Murder at the Maples: A Flora Lively Mystery (29 page)

‘But do you get my point? There’s no way Mr Felix could have known it was Joy’s inhaler. Unless he knew her before.’

‘I dunno, Flora. Maybe the warden told everyone.’

‘Ha! She controlled information like it was gold dust.’

‘Maybe he just saw her using it one time. You said yourself she’s been getting worse these last few weeks.’

‘Mm. Ever since the day she got those flowers and poor Otto had his accident. And I’m thinking …’

‘Don’t you think you should stop thinking?’

Flora stood up and went to peek around the corner. The policewoman was still talking to the owner of the railway. The ambulance had gone.

‘Marshall, I need to get back to the Maples. Right now.’

‘Something else to investigate, Miss Lively?’

He clocked her expression and the smile slid off his face. ‘You’re serious.’

‘Deadly. If I’m right, we’ve just delivered Joy into the hands of someone even more dangerous than the warden and Mr Vasco put together. And judging by the look on his face as they drove away, he’s got one more trick up his sleeve.’

***

‘Flora Lively, desperado.’

‘Ha, you’re hysterical. Come on, Marshall, I thought you were supposed to be fit.’

‘Some people think so.’

‘Not the time or the place. Do you think they’ve noticed yet?’

Flora looked over her shoulder at Marshall puffing along behind her. He didn’t answer. She wasn’t too worried about the police – they knew where to find her for a statement. Joy’s wellbeing had to come first.

‘Marshall, I’m not being funny but you really need to keep up. They’ve had a fifteen minute head start already, and I’m telling you, that Mr Felix, or Aubrey or whatever his name is, he’s one crazy-fast driver.’

‘You’re right,’ Marshall said between breaths. ‘You’re not being funny.’

They made it to the car in three minutes and headed out of Bridgnorth, grateful the rush hour traffic had yet to kick in. Flora pulled out her phone and dialled Joy’s number.

‘No harm in trying,’ she said with a shrug. But Joy didn’t answer. Flora couldn’t even hazard a guess at which of Joy’s foes had dispatched the old lady’s phone. She tried the main reception. An automated voice told her it was currently unobtainable. She stared at the handset angrily.

‘Do you think they’ll find the warden? And Richie, what about him?’ Richie had been in on it from the start, she was sure. He’d been Cynthia’s inside man: it was quite brilliant, really. Shakers would be obliged to give him the job, and then he’d be free to check out the clients as they moved in, looking for anyone with lots of money and no family, someone who might make a likely target. Perhaps even checking through their stuff to find their weaknesses – injured animals, sick children, a son or daughter lost to cancer – so Cynthia could play on it with her fake charity scam.

‘They’ll find them,’ said Marshall darkly.

Once they were clear of the town, Flora told Marshall what was on her mind.

‘She kept saying the tablets weren’t working anymore, and I remember now her talking about being confused because the latest batch seemed bigger, or tasted different or something. I wish I’d taken her more seriously. Marshall, what if Mr Felix swapped them for something else? What if he got into her unit and swapped them for something that looked like her real medication but was just a harmless vitamin? It could have been the day Otto had his accident.’ She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. ‘Which would mean, of course, that Otto’s accident might not have been an accident either.’

Marshall looked dubious. ‘If he meant her harm, why not swap them for something dangerous instead?’

‘He wanted her to suffer. He wanted to
see
her suffer. Otto, the flowers, that postcard. He’s been biding his time, playing with her, probably laughing at how everyone’s saying her deterioration is down to stress and old age. But he’d know stress makes her condition worse, and that the tablets that are supposed to help are just placebos.’

‘She’d notice.’ Marshall overtook a lorry, then tucked back in again smoothly. He glanced at Flora. ‘Wouldn’t she?’

Flora gave him a rueful smile. ‘He was a chemist. Before he retired, I mean. He’d know exactly what kind of tablet to give her, and would be able to choose one that mimicked her medication closely.’ She remembered something and slapped her knee with her palm. ‘Of course! He’d been having loads of deliveries. Vitamins, she said it was. I bet he was trying to find the right one to replace Joy’s medication with.’

‘A chemist? Wow.’

