Shades of Murder (22 page)

‘I shall,’ Juliet said confidently.

Markby didn’t know that Meredith was sitting in a pub with Juliet Painter; he had other things to worry about. At about the same time as they were meeting he had just arrived at the morgue.

The call had come in late that afternoon. Dr Fuller’s assistant asked whether it would be possible for Superintendent Markby to drop by. She managed to make it sound quite a jolly little invitation. He knew better.

‘Now?’ Markby asked, glancing at the clock. Fuller was known to be a man with many family commitments centring round his three talented and formidable daughters. He was invariably dashing off to school concerts or rehearsals in church halls and most people had learned from experience that to contact Fuller any time after four in the afternoon was to receive a very tetchy response. Fuller arranged his early start to his day so that he could get off early at the end of it. So, what was so urgent it came between Fuller and the latest string trio recital?

‘He’ll wait for you,’ said the assistant. She seemed to realise that this was an unheard-of arrangement and added on a note of apology, ‘It is very important. Dr Painter is here as well.’

Markby told her he’d be there shortly and replaced the receiver. It had to be about Jan Oakley. But why was he not to receive a written report as usual? What could be the urgency?

With foreboding, he set out. If there was an aspect to his job which he disliked more than any other, it was visiting the morgue. In the days when he’d been obliged to attend autopsies, that had been understandable. Now he’d handed that unenviable task on to others. But he still didn’t like going anywhere near the place. He knew he ought, by now, to have become hardened to the sight of mangled bodies and to unpleasant things pickled in jars. But he never had and he never would. He couldn’t prevent himself from thinking of the sad human remains as individuals. He hoped he never did. Once they ceased to
be real people to him, he knew it would be time to retire.

Fuller was far from his usual cheery self and as for Geoff Painter, Markby had never seen him so awkward. The man seemed positively embarrassed.

‘Good of you to come, Alan,’ he said, shaking his hand. ‘Could’ve waited until tomorrow, but thought it best – in the circumstances.’

Markby raised his eyebrows.

‘Coffee!’ announced Fuller in a breezy voice which rang distinctly hollow. ‘I’ll get someone to bring us some. I don’t think the girl’s gone home.’ He reached for his phone.

‘Thank you.’

There was an awkward silence until the coffee arrived. When Fuller’s assistant had left them, Markby set the ball rolling with a brisk, ‘Well, what can I do for you both, now I’m here? This is about Oakley, I take it?’

Fuller said in some relief, ‘You know about it already, of course.’ He was a small plump man with sandy hair and round dark eyes. Markby was always put in mind of a hamster especially when, as now, Fuller was watching him with a mixture of wariness and interest, his podgy hands clasped in front of his stomach.

‘I know what’s on the file and that’s not much as yet. We’re waiting for the PM report from you.’

‘I had to call in a colleague,’ said Fuller quickly, bobbing his head in the direction of Geoff Painter. ‘I’m not a poisons expert. I recognised the outwards signs, naturally. There was discoloration of the skin, pre-death muscular spasm and vomiting, and when I opened him up, damage to the stomach lining. I sent samples over to Painter pdq.’

Fuller sat back, his body language indicating he had said his piece and would say no more.

‘When I heard who the deceased was,’ Geoff took up the narrative, ‘I dropped everything else and concentrated on the analysis of the samples Fuller sent over. In fact, it didn’t take me very long. I checked and re-checked, of course, because I couldn’t believe my eyes at first.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Arsenic.’

‘Arsenic!’ Markby almost shouted. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Out of the Ark,’ commented Fuller and snapped his lips shut again.

‘Of course I’m bloody sure.’ Geoff didn’t sound so much angry as despairing. ‘I suppose my analysis was made quicker by the fact that we’d been talking of it only the other evening at my place, at our housewarming. That’s what makes all this so damn difficult, Alan! There
we all were, talking not only about arsenic but about the Oakley sisters. My sister had been engaged by them to help them sell their house and buy a flat. Along comes this Jan out of the blue the following week and is delivered to Fourways by Meredith, I might remind you. He throws a spanner in the works regarding the house sale. Everyone’s furious. Juliet’s spitting mad. The Oakley sisters are devastated. My wife goes rushing over there to tackle Jan but fortunately didn’t find him. You and Meredith sought him out in some local pub to explain the error of his ways to him. Meredith, I’ve been given to understand by my sister, invited Jan to tea on Saturday. Now there’s the wretched fellow –’ Geoff flung out a hand to indicate the morgue’s refrigerated bodystore, ‘– dead as mutton. Can’t you see? It leaves all of us in a damn awkward situation. We’ve all of us been buzzing around the man like moths round a flame since he set foot in England.’

