, I helped you with two of them. I should never have done that. Still gives me nightmares.”
“You enjoyed it at the time.”
She paused, thinking back. “Actually, I think I did, and that frightened me even more. That’s the nightmare, isn’t it – actually liking it. It was disgusting – really sick – and I liked it. Bloody hell, I must be nearly as bad as you. But I’ll never do it again. And you’d best not do it again either. Can you make a decision like that?”
“You want me back in the clink?”
“No.” Tracy stood, brushing the straw from her jeans. “No, of course not. But I want a dad, not a sicko!”
“Since getting away, I got a few chances.” He was twitching with pain but talked on. “Seen girls. But only one came with me. That was a gift from heaven. Not your silly palid heaven. My bright bloody heaven. One girl I had days of fun with and felt bloody marvellous. Then Joyce. That helped. Nothing else. What the fuck is the point of being free, living like this, without a girl to fuck and chop?” Lionel reappeared from behind the cushioning palms. “Go get those pills, then. I’ll think – and sleep if I can. You hurry.”
“OK. I’ll hurry,” and she ran from the cottage, carefully replacing the curtain of leaf and vine behind her. She took the little stolen black car, and drove over the bumps onto the path and then the road. The car was not build for overland discovery, let alone the great rocks and holes she drove through. The exhaust was now broken. But she’d paid nothing for it and did not care as long as it managed one or two journeys more.
She headed into Little Woppington-on-Torr.
The elderly gentleman in the small white painted room seemed fully aware of the fact that the wall of mirror facing him worked two ways. “You got all your men lined up out there?” he asked. “I’m afraid they won’t find me very exciting.”
“Excitement is the last thing I want at the moment,” Morrison smiled. “I just need to know exactly what you saw,”
“It was dark. About eight thirty or later,’ said the man. “I heard scuffling and a girl sort of squeaking. Panting. I’m ashamed to say I thought they were doing something else. I assumed they were enjoying themselves. Or on the job. You know.”
“Yes, I know exactly what you mean,” sighed Morrison. “But tell me about the boy, Mr Ghent.”
Mr Ghent was sipping a glass of water. “I was at the ATM. Those sounds came from around the corner, and the ATM rattled on and on anyway, so I didn’t hear half of it. But then this boy came marching around from that direction. One split second he stared at me. Then he rushed back the way he’d come. I thought I knew why. I thought he was embarrassed because I must have heard his passionate love-making. So I just went off in the other direction, quite without a worry in the world. It wasn’t until this morning when I heard where the murder actually took place – that I worried and came over here. I mean, that’s exactly where I was. Actually, I almost didn’t come. I thought, well – they’ll think I did it. But hopefully you won’t think that. I’m very happily married as it happens.”
“Mr Ghent,” sighed Morrison,
“is there any chance of you describing this boy? That’s the main thing we want.”
“Oh, well yes, but it was dark, you know. He was tall but not more than six or six one, I think. Floppy dark hair. Definitely skinny. Wore jeans with a dark jacket, one of those zip-up hooded things the kids wear. But the hood was off, so his hair flopped in the wind. Slightly long but nothing unusual, almost to his shoulders but I think not quite. Dark, but everyone looks dark at night. No idea about eyes. He had long fingers and narrow hands. Wore dark sneakers too. I’d guess he was aged between sixteen and twenty. And that’s all I can think of. Very average looking boy in fact. Good jaw, just a bit of a nose perhaps.” Looking almost ashamed, he paused, then said, “I’d have taken more notice if I’d understood what – but that was the last thing I would have expected. And it certainly wasn’t anything like that weirdo Sullivan everyone’s after.”
“Could you describe all this to one of our sketches, Mr Ghent? If we could produce a genuine likeness, he might come forward. We are presuming he’s a witness rather than the perpetrator, but that can’t be relied on yet. The dead girl is about the same age, so it might be some boy trying to get rid of a girlfriend or some such thing. But we need the boy first.” The photograph of a pretty young girl lay on the desk. “And are you quite sure you never saw her, Mr Ghent?”
