Poison in Paddington Read online

  I opened up the last folder, that of a woman in her early twenties who worked at a fast food restaurant down the street from the square where the soup cart had been. I made a mental note to never eat there; if she—while on minimum wage—was willing to forgo the free food that was available for her to eat at her workplace to go buy soup from a cart, there was no way I was going to trust what came out of that kitchen. Her name was Sally Abbott, and she lived somewhere in East London, I had to look up the suburb name on my phone as I didn’t recognize it.

  I found myself poring over the files, trying to figure out which one of these four had been the intended target, and which three were unfortunate victims. But much to my chagrin, as more time passed, the further I got from figuring out anything from the basic biographical information I’d been given about the victims. Eventually, I realized three hours had passed, and that if I wanted to be even remotely presentable the next day when I went murderer hunting for the first time, I had probably better get some sleep.

  I put the files under my mattress just in case, then slipped into my pyjamas and went to bed, wondering what my first day helping out a detective who didn’t work with the police, but who seemed to know what she was doing all the same, was going to bring.

  * * *

  As my eyes opened up the next morning, I was vaguely aware of a shape sitting on the edge of my bed. Fearing a robber, I let out a squeal and quickly sat up.

  “With reflexes like that you’re a prime target for a serial killer,” Violet said as she casually flipped through the files that I was sure I’d left under my mattress. “I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes.”

  My body was a mixture of confusion, anger, and the grogginess that can only come from not being fully awake. While I meant to ask Violet how the hell she got into my apartment, the question actually came out as a very elegant “how you in?” as I tried to wipe the sleep from my eyes.

  “Please. This is a central London youth hostel; it is not exactly the Barclay’s vault. Besides, I said I would see you in the morning. We have work to do.”

  “I believe you said you’d call me in the morning, not that I’d wake up finding you sitting on the edge of my bed like some kind of crazy person.”

  “Bien, things change. You looked at these files last night?” I nodded in response. “Good. Then get up, and get changed. We have time to get breakfast, then we have to visit the two people who were the potential targets.”

  “Two?” I asked. “But there are four folders.”

  Violet’s mouth crept up into that little enigmatic smile again. “There are. And if you had read them carefully, you would know there was no way two of the people could have been murdered there on purpose.”

  I leaned my head back against the wall. “How? I spent hours looking at those files last night. I have all the basic information memorized. Good call on the Graves disease, by the way.”

  “Ah, you liked that, did you? I thought you might. Get dressed, I will explain as we have breakfast.”

  Fifteen minutes later I’d thrown on a pair of black yoga pants and the only blouse I had brought to London, thinking that maybe I should look professional, even though today Violet was wearing a flowing turquoise skirt that reached her knees and a black top spattered with rainbow-coloured pot leaves. I imagined DCI Williams wouldn’t exactly approve.

  “There is an excellent breakfast spot just down the street from the square where the murder took place,” Violet told me, leading the way. To be honest, I was totally down for a bacon and egg McMuffin and a couple hash browns, or whatever the British equivalent was. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be taken to an organic fair-trade, gluten-free, lactose-free, refined-sugar-free vegan café that smelled like ginger, eucalyptus oil and coffee beans.

  “Is this… what you eat?” I asked Violet carefully, eyeing the quinoa granola bars with caution. The girl behind the counter looked like she’d come straight out of the sixties, and the barista had a hipster beard and looked like he belonged on the cover of an alternative music magazine.

  “Of course,” she replied. “The brain is my most valuable tool. As a doctor, you always keep your equipment in prime condition. I have to do the same. As should you, your brain is as important as your scalpel, in your profession.”

  “I’m not a doctor anymore,” I said lamely.

  “You are always going to be a doctor, no matter what job you have,” Violet replied as she perused the menu. She ordered a bowl of almond mylk—yes, it said mylk—soaked overnight oats with organic honey and berries, topped with flax and chia seeds, as well as bee pollen. Really? Bee pollen? Those were not words I ever thought I’d see on a restaurant menu. I looked at the menu. I knew all the words described foods, but I had never seen them in that order before.

  I had been a student for so long, my diet generally consisted of fast and cheap. I could order my way through a kebab shop or tell you which brand of ramen noodles tasted best, but this was just all new territory for me.

  Finally, I settled on the most normal looking stuff on the menu: a red fruit smoothie—made with almond mylk, of course—and waffles. Waffles were normal, right?

  Of course, it turned out they were made with bananas and oat flour instead of normal flour, and topped with goji berries, chia seeds, coconut flakes, something called cashew cream that I carefully avoided, but thankfully also maple syrup.

  Violet watched me with an amused smile on my face as I carefully crafted my plate around which foods I was going to eat, and which ones I was going to ignore.

  “You know,” she finally said. “If you actually try eating it, you might be pleasantly surprised.”

  No, I thought to myself, I was definitely going to keep acting like a two-year-old who decided they didn’t like food without trying it. After all, I didn’t need to try the cashew cream to know I wasn’t going to like it. Just look at the name, for goodness’ sake!

