False Step

by Veronica Heley

  Bea seethed. Of all the idiots!

  Miss Brook was hovering at the top of the stairs. ‘Mrs Abbot. A word?’

  Now what? Miss Brook was making it clear that she was not going to come down the stairs to Bea, so Bea had to mount the stairs to her. With an effort, Bea kept her voice calm. ‘Yes, Miss Brook?’

  ‘There’s a person been on the phone from an estate agency, checking that you have the keys to a house that’s just been put on the market. Apparently the agency need the keys from you, in order to show people around. I told them I would speak to you about it and get back to them … when and as I can get the use of the phone again!’

  Bea’s legs folded up under her and she sank down on her bed, hands to forehead. Ms Cunningham wasn’t wasting any time, was she? Well, if she really had inherited the house, then she would need to get a valuation on it for probate purposes. But surely it was too early to put it on the market, or to show people around? The agency wouldn’t know that, of course. They would have taken Lily’s instructions at face value.

  Bea pulled open her dressing-table drawer, and checked that Matthew’s keys were still there. They were. She shut the drawer again. What to do now? Pray?

  Dear Lord, here’s a how-de-do. Everyone wants the keys, and I haven’t a clue who they really belong to. If it’s Lily, then surely it’s not right that she should put the house on the market before probate is granted? Why, Matthew’s funeral isn’t going to be held till tomorrow, and as for Damaris’s …? This whole thing has got way out of hand.

  So, take it one step at a time.

  ‘Miss Brook, if the agency rings again, tell them there may be a problem about the title to the house, and that I’ll get back to them when and if it gets sorted out. That should make them wary of Ms Cunningham and her claim to ownership.’

  Miss Brook’s nostrils quivered. ‘Very well, but how I am supposed to carry on the work of this agency without a telephone, I do not know. If Mr Max is proposing to move in here, we will need an extra landline. And now I have you here, would you care to cast your eye over one or two matters … nothing urgent … but I need your signature on this letter here, and on this. With your permission, young Oliver can bank the cheques which have come in.’

  Bea dealt with everything, her mind distracted by different scenarios. She was pretty sure that Max had already been contacted by someone with blackmail in mind, and that he’d promised to pay whatever was demanded to get his laptop back. She guessed that he’d lied through his teeth when he’d said everything on his laptop was password-protected. She, his own mother, wouldn’t have thought he’d have been technically up to it.

  Max didn’t believe she could sort things out for him as she’d always done when he was younger. Max was entranced by a vision of himself as an important man of affairs and Member of Parliament, and Members of Parliament didn’t get their mothers to help them out when they got into trouble. Perhaps, thought Bea, parliament might be a lot better run if they did!

  Max, of course, didn’t know about the Frasiers and what they might really have been after when they mugged him and took his keys to get into the house. Would Max believe her if she did tell him? Well, possibly. On the other hand – a nasty thought – it might be that she’d got it all wrong, and that the Frasiers were as innocent as newborn babies. It wasn’t likely, of course. But it was possible.

  If only she could stop the blackmailer from contacting Max till she’d dealt with the Frasiers!

  Bea had a sneaky idea. ‘Miss Brook, it seems to me that you have first call on the telephone line here. I can’t physically throw my son out of the house, but I might be able to get him to think about going somewhere else, if I could stop him getting incoming calls on this phone. May I suggest that you commandeer it? Use it as much as you like. I’m sure you must have a backlog of calls to make, if my son has been using it all morning. When you finish one call, why not keep the phone off the hook till you need to use it again?’

  Miss Brook raised one eyebrow, considering Bea’s suggestion. She took the phone off the hook and left it there. They could both hear Max quacking into it. The call ended. Max put his receiver down. Miss Brook didn’t. There was a tight smile on her face. ‘Of course, it’s not foolproof. If he were quick enough, he might be able to take an incoming call before I could get to it.’

  ‘I have an idea about that. So, may I leave the matter in your capable hands?’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Abbot.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Brook.’

