Purple Death

by Brian L. Porter

  “Yes, right, well, thanks Doc,” said Connor, turning and heading back for the door. “You'll let me know, right?”

  “As soon as I know, you'll know Inspector,” she replied as she and Gunther disappeared through the door to her office.

  As he climbed back into his car which he'd left parked in the tree-lined lane that ran along the back of the mortuary building, he picked up his phone, and dialled Lucy Clay's mobile number. She replied within seconds of the phone ringing.

  “Any word from the widow yet Lucy?” Connor asked.

  “Not yet Sir, we're still waiting. Anything on the cause of death yet?”

  “Nothing definite yet Sergeant, but according to the doc, we could be looking at a good old Christie style mystery here, if she's proved right by the lab reports of course.”

  “Sorry Sir, but you're talking in riddles?”

  “Oh, yes, sorry Sergeant. Let's just say that in the case of Mr Sam Gabriel we could be looking at a case of good old-fashioned arsenic and old lace.”

  “You've lost me now Sir,” Lucy spoke in exasperation into her phone.

  “Forgive me Sergeant, I'm daydreaming of the books of my own youth. Poison, Lucy, that's what we could be looking at. Good old-fashioned poisoning, and you know what?”

  “What, Sir?” was all the bemused detective sergeant could ask down the phone.

  “In all my years on the force, I've never had a poisoning before. This could be something to really get our teeth into.”

  With that unfortunate remark Connor brought the conversation to a close. Before Clay could respond, he shouted into the phone;

  “See you back at the office,” and then broke the connection.

  Sitting at her desk in the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.) operations room at police headquarters, Lucy Clay looked in bewilderment at Detective Constable Harry Drew who just happened to be walking past, pointed an agitated finger at the phone to indicate whomever she'd been speaking to and shouted at Drew;

  “He's gone crazy, absolutely bloody crazy.”

  Constable Drew kept walking. He had nowhere to hurry to but he'd think of somewhere to get away from the demented Sergeant who sat staring at the phone in her hand, looking a little on the crazy side and muttering to herself,

  “Old lace and arsenic, arsenic and old lace? What the hell does he mean by that?”

  Unfortunately, Lucy Clay's education into classic Victorian style English literature was soon to escalate at an unheard of and decidedly unwanted rate.

  Trolley Dash

  As Catherine Nickels slid the corpse of the unfortunate Sam Gabriel into its resting place in the cold room of the Richmond mortuary her counterpart in Birmingham, Doctor Gary Hudson was just beginning his examination of the mortal remains of David Arnold, the sadly demised locomotive driver. It would be some time before Inspectors Carrick and Connor would realise that they were investigating cases that may have been related and for now Gary Hudson worked steadily on the post-mortem examination of David Arnold knowing only that the police were extremely anxious to discover the poor man's cause of death and whether it could be attributed to natural causes, or whether they were looking at a case of foul play, i.e. murder.

  Hudson, who'd been doing this job for over twenty years knew a strange case when he saw one and the possibility of poisoning by sources as yet unknown were strong in his mind as he began to cut open the chest cavity of the engine driver, revealing the interior organs to his expert gaze..

  Had he known that Catherine Nickels was working on a similar case a number of miles to the south of his location then maybe, just maybe, the police would have been better informed than they were when the next unfortunate victim was brought to the attention of the guardians of the law. As it was Hudson was working `blind' in the same way as Catherine Nickels, each specialist believing theirs to be the only such case under investigation at the time. Something about the body of David Arnold bothered him. The grim rictus of pain etched into the dead man's face affected him in the way most of his `clients' failed to do. Something terrible had happened to this man, and Hudson knew from past experience that the one thing guaranteed to produce such a look of horror on a dying person's face was the effect of a particularly toxic and fast acting poison, one that would leave the victim in little or no doubt that he was about to breathe his last. Who had administered such a poison to the victim and why they'd done so was of no relevance to Gary Hudson. His task was simply to determine what poison if any had been used to bring about the death of the man whose body now lay exposed to his scalpels, retractors and cutting saws.

  As Hudson worked, back in Richmond Sean Connor and Lucy Clay had just completed their initial interview with the grieving widow of Sam Gabriel. Five months pregnant, Lynne Hudson had been met by local police officers from the Lothian and Borders Police Force the moment she arrived at her parents' house in Leith just outside Edinburgh. Having been informed of the tragic death of her husband her father had immediately offered to drive her home and the two of them had gone straight to the police station upon their arrival in Richmond, where Connor and Clay sympathetically carried out their duty in the presence of Lynne's father, Harold Butcher.

  During the course of the interview it transpired that no, Lynne knew of no-one who held a grudge against her husband, no, he hadn't been taking any drugs either illegal or prescription and no, she could think of nothing he might have eaten or drunk that could have caused him to collapse in such a state. He had no serious or non-serious health worries, and hadn't seen a doctor for over a year so she could think of nothing that might have brought about the death of her husband. They appeared to have had a happy marriage and were looking forward to the birth of their first child.

