Daisy Chains

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “Yes, fine,” Harry said, “but I’m with the wife.”

  Tony paused. “I’m not. Wish I was,” he said. “What’s Sylvie drinking?” He brought her a white wine and flopped into the third chair at the small outside table. The wisteria was no longer in bloom, but a faint perfume of jasmine seeped through. “I needed company, though I’ve been avoiding it,” Tony admitted. “Life’s been a pig as usual.”

  “Oh dear,” Harry frowned. “Not a divorce already?”

  And Tony burst into tears. “I’ve been married a fortnight,” he said through sniffs and tears, “and now I’m a widow. Again. She’s dead, Harry, she’s bloody dead. After a fortnight. Widowed for the second time and this time I wanted that woman. I really wanted her. I was happily married, and she dropped dead on me. What is it I do? Am I poison, or something?”

  And rather quietly but quite obviously Sylvia’s eyes clouded, turned moist, and the tears began to drip like tiny silver mirrors down her cheeks. She brushed them away as Harry put his arm around her shoulders. Above their heads, the leaves fluttered in the breeze. Tony looked around as though going crazy. “What? I don’t get it.”

  Sylvia blew her nose. “My best friend at the manor nearly died last night,” she said gently. “But she’s recovering. It was poison. Very nasty and very mysterious. But I’m deeply sorry to hear about your wife, Tony. You must be deeply upset. What happened?”

  Tony’s tears accelerated. “But your friend’s all better. Good. But my new darling isn’t. She’d – bloody – dead. We were in bed together. She’d only just come in from the bathroom, and she climbed into bed, all pretty and sweet and smelling of lavender. She kissed my cheek. Then she said something about forgetting her face cream, and half sat up. Then all of a sudden she fell back on the pillows. I just sort of stared. She went all white and open mouthed and her eyes shut. I was terrified. I kept kissing her and shaking her and telling her to wake up. But she didn’t.”

  “That’s a terrible story, mate,” Harry told him. “I’m terribly sorry – it seems wicked after such a short time.”

  He turned abruptly. “You’ll come to the funeral?”

  “Of course. We both will.”

  Sylvia managed not to frown. “I’m deeply sorry, Tony,” she said. “And if we can help with anything, just let us know. With my friend on death’s doorstep in hospital, this is a very sad time.” Her own tears still streaked her face. Tony’s tears were a bubble from the nostrils.

  She was still half in tears as they left the pub an hour later. Harry twisted her around, stood solidly on the pavement before approaching the car park, and kissed her hard. “My own beloved,” he whispered into her ear. “You hardly ever cry. I hate seeing you like this.” With the ball of his thumb, he brushed away her tears.

  “For Ruby and for me,” she told Harry as they climbed into the car. “But for your mate Tony too. I never liked him much. But what a rotten trick of fate. So quick after marriage.”

  “I hope for Ruby, maybe we’ll have forensic confirmation tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you feel sorry for your best friend?”

  “Yes. I do.” He did. “But it’s almost just part of life now. Is anyone even remotely happy? Murder, poison, I don’t know. It’s all horrible. And Tony wasn’t in love with that woman, you know. She was a shrew according to her divorced husband, whom I like. Tony was just bloody lonely. Probably she was too.”

  “That’s even more sad,” Sylvia said. And at least could have given them more than a week. What was it, about ten days? And then a heart attack and she falls on top of him. It just seems so unfair. Ok, OK, life isn’t fair. But I wish it was.”

  “You’re beginning to talk like me,” Harry sighed. “That’s the sort of thing I used to say, and you just used to tell me the words fair and unfair didn’t mean what we think they mean. You were all wise and clever while I was always whining about how life works. But now, it’s us, isn’t it, my love! We’re the lucky ones. Bloody happy. Bloody loving.”

  “Only one problem. Do we deserve it?

  “Does anybody deserve anything?

  “Clearly,” said Sylvia, “you’ve corrupted me.”

  With a low profile in the stolen car, Tracy drove into the village and through the only road. She kept her head down and when possible, kept to the shadows. When she parked, she kept the car even deeper into shade, half into the bushes at the end of the car park.

