by Robin Storey
‘Why?’
‘Because I think he’s a suspect in his mother’s death.’
‘But the autopsy results said it was a heart attack.’
‘So what? Autopsy results have been known to be wrong.’
‘Since when did you become a medical expert? You didn’t even pass your first aid certificate!’ Mia let out a deep sigh. ‘Angie, I think you’ve lost it. You’re living in one of your crime novels, and a bad one at that. You have no proof it was anything other than a natural death, and even in the unlikely event it wasn’t, who’s to say Neil had anything to do with it? Having a rich mother is not a sufficient motive to bump her off.’
I gave a reciprocating sigh. ‘Look, if I were living in a crime novel, I would have uncovered a complicated trail that led back to someone from Beryl’s secret past as a CIA agent murdering her. In real life the chief suspect is usually a family member, which is why I’m interested in Neil. It’s boring and trite, but true.’
I nodded at my laptop. ‘I’ve been researching poisons on the internet. Apparently there are some whose symptoms mimic a heart attack and if there’s no suspicion of foul play then the coroner has no reason to test for them.’
‘I give up,’ Mia said. ‘I’m going back to my assignment. At least I can use you as a case study for delusional personality.’
‘Thanks for your support, faithful sidekick.’
‘You want a faithful sidekick, get a dog.’
To take my mind off coming to another dead end, I dashed off a catch-up email to my mother, leaving out all the bits of my life she wouldn’t approve of. It was a short email.
As I pressed the ‘send’ button I remembered what Ian had said about Beryl’s love of letter writing by email. Somewhere in one of her emails was a clue to her death. My hunch was so strong it sent a shiver up my spine. How was I going to get a look at them? Simple. Break into her house and her computer.
*
My mind raced as I lay in bed trying to sleep and by morning I’d come up with a plan. I’d break into Beryl’s house on Monday while Neil was at the funeral. Ian and his wife were attending as well, so there was no risk of their spotting my activities. I’d find her computer, trawl through her emails, save any that were incriminating to my flash drive and be gone before Neil returned.
Of course there were holes in my plan big enough to drive a bulldozer through. How was I going to break into a house in broad daylight without being spotted by the other neighbours? What if it had security alarms? And what if Beryl’s computer was password protected or Neil had packed it away and I couldn’t find it?
None of the answers to those questions had magically presented themselves to me by Monday morning. The funeral service was at ten o’clock at White Dove Funerals, a twenty minute drive away. I planned to go over to Beryl’s house as soon as Neil and Ian had left.
‘Are you okay?’ Mia said. ‘You seem a bit jumpy.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘What’s on the agenda for today? A bit of surveillance? Some interrogation? A break-in or two?’
I hoped my guilt didn’t show on my face. ‘Nothing so exciting.’ I tapped my head. ‘Just exercising the little grey cells.’
I watched her as she walked down the road to catch the bus to Uni. It would have been handy to have her as a look-out, but I knew what her response would be. Only sleuths in books had side-kicks. In real life you were on your own.
I set up watch at the front window. At ten past nine Neil backed out of his garage and sped off. Fifteen minutes later Ian drove past, Merle at his side. I left my apartment and crossed the road. Under the guise of watching for traffic I looked quickly around me. The street was deserted. My heart hammered as I approached Beryl’s house. In my jeans pocket was my housebreaking kit – a screwdriver, a credit card and a couple of bobby pins. How I was going to use them I had no idea.
I paused and drew in a deep breath. Sooner or later every private eye had to do a break-in, it was like an initiation ceremony. Being furtive would only draw attention to me. I wrenched open the front gate as if I owned the place and strode down the cobbled path to the back of the house. There was no sign of a security alarm. The back door was locked, so I walked around the house looking for an open window. All the windows had security screens, except a smallish one at the back of the house, which had a standard flyscreen.
I lifted the screen out of its tracks. The window wasn’t quite closed and I slid it open. I calculated I’d just be able to squeeze through it.
