Murder by Suspicion

by Veronica Heley

  She would try them, one after the other. First bell … Flat Number One? No reply.

  Flat Number Two. No reply.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing!’ A sharp, angry voice. A voice she’d heard before?

  Dolores, the elder of the two cleaners whom Claire had imported to disarrange Ellie’s house, and whom Ellie had thrown out.

  Ellie fixed a smile on her face. ‘I am trying to reach Pastor Ambrose. I have to find out more about this venture of his before we can discuss it in committee.’

  Dolores hesitated. Weighing the risks of letting Ellie in? Did Ambrose forbid visitors?

  ‘Well, at least you’re not the police. We’ve had them crawling all over the place, as if we knew anything, which we don’t.’ She took a key out of her pocket. ‘He’s out till late on Fridays. He said not to let anyone in, but I suppose you’re different.’

  ‘The Murder Squad has been here?’

  ‘Interviewed all of us, all over again. Took for ever. Gail’s mother moved away a while back, so it was all a big waste of everybody’s time.’

  She swung open the door and ushered Ellie into a large hall with a tiled floor. The walls had been painted green. An impressive staircase curled up past a stained-glass window and disappeared into the gloom above. A chandelier had once lit this space; the iron framework for it still hung in place, but the original bulbs had long since gone, and neon strip lights had been installed on either side of it instead. Presumably, large pictures of hunting dogs, or stags at bay in the mountains had once adorned the walls, but these were now bare except for two cork boards covered with notices for the residents. Rules and regulations? Last one to turn out the lights is a sissy?

  Panelled doors led off in different directions, one of which had not one but two locks on it. Was that where Ambrose lived?

  ‘This way.’ Dolores crossed the hall and opened a door on to a dining room, complete with serving hatch into a modern kitchen beyond. Where there had once been a mahogany dining suite, there were now ranks of fold-down tables with washable surfaces and piles of stackable chairs. The floorboards had been covered with vinyl. There were no pictures on the walls and no padding on the chairs. Walls, floor and furniture were all green.

  Institutionalism replaces fine living.

  ‘This is the communal room where we have our meals and meet for the evening services,’ said Dolores. She collected a couple of chairs for them to sit on. ‘I can’t take you up to my room. It’s not allowed. I can’t make you a cuppa, either. The kitchen is locked till the others get back from their daytime jobs. I wouldn’t normally be back this early …’ She glanced away, fidgeting with the neck of her cheap black T-shirt.

  Ellie asked the right question. ‘So, where’s Liddy?’

  Dolores winced. ‘She’s poorly. Couldn’t work this afternoon.’ Her hands twisted. Was she about to cry?

  A lie? Ellie said, ‘Do you want to go up to her room to see if she’s all right? She did come back here, didn’t she?’

  ‘No, she … We’re not allowed in our rooms in the daytime.’

  ‘But if she’s ill …?’

  Dolores broke into a laugh, which degenerated into a coughing fit. ‘If you must know, I took her to the dentist. She’s had awful toothache for over a week now, and she knows it’s all in the mind and she ought to be able to rise above it, but it got so bad that I … I don’t know how I’m going to tell him. We’re not supposed to seek treatment … but she was in such pain. She wasn’t putting it on, honest.’

  ‘I’m sure she wasn’t. Toothache’s unbearable, isn’t it? I’ve had some, and I know.’

  ‘It’s all very well for you. You can afford it.’ Dolores bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to say that, had she?

  Ellie said, ‘I think I understand. Liddy wasn’t on a dentist’s books hereabouts? She wasn’t registered as a National Health patient?’

  Dolores shook her head. ‘I took her to the dentist in the Avenue. She was crying with pain. The dentist was kind. He said he’d fit her in somehow or other as a private patient, but it might be some time as he was fully booked this afternoon. We were dead worried because we have to clean the school at the end of the Avenue after half-past three, so I went along and said what had happened. They were pretty shirty about it, and I suppose I can’t blame them. So I cleaned the rooms I usually do and one of hers, but then the caretaker came round to close up so I had to leave the rest.

