The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries Part 13

"Suggesting what?"

"The contusions?" Garnett smacked his lips. "Dizziness, auditory and visual disturbances, blurred vision, that kind of thing and not what you'd want to experience when you're stuck in a WC. It's my bet he shambled about in there like a ping-pong ball, bouncing off every wall. And, of course, the pain would have been nothing to what he was having from his stomach that's why he'd clawed at himself so much. By then, he'd be having seizures-hence the tongue and he'd be faint."

"Why didn't he just come out, shout for help?"

"Disorientation would be my guess. And panic. He'd be in a terrible state at this point, Mai."

Broadhurst waited. "And?"

"And then he died. I've seen cases before-cardiac arrests-with two or three of the same symptoms, but never so many together . . . and never so intense. This chap suffered h.e.l.l in his final minutes."

Garnett sighed before continuing. "So, we checked him out for all the usual bacteria-saliva, urine, stool samples; and there were plenty of those, right down to his ankles and-"

"So he hadn't even been to the toilet?"

"No, he had been. His large bowel was empty. This stuff came as the result of a sudden stimulation to the gut and that would release contents further up the bowel pa.s.sage. Anyway, like I said, we checked everything but it was no go. Then I checked the meal-bland but harmless and the beer . . . nothing there either."

Garnett moved away from the phone to cough. "G.o.d, and now I think I'm coming down with a cold."

"Take the rest of the day off."

"Thanks!" He cleared his throat and went on. "So, in absolute desperation, we started checking him for needle marks: thought he might be using something and that was why he always went to the toilet so regularly. But there was nothing, skin completely unbroken. And then . . ."

"Ah, is this the good bit?"

"Yes, indeedy and this is the good bit."

Broadhurst could sense the doctor leaning further into the phone, preparing to deliver the coup de grace.

"Then we turned him over and we found the rash."

"The rash? All that and a rash too?"

"On his backside, across his cheeks and up into the a.n.u.s. A nasty little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, blotches turning to pustules even five hours after he died. At first I thought maybe it was thrush but it was too extreme for that. So we took a swab and tested it."

The pause was theatrical in its duration. "And . . . go on, Jim, for G.o.d's sake," Broadhurst snapped around a cloud of smoke.

"Nicotine poisoning."

The policeman's heart sank. For this he had allowed himself to get excited? "Nicotine poisoning?" he said in exasperation. "Nicotine, as in cigarettes?" He glanced down at the chaos of crumpled brown stubs in the ashtray next to him on the bed.

Garnett grunted proudly. "Nicotine as in around eight million cigarettes smoked in the s.p.a.ce of one drag."

"What?"

"That was what killed him not the heart attack, though that delivered the final blow-nicotine: one of the most lethal poisons known to man."

"And how did he get it, if it wasn't in the drink or in the meal, and it wasn't injected? And a.s.suming he didn't smoke eight million cigarettes while he was sitting contemplating."

Garnett cleared his throat. "He got it in the a.r.s.e, Mal, though G.o.d only knows how."

Broadhurst glanced across at the solitary toilet roll sitting on his chest of drawers. "I know, too," he said. "But the 'why', that's the puzzler."

"And the 'who'?"

"Yeah, that too."

Edna Clark sat at her kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a mug of steaming tea. Sitting across from her was Betty Thorndike.

When the knock came on the front door, Betty said, "You stay put, love I'll get it."

Hilda Merkinson had been in every room in the house but her sister was nowhere to be found.

Worse still, she couldn't find her handbag.

"Harry?" She had already shouted her sister's name a dozen times but, in the absence of a more useful course of action, she shouted it again. The silence seemed to mock her.

Hilda knew why Harriet had gone out. She had gone out to clear her head, maybe to have a weep by herself. No problem. She would get over it. It might take a bit of time, but she would get over it of that, Hilda was convinced.

They had lived together, Hilda and Harriet Merkinson, in the same house for all of their 53 years; just the two of them since their mother had died in 1992.

They had a routine, a routine that Hilda did not want to see altered in any way. It was a safe routine, a routine of eating together, cleaning together, watching the TV together, and occasionally slipping along to The Three Pennies public house for a couple of life-affirming medicinal gla.s.ses of Guinness stout. It was a routine of going to bed and kissing each other goodnight on the upstairs landing and of waking each morning and kissing each other h.e.l.lo, again in the same spot; a routine broken only by Harriet's job in Jack Wilson's General store, and Hilda's work at the animal testing facility on Aldershot Road, where she'd been for almost seven years. The same length of time that Harriet had worked.

During that time, the routine had persevered.

