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KD demanded my report the next morning, almost as soon as I got through the door.
“Just as I suspected,” she said, when I’d finished. “Prying and prodding your nose into this affair has acted as a catalyst.”
My boss is all for plain speaking and, in so doing, often hits the nail on the head. In this instance, the nail was me and, though I may not like it, I could hardly object. There was more than an element of truth in her words.
“It looks like it, yes, and poor Christine Thompson has paid the price.”
Becky had phoned from the hospital at seven the previous evening to confirm that there had been no change in the English teacher’s condition. Her place at the bedside would be taken overnight by Constable Braithwaite and Becky would return this morning. As I’d heard nothing from her prior to leaving for work, I assumed Miss Thompson had not regained consciousness.
“Well, it was hardly your fault.” KD attempted to assuage my guilty feelings. “The Assistant Chief Constable must have realised that poking a killer with a stick, especially one as nosy and perspicacious as you, was a dangerous thing to do.”
Nice. So, now she was calling me a stick. I could have argued, but she was still in full flow.
“I’m surprised that the Chief Inspector agreed to it, quite frankly. I’ve always thought him a most intelligent man.” KD nearly always referred to Jerry by his title. It was a courtesy that still threw me when she used it because I had to stop and think who she meant.
“I don’t think he was too happy about it, KD.”
She nodded, scrutinising me over the rim of her glasses. “No, I suppose not, and the ACC outranks, out-trumps, and overrules him.”
“It might have been Mr Johnson’s intention all along, for me to draw the killer out and get the case wrapped up before his granddaughter started at the college.”
“And have another solved case to add to the statistics,” KD agreed. “Would he really have used you so cynically?”
I shrugged. The ACC neither consulted nor shared his thinking with me. “Who knows?”
Not me, that was for certain. I had spent a lot of time mulling over the reason why I’d been asked to investigate. Constable Bowles could have done the job just as well – better, really, as she had access to the PNC – and, until Jerry had come home and told me the news, I thought she had the makings of a good detective. She had a tendency to think everyone she interviewed guilty of culpable homicide, mind you—but that could be put down to her youth and inexperience. Besides, she might be right.
But Becky had handed her notice in. She had holiday still to come, so by the end of the month she would have cleared her desk and gone. I would have picked myself up off the floor if I hadn’t been lying in bed at the time.
What this meant for the Cold Case Unit, I had no idea. Last week I wouldn’t have minded if Jerry and his ACC had decided to scrap it. Today, I wasn’t so sure.
“So what are you going to do now?” asked KD, breaking my reverie.
“First, I’m going to type up my notes on priest holes for you, then I’m going back this lunchtime to speak to the janitor and at least one of the teachers. Someone hasn’t told me the truth.”
“Ha! Did you really expect them to?”
Perhaps not, but I had thought that the assault on yet another of their number might have loosened a tongue or two.
I still hoped that might be the case several hours later when I poked my head in the Staff Room, only to find that my quarry was in the Science Lab, one floor up.
“Upstairs and to the right. She’s setting up this afternoon’s lessons,” Peter Purcell informed me.
He was about to hurry off until I stopped him. “You made a comment yesterday about Mr Wilford.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Was that to do with his visits to the Pink Pearl?”
“Ah! Tactfully put.”
Tactful? Me? Well, I supposed there must be a first time for everything. “You know what I mean.”
“Oh, I do,” he agreed. “So our sleuth has discovered Wilford’s little secret, eh? Or nearly so. Don’t go raking up too much dirt on the man. I doubt he has the temperament to kill anyone, and he certainly could not have harmed Miss Thompson.”
With this he turned away and went down the stairs, leaving me staring after him, wondering what on earth he meant. Wishing that people would tell me the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth, I debated whether to go after him, but he’d already disappeared out of sight along the bottom corridor.
With a grimace of frustration I dismissed him for now and returned to my original errand.
By my reckoning, I had fifteen minutes before the bell sounded for the start of afternoon lessons as I hauled myself up another double flight of stairs wondering why they had sited the Physics and Chemistry departments on the top floor. Perhaps the architects had thought it safest in the event of an explosion. In this way the girls might end up blowing the roof off, but were unlikely to damage the rest of the building.