  ‘I went back to the dentist for her, and they said she’d been dealt with at last but was supposed to take some antibiotics and she had the prescription all ready, but Ambrose doesn’t agree with our taking any medication, and we didn’t know what to do because the dentist said she really must. Liddy was crying, in a terrible state. In the end she asked the receptionist if she could use their phone, and she arranged to go and stay with her sister in North London for a bit, just till she’d finished the antibiotics. I couldn’t talk her out of it.’

  ‘Why should you? It sounds a sensible solution.’

  ‘Her sister’s man is a dealer.’

  Dolores meant the man was dealing in hard drugs? Oh.

  Dolores twisted her hands. ‘We’ve been working together for five months now, and I thought we were friends, but she’s all take, take, take! Now I’m right in it, aren’t I? She didn’t care one bit that I was going to have to tell Ambrose what’s happened, and he’s going to be livid. And what about the school? I couldn’t manage her work as well as mine, and they aren’t going to be pleased about that, are they? And when he hears about it … I would go in over the weekend and do it then, only I don’t know how I can as I haven’t got the keys and the caretaker doesn’t live on site, and we’ve got all our usual work to do and the services to attend. I’m at my wits’ end.’

  Ellie tried to work it out. ‘Liddy had to go as an emergency; she wasn’t registered as a National Health patient. The dentist took her in and treated her privately, but he must have wanted to be paid. You’re not supposed to handle money. So, what did you do?’

  A deep breath. ‘I went and cashed the cheque you gave us the other day. We’d meant to hand it in, honest, but there’s been this and that, and … we’d held on to it. I didn’t know what else to do. It seemed as if it were meant, that we had that money to hand. We paid the dentist fifty pounds, and then we took the prescription to the chemist and he gave her the tablets, but we had to pay for those, too.’

  She was on the verge of tears. ‘I couldn’t ask Ambrose what to do because he’s never here on Friday afternoons. When he finds out, he’ll go spare! The only thing I have left to sell is … But I swore I wouldn’t, not again, and if he found out he’d half kill me.’

  Ellie interpreted that without any trouble. Dolores would go back on the streets if necessary, but if Ambrose caught her at it she’d be in for a beating. All right, you could say she’d stolen the money they’d earned, but she’d done it for Liddy, who’d then run out on her.

  Ellie had some money in her handbag. She could give Dolores enough to cover the cheque that had been cashed. But, ought she to do so? If Ambrose took the girls’ earnings all the time, surely he was the one who was responsible for seeing they were signed up with a doctor and a dentist, and sent for eye tests if appropriate? Ambrose had, it seemed, fallen down on his duty to his employees … if that was what they were. Wouldn’t it be right for him to cover the cost himself? Yes. But.

  Dolores had let Ellie in and talked to her because she knew Ellie had money and was known to be a soft touch. Perhaps Dolores had hoped all along that Ellie would replace the money she’d given the dentist? Dolores was not as straightforward as she had seemed.

  Neither was Ellie. She patted Dolores’ arm. ‘We’ll sort it, between us. Now tell me; how did you get into this pickle?’

  The old, old story. Absent father, drunken mother. Poor grades at school. Fabulous boyfriend who left her when her little boy was one year old and she had another on the way. New boyfriend, who introduced her to drugs. Social h
ousing. Children taken into care. Thrown out of her flat by new boyfriend, who sent her on to a third man. Kept primed with drugs, on the streets for her pimp, until she was worn out. Up in court for the umpteenth time, rescued by Ambrose who had saved her. Wonderful Ambrose. He’d given her new life and hope, and she’d let him down by stealing that cheque, which he was going to take very hard, because there were rules; they had to have rules, didn’t they? If he threw her out, she didn’t know what she would do, and she’d be back behind bars in no time.

  ‘How many times have you been in prison?’

  ‘Well, none, really. My man bailed me out every time, so I’ve never been inside, not properly, only overnight once or twice.’

  ‘What happened to your pimp?’

  ‘Ambrose dealt with him.’ In reverent tones.

  Ellie could well believe that someone Ambrose had dealt with would stay dealt.

  Dolores was thirty-one years old and looked sixty.

  Ellie said, ‘How do you see the future?’

