Barry Maitland: Dark Mirror

Kathy waited, then said, ‘How about her friends? Do you know their names?’

Sheena looked vague and shook her head.

‘A boyfriend maybe?’

The woman’s mood lifted. ‘Oh no, Marion was never one for the boys.’ She gave a raffish smile- Unlike me, it implied. ‘She always had her nose buried in her books.’

‘Just for the record, Sheena,’ Kathy said, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask you-this is Marion, your daughter, yes?’

She showed her the picture Sundeep had given her and her mother nodded, weeping again. ‘Such a lovely lassie.’ Then she looked alarmed. ‘I don’t have to see the body just now, do I? I don’t think, without Keith…’

‘Plenty of time for that,’ Kathy reassured her.

Later, as they sipped tea, waiting for Keith in a fug of smoke, Sheena tentatively raised the possibility of compensation for her loss. Kathy was saved from replying by the arrival of Keith.

It was clear that he didn’t know what was going on and was prepared to make someone pay for the inconvenience this was causing him. He had a shaved head and a tattoo creeping out of his shirt collar. He glared at Kathy belligerently and said, ‘Who’s this, then?’

Kathy watched Sheena’s manner change, becoming pliant and eager to soothe him. ‘Oh, Keithy darlin’, somethin’ terrible’s happened.’

‘What now?’ he growled.

‘It’s Marion. She’s deed.’

The abrupt words must have hurt to speak, but Kathy also sensed the underlying message: Now, be nice to me, please.

They certainly had an impact. Keith frowned uncertainly. Finally he muttered, ‘I don’t believe it. Who is this?’

‘I’m a police officer, Mr Rafferty-DI Kathy Kolla. I’m so sorry to bring this news.’ Again the bland explanation. She felt like a nurse tucking a shocking deformity up in neat white sheets.

She left them with what advice and contact numbers she could, and returned to her car. As she reached to turn on the ignition her phone went. It was Sundeep Mehta, sounding out of breath.

‘Hi, Sundeep. Any news?’

‘Yes, Kathy. I was right. It was definitely arsenic. Marion Summers died of a massive dose of arsenic poisoning.’

Kathy felt her heart give a jump, and realised that all this time she’d been half convinced that Sundeep’s suspicions were wrong, that some much more mundane and innocent explanation would emerge.

‘I can hardly believe it myself,’ he was going on, ‘even though I saw the signs. To strike someone down in that way, in public, in the middle of the day…’

‘You know the timing then?’

‘Oh, the dose was so large it would have happened quickly, certainly no more than an hour before her collapse. Do you know her movements?’

‘The librarian saw her leave the library for a lunch break at around 12.30, and the triple nine call was logged at 1.38.’

‘Well then. Do you know what she did during that time?’

‘We have just one sighting of her so far, sitting in the gardens in the square outside the library, possibly eating a sandwich. She threw the remains into a rubbish bin which has now been emptied. We’re trying to trace it.’

‘Her stomach contents weren’t much help-she lost most of her lunch on the library floor, all cleaned up and gone now. Did she have a drink?’

‘The witness thought he saw a soft-drink bottle.’

‘Hm. An open cup would be easier. The arsenic could have been in powder form, or possibly dissolved in a liquid. If a powder, it would have to be stirred in… I’m sorry, Kathy, I’m just thinking aloud. I daresay a hundred years ago my predecessors would have known all the tricks with arsenic. I’m going to have to do some research on this, try some experiments.’

‘We haven’t been able to find any recent comparable cases, Sundeep. What about you? Have your medical friends got back to you?’

‘No, nothing yet, thank God.’

•

Brock sat halfway down the long table, irritably scratching his cropped white beard, trying to make sense of the point at issue. He was sitting in for Commander Sharpe, away at a conference in Strasbourg, and had a hundred other things to do. As far as he could see, the last two graphs in the PowerPoint presentation they’d all been subjected to had blatantly contradicted each other. But then, his mind on other things, he may have missed something. Across the other side of the table Superintendent Dick ‘Cheery’ Chivers was sitting with his habitual glum expression. His copy of the management report was impressively embellished with slashes of coloured marker pens, but so far he’d said even less than Brock.

Brock’s phone trembled silently against his thigh. He slipped it out and checked the screen, then put it to his ear, turning away from the table. ‘Yes?’

‘Brock? It’s Kathy. Are you busy?’

‘Go on.’

‘I can ring back.’

‘No, tell me.’

He listened in silence for a minute, then murmured, ‘Brief me at the office.’ He rang off and got to his feet. The droning voice of the senior manager at the head of the table paused and they all looked at Brock. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Emergency. I think you know Commander Sharpe’s position on the proposal. Dick will fill me in.’ He glanced at Cheery, who stared back with a look of profound envy on his face.

He made his way down to the ground floor and out into the sunshine, breathing a sigh of relief. Hesitating under the rotating New Scotland Yard sign, he watched a cluster of under-dressed office girls dodge between the cars and thought with a shiver, It’s not that bloody warm. But even as one part of his mind started working out his priorities, another was responding to a breath of pollen in the air, and his eye caught a flash of bright green foliage on a plane tree further down the street. He took a few deep breaths and turned towards Queen Anne’s Gate, feeling the sun on his head, and his frustration easing away.

•

When Kathy arrived at the office she found it almost deserted, the few occupants looking harassed. All except Pip Gallagher, who sat alone in the room she shared with Kathy and three other detectives, staring disconsolately at the screen in front of her, face cupped in her hands.

‘Anything?’ Kathy asked.

Pip shook her head. ‘Everyone’s got her address down as Stamford Street. She probably moved in with some bloke, don’t you reckon? How did you go?’

‘Dr Mehta got back to me. She was definitely murdered-big slug of arsenic in her lunch.’

‘Wow.’ Pip sat up, instantly revived.

‘We’ve got to find out how it got there. I’m going upstairs to brief Brock. Want to come?’

In the outer office Brock’s secretary Dot rolled her eyes as they came in. They could hear Brock’s voice barking impatiently through his open door. Dot said, ‘Go on in.’

He waved them to seats when he saw them, phone held to his ear, talking to Bren Gurney, one of the other DIs in Brock’s team. ‘Well tell them, Bren. Make sure they understand that.’

They sat. Brock’s office was more of a mess than usual, files everywhere, resistant to Dot’s attempts to keep things tidy.

Brock rammed down the phone. ‘I turn my back for ten minutes… All right, tell me about Sundeep’s little mystery.’

Kathy quickly summarised the ground they had covered, then went on to the next steps, which would involve much more manpower. All of the offices around St James’s Square and the surrounding streets would have to be canvassed, cafes and other shops visited, statements taken from everyone who was in the library, CCTV tapes scanned. The list went on, Brock listening in silence, occasionally nodding his approval, while Pip paid close attention, making notes. Finally Kathy came to her own requirements for the murder team. Three more detectives as a start, she thought, plus one additional to work with the City of Westminster police to organise the teams of uniforms, plus an Action Manager, Exhibits Officer and Statement Reader, plus a Rainbow Coordinator for the CCTV stuff.