  I eventually took a bite, and to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the waffle. The smoothie was delicious as well, nice and smooth. The cashew cream was disgusting, but I pretended not to mind it, just to impress Violet. I couldn’t believe I was doing it, I felt like a little girl trying to impress her older sister, but I was fairly certain Violet and I were around the same age. She just seemed so… confident. She seemed like she had everything together. Like she, unlike me, was absolutely nailing this whole being-an-adult thing.

  “Good,” Violet finally said. “Now that you have decided to eat like an adult for what appears to be the first time in your life, shall we discuss the case?”

  I looked suitably embarrassed at my complete and total lack of ability to order food in a health food restaurant, but as I dug into my waffles and kept drinking my smoothie, we started discussing the case.

  “So how do you know that there are only two people who could be the target?” I asked through a bit of waffle. “And which two are they?”

  “You need to think, that is why you did not figure it out. You saw the words, but you did not think about what they mean. Why was everyone at the square that morning?”

  “One guy was meeting a client, one was meeting a customer and two were working.”

  “Exactement!”

  “Ohhhhhh,” I exclaimed, my eyes widening as I made the connection. “Of course!” Violet broke out into a big smile as I figured it out. “The two that weren’t regulars, there was no way the killer could have known where they were going to have lunch.”

  “Ah, parfait!” Violet exclaimed, evidently pleased. “I did not think you would realize it on your own. You are better than most, at thinking.”

  I blushed slightly at the praise. “So that means either Elizabeth Dalton or Sally Abbott was the intended victim. Now, we have to figure out which one of those two someone wanted dead.”

  “Ah, but that, I have already figured out,” Violet said. “Sally Abbott worked in a casual role, at a restaurant. She would have different hours for her break depending on how busy they were on any given day
. The killer would have had to know more or less when she was going to go on break, to know when to poison the stew. After all, the killer would have known that the taste would be noticed. He—I only use the male pronoun for simplicity’s sake, it could very well be a woman—would have wanted to poison the soup as close to the lunch break of the victim as possible. Elizabeth Dalton worked as a secretary at an insurance company. She would have taken her break at the same time every single day, so as to not upset the routine of the office. The killer would have known this, and been able to slip the poison into the stew just before she went on break.”

  I looked at Violet with a combination of exasperation and awe. She had figured that out just from the regular police report outlining the most basic facets of a person’s existence. It was incredibly impressive, but I also wondered what on earth we were doing here then.

  “Well then why are we here?” I asked. “If you already know.”

  “I made an appointment to meet with Elizabeth Dalton’s boss. I want to look through her things before the police get around to it and ruin it all. You have ten minutes to finish eating your waffles.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell the police what you know?”

  “I’ve already told them. They still believe it was a random serial killer. DCI Williams will eventually come around to my way of thinking; he is smarter than the others. But for now he can chase his ghost, and we get the opportunity to do some investigation without the police getting in the way.”

  I had to smile at Violet’s calm air of arrogance. It suited her somehow, the way she didn’t say it to be boastful, she just said it as, well, a fact. And to be honest, I was hard pressed to disagree with what I’d seen so far. Everything she’d said up until now had made perfect sense.

  Finishing up my waffles and smoothie, I had to admit that perhaps the vegan food wasn’t as scary as I thought. I also secretly promised myself though that I’d get the greasiest slice of pizza I could find for lunch. Then, the two of us made our way to the offices of Enderby Insurance.

  Their offices were on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth floors of a large glass tower that screamed modern. Violet introduced us to the guard at the bottom of the tower, who eyed her shirt with a look of distrust, but eventually let us through to the elevators where we made our way upstairs. I was about to be involved in my first murder mystery interview. Despite myself, I was actually a little bit excited. And scared. Definitely scared. After all, what if we were about to meet someone who was secretly a murderer? As the high-speed elevator rushed us up to the twelfth floor, where Elizabeth worked, I couldn’t help but feel the butterflies in my stomach weren’t just from the speed of the elevator.

  Chapter 5

  We walked out into an office that looked like it came straight out of a company’s annual report. High ceilings and glass windows went from the floor to ceiling and showed off a million-dollar view of the London skyline—I could see the London Eye, the big famous Ferris wheel, in the distance. Fake potted plants dotted the walls—good fakes, along with modern art that did absolutely nothing for me but that I was sure would have cost more than my entire tuition at Stanford. Men and women in suits scurried efficiently from one side of the office to the other, through a network of glass doors that led to offices and cubicles where I assumed all the business was done. To one side was a receptionist’s desk, staffed by a young blonde woman who typed away at a keyboard at a rate that surely couldn’t be human while speaking to someone on the phone through her headset.

  Violet looked casually around the room, but I knew better now. I knew she saw everything, and I couldn’t help but try and copy the way she thought about things. I looked at one of the fake plants and tried to see if there was anything about it that could give me a clue as to the office. I quickly decided no. Perhaps trying on a live subject would be easier. The receptionist. She was left handed! There! That was something, wasn’t it?

  Before I had a chance to test my skills further, the woman finished her phone call and looked over at us.

