Poison in Paddington

  Poison in Paddington

  Cassie Coburn Mystery #1

  Samantha Silver

  Blueberry Books Press

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Also by Samantha Silver

  About the Author

  Prologue

  I could only remember bits and pieces from the night that changed my life forever. I remembered headlights. Everything in front of me had been dark; I’d left the hospital where I was doing my residency just after two am. Then, suddenly, everything in the parking lot I’d been walking through was illuminated. Funnily enough, I remembered perfectly that the car directly in front of me was a white BMW three-series. What I didn’t remember was the red Toyota Camry whose lights shone onto it smashing into my left side.

  The next thing I remembered, I was being taken into the hospital on a stretcher. It had been almost like an out-of-body experience. I’d already spent so much of my life in that hospital. I was completing my residency there. I’d gone there so many times for classes while still in medical school. But each of those times, I’d walked through the doors. This time, however, I was being carted in, like I’d seen happen to so many people before me.

  Kirsten, one of the nurses, was crying, her tears flowing freely down her cheeks. She was still able to bark out orders though, yelling for the emergency doctor on call that night, Doctor Evans, to come straight away. Just two hours earlier, I’d been congratulating her on her engagement to a local firefighter.

  I stared at the ceiling tiles as I was carted down the hallway. I don’t remember being in any pain, oddly enough. Maybe my brain had repressed that part of it. Given the path we were going, I instantly knew where I was being taken. The operating room. Apparently my tibia was sticking out of my leg. You didn’t exactly need twelve years of medical training to know that was going to need surgery. The irony was, I was training to be an orthopedic surgeon. The doctor I’d followed on rounds just that morning would be the one stitching my ACL back together and putting a metal rod in my leg.

  And the true tragedy was, if it had just been my leg, everything would have been fine. I was obviously going to have to go through months of rehab, but in the end I’d be able to walk again. I’d be able to live my life normally, and start my career as a surgeon—a career that I’d spent almost half my life working toward.

  When I woke up from surgery, my leg was in a cast. But more importantly, so was my hand. It was discovered after the emergency surgery on my leg that I’d also broken four phalanges, the metacarpal bone in my thumb, and four other bones in my hand, as well as having torn two tendons in my wrist.

  And just like that, my career as a surgeon was over. It felt like my life was over, too.

  I slowly learned more about what had happened to me. The man who had hit me was high; he had come to the hospital so he could try to get more narcotics. To be honest, I didn’t really care. When Kirsten came in and explained to me what had happened, I’d just stared at the wall. I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I was just numb. After all, what did it matter? What did it matter if he was high, or drunk, or completely sober? It didn’t change the facts. I was never going to be a surgeon. Hell, I was probably never going to be a doctor. Sure, I could work as a GP. I could write sick notes for people with the sniffles. I could order blood tests before sending people off to see the kind of doctor I was supposed to be. That wasn’t what I’d wanted. That wasn’t supposed to be the way my life turned out.

  My mom kept telling me how lucky I was. How I could have died. And, I supposed she was right, in a way. If you’re going to get hit by a car, you might as well get hit fifty feet from the emergency doors to a hospital, right? Plus, the fact that he was driving in a parking lot meant that he wasn’t going that fast. The fact that it was a Camry and not a Ferrari helped, too. But the more she, and everyone else, kept telling me that, the unluckier I felt. Wouldn’t it have been better if I’d just died? After all, what was the point in living now? I’d spent my whole life working to be a surgeon. I’d been in school for twenty-five of my thirty years. I had graduated from college. I had finished medical school. I had completed four and a half years of my residency. I was a mere six months away from officially being a practicing doctor, instead of just a resident. And now, all that was gone.

  Each night, before I fell asleep, I wondered if things wouldn’t be better if I just didn’t wake up the next morning.

  Chapter 1

  The weather in London that morning was absolutely perfect. It was an early spring day in late March, the sun was shining but there was still a crisp bite to the air that made me glad I’d decided to throw on a light jacket before I’d gone out. I’d also remembered to throw my new mini umbrella in my purse before I left. I’d only been living in London for a week, but I’d already learned the importance of carrying an umbrella around at all times—no matter how deceiving sky looked.

  Let me go back a little bit. My name is Cassie Coburn, and I’m almost thirty-one years old. I moved to London a week ago in a last-ditch attempt to get over the crippling depression I’d been suffering from ever since getting hit by a car ten months ago.

  In the end, I had a broken leg, a torn ACL, and I’d broken enough bones and torn enough tendons in my hand to lose 5 percent use of it. Now, for most people, that wouldn’t mean anything. Five percent use of your hand means you occasionally drop your fork when you try to pick it up. The problem was, I was trained as an orthopedic surgeon. And at twenty-nine, with a job offer on the table and a career I’d worked toward my entire adult life up to that point, it had all been taken away.

