A Poison Tree

by J. E. Mayhew

  “Thanks,” he said as the paramedic opened the rear doors. For a moment Blake hovered on the back of the van, staring down. The ground seemed like a million miles away. Would his body survive the fall?

  “I can get you a ramp,” the paramedic said, without a trace of humour.

  Blake shook his head and half-fell, half jumped down, yelling in pain as he landed, though he couldn’t have pinpointed where the pain was; it was just everywhere. Giving the ambulance a feeble wave, he shuffled down the ramp towards the main entrance of the hospice.

  It wasn’t until the woman on duty at reception stared at him with wide eyes that Blake considered what a sight he must seem. He turned to look at his reflection in the glass door.

  His neck ached so he moved his whole upper body. A scarecrow of a man stared back in dazed bewilderment at him. His hair sprouted in all directions like an exploded straw bale. Ash blackened his face, darker where blood had streamed down his cheek from the wound just on his hairline. His eyes looked ridiculously white and his lips red like some bad-taste minstrel act. And the right arm of his suit had completely vanished. He stank of smoke, too.

  “I’m sorry,” he said and his voice sounded strange and strangulated. He rummaged in his pockets, eventually locating his warrant card. “I’m DCI Blake. I need to see Victor Hunt as a matter of urgency.”

  Then he realised that the woman looked terrified. “She’s in there… right now I… she’s got a g-gun…”

  “Have you called the police?”

  The woman nodded. “Y-yes.”

  “Good. Now, get out of here,” Blake muttered gripping the door to Hunt’s room and pushing it open.

  Natalie Murphy sat on the far side of Hunt’s bed, staring at Blake as if he’d burst out of a grave. Apart from the shotgun in her hand, she looked like she’d just arrived from a day at the shop, ready to do a spot of visiting. Hunt sat up in bed, a glass of scotch in one hand and four tablets in the other. “Good God, Blake. What happened to you?”

  “She did,” Blake said. “Put the gun down, Natalie. More officers are on their way. There’s nowhere to run.”

  “I’m not running,” Natalie Murphy said. “I’ve almost finished, here. Then you can take me away.” She looked at Hunt. “Go on, then.”

  Hunt looked down at the tablets and then back up at Blake. “She’s right, Blake. I’m better off dead…”

  “You all are,” Murphy hissed jabbing the gun at him. “It’s in your blood. You’re bad to the bone. You, Marcus, Rebecca Thompson,” she paused. “Drucilla.”

  “Yes,” Hunt said, nodding. “Bad blood, that’s what it is Blake. All my kids have turned out to be wicked…”

  “Stephen Bradshaw?” Blake said, leaning heavily on the door jamb. “He was only six. How could he be anything but innocent?”

  “Yes, he was one of mine. Given time, he would have shown his true colours,” Hunt said, taking a sip of whisky. “I see that now. We’re born killers. Drucilla…”

  “She killed my father,” Murphy said, the shotgun trembling in her grip.

  “Well, yes and no,” Hunt said, smiling at her as if she was a small child who hadn’t quite worked out the way of the world yet. “She did kill Carly Simmonds, though!”

  Natalie Murphy narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s true, believe me. I’m about to die. I’ve no need to make things up. Consider this my confession,” Hunt said. “Drucilla had hated Carly Simmonds since she first walked into our house all those years ago. She was young and beautiful, no replacement for Drucilla’s mother. The polar opposite, in fact. Jealousy was Drucilla’s main weakness. Anyone who took my attention away from her became a focus for her hatred. But I think she killed David Collins just to tie a neat bow under the whole thing and avoid a proper investigation.”

  “Bastard,” Natalie Murphy hissed, her eyes glittering with rage.

  “Jealousy. Is that why she killed Stephen Bradshaw? Another male Hunt to crowd up the nest? How did Marcus survive so long?” Blake said. He knew his voice was slurring. Simply standing up was becoming a challenge, too.

  “Boarding school,” Hunt said, a wry smile cracking his face. “And when he was at home, I watched him like a hawk. Do you want a chair or something?”

  Blake shook his head. “But why kill Fiona James?”

