Troubled Blood

“I assume you kept the obituaries?”

She got slowly up from the sofa, and Strike heard her knees click as she walked toward the china cabinet in the corner which housed most of her cheap spun-glass ornaments, and knelt down, again steadying herself with one hand on the mantelpiece. But now, instead of one folder, she tugged two out of the drawer in the base of the cabinet, and Strike remembered how she’d shifted things around in the drawer last time, doubtless removing those things she didn’t want him to see.

“That one,” she said, showing him the fatter of the two folders, “is all the stuff about Margot. I cut out everyfing I could find. Needed a second folder for all ’er clippings…”

She opened the thinner folder, which was the one Strike had seen before, and extracted an old work newsletter headed Hickson & Co. The blonde’s color photograph featured prominently at the top.

“Clare Martin,” said Janice. “’Eavy drinker, she was. ‘Accidental overdose’… liver failure. I knew she was taking too many paracetamol for ’er endometriosis, I watched ’er doing it. Me and Larry ’ad a bunch of people over to the ’ouse. They fort I was stupid. Eye contact between ’em all night long. Thick as mince, the pair of ’em. I was mixing drinks. Every cocktail I gave ’er was ’alf liquid paracetamol. She died eight days later…

“And there’s Larry’s,” she said indifferently, holding up a second newsletter from Hickson & Co.

“I waited six, seven monfs. That was easy. ’E was a walkin’ timebomb, Larry, the doctors ’ad warned ’im, ’is ’eart was wrecked. Pseudoephedrine, that was. They never even checked ’im for drugs in ’is system. They knew what it was: smoking and eating like a pig. Nobody looked further than ’is dodgy ticker…”

Strike detected not the slightest sign of remorse as she shuffled the obituaries of her victims as though they were so many knitting patterns. Her fingers trembled, but Strike thought that was down to shock, not shame. Mere minutes ago she’d thought of suicide. Perhaps that cool and clever brain was working very hard beneath the apparently frank surface, and Strike suddenly reached out and removed the drugged chocolates from the table beside Janice, and put them down on the floor beside his chair. Her eyes followed them, and he was sure he’d been right to suspect she was thinking of eating them. Now he leaned forwards again and picked up the old yellow clipping he’d examined last time, showing little Johnny Marks from Bethnal Green.

“He was your first, was he?”

Janice took a deep breath and exhaled. A couple of the cuttings fluttered.

“Yeah,” she said heavily. “Pesticide. You could get all sorts in them days, buy it over the counter. Organophosphates. I fancied ’im something rotten, Johnny Marks, but ’e made fun of me. Yeah, so they fort it was peritonitis and ’e died. It’s true the doctor didn’t turn up, mind. People didn’t care, when it was kids from a slum… That was a bad death, ’e ’ad. I was allowed to go in and look at ’im, after ’e died. I give ’im a little kiss on the cheek,” said Janice. “’E couldn’t stop me then, could ’e? Shouldn’t of made fun of me.”

“Marks,” said Strike, examining the clipping, “gave you the idea for Spencer, right? It was the name that first connected her with you, but I should’ve twigged when Clare phoned me back so promptly. Social workers never do that. Too overworked.”

“Huh,” said Janice, and she almost smiled. “Yeah. That’s where I got the name: Clare Martin and Johnny Marks.”

“You didn’t keep Brenner’s obituary, did you?”

“No,” said Janice.

“Because you didn’t kill him?”

“No. ’E died of old age somewhere in Devon. I never even read ’is obituary, but I ’ad to come up wiv somefing, didn’t I, when you asked for it? So I said Oakden took it.”

She was probably the most accomplished liar Strike had ever met. Her ability to come up with falsehoods at a moment’s notice, and the way she interwove her plausible lies with truth, never attempting too much, and delivering everything with such an air of authenticity and honesty, placed her in a class apart.

“Was Brenner really addicted to barbiturates?”

“No,” said Janice.

She was shuffling the obituaries back into their folder now, and Strike spotted the clipping about holy basil, on the reverse of which was Joanna Hammond’s death notice.

“No,” she repeated, as she put the obituaries back into her bottom drawer and closed it, as though it mattered any more whether she tidied these things away, as though they wouldn’t soon be used in evidence against her. Knees clicking, she got slowly to her feet again, and returned to the sofa.

