'The woman.'
'What woman?'
'The one that's making you so flippin' cheerful.'
'What makes you think it's a woman?'
'You mean… it's a man?'
'Er, no. You were right, it's a woman.'
He gave a chuckle and looked across at me. 'When you die, Charlie, we won't have you cremated or buried. We'll roll you flat and make you into a window.'
'Are you suggesting I'm transparent?'
'Only where women are concerned.'
'And you'll go before me. Look at you: overweight, sedentary lifestyle. We thin nervous types live to a ripe old age.'
'Don't you start, I've enough with Shirley and Sophie lecturing me. But you're right, I need more exercise.'
I was quiet for a few seconds. Shirley is Dave's wife, Sophie his daughter and my goddaughter. She's studying at Cambridge, about to start her final year, and breaking Dave's heart. She's tall and beautiful, and had hardly been home this year. Dave was having to come to terms with the apple of his eye being plucked off the tree by someone he didn't know.
'Have you heard from Sophie?' I ventured.
'No. Not for about six weeks. Last we heard she was going to Cap Ferrat with this boyfriend and his parents, she said. They have a place there, apparently. '
'It was bound to happen, Dave. And if they've a place over there she can't be doing too bad.'
'I don't suppose so. She asked how you were, if you'd found a new girlfriend. Can I tell her about Miss X?'
'No. Tell her that I'm not looking, that she's the only woman for me.'
'Uh!' he snorted, and his knuckles tightened on the wheel.
Ten minutes later we were running up the steps into the hospital.
'I assume you were fibbing about the Miss Ferodo bit,' I gasped between breaths.
'No, scout's honour,' he replied, adding: 'Mind you, it was 1945.'
The doctor in charge of the patient came to meet us at the front desk. He looked about twenty and smelled like a National Trust gift shop. Dave introduced me and we shook hands.
'Is everything back to normal now?' I asked.
'Just about,' he replied, grinning, 'but it was interesting for a while.'
'Have the Press abandoned you now that there's no story?'
'They have. It was like Downing Street on budget day for a while, out in the car park. They've gone now, thank God, but they might be back when they hear about this.'
'Really? So where do we begin?'
'He came in by ambulance,' he told us. 'Rang for it himself. Must have been quite frightening for the poor chap. They were gathered round him, reading his vital signs and wondering what to do next, when the houseman dealing with him asked if he'd had any illnesses lately. He said he hadn't, all innocent, but he'd just come back from a holiday in Kenya. Could it be something he'd picked up there? And that was that. This nurse — a black girl from Nigeria — said: 'Oh my God, it's Ebola!' and everybody took ten paces backwards.'
From the expression on his face it was evident that he was enjoying telling us this. I was more interested in the poisoning but I stayed quiet, content to let the doctor have his five minutes and tell us in his own time.
'How is he now?' Dave asked.
'Ask him yourself. Come on, I'll take you to him.'
Dave and I looked at each other and back at the doctor. 'You mean…' I began. 'You mean… the person we've come to see is the Ebola suspect?'
'He's not a suspect any more. The toxicology results were quite conclusive, but it was quite a relief when they came back. Mind you, the ones with red faces might have preferred a full scale outbreak.'
He obviously wasn't one of them. 'So what was it?' I asked.
'Warfarin. We pumped him full of vitamin K and gave him a blood transfusion and he's now well on the way to recovery.'
'What did it do to him?'
'It causes haemorrhaging, internally and externally. He'd summoned an ambulance because he was having breathing difficulties and then started passing blood. Lives alone, apparently. When he was admitted he was haemorrhaging from his nose and eyes and generally feeling out of sorts. What was happening inside we don't know, but we'll keep him in for a day or two, see how he fares.'
'Sounds nasty,' I said.
'It was.'
'Rat poison?'
'That's right.'
'But sometimes used medicinally.'
'Yes. It's an anti-clotting agent.'
'Had he been prescribed it?'
'He says not.'
We'd reached the corridor where the victim's private room was situated, and slowed to a halt outside it. 'Could the toxicology report differentiate between the two possible sources?' I asked.
'No, not at the level of testing we have available.'
'If it was rat poison, what's the fatal dose?'
'Impossible to say. If the recipient has high blood pressure any dose could be dangerous. Prescribed dose is usually between three and nine milligrams. To be sure of killing someone it would have to be massive.'
'How big is massive?'
'Don't quote me, Inspector, but I imagine, oh, thirty milligrams could be rather dodgy for most people. That's what? A couple of tablespoonfuls. It's anybody's guess.'
'Would he have died without medical intervention?'
'No doubt about it.'
'Right. Thanks for your help, Doc. What's he called?'
'Carl Johnson.'
Mr Johnson was sitting up in bed, a drip in his arm supplying him with whatever he needed most. He was gaunt and swarthy, with a bony shoulder poking from the one-size-fits-all hospital pyjamas.
'This is Inspector Priest and I'm DS Sparkington,' Dave told him, and the patient reached out with his free arm to shake hands. We found two chairs and sat down beside him.
We asked him to tell us what happened and he started to relate all the gory details, but he had difficulty speaking so I decided that the abbreviated version would do. I poured him a beaker of water and said: 'Have you been told what you were poisoned with?'
'Thanks.' He took a sip, then: 'Warfarin. Rat poison.'
'But you're not on warfarin tablets?'
'No. It was her who did it, I'm sure of it.'
'Your ex-wife?'
'Estranged. We're only separated.'
'Why would she want to poison you?'
'To get her hands on everything, that's why.'
'So you think it was an attempt to murder you, not just make you ill?'
''Course it was an attempt to murder me.'
'Any ideas how you took the poison?'
'No. Something I ate, I expect.'
'What was your last meal?'
'Curry. Chicken Madras.'