Markby held up both hands to calm the speaker. Geoff looked about ready to lose all control. Fuller, having passed the buck successfully, observed them both with clinical detachment.

‘Take it easy, Geoff,’ Markby urged. ‘I’m sorry if I appear to question your findings, but didn’t you tell us, on the occasion of our conversation at your party, about the Black Widow of Loudun who walked free because the forensic evidence was unclear?’

‘Oh, come on!’ burst out Geoff heatedly. ‘That was forty years ago! Techniques are more sophisticated now and anyway, I assure you, none of the mistakes were made by either me or Fuller here –’ Fuller looked startled at being dragged back into the thick of things ‘– which were made in the laboratories back then.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Fuller firmly. ‘I can’t speak for Painter, but I can speak for myself. Deceased showed every physical sign of poisoning.’

‘All right,’ said Markby, trying to cling to method amongst apparent increasing madness all around. ‘If it’s arsenic, did he ingest it?’

‘Oh, almost certainly,’ said Fuller. ‘Judging by the state of the stomach lining and gullet,’

‘I didn’t carry out the post mortem,’ said Geoff, ‘but I did analyse some of the stomach contents and I agree. In principle, arsenic doesn’t have to be ingested. It could be applied to the skin in some preparation over a long period. The ancient Egyptians used it in face paint and it probably killed a few of ’em.’

‘We are, therefore, talking about murder,’ Markby insisted.

Painter said almost wistfully, ‘He could have taken it himself, I suppose.’

‘Suicide?’ Markby nodded. ‘We’ll have to consider that. But I’d have thought arsenic as a means of suicide went out with Madame Bovary.’

Geoff reddened and twisted on his chair. ‘Ah, well, there’s an outside possibility – just a theory – I believe that in certain rural areas of Central Europe it’s still believed that dosing oneself with controlled amounts of arsenic does you good. The locals start by taking just a little and increase it. Incredibly, they survive. Yet a hundred milligrams is normally lethal.’

Geoff sighed and went on in a tone of deep regret, ‘I have to say, in this case, I’ve got to rule it out. It isn’t a case of slow accumulative poisoning. He took a massive dose, more than enough to do the trick. You understand my tests aren’t complete, but I don’t anticipate any change to my basic findings.’

‘All right, Geoff. You’ll write all this up, both of you, as soon as you can?’

Fuller nodded. Geoff Painter looked, if anything, more miserable. ‘I have to mention this, Alan, in case you’ve forgotten. Also at our house-warming party, I mentioned the murder of Cora Oakley which occurred at Fourways back in the 1880s. I lent Meredith my collection of research papers on the case.’

‘Yes, she’s reading through them. It keeps her quiet in the evening, I must say,’ Markby remarked.

‘I know Juliet wouldn’t let me tell the whole story, but you already knew it, didn’t you?’ Geoff said piteously. ‘And I dare say Fuller here does?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Fuller, perking up. ‘Quite a
cause célèbre
, that one. The husband was charged but got away with it. He used arsenic.’

‘I know,’ Meredith said that evening, ‘that at a time like this everyone says they can’t believe what’s happened. But truly, I can’t.’

‘Then you’d better start believing it,’ said Alan grumpily.

‘I do! It’s just, he was so – so alive on Saturday afternoon, objectionable and smarmy by turns, just his usual dodgy self. Now I feel guilty.’

‘What on earth for? You were all set to have me contact Interpol the moment you met him,’ Alan pointed out.

No one likes to be reminded of inconsistencies in their attitude. Meredith was obliged to say unwillingly, ‘Perhaps we didn’t give him a chance. Perhaps he was telling the truth when he said he would make no further claims on Fourways or the Oakleys.’

‘You didn’t believe him when he told you that, so why start believing him now? It’s too late for you to start changing your mind, anyway. The
man’s dead. Someone, somehow, fed him arsenic. Half a dozen people wanted him out of the way, including a pair of elderly sisters and possibly the sister and wife of the poisons expert. All of us were aware of the trouble he was causing. You and I made a special expedition to The Feathers the other evening to warn off Jan. We’ve all of us, in short, had a finger in that particular pie.’

