‘It’s worse than that,’ said Ellie, steeling herself for Diana’s reaction. (Please, Diana, don’t be too pleased about this.) ‘I’m afraid she’s dead.’
‘What? Nonsense.’ A silence. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I’m on my way there now.’
Another silence. But this time there was no grief at the end of it. ‘Wow! I thought she was indestructible. Sometimes the Gods do listen, then. Well, this is a turn-up for the books. It couldn’t be better timed. I’ll meet you there.’
Ellie ended the call. At least Diana hadn’t crowed with joy, even if she hadn’t sounded upset.
Who else ought she to ring? Her own solicitor, perhaps. But he wasn’t Aunt Drusilla’s solicitor. Ellie didn’t know who was. The old lady had kept her life in separate compartments, hardly ever letting her right hand know what her left hand was doing. Ellie winced at the idea of having to sort out the complications of her estate.
It didn’t bear thinking about.
Rose. She must ring Rose. She’d become friends with Rose McNally when they were both working at the charity shop in the Avenue. After Ellie’s husband died and left her well off, she’d left the charity shop but kept up her friendship with Rose. Ellie valued Rose highly because although she had a habit of twittering on about everything, she had a heart of gold. Recently Rose had moved in with Aunt Drusilla to act as a temporary companion and housekeeper. Rose had also helped Miss Quicke to start on long-overdue renovations to the big Victorian house. Ellie and Roy had fervently hoped Rose would stay on, but were not sure that she’d be able to put up with Miss Quicke’s sharp tongue.
Jimbo hadn’t mentioned Rose being at the house when he found Miss Quicke so she must have been having a rare day off and would probably be back at her council flat. Rose would be shattered to hear Aunt Drusilla was dead, too. They hadn’t been together long but it was an arrangement made in heaven; Miss Quicke had the financial acumen of a City giant, while Rose was a home-loving body who really appreciated the space and original features of the old house and knew exactly how to tempt an elderly lady’s appetite.
Perhaps Rose was out shopping, or arranging something for her daughter Joyce’s wedding, which was to take place that Saturday, the reception being held at … at Aunt Drusilla’s. Oh.
What would happen about that? Joyce would screech to heaven if the reception had to be cancelled, so … poor Rose. Poor everyone.
The cab turned off the road into the semicircular driveway of Aunt Drusilla’s house. The laurels dripped with rain and the dullness of the day brought out the shadows in the pillared portico. The broken steps had recently been repaired and new paint gleamed everywhere, but the house looked unlived-in and unloved, perhaps because of the scaffolding which surrounded it.
Perhaps the house knew its mistress had died. Ellie held back a sigh. The house had belonged to Ellie’s husband Frank and on his death it had passed to Ellie. She had never thought of turning the old lady out but together with Rose had finally persuaded Miss Quicke to undertake some urgent repairs. The roof was now watertight, the gutters renewed, plumbing and wiring were next on the list – except that the wiring had killed Miss Quicke before she could get round to replacing it.
Ellie felt the burden of looking after the house settle around her. She didn’t want it. Never had liked the house. Oh dear.
A couple of cars and a van were already in the driveway and a lorry was trying to edge its way in but being turned away. She recognized Jimbo’s van, and she supposed the others belonged to the doctor and … some other visitor.
Jimbo was in the panelled hallway, looking agitated. He started towards her, keeping his voice low. ‘Thank God you’ve come, missus. Look, I’ve got to go. Can’t hang around with jobs waiting. I found her but I don’t know nothing, right?’
Someone was coming down the stairs. The front door opened and Jimbo darted out as Roy came in. Roy looked as if he’d aged ten years since she last saw him. Ellie went to him and put her arms round him – or as much of him as she could manage, he being tall and well built and she on the short side.
Someone coughed. Roy patted Ellie’s back and she patted his shoulder.
‘Detective Sergeant Willis,’ announced the woman at the foot of the stairs. And then, ‘Oh. We’ve met before, I think. Mrs Quicke, isn’t it?’
Indeed they had, over a tragic affair of child abuse. Neither woman had thought much of the other then, and it didn’t look as if Ms Willis had changed her mind since.
