One man's meat

Tips from Lucrezia Borgia

Following my last short story, which was pretty macabre, I wrote one which involved a divorced couple and a DeWalt cordless brushless hammer drill. Spoiler: it has a feminist twist. So I am now gestating something, I’m not sure what, but Maurice started it.

It began with a normal conversation. G makes things out of wood, and I asked him to turn some muesli bowls. He had made a bowl out of Yew wood, and I said, ‘Like that one, except not Yew, of course.

‘Why not?’ G says

‘It’s poisonous, isn’t it?’

I don’t remember what his answer was, probably something involving scoffing, because Maurice was at it.

M: I bet you could poison someone with a yew wood bowl. Like, over year or so, porridge, you know, leave it in there a while like the three bears. Or, if not, maybe you could put yew berry seeds on the porridge then pretend they were those shitty chia seeds you like then at the post mortem you could say it was the wooden bowl and you had no idea, it would be the same poison, I’m sure it would work.

Me: What are you suggesting? Besides, that’s a daft idea.

M: No I’m not serious about really killing anyone. Who do you think I am?

But it got me thinking, about poisoning, and I decided that there’s a story here. Erin Patterson thought she would get away with it with the old mushrooms.

M: Easy mistake. She was framed.

So, now I’m researching poisoning, for a story.

M: Your internet search history’s looking well dodgy. That creepy Alexa’ll have dobbed you in for sure.