‘And they say TV isn’t educational. So what’s he got there?’
‘I don’t know the full list, but he’s got the ones we’re interested in. Castor oil plant, belladonna, oleander. He says his poison garden is surrounded by eight-foot railings with razor wire along the top, which makes casual burglary unlikely. But he does have a deputy estate manager called John Anson.’
‘JA. I like it. I like it very much.’
A short man in a tweed cap and a Barbour jacket was waiting for them as they drove across the massive wooden drawbridge and into the courtyard. Three black Labradors mobbed them in leisurely fashion as they got out of the car. ‘Benson, Hedges, Silkie, come away,’ the man called, letting Carol and Chris come to him as the dogs slumped to the ground at his feet. ‘Lord Pannal,’ he said, holding out a hand as they approached. His pink face, blue eyes and bristling moustache gave him a bizarrely charming resemblance to a new piglet. ‘I’m a bit slow on the uptake first thing in the morning. After our call, it dawned on me. That footballer, and the chap who saved all those people after the bombing-they were poisoned.’ He bit his lower lip. ‘Awful thing. Terrible if the poisons came from Pannal. Did you want to look at the garden?’
‘I think we’ll leave the garden for now.’ Carol nodded to Chris, who took half a dozen photos from a folder and spread them across the bonnet of her car. ‘Lord Pannal, would you mind looking at these and telling me if you recognize anyone?’
He craned his head forward, like a big pink turtle emerging from its shell. He studied the pictures carefully then extended a plump finger. ‘That’s John Anson. Works for me. Deputy estate manager.’ He looked away, blinking crossly. ‘This is awfully hard to credit. Hard-working chap. Been with us a couple of years, very obliging.’
‘Do his responsibilities include the poison garden?’ Carol asked.
‘Comes under his remit. Not in a hands-on sort of way-that’s up to the gardeners. But it’s within his area, yes.’ He spoke in abrupt little jerks, clearly upset, though he would have been mortified had anyone offered him sympathy or support. A Scotch might have been acceptable, but Carol wasn’t even sure that would do.
‘Do you know where we can find him now?’ Chris said, scooping up the pictures.
‘In Bradfield.’ He bit his lip. ‘He’s interviewing prospective tenants for a vacant unit in the craft village.’
‘Where exactly in Bradfield?’ Carol asked gently.
‘I’ve got a bolthole there. We use it for business as well as a pied a terre in the city. In the Hart Tower.’
Chris and Carol exchanged a telling look. ‘On the edge of Temple Fields,’ Carol said. ‘We’ll need the address.’
Tony gave the smile all he had. ‘The thing is, I’m not supposed to ask you to do anything. Carol says, perfectly reasonably, that you don’t work for me, you work for her. Me, I think we’re all working for the cause of justice, but I’m not going to argue with her.’
‘Not the mood she’s been in this past week,’ Stacey agreed, not even glancing up from her screen. ‘Interesting that the boy ID’d the photo. No doubt in your mind?’
Tony shrugged. ‘No doubt in the kid’s mind. That’s what matters here. He was absolutely positive. Mummy’s friend who bought him an ice cream.’
That makes sense of everything that raised a question mark for us. What you said about it not profiling right for terrorism-well, that follows if it wasn’t terrorism. The two timers-Aziz thought he was getting away, but Rachel Diamond’s plan was different. She wanted him to die.’
‘But she didn’t want him to know that,’ Tony said thoughtfully. ‘If I were you, I’d be contacting airlines to see if Rachel Diamond and her son Lev are booked on a flight to Canada any time soon. And I’d be checking whether any of those rental cottages Kevin was checking out had a booking in her name.’
Stacey frowned. ‘You think she was planning to join him?’
Tony shook his head. ‘I think she wanted him to think she was planning to join him.’
Stacey gave him a look of respect. ‘Oh, that’s very clever,’ she said. ‘Very evil, but very clever.’ Her fingers were already flying. ‘I think I might also make some phone calls to Canada.’
‘Don’t mind me, I’ll just read the paper,’ Tony said, sitting back and relaxing.
The journey from Pannal back to Bradfield took significantly less time than getting there, but still it felt interminable. ‘Come on,’ Chris urged the traffic in front of her every time she had to slow.
‘I can’t believe nobody in the office had a list of the prospective tenants,’ Carol said for the third or fourth time. ‘You’d think there would be more than one copy of something like that.’
‘Yeah, we could have got Stacey on to it. Maybe figured out which one was his next victim. Move, you twat,’ Chris shouted at the dawdling people carrier in front of her.
‘Unless…’ Carol’s voice tailed off as another possibility dawned on her.
‘Unless what?’ Chris sounded impatient as she rounded the dawdler.
‘Unless there isn’t a list at all. Maybe that was just an excuse he made up for Lord Pannal to cover his back. Maybe his next victim has got nothing to do with the craft village at all.’
Chris stamped on the brakes and blasted the horn. A startled SUV driver swerved out of her way as she powered through. It doesn’t really matter at this point, does it? All that counts is getting to them before Jack or Jake or John or whoever fills them full of some untreatable poison.’
As they hit the outskirts of the city, Chris tried to work out the best way to the Hart Tower. ‘I wish we had Kevin with us,’ she said. ‘Nobody knows the back doubles like him.’
‘You’re doing just fine,’ Carol said. But she wasn’t at all sure she was telling the truth.
‘Beautiful dream come true. Beautiful dreamer.’ Kevin frowned. Had he just repeated himself? Every time he thought he’d said all there was to be said about his lovely car, he remembered something else he wanted to say. Then, when he said it, he felt as if he’d said it before. More than once.
He shifted in his chair, which seemed to have become treacherously slippery. His limbs weren’t doing what he