  Dolores’ eyes lit up. ‘It’s a hard road, but I have the light of the Vision in my eyes, and if I keep on relying not on my own strength, but in the Word of our leader, I shall one day be free of my sinful past, and the angels will welcome me into the Land of the Forever Living.’

  ‘You mean heaven?’

  Dolores nodded. ‘The Land of the Everlasting. The land of those who live for ever.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ellie, not willing to challenge Dolores’ somewhat unusual theology. ‘Now, I’ll talk to Ambrose about Liddy when he gets back. When do you think he’ll surface?’

  ‘Supper time. He’s always here to say grace and hear our reports.’

  Ellie checked her watch. She had promised to be back for supper herself. ‘I may have to come back tomorrow to speak to him. Meantime, could you tell me something about the project here? There are ordinary tenants, and then there are the people Ambrose has rescued. Is that right?’

  ‘That’s right. Some are, and some aren’t.’

  ‘Who lives in the old part of the building?’

  Dolores gestured back to the hall. ‘That’s his flat, there. He has to have space and peace and quiet in which to meditate and to pray for the good work.’

  ‘Does he live alone, or is there a Mrs Ambrose?’

  Dolores looked shocked. ‘He’s celibate. He has to be, to become the channel for the Vision.’

  Hmph. Well, anyway, if he’s got a girlfriend, he’s not keeping her here.

  ‘That’s all on the ground floor,’ said Dolores, ‘except for this meeting room and the kitchen, of course.’

  So Ambrose’s rooms must occupy the major part of the ground floor in the old building. ‘Upstairs?’

  ‘They’re mostly people who were here before us. They’ve been put here by the Social, and they’re all much of a muchness, if you know what I mean. The people on the first floor at the front, he was made redundant, got into debt and lost their house. They don’t speak to us even if we meet in the hall. Ambrose goes up to talk to them now and again, but they’re steeped in sin and obstinacy and refuse to repent. One of these days they’ll drop dead and find themselves in the flames of hell, and then they’ll be sorry, won’t they?’

  ‘Er, yes. On the other side?’

  ‘They’re actors, or so they say. More like they sweep the studio floors. It’s a nice flat. That’s the one Claire used to have, before … before.’

  ‘The actors don’t listen to Ambrose, either?’

  ‘You’ve said it. Up top, there’s the one we call the Fat Lady. Husband disappeared long ago, and then she lost all her hair and ballooned out till she looks like one of those Russian dolls. As Ambrose says, she’s a perfect example of being poisoned by the doctors. She was quite a slim little thing once. At least, that’s what she says.’

  ‘You said Gail’s mother left some time ago. She did live here once, though?’

  ‘At the top on the other side. I dunno where she went. Shocking thing, that; finding the daughter in the canal. Who’d have thought? Mind you, she was bound to come to a bad end. Ambrose tried to talk to her …’ She shook her head. ‘She was asking for it; skirts up to here and neckline down to there. If she’d listened to us she’d still be with us today, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘You knew Gail?’

  ‘Not to say know her. I saw her about now and then. Hanging around in the Broadway, flirting with men; you could see where she was going to end up, all right. If she’d really had a feeling for the game, I could have taught her a thing or two, but she never paid me no mind. Stuck up little bitch. As if her sort of looks would last! I reckon someone picked her up and taught her the trade. She wasn’t much good for anything else. And –’ warming to her theme – ‘the ones who’ve come in instead? They’re scum, too.’

  ‘You mean the people now living in the flat which Gail and her mother had?’

  ‘Another single parent family, wouldn’t you know? The mother’s got a part-time job somewhere, two children by different fathers: one of them’s a tart, and the other’s got special needs, or that’s what they say. Ambrose says it’s an opportunity to spread the word. We must pray until eventually we get through to them. He wrestles in prayer for us every day. Great drops of sweat start out all over him, and he roars like a wounded animal. He feels everything so deeply; the sin, the grimy sludge from the bottom of the human chain—’

  ‘Yes, yes. Most disconcerting. I suppose he gets an income from the people of the Vision, though?’

