I caught Pierce’s eye. ‘I think you should follow me,’ I said quietly, ‘to the green room.’
In his place I’d have died with embarrassment, but perhaps the wretched man had had a few too many sips of my champagne to care. Instead, he said, with a sudden inappropriate grin, ‘I’ve always wanted to forbid anyone to leave a country house. Ever since I read those Golden Age detective novels when I was a kid. That was why I joined the police, actually.’
‘Are you going to make a great revelation, à la Poirot?’ I asked dryly.
‘I’m tempted. Let me just pen them in, first. And get a scene of crime team along. Though I’ve messed it up a good deal,’ he added penitently. ‘I’d like Kinnersley’s opinion of that liquid, too.’
While he did his policeman act, Kinnersley smelt, touched, and tasted. And then frowned. ‘No doubt about it! Croton oil!’
‘Croton oil!’ I scratched my head.
Returning, Richard did likewise.
‘Poison,’ Kinnersley said flatly. ‘One of those things it used to be fashionable to take – oh, a hundred years ago. Fashionable ladies used to take it to keep themselves slim.’
‘So why on earth should it surface now?’ Richard demanded. ‘And why use it to kill poor old Chuffie? I shall leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of this!’
He sounded as resolute as if he were going to work night and day himself, not get a load of others to do it. Kinnersley and I merely winced at his clichés.
‘Far be it for a humble cook to poke her nose in,’ I lied, ‘but I would swear that the double-bass player looked surprised when they completed “The Trout” without interruption. And we found that glass,’ I said, as if it had been all his own work, ‘in the musicians’ changing room.’
‘So we did,’ Richard agreed.
‘So might not that narrow down the range of suspects a bit?’
‘The musicians! And where would they have got this croton oil from?’
‘Where would all these elderly ladies and gentlemen have got it from? Or Mrs Welford herself – I take it it’s not one of your culinary essentials!’ Kinnersley countered. He too could do sarcasm. ‘The Internet?’
‘What in fact is croton oil used for?’ I asked.
‘Maybe the pianist is still taking it for her figure’s sake. You know these French people – always taking this and that for their liver,’ Richard said grandiloquently.
Although I didn’t think WeightWatchers would approve I stashed away the notion in case the pounds I’d managed to shed made an unwelcome reappearance. ‘Could it be used for oiling fiddles or something?’
Kinnersley shook his head. ‘It’s commonly used in laboratory conditions to test the efficacy of anti-inflammatory drugs: it provides the inflammation on mice’s ears, for instance, and the drugs do their best to cure it. The only time I’ve come across it in medical practice was when I treated a woman with a terrible skin eruption on her face. She’d been to some quack offering surgery-free wrinkle treatments. Apparently it’s a legitimate tool used by a proper dermatologist. It peels the top layer of skin away, and reveals a nice new unwrinkled layer underneath.’
‘A sort of extra-strong exfoliation?’ I asked.
‘Exactly the sort of thing Madame de la Court might use,’ Pierce decided.
‘It didn’t seem to me as if she paid much attention to her complexion,’ I said.
‘And no amateur would try it, surely!’ Kinnersley agreed.
‘Just because no one likes her doesn’t mean she was trying to kill anyone. Least of all Chuffie,’ I pointed out.
‘But poison’s a woman’s weapon,’ Pierce insisted. ‘And they’d crossed swords. Some business with the piano lid.’
‘I doubt if even the French would kill over a piano,’ Kinnersley sighed. ‘Next you’ll be saying Lady Orpen did it because he’d not done his share of the washing up.’
‘And we all know that most murders take place within the family,’ I added ironically.
Pierce considered this for a moment. ‘Not if she’s the one wanting a PM. She’d have used something less traceable. No, I’ll detain Madame for questioning. Then we can take everyone else’s names and addresses so CID can get witness statements tomorrow.’
‘Richard,’ I ventured, ‘I’d love it to be Madame, because she’s a loathsome woman and treats her colleagues appallingly. But I don’t see a shred of motive. Could she have been aiming at one of the string players and Chuffie drank the brew by mistake?’
‘Wouldn’t that rather break up the ensemble? And thus cut off their income?’ He was engaging with the idea despite himself.
‘I think Mrs Welford may be right. The group didn’t exactly cohere, did it?’ Kinnersley caught my eye and winked.
‘It’ll all come out when my team interviews everyone and takes witness statements,’ Pierce said with a note of finality. ‘We’ll get contact details from everyone and – yes?’ He broke off irritably as a shirt-sleeved PC appeared.
‘Sir, the musicians are absolutely demanding to leave, sir.’
‘Bring in CID, fast. Tell everyone in the drawing room that this is a possible crime and they will all have to wait a few more minutes so that we can record their names and addresses to get witness statements from them all later. As for the musicians, tell them that the green room is definitely a crime scene and no one must touch anything.’ Richard turned to me, in sudden despair. ‘Except you went in there …’
‘And found the glass contaminated with croton oil,’ I observed in my sweetest tones. ‘I don’t mind giving a DNA sample so I can be eliminated. So long as you promise to destroy it afterwards.’