“I was getting Brenner to sign for drugs for me,” she said. “’E fort I was selling them on the street, dopey old sod.”

“How did you persuade him to over-order drugs? Blackmail?”

“S’pose you’d call it that, yeah,” she said. “I found out ’e was going to see a prostitute locally. One of ’er kids told me Brenner was visiting ’er once a week. I fort, right, I’ll get you, you dirty old bastard. ’E was coming up for retirement. I knew ’e didn’t want to end ’is career in disgrace. I went in to see ’im one day in his consulting room and told ’im I knew. ’E nearly ’ad an ’eart attack,” said Janice, with a malicious smile. “I told ’im I knew ’ow to keep me mouf shut, and then I asked ’im to get me some drugs. ’E signed like a lamb. I was using stuff Brenner got me for years, after.”

“The prostitute was Betty Fuller, right?

“Yeah,” said Janice. “I fort you’d find that out.”

“Did Brenner really assault Deborah Athorn?”

“No. ’E checked ’er stitches after she had Samhain, that’s all.”

“Why did Clare Spencer tell me that story? Just blowing a bit more smoke around?”

Janice shrugged.

“I dunno. I fort maybe you’d fink Brenner was a sex pest and Margot found out ’e was fiddling with patients.”

“Was there ever really an Amytal capsule in Brenner’s mug?”

“No,” said Janice. “It was in Irene’s mug… that was stupid,” she said, her pink and white brow furrowed. The wide blue eyes drifted over her wall of victims’ photographs, to the window and back to Strike. “I shouldn’t of done that. Sometimes I sailed a bit close to the wind. Took silly risks. Irene was pissing me off one day on reception, flirting wiv—just flirting,” said Janice, “so I took ’er a mug of tea wiv a couple of capsules in it. She talks till you could throttle ’er, I just wanted ’er to shut the hell up for a bit. But she let it go cold…

“I was sort of glad, after I’d calmed down. I got the mug and took it out the back to wash up, but Margot come creepin’ up behind me in ’er flat shoes. I tried to ’ide it, but she saw.

“I fort she’d go tellin’ tales, so I ’ad to get in first. I went straight to Dr. Gupta and said I’d found a capsule in Dr. Brenner’s tea, and told ’im I fort ’e was over-ordering drugs and was addicted. What else could I do? Gupta was a nice man but he was a coward. Bit scared of Brenner. I fort ’e probably wouldn’t confront ’im, and ’e didn’t, but honestly, I knew even if ’e ’ad, Brenner would rather pretend to be an addict than risk me tellin’ anyone about a ’is dirty little fing wiv Betty Fuller.”

“And was Margot really worried about how Dorothy Oakden’s mother died?”

“No,” said Janice again. “But I ’ad to tell you somefing, didn’t I?”

“You’re a genius of misdirection,” said Strike, and Janice turned slightly pink.

“I’ve always been clever,” she mumbled, “but that don’t ’elp a woman. It’s better to be pretty. You ’ave a better life if you’re good-looking. Men always went for Irene, not me. She talked shit all night long, but they liked ’er better. I wasn’t bad-looking… I just didn’t ’ave what men liked.”

“When we first met the two of you,” said Strike, ignoring this, “I thought Irene might’ve wanted you interviewed together to make sure you didn’t spill her secrets, but it was the other way round, wasn’t it? You wanted to be there to control what she said.”

“Yeah, well,” said Janice, with another sigh, “I didn’t do that well, did I? She was blabbing left, right and center.”

“Tell me, did Charlie Ramage really see a missing woman in Leamington Spa?”

“No. I just needed to give you somefing to fink about instead of Margot prodding Kev in the tummy. Charlie Ramage told me ’e saw Mary Flanagan in a country churchyard in… Worcestershire somewhere, I fink it was. I knew nobody could say no diff’rent, I knew ’e was dead and I knew ’e talked such bollocks, nobody round ’im would remember one more tall story.”

“Was the mention of Leamington Spa supposed to nudge me toward Irene and Satchwell?”

“Yeah,” said Janice.

“Did you put drugs in Wilma Bayliss’s Thermos? Is that why she seemed drunk to people at the surgery?”

“I did, yeah.”

“Why?”