Murder By Committee

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Goodnight, God bless,’ said Tum-Tum, closing the subject.

  Ellie went up the pathway, accompanied by Midge, searching for the back door key in her handbag. The house was as she had left it, though the message light was winking on the answerphone.

  She could ignore it. Perhaps it wasn't only Diana. Perhaps dear Aunt Drusilla had rung for some reason. Or one of her friends.

  Diana's was the first message. Predictable. Threatening. ‘… because if you don't help me out, you'll drive me to do something I really don't want to do, and …’

  Ellie waited till Diana had run out of steam.

  The next message was from an old friend who lived on the other side of London. They'd planned to meet up in town the following week, but something had come up. Could Ellie manage Tuesday instead of Wednesday? Fine by Ellie.

  Then a fluttery voice. Dear Rose, the old friend who'd once worked with Ellie in the charity shop in the Avenue, but was now Aunt Drusilla's efficient and loving housekeeper and companion. Rose did go on a bit, but her heart was in the right place.

  ‘… because, dear Ellie, I didn't like to say anything to alarm you when it might be nothing at all, and you know what Miss Quicke is like, never making a fuss about anything, and refusing to take painkillers, but she's been using her stick so much more lately, and I've caught her having to rest halfway up the stairs, but she will not go to the doctor's, though I've mentioned it at least twice, and I really think she should, you know. It's her hip, I'm sure, but they can replace them nowadays, can't they? Anyway, I thought I'd just mention it, though it might be best if you didn't tell your aunt that I'd been interfering …’

  Ellie sighed. Yes, she too had noticed that her aunt was in some pain with her hip, and she, too, had had her head bitten off when she'd mentioned it. Now Rose was concerned. Something would have to be done. But what? Miss Quicke had been brought up to present a stoical front to the world, and in her day people did not have parts of their bodies replaced with ironmongery. Perhaps Roy might be able to persuade her to see a doctor?

  It was at times like this that Ellie missed her dear husband. It was like a nerve pain. Sometimes she went for days without thinking about him very much, and then … ouch!

  She told herself she was overtired. Well, she was, of course. But.

  While Ellie made herself a cup of instant soup, she sent up a prayer or two. She'd never been any good at praying first thing in the morning. Her time to talk to God was always last thing at night, as she thought over the events of the day.

  Ellie didn't think she'd handled things very well that day. What a jumble of impressions she had rolling round her head! That poor Felicity … nasty Sir Arthur … baby Catriona smiling up at her … Diana in a white fury, oh dear! Aunt Drusilla in pain and Roy getting himself into a financial mess … the architect's widow and the woman whose garden had been trashed …

  Lord protect us, Ellie whispered to herself.

  Preceded by Midge, she went up the stairs to bed.

  Five

  Sir Arthur was an early riser. Today he'd got a hangover, so had taken his ill humour out on his wife and would have taken it out on his dog, if the dog had still been around.

  Then Marco came in with the bad news about the meeting at the church hall the previous evening, emphasizing Ellie's part in it.

  ‘She did what?’

  Marco repeated his words with some relish, thinking that the interfering old bitch had it coming to her. ‘She said about the flats going up from two to six. Everything was smelling sweet till then. You hadn't got enough support for six. The man from the bishop, he picked up his skirts and ran. Furious, they was. Then Mrs Quicker went off to make the tea, calm as you please. I told you, din't I? Trouble, she is.’

  ‘What about my architect? He should have stopped the nonsense.’

  ‘Couldn't get a word in edgeways. Nor the chairman, neither. I reckon that scheme's gone down the tubes.’

  Sir Arthur slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair.

  Marco grinned, anticipating what was to come. ‘I'll pay her a visit. Right?’

  It was going to be another blue-sky day. The trees were turning amber, but the leaves had hardly begun to drop to the ground. A good day for gardening. The pink schizostylis which Ellie had planted in clumps in the front garden were coming out nicely, just as the early Michaelmas daisies were beginning to lose their colour. Ellie wondered whether or not to cut some of the lily-like pink flowers to put in a small vase on the mantelpiece in the sitting room - but decided to leave them where they were.

