Eric moved to the young man’s side and shot him a hateful look. “Lazy good-for-nothing! Look at the state of my grass! And the hedges haven’t been trimmed for weeks. Derek! Tell him to get back to work. I don’t pay him to stand around gossiping!”
Derek ignored Eric. He shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe it. Who killed him?”
The young man gave a nonchalant shrug. “Dunno. The police think it was a burglar. Malone had loads of valuable stuff in his house. He collected coins and stuff. The police think the burglar had been watching him.” He snorted. “Serves him right to have someone watching him for a change.”
“Have the police found the burglar?” Derek asked.
“No idea. I don’t think so.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t really care. I’ve only got to do a few more months here then I can see the back of this place.” An annoyed look crossed his face. “That miserable old sod never once made me a drink. He stared at me through the rain and snow and never once offered me a hot drink.” He suddenly grinned. “I bet he’d spin in his grave if he could see me now. I’ve been in his house. I’ve made myself a cuppa and I’ve used his toilet. The police forgot to lock up when they left, I’ve got the keys, and now I can go in Malone’s house whenever I want!”
Eric Malone shook with anger at the young man’s side. He clenched his fists and threw a punch at the man’s head. His fist swept right through him.
The young man noticed something behind Derek. The laughter died on his lips. He turned away from Derek and said, “I can’t talk to you any more!”
Eric stopped swinging his fists at the young man and looked over towards the garden gate. His hand shook as he pointed a finger towards the gate. “Him! It was him! He killed me!”
Chapter 6
Derek steeled himself, again, to face a possible murderer, again. He wasn’t sure if his old heart was up to all this stress.
A man about his age looked back at him. He had a round face with tufts of hair above his ears. His stripy shirt strained over his ample stomach. The furrowed brow of the man relaxed within seconds of looking at Derek. He broke into a smile and said, “Derek Quill! Is that really you? I haven’t seen you in years!”
Eric made a growling noise at Derek’s side. Derek ignored him and addressed the man, “Roy Miller! I can’t believe it. You haven’t changed much.”
Roy ran a hand over his sparse hair and then patted his stomach. “I think you’re being too kind. What are you doing round these parts?”
Derek blinked and tried to ignore Pearl who was now circling Roy and looking him up and down. Derek found it hard to keep lying, but he knew he had to. “I wanted to pay a visit to Eric Malone.”
“Really? After what he did to you at school! Don’t forget that I was there, I saw how he treated you. He tried to have a go at me but I was having none of it. Why on earth would you want to see him again?”
Derek shrugged. “I wanted to put the past to rest. I wanted to confront him and see if he could tell me why he treated me the way he did.”
“Pah!” Roy exploded. “He didn’t need a reason! He was born nasty and he stayed that way ever since.” Roy studied Derek for a moment. “You do know he’s dead, don’t you?”
Derek waved his hand towards the young man who was now butchering a small privet plant. “That young fella just told me. He said Eric had been murdered by a burglar. Is that right?”
Roy gave a small laugh. “Aye, that’s what the police said. When the police interviewed me they asked if he had any enemies. I told them he had loads! It would be easier to ask for a list of his friends.” A bitter look came over Roy’s face. “And that list wouldn’t have a single name on it.”
Eric Malone swooped to Roy’s side. He swung his fists through Roy’s head. Pearl grabbed hold of him and pulled him to one side. “That’s not going to achieve anything!” She pointed to Roy. “I assume that you went to school with him too?”
Eric looked Roy up and down. “He always had it in for me, talking and laughing behind my back. He hated me. He wanted me dead.” He spat on the ground. Pearl whacked him round the head. “Ouch! What was that for?”
“For that disgusting thing you just did! Are you some sort of heathen? Where are your manners?”
Eric rubbed his head and floated away from Pearl.
Derek realised that Roy had asked him a question. He’d been too caught up in the ghosts’ activities to pay attention to the living. “Pardon? Did you just say something?”