  The tiny privately run Chemist shop sat tucked between the Greengrocer’s and the Flower shop. Tracy slipped inside and pretended to look at the long shelf of perfumes opposite the other long shelf of Vitamin pills. When the one customer left, she hurried to the main desk.

  “My Mum’s got a terrible headache. She fell over. She hurt her hip too. What’s the strongest pain killer I can get?”

  The chemist looked at her over his frameless glasses. “I’d advise a visit to the doctor,” he said. “How bad was the fall?”

  “Well, um, quite bad,” said Tracy. “But now she’s walking around, so she hasn’t broken anything. But pain – lots of pain.”

  “Humph,” declared the pharmacist. “She should definitely see her doctor. In the meantime, I’ll give you what I can. But they aren’t as strong as I expect you need. You’ll have to get a prescription for stronger. Here, take these and then call in the doctor. Two tablets of these every four hours, and two tablets of these at the same time.”

  “Would more kill him – I mean her – off?” asked Tracy, blushing.

  The pharmacist frowned, even more suspicious. “Probably not, unless she took the whole bottle. But she mustn’t overdose. She’d probably vomit back an overdose, and feel much worse.”

  With her last scraps of money, Tracy paid for the two small boxes. She already had two other packets and some Vitamin D in her pocket. Then, with a hopefully reassuring smile, she turned back to the frowning owner, turned again and walked for the door, swinging it open.

  She walked straight into Sylvia. For one missed heartbeat, they both stared at each other, and then Tracy said, “What brilliant luck. I got off the train from London just an hour ago, and I’ve already found you. Sylvia, also smiling, asked if she had booked into the Crooked Wager or the Brass Farthing. “Neither – yet,” Tracy said in a hurry. “I was just buying some headache pills at the Chemist’s. I got this bloody nasty ache on the train, so I walked down beside the river. Then I was going to follow the river on till I got to your place. Have you got a lot of shopping to do? I could wait in the pub.”

  They now stood outside the flower-shop and the faint perfume of roses was oozing out onto the narrow village pavement. ”Yes. Good idea,” Sylvia said. “We can walk back to the manor afterwards. But I’m surprised to see you. I didn’t think you wanted to drag all the way over here again, you didn’t think there was much point. We’ve explored the area twice over, step by step and the police have done it even more thoroughly than we have. But it’s certainly lovely to see you again.” She paused. “Any special reason? There’s been another murder. Same type. Did you know?”

  Looking so surprised that Sylvia herself was surprised, Tracy said, “Another murder? How could there be? I mean – I thought he must have gone off – north – or something.” Seeing that Sylvia was limping, although she no longer used the crutch all the time, Tracy added, “You haven’t got anything stronger than these paracetamol things, have you? Just for me to pinch two or three?”

  “Yes, I do.” Sylvia waved at Harry who was waiting in the car, half dozing in the car park.

  Tracy did not admit that the half hidden car beside the bushes was the one she had arrived in. “Oh lovely, we don’t have to walk.”

  “I used to.” Sylvia held the back door open for Tracy as Harry muttered a confused hello. “I liked the little walk from the manor to the village. Lovely swirls of beech trees, and the Torr glinting across the other side, past the fields and the black-headed sheep in the long grass. I was never quite brave enough to walk all the way to Cheltenham
unless I was desperate. But now with this ankle, I can’t even walk as far as the Rochester gateway.”

  “Tracy?” Harry reversed from the parking place and turned the car. “You’re coming back with us?”

  “Only for lovely Sylvia to give me a couple of her pills,” Tracy explained.

  “Prescribed stuff? She was given them after the train crash.” Harry frowned. “Illegal if not from a doctor..”

  “Hurry up, dearest,’ Sylvia told him. “Then she needs to go and book into one of the pubs.”

  “No tea?”

  “I’ll lie down once I’ve booked in,” Tracy said. “I feel too awful. But I’ll come over this evening. If I sleep this afternoon and then have a quick snack, maybe I’ll be loads better. Maybe we can meet - at the pub? Or shall I come here?”

  “We’ll come to the pub for dinner,” Sylvia said. “Meet us in the restaurant part, unless you still feel too rotten. Let us know.”

