Alvarez looked across the consulting room. ‘She was poisoned?’ ‘I’m sure the answer’s yes, but obviously no one will know for certain until after the post mortem.’ ‘Do you think it was a llargsomi?’ The doctor began to tap the desk with his fingers. ‘I doubt it. I am remembering your original description of the way she had difficulty in swallowing and how she kept saying her mouth was burning. These are not the normal symptoms of phalloidine poisoning.’ ‘Then can you suggest what it might have been?’ ‘No. You’ll have to wait for the reports.’ ‘It must have been strong to have acted so quickly?’ ‘Quick is always a relative term, isn’t it? For her, death must have seemed unmercifully tardy,’ His rate of tapping increased. ‘I’ve seldom seen such suffering and been so powerless to ameliorate it.’ Alvarez shivered. Bertha Jarmine was known as Bertha the Bitch (although it happened only twice a year to a bitch) and because she was so contemptuous of all standards, even those few which pertained around Llueso, she was disliked and feared by other women.
