A Detective at Death's Door Read online

  A Detective at Death’s Door

  H. R. F. Keating

  © H. R. F. Keating 2004

  H. R. F. Keating has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2004 by Macmillan.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter One

  Harriet, as she lay there, heard a voice.

  ‘I think you can take it now that we’ve pulled you through,’ it seemed to be saying.

  Something stirring at the bottom of her mind told her that she knew the man who had spoken. He was — His name was ... She had heard it. There was something ... Something funny ...

  She felt herself sliding back into the semi-oblivion in which she had been lying, and with a jerk forced herself up from it.

  Yes, I know. I remember. He’s Mr Hume Jones. And, yes. Yes, this is it. I’ve got it. He called himself ‘Hume Jones, no hyphen if you don’t mind’. And he’s been treating me.

  Treating me? What ... ? Why? Why am I being treated?

  John. John’s here. There, next to ... To what’s-his-name, Mr No-hyphen, if you don’t ...

  Wait, I must think. Think why I’m here.

  If I’m very careful, keep my eyes shut and take it slowly, I can think. Think it out.

  One: I am Harriet Piddock. Two: John is my husband, John Piddock. And, three: I’m Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens as well. Yes. And this must be a hospital. There’s the smell. Sharp and sanitized, but lingering. The hospital smell. And up to my neck there’s this stiff white sheet. My head on a starchy pillowcase. Yes.

  So, four: I’m ill. In hospital. Very ill. But ... But, yes, we’ve pulled you through. That was No-hyphen. And I — I sort of remember I heard him say that. Not now. Hours ago. Days ago? Yes, it could be some days ago.

  The sod. We didn’t pull me through. I came through. I pulled myself through. I refused to die. That’s it. I was in danger of death, and I decided — somehow I decided I was not going to die. No, more than that. I decided I was not going to be killed, lb be murdered. And ... Yes, I was not going to be poisoned.

  Right, it comes back. I was poisoned. What by? Don’t know. But it’s there in my memory. Somehow I drank poison. Enough to kill me. But I was determined not to be killed. By the poison. Oh, all right, be fair. I have been treated. By Mr Hume Whatsit. Treatment helped. Helped a lot. But if he thinks they’ve pulled me through, he’s wrong. I came through. I’ve come through. I have.

  She allowed herself to slip back into dulled nothingness.

  *

  It was morning. Pale dawn light behind the thin curtains in the window of the private room. The door had been briskly opened. The young Asian nurse who, as Harriet was vaguely aware, had been looking after her, went across and pulled the curtains fully back.

  Harriet felt the stronger light as a blow in the face.

  She shut her eyes, turned away, felt injured and suddenly helpless.

  ‘Mr Hume Jones says you can sit up today,’ the nurse pronounced.

  Harriet wanted to say, to shout, Go away. But she lacked the energy to utter even a word.

  She found herself hauled up, and felt the pillows being rearranged behind her. And, yes, something metallic had been noisily pulled forward. She fell back on it.

  Back-rest, yes.

  But she was not to be allowed any peace. Bedpan pushed underneath her. A bed-table, she realized when she ventured to open her eyes again, had been efficiently slid in front of her and a faintly steaming basin of warm water was being put on it.

  ‘Now you’re so much better,’ the nurse said, sharply enough, ‘you can manage to wash yourself.’

  A slimily soaped washcloth was put in her right hand. With firmness.

  And, though the nurse had whisked away in a flurry of blue uniform, Harriet did as she had been told and sat dabbing at her face.

  But before very long a hard little rebellious thought popped into her head. All right, I’ll do it today. But when I’m feeling just a bit stronger, I’ll bloody well wash when I want to wash.

  She sat there with her hands resting in the basin and began to pull her thoughts together.

  Right then. How did I come to be here? Because I’d been poisoned. Where? How? Yes, it was at the pool. The — I can get it — Majestic Insurance Company Sports and Social Club pool. Good. That’s come back. I was there at the pool with John, Majestic Insurance high-up. It’d been hot, bloody hot. It was the bank holiday, August bank holiday Monday. I was in my two-piece swimsuit, the near-bikini I hardly ever wear unless it’s really boiling hot. I was lying there, body well-covered with sunscreen, just beside the pool. And, yes, I’d drunk a Campari soda, a bright red, bubbles-tingling Campari soda, and poor John, because he’d said he’d be the driver, had had a bitter lemon.

  And, yes, it’s all coming back. I’d let John get me a second Campari, and I’d had a swallow or two of it, that delicious sharp herbal bite, and then John got up from his chair, put down on it the book he’d been reading — yes, one of those Agatha Christies he relaxes with — and said something ...

  Yes. I must go for a pee, shan’t be long.

  And I let my eyes close, sort of dozed off. And there was something ... something black and white. Don’t know what. And then John was coming back. And I looked up at him and smiled. Pleased just to see him.

  I lifted up that tall, cool glass and took another long swallow.

  And ... And something not quite right about the taste. My tongue tingling, pricking, and God, I’m cold, freezing, I said. And then ... Then the next thing I knew was my head being held over a toilet bowl and, yes, John’s fingers pushing hard into my throat.

