Not Safe After Dark: And Other Stories

by Peter Robinson

  Peplow took a handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped the thin film of sweat from his brow. “You don’t know how happy this makes me, Mr. Quilley. At last I have a chance. My life hasn’t amounted to much and I don’t suppose it ever will. But at least I might find some peace and quiet in my final years. I’m not a well man.” He placed one hand solemnly over his chest. “Ticker. Not fair, is it? I’ve never smoked, I hardly drink, and I’m only fifty-three. But the doctor has promised me a few years yet if I live right. All I want is to be left alone with my books and my garden.”

  “Tell me about your wife,” Quilley prompted.

  Peplow’s expression darkened. “She’s a cruel and selfish woman,” he said. “And she’s messy, she never does anything around the place. Too busy watching those damn soap operas on television day and night. She cares about nothing but her own comfort, and she never overlooks an opportunity to nag me or taunt me. If I try to escape to my collection, she mocks me and calls me dull and boring. I’m not even safe from her in my garden. I realize I have no imagination, Mr. Quilley, and perhaps even less courage, but even a man like me deserves some peace in his life, don’t you think?”

  Quilley had to admit that the woman really did sound awful—worse than any he had known, and he had met some shrews in his time. He had never had much use for women, except for occasional sex in his younger days. Even that had become sordid, and now he stayed away from them as much as possible. He found, as he listened, that he could summon up remarkable sympathy for Peplow’s position.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “I don’t really know. That’s why I wrote to you. I was hoping you might be able to help with some ideas. Your books . . . you seem to know so much.”

  “In my books,” Quilley said, “the murderer always gets caught.”

  “Well, yes,” said Peplow, “of course. But that’s because the genre demands it, isn’t it? I mean, your Inspector Baldry is much smarter than any real policeman. I’m sure if you’d made him a criminal, he would always get away.”

  There was no arguing with that, Quilley thought. “How do you want to do it?” he asked. “A domestic accident? Electric shock, say? Gadget in the bathtub? She must have a hair curler or a dryer?”

  Peplow shook his head, eyes tightly closed. “Oh no,” he whispered, “I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything like that. No more than I could bear the sight of her blood.”

  “How’s her health?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Peplow, “she seems obscenely robust.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Forty-nine.”

  “Any bad habits?”

  “Mr. Quilley, my wife has nothing but bad habits. The only thing she won’t tolerate is drink, for some reason, and I don’t think she has other men—though that’s probably because nobody will have her.”

  “Does she smoke?”

  “Like a chimney.”

  Quilley shuddered. “How long?”

  “Ever since she was a teenager, I think. Before I met her.”

  “Does she exercise?”

  “Never.”

  “What about her weight, her diet?”

  “Well, you might not call her fat, but you’d be generous in saying she was full-figured. She eats too much junk food. I’ve always said that. And eggs. She loves bacon and eggs for breakfast. And she’s always stuffing herself with cream cakes and tarts.”

  “Hmm,” said Quilley, taking a sip of Amstel. “She sounds like a prime candidate for a heart attack.”

  “But it’s me who—” Peplow stopped as comprehension dawned. “Yes, I see. You mean one could be induced?”

  “Quite. Do you think you could manage that?”

  “Well, I could if I didn’t have to be there to watch. But I don’t know how.”

  “Poison.”

  “I don’t know anything about poison.”

  “Never mind. Give me a few days to look into it. I’ll give you advice, remember, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “Understood.”

  Quilley smiled. “Good. Another beer?”

  “No, I’d better not. She’ll be able to smell this one on my breath and I’ll be in for it already. I’d better go.”

  Quilley looked at his watch. Two thirty. He could have done with another Amstel, but he didn’t want to stay there by himself. Besides, at three it would be time to meet his agent at the Four Seasons, and there he would have the opportunity to drink as much as he wanted. To pass the time, he could browse in Book City. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll go down with you.”

  Outside on the hot, busy street, they shook hands and agreed to meet in a week’s time on the back patio of the Madison Avenue Pub. It wouldn’t do to be seen together twice in the same place.

