Purple Death

by Brian L. Porter

  Lynne Gabriel was still in a state of shock at the death of her husband. The pregnant widow sat in a high-backed armchair as Connor sank into the comfortable dralon covered sofa in her well-furnished sitting room. It was obvious as Connor looked around the room, that Sam Gabriel had provided a very high standard of living for his wife and himself and would have done equally so for the child that Lynne was expecting, the child he would never see and who would never know him.

  The red rings around her eyes betrayed the fact that Lynne Gabriel had been crying just before his arrival and though she'd done her best with a tissue there were still tear stains on her face. Connor knew that he'd have to be very diplomatic in his questioning of the woman, something he was well-accustomed to in interviewing the grieving spouses of murder victims.

  “I'm sorry if this an inconvenient time to call, Mrs Gabriel,” he began.

  “That's alright Inspector,” she replied. “I'm afraid I'm not at my best at the moment, as I'm sure you understand.”

  Connor nodded, saying nothing and allowing her to say whatever she wanted to for a minute. He felt sure that being left here alone in her home meant that she needed to let out some of the pent-up stresses and strains that she must undoubtedly be feeling.

  “I still can't believe it you know. He was so, so alive if you know what I mean,” said Lynne, with tears beginning to well up in her eyes once more. “My father has been wonderful, but he left me this morning to drive up to Edinburgh and bring my mother back with him. They'll be here later tonight but these last few hours here on my own have been pretty awful I'm afraid. I'm sorry; I shouldn't be burdening you with all this should I? You came to ask me some questions?”

  “There's no need to apologize Mrs Gabriel, really. You wouldn't be human if you weren't feeling just the way you do at the moment. This whole thing has to have been absolutely dreadful for you. I'm just sorry that I have to intrude upon your grief, but I'm sure you understand that I have to ask these questions, that I have to try and find out who did this to your husband?”

  “Of course. I want to help in whatever way I can. Just promise me Inspector Connor, promise that you'll find out who did this to poor Sam, and that they'll be locked away for ever.”

  “I promise you that I'll do everything in my power to bring the murderer to justice, Mrs Gabriel. As for how long they'll be locked away for, that's a matter for the judge I'm afraid if and when we get the bastard to trial.”

  Sean Connor had sat with enough grieving spouses in his time to know that he needn't apologize for the small profanity in his last sentence. The recently bereaved often appeared to see it as a sign of strength when he adopted a show of naked belligerence towards the as yet unidentified perpetrators of the murder of their nearest and dearest.

  “What do you want to know, Inspector?”

  “We already know your husband's movements on the day of his death Mrs Gabriel. We know what he ate for breakfast before leaving home, and even what he ate the day before his death. As yet we aren't sure how the poison got into his system, but we're working on it. The real reason for my calling on you this evening is to try and see if we can find something that connects Sam to the other victims in this case. There has to be something that the killer sees as linking Sam, Virginia Remick, David Arnold the train driver, and Judge Tolliver together. You may not know what it is, but it's there somewhere, so I'm hoping that you'll give me a guided tour of your husband's past, as best as you know it, right back to his childhood if you can.”

  “I'll do my best Inspector. It's a shame that Sam's parents are both dead. They'd have been far better at relating his childhood days to you I'm sure.”

  “That's OK Mrs Gabriel. Please, just tell me as much as you know.”

  For the next half hour, Lynne Gabriel gave Connor his requested guided tour of her husband's childhood, adolescence, teenage years and early adulthood, right up to the time the two of them met. She backed up her story with photographs, both from his childhood, and of their life together. As she related the tale to him, Sean Connor could see nothing at that point that would join any of the dots in his case; that would link Sam Gabriel to the others.

  He knew it had been a long shot that he would strike lucky on his first call. It may be that something in Lynne Gabriel's statement would eventually tie in with something from the other victims' relative's statements. For now, he made painstaking notes of everything she related to him, knowing that any detail, no matter how insignificant it might appear at present might eventually prove decisive in bringing the case to a successful conclusion.

  As Lynne cleared away the scrapbooks and photograph albums, one particular snapshot caught his eye. It was a picture of Sam's parents, standing next to a black limousine, obviously taken in their younger days as the couple appeared to be no more than in their early twenties when the photo had been taken.

  “Do you know when or where this was taken?” he asked.

  “I'm sorry Inspector; I can't help you with that one. Sam would have been able to tell you where they were I'm sure, and he might have mentioned it to me in the past, but I can't be sure. I probably wasn't taking much notice. His parents died before we met so I never knew them and though they were obviously important to Sam, I might have been a little lackadaisical in listening to some of stories about them, you know how it is?”

  Connor nodded. He understood just what the lady was saying. Sam Gabriel had probably spent hours telling his wife all about his parents, and much of it had probably gone in one ear and straight out the other one. She wasn't being cruel, but never having met them they would have appeared unreal and to some extent unimportant to her as she began her life with her new husband. She'd probably nodded her head and said “Yes, that's nice” or something similar whilst missing much of what Sam had told her.