DS Willis was in plain clothes – and very plain they were, too, Ellie thought. DS Willis still hadn’t done anything much about her hair, which was thick and untidy and inexpertly coloured mahogany.
Roy gaped. ‘Police? What the hell …?’
The woman produced her badge, flicked it open and pocketed it again. ‘And who might you be?’
‘Roy Bartrick. Miss Quicke’s son. But …’
‘Her son? Really?’ The woman had thick eyebrows which she used to good effect. Her ‘really?’ was a triumph of disbelief.
Ellie stepped between them. ‘Roy is her son and my cousin. Miss Quicke is … was … my husband’s aunt … We heard that she’d met with an accident … but …’
DS Willis’s eyes switched to and fro in the hall. ‘Where’s the plumber gone? I told him not to move till I’d spoken to him. There’s a policeman on the door, isn’t there? How did he get out? And how did you get in?’
Ellie felt as if she’d dropped through the rabbit hole into Wonderland. ‘What in heaven’s name is going on here? There’s no one on the door, and why shouldn’t Jimbo leave?’
The front door opened again and a uniformed policeman was thrust back into the hall, protesting loudly that no one was supposed to come in.
It was Diana, loudly informing him that he had no right to keep her out of her own house.
Only an avalanche could stop Diana when she was on the warpath. Power-dressed in an expensive black suit, handbag and briefcase at the ready, she thrust past the policeman and took centre stage. Eyes flashing, dark hair shaped to her head, she made Ellie feel inadequate just to look at her.
‘So who is this?’ Diana gestured towards DS Willis.
Ellie sank into a hall chair. She began to shiver. The house was cold. Of course, Jimbo had turned off the electricity at the mains, so there could be no heating or lighting on.
The PC said, ‘Sorry, ma’am, I had to step out into the road. Two men in a lorry tried to come in, said they had to take the scaffolding down today. There was a bit of an argument and while my back was turned, the plumber got into his van and drove off and this woman forced her way in.’
DS Willis sighed. She said to the PC, ‘I’ll have a word with you later.’ She flicked open her badge again and said to Diana, ‘You say this is your house? And who might you be, then?’
‘I,’ said Diana with magnificent effrontery, ‘am my great-aunt’s heir, and you are trespassing. Please remove yourself from my house at once!’
The front door was pushed open again. A couple of men walked in as if they owned the place. DS Willis waved a hand and said, ‘Upstairs, straight ahead.’
Diana said, ‘If you please …’ and tried to stand in their way, only to be brushed aside as if she were a child.
Ellie put one hand to her head. She found she was holding Roy’s hand tightly in her other hand. He seemed to be shivering, too. It was comforting, to hold on to a man in such a time and place.
Roy cleared his throat.‘Sergeant, does this mean what I think it means? We were told that my mother had met with an accident.’
‘You could put it that way, but …’
Once more the door was thrust open and someone walked the young PC back into the hall. Ellie reflected that the police really ought to send him on a course to show him how to deal with forceful young women.
For this was Joyce McNally, Rose’s daughter, who had planned to hold her wedding reception in that very hall in five days’ time. Joyce was a
s hard a nut as any bank cashier could be.
‘Well!’ said Joyce, almost but not quite putting her arms akimbo.‘What’s going to happen about my wedding reception, then? I’m not cancelling it, and that’s flat!’
‘You’ll have no choice in the matter,’ said Diana, as icy as could be. ‘I’m not having my house mucked up with you lot, and that’s flat, too!’
Ellie felt a bubble of mirth begin to rise in her throat. Hysteria, of course. She supposed she ought to try to take command of the situation, but against three such powerful women as DS Willis, her daughter Diana and the bride to be, she didn’t think she stood much of a chance.
Roy knew what to do, though. Men of his generation always did. He drew himself up to his full height and spoke over Joyce’s head to the detective sergeant.
‘Ms Willis, are we to take it that your presence here means there is some doubt about the cause of my mother’s death? We were told it was faulty wiring.’