  The Japanese anemones were a triumphant mass of white. She could certainly pick some of those.

  The phone rang, putting paid to all hopes of getting out into the garden. Kate. Ellie was not particularly surprised to hear that, on such a perfect autumn day, Kate had been persuaded by Armand that she should forgo her trip to the City. Armand said that Ellie was a grown woman and would be perfectly safe going to see her client on her own.

  ‘Do I really have to go?’ Ellie would really prefer to work in the garden.

  ‘A car will come for you at nine thirty,’ said Kate. ‘You'll like Chris Talbot, and he'll like you. I'll be back around three, and look forward to hearing all about it then.’

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ said Ellie. ‘I'm not going anywhere till you give me a better idea of what's going on. Gwyn is your boss, right? So who is this Talbot? Is he Sir Arthur's enemy, the man he thinks was trying to poison him? And why do you think it wasn't him?’

  ‘Gwyn is the chairman of the merchant bank which employs me. He's been putting together a package to refinance a big corporation that's in trouble, partly through the losses incurred by one of its subsidiaries. There's a lot at stake, not just thousands of jobs, but also national prestige. Chris Talbot came on board at an early stage and it looked as if the City would give its blessing, provided this one loss-making subsidiary would agree to restructure.

  ‘Unfortunately Sir Arthur is a major shareholder in that company, and he's refusing to agree to the plan. He probably thinks that the longer he holds out, the more money he's likely to get as a golden handshake. Then his dog was killed, and Sir Arthur claimed that Chris Talbot - who's an old enemy of his - was responsible. He swore to get even. Gwyn is working behind the scenes to bring Sir Arthur round, but he thinks that if we can only find out who really killed the dog, prove that it isn't Chris Talbot, they'd have a better chance of the deal going through. That's why I asked you to help. You said you would. End of story.’

  ‘But …’ said Ellie, as Kate disconnected. ‘But,’ said Ellie to Midge, ‘Is my garden going to be safe while I'm away?’

  Midge yawned, jumped from the top of the table to the windowsill and proceeded to perform his toilet.

  Ellie considered her options. Some people would go on the Internet for the information she required, but she was not one of them. However, she knew a woman who was. Aunt Drusilla did not believe in rising late, and she might well have some useful information about this Mr Talbot - whoever he might be.

  The chauffeur-driven car took Ellie to the very heart of the City, and decanted her in front of the sort of building designed to intimidate those who didn't own houses in Switzerland, Bermuda and Paris, or bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.

  The building made Ellie self-conscious. Had her lavender suit, bought in a sale at Selfridges, really been a good buy? Wouldn't everyone be able to tell she was wearing Marks & Spencer underwear?

  She had to scold herself into mounting the steps between two modern art statues - what on earth were they meant to represent? Cornucopias, perhaps? Giant fish? Or just twists of steel reaching for the sky?

  The foyer was vast. All marble. Or what looked like marble. There were several desks, each manned by the young and the beautiful, who probably - thought Ellie - were expert at judo and would allow her no further into the building. But when she coughed and murmured her name, a man with sharp eyes ushered her round the corner to a lift hidden b
ehind an unobtrusive door. Before she could start worrying whether this was the sort of lift which left your stomach behind, they were on their way, and then of course she began to worry whether they might get stuck between two floors.

  Doors whispered apart. A vista of too much sky opened before her and Ellie almost lost her balance, so high up were they. A seagull slid past and Ellie remembered her mother saying that seagulls inland meant storms at sea.

  ‘Mrs Quicke, I presume? My name's Talbot. Delighted to meet you. You don't suffer from heights, do you? Here, take my arm.’

  A grey-clad arm took hers and led her away from the expanse of sky to a comfortable chair some distance from the balcony. He spoke to someone behind him. ‘Would you close the window, please? And rustle us up some coffee …’ And to Ellie, ‘Or would you prefer tea?’

  Ellie made an effort. ‘I'm so sorry. Stupid of me. I'm not usually … but coffee would be … that is, if it's not too much trouble.’

