Fatal Connection (2 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ Dr Miriam Thirteen said in a counselling room at the hospital. ‘The lab report confirmed Miley died of mercury poisoning. There was too much damage to her body for us to save her.’

‘But …’ Miley’s father found it hard to talk. ‘Mercury. I don’t … How did it happen?’

‘That’s what we’re here to find out,’ Troy said softly.

‘You’re the police. Was she …?’

‘We don’t know. All we’re investigating at this stage is what happened.’

‘But …’

‘There’s nothing to suggest it was deliberate. It may be some horrible accident. We just don’t know. But we’ll find out, I promise.’

Miley’s mother sobbed into a scrunched handkerchief.

Concentrating, Lexi was extracting every bit of information from Miley Quist’s mobile phone.

Troy continued, ‘Sometime in the last week or so, Miley tangled with mercury. It would really help if you could think back and tell me everything she did.’

Miley’s dad shook his head hopelessly. ‘She’s been all over. I don’t know what she’s been up to. We’ve been … distracted.’

‘Apart from school, where did she go? What did she like to do?’

‘She was the best daughter you could …’ He put his head down and, for a few seconds, kept his thoughts to himself. Then, sniffing, he looked up again. ‘A couple of music festivals, I think. Cycling, swimming, boxing, running, climbing. You name it, Miley does it. I mean … did it.’

‘Which recently? Can you give me some idea?’

‘She exhausts us, watching her go off here, there and everywhere. After school, sometimes before
school, at weekends. Full of energy. She does her own thing. Always been an independent girl. We gave up trying to keep track. She was so … alive. Just like her grandma. Carefree.’

‘Think back to when she came home from her last trip. Did she do anything or say anything about it?’

Her dad paused to think. ‘I saw her rinsing out her swimming costume, so she must have been for a swim. She cleaned mud off her trainers as well.’

‘Did you ask …?’

Miley’s father put his head in his hands and mumbled, ‘Look. It’s not easy. She was a free spirit. She took after my mother. Who’s just passed on.’ He looked up again, tears in his eyes. ‘Miley loved her grandma. Spent a lot of time with her. But she needed a break, to mourn in her own way. Like I said, we’ve been thrown by it all. We’re struggling to cope.’ He sighed, trying to focus. ‘When Miley got back, she said she felt better, she’d got it out of her system. She meant the grief. Then she was off out again. Other than that …’ He shrugged.

‘I’m very sorry,’ Troy said. ‘I know it’s a bad time to ask, but did she keep a diary – written or electronic?’

‘A diary? No. Too busy doing. She couldn’t sit still long enough to write anything.’

‘Can I show you three pictures of other people? I want to find out if Miley knew them.’

Her father shrugged.

He shook his head when he saw the photos.

‘They’re called Richard Featherstone, Keaton Hathaway and Alyssa Bending. Do the names help?’

‘No.’

Miley’s mother could hardly see anything through her bloodshot eyes, but she spluttered, ‘No.’

‘Was she on any sort of medication?’

‘She was as fit as a fiddle. Now look at her.’

Troy waited, allowing the upwelling of sorrow to subside a little, before he asked, ‘Has she been vaccinated recently?’

‘Not since she was a toddler.’

‘As far as you know, has she eaten anything out of the ordinary? Perhaps something that no one else tried.’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t say anything.’

‘I don’t want to pry, but can I ask what happened to her grandma?’

‘Cancer.’

‘Have any other relatives or friends been ill recently?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

Lexi looked up and asked, ‘Did she have a laptop or computer?’

‘No. She did everything on her phone.’

With the mobile in her hand, Lexi said, ‘Miley doesn’t seem to have many contacts. Not a lot of friends.’

Her father nodded. ‘That suited her. She didn’t need or want them. She just got on with her own life.’

‘Did she like school?’ Troy asked.

‘She wasn’t bullied, if that’s what you’re thinking. Maybe because she was strong. Physically and mentally.’

‘A lot of major girls rate their friends above their family,’ Troy commented.

Miley’s mother said, ‘Her teachers told us she was a rare girl. Happy without friends. Her grandma was enough.’

‘Did she have any enemies?’

Miley’s mother went back into her protective shell.

Her father answered, ‘No. Why should she? There was nothing to dislike. She was … the best.’

It was a long journey south to the industrial town of Pullover Creek. Stopping next to an enormous garden centre and plant nursery, Troy and Lexi got out of the driverless car and, for a few seconds, watched bats circling eerily near a streetlamp. In the nearest house, they spoke to Alyssa Bending’s husband and two children. The smell from the lavish bouquets in their front room was almost overpowering. So sweet, it was almost sickly.

A toxicity report had concluded that the cause of Alyssa’s death was mercury poisoning. Troy found
out quickly that the Bending family did not know the other three victims, Alyssa wasn’t taking any medicines, she didn’t keep any form of diary and, as far as her husband knew, she had eaten only trustworthy food.

