Divine Poison: a crime mystery you won't be able to put down Read online

  DIVINE POISON

  AB MORGAN

  Copyright © 2018 AB Morgan

  The right of AB Morgan to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2017 by Bloodhound Books

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  CONTENTS

  Also By AB Morgan

  Praise For AB Morgan

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  35. The Daily Albion:

  A Note from Bloodhound Books

  A Justifiable Madness

  Acknowledgments

  ALSO BY AB MORGAN

  A Justifiable Madness

  PRAISE FOR AB MORGAN

  "I finished this book very quickly as it's an interesting and engrossing read. An excellent debut from Alison Morgan." Mark Tilbury - Author

  "This is the debut novel of Alison Morgan and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a psychological thriller mixed in with some real events and gives a refreshing read from an unusual place..." Susan Hampson - Books From Dusk Till Dawn

  "A fantastic read with brilliant characters." Susan Angela Wallace - Goodreads Reviewer

  "You want to know what happens and the way that this is written is superb at hooking you in and holding your attention." Kate Noble - The Quiet Knitter

  "This is a great book that will keep you gripped throughout." Julie Lacey - Goodreads Reviewer

  "This story will make you wander who is the madman and what goes on within the system...A dark little twister of a read..." Livia Sbarbaro - Goodreads Reviewer

  "This is a really well written and unique storyline." Philomena Callan - Cheekypee Reads And Reviews

  For all my hard-working friends and colleagues in the world of mental health services. Please forgive the liberties taken in the telling of this story.

  1

  I opened the shiny, brass flap of the letterbox as far as I could from the outside before I pushed my face right up close to peer inside the front hallway. Lying on the hall carpet was a scattered pile of letters and advertising flyers, illuminated by the early autumn sun as it shone through the frosted glass panes of the front door; I sniffed.

  My heart, which had been playing regular pounding drumbeats, skipped one or two as I recognised the smell of death. Not overwhelming but it was there, a sickly pungent odour. There’s no other smell quite like it and stubbornly it inhabits your nose and throat for hours.

  Sparkey, the cat, appeared from around the corner and rushed up to greet me with some dramatically effective purring and leg-rubbing to gain my attention, and a brief fuss.

  ‘Bollocks,’ I muttered as I stepped back in response to the clue afforded me by the letterbox.

  Having rummaged around in a haphazard manner, tutting and sighing, I eventually located my mobile phone in the depths of my handbag. I contacted Kelly, our team administrator at the Lensham Community Mental Health Team – LCMHT – where I had worked for the past eight years.

  ‘Kelly, it’s me, Monica.’

  ‘I know it’s you, silly, I recognise that voice. You only left an hour ago. Got car problems?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘Nope. That would be a preferable option right now. Kelly, I went to the ward but Jan Collins hadn’t made it in time for her hospital discharge meeting today. It’s most unlike her. I don’t suppose she’s phoned this morning?’

  Something wasn’t right.

  I had been on holiday for a week. A one-week break from the NHS treadmill, during which I stayed at home merrily tinkering in the garden and tidying the house. There’s nothing better to free the soul, than de-cluttering a wardrobe full of clothes, some which would never fit again, or were rash purchases in the first place. I’d like to think I’m a bright woman, so why is it I continue to delude myself that I can fit into clothes two sizes too small or will still be able to get away with wearing a halter-neck dress? With shoulders like a Russian shot-putter, it’s not an attractive look on me, and I haven’t been a size twelve for years. As a result of my efforts, I managed to fill several large bags of clothing for the charity shop.

  Before I left the team at work to cope without me, I allocated my caseload to the other members of the team. The only slight concern I had, as I left for the week, was for Jan Collins.

  Jan was recovering in hospital from a serious manic episode that had occurred in unfortunate circumstances, resulting in us having to liaise with French health authorities to transfer her back to the UK. Numerous eyebrows were raised in the genteel streets of the small town where les gendarmes had eventually detained her, naked and confused.

  Since her divorce, Jan had been looking for love again, and the man she had found recently turned out to be a ‘Class A’ con artist. According to the rumours, in the short time they were both in France on a romantic holiday for two, he persuaded her to buy a small property in Perpignan. God knows how an intelligent woman like Jan fell for that. Whatever the reason, before she made a uninhibited public appearance in a manic state, she went on a spending spree. And as soon as she ended up in a French mental hospital, the conman abandoned her. Monsieur Le Bastard.

  Back in England, there was enormous pressure on psychiatric hospital beds. As soon as a patient was sent on home leave, another patient in dire need of mental health services would fill their place. Like musical beds but without the music.

  On the Friday before my holiday I took a phone call from Pargiter Ward. ‘What do you mean you’re sending Jan home for a week’s leave? Who decided that?’ I was stunned.

