The room was a hive of activity and Connor made a point of speaking to each of the officers present. He knew that by making them feel personally involved in the case and letting them know that they had his full confidence in their abilities, they'd work twice as hard in their efforts to find that elusive clue, or clues.
After half an hour amongst the team of detectives and uniformed officers and being satisfied that no stone was being left unturned in the attempt to find a connection between the judge and the poisoner Connor returned to his office, loosened his tie, and picked up the phone, hoping that Catherine wouldn't be up to her arms in blood and human entrails. He was lucky, and after a brief but intense conversation with the pathologist Connor found himself eagerly anticipating dinner at the town's foremost Italian restaurant that evening.
He considered that things were looking up, at least in one area of his life. Now, if only that luck would apply itself to the investigation…
A Note of Concern
The woman whom the police had come to refer to as `The Chocolate Woman' sank back in her armchair, raised the glass of chilled white chardonnay to her lips, took a long cool sip of the refreshing wine and allowed herself to relax. It had been an eventful few days, with of course the successful conclusion of the first part of the plan. She allowed herself a small moment of satisfaction as she tried to picture the frustration and consternation that must be exhibiting itself in the minds of those charged with tracking her down. She was totally confident that she'd covered her tracks sufficiently well that, even if they did have some idea of her involvement in the killings of Gabriel, Remick and Tolliver, they would equally have absolutely no idea who she was or how to connect the victims to her.
In a way she felt sorry for them. They must be tearing their hair out trying to discover her motive for the murders, and that of course, was the beauty of the entire thing. As far as the world and the police were concerned she couldn't possibly have any connection with and therefore any motive to harm any of the victims.
She uncrossed her legs and realised she'd been sitting in one position for too long. Her right leg was red where her left one had rested on it for the last twenty minutes. She'd been daydreaming and reliving the killings, the moments when she'd delivered the fatal doses to the poor unsuspecting idiots who had been her targets. They'd been so happy when she'd approached each of them, and so very accommodating in accepting her gifts. After all, as she'd explained to each of them, she was new at the job and needed to make an impression on her bosses or she'd find herself unemployed again, and she had her little boy to take of and…oh yes, so easy.
The jangling of the telephone on the hall table made her snap out of her thoughtful reminiscences and she rose from her chair and made her way to answer the infernal thing. She was angry for not bringing the phone into the room with her. The handset was cordless after all and she could have placed it next to the chair and wouldn't have had to rise and disturb her relaxation in order to answer it. The thought that she could have left it, just let it ring until the caller hung up never entered her mind for one simple reason. She knew who would be on the end of the phone when she answered it.
Sure enough the caller was exactly who she'd anticipated and The Chocolate Woman listened intently to her instructions as the voice at the other end of the telephone spoke quickly and concisely to her, allowing little time for her to respond apart from the odd, “Yes” or “Uh huh..” She did however make sure that she made a few notes on the pad beside the phone. She wouldn't want to get anything wrong or forget something important.
The value of her actions was amply demonstrated when, at the end of the rather one-sided conversation, the caller asked her to repeat the instructions she'd just received. Referring to her notes, The Chocolate Woman repeated her instructions back to the caller virtually word for word. Satisfied, the caller said a simple “Good, I'll be back in town the day after tomorrow”, and hung up.
Picking up the notepad from the hall stand she returned to her comfortable armchair. She soon relaxed back into its cushions and crossed her legs once more, this time right over left, not wanting the red mark to return, and read and reread her handwritten notes of the telephone call she'd just concluded. Taking another sip of the wine she realised that she'd neglected it for too long, the contents of the glass were warm, too warm to drink. If there was one thing she despised it was warm white wine. She placed her notes on the wine table beside her and quickly made her way to the kitchen. As she walked back to the sitting room she stopped to listen at the foot of the stairs. All was silent in the house apart from the gentle ticking of the grandfather clock that stood just inside the front door. Not a sound came from upstairs, which was just as well. She wouldn't want him to have heard anything, better he remained ignorant of the call, and her involvement in the killings. She'd let him sleep for another hour before waking him, if he hadn't already woken up by himself.
Returning to her notes she read them one more time. Her instructions were clear and concise. Prominent among the words she'd written on the page were a name, and two places. The first of those towns was the location of her next supply of chocolates, left post-restante at the central post office, and the second gave the location of her next `client', as she'd come to describe the victims to herself.
With a deep sigh of contentment The Chocolate Woman leaned back in her chair, took a larger than usual sip of her fresh cool glass of chardonnay, and began to make mental preparations for the next two days. There was much to do, and she was now operating on a strict timetable that must be adhered to if all was to go well.
As Charles Carrick returned to his wife and two children that evening in Birmingham and as Sean Connor and Catherine Nickels sat down to enjoy their meal at `La Ristorante Italiano' at roughly the same time, they were unaware that whilst they continued to search for the killer of the first four victims, The Chocolate Woman, acting on the instruction she'd just received, was preparing to strike again.
