The potting shed murder, p.23
The Potting Shed Murder, page 23
She lifted her gaze a little higher to the top of the bureau, where a group of photographs in silver frames sat. They were a collection of black and white images featuring groups of students at a university graduation. One image showed a young man on his own, clutching a scroll as he smiled proudly at the photographer. She grinned, remembering her own graduation photo that hung on the wall in her parents’ retirement house in the Caribbean. This must have been at least twenty years before her own graduation. How funny, it seemed that every generation had been instructed to sit in that same side profile position, clutching a fake scroll to represent their degree, with the same cheesy grin directed towards the camera. She peered at the young man in the single photo. His cheerful smile and full face were familiar, as were his round spectacles. A young Ptolemy Oates! She laughed out loud. He looked so proud and happy. His face was unmistakably familiar, and just as jovial. He appeared in most of the other images too, and it was easy to spot him every time.
There was something else familiar in the group shots. The buildings in the background—she’d seen them before. It was Oxford. How wonderful—Doctor Oates gained his medical degree at Oxford, but it wasn’t just that . . . The precise location was familiar. She was sure that she’d seen it in another photograph before. She tried to remember where, and just when she was about to give up, grab the matches and go, it came to her. It was exactly the same backdrop as the graduation photograph Augusta had in her bedroom.
Daphne thought back to that day when she had left Augusta sleeping off a mild hangover in her bedroom. After settling the covers around her, and making sure that she was safely lying on her side and not liable to choke in her sleep, she had looked at an image in a similar silver frame on the dressing table. The photograph had been of an extremely happy and laughing Augusta standing on her own, but for the disembodied arm draped casually around her shoulder belonging to someone who had once appeared on the other side of the photograph. At the time, Daphne had assumed that the picture had been bent in half to accommodate the smaller size of the frame.
She looked back in surprise at the photos on the doctor’s bureau. It really was Augusta—but why had she not known that they were old friends before now? On closer inspection, she realized that she could find Ptolemy Oates and a young Augusta among the group in every image. What was more interesting was that in each image that they appeared together, a fresh-faced Ptolemy was staring directly at Augusta with the soppiest, most lovestruck look that Daphne had seen on anyone outside of a Hollywood romantic comedy. Not merely friends then, after all. He was clearly besotted and couldn’t hide it—not even for a photograph. She noticed one final silver frame that had fallen down onto its front. She picked it up, already predicting what she was going to see. It was the original photo of Augusta—identical to the one in Augusta’s bedroom—but this time it was the full version with the owner of the arm in plain view, staring at Augusta in the same loving and longing way, with his hand caressing her shoulder tenderly, its little finger adorned with a crested signet ring. It was clear that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, let alone his body. He was pressed up against her or touching her in almost every shot. Ptolemy Oates had clearly been infatuated with Augusta on their graduation day and possibly even since then considering he still kept so many of their photographs on his desk. It ought to have been rather sweet really, but something had begun to niggle at Daphne’s thoughts—why did this all seem so odd?
Still holding the frame in her hand, she glanced back down at the three glinting syringes. They were huge. Like something from a Victorian apothecary shop in a Dickens novel. The type where you would have found jars filled with arsenic and glass vials filled with strange remedies. She noted a vintage-looking box with the screw-on needles to go with the syringes sitting inside it. She remembered reading that the needles would have been sharpened by hand. The thought made her grimace.
“Daphne?” The sound of the doctor’s voice made her jump, instantly pulling her out of her assessment of the photographs.
She grabbed the matches quickly and exited the room at top speed, closing the door swiftly behind her and reentering the kitchen that resembled a period set from a 1950s kitchen sink drama from the little hallway.
“I’m here—I found the matches!” She smiled at the doctor across the kitchen.
He remained silent and looking at her for only a split second too long, but it was long enough to add a slightly different frequency to the atmosphere. Daphne sensed it immediately. He was obviously not happy that she had come through the door leading from the three rooms, and she tried to think quickly about why that might be before saying anything. She knew that Ptolemy was a private man. Yes, he could talk the hind legs off a donkey when it came to local history, but he rarely spoke about himself or his private life. In fact, hadn’t he once said that he didn’t have any interest in what was happening in the village at all? Recalling his lovelorn expression in the photographs, was that because Augusta had married Charles and he’d decided to keep himself separate?
Her mind began whirring. If Ptolemy had gone to university and been in love with Augusta, then how had Charles come to be the one who had ended up marrying her? It was all rather curious. James’s disapproving face suddenly popped into her mind. Daphne, don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask.
Doctor Oates finally spoke. He was rubbing his chin slowly with his head slightly cocked to one side. All traces of good humor had vanished from his expression, making Daphne feel uncomfortable in his company for the first time since she’d met him. “I said—tea?” he repeated.
She realized that she had missed his question the first time. She also realized that he had a distinctive signet ring on the little finger of the hand that was currently rubbing his chin. The flesh of his finger was bulging out on either side of it, as though it was now far too tight, forty or more years since the graduation photo was taken. Why had she never noticed it before?
