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

by AB Morgan

  I gave myself a well overdue telling off for complacency, poor concentration, and for being distracted by nonsense stories about a conman, who turned out to be a journalist. Liam, or Nick, the poor bugger was probably doing a story about the unwashed people of Hollberry and Lensham who had to resort to drugs and alcohol because services were not there to support their psychological or psychiatric needs following their abuse as children. Ben Tierney had been one of the people Liam, or should that be Nick, had interviewed. It was starting to make sense at last.

  After a lovely cup of tea I extricated Max from Jake, from the repaired and sweetly running engine, and from the barn. Max and I headed home.

  Our house appeared to be in darkness, worsened by the fact that we had neglected to put the outside light on before we left. Deefer had been watching BBC One, but where was the flickering light from the TV? We entered the front door and turned the lights on in the hall, took off our shoes and padded through to the lounge. No noise came from the TV or from the dog who we initially thought had taken himself to bed. He usually made a special effort to meet and greet us whenever we’d been out, but he didn’t put in an appearance even after we put on the lounge lights.

  ‘Oh God …!’

  We both stood immobilised, surveying the mess.

  ‘I’ll call the police …’

  ‘Deefer. Where is Deefer?’

  The call to the police was delayed while we searched frantically for our beloved dog.

  14

  Panic set in once we had finished searching the whole house in vain, and we went outside to try the garage and garden shed as a last resort. I heard him squeaking and whimpering before we got there. Tears of joy rolled freely down my face, and loud sobs escaped as Max pulled open the shed door to reveal Deefer. Our dog was wagging his tail and grinning at us, as if we had successfully completed the latest game of hide and seek. Max sank to his knees and hugged the great musclebound ugliness that is our irreplaceable Deefer.

  ‘You poxy, useless guard dog,’ sniffled Max, trying desperately hard to maintain masculine pride. I had no such hang-ups, and blubbed uncontrollably in response to the overwhelming relief at finding Deefer fit and well.

  It is a known fact that Staffies are useless guard dogs. They look bold and beefy, as if they represent the canine equivalent of nightclub bouncers or evil debt collectors, but in reality, they are people pleasers and loyal friends. Clearly, Deefer had befriended the burglars and they had decided to spare him by locking him in the shed. He’s so soppy that he didn’t bother barking, even when he heard us arrive home.

  With our four-legged dog-child safe and sound, we called the police.

  I don’t know why we bothered. They were not interested and said they would not be in a position to send any officers to investigate. With no hint that significant harm had befallen a person, nor valuable items stolen, they suggested that we make a note of any missing items, and gave us a crime reference number for use in an insurance claim.

  ‘Is that it? You assume that druggies or other scum-of-the-earth types have broken into our home to take our belongings and possessions, to sell for drugs, and you are not sufficiently manned to investigate because this happens so often? Is that what you are telling me?’ Max was infuriated, and as a result of the additional blood circulating to his brain, he was articulate for once. He slammed the phone down. ‘What do we pay bastard Council Tax for?’

  Resigned to the fact that the police were not involving themselves in burglaries anymore, we took photos and set about tidying up. The TV had gone, as had the CD player, and a few pieces of inexpensive jewellery, which was hardly surprising given that I didn’t possess any expensive stuff. My gold was on my fingers and a chain around my neck. Everything else was silver or cheap costume jewellery.

  A moment of major alarm threatened, sending Max to the garage to check on the motorbikes. Deefer was in hot pursuit.

  ‘No, it’s okay; they’re here,’ came the shout from Max with added relief to its usual tone. He then went next door to make enquiries and rang round friends and neighbours in the village. He phoned the local pubs, which were a reliable source of information but all gave a negative response. No one else had been broken into that evening.

  ‘That does not make any bloody sense,’ he remarked as he walked back into the house, having checked the shed again, confirming that it contained its usual complement of tools.

  My investment, the antique cabinet, was still in the dining room, drawers and doors open but undamaged. However, the journals that had been laid out on the dining table had gone.

  Diving under the table, I scrabbled around on the floor for several minutes looking for them, with the belief that they had been scattered along with the placemats and empty vase that had been on the table when I was last in that room. They were nowhere to be seen.

  Max found me sitting in a heap on the carpet and he recognised the expression I was wearing. Even though there was no risk of violence and no immediate danger, there was enough evidence for me to raise the marker on the crapometer. I instinctively knew there was something to fear about what had happened in our home.

  ‘Is this one of your nutters?’ accused Max.

  I despaired of ever achieving a balanced and unprejudiced view from my husband about my job and the people I worked with. His clouded opinion was that everyone I had ever come across in my career was a raving psychopath or plain mad. Whilst this may have applied to most of the staff, I have found patients and their families to be, on the whole, a pleasure to help.