Stopping at the top to catch my breath, I peered over the balustrade; the ground floor looked a long way away. Thank heavens that Christine hadn’t fallen from here. She would have broken her neck. I shuddered, standing back and glancing rapidly around, for fear of anyone lurking who might want me to repeat the feat. Alone, I carried on towards my destination.
A little way ahead, a door marked Physics Store – Do Not Enter stood ajar. I peeped into the dark interior, barely making out the racks of metal shelving against the rear wall, and would have moved on past when a muffled oath from inside caught my attention.
“Mrs Liversedge,” I called out, stepping forward and pushing the door a fraction wider. Are you—”
A hand gripped my arm, dragging me inside. Another hand cuffed the side of my head. My vision blurred and something hard and sharp hit my shin. Thrown violently to the floor, pain streaked through me — leg, hip and head. I caught the soft rustle of fabric as someone moved past me, then the crash of breaking glass. I jerked as the door banged closed leaving me in absolute darkness.
My nostrils twitched. An acrid stench came from somewhere to my left and I retched as it hit the back of my throat. The fumes got stronger in the confined space, making it hard to breathe and I tried to push myself upright, but my aching leg slipped from under me unable to support my weight.
I made a feeble attempt to call for help, my head woozy with whatever noxious air I was inhaling, my voice weak, little more than a bleat.
You bloody fool, Verity. How stupid are you? Why didn’t you kick the door open? Recriminations flooded my brain, a pointless exercise when I had no idea who had done this. Mrs Liversedge, perhaps? But why would she be in here with the light off?
Get up, I told myself. Get up and get out of here.
But which way was out? The darkness combined with the vapour confused and disorientated me.
I couldn’t stand. Instead I floundered around on the floor, like a new-born calf, unable to find my feet. I shuffled away from the source of the fumes.
Hell’s teeth! Why do I never learn, I thought, before I passed out.
* * *
“Good Lord! So I was right. Quick, get her out of there. Gently. Mind the glass.”
To the accompaniment of staccato instructions, I felt myself being lifted in a pair of strong arms and carried into light and fresh air.
“Bloody ‘ell, Lib, not another one. Will she be all right, do you suppose?”
“Let’s have a look at her. Put her in my chair, then you’d better go and clear up the mess.”
Footsteps wandered away. “Keep the girls out if they come. Tell them to give me five minutes.”
A hand slapped my cheek. “Come on, wake up!”
Cold fresh air drifted over me. I opened my eyes to see Mrs Liversedge kneeling at my side in a white lab coat. “Thank you,” I croaked.
She fetched a plastic cup of water and thrust it into my hands. “Here, sip this.”
I did so gratefully, the cool liquid easing the tightness in my throat. Once again I’d been lucky.
“Are you hurt?”
I did a mental check of my aches and pains. “Only my leg. I think someone kicked my shin.”
Mrs Liversedge opened a drawer and took out a small first aid kit. “You’ve got a small graze on your forehead. Keep still,” she said as I flinched away at the sting of antiseptic. “There. You’ll do.”
My head still felt a little groggy, but I whispered my thanks.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. The door to the Store Room was ajar. I thought you were in there and called your name. Then I was attacked.” I rubbed my sore shin. “What was that smell?”
“Ether. We keep a small quantity, it’s used as solvent in several tests the girls have to do, but you were lucky.” She echoed my sentiments. “Too large a dose might have killed you. Did you see who it was? The person who attacked you, I mean.”
I was bitterly aware that it could still have been Mrs Liversedge herself. She had legitimate reason to be in the store room, and could easily have seized a vial of ether—and her chance to be rid of a prying nuisance—when I’d called her name. Why she hadn’t switched the light on was a mystery, though she of all people must know the room’s layout, even in the dark, and maybe there had been sufficient light from the corridor for her purposes.
After attacking me, she could have walked away, back into her classroom, until the janitor came past and noticed the smell.
“No,” I said eventually. “Unfortunately, I didn’t see who attacked me. Didn’t you?”
To my surprise she blushed a livid red. “No. I was in here talking to Reg...er...Mr Houston.”
She looked away and I made a mental note to return to a subject that clearly made her uncomfortable.
“I heard a bang,” she went on, “followed shortly after by the sound of glass breaking, so I went out into the corridor to see what it was. When I caught a whiff of the sweet cloying smell of the ether I called to Mr Houston. That’s when we found you.”
