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Authors: Malia Zaidi

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BOOK: A Poisonous Journey
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For another moment I stand frozen to the spot, allowing the impact of her words to settle. How I sometimes wish the past did not have such mighty power to hold us in its talons! But then I remember laughter and cheer and try to let those happier memories overwhelm the desparation that awakens when I realize I will never hear it again.
CHAPTER 7
Detective Inspector Adriano Dymas arrives less than an hour later. He has come alone, leaving his constable to work on other matters at the station in Miklos. Briony guides us into the sitting room, which I have thus far only seen in passing. It is a long room with high white ceilings and a comfortably elegant set of sofas and armchairs. Most importantly, there is enough space for all of us as even Niobe, Yannick, and the cook, (whose name I do not even know!) have been called to congregate here.
I am seated beside Briony and the inspector on one of the long low-backed sofas, upholstered in a pale green fleur-de-lis pattern. Jeffrey sits beside his wife and Daniel on a chair next to him. The household staff has huddled together on the opposite setee.
"I wanted all members of the household present when I gave you the news." Dymas looks around, just as I imagine a detective in one of my novels might do. He gives each of us a glance, though I catch only a moment of his searching black-brown eyes as we are seated close to each other and I am at the edge of his periphery.
"What news? Has the doctor finished his report already?" Jeffrey is on the edge of his seat, and I notice the taut muscles and the throbbing of a vein in his neck.
"Yes. It was as he suspected." Dymas pauses, presumably for dramatic effect, though I cannot imagine why. All of us have reached the apex of tension and curiosity by this stage. "It was strychnine, or as you may know it, rat poison. We found remnants in the glass we discovered near his body. He ingested the poison, likely through wine."
"Good heavens!" Briony gasps, though this is no real surprise, but then she did not see the body. Exhaling slowly, I wish we were outside. I suddenly feel very closed in. So many people, and me squashed between them all. I fight the urge to dash out of the room, remembering with startling slowness that I am in the middle of a murder investigation. Suspicious behavior would be noticed. I push away my anxiety as best I can and sit up a little straighter.
"Could it have been an accident?" Daniel asks, sounding neither hopeful nor convinced of such a possibility, and I wonder what motives for Caspar’s murder he might be aware of, or what enemies he might suspect for that matter.
Dymas shakes his head. "I very much doubt it, Mr. Harper. The amount found in his stomach was not insignificant. He might have been saved if it had only been a small, accidental measure, though as I understand, no one but him was at the house for most of the day, is that not correct?"
Everyone nods dumbly, and I wonder where Niobe and the cook were? Yannick drove us into town. He could easily have come back here in the four hours between the time he dropped us off and picked us up again, but I am sure the inspector will have asked him about that.
"Yes, we were in town, Daniel and I at the museum, and my wife and her cousin were together at the market." Jeffrey answers as representative of this household. "Niobe was visiting her mother, and our cook had the day off and was in
Klima
to be with her daughter." Niobe and the cook, whose real name I must discover at the nearest convenient time, nod their heads in unison, saying nothing.
"Hm … yes, so you told me yesterday." Dymas doesn’t sound entirely convinced, and I wonder whether he already has suspicions. I cannot imagine anyone here …
Someone in this room could be a murderer!
No, no, we all have alibis. I shake my head and catch Briony giving me a strange look.
"Did he suffer?" We turn to look at Daniel, whose calm face belies the fact that he must be aching with emotion.
I catch the policeman glancing quickly at his large, brown hands lying folded in his lap before he meets the grieving man’s eyes.
"I am sorry to say, it was not an easy death." He looks apologetically at the faces around him, and I can only sympathize with him. What a miserable task it must be to have to tell people such dreadful news; to watch the sadness and agony and anger written across their faces and be unable to offer any true comfort. I do not think I could do it.
"Can you be any clearer?" Daniel is forcing the words from his mouth, and I feel the urge to get up and fetch him a glass of water, but find myself frozen in my seat, eagerness and dread mingling in my mind as I await the inspector’s answer.
"This will not be easy to hear."
I respect him for not saying
it will upset the ladies
, but shrink from what he will say all the more.
"Go on."
Dymas inhales and does as he is asked. "Strychine ingested causes spasms of the head and neck. These occur repeatedly and result in paralysis of the airways. The victim dies of asphyxiation two or three hours after ingestion."
The silence between us lasts a few seconds as we take in the horrible fact. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Without noticing I reach for my throat, but lower my hand quickly so no one else will notice either.
"Do you know when it was taken?" Daniel’s questions are clear and logical. I cannot imagine how he can think sensibly enough to articulate them. Perhaps he wrote them down last night. I doubt he slept, if the rings beneath his eyes are anything to go by.
"The doctor’s report states the poison would have been consumed around noontime. You arrived at the villa at four, or thereabouts, I believe," Dymas waits for a nod from Daniel, "and Miss Carlisle discovered the body near that time. This is all correct, is it not?"
I shiver as the image of the poor man’s body pushes itself into my mind. I can almost feel his flesh, recalling the sensation of my fingers searching for a pulse on his still warm neck.
Daniel is starting to lose his composure just a bit. "So, he would have only been dead an hour, two at most?"
"Yes," Dymas nods gravely.
"If we had come back sooner!" Briony whispers what we are all thinking. There is a sorrowful desparation in her voice, and I am grateful to see Jeffrey clutching her hand.
"I am afraid, Mrs. Farnham, it would have been too late. The poison was taken with a large amount of wine and some olives. No other food. We have examined his room, and any open wine bottles on the premises and have not been able to find anything with traces of the poison. Nor was a bottle found near his body. The murderer must have taken it, and possibly his or her own glass away as he or she left. Mr. Ballantaine would have, in all likelihood, been suffering the effects quickly, judging from the amound in his system. We are still considering the idea that he may have been somewhat inebriated before ingesting it. Strychnine, as you may be aware, has a very bitter taste, so the amount of alcohol in his stomach would explain why he might not have had the …" his voice trails off as he searches for the word.
