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miles away. I thought you’d
be wall to wall questions at me.”
    “Yeah. Sorry. Just…” Penny nodded in the direction Francine
had gone. “You know.”
    “She seems perfectly nice,” Cath said in a low voice.
    “She is. But she won’t go. ”
    Cath flared her nostrils. Penny knew that she, like the
anonymous man in the Sculpture Trail meeting, thought she ought to simply tell
Francine to leave. Cath was a capable and solid mother of two and had a
demanding career; she couldn’t run her life and her household effectively if
she pranced around, avoiding issues, like Penny did.
    “Right,” said Penny decisively. She stood up.
    “You’re going to tell her right now?”
    “No, I’m going to put my bowl in the sink and then slice up
a cake.”
    “Oh, right. Shop-bought or…”
    “Don’t panic,” Penny assured her. “I didn’t try to make it.
I do learn from my mistakes. I bought it.”
    “Great. Okay, so I do have stuff to tell you,” Cath went
on. “Our science folks are really on something at the moment. Maybe they don’t
have a lot else to do in the lab. I imagine when they’re bored, they make up
stink bombs and stuff. I would. Anyway, so they came back with the preliminary
results for Alec Goodwin’s death.”
    “Don’t leave me hanging! Murder?”
    Cath sighed. “Maybe and maybe not. He died of poisoning.”
    “Most poisonings are accidents, aren’t they? I would have
thought it’s a tricky way to kill someone. If you want to be absolutely sure
that someone’s dead, there are more effective ways.”
    “You’ve thought too much about that,” Cath said.
    “Yeah. I have. I didn’t always get on with my work
colleagues.”
    Cath grinned. “Okay. I will confess that sometimes, when
I’m interviewing a suspect and they admit to doing some crime or another, that
I often think ‘I would have done that differently…’”
    Penny sat back in her chair. “What poisoned him? Do you
know that yet?”
    “The boffins need to grow stuff in dishes, I think, before
they will confirm anything. I don’t know why. They did say it looked like an
alkaloid of some kind, a bitter substance, and there was a lot of it. They
suggested without being totally certain that it was unlikely to be an
accident.”
    “Suicide?”
    “Maybe…”
    Penny thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so, and I
can tell from your face that you don’t think so, either. It would be an
impractical way to kill yourself.”
    “And a painful one. I won’t give you the details, but he
didn’t die … well.”
    Penny shuddered. “The poor man. Does it sound strange to
say that I hope it’s a tragic accident? I don’t want to think about the sort of
person who would do that to another human being, that’s all.”
    “I understand,” Cath said. “Don’t let it prey on your mind.
You don’t have to be involved if you don’t want to be.”
    “My information was useful before.”
    “Yes, but not at the expense of your mental health.”
    “Thanks.” Penny nodded. “More cake. Cake makes everything
all right.”
    “Bring it on.”
    They had another small slice, and Cath groaned. “I should
have said no.”
    “Let’s go for a walk.”
    “Where?”
    “You already know where.” Penny opened the door to the
living room. As she suspected, Francine was peacefully sitting at the far end
of the room, pointedly not eavesdropping. “Francine, there’s some cake in here.
Help yourself. We’re going for a wander.”
    “How lovely! Thanks!”
     
    * * * *
     
    “You want to go poking around Alec’s house, don’t you?”
Cath said as they walked through the sultry evening. It seemed like most of
Upper Glenfield was out on the streets, and the persistent hot weather was
making tempers fray. They could hear arguments as well as laughter, and the
lingering smell of barbecues and the slow cremation of sausages plagued them
all the way out of town.
    “I do,” Penny admitted. “Come on, please, can I? I didn’t
get