Murder of Innocence

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Gus, who was sleeping off his first binge nearby, woke up and challenged them.’

  ‘We’ve found the handbag, by the way, just where Mick said it would be. They cut Gus in to keep him quiet, picked up another of their mates and decided to go off together for a quiet drinks session. But now there were four of them, and the four bottles they’d bought didn’t last them very long. So they elected Gus to go out and buy some more drink. They chose him because he hadn’t bought any earlier, so it wouldn’t arouse suspicion if he bought some then. This was early Tuesday evening about the time that Tod was attacked.’

  ‘I still don’t believe it,’ said Ellie. ‘Oh, I believe the bit about the handbag and them cutting Gus in. If I understand these things, once an alcoholic falls off the wagon, he craves more and more drink. Yes, I can see him agreeing to go along with his “friends” and agreeing to get more drink for them but I can’t see him abandoning his quest for liquor in order to search out a suitable boy, take him to a safe place, tie him up, abuse him and still get back to his mates before they started out to look for him. It doesn’t make sense. An alcoholic wouldn’t be diverted so easily, would he?’

  ‘You forget the boys who were taunting Gus on Monday afternoon. If Tod strayed across Gus’s path when he was by himself and Gus was tanked up – well, anything could have happened.’

  Ellie got to her feet. ‘It still doesn’t feel right. Where is Gus supposed to have taken Tod? And what did he tie him up with?’

  ‘We think he made use of another of the abandoned garages by the park. They’ve been searched and in one we found evidence that it’s been used as a den by boys going there to smoke. We also found a jacket which we think belongs to Tod.’

  His jacket was missing. Ellie knew that. ‘Tod wasn’t wearing that jacket when he left school on Tuesday. His mother says she asked Tod and he said he wasn’t. He left it at school by mistake. Any of the other boys could have taken it. No, I can’t believe this of Gus. You should have seen Tod and him together. Tod wasn’t frightened of Gus. Gus liked the lad. Said he was sorry for him. Taught him to whistle.’

  The sergeant got to her feet, smiling slightly. ‘Believe me, we know what we’re doing. So, if you hear anything or see Gus, just let us know. We’ll see ourselves out.’

  Thirteen

  Ellie felt stunned. She looked around her restful green living room, the room in which she had passed so much of her married life. Now with the removal of the clock, the silver vase and the christening mug, it seemed to have gone out of focus. It was no longer her refuge in times of trouble. She thought, Perhaps it was bringing Gus in which altered everything? If I could go back in time, would I do it again?

  She didn’t know the answer to that, so she set about some housework. Making her bed, dusting, putting the stamp magazines out to be returned to Armand. Tidying, washing up, making shopping lists. Making tea for Jimbo and his mate. Cutting some forsythia, hammering the stems, putting them in a glass vase on the mantelpiece. They’d have looked better in the silver vase, but it was no use snivelling about that.

  And all the time she felt anger building up inside her. She’d been pushed around, her opinion ignored, been forbidden to contact Tod and …

  She just knew the police were wrong about Gus. But how to prove it? Well, there was one thing she could do. She could ask this Mr Parsley, or whatever his name was, for help in locating other people who collected stamps in the area. She pulled the telephone book towards her and looked up Parsley. And then hit her head. Silly me. Not Parsley. Persleigh? No, Pearsall.

  There was one living not far away. She made a note of the address.

  She didn’t often go that way to the shops, because it took slightly longer to walk round by the park. But what did she have to lose? She might as well call on him and ask his advice.

  She sat down at Frank’s big old desk in the study to pay bills, chuck junk mail in the waste-paper basket, return phone calls. Dear Rose was in, sounding very subdued, not working at the charity shop that day. Ellie recalled with an effort that Rose had had some problem she’d intended to share with Ellie some time ago, before all the trouble with Tod. Perhaps Rose would join her for lunch at the Sunflowers Café, yes? Ellie thought, I must get back to normalcy. Food. Clean clothes. Contact friends. Pick up my life again from the point where everything went haywire. Not think about Gus, or Tod or anything.