  God, I can suddenly feel them again. As if ...

  Am I going to puke? Into this basin of cooling soapy water?

  No. Damned if I will.

  *

  John is here. The real John, not the John of those all too vividly re-experienced probing, vomit-inducing fingers. And flowers, he’s brought flowers. Can’t remember what they’re called. Deep sort of yellow colours. And lovely smell. One of my favourites. But I can’t remember the name. Must ask him. Ask what’s been happening to me, too.

  Did that man, man in the blue woollen shirt open at the neck, beautiful soft blue, and the white coat just hanging from the back of his shoulders, with the long pale face, man-in-the-moon, did he really say he’d pulled me through? All a blur.

  No, wait. Yes, Hume Jones, no hyphen.

  ‘John. Hello. It’s you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  ‘John, were you standing beside — Man, doctor. No. Yes, consultant? Called, I think, Hume Jones. Said, “We’ve pulled you through?”’

  ‘Yes, I was. Three days ago, though.’

  ‘God, as much as that? I — I must have been out, unconscious.’

  ‘You were. You recovered, a bit. And then you had a relapse. And you’ve been unconscious or asleep ever sin
ce then. But that’s a good thing. You’re meant to get as much sleep as possible. You’ve had a pretty awful time, you know, though Mr Hume Jones is quite happy that, as he said a little too proudly, “We’ve pulled you through.” Shouldn’t mock really. He did a fantastic job.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Oh, yes, no doubt about it. But you’re going to find yourself very weak, and wandering in your mind most probably, for a good long time to come.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I feel as if I will be. But — but you can tell me things now?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Anything you want to know. Hume Jones says it’ll be the best way for you to get yourself together ag — ’

  ‘John. I’ve just thought. The twins. Did the twins come down to see me? All the way from university?’

  ‘Of course they did. It was touch-and-go with you for days, you know.’

  ‘And — this is right? — I was poisoned. Somehow poisoned?’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘And did you ... ? Did you have to make me vomit? I remember that. Or was that a hullu — Hallucin — No, wait. Hallucination?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t any hallucination. The moment I realised what might be happening, I rushed you off to make you spew up as much as possible. Turned out to be the best thing I could have done, according to Hume Jones, though if you’d swallowed one of the corrosive poisons it would have been the worst thing.’

  A sudden rueful laugh.

  ‘I was in a terrible dilemma at that moment actually. You see, I knew where the loos were; I’d just been spending a penny. And, without thinking much about it, I rushed you towards them. But when I got there I was confronted with two doors side-by-side. One sign had the figure with legs apart, and one the figure with the skirt. And I simply couldn’t decide — only for an instant — which one to take you into, male or female. Both inappropriate in their different ways.’

  Harriet found she wanted to laugh. Only she didn’t know how to. Tears began to form at her eyes.

  She saw the quick look of concern on John’s face.

  ‘Well,’ he said hastily, ‘I actually plumped for the Ladies’, and there turned out not to be anyone in there. So that was all right. And then I had you whizzed off here. To St Oswald’s. And Hume Jones saved your life, over the course of a week or more.’

  ‘But, John, what was it that poisoned me? It was in that Campari soda, wasn’t it? But how did you know what was happening?’

  John’s face lit in a broad smile.

  ‘That was Agatha Christie,’ he said. ‘You know you’re always knocking her for the way she gets her murders solved. Not exactly by Greater Birchester Police methods. Well, you’ll have to thank her for ever now for what she wrote in the book I was reading beside you, Twisted Wolfsbane.’

  ‘Yes, I can see the book now. You put it on your chair when you went for a pee. Twisted Wolfsbane — odd title.’

  ‘Oh, it comes from Keats. The “Ode on Melancholy”. You must remember.’

  He lifted up his head and quoted.

  ‘No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist wolfsbane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine.’

  He looked down at her again.

  ‘But do you know what comes from twisting, more or less, that root?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Aconitine. The almost-always fatal poison that you swallowed with your Campari.’

  ‘The second one, that I’d taken several swallows from earlier on?’

  ‘Yes, I saw you doing that before I went off to the loo. So it was a wonderful piece of luck that I’d been reading the book immediately beforehand. Agatha Christie actually describes the symptoms — without going too deeply into unpleasant details, as was her way, bless her. But, yes, she wrote, and I’d just read the words, that the victim’s tongue tingles violently, that they have a sudden feeling of chill coldness, and then there’s a painful burning sensation in the mouth. Just what you said to me.’

  ‘Yes, I remember the tingling and the feeling of terrible coldness. But after that, not a lot. Except I’ve a very — what’s the word? — physical recall of your fingers doing their life-saving work down my throat.’

  ‘Well, life-saving only in part. Most of the credit ought to go to Mr Hume Jones. He and his team did heroic work once they had you here.’

  ‘But, John, who was it? Who put aconitine — someone must have done — into my Campari? And why? Why, for heaven’s sake?’

  She sank back on the bed then, overcome by exhaustion. Through the haze, very faintly, the scent of John’s flowers came to her.

  Freesias. Yes, freesias.

