This excerpt is from the book entitled The Frisby Waterless Murders, an English Murrder Mystery book set in the countryside, starring two policemen who have been working together for a few years and get along really well. There’s lots of dialogue and banter with some humour thrown in amongst the murders and suspects.

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“I just want to find his coffee cup, Bridie; we have no idea whether his food or drink was spiked or whether he was killed via another method.”

Bridie started to sob and wiped her tears with a handkerchief. “I can’t be charged with killing him can I?”

“Not unless you poisoned him on purpose, no, which I presume you didn’t?”

“No I definitely didn’t – I am almost 100% sure that I placed his cup on the trolley and wheeled it back into the kitchen.”

“Can we go and look, please?” asked Knowles heading in the direction of the kitchen. Bridie, Gerald, and Linda followed.

Bridie pointed. “Here’s the trolley that I used; the one over there is Eddie’s. These are the cups that I collected.”

“There are three cups on your trolley, so we shall have to test each one. Linda can you bag those and have them tested by Forensics when you get back to the station? Thank you.”

“Anyway, thank you for your help Bridie, I am sure I will see you later.”

Knowles and Gerald Kennedy walked back to their seats.

“Anyway, you were talking about the smoke and the fact it only really affected the people in Seats 15 through 25.”

“Well there was smoke in the whole carriage for about a minute, but it seemed to linger for longer around those seats, probably because the windows were open there.”

“And what happened in terms of people moving around?”

“Most people headed for the doors I think, so they could get some fresh air; I don’t really know because I was at the kitchen car end and was trying to find how the smoke had entered the carriage.”

“There would have been a lot of moving around, but perhaps the Major would have been hampered by his left leg and stayed put?”

“Perhaps, I am sure he was in his seat when I went to close the window near him.”

“Right, but in the melee it would have been perfectly possible for someone to stab him with a small dart containing a poison and then remove the dart again.”