by Ann Granger
"Oh no! That would be really tasteless!" Margery looked at him in horror. "Anyway, I don't know who owns Needles now or whether I'm still employed here." She ran a nervous hand over her untidy hair. "I suppose Mrs. Danby will be able to tell me."
"Laura? I mean, Mrs. Danby the solicitor?" Markby asked startled to hear his sister's name brought into this.
"Yes. That's actually where I'm going. I just passed the shop on my way and thought I'd look in. Mrs. Danby's secretary rang me this morning and asked me to call as soon as possible. Something to do with Ellen's will."
"Her will!"
"That's helpful..." muttered Pearce.
"Quite." Markby shot his subordinate a warning look. ' 'Perhaps you had better run along then, Miss Collins. I'll lock up."
"All right." But Margery still hovered. "It is all right, your being here, I suppose? You aren't going to remove anything, are you?" Scarlet-faced she added in haste, "I didn't mean steal anything." Markby raised his eyebrows. "I meant, evidence ..."
"Don't worry, Miss Collins. Our investigations are always conducted with every regard for the rules." Pearce stared up at the ceiling. "We may have to take a few things away, but we always take the greatest possible care of such items and everything will be returned in due course. I dare say I shall be having a word with Mrs. Danby and, if she's the victim's solicitor, I'll keep her posted."
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Margery smiled unhappily and fled, her footsteps pattering down the stairs like a large mouse. The front door clicked shut.
"Turn up for the books!" said Pearce enthusiastically. "Bit of luck, Mrs. Danby being her solicitor. At least we know she'll cooperate, being your sister."
"Not necessarily," said Markby in dampening tones. "Put all those ledgers and business letters into a box, we'll examine them in the office."
"There, there," said Laura, hoping it would have the desired effect. "Would you like another hankie?"
She put her hand out to take one from the box on her desk and then decided it would be easier simply to hand over the entire box of tissues. The girl was gushing like a fountain.
"But I didn't know!" Margery wailed. "I had no idea! Honestly, I didn't, Mrs. Danby." She fumbled with the Kleenex box and dragged out a bunch of multi-hued paper sheets.
"Yes, I know, quite a shock for you. We have a bottle of brandy for emergencies in the office. Would you like a drop?"
"We don't drink in my church." Margery snuffled into the tissues, rubbing at her pointed nose until it shone scarlet.
"I see, well, a cup of tea or coffee?"
"We don't take stimulants."
"Right. How about a glass of water? I've a bottle of Evian."
"Y-yes, please."
Laura fetched the water and took her seat again. Margery made an effort to pull herself together and leaned forward.
"It seems wrong, Mrs. Danby!" she said emphatically.
"Oh? Why so? It was obviously Mrs. Bryant's express wish."
"But there must be someone else with a better claim
than I have, surely? Her family? Not that she ever talked about them/'
"Perhaps she had none? Or they'd quarrelled. That does happen. She would certainly have named relatives if she had any to whom she wanted to make bequests. Had you worked for her for a long time?"
"Four years, ever since the first day she opened Needles."
"There you are, then," said Laura firmly. "Mrs. Bryant obviously appreciated that you helped her build the business and wanted to show her gratitude."
She was dreadfully afraid the girl was going to start weeping again. Instead, Miss Collins sat up with a jerk.
"But she wasn't like that, Mrs. Danby!" She blinked her red-rimmed eyes earnestly. "Ellen hardly ever said thank you for anything. She could be quite brusque, even hurtful. One doesn't want to speak ill of the departed, especially since she—she—" Margery made a distressed gesture towards the papers on Laura's desk. "But she wasn't a friendly person in any way. Mr. Markby was asking about her friends but I don't think she had anyone, except in the historical society. Oh, Mrs. Danby, it would be too awful if the only person Ellen had in the whole world was me!"