Roy laughed. “Are you going a bit deaf? I’ve got one of those fancy hearing aids now. I can hear a pin drop two miles away! I asked if you wanted a cup of tea. My house is just at the top of the street. You can meet my wife, Lilly. We’ll tell you all about Eric’s murder. We were the ones who found his body.”
Eric swooped over to Derek and stopped inches from his face. “Don’t go with him! He’ll kill you too!”
Pearl rushed over and said to Eric, “Do you know for sure that he killed you?”
Eric frowned. “Well, not exactly. But he hates me enough to kill me.”
Pearl looked back at Derek. “Go with Roy. Find out everything you can. We’ll come with you.”
“Well?” Roy asked.
Derek nodded. It was hard to have a normal conversation when ghosts were flittering about all over the place. He cleared his throat and said, “Yes, thank you, that would be lovely.”
Derek followed Roy out of Eric’s garden and up the street. As he walked into Roy’s house Derek hoped that he would be coming back out as a living person and not a ghost.
Chapter 7
Lilly Miller smiled at Derek as he entered the Millers’ kitchen. She had a friendly face with twinkling blue eyes. “Hello! I bet you don’t remember me, do you?”
Derek studied Lilly for a moment. His face suddenly broke into a smile. “Lilly Spencer! You were in the year below me. You used to wear your hair in pigtails.”
“And you used to pull them!” Lilly said with a laugh.
Pearl looked Lilly up and down. She folded her arms, gave a sniff and said, “She looks much older than you, Derek. I think she’d lied about being younger than you.”
Lilly turned to Roy and gave him a playful punch. “See! I told you it was Derek Quill.” She turned to Derek and explained, “His hearing’s wonderful but his eyesight is going. We saw you walking into Eric’s garden. I recognised you but Roy here said you looked like a shifty stranger and he was going over to see what you were doing. We have to be very careful round here after … you know. You do know, don’t you? About Eric?”
Derek nodded. “Roy was just telling me that you found the body.”
Lilly shivered. “I’ll never forget it, that poor man, lying on the carpet like that. I’d rather not talk about it.”
Pearl tutted and gave Lilly a hard look. “Wimp! Get her to talk about it, Derek.”
“I would like to know about it, if you don’t mind.” Derek forced a laugh out which he hoped sounded genuine. “I do love a good murder mystery.”
Lilly’s brow creased. “Are you sure?”
Derek nodded. He was doing his best not to flinch as Eric tried to hit Roy again.
Lilly smiled. “Okay. Go through to the living room. I’ll put the kettle on and come through in a minute. Roy, show him the way.”
Roy took Derek through to the living room and indicated for him to sit on the sofa. Eric was shouting all sorts of obscenities at Roy which made Derek wince.
Pearl took hold of Eric and marched him firmly to a corner of the room. She raised a hand in warning and said, “Keep your fists to yourself and keep your mouth shut! How is poor Derek supposed to concentrate with you acting like that? Control yourself.”
“What if I don’t?” Eric sneered down at her.
“Then I’ll take you back to where you came from and Derek will forget all about trying to help you. Is that what you want?”
Eric looked away from Pearl’s intense stare. “No,” he muttered.
&nb
sp; “That’s what I thought. If I hear so much as a peep out of you then I’m whisking you away.” Pearl folded her arms tightly and stood next to Eric. She looked at Derek and gave him a fond smile. “You carry on, Derek, love. You’re doing a great job.”
Derek looked away from the ghosts in the corner. Roy was looking at him expectantly. Had he asked another question? Should he just nod and mutter a yes? Derek took a chance and did just that.
Roy nodded too. “That’s exactly what I thought.” He turned towards the doorway, his face lit up. “Ah, here’s my beautiful wife with refreshments. She makes a cracking cup of tea.”
Lilly chuckled. “There’s nothing special about my tea, you old fool.” Her eyes shone as she looked at her husband.
Derek had to look away. Thoughts of Dorothy flooded his mind. He gave himself a mental shake. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about her.
Lilly made sure everyone was settled with tea before she began. She sat next to Derek and said, “It was the bins, you see.”
“Pardon?”
