Murder in Mind

by Veronica Heley

  The doorbell rang again. Ellie opened it to admit another gust of wind and a wispy female in layers of grey clothing. She, also, was clutching a handbag, though it was neither imposing nor very new. Who . . .?

  ‘Ah,’ said Monique. ‘I know you, don’t I? So, where’s Philip?’

  The newcomer ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Philip left me a note to say he was coming round here today to . . . Well, he said he was going to finish what he’d started. I’m not sure what he means, but I thought I’d better warn you, though really he’s not responsible for his actions. He’s suffered so much. It’s you who’ve driven him to do—’

  ‘Nonsense, woman!’ said Monique. And to Ellie, ‘Odds on he’s not far behind.’

  Ellie drew the newcomer in. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

  ‘I’m Jeanette. Mrs Jeanette Hooper.’

  Monique rolled her eyes. ‘If you believe that!’

  A querulous tone. ‘As the only person who’s ever cared about Philip, my adopted son, I can call myself that if I like.’

  Ellie blinked. Was the woman for real?

  Angelika and Freya were standing in the doorway to the dining room with their mouths open.

  Ellie said, ‘Angelika, Freya: may I introduce some more Mrs Hoopers? This one’s called Jeanette and I believe she used to be Philip’s nanny. The other one is Monique.’

  ‘The first, so to speak,’ said Monique. ‘Evan is getting to sound more and more like Henry the Eighth with his half a dozen wives, isn’t he? I seem to remember only a couple of them managed to survive him. Henry, I mean. Let’s hope we have better luck.’ She ignored Angelika to advance on Freya. ‘You are Fern’s daughter, the one who wants to follow your father into the business? Yes, I can see him in you. What subjects are you studying, my dear?’

  The doorbell rang, and the knocker rapped. Impatiently. It must be Diana.

  It was. Clad in dark blue with white trimmings today. She seemed to have abandoned her usual black for the duration. Her bulge was just beginning to show, and the band on her ring finger had grown larger and more prominent since Ellie last saw her.

  As Diana stepped inside, Ellie said, ‘And this is the next Mrs Hooper. Diana; may I introduce you to your predecessors? This is Monique, the first. The second is unfortunately deceased—’

  ‘I’m the second,’ said the wispy female. ‘I’m Jeannette.’

  ‘Born Jean Marks,’ said Monique. ‘Now calling herself Hooper. I always called her Jean. She was good with Philip, I’ll give her that.’

  Diana shot a frowning question at Ellie. ‘Is she legal?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Monique, impatient as ever. ‘Evan wouldn’t. Evan didn’t. Not his type. Now, can we all go and sit down somewhere? My back’s killing me.’

  Ellie said, ‘In here.’ She led the way into the sitting room, collecting her handbag on the way, thinking she might need to use her mobile phone in a minute to get it touch with the hospital . . . if, that is, she had replaced it in her bag, which was something she couldn’t be sure about.

  The others filed in after her and found themselves seats.

  Monique, predictably, took the high-backed chair by the fireplace.

  Where were the police? And – as the song would have it – where, oh where, has my little boy gone? Where, oh where, can he be?

  If she was any judge of the matter, Philip was lurking in the shrubbery. Or round the corner. With intent to kill more of the family off?

  No, he wouldn’t want to hurt his nanny. Or would he?

  Diana, baulked of the most commanding chair, took up a position in front of the fireplace. Freya and Angelika seemed to have formed some sort of alliance in adversity and subsided, side by side, on to the settee.

  The wispy Jeannette dithered, unsure of herself. Ellie remembered Monique had described Jeannette as a hoverer.

  Monique shrugged off her coat, revealing a fine wool-and-silk black trouser suit with a diamond brooch on the narrow lapel. The rings on her fingers glittered as she extracted a cigarette from her bag. ‘You don’t mind?’

  Ellie said, ‘I’m afraid I do.’

  Angelika looked horrified. ‘Oh, please don’t. I get asthma.’

  Monique shrugged, put the cigarette away. ‘Oh, do sit down, Jean. You make the place look untidy.’

  Jeannette flushed, but sat on the edge of Thomas’s reclining chair. ‘You have no right to speak to me like that.’