“I’m very grateful you did.”
“You might want to go to the hospital and get checked up, but you don’t appear to be too badly affected. You probably had less than a mol.”
“Oh, what’s that?” The only science I knew anything about was the domestic variety. One mol could be Klingon for all the sense it made to me.
“Just a measurement. Don’t worry about it, it isn’t a lot.”
“Thanks, I think I feel all right. I certainly got off a lot lighter than Christine, but I may go the General anyway.”
She chewed at her lower lip. “You think it’s the same person?”
“Yes. It has to be. I doubt that this was some schoolgirl prank. I —”
The door opened and the janitor strode in. “Everything all right?”
Oh, sure, I thought, sourly. Apart from an aching leg and an oncoming headache, everything was fine. Just peachy in fact.
He stood beside the teacher, peering down critically at me. “What the hell were you doing in there?” he demanded. “That room is out of bounds to everyone but myself and Lib. You had no right to be in there.”
“Shush, Reg.” Mrs Liversedge laid a hand on his arm. “Miss Long was attacked.”
Seeing them now, the way she touched him, their use of intimate names, and remembering how the two heads, one dark, one fair, had bent together at yesterday’s meeting, the relationship between them became obvious. I had no doubt they were lovers, though I would need all my tact to get them to admit it.
“You’re having an affair, aren’t you?” I said. “Did Emily Rimmer find out? Was it one of the little secrets that she loved to collect? Secrets that she then used to blackmail her victims?” I put my hands on the chair arms, and pushed myself upright. “Did you kill her?”
For a second my sense of diplomacy brought me perilously close to a cuff round the ear or a harder-slapped face than the last time, but I was tired of beating about the bush.
“How dare you,” Houston said. He was quieted again by Libby.
“Calm down, Reg. It’s time for the truth.” She ran a hand through her hair and leaned back against the desk.
Houston turned to her, his words soft. “Our business is nothing to do with Miss Long, Lib.”
She sighed. “Perhaps not, but this can’t go on. First Rimmer, then murderous attacks on Chris and Miss Long. Where will it end?”
“It won’t if you don’t speak out,” I said.
She nodded. “Look, neither of us had any part in Rimmer’s death, nor do we know who did, but we didn’t exactly lament her passing. I suppose I was happy to turn a blind eye to whoever had rid us of a thorn in our sides.”
“So you were being blackmailed?”
“She tried, but I was on the point of separating from my husband, and I told Rimmer she could go to hell.”
I could well see the sharp tongued Science mistress standing her ground, but how would the Board of Governors feel about this liaison between its staff?
“Frankly, I didn’t care,” she said, when I asked. “I went to Mrs Parr and explained the situation. She just told me to be discreet.”
“She came and said the same to me,” the janitor added. “I was prepared to get another job and move elsewhere if need be, but Mrs Parr said that wouldn’t be necessary. ‘As long as your affair happens in your own time and off these premises, I don’t care what you do’. That’s what she said.”
I wasn’t convinced. We might have far greater sexual freedom now than at any time in the past, but I felt sure that the Governors would like to claim that Crofterton Girls’ College maintained the highest moral, as well as educational, standards. Members of staff canoodling in the corridors or classroom would do nothing at all for the school’s image.
“So, Mrs Parr knew you were being blackmailed?”
“Oh, no.” Libby waved a hand. “I’d told the Head about us long before Rimmer started her nasty demands. I saw no need to inform Mrs Parr of her attempt to extort money out of us, and nor did Reg.”
“All right. Let’s get back to today. Who has a key to that store room?”
The pair exchanged a glance and engaged in a quick bout of synchronized eyebrow and shoulder lifting.
“There are three keys.” Mr Houston turned to face me. “I have one, Mrs Liversedge the second, and the third is kept in a safe in Mrs Parr’s office.”
“I’ve got mine.” Libby pulled a key out of the pocket of her lab coat.
“And mine’s back in my office.” The janitor’s dark brows lowered. “I think.”
“Did you unlock it earlier?” I asked Libby.
She shook her blonde head. “No, I came straight in here. I knew Reg would be waiting.”
Hell’s teeth! What on earth were the pair of them up to in the Science Lab? About to ask how long they’d been alone in here, my question died on my lips, interrupted by girlish chatter.