  Bea took herself down the stairs and walked into the living room, undeterred by Max’s frown. Max’s colour was poor. His blood pressure must be going through the roof. He ought to cut down his intake of alcohol and take more exercise. Fat chance.

  Before he could object to her presence in her own living room she said, ‘I have to check, see if the burglar stole anything from here last night. He turned out all the drawers, I gather?’

  Miss Townend warbled, ‘Oh, Mrs Abbot, there was such a mess, you wouldn’t believe, but I put everything back as far as I could, and he didn’t take any of your pretty little china pieces, or the silver thimbles from the cabinet.’

  ‘Why, thank you, Miss Townend. You relieve my mind. But I must just check for myself.’ Max was busily trying to get a line clear on the phone. Bea said, ‘Miss Brook has been complaining about an intermittent fault on the phone. I expect it will clear soon.’ She pulled out drawers to check contents. Nothing had been stolen that she could see, but nothing was in its right place, either.

  Max began to pace up and down. ‘I’m expecting a very important phone call. Can’t you tell that woman to get off the line?’

  ‘She has her own work to do. Did you check that the key to the grille over the window was still in place? You know where it is, don’t you? No, not behind that side of the curtain, Miss Townend. Max, would you show her …?’

  Max went to look. Bea slid the volume control on the phone down to silent, and walked over to join them. ‘The key’s still there? Oh, that’s a relief. I was just wondering what I’d do if he came back tonight and could get in this way.’

  Max pontificated. ‘You should have a security light fitted over the front door.’

  ‘So I should. What a good idea. And a different alarm system, perhaps? Well, I must leave you two to get on.’

  She left the room, closing the door softly behind her. If he didn’t hear the phone ring, he wouldn’t be able to take the call from the blackmailer. With luck. What next? A late lunch. She looked at her watch. Did she have time to hear Gail’s story before she left for the confrontation with the Frasiers? She had a feeling that it was important.

  With a bowl of Maggie’s freshly-made vegetable soup inside her, Gail told what she knew.

  ‘You wanted to know about Lily Cunningham. Well, she’s the daughter of Matthew’s long-time accompanist, Bert. Matthew and Bert were old friends and colleagues. Bert’s an odd one. Bags of charm for those who could be of use to him, coldness for those who can’t. Very thin, chain-smokes, drinks too much, earns his living as a session musician, arranging other people’s songs, doing some accompanying … that is, till karaoke came in and did accompanists out of a job.

  ‘He was Matthew’s best man first time round; that was for Gerda, his first wife, the one who was killed in a railway accident. Matthew used to put work Bert’s way when he could, never heard a word against him. Bert didn’t like me, of course. I wasn’t his sort. He told Matthew I wouldn’t last and of course he was right. Bert liked Goldie, though. Oh well …

  ‘Bert never married, but he had women move in with him now and then, sometimes for months at a time, sometimes for only a few weeks. One of them presented him with a daughter, Lily, and then ran off with a much younger man, never to be heard of again. I felt sorry for Bert. A little. He was never convinced that Lily was his daughter.

  ‘So there was Bert, bringing up Lily with the occasional help of his live-in girlfriends. Poor little scrap. I tried to help, offered to
get her some maths tuition since the child was not exactly bright at school … though who am I to talk since Damaris wasn’t exactly a good scholar, either. Bert told me to stop patronizing him and … well, maybe I wasn’t as tactful as I might have been. Lily came around quite a lot at weekends to play with Damaris, since they were about the same age. At least I could see the child got a square meal now and then, but I haven’t seen anything of her for, well, must be nearly fifteen years now. What’s she doing now?’

  ‘Have you any idea why your daughter made a will, leaving Matthew’s house to Lily Cunningham?’

  Gail shrugged, wide-eyed. ‘I had no idea they were still in touch with one another. I don’t understand anything. I mean, my daughter had enough to do to keep her own household going, so why on earth would she give Matthew’s house away?’

  ‘You said there was something else bothering you?’