  ‘She’s doing a lot better now, so Dr Siddiqui offered her the chance to go home and come back a week on Monday for a discharge meeting,’ the staff nurse proudly announced.

  I began to drum the desk with my fingers. ‘But I’m on holiday next week. It’s a bloody Friday afternoon and you have left me three hours to organise someone else to carry out a home visit to see Jan. Community staff don’t grow on trees, you know.’ I stopped short of using my favourite swear word. ‘We’ll phone you back to confirm arrangements. You can tell Adnan from me that I’m not impressed with his idea of discharge planning.’

  Fortunately our new support worker, Steph, who had worked on the wards for a few years, already knew Jan and she offered to visit her on the Wednesday I was off. Jan readily agreed, an
d a time was arranged between them. It wasn’t ideal but it was better than nothing.

  My first appointment, on the Monday of my return to the chaos of community mental health nursing, was to attend the discharge meeting on Pargiter Ward for Jan. She was due to be seen at ten o’clock and I had planned to meet her at the ward at nine-thirty to catch up before we went into the meeting together. An attempt at a risk assessment was what I had envisaged, but there was no sign of her. Her home phone rang unanswered when I called.

  It was most unlike her not to show up. Strangely, she had not been at home when Steph called to visit her as planned on the Wednesday and she hadn’t responded to phone calls, or notes put through her door. Neither had she phoned the office to cancel or rearrange.

  Whilst I was on the ward, I discussed the dilemma with the consultant, Dr Adnan Siddiqui, who I had known professionally for over ten years. An uneasy feeling was gnawing at me. Adnan was a good man but, buckling under the pressure for beds, he had taken to making hasty decisions at times. Frustratingly, he didn’t want to know when I tried to express my niggling uncertainties about Jan. Blind eye, deaf ear, what you don’t know can’t hurt you. That sort of flavour.

  ‘Monica, I’m sure you can find her at her home. You assess the situation, and we can discharge Mrs Collins in her absence, if all has gone well. She’s back on injections, so you can take over with no real problem. Phone me if you have any specific concerns, but for now we’ll take her off our books.’

  ‘That was a bit contradictory, Adnan, are we discharging her in her absence? Or will you wait for me to let you know all is well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, what?’ I asked in exasperation. This was not a difficult question. Adnan was getting like the other consultants; dictatorial and inconsistent when under stress.

  ‘Yes, we will discharge her today in absentia,’ he confirmed. As if saying it in Latin made it more formal.

  ‘Right, I’ll see if I can track her down, then,’ and I marched away, in a bit of a huff.

  2

  Twenty minutes later there I was, standing outside Jan’s house, sniffing a letterbox, with a cat rubbing up my legs.

  Her car was parked on the driveway but the windows to the house were shut, lounge curtains closed. I thought it prudent to phone Kelly again at the office, to let her know I was going snooping around at the back of Jan’s house, and that I might have to call the police. I asked her to make Eddie, the team manager, aware.

  ‘Houston, we have a problem …’ I confirmed a few minutes later, and when I explained the dilemma, she put me straight through to Eddie.

  Jan lived on a well-manicured estate, in a semi-detached, executive home. I had assumed that her divorce settlement, several years previously, was providing the money to keep her in relative luxury. A sufficient level of trust was needed before Jan would eventually share with me that she’d once been a woman of independent means, thanks to a successful career in journalism. ‘What do you write about?’ I’d asked out of interest.

  ‘I’m a historian, a theological historian to be more specific. I’m not so much in demand these days, but I still write the occasional article or paper.’ I recall nodding but not admitting my ignorance, and hazarding a guess at what being a theological historian actually entailed. Knowing about her past career did at least help to explain the vast library of books taking up much of the wall space in her airy, thoughtfully furnished home. My conclusion was that Jan’s husband and her lucrative career had departed hand in hand, as a direct result of her unmanaged mental health difficulties.

  The side gate to the right of the house was secured from the inside but it took no effort to slide back the bolt and make my way into her back garden. Jan and I were both tall ladies, and she had shown me how easy it was to reach over the top of the head-high gate and to unbolt it from there. ‘I think it’s an ingenious idea,’ she’d said, with a gleam in her eye. ‘I’m hoping to confound the burglars who are, in the main, short and scrawny individuals. They won’t stand a chance of reaching a bolt this high up.’ Her assumption may have explained why she was romantically drawn to tall, intellectual men, most of whom were uninteresting or unreliable, especially the most recent boyfriend, Liam-the-conman.

  With Sparkey the cat in tow at the rear of the house, I walked to the far end, and peered through ancient patio doors, a gap in the curtains, and into the kitchen. Sparkey hopped neatly through the kitchen door cat flap a few feet further along.

