Poison in Paddington Read online

  “Good,” Violet replied with a curt nod.

  Leo looked over at me. “I’m sorry, you said she’s your assistant, but she’s not taking any notes or anything?” he asked, confused.

  “She’s a really terrible assistant,” Violet replied, completely deadpan. I had no idea if she was kidding, or what, but, this was definitely awkward.

  “I’m afraid I’ve just forgotten my pen,” I said, pulling out the little moleskin notebook I always kept in my purse just in case—a habit I started back in undergrad—and giving Leo Browning a bit of an embarrassed look.

  He looked at me like I really was the worst assistant ever, then passed me a cheap pen that had the Virgin Money logo on it. It seemed even the head of marketing departments weren’t past stealing pens from their local bank.

  Violet asked another question. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to murder Elizabeth?”

  Leo got the hint and dropped the topic of me. “Oh goodness me, no. It certainly couldn’t have been anyone working here. She was an excellent worker, and as far as I know she didn’t do much socialising with people from here outside the office. It must have been someone in her personal life, and I’m afraid I know nothing about it at all.”

  “So you do not know of any disagreements between herself and anyone else in the office?”

  “Nothing of the sort, no.”

  “Did she work on anything that could have been considered sensitive?”

  “Of course not. She was only a secretary. She handled most of my correspondence. And to be quite honest, I highly doubt any of our competition would be murdering anybody simply to discover what rates we pay to put our ads on television, or for the design of our latest tube ad.”

  Violet nodded. “Yes, of course.” I scribbled the answers on my little notepad as fast as I could, but honestly, I didn’t feel like Leo Browning was giving us any sort of meaningful information. It seemed like he knew very little about his secretary at all.

  “Do you know who she might have been close to in the office?” Violet asked, and Browning thought for a minute, then shook his head.

  “I’m afraid not. As far as I knew, she really didn’t do much socializing at all. She was a very diligent worker.”

  “All right, thank you for your time,” Violet replied, standing up and shaking his hand. I stood up as well and followed Violet as she strode out, feeling a little bit like a little duckling trying to keep up with its mother.

  “Your assistant?” I asked when we were back in the hallway, alone.

  “I like to practice lying to people. It makes me a better liar. You should do it as well; you are a terrible liar.”

  “That’s not true!” I protested.

  “It is. For example, I know you still hate cashew cream.”

  Damn. She had me there. “Fine. So you practice lying to people for fun?”

  “Not for fun. For practice. Everything takes practice. People who tell you they are naturally good liars; they are lying to you. It is not that they are naturally good at it; it is that they lie a lot. So you start small. When the lady at the supermarket asks you if you have plans for the day, you lie and make something up. The stakes are low. What does it matter? She will never know that you are lying, and she almost certainly does not care either. Then as you get more comfortable, you begin lying more often. Not when it matters. Not at first. But the more you practice, the better you get.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should laugh out loud, take Violet’s new lesson seriously, or call an insane asylum and tell them I had a new client for them. I was fairly certain the answer was a combination of all three, but before I could tell her that, we arrived back at the lobby of the Enderby Insurance offices, where the receptionist was happily speaking with DCI Williams, who had brought another detective along with him. As soon as he saw Violet, he frowned and came over to see us.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Doing your investigation for you, before the case gets so cold you never find your killer.” Violet replied. “If you think it is a serial killer, why are you at one of the victims’ workplace?” She smiled smugly, Violet must have known where this was going. DCI Williams ran his hand through his ginger hair, obviously a little bit embarrassed.

  “Yes, well, I had a bit of a chat with the Superintendent, and we decided that maybe there is something to this little theory of yours. So I’m here, and I sent a couple of the other guys to check out the other victims’ places, to see if we can maybe narrow it down and find out who the target was.”

  “You might as well call them off. You’re the only one doing important work. Elizabeth Dalton was your target.”

  “You cannot possibly know that.”

  “I can, and I do. But if you want to continue wasting your time, please do not let me stop you. God knows the men you sent elsewhere will almost certainly not get anything important there.”

  DCI Williams sighed. “Fine. I’ll call them off. Listen, after we’re done here we’re going to Dalton’s home, if you wanted to have a look around. I have a crew there already, and at the other homes. I suppose I should call them off as well.”

  “Sure. We’ll wait here until you’re done,” Violet said. DCI Williams looked over at me, and gave Violet a curious look, which she ignored. I was beginning to realize that being around Violet meant awkward moments abounded. I wasn’t sure if she understood the social convention was to explain why the random girl with the missing bike was hanging around with her, but she just chose to ignore it. Eventually, I broke in.

  “Violet invited me here,” I explained. “She thought my medical knowledge might come in handy.”

  “Ah,” DCI Williams replied, looking somehow even more confused than before. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”

  “What did he mean by that?” I asked Violet when he left.

  “DCI Williams is under the impression that I am not good with people.”

  “I wonder how he got that idea,” I muttered, almost to myself, then realized Violet heard, and was laughing just a little bit.

