Divine Poison: a crime mystery you won't be able to put down

by AB Morgan

  9

  On my arrival at work, I had a letter waiting in my correspondence tray from Lily, who had promised to furnish me with a photo of Liam Brookes. Jan had sent her one before they went to France, which had been taken of the group who attended the Pathways Project. There were cheerful and familiar faces in the photo, including those of the diminutive, anxiety-ridden Vanessa with her curly blonde hair, Karen sporting her best Dr Marten boots, and Pip standing protectively behind them, next to Jan. There were a few other faces I recognised but I couldn’t immediately bring their names to mind. Standing next to Father Raymond, two other clergymen and one female vicar, distinguishable by dog collars, was a tall, solidly built man in dark-rimmed glasses. He had a thick head of dark auburn hair, was clean-shaven, and stood tall and proud with his shoulders back as a confident man does. I think it was the details that made him stand out and not necessarily the arrow that Jan had drawn on the photo to help Lily identify the new man in her life. Although in casual clothing, he was neat, thoughtfully dressed, shiny-clean, and well kempt. Liam Brookes looked like a man who was in the wrong place. Most odd.

  I picked up the phone and gave Lily a quick call to thank her for taking the time and trouble to send the photo. She was pleased to have a chance to talk about Jan, I think. She was struggling with the loss of her life-long friend and the sadness could be heard in her voice.

  ‘You can keep the photo if you like, Monica. I have dozens of better ones and I don’t want to keep a reminder of that monstrous man, thank you very much. Have the police found him yet, do you know?’

  I had no news for her, as Liam seemed to have vanished, but as we spoke we both concluded he must have gone back to France, perhaps trying to take ownership of the flat bought with Jan’s money. Lily promised to let me know of the funeral arrangements once she had been in touch with Jan’s brother, which led me to confess my shame at not knowing he existed until Jan’s death.

  ‘That’s hardly surprising. He wasn’t even on Jan’s Christmas card list,’ Lily said, easing my discomfort. ‘They didn’t get on, especially not as young children. He was a dreadful bully and she couldn’t wait for him to leave home. So, after university she never returned, got a top civil service job, married Jeff, and lived happily ever after. Well, until the first signs of the menopause, then woof. She went bonkers.’

  ‘The menopause, are you sure? She must have been very young for the menopause.’

  ‘Poor Jan. She had really bad hormonal problems for years. I can’t remember what it’s called, fibroids, endometricals or something like that. She and Jeff couldn’t have children, but when things got worse in the downstairs department, she had to have a hysterical-ectomy and it was after that she had the first bonkers spectacular.’ I didn’t laugh even though I had always called it a hysterical-ectomy too. ‘I can’t imagine how sad they were not to have children,’ Lily added. I could.

  Jan’s first manic episode took its place in mental health history when she’d brought the M1 motorway to a standstill for several hours. The local and national press reported her naked dash along the carriageway, weaving between the lanes, ‘dicing with death‘. Reports had detailed how she ran down a grass bank and, ‘like superwoman, lifted a manhole cover before disappearing down into the main sewer’. There were stories of roadblocks, police, fire crews, farmers with tractors and ropes, all attempting to extricate Jan from the manhole while she ranted at the world, covered in human excrement.

  The whole extraordinary scene made the television news headlines. Luckily it was before the days of mobile phones with cameras otherwise her suicide could easily have come at a much earlier time in her life. Never did she forget the embarrassment, and even though her memory of that day was not perfect, it was the likely catalyst to the eventual end of her career.

  For many reasons, that was not the last of the reckless events which peppered Jan’s life, and she had her fair share of depression to deal with after each manic high.

  Jan had written a small piece for a leading mental health charity entitled: ‘Living with Bipolar Disorder is a Life of Ups and Downs’. In it, she described how being high or hypomanic provides a sense of euphoria, is exhilarating and can be magical. She wrote, ‘Those who experience such levels of activity are privileged to have an unexpected increase in abilities. One young lady I came across in hospital said she learnt a new language on each occasion she became hypomanic. She helped me to understand the power of hypomania. Colours appear brighter, sounds more acute, the brain fires on all cylinders at once with increased and improved vocabulary, and even mathematical skills become newly available to those who never previously possessed them.

