Page 325 of Troubled Blood

A subtle change now came over Janice. Previously, she’d seemed diffident, matter-of-fact, or even ashamed of her own impetuousness, but now, for the first time, she seemed to enjoy what she was saying, as though she killed Margot Bamborough all over again, in the telling.

“Went out wiv Larry. Told ’im some bullshit about this poor family what needed to concrete over somefing on their roof terrace. Said they were dirt-poor. ’E was so keen to impress me, silly sod, ’e wanted to go do the building work for ’em.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I ’ad to give ’im all this crap about ’ow that would made the dad feel inadequate… I said just nicking a few bags of concrete mix off the building site’d be enough.

“Larry drove it to Albemarle Way for me and carried it up to their landing. I wouldn’t let ’im come any further, said it would be uneffical for ’im to see patients. ’E was silly, Larry, you could tell ’im anyfing… But he wouldn’t marry me,” said Janice suddenly. “Why is that? Why wouldn’t anyone marry me? What ’aven’t I got, that ovver women ’ave?” asked the nurse who’d pulled back the eyelids from her drugged victims to stare into their unseeing eyes. “Nobody ever wanted to marry me… never… I wanted to be in the paper in a white dress. I wanted my day in church and I never got it. Never…”

“You needed an alibi as well as concrete, presumably?” said Strike, ignoring her question. “I assume you chose the demented old lady in Gopsall Street because she couldn’t say one way or another whether you’d been with her when Margot disappeared?”

“Yeah,” said Janice, returning to her story, “I went to see ’er late morning and I left drugs there and a note, to prove I’d been in. I knew she’d agree I was there early evening. She didn’t ’ave no family, she’d agree with anyfing you said to ’er…

“I went from ’er place to buy a cinema ticket for the late-night show, and I called up my babysitter and told ’er I’d be later than I fort because we were getting the last viewing. I knew Irene wouldn’t wanna go wiv me. She’d been makin’ noises about not feelin’ up to it all morning. I knew she didn’t ’ave no bad toof, but I pretended to go along wiv it. Irene never wanted to go anywhere we weren’t gonna meet men.”

“So, you went back to the surgery that afternoon—in through the back door, I suppose?”

“Yeah,” said Janice, her eyes slightly unfocused now. “Nobody saw me. I knew Margot ’ad a doughnut in the fridge, because I’d been in there that morning and seen it, but there was people around all the time, so I couldn’t do nuffing. I injected it wiv Nembutal sodium solution, froo the cellophane.”

“You must’ve been well practiced by now? You knew how much to give her, so she could still walk up the road?”

“Nuffing’s certain,” said the nurse. Unlike Creed, she didn’t pretend omnipotence, but then, she’d also been, however reluctantly, in the business of healing as well as killing. “I ’ad a good feeling for dosages, but you can’t never be an ’undred percent sure. I’d ’eard she was going to meet some friend in a pub up the road, and she usually ate somefing before she went, but I couldn’t be sure she’d eat it, or still be able to walk up the road after, or when it would really hit ’er…

“All the time I was doing it, getting the concrete and drugging the doughnut, I was finking, this won’t work, it can’t work. You’re gonna go to prison, Janice… And you know somefing?” said the nurse, now pink cheeked and fierce, “By then, I didn’t even care. Not if she’d told Steve about me. I fort, I’ll go on trial and I’ll tell ’em ’ow ’e treated me like a mum and a nurse and took advantage, round my flat all hours. ’E’ll ’ave to bloody notice me and ’ear me then, won’t ’e? I didn’t care. I just fort, I want you dead, lady. I want you dead, you wiv your ’usband and your boyfriend on the side, and my man coming to see you three times a week…

“Eivver she dies, I fort, and I get away wiv it, or I’ll be famous, I’ll be in the papers… and I liked the idea, then.”

She looked around her small sitting room, and Strike was certain that she wondered what her cell would be like.

“I left the surgery and went round the long way to the Athorns’, but when I let myself in, Gwilherm wasn’t there. I fort, OK, that’s a problem. Where is ’e?