‘Wow indeed.’ She pushed her hair back from her forehead and rubbed her eyes. They felt gritty, like she hadn’t slept in days. ‘I bet he was really pissed off when he found out she’d started getting proper meds again. He’d have to come up with a plan B.’

They drove in silence for a while, Flora turning it all over in her mind. As the lush fields gave over to housing estates, she looked at the phone in her hand.

She would so rather not have this conversation in front of Marshall, but there really wasn’t a choice. She had to find out what Mr Felix might be planning, and she had a pretty good idea how to do exactly that. Unfortunately it meant doing something that went totally against the grain.

‘May I speak to Heston, please?’

Marshall didn’t look over, but she could see by the way he kept his face dead straight he was suppressing a grin. She turned away from him and waited.

‘Flora? I can’t talk long, I’m doing claimed-returns.’

Whatever that was. ‘Heston, I need you to do me a favour. It’s a biggie, I’m afraid.’

Silence. If they weren’t still at least ten minutes away from the retirement village, Flora would have been tearing her hair out. As it was, she could afford to let him think about it for a moment or two.

‘What is it?’ he said quietly. Resignedly.

‘I need you to look up the library records for a Mr Felix.’ She told him how she’d seen the Maples’ resident writing in a medical text, hoping Heston’s outrage would overcome his reluctance to break the library’s strict data protection rules.

Her gamble paid off. ‘He did what? Hold on, I’ll just pull up the right screen.’

Marshall slowed down for traffic lights on the town’s perimeter. He cleared his throat. Flora ignored him.

‘In medicine, you say? No, he doesn’t have anything out from six ten.’

Flora shook her head, annoyed with herself for being so dense. ‘He put it back. I remember now – after I’d knocked over the trolley he got up and put the book back on the shelf. Heston, it’s really important. I need you to go and find it and have a look. It was definitely something medical, and it had a green cover.’

‘Flora, I can’t go through every page of every medical book to see if–’

‘He put it back on the wrong shelf! Heston, look in six three five. Look there for a mis-shelved medical book and I bet that will be the one.’

‘Gardening? Okay, hold on.’

The wait felt interminable. Marshall had started humming. It was driving her crazy.

‘Say nothing,’ she told him.

‘Exactly what I am doing.’

Flora chewed a fingernail. What if the library staff had already tidied those shelves, put Mr Felix’s book back where it should be? How would Heston find it then? They reached the park and ride on the outskirts of the city centre. Flora looked at the clock on the dash. Joy and Mr Felix would have been back for at least twenty minutes now. Long enough for anything to happen.

If he’d even taken her home, of course. If not, they could be anywhere.

She pushed the thought out of her mind. Heston’s voice came back on the phone.

‘Got it!’

Flora let out a puff of air. ‘Has it been written in?’

‘Sure has. This is terrible, Flora. If you’re sure you saw him do it I might have to put a note on his record for someone to talk to–’

‘Heston, I don’t mean to be rude, but will you just tell me what it says?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What?’

‘Well, it’s just doodles, really. In the margins. No words, just symbols. Which makes it harder to prove it was him, of course. No handwriting.’

‘But the margins – what pages has he marked up?’

‘Let’s see … Wow, quite a few. He must have been at it for some time. You know, I’m not surprised he didn’t want to take this one out on his card. But he could have had the pages photocopied.’

Flora’s shoulders drooped. She’d been so sure there would be something, some clue, in the book. Something to help keep Joy safe. If only she’d listened to her friend, believed that Mr Felix really was Aubrey, she could have looked at it herself sooner. But then Heston’s words filtered through her fog of guilt. She sat up straight.

‘What did you just say?’

‘This book – it’s on our watch list. We have to inform the police if anyone takes out a book that could be linked to possible terrorist or criminal activity. You know, like serial killers, bomb making, that kind of thing.’

They stocked books on bomb making at Shrewsbury library? That was news to Flora.

‘And poisons,’ Heston continued. ‘Which is what this book’s about. Your fella at the old folks’ home has been reading up on mould.’

‘Mould?’

‘“Natural Poisons”, it’s called. “Mould: The Secret Killer”. Interesting stuff, I might have a look at it on my tea break.’

Flora hung up. She looked at Marshall. His face was grim now, all traces of humour wiped away.