  “Good morning,” she greeted us with a polite smile. She had a high English accent, the same sort as the Queen. She wore a name badge reading “Michaela”.

  “Hello. Violet Despuis, I called earlier. I’m here to look at the desk of Elizabeth Dalton.”

  The receptionist’s smile immediately fell and was replaced with a look of remorse. “Of course. Poor Lizzie. She was such a nice woman. A bit like a mother to the rest of us girls in reception. Here, let me show you her desk. You’ll be wanting to speak with her boss, Leonard Browning, of course. He’ll be ready to see you at quarter to ten.”

  The receptionist led us down a long hallway and into a small office. It was sparsely decorated, with a single framed photo from what looked to be the eighties of a blonde woman standing on a beach with a man. He had his arm around her waist while she laughed, trying to hold her hair back in the wind.

  “Her husband,” the receptionist told me, noticing my gaze on the photo. “He died in a work accident sometime in the nineties. She never remarried.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “What was she like, Elizabeth?”

  “Oh, Lizzie was a good person. She liked a little bit of gossip, but then, who doesn’t? But if you ever had something important, you could always go to Lizzie. When Annie’s landlord decided to mess about with her rent last year, it was Lizzie who told her what to do. She was that kind of woman. Very motherly toward us girls. If there was ever any problem, she would help to solve it. She was always asking how we were. Sometimes she’d even bring in cakes from home.”

  “Has anyone touched Annie’s computer since she was killed?” Violet asked, motioning to the desktop sitting in the middle of the desk. The receptionist shook her head.

  “No, definitely not. As soon as we found out, Mr. Browning locked her office and told everyone to leave everything as it was until the police got here.”

  “Good.”

  I thanked the receptionist, and she smiled at us and left. Looking around the office, I figured Violet would have her work cut out for her. This was the most impersonal space I’d ever seen, really. Apart from the photo, and a small potted plant sitting on the corner of the desk, there was barely anything here that said anything about Elizabeth Dalton and the kind of person she was, or who might have wanted her dead.

  I ended up mostly standing in the corner, watching as Violet took a portable hard drive from her purse and copied everything from Elizabeth’s computer, then she carefully looked around, like she was looking for something.

  “Do you notice anything weird?” Violet asked.

  I spent about two minutes doing my best to look around and see what Violet was talking about, but eventually I had to admit I was at a loss. “No. There’s nothing here to see. It’s a very plain office.”

  “Exactement. Think of how the receptionist described Elizabeth. Warm. Friendly. She referred to her by a friendly nickname. She brought cakes to the office. By all accounts this place should be covered in horrid knitted cozies and third rate attempts at Pinterest projects. Instead, it is as sterile as an operating theater.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked Violet, but she shook her head.

  “No idea. But it is interesting to note all the same. You never quite know what’s going to be important in a case, but you always have to pay attention to it.”

  About ten minutes later the receptionist came back and led us into the office next door. It was huge; Elizabeth Dalton had obviously been the secretary for one of the firm’s head honchos. Decorated as a modern professional’s office, it was just as personality-free as Elizabeth’s office. The man who got up from the desk to greet us was tall, probably in his early forties if I had to guess. He still had a full head of blond hair, a smile so white that I was sure he got his teeth bleached regularly, and a suit that screamed Italian. I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed fairly cheerful for a man whose receptionist had just been brutally murdered, but then, perhaps, that was business.<
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  On his desk was a single personal touch—a posed family portrait. He had his arm around a pretty dark haired woman who must have been his wife, and three young children—two boys and a girl, all completely blonde, stood smiling in front of them.

  “Hello,” he said, looking at the two of us. I could tell from the extra glance he gave me that he thought I was Violet—the lack of drug inferences on my shirt made it far more likely that I was the one working for the police—but as the receptionist left, Violet held out a hand.

  “Violet Despuis, it’s nice to meet you,” she told the man.

  “Leonard Browning. But please, call me Leo. I’m the head of marketing here at Enderby Insurance.” He looked over at me questioningly.

  “This is my assistant, Cassie.” I fought the urge to scowl at Violet. Assistant? I definitely was not. Besides, she invited me here. Instead, I sat in one of the seats Leo motioned us toward and listened as he began to speak.

  “An absolute tragedy, of course. Elizabeth was a great employee. She had been with the firm for two years and I worked quite closely with her. She was efficient, she was diligent, and she will be missed. If there’s anything I can do to help find this serial killer, please, I’m more than happy. But I don’t know how I can help.”

  “You think she was killed by a serial killer?” Violet asked, her gaze focused steadily on Leo. He started in surprise.

  “Well yes, isn’t that the case? It’s what all the papers have been saying.”

  “No, Mr. Browning,” Violet said, leaning forward carefully. “Elizabeth was definitely, deliberately murdered.”

  The man inhaled sharply, then regained his composure.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. But I’m afraid I have no idea who could have done it. I’m afraid that outside of work, I didn’t really know Elizabeth that well.”

  “Who was the one who ordered no one to touch anything in Elizabeth’s office?”

  “That was me. I locked it as soon as I found out.”