Absolute Poison (4 page)

Rafferty nodded.

“Anyway, as I said, she rang me and told me she didn't expect to be in all this week, so I rang the boss, Mr Arnold, Ross Arnold—he owns Allways Cleaning Services—and he sent Mrs Chakraburty to cover. Only she's not so good on her legs—she told me she had rickets when she was young, and can't manage stairs very well—usually she does one of the local supermarkets—so I said I'd do the first floor.”

“I see.” Rafferty paused. “I gather from my constable here that Mr Barstaple—the dead man,” he added as he saw her blank expression, “was collapsed over his desk when you found him?”

“That's right. I thought he was just feeling poorly and taking a nap as he was slumped on the desk with his head on his arms. I didn't notice the mess in the bin or on his clothes at first—my eyesight's poor, you see and my sense of smell was never what you could call good. I didn't want to startle him when I turned on the hoover, so I gave him a shake to wake him. But as it turned out it was me who had the start. As I told your young officer.” She nodded at Smales who blushed and buried his head back to his notebook, “I just shook the poor man by the shoulder, and the next thing I knew, he'd tumbled to the floor, chair and all.”

She paused, took a deep breath and carried on. “I hadn't been able to see his face before. It gave me quite a turn, I can tell you.” She pulled her handkerchief from her pocket again and, after blowing her nose, gripped the cotton square tightly. “Poor man and him so young. Still,” she added brightly, “gastric can be a terrible thing and there's been a lot of it around lately. I suppose it strained his heart?”

Rafferty made no comment on this. “I gather you didn't know him personally?”

Ada Collins shook her head. “No. The staff were usually gone by the time we got here. Sometimes, one or two would be working late, but I never saw this man before. Barstaple you said his name was?”

Rafferty nodded.

Her lips pursed at this and her gaze narrowed thoughtfully. “I remember now; he was the one nobody liked. I'd once or twice overheard some of the staff talking about him,” she explained. “Barstaple the Bastard”, they called him.”

Rafferty glanced at Smales who had been frantically scribbling to keep up. But as Mrs Collins said this he looked up with shining eyes. His expression said it all. What did I tell you, sir? it said. Someone's murdered him.

Rafferty's gaze narrowed warningly and Smales dropped his own back to his notebook.

“What did you do then?”

“I let out such a yell that the others came running—even Mrs Chakraburty.” Ada Collins gave a shaky laugh. “I found a mouse earlier this year—I can't bear the creatures,” she explained, “and I suppose they thought I'd found another one. Anyway, up they came, Mrs Chakraburty and Eric and Albert, the security guard. Albert shooed us all out and made us wait down here while he rang 999. I did try to tell him we ought to try to res…resusc—bring him back to life—but Albert just kept saying not to bother trying as he was way past our help.”

“So you were the only one to go up to the first floor before the discovery of the body?”

Ada Collins stared at him, the unexpectedly clear periwinkle blue eyes looking out of place in the worn, middle-aged face. “What difference does that make?” she finally asked. “He died of a heart attack—didn't he?”

“We'll have to wait for the pathologist to determine cause of death, Mrs Collins. But, in the meantime, we have to check certain facts, like who was up on that first floor between the time the staff left—at 5.30?” She nodded. “When he was presumably still alive—and the time you found him just after 6.30. Should this turn out to be an unnatural death we need to eliminate as many people as possible.”

Ada Collins took a few seconds to digest this. Then she paled and stammered, “You mean—you mean you think somebody murdered him?”

Rafferty made no answer to his. She didn't seem to expect one. “Did anyone else but you go up to that floor?” he repeated.

“Only Eric. Eric Penn, one of the other cleaners. You met him downstairs. Anyway, he came up earlier to make the tea. We always start with a cup and Eric always makes it. He's a bit simple, but there's no harm in him and he's a hard worker which is why Mr Arnold agreed to keep him on when the previous owner sold the cleaning business.”

“And Mr Penn didn't notice anything amiss?”