“That will be Form 5A. Go and keep them out for a minute, please, Reg.”
He went to do her bidding and she rounded on me.
“I know what you were thinking, but he and I were only talking. We aren’t as daft as you seem to think us and neither of us would risk our jobs. I didn’t murder Emily Rimmer, nor did Reg, and neither of us attacked you or Christine. So, go and find who did. I’ve got a lesson to run.”
She stood back and pointed at the door.
“Thanks for rescuing me,” I said, taking a step away. “Just remember that until such time as I do uncover the killer, you are all in danger. And be more vigilant next time in keeping that store room door locked.”
I strode to the door without looking back. Out in the corridor, I said goodbye to the janitor, ignored the appraising stares of the 5th formers, and went down the stairs.
The Head came out of her office just as I reached the landing.
“Ah, Miss Long. I didn’t realise you were in college today.”
Tempting though it was to say I’d just come in to be attacked, I refrained.
“I only popped in to check on something.”
“Then it’s lucky I caught you.” She beamed at me, with possibly the first true smile I’d seen on her face since I’d arrived at the college ten days ago. “Good news from the hospital. Miss Thompson has regained consciousness.”
“Really? Oh that is good news.” And why the hell hadn’t Becky called to let me know? “I’d better get over there.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry,” she said. “Poor Miss Thompson has no memory of what happened. Her mind is a complete blank.”
* * *
Hell’s teeth! Just my luck.
I was about to issue Mrs Parr with strict instructions to say nothing about Miss Thompson’s condition, but realised there was little point. Whether she could remember the attack or not, while she lived the killer would always see her as a threat.
I phoned Becky from the school gates.
“I wouldn’t waste your time coming here,” she said. “Poor woman can barely remember her name. Her sister’s just arrived, so maybe that will help.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“I’m due to get relieved by Braithwaite in twenty minutes. Do you want me to come round?”
I answered her monotone with a monosyllable. “Yes.”
“All right.”
Furious, I snapped the phone off and hobbled for the car. Did I want her to come round, indeed! Had she forgotten that we had a case to solve?
My temper didn’t improve any when I got home, took off my trousers, and saw the burgeoning bruise on my right shin. Perhaps I should have gone to the hospital and let them check me out, but the thought of driving round and round that car park and waiting for someone to move out so that I could have their space had been too much for me. Better to return to Fernbank and lick my wounds at home.
I put a cold compress on it for five minutes and thought about the shadowy person in the Science store. What had they been doing in there? Why had they been in the dark? Unless they had heard me coming and switched off the light before I got there.
Satisfied that I’d solved the hows and the whats, if not the who and the why, I slipped on a clean pair of trousers and went downstairs.
This wretched investigation was leading to too many missed lunches and, despite the fact that Becky would show up at any moment, I needed more than a chocolate digestive to assuage my hunger.
I let her in when the doorbell rang, and asked her to join me in the kitchen.
“First things first,” I said. “Have you had lunch?”
She shook her head. “No, I rarely bother. I sometimes grab a salad in the staff canteen, if I’m in the office. Do you?”
“I used to.” I thought with pleasure of the meals KD and I had shared in her vast kitchen at Bishop Lea—another reason, as if I needed one, to give up this Cold Case business. “I haven’t lately.”
“Right. I thought you’d lost some weight.”
She blushed as I glanced back over my shoulder and caught her scrutinising me.
“Well, I’m going to cook an omelette. Would you like one?”
“Oh!” She looked surprised. “You’re good at those, so yes, please.”
Where had she heard that, I wondered, as I reached for the eggs. I didn’t think Jerry would have discussed my culinary skills with his staff, but Valentino might have remarked on them.
As I prepared things, I pointed her to the cutlery drawer and asked if Miss Thompson had said anything about last Saturday, or the day of Rimmer’s murder?
“No.” Becky put out knives and forks. “She’s still a bit hazy on some things and the doctors insisted she not try to remember. They said her memory will come back gradually, and naturally, and not to force it.”
They were probably right, but they didn’t have a murder to solve.
“She’s still in acute danger.” I waved a spatula at Becky then turned away and poured eggs into a frying pan. “Her attacker will try again.”
“Yeah, well, she’s in a room to herself at the end of the ward and Constable Braithwaite is on guard outside. She’s safe enough for the moment.”
