Not Safe After Dark by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online Page A

twice in the
same place.
    Quilley stood on the corner of Bloor and Avenue Road among the camera-clicking tourists and watched Peplow walk off towards the St George subway station. Now that their meeting was over and the
spell was broken, he wondered again what the hell he was doing helping this pathetic little man. It certainly wasn’t altruism. Perhaps the challenge appealed to him; after all, people climb
mountains just because they’re there.
    And then there was Peplow’s mystery collection. There was just a chance that it might contain an item of great interest to Quilley and that Peplow might be grateful enough to part with
it.
    Wondering how to approach the subject at their next meeting, Quilley wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and walked towards the bookshop.
    •
    Atropine, hyoscyamine, belladonna . . . Quilley flipped through Dreisbach’s Handbook of Poisoning one evening at the cottage. Poison seemed to have gone out
of fashion these days, and he had only used it in one of his novels, about six years ago. That had been the old standby, cyanide, with its familiar smell of bitter almonds, which he had so often
read about but never experienced. The small black handbook had sat on his shelf gathering dust ever since.
    Writing a book, of course, one could generally skip over the problems of acquiring the stuff – give the killer a job as a pharmacist or in a hospital dispensary, for example. In real life,
getting one’s hands on poison might prove more difficult.
    So far, he had read through the sections on agricultural poisons, household hazards and medicinal poisons. The problem was that whatever Peplow used had to be easily available. Prescription
drugs were out. Even if Peplow could persuade a doctor to give him barbiturates, for example, the prescription would be on record and any death in the household would be regarded as suspicious.
Barbiturates wouldn’t do, anyway, and nor would such common products as paint thinner, insecticides and weed killers – they didn’t reproduce the symptoms of a heart attack.
    Near the back of the book was a list of poisonous plants that shocked Quilley by its sheer length. He hadn’t known just how much deadliness there was lurking in fields, gardens and woods.
Rhubarb leaves contained oxalic acid, for example, and caused nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. The bark, wood, leaves or seeds of the yew had a similar effect. Boxwood leaves and twigs caused
convulsions; celandine could bring about a coma; hydrangeas contained cyanide; and laburnums brought on irregular pulse, delirium, twitching and unconsciousness. And so the list went on –
lupins, mistletoe, sweet peas, rhododendron – a poisoner’s delight. Even the beautiful poinsettia, which brightened up so many Toronto homes each Christmas, could cause gastroenteritis.
Most of these plants were easy to get hold of, and in many cases the active ingredients could be extracted simply by soaking or boiling in water.
    It wasn’t long before Quilley found what he was looking for. Beside ‘Oleander’ the note read, ‘See digitalis , 374.’ And there it was, set out in detail.
Digitalis occurred in all parts of the common foxglove, which grew on waste ground and woodland slopes, and flowered from June to September. Acute poisoning would bring about death from ventricular
fibrillation. No doctor would consider an autopsy if Peplow’s wife appeared to die of a heart attack, given her habits, especially if Peplow fed her a few smaller doses first to establish the
symptoms.
    Quilley set aside the book. It was already dark outside, and the downpour that the humid, cloudy day had been promising had just begun. Rain slapped against the asphalt roof tiles, gurgled down
the drainpipe and pattered on the leaves of the overhanging trees. In the background, it hissed as it fell on the lake. Distant flashes of lightning and deep rumblings of thunder warned of the
coming storm.
    Happy with his