‘Ah, it was the missing plumber who said that? I need to question him,’ said the DS, responding to Roy’s masterful manner. She turned to the uniformed policeman, who was beginning to wilt under this barrage of feminine personalities. ‘Find him!’ Then back to Roy. ‘The doctor who certified death called us in, thinking that there were some suspicious circumstances.’
‘You mean,’ said Joyce in pleasurable horror, ‘that the wiring was tampered with?’
Roy went even paler, and Ellie found he was clutching her hand so hard that it hurt.
Ellie knew she had a regrettable tendency towards flippancy. She sincerely mourned the old woman but couldn’t resist saying, ‘Murder by accident, you mean?’
The neighbourhood was naturally enthralled at the sight of so many vehicles piling up outside the old house. Passing cars slowed to have a look. Pedestrians gathered in knots on the other side of the street to discuss what was happening.
A youngish man in a newish Renault was among those who slowed down and gawped. Round the corner he parked, took out his mobile, and reported in.
‘It’s worked, just like I said it would. Police everywhere. You can stand me a drink tonight.’
He drove off, whistling through his teeth.
Two
P
olice reinforcements were brought up, which meant that no matter how cagey the DS had been in speaking of Miss Quicke’s death, it was considered suspicious. Everyone was swept into the big sitting room, which bore so many traces of the life of Miss Quicke that Ellie was afraid she was going to break down. She noticed Roy surreptitiously blowing his nose as he picked up and gently folded the day’s newspapers strewn on the floor around the old lady’s favourite chair.
Ellie noted that a nearby bowl of early tulips needed water, but lacked the nerve to ask to be allowed to attend to it. A pencilled shopping list lay on the piecrust table and the Radio Times had been turned to tonight’s programmes. Programmes that Miss Quicke would now never watch.
Ellie picked up some half-finished and rather inexpert knitting – it would be Rose’s, since it was impossible to imagine Aunt Drusilla knitting
– and sat down in the chair nearest the big bay window. It was still raining outside, but she felt better when she was closer to daylight. That gloomy room had always depressed her, though since dear Rose had moved in and added one or two plants and vases of flowers, it had felt more cheerful. Rose. Ellie brought out her mobile phone, intending to try Rose again.
The WPC who had been wafted in to look after them asked Ellie please not to contact anyone for the moment.
Ellie gave her a look of blind incomprehension and put the phone back in her handbag. Of course, the police must think they might have something to hide, might even try to contact an accomplice. Ellie tried to come to terms with the enormity of this idea and failed, so pushed it out of her mind.
Diana was tittupping up and down the room, making notes. ‘All this heavy furniture will have to go to Sotheby’s, or perhaps Phillips’. Most of it is too large for modern houses, but it’s all antique and should fetch a good price.’
Ellie felt too beaten down to protest, to try to soften Diana’s appalling lack of taste, or to correct Diana’s assumption that she now owned the house and its contents.
‘Mrs Quicke?’ The WPC motioned Ellie to her feet. ‘The Inspector will see you now.’
Joyce jumped up instead. ‘Look, I’ve got to get back to work, or they’ll go mad. I knew nothing about the old lady’s death till half an hour ago when I dropped by in my dinner hour to check on the number of plugs in the kitchen – for the caterers on Saturday, you know. It was my mother who –’
‘And where is your mother?’
‘How should I know? Out running errands for Miss Quicke, I suppose. The old lady certainly got her money’s worth out of my mother, didn’t she? Go here, cook this, do that from morning to night. And for what? A pittance.’
No, not a pittance, thought Ellie. Aunt Drusilla paid Rose a very fair wage, far more than Rose thought necessary. Rose liked being here. As for working her too hard, Aunt Drusilla knew when she was on to a good thing and had made sure that Rose never did more than she was comfortable with. Rose was a brilliant cook. Aunt Drusilla hadn’t had such good meals for ever and a day.
Oh, my dear Aunt Drusilla! You could be difficult, but am I going to miss you!
Ellie said to the WPC, ‘Let Joyce go first. I can wait.’
