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She opened her mouth to ask for a coffee but clamped her jaw shut again quick as her stomach protested to consuming anything from the garden centre cafe.
“I’m fine, thanks,” she said and moved to the nearest table.
“What can I help you with?” Arthur asked, his body altogether too large for the chair he lowered himself onto. “Is it houseplants that you’re after?”
“I actually just wanted to ask you some general questions about plants.” She smiled sweetly. “I saw you have a blog.”
He tilted his head and looked faintly amused. “Who told you that? It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“I found it fascinating,” Lily said, hoping a bit of flattery would put him at ease.
“Thank you. I enjoy working on it, and people tell me they enjoy reading the posts.”
“I’m sure they do. The thing is, I saw you’d written quite a lot about poisonous plants…”
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” He jutted his chin out. “Do you know what amazes me? So many plants have both medicinal and harmful properties. The same plant that could save a life could also kill someone. Isn’t nature incredible?”
“It is,” Lily agreed quietly. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there have been some cases of poisoning on the island?”
“Something in those welcome baskets?” He nodded sagely. “Everyone has been talking about it. I’m sure whoever gave out the gifts must feel awful. They tried to do a good deed and accidentally made people ill.”
“I’m not sure it was an accident,” Lily said.
Arthur frowned. “I heard that some of the food in the baskets was out of date, or had gone bad or something?”
“No one knows for sure what happened. But it’s a possibility that someone intentionally poisoned people.” She waited for him to figure out that she suspected him, but he just stared blankly at the tabletop.
“Who would do something like that?” he asked.
“That’s what I’d like to find out. I noticed in your blog posts that you listed a lot of the plants which could bring on the sort of symptoms the recipients of the baskets had.”
“What kinds of symptoms?” Arthur asked.
“Stomach issues, headaches, dizziness…”
“I just assumed the food in the basket had gone bad,” Arthur mused. “But if someone wanted to poison people, it can easily be done using plants.”
“How would someone go about it?” Lily probed.
“Chop the plant up and add it to the food,” he said with a shrug. “Or add some poisonous berries to the food… it really wouldn’t be difficult.”
“What about tea?” Lily asked. “Could you make a tea which makes people ill?”
“Of course. Dry out the plant and grind it up. Add it to some herbs to cover the flavour, and bob’s your uncle, as they say.” His brow furrowed as he looked at Lily.
“The same could be done with seasoning,” Lily mused. “Like a bag of mixed herbs…” Just like in the welcome baskets.
Arthur nodded. “I don’t know why anyone would do that, though.”
“The recipients of the baskets were all newcomers to the island. The theory is that someone has an issue with people moving to the islands and taking job opportunities away from people who’ve been here for longer.”
“Oh, yes.” Arthur did his slow nodding again. “I’ve heard people talking about that.”
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? That you don’t like newcomers taking the jobs?”
“No.” His lips pulled downwards. “I like it when new people come to the islands.”
“What about this review…” Lily unlocked her phone and brought up the review for the restaurant. “I believe you wrote this?”