  Diana was not accustomed to being relegated to second place. ‘I don’t understand why you’re all here. I’m due back at the hospital soon and have only dropped in to check the details of the insurance company and decide who’s to board up the house—’

  ‘I’ve contacted the insurance people,’ said Monique. ‘I don’t suppose you realized it, but Evan merely rents the place from me.’

  ‘Actually, I did know, but I find it’s best to double-check.’

  Angelika eyed Diana with dislike. ‘The delicious Stewart – who I gather is one of your ex-husbands – has had the house boarded up for me most beautifully.’

  ‘What?’ Diana didn’t like any of this. She looked to Ellie for information. ‘You got Stewart involved? Why?’

  ‘Angelika very sensibly asked Stewart to board up the house to repel looters and stop people going in and getting hurt. The staircase has almost burned through and might come down at any minute.’

  ‘But Evan wouldn’t want—’

  ‘Hah!’ said Monique, smoothly taking over again. ‘As I see it, Angelika’s the only one who has a legal right to speak for him at the moment. So here we are, all Evan’s women, past and present, gathered together in one place. Waiting.’

  ‘For what?’ said Diana, though she almost certainly knew.

  ‘For Philip,’ said Ellie. ‘I rather hope the police will make it before he does, but it’s going to be a close run thing.’

  Someone rapped on the French windows that led into the back garden, and everyone looked that way. Predictably, it was the wispy Jeannette who went to let Philip in.

  There was a sharp intake of breath from Angelika. Everyone else froze.

  Philip – if it was Philip, because the figure was wearing a balaclava, jeans and an ominously bulging anorak – was carrying a mobile phone. Or what looked like one. ‘Anyone moves, and I blow us all up!’

  TWENTY

  Blow them all up?

  Did he mean that he’d packed explosives around his body and could trigger an explosion by using his mobile phone? Oh. That was the way terrorists had worked on public transport, wasn’t it? Could Philip be copying them?

  Angelika was on her feet. ‘Philip? Why? I don’t understand!’

  ‘You! Why aren’t you dead? There was enough weedkiller in the sandwiches I got you to kill a dozen people.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t like tuna!’

  ‘Sit!’

  Angelika sat.

  Freya, sitting beside her, stared at Philip, refusing to cringe.

  Monique said, ‘Oh, really, Philip!’ in an exasperated tone.

  Diana was no coward, either. She turned away from the fireplace and took a seat on an upright chair. ‘So this is Philip, the black sheep of the family?’

  Philip sang in a rough tenor, ‘“Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full.” It was always, “Yes, sir. No, sir,” wasn’t it? But now it’s my turn to call the tune. Get my father back here, now!’

  Jeannette was wringing her hands. ‘Oh, Philip; no!’

  Monique said, in a voice which refused to tremble, ‘I’m afraid he’s unable to join us for the time being. He’s having an operation this morning.’

  ‘Concussion,’ Diana explained. ‘They have to relieve the pressure on his brain.’

  ‘I don’t believe you! He was coming round when the ambulance people got to him, so he can’t be seriously hurt. You’re hiding him from me, that’s what you’re doing. Get him back here, now! Or I’ll blow up the lot of you.’

&nbs
p; Monique blinked, fingered her cigarettes. ‘Philip, dear. You can’t blow us up without blowing yourself up, too. And if you blow yourself up, then you’ll never get to confront your father – if that’s what’s on your mind.’

  Silence while Philip thought about what his mother had said.

  Ellie was more intrigued than afraid. This wasn’t either tragedy or comedy; it was farce. She didn’t think they were in any danger . . . or were they? Um, well; perhaps they were. Philip was so unstable that a wrong word might easily set him off. But wasn’t he overdoing the amateur dramatics? Why, for instance, was he bothering to wear a balaclava, when everyone knew who he was?

  Did he think its presence made him into a menacing figure? Well, yes. Probably. He liked disguises, didn’t he? First he’d dressed as a clown, then as a woman reporter. Maybe there’d been other disguises at different times. Disguises gave you confidence, if you weren’t naturally a confident person.

  Yes, looking at it that way, the balaclava made sense. He aimed to frighten, but Ellie doubted that the odd bulge in his anorak contained dynamite, or whatever it was terrorists used nowadays. After all, where could he have got dynamite from? Ah, but the terrorists had made up their own bombs hadn’t they? Not dynamite, but just as effective.