  She couldn’t think what day of the week it was. Looking at the calendar, she saw she’d got an appointment with her nice solicitor friend Bill later that morning – a good thing she’d looked, because she’d forgotten entirely about that. It was supposed to be about arrangements for Stewart’s new job with Aunt Drusilla, but Ellie rather thought she’d ask him what he felt about her giving so much of her inheritance away to the church.

  She also saw that she’d been due to go to a talk at church the previous evening. This was Thursday, so soon Mrs Dawes would be plodding across the Green to the church hall to take her weekly flower-arranging class. She’d be well wrapped up in her Burberry against the wind with a thick scarf around her head, and carrying an enormous bag which Ellie knew from experience would be filled with the tools of the trade: secateurs, tape, lengths of wire in different thicknesses.

  The front door bell rang and there was Mrs Dawes, even larger than life in her Burberry and scarf, carrying her tote bag bulging with equipment.

  She gestured at the door and the wrecked plants. ‘My dear Ellie, words fail me! Someone told me that you’d had a spot of trouble, but this is …’

  ‘Come in, do.’

  ‘Not if …?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Well, only for a minute. I’m on my way to my class, you know. The cornus and the viburnum might be saved if you cut them down to the roots, but I’m not so sure about the magnolia. What a thing to happen.’

  ‘I thought you’d say I brought it on myself.’

  ‘I’m told that graffiti can be cleaned off or painted over, but wrecking plants …’

  Ellie hid a smile. ‘Yes, it’s beneath contempt, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps you were foolish to take the man in, but …’

  ‘Perhaps I was.’

  ‘But I’m sure you did it with the best of motives. Truly Christian.’

  ‘Mm.’ Ellie thought, Is she working round to talking about my giving money for the church hall? ‘I’m afraid I’m out of sherry. Would you care for a coffee?’

  ‘No, no dear. I just popped in to say that they were all talking about it last night at the meeting – a very good speaker, from the hospice, you know, a pity you missed her – but there, you had enough on your plate. We saw the police car here as we were walking back. A burglary, was it?’

  ‘Gus did a runner with some bits and pieces of mine. They’ve broken his alibi and are looking for him now for Tod’s case.’

  The older woman’s pencilled eyebrows rose and rose. ‘So I was right and he did do it.’

  ‘No, I don’t think he did,’ said Ellie, keeping her voice steady. ‘But the police certainly think so.’

  ‘Ah. Well … everyone will feel better when they catch him. And of course we now have something else to think about, thanks to you. They were unanimous, you know, saying that the hall should be called after your dear Frank. Not a murmur about anything else …’

  ‘Anything else? Such as?’

  Mrs Dawes reddened. ‘Well, dear, you have perhaps been a little indiscreet now and then since dear Frank died, but your generous gesture makes up for everything, all quite forgotten as it were. Such a relief to know that Gustave has gone. I’m sure I shall sleep better tonight.’

  ‘About the money,’ Ellie began. ‘Nothing has been decided yet, you know.’

  ‘Oh yes, dear, it has. Quite decided. Everyone’s so thrilled, you can’t imagine.’

  ‘It’s true that a suggestion has been put to me about raising the amount my husband left to the rebuilding fund …’

  Mrs Dawes patted her arm. ‘No ne
ed to be discreet with me, my dear. I know how generous your offer was. Naturally, it couldn’t be kept from the church council. But I do know you don’t like to be thanked. Now, I must go, or my dear class will be wondering what’s happened to me.’

  Ellie shut the door on her with controlled violence. Dreadful woman!

  Jimbo appeared, holding a spanner and looking preoccupied. ‘Airlock somewhere …’ He wandered upstairs with his spanner.

  The house was cold because the central heating had been turned off. Ellie huddled into a jacket, collected umbrella, shopping basket and list, and checked to see how much cash she had in her purse. On the verge of going out, she hesitated. The stamp magazines were still in the hall, waiting to be returned to Armand. She’d drop them in to him later. She’d have to hurry now if she wanted to call on Mr Pearsall before she met Bill.

