Page 60 of Murder in the Winter Woods
‘Julia, I know you well. Of course Iknowyou didn’t poison Ken Payne. At least not deliberately. But the big brass are all over the Berrywick police now. First the motor vehicle deaths, and now the attempted poisoning. I need to follow the rules,play everything by the book, dot every i, cross every t. It’s out of courtesy to our friendship that we are having this conversation at your kitchen table and not in an interview room at the station.’
‘At the station?’ Julia could hardly believe what she was hearing.
‘I knew you wouldn’t poison anyone, Julia. But someone did. The question is, who? Who would deliver poisoned muffins to Ken Payne, and why?’
‘Well, baking, poisoning…not to be sexist, Hayley, but it does have rather a female feel to it, as murder methods go.’
‘Not just a feel,’ said Hayley. ‘Poisoning is a preferred method amongst female killers – although females are in the minority of killers overall, of course.’
A horrible, niggling thought was trying to make its way into Julia’s brain, even as she tried to push it aside.
Hayley interrupted her struggle with a question: ‘Did you see anyone else about the place when you got to Ken’s? Walking in the road? Driving away?’
‘No. Not that I recall.’
‘Well, the key question to ask is: why would someone try to poison Ken? Who would benefit from his death?’
‘He’s just a sad guy trying to get his life in…’ Julia stopped short. ‘Well there is someone. I mean, I’m sure they wouldn’tkillanyone, not at all, but in terms of motive…’
‘Who?’
‘I’m not suggesting that they…’
‘The name, Julia. Spit it out.’
She glanced in the direction of her neighbour’s house, where Hester and Coral were likely pottering about with the bees, quite unaware that their names were about to be mentioned to the police. Feeling horribly guilty, she said: ‘The widows. Hester and Coral…’
‘Matthew and Lewis’s widows?’
‘They want to get their money out of the investment with Anthony Ardmore, and Ken is standing in the way. He’s their co-investor, and all three have to agree if they are to withdraw the investment. Ken stood in the way when Lewis and Matthew got cold feet. He prevented them from pulling out, and now the widows want to get their money out. They need the money. They are not going to just back off. Hester said just now that they know what they need to do, and they’ve done it. And Ken mentioned that he had just seen them yesterday when I was there. Maybe they left the muffins after he failed to agree with them. Backup plan, so to speak.’
‘You think the widows tried to poison Ken Payne?’
‘Idon’tthink so. Or I don’t want to think so. They’re both lovely.’
‘Lovely people do terrible things,’ said Hayley, standing up. ‘I’m going to talk to them right now.’
‘Please don’t let them think that I’m accusing them, Hayley. I’m really not.’
‘I will be clear that it is entirely my own idea.’ Hayley frowned slightly. ‘It does make a terrifying sort of sense.’
When Hayley came back some time later, she looked grim.
‘We didn’t have our tea,’ Julia said, turning the flame under the kettle back on.
She waited for Hayley to say something. Her stomach growled in the silence; she realised she also hadn’t had lunch. When she could bear it no longer, she asked outright.
‘So, how did it go? They denied it, I assume?’
‘Well, I didn’t go and accuse them of attempting to murder the man,’ Hayley said. ‘I asked them what they knew about Ken Payne.’
‘And?’
‘The way they describe it, they barely knew him at all. He’d been away all those years, so they hadn’t seen him, and apparently the husbands barely even mentioned him. They didn’t talk about the old days much, or the band. It was ancient history as far as they were concerned.’
‘When did the widows meet Ken?’
‘Only yesterday, after they realised that he was a co-investor.’