  Oh, but he really wouldn’t want to blow everybody up yet, would he? In the first place, Evan – who must be considered the chief target – was unavoidably absent, and in the second place, Philip was surely enjoying the situation too much to let it end quickly.

  Ellie took a step back and let herself down on to a chair, opening her handbag and placing it on her lap. Monique had hers on her lap, as did Jeannette. And Diana. Ellie fingered through the contents of her bag till she found – eureka – her mobile and switched it on. And pressed buttons to put a call through to the police. Nine nine nine for emergencies. She hoped she’d got the right number this time.

  She had thought of trying to contact Thomas but he’d have his phone turned off while he was in the conference auditorium, so that was no good.

  Philip unzipped his anorak with his free hand, revealing that he had a bulky rucksack strapped to his chest. Filled with enough ingredients to blow them all up? It did look as if he’d taken some trouble to copy the terrorist’s favourite weapon of destruction.

  Angelika certainly thought so. Eyes wide, she made herself small on the settee, huddling closer to Freya . . . who watched, wide-eyed, breathing faster, but not allowing herself to show fear.

  Monique’s eyes switched from Philip to Freya and back. Monique had written Philip off years ago. Perhaps she was now assessing Freya as a possible substitute?

  ‘Excuse me if I light up.’ She extracted her cigarettes from her handbag and lit one. This time no one objected.

  Ellie wondered if Monique had also managed to switch her mobile phone on while fumbling in her bag for her cigarettes. And if so, who had she called?

  Ellie could hear her own call going through. She could hear a woman’s voice saying, ‘What service do you want?’

  Somehow she had to alert the woman as to what was happening. ‘What a pity the police couldn’t make it in time to join the Hoopers at play. Coffee, anyone? Monique? Or any of the other ladies? I can easily get my housekeeper to brew some up. And for you, Philip? What would you like?’ She hoped she sounded sufficiently silly. She didn’t want him to take her seriously. He probably wouldn’t because she wasn’t a Hooper and therefore not in the first line of fire. And perhaps the woman on the other end of the phone might be sharp enough to put two and two together.

  ‘Shut up, you! Let me think!’ He held his mobile phone high. ‘One touch on this and I blow you to blazes, because you deserve it, all of you!’

  Jeannette was weeping. ‘Oh, Philip! No! My darling boy!’

  ‘Yes; you, too! You covered up for my father when he abused me. You’re as bad as my mother!’ He was working himself up into a rage.

  Jeannette made the mistake of reaching out for him with both arms. ‘Come to Mummy!’

  He hit her, backhanded, catching her under her chin. She stumbled backwards and fell. Her eyelids flittered, and then she was still.

  Everyone else’s eyes switched back to Philip.

  ‘Ow!’ he said, nursing his hand under his arm, but still holding the device in his left hand, steady. Very steady.

  If he dropped it . . . If he inadvertently pressed the button . . .

  The message was clear. Don’t mess with me. Or else.

  Heavy breathing all round.

  Monique said, ‘For God’s sake, Philip!’ She sounded more amused than alarmed, but her voice grated and the fingers holding the cigarette shook.

  ‘You shut up! You sold your soul to him, didn’t you! You let him mistreat me night after night in my own bedroom. You never interfered or told him to stop or even came in to comfort me when he’d finished.’

  ‘What absolute nonsense!’

  ‘You won’t think it’s nonsense when you wake up to find yourself in hell! All of you! All contaminated material should be burnt. You, too,’ he said, turning on Diana. ‘I didn’t realize I could get so many of you all at once, but now I have you’re all going to die with me.’

  Jeannette moaned. Was she coming round?

  He spurned her with his foot. ‘As for you, you said you loved me more than Monique, but you betrayed me, too.’

  Dear Lord above! He means it! He’s capable of anything because his mind has been twisted out of the true by the lies told him by his so-called therapist. I never thought he’d turn on Jeannette, who did love him more than his birth mother.

  Time for me to interfere? And draw his wrath upon myself? Help, Lord! Tell me what to say . . . or do.