She shrugged. “If he did, he said nothing to me. If he noticed him at all he probably thought, like me, that he was asleep. Of course, the door was shut, so any smell…“ She came to an embarrassed halt.

Rafferty was surprised to learn that the door to Barstaple's office had been closed. He's assumed that, feeling so ill, the dead man would have wanted an unrestricted path to the toilet. If Barstaple had been poisoned, and if Smales’ gut instinct should prove to be correct and it was the toxic substance in the rhododendron plant that had done the job, it must have been administered long before the cleaners arrived. According to Smales’ book of toxicology, the toxic substance in the plant took around six hours to work.

“By the way,” Rafferty asked. “Can you let me have Mrs Flowers’ address? Just for the record.”

She shook her head. “I don't know it, though I've an idea she lives near the station, but exactly where-” She shrugged. “She won't be there, anyway. She'll still be up in Birmingham with her son.”

“Never mind. I imagine your employer will know it.”

Rafferty drew the interview to a close. He didn't want Ada Collins chatting to her colleagues, so as she left and Smales went to follow her, Rafferty called him back and told him softly, “Put her into an empty office, put Hanks on the door and send Mrs Chakraburty along in five minutes. Oh, and send Sergeant Llewellyn in your place. He should be finished with the security guard by now.”

“But sir-” Smales started to protest at what he evidently regarded as the stealing of his thunder.

“Not now, Smales. We've too much to do.”

Smales went off trailing a long sigh. Two minutes later Llewellyn appeared.

“Get anything useful from the security guard?” Rafferty asked.

Llewellyn shook his head. “It was just as Smales said. The supervisor of the contract cleaners found the body, screamed and brought everyone else running. The security guard isn't an ex-policeman, but he acted sensibly and secured the scene of death and gathered everybody downstairs in the staff room while he phoned us.”

Rafferty nodded.

“The keyholder's been informed. He's the deputy manager, a Mr Gallagher. Said he'd be about half-an-hour and Dr Dally and the scene of crime team are on their way.”

Rafferty nodded again and told Llewellyn about Barstaple's nickname. But before Llewellyn could comment, there was a knock on the door and Smales put his head round and announced Mrs Chakraburty.

Mrs Chakraburty was a small and slight Asian woman. Painfully shy, with poor English, she seemed scared out of her wits and Rafferty had to coax the answers from her. Even then, her accent was so strong he had trouble understanding her. He found he had to listen intently to understand her at all.

She merely confirmed what Mrs Collins and the security guard had told them. It was clear they were going to get no hints of staff gossip from Mrs Chakraburty. After checking they had her address, he told Llewellyn to escort her back downstairs and to bring Eric Penn up.

Eric Penn was quite young, about twenty-five and built like an ox. He seemed very restless and shuffled constantly on his chair as if he couldn't get comfortable. His eyes flickered continually between Rafferty and Llewellyn.

Rafferty couldn't decide whether Eric was excited or terrified. Though the way he hugged his arms across his body would seem to indicate the latter. As he said Eric's name, the man's eyes settled on Rafferty with an unblinking stare that was quite unnerving. Rafferty hurried on with his questions.

Unfortunately, Eric Penn was not the sort of person it was possible to hurry. He needed as much encouragement as Mrs Chakraburty and even then his answers were so garbled and uncertain that Llewellyn said afterwards that he had the feeling Eric was holding something back.

After he had confirmed what the others had said, Rafferty remarked encouragingly, “I understand that Mr Barstaple, the dead man, had a nickname?”

Eric grinned and suddenly became much more voluble. “Bast'le the Bastard,” he told them loudly. “Do you know what bastard means?” he asked as though he was about to confide a secret. “I do. Shall I tell yers?”

Rafferty stared at him, appalled and saddened by his damaged humanity and he said gently, “Thank you, Eric, but we know what it means.”

The faint light that had enlivened Eric's dull features went out again. “Just thought I'd tell yer. Iffen you didn't know.” He paused, then burst out, “He was an’ all. A bastard. Called me an ‘effin’ moron once.” His face puckered. “Tha's not nice, is it? Not a nice thing to call me.”

