“It looks like salt.” Maddie reaches for it without thinking.
“No!” I bark out, grabbing her wrist before she can touch it. “It may look like salt,” I say, softening my tone as Maddie freezes, “but from the smell of it, it’s mixed with god knows what other chemicals.”
“What do you think it’s for?” she asks in consternation.
I glance around and see an old walking stick propped against the racking and grab hold of it. I use the curved handle to sift through the top couple of layers like I’m shifting sand. As I dig a little lower, something dark brown and leathery appears, and suddenly I hear Sam swear softly under his breath and Maddie gag behind me.
As the leathery shape is slowly revealed, I realise with a sickening feeling that it’s a shrivelled and desiccated human head. It looks like the mummified remains of what seems to be a male victim.
“How much do you want to bet we’ve just found Charles Landon?” I say a little sickly.
“Jesus, he looks like beef jerky,” Sam mutters. “Poor guy must’ve been down here for quite some time.”
“Fuck,” Maddie exclaims behind us. As I turn, I see she’s moved away from the corpse in the trunk and is staring at another one of the shelving racks on the other side of the room.
“What is it?” I cross the room to stand beside her, where I see what has caught her attention.
It’s rows and rows of glass canisters, jars, and bottles which wouldn’t have looked out of place in a macabre museum or in an old apothecary’s. My eyes graze along the handwritten labels, reading slowly.
Arsenic… Cyanide… Strychnine… Aconite… Lead… Mercury… Nightshade… Hemlock…
“We need to go, now!” I say urgently, grabbing Maddie’s arm and towing her back to the stairs. “Sam, move!” He rises and follows without question, leading me to believe he’s just arrived at the same conclusion I have.
I leave the light on as we climb the stairs quickly, then hurry along the passageway until we’re back in the kitchen, where I open the back door and the kitchen window for ventilation.
Maddie frowns. “What was all that about?”
“That was a bunch of extremely lethal poisons to inhale as well as ingest, not to mention whatever that cocktail of chemicals was in that trunk that prevented Charles Landon from fully decomposing, all in an enclosed, unventilated space. It’s not safe down there.”
“Maeve Landon seemed to do just fine,” Maddie replies.
“She’s a trained chemist. Not only does she know what’s down there, but she knows how to handle it safely. We don’t,” I tell her. “We need to call Poison Control and get them to clear that room as well as remove what I’m assuming are Mr Landon’s remains. His post-mortem will have to be handled very carefully once we know what he was preserved with.”
“Why do you think she did it?” Maddie swallows loudly. “Kept him like that?”
“Probably to not arouse suspicion,” I guess. “I’ve had the misfortune to be around a corpse that had reached the putrefaction stage and trust me, there’s no way the neighbours wouldn’t have noticed the stench. She would have needed to maintain the illusion he was still alive so she could continue to cash his pension and live in his house.”
“Just when I think it can’t get any worse.” She blows out a breath. “I’m guessing we’ve got enough on her now.”
“And then some,” I agree.
“Now we just need to find her.” Maddie purses her lips thoughtfully. “Do you think she knows we’re onto her? Maybe she’s made a run for it.”
“I doubt it.” I shake my head as I look down at my phone. “Wait a minute. It's the first of May, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, why?” Sam asks.
I glance at the calendar Sellotaped to the wall and see today’s date encircled in red.
“I know exactly where Maeve is,” I realise.
“Where?”
“Trying to win first place for her jam tart,” I reply.
“What?” Maddie blinks.
“She’s at Northwold Community Centre because today’s the day they host their annual Jam Tart Society Social.”
