Murder in Mind

by Veronica Heley

  One white-gloved hand held a plate stacked with biscuits while the other hand clutched the strings of a number of brightly coloured balloons: red, blue and yellow.

  Caroline pointed to the clown’s right hand. ‘The end of each balloon string was tied round into a loop, so that they could be given out quickly. Quite clever, really. The clown said, “Roll up for a birthday treat!” or something like that. All the children ran up and took a biscuit and a balloon each in orderly fashion, except that that one child pushed everyone aside to get at the biscuits. She wasn’t interested in the balloons, only in the biscuits.’

  ‘Abigail, I assume?’

  Caroline pulled a face. ‘Everyone knows Abigail. Knew. She was more often there than not. The kind of child your child avoids, you know? Although I shouldn’t speak of her like that, not really. Dreadful, dreadful thing!’

  ‘I think it’s important that the police get a clear picture of Abigail, because her father wants to sue the play centre for failing to stop her eating the biscuits. Oh, and he’s sacked the au pair for the same reason.’

  ‘Has he?’ Mrs Topping looked at her watch. ‘That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it? I must keep an eye on the time, because—’

  ‘What was the au pair like?’

  Caroline screwed up her face. ‘Couldn’t say “boo” to a goose, as my mother used to say about a girl who lived down the road from us. Turned out the girl was being abused by her father but none of us knew that at the time. This girl was Polish. Nice enough, but not really up to Abigail’s weight. There was always a scene when she wanted to take the child home, but a lot of children get like that when they’ve overdone it, and no one takes much notice. It’s best to be firm with them and not let them upset you, but the au pair always tried to reason with Abigail. Waste of time.’ She looked at her watch again.

  ‘Did you see the child eat the biscuits?’

  ‘Um. Well, they were all milling round the clown, and I looked for my mobile to take a picture and the child I was minding ran back to me, offering me half his biscuit, which was sweet of him, he is a nice child. And then . . . they all scattered, in different directions, and I snapped the clown just as the last of the balloons were given out. So no, I don’t think I actually saw her eating it. I was thinking about leaving, the time was getting on – which reminds me, I must be off – and then the au pair was calling Abigail’s name, and people were starting to leave because it was near lunchtime, you see. And the clown disappeared—’

  ‘Did you see the clown go?’

  A shake of the head. ‘I was strapping my little one into his buggy. Someone said that Abigail was hurt or been taken ill or something. We were amused, you can imagine, thinking she’d been greedy and made herself sick. Only, then we realized . . . and after that everything went quiet.’

  Silence.

  Caroline shook herself back to the present. ‘It was quick, they say. The play centre people were brilliant, asked us all to stay until the police came, and I had a drink for my little one in the buggy, so I did stay, but then time went on and I had to get back, the television man was coming to fix it because one of my cats had clawed the wire out of . . . But you don’t need to know about that. So I came away. I suppose I understand why Abigail’s father should be so angry, but really, that child! I mean, it’s terrible, what happened, but she did know she oughtn’t to eat snacks. I’ve heard the au pair tell her so several times. And the play centre does such a good job. It’s the only place around with an outdoor play area which has permanent equipment, and it’s good inside on wet days, as well. If it closes . . . Oh dear; it doesn’t bear thinking about. And I must go.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ellie, but Caroline Topping was already on the move. Ellie held the front door open for her. ‘I remembered you because of your cats. Do you still have four?’

  ‘The oldest one died, but I have a new manic kitten, J-peg we call her because the first we knew about her was when someone sent us a picture . . .’ And off went Caroline, still talking, chugging away in her little Volkswagen.

  So now Ellie had a picture of the clown, and much good it might do her.

  At least it wasn’t Diana. Quite definitely not.

  FIVE

  Saturday morning

  Was this a good time to kill another of the hateful tribe? The sooner they were all underground, the better.

  What about using the clown get-up again? No, better not. True, it only took a couple of seconds to tear off the mask and wig, and to shrug off the red coat. A white T-shirt hardly raised an eyebrow, and though the black trousers were baggy, they weren’t outrageous.

