“We’re very sorry,” said Catherine. “It’s just…”
“I know, I know. Isn’t it always ‘just’? Nothing’s ever easy. This is how I see it. The only way I’m going to get off the hook here is if I can find the murderer and clear my name.”
“That’s the long and the short of it, I suppose, yes,” said Geoffrey.
“Very well. Then I guess it is what it is. I’d better get cracking. We’d probably work better as a team, but I’m getting the sense you don’t want me in your club just yet. It’s a shame because I think we could be phenomenal. A former detective, a former homesecretary, a former doctor, and me, someone with a bit of practical experience. If we could stay friends, somehow, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course!” said Margaret, surprising both Geoffrey and Catherine a little.
“I promise not to murder any of you. Not unless you get on my wrong side, that is.”
The new murder club laughed awkwardly.
“Boo!”
Margaret nearly fell off her chair.
“Sorry,” Carol said, holding up her hands. “Really, I promise. My murdering days are over. To tell you the truth, I just don’t have the energy anymore.”
“All right. Well, I think we ought to…” Geoffrey stood up.
“I understand, Detective Chief Inspector. You have a lot of work to do.”
He blushed at being called what he hadn’t been called in a long time. They all gathered their things and headed toward Carol’s front door.
“Couple of things you might want to think about,” said Carol.
“Oh, yes?”
“Well, I managed to get a glimpse of Desmond’s face before they took his body away. There was an indentation on his forehead that didn’t look, to me, like it came from the fall. He looked like he’d been hit by something distinctive that left an imprinted circle.” She looked at Geoffrey. “Not a cricket bat, for example, so you’re out of the picture, Geoffrey. Something else.”
“Thank you,” said Catherine. “That’s, uh, very useful.”
“Catherine, you were a doctor, weren’t you?”
“Pathologist, actually, but, well, yes,” said Catherine.
“Hang on,” said Carol, pointing at each of them in turn. “Detective, home secretary, pathologist. This is absurd. How is this place so full of criminal investigators?”
Catherine, Margaret, and Geoffrey looked at one another. Catherine offered a possible reason. “Word of mouth?”
“I think it’s just one of those funny things,” said Margaret. “You could say that having an ex-murderer here at least balances the place out a bit.”
Carol gave a polite laugh, then picked up her train of thought. She pointed at Catherine. “What’s your view on poison?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if, say, you had put some arsenic in each of your friends’ tea, how long should you expect to have to wait before they all stop breathing?”
Margaret immediately started wheezing and held on to the back of a chair for support. Geoffrey’s arm slowly rose in horror, his finger directing itself at Carol, who laughed.
“Joke! It’s a joke!”
Margaret’s relief turned to laughter. “Oh, deary. Oh, deary me.”
“If I was going to get back to it, I wouldn’t be fooling around with poison. Poison is boring. Much better to crack an ax into someone’s skull.”
Margaret broke the silence. “Well, thank you for the chat. It’s been lovely to see you.”