It had been all and its disappearance was unthinkable.

Not that there hadn't been times when things looked a little shaky, namely the times when Ian Arb.u.t.t had cornered Hilda in the small back room against the photocopier and sworn his affection-despite Ian's wife, Judith, and his two children. But basically, Ian's affection had been for Hilda's body and Hilda had recognized this pretty quickly into the relationship if you could call the clumsy gropes and speedy e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns performed by her boss on the back room carpet a relationship.

Hilda had had to think of how to put an end to it thus maintaining her and Harriet's beloved routine-while not having it affect her position at the testing centre.

The solution had been simple, if a little Machiavellian. She had sent an anonymous letter to Judith Arb.u.t.t saying she should keep a tighter rein on her husband. "I'm not mentioning any names," the carefully worded (and written) letter had continued, "but there are some folks around town who think your Ian's affections might be being misplaced." Hilda had liked that last bit.

A very anxious and contrite Ian had suggested to Hilda, on the next occasion that they were both alone in the centre, that he felt he wasn't being fair to her. "Trifling with her affections" is what Hilda imagined he was wanting to say but Ian's pharmacological expertise did not extend to the poetic. "I hope you're not leading up to suggesting I look for other work," Hilda had said, feigning annoyance, brow furrowed, "because that would mean something along the lines of s.e.xual hara.s.sment, wouldn't it?"

The answer had been emphatic and positive. "A job for life", is how he worded it. "You're here for as long as you want to be here, Hilda," he said. And he had been true to his word, at least Hilda could give him that.

No, Hilda would have nothing come between her and her sister. They were all either of them had and their separation was something she could not contemplate. She had thought that Harriet felt the same way.

And then came the fateful day, almost a week ago was it really only a week? it seemed so much longer that had threatened to change all that.

Every Thursday, without fail, Harriet always walked along to the fish-and-chip shop on the green-Thursday being Jack Wilson's early closing day and had the tea all ready for Hilda when she got in. But on this particular Thursday, following four days of solid rain, when Hilda a little earlier than usual because Ian also had flooding and wanted to get off had gone past the General Store, she had seen Harriet helping Jack with moving boxes around due to the leakage through the front windows. He had asked her to stay back and give him a hand, and Harriet couldn't refuse, despite her other "commitments".

"We'll just have some sandwiches," Harriet had shouted through the locked door of Jack's shop, looking terribly fl.u.s.tered. "You just put your feet up and I'll make them when I get in," she added.

Hilda had nodded. Then she had gone home, put the kettle on and, at the usual time Harriet always left the house en route for the fish and chips, Hilda had embarked into the darkness on the very same journey. Imagine her surprise when, from behind the big oak tree on the green, a shadowy figure leapt out, grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a big kiss on her mouth.

It was Arthur Clark.

"Thought you weren't coming," Arthur had announced to a bewildered Hilda. "Been here b.l.o.o.d.y ages," he had added. "Edna'll be getting ideas mind you," Arthur had confided, "it won't matter soon. Must dash." Then he had given her another kiss and had scurried across the green bound for home, calling over his shoulder, "See you on Sat.u.r.day anyway, at the Christmas do."

Hilda had stood and watched the figure disappear into the darkness, and she was so flabbergasted that she almost forgot all about the fish and chips and went home empty-handed. But already she was thinking that that would not do. That would not do at all.

The "meeting" had given her advance knowledge of a potential threat to the beloved routine. And by the time she was leaving the fat-smelling warmth of the shop, Hilda had hatched a plan.

She knew all about poisons from Ian's explanations, long-drawn-out monologues that, despite their monotony, had registered in Hilda's mind. Which was fortunate. She knew about nicotine, and about the way it was lethal and produced symptoms not unlike heart failure.

Getting a small supply would not be a problem. There were constant threats against the centre notably from animal rights groups based out in the wilderness of Hebden Bridge and Todmorden-so a small break-in, during which most of the contents of the centre could be strewn around and trashed, was an easy thing to arrange . . . particularly after administering a small dose of sleeping tablets to her sister, who obligingly nodded off in front of the TV.

Hilda scooted along Luddersedge's late night streets, let herself in with her own key-thanking G.o.d that he had seen fit to make Ian make her a joint key-holder with him-did what she considered to be an appropriate amount of damage, and removed a small amount of nicotine from the gla.s.s jar in Ian's office cabinet, to which, again, she had a key. She left the cabinet untouched by "the vandals" who had destroyed the office. Then, after resetting the alarm, she had smashed in the windows with a large stick and returned home.

