Sweet Poison (38 page)

‘No,’ said Edward gently. ‘Not unfair at all. I think I know what you are going to tell me but I would like to hear it from your own lips.’

‘I don’t know why,’ she went on as though she had hardly heard him, ‘but there are some things I really can’t tell Mummy and I don’t dare tell the police.’

‘Of course,’ said Edward. ‘Fire away.’

‘I gather,’ she began, ‘that the inquest came back with an accidental death verdict?’

‘Yes, they seem to think Craig muddled up his pills.’

‘But you don’t think so?’ She looked at him sharply.

‘What does it matter what I think?’ he said. ‘But no, as it happens, I think it was an accident but of a different kind.’

‘It matters to me what you think,’ she said simply. ‘I was pretty odious to you and yet you stood by me – saved my life even – and when you came to see me I lied to you. At least, I did not tell you the whole truth.’

Edward said, ‘You don’t have to tell me anything.’

‘Well, as I say, I think I owe you something – I think I owe you the truth. What do you think happened?’

‘I thought at first that the General was murdered but I ended up thinking he might have been hoist by his thingamyjig.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I thought he might have meant to kill your father but by accident killed himself.’

‘Goodness me!’ Hermione sounded amused. ‘But why should he have wanted to kill my stepfather?’

There it was again, Edward thought, the careful definition of her relationship with her mother’s husband.

‘I think he was obsessed with the way the British press was, as he saw it, being over-sympathetic to Germany’s territorial demands which he thought brought a new war closer.’

‘But that’s not a motive for murder!’

‘It might be. Don’t forget how much it means to your stepfather’s generation to prevent another war with Germany. And there was something else,’ he said reluctantly, seeing the disbelief in her eyes. ‘Your stepfather was going to print a story about the General suggesting that he had been responsible for killing unarmed German prisoners during the war.’

‘I see,’ said Hermione meditatively. ‘Perhaps, after all, then I ought to leave it at that.’

‘It is whatever you want but, as you said, it might help you to tell someone exactly what happened and why. I promise I won’t tell anyone. Why should I? What would be the point?’

‘Oh, I don’t mind about that so much, though I would not want to hurt my mother,’ she added, and Edward was pleased she was able to think of someone else beside herself.

‘I was trying to kill my stepfather because I hated him, because he came between me and my mother, and because he wouldn’t give me any more money to buy drugs even though he had oodles of it. In fact, it was all he was good for: money. Then, just a few weeks before we went to Mersham, he had dared to confess to us – my mother and me – that he had a daughter and that he was proposing to bring her into the family. I hated him even more then for the insult to my mother.’

‘You were jealous of Amy Pageant?’

‘Not jealous – I just could not bear the idea that there was someone he loved more than my mother, more than me. The next thing, he would cut me out of his will – he hated me, I know he did – and leave all his money to her.’

Edward shook his head. ‘I think you are wrong; he does love you, or he wants to, if you will let him. I don’t understand why, once you had decided to do this horrible thing, you settled on doing it at Mersham. Surely, that was an odd time and place to choose?’

‘Well, I was desperate and anyway I did not see him much at home. We kept out of each other’s way. And I thought no one would know it was me if I did it “in public”, you might say – and I was right, wasn’t I?’

‘You are forgetting,’ Edward said, ‘you killed General Craig, not your stepfather, and they could hardly suspect you of killing a man with whom you had no connection.’

Again, it was as if Hermione did not hear him. She was reliving events in her own mind: ‘You see, as I told you, the only reason I agreed to come to Mersham was that I needed to see Charlie Lomax. He was supplying me with dope and he was keeping me short. He wanted more money – much more money – money I did not have, and when I couldn’t pay he said he would teach me a lesson.’

‘Teach you a lesson?’

‘Yes. He thought if I became desperate enough I would get the money somehow even if I had to steal it.’

‘Wouldn’t your stepfather have given you money if you had explained everything to him?’

