Something Wicked by David Roberts Page B

‘She’s a good-looking woman with a clear idea of how she wants to live her life.’
    ‘Why do you say that?’
    ‘I had the impression she might have had a lover,’ Treacher said, sounding almost ashamed.
    ‘And you didn’t investigate who he might have been?’ Edward was genuinely aghast.
    ‘I . . . I . . . I thought whoever helped Herold die had done him a favour. I was wrong. I know that now. I suppose I knew it at the time but I . . .’ He fell silent.
    Edward sighed. ‘Well, with your permission . . .’ he tried not to sound sarcastic, ‘I’ll go and talk to Mrs Herold and “stir things up”. After all, her husband may have wanted to give up this mortal coil but, if the same person who helped him die also helped Hermione Totteridge and General Lowther to their deaths, then we have a multiple killer on our hands.’ And I may be next on his list, he thought but did not say.
    Treacher pulled himself together with an effort. ‘The man who killed these people is intelligent and well read.’
    ‘Reasonably well read,’ Edward corrected him. ‘All you’d need is a book of quotations. The quotations from Shakespeare – except perhaps the sonnet – are very well known, bordering on the obvious.’
    Treacher nodded his head, trying not to feel that his education had been lacking something. ‘I suppose we can assume the murderer is a man?’
    ‘I think so, Inspector. I can’t believe a woman would be strong enough to kill Eric Silver.’
    ‘Nor sadistic enough.’
    ‘Women can be sadistic but I agree that it’s much less likely a woman would do something so horrible. Of course, the other three deaths might have been the work of a woman. They say poison is a woman’s weapon but my instinct says a man did all this. He’s a cold-blooded killer who carefully planned what he thinks are perfect murders. Forgive me for saying this – I don’t mean to sound arrogant – but I can’t help feeling the killer was annoyed that the . . .’ he tried to think of a tactful way of putting it, ‘the initial investigations dismissed the deaths as accidents. He killed Mr Silver and left me a note telling me to take up the investigation.’
    ‘If you are right, then your life is in danger.’
    ‘I am aware of it, Inspector. And what is more, I believe the murderer will make himself known to me.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘I think he will want to watch me at work. He’ll want to tease me and I am hoping that, in doing so, he will give himself away.’

5
    Leonard Bladon had been warned that he faced a challenge when he took Verity into his clinic. To put it crudely, most of his patients were too ill to do more than lie on their beds or, when the weather was as warm as it was now, relax on the long chairs in the garden soaking up the sunshine. Verity was unable to stay still for more than a few minutes at a time. The sight of patients iller than she made her depressed and angry. She would not be one of those etiolated wrecks – that she swore. She read quite a lot. Mrs Woolf had delivered on her promise and sent her a pile of books. She and her husband, Leonard, ran the Hogarth Press which published books about social issues as well as poetry and fiction. Verity was particularly interested in one book they had published the year before called The Roots of War in which some of the great and the good explained how Britain had come to this pass and berated the Prime Minister for his policy of appeasing Hitler. Verity thought wryly that their complaints came rather late in the day.
    Her friends visited her but she suspected – probably unfairly – that they must resent having to travel out of London to see her and that she was being a bore. She hated to be in anyone’s debt but, paradoxically, would have been downcast if her friends had not made the effort to visit her. When they arrived they made a point of kissing her on the cheek to show they weren’t afraid of ‘catching anything nasty’. They talked too