It wasn't until she was almost back at the house that she heard the siren. She had smiled then it had been long enough for whoever had broken in to do all the damage and escape without challenge. The night air had smelled good then, good and alive with . . . not so much possibilities but with continuance. Back in the warmth, she had settled herself down in front of the TV and, after about half an hour, had dropped off herself. The icing on the cake had been the fact that it was Hilda's sister who woke Hilda up. A wonderful alibi, even though none would be needed.

Two days later, on the night of the Conservative Club's Christmas Party, Hilda had bolted her meal and though she knew she was risking things had gone to the toilet at ten minutes to ten (Arthur Clark's toilet habits being legendary). Once out of the ballroom, she had run down to the Gentlemen's toilet, removed the tissue rolls from all but one WC, and had treated the first few sheets of the remaining roll with the special bottle in her handbag. It was four minutes to ten when she had finished.

She had arrived back in the ballroom at 9:58 just in time to see Arthur get up from the table and set off for his date with his maker. She had not been able to go straight back and was grateful for Agnes Olroyd catching her to talk about the break-in and about her Eric's prostate. By the time they had finished talking, Hilda's composure was fully restored and she was able to rejoin the table.

And now Harriet was nowhere to be seen. But that could wait.

The main thing as far as Hilda was concerned was to find her bag.

And she had a good idea as to where it was.

Harriet's revelations had hit Edna Clark harder even than her husband's death less than twelve hours earlier.

In Edna's kitchen, with the sun washing through the window that looked out onto the back garden and with steam gently wafting from the freshly boiled kettle, Edna sat at the table feeling she had suddenly lost far more than her life partner: now she had lost her life itself. Everything she had believed in had been quickly and surely trounced by the blubbering Harriet Merkinson when she burst through the front door, ran along the hall-pursued by a confused Betty Thorndike and emerged in the kitchen, tears streaming down her face. And now Edna's 27 years with Arthur lay before her in tatters; every conversation, every endearment whispered to her in the private darkness of the their bedroom, every meal she had prepared and every holiday snapshot they had taken.

While Harriet continued sniffling and Betty simply stood leaning against the kitchen cabinets (installed by Arthur, Edna recalled, one laughter-filled weekend in the early 1980s), her eyes seemingly permanently raised in a mask of disbelief, Edna looked around at the once-familiar ephemera and bric-a-brac of a life that now seemed completely alien. These were things from another life another person's life and nothing to do with Edna Clark, newly bereaved widow of one Arthur Clark, late of this parish.

The story had been a familiar one. Even as Harriet Merkinson had been burbling it out the clandestine meetings, the whispered affections, the promise of a new life once Arthur had built up the nerve to leave his wife-Edna felt that she had heard it all before . . . or read it in a book someplace, maybe even watched it on television. The Arthur revealed by Harriet was not the Arthur she remembered, save for one thing: his toilet habits. At least something was constant in her husband's two lives.

And now, while Edna's mind raced and backtracked and questioned and attempted in the strange and endearing way of minds to rationalize and make palatable the revelations, the "other" woman continued to burble a litany of regret and sorrow and pleas for absolution and forgiveness.

"I can't forgive you," Edna said at last, her words cutting through the thick atmosphere like a knife through cheese. "Never," she added with grim finality. "I can understand, because I know these things do happen, but I can never forgive you. You haven't taken only my husband's memory, you've completely removed my entire life."

It was the most articulate statement Edna had ever made, and the most articulate she would ever make in what remained of her life. Of course, she would come to terms with what had happened, but she would never get over it.

"Edna, Edna, Edna, Ed-"

"Now get out," Edna said, cutting Harriet's ramble off midword. Her voice was quieter now, more composed, gentle even. There was no animosity, no aggression, no threats of retribution: just a tiredness and, the still silent Betty was amazed to see, a newfound strength that was almost majesterial. "I never want to speak with you again."

Minutes later, Betty and Edna heard the distant click of the front door latch closing. It sounded for all the world like the closing of a tomb door or the first scattering of soil on a recently lowered coffin. Edna leaned forward and placed her face in her hands, and she began to sob, quietly and uncontrollably.

While Malcolm Broadhurst was greeting the two uniformed policemen on the steps of the Regal's ornate front door, two things were happening, both of them personally involving the Merkinson twins.

For Harriet, the routine so cherished by her sister had been a ch.o.r.e. More than that, it had been the bane of her life.