  I could no longer work as a surgeon. I wasn’t safe. Even if I thought it was fine – and I wasn’t about to risk someone else’s limbs because I thought I felt ok - no one would insure me. I fell into a crippling depression, a black hole that I couldn’t get out of. Not that I’d made much of an effort to try.

  My mom, being my mom, made sure to get a lawyer who sued the impaired driver to oblivion and back. Future earnings, and all that. A month ago I’d received a check for about ten million dollars in damages from his insurance company. It was meant to compensate me for the money I would have earned in a lifetime as a surgeon. The money didn’t make me happy though. Nothing made me happy anymore.

  Finally, on an impulse, I had decided to do something I’d never done before in an attempt to gain control over my life once more. I booked a flight to London leaving the next day. My dad was Scottish; even though he’d moved to America when he was a kid, he’d made sure I’d gotten my UK passport when I was born, so there were no visa issues. I called my mom and told her I was leaving. She was actually amazingly understanding. My mom was normally the overprotective, neurotic type, and I thought that telling her I was flying to the other side of the world with no idea what I was going to do would drive her over the edge. Instead, she wished me luck and told me to take all the time I needed.

  That was when I’d known I was making the right call. When my mom, of all people, thought me doing something impulsive and crazy was a good idea, it meant I was not in a good place here.

  And as it turned out, so far, this had actually been a good idea! I was staying at a hostel downtown until I found somewhere permanent to live. Having been
a student for so long I knew how to live pretty frugally. I wasn’t about to spend a couple grand a night staying at the Ritz. All the little things that I’d taken for granted in San Francisco: having a bank account, knowing where to get the cheapest groceries, the best place for takeout at any hour of the day, that sort of thing—were all things I had to rediscover. And they forced me out of my bed. After all, if I just stayed in my bed in the hostel all day, I was eventually going to starve.

  Even the almost-constant rain made me feel happy, since it was so different to what I’d grown up with in San Francisco. But, as I was to discover that morning, not everything was perfectly rosy in Jolly Ol’ England.

  I skipped out the front door of the hostel, thinking that I might wander around, try the kebab place down the street for lunch that I’d heard a couple of Canadians raving about the night before, and then take my bike over to the London Eye and do a bit of sightseeing. One of the first things I had done when I’d gotten here was to hit up Gumtree—basically the UK version of Craigslist—where I’d found a lady selling a cheap bike. It was one of those cruiser bikes, painted in a beautiful turquoise blue. Sure, it had a couple of dents here and there, and there was a tear on the seat, but it was perfect for getting around the city, and she’d only wanted twenty pounds for it. Sold!

  I knew the underground was an essential part of London life. But honestly, to start with, I just wanted to explore the city. I’d never really been outside of San Francisco before. My mom was single, and had done her best, but we hadn’t had much money for traveling when we were young. And of course, once I’d started medical school, even if I had wanted to travel I couldn’t afford the time or the money. Besides, this was London! This was one of the most popular, most incredible, most historically rich cities in the world. It seemed like every time I turned the corner I found myself standing somewhere where important historical events had taken place. I was determined to truly see the city, not just travel underneath it to get from place to place.

  Of course, it turned out that London was absolutely not bicyclist friendly. But I didn’t know that at the time, and I’d become a little bit attached to my bike, even though I mainly just rode it—extremely carefully—down the less busy streets, and walked it along the sidewalk the rest of the time.

  So imagine my surprise that morning when I left the hostel and went down the side alley to where I locked up my bike every night against a pole announcing no parking, only to find the lock had been cut through, abandoned on the concrete, my bike nowhere to be seen.

  “Aw, you have got to be kidding me,” I said, frustration making its way through me. Less than a week and I had already fallen victim to a theft. At least it wasn’t like the bike had cost a ton of money, but still! It was the principle of the thing, and I liked that bike. It was pretty.

  I looked around the alley for a bit, as if there was any chance that my bike had broken its own lock and just moved around about thirty feet, or that someone broke the lock and then had a change of heart a minute later and left it behind the dumpster that was halfway down the alley. Unfortunately, there was no such luck. I sighed and took out my phone. On my first day here I’d made sure to grab a UK SIM card, and I was now loaded up with tons of free text, talking minutes and data that made me feel incredibly self-conscious about the fact that I had exactly zero contacts in my phone so far. Still, the data was incredibly handy for finding things when I was out.

  I discovered the closest police station was right by the nearest tube station, at Edgware Road. I typed the address into my Google Maps app and made my way over there. After all, if I had any chance of getting my bike back in this new city, it was going to have to be with the help of the cops.