  Chapter Two

  The only visitor allowed was John. He came every morning and again in the late afternoon. On each occasion Harriet was able to say she felt a little stronger, though sometimes that was something of a lie. The weakness of will that seemed at every moment to be lying there deep inside her showed too often its morass-sucking power. Otherwise the days were marked by the regular rounds of Mr Hume Jones, different coloured soft wool shirt each day, accompanied now by a little band of nodding and grinning camp-followers. Early each morning, too, Nurse Bhattacharya swept in, firmly intent on getting the patient into an outwardly presentable state. A little later a paper girl appeared, and The Times and Birchester Chronicle were slammed happily down somewhere on the bed, John’s order fulfilled. If to little purpose. Broadsheet newspapers can seem impossibly heavy.

  Meals, which Harriet had little appetite for, were brought in with clockwork regularity: breakfast, lunch, supper, as well as cups of this and that which she did attempt to swallow, not always with success. And almost every day flowers arrived, with cards from friends and colleagues. Feebly she wished she could show more gratitude. The Chief Constable sent an enormous bunch of pallidly mauve Michaelmas daisies. His secretary contributed a pot containing a single African violet.

  But on one of John’s afternoon visits, just at the time his freesias were beginning to droop, he put, with evident caution, a question to her.

  ‘Listen, do you think you might be well enough now to see your colleague, Detective Superintendent Murphy? He’s the Senior Investigating Officer on your case.’

  ‘My case?’ Harriet said, struck by surprise.

  ‘Yes, your case. After all, you’re the victim of attempted murder. So no wonder Greater Birchester Police, for one of their own, are pulling out all the stops.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose they will be. Somehow I haven’t thought of myself as the central figure in a major investigation.’

  John looked down at her with an expression of mildly pitying wonder.

  ‘How well do you know Murphy?’ he asked then. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention him.’

  ‘We’ve never had a lot to do with each other, as it happens. But he’s got a good reputation. Perhaps the best in the force. So I’m honoured, sort of.’

  ‘I was certainly impressed when he interviewed me, as he did of course several days ago. He was tremendously thorough. Not that I was able to tell him anything relevant. Had I seen anybody suspicious near you? But what does a poisoner look like? A little malicious dwarf? An old, witch-like woman, evilly cackling? Or Claudius of Denmark, sneaking about with a phial of brightly coloured liquid, all ready to pour into the ear of the King, his brother? “Upon my secure hour.” Think that’s the words Shakespeare put into his Ghost’s mouth.’

  ‘John ... John, I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. I mean, I haven’t up till now really properly thought about what actually happened to me. That — that someone actually crept up and put, put that stuff, aconitine, a deadly poison, into my drink.’

  An onset of shivering passed along her body from ankles and calves right up to her forehead.

  ‘Look,’ John said, ‘I think I’ve been premature in asking if you’re ready to talk to Murphy. Let’s leave it. Leave it for a day or two.’

  ‘No.’

  The word shot out with more ferocity than Harriet had meant it to have.
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br />   ‘No, John,’ she said then. ‘No, the case must be investigated. If someone has attempted to poison me — to murder me, damn it — then they must be apprehended, if only because they may go on to murder someone else. And if there’s anything I can do to see they are apprehended, then I’m ready to do it. So tell Pat Murphy I’ll see him just as soon as he likes.’

  *

  Detective Superintendent Murphy came into Harriet’s room at exactly ten o’clock next morning. She had been told he was coming, and Nurse Bhattacharya had vigorously propped her higher on her pillows ready to receive him. The bulky shape of the man she had seen mostly at a distance came immediately into focus. His broad, floridly red face, the two sharply blue eyes in it, and, less well remembered, the white pelt of hair, hair that must once have been red or reddish. She recalled, too, his blue suit. She had never seen him wearing anything else, its cloth of a brighter shade than anyone she knew would have chosen, and the whole stretched at every seam by the powerful body underneath. She remembered now the way that his tie, invariably of a plain, dull red and seamed with much knotting and unknotting, appeared to be always on the point of strangling the thick neck it encircled.

  ‘Pat,’ she greeted him. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello yourself. And how are you?’

  She recognized the question had been asked out of more than everyday formality, if only because his lingering Irish accent emphasized not the you but the are, and she gathered herself up to answer equally truthfully.

  ‘I’m not fit, Pat. Not fit at all. You know, I’ve been at death’s door, all but finished so they tell me. And there are times still when I feel that door swinging open for me again. And I’m tired, utterly worn down. So don’t expect too much from me, that’s all.’

  ‘I won’t. So I won’t. I’ll just tell you now where we’ve got to so far, and then I’ll maybe ask you a question or two.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll be ready. I’ll try to be ready.’

  ‘Well now, let me say first of all that we’re keeping the attack on you under wraps for as long as we can. If we keep it that way, the fella who did it — or the woman, yes, the woman — may get anxious to know whether they succeeded, and if they try to find out we may get some sort of a line on them. I’ve a WDC down there at reception tasked with keeping her eyes wide open, and you never know but that we may get something that way. Worth a try at least. So till I say. It’s not a word.’