The constable left, but reappeared a moment later. ‘They say you can search the room from top to bottom, but they want their property and they want it fast. Or they’ll sue.’
‘And was Madame their spokesperson?’ I asked.
‘Her and some bloke desperate for his buttons. Really worked up, they are.’
Kinnersley raised an eyebrow. ‘Why not take them at their word? Find a phial and then you’ve got some evidence!’
‘I suppose … OK, constable, contact CID and bring in a team.’
‘Tell the waiters there’s more fizz in cool boxes in my van,’ I said, throwing him the keys. ‘That should keep the guests happy,’ I added.
‘I don’t suppose there’s enough for us, is there?’ Kinnersley asked.
Other people feared Greeks bringing gifts; I feared co-operation from someone who might be a killer. If the phial or bottle or whatever wasn’t in a case, where might it be? They turned out their pockets with positively sunny smiles, or what passed for sunny in the violist’s case.
The police searched thoroughly, I give them that. Inside the vases, under the cushions, behind the curtains. They found the violist’s cufflinks, but no, the cufflinks didn’t have an obliging secret compartment containing dregs of oil. His viola case did contain a small cache of cannabis he assured us was for private use only. As was the coke in the cellist’s case.
The police didn’t even bother confiscating the drugs. Witness statements – the musicians were happy to give those. But really, they had to be on their way or they would miss the next ferry, and thus their next engagement.
‘And may we now have your gracious permission to pack our instruments?’ the violinist demanded.
Richard shrugged: why not?
I sat down and stared at the bubbles in my champagne glass. More correctly, a flute, of course. Another bloody musical instrument on a night we’d had rather too many. Druggie fiddlers, sardonic and silent double basses, prima donna pianists. And then I thought why not. ‘Tell them just ten more minutes,’ I said.
The double-bass player. He’d looked on from the back of the room while his colleagues hammered out Brahms. Saturnine, I’d thought him. And then at the end of the Schubert he looked surprised that they’d got through it. And what had I done most of the concert, when I wasn’t mentally planning next week’s menu, that
is? I’d scanned their tedious programme notes.
There were still plenty lying on chairs, as if my fellow listeners never wanted to see them again. So I picked one up, opened it at the relevant page, and passed it quietly to Kinnersley, pointing.
‘So we have a source for our croton oil,’ he crowed. ‘But why the double bass? And where on earth is the receptacle the oil came in?’
Pierce shook his head. ‘Why on earth should he want to kill Chuffie, even if he had the means to do so?’
‘Perhaps he didn’t want to kill Chuffie. Perhaps he put the oil in a glass meant for someone else and the poor man drank it by mistake. He’d be too much of a gentleman to spit it out. How did it keep women’s figures slim?’ I belatedly asked Kinnersley.
‘Some sort of emetic or purge, I should think.’
‘That’s in small quantities? What about in bigger ones?’
‘I should imagine you’d get dreadful stomach cramps. You might vomit. You might get diarrhoea. And at Chuffie’s age … Well, in sufficient quantities, I suppose it might kill anyone.’
‘Suppose,’ I thought aloud, ‘you didn’t like someone. You didn’t hate them enough to kill, but you wanted to teach them a lesson. What did you do to teachers you hated?’
Pierce pulled a face. ‘Whoopie cushions? Matches in hollowed-out chalk? So you’re saying all this might have been a black joke that went wrong?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s a theory.’
‘And as good as any. So cherchez not la femme, but the bottle, whatever that is in French.’ Kinnersley stopped abruptly. He looked at me. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘Let’s just find the bottle,’ I said.
Do you remember those children’s games, in the days before all those infant hands clutched electronic gizmos? Where you had a small plastic box containing a set of ball-bearings which you had to get into tiny targets, just by jiggling the box? Getting the phial out of the double bass was rather like that. We could hear it rolling around, and sometimes you could see it at right angles to what some musical constable called the F-holes, and others in exasperation called the ‘f-ing’ holes. At last, however, shaken gently over a pile of towels by two of the strongest officers available, the instrument yielded up our quarry.
The small glass tube had certainly held croton oil: in its concentrated form, the smell was quite distinct.
‘So you think the target might have been Madame Thingie!’ Pierce said.
‘She was a hard-working, capable but ultimately unprofessional woman. And her male colleagues resented her. Didn’t you see?’
Kinnersley shook his head. ‘We couldn’t see anything of them. Didn’t hear a lot, either.’
‘Exactly so. She was the focus of all our attention: the others never even got a look-in – literally. And if you play in those conditions, day after day, week after week, you must get resentful.’
‘Enough to want to kill her?’ Richard reflected.
‘That,’ I smiled sweetly, ‘must be for your teams of professional officers to discover.’
The double-bass player tried to brazen it out. Yes, he’d tried to dose Madame de la Tour; all the ensemble had agreed that she must be taken down a peg. During the tour her behaviour had become more and more egotistical. At last, he had resolved to humiliate her. Croton oil was a purgative. He just wanted Madame to have to spend a concert on the lavatory, giving him and his colleagues a chance to shine with a piece they’d privately rehearsed.
‘But where did you get it?’ Richard asked.
