Murder on the Short List

by Peter Lovesey

  “I can’t come with ‘ee,” the farmer’s wife said. “I’ve got a cow in calf.”

  “But I’m a stranger here. I don’t know where to take him,” Laura almost wailed.

  “Horse piddle.”

  “What?”

  “Royal United, Bath. Agzy-dennal Emergissy.”

  Laura understood now. “Which way?”

  “Left out of the yard and straight up the lane till you reach the A36. You’ll pick up the horse piddle signs when you get close to the city.”

  “Can you call them and say I’m on the way with a man having convulsions?”

  “After I’ve seen to the cow.”

  Laura swung the Land Rover towards the gate, scattering the dogs, and started up the lane. “Don’t worry,” she said to Melchior, or Douglas, “you’ll be getting help very soon.” The only response was a vomiting sound.

  “Please! Not in the Land Rover,” she muttered.

  She was forced to concentrate on the drive, trusting in the Lord that she wouldn’t meet anything as she belted along the lane. Passing points seemed to be unknown in this part of Wiltshire. The beam picked out the scampering shape of a badger up ahead. It saved itself by veering off to the left.

  Then she spotted headlights descending a hill and guessed she was close to the main road. Right or left? She’d have to make a guess. Her instinct said right.

  Forced to stop at the intersection, she glanced at her passenger. His face was still twitching and looked a dreadful colour in the passing lights. This was much more serious than over-indulgence in mulled wine.

  Now was when she could do with an emergency light and siren. Out on the A36, with a long run into Bath – and a sign told her she had taken the right direction – she was overtaking like some teenage joyrider in a stolen Merc. Other drivers flashed their lights at her and one idiot got competitive and tried to force her to stay in the wrong lane. But there came a point when she was high on the downs and the city lights appeared below her. At any other time she would have been enchanted by the view. All she could think was where is the hospital?

  At the first traffic lights she wound down the window and asked. Of course it had to be on the opposite side of the city. Another hair-raising burn-up through the streets and she found seriously helpful signs at last.

  A&E. She drew up behind an ambulance. Someone was rolling a stretcher on wheels towards the Land Rover. The farmer’s wife must have alerted them. The passenger door was opened.

  ‘Is this the man with convulsions?”

  Laura took this to be one of those inane questions people ask in times of crisis. Of course he had convulsions. He’d been convulsing all the way to the hospital.

  But when she turned to look at him, he’d gone still.

  They checked his heart. The doctor shook his head. They unstrapped Melchior and transferred him to the stretcher and raced it inside.

  Nothing had been said to Laura. She could only conclude that she’d brought in a man who was dead. Maybe they’d revive him. She moved the Land Rover away from the entrance and went in to find out.

  She was twenty minutes late collecting Rosemary. It was such a relief to see her.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “My dear, you look drained. Whatever has happened?”

  Rosemary insisted on taking the wheel and Laura told her story as they headed out of the city.

  “So couldn’t they revive him?” Rosemary said.

  “What’s the phrase? Dead on arrival. They worked on him, but it was no use.”

  “What was it – heart?”

  “No one would say. They’ll do an autopsy, I suppose. I told them all I could. It seemed to happen very suddenly. He said he felt dizzy and asked to sit down. I thought it was the mulled wine, but it turned out he hadn’t had a drop all evening. He’s TT. Then he fell asleep, a really deep sleep. I got him into the car – I don’t know how – he was pretty far gone – and his wife noticed the convulsions, which was when I knew he needed medical help.”

  “Dizziness, anaesthesia and convulsions. Was he vomiting?”

  “Trying to, anyway.”

  “It sounds more like poisoning to me,” Rosemary said.

  “Poisoning?”

  “Did he eat anything?”

  “One of the mince pies I handed out. That’s all.”

  “That’s all right then,” Rosemary said. “No problem with that, if you were the cook.”

  Laura clapped her hand to her mouth.

  Rosemary said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I did something dreadful. I may have killed him.”

  “Hold on.” Rosemary pulled into a layby and turned off the engine. “Laura, get a grip and tell me just what you’re talking about.”

