out you can buy the stuff from Amazon. Brodifacoum, it’s called. I think that’s how you pronounce it. It’s an anticoagulant and the victim died from internal bleeding. The medical examiner noticed some blood in the chest cavity and that gave him the clue.’
Adam took a moment to digest the information. ‘Do you know when it was administered?’
Andrews shook his heavy head. ‘There were traces in the bottle of champagne at the scene, so that’s straightforward enough, and leaving the body in the orangery suggests an attempt to delay finding him. There was no key on him, by the way. Someone locked him in.’
Adam thought for a moment. ‘It’s easy enough for anyone to get into the hotel garden from the car park, which was full because of the funeral, so an alibi is going to be tricky.’
‘That’s an understatement.’
For the first time, DCI Andrews smiled. ‘It’s going to be a problem for the grieving widow, isn’t it? Champagne from her hotel. Easy enough for her to slip the poison in, at any time, and give it to her husband.’ He frowned. ‘Haven’t got a motive yet, but it shouldn’t take long to find one.’ He grinned, showing wolfish teeth, the first sign of informality. ‘It’s a miracle more people don’t finish off their husbands and wives, if you ask me.’
Adam asked, ‘Any detail on the time of death?’
‘Sometime on the day of the funeral. That’s the closest we can get at the moment. The grounds were closed off for the afternoon and the hotel guests given discounts on their bills. Clever move by that little manager. That explains why no one saw the body sooner.’
‘Very clever.’
Whose idea had that been. Emily’s or Imogen’s?
‘Did your men find anything useful at the scene?’
The detective looked at his watch, talking fast, as though he’d already wasted too much time. ‘Nothing to speak of. Grateful if you let me in on any of your famous bright ideas. Might be useful.’ He scowled, the brief moments of camaraderie over. ‘We’ll talk to Mrs Bishop again, soon.’
Adam watched him drive away, unsettled by the visit. Andrews seemed halfway to certainty that Imogen had killed her husband and keen for a rapid solution to the case. That was dangerous. Once an officer believed he’d found the killer it was difficult to maintain an open mind. Andrews’ ego might prove to be a problem.
Adam planned a morning away from The Plough. For a few hours, he’d forget about Imogen Bishop, the crazy nameless dog that had adopted him, and Gregory Bishop’s murder.
The sun shone and he had an appointment with his old friend, Henry, the owner of a Yeovil art gallery.
His own work would never merit gallery space, but Adam found relaxation wandering through Henry’s finds. Occasional paintings touched a chord with their beauty. More often, he shook his head in wonder at the weird art people bought. Where did they hang these things? Could they stare at vast slabs of colour while they ate without indigestion?
Give me a Turner or a Constable, any day.
Henry, ruthless with his buying mistakes, had told Adam he wanted to unload a job lot of unsaleable canvases currently cluttering up his storeroom.
‘I need the space. You can have ’em for peanuts. Cheaper than new canvases.’
Adam doubted that. Henry’s haggling was legendary.
There was one obstacle to Adam’s plan to visit the gallery. What should he do with this dog? He could hardly let it loose among Henry’s canvases. He cringed at the chaos his new friend could wreak.
What did proper dog owners do when they went to work? Wasn’t it cruel to leave an animal alone?
Racked with guilt, he ushered the dog into his sitting room, placing a bowlful of dog food on layers of old towels. ‘Twice the price of corned beef,’ he muttered. ‘Hope you enjoy it.’ He added a larger bowl of water. ‘You be good,’ he warned, without much hope. ‘I’ll be home soon.’
It was a mistake to look behind as he left. The dog’s tail twitched, his huge brown eyes pleaded, but Adam hardened his heart.
‘Stay,’ he commanded, closing the door.
Throughout his drive to the town, a new doggy smell filled Adam’s car, adding to the guilt. Amazing how fast a dog can infiltrate your life.
The hour in the gallery was meant to be an oasis of calm, far away from dead bodies, snooty police colleagues, and stray animals. The gallery owner, however, had other ideas.
Henry, corpulent, irrepressibly cheerful and expensively dressed, had heard of the ‘Murder in the Hotel’, as the newspapers had dubbed the death of Gregory Bishop. ‘Don’t you live in Lower Hembrow?’ he accused as Adam walked in. ‘Where people die in conservatories?’
Adam hesitated.
‘Come on, spill the beans. Any theories?’
‘Not yet. Probably an accident – drink and drugs, maybe. I’m retired, remember. It’s none of my business. I’m enjoying a quiet life.’
Henry peered into Adam’s face. ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘In that little backwater? I’ll give you six months and you’ll be longing for the city life. You’ll go stir crazy in that part of the world, where nothing ever happens.’
‘Apart from the occasional unexplained death?’
Henry laughed, jowls wobbling. ‘Apart from that. You never know, it could be a murder.’
‘Unlikely.’
Henry’s face fell. ‘Pity. I was hoping for some decent gossip to give the wife this evening. Otherwise, what are we going to talk about after forty years? EastEnders?’ He gave a theatrical shiver. ‘At least that Poldark’s finished. All the wife could talk about was the guy’s six-pack. At her age! And me with my party seven. Ha, ha.’ Henry slapped his stomach. ‘Now, I was going to sell you a few canvases at mates’ rates, that’s right, isn’t it?’
Adam scratched his head. ‘You tried the mates’ rates thing on me once before. I ended up paying over the odds. Let’s set a fair price, shall we?’
They haggled for a while, finally agreeing a price, toasting their success with a bottle of Wilkins cider.
‘Any masterpieces amongst this lot?’ Adam flicked through a dozen leaning against the wall. ‘Seriously, you couldn’t sell this?’ He picked up a canvas with two red squares set at jaunty angles.
‘Funnily enough, no. Here, wait a minute,’ Henry yanked out a large painting from the back of the pile. ‘I’d forgotten about this one. It’ll interest you.’
The painting was stylised. The bird’s-eye view, as though painted from the air, showed a series of small gardens, formally laid out in the Tudor style, with box hedges marking out geometric rectangles and circles. A straight, placid rill of water cut through from top to bottom,