  “It is true; I am not the greatest at the social skills. But I am so good at other things that it does not matter, he has to put up with me all the same. As I must with him. Now, we go to the Dalton home. We will see what there is for us to discover there.”

  “Didn’t you just tell DCI Williams we would wait here for him?

  “He will know where we went. I have changed my mind. We will go now. Remember: when you simply say you have changed your mind, they cannot prove you lied in the first place.”

  Yeah, there was definitely a little bit of crazy in Violet Despuis.

  As we headed back down to the ground floor, I found myself actually interested in what we might manage to find at the Dalton residence.

  Chapter 6

  Elizabeth Dalton lived in a small one-bedroom apartment, just a ten-minute walk from where she worked. Violet and I walked to Crawford Street and found her address quite easily, a couple blocks west of Baker Street. She lived in a gorgeous Victorian-era building made of yellowish-orange brick, with wrought-iron balconies in every apartment leaning out over the street. The white framed windows had a gorgeous square pattern along the top, giving the building a super classy look. This place had to be expensive!

  “How much would a place like this cost?” I asked Violet.

  “Oh, probably around half a million pounds,” she replied, and my mouth dropped open.

  “Seriously? For a one bedroom?”

  “A one bedroom that’s just steps away from central London.”

  “How on earth could someone on a receptionist’s salary afford a tiny apartment worth half a million pounds?” I asked. That was like, three quarters of a million dollars!

  “I do not know. We will go and find out,” Violet said, leading me to the front door. Seeing as there were two marked police cars between a dark unmarked van that screamed cops despite obviously trying to do the opposite, it was safe to assume tha
t DCI Williams’ crew had in fact arrived first. We entered the building and walked up two flights of stairs, where all the commotion was happening. The door of the apartment that obviously belonged to Elizabeth was being guarded by a uniformed officer, and a nervous-looking fat man with squirrely eyes kept looking around.

  “Are you the building manager?” Violet asked the man.

  “Excuse me, miss, I’m afraid this is a police matter, you’re going to have to leave,” the uniformed officer told Violet.

  “I’m with the police,” Violet replied confidently.

  “Oh yes?” the man replied, looking her up and down. He must have been barely twenty. “Where are your credentials, then?”

  “Mon dieu,” she sighed. “You get on the phone with DCI Williams right now, you tell him Violet Despuis is here, and that she absolutely hates it when police stupidity gets in the way of her doing his job for him in a timely manner.”

  At the sound of her name, the man’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s no need for that, Miss Despuis. My apologies. Please, do as you wish!” The poor kid looked like he was terrified Violet was going to eat him alive, or something.

  “Now, where were we? Ah, yes. You are the building manager, are you not?” she asked the fat man again. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, and his eyes darted over to the officer, who nodded, before he answered.

  “Yes, madam. I mean, miss. Yes, I’m the manager here. Never had anything like this happen in any of my buildings before, you see? This is a classy part of London. People don’t usually get murdered around here.”

  “Well, relax, it’s not like she was murdered in your building.”

  “Yeah, well, I know that, don’t I? But all the same, having all these cops around. I’m not used to that sort of thing, see?”

  “I understand. I want you to answer a few questions for me though. Is that all right?”

  “Go on then, but I already answered a load for those other coppers.”

  “I need you to answer some more for me.”

  “Yeah, all right then, miss.”

  “First of all, how long had Elizabeth Dalton lived here?”

  “Ohh a long time, miss. The property belonged to her husband, his parents gave it to them as a wedding gift a number of years ago. When he died, I thought she might move. But in the end she stayed. A lonely lady, that one.”

  “So she isn’t the type to get a lot of visitors?”

  “Nah. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone come to her flat in at least six months. And even then, I’m fairly certain the visitor was a plumber or some sort.”

  “Do you know of any friends; anyone she was close to?” Violet asked, but the landlord shook his head sadly.

  “No, nothing like that. Quite sad, really. A nice lady like that, she should have had friends. She was always ready to lend a helping hand. Made me chicken soup last year when I had the flu, she did. But she liked to keep to herself. Never really opened up.”

  “Thank you,” Violet told him. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  “Yes?” Violet asked, turning back around to the man.

  “Please tell me you’re going to find the person who did this to her. A woman like that, she didn’t deserve that kind of end, you know?”

  “Of course I will find them,” Violet replied. I stared at her, shocked. Everyone knew you weren’t supposed to promise anyone results.

  “Why did you tell him that?” I asked her in a hushed tone.

  “Because it is true,” she replied.

  “Seriously? You’ve never failed before?” I asked, sceptically. At the same time, I remembered everything she’d told me about myself just the day before, and I started to think that maybe she wasn’t going to tell me that yes, she had failed.

  “I have failed,” she replied. “But it has been rare. Four times. Three killers, and one robber are free. And of the killers, I know who one of them is; I simply was never able to bring them to justice. The same with the robber.”

  “How many cases have you done?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “Several hundred. At least.”

  I let out a low whistle. Ok, she had a reason to be pretty confident. We walked past the officer guarding the door, who looked like he was trying to meld into the wall as Violet walked past him, and made our way into the little one-bedroom place.