  Laura’s voice shook as she explained what she had done with Gertrude Appleton’s pies. “If there was anything in them I’ll never forgive myself.”

  From a distant field came the triple bark of a dog-fox, answered by a vixen sounding eerily like a woman screaming. Rosemary shivered. “We’ll face this together.”

  It was close to midnight when they drove up the lane to The Withers. Christmas morning, almost.

  In a effort to lighten the mood, Rosemary said, “If you look in that bag at your feet you’ll find I packed a bottle of bubbly. Let’s open it as soon as we get in, shall we?”

  “You’re a star,” Laura said. “Some Christmas cheer in spite of everything.” But her voice trailed away.

  A police car was on the drive.

  “Is one of you ladies Mrs Laura Thyme?” the officer asked. “You’re about to see in Christmas at the police station.”

  It was the day after Boxing Day, and still Laura was troubled by guilt.

  “What upset me most was the way that detective put his hand on my head and pressed down when I got in their car, just like they do with murderers.”

  “That didn’t mean a thing,” Rosemary said.

  “Well, he didn’t do it to you.” Laura’s voice shook a little. “Is it possible those pies were poisoned?”

  “Possible, I suppose.”

  “Think of what goes into mincemeat – all those rich flavours, the fruits, the spice, the peel. You could add almost any poison and it wouldn’t be obvious.”

  “If they were poisoned, we’ve still got eleven of them sitting in the fridge.”

  “Ten. I handed the singers a plate with eleven and ten came back. The farmer took one and ate it. That’s certain.”

  “There are eleven in the fridge. I counted,” Rosemary said in her precise way.

  Laura snapped her fingers. “You’re right. I kept one back for Gertrude, the neighbour. She asked specially.”

  “Gertrude,” said Rosemary. “She’s the one the police should be questioning. I wonder if she’d eat that pie if you offered it. She wouldn’t know it’s one of hers with a new lid.”

  “I don’t want another death on my hands.”

  “This is all supposition anyway,” Rosemary said. “We’ll probably find the poor man died of natural causes.”

  “Listen, if Gertrude is a poisoner, those pies were meant for my friends Jane, Michael and Maeve. Was she in dispute with them? You know what neighbours can be like.”

  “Neighbourly, in most cases.”

  “What could she have used?”

  “You said She’s a gardener. You and I know that a garden is full of plants capable of poisoning people.”

  “Christmas roses!” Laura said. “We’ve got some in the front.”

  “Let’s not leap to any conclusions,” Rosemary said, trying to remain calm. “Besides, your carol singers had been round most of the village eating mince pies and drinking wine before they got to you. If he was poisoned, it could have been someone else’s pie that did it.”

  Laura refused to think of anyone else except Gertrude as responsible. “I’d dearly like to know if she was having a feud with Jane and family.”

  “Why don’t we ask someone?”

  “In a vi
llage? Who do you ask?”

  “The vicar. He ought to be discreet.”

  The vicarage was ten minutes away, at the end of a footpath across the frost-covered fields. If nothing else, they’d be exercising Wilbur the greyhound. With difficulty they got him into his coat.

  They passed Gertrude’s garden on the way. Laura grabbed Rosemary’s arm. “Look, she’s got a patch of Christmas roses.”

  “She’s also got white bryony in her hedge and a poinsettia in her window, both of them potential killers, but it doesn’t make her a murderer,” Rosemary said to curb Laura’s imagination. “She may have mistletoe inside the house. Death cap toadstools growing in her compost. I see she has a greenhouse. There could be an oleander in there.”

  But Laura was unstoppable. “I didn’t tell you about the greenhouse. She told me she was fumigating it for pests, and I don’t know what she was using, but it sounded primitive and hazardous as well. Would you believe burning shreds of paper that she had to stamp on to produce the smoke?”

  Rosemary winced. “Out of the ark, by the sound of it. Well, out of some dark shed. Old gardeners used flakes of nicotine. Highly dangerous, of course, and illegal now. What’s wrong with a spray?”