Harriet had long wanted to get out of the repet.i.tive drudgery of the existence she shared with Hilda, and Arthur Clark-dear, sweet Arthur, with his strange toilet habits had been her ticket to salvation. Love was a new experience to Harriet: for that matter, she did not know not truly, down in those regions of the heart and the soul where such things reside whether she really loved Arthur, for she had never experienced such feelings, even as a teenager and a young woman. But she did see in him the means whereby she could attain a new life, a life of relative importance. "Harriet and Arthur", "Arthur and Harriet" she couldn't decide which she preferred, but she preferred either to "The Merkinson twins" or "Hilda and Harriet".

As she fished out the old clothesline from the kitchen cupboard, taking care to replace the various bottles and cartons of disinfectant and packets of soap powder, she felt a calmness come over her. Arthur's death had effectively removed her last chance for salvation, and she had been dest.i.tute. But now, thanks to the clothesline, she saw a solution. It wasn't the one she would have preferred but it was now the only one available. The only game in town. She could neither face life with Hilda nor life without the constant frisson of excitement she got prior to meeting Arthur, and she certainly could not face the comments and whispers around town when she walked down the high street or around the green. No, this way was best for all concerned. It was best for Edna who might at least derive a little satisfaction when she heard and it was best for Hilda, who would have to put up with her own share of her sister's shame.

She climbed the stairs wearily and attached one end of the clothesline to the upstairs banister rail. Then, after ensuring that the line's drop was sufficiently short to do the job, she fashioned a noose of sorts and slipped it over her head. With one final look around the landing she climbed over the rail and sat on the banister, staring down at the floor far below. As she jumped, in that fleeting but seemingly endless second or two before the line pulled taut without her feet ever touching the hall floor, she wondered where Hilda was . . . and what she would say when she came home.

"You've got something for forensics?"

Broadhurst nodded. "It's inside. I didn't want to be seen with it outside."

They started to walk.

"I came up last Wednesday," Malcolm Broadhurst explained to the two uniforms. "To check into the break-in down at the animal testing centre."

"Oh, yeah?" one of the policemen observed. His name was James Proctor and he had perfected that same aggressive and questioning response to even the most innocent facts or snippets of information, seeming to require confirmation or substantiation to anything said to him.

"Yeah," Broadhurst confirmed. They were now walking up the Regal's steps and approaching the wide, oak-panelled revolving door. "Your Inspector Mishkin asked me up because there were a few things he wasn't too happy about. I take it you two aren't working on that case?"

"We didn't know it was a case," the second policeman said as they emerged from the revolving door into the hotel's reception area. He said the word "case" with a heavy-handed touch of sarcasm. "Thought it was just a simple break-in."

"Yes, well," Broadhurst continued. "That's the way it looked, and Inspector Mishkin and I decided to keep it that way until things made a little more sense."

"And have they now?" the second policeman asked.

Broadhurst hit the bell on the reception desk.

"Look at it this way," the policeman said, turning from the desk and looking the two uniforms in the eye. "Whoever broke in through the window managed to trash the place and then place all the broken gla.s.s on top of the wrecked office." He nodded, smiling. "That's a pretty good trick, don't you think?"

"So-"

"So," Broadhurst continued, watching the main staircase as a young man appeared and started down, "the 'vandal' clearly had access to the centre and wanted to cover up the fact that they had been there. Now that reason could be simply a matter of their wanting to fight the animal testing, kind of like a fifth columnist, or it could be another reason. I think we now have that reason-although the reason itself must have a reason and that's what I now b.l.o.o.d.y well intend to find out."

"Yes, sir?" the young man said as he reached the bottom of the stairs and approached the three men at the desk. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Is Mister Poke around?" Broadhurst asked. "I gave him something to look after for me."

The man nodded and moved around the desk. "I'll give him a call, sir," he said.

As Harriet Merkinson was swinging gently from side to side in the hallway of the house she shared with her sister, Hilda Merkinson slipped quietly into the back door of the Regal.

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Merkinson," Sidney Poke said. His tone was quite reverential, a tone he would use when speaking with anyone who had been at the previous evening's party, and particularly those who had been closely involved with the tragic death of Arthur Clark.

Hilda nodded. "I wondered," she said, "if you had found anything this morning. When you were cleaning up, I mean."

Sidney frowned attentively. "Have you-" The ring of his mobile phone interrupted him. "Excuse me just a minute," he said, pulling his phone from his side pocket. He pressed a b.u.t.ton and said, "Yes?"

Hilda looked around as Poke listened on the phone.

"Right," he said. "I'll get it and bring it through." He waited another few seconds and then said, "Very well, I'll meet them on the way."

"Now," Poke said as he returned the phone to his pocket. "Where we were? Ah yes, have you lost something?"