‘I told them I needed a replacement bow. It’s very easy to get back to France for a day, when you are playing near Canterbury. There was plenty in my wife’s clinic. I helped myself to a very little. Alas, when I put it in Martine’s glass, the old gentleman – he was very absent-minded, that one – drank it.’ He looked relieved to have the matter off his chest. ‘But you will not charge me with murder? When all I intended was a simple jest?’
‘That, monsieur, will be a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service,’ Richard said impassively.
The funny thing was, it was Madame de la Court who protested as he was led away. ‘How will we perform without him? Release him this instant. We have important engagements …’
‘Madame, he killed Sir Charles. And it might have been that he meant to kill you.’
‘But he did not succeed. Come, how can we perform without our double bass? Set him free tout de suite.’
I listened in amazement; I knew I couldn’t understand music. Now I knew I couldn’t understand musicians either.
A LIBERATING AFFAIR
Carol Anne Davis
Carol Anne Davis comes from Dundee, and divides her time as a writer between fiction and true crime. Her novels, including Extinction, have led to her being described as the ‘Queen of Noir’, while her non-fiction books include Women Who Kill and Children Who Kill.
It’s always daunting for a man to meet his girlfriend’s father for the first time, especially when that meeting takes place on her eighteenth birthday. He’d thrown her a small party, stringing the farmhouse with fairy lights.
‘Deborah tells me you’re out of work,’ he said, minutes after we’d been introduced in the kitchen.
‘Yes, sir. I was in sports nutrition, on the sales side, but last year the firm closed down.’
‘Less of the sir. Everyone calls me Kev around here. And I’ve got a job going begging,’ her father said.
Deborah had alerted me to the fact that he’d probably offer me employment. She’d said that some of the men left after a few hours, that others had nightmares about what they’d seen.
‘Well, tonight’s Deborah’s night,’ I murmured, taking her small hand in mine, ‘But I’d love to come back for an interview.’
Kev’s small eyes narrowed, making his already bloated face look even bigger. ‘No time like the present, son.’
‘But won’t your guests mind?’
‘Oh, it’s just a few of the locals.’
None of them looked sorry to see him go.
‘Do you only keep chickens?’ I asked as we traipsed across the grassy fields.
I already knew that he did but was keen to make conversation.
‘Only? I feed half the country on them but I’m sure our Deborah’s already told you that,’ he said.
‘She’s a lovely girl.’
‘Keeps a clean house.’
‘Bright, too,’ I said, wanting him to see that I appreciated her many qualities.
‘Not bright enough to take over the business. Her mum was exactly the same.’
I hesitated, not wanting to speak ill of the dead. I knew that he’d been widowed for three years, that he hadn’t bothered with women since.
Fortunately Kev preferred to talk business rather than pleasure.
‘How much do you get from the state?’ he asked as we reached a huge industrial barn. Looking ahead I could see numerous similar buildings blotting the landscape.
I told him.
‘Okay, I’ll double that if you start here on the factory floor.’
We entered the building and I found myself in a room stacked with overalls. Kev handed me one and took another for himself.
‘Why the masks?’ I asked, before slipping the heavy white cotton over my nose and mouth.
‘Dust and disease.’
We walked into the factory and I suddenly understood exactly what he meant.
At first I could hardly see the birds themselves, the air was so full of fleas and feathers. Then my eyes adjusted and I saw a vision of hell. It was wall to wall hen, the birds packed like living sardines. Some were pecking at the bird immediately in front of them, causing the blood to flow, whilst others had collapsed and were being trampled and suffocated to death.
Most of the hens were huge, their bodies far too big for their frail legs. They lay there in their own waste, clucking feebly. The floor was so littered with excrement that the lower bodies of the chickens were smeared wit
h it, which probably accounted for the acidic-looking burns on their hocks.
I didn’t attempt to speak until I was back in the little room, where I removed my mask and overalls. Kev indicated a wall chute and I dropped them in.
‘Why are the chicks so big?’
‘We feed them up so they can be slaughtered at six weeks.’
‘Do you lose a lot through disease?’
‘Not enough to seriously affect my profits, no.’ He stared at me challengingly. ‘I’m not pretending it’s pretty but we’re not a zoo – and your Deborah has done very well out of it.’
I took a steadying breath. ‘I know she does all your office work.’
‘She does but I need someone who can work his way up through the system, keep the supermarkets sweet.’
I’d promised Deborah that I’d keep in with her dad, not be marched off the premises like previous boyfriends, so I started the next day.
My task was to grab as many chickens by the legs as I could and take them outside, forcing them into crates. Needless to say, they tried to escape my clutches. Some of the other chicken harvesters were grabbing up to eight birds at a time, inadvertently breaking their wings.
Kev took me for a drink at the local pub that night.
‘How did it go?’
‘I felt a bit sick,’ I admitted.
‘You soon get used to it. You’d have to pay five times more for a free range bird.’
The following week I was shown around the processing plant. It was worse, if anything. Men slotted the overweight chickens into a metal frame by their legs and they were plunged briefly into a bath of water through which an electric charge was passed. The plan was to stun the birds so that they weren’t fully conscious when their throats were cut but some hens lifted their heads …
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