“Perhaps we should be going—they’ve probably got a café there?” Why had he claimed to not know anyone in Pepperbridge particularly well?
It occurred to her that it might be best to leave the small kitchen which was strangely now beginning to feel more claustrophobic than cozy.
“No. I think that we’ll have a cup of tea here first if you don’t mind. I’m parched.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes in the same way that it normally did. He put out a hand towards her and she flinched away from it slightly without thinking. “The matches?” He cocked his head sightly in question.
“Oh—yes, of course. The matches,” she repeated—handing them over to him. Why did she feel so jumpy all of a sudden?
He nodded in thanks and walked over to light the stove. “Of course, you could have just used these ones . . .” He pointed to a small, tiled alcove flush to the wall to the left of the stove that she hadn’t noticed until now. Inside was a box of matches and a tin of lighter fluid. With his back still to her, he said, quietly but firmly, “Do sit down, Daphne.”
Daphne did as she was told, although she couldn’t help glancing towards the doorway as she did so. Stop being so silly, Daphne, she told herself. Nothing has happened. You saw some photographs and a piece of vintage equipment. An antique syringe which is perfectly in keeping with a doctor who enjoys talking about history. Why on earth has that spooked you? But she knew exactly why. Seeing the antique syringe had jogged her memory back to her first few weeks in Pudding Corner and her first few chats over the garden gate. Doctor Ptolemy Oates had warned her to inform the children about various potentially harmful and poisonous plants. He had told her how the seventeenth-century so-called “witches of Cringlewic” had started off as midwives and herbalists and then been accused of witchcraft by male doctors like himself who wanted to strip them of their increasing power. The “witches” had sought to defend themselves by using untraceable poisonous plants to outwit their persecutors. It had been fascinating stuff, but at the time it was simply one historical story in a long list of historical stories. Now, however, his repeated mention of and fascination with phytomedicine and ethnobotany stood out with glaring clarity. And now that she had seen the picture of him with a young Augusta it seemed obvious really. In hindsight, it made sense that Charles Papplewick had received a large enough dose of a toxic substance that it had induced an instant and fatal heart attack. It was through an expertly administered prick from a syringe filled with a perfect cocktail of poisonous plants. An injection so covertly done that it could only have been administered by someone who was a self-proclaimed steady hand, someone who was so expert at taking blood that his patients had often marveled that they’d hardly noticed it had happened until it was over.
“Biscuits?” the doctor asked her as he stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her teacup before placing it in its saucer down in front of her.
“Errrr—no thank you.” Her heart had started to race a little, and her mouth had become so dry that she doubted a biscuit would have been able to pass through her lips.
“Are you certain? That’s unlike you, Daphne. They are your favorites. I made sure to have them in especially for you . . . Fruit Shortcake?”
Daphne shook her head a tad too vigorously.
“No, honestly I’m fine. In fact, I’m really sorry to do this, but I’ve just remembered that I have to collect a couple of chairs from a lady in Shipdham. I’m so silly, but I organized it last minute and it totally escaped my mind. Do you mind if we take a rain check and do this another time?”
She was aware that she was babbling and that there was a faint edge of panic entering her voice, but she couldn’t help it. She needed to get out of there and she needed to do so immediately.
She was halfway out of her chair when Doctor Oates commanded her to “sit down—please!”
Once again, Daphne instantly did as she was told. The tone of his voice had altered the meaning of every polite word that was coming out of his lips. The subtle hint of a threat was laced within it and now was obviously not the time to challenge him.
“All right then,” she forced out with feigned cheerfulness as her bottom slammed back down into her seat. “Just one cup and then I really must be going.”
She felt it was necessary to keep up the act that she was in control. The truth was that she could feel her heart thumping wildly against her rib cage—she only hoped that he couldn’t hear it from the other side of the kitchen table.
“So, Daphne,” the doctor said quietly. “It appears that we may have a problem.”
“A problem, Ptolemy?” It was rare that she had ever used his first name and she hoped that it wasn’t too obvious a blatant attempt at appearing calm. In all the months that Doctor Oates had tried to insist that she call him Ptolemy rather than the more formal Doctor Oates, Daphne had always refused, feeling it impossible to resort to such familiarity with such a cartoonish character. With his bow tie, battered old brogues and tweeds; his ruddy face and usually jovial manner, he’d always reminded Daphne of Toad of Toad Hall, and she’d joked privately with James that a character like that suited an appropriately grand title.
“Wouldn’t you say so, Daphne?” he continued quietly with what Daphne imagined he thought was a smile, but which came out as more of a grimace.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Ptolemy, unless you’re talking about me having to reschedule our tour of Oxburgh Hall? As I said, I’m ever so sorry, but it’s completely unavoidable—the meeting . . . er . . . my appointment—It completely slipped my mind. Silly me!” She finished with an unnecessary flourish, using her finger to gesticulate in a circular motion while pointing at her head to indicate a temporary ditziness.