  She called up to Jimbo that she was going out and left by the back door because it was too painful to look at her poor massacred plants. Truth to tell, she felt the same way as Mrs Dawes about them. That magnolia had been just about to bloom … well, no good thinking about that.

  Oh dear, Mr Pearsall lived in yet another looming Victorian red-brick pile with a gravelled front driveway. This time there were holly bushes instead of laurel in the front garden. Ellie didn’t think holly an improvement on laurel, although there wasn’t much in it. There were turrets on this house and bay windows, neither of which Aunt Drusilla’s house possessed. Also the windows on the ground floor were blandly shut off from curious eyes with Venetian blinds, all lowered to shut out the sun. It must be very dark inside. She could hear the faint rumble of a train. The tube line must pass close by. There was an expensive-looking silvery car in the driveway

  – no garage, obviously.

  Sighing, Ellie rang the doorbell. Twice. Eventually a solid-looking girl wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and slippers opened the door, still holding a mop in one hand. The tiled floor behind her was wet and slippery. A cleaner?

  ‘Yes, who is it?’ came a voice from within.

  ‘Is woman, Mr Pearsall. You want?’ Polish origin? Spanish? Footsteps. A tidy, rather cadaverous man came into sight, holding

  reading glasses in one hand. Grey all over, trousers, sweater, shirt, hair, eyes. The cleaner turned away to pick up her pail. ‘Mr Pearsall? I got your name from the teacher at the High School who took over from you. I wonder – could you spare me a minute?’

  ‘I’m retired, didn’t he tell you? I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

  Ellie flushed. He was almost, but not quite, rude. She realized she must be as irrelevant to him as a door-to-door salesman. What could she say to interest him? The cleaner opened a door on the left and went in to flush away her pail of water. The scent of a strong antiseptic wafted into Ellie’s nostrils.

  ‘I know this is a great imposition on a busy man, but …’ She had been going to confide in him about Tod, but he didn’t look as if an appeal to his softer feelings would work. In fact, he didn’t look as if he had any softer feelings at all. She sought for an excuse. ‘They’re looking for someone to start up a stamp club at another school and they wondered whether you might be able to give me some ideas as to who might—’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ he said. He moved to close the front door.

  Short of putting her foot in the door, she couldn’t stop him closing it in her face. She’d never been any good at doorstepping. The door closed, and she hadn’t even got as far as the hall.

  What’s more, he’d made her feel thoroughly intrusive. What right had she to knock on people’s doors and demand their help? None.

  She would give up this business for good. She mopped her eyes and blew her nose. Fat lot of use she was. She remembered her fantasy about becoming a private enquiry agent and blushed. How embarrassing!

  Even a month ago, Ellie might have given up at that point. But now anger drove her on. She’d been given the run around by Mr Pearsall? Well, he wasn’t the only pebble on the beach and there was a public telephone box in the Lane which by some chance was in working order. She dug out the stamp magazines and leafed through them.

  There were no stamp fairs held in the immediate vicinity, but they were put on regularly not far away, and the magazine helpfully gave a contact number for the organizer. She even had the right amount of change in her purse to make a phone call. Wonders would never cease.

  Telling herself that she was asking for another snub, she located the telephone number and rang the man. He would probably be out. Of course. And even if he were in, he wouldn’t be able to help her. Would he?

  Amazingly, he was in. She gave him the same excuse that she had given that horrid Mr Pearsall. A local school was thinking of starting up a stamp club – would the organizer be able to give her some names of people who might be able to help with advice?

  To her amazement, he gave her some names straight away. She wrote them down, checking the spellings as she did so. How trusting he was! She couldn’t believe it had been so easy to get the information. She could have been anyone, ringing out of the blue like that.

  She looked at the names, none of which meant anything to her. What on earth was she doing, busybodying around like this? It was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to do anything about any of them, was she? She nearly tore the paper up, but instead tucked it into her purse. She was much too busy to go chasing rabbits – or was it hares? – like this.

  Bill’s office was at the far end of the parade of shops nearby and she was shown in straight away and plied with coffee by his secretary. ‘You look a picture, as always,’ said Bill, smiling. He was an old friend and meant well but she didn’t feel she deserved the compliment.

