“I’m sure there’s some bread we can grab in here,” he said. “We’ll leave an IOU.”
It was only when they found themselves in the kitchen that the absurdity of what they were doing dawned on Catherine. They had apartments full of food; there was even a communal kitchen. Why were they conducting an SAS raid on the restaurant? Whatever tolerance she had once had for class B drugs had entirely faded away.
To Catherine’s relief, there was nobody in the kitchen. She scanned the counters for a loaf of bread or, in the absolute best-case scenario, a bowl of chips. Her highly disciplined diet was on pause.
“Will this do?”
Geoffrey was holding a raw potato. Even in her state, she was able to recognize that they could surely do better.
But then something caught Catherine’s eye. A folder on the counter labeled “Weekly Meal Plan.” From out of nowhere, she found focus, a moment of clarity. They were supposed to be investigating a murder but had, all of a sudden, turned themselves into wild-eyed potheads, trawling the building for food. In that folder there might be a clue as to how Desmond had been killed.
She fumbled through it, looking for Wednesday. There it was. Shepherd’s pie. On the day that Desmond died, the Apple Tree had been serving shepherd’s pie, his last meal, according to the autopsy. Why had they been fixated on that lick of Carol’s spoon? Surely this was the more obvious explanation. No slow-release poisons, or somehow contaminating the spoon but not the cake mixture itself. That didn’t add up, did it? Why had they so quickly accepted that Carol was the murderer? Innocent until proven guilty, and as far as they knew she was nowhere near being charged. She could be on her way back to Sheldon Oaks right now, for all they knew.
Someone working in the restaurant could easily have poisoned Desmond’s meal. Once that had failed, they could have strangled him, hit him, pushed him off the roof. If they were staff, they would certainly know how to get up there. But who?
Just then, there was a loud clatter of pans falling to the floor, making Catherine and Geoffrey jump in terror. Of course the kitchen wasn’t empty. How could they have been so stupid? They looked up to see not a chef but Belinda walking around the corner of the L-shaped space, with disheveled hair. She saw them andadjusted her skirt, a postcoital glow written all over her face. Following sheepishly behind her was Marco, the waiter.
No one knew quite what to say. Each couple had been caught by the other in the act of doing something wrong.
Geoffrey broke the silence. “I’ll pay you ten pounds for this potato.”
Twenty-Six
After the dramaof downstairs, Catherine and Geoffrey decided to proceed with plan A and made their way to Carol’s empty flat. As Catherine turned the key in the door, something told her they were being incredibly stupid. Carol could have been released by the police for all they knew. Catherine’s brain was foggy. She’d forgotten how much stronger a hash cake could be than a couple of puffs on a joint. They’d shared a whole slice!
They made their way inside. No noise but the tick of a clock on the wall.
Catherine told Geoffrey her thoughts on the shepherd’s pie: Carol might not be the murderer after all. She could see in Geoffrey’s face that he was suffering the effects, too, and not really capable of taking in what she had to say.
Catherine clapped her hands together. “Okay, where shall we start?”
“Hard to say,” said Geoffrey, trying to activate his brain. “Hard to say. I’m going to sit down for a second.” He fell back onto Carol’ssofa. Catherine was not in the mood to sit down. When she’d smoked dope regularly, back in the seventies, she’d often got a lot done while stoned. She was just one of those people. There were those who passed out and there were those who moved about. She was the latter.
Geoffrey closed his eyes and Catherine started to potter around Carol’s flat. There wasn’t much to look at. Carol didn’t appear to be one for clutter. Everybody else’s place here had piles and piles of stuff they couldn’t get rid of. Carol, Catherine supposed, hadn’t really had the chance to accumulate junk.
When you bought a place at Sheldon Oaks, you had the option to buy it furnished, which Carol had apparently done. Catherine felt sorry for her. The flat was sanitary; it lacked character. Generic framed prints of middle-of-the-road paintings on the walls, uniform crockery, six mugs, all the same. It told the story of a life not led.
Catherine pushed open the door to Carol’s bedroom, reminding herself of the noble reason why she was there: She wasn’t being intrusive, she was getting to the bottom of a murder. If Carol hadn’t done it, then Catherine might be about to clear her name. On Carol’s bedside table there were some books. Catherine sat on the edge of the bed and picked them up. Some puzzle books and a pen. A couple of well-thumbed crime thrillers set in Exeter.
Catherine felt something against her heel, under the bed. She bent over, scared by what she might find. A body? It was a cardboard box. Full of limbs? She could hear Geoffrey snoring from the other room. Catherine slid the box out between her legs and opened it.
The box was full of black hardback A4 journals. Catherine took one from the top and turned to the first page. It was hard to catch her breath.
“Geoffrey! Geoffrey, come in here! You need to see this!”
Her mouth moved but no voice would come out.
Twenty-Seven
Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
That was the first page. A disturbing read sober, a suffocating nightmare on your first hash cake in fifty years.
At least the journals contained some variety: drawings of mutilated bodies, dark poetry, long, detailed, violent fantasies. Or were they testimonies? Was Carol simply documenting what she had done?
There were scrapbooks filled with newspaper reports of murders. Surely, Carol hadn’t done them all. Some of the dates andplaces didn’t match up. As sick a mind as Carol had, it would be hard to pin the assassination of JFK on her.
Carol was a fanatic and this was her life’s work, her love letter to murder.
