by Morag Joss
CHAPTER 48
THREE O’CLOCK IN the morning can be a good time to drink a large brandy, or it can be bloody awful. Sara, sipping hers, had not decided. Andrew sat opposite her across the kitchen table in Medlar Cottage, whose shaded lamps and familiar, faint smells of wood and bread were gradually reducing their sense of crisis and soothing them with a warm, approving atmosphere.
Sara put down her glass. ‘I’m too full of tea,’ she said. There had been gallons of it, as well as blankets over her shoulders, and questions, in the previous two hours of talking to the police. Ivan was in hospital under arrest, saying nothing, apparently overwhelmed by grief at his wife’s miscarriage and the confusing events in the shed. Leech also was in hospital, also under arrest. Sara had given her story at least twice and insisted on coming home. Andrew had insisted on coming with her. She looked across at him warily.
‘So how did you know? How did you know to come to the smallholding?’
Andrew looked slightly blank. ‘Dan. Daniel, I mean. We got back to the flat tonight, knackered. We had a good time on the bikes, or rather he did. I was miserable about you. But until tonight he hadn’t mentioned the picnic once. So when I put him to bed I just asked him why he’d tried to feed you the poisoned sandwich. I said I thought he was fond of you.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He was nearly asleep. He told me not to be stupid, of course he was fond of you, it was me he hated. Then he threw his arms round me and said he didn’t any more so I gave him a big hug and tucked him in.’
Sara said, ‘I don’t get it.’
‘Neither did I at first. Then I thought about it. He didn’t hate you but he tried to kill you because it would hurt his father. It made me think of Warwick, being killed on the Open Day when it’ll hurt Stephen Golightly most. Not because Warwick’s done anything to anyone. I just thought it might be worth following up, that’s all.’
‘Good God! You realise what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve acted on intuition! How awful for you. I’m so sorry.’
‘Shut up, you. So I rang the Sulis to speak to Ivan’s father and that’s when I found out about Hilary, and Ivan going off to the smallholding. With you. I didn’t much like the sound of that so I took Daniel to Mrs Thing in the flat upstairs and said something urgent had come up. She thought I was insane.’
‘Well, I’d say it was above the call of duty.’
‘Duty? Duty? That had nothing to do with it. I’ve thought of nothing except you and those things I said. I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me do it. I love you. And I can’t bear it that I wasn’t with you when you heard about James. When I left him in the hospital on Sunday I had no idea it was that serious.’
‘I don’t think anyone did. I’m sorry, too, for everything, all of it. I love you, too.’
‘We’ve both been stupid, haven’t we?’
Sara nodded wearily. ‘And we won’t do things like that to each other again, will we? We’ve agreed that. We shouldn’t keep saying it.’
He smiled at her. ‘But how much I love you, that’ll bear repeating. I do love you.’
Sara said, ‘I love you, too.’ Before she could say any more Andrew said, ‘And no more sorry, either. You should drink your brandy if you can. It’ll help you sleep.’
‘The thing that’ll keep me awake is what you said about all that stuff Ivan said in the shed probably being inadmissible as evidence. It’s so wrong.’
Andrew sighed. ‘It does seem that way. But we won’t get a conviction on the basis of what little I overheard—not when it’s the story of an off-duty police officer looking for a conviction, confirmed only by his girlfriend. Leech’s evidence won’t be any good, obviously, even if he managed to give it. And there’s no conclusive forensic proof that Ivan murdered Mrs Takahashi or Warwick.’
‘But what about the Snake and Ladder! He said he knew about the side door being open, and he would have known about the radio in the kitchen, that nobody would hear anything. Surely—’
‘It’s not evidence.’
‘Well, what about the alibi, then? When Mrs Heffer saw him on the embankment. Why would he be up there? It’s Leech who went up to watch the trains. You ask her, see if she was sure. It could have been Leech in the blue shirt, couldn’t it? He’s tall and thin, they both wore hats.’
