I am a reporter, where is unimportant, about a month ago I was approached by a man who had severe guilt pangs. Unfortunately for us reporters thousands of people confess to murders, rapes, bombings etc.
However, he did seem to know what he was talking about, so I couldn't just ignore him, a shame because he was ruining a good uneventful morning. He claimed that he had been in debt to a woman who had set herself up in business lending money to people, people that the banks would not normally lend money to.
He claimed that she had pressured him for the debts for a while, and then she started to get more and more insistent. Then , out of the blue, she offered him a free meal. His contacts revealed that others in her debt were also offered this free meal.
So, against his better instincts, he went, times were hard and all that. This was not Baked beans on toast. It was a full four course meal - started, soup, main, pudding, cheese etc. The meal was distinctly out of the ordinary - well cooked, satisfying - none of this nouvelle cuisine rubbish.
The starter was Russian soup, a dish made mainly out of cabbage. Then came the Red Dragon Pie, a vegetarian shepherds pie - unusual, but delicious.
Eventually they came to the sweet - a raspberry souffle - nice, tasted a little peculiar but who cares? Eventually, after a wonderful evening had come to its close the guest departed for their homes.
Some never made it. The next mornings papers covered more than the average number of car crashes. Our hero had wound up in hospital - after he had reached home he had discovered that he must be allergic to raspberries - he was covered in a severe rash, and he felt so hot. So, he 'phones for an Ambulance. Not a moment too soon because he collapsed upon his cheap sofa - literally - the burly paramedics had to break down his door.
When he came to he found he was in hospital. His doctor told him that he had had a close call. He was also told that he was lucky to be alive, didn't he know what Fly Agaric looked like? Didn't he know it was poisonous.
He replied that he never ate mushrooms - they gave him a rash. After a few days of being kept in hospital for 'observation' they let him out. He was lucky he could not remember having his stomach pumped....
The next day he tried contacting the other people who had been at the freebie supper. Two were comatose - severe brain damage. Four had died in their sleep and five had died in 'accidental' car accidents.
The next person he tried to contact was his creditor - no dice - she had vanished - nobody even remembered her being around. The Town Hall even claimed she had never lived in that area.
The people that did remember her claim that she appeared one morning - as if out of the blue - offering relatively low cost loans(for a loan shark).
When I did some probing I found that this person had appeared in several towns - each time some of her debtors had died in unusual circumstances - drug overdoses, poisonings, heart attacks, brain haemorrhages. Each time these people had been offered a meal of some sort. The interesting part was that not all the the sudden deaths had accepted the meal. Her name also seemed relatively constant usually something like Elizabeth Rann or Jane Rana.
However, no trace could be found, so no story could be written on her. It was as though she never existed. She had no passport, no National Insurance number, no nationality, nothing. It was as if she had appeared out of nowhere.
As hospitals do, they kept a sample of the stomach contents. After some persuasion, the doctors agreed to allow a spectroscopic analysis of the material to be carried out. The biochemists agreed that the poison was an unusual mushroom one, they also said that the probable source of the poisoning was a dish containing a high level of glucose. As they say, revenge is sweet.