  ‘But with this level of enlightenment comes a dark and dangerous power. Full-blown mania. It can be deadly. The brain races as thoughts become increasingly complex and confused. Sleep is impossible, and the number of tasks taken on can never hope to be completed. The need to eat and drink, to wash and dress can be overridden by this force, and such acute psychotic beliefs arise that the sufferer is lost to reality. The unfortunate consequence to this rollercoaster is the intense pleasure derived from the hypomanic state. It draws people back, and they will, like any good alcoholic, convince themselves they can avoid the manic phase. Some never learn and others do. The hard way.”

  Jan tried to manage her life without recourse to medication but the consequential repeating pattern of mania and depression forced her to accept it as a necessary evil. Unfortunately, by that time, she had lost the dedication and love of her husband, who had been drained of empathy and exhausted by her mania. She had spent too many weeks of her fifth decade under a Section of the Mental Health Act and he never reconciled himself with the fact that the medication treatment had all but extinguished Jan’s lively spark. It had been snuffed out. Her eccentric creativity had been suppressed by antipsychotic injections.

  When I first met her, Sparkey had become her only daily companion. Her life was a series of groups, coffee mornings with friends and trips on coaches to National Trust sites, to break up the monotony. When she met Liam, things changed, and he seemed to reignite her curiosity about life and a wish to travel abroad again. How sad to have ended in loss of trust, in tears, and in tragedy.

  My brief telephone conversation with Lily somehow nudged my memory and prompted me into pulling together information leaflets for the Pathways Project team. At the LCMHT offices we always kept a stock of the leaflets produced by MIND and Rethink and a few other resources about medication which I had agreed with Eddie to provide free of charge to the project. I was passing by St David’s Church Hall on my rounds, and it was no great hardship to pop in and drop these off. I did just that.

  On my way there, I deliberately drove past Jan Collins’s house. Her car was still outside and a silver saloon was parked beside it on the driveway. A man in a dark suit was examining the boarded-up front door and seemed to be trying the door handle. I stopped my car across the driveway entrance and shouted to him as I approached, unwisely leaving the relative safety of my vehicle. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I doubt it. Unless you know who I speak to about gaining access to this property.’ The man turned to speak to me and he was not in a good frame of mind, judging from his fearsome expression. Then I saw the shark eyes.

  ‘That depends on who you are, I suppose.’

  ‘What business is it of yours?’

  ‘I’m a friend of the owner, in a professional capacity.’ I thought that the man with the shark eyes had failed to recognise me, but I was wrong.

  ‘I know full well who you are.’ He made his way towards my car to confront me, a key in his hand attached to a simple fob. His voice and abrupt manner gave me an excellent clue as to who I was speaking to.

  ‘Are you Mr Frank Hughes, by any chance?’ That stopped him in his tracks. ‘We’ve spoken on the phone,’ I said offering my hand to shake. He ignored it and began a furious and whispered tirade of accusations. ‘Why would you be watching me? Why are you always snooping abou
t here, there and everywhere? Can’t you mind your own bloody business? She’s dead and you have no right to be here.’

  ‘Now hang on there, Mr Hughes, I’m parked on a public road. I had no idea who you were and you looked like you were trying to break in.’

  A murderous look from shark eyes, an aggressive stance, and Frank Hughes suddenly became a threat. ‘How dare you make such a fucking outrageous accusation, you conniving bitch! I have a key to the front door.’

  I had moved backwards in reaction to his outburst and yet he strode towards me to poke me in the chest with the key, reversing me into my own car door. His anger had taken me by surprise.

  ‘Mr Hughes, I’m not shouting at you and I’m not swearing at you. I am asking you to back off, so that I can get into my car and leave.’ Fortunately, this tried and tested strategy worked in the street every bit as well as it did on the acute psychiatric wards. I safely made a hasty retreat.