I sincerely hoped so. I’d made no mention of the attack upon me that morning, though perhaps I should, if only to impress on everyone concerned the need for vigilance—myself included. We were up against a ruthless and determined killer and I was running out of time.
Becky ate her omelette with apparent relish and helped with the washing up.
“Do you enjoy cooking?” I asked her.
I’d thought it a simple enough question, but it plunged Becky, who during lunch had been bright and perky, back into her gloomy mood.
“Good grief, no. It’s a right chore.”
A necessary one if one wasn’t to exist on a diet of raw food. Some vegetarians might do it, but Becky wasn’t a vegetarian.
I said nothing more until we settled into the office and I asked her to look again at the teachers’ alibis.
“You know Wilford’s,” she said, staring at her computer screen.
I also knew it was false and the reason he’d given it, and while his real one might not absolve him, I felt inclined to leave him out of it for now.
“Yes, and I’ve already checked out Mrs Liversedge’s and it holds up. A pity, because they were my two main suspects.”
“Oh? What have you got against them?”
“Motive. Look, we know that Rimmer collected secrets like some people collect stamps. Wilford’s secret is that he is gay and Liversedge is having an affair with the college janitor. She also admitted that Rimmer had tried to blackmail them about it. Those are solid enough reasons for wanting to get rid of her.”
“Uh huh.” Becky corkscrewed a strand of hair around a finger.
“Unfortunately, I think they’re both out of it. So what we need is another teacher, but one with a motive but no alibi.”
“Okay.”
“Someone like Miss Jean Brodie.”
“Uh huh.”
“Dammit, Becky. Are you listening to me?”
She lifted her head from contemplating her split ends. “Sorry, what?” She blushed furiously and threw the hair over her shoulder. “Sorry. Go on.”
My shin throbbed like fury, but that was no reason to take it out on her. I curbed my temper and tried not to scowl at her. Floundering around in an excess of motives and alibis, I would have welcomed her input, but as far as this investigation went, she’d been as much use as a chocolate teapot.
“Okay,” I said, “we’ve dealt with Wilford and Liversedge. What alibi did the French teacher, Joanna Sutcliffe give?”
I waited while Becky searched through the reports, tapping my pen against my pad. Miss Sutcliffe was the only member of staff unaccounted for at the time of Miss Thompson’s fall. During yesterday’s interview, she had looked pale and shocked, but when I’d asked where everyone was, she had remained silent about her own whereabouts. I needed to speak to her again.
“Here we are,” said Becky. “Her alibi for Rimmer’s murder was that she was with her boyfriend at a matinee performance of Guys and Dolls at Crofterton Playhouse.”
“And was she?”
“Uh huh. Andy Perkins checked it out. He seems to have been satisfied,” She looked up. “Any idea of her motive?”
“None whatsoever.”
But I was sure she had one. She would certainly have some sort of secret.
“Perhaps she’s gay, too, and was having an affair with a pupil,” She suggested.
“I hardly think so – oh!” I sat up in my chair and leafed rapidly back through my pad. “You’ve just reminded me of something one of the teachers said. Hang on a tick.”
I fed the name of Wilford’s previous school into my search engine and reached for the phone. Peter Purcell had implied that Wilford’s homosexuality offered no danger to the girls at Crofterton College, but what about earlier in his career?
I called the Headmaster at the coeducational Cavendish High School in Thripston and put it to him straight; had there been a problem while Wilford was at the school?
“Yes,” he said, “but let me be clear. It was a storm in a teacup. The boy in question brought the same allegation against several teachers, not all of them male. Believe me, we made a thorough enquiry and Mr Wilford wasn’t even on the premises when the assault was alleged to have taken place. As far as I am concerned he was completely exonerated.”
“Yet he left.”
“Indeed, although not for another year. I know he felt the accusation most keenly and I can understand his desire to move on and put the whole thing behind him. I’ve always assumed he thought he would be safer in an all-girls school, his sexuality being a benefit for once.”
It was an odd way to put it but I took his meaning, thanked him for his time and his frankness, and put the phone down.
Surely, now, Wilford was cleared, not only of abusing pupils, but also of murder. I relayed all this to Becky, but I doubt she took it in. Her eyes held that glazed, unfocused look that I’d come to expect over the last week or so. I took one last stab at trying to reach her.
