The waiter returned with Quilley’s drink and they both sat in silence until he had gone. Quilley was intrigued by this drab man sitting opposite him, a man who obviously didn’t even have the imagination to dream up his own murder plot. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked.

‘I have no right to ask anything of you, I understand that,’ Peplow said. ‘I have absolutely nothing to offer in return. I’m not rich. I have no savings. I suppose all I want really is advice, encouragement.’

‘If I were to help,’ Quilley said, ‘if I were to help, then I’d do nothing more than offer advice. Is that clear?’

Peplow nodded. ‘Does that mean you will?’

‘If I can.’

And so Dennis Quilley found himself helping to plot the murder of a woman he’d never met with a man he didn’t even particularly like. Later, when he analysed his reasons for playing along, he realized that that was exactly what he had been doing – playing. It had been a game, a cerebral puzzle, just like thinking up a plot for a book, and he never, at first, gave a thought to real murder, real blood, real death.

Peplow took a handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped the thin film of sweat from his brow. ‘You don’t know how happy this makes me, Mr Quilley. At last I have a chance. My life hasn’t amounted to much and I don’t suppose it ever will. But at least I might find some peace and quiet in my final years. I’m not a well man.’ He placed one hand solemnly over his chest. ‘Ticker. Not fair, is it? I’ve never smoked, I hardly drink, and I’m only fifty-three. But the doctor has promised me a few years yet if I live right. All I want is to be left alone with my books and my garden.’

‘Tell me about your wife,’ Quilley prompted.

Peplow’s expression darkened. ‘She’s a cruel and selfish woman,’ he said. ‘And she’s messy, she never does anything around the place. Too busy watching those damn soap operas on television day and night. She cares about nothing but her own comfort, and she never overlooks an opportunity to nag me or taunt me. If I try to escape to my collection, she mocks me and calls me dull and boring. I’m not even safe from her in my garden. I realize I have no imagination, Mr Quilley, and perhaps even less courage, but even a man like me deserves some peace in his life, don’t you think?’

Quilley had to admit that the woman really did sound awful – worse than any he had known, and he had met some shrews in his time. He had never had much use for women, except for occasional sex in his younger days. Even that had become sordid, and now he stayed away from them as much as possible. He found, as he listened, that he could summon up remarkable sympathy for Peplow’s position.

‘What do you have in mind?’ he asked.

‘I don’t really know. That’s why I wrote to you. I was hoping you might be able to help with some ideas. Your books… you seem to know so much.’

‘In my books,’ Quilley said, ‘the murderer always gets caught.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Peplow, ‘of course. But that’s because the genre demands it, isn’t it? I mean, your Inspector Baldry is much smarter than any real policeman. I’m sure if you’d made him a criminal, he would always get away.’

There was no arguing with that, Quilley thought. ‘How do you want to do it?’ he asked. ‘A domestic accident? Electric shock, say? Gadget in the bathtub? She must have a hair curler or a dryer?’

Peplow shook his head, eyes tightly closed. ‘Oh no,’ he whispered, ‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything like that. No more than I could bear the sight of her blood.’

‘How’s her health?’

‘Unfortunately,’ said Peplow, ‘she seems obscenely robust.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Forty-nine.’

‘Any bad habits?’

‘Mr Quilley, my wife has nothing but bad habits. The only thing she won’t tolerate is drink, for some reason, and I don’t think she has other men – though that’s probably because nobody will have her.’

‘Does she smoke?’

‘Like a chimney.’

Quilley shuddered. ‘How long?’

‘Ever since she was a teenager, I think. Before I met her.’

‘Does she exercise?’

‘Never.’

‘What about her weight, her diet?’

‘Well, you might not call her fat, but you’d be generous in saying she was full-figured. She eats too much junk food. I’ve always said that. And eggs. She loves bacon and eggs for breakfast. And she’s always stuffing herself with cream cakes and tarts.’

‘Hmmm,’ said Quilley, taking a sip of Amstel. ‘She sounds like a prime candidate for a heart attack.’

‘But it’s me who-’ Peplow stopped as comprehension dawned. ‘Yes, I see. You mean one could be induced?’

‘Quite. Do you think you could manage that?’

‘Well, I could if I didn’t have to be there to watch. But I don’t know how.’

‘Poison.’

‘I don’t know anything about poison.’

‘Never mind. Give me a few days to look into it. I’ll give you advice, remember, but that’s as far as it goes.’

‘Understood.’

Quilley smiled. ‘Good. Another beer?’

‘No, I’d better not. She’ll be able to smell this one on my breath and I’ll be in for it already. I’d better go.’

Quilley looked at his watch. Two-thirty. He could have done with another Amstel, but he didn’t want to stay there by himself. Besides, at three it would be time to meet his agent at the Four Seasons, and there he would have the opportunity to drink as much as he wanted. To pass the time, he could browse in Book City. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘I’ll go down with you.’

Outside on the hot, busy street, they shook hands and agreed to meet in a week’s time on the back patio of the Madison Avenue Pub. It wouldn’t do to be seen together twice in the same place.

Quilley stood on the corner of Bloor and Avenue Road among the camera-clicking tourists and watched Peplow walk off towards the St George subway station. Now that their meeting was over and the spell was broken, he wondered again what the hell he was doing helping this pathetic little man. It certainly wasn’t altruism. Perhaps the challenge appealed to him; after all, people climb mountains just because they’re there.

And then there was Peplow’s mystery collection. There was just a chance that it might contain an item of great interest to Quilley and that Peplow might be grateful enough to part with it.

Wondering how to approach the subject at their next meeting, Quilley wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and walked towards the bookshop.

Atropine, hyoscyamine, belladonna… Quilley flipped through Dreisbach’s Handbook of Poisoning one evening at the cottage. Poison seemed to have gone out of fashion these days, and he had only used it in one of his novels, about six years ago. That had been the old standby, cyanide, with its familiar smell of bitter almonds, which he had so often read about but never experienced. The small black handbook had sat on his shelf gathering dust ever since.

Writing a book, of course, one could generally skip over the problems of acquiring the stuff – give the killer a job as a pharmacist or in a hospital dispensary, for example. In real life, getting one’s hands on poison might prove more difficult.

So far, he had read through the sections on agricultural poisons, household hazards and medicinal poisons. The problem was that whatever Peplow used had to be easily available. Prescription drugs were out. Even if Peplow could persuade a doctor to give him barbiturates, for example, the prescription would be on record and any death in the household would be regarded as suspicious. Barbiturates wouldn’t do, anyway, and nor would such common products as paint thinner, insecticides and weed killers – they didn’t reproduce the symptoms of a heart attack.

Near the back of the book was a list of poisonous plants that shocked Quilley by its sheer length. He hadn’t known just how much deadliness there was lurking in fields, gardens and woods. Rhubarb leaves contained oxalic acid, for example, and caused nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. The bark, wood, leaves or seeds of the yew had a similar effect. Boxwood leaves and twigs caused convulsions; celandine could bring about a coma; hydrangeas contained cyanide; and laburnums brought on irregular pulse, delirium, twitching and unconsciousness. And so the list went on – lupins, mistletoe, sweet peas, rhododendron – a poisoner’s delight. Even the beautiful poinsettia, which brightened up so many Toronto homes each Christmas, could cause gastroenteritis. Most of these plants were easy to get hold of, and in many cases the active ingredients could be extracted simply by soaking or boiling in water.