  A half dozen police officers were scouring the place, searching, evidently, for anything that might lead to a motive for Elizabeth Dalton’s death. The apartment was entirely visible from the entrance where we were standing, and it was exactly what I’d expected. It was cozy, with old-style upholstery on the small couch. Chintzy little figurines adorned the mantelpiece above the gas fireplace, and a police officer rummaged through a bag of knitting needles and yarn sitting next to the couch.

  But for all her old-style decorating, Elizabeth Dalton was evidently a little bit of a big spender as well. A new iPad sat on the little side table on the other side of the couch, on a stand in front of it was a giant TV, at least fifty inches, with one of those slightly curved screens to give off that theater effect. A brand new KitchenAid sat on the counter in the small kitchen, and I spotted what I was fairly certain was a Prada handbag poking out from the bedroom.

  Before I got a chance to go in and have a look, however, I felt something at my feet. I looked down to find a little orange cat meowing at me. He raised a paw and tapped me on the leg, then meowed again. I looked around, but none of the police officers seemed to even notice him. I wondered if the poor thing had been here alone for two days now.

  “Ummm, I don’t know if anyone has fed the cat,” I told Violet, motioning down at him.

  “Awww, he’s a little cutie, isn’t he?” she said. She raised her voice. “Has anyone done anything to deal with the cat at all since Dalton’s death?”

  A murmur of negatives came flooding back from the cops.

  “You’re all a bunch of morons,” she suddenly added. “Just because you have one dead body to take care of doesn’t mean you can just leave the cat here to become a second victim.”

  “We don’t have time to deal with a cat,” one of the officers complained. “We have a murder to solve.”

  “Yes, Watkins, I’m sure you’re hot on the trail and definitely seconds away from finding the murderer as you continue to investigate the dirt on the floor that’s obviously come from your own shoes.”

  Watkins looked down and his face flushed red with embarrassment. I had to stifle a laugh, and instead picked up the cat, who happily leapt up onto my shoulder as I made my way into the kitchen. I took out a tissue and carefully opened the cabinet doors—I wasn’t sure what I was and wasn’t allowed to touch—and took out a plate and a can of cat food. The little cat jumped onto the counter and paced around the plate while I found a can opener, and as soon as I’d placed a little bit on the plate for him, he dug in like he hadn’t eaten in days, poor thing.

  I had never really been a cat person. I’d never been a pet person. We didn’t have the money to own one growing up, and obviously when I was in college, on top of having no money, that wasn’t exactly the right time to take on that kind of responsibility. Still, I felt a little tinge of guilt when the cat finished all his food and looked up at me, wanting more.

  “Sorry buddy, I don’t know anything about cats, but if you haven’t eaten in days it’s probably not a good idea to eat too much all at once,” I told him, daring to move over and rub his head. “Elizabeth didn’t mean to leave you here for a couple days without any food, little guy. I promise you that.”

  Violet was now looking around the apartment, walking from room to room, looking carefully at everything Elizabeth Dalton had owned. I filled up a bowl with water and left it for the cat, who began drinking happily, then followed her into the bedroom. Sure enough, it was a Prada purse on the ground. When Violet opened the closet, there was a Marc Jacobs and a Louis Vuitton there as well
.

  “Those are real, right?” I asked Violet. Having grown up in the Bay Area, I was pretty good at being able to tell a real designer bag from a fake. Both abounded all over San Francisco.

  “They certainly are,” she replied thoughtfully, fingering the clothes in the closet. I moved into the bathroom and had a look in the medicine cabinet. I checked the labels on the few bottles that were there: low dose oestrogen pills and bisphosphonates. Elizabeth Dalton had apparently hit menopause, and was likely beginning to suffer from osteoporosis. I said this to Violet, who had moved to the entrance of the bathroom and was looking around carefully.

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “Does it mean anything?” I asked, but she shrugged.

  “I do not know. I have an idea, right now. It is just that though, an idea. Not fully formed. We will discuss it later. So far, the medicines there do not fall in with my idea, but they do not have to. It is still too early to know for sure what is important and what is not.”

  We were suddenly interrupted by the little orange cat who had found me once again and sat down on my feet, looking up at me and meowing.

  “It seems he has found the person most likely to feed him, and is becoming attached,” Violet told me.

  “How do you know it’s a him?”

  “Nearly all orange cats are male. It is a genetic thing. For a female cat to be orange, she must inherit the orange gene from both parents, meaning that her mother must be orange, calico or tortoiseshell in color, and her father must be orange as well. For a male cat, however, the orange gene needs only to be inherited from the mother, as the color gene is on the X chromosome. Any male cat born to a mother who is orange, calico or tortoiseshell in color will be orange. Therefore, approximately eighty percent of orange cats are male.”

  “Huh. I didn’t know that. Well, little guy, maybe I can give you another tablespoon or so of food, if you promise not to puke it up everywhere.”

  “Also, if you lift his tail you will notice his sex organ is rounded, not a vertical slit like it would be in a female cat,” Violet continued. I was learning more than I’d ever thought I’d know about cats today.