  Laura tapped the side of her nose. “Chemicals.”

  “Fumes are eco-friendly, are they? Isn’t that the vicarage ahead?”

  They shouted to Wilbur, who must have scented fox or rabbit. He raced back, tail going like a mainspring, and got no reward for obedience. He was put on the lead and no doubt decided it’s a dog’s life.

  The vicarage was surrounded by a ten-foot yew hedge that Rosemary mentioned was another source of deadly poison. Laura gave her a long look. “You wouldn’t be winding me up, would you?”

  She smiled. “Encouraging a sense of proportion.”

  The vicar, in a Bath Rugby Club sweatshirt, was relaxing after his Christmas duties. He sounded genuinely disturbed about the death of Melchior, and guilt-stricken, also. “If I’d had any idea he was so ill, I wouldn’t have asked you to take him in,” he said to Laura. “You acted splendidly, getting him to hospital.”

  “I couldn’t tell the police much about him,” Laura said. “Didn’t even know his surname.”

  “Boon. Douglas Boon. His family have farmed here for generations. Blackberry Farm is the last of the old farms. I suppose his wife inherits. There aren’t any children. She’ll have to sell up, I should think.”

  “What do you mean by the last of the old farms?”

  “Traditional. Cattle and sheep. Everyone’s switching to flowers and bulbs since that foot and mouth epidemic. We didn’t have an outbreak here, thank the Lord, but other farmers didn’t want the risk and sold up. Much of the land has been put under glass by Ben Black, known to you as Balthazar.”

  “The tall man?” Laura said.

  “A giant in the nursery garden business and a very astute businessman. Lay chairman of the Parochial Church Council as well, so I have to work closely with him. He’s from London originally. To the locals, he’s an incomer, but he gives them a living.”

  “So he’ll be interested in Blackberry Farm if it comes on the market?” Rosemary said.

  “No question.” The vicar sighed. “I happen to know he made Douglas a handsome offer last week, far more than it’s worth, and I heard that Douglas was willing at last to sell.”

  “Every man has his price,” Laura remarked.

  “Yes, and it is also said that gold goes in at any gate except the gate of heaven. As it turns out, Ben will get the farm for a fraction of that offer if Kitty Boon wants to sell.” He looked wistful. “I’ll be sorry if the cows go. They hold up the traffic when they’re being driven along the lane for milking, but rows of daffodils wouldn’t be the same at all.”

  Laura had a vision of rows of daffies holding up the traffic.

  “Do you mind if I ask about someone else?” she said. “On Christmas Eve Gertrude Appleton called with some mince pies.”

  “Gertrude?” The vicar had a special smile for this member of his flock. “That’s one of her many superstitions. Something about exchanging pies to avoid bad luck. False worship really. I don’t approve, but we all indulge her because she’s such a formidable lady.”

  “Harmless?”

  “We have to hope so.”

  “Is she on good terms with my friends, Jane and Michael Eadington?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “No boundary disputes? Complaints about the greyhound? Excessive noise?”

  “I’ve never heard of any. Why do you ask?”

  Rosemary said quickly, “It’s a joke. Those pies she brought round aren’t the most appetising.”

  The vicar smiled. “Now I understand. Did you try one?”

  She shook her head. “It’s the look of them, paler than Hamlet’s father.”

  His eyes twinkled at that. “I’m afraid not one of the carollers could face one the other night.”

  “And will you indulge her, as you put it, and exchange mince pies?”

  He smiled, “The annual batch of pies for Gertrude is one more parochial duty for me. I don’t have a wife to cook for me, unfortunately.”

  “Your pies are delicious, I’m sure,” Laura said, liking this young clergyman.

  Rosemary said in her no-nonsense voice, “The third of the Three Kings was Caspar, right?”

  “Little Colin Price the other night,” the vicar said. “He’s my tenor, at the other end of the scale from Ben Black.”

  “As a singer, do you mean?”

