Murder in the Garden

by Veronica Heley

  ‘I'm so pleased for you.’ And Ellie really was. Not to mention what a relief it was that Miss Quicke had someone to look after her … well, it was more than that, really. Ellie was truly happy for them both.

  Dear Rose had always needed someone to look after, and had had a flair for home-making without having had anyone on whom to lavish her talents. Miss Quicke had always been able to make money but not friends, and had been sinking into an acidtongued, selfish old age until Rose came along to show her what a great difference a little loving care could make to her life.

  Since then, Rose had become more self-assertive and had even put on a little weight. Miss Quicke was still a scrawny old dame, but she was beginning to taste the delights of doing something for other people, perhaps for the first time in her life, and her health had certainly improved.

  Ellie said, ‘How do you find it with Roy living so close?’

  ‘He's a lovely man and really thoughtful, you wouldn't believe, always thinking of things to make life easier for his mother and for me, too. Though you'd have had a fit if you'd seen him trying to change the fuse in the steam iron. In the end I had to take it off him and do it myself. Some people just seem to have been born without any idea how to do anything practical, which Miss Quicke had said came from his father, but she wasn't going to hold that against him.’

  From all of which Ellie learned that the three of them were settling down very comfortably together, aware of one another's failings but very willing to put up with them. Which was really all you could expect of any family, however loving.

  ‘It was such a lovely party last night, wasn't it?’ said Rose, enjoying herself mightily. ‘As dear Miss Quicke said, there's always fun and games going on around dear Ellie, and she's right, you know! I said how pretty you looked last night, and she said she didn't think Roy stood a chance, but there … you need time to sort yourself out when your husband's passed away, don't you?’

  From which Ellie gathered that Miss Quicke thought Bill had the edge as a suitor. She shook her head and laughed. ‘Rose, you're wiser than my aunt. I do like Bill and I do like Roy, but only as dear friends. I can't get over Frank's death so quickly. Sometimes I wonder if I ever will. I don't think my aunt understands that, but you do, don't you?’

  They exchanged nods, over their pot of tea. Two widows, indulging themselves over a fattening lunch. Sometimes carbohydrates are the only thing which help.

  The businessman resigned his place at his father's bedside to his brother. The favourite son, the one who was a famous surgeon. The elder brother knew he only had second place in his father's affections.

  But now was his chance to redeem himself. He was going to save his father, and not only his father, but the whole family.

  He thought through every step of his plan. First he had to go home and find some of his wife's pills. He had a crate of bottled drinks in the back of his car.

  Then he'd have to watch for an opportunity to get into the house when the woman was out. Luckily, she didn't seem to stay at home for long.

  When lunch was over and Rose had twittered herself away, Ellie felt she couldn't put it off any longer, and phoned Diana.

  Predictably, Diana proceeded to put her mother in the wrong. ‘Where are you, mother? I've been phoning all morning. Why didn't you pick up the phone?’

  ‘Well, I've been out and-’

  ‘I don't suppose you ever thought of me, stuck here without being able to get to the shops, with the phone ringing and people coming round every half hour!’

  Ellie composed herself. ‘Would you like me to bring you in some shopping?’

  ‘Well, of course. Why do you think I called you? Some fresh fish, preferably a wing of skate, I could just fancy that; not salmon or any of that nasty greyish stuff …’

  Ellie made notes, thinking she'd better take her own shopping back, then return to the Avenue to do Diana's list.

  ‘… and you can see if my cleaning's ready. You know the shop I go to, not the one with all the advertisements in the window but the other …’

  Yes, Ellie thought. I shall definitely have to take my stuff back home before I start on this list. Or I could gather everything together, get a cab, drop my things off at my house and then go on to Diana's.

  ‘I'll be there as soon as I can, dear. It will probably take me about an hour.’

  ‘Oh, for heavens' sake, mother. It can't take that long.’

  Ellie shut the phone off, wondering why the words ‘please' and ‘thank you' had never made it past Diana's childhood. They might never have existed, for all their appearance in Diana's life. Perhaps with her peer group she behaved better?