  Oh yes, Sean Connor knew just what she meant and he couldn't bring himself to push her any further on the subject that evening, so he made a polite but hasty retreat from the home of the grieving widow and made his way back to his own home, picking up a Chinese Take-Away meal on the way which he devoured as soon as he arrived at the now lonely house he'd once shared with his own wife in the days when he too had been part of a couple, before the bad times set in and he ended up on his own with just memories to haunt his evenings and nights much as Lynne Gabriel would now find herself being haunted by the memories, albeit mostly happy ones probably, of her newly deceased and much loved husband Sam.

  After finishing his meal, Connor cleared away and disposed of the cardboard and foil containers that had held his sweet and sour chicken and rice, and then proceeded to down two bottles of strong beer in quick succession. Whether it was the effect of the alcohol or the memory of his meeting with Lynne Gabriel, or a mixture of both, some kind of morbid desire crept into his mind and Sean Connor went to the bottom draw of his bedside table and returned downstairs to spend the next hour going through the photograph albums his ex-wife hadn't wanted to take with her when their marriage had ended. He knew that he'd end up being haunted himself through the night, as memories of the good times he'd shared with Marilyn reared up into sharp focus in his mind, intertwined with the pain that he'd felt at discovering her betrayal of their love and the eventual sadness and heartbreak of the final separation.

  Finally, the detective laid aside the albums and rose from the sofa, trudged into the kitchen and rescued another bottle of beer from its place of confinement in the fridge. He followed that with another, and another until his mind relaxed sufficiently to allow his body to sink into the welcome black oblivion of sleep.

  When he woke the next morning, still with his feet up and his head at an odd angle on the arm of the sofa, with a stiff neck and sore bones, the first thing Sean Connor did was to consign those photograph albums to the dustbin. Despite the amount of alcohol he'd consumed the night before he'd had a troubled, disturbed night with dreams he'd rather not have dreamed. He'd had enough personal haunting to last him a lifetime.

  He glanced at
the clock. He just had time for a quick shower and a change of clothes. He had a meeting with his counterpart from Birmingham to attend that morning. He skipped breakfast. The police canteen would satisfy his needs when he arrived at the station, and within thirty minutes of opening his eyes he was in his car and on his way to work. As he reflected on the death of his own marriage he concluded that yesterday was gone, tomorrow had yet to dawn, and for now he would concentrate on today.

  Medwin's Theory

  As he drove the eight miles from his home to the station, Connor wound down the driver's window, hoping that the cool draught would help to clear the fuzziness from his head. As coherent thought began to replace the effects of his minor hangover he reflected on why he hadn't heard from Lucy Clay since she left the station the day before in order to interview Professor Medwin. She'd left his presence quite late of course, having been delayed by their attendance at the death scene at Judge Tolliver's house. She hadn't returned to the station by the time Connor had left so he assumed her session with the professor had turned out to be a long one, though he thought it strange that she hadn't rung him later that evening as she normally would, to fill him in on the results of her inquiries. A sudden thought hit him as his mind became clearer, and as he sat at a red light waiting for the green to appear he took the opportunity to pull his mobile phone from his pocket and took a quick look at the screen.

  Damn! Two missed calls. He felt sure that they would be from Clay, and as the lights changed and he engaged first gear, he promised himself that he would check the phone as soon as he arrived at the station. The next question he posed himself in his mind was why his sergeant hadn't called him at home. Then again he hadn't checked his answering machine when he'd got home but he knew he'd have heard the phone ring anytime later in the evening, wouldn't he?

  Shortly after eight a.m. Connor rolled into the police station car park, wound up the window and stepped from his car feeling more like his usual self. Perhaps disposing of the photographs the night before had had a cathartic effect on him, but he certainly felt better in himself than he had for a long time. He checked his phone and confirmed that the missed calls had been from Lucy Clay. He'd soon put matters right when he got upstairs to the office.

  As he stepped out of the elevator on the third floor and walked along the corridor towards his office he was met by his assistant, who approached him from the opposite direction with a worried look on her face.

  “Are you alright Sir?” she asked, with a note of concern in her voice.

  “Of course I'm alright Lucy. Why shouldn't I be?”

  “I tried to call you last night, and there was no reply. I was a bit worried in case something was wrong.”

  “Yes, I'm sorry. I found your calls on my mobile this morning. I went to see Mrs Gabriel after I left here yesterday and then went for something to eat and a couple of drinks and got back late and…”

  “But I tried to phone you at home as well, about ten o'clock it was, and there was no answer.”

  “My God” thought Connor, “that beer must have been strong.” He'd been at home when Lucy had rung but hadn't heard the phone ring at all. He'd been in too deep a sleep.

  “I left you two messages,” she went on.

  Such was Connor's state of mind and body when he'd awoken that he hadn't even checked his answering machine that morning. An apology was in order and he wasn't too big or too proud to provide it.