‘My aunt Lorena, back in Oregon, she nearly died after sleeping in a damp basement for a week. She had asthma too.’ He turned and met Flora’s eyes. ‘It was the mould that did it. Mould can be fatal for folks with asthma.’

Flora sat back and closed her eyes. It was the only way she could contain the hysteria that was building up in her chest. She fixed an image of Joy in her mind – her odd-shaped humpy back; the fluffy perm; the way her eyes crinkled up when she was being mischievous – and held it there. As long as she could see her she’d be safe. And she pressed her foot hard on an imaginary accelerator, willing Marshall to get there as fast as he could.

She could only hope it wasn’t too late.

Chapter 19

‘You can’t go in there. Stop!’

Elizabeth had been waiting for them under the arched hedge. She seemed flustered, twisting her hands in her long hair and looking anxiously over her shoulder. But when she tried to block their entry, Flora rounded on the receptionist with venom.

‘Just get out of my way. I know what you’re going to say, what you’ve been trying to tell me all day. I’m barred from the Maples, right? Big deal. I’ve got news for you – your boss won’t be coming back here anytime soon, so you’re taking instructions from the wrong person.’

Flora took a step forward and Elizabeth jumped back with a cry. ‘No, that’s not it at all! The police are here, Flora. They’re all over the place. They’ve got the computer and the phone line’s down and they’re interviewing the staff. It’s a nightmare. I’ve got no idea what’s going on.’

Marshall put a steadying hand on Flora’s arm. ‘Why are you out here then? Why aren’t you in there being interviewed with the others?’

‘I’m waiting for you. They sent me to gather the residents together, and I saw Mr Felix and Joy coming in.’

Flora’s heart lifted. Joy was here.

‘How long ago was this?’

‘I don’t know, twenty minutes or so? I told them what was happening, and Mr Felix said to wait here for you. He said he had something to tell you, and if you came in you’d get caught up in all this police business, so I’m to go and get him and bring him out here to you.’

Flora took in a sharp breath. He was clever all right. Keeping them out here, just in case they were starting to get suspicious – giving him enough time to get on with whatever he was doing uninterrupted.

Whatever he was doing to Joy.

‘Come on.’ Flora and Marshall raced past a protesting Elizabeth and ran across the grass towards Mr Felix’s unit.

Flora turned the doorknob: it was locked. Marshall pushed her gently to the side, then shouldered the door clean off its hinges. They rushed inside, adjusting their eyes to the gloom. Joy was sitting on a worn brown sofa, holding a cup in her hand. The room was so crowded with books and pictures and overlapping pieces of furniture and unopened boxes that Flora couldn’t see the carpet at all. In fact, the room looked exactly the same as it had the day Shakers had moved the old man in. She turned her head towards a movement in the far right corner. Mr Felix was walking out of the kitchenette, his face wearing an astonished expression.

‘What’s going on? What … what the hell happened to my door?’

Marshall was tense by her side. She tried to take it all in: the teapot in Mr Felix’s hand; the cup Joy was even now raising to her lips. His querulous tone at the library:
I know all about herbal medicine. I brew up a mean cup of herbal tea. You should try it sometime
…

At the library where he’d been researching poisonous strains of mould.

‘Joy, no!’ Flora threw herself across the room, reaching out for the cup. But it was too late. Joy lifted the teacup clear and took a long sip. Then she placed it carefully on its saucer and sat back with a satisfied smile.

‘Joy, what have you done?’ With an agonised cry, Flora grabbed the cup out of her hands and thrust it at Marshall. He held it away from himself, his lips curling in disgust.

‘We need to get her to the emergency room,’ he said. ‘Right away.’

Flora nodded. She made to help Joy off the sofa, but the old lady pulled back and gripped the dirty-looking upholstery hard. ‘I’m going nowhere. Not until I’ve finished this for good.’

‘Would someone mind telling me what is going on here?’ Mr Felix had rearranged his face into an expression of mild amusement. ‘First that scatty receptionist starts rabbiting on about the police, then you burst in here, you break down my door, and now you’re suggesting my friend here is in danger from some herbal tea! Are you quite insane?’

‘I’m not your friend.’

Joy’s voice was so low Flora had to strain to hear it. Marshall pushed past a stunned Mr Felix and disappeared into the kitchenette, hopefully in search of something to contain the suspicious tea.