  At first sight Mr Talbot appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. He was a pleasant-looking man of about her own age perhaps, casually but well dressed in grey, but … ah, he had the sharpest, bluest eyes she had ever seen. Even bluer than Roy's.

  She revised her first impression. There was nothing ordinary about this man. There was a first-class brain behind that pleasant, somewhat bland exterior. Also, she mustn't forget that a man who occupied a penthouse suite in such a building was bound to be a person of importance.

  He had a good smile, too. One that crinkled up his eyelids. ‘I am delighted to meet you, Mrs Quicke.’

  She had an impulse to say - like a nineteenth-century miss - Charmed to meet you, too. She refrained from doing so, even while she registered the fact that he was charming and had treated her as a gentleman would. And wasn't ‘gentleman' an outmoded term? Yet that is what he was. A merchant banker with manners.

  He was chatting about the weather, giving her time to recover, saying he hoped his chauffeur had collected her in good enough time. All the time he watched her. Did he guess about the M & S underwear? Possibly. Did he care? No.

  Neither did she any longer.

  Coffee appeared. Proper ground coffee in a cafetière, of course. Very strong. She took a sip and held back a grimace, reaching for the milk.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I think you might have preferred hot chocolate?’

  ‘Bad for my figure.’

  He smiled. ‘Not from where I'm sitting.’ He called over his shoulder, ‘Can we provide …?’

  ‘Coming up,’ said a disembodied voice.

  Ellie felt mischievous. ‘With a biscuit?’

  He capped it. ‘Perhaps a Danish pastry?’

  She laughed. ‘No, that would be overdoing it.’

  ‘Perhaps when this is over, you'll let me give you lunch somewhere we can both be as self-indulgent as we please?’

  Her smile vanished. ‘I have the feeling you are not often selfindulgent, Mr Talbot.’

  ‘Call me Chris. Perspicacious of you. No, usually I am not.’ A pot of chocolate appeared with a swirl of whipped cream on the side, together with some rich chocolate biscuits. She ignored the cream and the biscuits, but sipped the chocolate with relish. ‘You say you are not usually self-indulgent. Thereby hangs a tale?’

  His eyes wandered away to the window and beyond, to the blue of the sky. Then snapped back to her. ‘Mrs Quicke; I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and I've turned my silver spoon into gold. However, I've a Calvinistic streak, which has perhaps prevented me from making as much money as some of my colleagues. It's also brought me some enemies. One in particular.’

  ‘The man I met yesterday.’

  He sighed. ‘It all sounds so trivial. Twenty years ago we met on the board of a company which was in trouble. We disagreed about the direction we should take. I swung the rest of the directors over to my point of view without realizing it would prevent Kingsley from making a lot of money on the side. He swore to get even. I think I was a little amused. What did it matter? To him, it seemed to matter a great deal. We've met and clashed every now and again over the years. He seems to take pleasure in opposing everything I do. Usually I win. Occasionally I lose. I've enjoyed the fight, most of the time.’

  He leaned forward to pour some more hot chocolate into her cup. His own cup of coffee remained untouched. ‘Now he says I'm trying to poison him, and I'm beginning to wonder if he's becoming paranoid. If his allegations reach the press, he could do me a lot of damage. Worse, it would destroy the deal we're trying to put together. I'm beginning to feel my age and this is getting me down. You know the saying about it being fine to ride the tiger, until you want to get off? Well, that's how I feel.’

  She revised her first estimate of his age. He was probably nearer sixty than fifty. But still fit. No way was this man too tired to go on fighting. She appreciated the touch about Sir Arthur becoming paranoid, but somehow Chris Talbot's story didn't feel right. With her head she thought, Yes, that all hangs together. With her heart she thought, Bullshit.

  She didn't normally express herself in those terms but, to her horror, she heard the word ‘Bullshit' leave her mouth.

  All the warmth drained out of the air. He was displeased.

  Oh well, she'd best be on her way. She reached for her handbag. ‘Thank you for the hot chocolate. It was delicious. I've always wanted to meet -’ she intended to say a captain of industry, but it came out as - ‘a gentleman pirate.’