  When Lynne eventually collapsed in a flood of tears, obviously unable to go on with the interview Connor sensitively brought the proceedings to a close and diplomatically asked Harold Butcher to carry out the official identification of the body. At first the widow protested, saying that she wanted to see her husband, but good sense prevailed and after being assured that she wouldn't want to see Sam in the condition he was in at the moment she deferred to the police and her father, having been promised that she could see him later. The body would be made presentable after all the autopsy procedures had been concluded, and no trace of Catherine's incisions would be visible to the untrained eye.

  Lucy Clay remained with Lynne while her father accompanied Connor to the viewing room where the formal identification was carried out. That done, the grieving widow and her father left for Lynne and Sam's home with a promise from Connor that he would be in touch the moment he had some news about the cause of Sam's death. Lynne also made him promise that she could see Sam as soon as possible. Quite naturally she wanted to say her own private farewell to the man she loved, to the father of her unborn child.

  As Lynne and her father made their way across town in the car and Connor and Clay sat down to enjoy a welcome cup of coffee in Connor's office, a few miles away housewife Virginia Remick was pushing her shopping trolley around her local supermarket. She was intent on picking up everything that she'd written down on the shopping list she carried in her hand. As she reached out to take a packet of her husband Pete's favourite biscuits from the top shelf of the aisle she was suddenly gripped by a fierce tingling and burning sensation in her mouth and throat. These symptoms were soon followed by the numbness, the shortness of breath and the lack of motor functions though her brain remained totally focussed and lucid. Virginia's four-wheeled shopping trolley seemed to develop a life of its own and she could only watch in shocked horror as the trolley appeared to wrench itself from her increasingly feeble grasp and it careered into a pyramid display of cans of baked beans, bringing the whole edifice crashing to the ground. As she lost her grip on the real world Virginia's head began to swirl and swim on her shoulders, the overhead lights of the supermarket became dizzy whirlpools of white fluorescence and the pain in her chest grew to monumental proportions to the extent
that she barely felt herself hitting the ground as her legs collapsed from beneath her, nor did she hear the concerned voices of the two staff members and fellow shopper who rushed to her aid as they saw her obvious predicament.

  She heard a disembodied voice calling out “Someone send for a doctor”, and then her throat felt as though someone were tightening a garrotte around it and breathing become an impossibility. Virginia lay on the hard, cool supermarket floor, looking up in horror and fear as a battery of concerned faces peered down at her as though from a great height.

  Another voice penetrated her fear and pain, “Is she drunk?”

  Virginia wanted to protest at this inference but her voice box wouldn't obey her brain's commands and instead she felt her mouth opening and closing in silence, like that of a peacefully swimming fish; though there was nothing peaceful about what was happening to her at that moment.

  As her airway began to close for what would be the last time Virginia Remick could do no more than look at the bright white light that beamed down at her from the supermarket ceiling, the bright white light that now beckoned her into another world, one where breathing would no longer be so difficult, one where breathing wouldn't matter anymore. With a final gasp of pain and panic Virginia took one last look at the bright white light that called her into that other world, then, unable to fight against the pain, the numbness and the burning sensations any longer Catherine Nickels's next case closed her eyes for the last time, the packet of biscuits still clutched in her right hand crushed in a final death grip.

  The stunned supermarket manager ordered his staff to call the police and the ambulance service then instructed his assistant to clear the store, close the doors and await the arrival of the emergency services. Less than ten minutes passed before the noise of approaching sirens announced the approach of both police and an ambulance, and a further ten minutes was all it took for the paramedics to pronounce the patient dead and remove the body from the aisle of the supermarket. Only thirty five minutes after she'd breathed her last breath Virginia Remick's body was delivered into the hands of the Medical Examiner. It wouldn't be long before Catherine Nickels would be able to give Inspector Connor the unwelcome news that they had a second mystery death on their hands.

  Purple Death

  “You're sure, Doc?” Connor asked Catherine as they sat in her neat and functional office two days after the deaths of Sam Gabriel and Virginia Remick. He noticed, not for the first time, how attractive the pathologist was, even with her hair tied back functionally for the purposes of her work. He tried to imagine how her fair hair would look if it were allowed to cascade down into its natural position. Catherine's answer quickly snapped him back to reality.

  “There's absolutely no doubt,” she replied. “They were both poisoned, and by a particularly nasty little villain that goes by the name of Aconite.”

  “The name isn't familiar to me Doc, tell me more.”

  “Well, apart from what's happened here, if you know anything about history, it was the preferred method of despatching her victims as used by Lucrezia Borgia.”

  “Ah, now there's a name I recognise,” said Connor. “Exactly what is this stuff?”

  “Purple Death, Sean. It's derived from a plant. Its Latin name is Ranunculaceae which belongs to the buttercup family would you believe? Its full name is aconitum, but it's also known as aconite, monkshood and wolfsbane. The last name came from the middle ages when archers would dip their arrows in the poison made from the roots of the flowers which they believed made their arrows particularly deadly when used against wolves. Monkshood is simple. The flowers are shaped just like the hoods worn by monks. Anyway, the roots of one genus of the plant are well documented as being used in Nepal and India to supply the poison known as bikh, or bish, which is a deadly toxin. Other variants have been used all around the world as poisons for hunting and warfare through the ages. Funnily enough a lot of people have these things growing in their gardens even here in England without truly knowing what they are or what they're capable of. They all bear particularly beautiful flowers, with purple monkshood being one of the most common. Oh yes, and aconite is supposedly highly efficacious in dealing with werewolves.”

