Peter Lovesey - The Reaper

DCI Somerville called the lab to find out more.

"You might well ask," said the toxicologist on the end of the phone. "We don't know of a case in Britain since eighteen eighty-one. We were very excited when the gas-chromatographic screen picked it up. It's an alkaloid, a plant poison, derived from monkshood. The stuff grows wild in shady, moist places all over Europe and North America. You've probably got some near you. There's a cultivated variety as well. Usually it's purple in colour, but you can get it in white, pale blue and reddish-blue. Are you a gardener?"

"Some chance."

"It was common at one time, flavour of the month, but you have to go a long way back. 'Stepmothers' poison,' the Greeks called it. And the Romans used it so much that the Emperor Trajan banned them from growing it in their gardens. Right through the Middle Ages people were poisoning their rich uncles with it. It fell out of favour in modern times because the neuropathy is so obvious. Tingling and numbness in the mouth, throat, hands and limbs. Severe stomach pains, nausea and vomiting. Diarrhoea. Want me to go on?"

"Be my guest."

"OK. Loss of power in the limbs, giddiness, deafness and impairment of vision, indistinct speech, loss of consciousness and convulsions. Didn't the GP pick up on any of this?"

"He wasn't called till late."

"Who called him-the patient?"

"The wife."

"She must have seen him suffering."

For a moment the case against Otis Joy teetered slightly. Then Somerville remembered. "No. She was out all evening. Got back late."

"Poor sod-having to endure all that on his own. Horrible symptoms."

"When she got back he was too far gone to talk. The diagnosis was a heart attack."

"Correct, in a sense. The ultimate cause of death is cardiac or respiratory failure from paralysis of the brain. Why wasn't there a PM at the time?"

"The GP had been treating him for a heart problem."

"Even so."

"Perkins is one of the old school. Ought to be retired."

"He will be, if this comes to court."

Somerville thanked him and said they were sure to be in touch again. He phoned George Mitchell and told him the news.

George said, "I'm punching the air, sir. We've got him at last!"

"Can you get over here fast?"

"You bet I can."

At the main police station, Warminster's CID team was setting up an incident room and Somerville was calling himself the SIO-senior investigating officer. George was shown into an office where three senior detectives waited.

"I can tell you about monkshood," George offered. He was more of a countryman than any of these clever dicks. "The leaves look a little like parsley, except this grows at least a metre high. It grows wild in the woods round here, down by the River Wylye. Purple flowers. You don't come across it so much as when I was a lad. Farmers get rid of it as soon as it appears because it's just as deadly for animals as it is for humans. The 'monk's hood' is the shape of the flower."

"There's a garden variety," Somerville said.

"Yes, you can get it in other colours if you want. Looks nice enough in your herbaceous border if you put it in a shady position."

"Does it come with a health warning?" one of the detectives asked.

"Certainly ought to."

"George, you know what I'm going to ask next?" said Somerville.

"If it grows in the rectory garden? I couldn't tell you. It's a wilderness, that garden. The rector doesn't have time to look after it."

Somerville didn't like being so predictable. "Did I say anything about his garden? If the plant occurs locally, it doesn't have to be grown at the rectory. Come to that, he could have used pure aconitine in powder form. If that tosspot Sands is right, Joy has a fine collection of poisons."

"Where would he get the pure poison?"

"God knows."

"A pharmacy?"

"Unlikely. It says in the book it was formerly used in low concentrations as a liniment for rheumatism, but that was many years back. It went into a cure for toothache, too, applied as a tincture."

"Dodgy," said George. "Personally, I'd rather put up with the toothache."

Somerville saw no humour in the situation. "If the Crown Prosecution Service are going to take this on board we have to give them more than we've got so far."

"Proof of poisoning," George said. "You've got that."

"Big deal. And now all we have to prove is that Otis Joy administered it, and how, and why."

"Gary Jansen was seen going into the rectory on the afternoon of his death," said George. "Ann Porter was a witness to that."

One of the others asked, "How long does this stuff take to kick in?"

"Up to an hour," said Somerville. "You get the tingling and numbness in the mouth first, and the other symptoms follow on. Death can take anything up to several hours."

"Well, then."

"A sighting of the victim going into the rectory won't be enough for the CPS," said Somerville with a glare. "They want the lot, full chain of evidence. A poisoning has to go to the Central Criminal Court. There's sure to be massive public interest."

There was a moment for reflection while the senior detectives imagined the sensation of a clergyman on trial for a series of murders. Warminster had not seen anything like it since the spate of flying saucer stories in the sixties.

"When this breaks, we're going to be under siege," said Somerville.

"He's got to be questioned," one of the others pointed out.

"So do we nick him now?" said another.

Somerville vibrated his lips. He didn't want the press and television muscling in at this delicate stage of the enquiry. "George, you know the guy. Would he come in and make a voluntary statement? He won't want the media crawling all over him any more than we do."

"Are you asking my advice, Mr. Somerville, or do you want me to fetch him in?"

"Both."

"But I'm not CID."

"You're the man who visits his house for the Scrabble. Persuade him-gently. Low key, right?"

"I can try."

"You don't sound optimistic."

"With Otis, you can't be. Just when I think I'm way ahead of him, he comes up with a seven-letter word."

"Like murder?"

"That's six."

George was uneasy with the assignment he'd been given. Even allowing that Otis Joy was probably a wicked and dangerous man, it was a kind of betrayal to trade on their friendship to bring him in. He wished he'd never mentioned the Scrabble evenings to Somerville. "Low key," they'd blithely told him, as if it was a routine matter to ask a man in holy orders to accompany you to the police station and make a voluntary statement.

So when he rang twice at the rectory door and got no response he was mightily relieved. He decided the rector was out in the parish somewhere doing his pastoral duties, sensible man.

He went home for lunch.

After lunch, he thought he'd better try again.

No one was there. A seed of uncertainty was sown. Had Otis done a runner?

He called at the shop and asked Davy Todd if he'd seen the rector.

Davy said, "Well, he'll be at Warminster by now, won't he?"

"Will he?" George said more cheerfully, assuming that CID had come to their senses and sent someone else to pick him up.

"That's where half the village has gone today. For the confirmation service at All Hallows."

George sighed.

"If you went to church regular, you'd know what's going on," added Todd.

"What time is the service?"

"Three. You could get there if you want."

George weighed his options. It was still down to him to round up the suspect. He couldn't interrupt a church service, but if he caught Otis coming out, it would be a short walk to the nick, which was just across the street from All Hallows. He was in duty bound to make the attempt.