  Quilley stood on the corner of Bloor and Avenue Road among the camera-clicking tourists and watched Peplow walk off toward the St. George subway station. Now that their meeting was over and the spell was broken, he wondered again what the hell he was doing helping this pathetic little man. It certainly wasn’t altruism. Perhaps the challenge appealed to him; after all, people climb mountains just because they’re there.

  And then there was Peplow’s mystery collection. There was just a chance that it might contain an item of great interest to Quilley and that Peplow might be grateful enough to part with it.

  Wondering how to approach the subject at their next meeting, Quilley wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and walked toward the bookshop.

  * * *

  Atropine, hyoscyamine, belladonna . . . Quilley flipped through Dreisbach’s Handbook of Poisoning one evening at the cottage. Poison seemed to have gone out of fashion these days, and he had only used it in one of his novels, about six years ago. That had been the old standby, cyanide, with its familiar smell of bitter almonds, which he had so often read about but never experienced. The small black handbook had sat on his shelf gathering dust ever since.

  Writing a book, of course, one could generally skip over the problems of acquiring the stuff—give the killer a job as a pharmacist or in a hospital dispensary, for example. In real life, getting one’s hands on poison might prove more difficult.

  So far, he had read through the sections on agricultural poisons, household hazards, and medicinal poisons. The problem was that whatever Peplow used had to be easily available. Prescription drugs were out. Even if Peplow could persuade a doctor to give him barbiturates, for example, the prescription would be on record and any death in the household would be regarded as suspicious. Barbiturates wouldn’t do, anyway, and nor would such common products as paint thinner, insecticides, and weed killers—they didn’t reproduce the symptoms of a heart attack.

  Near the back of the book was a list of poisonous plants that shocked Quilley by its sheer length. He hadn’t known just how much deadliness there was lurking in fields, gardens, and woods. Rhubarb leaves contained oxalic acid, for example, and caused nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The bark, wood, leaves, or seeds of the yew had a similar effect. Boxwood leaves and twigs caused convulsions; celandine could bring about a coma; hydrangeas contained cyanide; and laburnums brought on irregular pulse, delirium, twitching, and unconsciousness. And so the list went on—lupins, mistletoe, sweet peas, rhododendron—a poisoner’s delight. Even the beautiful poinsettia, which brightened up so many Toronto homes each Christmas, could cause gastroenteritis. Most of these plants were easy to get hold of, and in many cases the active ingredients could be extracted simply by soaking or boiling in water.

  It wasn’t long before Quilley found what he was looking for. Beside “Oleander” the note read, “See digitalis, 374.” And there it was, set out in detail. Digitalis occurred in all parts of the common foxglove, which grew on waste ground and woodland slopes, and flowered from June to September. Acute poisoning would bring about death from ventricular fibrillation. No doctor would consider an autopsy if Peplow’s wife appeared to die of a heart attack, given her habits, especially if Peplow
fed her a few smaller doses first to establish the symptoms.

  Quilley set aside the book. It was already dark outside, and the downpour that the humid, cloudy day had been promising had just begun. Rain slapped against the asphalt roof tiles, gurgled down the drainpipe, and pattered on the leaves of the overhanging trees. In the background, it hissed as it fell on the lake. Distant flashes of lightning and deep rumblings of thunder warned of the coming storm.

  Happy with his solitude and his cleverness, Quilley linked his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair. Out back, he heard the rustling of a small animal making its way through the undergrowth—a raccoon, perhaps, or even a skunk. When he closed his eyes, he pictured all the trees, shrubs, and wild flowers around the cottage and marveled at the deadly potential so many of them contained.

  * * *

  The sun blazed down on the back patio of the Madison, a small garden protected from the wind by high fences. Quilley wore his sunglasses and nursed a pint of Conner’s Ale. The place was packed. Skilled and pretty waitresses came and went, trays laden with baskets of chicken wings and golden pints of lager.