  But perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary to use it for this one.

  So; be prepared. Gloves, yes. Thin, disposable ones. And one of her own syringes, pinched on the earlier visit when all she’d done was laugh. The plan hadn’t been thought through then. But now . . .

  A glance around. No one in sight.

  Most shops – even in a street at the back of the bus station – were busy on a Saturday morning, but this one was so dimly lit that it repelled rather than attracted attention. The window display consisted of a few curling pamphlets, a stack of books on alternative lifestyles, and a selection of weird and wonderful charms claimed to ensure well-being and happiness. The paperback which advertised recipes for everlasting life sported the corpse of a bluebottle. Everything needed a good clean, including the prisms which dangled in the window.

  Ting! An old-fashioned doorbell.

  The fug inside assaulted the nostrils. Scented candles and incense.

  She lived above the shop but at this time of the morning she was usually downstairs, waiting for non-existent customers. Yes, there she was, sitting behind the counter on a high stool, a silk turban wrapped around fading, hennaed hair. She had draped what looked like an old lace curtain over her black dress, stained with her last meal. Or several recent meals. She’d been drinking something from a mug. Probably not straight coffee, though. Her tipple was gin, and she’d probably put a couple of shots in her morning pick-me-up, though with her diabetes she ought not to touch the stuff. Her eyelids were at half mast.

  There was another scent here, apart from the incense. Marijuana?

  Just her style.

  She blinked. ‘Back again so soon, you silly thing? I should tell the police about you and your mad ideas, shouldn’t I? Were you responsible for Abigail’s death?’

  Temper flared. One punch and she fell off her high stool, catching her foot in her draperies. Crash, bang, wallop. Over she goes. She hit her head on the edge of the counter and went down. Flop. Flip flop. Out for the count. Snoring.

  No need to shift her. She was too heavy to move, anyway. There was a quick way to help diabetics shuffle off this mortal coil. Pull up her dress – ugh – nasty sight! She always injected herself in her thigh. Another needle, another pin prick. Easy does it. And . . . leave the needle there. Clasp one podgy hand around it. And let it fall away.

  Confused diabetic overdoes it.

  Turn the ‘Open’ sign on the door to ‘Closed’. Drop the latch on the door.

  Perfect.

  Exit.

  Saturday morning

  Ellie stooped to pick up the newspapers which Thomas had strewn about the sitting room. Thomas was a ‘horizontal filer’, who covered every surface in his study with papers, claiming to know exactly where everything was. The same applied to the weekend newspapers with their supplements. One went this way, another went that; most of them ended up on the floor.

  As she arranged the newspapers in a pile, Ellie came across the print of the clown which Mrs Topping had given her. Should she phone Ms Milburn about it? It was the weekend and surely the girl would be off duty? On the other hand, leaving it till Monday might lay Ellie open to a charge of, well, not caring.

  Well, she did care. Of course she did. And the clown was certainly not Diana in disguise.

  The clown person might well be some student wanting to break into acting, who’d been hi
red to appear in costume at the play centre and give out balloons and biscuits . . . which had been supplied by whoever it was who’d employed them.

  So, you could argue that Diana might have done it, through someone else.

  But no; because as soon as an innocent person realized that his actions had led to the death of a child, he’d surely want to confess.

  Or would he? Perhaps he’d prefer to keep mum when he realized he’d been responsible for the death of a child?

  Ellie dialled the number Ms Milburn had given her and was told that the person she was calling was on the phone already. Of course. Please leave a message.

  ‘Please call Mrs Quicke. I have a picture of the clown for you.’

  End of.

  She looked at the clock. Time was marching on, and the decorator person would be arriving in a minute. Ellie reached for the nearest piece of paper to make notes for her. So many adults. So many children. So many rooms to spare. A shortage of beds. Had Maria said Betsey could let Ellie have a bed or two? Bunk beds, perhaps, for two of the children? Or would the other child then feel jealous and want a bunk bed, too? Or, worse; suppose the twins decided they couldn’t sleep in bunk beds? Really, there was no end of things that could go wrong when you invited people to stay.

