The Saint Valentine's Day Murders (11 page)

‘What have you established so far?’

‘The preliminary pathology reports indicate that all four victims died of a massive dose of strychnine. It’s a super-toxic poison and about 100 milligrams is the normal lethal dose. Our murderer doctored each chocolate on the top layer of the six boxes of chocolates with about 150 milligrams. They were very sweet chocolate cream that disguised the bitter taste of the strychnine.’

‘Thorough chap,’ said Amiss, putting down the sandwich he had begun to eat and reaching for a cigarette. ‘Sorry. Melissa’s indoctrination is slipping. Thorough person.’

Milton realized the effort behind Amiss’s attempt at a joke. He said gently, ‘I’ve got to tell you now the worst thing, Robert, because I don’t want you to find out from anyone else. It’s one of the most vicious poisons there is. Once it begins to affect the central nervous system it causes breathing difficulties and convulsions, and gives rise to intermittent spasms of extreme pain.’

‘How long does it take to die?’

‘It varies, but roughly an hour.’

Amiss sat silently for a few moments and then suddenly rose and rushed to the bathroom. They could hear the sounds of violent retching. Rachel followed him and returned quickly.

‘He says he’ll be all right when he’s had a couple of minutes on his own.’

He was back before their uneasy silence had been broken. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was just too much on top of my last night’s excesses. Nothing against your sandwiches, Sammy.’

Rachel felt a rush of affection towards him deeper than any she had previously experienced. He looked over at her and smiled.

‘All this will make a man of me yet. If a wet like Jim can become impervious to grisly deaths, so can I. Carry on, Jim. How was it done?’

‘All the parcels were sent first-class letter-post on Friday from the main post office near the office. There were six in all – one each for Melissa, Edna Crump, Val Illingworth, Gloria Farson, Jill Collins and Fran Short.’

‘So why didn’t they arrive on Saturday?’

‘Each one had a typewritten note stuck on saying “Please don’t deliver before first post Monday 14 February, St Valentine’s Day.” The Post Office, bless their romantic souls, obliged and kept the parcels back.’

‘Smart murderer.’

‘Very smart. That way he ensured the women were on their own when they received the chocolates and assumed they were from their husbands.’

‘Why didn’t any of the wives…?’ asked Rachel. ‘Sorry. I’ve thought of the answer.’

‘I bet you were going to say “Why didn’t any of the wives ring up and say thank you?”,’ said Amiss.

‘I was. But they just weren’t given to phoning their husbands at work.’

‘Right,’ said Amiss. ‘That’s the cruel thing about it. All these guys were either careful about money or hard up. Phone-calls from far distant homes during peak hours were only made in emergencies.’

‘To continue,’ said Milton, looking anxiously at his watch. ‘Tiny’s wife succumbed to the temptation first, and she died sometime mid-morning. Thank heavens Tiny had that dental appointment and was home earlier than usual. If he hadn’t phoned you, it could all have been much worse.’

‘I wondered why he did phone me. It wasn’t necessary.’

‘He says it was because he thought you’d give him some support. He likes you. Or so he told the officer who took his statement.’

Rachel was relieved to see that the impact of this was not lost on Amiss. He looked almost happy for a moment. Then his face became serious again. ‘And the others?’

‘No one else touched the stuff until late afternoon. Gloria Farson was surprised to get a present which she could only assume came from Tony. She thought they should celebrate his uncharacteristic generosity by opening them together ceremoniously.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Their seven-year-old son arrived home from school at four o’clock. He had his tea and wandered alone into the living room. He was a greedy little chap, apparently, and when he saw the box he ripped it open and took one. By the time she heard him screaming, called the ambulance and tried to comfort him, it was too late to get in touch with Tony. The office was empty.’

‘Edna?’

‘She was on a diet, but she obviously couldn’t resist having one at afternoon tea-time. She was on her own, and wasn’t discovered until the police arrived and saw her corpse through the living room window.’

Rachel looked anxiously at Amiss. She had to ask it for him.

‘Charlie?’

‘Charlie and his wife had been having a bit of a coolness, so though she assumed the chocolates were from him, she wouldn’t open them. I think she wanted some kind of reconciliation scene first. He came home, saw the chocolates and shouted out, “What’s this, then? Something from one of your boyfriends?” Pulled the wrapping off and took one. He had the best chance of survival of any of them. He was the biggest, and the ambulance got to him within fifteen minutes. But his heart was none too strong, and the strain on it so great that he was dead on arrival at the hospital.’