The second phase of the case was about to begin!
Alternative Therapies
Oblivious to the goings on in the home of The Chocolate Woman, Sean Connor and Catherine Nickels sat across from each other at a corner table in La Ristorante Italiano. The evening had been a great success as far as Connor was concerned, the meal superb, he loved Spaghetti Bolognaise, and Catherine had gone to a lot of trouble to look her best. She looked resplendent in a brand new, he supposed, little black dress, tailored at the waist and with a hem that ended just above the knee, it showed off her figure to perfection. Connor had been quite taken aback by her obvious attempt to impress him when they'd met at the door to the restaurant, and Catherine had been gracious enough to compliment him back on his casual open-necked shirt and smart blue trousers. They weren't new of course, but it had been a while since he'd worn them and putting them on for a date with a pretty woman had been a big thing for him.
Now, as they sat feeling replete after a dessert of fresh cream-filled profiteroles and sipping cappuccinos, and with the single candle in the centre of the table having almost burned down to its base their conversation turned to the things they'd both studiously avoided during the meal.
Despite being two professionals who'd known each other for some years and despite their respective ages, they'd been like a pair of fumbling teenagers on a first date as the evening had begun. Well, of the three at least the first date bit had been accurate. They had studiously avoided mentioning either the previous night that they'd shared together or the prospect of the remainder of this one. In short, after the passion of the night before, they were both a little unsure of exactly how fast and how far either of them wanted this new phase of their relationship to progress.
“Last night; you know, it was great for me,” said Connor, hesitantly.
“Me too, Sean,” Catherine replied, smiling at him in return.
“I wasn't sure if perhaps you might have had some regrets this morning, you know; when you got to work and thought it through a bit.�
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“Why on Earth would I have done that? We're both grown-ups Sean Connor, and we can do what the hell we like. At least, I know I can, can you say the same? You're not still hung up on your past are you?”
Connor felt stung by that last remark although he knew Catherine had meant no malice in the comment.
“I'm not hung up at all” he replied. “I just thought that you might not have meant last night to happen the way it did and I didn't want you to think I'd taken advantage of you in any way.”
“Honestly Sean, you are a fool. You didn't take advantage of me at all. If anything it might have been a little of the other way around. Listen to me. You might be the great detective, but you don't seem to know too much about women or about the way relationships work. There are two of us in this, and I for one am quite happy with how things stand. I enjoy your company, and I think you enjoy mine so don't go trying to analyze how I feel or whether I want to be with you or not. Believe me Detective Inspector, if I didn't want to be here I wouldn't be, and that's all there is to it.”
He reached across the table and Catherine reached back and allowed him to take a firm but gentle grip on her left hand. The candle on the table at last flickered and died, and in the faded light of the dimly lit restaurant, in a hushed voice, Sean Connor spoke softly and uttered the simple words:
“Right then, that's all cleared up. Now, your place or mine?”
As Connor and Catherine Nickels were leaving the restaurant in Richmond, Charles Carrick and his wife Lizzy were in the kitchen of their modest three-bedroomed home in Solihull on the outskirts of the city of Birmingham. Lizzy had had lots of questions for Charles that evening; she always took a great interest in his cases and would always offer to help with a personal opinion if she felt it might help her husband to solve whatever crime he might be working on. This time however, even she was baffled by the events that had taken place in both Richmond-on-Thames and at New Street Station. Carrick was always careful not to divulge anything confidential to his wife, herself an ex-police constable, but he hadn't had to hide much from her on this occasion as there was so little information available to impart. He had however given her the information about The Chocolate Woman and the hotel as told to him by Sean Connor on the phone earlier that afternoon. The receptionist, it seemed had been asked to work a double shift by the hotel manager and wouldn't be able to visit the police station until the next day in order to help the police artist put together an impression of the woman.
“I can't see the wood for the trees here, Charles,” she said to her husband.
“Eh?” he asked, a little distracted.
“Well,” she went on, “You seem to have a killer or killers who use a particularly nasty strain of poison to despatch the victims. What you don't have is a clear motive or anything at present to connect the victims together. You say that this judge might have something to do with it, but as yet you don't know how, right?”
“Right so far,” said Carrick.
“Then you have this woman in the hotel. She might or might not be the one you're after, have you thought of that?”
“Of course Lizzy.”
“I thought so. Well, it seems to me you have to dig as deep as you can into the victims' pasts, not just the judges.”
“Eh?” Carrick was intrigued by the way his wife's mind worked at times. She could be as direct and incisive as a ballistic missile homing in on its target when she got going.
“Look Charles, I'm not criticising you or this Inspector Connor in Richmond, but like I said, wood and trees.”