Joyce left. The room was so chilly you could almost see your breath on the air. Roy was staring into space, now and then drawing his hand downwards across his face from brow to chin. Poor Roy. Ellie realized she liked him best when he was not coming the Autocratic over her. Poor dear Roy. He really had come to love his mother and had done his best by her over the short time he’d known her. Why, he’d even moved in to look after her after she’d had that nasty fall back in the early spring. The fact that he’d been proved completely incompetent as a carer didn’t mean that he hadn’t cared, because he had.
Ellie tried to pray a little; for her aunt, for Roy … and for poor deluded Diana, so unhappy, so grasping.
Diana joined Ellie by the window, pulling the heavy floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains backwards and forwards. The lining gave way under her hands, and she exclaimed, ‘These are only fit for the dustcart!’
Diana’s mobile rang. She went to retrieve it from her bag, but was stopped by the WPC. Diana bridled. ‘I have appointments to keep, you know. What about her jewellery? She hasn’t much but it is of good quality. I’ll have to get it into the bank before they close.’
Ellie winced. ‘Diana, you mustn’t assume that everything goes to you.’
‘Who else would she leave it to? To you? Didn’t my father leave you more than enough? Would she leave it to Roy? Don’t be stupid. He’s just a fortune-hunter and she saw through him in a trice. To my baby Frank? Well, I suppose she might have left him something, family feeling, you know. But he’s only a toddler, so who’s to look after it but me? After all, blood’s thicker than water.’
These sweeping and somewhat inaccurate statements silenced Ellie. Roy raised his head to give Diana a look of blank surprise, opened his mouth, shook his head and shut off whatever he’d been about to say. He didn’t feel up to quarrelling with Diana, either.
Ellie closed her eyes and tried to think about something more pleasant. What was it that was eating the geranium leaves in her conservatory? And should she change her hairdresser, go for a more up-to-date, stylish cut? Perhaps even – greatly daring – go up into London to a really expensive salon? It would cost a bomb, but it might be worth it, give her spirits a much needed lift.
As she knew from her experience after Frank had died, it helped to make plans, to be positive, to get out and about. Not to sit at home and mope.
Poor Aunt Drusilla. She’d so much enjoyed her last few weeks … what a pity!
Ellie wondered if she’d dozed off. The room was empty except for Roy and the WPC. And even colder than before. Heavy feet were treading around
up above her. Now they were descending the stairs. She didn’t like to think what they were doing. Aunt Drusilla had always said she wanted to die in her bed. She hadn’t been afraid of death. She’d even drawn up a note of the arrangements for her funeral, including a list of hymns to be sung and readings.
Diana had disappeared, presumably to be interviewed by DS Willis. Roy had now picked up the papers, man-like, and was reading every word, shutting out the reality of what was happening.
The WPC touched Ellie on the arm and Ellie got up, slightly stiff, and followed her across the hall into the room originally intended as a dining room. It was certainly large enough to accommodate a dining table to sit a dozen people, but Aunt Drusilla had always used it as an office. There was her computer, the screen now dark. And the filing cabinets containing details of her wide empire; the block of thirties flats down by the river which Diana managed – had managed – for her great-aunt. Also for the older houses which had long ago been converted into flats and which Stewart had been managing for her. Plus, Ellie suspected, a considerable amount of other property, too.
DS Willis was seated at the table, with a younger, tough-looking PC. Tape recorder ready to switch on, and pencil and pad at the ready.
Ellie sat where indicated, and told what she knew of the morning’s events.
‘This Jimbo. We’ve been out looking for him. Where is he to be found?’
Ellie gestured to the telephone directory.‘In the Avenue. J.C.J. Plumbing and Central Heating.’
‘Why did he leave, when he was specifically asked to wait till I’d questioned him?’
Ellie shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’ Actually, she had a very good idea. Jimbo had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly on New Year’s Eve, and hadn’t she heard him grumbling about overdue parking tickets? Jimbo was an excellent plumber but he came from a family which held the police in wary dislike. It wasn’t that they were particularly criminal, because they weren’t – except perhaps for the odd spot of football hooliganism – but they were on the whole racist in attitude and against petty rules and regulations. They saw no harm in dropping litter on the pavement and often parked on double yellow lines.
Murder By Accident Page 2
