Peter Lovesey - Murder on the Short List

He shrugged. “Doug liked his food. Everyone knew that. I’ve rarely seen him let a plate of pies go by.”

“So he had one at every house that evening?”

“Every one except Miss Appleton’s.”

“Gertrude’s? Was there a reason for that?”

A slow smile. “Have you met the lady?”

“No.”

“Have you sampled her cooking?”

“No.”

“If you had, you’d understand.” He closed the pruning shears in a way that punctuated the remark.

She said, “I thought you all exchanged pies with her.”

“We do, but we don’t have to eat them. My wife always makes a batch and I prefer hers any day.”

Rosemary ventured into even more uncertain territory. “Did Douglas have any enemies around here?”

He mused on that for a moment. “None that I heard of.”

“His dairy farm was the last in the village, I heard. What will happen to it now?”

“Kitty isn’t capable of running it alone. Likely it’ll be bought for peanuts by Ben Black and turned into another nursery. That’s the trend.”

“Sad to see the old farms disappearing,” Rosemary said. “It happened to yours, I was told.”

“Bad management on my part,” Colin said without hesitation. “I’ve no one to blame but myself. Doug acquired the herd and my three fields.”

“Would you buy them back if they came on the market?”

“I’m in no position to. Ben is the only winner here.”

She asked where Ben was to be found.

“This time of day? I wouldn’t know. Last I saw of him was yesterday morning.”

She decided instead to call on the village Lucretia Borgia.

The cottage could have done with some new thatching, but otherwise it looked well maintained. Gertrude Appleton must have seen Rosemary coming because the door opened before she reached it.

Tall, certainly. She had to dip her head to look out of her door.

And she was holding a meat cleaver.

“What brings you here?” she asked Rosemary. The eyes fitted Laura’s description of them as about as sympathetic as wet pebbles.

“I’m staying next door.”

“You think I don’t know that? What do you want?”

A little Christmas cheer wouldn’t come amiss, Rosemary thought. “My friend Laura has been taken to the police station for questioning about the death of Mr Boon.”

“So?”

“So she can’t keep her promise to bring you a mince pie. We had some left, but the police have seized them.”

Those cheerless eyes widened a little. “She baked me a pie?”

Rosemary sidestepped that one. “She was saying it mattered to you, something about good luck for next year.”

Gertrude’s face lightened up and she lowered the cleaver to her side. “Did she really?”

“She said you generously made her a present of some pies of your own, and advised her that the carol singers were coming round.”

Abruptly, the whole look reverted to deep hostility. “Was it one of my pies she fed to Douglas Boon?”

“I believe it was.”

“And now They’re saying he was poisoned? Are you accusing me?” Suddenly the cleaver was in front of her chest again.

Rosemary swayed out of range. “Absolutely not.”

“You said the police seized some pies. Were any of mine among them?”

“Actually, yes.”

Gertrude took in a sharp breath. “I’ve made pies for twenty years and more, and never a word of complaint.”

“So we’ve got to find out how some taxin — that’s from a yew bush or a tree, the seeds, the foliage or the stems — found its way into that pie, which apparently killed him.”

“One of mine? How could it?”

“Can you remember making the mincemeat? Did anyone come by while you were mixing the fruit?”

“Not a living soul.”

“Could anyone have interfered with it since?”

“Impossible. This isn’t open house to strangers, you know. No one crosses my threshold.”

That much Rosemary was willing to believe. “You don’t have a yew bush in your garden, I suppose?”

“I wouldn’t. It’s the tree of death. It kills horses, cattle, more animals than any other plant.”

“Yes, but this was deliberate. Human deaths from taxin are rare. Someone added seeds of yew, or some part of it, to the mincemeat Douglas Boon consumed on Christmas Eve. Don’t you see, Gertrude? We’ve got to discover how this happened. I’m certain Laura is innocent.”

“They’ll pin this on me,” she said. “That’s what they’ll do, and everyone in the village will say the old witch deserves it.”

“Will you do something for Laura’s sake? For your own sake?” Rosemary said. “Will you think about everything connected with the making of the mincemeat? The chopping of the fruit, the source of all the ingredients, sultanas, currants, raisins, peel, nuts — whatever went into it. Go over it in your mind. Did anyone else contribute anything?”

“No.”

“Please take time to think it over.”

Gertrude sniffed, stepped back and closed the door.

Late that afternoon, Wilbur’s barking brought Rosemary to the front door before Laura emerged from the police car that returned her to The Withers.

“What a relief,” Rosemary said. “Have they finished with you?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Laura said as she scratched behind Wilbur’s ears. He’d given her a delightful, if slobbery, welcome.

Over a fortifying cup of tea, she told her tale. She had been interviewed three times and kept in a room that wasn’t quite a cell, but felt like one. She’d told the detectives everything she knew and provided a written statement. “I’m sure they would have charged me with murder if it wasn’t for Gertrude’s pies. They had them analysed and got the results back this afternoon.”

“Poisoned?”

“No.” Laura smiled. “They were harmless, all of them.”

Rosemary pressed her fingers to her lips. “I find that hard to believe.”

“So did the inspector. You should have seen his face when he told me I was free to leave.”

“That’s amazing. Gertrude is innocent.”

“And so am I.” Laura glanced across the room. “What’s he eating? Wilbur, what have you got in your mouth? No, Wilbur, no!” She dashed across and forced open the dog’s jaws. A small piece of mincemeat fell into her palm. “Rosemary, look. There are crumbs on the carpet. I think he’s had a mince pie.”

Rosemary was already at her side fingering the pastry crumbs. “It can’t have come from inside the house. The police spent over an hour searching the place.”

“The garden, then,” Laura said. “He must have found it in the garden.”

They went to the front door. “Let him show us,” Rosemary said. “Find it, Wilbur. Good dog.”

Wilbur knew what was wanted. He went straight to a lavender bush and lifted it with his nose. A brownish conical thing was exposed.

“A death cap,” Rosemary said.

“Do you mind?” Laura said. “That’s pastry. That’s one of my lids.” She picked it up and turned it over. “How on earth did this get here?”

The question hung in the air unanswered. Wilbur’s co-operation could only go so far.

“Should we get him to a vet?” Laura said.

“Let’s give him water first.”

Rosemary filled his bowl and brought it to him. He lapped it obediently.

“He doesn’t seem to be suffering,” Laura said. “The onset was rapid with Douglas Boon.”

“Taxin is one of the quickest of all the plant poisons,” Rosemary said. “I doubt if we’d get him to a vet in time.”

“He looks all right.”

Wilbur licked her hand and wagged his tail.

“I think he wants some more.”

An hour later, he was still all right.

Rosemary and Laura allowed themselves the luxury of fresh tea. They didn’t get to drink it because Wilbur unexpectedly barked several times and ran to the door. Someone was outside holding a flashlight.