“No way, Inspector. Only the boy. And he looked shit scared when he saw me. Excuse the language.”
“I’d certainly say this was something to swear about,” Morrison sighed. “A Lionel Sullivan type murder, but possibly committed by someone else entirely. Now, where have I heard that before?”
Mr Ghent did not get the point, but Detective Inspector Rita Ellis, standing behind Morrison’s chair, was smiling.
It was later that day when a fairly accurate sketch of Johnny Tavistock was produced, Mr Ghent went home happy, and the police station asked the television company to pin the announcement and the picture to the news that evening as the most important item.
Both Sylvia and Harry, exhausted, went to bed early that evening with no further information concerning Ruby, except that she was finally opening her eyes, and had come off the drip, being fed with water and gruel now by mouth.
The young boy who was employed late in the evening at a petrol station just outside London, was conscientiously sweeping up outside just before midnight, when he saw a large heap of indistinguishable rubbish right beside the far fence. He marched over to clean up and gather rubbish into the bins, when he stopped still some steps away and gulped.
Pulling out his phone, he telephoned the emergency police. “Hey, man,” he said, slightly scared, “I seen this pile o’ stuff where I’s workin’ and went to chuck it. But I reckon tis a body. Some guy. Bin shot, I reckon, though the blood’s dry. You better come and look. Real quick.”
“We’ll be over immediately,” said the police operator. “Sounds gang related. Don’t touch a thing until we get there.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Someone else gave them to me,’ Ruby said, her voice a small gruff whisper. “I never told you about him. I was just stupid. I didn’t even want him in the end.”
“Darling,” Sylvia said softly, “you have to tell me. Please. I promise I won’t blame you for a thing.”
Harry was fetching tea from the canteen downstairs. Sylvia leaned gently over Ruby’s bed. Ruby was heavily sedated, and her voice only scraped the air above her lips. Ruby small single bedded ward was lit with little more than a hint of a light bulb and was so white, it seemed to Sylvia to resemble a mortuary. Ruby exhaled and inhaled deeply. “Brad. Just a boy. Eighteen I think. Or seventeen. Just a kid. Pretty in an average way. And so sweet at first.”
“Brad who?”
“Peacock,” said Ruby. “Brad Peacock. Sounds a bit false, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know, I think there are people who really have that surname. Anyway, the police will sort that out. So you’ve seen this boy more than once?”
Sylvia was holding her hand, and Ruby gained courage. “Six times. Maybe seven. Or was it only five? I’m all wuzzy, darling. I just know the last time we went to dinner, he bought me loads and loads of booze and then gave me chocolates. A box for me and one for you. I know you never met him, but I told him about you, so he felt sort of friendly. I really liked those chocolates, but I must have eaten too many.”
“Darling Bluebell,” Sylvia told her, “those chocolates may have been poisoned. Or the drinks beforehand. Or both. I’ve passed my own chocolates on to Forensics for examination. Now, can you tell me what Brad looked like?”
“It couldn’t have been poison, dearest,” Ruby mumbled, half to herself. “Not Brad. He was just a kid, and a really nice kid at that. We went walking and talking at first – no sex. I’ve just had salmonella. Gastro something from drinking too much. I know I was pissed last night.” She sank back on the pillows and closed her eyes. “He’s a nice boy. He’d never have done things with poison. Honestly, he was sweet. Sort of tall and slim and very good looking. His hair was all shaved off at the sides, but it was growing through a little bit again, darkish but sort of mousy. Then he had a Mohawk. Is that what you call it? Long tufts all down the middle of his head from his neck to his forehead. Sticking up. And along the top it was bleached. Really yellow tips. Looked funny but somehow it suited him. He had good bones and nice hands. He dressed well too, all modern and fancy and bright coloured. And he was so cheery. Chatty and confident. But then – well he kept wanting to do things I didn’t want to do.”
