stomachs. High enough to rule out metal fatigue. But not high enough to kill — well, not on its own.’
Valentine felt his guts contort, buckling like a garden hose.
‘What are we saying?’ said Shaw. ‘Off the record.’
‘We’re saying the management might have a point. This looks like sabotage. These guys are all losing their jobs. So someone with a grudge laced the cans with a metal-based poison. Through either luck or judgement it wasn’t enough to be fatal. The death at the scene looks like a result of the victim’s underlying condition. Coroner will have the last word, of course, but that’s my call.’
‘There’s been another death,’ said Shaw. ‘And there’s another in the wings.’
Poole’s eyes hardened, angry that he’d been allowed to float his theory without all the available information.
Shaw placed his feet squarely apart. ‘A man called Venn — he didn’t drink and he didn’t smoke. And he’s as dead as a can of soup, Guy. He was found this morning but he’d been dead all night. In his bed. And another up at the hospital’s heading for the morgue. Slowly, but there’s no other destination.’
Poole shrugged, fitting the facts to the theory. ‘Two out of a possible hundred. It’s a random shot. Let’s see what the coroner says. Poisoning is a two-part process, Peter. It’s all about how your body reacts. I’m sticking with my first guess: I think we’ve got an industrial saboteur, in the factory. The whole batch was laced, but with no intent to kill. What the culprit didn’t know is that any contaminant can be enough to kill in certain circumstances. This other victim — any unusual medical factors?’
Shaw saw Sam Venn’s face, up close, skewed. ‘Maybe. Cerebral palsy,’ he said.
Poole leant back on the 4x4, his arms crossed, more confident now in his theory. ‘I’ve interviewed the caterers — the staff. The soup was made up in three batches. Apart from the mayor’s party at the top table, no tables were allocated to any particular sponsor; the caterers just put the reservation cards where they felt like it. And although each table had a suggested seating plan, hardly anybody seems to have followed it. So it looks like these are three random victims. Let’s hope it stays that way.’
Valentine coughed, looking at his black slip-ons.
‘I don’t think they’re random victims,’ said Shaw.
Poole stared into Shaw’s good eye.
Shaw had the grace to look up at the sky. ‘OK — this Charlie Clarke, the one who died on the spot, I think his death was an accident. But Venn and the man who’s fighting for his life — a man called Fletcher — are two of the three main suspects in our current murder inquiry. The third should have been sitting with them. Was anyone else on the Flask’s table affected badly?’ He checked his notebook. ‘The man who stepped in to take the third suspect’s ticket was called Howe.’
Poole retrieved a pile of paperwork from the passenger seat of the 4x4.
‘No. Howe went up to the hospital — but symptoms are listed as nausea and vomiting. He wasn’t kept in.’ He punched in a number on the mobile and turned away.
‘How’s your maths?’ Shaw asked Valentine as they walked away to the riverside. Upriver they could see the ferry crossing, packed with Christmas shoppers.
‘Crap,’ said Valentine.
‘It was one of the rules at school, George: if you got a probability question on the exam paper you didn’t touch it — chances are you’d get it wrong.’ He smiled at his own weak joke. ‘But it’s like betting — so …’ He let the question hang in the air.
‘How’s it like betting?’ asked Valentine.
‘Forget about the hundred guests sitting down for lunch at the Shipwrights’ Hall. Think about a roulette wheel with a hundred slots. What are the chances of picking two winning numbers in a row?’
Valentine thought about the fan-tan table. ‘It’s one in a hundred, times one in a hundred.’
Shaw nodded. ‘Yeah. Pretty much. One in ten thousand. So, if this is really random, it’s a one in ten thousand shot.’
‘But it might happen first time you laid two bets,’ said Valentine.
‘Sure. But on average it would happen first time once every ten thousand times. I’m not saying it’s impossible — I’m saying it’s extremely unlikely. And if John Joe Murray had gone to the lunch and paid for the ticket with his life, the odds would be what, George?’
‘One in a million,’ said Valentine.
‘Which would be another way of saying murder. And I think this is murder. But how, George? How do you lace a hundred cans with a poison that doesn’t kill but still get the result that your two target victims end up dead?’