  She was already half out of the car and ran to get her pills. “I’ll drive you back,” said Harry.

  “Oh, no,” Tracy said. “The nice sunny air will do me good, and it’s such a short walk.”

  “Seems odd to me if you’re desperate to lie down.” Harry shook his head.

  “No, honestly. I’ll be fine.” She took the two pills from Sylvia and trotted off back down the long drive to the gatehouse and the road beyond. The drive, white paved, ran flat and fairly straight between two long rows of maples, not as beautiful in summer as in autumn, but well planted with views across to the banks of the narrow dithering Torr, and the three huge weeping willows with their roots stealing half the water.

  Tracy began to skip. She loved this place. It was nice to have wealthy friends. Her father did care about her after all, and she had got him a good supply of painkilling pills. She just needed to nick a couple of items of food in the village before she dodged back to where she’d parked the stolen car and could then drive into the forest once more.

  “She’s dancing,” said Harry, staring out of their bedroom window upstairs. “Some terrible headache that must be.”

  “Odd,” said Sylvia, coming to stand beside him. “It was odd just to see her in the village. She said she wouldn’t be back for quite some time, and that wasn’t long ago. I didn’t expect to see her for months. Perhaps she got bored.”

  Harry remained standing at the window, peering out. “She’s gone into the road,’ he said, “but she’s still dancing. I think I’ll drive after her. Keep a distance but see what she’s up to.”

  “How trusting of you, my love.” Sylvia sat on the bed and yawned. “And anyway, how can you keep a distance in a tiddly place like this? She’d recognise our car at once.”

  “I’ll borrow Arthurs.” He turned and grinned. “I’ll ask Arthur to clean ours – it needs it anyway – while we borrow his. He won’t argue.”

  “Then I’ll come too,” said Sylvia, grabbing her adjustable metal crutch. “Are we going to end up somewhere interesting? Or just the pub? I want to trust Tracey – but – well, it’s fairly clear something’s wrong.”

  “I’ll be disappointed if it’s the pub,” said Harry. “But I’ll be glad if it is. I’d hate to think the girl was off to find her father again after all this.”

  “But this terrible headache doesn’t sound true? Perhaps it’s Lionel who has the headache, especially after being shot twice just a couple of days ago.”

  “Exactly,” sighed Harry. “But shall I phone Morrison?”

  Sylvia thought about it. “He’s had a lot of miserable false alarms. Besides, we don’t really know what’s happening yet. We might end up at the Brass Farthing with a boring cider each. But if Tracy aims for the forest, then we phone Morrison or Rita.”

  By the time they had clambered into Arthur’s old ford car, they thought they had missed everything and Tracy would be well gone, either amongst the trees or into the pub, but she had taken another half hour to steal some decent food scraps and tumble everything back into her car. She was driving out of the car park as Harry drove in. He leaned back, circled, and followed her direction, keeping well behind.

  “Did we even know she could drive?”

  “That’s irrelevant. But to actually own a car? I don’t believe it. So who stole the car? Tracy? Or her father?

  “She’s heading up towards the hills.”

  “And the wooded copses between.”

  As the road swept into an upward rising lane, Harry parked roadside. “There’s no other traffic. She’ll see us.” He switched off the engine and raised an eyebrow at Sylvia. “What do you think? We stay here for ten minutes or so and then try to trace her tyre marks? Naturally, we could lose her. Or she still might see us. But we can’t sit on her tail.”

  Waiting the ten minutes was frustrating, and Sylvia produced a bar of slightly melted chocolate from the glove compartment. “Not exactly a satisfying lunch,” she said, “but it’s not from Ruby, so hopefully it won’t kill us.”

  “Talking of Ruby, aren’t we supposed to be going back to the hospital this afternoon?”

  “Yes.” Sylvia nodded. “And I won’t let Ruby down – not at a time like this. But let’s see what Tracy’s up to first. Then hurry back to Ruby. We can get something to eat from the canteen, but after all this worry and rushing around, I’m not hungry anyway.”

  “Right.” Harry swallowed the chocolate and pulled out his phone. “But I’m phoning Morrison first.”

  “Oh, I’m just bloody confused,’ Rita told Darcey. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Patch is positive, and so is Ostopolis,” Morrison told her.

