Monday 26th September – 3 p.m.
In the hospital café, Nell saw Conor keeping a careful eye on everyone and checking his watch every five minutes. The triage staff couldn’t help until someone showed symptoms. So they were each other’s guardians, alert for signs.
Maeve and Sean were staring at each other, gripping hands. Brandon looked resigned, and Finn was sweating.
Despite the situation, Nell desperately wanted a coffee. The fear was keeping her – and probably Rav – awake. They were both well used to keeping odd hours and running on little sleep. But it was tough without caffeine. She ached to order an Americano, but just couldn’t bring herself to be that tactless.
Rav leaned in, whispering, ‘It had to be one of them. What did you see? Exactly? ’
‘Just … the poisoner was wearing a dark coat – but I only really registered that as background, and anyway, it was in shadow.’
‘Well, everyone here has a black coat in one form or another,’ Rav pointed out, unnecessarily.
‘Same with the black leather gloves. They’re universal. Everyone has a pair. They smelled of smoke. Woodsmoke.’
Rav gave her a deadpan nod. ‘So that’s narrowing it down to everyone who’s been here in the past few days.’
She frowned, deep in the memory. ‘The coat material felt thick. I couldn’t feel their body through it as they gripped me. And the material was scratchy against my wrist. Like a thick woollen overcoat, not a waterproof.’
‘Brandon?’ Rav asked.
‘Maybe. But there’s nothing to stop someone putting on a coat and gloves belonging to someone else.’ She sighed, unhappy to have nothing better to go on. ‘But …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, the poisoner was quick. And after they stuffed me in the bloody larder, they threw the spoon in the dishwater, started it, and shoved the poison in a cupboard. So they were cool-headed enough to cover their tracks.’
Rav squeezed her hand.
‘They were assertive, about grabbing me, about the poisoning. And familiar with the house. Confident about the layout.’
As Rav eyed the suspects, he said, ‘Well, that’s pretty much any of them, isn’t it?’
Nell couldn’t disagree. And, one by one, they were giving their account of their whereabouts to Sergeant Baptiste. But while everyone was doing a good job of playing it down, the question remained: if the poisoner hadn’t succeeded this time, would they try again?
James sat with Sergeant Baptiste and Nessa, glad that Rav had called the Gardaí before anyone had tried to stop him, and even more relieved that the officer had been prepared to follow them to the hospital and question the suspects there. Meanwhile, they waited fearfully to see which one of them would need life-saving treatment.
Baptiste had escorted the brothers and Maeve over, while James, Shannon and Sylvia had travelled with Nell and Rav. They’d used the time to swap facts, horrified but desperate to trace the clues.
Now, Finn was defending where he’d been while the drinks were poisoned.
‘Ask the parents,’ he said. ‘They’ll corroborate I was there, if that’s what you need.’
‘I will.’ Sergeant Baptiste made a note on his iPad. ‘Do you know what time you arrived, and when you left?’
‘No idea.’ Finn stretched his legs out, trying to get comfortable on the hard plastic seat. ‘Mammie was … fretting over how the family was. Given all the news. About Siobhan. So I made them a cuppa. We chatted for a while. It’s opened all the floodgates of memories. Then I came back to find Sean by the fire with a tray of drinks. Conor joined soon after. Then his fiancée, Sylvia, showed up with Rav and Shannon. After that, Brandon, then Maeve, then James here.’
James studied Finn. If his alibi was helping his parents at home, it seemed unusually solicitous of him.
Nessa must have had the same thought when she asked, ‘And how were your parents?’
‘They’d seen Maeve’s parents that morning at the wake, so … well, they were very emotional.’
‘Have any of you been over there yet?’ Nessa asked.
Finn nodded. ‘Of course. There first thing. We all wanted to pay our respects to the family. Give them our condolences.’
Ness looked unconvinced, but Baptiste had nothing else to ask, so Finn left, and Baptiste beckoned Maeve over.
She was just as prickly when it came to her parents. ‘I’m … I’m furious. That someone – someone here – knows something and is still holding back. I thought Mammie and Da would be furious, too. Or at least desperate to … to know. But they’re just, well grieving.’
‘That’s natural, isn’t it?’ Sergeant Baptiste said.
Groaning, Maeve leaned forward. ‘Yes, of course, perfectly natural. But I feel like we’ve all been living in aspic, holding our breath, waiting … waiting for her. Or for an answer. And now we have it …’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know … I expected something from them … action. Retribution. Something.’
‘Retribution?’ Baptiste’s voice was soft. ‘I can understand that, sure enough.’ He eyed her. ‘Like poisoning someone?’
Maeve met his gaze. ‘Sure. If I knew who.’
Her gaze slid to Brandon and her lips set in a line.
‘What were you doing before the drinks were left out?’
‘I joined Sean. Farm jobs. He’s got some vendetta against a fox. I think it’s avoidance, so he has an adversary that isn’t one of his brothers.’ She sighed. ‘I’m being unfair. It is wreaking havoc, and he can’t keep losing his hens. Anyway, Sean was hell-bent on getting the coop fixed, so I helped him. On the way back, I had a phone call from the distillery – confirming some details about all the festival shenanigans – so I hung back to talk while Sean put his tools away and came back for coffee.’
At Baptiste’s nod, Maeve stood and Sean came to her side, squeezing her hand before taking the seat she’d vacated.
‘I just feel knocked for six.’ Sean swept a hand through his hair. ‘I can’t believe that things would turn out like this. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to think …’ He swallowed.
‘What were you doing before you all had coffee?’
