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‘Who prescribes this?’

‘I order it online.’

‘Your GP prescribed it first, though?’

‘She did. Although she suggested I try Slimming World instead.’

‘You refused?’ he said. ‘Went straight to the easy solution.’

‘You’re bloody right I did. Can you imagine what the papers would have said?’

‘Where do you collect your prescription?’

‘I tick the home delivery box and a couple of days later they pop through my letterbox. No idea who delivers them.’

‘When did you last take one?’

Poe doubted it was her medication – ricin worked quickly and she still looked annoyingly healthy.

‘I had one after my evening meal.’

‘And you’re feeling OK?’

‘You think it’s my pills?’

‘If it was, you’d be in a coma by now.’

‘You really need to work on your bedside mann—’

Poe’s phone rang. It was Flynn.

‘You still alive in there?’

‘Hanging on.’

‘And how’s KRC?’

‘Still annoying.’

‘I have good news,’ Flynn said. ‘Chief Superintendent Mathers has come through. She’s got that idiot a bed in the Royal Free Hospital’s high-level isolation unit. They usually treat viral haemorrhagic fever but Mathers convinced the consultant there’s a genuine public safety risk. She’ll be put into a specially designed tent with controlled ventilation. Staff from the infectious diseases unit will provide her care.’

‘Great idea. Cummings and Hunt must have ingested their poisons while at home, we just haven’t figured out how. The safest way to do this is to take heroutof her home andintoan environment we can control.’

‘That’s almost word for word what Mathers said. An ambulance will collect her. Both the paramedic and the driver will be cops.’

‘Why?’

‘There hasn’t been time to vet anyone.’

‘Clever,’ Poe said. ‘She securing the ward with cops?’

‘She is. She’s already lost an MP so she’s not skimping. We all need to change our clothes and go through a hazmat wash, but after that we’ll meet Mathers in the command post she’s set up in the isolation unit.’

Poe couldn’t think of anything more that could be done. If the Botanist managed to get to Karen Royal-Cross in an isolation ward surrounded by cops then he reckoned they’d have to call in a Catholic priest – the only remaining explanation would be that a ghost did it.

‘What’s happening?’ Karen Royal-Cross asked after he had hung up.

Poe flashed her an evil grin. ‘Have you ever seen theSeinfeldepisode “The Bubble Boy”?’

‘I have, actually.’

‘Good, because you’re about to star in the British version.’