  Hunt’s smile slipped. “Pure jealousy, again,” he said. “Fiona had been the object of my affections. She saw that as a betrayal of her mother, I suppose.”

  “Cameron Lock? Josie?” Blake said, the room swam in and out of focus.

  Hunt thought for a moment. “Maybe she envied the kindness I showed them. The Locks lived on my largesse, barely paying any rent. I felt sorry for them, even though they were problematic tenants to say the least. Technically, she didn’t kill Cameron Lock...”

  Blake gripped the door frame. “She sent him to his death. He didn’t last ten minutes behind bars.”

  “I think by then, she’d just got a taste for killing, too, and thought she could get away with it forever.” He looked at Natalie. "Do you know that feeling?"

  “If you knew about all this, then why didn't you stop her?” Natalie Murphy snapped, ignoring the jibe.

  “He did,” Blake said. “Didn’t you, Victor?”

  Hunt raised his eyebrows and his face darkened. “Once I became aware, I did stop it, yes,” he said. “How did you know, Blake?”

  “The shoes kept in Drucilla’s den,” Blake said. “The booklets with notes and photographs. They were trophies but there wasn’t one for Drucilla, just Cameron Lock’s shoes. We realised there must have been more than one killer. Besides, you confessed to me. Didn’t you? You said you were the worst father possible. I didn’t realise what you meant then.”

  Hunt looked into his whisky glass. “Bravo. I’d known her nature since she was a small child; so many friendships ended suddenly, pets killed or injured and no remorse shown. Nannies who quit without notice. But it wasn’t until the Lock case when she really courted the attention of the media and the authorities that I became alarmed.”

  “Frightened of the adverse publicity, Victor?” Blake said. He’d slid down the door frame and realised he was sitting on the floor.

  “You don’t have to believe me but I was upset to hear about people close to me dying. One day, she went out to meet that idiot boy for some reason and I took the chance to go down into her cellar and have a rummage around. You can imagine how I felt when I found the boxes.”

  “When you realised how tainted your bloodline was, you mean?” Natalie Murphy spat. “How crazy you all were…”

  “That too, Naomi, that too,” Hunt said, almost dismissing her. Blake frowned, wondering why the old man had used Natalie’s old name. “Then she came home. She was in a furious rage. Apparently, Gerald had gone on holiday to Scarborough with his parents. He was meant to stay at home. After all the horrors he’d helped her with, he didn’t have the backbone to stand up to his parents.”

  “And that saved his life,” Blake said. “If he’d stayed at home, his parents would have returned from Scarborough to find him dead.”

  Hunt nodded. “She caught me looking at Carly’s shoes and flew at me, all teeth and nails.” He looked up at Blake. “And I strangled her. What would you do if you found out the daughter you cherished was a monster? I loved my daughter, Blake, but I put her down. Right there in the house.”

  A silence filled the room. Even Natalie’s breathing calmed as they all contemplated Hunt’s simple admission. Finally, Blake broke the silence. “But why did you take the shoes from her?”

  Hunt sighed. “Taking the shoes diverted any attention away from Cameron Lock and therefore Drucilla and, of course, from me. I had to keep all the evidence of Drucilla’s crimes. I couldn’t throw it away. It’s a burden I carry as a father. Whenever I questioned my actions on that terrible day, I could look at her cold, clinical notes and remind myself that my daughter was a cold-blooded killer."

  “And you p
aid off Gary Archer to confess to killing your daughter,” Blake said. “So it was all neatly gift wrapped for Leech.”

  “Indeed,” Hunt said. “You don’t rise up in the world as I have without making some shady acquaintances. I dumped her body on the marshes and made a few calls to people I knew could sort the problem. They arranged the cover up. I paid for it.”

  Outside, the sound of sirens broke the silence. Natalie shifted in her seat, realising that the balance of power and attention was slipping over to Hunt. “That’s enough, old man,” she said. “You’ve said your piece. Now take your punishment.”

