It was chilly as Baz made her way along New Cross Road. It had gone 10 pm and the temperature had fallen below freezing. It’s never truly dark in London, though, thanks to the light pollution. The moon was past full – a waning gibbous phase. She crossed Brookmill Road and then turned up the intersection before the one that would take her to Wellbeloved Café.
She thought about the last time she’d come this way late at night. She’d been on her way to tell Peggy that they’d got it wrong. Not Daisy – but she and Peggy. An innocent man nearly lost his life because of their assumption. That wouldn’t happen this time.
Before long, she arrived at her destination. She parked her scooter in the forecourt and made her way to the front door. Her heart was in her throat as she pressed the button.
The speaker crackled to life with Peggy’s voice. ‘Is that you, Baz?’
‘It’s me.’
The buzzer sounded and Baz pushed open the door.
She heard the door to the flat swing open before Carole’s head popped out. ‘Oh, Baz. What a lucky coincidence. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the nuclear testing. You know about the tests they’ve been running in Windsor since 1913 – don’t you? It’s all Theresa May’s doing.’
Carole swung the door wide to let Baz enter. Though, of course, Cookie was blocking the path.
Baz held out her hand. ‘I have to pass the sniffspection first, eh?’
Carole made shooing motions at the dog. ‘The Rebecca Riots passed him by. He still thinks the gatekeeper is entitled to set whatever toll they like.’
Peggy’s voice sounded from the other room. ‘For heaven’s sake. Are you lot going to spend all night chatting in the corridor or are you going to come in and join us for dessert?’
Baz removed her shoes. She’d worn slip-ons specifically to facilitate the easy on-offs she suspected she would need this evening.
In the living room, Cookie clambered back onto his favourite chair. Carole was taking her seat at the dining table.
Peggy was around the corner in the kitchen. ‘Will you take coffee, Baz?’
Coffee? At this time of night? ‘I wouldn’t want to be up all night. Oh, but then there’s a possibility we’re going to be up half the night anyways, isn’t there? Go on, then. Yes, please. Thank you.’
Peggy stuck her head out of the archway to the kitchen. ‘You’re out of luck on that front – it’s decaf.’
Baz remembered Peggy once telling her she always drank decaf. Something about caffeine giving her gas?
Peggy emerged from the kitchen with a serving tray bearing a French press and three mugs. ‘I had a bell from Madge earlier. Here, I need the tray back if that’s okay.’
Baz took the tray and carried it to the table. ‘Oh, right? What did she say?’ She transferred the coffee and mugs to the table, then handed the empty tray back.
Peggy returned a few moments later, having reloaded the tray with plates of cake and cutlery. ‘She spoke to Clive. Sure enough, the day Eddie went missing, he was due to go on a date in a park. Clive didn’t know who with but he was sure the name started with A. I wasn’t sure how you took your coffee, so I brought some milk and sugar.’
Baz took a seat at the table. ‘Are you seriously thinking of eating now? At this time of day?’
Peggy threw back her head and guffawed. ‘We’ve only just finished our dinner.’
Having supper at 10 pm? Peggy really was a night owl!
Pouring coffee from the French press into three mugs, Peggy gave a small shrug. ‘You can have the slice of cake or we can let Carole and Cookie fight for it – your call.’
Carole accepted her coffee and stirred four heaping spoonfuls of sugar in. Then she glanced at the snoozy German shepherd with his head hanging off the armchair. ‘I can take him.’
Baz took a small sniff of her coffee. ‘Oh, that’s good stuff.’ She added some milk and then took an exploratory sip. ‘Excellent.’
Peggy nodded. ‘It’s from the same roastery the café uses. As a little thank you for making the connection, my nephew sends me a bag every week.’ She waved. ‘A thank you, a Christmas gift… I’m not really sure anymore why he sends it. But he does.’
Baz held the mug. ‘Your nephew?’ This was new territory. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about your family before.’
Peggy chuckled. ‘You heard the bits I told that mendacious turgid toad. But, no, I suppose I don’t speak about them much. Alex is all right, but I don’t get on with most of them – least of all my mother.’
Baz tried to think of how to respond to that.
‘My mother and I have never seen eye-to-eye.’ Peggy tapped a nail on the table. ‘She’s a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, you see. And not a “namby-pamby, liberal, one-nation Tory” – her words, not mine.’
Baz scratched the back of her head. She must have misheard. ‘I’m sorry, did you say she is a Tory?’