  Needless to say, as I sat on the floor of my dining room, house in disarray, I did have a high-speed internal review of my current caseload. I briefly toyed with the idea that Ben Tierney had found where I lived and trashed the place in a drunken rampage. That thought was dismissed as readily as it had come to mind. There were bottles of booze untouched for a start, and whoever broke in had not damaged the door or the dog. Frank Hughes was the most likely, but whoever it was wanted the journals, and I couldn’t see any connection between Mr Shark Eyes and the journals. He was such an angry individual that much more damage would have been done if it were him. Inevitably I became convinced that the mess in the house was made deliberately and the items stolen were done so for show.

  ‘Druggies, my arse …’

  I jumped up with a jolt, startling Max, and ran upstairs. Next to my bed had been one of the journals that I was reading to Max the night before. Miraculously it was still there, but had wedged itself between the bed and the bedside table where it must have fallen when I dozed off. Feeling overwhelmingly sad at the loss of the other journals, I slowly realised that I had built a strange relationship with Grace through her journals and she had been stolen, without me unearthing the big secret that she was withholding.

  ‘Mon, what is in the rest of those journals?’ Max asked very gently. I shrugged.

  With reluctant acceptance of the situation, we set about righting the furniture and putting each room back to its previous level of arrangement. We found a total of £4.28 in the two settees, which was a small bonus. As was the fact that the vacuum cleaner was reintroduced to parts of the carpet that it hadn’t seen for a while. Several fruitless minutes were spent searching for and finding the television remote control.

  ‘Aha! Look what I’ve found!’

  Max burst my bubble by reminding me that the TV had been stolen.

  ‘Yes, well, they can’t use it, can they, the bastards, because we have the remote.’

  I was defiant in mood by then.

  The result of our efforts in the lounge was the return to a tidy and welcoming cottage, but I could not shake a creeping sense that the whole of our home had been invaded and defiled. As I allowed myself a few tears several times while we completed the same process in each room, we catalogued what we noticed as missing.

  The kitchen was another challenge altogether. Drawers had been opened and tipped out on the floor, cupboards emptied. Not every single one of them but enough to m
ake a good show of rice and pasta over the worktops, everywhere. The worst mess was from the RSD. Every household has at least one. The RSD is the drawer where the small items of importance and general use live. It is home for the things we need to have close at hand or which ‘may be useful you never know’ such as the multi-head screwdriver, a radiator key, paperclips, electrical tape, spare phone charger cable and the rest of the odds and sods. We refer to ours as the RSD, or Random Shit Drawer. Random shit had been strewn deliberately across my kitchen. It was a soul-destroying task to find and rehome the items, but looking on the bright side, the RSD was more organised and less cluttered as a consequence.

  Upstairs was a similar picture, although a bemused Max was pleasantly shocked to find that his secret stash of cash was still in the sock where it usually lay, badly hidden. The drawers had been emptied, but it appeared that the burglars had failed to carry out a search. They had lifted cheap jewellery items and left silver. This discovery only served to add weight to our hypothesis that this was a staged burglary. But why?

  When we finally finished rearranging our home, a little after midnight, we consoled ourselves with a steaming shower and a nightcap. A hot chocolate with a dash of brandy, in my case. We were physically tired but unsurprisingly failed to sleep well.

  Neither Max nor I had need for assistance from Cocka the cockerel in the morning, as we were awoken before first light by the doorbell ringing insistently. Deefer declined to get up and merely lifted his head to look at me when I passed by his bed on the way downstairs.

  I was taken aback at who I found standing on our doorstep looking exhausted and dishevelled, and I said so.

  ‘Crikey, you look dreadful. You’d better come in.’

  ‘Thanks, you don’t look so hot yourself.’

  I pulled my dressing gown around me a little tighter and pushed wisps of stray hair behind my ears, realising in my dopey half-awake state that I was not at my best that morning. Max appeared beside me, and I went through the formalities of introducing him to DS Charles Adams as they shook hands.

  ‘Taking us seriously, now?’ enquired Max as we made our way through to the kitchen for some coffee. I could tell by Charles’s blank expression that he had not come to see us about our burglary. He was in fact surprised to hear news of a break-in, and amazed to see that we had tidied up.

  ‘We gave up on your lot. No one was remotely interested that we had been broken into.’ Max showed DS Adams the pictures on his phone as proof. DS Dynamic apologised but continued to appear perplexed, although not qualifying this with an explanation at the time.

  I had to ask Max to hold his thoughts about inefficiencies in the police force for a while, as I realised Charles had other priorities, which meant trouble for me no doubt.

  ‘I’m actually not supposed to be here, so I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t mention my visit to anyone. Not a single soul please. I’m on my way home from one hell of a night shift, and I’m going to have to trust you because … well, because.

  ‘There have been two incidents during the night. One of your patients, Ben Tierney was arrested and charged with public order offences in the early hours.’

  I was not shocked at this information.

  ‘In my opinion, formal charges should have waited until later this morning as your man was still as drunk as a lord. He should have been sobered up and had an appropriate adult with him before being questioned because of his mental health history.’

  Charles looked at Max. ‘That is confidential, you understand? Everything I have to tell you is confidential.’

  ‘Understood,’ replied Max, who was peculiarly quiet.