‘Oh …’ He frowned. ‘Chicken coop repairs. I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of that for ages. Rav worked out where the fox was getting in while he’s been trialling his cameras. I’ve been making progressive repairs, but the bloody animal has been, well, foxing us.’ He tried to smile at the weak joke. ‘Maeve helped me cut the timbers.’
‘So your alibi will be on that camera, then?’ Nessa asked.
‘Oh, well, yeah, I guess it would be.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘There’s a bit of luck.’
James sent a quick text to Rav, asking for the footage.
‘So who made the drinks, Sean? If not you?’ Baptiste asked.
He shrugged. ‘I would have assumed Maeve, but she was busy. Finn appeared not long after I was there. Maybe he made himself useful for once. But if someone poisoned one of the drinks, I guess it’s possible they made them, put them out for us to drink, then hid themselves somewhere so they could appear a while later?’
With a sigh at the realisation they’d probably never find that out, James asked, ‘That poison, Sean. Where did you keep it?’
Sean scratched his head. ‘You know, if you’d asked me yesterday, I would have imagined the shed. Out near the coop. But because Nell saw it being used in the coffees, I headed straight to the kitchen. And it was right there, in the cupboard under the sink.’
‘The tin looks like it’s from the seventies,’ Nessa said. ‘Is it usual for the family to hold onto such old items?’
‘Oh, that’s the tip of the iceberg. You don’t want to see what’s at the back of the larder. Now Mammie and Da have moved out, I’m clearing things out bit by bit. But it’s a marathon. The shed is a mess, and we’ve enough ancient farm gear to start a museum. They’d never throw anything away in case it might be useful one day. Don’t get me started on what’s in the attic. Every schoolbook of mine is up there.’
James smiled. They sounded like his folks.
As Conor reluctantly traded places with Sean, James noticed that the older brother kept glancing around. Still checking for symptoms? Or to make sure no one was listening?
‘I just went for a walk. Such a shock, finding Siobhan dead. It’s everything I feared …’ Conor’s stoic mask slipped, and James saw naked anguish. ‘But then Aoife’s news … It’s immense.’
‘Where did you walk to?’ Baptiste didn’t look like he’d be fobbed off. ‘And can anyone corroborate it?’
‘No, I was trying to have some time alone.’ He flicked a glance over to his brothers, then leaned in, voice low. ‘I went along the coast path, by the lighthouse. It was a favourite spot of Siobhan’s.’
‘And what does your fiancée make of all this?’ Nessa asked.
James’s eyes followed Conor’s guilty glance across the room, at Sylvia, who held his gaze, sitting up a little straighter.
‘Ah, God only knows.’ Conor rubbed his face and heaved a regretful sigh. ‘I’m ashamed to my bones for last night. No one can quite push your buttons like family. Or, at least, like my family. All these years I’ve worked on my anger, keeping it in check. And a word or two from that gobshite undoes it all. Sylv put her trust in me, and I’ve let her down.’
James couldn’t help sympathising with Conor: he’d heard what Brandon said, seen how powerful he was. He was the only person James hadn’t managed to restrain in all his career. It wasn’t his finest moment. But James could see Brandon was close to killing someone last night – if Conor hadn’t stopped him.
‘I just hope it isn’t too late,’ Conor said. ‘For me and Sylv. I know that she’s worldly-wise.’ His voice warmed. ‘Not much fazes her, not when it comes to matters of the heart. She … she knows the things that matter.’ He chanced another glance at her. ‘But people have their limits.’
When Baptiste nodded to say he could leave, Conor went to Sylvia’s side and resumed his vigil for someone showing any signs of poisoning.
At Baptiste’s beckoning gesture, Brandon shuffled across the coffee shop and sat down heavily with a grunt. ‘I know what you’re going to say. Where was I when someone was busy poisoning coffee? Well, I was alone, at home. I walked off after the paternity test samples were taken.’
James saw Baptiste’s eyebrows flash up at that, but he didn’t interrupt Brandon’s account.
‘I’d had enough. It’s one thing knowing your family think you drove your wife away. It’s another to think they believe you killed her.’
‘So no one can corroborate that?’ Nessa clarified.
‘What, that I didn’t kill her?’ Brandon scoffed. ‘I wish. No. No alibi for back then, and no alibi for today. That clear enough for you?’
James met Brandon’s glare with a nod, but then James glanced at Sean as he topped up his paper cup at the water cooler.
From the way he was rising to his feet, tense and watchful, Conor had also noticed that his little brother was so pale he looked green.
As Sean took a sip of water, he immediately vomited it back up.
‘Nurse!’ Conor thundered as he vaulted over the tables to reach Sean. ‘NURSE!’
Contorting with agony, Sean clutched his stomach and staggered, falling against the water cooler.
James saw Nell dash to the corridor to get help, while Rav shifted himself out of his wheelchair and onto a café seat. Darting over, James grabbed the chair, ‘Thanks, mate,’ and steered it across to Sean.
As Conor tenderly transferred his brother into the wheelchair, Sean groaned and vomited violently, his eyes rolling back in his head.
Nell ushered the doctor in, answering his questions.
‘How much thallium has he been exposed to?’
‘At least a heaped tablespoon,’ Nell said.
A strangled whimper escaped Maeve and she reached her arms out to Sean.
Ignoring the rancid puke on them both, Conor loosened Sean’s shirt collar. ‘He’s shivering. Breathing is shallow and laboured.’ He pressed his brother’s cheek. ‘And possibly the start of a rash.’
The doctor seized Sean’s wheelchair and hurried through the double doors to A&E. As a colleague joined him, he relayed, ‘High dosage thallium poisoning. Extreme reaction.’