Peggy nodded. ‘She is indeed. The last time I spoke to her, she went on at me about how we haven’t had a proper Tory PM since Thatcher. She had no kind words to say about … well, about anyone. She went off about the invasion of the Woke Brigade. Apparently they’re taking over the country.’ Peggy pulled a face like she’d tasted something bad – which certainly wasn’t the coffee.
‘Your … mother?’ Baz still couldn’t wrap her head around the idea.
‘Oh, do keep up, Baz.’ Peggy sliced a bit of cake off with her fork and popped it into her mouth. ‘Ninety-seven years old and I don’t think she’s missed a week at Parliament since 1986.’
‘Your mother is ninety-seven?’
Peggy stabbed a morsel of cake with her fork and jabbed it in Baz’s direction. ‘Are you having a stroke? Only having to call an ambulance would throw a bit of a spanner into our plans.’ Peggy’s mobile phone trilled and she held it up. ‘Looks like it’s go time. Better postpone your stroke and get your head screwed on straight.’
Madge had invited Arthur round to hers for a date. Seeing as he had a sudden change of plans when Clive cancelled.
Peggy popped an earbud in and clicked the face of the phone. ‘How are you getting on, Madge?’ There was a pause while, presumably, Madge spoke. ‘Excellent. We’ll see you then. My what? Ah, excellent thinking. Okay, I’ll bring it.’ She slid the phone back into her pocket. ‘We’ll need to leave here in about twenty minutes. Let’s see if we can clear up some of this mess before then, shall we?’
‘We’re not leaving for twenty minutes?’ Baz was aghast. ‘What? Why?’
Peggy picked up the plates and mugs and carried them through to the kitchen. ‘How should I know? Grab that French press, would you?’
Baz dropped her voice – though she wasn’t sure why. ‘What’s she doing? We should help her. Is she just sitting there with him tied to a chair or something? We need to go now.’
Peggy set the dishes in the sink and turned on the tap. ‘If Madge wanted us to come now, then that’s what she would have said.’
‘What about Roshan and Ara?’ Madge’s tenants shouldn’t see what they’d be getting up to tonight.
Peggy made a shooing motion. ‘They’re out for the night. Now go on, get out of our way.’
Carole tapped Baz on the shoulder. ‘I wash – Peggy dries. Otherwise it takes her weeks to figure out where I’ve hidden everything.’
‘What?’
Peggy took Baz by the shoulders and turned her around. ‘We’ve got this. You go and keep Cookie company. He likes it if you read to him. We’ve been working our way through the latest Dharma Kelleher novel. It’s on the coffee table.’
Baz went back into the living room. ‘Looks like it’s just you and me, kid.’ Cookie wagged his tail. She sat on the armchair – his chair. He plonked himself down on her feet and rested his chin on her knee. She stroked his soft fur while she waited for Peggy and Carole to tidy up.
For pity’s sake… She had to get her head together. Absentmindedly stroking Cookie, she stared at nothing.
Once Cookie had been delivered to the upstairs neighbours, the three women set out.
Peggy affixed a trailer to her scooter. ‘I don’t need it very often, but every once in a while, it comes in handy. I got it a few years ago when Cookie hurt his knee and I was taking him to the vet all the time.’
Baz steered her own scooter out Peggy’s front gate. ‘And this is what Madge asked you to bring? Why?’
Peggy barked out a laugh as she followed Baz. ‘I think I can guess.’
Baz swallowed. She’d made peace with the unpleasant nature of the work they sometimes did. But she didn’t like to think of it any more than necessary.
As she dismounted her scooter, Baz braced herself for the laborious climb up the flight of stairs.
Peggy surprised her, though, by walking right past the stairwell. ‘We’re in luck. Madge said the lift’s working for a change.’
It creaked and groaned like it was going to crap out on them at any moment, but it eventually got them to the first floor, where they found Madge’s door ajar. ‘In here.’ Madge’s voice came from beyond one of the doors in the short hallway. That door, too, was open.
Peggy pushed open the door, revealing Madge in a neat but cramped bedroom. And laid out on the bed was Arthur. Madge was fussing with one of his socks. His other foot was bare.
‘All right,’ said Peggy. ‘Cavalry has arrived. What’s the status?’
Baz peered around Peggy’s shoulder. ‘How long has he been unconscious? We ought to tie him up before he wakes.’
Madge retrieved a sock from her pocket and pulled it onto his left foot. When she had finished, she stood upright and faced the women at her door. ‘He’s not going to wake up – he’s dead.’