“The bins. We put them out on Tuesday nights. They’re emptied on Wednesday mornings. Eric used to stand at the window and watch the binmen. As soon as his bin was emptied he’d come out and take it back to his garden.”
“He must have thought someone was going to steal his precious bin!” Roy said with a snort.
Derek heard the start of a word from Eric in the corner but he was quickly shushed by Pearl.
Lilly continued, “Well, Eric hadn’t taken his bin in by 6 p.m. so I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. We went over there, didn’t we, Roy? His back door was open. I knocked anyway. After a minute we went in.” She looked down at her cup of tea. “He was lying on the carpet in his front room, face down.”
“Don’t forget about the blood,” Roy pointed out. “It was on the back of his head and it had made a pool on the carpet.” He shook his head. “It was like something from off the telly.”
Lilly looked up. “I don’t want to talk about it any more.”
“But you haven’t told him the best bit!” Roy declared. He waggled his eyebrows theatrically at Derek. “Do you want to hear some gossip? About the people in this street? I think more than one of them had a motive to kill Eric.”
Chapter 8
Lilly shook her head. “I’m sure Derek doesn’t want to hear about our neighbours.”
“I do,” Derek said with a smile. “I don’t get out often, I like hearing what other people get up to.” He ignored the look of sympathy in Lilly’s eyes. “If you don’t mind telling me?”
Roy moved forward on his chair. “Well, you know what Eric was like at school, a misery guts with no friends. He was always telling tales on people, trying to get them in trouble.”
Derek nodded. Roy didn’t need to remind him about Eric, all the unwelcome memories were already coming back to him.
Roy continued, “He was just the same as a man, perhaps even worse. He complained about his neighbours non-stop! The young man who lives next door to him got the worst of it. Eric was always on at him about stupid little things. Things like leaving his bin too close to the road, not keeping his garden tidy, having his television on too loud. Eric probably complained if he sneezed too noisily!” Roy looked at Lilly. “What’s his name again? The one who lives next door?”
“Ivan Broughton, he works at that advertising company in Leeds,” Lilly said. “Poor Ivan did bear the brunt of Eric’s complaints. He works all day and then comes home to argument after argument with Eric. But, I must say, Ivan handled the complaints well, he was ever so polite about it.”
“Not all the time,” Roy pointed out. “On the night before we discovered Eric’s body, I heard a particularly nasty argument coming from down the road. I could hear Eric’s voice, which wasn’t anything new, but I heard Ivan shouting too. That was new. I went outside into the side garden so that I could hear them better.”
Lilly smiled and added, “He’s so nosy.”
Roy chuckled. “You came with me, don’t forget that. We heard Eric moaning about some branches that were hanging over into his garden, he was saying that if Ivan didn’t cut them down he’d get on to the environmental health people.” Roy scratched his head. “I don’t know what it would have to do with them. Anyway, Ivan yelled back at him and said that Eric could stick those branches somewhere that would be quite painful. And he said that Eric should mind his own business.” Roy moved even further forward. Derek was concerned that he would slip off his chair if he wasn’t careful. Roy said, “Ivan told Eric that if he didn’t keep his mouth shut, then someone would shut it for him - forever.”
Lilly shook her head. “I’ve never heard Ivan shouting like that, he was furious. He’s normally such a lovely young man.”
“What time was this?” Derek asked.
“It was about six-thirty. The local news had just finished,” Roy said. “The shouting went on for a while. I moved to the front garden so that I could see Eric’s house. I thought there might be fisticuffs at one point. Ivan was standing outside Eric’s door. That was unusual because Eric normally had his arguments at his front gate. Eric had the door half-closed at this stage, I couldn’t see his expression. But I saw Ivan’s, he was red with rage.”
Derek thought for a moment. “Do you think that Ivan killed Eric? You found his body on Wednesday morning, do you know when he died?”
Roy sat back on his chair and rested his hands on his round tummy. “Aye, we do. The police told us that he had been murdered the previous evening, between eight and ten o’clock. I know that they questioned Ivan, we had to tell the police about his argument.”
Derek swallowed nervously before asking his next question, “Do the police think you two are suspects?”