  “Werewolves eh? Very interesting. So it's the root that carries the toxin, is that right Doc?”

  “Yes, and believe it or not, it's still used in certain herbal and homeopathic cures, in very small amounts of course. Personally, I'd avoid anything that contains the stuff.”

  “How does it kill then, Doc? Just what did those poor people go through?”

  Catherine thought carefully for a moment or two, wanting to make the explanation as easy to follow as possible. It wasn't necessary for Connor to know the technicalities at this stage. She knew him well enough to know that he wanted a basic and succinct delivery of the facts, so, after the brief pause, she continued.

  “Basically, they would have felt a numbing or tingling sensation in the mouth and lips to begin with. The pulse would slow, they'd feel a burning in their lungs, and there'd be a massive drop in blood pressure. They'd begin to struggle for breath. They'd feel as though they were being strangled as the airways closed and their throat constricted. There'd be tingling and pain in the nerve endings, and yet through all of this the brain and the mind would function normally. They'd be aware of what was happening to them but would be unable to do anything about it as their motor functions gradually ceased to operate. Respiration gradually slows due to a paralytic action on the respiratory centre and the activity of the spinal cord is depressed. So the collapse of the respiratory system is what actually kills the victim rather than the stopping of the heart which comes after respiration ceases. Is that fairly clear?”

  Connor swallowed hard. The thought of those symptoms was enough to make his own heart miss a beat.

  “Jesus Christ, Catherine!” he exclaimed at last. “You'd have to hate someone pretty badly to want to put them through a death like that, surely.”

  “It certainly wasn't quick, and it definitely wasn't painless,” Catherine replied to his observation. “As to the motive of whoever did this I'm afraid that's your department Inspector, not mine. I'm just a simple scientist. I can tell you the how, but not the why.”

  “I need to speak to the constables who answered the call to the supermarket, and to the family of that poor woman,” Connor said quietly. “There must be some connection between her and Sam Gabriel but for the life of me I can't imagine what. They seem to be miles apart in their lifestyles and I can't see that they would have moved in the same social circles.”

  “Well, someone didn't like them very much that's for sure Sean,”

  Catherine had relaxed enough to use his first name. They'd known each other for three years and had even dated once or twice since Connor's divorce, so a certain familiarity had crept into their relationship though they kept it on ice while discussing the real nuts and bolts of a case.

  “I have to go,” said Connor. “One was bad enough, two is more than coincidence.”

  “Find him Sean,” said Catherine with a note of urgency in her voice. “Whoever he or maybe she is, find whoever it is before they do this again.”

  “I will Catherine, don't worry. I'll get the poisoning bastard if it's the last thing I do. No-one is going to get away with doing this to people in my town.”

  A sudden thought came to him as he rose to leave. He couldn't believe that he'd failed to ask the question before now.

  “One last thing Catherine. Could you tell from your examinations just how the poison was administered to the victims?”

  “All I can tell you is that the stomach contents of both victims showed significant levels of aconite to be present. How it was actually administered is another one for you to solve I'm afraid. I can tell you that there were no needle marks on the bodies to indicate an intravenous administration. Funny thing is there was little undigested food residue in either case so I can't be sure if it was introduced in something they ate on the day of death
. You have a very clever killer out there Sean. Just be careful.”

  “Don't worry; I'll be more than careful. It's time I wasn't here. See you soon Catherine. If you find anything else you'll let me know of course?”

  “Of course,” she replied as Sean Connor made his way out of the office.

  An hour later Police Constables Rogers and Thompson, both of whom had responded to the call to the supermarket found themselves seated in Detective Inspector Connor's office. Connor praised both men for their prompt and efficient handling of the situation before asking both of them if they'd spoken to the dead woman's next of kin or any other family members.

  “Yes Sir,” said Rogers, a thick-set and cheerful looking officer, an old-fashioned `copper' with fifteen years service under his belt. “I volunteered to inform the husband. Poor chap, he was totally devastated. They'd only been married for a year. It was a second marriage for both of them. No kids or anything, but her first husband had been a bit of a sod to her, if you know what I mean Sir.”

  “I get your drift Constable. Do you think the ex-husband might have had enough of a grudge against her to have wanted to do her some harm?”

  Connor wondered if there might be a connection between the two victims. Could Sam Gabriel have been her divorce solicitor for example?

  “I doubt it Sir,” said Rogers. “The ex moved away after the divorce, about three years ago and according to Mr Remick he now lives and works abroad. He thinks he might be in Germany or Holland.”

  “Hang on Sir,” Constable Thompson interjected. “Are you saying that this wasn't death by natural causes?”

  “That's precisely what I'm saying Constable. She was poisoned, and by a particularly nasty and painful poison at that. Added to which, a couple of hours before that a junior partner in a law firm in town was killed by exactly the same method.”