I fetched a chair from the back patio, rested it against the wall and stood on it. Holding my breath, I manoeuvred myself sideways through the window. In front of me was a small ensuite. I placed my left foot on the toilet seat but as I hauled the rest of me in, my foot slipped and I landed in an untidy heap draped over the toilet, my foot immersed in toilet water. Letting out a string of expletives worthy of even the most hard-boiled of sleuths, I hauled myself up and emptied the water out of my shoe.
As I squelched through the main bedroom, I averted my eyes, not wanting to look at the scene of Beryl’s death. But I couldn’t help shivering. I walked down the hallway, checking each room for a computer. The interior was modern and minimalist, with expansive white walls, lots of glass and elegantly planed furniture.
I found the study at the front of the house, with a computer on a small desk that looked out on to the street. The curtains were drawn back, flooding the room in morning sun. I drew them across, sat at the desk and turned on the computer. I held my breath as it booted up. The desktop appeared on the screen. Thank God, no password.
I clicked on the email icon and Beryl’s inbox appeared. I scrawled through the emails. There were dozens of them – she’d received more emails in the week before her death than I’d received in the last six months. Most of them seemed to be from friends. I stopped at an email dated the twenty-fifth of October, ten days ago, from Neill Markwell. Neill with two lls. No wonder I couldn’t find him on the internet.
‘Hi Mum
Sorry I haven’t written earlier, I’m under lots of pressure at work. Not only have we been knocked back for funding for our research into anti-venom vaccines, but due to government cutbacks our whole lab will be closed down. Some of us are thinking of starting up our own privately funded facility.
‘One of my friends from Uni, Max Browning – I don’t think you met him – lives near you and wants to come and talk to you about nursing homes. His mother will be ready to go into one soon and he wants to know which one would be the best. I hope you don’t mind, I’ve given him your number and he should ring soon.’
I checked Beryl’s sent emails for her reply, which came the next day. ‘Your friend Max just rang me and he’s coming over next Tuesday at three o’clock. I’m looking forward to meeting him. Don’t work too hard, darling.’
I scrolled up to her latest email, sent to Jan O’Hara the previous Tuesday, the day Max had visited.
‘Dear Jan
I’m so sorry for not replying sooner, but I’ve been very busy – no excuse, I know! I will make this short as I’m not feeling well. I had a friend of Neill’s over this afternoon to get some advice about a nursing home for his mother. He seemed a nice enough chap, if not terribly bright, not at all like Neill’s other friends. And a bit strange too – I’d baked a banana loaf for afternoon tea, but he brought some biscuits his mother had made and was quite insistent I have one, so I did. And now I have a massive case of indigestion! Seriously though, it might be the pork chops I had for dinner, although they tasted all right. Anyway I’m going to have an early night. I’ll write a longer email soon, I promise. Love to Alan.’
A chill crept over me as I re-read the email. It was all falling into place. The silence in the house was suddenly eerie. I saved Beryl’s email and the email from Neill onto my flash drive and had just turned the computer off when a loud noise made me jump. It was the roar of a car engine. The brakes screeched as it pulled up outside the house. Car doors slam
med.
My shivers instantly turned to perspiration. I raced to the ensuite, clambered onto the toilet and squeezed out of the window. In my haste I missed the chair and landed on the ground, one leg twisted and pinned under me. By the time the figure in blue appeared around the corner I didn’t care. I was almost passing out with pain.
*
‘I wish you’d told me what you were doing,’ Mia said.
She sat beside my hospital bed, hoeing into the chocolates she’d brought me.
‘You would have tried to talk me out of it.’
‘Of course I would! Jesus, look at you! You’ve broken your leg in two places, you’ll be out of work for even longer and you’ve been charged with break and enter!’
‘But you’re forgetting I solved the case when the cops didn’t even know there was a case to solve!’
‘Anyway, under the circumstances, they might downgrade my charge to trespass,’ I added, with more conviction than I felt. I’d been hard pressed to come up with a reasonable explanation for the presence of a screwdriver, credit card and hairpins in my pocket.
