Chapter Five-2
1011 Words
DR SAM DALLY RANG WITH the results of the post-mortem five minutes after Llewellyn left the office.
‘What have you got for me Sam?’ Rafferty asked when Dally was put through.
‘As your resident expert guessed, the victim died of carbohydrate andromedotoxin, which the rhododendron and mountain laurels both contain. A highly toxic substance. All parts of the plant are poisonous, by the way. Pretty plants and pretty women, Rafferty, both can be lethal to a man.’
‘Ain’t that the truth.’ Rafferty pursed his lips thoughtfully. Llewellyn had questioned Eric Penn again and discovered that Eric had washed Barstaple’s lunch dishes on Wednesday evening—a fact which had concentrated Rafferty’s suspicions. ‘Barstaple ate prawns for lunch yesterday,’ he told Sam. ‘I suppose the poison was on them?’
‘You suppose wrong, Rafferty. Doesn’t the law say, ‘innocent until proven guilty’? I imagine that applies to prawns as well.’
Rafferty took Sam’s light rebuke with good grace. Unfortunately, he had never overcome his tendency to jump to conclusions, so he had plenty of practise in having his nose rubbed in his mistakes.
‘Anyway, these prawns were innocent,’ Sam went on. ‘It was the yoghurt that killed him—or rather, what was in the yoghurt. I’d guess someone put the plant in a blender, and either injected the resulting liquid toxin with a syringe or cut a small hole in the bottom of the yoghurt pot, spooned it in and sealed it with a little bit of sticky tape. Unlikely the victim would turn the pot upside-down and discover it.’
Good grace notwithstanding, Rafferty wasn’t above getting pleasure out of contradicting Sam, and now he told him, ‘There was no hole in the pot that was in Barstaple’s waste-bin. Now even a tiny one such as a syringe would make.’
‘Was there not?’ Sam paused, obviously searching for something to confound Rafferty’s evidence. As usual, he succeeded. ‘What flavour was the yoghurt in the bin?’
‘Hazelnut flavour.’
‘That explains it.’ Sam sounded smug. ‘I don’t know what that was doing in the bin, but I do know that whoever ate it, it wasn’t the victim. Apart from coffee, he’d only eaten the prawns and a strawberry yoghurt. The poison was in that.’
Rafferty just managed to stop himself from asking who, then, had eaten the hazelnut yoghurt. He asked another stupid question instead. ‘Wouldn’t he have tasted the poison?’ Obviously not, was the answer. He wouldn’t have eaten more than a spoonful of it if so, a fact which Dally was quick to confirm.
‘Carbohydrate andromedotoxin doesn’t have a strong flavour. Anyway, as I’ve already told you, it would need only a tiny amount to kill, no more than a five mil spoonful.’
‘What about shelf-life?’ Rafferty questioned. ‘We don’t know when the poison was put in the pot of yoghurt, but would its effectiveness have been greatly reduced over time?’
‘As to that, I’d have to check, but as the victim’s dead, the poison’s potency lasted long enough to do its job, so it hardly matters. It should be a simple enough matter to find out when that yoghurt was bought—when you find that out, you’ll also discover the earliest time the poison could have been added to it.’
Rafferty grunted an acknowledgement of this, then remarked wistfully, ‘Pity the poison wasn’t in the prawns. According to the deputy manager, Barstaple brought them in on the morning of his death, so they were only in the kitchen for a few hours. It’s something I’ve yet to check out, but I’d guess the yoghurt cartons were there since at least the Monday, as there was only one left in the fridge when we arrived, and most people buy packs of four or six at a time. If so, they’d have been there for anyone to tamper with for several days, which makes things considerably more tricky.’
‘I suppose you’ve considered the possibility that it wasn’t necessarily Barstaple’s yoghurt that was poisoned?’
‘What do you mean?’ Rafferty frowned. He hadn’t thought much about the yoghurt at all, truth to tell.
Sam explained. ‘Always supposing his would-be poisoner had access to the office fridge, all this poisoner would need to do was to note the manufacturer and flavours of yoghurt that Barstaple had bought, and then buy the same. That way, his killer could put the poison in at their leisure at home. It would be only a matter of seconds to switch Barstaple’s original pot of yoghurt for its poisoned doppelganger.’
Rafferty didn’t like Sam’s conclusions. If what he outlined had actually happened, it was going to make pinning Barstaple’s murderer down that much more difficult. ‘You’re absolutely sure the poison was in the yoghurt?’ he asked, desperate to debunk Sam’s theory. It was an unwise move. ‘I’d have thought—’
‘In this instance I’m the one paid to do the thinking,’ Sam crisply reminded him. ‘And I’m telling you I’m sure.’
Rafferty had to accept it, but as consolation, he had now come up with a theory about the hazelnut yoghurt. ‘Anyway, no matter who brought the poisoned yoghurt into the office, it’s obvious that someone deliberately removed the empty, poisoned yoghurt carton from the bin, emptied the hazelnut one of its contents – presumably down the sink in the kitchen – and then placed it in Barstaple’s waste-bin. The thing I want to know is why? What possible advantage did the killer think they’d get from it?’
‘I’ve no idea, Rafferty. But I suggest we make a pact. You don’t try to tell me my job and I won’t try to tell you yours.’
As he’d already, most effectively, too, told Rafferty his job, this suggested pact would put Rafferty at a severe disadvantage, so he demurred, adding, ‘But thanks for the offer, Sam. You’re all heart.’
‘I know. And that being the case, I’ll tell you one thing that occurred to me. It’s my guess your poisoner assumed the prawns and yoghurt would get so jumbled together in the victim’s stomach we wouldn’t be able to tell precisely where the poison was introduced, especially without the help of an obviously poisoned yoghurt pot. The poisoner probably hoped we’d concentrate on the prawns, and whoever had the opportunity to tamper with them yesterday. If he – or she – was lucky and deliberately out of the office on the day he died, they might expect to be removed from the list of suspects altogether.’
‘And would you say that was a reasonable expectation for the killer to have?’
‘Reasonable enough for a layman. As long as the victim ate the yoghurt immediately after the prawns.’
Rafferty brightened. At least they could check who had been out of the office yesterday. It might give them a helpful pointer. ‘Thanks Sam. You’ve certainly given me plenty of food for thought.’
‘Well, while you’re chewing on it, a word of advice.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Don’t eat the yoghurt.’
***
- Writer
