Sandy Hair ignored her, pushing open doors. DC Baptiste talked into his mobile. ‘Not here. Just a cleaner … yeah, all right.’
DC Baptiste squatted down to her level and spoke loudly, as if to someone slightly deaf. ‘Where’s your boss, eh?’
‘I’m not …’
‘Not here, any rate,’ said Sandy Hair. ‘Bed’s been slept in, though.’ And to Ellie: ‘Mind if we look around a bit, dearie?’
‘I most certainly do!’ said Ellie, getting rather painfully to her feet. Her left leg seemed to have gone to sleep while she’d been kneeling. She bent over to rub it.
‘Thing is, dearie, your boss is in a spot of bother, know what I mean? So you just sit quiet and we won’t be five minutes, right?’ To his mate: ‘Bank statements, that sort of thing, right?’
Ellie drew herself up to her full height, which didn’t even bring her up to the policeman’s shoulder. ‘What’s Stewart supposed to have done?’
‘He’s been a bad boy, has Stewart. Now never you mind about him, dearie. You just make us a cuppa and we’ll be through in no time.’
Ellie was getting angry. ‘No, we won’t, young man. And if you dare to call me “dearie” once more, I – I won’t be answerable for the consequences. Now either show me your warrant to search this flat, or get out.’
‘Does it bite, then?’ Sandy Hair thought she was screamingly funny.
‘Indeed it does,’ said Ellie, with a grim smile. She reached for Stewart’s phone. ‘And if you’re not out of here by the time I count ten, I’m ringing my solicitor …’ If she could find the number. Yes, it was in her diary in her handbag, wasn’t it?
DC Baptiste looked doubtfully at his partner, but Sandy Hair seated himself on the corner of the table and swung his leg. He looked amused.
‘You remind me of my son’s hamster, dearie. Ever heard of obstructing the police in the course of their duty?’
Ellie found the number, and punched it in. ‘Will you put me through to Mr Weatherspoon, please? It’s Ellie Quicke here.’
‘Quicke?’ echoed DC Baptiste, looking alert. ‘You some relation of the old girl’s?’
‘Niece,’ said Ellie. On hearing Bill’s voice, she said, ‘Bill, dear. There are two policemen in Stewart and Diana’s flat, who want to search the place.They don’t seem to have a warrant, they won’t tell me what Stewart’s supposed to have done … and one of them thinks it’s amusing to call me “dearie”! Would you like a word with them?’
She passed over the phone to Sandy Hair, and watched with considerable pleasure as he first lost his grin, then slipped off the table and stood upright. He nodded once or twice. Said, ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ and handed the phone back to her.
‘Ellie, is that you? Shall I come and rescue you?’ asked Bill. ‘Problem: I do have a client with me at the moment.’
‘Thank you, dear Bill. I think I can manage now. Speak to you later.’
She snapped the phone back on the hook and faced two increasingly embarrassed policemen. ‘Well? Are you prepared now to tell me what this is all about?’
DC Baptiste tried to make up for his partner’s bad manners. ‘Look, we just need to ask this Stewart a few questions, so if you know where to find him …’
‘I haven’t a clue.’
Sandy Hair had recovered his nerve. He was also flushing red with anger at the way Ellie had made a fool of him. ‘I reckon you do know where he is, and that you’re obstructing the police in the course of their enquiries. I reckon you should come down to the station with us, right now, to answer some questions.’
Ellie was amazed. ‘You must be joking?’
‘Never more serious. So if you’ll get your coat on …’
‘Certainly not,’ said Ellie, moving towards the kitchen. ‘I’ve got one lot of washing to take out of the dryer and another to go through. Also the table needs polishing.’
‘You refuse?’
Ellie thought it over. The flat was a lot cleaner now. It might even be feasible to bring Aunt Drusilla over to have a look at it later that day. As for these two Keystone Kops, they had no warrant and they were just doing this to annoy her.
On the other hand, she realized she had misled them. Unintentionally, of course. And she had nothing to hide.