‘Three men died,’ said Valentine.
Shaw shook his head. ‘Put that aside; put him aside. If you’d burst a crisp packet behind Charlie Clarke he’d have keeled over. Forget him — someone wanted Venn and Fletcher dead, George. They wanted John Joe Murray as well — but John Joe went walkabout, a decision that looks increasingly smart.’
Poole rejoined them. ‘Howe, the man who took the last-minute ticket? He’s up and about, feels good, and he’s been checked out by his GP. Which doesn’t do your theory a lot of good, Shaw. If Howe took your third target’s place then he should be dead — or dying. He ain’t.’
‘If it’s murder we can’t take any chances,’ said Shaw. ‘Either we have a random saboteur, or we have a killer who’s murdered two specific targets at the Shipwrights’ Hall, and inadvertently killed an innocent bystander. We need to take over the site. You all right with that?’
Poole looked relieved — irked, but relieved. ‘I’ll tell my people. We’ll need to keep someone on site — I’ll give you a name.’ He checked his watch. ‘The management’s assembled the factory’s production-line staff on the shop floor now. That lot …’ he nodded at the crowd by the security gate, ‘are drivers — office staff — that kind of thing. None of them have regular access to the product.’
Shaw sent Valentine ahead to organize interviews and get an overview of the production process so that they could pinpoint areas where the cans could have been tampered with. Shaw rang Max Warren and brought him up to date, then made a request to combine the two inquiries. It was a formality. Warren’s maths were no better than his golf card demanded — one of the reasons he loathed attending finance committee meetings — but he distrusted coincidence as much as Peter Shaw.
‘Autopsies are crucial, Peter,’ said Warren. ‘Get Justina on it — and if you need fancy stuff we’ve got the budget. Just don’t go fucking mad. All right?’ He’d put the phone down before he got an answer.
Shaw rang Paul Twine, whom he’d chosen to head up a unit at Sam Venn’s flat. The DC already had a timeline for Venn from the moment the soup had been served at the Shipwrights’ Hall at 1.25 p.m. the previous day. Venn had passed out at the table and been attended to in situ by paramedics from the Queen Victoria. He’d recovered well, but had been distressed by the condition of Freddie Fletcher. Offered a seat in one of the ambulances ferrying people to the Queen Vic’s A amp;E, he’d declined, and instead caught a cab on the corner of Norfolk Street. He’d kept the receipt, which was in his wallet. They’d interviewed the cabbie and he said Venn had been silent until he’d asked for the receipt. Then he’d appeared agitated, sweating badly. According to one of the volunteers at London Road Venn had gone to his office and booked the takings from the shelter’s 10p lunches: the nominal charge allowed them to monitor numbers and book the clients in by name, each one entitled to a ticket for a twice-yearly food draw.
At four that afternoon he’d declined a cup of tea from the kitchen supervisor. She said he had been on the phone when she’d knocked on his door, but that he’d put down the receiver when she’d opened it. She said he looked pale, distracted, and she had the impression he’d declined the tea because his good hand was shaking. She’d heard about the Shipwrights’ Hall lunch on the radio and was concerned for his health. Venn said he was fine now — or he would be, after a good night’s sleep. He’d asked her to lock up and said he was going up to his flat.
She offered to fetch the centre’s on-call GP but he’d said no. He’d left the office at 4.35 p.m. and walked round to his flat, which he was seen entering by a volunteer cleaning waste bins in the yard. A few minutes after he’d gone inside there was a hailstorm; the volunteer took cover initially, then abandoned work outside altogether.
Forensic evidence suggested that Venn had collapsed on the stairs on the way up to his flat and been sick. There were also traces of vomit in the toilet and washbasin. A plastic bag of 10p pieces was found by the toilet. He’d died at some point between 8.00 p.m. and 1.00 a.m. in his bed. His mobile phone was under the bed cover. His mobile service provider was tracing any calls he’d made that day. A copy of the Bible was on his chest, upside down, open at Leviticus. Shaw hadn’t asked for that detail, and he was quietly impressed Twine had included it in