  He had had the paperwork done on Stewart’s new job, so that affair was quickly disposed of. ‘And now …?’ he said, with a rising inflection.

  Ellie sighed. ‘You’ve heard about the rebuilding fund?’

  He steepled his fingers. ‘Gossip, merely. I was waiting to hear from you before I took it seriously. When probate is granted – which won’t be long now – the money will be yours. We had talked about investing most of your inheritance in such a way as to give you a settled income. We’d also discussed setting aside the rest of it – about a quarter you thought – which we would set up in a trust fund on which you could draw for charitable purposes. That way there’d be a sort of bulwark for you, so that you wouldn’t be pestered for handouts by charities and everyone who knew you’d inherited money.’

  ‘I’m afraid that it’s got a bit out of hand,’ said Ellie. ‘From the moment Frank’s insurance cheque came through I had more money to spend than I’ve ever had before. I did spend some on myself, of course – the new conservatory and all that that needs – but I was able to help all sorts of people, just in small ways, nothing more than a thousand pounds at a time. I enjoyed being able to help them.’

  Bill smiled. ‘I know you did and I’ve also heard that you’ve made a lot of difference to the lives of those you’ve helped.’

  ‘No one was supposed to know.’

  ‘Word gets around. Don’t get me wrong, Ellie. You must do what you like with your own money. I only hope they’re grateful.’

  ‘Some are,’ said Ellie. ‘Though some seem to resent me for helping them out.’ She thought of Mrs Coppola, and one or two others who had made it very clear that nowadays they expected her to help them out whenever they got into difficulty.

  ‘But this matter of the church hall is different, isn’t it?’

  ‘They say that in a private conversation Frank promised to give them enough to rebuild – about a million pounds …’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes. That’s roughly what it’s going to cost to rebuild. They want me to honour that promise and say they’ll name the hall after my husband. There’s nothing in writing but if that’s what Frank promised them, how can I refuse? Wouldn’t that be very selfish of me? They need the money, and I expect I can manage without it. I’ve even been offered a job – though I think
it was invented – which would bring in a little. Then I can make Aunt Drusilla pay me rent for her house. Also, she wants me to go to live with her and if I do, then I could sell off my house to Diana.’

  ‘What!’ said Bill again.

  Ellie tried to laugh. ‘Yes, I know. I can’t, can I? I’ve been kidding myself that I could, but I can’t.’

  ‘Do you want my opinion?’

  ‘I may not take your advice,’ said Ellie, somewhat wildly. ‘To tell you the truth, I can’t think straight on this one.’

  Bill smiled at her. ‘Ellie, dear …’

  She sniffed and scrabbled for a hanky. He pushed his box of tissues towards her. She said, ‘Does everyone cry when they come to see you?’

  He laughed. And waited.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Frank discussed the provisions in his will with me. He was very clear what he wanted and what he didn’t want. He knew exactly how much he wanted to leave the church for the rebuilding fund and that was five hundred pounds. His instructions for the will were given to me within weeks of his death. He was clear in his mind right up to the end and if he had wished to alter his will, to increase the amount he left to the church, he could have done, but he didn’t. His overriding wish was that you were never to have to scrimp and save ever again. He knew your soft heart might lead you to giving a lot of it away but he thought that if he made me your executor, I’d see that you didn’t beggar yourself.’

  Ellie stared at the sepia photograph of Old Ealing on the wall behind Bill. Then she looked at her shoes. They needed cleaning, drat it. She moved the rings around on the third finger of her left hand. At least Gus didn’t get those.

  Bill was waiting for her to comment.

  ‘You’re right, of course. Frank did know what he was doing. But it’s going to be very difficult to make the church council believe that I’m not the answer to their prayers. They’re all so pleased about it. If I don’t go along with it, I’ll be the most unpopular person in the parish. I might even have to leave that church and go somewhere else. Even move house. Can I cope with the unpopularity? Wouldn’t it be the Christian thing to do, to give them the money?’