‘Yes, it sounds like we could throw some doubt on his alibi. We’ll check. But that’s not evidence either. Even the rye itself—you were very convincing, by the way, you almost had me believing it was clean—even though it’s riddled with ergot, it doesn’t prove any criminal intent. We can’t prove Ivan knew that it was contaminated, less still that he set out to use it to kill people or damage them. We can’t even prove he knew what ergot was or anything about what it does. Unless he confesses, and there’s no reason to suppose he will, he’ll get away with it.’
‘What about the photographs? Ivan knew Mrs Takahashi had taken pictures of the ergot and that no used films were found in her bag. Don’t you think he could have taken them and had them developed?’
‘We’ll search the house, of course. It’s possible he took them and forgot about the one in the camera, or didn’t have time to get it out. We’ve checked the pictures again, by the way, the ones that were in the camera. They were close-ups of the rye, not just pretty views of the field. You can see the ergot if you know what you’re looking for.’ He sighed. ‘I doubt if we’ll find any others in the house, though. Even if he did have them developed it would have been mad to keep them. My guess is he destroyed them, or more likely just destroyed the films. But we’ll look. It’s the only thing we’ve got to go on.’
Sara sank her head on to her hands and yawned. Staying awake seemed only to be prolonging a succession of painful, hopeless injustices. For that reason alone she welcomed sleep. On their way upstairs, walking past the open study door, Sara spotted the white gleam of a piece of curled paper on the floor. ‘There’s another fax,’ she said, picking it up. In the light of the landing she read Professor Takahashi’s neat typing:
Miss dear Morrison Mary
I reflect that perhaps your interests lie not exclusively in human poisoning region. Here is supplementary informations, with my courteous sentiments.
As you will know, active component of Claviceps purpurea (ergot) comprises several compounds of lysergic acid, having some pharmacological applications in animal and human treatments.
As follows, histamine, tyramine and acetylcholine all are present in small amounts and have no medicinal importance. Specific active constituents are ergotamine and ergometrine (much details I will leave out, concerning on six pairs of stereoisomeric alkaloids in three chemical groups). Liquid extract of ergot is prepared by maceration and percolation. In human, dihydroergotamine is use in treatment of migraine, pruritus and shingles. In veterinary application it has been used to treat interdigital cyst, foot swelling in dog. In larger animal ergometrine is indicated in treatment of post-parturient uterine inertia, involution of the post-parturient uterus and post-partum haemorrhage. It is contra-indicated in the pregnant animal and also human of course, its circulatory and ecbolic action and effect on unstriped muscle produce swift expulsion of uterine contents! Ergometrine only is soluble most readily in water. With hope these supplementary informations assist you. Good luck!
Takahashi Kenichi
‘We’ve got him,’ Andrew said. ‘Who? What?’
‘Ivan. Lysergic acid. The pharmacology.’
Sara read the fax again and murmured, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Lysergic acid. That’s the main constituent of LSD, my darling. There can’t be a seventies pharmacology student who doesn’t know that, least of all Ivan Golightly. He probably made the stuff.’
‘And lysergic acid is in ergot, too?’
‘Yes, that’s what Takahashi says. So even if Ivan didn’t already know about ergot, as he is claiming, once Mrs Takahashi told him about it he’d be on familiar ground with lysergic acid. He’d know how dan
gerous it was and what he could do with it. He must have decided at once. The same day Hilary told him she was pregnant.’
‘You still can’t prove it, though, can you?’
‘It wasn’t just the ergot he baked into the bread, listen: “ergometrine only is soluble most readily in water”, “contra-indicated in the pregnant animal”, “swift expulsion of uterine contents”.’
‘What? The baby? You don’t mean he—their baby? The herbal tea?’
‘He’s convinced the baby’s not his.’
‘But only because of what Alex Cooper said about Stephen having an affair with Yvonne. She might have been making all that up.’ She did not add that she believed Stephen Golightly to have been telling the truth about Alex.
‘And she might not. But Ivan believed her, and he also knew Yvonne was gay so it couldn’t be her. And Hilary and her father-in-law are close, so he convinces himself they’re having an affair and trying to get her pregnant. Remember he said something about faking tests.’