  Phoning the office from the car park at St David’s Church Hall, I alerted Kelly to my confrontation with Frank Hughes. ‘What an appalling man. You should report him to the police. Zero tolerance for abuse of NHS staff, Monica,’ she reminded me.

  ‘I am a bit shaken, I have to admit. What a complete arsehole. He’s already threatened to make a formal complaint against me and I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  As I let myself in through the front doors of the hall I asked an elderly lady, who seemed to be acting as an unofficial receptionist, where I should deposit the leaflets. People were leaving at the end of the morning sessions and heading off for lunch. Meanwhile, I was politely directed to place the leaflets on a large oak table in the entrance hall to the main building where I set the box down, grateful to unburden my aching arms. I headed for the toilets, taking much needed advantage of the clean facilities. The adrenalin surge created by my run-in with Frank Hughes had caused havoc with my bladder.

  As I sat there, privately cocooned in a cubicle, a couple of familiar voices could be heard as they talked about Jan Collins. The conversation echoed as the sound bounced from the porcelain sinks and bare walls.

  ‘I wonder where Father Raymond got the impression Jan had paid for the holiday to France? She didn’t. It wasn’t a hotel holiday, was it …? They went to Liam’s flat there.’

  ‘Yeah. Weird. He keeps telling everyone the same story. She gave a load of her money to that shit of a brother of hers anyway, to bail him out of another failed business opportunity; so she couldn’t have paid.’

  ‘No, she couldn’t. Did you speak to Liam?’

  ‘I’ve tried loads of times but his phone’s dead. He’s vanished.’

  Remaining silently perched on the loo, with my legs becoming numb, I struggled to piece together the puzzle about Jan and Liam. However, the information about Jan’s brother was very interesting and I wondered how much money Jan did have stashed away and how much he was still after.

  I waited until the voices outside the toilet door had gone before I left the cubicle, washed my hands and stepped into the entrance hall in time to see Karen and Vanessa walking across the car park together, deep in conversation.

  Amongst the remaining small crowd exiting the main hall were Sean and Manuela Tierney, Ben’s parents. They were talking animatedly with a lady vicar who had been showing them around and they didn’t notice me as they passed by. They had failed to shut the front door behind them, so I walked over to do the dutiful thing, but as I was about to pull the door towards me, I saw Father Raymond. He was approaching from the opposite direction and crossed paths with Sean, Manuela, and the vicar. I heard them both being introduced to Father Raymond, and he took their hands in his as they appeared to explain their son’s plight, and how Father Joseph had recommended the Pathways Project. I couldn’t hear everything being said, but Father Raymond welcomed their interest in the project and then continued towards me, thankfully looking at his feet, deep in thought with hand on chin.

  This gave me enough time to backtrack to the table and resume arranging the leaflets. I could have chosen to stay at the door and have a conversation with Father Raymond about what I had just witnessed, but there had been tell-tale signs in his body language that made me instinctively pretend I had not been a witness to the meeting.

  ‘Oh, hello, Monica, I see my plan to convert you is beginning to work,’ he joked as he approached the table to scan the leaflets I had donated. He nodded appreciatively and asked me briefly about my recent purchase at the auction.

  ‘The lovely cabinet is in pride of place in my dining room, and I have to say that I’m getting enormous pleasure from what I’ve read so far in the journals. They’re pretty badly damaged but what I have managed to read seems to be intriguing.’ I was deliberately vague, not having the time to spend chatting. Father Raymond appeared to have his own agenda and rapidly changed the subject by asking for my advice.

  ‘Some of the group, who are friends of Jan Collins, want to do something meaningful in her memory. I’m not sure exactly what they’re intending but I suspect it’s not about planting a tree. They want to make a statement or have a project dedicated to her. Can you chat to them and give your guidance? They would appreciate it.’