Laura tried and failed to find a suitable response. She took refuge in facts and figures. "Apart from the shop of which Mrs. Bryant owned the freehold, there is a bank account, a deposit box in the bank and shares in British Telecom and British Gas. Also a high interest account in a building society." Laura looked up. "I think you'll find it will add up to quite a lot of money, Miss Collins. Miss Collins!"
Margery swayed on her chair, clutched at the edge of the desk and sent the glass which held the water flying. Rivulets of Evian ran across the papers as Laura snatched them up for safety and dripped down on to the carpet. Margery gazed despairingly at the mess she had made and burst into tears again.
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"All I'm saying," said Markby patiently, "is that you might have mentioned the fact that you were, are, Ellen's solicitor as soon as her body was officially identified. Superintendent McVeigh isn't going to like this!"
And he didn't like it either. If Margery benefitted by her employer's death her movements for Saturday afternoon must be checked, despite the fact that she had been in sole charge of the shop and there really was no way she could have left it long enough to get over to Spring-wood Hall and back again.
"And I keep telling you," Laura retorted crossly, "that until this morning I didn't realise I was! Ellen was a client of the firm. All her business, including drawing up her will, was handled by one of the other partners. Jimmie, who died recently, you remember him. Jimmie's files, his clients, were farmed out round the rest of us and I inherited Ellen, if you like to put it like that. Of course a letter was sent out telling the people concerned in case they wanted to make other arrangements, but I suppose Ellen didn't, because she didn't object. She had no cause to consult me during the period between becoming my client and her death. It wasn't until this morning that someone said, 'Oh, Ellen Bryant, wasn't she one of Jimmie's clients?' Then we checked and found we held a will. So I opened it up, since presumably I am handling the estate. She named the law firm as her executors."
"So why did you want to see Margery?"
Laura hesitated and then gave a hiss of annoyance. "Well, Margery's been informed so I suppose there's no reason why I shouldn't tell the police. Ellen left Needles to her."
"To Margery!" Markby shouted.
"Alan!" Laura put her hands over her ears. "Yes, left everything to Margery, in fact. Estate in toto. Don't ask me why. Perhaps she had no one else to leave it to? Margery appeared to know nothing about it and had hysterics in my office. I've had a very try-
ing day, Alan, and I'd appreciate being spared police third degree."
Her husband put his head round the door. "Those kids have hollow legs. All the apples have gone. I was going to make a pud with them and the bowl's empty. Emma's not been pinching them to feed those old nags again?"
"You should have said you wanted them!" said his wife tersely.
' 'Food flies out of the store cupboard. I went for a tin of baked beans lunchtime and there's not one!"
"Then you forgot to buy any! Why should the children steal baked beans?"
"I didn't forget. I bought—"
"Look, I've got to be going!" Markby interrupted. "I'd be obliged if you'd ask round your professional colleagues, Laura, and find out if anyone knows anything at all about Ellen. I am trying to find her murderer! Oh, and Laura—that fellow who was hanging round last year trying to pick up children seems to be back in the area. Warn Matthew and Emma and don't let Vicky play outside if no one can see her."
"Oh no . . ." Laura looked harassed. "Paul, do you think Emma ought to spend so much of her free time down at that horses' home? It's quite lonely out there."
"Try and stop her!" said Paul. "Emma's sensible, she wouldn't go with a stranger."
"Sensible but only possessed of a child's strength!" said Mark
by.
He took himself home in low spirits. To console himself he went out into his new greenhouse and inspected the fuchsias for white fly. After a while he felt better. No white fly. No red spider. But he did not feel happier about his case. They had hotfooted it back to the station to find Ellen's shopping list had indeed been written on part of an envelope, but the stamp and postmark had been torn off except for a small smudged section. Close inspection through a micro-
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scope hadn't revealed the origin and the help of the post office had been enlisted.
"Probably a London postmark,'' said the man at the main sorting office. "But there's not enough to go on. I couldn't swear to it."
Yet another blind alley. Ellen Bryant had passed out of this world leaving no trace, unmissed and it seemed unmourned—except possibly by an employee to whom she had willed her earthly goods "because she had no one else."