"The sense to taste it?" Daniel interjects. Dymas looks, if not pleased, at least appreciative at this assistance.
"Yes, thank you Mr. Harper. Depending on how much he had drunk, his senses would be dulled. When he swallowed the poison, only noting a bitter aftertaste, it would already have been too late. A sober man might have made himself sick to expunge it …" again his voice drifts off to let us find our own conclusions.
It seems Caspar was rather fond of drink. I thought it had been only at the party where everyone was jolly, but to be so beyond sense at twelve o’clock, strongly hinted at a deeper problem, which makes the situation all the more disturbing.
"Further, we have noted a small bruise on the side of his face. Not strong enough a blow to have knocked a tall man like him down, but it may be related. Unless he acquired it before?" He looks at us and we shake our heads.
"No, not to my recollection." Jeffrey adds.
"I shouldn’t have left him alone." Daniel closes his eyes for a moment, breathes deeply, opens them and gets to his feet. "Excuse me." He runs a visibly trembling hand through his dark hair and in long strides steps from the room. On impulse I stand up, notice everyone staring, and sit down again. What use would I be to him? He surely wants to be alone in his grief. From what I know now of his and Caspar’s relationship, they were almost like Briony and me. I banish the thought of anything happening to her from my mind, terrified of even allowing the possibility to exist.
"I am investigating this murder. I will be asking questions and require your absolute cooperation so we can discover what happened and give your friend peace." This last statement takes me by surprise, and I turn to look at him. He meets my gaze, only smiling sadly, and gets up. Everyone else rises as if by command, and we follow the inspector to the door.
"I will talk to the list of people who were at your dinner party last night," Dymas looks at Jeffrey. "At the moment, we have no leads as to who might have done this, therefore we must consider all the people Mr. Ballantine was in contact with. Again," now his gaze sweeps over the rest of us, still huddled around him in the hall, "if you can think of anything at all, any enemies or problems he may have had, let me know. You have my card, and you can contact me at the Miklos police station. I will leave now, but will be back when I have further questions or if new developments arise." He puts the hat he has been handed by Niobe on his head, covering his thick black curls, and disappears. Moments later, I hear the low rumbling of a motorcar.
For a moment all of us stand there, a forever-bonded little group. Then, as if a spell has been lifted, Niobe and the teary-eyed cook, a small plump woman with a kindly face, take off to their alotted domains. Jeffrey, Briony and I, as if by some unsaid agreement, head toward the conservatory.
Once we are comfortably seated, we begin to talk all at once. After some, "no, you go", and "please, go on" being politely offered, I begin.
"I only arrived yesterday, so I didn’t know him well at all, but was Caspar in the habit to drink in excess on a regular basis?" I put this as diplomatically as I can, not wanting to ask outright whether he was a habitual drunk.
"He was rather fond of the stuff," Jeffrey shakes his head and sighs. "But that it should come to this?"
"Was it commonly known?" I hesitate, trying to formulate the question without sounding harsh. "Did your acquaintances or people you met know of his problem? That it was his weakness? If so, someone might have seen an easy way to … to take his life." I finish feebly. I cannot bring myself to say "murder him." It is too fresh still and, for that matter, may always be.
"Surely you can’t think any of our friends would do such a thing!" Briony sounds shocked, though not as defensive as she might.
"I am only saying, if it was common knowledge that he liked to drink more than average, someone, some
enemy
—" I speculate, feeling a bit melodramatic, but finding no other word for it, "some enemy might have thought it would be the easiest way to, well, you know."
"I cannot imagine who—" Briony begins, more for the sake of speaking than real conviction.
Her husband interrupts her. "Caspar was not a bad man. He had problems, yes, but murder? To murder him, what motive could there be?"
"They say poison is a woman’s game."
Daniel’s voice startles us, and we swivel around to face him. He does not look angry or offended, which lets me exhale the nervous breath I am holding.
"Sit down, Daniel," Jeffrey motions to an empty chair. Daniel hesitates for a moment, then steps out of the doorframe, sitting in one of the light rattan armchairs.
"I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said that."
He looks contrite, though there is no need. We all sympathize and would tolerate a more empassioned outburst just as easily. having only known Daniel for a single day, I nonetheless feel as though we have been acquainted for years. This tragedy has brought us together, our little clan.
"Tell me if you’d like me to ease off the topic, but do you have any idea who might have wanted Caspar …" Even Jeffrey is unable to say it.
"Dead?" Daniel rubs chis chin and rests his elbow on the narrow arm of the chair. "No. I have thought about it all night, and I just don’t know."
"He might have offended some native Cretans. I’m afraid when I took him to market last week," Briony volunteers meekly, "he … he was a bit unsteady and might have made a grab for one or two of the women. I got him away before anything too upsetting happened."
"Murder for an inebriated grope sounds a bit far-fetched, Briony, though I suppose one never knows what goes on in people’s minds." Jeffrey raises an eyebrow and takes off his specs to pinch the bridge of his nose.
"You are probably right. Yet I wonder whether he ever …" I hesitate, suddenly awkward.
"
He ever
what?" Briony asks and everyone’s eyes are on me.
"Whether it ever went further than a harmless scuffle."
There, out it was. "Love and greed are so often at the root of any action. Of course, in this case it would be very drastic indeed."
"People here are tradition bound," Jeffrey begins, and I have to think of my aunt and the confines of tradition I tried to escape by coming here. "They are protective of family honor. If Caspar had … interfered with that, there would be repercussions. Usually it would involve a mean thumping, and that would settle it."

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