  “I was thinking of his situation. Colin’s up against it financially. He was a dairy farmer like Douglas, but less efficient. He lost a big contract with the Milk Marketing Board a couple of years ago and Douglas bought him out. He’s reduced to work as a jobbing gardener these days.”

  Laura exchanged a wry smile with Rosemary. “There are worse ways to make a living.”

  “True. But I have to object when he does it on Sundays sometimes and misses Morning Service. Colin just smiles and quotes those lines ‘One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.’ That isn’t scripture, I tell him, It’s a bit of doggerel.”

  The vicar came out to see them off and Rosemary admired the yew hedge and asked if he clipped it himself.

  “Every twig,” he said. “Can’t afford a gardener on my stipend. Some people seem to have the idea that yew is slow-growing. From experience I can tell you that’s a myth.”

  “What do you do with the clippings – burn them?”

  “No, I bag them up and send them away to be used in cancer treatment.”

  “For the taxol in them,” Rosemary said. “Very public-spirited.”

  “I must admit they pay me as well,” the vicar said with a fleeting smile at Laura.

  Their return across the frost-white fields was spoiled by a blue police light snaking through the lanes. Laura said, “I just know it’s going to stop at The Withers.”

  She was right.

  When they got there the inspector was looking smug. “You might be thinking the forensics lab was closed over Christmas, but I happen to know one scientist who is a perfect Scrooge, can’t stand the parties and the eating and only too grateful to earn double overtime. It’s bad news for you, I’m afraid, Mrs Thyme. The late Douglas Boon was poisoned. My scientist found significant amounts of taxin in his body.”

  “Toxin?” Laura said.

  “Taxin. It comes from the yew,” Rosemary murmured. “Just like taxol, only this is no help to anyone, not to be taken in any form.”

  “You’re well informed,” the inspector said.

  “I’m a plant biologist.”

  “And Mrs Thyme? Are you also an expert?”

  “Only an amateur,” Laura said.

  About as amateur as a million-pound-a-week footballer, if the inspector’s look was anything to go by. “I’ve got a warrant to search this house.”

  “Here? What are you looking for?” Rosemary asked.

  “
We know from the stomach contents that the last food Mr Boon ingested was a mince pie. In your statement of Christmas Eve, Mrs Thyme, you admitted administering a pie to the deceased.”

  “Administering?” said Rosemary. “She handed round a plate of pies, that’s all.”

  “And we’d like to have them examined, if they aren’t already destroyed.”

  This was a defining moment for Laura. Should she confess to changing the lids on Gertrude’s pies? She glanced towards Rosemary, who nodded back. “Inspector,” she said, “there’s something I ought to tell you, something I didn’t mention last time.”

  The inspector raised both hands as if a wall was about to collapse. “Don’t say another word. I’m going to issue an official caution and you’re going to accompany me to the police station.”

  “Oh, what nonsense,” Rosemary said. “The pies were made by someone else, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Don’t put ideas in her head, Miss Boxer. She’s in enough trouble already.”

  As Laura got into the police car, Wilbur whimpered. The hand pressing down on the back of Laura’s head felt like an executioner’s this time. They kept her waiting more than an hour while the house was searched. The plate of mince pies, wrapped now in a polythene evidence bag, was carried from the kitchen in triumph.

  Rosemary watched in silence, sickened and infuriated by this turn of events. She could see Laura’s troubled face through the rear window of the patrol car as they drove away. She thought about following in the Land Rover, and then decided they wouldn’t let her near the interview room. She’d be more useful finding out precisely what had been going on in this sinister village.

  By asking around, she tracked Colin Price (the little man Laura knew as Caspar) to the garden behind the village hall. He was up a ladder pruning a huge rambler rose. The clippings were going into a trailer he’d wheeled across the lawn.

  “What’s that – an albertine?” Rosemary asked, seeing how the new shoots sprouted from well up the old stems.

  “Spot on.”

  “Late pruning, then?”

  “It’s a matter of getting round to these jobs,” he said. “I can only do so much. It’s mostly grass-cutting through the summer and well into autumn. Other jobs have to wait.”