"I care for nobody, no not I, and nobody cares for me!" Markby sang the nursery rhyme softly to himself.
Why then, should anyone want to kill her?
Meredith was feeling cheated. She decided, after much trawling through her vocabulary, that was the best way to describe her present dissatisfied mood. She had gone down to Bamford to see Alan and attend the party at the new hotel, a prospect full of delights, and how had it ended? With a dead body, a spoiled dinner no one fancied and making a statement to the police.
If she were to be honest, unpleasant though all these events had been, the thing which frustrated her most was that she was stuck here in London, cut off from all the excitement with no way of knowing how or if Alan's investigations were progressing. Not, of course, that he'd discuss them with her. A brief call to her from him had merely confirmed that he had, contrary to his expectations, been put in charge of the case. It made it all the more annoying not to be there, sharing in the buzz of the activity. Ghoulish, perhaps, but a human desire.
Meredith prowled round the flat, making coffee, switching the TV on and off, picking up and putting down books and newspapers. The press had had a field day over the crime. There were pictures of the hotel, of Eric scowling and of Alan looking purposeful. Hope Mapple appeared in various stages of undress. (The local photographer of the Bamford Gazette had snapped a
beauty of Hope unveiled and the nation's press had obtained it from him.)
Always looking for a fresh angle, one indefatigable reporter had even dug up the story of the Equine Rest Home and the sword which Eric held poised over it. The nation loved an animal story. ' 'Pretty, plucky Zoe Foster' ' was pictured together with a Shetland pony "once destined for the continental meatmarket." Zoe, claimed the paper, had been the murdered woman's "best friend.'' What's more, Zoe had found the body in company with one of the hotel's "wealthy society guests." And lo and behold, there was a lop-sided snap of Meredith in her best party dress, gripping a glass of sherry and with her high heels sinking into the lawn, taken by one of the camera-waving sightseers and enterprisingly sold on to the newspaper.
"Silly idiots!" muttered Meredith, appalled. The rag had it wrong too, naturally. She and Zoe hadn't been in one another's company when the body was discovered. Zoe had done that alone. Meredith wrinkled her brow. And was the newspaper correct in declaring Ellen to have been Zoe's best friend, since Zoe had simply said Ellen was a fellow member of the historical society? Or had the relationship between the two women been closer?
Meredith studied the picture of pretty, plucky Zoe Foster again. She took another disgusted look at that of Meredith Mitchell, the society belle. Then she threw the newspaper in the wastepaper basket.
Some activity was called for to counter her thumb-twiddling. She went into the kitchen.
This was not her own flat. It was borrowed from an FO colleague currently abroad. The awareness that it was Toby's flat made it difficult to settle in it. Recently things had been made worse by a string of telephone calls from his friends, male and female, who seemed not to be aware that he was out of the country. As he'd been gone some time, it made one wonder how long an interval Toby's friends left before trying
to get in touch with him or why he never seemed to send them so much as a postcard. Or, come to that, why this past two weeks all of them seemed intent on getting in touch with him at once. Also intriguing was that none of them, whilst fully expecting Toby to be in residence, expressed any surprise at hearing a female voice at the end of the line. Toby's social life when in London had become the object of much idle speculation on Meredith's part. She wondered how he was getting on in South America.
Cutting a length from a stick of French bread, she split it, scraped butter on both pieces and amused herself decorating one with ham and sliced tomato and the other with crumbly Caerphilly cheese pressed into the butter and artistically studded with olives. She took these and a glass of white wine into the sitting room and prepared to make an early supper of them. But before she could take a mouthful the telephone rang again. Meredith approached the instrument, glass of wine in hand, and picked it up, praying that this time it would be for her.
"Meredith? It's Leah Fulton."
"Leah?" Meredith realised she sounded puzzled and just a little disappointed because she had hoped the caller would turn out to be Alan. She promptly said more cheerfully, "Leah, how nice to hear you."
