Sicken and So Die (22 page)

He took a step towards the stairs. Still nothing. From the closed door opposite came the sound of Gregorian chant.

That was not the only sound, though. In profane counterpoint to the music, Charles could hear the mutual gasps of a couple making love.

He paused for a moment close to the door. A moan from Tottie changed into a little shriek. ‘Oh, you are a wonderful lover,' she murmured. ‘These last six months have been the best time of my life, Alex.'

With great care, Charles moved down the stairs and across the hall. He turned the latch on the front door and closed it gingerly behind him, then padded softly off down the garden path.

His caution was probably unnecessary. Tottie Roundwood and Alexandru Radulescu sounded far too involved in each other to be aware of anyone else.

At the end of the street, Charles Paris slipped the half-bottle out of his pocket and rewarded himself with a substantial swig of Bell's.

He deserved it. Now at last he had some solid proof of wrongdoing. He didn't know much about the subject, but felt pretty sure that aconite derived from some form of poisonous fungus.

He also had a new suspect. If Tottie Roundwood had been having an affair with Alexandru Radulescu for the past six months, a great many previously inconsistent details fell into place. There is little a besotted woman nearing her fifties won't do to keep the affections of a younger lover.

Charles wondered how much Alexandru had been involved in the planning. Or had it been a Thomas a Becket scenario? Did Alexandru just intimate the outcome he desired, and leave Tottie to make it happen?

The director must have been in contact with Asphodel, so that he knew they wanted to work with him. Then he just tipped the wink to Tottie, and she got Gavin Scholes out of the way. Vividly the picture came back to Charles of the dining hall at Chailey Ferrars, and the actress forcing a mushroom tartlet into Gavin's mouth.

Then perhaps Alexandru had intimated that he was getting tired of Charles Paris's intransigence about how Sir Toby Belch should be played . . .? Which had led to the poisoning in the Indian restaurant . . .

Unless . . . A new thought came to Charles. The scene at the restaurant was suddenly very clear to him. When John B. Murgatroyd had received his wrong order, he had called out down the table, ‘Anybody fancy swapping a Chicken Dupiaza for something stronger?'

And amongst the raucous responses, someone had shouted back, ‘I've already got one.' Now, suddenly, Charles knew that that voice had been Sally Luther's.

In other words, the poisoning of John B. Murgatroyd had not been aimed at Charles Paris. It had been the first attempt on the life of Sally Luther.

It had failed; but the second, the injection of poison at Chailey Ferrars, had succeeded. Probably all Alexandru had said was, ‘Wouldn't it be great if I could actually have Russ Lavery playing both parts?' And Tottie Roundwood, unhinged by her infatuation, had taken the hint.

Another detail fell into place. Amidst all the upheaval that followed Sally Luther's death, Charles had forgotten the woman he had seen hurrying through the rain when he was on his way from Moira Handley's Portakabin to the stage. But now that image too was crystal clear to him.

It must have been the murderer he had seen. Vasile Bogdan immediately left the reckoning. Even if he had been disguised in women's clothes, he was far too tall.

But the height and the gender were absolutely right for Tottie. True, Charles'd caught a glimpse of blond hair spilling from the anorak hood, but what actress doesn't have access to a range of wigs? She must have committed the crime only moments before, stabbed Sally through the hessian, and be running away from the scene.

And if that was the case, then – But his thought processes were suddenly halted. With no warning at all, he was seized by violent nausea.

And as the entire contents of his stomach – and what felt like most of the stomach itself as well – spurted out of his mouth on to the pavement, one of Olivia's lines from
Twelfth Night
resonated in his head.

But quotation immediately gave place to one appalling, heretical thought in Charles Paris's mind.

Somebody's poisoned my Bell's!

HE WAS LUCKY. The violence of his vomiting saved him from worse harm, flushing his body out as effectively as a stomach pump.