“Becky, I appreciate that working with your boss’s wife is a tricky place to find yourself in, but you’ve been as miserable as sin for the past two weeks. Last night Jerry informed me you’ve handed in your notice. Please tell me why.”
It had come as a shock, but not a total surprise. I might have believed that her unhappiness over the last week was down to problems at work, if Jerry hadn't denied all knowledge of any, and I hadn't seen her in Val's embrace.
“I’m sorry. I was going to tell you myself. I just forgot and I’m not leaving because of you.” She looked down at her keyboard, the fingers of her right hand playing idly along the space bar. “To be honest, I’ve been surprised at how easy you are to work with.”
Perhaps that was because she never seemed to pay me, or her work, any attention. “So, why are you quitting?”
She sighed. “I’m moving out of the area.”
“Oh? Have you asked for a transfer?”
Her chestnut hair fluttered as she shook her head. “No.”
“But I thought you enjoyed working for the police, especially since you moved across to CID.”
She gave a helpless little shrug. “I did and I do. I just have to get away, that’s all.”
She made no mention of Valentino or an unhappy love affair and I wasn’t sure that if I took the bull by the horns and asked her directly, she would be any more forthcoming. I let out a sigh to equal one of her own.
“All right, well, I’m sorry to hear it. Perhaps, though, we can solve this case before you go.”
She opened her arms to suggest anything was possible. “So who do we check next?”
“Hmm. Wendy Dixon, the history teacher, I think, please.”
Unfortunately, Mrs Dixon’s alibi was impossible to either prove or disprove. She claimed she had been at home getting her children ready for the new term and making sure she had all the necessary ‘Back to School’ items the shops had been selling since before the holidays had even started.
“That doesn’t help us much, does it? Why is there seldom a nosy neighbour around when you need one?”
“Yup, as rare as hen’s teeth,” agreed Becky.
“Well, I’ve no idea of what her motive might be, but I’ll speak to her tomorrow and try and prod it out of her.”
I chewed at my lower lip; there was still so much I didn’t know. The killer was getting closer and daring enough to attack both Christine and myself while I was still in the dark. Would they try again — and make it third time lucky?
Was I, though, leaping to conclusions? Perhaps the assaults on me and the English teacher came from another quarter altogether and had nothing to do with Rimmer's death. I shook my head; I couldn't see that, nor think of any motive for these latest attacks.
After Becky had left, I stomped into the kitchen, debating between Merlot and paracetamol as a suitable painkiller for the ache in my shin. An easy choice. Wine had been in altogether too short supply during this investigation. If the attacker had thrown me to the floor in a wine cellar instead of a school storeroom, I wouldn’t have minded so much, and a bruised leg would have seemed a small price to pay.
My next choice was far harder. The minute Jerry knew about the attack, he’d pull me off the case and have me sat at home knitting socks, or worse, baby clothes. I shuddered at the thought of being sidelined into domesticity, yet knew I had to tell him.
I savoured the wine and considered my dilemma; how to stay on the case now that the killer had made it personal, while Jerry’s fierce need to protect me would see me stifled and wrapped in cotton wool.
One way to do that was to tell him I’d made a breakthrough—and maybe, just maybe, I had.
I took my glass into the office and looked again at my notes. If the person I’d disturbed in the Science store was not Mrs Liversedge, who else might it have been and what had they been doing in there? I came out in a cold sweat as the answer to the last part of that question flashed into my mind.
They were arming themselves.
The store probably contained everything from hydrochloric and sulphuric acids to magnesium and copper. About the only thing I remember about my own science lessons was the teacher, Mr Greenhill, making brightly coloured flash-bangs one Bonfire Night. I’ve long since forgotten which chemicals he used for his ‘fireworks’, except for the blinding white flare that magnesium provided and that copper and potassium featured somehow.
Any or all of the items in that storeroom could do grievous harm to Miss Thompson, lying defenceless in her hospital bed. Or to me.
Perhaps I was closer than I thought, but if my subconscious already knew the killer’s name, I wished to goodness it would tell me.
I phoned the college and asked to speak to Mr Houston. My blood ran cold when he confirmed my suspicions.
“Yes Miss, that’s right, there is a bottle missing. A bottle of sulphuric acid.”