Peter Lovesey - The Reaper

He said evenly, "I know that."

"Yes, and you told me he came here-ready to start a fight or something-and you defused it."

"I told him it was untrue, which it was."

She made a little moaning sound. "How I wish I'd known you would handle him so well. I should have had the sense to see, but I couldn't think straight, I was in such a state. With me the same day he was full of threats. He frightened me, pushed me around. I can't take violence, Otis."

"So you poisoned his food?" he said without even a hint of censure. She must have been deluded, but once more she thought she heard admiration in his tone.

"He'd already complained of chest pains and called the doctor."

"Wasn't that the poison?"

"No! I'm talking about earlier in the week, just after he got back from America. The pain was angina, Dr. Perkins said. He gave him a tablet and it worked. He slept well. The next day, on the Wednesday, he was better, back to his old self, running me down, running everything down. America was marvellous and everything about Britain was third-rate. It wasn't until later in the week he noticed the wine stain on the carpet and wanted to know how it got there."

"And you told him?"

"Not everything. I just said you came with the account books, but he assumed it was … much more than it was. Well, he was like that, practically paranoid about anything I do. He called me horrible names. Pushed me against a wall and threatened me. And he was hell-bent on making trouble with you. Said he'd beat the truth out of you. Then almost in the same breath said he wanted a curry. I know I was wicked to do it, but all I could see ahead of me was misery and humiliation. The curry gave me a chance to do something about it. I'm like that. Giddy Girl, my mother used to call me. Ninety-nine per cent of the time I act normally and then something triggers me to do a crazy thing that gets me into terrible trouble."

He nodded. "I've noticed."

"I'm desperate."

"And you think I can help?"

Her voice faltered. She sobbed, and said in a rush, "Otis, I'm scared out of my skin and you're the only person in this world I trust. The police think I killed other people as well."

He said tight-lipped, offended. "That isn't true." He had turned quite pink at the suggestion, a development that Rachel took as support. "They can't fit you up with all their unsolved crimes just because you're under suspicion of killing your husband."

"They're trying to scare me into confessing, I suppose."

"You could be right about that. Who else do they say you killed?"

"George didn't say. I've been trying to work it out and I think they must mean Stanley, for one. I suppose they think I gave that poison to Stanley-whatever it was he took…"

"Amytabarbitone."

"… because I was after his job as treasurer, just to be able to cosy up to you."

"They're way off beam there," he said firmly, too firmly for Rachel's bruised emotions, but she didn't let it show.

"You know what village gossip is like."

"Gossip is one thing. The police are supposed to deal in facts."

"They can get things wrong. I'm the village Jezebel according to some people. They could believe I'm responsible for Cynthia's death as well."

"Cynthia? Why?"

"Because she was a rival. She was always telling people she fancied you."

He shook his head. "Silly woman. I'm a clergyman, not a sex object. What exactly did George Mitchell say? What were his precise words?"

"Something like 'it's just part of a larger inquiry into a number of deaths.' He must have meant Stanley and Cynthia. Who else is there?"

"God knows," said Otis, and the mild blasphemy slipped casually from his tongue as though he were operating at another level.

She was praying that he was, that he would come up with some brilliant suggestion that would save her. If anyone could work miracles, Otis was the one. But for the moment he was locked in thoughts of his own.

The entire dialogue had taken place in the hall. Now he pushed open his office door and gestured to her to go in. It was warmer in there and smelt reassuringly of him. She sat down in the chair in front of the desk. "What am I going to do, Otis? I'm terrified."

He perched himself on the edge of the desk and asked, "How much have you admitted to George Mitchell?"

"Nothing. You're the only one I told."

"You're certain?"

"I swear."

"Then say nothing."

"You don't think 1 should confess?"

He pulled a face at the suggestion, then thought better of it. "To God, yes."

"But not to the police?"

Firmly he told her, "Not to anyone else. We don't know what they'll find when they exhume Gary. You're assuming they'll find traces of aconite, but it may not be so simple. I know a little about-em-chemistry, and I can tell you that you picked a beauty."

She looked at him in amazement.

He said quickly, "I'm speaking scientifically now. Alkaloid poisons like aconite are not easy to detect, even with spectrometry and so on, particularly so long after death as this. Unless you tell the police yourself, they won't know what they're looking for. He died of cardiac failure, and that will be confirmed, but the cause is far less obvious. It's not so simple as looking for arsenic."

"I thought if I confessed I might get a lighter sentence."

He shook his head. "Rachel, you're making all kinds of assumptions. Can you be sure you poisoned Gary?"

"Positive. I wouldn't lie about it."

"You cut up monkshood root and added it to the curry?"

"Yes."

"But you can't be totally sure it killed him."

"Oh, but I can."

His eyes closed and he raised his palm to cut off her flow of self-recrimination. "Listen, Rachel. I'm trying to help you; In the week before your husband died, he saw the doctor because of a heart problem, is that right?"

"Angina."

"That's what old Dr. Perkins believed, but he may have misread the symptoms. Gary had a chest pain, you say?"

"Yes."

"That could have been more serious, a mild heart attack. And he had a second attack, the one that killed him, on the night he died. Was it caused by what he ate, or was it always going to happen? You don't know for sure."

Without fully believing, she stared ahead) at the unexpected escape route he was showing her. "I'd never thought of that."

"It's time you did. Do you know the fatal dose for aconite?"

"No. I just chopped some up and put it in the pot."

"Well, then."

"Quite a lot, actually," she admitted.

"But did he eat it all?"

"Most of it. I threw some away."

"And he had a history of heart problems?"

"Yes!" The exit opened wider. Only Otis could have thought of it. The man was a genius. She stood up and embraced him.

He allowed her to hold him without returning the embrace. He was deep in his own thoughts again. In a moment he said, "It would be sensible if you got away from the village while this is going on. People are going to comment on it. You know how sensitive you are to village opinion. You don't want to be goaded into saying anything the police could use against you."

"Won't that look suspicious?"

"It's understandable to want to be somewhere else when they're digging up your husband."

She had to make a mental effort to grasp her new role as the innocent widow. He was right. She was in such emotional turmoil that she could easily give herself away with an unguarded remark. And she didn't want more questions from the police, either. "But I don't know where to go."

"I do. Can you be ready to leave early tomorrow, say around six:?"

"With you?" Her eyes moistened. She was emotional.

"I'll drive you there. It's my day off. Pack for a holiday. Clothes, money, cards, chequebook. Have you got anything in a building society?"