  He threw up his head and laughed without sound, wiped his hands down over his face and stood up. He put his hand under her arm and steered her towards the balcony, pushing open the window so that they could feel the breeze cooling this side of the tower.

  ‘Let's get out into the fresh air, shall we?’

  Had she just passed some sort of test? Was he now confronting her with another, by leading her out on to the balcony? She felt herself wobble. Well, if she concentrated on something else, such as whether or not to buy some amaryllis bulbs to force for Christmas, she'd be able to manage. After all, she'd managed all right when she'd taken little Frank up on the wheel of the London Eye for his birthday. She'd managed that by being more worried about his wanting to dash from side to side of the capsule, shrieking, than about herself. The trick was to concentrate on something or somebody else.

  It wouldn't do to let her mind wander away when a man like Chris Talbot was baring his soul to her. Mind you, she'd believe he really was doing that when full cream milk returned to fashion.

  ‘Perhaps I was less than frank with you earlier. What do you think of the view, by the way? We're not as high as Canary Wharf, but not far off.’

  She was pleased to see that the warmth had returned to his manner, but refused to focus on the hundreds of feet between her feet and the ground below. Was it possible that it was not she who was swaying with vertigo, but that the tower itself was gently swinging in the autumn breeze?

  ‘As you probably guessed,’ he said, ‘all my meetings inside are tape-recorded …’

  She recalled the word ‘bullshit' with horror. Had that really gone on tape? And that gibe about his being a gentleman pirate? Oh.

  ‘But out here there are no mikes and we can talk freely, if the height doesn't bother you too much?’

  She nodded, concentrating on his face.

  ‘As you guessed, I'm not usually self-indulgent, but when I was twenty-five I wanted something so badly that I lost my usual sense of balance. For some years I'd had an “understanding” with a childhood friend that we'd marry when she finished her degree at Yale. Our families approved, our temperaments matched. Then I fell in love with a shy, ethereally beautiful girl and her neglected manor house in Oxfordshire.

  ‘Did she love me at all? Perhaps as much as she was able. I promised to restore the house, and she loved me for that. Within weeks of our marriage I discovered that what I'd taken for shyness and modesty was a deep insecurity on her part. She was miserable away from her home, and not clever enough to feel comfortable with m
y friends. I did what I could to reassure her, but I couldn't at that time pour enough money into her home to transform it overnight, nor could I afford to spend as much time in the country as she wished.’

  Ellie nodded. ‘You misread one another's characters.’

  ‘I hoped things would improve when the baby came, but caring for our daughter gave Anne the excuse she was looking for. She withdrew to the country for good. My business interests kept me moving around the world. I sent her as much money as I could towards restoring the house, but it was never enough.’

  He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘She had a no-good cousin who was always there, advising her on restoring the house. He moved in with her and, well, we divorced after two years apart. She married him, and they tried to run the house as a hotel. Neither had any business sense. They failed, of course. He died in a car crash and in the end she had to sell the house to meet their debts.

  ‘She married again. Her new husband drank. She did too. They lived on the money I sent them for my daughter's upkeep. I tried to keep in touch, see my daughter when I could, but Anne was clever about making difficulties and fed the child with the idea that I'd never wanted her in the first place. In consequence my only daughter turned against me and I've seen hardly anything of her.’ He held up both his hands in a gesture of defeat.

  ‘I think now that I should have tried harder, but Anne said that my visits upset the child and I - I was always busy. My fault. Anne thought of nothing but getting enough money together to buy back her home. She blamed me for her having to sell it in the first place. She tried to run a craft shop in Leeds, a café in Sheffield. Those failed, too. Her drinking became an addiction, yet she's still appealing, still beautiful in a fragile way.’

  Ellie thought he was probably telling the truth now. ‘You married again?’

  ‘Yes.’ He relaxed, smiling. ‘It took me two years after the divorce to convince Minna that I was in earnest, but I managed it eventually. She's my best friend, my heart and my home. We have two delightful, irritating, amusing, hard-working boys and she understands me perfectly.’