The Reaper

George leaned back in his chair, sensing that this could be a turning point. Appearing to take an interest in the veins on the back of his left hand he said without looking directly at Somerville, 'If he was given a poisonous substance, there's a way of finding out.'

'An exhumation?'

'Of all these suspicious deaths, it's the only one where Joy could have made a mistake,' said George. 'He should have made sure Jansen was cremated.'

'What stopped him? Had Jansen left instructions?'

'No.'

'Joy could have persuaded the widow, if he was having her.'

'Lost his nerve, I reckon,' said George. 'You need a second doctor's opinion before a cremation can take place. It was a risk. Some other doctor might have asked the questions old Dr. Perkins didn't.'

'Joy doesn't strike me as a man who loses his nerve,' said Somerville. 'If he really is a serial killer, he's very cool indeed.'

George nodded, willing to concede the point. He was making headway at last, the way Somerville was talking.

'It's more likely he took a calculated risk,' Somerville went on. 'He weighed up the odds and decided it was simpler and safer to go for a burial. You're the coroner's officer, George. Do you think you can swing an exhumation order on the case we have?'

'I can try.'

Twenty-two

The finding of Cynthia's body devastated Rachel. You can tell yourself a thousand times that a missing person must be gone for ever, but no amount of reasoning can spare you from cold certainty. The thought of poor Cyn being washed up on the tide with the driftwood was horrible. She kept picturing her, mauled by the sea, lying at the water's edge with seaweed clinging to her and little white crabs crawling over her dead flesh. She couldn't understand how such a tragedy had happened. Cyn never mentioned the sea. And she wasn't suicidal; there were few people Rachel knew with a stronger grip on life. She was always positive, always planning her next project. She'd even convinced herself she stood a chance with Otis.

An accident, then? It had to be, but how? Surely she hadn't fallen off a boat. She had no connection with boats that Rachel knew of. Anyway, why would anyone except a deep sea fisherman want to go on a boat in freezing December?

People were saying the inquest would provide some answers. Maybe clues had been found. Maybe someone remembered seeing Cynthia at Milford on Sea. It was a long way from home, so she may have been staying at a guesthouse, wanting some quiet days alone (though that didn't sound like Cynthia). And it would have been a swift turn-about from her promise to be at the carol-singing.

These thoughts were still tormenting her when PC George Mitchell opened her garden gate and marched up to her front door in businesslike fashion. He wants me as a witness for the inquest, she thought.

'I don't know how best to say this, Rachel,' he began when he had lowered himself, far from relaxed, deep into the cushions of her vast settee. 'There's no way I can put it without giving you a shock.'

'If it's about Cynthia, I know already.'

'Cynthia?'

'Mrs. Haydenhall.'

'Er, no. I've not come about that.' He flattened his palms against the upholstery as if he felt it might swallow him altogether.

'What is it, then?'

'You probably know I have another job on top of my police duties. I'm the coroner's officer, and that's why I'm here.'

'Something to do with the coroner?'

'A problem-a complication, let's say-has come up. New information. The possibility that things may not have been so straightforward as they appeared at the time.'

She tensed. 'What are you trying to tell me?'

'We've applied for an exhumation order for Gary. When I say 'we,' I mean the police.'

Her worst nightmare. 'You're going to dig him up?'

'Believe me, Rachel, we don't disturb the dead without good reason. A thing like this is new in my own experience. But I'll make sure it's all carried out with proper respect. They fetch out the coffin at first light, when village people aren't about. Then he'll be taken to a mortuary and examined. When it's all done, he'll be reburied. Are you all right? Shall I get you some water?'

She shook her head. He'd plunged her into molten terror and now he was offering a glass of water.

'Why? Why are they doing this?'

'Suspicions that a mistake may have been made by the doctor-in good faith, I'm sure.'

She heard herself saying things she'd rehearsed in her head for this worst of all scenarios. 'Gary died of a heart attack. He was being treated for heart disease.'

'No question of that. It's all on record. But we have to be certain of the diagnosis, and this is the only way.'

'I don't follow this at all.' Torn between fear and denial, she was trying to recover some poise. 'Suspicions, you said. What do you mean-suspicions!'

'It's part of a larger inquiry into a number of recent deaths.'

'What?' Horrified, she played the words over to herself.

'Sorry, but I can't go into detail.'

She took short, shallow breaths, her brain racing. What did they think-that she'd killed others, as well as Gary? 'And what if I don't give permission?'

'It's out of your hands, Rachel. The coroner has jurisdiction here. If he's satisfied that a mistake may have been made, he can authorise it.'

Her head throbbed and she wondered if she was going to faint. 'When?'

'All the evidence is on his desk now. You can take it he won't turn down the application. Things could happen quite soon. We'll have a top man for the post mortem. If it was just heart failure, he'll know.'

It seemed to Rachel that George expected her to break down and confess. She had enough self-control, just, to deny him that triumph.

Long after the wretched man had extricated himself from the sofa and gone, she stood with her arms tightly across her chest, trying to stop the convulsive shaking. The image in her brain was no longer of Cynthia's beached body, but herself handcuffed and with a blanket over her head being led to a police car. Neighbours shouting abuse. The hand on her head guiding her into the back seat. Questions at the police station. The charge. The cell. The magistrates' court. God, what a fool she'd been. If only Gary had been cremated, this couldn't have happened. If only she hadn't killed him at all…

Panicky thoughts continued to stream through her brain. In the dock at the Central Criminal Court, being sentenced to life imprisonment and taken down by the warders.

There was no way out of this now. It was naive to hope that they wouldn't find traces of aconitine. It may have been the undetectable poison in Victorian times but you could bet modern science had ways of testing for it. A top pathologist was going to find traces in Gary's organs. She could hear him giving evidence for the prosecution. Hear the neighbours saying a huge clump of monkshood grew in her garden before she dug it up.

Black despair gripped her. She'd tried to get away with it and failed. Would she get a lighter sentence if she confessed before they did the exhumation? Or was it already too late to make any difference?

Mentally she put herself in the dock again and tried pleading diminished;responsibility. She'd been desperately unhappy with Gary. He'do neglected her, taken separate Holidays. Beaten her; yes, she'd need to say he was a wife-beater, and so he had been … almost. He had come close to hitting her more than once and she