But it left him drained and feeble, slumped on the pavement. He was glad the good burghers of Great Wensham kept sober hours. They would not welcome dust- and puke-covered strangers littering their tidy streets.

The desk sergeant at the police station to which he staggered wasn't very welcoming either. The sight of a dust- and puke-covered stranger presenting him with a half-bottle of Bell's, a jar of powder and some garbled story about a serial poisoner brought out his highest level of scepticism.

And DI Dewar, the bored-looking detective to whom Charles was passed over, looked equally disbelieving.

‘So let me get this right, Mr . . . Parrish was it?'

‘Paris.'

‘Paris, then. You are saying that the contents of this bottle have been adulterated with some fungoid poison?'

‘So I believe.'

‘And that it was done deliberately by someone trying to kill you?'

‘Yes.'

‘When would they have had the opportunity to put the poison in the bottle?'

‘It was in my jacket pocket hanging in the dressing room right through the performance.'

‘And you weren't there all the time?'

‘No, I was acting, for heaven's sake.' Surely that'd be obvious even to someone who didn't know anything about the theatre.

The detective gave him a look that suggested raising his voice hadn't been a good idea. Charles didn't care that much what the detective thought. He felt ill and weak; all he wanted to do was crawl into a warm bed.

The detective tapped his pencil on the desk tetchily. ‘You implied you had an idea who this person who's trying to kill you might be . . .?'

Charles gave an ambivalent shrug.

‘But you're not going to share your suspicions with me?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

A good question, and yet Charles didn't yet feel certain enough to point a finger at Tottie Roundwood. In spite of the chain of logic he had worked out, she might still somehow prove to be innocent, and it can prove tricky to mend fences with someone you've accused of murder.

No, it would be better to go one step at a time – first get the whisky tested for the poison, then look for the culprit.

‘I'm not absolutely sure who it is,' Charles replied evasively.

‘You mean there are a lot of people it could be?'

‘Well . . .'

The detective had his little joke. ‘Have a habit of making yourself unpopular with your workmates, do you, Mr Parrish?'

‘Look, I'm sure there is something criminal going on. And I think it's related to Sally Luther's death.'

‘Really?' Now he had got the detective's attention. ‘That case is currently under investigation, Mr Parrish.'

‘You mean you've got proof that she was poisoned too?'

But Charles's eagerness was quickly slapped down. ‘Listen, if you think I'm about to give you information on the state of an investigation, then you have a very false idea of how we in the police force go about our business. Miss Luther's death was unexpected, so a post-mortem was required. We will be kept informed of any developments that may concern us.'

And that was all the detective would give. His attitude remained wary. There was a strong chance he was dealing with a crank. He had an instinctive distrust of theatre people, which Charles's appearance and unlikely story had done little to dispel.

DI Dewar did grudgingly say, however, that he'd arrange for the contents of the bottle and jar to be analysed. He took the address of Charles's digs, confirmed how long the company was going to be in Great Wensham, and said he'd be in touch.

Charles felt so weak he called a cab to take him back to his digs. When he got there, he lay on the bed in his clothes and instantly passed out.

He stayed in the following morning. For one thing, he was still feeling very battered after the poisoning. His throat burned and his stomach muscles felt as though they had been pulled inside out.

He was also not keen to get back among the
Twelfth Night
company until he had to. Whoever had poisoned the whisky – and he was assuming it had been Tottie Roundwood – was going to realise that he had escaped, and might well be moved to make another attempt on his life.

And he was hoping to hear something from the police before he had to go out to Chailey Ferrars for the evening's performance. Once the poison in the whisky had been identified, then the whole machinery of official criminal investigation could be set in motion, and Charles Paris would cease to be under threat.

He tried to read a book, and toyed with the crossword, but his thoughts kept slipping past the words. He wanted to talk to someone. Frances. But he didn't feel up to the inevitable recriminations such a call would involve.

