Page 35 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

DAPHNE:Why is it so hard to imagine killing a father? Look at you. You told me your father wasn’t in your life, that he had an affair with your mother and preferred his original kids to a baby born out of wedlock.

RUTH:Okay I feel like you’re elaborating a lot. And it was just the one kid, a daughter.

DAPHNE:And you told me you’re not in his will, that he doesn’t give you money. Doesn’t that make you angry? Wouldn’t you like to see him experience some consequences for his actions?

RUTH:. . . No. . . I really don’t think about it. . .

DAPHNE:Come on. You’re lying.

RUTH:Just drop it.

DAPHNE:Would it be so bad if someone knocked him off? Really?

RUTH:Are you kidding me? It’d be a fucking tragedy if any of my family members died! These are human beings you’re talking about. And fine, my father wasn’t around when I was growing up, but we’ve reconnected as adults. I’m not like you, Daphne! I actually have the capacity to forgive people!

[A chair clatters over. Ruth has stood up and gone to the bathroom. Eventually, she returns.]

DAPHNE:Okay, message received. And don’t worry, no one’s going to kill your family.

RUTH:Just leave it. I-I’m a journalist, trying to do a job. Just leave my family out of this. Please can we move on.

DAPHNE:I don’t even remember what we were talking about before your little hissy fit.

[END OF REMOVED SECTION]

RUTH:This was your first poisoning? The police have said that’s your favorite MO. Do you agree?

DAPHNE:Yes. Poison’s a girl’s best friend. Men are violent; they like knives because they can swing them around like their dicks, then stick ’em in someone. But women just want to get the job done, as calmly and as quietly as possible. People say that’s cowardly but there’s nothing cowardly about growing up being a woman and knowing the whole world (hell, even your own house!) is full of men who might one day decide to rape and kill you. Living with that knowledge without going insane, that takes bravery. Every man I ever married weighed fifty to one hundred pounds more than me. They didn’tearnthat, it was just nature that gave them that advantage. So, I had to use the other advantages you could find in nature.

RUTH:So you’re saying poison’s a tool of feminism? A great emancipator of women?

DAPHNE:Well, it levels the playing field. But it takes guts, to smile in someone’s face while you serve them a piping-hot cup of mortality, to hold them at night while they suffer, and then wake up every day and kill them a little more. Could you do that?

RUTH:No, I couldneverdo that.

DAPHNE:Well, it was easy with Geoffrey. Every morning he would take a fistful of tablets to manage his cancer symptoms. He wasn’t much of a details person; he was the kind of man who would drink perfume if you left it too close to the liquor cabinet and never wonder why his breath smelled like roses. It was nothing to dig out an old bottle of his father’s heart medicine and some downers that his mother used to take before they put her in the funny farm. And then I just switched his pills for theirs. I knew nobody would be suspicious because everyone wasexpectingGeoffrey to die. I figured he would either be poisoned by the pills or die because he wasn’t getting the proper medication. Win-win.

RUTH:Well, win for you, lose for Geoffrey.

DAPHNE:Same thing really.

It took a month and a half. I probably could have done it faster, but I wanted to be careful, to make it look natural. Geoffrey developed stomach complaints and doctors prescribed him more pills, which he struggled to keep down. He got weaker and weaker, although he heroically refused to stop drinking. One night, he went to bed with a double whiskey and never woke up. That was my first time waking up next to a dead body but it certainly wasn’t my last. It’s a bit of an occupational hazard.

On the day of his funeral, I dressed the twins (who were ten months old) in little black dresses and James in his first suit. I wore a black Chanel suit and a large hat with a black veil. I didn’t want anyone to see the look of triumph on my face when they lowered his coffin into the ground. I would not be buried with him, this weak and disappointing man. He was given everything in life and pissed it up the wall. I would do better.

HauteHistoire:“I couldn’t resist doing another Daphne aesthetic for you guys as this podcast episode is the best yet! So, this is my Funeral Chic look. All black of course but it’s important to play with textures, so I’ve gone for a Saint Laurent latex pencil skirt, a blouse with a lace collar, an oversized blazer and a killer pair of Christian Louboutin spike heels, just to signal to any eligible men in the audience that you might be delivering the eulogy today but you’re free for drinks tomorrow! And don’t forget your mourning veil, ideally hanging from a fabulous hat. It’s Jackie Kennedy again, this time at JFK’s funeral, but it’s also an excellent way to hide the fact that you might not be as sad about becoming a widow as people expect. So that’s the look! My aunt recently died in a golf cart accident so I can’t wait to rock this look!”

PreyAllDay:

Okay, we’ve got another poisoning! So far in the podcast, she poisoned Geoffrey and she’s pushed Ted and Frankie to their deaths. But we know that she also poisoned Warren Ackerman, we just haven’t gotten to that part in the story yet.

StopDropAndTroll:

It’s psycho tho, to share a bed with someone while you poison them more and more.

ShockAndBlah:

OOOOH that gives me CHILLS.

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