‘Very well. I have an appointment with someone just off the Avenue in half an hour and after that I need to go home to change, see that everything’s all right. I’ll report to DS Willis at about … oh, half past two?’
‘Are you refusing to come with us?’ asked Sandy Hair, who couldn’t believe his ears.
‘Of course not,’ said Ellie. ‘If you can tell me that it is of the utmost urgency that I speed down to the police station to answer vitally important questions this very minute, then of course I’ll ring to cancel my appointment, check up on my elderly aunt and come with you. I don’t think it’s that important, do you?’
‘Give you a lift?’ said DC Baptiste, who had never called her dearie.
‘Take her straight in,’ said Sandy, whose blood pressure seemed to be mounting by the minute.
‘Thank you, no. I’ll call a cab,’ said Ellie. ‘And while I’m waiting for the washing machine to finish its cycle, I’ll just polish the table.’
Sandy swung out of the door, banging it behind him. DC Baptiste politely pulled the table further into the room so that she could get right round it. She flicked him a small smile and he flicked her one back.
‘He outranks me,’ said DC Baptiste. ‘We’ll call for you at home at two fifteen, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Do you two play “bad cop, good cop” all the time?’
He was on his break when his mobile rang.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How d’you get on?’
‘I hung about, waiting for her, but she din’t come. That snotty cow came,
though, and got the police to let her in. And the builders to take down the scaffolding. The police is still there.’
‘What she come for?’
‘Dunno. She was in there ages, then called a cab and went off, taking
a whole pile of stuff from the house. Thieving under the nose of the police, I call it.’
‘Did you have a word, find out where the old biddy’s gone, then?’
‘Had a word. No dice. The snotty cow wouldn’t say. The builders don’t know, neither. Din’t you say you knew where she lived?’
‘Sure. Done some work there, not long back.You think the old woman’s gone there?’
‘Might have. Worth checking.’
‘Will do. See you.’
‘See yer.’
The cab dropped Ellie in the Avenue, almost opposite Bill’s offices. She resisted the temptation to call in on him and have a little weep on his shoulder. She really must learn to stand on her own two feet.
But not, she remembered, relying on her own strength. No. Dear Lord Jesus, help me. I’m so desperately afraid that Diana … no, kill that thought. But could you just keep an eye on me, on all of us, at the moment? Help me to discover the truth, even if it leads back to … Kill that thought, too.
Just … help, please!
The offices of Trulyclean Services, Offices, Flat Clearance and Domestic, were situated above the hairdresser’s that Ellie had used for twenty-five years. She hesitated about going into the hairdresser’s first to make an appointment, but a glance at her watch informed her that she would be late for her appointment with Maria at the cleaning services if she did.
Ellie hated being late.
She trod the stairs to the top office, where a nice-looking woman in her mid-thirties was working at a computer. Ellie diagnosed an Indian father and a white mother.
‘Ms Patel? I rang earlier …’
The woman swivelled round, her practised eye giving Ellie the onceover.
‘Looking for a job? I’ve not much on at the moment, but if you like to fill out a form …’
Ellie felt herself go red. For the second time that day she’d been mistaken for a cleane
r. ‘Sorry to disappoint you. I’m Ellie Quicke, Miss Quicke’s niece.’
‘Ah, one of our best clients.’ The woman gave Ellie a practised smile, and the words were spoken in a discreet, uninflected tone. Ellie could read the subtext, though. Her aunt was known as a difficult customer.
Clearly Maria Patel was no fool. Though not precisely a beauty, she was good-looking in a calm, statuesque way. Her hair was well cut – probably not done by the hairdresser below – and carefully streaked with blonde. Her figure was good though the bust was perhaps a trifle on the large side.
Ellie, unasked, took a chair and treated Maria to a friendly, open, smile. ‘Yes, I know my aunt can be very particular, but she is getting on and that house …’
Maria’s impersonal smile widened. ‘Some of my cleaners refuse to go there any more.’
