“Dr Carroll.” Lois nods, her demeanour cooling slightly, indicating she obviously doesn’t much care for the on-call doctor, and when he opens his mouth, I can see why.
He flips on the main light and marches over to the bed, all business. “Right then, shall we get on with it? I have dinner reservations at The Savoy.” He glances at his watch in annoyance. Leaning over the bed, he pinches the inside of Delores’ wrist to check for a pulse. Satisfied there’s nothing going on, he slowly peels her eyelids back before nodding to himself. “Time of death, 8.47 pm. Do you have the papers for me to sign?”
He takes the clipboard Lois hands him with a pinched expression.
“Just a minute!” I snatch the clipboard out of his hand.
Lois blinks. “Tristan! What are you doing?”
“His job for him, obviously.” I narrow my eyes and glare at the intruder. “You might as well run along to your reservation. I doubt you’d want to miss the starter course.” I eye his vast paunch tucked ruthlessly into his tightly notched leather belt.
“Well I never,” he sputters indignantly.
“Run along now, and you can expect a call from your practice supervisor, as I can assure you I will be putting in a very strenuous complaint. I’ve never witnessed such a callous lack of regard for the dead, not to mention your utter incompetence.”
Deciding his dinner plans are obviously far more important than arguing with me, he turns on his shiny buffed shoes and sails out of the room, muttering under his breath.
“I assume there was a reason for that?” Danny’s brow quirks curiously.
“Tristan, what did you do?” Lois’ eyes widen in shock. “He’s a pompous, self-important prick, but we need someone to sign off on the death certificate.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her solemnly. “I’m fully qualified to call time of death and sign off on her death certificate, but you might want to hold off on the whole natural causes thing for a minute.”
“What? Why?” Lois frowns. “She was ninety-seven years old. She slipped away in her sleep.”
“She may have slipped away in her sleep”—I shake my head—“but it wasn’t because of old age.”
“What’s going on, Tris?” Danny steps in closer.
“Look.” I lift Mrs Abernathy’s hand carefully.
“What am I looking at?” he asks in confusion, and that’s when he sees it, the dark brown banding horizontally across all of her nails. “What’s that?”
“They’re Mees’ lines, they’re indicative of heavy metal poisoning. They usually present between three and six weeks after the initial poisoning.” I turn to Lois, who’s looking faintly ashen. “Last week, you mentioned Delores hadn’t been well. Stomach problems, I think it was?”
Lois nods slowly. “Stomach cramps, some diarrhoea, but the last few days she’s had some seizures. We just assumed it was the natural progression for her and were just about to start discussing palliative care.”
“What are you thinking, Tris?” Danny asks.
“She’ll need a full post-mortem and blood tests to be sure, but I’m almost certain we’re looking at arsenic poisoning.”
“Arsenic?” Danny swears under his breath.
“Yes…” I nod slowly. “I hate to say it but I think Mrs Abernathy might have been murdered.”
3
The care home is a hive of muted activity, the police having arrived along with forensics, the carers and staff trying frantically to stop them all from waking the residents and causing chaos.
“We’re going to need to get all the residents tested for heavy metal poisoning.” Danny scratches the stubble along his jaw thoughtfully.
“I went back to Dad’s room and checked his hands. He looks clear, as do most of the others that I’ve seen, but if the poisoning occurred here, we can’t rule out cross contamination.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this, Tris.” He gives my arm a comforting stroke before he looks up and sees the flaming red hair of his partner.
“Detective Wilkes,” I say with a warm smile as she stops in front of us. I’ve gotten to know Maddie and her wife Sonia well since Danny and I have been going over to their place for dinner when all our schedules allow it.
“Tristan,” she greets. “They said arsenic poisoning. Arsenic? Really?”