  Blake tensed himself, wondering if he could possibly get up off the floor in time to knock the tablets from Hunt’s hand. Urgent voices and bodies filled the corridor outside. Victor Hunt lifted the handful of tablets to his mouth and took a sip from the glass. Then he paused and looked at Natalie. “Before I die. There’s one more thing you need to know,” he said. “And you’re not going to like it.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Natalie Murphy’s screams sent a jolt of adrenalin through Blake’s body. He didn’t even have time to register the shock of what Hunt had just said. All he saw was the gun barrel levelling on Hunt. Blake's body was on fire with pain but somehow he was weightless, soaring over Hunt’s bed and grabbing for Murphy’s wrist. The gun roared, blowing a hole in the ceiling. Blake landed heavily on the bed, sliding over it onto the floor on the other side and dragging Natalie with him.

  “Let me go!” She howled, beating down on Blake’s head and shoulders. “Let me go! He has to die!”

  Blake looked up into the staring dead eyes of Victor Hunt who lay on his side, one arm dangling out of the bed. “I think he’s gone.”

  More commotion filled the room as police officers piled in, dragging Blake and Natalie to their feet. Blake said nothing but kept a close eye on the shotgun that lay just under the bed. Vikki cuffed Natalie Murphy and issued a caution and uniformed officers led her off.

  “You got her, sir,” she said.

  Blake swayed a little and steadied himself on the end of the bed. “We all got her, Vikki. I think.” He looked at Victor Hunt. The old man’s eyes were vacant, but he was smiling. The tablets that Murphy had tried to force down him were still in his hand. “He knew he was dying. He timed this to perfection.” Can you do that? Blake wondered. Can you hold death off by sheer force of will? If anyone could, it would be Victor Hunt. The only thing the wicked old man probably regretted was the scotch spilled on the bed covers. Damn waste.

  “Timed what sir?” Chinn said.

  “I’ll explain later,” Blake said, reliving Hunt’s last few moments of life.

  Hunt had paused to take another sip of whisky and then smacked his lips. “You started your crusade against my family many years ago, didn’t you, Naomi?” he had said, staring into the golden liquid.

  “Don’t call me that,” Natalie Murphy snapped.

  He ignored her. “And I have to say, your logic is hard to argue with. It’s deep within us. Even Rebecca Thompson was turning out bad, wasn’t she?”

  Natalie nodded sullenly. “She had to die. She looked so like Drucilla it wasn’t funny. She gave me such a shock when I first saw her in the shop. I’d tracked her for some time. Watched her buy her drugs and torment those boys much like Drucilla tormented poor idiot Gerald. It was only a matter of time before she really hurt someone. So I followed her, saw my chance and choked the badness out of her. Just like you killed your own daughter.”

  “And in all those years that you kindled that hatred, Naomi, did you never once look in the mirror?” Hunt winced in pain.

  “What do you mean?” Natalie said, glancing at Hunt.

  “I mean, did you never look long and hard at yourself and wonder where all this spite and anger came from? All this… envy?”

  “No,” Natalie snapped, shaking her head. But it wasn’t a reply. “Shut up.”

  Hunt sighed and nodded. “Now you understand. Your mother and I were very close once. David used to bring her to my parties. They were ‘those’ kind of parties, Naomi, you know, car keys on the table. No strings attached. I turned a blind eye to Collins’ embezzlement of the company funds because he was supporting you. Of course, I couldn’t ignore it once Drucilla made it public but…”

  “Stop it.”

  “It’s true. Do you really think your mother loved David Collins so much that she would dream of revenge for his murder? Or do you think it’s more likely that her hatred for me and my family was borne out of something deeper and more visceral?” Hunt coughed and screwed his eyes tight shut for a moment. His breathing became ragged. He panted out the next sentence. “It was me she loved. She wanted to take her place in Priest House. She wanted to be Mrs Hunt.”

  “Shut up!” Natalie moaned, burying her head in her hands. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”

  “You see what I meant now, when I said that Drucilla did and didn’t kill your father? You’re my flesh and blood. And I must say, you’re a chip off the old block…” Hunt said, his voice had become a low whisper. He gave a gasp, his face contorted in pain. “If you are to rid the world of all the bad blood, then the next thing you must do is… kill yourself…” Hunt’s body relaxed as the life flowed out of him.

  That was when Natalie Murphy screamed.