‘I can well believe it. My aunt’s standards are those of a previous age.’ Ellie crossed her fingers. ‘She was extremely shocked at the unfortunate death of your cleaner.’ Ellie thought that if Aunt Drusilla hadn’t appeared to be terribly shocked on the surface, she probably had been underneath.
‘We all were. Never had such a thing happen before.’ Maria shook her head, expressing her own shock and dismay in the formal words required by the situation. It seemed her sorrow was about on a par with Miss Quicke’s. ‘So, what can I do for you?’
‘I wondered if you could give me the woman’s address. I’d like to express my condolences on behalf of my aunt. Also, there’s something else …’
Maria’s eyes registered calculation. She decided to play the gracious hostess. ‘Would you like a cuppa and a biscuit? I was just thinking it was time for a cuppa and my sandwich.’
‘Thanks, yes.’ Ellie took stock of the office while Maria busied herself with making two mugs of coffee. The place smelt clean. The carpet was immaculate, and all the office furniture was speckless, polished wood. There were framed flower prints on the walls, and the computer system was bang up to date. A stack of invoices lay ready for mailing. A locked cupboard on the back wall probably contained keys to the various properties for which the agency was responsible on a daily or weekly basis.
Maria herself was well turned out in a black trouser suit over an emeraldgreen T-shirt. She wore glinting silver bands on all her fingers except the fourth finger of her left hand. So, not married but possibly divorced? A hatstand supported an elegantly rolled umbrella and an expensive raincoat. A copy of the Telegraph was on the desk.
Ellie came to the conclusion that Maria was a good business-woman and that the business was prospering in her capable hands. Judging by the evidence of the newspaper and the lively look in Maria’s eyes, it would be best to treat her as an intelligent equal, woman to woman.
‘Thanks, no sugar, but a biscuit would be welcome.’
Maria unwrapped a sandwich. ‘You don’t mind if I …’
‘No, of course not. My aunt had to move out of her house, of course. She’s moved in with me, temporarily. Did the police tell you?’
‘They rang me for Mo’s address, which I gave them. I haven’t seen them, and they didn’t tell me anything else. What’s happening at the house, then? Did the police close it up?’
‘For the time being, yes. My aunt has decided to stay away till all the work’s finished, which seems sensible, but at the moment the workmen can’t get back in, so goodness knows how long it’s going to be before she returns. I wondered if I – or my aunt – ought to visit the cleaner’s family – did you say her name was Mo? What can you tell me about her? I seem to remember seeing her at my aunt’s some time ago but I hadn’t seen her recently, and I’m not sure I even remembered her name correctly.’
‘Mo Tucker. She called herself “Mrs” but I don’t think she ever married. What else can I tell you? She used to do domestic work for me regularly, years ago. I use women for regular contract cleaning in houses, and men for cleaning flats at the end of their tenancies, for the heavy work, cleaning specialist floors, spring cleaning and the like. About a year ago Mo stopped working for me on a regular basis, saying she’d got herself a job with more convenient hours, somewhere down the other end of the Avenue, cleaning offices out of business hours? Something like that. She didn’t get the job through us, so I don’t know exactly what it was.’
‘Would it be fair to say she wasn’t one of your best cleaners?’
Maria grimaced. ‘Now she’s dead, poor thing … well yes, I suppose it’s fair to say that. I pay them a sliding scale and she was on the lowest. About a month ago – yes, it was at the beginning of this month she came back to me, said she wanted some extra work – some family difficulty? – and could I help her out. I used her on, oh, about half a dozen occasions, all domestic, nothing too heavy. She was getting on, had put on weight. There were a couple of complaints and if she hadn’t been on our books for so many years I might well have said there wasn’t anything else for her.
‘Then earlier this week I was at my wits’ end to get another cleaner for Miss Quicke, who’s been through all my good ones, so I asked Mo if she’d mind, because she’d worked for the old lady for a while, some time back, so she knew what she was like. I asked her to take extra care, not to bang the furniture about, which was what clients were always complaining she used to do.’
She lifted her hands, open-palmed, in a gesture of despair. ‘And then …’
‘It was a dreadful thing,’ said Ellie. ‘But at least she couldn’t have known anything about it, it was so quick.’