Ruby had no voice left, and Sylvia squeezed her hand. “Did you – actually – sleep with this kid, my love?”
Closing her eyes again, Ruby managed a small whispered, “Yes.” And turned her face away.
“You slept with a teenager?” Sylvia chuckled. “No crime, my love. Quite an achievement, I’d say. Proves what I keep telling you – how pretty you are, and even to the young and potent. What was he like?”
“Pathetic.”
And Sylvia laughed again. “Not fully practised? Too young I presume? Did you teach him everything?”
“No. I just wanted to get away and come home.”
“Perhaps he was waiting for passionate lessons.”
“I told him I wouldn’t see him if he wanted to keep on going to bed with me. Sleazy hotels and people staring from him to me and back again – yuck. But the main problem was him being useless at it. I mean – come on – it may be five hundred years since I ever even touched a man, but I can damn well remember, and my memories are bloody lovely. Honestly, Sylvikins, he was huff and puff and back to limp all in a couple of dreary minutes. Brad was very pretty undressed, I’ll give him that. But he was just up, wallop and flop.”
“Forensics will sort out the problem,” Sylvia smiled somewhat dismally. “I expect your kid was just an idiot wanting to learn the ropes. But I’ve given my box of chocolates to the Forensic team, and they’ll sort it out in a couple of days I hope. In the meantime, my love, you have to rest.”
She looked up, bleak-eyed. “They told me I nearly died.”
“They told me you would have died if they had got you any later,’ Sylvia added. Now go to sleep, Bluebell. You’re already dopey.”
“I’m always dopey. You mean sedated.”
“OK. I mean sedated.” Sylvia walked up the corridor outside and bumped into Harry. “Leave hers in there,” she said, “but hush, she’s asleep. I’m going back in to see the doctor.”
“I’ll follow,” Harry said. “Here. Take yours.”
The door was already ajar as Sylvia knocked. Doctor Verdie was scribbling notes, evidently happy by hand as his computer stood dark and idle. He looked up and indicated chairs to both Sylvia and Harry. “No results yet, I’m afraid,” he said. “Far too early for specifics. But each chocolate in that box has been injected with a very fine needle. Personally, taking Mrs Pope’s symptoms into consideration, I suspect arsenic. But there’s a faint smell of bleach and formaldehyde. I believe this
poison has been purposefully mixed, ready for ingestion. Whoever gave this gift of chocolate should be reported to the police immediately. Indeed, I’ve informed the general information line, but they’ll need the sort of details only you and Mrs Pope can supply.”
“I’m quite accustomed to dealing with the police,” Sylvia said, and then chuckled. “That sounds terrible. No, but I’m friends with DI Morrison. Is he coming here? Do you know?”
“Not specifically, Mrs Joyce. But I expect someone to arrive fairly soon, and I’d be obliged if you’d wait here until he turns up. And perhaps you too, Mr Joyce, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Not in the least. Just as long as it’s not Cramble or whatever his name was,” Harry remembered.
DI Ellis and DC Grant swept in less than ten minutes later and were surprised to see Sylvia and Harry. “Both female cops?” Sylvia smiled. “Is this a tactful way of questioning poor Ruby, woman to woman?”
“Yes it is, actually,” Rita said. She turned to the doctor. “And it’s all about chocolates?”
It was a long discussion as Ruby slept on.
It was not the quiet drink Sylvia and Harry had hoped for. Having avoided the Crooked Wager purposefully since this was the haunt of the usual crowd, The Brass Farthing and the White Boar since they both had rowdy reputations, they had driven to the Hysterical Badger. This small and cosy place with its outdoor eating area under the wisteria clad patio was usually quiet and more expensive.
But Harry walked straight into Tony’s back. Harry’s erstwhile best friend whirled around and was delighted to see someone he’d missed. “Bloody hell, Harry, mate. I never expected to know anyone in here tonight. Thought I’d be left in peace. But seeing you is best of all. Come and sit down and I’ll get you a beer. Same as usual?”
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