  Chapter 2

  The Edgware Road Police Station, listed as part of the Metropolitan Police Service, fit in with the rest of the neighborhood, a strange juxtaposition of old buildings with interesting architecture, and dirty metal structures obviously built in the seventies and eighties. Falling into the latter category, the exterior of the building was nothing special. Concrete was featured heavily in the construction of the building, and the glass around it was tinted, giving the whole thing an especially dirty look. A uniformed policeman stood outside, briefly ensuring that anyone entering the building was actually there on police business.

  I cautiously made my way toward the man.

  “Hi, am I in the right place to report a stolen bike?” I asked nervously, and he smiled at me kindly.

  “Yes, you are, absolutely. Please take the stairs to the third floor. Unfortunately, the lift is broken today and the repairman isn’t coming in until later today.”

  “Thanks,” I said, moving past him and entering the building. The hustle and bustle inside was in stark comparison to the calm outside. Everywhere I looked, there were uniformed officers and people wearing civilian clothes moving around efficiently, and I quickly felt like perhaps in the whole scheme of maintaining law and order in this neighborhood of London, perhaps a stolen bicycle was a waste of time. Still, I was here now, and the man outside hadn’t seemed perturbed by the relative insignificance of the crime I had fallen victim to.

  I steeled myself and found the staircase, making my way up. I smiled to myself when I didn’t feel any pain in my knee. Despite my depression, Kirsten had made sure I always went to my physiotherapy appointments. While I walked with a very slight limp, a couple of flights of stairs here and there no longer gave me any trouble. Two flights of stairs later, I found myself in the middle of an open floor plan filled with plain clothed people and the odd uniformed officer moving around. There was no reception desk, and no indication of where I should go to file a report.

  Coming toward me, was a man and woman who both seemed to be around my age. They couldn’t have possibly looked more different. He wore a fancy suit, the dark blue of which went well with his light red hair and freckles that covered his friendly-looking face. Carrying a handful of files, he looked all business, but his face still had that kindness that made me think he was a good person. He was the type of policeman you wanted to see on the street, the kind of man that gave the impression that he would keep you safe, but also wouldn’t be overly aggressive if he caught you smoking a joint. She, on the other hand, had long, chestnut brown hair tied back into a ponytail, skinny jeans and a long boho top. A pair of huge sunglasses sat on top of her head, and she was wearing flip flops. Flip flops! She couldn’t have been a cop. Absolutely no way. But him? Definitely. It was worth a shot, anyway.

  “Excuse me?” I tried, going up to the two of them. The woman stopped and gave me a look as if she was surprised that I would dare interrupt them, but the look on his face was one of polite curiosity. I decided to address myself to him, and continued.

  “I was directed here to report a stolen bike, but I’m afraid I don’t know exactly who I should speak to. Could you help me?”

  The man smiled, and the girl next to him smirked. “Of course. Listen, I can take care of this for you, why don’t you follow me into this room here?” he asked. He started walking to the left of where we were standing, where I saw a number of small conference rooms lining the wall.

  “Seriously?” I heard the woman ask him. “You have got to be kidding me.” She had a French accent, and a strong one at that.

  “We don’t pay you to help us out, you can always leave,” he told her.

  “We both know you don’t have a chance in hell of solving this case if I do,” she replied, and I couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about.

  “We have been known to solve cases before without your help.”

  “Not ones like this.”

  The man opened the door to one of the conference rooms and motioned for me to sit down at the desk. I did so, suddenly feeling like perhaps this had been a bad idea.

  The conference room had a whiteboard against one side, with the chemical formula for strychnine, a poison, written on it. There was a small table in the middle, large enough to seat eight people, wi
th that many chairs around it. I sat down at one and fiddled with my hands, and the man sat in one of the chairs on the other side. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit uncomfortable, like I’d wandered into something way bigger than a stolen bike, and that I maybe should have just sucked up the loss. After all, it sounded like there was serious police work being done here. The woman moved to the corner and stood there, watching us. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that she was studying me, and it gave me the creeps. The weirdest part about it was that she didn’t hide it. She just straight up stared me down while the other guy took a notebook out of his pocket and began asking me questions.

  “I’m DCI Tony Williams. Now, you said you had a missing bicycle? Where was it locked up?”

  “Against a pole in an alley next to the hostel I was staying at,” I said, giving him all the details I had about the bike – the color, what I’d paid for it, that sort of thing.

  “When did you see the bike last?”

  “When I locked it up last night around six.”

  He jotted the info down in his notebook and asked a few more questions.

  “Right. Now I’ll just take down some basic information about you and we can be out of here.”

  The woman interrupted then, her French accent somehow making her sound even more superior than her demeanour already was.

  “She’s an American, recently moved to London. A doctor, but she doesn’t practice, probably because of the accident she was in. She grew up relatively poor, but has come into money recently. She has a bit of a desire to be adventurous, but her conservative upbringing has limited the amount of risk she’s willing to take.”

  “Thank you, Violet,” DCI Williams said with a small smile, “but I was thinking more along the lines of her phone number.”