  A ring at the door, and there was a tall thin blonde – bottle blonde but an expensive job – dressed in a trouser suit in an expensive material which looked like leather and might just be that. High heeled boots. Her figure was excellent.

  Ellie sighed, knowing she’d never be a size zero again; not that she ever had been, come to think of it.

  ‘Betsey?’

  ‘Harmony in the Home.’ Ms Betsey was armed with a laptop and a briefcase to show that she meant business. And an inquisitive eye.

  Ellie liked her straight away. ‘Coffee to start with?’ Where was Rose? Pottering around in the garden, deadheading roses. Best not to disturb her. ‘If you don’t mind coming into the kitchen while I make it?’

  ‘A pleasure.’

  Ellie led the way. ‘We have mutual acquaintances, I believe. Maria, of course. And I believe you know Mr Hooper, too?’

  ‘Indeed. We go back a long way. The Hoopers do seem to have suffered a run of tragedies recently.’

  ‘My daughter Diana is working for him now,’ said Ellie, putting a cafetière, china mugs and the sugar bowl on a tray. ‘I had some contact with him in the past over a property deal and Diana has linked up with him emotionally, if that’s the right term.’

  ‘I had heard, yes.’

  Could Betsey be trusted? Ellie rather thought she could. Perhaps it was worth probing further. ‘Milk with it?’ She switched the kettle on.

  ‘Black for me. I like to keep sharp when I’m working.’

  Ellie pushed the biscuit tin Betsey’s way. Betsey shook her head. She was sizing Ellie up, just as Ellie was doing to her. The kettle boiled. Ellie spooned coffee grounds into the cafetière and poured on the boiling water.

  ‘Let’s take it into the sitting room and make ourselves comfortable. I must admit I’m concerned for Diana. Being a happily married woman myself, I can’t help worrying when my daughter is seeing a man who has three marriages to his credit already.’

  Betsey sipped her coffee, eyes everywhere. Thoughtful.

  ‘I even had a visit from the police,’ said Ellie, ‘asking if I had any information about the deaths in the Hooper family.’

  Betsey seemed uneasy. ‘It’s none of my business, but if I were your daughter, I might think it a good idea to cool things with Evan . . .’

  ‘I wish she would.’

  Betsey considered her fingernails, pale polish, professionally done. ‘If she knew some of the background . . .?’

  ‘Can you bear to tell me?’

  Betsey made up her mind to be frank. ‘Mrs Quicke, I’ve known the family for ever because my mother was at school with the first Mrs Hooper, Monique. The word was that he’d married her to get the business, which was owned by her father. Evan’s own family wasn’t much to write home about; father had a job at the town hall, mother didn’t work. Nerves, apparently.

  ‘All right, Monique wasn’t exactly a pin-up. She wore glasses and her figure wasn’t good. She’d never had a boyfriend but worked in the business and expected to take over when her father retired. Then one day she upped and married Evan. My mother said that it would end in tears, and it did. Monique was in her forties when they married. She produced a son, but his birth left her an invalid, and she couldn’t have any more children.’

  Ellie sympathized. She’d suffered several miscarriages throughout her first marriage, and the only living child had been Diana. She understood the hunger women had to produce children. Poor Monique.

  Betsey continued. ‘The boy wasn’t up to much. Nerves. Stammer. Dissolved into tears if you so much as looked at him. Sent away to boarding school; not wanted on voyage, if you see what I mean. Neither was Monique after a while.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Paid off. She was older than Evan and probably thankful to be out of it. She moved away, set up in business for herself and we lost touch.’

  ‘The boy went with Monique?’

  ‘No, he stayed with Dad. Evan wouldn’t let him go, the only son and heir, that sort of thing. My mother died, I got married and started up my little business. Right out of the blue, Evan rang one day and asked me to quote for redecorating the reception rooms in his house, as he was about to get married again.’

  ‘The boy . . .?’