  The two of them sat out of the way at a white table in a corner by the metal fire escape. A striped parasol offered some protection, but the sun was still too hot and too bright. Peplow’s wife must have given him hell about drinking the last time because today he had ordered only a Coke.

  “It was easy,” Quilley said. “You could have done it yourself. The only setback was that foxgloves don’t grow wild here like they do in England. But you’re a gardener; you grow them.”

  Peplow shook his head and smiled. “It’s the gift of clever people like yourself to make difficult things seem easy. I’m not particularly resourceful, Mr. Quilley. Believe me, I wouldn’t have known where to start. I had no idea that such a book existed, but you did because of your art. Even if I had known, I’d hardly have dared buy it or take it out of the library for fear that someone would remember. But you’ve had your copy for years. A simple tool of the trade. No, Mr. Quilley, please don’t underestimate your contribution. I was a desperate man. Now you’ve given me a chance at freedom. If there’s anything at all I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to say. I’d consider it an honor.”

  “This collection of yours,” Quilley said. “What does it consist of?”

  “British and Canadian crime fiction, mostly. I don’t like to boast, but it’s a very good collection. Try me. Go on, just mention a name.”

  “E. C. R. Lorac.”

  “About twenty of the Inspector MacDonalds. First editions, mint condition.”

  “Anne Hocking?”

  “Everything but Night’s Candles.”

  “Trotton?”

  Peplow raised his eyebrows. “Good Lord, that’s an obscure one. Do you know, you’re the first person I’ve come across who’s ever mentioned that.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “Oh yes.” Peplow smiled smugly. “X. J. Trotton, Signed in Blood, published 1942. It turned up in a pile of junk I bought at an auction some years ago. It’s rare, but not very valuable. Came out in Britain during the war and probably died an immediate death. It was his only book, as far as I can make out, and there is no biographical information. Perhaps it was a pseudonym for someone famous?”

  Quilley shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know. Have you read it?”

  “Good Lord, no! I don’t read them. It could damage the spines. Many of them are fragile. Anything I want to read—like your books—I also buy in paperback.”

  “Mr. Peplow,” Quilley said slowly, “you asked if there was anything you could do for me. As a matter of fact, there is something you can give me for my services.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Trotton.”

  Peplow frowned and pursed his thin lips. “Why on earth . . . ?”

  “For my own collection, of course. I’m especially interested in the war period.”

  Peplow smiled. “Ah! So that’s how you knew so much about them? I’d no idea you were a collector, too.”

  Quilley shrugged modestly. He could see Peplow struggling, visualizing the gap in his collection. But finally the poor man decided that the murder of his wife was more important to him than an obscure mystery novel. “Very well,” he said gravely. “I’ll mail it to you.”

  “How can I be sure . . . ?”

  Peplow looked offended. “I’m a man of my word, Mr. Quilley. A bargain is a bargain.” He held out his hand. “Gentleman’s agreement.”

  “All right.” Quilley believed him. “You’ll be in touch when it’s done?”

  “Yes. Perhaps a brief note in with the Trotton, if you can wait that long. Say two or three weeks?”

  “Fine. I’m in no hurry.”

  Quilley hadn’t examined his motives since the first meeting, but he had realized, as he passed on the information and instructions, that it was the challenge he responded to more than anything else. For years he had been writing crime novels, and in providing Peplow with the means to kill his slatternly, overbearing wife, Quilley had derived some vicarious pleasure from the knowledge that he—Inspector Baldry’s creator—could bring off in real life what he had always been praised for doing in fiction.

  Quilley also knew that there were no real detectives who possessed Baldry’s curious mixture of intellect and instinct. Most of them were thick plodders, and they would never realize that dull Mr. Peplow had murdered his wife with a bunch of foxgloves, of all things. Nor would they ever know that the brains behind the whole affair had been none other than his, Dennis Quilley’s.

  The two men drained their glasses and left together. The corner of Bloor and Spadina was busy with tourists and students lining up for charcoal-grilled hot dogs from the street vendor. Peplow turned toward the subway and Quilley wandered among the artsy crowd and the Rollerbladers on Bloor Street West for a while, then he settled at an open-air café over a daiquiri and a slice of kiwi-fruit cheesecake to read the Globe and Mail.