‘I can probably tell you more about that. Ivan must have known about them, too.’
‘So when Hilary tells him she’s pregnant he doesn’t believe it’s his.’
‘But it could have been. He said his count was borderline, that’s all. Not impossibly low.’
‘But he’s had paranoid episodes before, hasn’t he? So he gives Hilary ergometrine in herbal tea and gets rid of the baby. He knew what he was doing. He knew.’
He looked at his watch. ‘We can only hold him for forty-eight hours without charge. If we can run some tests on Hilary … if there’s a way of tracing ergometrine in the body, proving that’s why she miscarried … look, I know it’s nearly half-past three—’
‘Go, go,’ Sara said. She was shaking. ‘I’m going to bed. I’ll sleep for hours anyway, I don’t mind, truly. You go.’
It was true that she did not mind, but she did not sleep for a great many hours. At eight o’clock her telephone rang. Thinking it would be Andrew, she picked up the telephone by her bed.
‘Hello?’ she croaked, and sank back into the pillow smiling, waiting, grateful for Andrew, knowing she loved him. There was no voice on earth that she would rather hear.
‘Fine bloody friend you are,’ growled James.
CHAPTER 49
FOR A START, Ralph Allen’s a female ward. This is Beau Nash,’ James said, when Sara had stopped hugging him. He was sitting up in bed and looking remarkably well. ‘How was I to know that?’ Sara said. ‘I asked for you by name because I didn’t know what ward you were in. The line was hopeless and this woman looked on some list and found Jane Valentine’s name and just put me through.’
‘Poor Jane,’ James said. ‘Poor Jane. Bitter as hell, desperately unhappy. That can’t have helped. Gangrene set in, I heard. She died the day of the operation. Both feet. They thought they might have to do her hands, too. I should think the thought was enough to kill her.’
Sara’s stricken face seemed, if anything, to encourage him. ‘But Joyce came up trumps. Have you seen her?’
‘I’ll pop in when I’ve left you,’ Sara said. ‘I can still hardly believe it.’
James had told Sara the story that he had got from Gerry, a nice gossipy charge nurse who knew everything. Joyce, unable to make herself understood on the telephone, had turned up at the main entrance of the hospital late on Wednesday night and eventually got someone to listen to her ergot story. She had been drinking, but had made herself clear enough. Then, as a result of hunger (she had not eaten that day), the three-mile walk to the hospital, grief, mental exhaustion and the booze, she had collapsed and been admitted. She was now in another ward, wolfing down three meals a day and talking to Social Services. But not yet, according to Gerry, to Alcoholics Anonymous.
James said, ‘I’ve been learning quite a bit about ergot in here. They’ve had to bone up, apparently. I’m rather a change from routine for them. I’m quite important.’
‘Oh, God, when I think of what it was like, and you weren’t dead at all. If you knew how it felt—’ Sara burst into tears, crying and half laughing, for the fifth time. She felt recklessly relieved.
‘And Gerry’s seriously cute. Got a body to die for …’
‘You are better.’
‘Sure am. I haven’t even got ulcers, by the way, it was only IBS. And ergot poisoning. But I had the convulsive form, you see, easier to treat. Muscle relaxant drugs. It helped that I threw up, apparently. Main reason I’m better of course is that I’m not taking my daily ergot by the mouthful any more. The other form that Jane had, that’s the gangrenous one. According to that tome in there that the consultant brought in to show me,’ James waved towards the recess in his locker.
Sara took the book out and read, ‘Compendium of Mycological Poisoning in Humans.’
‘There’s a great bit somewhere about some woman’s leg dropping off on the way to have it amputated. Give it here.’
‘Poor Mrs Takahashi. Just trying to have a few days to herself to stop feeling sick and she finds the ergot and tries to help. And poor Professor Takahashi.’
‘Do you want to hear this or not? Or should I just linger alone on my bed of pain again?’
‘You sod. I thought you were dead, or of course I’d have been in touch.’