I lay back on my pillow and replayed in my mind for the umpteenth time the events of the past few days. The neighbour on the other side of Beryl’s house had called the police because she’d heard suspicious noises. After the police arrived, they called the ambulance, but before it arrived I gave them my flash drive, told them to read the emails and between waves of pain, recounted my theory. That Neill and Max had plotted to kill Beryl for her money. They’d set up a visit from Max on the nursing home pretext and Max had poisoned Beryl with one of his biscuits, using a poison that imitated the symptoms of a heart attack. It was unfortunate for him that Beryl didn’t die straight away – perhaps her fitness was a factor – and had time to write the email to her friend. Without that email there would have been little to go on.
Another autopsy found that deadly nightshade had been crushed up and baked in the biscuit Max had given Beryl. The police had tracked down Max, a petty criminal already known to them, and he’d confessed all. He wasn’t Neill’s friend – Neill had hired him, arranged for him to obtain the poison and given him the recipe for deadly nightshade biscuits. It transpired that Neill had needed the money to start up his own research lab and wasn’t prepared to wait until his fit and healthy mother died of natural causes. He was arrested at the solicitor’s office discussing her will.
I felt sorry for Beryl. She would never have dreamed that the son she doted on would orchestrate her death. But it didn’t diminish my satisfaction at discovering it. Perhaps I could do this private detective stuff after all.
‘You may have noticed,’ I said to Mia, ‘that not once have I said, “I told you so.”’
‘Okay, you were right about Beryl’s death,’ Mia said, chomping into my last chocolate. ‘But that was a fluke, Angie. A chance in a million. It couldn’t happen again.’
I gave an enigmatic smile. ‘We’ll see.’
THE END
A PEACEFUL DEATH
George watched as the coffin containing Harold Tanner’s body was lowered into the earth. He wondered not for the first time why his father had chosen to be buried and not cremated. Did he want to leave something of himself behind that his family could grieve for? There were only a couple of cousins and George left now. Maybe he just didn’t fancy the idea of being reduced to a box of ashes on a mantelpiece.
George had thought about death a lot lately. It was hard to avoid it – in the last twelve months three other people he’d been close to had died. A nephew in his thirties of a brain tumour, and two friends, both in their fifties – one in a car accident, the other of a heart attack. And now his father. Old and frail, his death from a stroke was not the shock the others had been.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘You okay?’ said Tom, his boss and head of Sales and Marketing. George nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
After the ceremony, as they were heading to their cars, George said, ’Do you ever think about your own death?’
‘Hey, you’re not going all morbid, are you?’ Tom said. ‘I know you’ve had a tough year with all these deaths, but you’re the picture of health. You’ll outlive us all!’
‘But really, do you?’
Tom opened his car door and turned to face George. ‘Sometimes, when I’ve been hitting the bourbon. But then I distract myself, put on a porno movie or something. Life’s too short to spend it worrying about when it’s going to end.’
He gave George a hearty slap on the back. ‘See you at the homestead.’
*
After the wake George sank into his father’s worn armchair. There hadn’t been many guests – just the cousins, a few mates from the bowls club, Tom, and George’s golfing mates Martin and Neil. The old farmhouse settled into a big, empty silence. It had never felt like home – he’d only lived there for the last six months to take care of his father. When probate was through, he’d sell the property and move back to town.
George’s thoughts turned again to his own demise. His emotions alternated between curiosity as to how it would happen and fear of its inevitability. His father had slipped into unconsciousness before passing peacefully away. At least, he’d looked peaceful enough. That was the ideal way to die, to go to sleep and not wake up. On the other hand, it was a terrifying thought – you’d never know when you went to bed each night if tomorrow you wouldn’t wake up. It was enough to make you never want to sleep again.