‘I had already tried that and he had refused me. He hated drugs and said under no circumstances was he going to pay for them. He wanted me to go into some sort of a clinic but I told him to go and boil his head. Anyway, when I got to Mersham I discovered Charlie Lomax had cried off. I had thought that if I got him invited to Mersham, as he begged me to, he would have had to come – he was the most frightful snob – but I was wrong. Obviously, at the last moment, the thought of meeting me there scared him off or maybe he was still torturing me. I was at my wit’s end, really desperate. I plugged myself with the last of my heroin supply. Then, as I told you, my mother came into my room just as I was giving myself the injection. That made me even madder. I love my mother, in fact she’s the only person I have ever loved and I never wanted to hurt her but I did . . . I have.

‘When I knew you were coming instead of Lomax I thought I would at least make you suffer. You seemed to me to be just the sort of stuck-up prig I hated. I think I was wrong, but who cares – it’s too late now. Then I remembered that it wasn’t you I hated: it was my stepfather. It was he who had stolen my mother from me and it was he who was making me suffer now by not giving me money for the drugs I was desperate for. It was fortunate really, the Duchess took all us women out to drink coffee in the drawing-room. I hadn’t had an opportunity to poison my stepfather’s drink during the meal and now I thought I had lost my chance for good. But then you and Miss Browne arrived. In the fuss, while everyone crowded into the hall, I slipped out of the French windows in the drawing-room and round to the dining-room windows which I knew were open. Then I saw all the port glasses, mostly half-drunk, so I knew they would be finished when everyone settled down. The glasses were all in a muddle and I wasn’t sure which was my stepfather’s – however, I knew where he was sitting. So I took the glass nearest me which turned out to be General Craig’s and broke the capsule of cyanide into it and then pushed it in front of my stepfather’s place.’

‘That was a very wicked thing to do,’ said Edward, aghast. ‘So what did you do next?’

‘I ran back through the windows, then into the drawing-room and attached myself to the little crowd of ladies who were seeping into the hall to greet you. No one knew I had been missing, though maybe my mother did, I’m not sure. Anyway, then we all went into the dining-room. I made sure everyone could see where I was and what I was doing, which was nothing except showing interest in what had happened to your car and how you had been rescued by Miss Browne.’

‘And then . . . ?’

‘And then I saw the Bishop – silly old fool – push the glass I had poisoned back to the General’s place.’

‘Why didn’t you warn him?’

‘How could I?’

‘You could have knocked over his glass or something.’

‘I don’t know, it all happened so fast. The General drank and was making those terrible noises before . . . before I knew what was happening.’

‘But you are sorry now?’

‘I suppose I am sorry about General Craig though he seemed an old idiot to me and Mummy says he was going to die anyway. I’m not sorry I tried to kill my stepfather, just sorry I didn’t succeed. I might be so rich now,’ she said the last words dreamily, ‘but it doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters,’ said Edward. ‘It was a wicked thing you did. Don’t you understand that, Hermione?’

‘Maybe, but that wasn’t the way I thought of it. I was high, don’t forget, and this just seemed a suitable way of getting revenge and, I hoped, getting my hands on a great deal of money. I was feeling really strange. You don’t know what it feels like being without dope – you will do anything . . . anything.’

Edward looked at her with horror and pity. Here was a girl who had what most people would say was everything but in fact she had nothing.

‘But how had you got hold of the cyanide?’ said Edward at last.

‘Oh, Charlie had given it to me for a dare once. I had been saying I had nothing to live for and he said, “Well, end it then, you stupid cow. No one will care,” something like that. I didn’t use it then but I stored it up to use one day.’

‘How did you end up in Lomax’s house filled with drugs? I suppose what you told me last time was a pack of lies. Did you see who killed Lomax?’

‘I killed him, stupid.’ Hermione looked at him with such cold contempt it made him shudder. ‘After the General died instead of my stepfather I was more desperate than ever. I had to get drugs so I had to get to Charlie Lomax and
make
him give me what I wanted. I knew the only place I could be sure of meeting him was the Cocoanut Grove so I made you take me there. As soon as I spotted him I made a beeline for him and he wasn’t able to escape from me this time. I cornered him in Captain Gordon’s office. I told them both I was desperate and I said if they didn’t give me what I wanted I would go to the police. Captain Gordon said Charlie was to take me home and give me what I needed. I think he wanted me out of the way. He was having some trouble with his suppliers and he was afraid if I went to my stepfather or the police – not that I ever would, of course – he would be in even more trouble.

