Rat Poison by Margaret Duffy

noticed until then that they were carrying them. I ran myself then, I promise you.’
    â€˜Can you describe them at all?’
    â€˜The first ones looked a bit sort of foreign, but street lights make people look different, don’t they? I didn’t see the faces of the ones behind them.’
    â€˜Foreign in what way?’
    â€˜Well, sort of quite short and dark-haired. Curly hair. I don’t mean they were black, mind. More like gypsies really.’
    I wrote HUGGINS followed by a question mark in my notebook.
    â€˜That’s all really,’ Mrs Stonelake said. ‘Only that I ran and ran and at least two of them were behind me all the way down Stall Street into Southgate. A couple might have gone somewhere else. Someone was laughing. Then they must have fired at me for I fell down. I didn’t feel anything straight away so I thought I’d just tripped. I played dead and that’s all I remember until I woke up here. They won’t come after me again if they find out I’ve talked to you, will they?’ Her lips quivered.
    Carrick put a hand on her shoulder. ‘No, no chance. There’s an armed police officer just outside the ward at all times. Is there anything at all that you want to add – even if it seems unimportant to you?’
    â€˜No, I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Was there any traffic?’ I asked. ‘Cars whose drivers were trying to get out of the way, for example?’
    â€˜No, at least  . . . Yes, that’s right, I remember now. I did glimpse some cars but they’d stopped at the top of the road, from where the men had come. They were too far away to see exactly what they were, though.’
    â€˜And of course lower down it’s a pedestrian precinct,’ Carrick said.
    â€˜Yes, but they drove down that,’ I reminded him.
    â€˜So they did.’
    â€˜Oh, yes!’ Mrs Stonelake exclaimed. ‘That’s right, I did see some cars around Southgate. And there was a big car parked without lights.’
    â€˜Something like a Rolls-Royce?’
    â€˜Not quite as big and posh as those.’
    â€˜Where was it exactly? Can you remember?’
    â€˜Near the bottom where I was hit.’
    â€˜Was anyone sitting in it?’
    â€˜I didn’t notice.’
    â€˜What colour was it?’
    â€˜Very dark. Black, probably. Yes, that’s right, the windows looked dark too – dark glass so I don’t suppose I would have been able to see anyone in it. Now you’ve reminded me I remember thinking it might be the mayor’s or somebody like that, waiting to pick him up from a do.’
    â€˜And it’s silly to ask if you noticed any of the registration.’
    Another wan smile. ‘No, sorry, I didn’t.’
    Carrick said, ‘Do you think you might be able to recognize any of the men if, when you’re better, you looked at some photographs?’ He did not add that included those of the dead, the bodies carefully made more or less presentable by the mortuary assistants.
    â€˜I wouldn’t have thought so,’ Mrs Stonelake said dubiously. ‘I suppose I could always try. But I’d be worried I’d get people into trouble if I picked out the wrong ones.’
    â€˜That’s my responsibility,’ Carrick assured her. ‘And we don’t arrest people without good reason.’
    Well, not for most of the time, I thought.
    We left, Carrick giving her his card should she recollect anything further.
    That afternoon there was a meeting designed to create a progress report. It proved to be a depressing experience. The first thing to emerge was that no evidence had been found to connect Adam Trelonic with the shootings even though there was no satisfactory explanation as to why he was in the city centre at that time of night. His wife still maintained that she had no idea why he had been there – but surely, I thought, a woman would know if her husband had