  Nineteen

  Diana's car was parked outside the big house, but there was no other vehicle in sight. Everything looked freshly painted and rather bare. There were still no estate agents' boards outside, but Diana had organized a professional-looking For Sale notice with two telephone numbers on it. The ground-floor flat on the left had a Sold notice in the window, as had the one above it.

  Ellie reflected that Diana did know how to run this sort of operation. If she hadn't inherited all of her great-aunt's qualities, her business sense seemed to have descended intact.

  Ellie tugged her bags of food and Diana's cleaning out of the cab and struggled to the front door with them. Dropping Diana's newly cleaned dress in its plastic sheath, she managed somehow to get an elbow to the doorbell. Diana came to the door frowning, and the frown deepened into a scowl when she saw her cleaning on the floor.

  ‘Oh, mother, really! Look what you've done to my best black! And where have you been? I expected you half an hour ago.’

  Without waiting for a reply, Diana picked up her dress, smoothing out the plastic cover, and walked off into her flat.

  Ellie stood there with her laden plastic bags of food and considered her options. She would very much like to throw the bags into the hall, slam the front door and leave Diana to it. There were some eggs in one of the bags. They would make a lovely smashing sound and mess up all the rest of the food. It would be so easy to give way to impulse, and it would serve Diana right if she did it.

  It would, of course, be a really childish gesture.

  Well, why not?

  Or, she could just dump everything in the hall where she stood, and leave. That would be a grand gesture - of sorts. Not a brilliant one, but it might make Diana think for a change.

  No, it probably wouldn't. Sigh. How ever had this state of things come to pass? Did it all date back to Diana's childhood, when Ellie had been just about holding on to life? She understood that Frank had been weak with Diana because she'd been their only living child. Had she herself also been to blame, allowing Diana too much leeway?

  Ellie thought about Maria, clear-sightedly deciding that - love apart - little Frank needed a firm parental hand. If someone like Maria had had the handling of Diana, would the girl now be so … difficult?

  Perhaps it really was all Ellie's fault that Diana was like this, never speaking to her except in a hectoring tone, always finding fault? It was almost as if their positions were reversed and Diana was the exasperated, scolding parent and Ellie the child.

  ‘What's the matter with you?’ Diana's voice cut through Ellie's thoughts like a cold wind through a cotton T-shirt. ‘There's a terrible draught if you leave that outer door open.’

  Ellie thought of saying, ‘I'm not your servant.’ But she didn't. She took a firmer grip on her bags and carried them through into the flat. She put the food in the fridge and switched the kettle on.

  Diana was talking on the phone, fluently describing the beauties of a top-floor flat to a prospective customer.

  Ellie opened the French windows and walked out into the garden. The afternoon had clouded over but it was still very warm. Perhaps it would rain. She must remember to take an umbrella to the meeting in the church hall tonight. There were some scarlet geraniums in a pot just outside the door. Ellie automatically deadheaded one plant and plucked a couple of
dying leaves off another. The scent clung to her fingers, soothing her.

  ‘Kettle!’ shouted Diana from within.

  Obediently Ellie went to make tea for herself and coffee for Diana, who was on the phone again, stabbing with her pencil at a pad as she talked.

  Ellie took a seat and waited for Diana to finish.

  At last Diana threw down her pencil, stretched, yawned, and switched the machine over to answerphone. ‘It's been non-stop today. It looks like I could have sold these flats twice over. I'm wondering about bumping up the price. I thought you could take a spell on the phone for me tomorrow, while I get my hair done before I fetch little Frank for the weekend. Though, come to think of it, I'm going to need some cover this weekend, with so many people to show around.’

  Ellie kept her voice pleasant. ‘You'd better ask the child-minder, then. See if she's got time to help you out.’

  A quick shake of the head. ‘She'd charge me double.’

  ‘And I won't?’

  Diana opened her eyes wide. ‘Honestly, mother! Sometimes I wonder if you know what you're saying.’

  ‘You owe me twenty-eight pounds forty-two pence,’ said Ellie. ‘That's just for this afternoon's shopping. I won't charge you for the cab fare.’

  ‘What on earth's got into you, mother?’

  ‘I might ask the same of you, dear.’