Rachel took Amiss’s hand and squeezed it. ‘And the others?’

‘Melissa you know about. Graham Illingworth’s wife, it seems, was also either working up to or recovering from a tiff with him. So she didn’t open the chocolates either. He’s beside himself with relief over it. Especially since he heard about Tony’s kid. Keeps going on about how it could have been his little Gail.’

Amiss looked up. ‘That rings a bell. Something from the dinner dance.’ They looked at him hopefully. ‘No. It’s no use. I’m too befuddled still. Can’t think clearly. It’ll come to me.’

‘Robert, we haven’t come here to grill you. Have we, Sammy?’

Pike shook his head sympathetically. ‘Mind you, sir, I’m noting this down as a preliminary interrogation, but saying that Mr Amiss was in bad shape and couldn’t be of much assistance at this time.’

‘Quite right. Sammy and I can’t stay any longer. We’ve got a meeting this afternoon with the relevant officers from the three forces. I’m going to interview the main
dramatis personae
myself in due course, but I’m getting the local people to take care of relatives, neighbours and so forth. My Chief Inspector will be in charge of the routine investigations of sources of supply, checking with post office staff and that kind of thing. Motive’s the real bugger. We haven’t got anything yet. It’s either a lunatic, or someone who so hated one of the women in question he was prepared to sacrifice six or more people just to spread the risk of being discovered.’

‘Sounds like a lunatic either way,’ said Amiss.

‘Have you any nominations?’

‘Not at the moment. I don’t know what you remember from what I told you a couple of months ago, but you should be aware – though it sounds treacherous to say it now – that none of them seemed to me to be happily married. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been stunned if any of them had strangled his wife or any of the wives had poisoned her husband. I can’t see any of them doing this, though. Can we meet tomorrow? In the meantime, I’ll try to get my thoughts and memories into some sensible order.’

‘Lunchtime again. Here? And tomorrow you two can go out in the morning and buy it.’

‘Done,’ said Rachel. ‘You’ll be coming too, Sammy?’

‘I expect so, miss.’

Milton and Pike gathered their belongings and moved towards the door. As Rachel saw them out she said, ‘Thanks, Jim. That helped a lot. He’s got something to occupy him now.’

‘I’m fond of him too,’ said Milton. He bent and kissed her. She walked quickly back into the living room and stood for a moment looking at Amiss, who was stretched out with his eyes shut.

‘Come on,’ she said, affecting her Margaret Thatcher voice. ‘Pull your socks up and get cracking. You’ve got four letters of commiseration to write and a number of phone-calls to make. I’m going to order the wreaths and plan our next few days.’

He looked up and tried to blink away his tears. Then he grinned. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have taken up with a Jew,’ he said. ‘You’re all such bloody achievers.’

15

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Wednesday, 16 February

Amiss lay in bed listening to Rachel’s breathing and trying all the tricks he knew to get to sleep. Come on, he urged himself. Try to work through the detailed plot of the last film you saw. Shit, it was a thriller and I can’t think of a soothing alternative. Focus on an imaginary black velvet curtain… ugh, as black as the grave I’ll be looking into tomorrow at Edna’s funeral… How about Latin verbs…
amo, amas, amat
… Rachel… she’s being wonderful…
amo
, certainly… she’s pulled me through the worst of this already… without her I wouldn’t be able to think calmly about Charlie… Charlie… If I hadn’t got him promoted, he’d have still been in PD1 and would have been saved in time… no, no… Rachel argued me out of that… you’re not responsible if you inadvertently kick a stone and start an avalanche of boulders… back to the sleep-inducers… Purchasing Instructions… BC/P/5293, Horace’s most bewildering… try to remember its provisions again… 1) This instruction should be read in conjunction with BC/P/4396… how did that begin?… I can remember Henry quoting it at Twillerton… Twillerton… I haven’t been there since I drove away leaving Charlie pumping up a flat tyre… don’t think about Charlie, think about nailing his murderer… funny how personal knowledge of the victim makes one vengeful… but not vicious, really… I don’t want whoever did this hanged, but I can’t feel very forgiving… still, today Jim sounded more liberal than I did… talking about the fellow responsible maybe being mad and not to be blamed for his actions… fellow? maybe it was some lesbian friend of Melissa’s?… Jim says her lover had access to her list of PD1 names and addresses… an old one with Charlie’s name on it… wouldn’t that be better than knowing one of my staff could have done it… couldn’t be Tiny… I like Tiny… not as much as I liked Charlie… stop it…