The evening was cool rather than chill, but they had set a small log ablaze in the hearth, seeking, Meredith thought, warm and comfort in the aftermath of a shock. The wood crackled and spat. She wondered whether to tell Alan she had spoken to Juliet Painter, despite his advice not to. She decided against it. He was already out of sorts and I do not, she thought, have to account to him for every minute of my day!

‘Neither you nor I had a motive to kill Jan,’ she said firmly. ‘Nor, come to that, the means. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him to go back to Poland and stop pestering the Oakleys and making Juliet’s life difficult so that she’d stop making
my
life difficult! We knew him and we didn’t like what he was doing, but as for our involvement, both you and I were just trying to help.’

‘Something I’ll have to explain to the chief constable tomorrow. He’s requested my presence at nine sharp.’

She twisted in the crook of his arm. ‘Surely they wouldn’t take you off the case?’

‘They might. I’ll argue that they shouldn’t. I’ve known the Oakleys since I was a nipper and I’d like to be the one dealing with them. On the other hand, it’s a good reason why I shouldn’t.’

‘If it’s any consolation,’ said Meredith gloomily, ‘you’re not the only one compromised. I asked a colleague in the consular department if the Warsaw Embassy had anything on Jan.’ She summed up Mike’s information. ‘Adrian was eavesdropping. You’re going to have to cover my enquiry. Can you put in an official request for information first thing tomorrow, before you go off to the Chief Constable? I thought it was interesting that Jan had been talking about a will eighteen months ago. It indicates it really does exist.’

She shook off the gloom and became animated. ‘For my money, that will not only exists but it’s hidden somewhere. I don’t believe it was left behind in Poland with some lawyer. Jan would have brought it with him. He saw it as his passport to a fortune.’

‘I didn’t see it when I checked his room. Since then SOCO have been in and gone over the place and they’ve not found it either.’ Alan shrugged. ‘But you’ve seen Fourways. There must be more hiding places there
than you could winkle out in a month of Sundays. We could tear the place apart and not find it.’

He cleared his throat and asked in an embarrassed way, ‘Got any of that cake left?’

‘Sure. Out in the kitchen. I’ll cut you a slice.’ She got up.

His embarrassment increased. ‘No thank you, though I’m sure it’s delicious. I – I’d like to hand it over to forensics.’

He saw her face redden, eyes gleam with outrage. ‘You’re not suggesting –? I hadn’t got any reason to spike the wretched thing. As if I would! Anyway Jan only ate one piece and I ate some, too.’

He warded her off. ‘We’re going to have to account for every minute of Jan’s last day. We have to track down everything he ate, starting with breakfast. He’ll have had that at Fourways. I don’t know what he did about lunch. He had tea with you. He ate, I suppose, at The Feathers in the evening. All that can be checked. After that, we’re up against the unknown. Where else did he go that day? What else did he eat?’ Markby paused and added, ‘Did he know anyone else in England? Had he threatened or been threatened by anyone else?’

Meredith said very quietly, ‘If he only knew the Oakleys and threatened to make trouble for them, then Damaris and Florence are the obvious suspects. But that’s ridiculous! Those two old women?’

‘I agree it seems unlikely, to say the least.’ He recalled his visit. ‘Juliet is right about the state of that house. The land is worth more and at least one developer has shown interest in that. You remember Dudley Newman? I suppose the house might make a hotel. Someone could paint a stain on the floor of the room Cora died in and tell the story of the murder. The punters like that kind of thing.’

‘Don’t be so gruesome.’ She sounded shocked.

‘Gallows humour, a copper’s speciality. It’s a shame about the house. It was in the back of my mind when I went there that it might suit you and me.’

‘In the state both you and Juliet say it’s in?’ Meredith shook her head in disbelief.

‘So it’ll be going cheap. We could do it up. No, we couldn’t, actually. It’s got past that stage. I’m really sorry. The press will like it when the story gets about. Can you imagine it? A crumbling mansion, a couple of sisters they’ll probably describe as being recluses, to say nothing of a mysterious death in the same family and same place in years gone by. There will be pictures in all the papers, you bet. The Oakley sisters are in for a lot of unwanted attention. I don’t know how they’re going to
cope with it. They mightn’t be reclusive but they are intensively private.’