Carrick still looked perplexed. He couldn't see where his wife was going with her theory. Lizzy went on:
“Look, you and Mr Connor seem to be putting all your eggs in one basket by going after the judge's previous cases. Surely you must see, Charles my darling, that he wasn't the only one with a past. All of the victims had a history and it could be that something in their pasts connects them to the killer and to the judge or just to the judge or whatever. All I'm saying is that the judge himself needn't have been the reason, or the catalyst for the killings to begin with.”
“You're right as usual Lizzy,” her husband responded,” but you know as well as anyone that we have to start somewhere. I'm sure Connor has thought along the same lines, but the judge is as good a starting point as we've got for now.”
“I know Charles. Just remember though that he needn't necessarily be the key you need to unlock the case.”
Charles Carrick sighed and looked lovingly at his wife of fifteen years, and the mother of his children. She'd given up her own career in the police force to marry him when he'd been a uniformed sergeant, not long before his promotion to the detective ranks and she'd never lost the intuition of the investigator. She loved helping him theorise over his cases and it never failed to amaze him at how accurate her insights could be from time to time.
Now he looked her in the eye, smiling as he did so and tried to bring the current `case conference' to a close. He felt an overwhelming sense of love and longing for his beautiful wife, and he had other things on his mind than aconite and chocolate poisoning.
“Right then Miss Marple,” he replied. “I'm sure you have a point, and we will I'm sure be looking into all the victims' pasts as a matter of course, but you are right my darling girl, that one of them may be the real reason behind all this, rather than the judge as we all tend to think at present. I'll be sure to pass your comments on to my esteemed colleague Mr Connor in Richmond in the morning, but now, my dear girl, the kids are fast asleep and it's dark outside, and I'm fed up with police work for the night.”
Without saying another word, or allowing her to speak in return, Charles Carrick took his wife by the hand, led her from the kitchen into the hallway, turning off the lights as they went and then with a playful push on her behind he guided his wife up the stairs.
Miles away from Birmingham, the Chocolate Woman put the romance novel she'd been reading down on her bedside table, listened for a minute to make sure all was quiet in the house and then, satisfied that there was no movement from the next room she turned off the light, pulled the quilt up close to her chin, and allowed her head to sink into the comfort of her pillow. She was asleep in seconds.
Thoughts Over Breakfast
Angela Stride woke from her deep sleep to hear the unmistakeable sound of her brother coughing. His bedroom was next door to hers and she always kept his door open at night so that she'd be able hear him if he called out to her. The sunlight breaking through the crack in her curtains told her it was already daylight outside, and that at least Mikey had slept through the night. One of his problems was that, minus one leg, the prosthetic one being removed at night for comfort, and with his blindness to contend with, he often had difficulty turning over in bed, having fallen out on numerous occasions in the past and thus an in-built self-preservation instinct often left him lying in one position on his side for too long and his lungs became congested, leading to the coughing fits such as he was now in the throes of.
Angela rose, threw on her dressing gown and quickly made her way to her brother's room. It took her less than five minutes to ease his coughing, with a drink of water and a tonic mixture that Mary recommended for the purpose. She helped Mikey to dress and then assisted him into the seat of the stair lift that she and Mary had paid to be installed to make his passage up and down the stairs more comfortable and dignified.
At the bottom, she placed his walking sticks in his hands and he made his way with surefooted knowledge of his surroundings into the living room and to his usual position on the sofa.
“You just relax now Mikey. I'll be in the kitchen for a few minutes and then I'll have your breakfast ready before you know it.”
“Thanks Sis, you do work hard at looking after me and I do appreciate it you know.”
“Hey, that's what we do isn't it Mikey? We all look after each other.”
“Well, you and Mary do anyway,” he replied. “There's not a lot I can do
to help the two of you is there? Speaking of Mary, when is she due back? Is it today or tomorrow?”
“Now, Michael Stride, just you stop talking like that. You help us just by being here, and where would we be without your help with all those tricky crossword clues? You're the man Mikey when it comes to those things. Without your help, Mary and I would be left with blank spaces every time we do a puzzle. As for Mary, she'll be back from the medical conference tomorrow and then we'll all have a slap up meal to celebrate her success. It's not every day your sister gets to deliver a lecture to a load of other doctors you know. It's a real honour for her.”
“Of course it is,” said Michael, who was proud of his eldest sister but who was still a little angry with her for being so nasty with him the other day. As Angela disappeared into the kitchen and busied herself with the business of preparing breakfast for her and her brother Michael Stride sat harbouring his own secret thoughts of what he'd like to do if he got the chance. He still felt that he should say something to somebody. It might be worthless information he was imparting, then again it might not. The trouble was, his sisters were invariably right about everything and he would have to devise a way of doing the right thing without arousing their suspicions. It was at times like these that Michael Stride really despised his own infirmities. Being blind and restricted to the use of only one good leg made his options seem deeply limited, so, for the time being, he did the only thing he could do. He sat, thinking, biding his time, until a means presented itself.
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