He looked at the clock and saw it was almost midnight. He got out of bed and went into the living room, poured himself a large whisky and lit a cigarette. He might as well think sensibly about the information he and Jim had exchanged today. The estimate was that among all the chocolates, over seven grams of strychnine had been used. How the hell did anyone get hold of any strychnine, let alone that much? Jim’s people hadn’t come up with any answers. Preliminary advice suggested that only those with easy access to a chemical laboratory could lay their hands on that amount. Or someone with criminal associations. But how could any of these blokes consort with criminals? None of the married ones had had enough time to call their own to enable them to make the right kind of contacts. Only Tony and maybe Tiny had the money. Bill had both but he had no motive. Unless he was a psychopath. And there were several others in PD – and maybe outside it – who had access to the same list. Maybe someone in PD2 was responsible? Or Horace? Or Cathy? Or Shipton? Impossible to imagine any of them as mass murderers. Poor Bill had even burst into tears this morning when Jim mentioned Tony’s son. Is that because he’s softhearted? Or because he meant to kill Gloria and was upset because he’d got the wrong person? Nonsense. It would have been impossible not to know he was running that risk. And that rules Tony out too, doesn’t it?

Graham’s out of it too, for the same reason. No one could be more devoted to his child than Graham is to Gail. Charlie didn’t commit suicide. That left only Henry, Tiny and Melissa’s friend. He refused to believe Tiny was capable of such cold-blooded callousness, even if he had a motive. Henry? He was a ghastly, selfish lecherous old bastard, but surely… That was the rub, of course. How could he believe that anyone he knew could do something like that? Yes, selfishly, it would be best if it proved to be Melissa’s friend. Jim said that he had got no information worth the name out of Melissa last night. He only found out she had that list at home by snooping and finding it stuck inside the telephone directory.

So far, so bad, he thought. If all he could come up with for Jim was the time-honoured advice that it must be someone other than those he knew, he might as well throw in his hand as an unofficial helpmeet. He wouldn’t go back to bed until he had thought of something useful. He had nothing to add to the character analyses he had given Jim today. Or rather, yesterday, he observed, seeing that it was now well after midnight. That was a smart idea of Rachel’s, he thought, ringing her flatmate Helen to ask her to send over his letters in the diplomatic pouch. It was rather an invasion of privacy, but Jim had promised that only he and Sammy would read them. He had seemed very interested in the Twillerton business. Maybe there was a link. Some of the things that happened there had been downright unpleasant, even if laxatives were a long way from strychnine. Jim should be able to sort out Lorre and Greenstreet and come up with an answer to that one.

He poured himself another, smaller shot, lit another cigarette and considered it thoughtfully. All the agony of giving up had been wasted. He’d never have the heart to go through it again. What a bore he’d been on the subject of how he could now take them or leave them. Of how he took an occasional cigarette at moments of pressure but used his iron will to ensure that he never went beyond three a week. Indeed he had had a long conversation about that with poor Fran Short the one and only time they met. She was a reformed smoker herself. Edna had confessed that her one and only passion was chocolate. And Val Illingworth had said – good God, yes – she had said she liked it too, but wasn’t it funny, Gail wouldn’t touch the stuff. Unnatural in a child, they had all agreed. But Val had said it was because Gail once got so sick from over-indulgence in Easter eggs that she couldn’t bear the smell since.

His job, he considered, was not to ponder the implications of this remembered information any further. It was for Jim to decide whether this put Graham seriously into the running as a likely murderer. He looked around for the book most likely to put him to sleep, a search concluded when his eyes lit on C.P. Snow’s
The Masters
, a novel he had greatly enjoyed on first reading. Everything is a matter of perspective in the end, he thought to himself as he reached for it. How could I ever have cared whether one set of wankers succeeded in pushing their candidates into the mastership of a college in the face of the machinations of an opposing set of wankers? At this rate I won’t even think it matters if I don’t become a Principal next May.