Peggy marched into the room. ‘He’s what?’
Baz followed Peggy, but with less strident steps. She felt like she ought to check the man’s pulse – but she knew Madge, as a nurse, wouldn’t look kindly on being second-guessed.
‘I said he’s dead.’ Madge crossed her arms over her chest. ‘And I think you heard me the first time.’ She manoeuvred a dilapidated trainer onto his foot.
Peggy stepped right up to Madge and stared down at her. ‘Madge, what the hell are you doing? Did you really take on a serial killer by yourself?’
Baz made a conciliatory gesture. ‘We don’t know that he’s … that he was a…’
Madge arched an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yes we do.’ She waved a gloved hand at her nightstand before setting to work on Arthur’s second shoe. ‘I found that in his flat.’
Peggy touched her fingers to her temples. ‘You went to his home?’
Baz narrowed her eyes. ‘How did you do it?’
Madge pointed at Peggy. ‘Yes, but not until afterwards.’ She redirected her hand so she was pointing at Baz. ‘Potassium chloride. It will appear he had a heart attack.’
‘Wouldn’t that be…’ Baz scrunched up her face. ‘Why would he eat something that tasted so strange?’
Madge arched an eyebrow. ‘Have a look at that paper I found on his fridge-freezer.’
Baz cocked her head. ‘Will it tell me why he willingly ate something so salty?’
Peggy donned gloves and picked up the paper. She studied it for a moment, her eyes growing slowly wider. After a moment, she touched her mouth. ‘Oh.’
Madge had finished putting shoes on the corpse. She stood up straight, then pushed her fists into her lower back and arched. ‘Indeed.’
Baz wagged a finger. ‘No, I’m sorry, please. I need an answer. How did you manage it?’
Madge snickered – actually snickered. Peggy cast a sideways glance at her and opened her eyes wide.
But Baz was still in the dark and she didn’t like it. ‘Please, Madge. How did you manage this?’
‘Well…’ Madge had a coy look on her face. ‘The normal method of administering potassium chloride would be intravenously.’
‘Okay.’ Baz nodded slowly. ‘So you injected him.’
Madge looked away. ‘A puncture wound would show up in even a cursory post-mortem. And that leaves us with absorption via mucosal membrane.’
Baz threw her hands in the air. ‘I don’t understand. Can you just explain, please?’
Madge and Peggy exchanged one of those infuriating glances.
‘Baz,’ Peggy said, drawing the name out. ‘I think – and I’m going out on a limb here but… How shall I say this?’ She did that teeth-kissing thing that Madge always did. ‘Baz, don’t ask questions unless you’re sure you want to know the answer.’
Baz furrowed her brow. ‘But I do want to understand.’
Madge bit her lip.
Peggy inhaled slowly. ‘I’m not sure you do.’
‘A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence.’ Until Carole started speaking, Baz hadn’t even realised she was in the room. ‘And in its simplest usage, it rather theatrically announces what is to come.’ Throwing back her head, she laughed uproariously.
Baz felt heat run to her cheeks. ‘Are we talking about an S-E-X thing?’
Peggy gave a tiny shake of her head and frowned. ‘Baz, W-H-Y A-R-E W-E S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G?’
Baz looked at the floor as she fought the urge to flee. After a moment, she shook her head and waved. ‘Fine. I don’t want to know. Now what’s on this paper you’ve been waving around?’
‘Gloves on.’ When Baz had done so, Peggy offered her the page. ‘It’s a hand-drawn map of the nature reserve.’
Baz studied it. The walking path was clearly marked, as were the toolshed and the entrance. But the map had also been flagged with eight small red circles, each one labelled with a letter of the alphabet. She spied an F first. When she noticed a cluster together with S, M, and A, she realised what she was looking at. ‘Oh my gosh.’ She traced a finger around the page looking for… Yes, there was the E. It took her just a few seconds to find the P, H, and W.
Baz let her hand fall to her side. ‘He’s buried them in the nature reserve.’ She looked up to find Peggy and Madge’s eyes on her. ‘That’s what this is, right?’
‘Yes.’ Madge’s earlier coquettishness was gone. She spoke plainly now. ‘I have a plan. And it’s why I asked you to bring the trailer.’
‘I think I see where this is going,’ Peggy said. ‘Let me see that map again.’
Baz passed it over.
Peggy held the map up and indicated the circle with the F. ‘Fifi’s grave is closest to the entrance. I say we work with that.’