‘I don’t know what they intended to do with me but when we got to that place Lomax called home he started teasing me. He said I was a no good rich bitch and that I had promised to bring him new clients from among my friends and I had let him down. I said I didn’t have any friends but he didn’t believe me. Then he said I was so ugly and . . . well, he made all sorts of horrible remarks about me. He left me and went off to the lavatory where I knew he stored his dope. There was a carving knife on the table beside a mouldy loaf of bread and I picked it up and followed him. He hadn’t closed the lavatory door and he had his back to me. I swear I didn’t know what I was going to do but he heard me and turned around. I remember he lifted his hands in the air and smiled so I stabbed him. When I was sure he was dead I went looking for his drugs cache which I eventually found in the lavatory, taped to the top of the water pan thing. Then I pushed myself full of really good stuff.’

‘Did you mean to kill yourself?’

‘No . . . I don’t know, I just wanted to be out of it all and I was.’

‘So when I found you so near to death and called the police, it was natural that we should think Lomax had been killed by the dope ring he was involved with and that they had tried to kill you because you were there and saw what happened.’

‘Yes, I suppose I was just lucky.’

‘Lucky!’ Edward exclaimed. Hermione lay back on her pillow ghastly pale and seemed not to want to say anything more.

At last Edward said gently, ‘How did you start taking dope, anyway?’

Hermione opened her eyes. ‘The usual thing.’ She spoke in such a low voice Edward had to bend forward to catch her words. ‘I was bored and I was ugly. No one seemed to like me except my poor mother. To go to all those dances and balls knowing everyone hates you and no one wants to dance with you is awful. I used to go with someone and as soon as we reached the party the man would disappear and I would see him dancing with some girl prettier and nicer than me. Sometimes I spent hours in the “powder-room” so people could not see I had no one to dance with and that was depressing. If I hadn’t been so rich I wouldn’t even have been invited to most of them anyway. Maybe that would have been a good thing. I used to take Benzedrine before going out in the evening to make me feel more confident and then more of the stuff when I was sitting in the Ladies. You can get it – Benzedrine – in Harrods, you know, and morphine, lots of stuff like that sold in kits, like first aid, you know. Then Charlie Lomax was nice to me and he said he could fix me up with something better and there I went.’

‘Did he have lots of customers?’

‘Charlie? Oh yes, “society” is full of drugs. Everyone knows it but no one says anything. It’s funny, I used to call it “my sweet poison”. It made you feel so good, so warm, so content, but you always knew, in the back of your mind, that there was something better just round the corner.’

Shaken and at a loss for words, Edward said finally, ‘The story you have told me is a frightful one, Hermione. I understand that you were a victim of unscrupulous, evil men but to try and kill your stepfather –’

‘But don’t you see,’ she said, grabbing his hand, ‘he killed me or tried to. He stole my mother and then he wouldn’t give me the money to buy the dope sold in the club which he owns.’

Hermione’s agitation was horrible to see, and as soon as he could release his hand he called for a nurse and asked for something to calm her. The nurse looked at him askance but he was beyond caring.

When he left the hospital Edward felt drained and unutterably weary. He wandered about the city streets trying to comprehend what he had been told. It was a ghastly story. His self-esteem was at rock bottom. He had thought he was so much cleverer than Inspector Pride but actually he was stupider, much stupider. He had worked out his own theories without any evidence and decided he had got at the truth when he was really nowhere near it. Sensible, clean, honest Connie had seen it: she had said murderers kill for revenge, love and hate, greed – not for politics.

He decided he would go and see Blanche. Perhaps he could understand more about Hermione if he talked to her. At least it would comfort him to talk to someone he liked and whose opinions he respected. He could not tell her that her daughter was a murderer, of course; he could tell no one.

When he reached Eaton Place he discovered the door of the Weavers’ house was open and Lady Weaver was coming out, obviously in a state of great distress. She saw Edward and at first seemed not to know who he was.