  “Look, I'm sorry Lucy. I had a bit too much to drink to tell the truth, and I fell asleep on the sofa. I didn't surface until this morning and I must have slept through your calls. I had a hangover when I woke up and didn't check my answering machine, so I've no excuse. Like I said, I'm sorry.”

  Lucy Clay smiled. She'd suspected as much and was flattered that her boss had gone to the extent of apologising to her when it hadn't really been necessary. He was, after all, a grown man and fully entitled to drink himself into a stupor after working hours if he so wished.

  “No apologies necessary Sir,” she replied. “I just thought you'd want to know how the interview with Professor Medwin had gone, that's all. It was nothing that couldn't have waited until today anyway.”

  “You bet I want to know,” said Connor, engaging his professional head to the full. “Let's retire to my office and you can tell me all about it. We've got plenty of time before Carrick and his sergeant arrive from Birmingham.”

  Connor and Clay armed themselves with two coffees in styrene cups from the machine that stood in the corridor and walked into his office, closing the door behind them.

  As the noise of everyday police station hubbub retreated into oblivion behind the closed door they sat down on either side of Connor's desk and he nodded at his sergeant, who took that as a sign to begin her report.

  “Well, I think that the first thing I should say is that I'm pretty sure we can dispense with any notion that Professor Medwin is our killer. For one thing, the reason he works at home is that he's in a wheelchair. He suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and has barely left his house for the last year. He's a genius in his field alright, but I doubt he'd have been able to administer poison to people in different locations with the speed our killer must have done all in the space of a day.”

  “He could have had an accomplice,” said Connor, clutching at a final dwindling straw. He knew deep down of course that Medwin had never really been a serious suspect; there was nothing at all to link him to the victims.

  “Sir, believe me, it wasn't him. He's as upright and honest as the day is long, I'd swear to it, and he was very, very helpful yesterday.”

  “Go on then Sergeant, impress me,” said Connor with a smile on his face and in his voice.

  “Well, for one thing, aconite isn't that hard to get hold of. It was quite a surprise when Professor Medwin told me that thousands of people probably have the stuff growing in their gardens all over the world, not just here in Britain, and don't even know what they really possess. Anyway, it comes in many different varieties but the one thing they all have in common is that they can be used to produce a deadly poison. The poison itself is usually obtained from the root of the plant, though the flowers themselves can have a harmful effect if swallowed.

  As to the physical nature of the stuff, the aconite can be ground to a pulp and made into a liquid which could be drunk or even injected intravenously, or it can be dried and powdered, thus making it possible that it can be made into tablets or, and this was Professor Medwin's best guess bearing in mind the nature of our victims deaths, the powder could be placed into capsules, even tiny time release capsules, allowing the killer to be well away from the scene of the crime by the time the poison took hold.”

  “Ha!” said Connor. “Good for the professor. Why didn't I think of that? Of course, it makes sense. The killer, whoever he or she was, could have forced the victims to ingest a capsule containing the poison and then simply moved on to the next one on his list. But, and this is the big but, Lucy, if that were the case, why didn't the victims protest or refuse to swallow the capsules? Even if they had swallowed them, don't you think they'd have told someone?”

  “Yes, of course, that's what I said, but the professor had another idea on that as well.”

  “Oh, did he now?” Connor went on. “Do tell me what our learned professor thinks Lucy. I'm intrigued as to what his theory might be.”

  “Well Sir, it needn't have been a capsule in the real sense of the word, as you or I would think of anyway. The professor suggested that the poison could have been wrapped in a slowly digestible covering, even something a simple as sugar or rice paper, and then inserted into another foodstuff in such a way that the victim might never know they'd ingested the stuff at all. Equally, it could have been injected into a food product. The killer could have hidden the poison in a bar of chocolate for example, or a cream cake, or…”

  “OK, OK, I get the picture,” said Connor. I must say I rather like your Professor Medwin. He seems to have given us a working hypothesis if nothing
else, though it still doesn't get us any nearer to identifying the killer.”

  “I'm sorry to differ from your opinion Sir, but it does,” Clay exclaimed.

  “It does?” asked Connor.

  “Yes indeed. According to the professor, although raw aconite itself is easy to obtain, making it into the poison in the form required to murder all those people would require at least a modicum of professional and technical knowledge. Professor Medwin thinks that when and if we find the killer he'll turn out to have some medical or pharmaceutical knowledge.”

  “You mean we're looking for a mad doctor or chemist, is that it Sergeant?”

  “It's a possibility that's all Sir, but a good one based on what the professor told me.”

  “I agree with you Sergeant. I think your afternoon was far more productive than mine, that's for sure. While we're waiting for Carrick to arrive, why don't you get on that computer of yours and see if you can find any history of similar or related cases in the past involving members of the medical or pharmaceutical professions? Also, see if we have any records anywhere of any doctors who may have been struck off for misuse of poisons and who might therefore have a grudge against society. It might not be much but it's a place to start.”

  “I'm on it Sir,” said Clay, as she rose from her chair, grabbed the manila folder containing the notes of her interview with Medwin and made for the door.