  ‘Not there. I did enquire.’ A frown. ‘Something about an accident? I think it was about that time he went to boarding school. Anyway, Evan wanted a clean sweep. Out went everything that Monique had done to the house, furniture, curtains, kitchen, everything. In came Airy Fairy Fern.’

  ‘His second wife.’

  ‘I think, though I can’t be sure, that there was some sort of agreement that Fern would provide him with a son and heir who was up to scratch, because she produced a couple of children as soon as she’d got his ring on her finger. I can tell you she led me quite a dance, changing her mind every five minutes, wanting stripped pine one minute, and all white the next.

  ‘She was a hippy type, you know. Glastonbury, flowing locks, dancing in the nude. I would be summoned to meet her to talk about wall hangings and walk in on her, naked except for some floating scarves. She had a good figure, I’ll grant you, for her age. I don’t know what it was about Evan. You’d have thought he’d have gone for a sensible woman in her late twenties for a second wife, but Fern was knocking thirty-five then and she drank! And smoked! She had a good hollow cough even in those days. No, I did not understand Evan then, any more than I do now.’

  ‘Fern must have had fun redecorating the house.’

  ‘She went in for rowdy parties, getting drunk and being thrown out of functions, being caught with a toy boy, collecting speeding tickets, crashing her car. Oh yes, she had fun, if you can call it that. But she put on a lot of weight and, what with this and that, began very soon to look older than she really was.’

  ‘Ah, she lost her looks? Now let me see, she produced two girls in quick succession.’

  ‘Freya and Fiona. Think “F” for Fern, and “F” for both her daughters. I was called in to redo their rooms at regular intervals as they grew out of bunny rabbits and fairies. I was asked to decorate one of their bedrooms with black walls, if you please. Actually I persuaded the girl to accept slate grey instead, which looked all right. The other always wanted everything pink. I honestly don’t know which was worse.’

  ‘What happened to Fern?’

  ‘Evan got rid of her. I suppose he woke up one day to the fact that her behaviour wasn’t exactly helping his reputation as a good, solid citizen. And there’d been no more pregnancies.’

  ‘He divorced her?’

  ‘Uhuh. He bought her the freehold of a shop somewhere in the back streets, set her up as a mystic, all crystals and scented candles, with the lights turned l
ow so that she still looked good. I shouldn’t think she’s a good insurance risk, what with the smoking and the drinking, and I think she had some other health problem. High blood pressure? Not sure.’

  ‘So marriage number three. This time to a young girl, a model, who calls herself—’

  ‘Angelika with a “k”. Much, much younger. She wanted the house redecorated to suit her own taste when she moved in, and who can blame her? She wanted shiny walls and huge mirrors everywhere to reflect her beautiful image, plus the kitchen had to be brought up to date. It cost the earth, as you can imagine. To give her her due, Angelika did ask her stepdaughters to stay on when their mother left, rather than sending them off to boarding school. I don’t think she really cares about them, but she does see that they’re fed and clothed and have more or less everything they ask for . . . in the way of money, I mean.’

  ‘So long as she isn’t required to stir a finger?’

  ‘That’s it. Angelika has produced yet another girl child. I suppose there was some mistake over the scan. I wouldn’t have thought Evan would have bothered to marry her if she hadn’t promised him another boy. But who can say? Maybe he really did fall for her beauty.’

  ‘You’ve had a good opportunity to observe them in their native habitat, so to speak.’

  A shrug. ‘To my mind Angelika is another disaster. Arm candy. Looking for a sugar daddy, so that she could pursue her career in modelling. Total concentration on me, me, me. Lazy. Dirty underwear left around for someone else to pick up. She either ignores her daughter, who isn’t exactly a cherub, they say, or shouts at her.’

  A hesitation. ‘I don’t know that I should repeat this, but on my recent visits – she now wants the dining room redecorated and a wet room put in – anyway, I wondered if she weren’t perhaps getting tired of a much older husband and starting to look elsewhere. She always seems to be on her mobile phone when I call, talking lovey-dovey to someone, and I don’t think it’s her husband.’