She seized his hand. Every few minutes she was realising again that James was not dead so it seemed pleasantly prosaic, given that James had just been delivered back to her out of the jaws of death, that Gerry should now appear and say that if James didn’t mind giving him a cheek he would do his next injection and perhaps Sara had stayed long enough for a first visit.
Just as she was leaving James called, ‘How did the Dvořák go, by the way?’
Sara said, ‘The Dvořák went just fine, thank you very much.’
CHAPTER 50
SARA FELT SHE knew herself mind, body and spirit, after a couple of decades thinking about it. She was well up on her body rhythms, attuned both to her own and, after seven weeks of living with him, also to Andrew’s, but while he continued to sleep like a boy (a very indulged one) and wake up with a mind emptied of ordinary care, she was waking earlier and earlier. She knew she had undergone some change. So of late she had taken to lying until morning came, listening to the incessant summer rain and praying, although she was too practical to address any particular deity, that the change she felt was not the one she dreaded and for which she would risk so much. What had not changed, unless to increase, was her feeling that she was so stupid.
She was still ever watchful. She needed these hours spent beside Andrew but alone; silently, in the dark, she was collecting her faculties in preparation for the next big thing, gathering enough strength for both of them. It was a habit formed even before their first break-up, but there was something else now that was making her protective, cautious of mind and more careful in her movements.
The last day of September was wet and cold and Sara rose silently, exchanged her nightie for a skirt and shirt and went downstairs, there being no reason now, except the hope that she might be mistaken, to delay. Gazing across the kitchen sink to the garden and the vibrant parsley patch, she pondered, calculating for the thousandth time. Sunday morning: Andrew. Sunday and Monday: Pills in lost luggage. Tuesday: Take three. Wednesday night: Violently sick. Thursday morning: Stephen. Thursday night: Forget to take pill in midst of other goings-on. Friday: Discover have left last remaining pack in bedside drawer of hotel in Salzburg. Saturday: Bury head in sand. So stupid. Wilfully (deliberately?) stupid. She felt also newly responsible in a way that was as yet untouched by anxiety; stronger in some way and paradoxically more vulnerable. Oh yes, and as sick as a dog. She turned on the cold tap and held her wrists under the water, a natural, healthful remedy for nausea she had read about and which today, as on the preceding six days, did not work.
She sank into a chair at the kitchen table, opened the box and pulled out its contents and the instructions. There was a lot to read. Andrew would not stir for a while yet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MORAG JOSS grew up on the west coast of Scotland. She began writing in 1996, when her first short story won an award in a national competition. She then wrote three Sara Selkirk novels, set in Bath, and with her fourth novel, Half Broken Things, she won the 2003 CWA Silver Dagger Award. Her work has been translated into several languages.
Morag Joss lives in the country outside the city of Bath, and in London.
HALF BROKEN THINGS
On Sale October 2005
Waiden Manor
August
THIS IS NOT what it might look like. We’re quiet people. As a general rule extraordinary things do not happen to us, and we are not the type to go looking for them. But so much has happened since January, and I started it. Things began to happen, things that I must have brought about somehow without quite foreseeing where they would lead. So I feel I must explain, late in the day though it is. I’m going to set out as clearly as I can, in the order in which they occurred, the things that have happened here. And I shall find it difficult because I was brought up not to draw attention to myself and I’ve never been considered a forthcoming person, never being one to splurge out on anything, least of all great long explanations. Indeed Mother always described me as secretive. But that was because, with her, I came to expect to have my reasons for things not so much misunderstood as overlooked or mislaid, and so early on I stopped giving them.
Father was usually quiet, too. When I think back to the sounds of the house in Oakfield Avenue where I grew up, I do not remember voices. I think we sighed or cleared our throats more often than we spoke words. I remember mainly the tick of Father’s longcase clock in the dining room that we never ate in, and then after the clock had gone, a particular silence throughout the house that I thought of as a shade of grey. And much later when I was an adult, still there looking after Mother, the most regular sound was the microwave. It pinged a dozen times a day. In fact, until recently, whenever I heard a certain tone of ping, in a shop or somewhere like that, I would immediately smell boiling milk. But when I was a child there was just the clock, with silences in between.