‘Near the end,’ Mr Bending said, ‘I couldn’t make much out. Her talking was mixed up.’ He sighed and swallowed. ‘She was trying to say something about the kids, me, love and fish, I think.’

‘Fish?’

‘It sounds strange to you, no doubt, but not to us. She worked in the aquatic part of the garden centre, selling pet fish among other things.’ He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. ‘I think she said something about wishing we’d gone on more picnics together.’ For a while, he was unable to control his tears.

Lexi interrupted. ‘Do you know if the garden centre sterilizes their bulbs by dipping them in mercuric chloride?’

He wiped his cheeks and shook his head. ‘I don’t get involved in the technical side of things.’

‘You work there as well?’ asked Troy.

‘In the gardening section.’ He waved towards the bumper collection of bouquets. ‘I do flower arrangements – and sell them.’

‘Would Alyssa have had anything to do with pesticides?’

‘No, definitely not. They don’t mix with aquaria and fish.’

Troy nodded. ‘Have you heard of any spillages or of any of your colleagues falling ill?’

‘No.’

‘How about you – or anyone else she knew? Has anyone else got the same symptoms?’

‘No.’

‘Did she get on all right with the garden centre, or were there any issues?’

‘We’ve had arguments about noise and traffic, but we can’t complain too much. It gives us a living.’ Alyssa’s husband broke down again. ‘It gave us a living.’

Lexi examined Alyssa’s laptop but found nothing relevant to her death or her recent movements. She looked at Mr Bending and asked, ‘Can I see her mobile phone?’

Alyssa’s husband sniffed and then replied, ‘No. She lost it.’

‘When?’

‘She had a couple of days away last week. It was to do with work. She went off to the north coast to scout out sources of fish and supplies. Something she
did now and again. When she fell ill, she told me she couldn’t find her mobile. She said she must have lost it when she was away. Unless she was confused about that as well.’

Keaton Hathaway’s flat in Pickling was decorated not with paintings, prints or photographs, but with crystals, fossils and rocks. A geological specimen seemed to rest on every flat surface. On the table, there was a clear plastic box with a rough mineral or mineral-like rock in each small compartment, like a collection of colourful eggs in individual nests. Each one had been lovingly labelled.

Lexi peered at the samples in turn. ‘Jade, jet, gold, gypsum, feldspar, emerald, diamond, cinnabar.’ She stopped reciting names and looked across at Troy.
‘That’s mercury sulphide.’

Ill at ease, Troy nodded as he wandered around.

Lexi moved towards a shelf and gasped at the selection of spiral fossils. ‘He’s got lots of ammonites. Never seen so many in one place. Fantastic. Shells as well.’

While Lexi admired Keaton’s samples, Troy explored the small one-bedroom apartment. It took less than a minute. Then he said, ‘He lived on his own – with a passion for geology.’ He put on latex gloves, moved a couple of bones from a pile of notebooks on Keaton’s desk and picked up the top one. Flicking through its pages, he soon realized that Keaton had recorded every find, every rock, every fossil.

Examining the windowsill, Lexi called out, ‘There’s a prehistoric fish here. Brilliant fossil.’

Troy held up the most recent diary. ‘He was as methodical as you. Dates, locations, specimens, everything. A super-keen fossil hunter and amateur geologist. But why have the latest few pages been torn out?’

‘Really?’

Troy sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ll bag it as evidence. I want to know who ripped them out. Fingerprints, DNA, anything.’

While outers and majors looked much the same, forensic science could easily distinguish the two human races. Their body chemistry was different. Outers bore no fingerprints, their DNA was distinctive, and their diet was based on insects. They also lacked the enzymes that made alcohol an intoxicating substance to majors.

‘It wouldn’t have been Keaton himself,’ Troy said. ‘Looks like he’s obsessive about keeping records. If he made a mistake, he’d cross it out, not remove it. Then he’d have a record of the mistake as well.’

‘I’ll request a full forensic team. They can hunt for the missing pages – as well as any trace evidence. And I’ll get them to scan all his notebooks into a database.’ Lexi stood beside her partner to examine the journal.

Troy tilted it towards her. ‘The last ten days have gone.’

‘It might have told us when and where he was poisoned – and where the mercury came from.’

Muted, Troy shrugged.

‘Don’t tell me it’s coincidence, because I don’t believe it.’ Lexi glanced at him and added, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Sure?’

He took a deep breath. ‘If you must know, Pickling’s not my favourite place.’

‘You must have been here before.’

‘No,’ he almost snapped.

‘So, how do you know you don’t like it?’

‘I just don’t. Let’s leave it at that.’