  CHAPTER 45

  Blake spent three days in hospital. Unable to think of another person to do the job safely, he’d phoned Laura Vexley and asked if she could look in on Serafina. Laura had come by to pick up Blake’s house keys.

  She looked pale and worried when she first saw him. “What happened to you?”

  “Victor Hunt’s family tree fell on me,” he said. “Look, about the other night. I’m sorry…”

  Laura put a long finger on his lips and then kissed his forehead once. “Don’t say anything. We can talk later. Okay?”

  Blake nodded and handed her the keys. “Just don’t be going through my smalls draw…”

  “You know your own tricks best, Mr Policeman,” Laura said. “I might just do that, now.”

  Laura stayed and made small-talk for a while but more needed to be said. Just not here. When she left, Blake went in search of DI Cryer and found her in a private room just around the corner. She looked washed out but otherwise fine.

  “As fine as you can look in a gown that shows your arse to the world, sir,” she said, making them both laugh and wince.Blake looked up at the flowers. “I thought they weren’t allowed,” he said.

  Kath Cryer winked. “Not what you know…” she said. “They’re from Andrew Kinnear. Bloomin’ soppy get.”

  “You took a bullet for him, Kath,” Blake said. “I’m not surprised he’s grateful. We all are.”

  “I had my stab-proof vest on, sir,” Kath said, airily. “Wasn’t sure if Kinnear had his. I’d clocked the gun. Reckoned she didn’t know how to use it properly so took the chance.”

  “Still, there’s a lot of variables there…”

  "And one constant, boss. Kinnear's one of us."

  Blake could only smile and nod.

  “Anyway, it's just a couple of broken ribs and a slight concussion, sir. Kinnear thought I was dead but my neck wound bled like God knows what. They got the stray pellets out of there. All fixed up.”

  “I still say it was brave, Kath.”

  “We watch each other's backs though, don't we, sir?And Kinnear’s a good copper.”

  ◆◆◆

  Blake found himself back in hospital shortly after. He was meant to be taking sick leave, to recover from smoke inhalation, broken ribs, and the various cuts and contusions that covered his body. After a couple of days sitting around the house, however, the need to talk to Gerald Rees had become an itch Blake could no longer ignore. It needed a good, long scratch.

  Rees had looked better, Blake thought, but at least he was alive. Rees sat up in his hospital bed, bandages wrapped around his scalp and half of his face. His arms were similarly covered and, like Blake, he had some glorious pur
ple and blue blotches all over his skin.

  Blake placed the cardboard box he had been carrying on a nearby chair and sat down next to it at the side of Rees’ bed. “How are you, Mr Rees?” Blake said, still marvelling at how husky his voice sounded.

  “Not bad,” Rees said. “I’ve a plentiful supply of painkillers. I don’t know what I’ll look like when the bandages come off but the burns weren’t too bad and I was no oil painting before all of this. I’d like to thank you, Mr Blake, for saving my life. I owe you a debt of gratitude. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “You can start by telling the truth,” Blake said.

  Rees scowled for a moment, looking like a petulant little boy, even through the bandages. Then his face cleared. "Okay. Ask me anything.”

  “Drucilla killed so many people. You must have known.”

  “I swear. I didn’t suspect a thing. I watched people for her, did a lot of donkey work; following suspects and the like but I never harmed anyone…”

  “You must have suspected, though, you aren’t blind. You helped bundle a drugged David Collins into the back of his car!”

  Gerald Rees looked down at the bed covers. “Yes and then Drucilla drove him away. I didn’t suspect anything sinister. Oh, she’d turn up with ‘evidence’ that Leech had given her. I knew that a lot of our ‘detective work’ was a fraud, Blake, I’m not an idiot. But I never thought she was actually killing people. Not until…” Rees fell silent.

  “Until when?”

  “It was after we heard the news about Cameron Lock dying in prison. Drucilla was giddy with excitement at the news. She even hugged me. She said something about Lock being ‘one of hers’ but I wasn’t sure what that meant. If I’m being totally honest with you, Blake, I was still reeling from the hug and didn’t think much about what she said. Then she began to plan to break-into Josie Lock’s house. She said something about there being other kids who had gone missing and how we might find more evidence there. It all sounded a bit made up to me but I went along with it.”