  ‘Oh God, Jan, what have you done …?’

  There, on the kitchen table, were packets and packets of tablets, scattered as they had been left. A glass with an inch or so of clear liquid in it stood abandoned. I assumed the glass tumbler contained water, but it could easily have been gin or vodka.

  Startled when the wind caught the gate, slamming it shut, I jumped, and as I turned to see where the noise had come from, I thought I saw a man’s leg from the knee down to a plain black shoe. Someone was walking out of the gate. Whoever it was had seen me and turned to leave straight away. I shouted.

  ‘Hello. Can I help you? Hello.’ Walking swiftly, I stepped through the back gate into the front driveway but there was no one there. ‘I must be seeing things,’ I said, reassuring myself by talking out loud.

  Trembling slightly, I contacted the police, who promised to respond urgently. I expect they want an excuse to practice their forensic skills, I thought.

  Fair play to Eddie, my manager; with years of experience and unflappable in any given situation, he had left the office to join me at Jan’s house as soon as I confirmed my worst fears to him. He arrived well before our local constabulary.

  ‘Eddie, thanks for the support. So glad you’re here. Want a quick whiff at the letter box?’

  Of course he did. He nodded, confirming my hypothesis.

  ‘Great first day back, eh, Monica? This one will be messy because of the bastard boyfriend, so I suspect it will be ‘Coroner’s Court here we come again’.’

  I enjoyed working with Eddie: no nonsense, no false sentimentality, straight to the point.

  ‘Nice house she’s got here,’ Eddie said, looking at Jan’s home in admiration. ‘She wasn’t short of a penny, that’s for sure.’

  ‘This isn’t right, Eddie. Jan wouldn’t kill herself. I know her and she’s not the type. I mean it. She was so happy before she went to France, but even after all that happened to her, she was determined to pick up her writing again. She said so when I saw her on the ward.’ I explained to Eddie that I thought I’d seen a man follow me to the back of the house.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Liam-the-conman?’

  I shrugged.

  The police arrived. A sergeant, who was very pragmatic and wonderfully masterful, took charge immediately. With him was a young, fresh-faced police officer who, although nervous, was polite and attentive. He hung on every word the sergeant was saying to Eddie and me. Details were taken later, but first the two policemen searched the house, and following the smell, found Jan upstairs in her bed. Dead.

  ‘She’s not in a good state,’ the young officer reported. His face had a ghastly grey pallor to it and he looked perilously close to throwing up.

  ‘She is dead, I take it?’ I asked, somewhat confused by the declaration.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Well, no one is in a good state when they’re dead, young man, take my word for it.’ Eddie was keen to educate the officer, who did not seem to appreciate the humour. He focussed on maintaining a professional demeanour and not embarrassing himself by losing his stomach contents.

  Sergeant Masterful – I can’t recall his real name – came to the rescue of his junior colleague, by setting an example. ‘I’m afraid Mrs Collins, the lady of the house, is dead. She’s in her bedroom upstairs. Now … with it being quite warm weather, the heating on and the windows closed, she’s in a state of decomposition. I think it would be unfair of me to ask you to identify the body. Is there a relative we could contact to do the ide
ntification later?’

  Eddie looked at me for the answer to the question.

  ‘Only an ancient aunt, as far as we know. Her best friend, Lily, lives about fifty miles away, but she’ll be devastated. We couldn’t ask her. There’s an ex-husband somewhere but we don’t have any contact details for him. Eddie and I will do it.’

  Sergeant Masterful radioed in to inform his superiors. In response to my reports of an unknown man being on the premises, he sent his junior officer to search around the back of the house and in the garden for evidence of anyone trying to break in recently. I was still wrestling with the uncertainty of the circumstances in which I had found the body. Why had someone followed me?

  The front door was now smashed to smithereens where Sergeant Masterful had used force to gain entry but, apart from my sighting of a man’s leg, there was nothing obvious to hint at foul play.

  I’d seen plenty of dead bodies in my time as a nurse and, although you do become accustomed to dealing with the practicalities, it’s never easy to manage the feelings of sadness and emotional discomfort. I’d smelt death often, but only once, unforgettably, had I experienced gangrene on the living.

  As a result of that particular episode, I always referred to these moments as “pineapple time”. It was a welcome discovery, a few years previously, to find that fresh pineapple takes the taste of death and gangrene away from your mouth. It magically alleviates the smell stuck in your nostrils. The trick with any putrid smell, I have also found, is to breathe through your mouth.

  ‘Eddie, it’s pineapple time.’

  He agreed without any form of protest. It’s what we do. We take the rough with the smooth. There’s a vast amount of rough to cope with, and a twisted sense of humour is required, as is pineapple on occasion, and alcohol at the end of the day.