Richard Featherstone’s bedroom in Hoops was a mess, like a grotesque, bloodied murder scene. His wife had barely touched the place where he had died. If she had slept at all since his death, she must have laid down somewhere else. Lexi looked at the mercury thermometer on a shelf. It was unbroken. It could not be the source of the mercury that had poisoned him.

Downstairs, Mrs Featherstone looked out of the window as the sun slowly submerged below the horizon. ‘We were … okay, you know. At the stage
where the passion had gone out of it – worn down by time, children and other demands. You know. Maybe you don’t. You’re young. Anyway, that’s what happens. We were busy. Other things gobbled up our time. Less time for each other. We were fine, though. Still cared for each other very much. Plenty of respect. No doubt about that.’

She seemed jittery to Troy. He guessed that the words spilling from her were not so much information for a detective as an attempt to convince herself that she’d shared a loving relationship with Richard. But he noticed that she avoided talking about love.

‘I thought he’d got a hangover, you know. That’s all. I wasn’t even sympathetic. He’d been out with mates for a drink and he’d had too much. What was I supposed to think?’ She groaned. ‘Bad mistake. I should’ve called a doctor when he talked about his hands and feet being numb.’

‘I don’t think it would’ve made any difference,’ Troy said gently. ‘By that time, he was almost certainly beyond medical help.’ He gazed at her kindly, knowing that his questions would cause her further pain. ‘Was he often out doing his own thing?’

‘Yes. But he always came back to me. A married
couple need their separate interests after a while, don’t you think?’

‘Do you know the things he did in the last week or so?’

‘Some.’ She sighed. ‘I should’ve asked more. I regret that. He went fishing one day. On his own. Golf with friends, I think. That’s at Hoops Golf Course. I don’t know where he went fishing. He had tickets for a football match, I think. Or something like that. He trotted off to his friends’ houses for drinks – and to one of the pubs in town. I don’t go. A glass of wine and you’d have to hold me up. Goes straight to my head, you know. Richard, well, he could knock back quite a bit. Not like an outer, though. He got woozy and he’d have a sore head in the morning. Sometimes, he’d be sick.’ She shook her head sadly at her husband’s foolishness. ‘Now, I wonder if he was getting his excitement that way instead of getting it with me.’

‘Was he on any sort of medication, or was he vaccinated recently?’

‘He took hangover cures. That’s all. Only they don’t cure anything, do they? Not drinking alcohol in the first place is the only proper cure.’

Troy took a gulp of water. ‘You said you’d looked at his phone.’

‘Yes. Funny, that. Nothing on it at all. He’d reset it. No stored phone numbers or anything else. I don’t know why. My guess is that he’d tried to call me. You know, just before he got really bad and passed out. Maybe he hit the wrong button. That’s almost certainly it, don’t you think?’

Clearly she was hoping there was nothing sinister or secretive in Richard’s actions, so he replied, ‘Confusion’s one of the symptoms – along with poor memory and tremors – so, yes, you’re probably right.’ He showed her the images of the other three patients and told her their names. ‘Do you know any of them? Or do you think Richard would’ve known them?’

‘I certainly don’t. As for Richard’ … She shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. I should’ve asked after his friends more. I shouldn’t have let the gulf grow wider and wider.’

‘It’s not your fault. Being close takes two people.’ Troy’s attention seemed to stray but, a moment later, he was fully focused on the interview. ‘I don’t suppose you asked much about the food he’d been eating or any strange drinks he’d tried?’

‘No. We should’ve shared more, like it used to be when we were young.’

Outside, the sun ducked behind a building and was gone.

‘Do you know if any of his friends have gone down with something similar?’

‘No, I don’t. If only I’d taken the trouble to …’ The sentence faded to nothing.

‘What did he do by way of work?’

‘He was always artistic. He could paint, model wood, almost anything. Really good with his hands. Creative. He used to make hats. Now, he makes furniture.’

‘Hats?’ Lexi queried.

Richard’s wife smiled sorrowfully. ‘Yes, hats. Someone’s got to do it. Richard switched to furniture about a year ago.’

‘Was he well? Did the hat job make him sick?’ said Lexi.

‘No. Why?’

‘I bet you’ve heard the phrase: mad as a hatter,’ Lexi replied. ‘Rabbits’ or hares’ fur was made into felt and mercuric nitrate was used to smooth it down. A slow reaction in the felt gave off mercury vapour. It made hatters tetchy and mixed up. Basically, a bit mad.’

‘No. Nothing like that,’ his wife replied. ‘Besides, it was a long time ago. I wish I’d asked him more about his jobs. You do at first but then … your mind’s on other things, you know, and you get tired of hearing the same old story every day.’

‘Did he keep a diary or jot notes on a computer?’ Troy asked.

‘No. Not when there’s golf to play. Nothing else got much of a look in.’ She sighed once more. ‘If only I’d developed an interest in golf. Things might have been different.’