They both knew it to be a lie. Daphne was neither forgetful, nor ditzy, and as a Black woman who had given up her formal career to retreat to the English countryside, she had been at great pains to prove to all and sundry that she was not only extremely clever and very capable but also a match for anyone who dared challenge her competence. It was probably one of the reasons she had so happily entered into conversations that covered history, social issues, politics and everything in between over the garden gate with the “friendly neighborhood” doctor. A second-generation immigrant transplanted to the unfamiliar and far less diverse surroundings of Norfolk, it was built in to her DNA and upbringing to prove that she was the exact opposite of anything that could be called ditzy or incapable. Perhaps there was an automatic desire to prove that one belonged without question. Reducing herself to a mindless simpleton now was a survival instinct that she hoped would get her out of what she was now realizing might be a less than safe situation. She prayed that she was wrong, but she wasn’t prepared to take any chances. If her hunch was indeed correct, and Doctor Oates had played some part in the mysterious death of Charles Papplewick, then it wouldn’t do her any favors to express her powers of deduction at this particular moment.
“Which is it, Daphne? A meeting, an appointment or a chair collection? Or none of the above?”
His question was met with silence as she tried to remember what she had said originally. He was staring at her intently and it was making her feel incredibly nervous. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing . . . and so she said nothing. Not until she could get her story straight in order to leave.
“What did you see in my study, Daphne?” His sudden change of the topic caught her off guard.
She attempted to feign ignorance. “Your study? Surely you mean your pantry—the one filled with homemade jams and pickles?”
“STOP LYING, DAPHNE!” The doctor’s voice had risen to such a level of anger that Daphne had practically fallen off her seat with the shock of its resonance. This was a side to the doctor that she had never seen before, and to be honest, if she hadn’t been caught in her current predicament, she probably wouldn’t have believed him capable of it.
Exasperated, he shook the matches violently with his left hand as he continued to half talk, half shout at her.
“The MATCHES, Daphne! You found the MATCHES in my STUDY! What else did you see in there?”
“N-Nothing!”
He had morphed from Doctor Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in the space of a few sentences and she instantly regretted that particular analogy popping into her head, as it only served to increase her barely concealed anxiety. “I’m really not sure what you want me to say. I went to look for matches—you told me to look in your study, and I did—and we were just supposed to be having a nice cup of tea, weren’t we. Is everything all right? Are you feeling unwell?”
She bit her lip anxiously, praying that he would take the bait. It wasn’t too late. Nothing had been said or admitted or alluded to. He could easily feign illness now and put this very intense conversation down to a migraine. It was just a blip. If only she could pretend that the last twenty minutes had never occurred.
“Cubby.” He sighed.
“I’m sorry?” Daphne had no idea what he was talking about and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know at this point.
“I said cubby . . . when I called down. I told you to look in the cubby. The CUBBY HOLE!” he shouted. He pointed once more towards the small alcove by the side of the stove where a box of matches still sat.
Daphne’s mouth formed a silent “oh.”
“You saw the photographs?” His tone had changed once more as he returned to the original topic of conversation. This time he sounded tired. Almost defeated. Daphne watched as the doctor slumped down in his chair with a sigh and closed his eyes.
Daphne looked at the kitchen door and then back at the doctor, who still had his eyes closed and was now rubbing his temple with his hand—the signet ring flashing intermittently as it rhythmically moved back and forth. She adjusted the pressure on her feet from the heel to the ball, ready to spring forward. Her heart was really racing now, the way it had raced when she had tried out for the Crystal Palace Harriers athletics team aged fifteen. Heel, ball, spring. Heel, ball, spring. She remembered the familiar old mantra she had recited before pushing off for a race. Breathe. She kept her eyes on his head, where his hands remained, and started to count. One, two, three . . .
She propelled herself forwards and ran towards the door and into the hallway. Narrowly avoiding a clutter of obstacles in her way—a coat stand and standard lamp being the most tricky to circumvent while attempting to sprint; she had made it to the door leading to the porch when she felt a rough and powerful grip on her upper left arm, forcing her to stop dead in her tracks and boomerang back into the hallway, almost toppling them both over. The tips of her fingers on her right hand had been on the door handle but her entire arm was now flailing around, knocking a pile of post from the hall table to the floor.
Facing him again, she was met with a look of fury. His bow tie was slightly askew and his cheeks had transitioned from red to almost purple, his teeth were clenched and spittle formed at the corners of his mouth while his lips remained open in a strained grimace.
“Please, Doctor Oates—I didn’t see anything! You’re really scaring me!” She was shouting too now as he dragged her forcibly back into the kitchen, flung her towards the seat furthest away from the hall door and sat himself down opposite—but not before he made sure that he had closed the door behind him first with a slam.
“Please, I really don’t understand why you’re keeping me here,” Daphne tried again once she had caught her breath. “What is it that you think I’ve seen?”
“Scaring you?” the doctor responded mutedly. His breathing was still slightly labored but his eyes had lost their anger now. “You’re scared of me?” He sounded wounded, disappointed, upset even. “That’s what she said too . . .”
“That’s what who said?” she asked tentatively. What were you supposed to do in these situations? Keep talking to him? Continue to feign ignorance? Unfortunately, deep within her fear was also a growing curiosity. She couldn’t help herself.
“Who do you think?” he asked with more than a dose of melancholy.