  Gail drew in her breath, sharply. ‘You’ll laugh at me when I say … but I don’t understand why Damaris was on that particular platform at Ealing Broadway. She takes … took … the Central Line from Ealing Broadway into Notting Hill Gate every morning. Then she’d walk down Kensington Church Street to the High Street to the shop where she worked. So why was she on a mainline platform instead of a Tube? They say no one was standing anywhere near her except a Muslim woman shrouded to the eyeballs in black. She’s disappeared and I can’t say I blame her. Apparently Damaris just toppled in front of the train. Vertigo, maybe? Perhaps she’d taken something for a cold or … I’m clutching at straws, aren’t I? I would have said she was the last person to commit suicide. I can’t make sense of it.’

  She had a point, there. Add it to the list? Bea said, ‘There’s a lot I don’t understand, either. I tell myself there’s a simple explanation for everything that’s happened, but I haven’t a clue what it is.’

  Gail was sharp. ‘I don’t do fantasy. I feel as I’m being manipulated by someone, but I can’t see who it is who’s pulling the strings.’

  ‘Lily Cunningham?’

  Gail pulled a face. ‘That poor creature? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Maybe Derek knows something we don’t. I’m paying him a visit this afternoon, see if I can recover Max’s laptop and mobile. Want to come?’

  ‘Certainly. I need to see him, too, find out what I can do to help. There’s the funeral to organize … oh, dear. No, I am not going to be sick again!’

  ‘Of course you’re not. I’m relying on you to help me put the fear of death into the Frasier boys. You can do that, can’t you?’

  Gail tried to smile. ‘Give them detention? Threaten them with suspension from school? What other cards can we play?’

  ‘Bluff our way in, and bluff our way out. You back me up, and we win. Right?’

  Maggie took a red pencil and circled a date on her big calendar. ‘Are we all going to the funeral tomorrow? It sounds as if it’s going to be fun, with all the wives and everyone being grabby. Only, I’ve got so much on, I’m not sure I can make it.’

  Oliver drove them to the Frasiers’, saying he needed the practice before he took his test next week. It was a mark of how competent a driver he was, that Bea didn’t find herself trying to push her foot through the floor of the car at every traffic light. Besides which, Gail needed someone to listen to her.

  ‘I wonder how they’ll manage now. Damaris did everything for them. Will he want me to help clear out her clothes …?’ Gail shuddered, looking out of the window, not looking at Bea. ‘It’s a terrible thing, having a child die before you. I said we weren’t close and we weren’t, but I always hoped … silly of me. She couldn’t admit that she’d made a mess of her life, married the wrong man. She was always dreaming that one day they’d get out of that house and he’d find a job which would make him a millionaire, and the boy would get into Oxford or Cambridge … stupid, stupid!’

  ‘How often did you see her?’

  ‘Every other month, just the two of us. The theatre, a good meal, an exhibition. The sort of thing she couldn’t afford herself. I hardly ever went to the house. The last time I was there was on Christmas Day. I’d taken them all out for a meal, the three of them plus Derek’s sister and her two. Nothing pleased them, though it cost me an arm and a leg, what with presents for all of them and … well … they gave me a couple of DVDs which didn’t work. Typical. The kids whined throughout.

  ‘After the meal we went back to their house and everyone settled down to some serious drinking and watching a violent DVD. Not my scene. Damaris asked if I’d like to go out for a walk with her. She said she was a bit desperate for money, and would I lend her a couple of thousand, and I felt dreadful but said no because I knew Derek would only take it. Sad, sad. Perhaps, if I’d given it to her …? But no. She’s “borrowed” money from me before and never been able to pay it back.

  ‘I felt miserable about it, but then it occurred to me that Matthew had taken out an insurance policy in her favour years ago. I suggested she enquire whether she could borrow money on that. She said she hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, but maybe my mention of him made her think she should look him up.’

  The Frasier house looked as depressed as before, and there was no large black cat sitting on the doorstep any more. The car had been moved and returned to a slightly different position. Bea wondered how Mr Frasier had managed to get it started. Had he called on the services of a friendly neighbour?