"I realise it's a bit of a shock!" came Leah's voice. "Are you busy this evening, Meredith? Could you come over to dinner? Nothing formal or very exciting, just a small party, four of us. Denis has been rather low and I think that business at Springwood Hall is preying on his mind. The trouble is he won't discuss it with me. I thought if we got together and chatted about it, it might clear the air. I've asked Victor to join us, Victor Merle."
"Yes, I'd also like to talk about it!" Meredith said. "I can't think about anything else, either. You're quite right, Leah. If we talk about it freely, it will help us all."
"Someone else is as uneasy as I am about it all!" she
thought as she took her all-purpose little black dress from the wardrobe. Her sense of frustrated impotence was gone, replaced by tingling excitement. Events were moving, she felt it in her bones. Something was about to happen.
Seven
The Fultons lived in Chelsea in a quiet street of early Victorian terraced houses. The graceful arched doorways and whitened steps flanked by black-lacquered iron railings ran away from the eye in pleasing symmetry. Meredith found a free space and parked near the house. When she had locked the car carefully she walked the few steps to the Fultons' front door and stood looking up at it.
On either side heavy velvet curtains doubled with almost as heavy cream lining shut out any view of the rooms behind them. But a little light shone round the edges and on one windowsill glowed a lamp with a silk shade. Meredith climbed the steps and looked down into the basement area. A stone stair ran down to a door. Another window, curtains open, seemed to be that of a staff flat affording a glimpse of a homely living room cluttered with cushions and religious statuettes. There was a cat down in the stairwell, a black and white gentleman of the tiles with spotless bib and socks. He looked up at Meredith and miaowed, bristling his handlebar whiskers before disappearing into some recess which doubtless harboured the rubbish bin. She smiled and lifted her hand to the heavy brass door knocker. The sound echoed within the house.
The door was opened by a Filipina maid but her hostess appeared at the sound of Meredith's voice to greet her. As before, Meredith found initial sight of Leah impressive. She wore royal blue, her long hair coiled on top of her head to show off her large gold and pearl
earrings. These and her wedding ring constituted her only jewellery.
"Nice house!" said Meredith, meaning it and thinking how well Leah's discreetly perfumed elegance complemented the tastefully designed surroundings.
"Marcus and I bought it," Leah confided as she guided her through the hall. "I often think we ought to sell it and buy a new house, somewhere to make a home which would be Denis's and min
e, no memories of anyone else. Denis says nonsense, this is my home and he wouldn't think of making me leave it. At the same time, I think he really doesn't like it. He can't relax here somehow. I'm sorry to pour my domestic problems into your ears. I don't mean this to turn out a dreary evening for anyone. I can promise you a decent dinner and Victor is always good company."
Before Meredith could answer, Leah threw open the drawing room door and called, "Denis darling, here's Meredith!"
"Hullo," said Denis, taking her hand. "Good of you to come over at short notice. Drink?"
The poor man certainly didn't look relaxed, thought Meredith, but just as harassed here at home as at the hotel. She said, "Just a glass of sherry, please, would be fine."
Leah murmured, "Excuse me for a minute, will you?" and disappeared. This was a signal, Meredith suspected, that she, Meredith, was supposed in some way to broach the subject which vexed all their imaginations and persuade Denis to open his heart and mind while they were a cosy twosome. She did not altogether fancy the role of confessor and had no idea how to introduce the subject. As it was, however, Denis began unprompted.
"I really do mean it's good of you to bother." He handed her a sherry glass and perched himself on the edge of a chair, gripping a half-emptied whisky tumbler. "Leah's been upset, you know, ever since that wretched
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affair at Eric's place. I think it will help her to talk about it with you, since you were there/'
"Oh?" Meredith sipped her sherry and reflected that acting as confidante to both Fultons was tricky. She felt a little like Alice faced with Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Either the Fultons shared unspoken emotions or one of them—there was no way of telling which one— was imputing emotions felt to the other.
