could play up the violence without fear of contradiction. He'd accused her falsely of being unfaithful. Caused her acute embarrassment by going up to the rectory to brand Otis as an adulterer.
Otis.
He was a major player in this tragedy.
Would he vouch for her in court? Could she depend on him to say there wasn't an iota of truth in Gary's wild imaginings?
If she couldn't bank on Otis, there was no hope left in the world.
She needed him to speak up for her with all the dignity and authority of his position as parish priest. That, she told herself, would massively strengthen her case and win sympathy. If he was firm in denying that anything happened between them, then Gary's charge of immorality would be seen as manifestly unfair. Was one fumbled clinch on the sofa going to trouble his Christian conscience? He'd ruin his own reputation if he said anything about it.
The court would accept that she had been provoked beyond endurance. She'd heard of several cases of battered wives being treated leniently by the courts after confessing to killing their brutal husbands under extreme provocation. 'It
Would that it were true!
Impulsively she snatched up the phone and called Otis, praying she wouldn't hear an answerphone message.
'Joy.'
He was there, thank God.
'Otis, it's Rachel. I'm in the most awful trouble. Can I see you urgently?'
'What's up?'
'I'd rather not say on the phone.'
'Can you come to the rectory?'
'Now?'
'Give me twenty minutes.'
She gave him ten. On the way up there she saw two people she wished she hadn't, Owen Cumberbatch and his sister. Miss Cumberbatch waved in a friendly way. Owen-the village snoop-just stared, curious to see where she was heading. She didn't turn round after passing them, but she was sure he watched every pace she took towards the rectory.
Otis opened the door before she needed to knock and she hurried inside and blurted out the news that the police were going to exhume Gary.
He looked surprised and genuinely concerned. 'Whatever for?'
'They think I poisoned him, and, God forgive me, I did.' Without any more warning than that, she threw herself on his mercy. She had to be totally open with him.
His hand went to the strip of white across his throat as if to check that it was there. 'Rachel, this can't be true.'
'I dug up some roots from the garden and added them to his curry. That's what killed him. The doctor said it was heart failure, but he didn't arrive until Gary was too far gone to speak.'
He shaped his mouth to respond and nothing came out. This silver-tongued man was totally at a loss.
'I used aconite.'
He stared, frowning.
'From a plant called monkshood.'
Miraculously, his expression softened. 'Aconite?' he repeated in a tone she'd never heard from him before. It sounded oddly like reverence. He might have been chanting the name of one of the Old Testament prophets.
'It's extremely poisonous,' she said.
'Deadly,' he agreed in the same awed tone.
Weird. She felt no disapproval from him; almost the reverse. 'It's supposed to have been undetectable once, but I'm sure it isn't these days. Otis, I don't expect anyone to forgive me, but I'm telling you because you're the only person I want to confide in. My marriage was hell. You could see that, couldn't you?'
'What?' His thoughts hadn't moved on from the mention of aconite.
'Gary and I. A disaster area.'
'You told me you weren't very close, but-'
'He was out to humiliate me-and you as well. He thought you and I had … had made love while he was in America.'
He said evenly, 'I know that.'
'Yes, and you told me he came here-ready to start a fight or something-and you defused it.'
'I told him it was untrue, which it was.'
She made a little moaning sound. 'How I wish I'd known you would handle him so well. I should have had the sense to see, but I couldn't think straight, I was in such a state. With me the same day he was full of threats. He frightened me, pushed me around. I can't take violence, Otis.'
'So you poisoned his food?' he said without even a hint of censure. She must have been deluded, but once more she thought she heard admiration in his tone.
'He'd already complained of chest pains and called the doctor.'
'Wasn't that the poison?'
'No! I'm talking about earlier in the week, just after he got back from America. The pain was angina, Dr. Perkins said. He gave him a tablet and it worked. He slept well. The next day, on the Wednesday, he was better, back to his old self, running me down, running everything down. America was marvellous and everything about Britain was third-rate. It wasn't until later in the week he noticed the wine stain on the carpet and wanted to know how it got there.'
'And you told him?'
'Not everything. I just said you came with the account books, but he assumed it was … much more than it was. Well, he was like that, practically paranoid about anything I do. He called me horrible names. Pushed me against a wall and threatened me. And he was hell-bent on making trouble with you. Said he'd beat the truth out of you. Then almost in the same breath said he wanted a curry. I know I was wicked to do it, but all I could see ahead of me was misery and humiliation. The curry gave me a chance to do something about it. I'm like that. Giddy Girl, my mother used to call me. Ninety-nine per cent of the time I act normally and then something triggers me to do a crazy thing that gets me into terrible trouble.'
He nodded. 'I've noticed.'
'I'm desperate.'
'And you think I can help?'
Her voice faltered. She sobbed, and said in a rush, 'Otis, I'm scared out of my skin and you're the only person in this world I trust. The police think I killed other people as well.'
He said tight-lipped, offended. 'That isn't true.' He had turned quite pink at the suggestion, a development that Rachel took as support. 'They can't fit you up with all their unsolved crimes just because you're under suspicion of killing your husband.'
'They're trying to scare me into confessing, I suppose.'
'You could be right about that. Who else do they say you killed?'
'George didn't say. I've been trying to work it out and I think they must mean Stanley, for one. I suppose they think I gave that poison to Stanley-whatever it was he took…'
'Amytabarbitone.'
'… because I was after his job as treasurer, just to be able to cosy up to you.'
'They're way off beam there,' he said firmly, too firmly for Rachel's bruised emotions, but she didn't let it show.