“And then Deborah and Samhain started moaning. They didn’t want their vitamin injections. I ’ad to get strict wiv ’em. I said to Deborah, it’s these injections what’s keeping you well. You don’t take ’em, I’ll have to ring an ambulance and get ’em to take you into ’ospital for an assessment… You could scare ’er into anyfing if you told ’er she’d ’ave to go outside. I give Deborah and Samhain their ‘vitamin injections,’ lying side by side in the double bedroom. Rolled ’em onto their sides. They were out for the count.

“So then I goes outside, and I waits in the phone box, pretending to be on the phone, keepin’ watch.

“It didn’t feel real, none of it. I didn’t fink it’d work. Probably I’d go into work next day and ’ear Margot passed out in the street, and then she’d start yelling the place down saying she was drugged, and I knew she’d point the finger at me…

“She didn’t come for ages. I fort, it’s over. She’s eaten the doughnut and got ill in the surgery. She’s called an ambulance. She’s guessed, she’s got sick. There was this girl, standing in front of the phone box, and I’m trying to see round ’er, trying to see…

“And then I saw Margot coming up the road. I fort, well, this is it. It was raining hard. People weren’t watchin’. It was all umbrellas and cars splashing. She crossed the road and I could see she was in a bad way. Wobbling all over the place. She got to my side of the road and leaned up against the wall. ’Er legs were about to go. I come out the phone box and I says, “Come on, love, you need to sit down.” Kept my face down. She come wiv me, a few steps, then she realized it was me. We ’ad a bit of a struggle. I got ’er a few more feet, just inside Albemarle Way, but she was a tall girl… and I fort, this is where it ends…

“And then I seen Gwilherm coming up the other way. It was me only chance. I called ’im to ’elp me. ’E fort ’e was ’elping ’er. ’E ’elped me drag ’er up the stairs. There wasn’t much fight in ’er by then. I told Gwilherm some rubbish to stop ’im phoning the ambulance. Said I could treat ’er myself… said ’e didn’t want no police coming up, looking round the flat…’E was a very paranoid man about the auforities, so that worked…

“I says, you go and see if Deborah and Samhain are still asleep. They’ve both been very worried about where you’ve been, and I ’ad to give ’em a little sedative.

“I suffocated ’er while ’e was out of the room. It didn’t take much. ’Eld ’er nose, kept ’er mouth shut. Did to Margot what I’d been planning to do to the Athorns.

“When I knew she was dead,” said Janice, “I left ’er sitting on the sofa and I went into the barfroom. I sat on the bog, looking at the flamingos on the wallpaper and I fort, now what? Gwilherm’s here. ’E’s seen ’er… and the on’y fing I could fink of was, let ’im fink ’e’s done it. ’E’s crazy enough. I fort, I’ll probably ’ave to kill ’im, too, in the end, but I’ll worry about that later…

“So I waited in the bog and let ’im go in the room and find ’er.

“I give ’im five minutes alone wiv the body, then I walk back in, talkin’ to Margot, like I left ’er alive. “You feeling all right now, Margot, love?” And then I says, “What’ve you done, Gwilherm? What’ve you done?”

“And he says, ‘Nuffing, nuffing, I ain’t done nuffing,’ and I’m saying, ‘You told me you can kill people with your powers. P’rhaps we better call the police,’ and ’e’s begging me not to, ’e didn’t mean to, it was all a mistake. So in the end I says, all right, I won’t give you away. I’ll make it disappear. I’ll take care of it.

“’E was crying like a baby and he asked me for one of my sedatives. ’E asked me to put ’im out, can you believe that? I give ’im some downers. Left ’im curled up asleep on Samhain’s bed.

“It was really ’ard, putting her in that big box fing all on me own. I ’ad to take out all the crap they kept in there. Folded ’er up. Once I ’ad ’er in there, I checked on all the Athorns. Made sure the airways weren’t obstructed. Then I ran back outside to the phone box. I says to Irene, are we still on for the cinema? And she says no, like I fort she would, fank Gawd.