  ‘Sorry I can’t wrap that up in more helpful words, I’m too tired to think straight. While we had him in the cells, under arrest, he was also questioned in connection with an unexplained death.’

  ‘Oh God …’ My hand went straight to my mouth, and Max thoughtfully put his arm around me.

  ‘Father Joseph Kavanagh from St Francis’ Church was found dead by his lodger, a Father Raymond, who I think you know. It appears to have been food poisoning as there was vomit everywhere, but we’ll have to wait for the post mortem for confirmation on cause.’

  ‘Lots of carrots and tomato skins?’ Max queried. He has a strange fascination with such revolting details.

  ‘Carrots yes, tomato skins yes, and a fair few kidney beans in the mix as it happens. Chilli con carne.’

  ‘A classic food poisoning error. Someone forgot to use tinned kidney beans,’ Max announced with great authority.

  ‘You could well be right. There have been numerous food poisoning incidents since chilli con carne became fashionable in the 1970s, and a couple of deaths attributed directly to incorrect use of kidney beans, if I’m not mistaken. Obviously, you know that if you use dried kidney beans and don’t soak and boil them for long enough they can cause vomiting.’ We both nodded. ‘But did you also know that if a slow cooker is used, the poison becomes five times more toxic? Therefore, chilli con carne is potentially fatal. The chilli con carne doesn’t reach boiling point you see.’

  Between them Max and Charles Adams had solved the case.

  If only life were that simple.

  ‘Whatever the actual cause, the DI wanted Benito Tierney questioned because of numerous complaints and reports, that yesterday, he’d been making drunken allegations around town about sexual abuse. As usual he’d accused Father Joseph of sexual assault and had implicated him in an organised church paedophile ring. I blame Dan Brown and that book. They’re all at it, Illuminati this, Freemasons that. The usual conspiracy crap.’

  ‘Hmmm, so I heard.’

  ‘Father Raymond, his deputy, had also reported that earlier yesterday, Ben had been seen ranting like a madman outside the Rectory, so he had to be questioned, given such a strong motive to harm Father Joseph.’

  Max shrugged and opened his hands out indicating that he was not privy to details about Ben.

  After a short awkward pause, I had to ask again why DS Charles Adams had appeared on our doorstep in the early morning telling us confidential information.

  ‘I came to apologise. When you called me yesterday with information about Liam Brookes, I was with DI Lynch, the man who has ordered there to be no detailed investigation into the death of your patient, Mrs Janet Collins. Or rather no investigation of her connection with Liam Brookes. That’s why we didn’t need to use your fingerprints and why I had to politely thank you and report that we no longer require information.’

  ‘Right. I get that.’

  ‘But there should be …’ announced Charles taking a seat and gratefully accepting a strong coffee from Max. ‘French police have found your man Nick Shafer, aka Liam Brookes, dead in his flat in Perpignan, and foul play is very much indicated. Carbon monoxide poisoning with a flue deliberately blocked from the outside by person or persons unknown.’

  With this unwelcome news, I was visibly shaking and urged my sleepy brain to work out the complexities, but it refused to cooperate and was switched to standby mode. Therefore, for the time being, it only remained for me to become a listener, and not to contribute anything. Max didn’t have any idea what Emma and I had found the previous evening at the Lodge House, and Charles was only aware that we had identified a man called Nick Shafer also known as Liam Brookes.

  ‘How did you get the information about him being found dead?’ I eventually asked, when a small neuron in my brain sparked into life.

  ‘I speak French, and no one else at the station could take the information over the phone. The police in France had picked up on the media interest in finding our man Liam but when I gave details to the DI, I was told not to document it until he had confirmation by email. I’m still waiting.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yes, shit. Look, both of you … there has to be a connection between these deaths and I think you may be inadvertently involved, somehow.’ DS Charles Adams looked at both Max and me alternately. ‘I have to trust you because I may have to
assume there is a cover-up within the police force. I need proof but I also need to blow the whistle if the cover-up is organisational. If people are being killed then it’s really big.’

  ‘Can I have time to think this through?’ I asked quietly. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t breathe a word. We may be able to help because we believe our break-in was staged, but we have to be able to trust you too and I’m so tired I need some time …’

  ‘I didn’t know about your break-in.’

  DS Adams confirmed that he too required sleep to stand any chance of figuring out the best course of action. Charles was due some time off and would be available at the weekend, he told us. In an unexpected move towards being amicable, he asked us both to call him Charlie and left us his personal mobile details.

  That was a major breakthrough.

  ‘He’s not as stuffy as you said he was,’ commented Max when Charlie left to finally go home to bed. ‘Seems like a straightforward fella.’

  ‘Yes, but why was he really here, and why now?’

  15

  During the clean-up operation of our once secure sanctuary, I resolved to take a few hours off work the next day. The team would understand that I’d been a victim of a crime, I thought.

  When I called the office first thing to negotiate this, Kelly was pretending to be sympathetic to the news of our burglary but was actually dismissive. I could hear it in her voice when she asked a couple of superficial questions out of pretend politeness.