Maria shrugged. ‘We’re insured for accidents. I’ve alerted the insurers. Let them sort it out.’
‘Forgive me, but you don’t seem very distressed …’
‘Tell the truth – and it won’t go any further, will it? – I rather agreed with Miss Quicke when she rang to complain about Mo having been sent to her. I had to do some fast talking to persuade your aunt to let her work that day. I wish now that I hadn’t. Mo really wasn’t a very pleasant … no, I shouldn’t say that. She had her crosses to bear in life, and it’s no wonder she was a bit, well, sharp at times. Forget I said that about her.’
‘So there’ll be some insurance money going to the relatives?’
‘No husband, far as I know. Ancient grandad, wastrel son. That’s about it. I suppose they’ll get something. I’ll let you have the address before you go.’
Ellie clicked her tongue, and both women shook their heads at the pity of it all. Ellie placed her empty mug on the table. ‘There’s just one other thing. My son-in-law Stewart. You know that he was managing some older houses and flats?’
Maria nodded again. She also straightened her shoulders and sat more upright. ‘We were sorry to lose his business. It was all part of Miss Quicke’s little empire, wasn’t it?’
‘What do you know about Miss Quicke’s empire?’
‘We’ve known the old dear for years. My father started this business thirty years ago and got to know her when she was just setting up, buying up old houses and flats, renovating them and selling them on. He always said she was one to keep an eye on and even when she demanded better rates than she could get elsewhere, he said it was worth keeping in with her. And it was … until recently. Then she handed the riverside block of flats over to her great-niece to deal with, and we found ourselves edged out. To tell the truth, I was happy enough to let that contact go.’
Ellie took a deep breath. ‘She’s my daughter, but I don’t hold with all her business methods.’
‘Oh?’ Maria chewed the last of her sandwich, looking sideways at Ellie.
‘Did she ask for a better discount, perhaps?’
‘She wanted a backhander, on top of the special rate we always gave Miss Quicke. I refused and she went elsewhere.’
Ellie looked down at her fingernails. She was ashamed of Diana. Not, of course, that Diana would ever be ashamed of what she’d done. ‘And Stewart?’
‘He was fine at first. Miss Quicke informed us that he was going to look after the older houses and flats for us, and t
hat we were to report back if at any time we were unhappy with the situation. Everything went along as it always had done for months. We were pleased and so was Miss Quicke. Then one day he came in and said he was changing contractors. To give him his due, he didn’t seem happy about it. I know who he went to and frankly, though I say it as shouldn’t, I didn’t think he’d be satisfied with their services for long.’
Ellie narrowed her eyes. ‘I believe he very much regretted dispensing with your services. He might perhaps be thinking of approaching you again.’
Maria doodled on a pad, keeping her eyes down. ‘He rang me this morning and asked if he might drop in – to discuss things – later on this afternoon.’
‘You won’t be too hard on him? He’s feeling rather disillusioned at the moment.’
Maria doodled some more. Ellie revised her first estimate of the woman’s age. She was probably in her early-to-mid-thirties, no older. The thought popped into Ellie’s head that Maria and Stewart might make a match of it. They’d look good together, both tall and well built. Both with a naturally calm temperament. With his genial nature and good sense in dealing with people and her business acumen, they’d go far.
What was she thinking of? It was an outrageous idea! Ridiculous! It would mean a divorce and Ellie reminded herself that she didn’t believe in divorce. And anyway, what would happen to baby Frank if Stewart divorced Diana? But the thought of a possible divorce returned, muted, as a background to the rest of the conversation. Cold common sense fighting with the ideals she’d been brought up on.
Maria continued to doodle. ‘I also had a call from Miss Quicke this morning to say that her great-niece was no longer in her employ, and that she would be advising me who would take over the management of the flats in due course. She didn’t mention Stewart. Am I to understand that Stewart is still to be employed by Miss Quicke? It would be helpful to know before I see him.’
Murder By Accident Page 10