Roy studied him for a moment. “They do. I had a strong motive to kill Eric, I hated him.”
Chapter 9
Lilly looked over at her husband. “Roy! You didn’t hate him! And now look at Derek’s face, you’ve scared him. He’s probably thinking that he’s walked into the home of a killer!”
Derek tried to smile, but his smile didn’t want to appear. He glanced towards the door. If he leapt to his feet, would he get there before Roy and Lilly? He could outrun Roy but Lilly looked as if she’d be quite nippy.
Roy let out a boom of a laugh which made Derek jump. “Derek! You don’t think that, do you? Of course you don’t! I didn’t like Eric at school, you know that. And he hated me. When he moved here he tried to get his own back. He’d spread nasty rumours about me to the other neighbours. They ignored him, they could see what sort of person he was. Then he’d do spiteful things like letting my car tyres down, leaving rubbish on the lawn, that sort of thing. I ignored him. He even complained about our flowers being too colourful, and our Christmas lights being too bright.”
Derek heard Pearl mutter something behind him. He heard the words ‘miserable old bugger’ along with a few curse words. He blinked, he hadn’t heard Pearl use words like that before.
Roy said, “I kept on ignoring him. Until he started saying things about my Lilly.”
Lilly interrupted him, “Derek doesn’t want to know what he said.”
“No, I’m sure he doesn’t. But Eric said disgusting things about her, about what she was like at school. It was all lies of course, but I wasn’t going to let anyone upset my wife. About a week before he died, I marched over there and had it out with him. I told him in no uncertain terms what I’d do to him if he even muttered Lilly’s name in unflattering terms.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Lilly was the only one who ever showed Eric any kindness. She even invited him for dinner when he first moved in. That was a disaster.” He threw his hands in the air and shook his head. “I told the police all of this. They questioned me and Lilly for hours, but they eventually ruled us out as suspects.”
Lilly said, “Don’t forget to tell Derek about Cheryl, she had an argument with Eric on the night he died too.”
Roy gave her a warm smile. “I thought you
didn’t want us to gossip.”
Her face crinkled up as she smiled back at him. “You started it. Tell him about Cheryl Colter and her loose ways.” Lilly’s lips pursed in disgust.
Derek picked up his tea and took a nervous sip. He wasn’t convinced of Roy’s innocence but he couldn’t leave the house now. He needed to find out all the facts.
“Cheryl lives opposite Eric,” Roy said. “She’s an attractive woman, she likes to show off her figure. She’s married, at least, I think she’s still married. Cheryl seems to have a lot of male visitors when her husband is at work.” Roy laughed as he noticed Lilly’s expression. “You don’t like her, do you?”
Lilly folded her arms tightly. “I haven’t seen her husband for months. I don’t like the way she looks at you, it’s like she wants to eat you up.”
Roy swept his hand over his bald head. “I’m still a catch, you know. Getting back to Cheryl, she went round to Eric’s that same night. It was about half an hour after his and Ivan’s shouting match. We heard shouting again so we went back outside. Cheryl was standing at Eric’s door this time. She was jabbing her finger in the air and yelling at him. She was saying that she’d had enough of Eric spying on her, and that he’d gone too far this time. Her words were ‘you’re going to get what’s coming to you’. It was very dramatic.”
“The police questioned her too,” Lilly said. “They never arrested her so they must think she’s innocent.”
Roy let out another loud laugh. Derek jumped and spilt some tea down his front. “My Lilly thinks Cheryl should have been arrested on the grounds of indecent exposure! You’ve said that many times, haven’t you, love?”
“Well, there’s no need to have so much flesh on display. Derek, would you like some more tea?”
“No, thank you.” Derek put his cup down. “Who do the police think killed Eric?”
Roy said, “They think it’s a burglar. His house was messy when we found him. But it could have been like that normally, he never invited anyone in. He collected all sorts of knick-knacks, we had no idea what was missing. I’m not even sure if the police are still looking into it.”
Pearl And Derek Mysteries - Box Set 1 Page 2
