Wednesday 14 October1981
Gemma haddropped Roger off at his rented cottage in the little village ofTortington, on the outskirts of Littlehampton and just up the roadfrom Ford prison. It really did merit the title of small holdingand beyond the quite impressively stocked vegetable patch theremust have been close on an acre of open countryside that came withthe property. She didn’t bother to ask where he had beencultivating his marijuana; probably better for her to keep someprofessional distance.
All inall, it had been quite a successful day and she had a bag of flyagaric mushrooms along with a handful of Amanita phalloides, better known as deathcap mushrooms. Driving home through Arundel she was looking forwardto getting back and providing Mark with something useful. He’d beena bit down since his unsuccessful trip to Brighton and she neededhim to keep positive and busy.
She had metRoger late that morning at the Littlehampton office for his regularsupervision meeting and then taken the afternoon off so they couldget to the New Forest for some foraging as Roger put it. To avoidany gossip, she hadn’t told her colleagues and rather than leavethe office together they had met up on her way out of town; theslightly cloak and dagger approach had appealed to Roger. Theafternoon itself had turned out to be great fun; it had taken herback to school trips out to local woods, nature reserves and thelike. Roger had told her to bring decent walking boots or somethingsturdy at least and he was dressed for the part: a warm jacket withplenty of pockets, brown cord trousers and what looked likemountaineering boots. He looked quite good and certainly good forhis age; fringed with his slightly greying but full head of hair,his face evidenced the warm, slightly careworn, look of someone whowas happy in his own company. She’d been a little taken aback whenhe told her he was almost 52. It was nice that he obviously fanciedher and took every opportunity to help her over gates and throughthe various bits of woodland they visited; and especially thatthere wasn’t anything obviously salacious or creepy about hisconcern for her. She was surprised that she had found herselfthinking that maybe when this is all over she could keep in touchwith him. If he had actually made a move she wondered whether shewould have put up that much resistance – she reckoned it was thoseblue eyes that did it.
It had soonbecome clear that Roger was something of an expert. On the driveout of Sussex, past Portsmouth and over the mouth of the Solent hehad lectured Gemma about the ins and outs of mushroom hunting. Hewas particularly excited as September to November was apparentlythe best time of year, and even more so today because the rain theyhad had overnight would trigger the appearance of mushrooms as wellas improve their chances of finding what they wanted. On top of allof that, she had learned that the New Forest was probably the mostfruitful place in the country for such fungi hunting.
Once they’dpassed Totton and parked up they had started on a route that Rogerobviously knew well. As they moved from one wooded area to another,he had explained why the wicker basket he’d brought was ideal as itheld the mushrooms but at the same time let the spores through thegaps in the rushwork as they walked. Roger had various brown paperbags in his pockets to separate out different batches; he explainedthat plastic bags were no good as they made the mushrooms sweat andspoil. When they had found a cluster of fly agaric in a small copseof what he told her were ancient beech trees, he’d stopped Gemmajust pulling them out by hand and showed her how to use a knife tocut them from the base. He explained that fly agaric were not thesame as liberty cup mushrooms, which were the type knowncolloquially as magic mushrooms, but reckoned they were strongerand had a nicer effect as well. Even though she had felt like aschoolchild he hadn’t talked down to her and she had really quiteenjoyed his attention; he’d even brought a separate knife for herto use as well. What she’d liked most, though, had been themagnifying glass he had fished out from somewhere to inspect eachof the mushrooms they located. If he had added a deerstalker itwouldn’t have been out of place. After a couple of hours, as wellas the fly agaric and death caps which she had told him she wantedas a sort of souvenir – and which Roger seemed to show littleconcern over her interest in, so enthused was he by having a pupilto collect with – they had also harvested a decent supply of ediblevarieties, particularly chanterelles and blewits, which he assuredher would be fine to cook and eat.
By earlyevening Gemma had arrived back in Petworth in good spirits and therest of the night had turned out pretty well too. Mark was made uphe had another and different ingredient to add to his collectionand repertoire; and he seemed pleased that she was getting involvedtoo. She didn’t bother to mention how much she had enjoyed spendingthe time with Roger – no point in tempting fate, or more preciselyjealousy. Even though he had claimed to have taken most availabledrugs during his student days, Mark had never tried mushrooms andhad suggested they try a small amount of the fly agarics she hadbrought back, as they weren’t the deadly ones and so as to checkthem out, as he put it. He had dried a couple out and made some teawith them and they’d certainly