“No, Eric, it's not. You didn't like him then?”

Eric shook his head vehemently.

“Did you often see him working here in the evenings?” Ada Collins had told him she didn't know the dead man, had never met him. Yet it was obvious from what Eric had told him that Barstaple must occasionally have encountered the cleaners.

Eric shook his head, but didn't add anything more. Rafferty had to press him before he discovered that, after that one occasion when Eric had been cleaning the stairs and had earned the cruel moron rebuke for not getting out of Barstaple's path quickly enough, Eric had generally taken trouble to keep out of his way.

Rafferty tried once more to gain Eric's confidence. With a smile, he remarked, “Mrs Collins says you're a hard worker.”

This brought a broad grin to Eric's face. Sadly, the grin made him look even more simple. “I am. I'm a good boy. Mum told me I'd have to work hard and I do. I do work hard. Mrs Flowers told me I clean better than anyone else,” he told Rafferty proudly. “And faster.”

Probably for poverty wages, Rafferty guessed. Still, his needs were probably few—not that that was an excuse for exploitation. Rafferty asked if he had seen Clive Barstaple this evening and Eric nodded.

“Asked him iffen he wanted a cup of tea. But he never answered, though I asked him three times. That was rude, wasn't it?”

Rafferty nodded. Barstaple had undoubtedly been dead by then, but he didn't mention this probability to Eric. “I'm surprised you offered to make him tea when he'd been so unkind to you. Why did you do that, Eric?”

Eric looked confused at this and eventually he mumbled, “Mum learned me my manners.”

Llewellyn popped a question into the pause. “Didn't you notice the smell, Eric? The office bin was full of vomit and he'd-”

“Course I did. It ponged.” Eric pulled a disgusted face. “Dirty. Should have used lavvy. I shut the door to keep the pong in.”

“So it was open when you went up to make the tea shortly after you arrived this evening?” Llewellyn asked.

Eric nodded.

That was one thing cleared up, anyway, thought Rafferty.

WPC Liz Green knocked and advised them that Dally and the SOCO team had arrived. Rafferty told Eric to go with Liz and wait with the others. He seemed reluctant to go. Barstaple's death had apparently excited him and it was clear that he shared Smales’ juvenile desire to be where the action was. Rafferty had to be quite firm with him to get him to do what he'd been told.

“Young
Smales seems full of himself,” Sam Dally, the police surgeon cum pathologist complained as he divested himself of his overcoat, hat and woolly tartan scarf in the reception area. “Told me yon cadaver was likely poisoned by the toxins in the rhododendron plant. Is he after my job do you reckon?”

Rafferty smiled. “I reckon you're safe enough, Sam. It's only toxicology he's been studying, not pathology.”

“Toxicology, is it?” Sam smoothed the hair around his bald spot and remarked silkily, “Then you'll be glad to know I did my bit to extend his education in that direction. Do you know, Rafferty, he was nae aware that there are poisons so subtle they leave no trace in the human body?”

“Is that so?”

“Och, yes. Your clever sergeant reads the classics so probably knows all about them. There's one—the name escapes me for the minute—where the only thing the body tells you when you cut it open is that the victim died of asphyxia. I was only saying to young Smales that it's a curious thing, but it's my experience that these particular poisons work best on wee young smart-arses. Strange that.”

Sam seemed tickled that he'd been able to indulge his heavy-handed and barbed humour at Smales’ expense. He beamed, struggled into his protective gear and picked up his bag. “So where's the body? I gather you do still want my opinion now that I'm here? I wouldn't like to feel I'd entirely wasted by evening, you having such an undoubted expert on hand and all.”

By the
time Sam had finished his examination of the body he was forced to concede that Smales’ conclusions might—just possibly—be right.

“That is, as far as the victim being poisoned is concerned,” he added. “As to the means, unlike Smales, I prefer to make my conclusions from facts, not guesswork. I don't know what I might find when I get him on the table.”