  ‘You act as if I've committed a crime. No matter what I do or say, you always disapprove. I can't remember when you last smiled at me as a mother should. No, you always look anxious and it makes me want to scream!’

  Ellie thought about that. Was it true? Yes, very possibly it was. ‘You'd agree that I have reason to be anxious about you?’

  ‘I'm no different from anybody else. I have to try things out, see what works for me.’

  ‘There is one thing in your favour,’ said Ellie, who perhaps wouldn't have said it if she hadn't exhausted her usual reserves of tolerance, ‘you learn by your mistakes.’

  Diana looked shocked, and then gave way to a great crack of laughter. She laughed till she choked, blew her nose, coughed. Shook her head. Sipped her cup of coffee. Smiling, she said, ‘Yes, I try not to commit the same folly twice. I broke with Derek for good, by the way. Gave him back his ring, told him I didn't want to see him again. And if I can close a sale on just one more of these flats, I'll breathe more easily.’

  She frowned at a broken fingernail and reached for a nail file. ‘But you're wrong if you think I'm giving up this developing game.’ ‘It isn't a game, Diana.’

  ‘Oh yes, it is. I'm good at it, too. This place was a bit of a gamble, I'll grant you that, but it's going to pay off. Next I'm going to go for rundown two- and three-bedroom semis, buy them cheap, install new bathrooms and kitchens, decorate, do something about the gardens and sell them on. Now I know how to sell on the Internet, I won't ever need to use an estate agent again.’

  ‘I can see your great-aunt lives again in you.’

  Diana scowled. ‘She should have backed me from the start, when I told her what I wanted to do.’

  ‘You weren't straight in your business methods then, or she might have done. She's interested in what you're doing now, anyway. I don't suppose for a minute that she'd back you with capital, but she might come to see what you've done here some day.’

  ‘I don't want her capital,’ said Diana, sullenly. ‘I'm going to make it on my own, thank you very much.’

  Ellie was quietly pleased. For the first time ever, Diana was talking to her adult to adult. Perhaps now was the time to give Diana a little praise. ‘You have done well. I congratulate you.’

  Diana saw an opening and took it. ‘So you'll help me out this weekend?’

  ‘Don't push your luck.’ Ellie stood up. ‘I must go. I'm doing coffees this evening at church and I've got a lot to catch up on first. I'm having little Frank tomorrow afternoon, and will bring him round here afterwards.’

  ‘I hate being without him,’ said Diana, frowning again. ‘But I don't know how on earth I'm going to manage to show people around with Frank needing attention.’

  ‘Get an au pair. Or go back to Stewart.’

  Diana shook her head. ‘No, I can't go back. That's over.’ ‘Well, I need to get on. By the way, I've been looking up some of the people who used to live next door, trying to remember who lived there over the years. I went to see Lana Cullen …’

  ‘Oh, her. Married her childhood sweetheart and settled into a dead-end job in the travel agency. She's never going to set the Thames on fire.’

  ‘And I saw Mr Spendlove …’

  ‘Got early dementia, they say. Hard on the boys.’

  ‘And on his wife, too, I should think.’

  ‘Oh, she left ages ago. The social services send round people to look after him, but he's going into a home soon. It's a valuable property, that flat. Should fund his bills for quite a while.’

  ‘You seem to have kept in touch with them.’

  Diana shrugged. ‘Those that are still around, yes. I see them at parties sometimes. I used to see quite a lot of Trudy Cullen. She was much the livelier of the two sisters. But then I got married and moved away and she latched on to Gerry. They've not bothered to marry as there's no children. He's got a good job, though. Something at the council. She did a lot of temping, working for all sorts, abroad and here, but she got fed up with that eventually, and now she works at the High School as a lab technician. They used to have a big flat across the river, heavenly for parties, but they've moved back into Ealing recently. They sent me a change of address note and asked me to pop round, but I haven't been able to go, because I couldn't get anyone to look after little Frank. If only you hadn't been out so much, I could have gone.’

