She also knew her plants and their properties. She had monkshood in the garden, a thriving clump that grew waist high and produced pretty purple flowers in May and June, and she knew of its reputation. In the medical centre where she worked she'd checked the book they kept for emergencies: The Dangerous Plants of Britain.
Aconkum napellus, the source of aconitine, also known as monkshood, wolfsbane, leopard's bane, women's bane, blue rocket and devil's helmet, is without doubt the most poisonous plant in Britain. Every part of it, the flower, the leaves, the stems, the roots, is potentially deadly. As little as one-fiftieth of a grain has been known to cause death, and one-tenth is certain to prove fatal.
Significantly, though, only one case of murder by aconitine was listed, and that was from over a century before, a Dr. Lam-son who had foolishly given himself away by buying the stuff from a chemist. Surely if the plant was so deadly and so common in gardens, it must have been used on other occasions. If so, it had not been detected in a hundred years.
Apparently Dr. Thomas Stevenson, a leading Victorian toxicologist, was giving evidence in a murder case when he was asked if he knew of any poison that was undetectable. He answered, "There is only one that I can recall and that is-" "Stop!" cried the judge. "The public must never hear of it." That poison, Stevenson later disclosed in a lecture to medical students, was aconitine, the extract of aconite.
Rachel's decision to do away with Gary had been quickened by opportunity. He'd asked for a curry worthy of the name. So he got it.
The blue rocket.
She'd used the tubers of a rootstock of monkshood from the garden, chopping them like any root vegetable and adding them to the curry before she put it in to warm. The only difference from horse-radish root was that it slowly turned red when cut, rather than staying white. At first he wouldn't have been troubled by the tingling and burning sensation in the mouth characteristic of aconite. What else does one expect from a good, strong curry?
He'd gone through some of the symptoms before she got home from the harvest supper, yet it had still been a terrible test of her nerve watching him in dire pain losing his faculties while she tried to judge the exact moment to call Dr. Perkins. Gary had to be alive when the doctor came, yet beyond medical help. She'd timed it right, thank God. The last symptoms of aconite poisoning, after hours of pains and nausea, are loss of speech, impairment of vision and convulsions-readily diagnosed as a heart attack. In fact, the cause of death is cardiac failure resulting from paralysis of the centres in the brain. Dr. Perkins didn't know anything about aconite poisoning, but he could recognise a heart attack, and he was dealing with one by the time he was called to Gary. Poisoning didn't cross the old doctor's mind. Why should it have? You don't expect a poisoner to call the doctor to her victim.
But of course it had been necessary to have a physician attend him, make the diagnosis and, crucially, sign the certificate.
She had jamazed herself by her self-control. Now it was all over she couldn't believe she had done it, murdered her own husband and watched him die. Was this really the woman who prayed in church each Sunday and went round the village collecting for Christian Aid? She dreaded her own symptoms now: the numbness wearing off and the full horror flooding in. There was going to be a reaction soon. Her personal hell.
She forced herself to concentrate on practicalities.
How will I live with what I have done?
A term of mourning-or what appeared as mourning-would follow. Respect was more accurate. Not respect for Gary, but for the conventions of village life. A widow didn't have to drape herself in black these days, but some show of solemnity was wanted, whatever her private feelings.
What a change in her life. No more fun with the Frome Troupers. All those weeks of learning her part and rehearsing There Goes the Bride had gone out of the window.
The months to come had to be endured. Low key. Smiles but no laughs. The one consolation would be the visits from Otis. The beauty of it was that he would come openly, in his capacity as priest, doing his duty, comforting the bereaved.
She craved his comfort.
And in time, maybe as soon as the spring of next year, she and Otis could begin to be seen together at village events. She didn't want to wait much longer just to satisfy decorum. This was her life ticking away. Why waste so much of it for fear of a few mean-minded gossips who would say she'd hardly seen one husband off before she was taking up with the rector? They'd say the same if she waited till the autumn, or the year after. Some people were like that. Their disapproval had to be faced.
She warmed the teapot and put in some dried camomile. Camomile tea is a great calmer. She'd harvested it from the garden a long time ago. Gary had never cared for it. He'd often told her he didn't trust her country remedies. She smiled at the memory.
While the camomile was infusing she switched her thoughts to Otis.
He had come looking for her as soon as he reached the cottage after the burial and she could recall their short conversation with total accuracy.
"Can't stay long, I'm afraid. Just want to say how bravely you coped today."
"Everyone is helping me."
"Yes, but none of us had any idea what a huge event it would turn out to be."
"Don't I know it."
"You're almost certain to feel a reaction later, and I'm going to help you through it. Count on me, Rachel. Call me any time. I'll come and see you anyway, but you may want to pick up the phone. Day or night, don't hesitate."
"Thanks."
His eyes locked with hers and she was certain they conveyed much more.
Here she was then, at almost one a.m., extremely tempted to call him, yet resisting. She didn't trust herself in this state. She might blurt out everything. She was going to have to button her lip. Of all things, she didn't want Otis finding out that she had committed murder.
So she drank the camomile tea and tried listening to the radio for a bit, thinking she'd get a sense of what else had happened in the world while she had been so preoccupied, bring some balance back into her thoughts. Much earlier, some of the television programmes would have reported the funeral, the perfect off-beat item to finish the newscast. "And finally, a funeral with a difference. When the Wiltshire village of Foxford took leave of jazz enthusiast Gary Jansen earlier today, it did so in New Orleans style, and hundreds came to see it."
She'd missed all that, and she wasn't sorry. The radio was more serious in tone-a dramatic fall in share prices, more evidence of global warming, a plane missing somewhere and a drugs find in a yacht off the south coast. The world moved on, and she was just an insignificant part of it, calmer now and ready-she hoped-for sleep.
Fourteen
Rachel spent the morning answering letters of condolence and the afternoon in the garden uprooting things. She was glad she had so much to do out there. The physical work shut out unwanted thoughts and she would get better sleep that night after all the digging. She had decided to clear the jungle around the pond and, as always, each job took longer than she expected. For obvious reasons, the monkshood had to go, but it was a struggle. The root system was well established and went deeper than she expected.