  The small group crowded around, Whitehead, Grant and Napper standing, engrossed. Susan Grant muttered, “Sullivan’s never mixed up poisons before. Unless he’s trying to play different games after being shot.”

  “Why would he?”

  “And why would he murder young women? Rape them? Cut them into pieces? Torture, dismantle and behead them? You hoping for a logical answer, Guv?”

  “Logic? In a homicide squad?” Morrison wasn’t laughing. “OK, let’s think about this. Five and a half days ago, someone claimed to have shot Sullivan and thought him dead. Since Sullivan’s blood and plenty of his DNA was found at the scene, this wasn’t a lie, but unfortunately the bastard didn’t die.” He looked around. Everyone was nodding.

  Rita said, “But could a sick man, riddled with bullets, do the job on our last victim? And a witness saw someone quite different. But are there two similar murderers? And is one a copy cat?”

  “A young boy was seen at the time and place of the last murder,? said Morrison. “A boy – a kid. Tall, skinny, dark hair. Who left behind a young girl mutilated and fiercely abused.”

  “Meanwhile,” said Susan Grant, “we get stories of a completely different young man, of a similar age but different appearance, who is suspected – strongly suspected – of purposefully poisoning an elderly woman he barely knew, by injecting a fatally poisonous mixture into a gift of chocolates. This boy left no DNA, gave a false name, and has since disappeared. Although this victim survived, she nearly didn’t, and was clearly expected to die in pain. Other crimes have occurred in the southern Midlands, and a couple down here, presumed to have been the work of Lionel Sullivan. Meanwhile we have a man dead and still haven’t solved the puzzle of his killer.”

  “So,” sighed Rita, “what sort of mess are we in?”

  “A fucking horrible one,” said Morrison, sitting back down on his desk, complete with papers, folders, and his telephone.,

  Chapter Thirty

  Tracy had collected fresh water from the stream, and was carefully counting out pills. “Two of these,” she said. “And two of these. Recommended by the chemist. Now, my personal recommendation is to take one more of each. OK? Now – special gift from your great friends Harry and Sylvia Joyce – two strong pills she was prescribed when she broke her ankle. They won’t be morphine I’m afraid, but hopefully codeine. So take the lot, Daddy dearest, and let’s see
if you can lessen the pain.” She fumbled in her pockets. “Now, I managed some food but just two sausage rolls and a couple of bananas and apples. But look – best of all. A bottle of Vodka.”

  “Piss on the water,” muttered Lionel through his smashed face. “Give us all the pills and the bottle. I’ll swig ‘em down with Vodka.”

  “If you puke,” his daughter told him, “you’ll lose all the pills in the vomit, and you’ll be back in pain again.”

  Lionel looked up. “Do as I say, girl. Don’t pretend to know more than I do, and don’t pretend to care.” He stuffed the eight pills into his gashed mouth at the same time and gulped Vodka from the bottle. Nearly half the pale liquid disappeared, though some was spilt. Drinking through a gaping face seemed more difficult than eating, and more difficult still, his words were slurred, mispronounced and sometimes impossible to understand, yet both managed to understand the other. His tongue slurped, hanging between the gaping gums. Tracey even wondered whether her father enjoyed the challenge and the stabbing pain, but since he had demanded pain-killing pills, she could only assume that this time the agony stretched beyond his capacity to enjoy.

  Still clutching the bottle, Lionel lay back on his lump of a bed and gurgled, almost snoring though wide awake, unable to close his mouth. Tracy turned away, seeing him so massacred disgusted her. “You’ve done worse to plenty o’ nice pretty girls before, she mumbled to him. “Don’t know why I should be so upset seeing you like that. But I am. It must hurt like fucking hell. You sure you don’t want to get picked up and go to hospital? They’ll fix it all up. No one else can.”

  “Yeah, and then back to that vile stinking piss pot,’ Lionel said. “If this doesn’t heal up after a week or so, I’m ready to kill myself. I mean it. Me and Olga, the bitch, it’s all her fault.” He looked up. “You do it. Or I do it. I’ve got a gun now – easy. But I get through another week and see if it gets better.”