In bed George tossed and turned, finally drifting off in the early hours of the morning. Two hours later he sat bolt upright, clammy with sweat. He’d had a horrible dream that he’d died. Was he dead? He wiggled his toes. He felt alive, but maybe he’d already crossed over and was in heaven.
Hand shaking, he turned on the bedside lamp. The light pooled on the threadbare carpet and faded wallpaper. He wasn’t in heaven. Thank-you God!
‘Bad dream?’
George looked wildly around. In the half light a shape loomed in the doorway. It came towards him. It was a man, short and rotund, wearing a long white cloak. His face was round and rosy-cheeked – the effect was of a middle-aged cherub. He sat on the end of George’s bed and arranged his cloak around his legs.
‘Sorry if I frightened you. Though I think you were already frightened.’
‘Who...who are you?’
‘Angel of Death. Pleased to meet you.’
He held out his hand, then withdrew it when it was obvious George wasn’t going to shake his hand. He sighed.
‘I should be used to this. You think I’m some madman who’s broken into your house on his way home from a fancy dress party, right?’
George found his voice. ‘It’s a more likely explanation than you being the Angel of Death.’
‘What if I told you I took your father last week, your nephew Ben in January, your friend Alan in March and Larry in June?’
This man was a nutcase. A nutcase who’d done his research. Best to humour him – he could be hiding any manner of weapon under that cloak.
‘All right, if you’re an angel, where are your wings?’
The man sighed again. ‘It’s always the wings.’
He pressed his fingers on both shoulders. Two large white wings sprouted and slowly unfolded. George stared, open-mouthed. The Angel stood up and twirled around as if modelling the latest in wing design. Then he sat down, pressed his shoulders again and the wings retracted.
‘Retractable wings. Best invention ever. They get rather heavy after a while. Does that satisfy you? I can do the harp bit too, if you like. Wagner’s funeral march is my favourite.’
‘No, I believe you,’ George stammered.
Sort of. Perhaps this was just another nightmare. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The Angel was still sitting at the end of his bed. A terrifying thought struck George.
‘Does this mean... have you come to...?’
The Angel shook his head. ‘You can rest assured I’m not here
to take you away. I’ve come to ask you a favour.’
‘What sort of favour?’
‘I need someone to launch a public relations campaign for me. I’m tired of people avoiding me and being afraid of me – do you know how debilitating that is to your self esteem? Especially when it’s been going on for thousands of years. I’m no different to anyone else – I want to be loved, I want people to look forward to seeing me. Oh, I know there’s the odd person who welcomes me, but it’s usually because they’re suffering or in pain. A rather negative reason to be wanted, don’t you think? ‘
‘I haven’t ever thought about it. Why are you asking me?’
‘Because I’ve been in your mind a lot lately. And because you know all about PR.’
‘But I’m a salesman for Vitality Health Products. We’re all about health and living, not dying.’
The Angel shrugged. ‘Life, death, whatever you’re selling the principle’s the same.’
George tried to unscramble his thoughts. Was he really having this absurd conversation?
‘Look, I appreciate you choosing me to help you. But I can’t. It’s just too...’he stopped himself from saying ‘ridiculous’ – ‘difficult, I wouldn’t know where to start. Anyway, I don’t have time, I’ve got to clean out the house and go through Dad’s things. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you all the stuff that has to be done.’
The Angel cocked his head to one side. ‘George, old boy, you’re underselling yourself. Aren’t you the top salesman in the company this year?’
‘Yes, but - ’
‘There’s your answer, you have all the skills required. And as for time, we know that if something’s really important we make the time.’
‘I’m sorry, but your PR campaign is nowhere near the top of my “to do” list.’
The Angel shook his head and tut-tutted. ‘I don’t want to pull rank, George, but if you choose not to help me, you may well find yourself coming to an untimely end.’
‘Are you...are you blackmailing me?’
The Angel raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘If that’s what it takes! I tell you what. Let’s use the carrot instead of the stick. If you help me, I’ll guarantee that you’ll die a peaceful death. I know how important it is to you.’