  Bea looked at the well-kept houses on either side, and thought they would have to be extremely charitable neighbours to help Derek out. But perhaps they were being helpful, in view of the circumstances? Grieving widow, motherless child. Hm. It was a trifle difficult to see Derek and Tom in those roles.

  Oliver held up his mobile phone. ‘You’ll signal if you can get hold of Mr Max’s stuff, right? Then I’ll ring Maggie and get her to tell him he can relax. But if there’s the slightest hint of trouble, I’m contacting the police, understood?’

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Oliver,’ said Bea, ringing the doorbell. The drainpipe was still hanging at an angle. Nothing had been added to the recycling box. She could see the television was on inside the front room, so presumably the Frasiers were in.

  Gail hugged herself. ‘Let me do the talking, Bea. He knows he can’t push me around.’

  Derek Frasier opened the door, looking wary. When he saw Gail as well as Bea, he tried to smile, his eyes flickering from one woman to the other … and then flicking to the car outside, where Oliver was staring at him. Derek’s eyes almost disappeared inside their lids as he computed what a visitation by three of them might mean.

  ‘Gail,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Derek. How are you doing? My friend here offered me a lift and I thought we could have a chat about the funeral arrangements.’ Gail didn’t offer to kiss him, and he didn’t seem to expect it, either. She stepped past him into the hall. There was a coat-stand in the hall, with a couple of women’s jackets on it. Damaris’s jackets. Gail took off her coat and after a moment’s hesitation, draped it over the newel post at the bottom of the staircase. Bea kept hers on.

  ‘How am I doing?’ said Derek. ‘Oh, you know …’ He held open the door to the front room, so that they could go through. ‘Tom’s been poorly again, but my sister’s coming over this evening to get us some supper.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Gail, without a flicker of sympathy for her grandson. So what could be the matter with Tom? Nothing serious, to judge by Gail’s reaction.

  Bea followed Gail into the front room and took an upright chair by the door. As she’d expected, the packaging from the new television and from the electronic game was still there. The flower vase was empty of water, the flowers dying.

  Tom was half lying and half sitting on the settee, wearing the same clothes as on the previous day, laces undone on his trainers, a fresh stain on his T-shirt. There were three long, livid-looking scratches on his left hand and wrist. He didn’t get up or move over to let the visitors sit down and appeared
glued to his electronic game.

  Gail hovered by the settee.

  ‘Move over, Tom,’ said Derek. ‘Can’t you see your grandmother needs somewhere to sit down? She’s come to discuss the funeral arrangements, so we’ll excuse you if you like.’

  ‘Before you disappear, Tom,’ said Gail, ‘I promised my friend here that I’d collect the things you picked up by mistake last night.’

  ‘What things? Dunno what you mean,’ mumbled Tom, without looking at her. He pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt further down, to hide his scratched wrist. ‘I was in all night.’

  ‘I can confirm that,’ said Derek, with a wide smile. ‘We watched the football together. Most exciting. I didn’t think you were interested in sport, Gail. I’d be most interested to hear what you thought of that disputed decision in the first half.’

  Gail looked at the brand new television. ‘You recorded it to watch later, I suppose. I came here to discuss the funeral arrangements, but we have to get this other business out of the way first. I know you and Tom paid a visit to Mrs Abbot’s last night and came away with a laptop and a mobile phone belonging to her son.’

  Derek mimed shock, horror! ‘What a terrible thing to say. I think your daughter’s death must have turned your brain.’

  Tom giggled, eyes still on his game.

  ‘Mr Abbot is offering a small reward,’ said Gail, in full headmistress mode. ‘Generally speaking, I am not in favour of rewards being offered for the recovery of stolen items, but as this particular theft has resulted in considerable inconvenience for Mr Abbot, I am prepared to act as go-between, provided we can clear the matter up straight away.’

  ‘I am astounded,’ said Derek. His colour deepened, but his smile never wavered. ‘I would never have thought it of you, Gail. Lending yourself to criminal activity! Whatever would Damaris have said?’

  ‘It’s because I’m thinking of my daughter that I’m offering to help you out. She wouldn’t have wanted you dragged down to the police station and charged with assault and theft before she’s buried.’