  Now, he thought as he sipped his drink and turned to the arts section, all he had to do was wait. One day soon a small package would arrive for him. Peplow would be free of his wife, and Quilley would be the proud owner of one of the few remaining copies of X. J. Trotton’s one and only mystery novel, Signed in Blood.

  * * *

  Three weeks passed and no package arrived. Occasionally, Quilley thought of Mr. Peplow and wondered what had become of him. Perhaps he had lost his nerve after all. That wouldn’t be surprising. Quilley knew that he would have no way of finding out what had happened if Peplow chose not to contact him again. He didn’t know where the man lived or where he worked. He didn’t even know if Peplow was his real name. Still, he thought, it was best that way. No contact. Even the Trotton wasn’t worth being involved in a botched murder for.

  Then, at ten o’clock one warm Tuesday morning in September, the doorbell chimed. Quilley looked at his watch and frowned. Too early for the postman. Sighing, he pressed the save command on his PC and walked down to answer the door. A stranger stood there, an overweight woman in a yellow polka-dot dress with short sleeves and a low neck. She had piggy eyes set in a round face and dyed red hair that looked limp and lifeless after a cheap perm. She carried an imitation crocodile-skin handbag.

  Quilley must have stood there looking puzzled for too long. The woman’s eyes narrowed and her rosebud mouth tightened so much that white furrows radiated from the red circle of her lips.

  “May I come in?” she asked.

  Stunned, Quilley stood back and let her enter. She walked straight over to a wicker armchair and sat down. The basketwork creaked under her. From there, she surveyed the room, with its waxed parquet floor, stone fireplace, and antique Ontario furniture.

  “Nice,” she said, clutching her handbag on her lap. Quilley sat down opposite her. Her dress was a size too small and the material strained over her red, fleshy upper arms and pinkish bosom. The hem rode up as she crossed her legs, exposing a wedge of fat, mottled th
igh. Primly, she pulled it down again over her dimpled knees.

  “I’m sorry to appear rude,” said Quilley, regaining his composure, “but who the hell are you?”

  “My name is Peplow,” the woman said. “Gloria Peplow. I’m a widow.”

  Quilley felt a tingling sensation along his spine, the way he always did when fear began to take hold of him.

  He frowned and said, “I’m afraid I don’t know you, do I?”

  “We’ve never met,” the woman replied, “but I think you knew my husband.”

  “I don’t recall any Peplow. Perhaps you’re mistaken?”

  Gloria Peplow shook her head and fixed him with her piggy eyes. He noticed they were black, or as near as. “I’m not mistaken, Mr. Quilley. You didn’t only know my husband, you also plotted with him to murder me.”

  Quilley flushed and jumped to his feet. “That’s absurd! Look, if you’ve come here to make insane accusations like that, you’d better go.” He stood like an ancient statue, one hand pointing dramatically toward the door.

  Mrs. Peplow smirked. “Oh, sit down. You look very foolish standing there like that.”

  Quilley continued to stand. “This is my home, Mrs. Peplow, and I insist that you leave. Now!”

  Mrs. Peplow sighed and opened the gilded plastic clasp on her purse. She took out a Shoppers Drug Mart envelope, picked out two color photographs, and dropped them next to the Wedgwood dish on the antique wine table by her chair. Leaning forward, Quilley could see clearly what they were: one showed him standing with Peplow outside the Park Plaza, and the other caught the two of them talking outside the Scotiabank at Bloor and Spadina. Mrs. Peplow flipped the photos over, and Quilley saw that they had been date-stamped by the processors.

  “You met with my husband at least twice to help him plan my death.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I do remember him now I’ve seen the pictures. I just couldn’t recollect his name. He was a fan. We talked about mystery novels. I’m very sorry to hear that he’s passed away.”

  “He had a heart attack, Mr. Quilley, and now I’m all alone in the world.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I don’t see . . .”