He couldn't concentrate; he kept coming back to Tottie Roundwood. How much of what had happened had she planned? Had she known from the start that Alexandru wanted to direct
Twelfth Night
with Russ Lavery playing the double role, or had the elements of her plan come together piecemeal? How had she got into the company in the first place?

Well, that at least was a question he could get answered. And it would give him something to do. He went to the phone and dialled Gavin Scholes' number.

The new wife answered. In an appropriately hushed voice, she said, ‘Yes, I'm sure he'd like to talk to you. But not for too long. Be careful you don't tire him. Phone for you, Gavin,' she called out.

Another extension was picked up. ‘Hallo?'

‘Morning, Gavin, it's Charles Paris.' Then, unthinking, he asked, ‘How are you?'

‘Not so bad, all things considered,' the director replied nobly. ‘It's quite a relief, actually, to have had it confirmed.'

‘Had what confirmed?'

‘Oh, didn't you know?' Then, with considerable pride, he announced, ‘I've got cancer.'

‘Oh. Gavin. I'm so sorry.' The condolence came out automatically, but Charles's mind was already racing with the implications of the news.

‘That's very kind of you, Charles.' A great complacency came into Gavin's voice. ‘I was pretty certain that's what it was from the start, but my consultant just wasn't convinced. Goodness, the barrage of tests I've been through – you just wouldn't believe it. I mean, first I had to –

‘Gavin, are you saying that it was cancer you were taken ill with after that day at Chailey Ferrars?'

‘Yes, of course I am. Stomach cancer. That's what I told my consultant straight away. But would he listen? Now of course he's very apologetic and says he should have paid more attention to me from the start, and he's moving heaven and earth to get the radiotherapy under way but . . .'

Charles did not manage to get off the phone for half an hour. For a hypochondriac like Gavin Scholes the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease was a vindication of his entire life. No one could doubt him any more. He really was ill.

In the event, Charles didn't ask about how Tottie Roundwood had come into the
Twelfth Night
company. It didn't seem relevant.

Because if Gavin Scholes had been ill with cancer from the start, then he hadn't been poisoned at Chailey Ferrars. His inability to continue as director had been purely accidental.

And the logic of the case Charles Paris had been building against Tottie Roundwood totally fell apart.

‘MR PARRISH?'

‘Paris.'

‘Yes. This is Detective Inspector Dewar from Great Wensham. We met last night.'

‘Right.'

‘I'm calling because we've had the lab results on the items you brought in.'

‘Yes?' Charles was very tense. After the collapse of all his previous thinking about Tottie Roundwood's involvement in the case, he was fully prepared to be dismissed as a self-dramatising crank. The sceptical tone from the other end of the phone was not encouraging:

‘Well, let's start with the powder in the jar. That was indeed a preparation made from a vegetable substance . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘. . . though not in fact from a fungus . . .'

‘Oh. But aconite
is
a poison, isn't it?'

‘Can be. What was found in that jar, however, would have purely medicinal applications.'

‘Oh.'

‘Something to do with homeopathic medicine. Not a subject on which I'm an expert, Mr Parrish.'

‘Nor me.' Though he knew that Tottie Roundwood was. He shivered at the thought of how close he'd come to making public accusations against her.

‘No. However, Mr Parrish, it appears that while the plant from which this powder originated is potentially poisonous, at the concentration in which it appears here, it is completely harmless. Or even, I suppose, beneficial, if you happen to be one of those weirdos who believes in homeopathic medicine.'

The scepticism had given way to downright contempt. ‘Now we come on to the contents of the whisky bottle . . .'

Charles prepared himself for a serious dressing-down about wasting police time and being a hysterical theatrical crackpot. But, to his surprise, DI Dewar continued, ‘Traces of poison were found there, Mr Parrish.'

‘A vegetable-based poison?'

‘No, no. A chemical poison. Mercuric chloride.' There was a silence. ‘It seems you had a very lucky escape, Mr Parrish.'

‘Yes. And it also seems pretty definite that we have a poisoner in the
Twelfth Night
company, doesn't it?'