  Ellie ignored the implied rebuke. ‘So, that's why they aren't in the phone book? The other side of the river isn't Ealing, so they'd be in the Twickenham and Richmond phone book, instead. Someone said Trudy was now living near Ealing Broadway.’

  Diana read off an address from her filofax, and Ellie made a note of it. ‘I'm surprised you kept in touch all this time.’

  ‘I should have married one of the Spendloves. They've both done better than Stewart. But there was such an age gap, it didn't work out. Do you know the younger one has a flat in Docklands? Something in the City, he is. Stewart and I were invited over when we came back down from the north, but Stewart didn't want to go, so …’ She shrugged. ‘We've lost touch.’

  * * *

  Ellie stood in the forecourt of Diana's house and looked at her watch, wondering if she had time to visit Trudy Cullen before she had a bite to eat and went over to the church. She could just about do it. She phoned for a cab, which deposited her at the back of the Broadway near St Mary's Church.

  School was out, and the roads and pavements were busy with pupils returning home. The university term hadn't started yet, but there was always a problem with parking in that area. The pretty houses around St Mary's had probably been designed as workmen's cottages, but were now going upmarket in a big way. It wasn't far from the High School, so Trudy might well be home by now.

  Ellie rang the doorbell, and waited. Nothing happened. Probably Trudy wasn't home yet. She was just turning away when a man who seemed vaguely familiar came up behind her and inserted his key in the door.

  ‘Hello there,’ he said, all hearty. ‘I know you, don't I? Mrs Quicke. Remember me? We used to live next door to you.’

  At first she couldn't place him, and then she did. ‘Gerry Spendlove! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I live here. Didn't you know? Come on in. Trudy'll be back any minute, I expect.’

  Gerry Spendlove showed Ellie straight into a pretty sitting room, which was small but rather charming. What's more, it still had all the old features, such as cornices and ceiling roses, which Diana so despised. There was a mixture of furniture from all periods, which looked as if it had been picked up in auction houses and handed on from relatives. Ellie could see that they'd just moved in. Samples of wallpaper wer
e Blutacked to one wall, and unpacked boxes had been half hidden behind the settee. A group of framed photographs stood in the fireplace, waiting to be hung.

  Gerry dropped an expensive-looking laptop on the floor. ‘Have a seat. Like a coffee, or a cuppa?’ He must now be about thirtyseven; a thin, pale man who looked very much as he had at seventeen, except that he was now wearing slightly more fashionable glasses. He looked solid and reliable, possibly not very adventurous.

  He revealed a nice flash of self-deprecating humour as he removed some slightly risqué videos from the coffee table. He saw Ellie had noticed the titles of the videos, but was selfpossessed enough not to excuse their presence. She liked him for that, too.

  He made his way through a far door, where she could hear him whistling as he switched on a kettle. He'd been ungainly as a child and youth, she remembered, with legs longer than he knew what to do with. He seemed to have changed very little. There was a photo on the mantelpiece of him and Trudy Cullen with arms around one another on a bleak hillside somewhere. Perhaps it had been taken on a camping holiday? That would seem to be their style. It was the only thing on the mantelpiece so far.

  He brought in a couple of mugs of tea and set one down in front of her, collapsing on to a worn armchair himself. ‘How are you, then? I hear some of the gossip from Trudy's friends and from Diana, of course, though we haven't seen her for some time. She told me your husband died last year. So sad.’

  ‘Yes. I went to see your father today.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He shook his head. ‘He's being well looked after, of course, but … they say there's nothing to be done. We've got him a place in a good home, and hope he'll settle there. We've been trying to move him for years, but he clings to that flat. Only, just lately he's been deteriorating rather fast, so we've had to make arrangements for him to move. I wish there was an alternative, but he needs twenty-four-hour care now, and with us both working …’ He shrugged.

  He said, ‘Sometimes when I go he seems quite normal, and at others, he doesn't seem to know me at all. He keeps telling me that mother has just gone out to the shops. It doesn't seem kind to disillusion him, so we don't. Anyway, he might not take it in. We keep her informed of what's going on, of course, but … she married again, you know? Living down in Crawley, Sussex. I thought I'd hate having a stepfather at my age, but, you know, he's really nice and they're very happy together.’