“If you mean Jonathon, he’ll be here shortly. He’s showing the ambulance crew where to go.”
Graham snorted. “I knew he’d be here somewhere.”
“You’re going to need your notepad.” Mike pointed to the table where Teresa and Professor Harcourt had been sitting. “Take a seat. I’ll be right over.”
Graham nodded and headed for the corner.
Abi came up to Mike and squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll take care of the bar. You go deal with Graham.”
Mike thanked her, then stepped out from behind the bar, his glass of brandy in his hand. “You too, Professor.”
The professor nodded and got off his stool with a wince. “I fear I’ve strained something. Maybe my chest compressions were too vigorous.” He walked slowly to Graham’s table, with Mike following him.
As soon as they’d sat down, Graham got out his notepad. “Okay. What happened? And who’s the deceased?”
“Teresa Malvain.” Mike sipped his brandy, relishing its warmth.
Graham’s eyes widened. “Wow. You managed to kill off the first Merrychurch Literary Festival’s main speaker before it has even begun. Nice going.” He glanced at Professor Harcourt. “And you are…?”
“Professor Lionel Harcourt.” His eyes were flinty. “And I don’t appreciate either your tone or your choice of words, Constable.”
Graham swallowed, stiffening. Mike patted the professor’s hand. “This is probably where I should add that Graham is a friend, as well as a good copper who’s been a real help to us on a couple of similar… occasions.”
Professor Harcourt blinked. “Do you have a lot of sudden deaths in this village?”
Graham snickered. “You’d be surprised. There’s a reason I call these two Sherlock and Watson. And speak of the devil….”
Jonathon came over to their table. “They’ve gone,” he said, his tone subdued.
“You’d better join us.” Graham inclined his head to the empty chair, then plucked a pen from his breast pocket. “Okay. Who’s going to start?”
Mike gestured to Professor Harcourt, who sighed. He clasped his wrinkled hands on the table. “We’d just returned from the meal Jonathon hosted up at the manor house. Teresa and I were going to have a coffee before retiring. Except the pub’s occupants appeared to comprise a vast number of Teresa Malvain fans, who all wanted to talk to her.”
Graham nodded, taking notes. “Then what happened?”
“When we eventually got our coffees, we drank them while continuing our discussion. I noticed Teresa seemed flushed, and her breathing was a little erratic. She said, ‘This is an allergic reaction,’ then grabbed her bag.”
“She had allergies?” Graham’s writing sped up.
“To nuts, apparently,” Mike informed him.
“So this was a reaction to something she’d eaten at dinner?”
Jonathon shook his head. “The menu didn’t contain any nuts. We made sure of that.”
What came to Mike’s mind in that instant was the dusting of ground almonds, but they’d been on Heather’s dessert only, and as she’d been sitting across from Teresa, there was no way they could have ended up on Teresa’s plate.
“And besides,” Professor Harcourt added, “although anaphylaxis can take up to thirty minutes to start, that is unlikely in this case, given the severity of her reaction. So we’re looking for a source here in the pub.”
“There are peanuts on the bar.” Mike pointed to the bowls. “But Professor Harcourt thinks that’s unlikely as well.”
“Could she have been allergic to lactose? Maybe the milk or cream in her coffee?” Graham asked.
“If she was, then she’d hardly have asked for coffee with cream,” Professor Harcourt commented.
“Could she have been injected with something? If there were a lot of people milling around her….”
“Someone deliberately injected her?” Professor Harcourt frowned. “Again, that’s unlikely. I’d have seen them do it. She was sitting beside me the whole time. And if someone had done that, she’d have felt it. No, the swiftness of her death points to a food allergy rather than medication.”
“You mentioned her EpiPen while we were upstairs. You said maybe if she’d had one…. Wasn’t that in her bag?” His words about something being strange had troubled Mike.
“As soon as she started feeling unwell, she clearly knew it was an allergic reaction. But when she opened her bag to find her EpiPen, it wasn’t there. I even looked myself.” His frown deepened. “That was when she told me to help her upstairs, because she had a spare in her suitcase. By that point, her breathing was more labored, and she was a little dizzy. I told her I’d run upstairs and get it, but she grabbed my arm tightly and demanded I help her out of there. What else could I do? I helped her to her feet, told Mike I was taking her upstairs, then did just that, as fast as I could.” He gave Mike an apologetic glance. “Sorry about your cup, by the way. Teresa sent it flying when she got up from the table.”
Mike gave a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But the spare EpiPen obviously didn’t work,” Graham continued, still taking notes.
“That’s what was strange. There was no EpiPen in her suitcase. I pulled out everything in my search for it, but it definitely wasn’t there. And when she gasped out ‘ambulance,’ I looked in her bag for her phone to call for one. Her phone was missing too. I emptied the bag’s contents onto the bed, looking for it and the EpiPen in case she’d missed it. That was why I had to leave her briefly to come down here and ask Mike to call for an ambulance.”
Graham slowly raised his head. “Why didn’t you use your own phone? Surely that would’ve saved time.”
“Yes, and I would have done, except for the fact that the battery had died at some point during the evening,” Professor Harcourt explained patiently.
“That’s right,” Mike added. “He was going to call for a taxi when he noticed.”
“I was stupid,” the professor said with a heavy sigh. “I should have got Mike to call for an ambulance immediately. She’d have needed to go to A&E anyway, even after using an EpiPen. But I wasn’t thinking clearly, obviously.”
“And how was she when you got back to the room?” Graham resumed his note-taking.
“Her condition had worsened considerably, and she was fighting to breathe. When she went into cardiac arrest, I elevated her feet and started chest compressions, but she was too far gone.” Professor Harcourt’s face fell. “There was nothing I could do.”
“He was still doing compressions when I got to the room.” Mike placed his hand on Harcourt’s back to comfort him.
“Is that a normal reaction in such cases?”
Professor Harcourt nodded. “When no epinephrine is administered, breathing becomes almost impossible and cardiac arrest follows. So strictly speaking, she died of a heart attack, but the cause was undoubtedly an allergic reaction. I was virtually carrying her up the stairs. She complained of nausea, her tongue was swollen, which is what made speech so difficult, and she was obviously weak and dizzy. Loss of consciousness was expected. I had hoped the chest compressions would keep her alive until the ambulance got here, but no.”