  Angelika was visibly trembling. ‘Philip? You don’t mean it. You can’t!’

  ‘You stupid bitch! Do you really think I care about blue eyes and blonde hair when I know what a stinking, maggot-ridden little soul you’ve got? You’re going to die, like everyone else he’s touched.’

  ‘What about your father?’ said Ellie. It seemed he’d momentarily forgotten her presence for he turned on her, taken off balance for a fraction of a second . . . during which Ellie glimpsed something, someone, looking into the room from the garden. A small figure, not an adult. A child. Mikey? Who’d been forbidden to play in the garden and so had gone out to do so the moment his mother’s back was turned?

  No; there was no one there. The phone in her handbag was ringing. The police ringing her back? No, it couldn’t be, because she hadn’t ended the call she’d made to them earlier. But . . .

  ‘I’d better answer it, hadn’t I?’ she said in a bright tone, reaching into her handbag.

  ‘Give it here!’ He snatched the phone from her hand and threw it across the room. It shattered against a bookcase. Oh. Would the police realize something was amiss? If they did, would they act upon it or think it a prank call?

  A phone was still ringing. Ah, but it wasn’t hers.

  ‘Mine, I think,’ said Monique. ‘If I don’t answer it, they’ll be coming in search of me here, as I said I’d be in to work by ten. I’ll tell them I’ll call back later, shall I?’

  Philip bit his lip, undecided.

  Monique took out her phone and with a perfectly level voice said, ‘Bit of a crisis here. Can’t talk now.’ She put it back in her bag. Had she switched it off? Now that Ellie’s phone had been destroyed, Monique’s might be a lifeline for them all, relaying what was said to the outside world . . . or the police, if Monique had been clever enough to dial their number.

  Monique said, ‘Which reminds me; Diana, what time are we supposed to get news about Evan?’

  Diana, pale but composed, also made an effort. ‘I was told to ring about noon. He was asking for Philip last night. I don’t know if you feel up to visiting him, Philip?’

  ‘What!’ With his free hand he tore off his balaclava, revealing a hot, red face and redder hair. ‘If you don’t all do as I say, I’ll—’

  ‘I know,
’ said Monique, in the soothing tone of mother to toddler. ‘You’ll blow us all up. We understand. We really do.’ She looked around. ‘Is there an ashtray anywhere?’

  ‘Do you mind?’ said Diana, ‘I’m still throwing up at the slightest thing.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Monique, taking what looked like a snuff box from her bag and stubbing out her cigarette in it.

  Philip lifted the mobile phone into the air. ‘Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll—’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Freya, resolute, despite a quaver in her voice. ‘Philip, you are my half-brother. I’ve never heard anything about you being abused. Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t pull the innocent. Of course you know. He abused me, over and over.’

  Freya shook her head. Her mouth tried to smile. ‘You’re joking! No, Philip. He couldn’t. He didn’t.’

  ‘All these years I tried to forget, and I did forget. I told myself that he didn’t love me because I wasn’t as clever as him, and because my mother didn’t love me at all. And that’s true!’ He shot the words at Monique. ‘You never loved me. You only pretended to be ill, so that you wouldn’t have to have me with you. And when he, my father, started to do that to me, you covered up for him.’

  ‘That’s not how it was.’ Monique had another cigarette out.

  ‘Please,’ said Diana, hand to mouth.

  ‘Sorry, dear.’ Monique put the cigarette away. ‘Have you some peppermints you could take?’

  Diana scrabbled in her handbag, produced a tube of mints, and took one.

  Philip cried, ‘You never loved me!’

  Monique took that on the chin. ‘I tried. By the time I could hold you in my arms you already had a mother, and you made it quite clear that you didn’t want me.’

  ‘You got rid of my real mother.’

  ‘Make up your mind; is Jean your biological mother, or am I?’

  Through his teeth. ‘You got rid of her when I needed her most. I was being bullied at school—’

  ‘Evan enquired. The teachers said you weren’t.’

  ‘I was! I should know, shouldn’t I? It was all your fault. Then Dad said I wasn’t suitable to go into the business and had to learn carpentry or gardening or something, anything to get me out of his sight for good. That was fine by me!’ He stood up, menacing, phone lifted high. ‘So . . .!’