  ‘I suspect, Father, this is a trick on your part to get me to come back …’ I quipped, smiling at him. ‘Yes of course, no problem. I’ll be back to join everyone for a vol-au-vent after the funeral so I’ll do what you ask as a special favour to Jan, to them and to you, but not necessarily to God. The jury is still out on that one’.

  I made my excuses and left, hoping to catch up with Ben’s parents before they disappeared, but I was out of luck. There was no sign of them, which was probably for the best, as Sean could talk for England, as well as for Ireland. I had to make another phone call to DS Charles Adams. Earlier I had left him a message to contact me; I was keen to update him on the information given to me by Jan’s friends regarding Frank and Liam. At first, I didn’t think I would bother, as I was certain the police enquiries must have revealed everything that I had found out. Nevertheless, I had promised.

  DS Adams was in and out of the station all day long and we played telephone ping pong that morning, missing each other by minutes and leaving messages. Mobile phone to my ear, I sat in my car, on hold for a few minutes while he was located and because Charles Adams was such a cold fish of a man, I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. To be honest, I struggled with people who didn’t possess a sense of humour, evidenced by the fact I had taken to referring to him as ‘DS Dynamic’, knowing it would have insulted him were he ever to find out, and because my nicknames for people amused Kelly at the office.

  ‘Hello, Monica, sorry, we keep missing each other,’ came the monotone voice of DS Adams, as dull as ever. ‘I take it you have news on Mr Liam Brookes?’

  ‘I do, I also want to ask about Jan’s brother, Frank Hughes, but I’m not sure how useful any of this will be to you.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘So far, I’ve found out that Liam Brookes was a regular at the new Pathways Project running at St David’s Church Hall, and he befriended a number of the people there. It seems that’s where he met Jan. Her friends tell me he put a lot of effort into being accepted and in befriending everyone and they quite liked the man. He volunteered at a couple of the homeless shelters too. But he didn’t talk about himself a lot and very little about his private life is known.’

  ‘Always the way, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I do, however, have a recent photo of him, courtesy of Jan’s best friend.’

  ‘Now that will be useful … can you scan it and email it through to us at the station? The email address should be on the card I gave you.’

  ‘If I had a scanner, I could.’

  With the usual lack of NHS technology available, a plan was made for me to take the photo to the station and for DS Adams to personally make a scanned copy. Lucky me. More time to spend with DS Dynamic, the grey-suited man, and he wasn’t even physically attractive. So far, the bloke
had no redeeming features other than taking his job seriously.

  DS Adams was as good as his word and he efficiently scanned the photo, handing me back the original and making a few comments about Liam, much along the lines of my own thoughts.

  ‘I really shouldn’t say this, but he looks out of place. Too clean.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ I confirmed with a nod at the photo. ‘Jan’s friends think he may have skedaddled back to France, is that a possibility?’

  ‘Yes, I would say so. He’s free to do just that. He hasn’t been charged with any crime and we have no evidence to indicate one has been committed. That’s about all I can tell you at this point. Sorry.’

  Was he was playing his cards close to his chest? Or were the police not bothering to follow up on Liam Brookes? Either way, I felt justified in having contacted the police with what little information I had gathered. DS Adams asked me for the names of Jan’s friends at the Pathways group as he thought they might have useful information worth pursuing. However it looked as if Jan’s death was suicide and the only possible crime was in relation to financial abuse. Jan was a vulnerable lonely woman. Nothing more than a sad story.

  ‘Well, I think Jan’s friends at the project may have a different perspective on Liam Brookes from the one we have accepted as being the truth,’ I ventured, confessing to my eavesdropping moment in the ladies’ toilets at St David’s.

  DS Adams appeared more interested in Jan’s brother.

  ‘The rude gentleman who was so insistent ...I remember him well enough.’ A thoughtful look crossed Charles’s face.

  ‘He was at Jan’s house today trying unsuccessfully to open the front door with a key. I assume the lock had been changed. Well, I stopped because he looked like he was someone trying to break in, and challenged him. He’s a nasty piece of work. You’ll probably get a call from him, yelling again.’