  Dolores sniffed. ‘Yes and no. Our rents used to be paid direct to him, but now we have them paid to us and make them over to him. Some of us have a spot of difficulty with that. It’s a temptation we needn’t have, that’s what Ambrose says, and he’s right, isn’t he? Many’s the time I’ve looked at my cheque and thought about getting drugs with it, just to ease me along for a bit, but I haven’t, so far. Ambrose wants to take over more of the building as the others leave because they’re standing in the way of our purpose in life. Trailer trash, they call them in the States. And that’s what they are. Fit for nothing but the bin.’

  Ellie reflected that Dolores herself would be considered trailer trash by some people. ‘Surely they have jobs?’

  ‘Some do. Some do nothing but watch the telly, drink straight out of cans and smoke. As for their morals … Ambrose says that those who aren’t past it are a hotbed of sin and lust. The only one of them has got work every day is Hector, the decorator, but he lives over the garage at the back. He’s not really one of us, but he joins us for services sometimes. He takes one or other of our lads out with him, tries to keep them out of mischief. He’s not a junkie or an alkie, but he’s weird in a different way.’

  So that blue van outside would belong to him, and he’d be the man who tried to paint Ellie’s rooms green. ‘What sort of “weird”?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno.’ A wriggle. ‘Ambrose says we shouldn’t fall into conversation with him because we might be tempted to have impure thoughts. Chance would be a fine thing.’ Almost a blush. ‘No, I didn’t mean that I would want to, even if … and believe me, there’s nothing like that goes on here.’

  ‘What about Claire?’

  ‘Oh. Her. Well.’ Dolores shot a sideways glance at Ellie and grimaced. ‘Claire is, well, Claire. One of those who has to work to make recompense for their sins. She has to be watched.’

  ‘Do you watch her?’

  A shrug. ‘We all watch one another.’

  ‘How many of you are there in the annex? You and Liddy. Claire. That lad the decorator brought with him when he tried to paint my house green. Any more?’

  ‘Big Ruby and her friend that’s both alkies, but they’re following the trail of the Light and, Hallelujah, they’ll see the Vision when they leave this mortal coil behind. They’ve got voices now that raise the hairs on your back when they sing. Then there’s poor old Lenny that’s working in the dry cleaners now, but I’m thinking he’s back on the meths, and we’ll have to have him up in the
next meeting and wash his blood clean. Oh, and there were two more lads, junkies, that were with us, but they got picked up by the filth last weekend and are back inside.’

  The filth? The police. Those two had probably been on remand or probation and infringed the terms of their licence. Ambrose was trying to help those at the bottom of the pile, and he couldn’t win all of the time.

  Ellie sighed and got to her feet. Time was marching, etcetera. ‘I don’t think I can wait any longer. Will you tell Pastor Ambrose that I’d like to call round to see him tomorrow morning sometime?’

  Dolores scrambled to her feet, her eyes widening. ‘The money …!’

  ‘Tell him I want to speak to him about the money. And Liddy.’

  Dolores grabbed Ellie’s arm. ‘When I tell him about Liddy, he’ll go mental! She’s not supposed to have anything more to do with her family; she had to swear to put all her past behind her—’

  ‘That’s his problem and hers. Not yours.’

  ‘He’ll take it out on me, and if I haven’t got the money to hand over—’

  ‘Why, what can he do? Shout at you? Surely you can stand up to that? You did what you thought was best. He knows where to find Liddy, doesn’t he? He can ring her and check for himself that she’s all right.’

  Dolores gave a little sob. ‘So you won’t help me? If you’d only give me the money, I could hand that over and say Liddy walked off and left me.’

  ‘It’s better not to lie. Tell him I’d like to talk to him about it. All right?’

  Ellie almost ran out of the house, pulling the front door to behind her. She was breathing hard. She was sorry for Dolores, but the woman had got herself in such a mess that Ellie could see no quick and easy way out – except by giving her the money – and that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. It would let Dolores off the hook temporarily, but the truth was bound to come out, and …

  Ellie told herself to breathe in and out. Slowly.

  The van had gone. Well, it would have, wouldn’t it? No self-respecting workmen would work after six o’clock, unless they were getting treble time. She wondered if she ought to walk round and have a look at the garages and the flat above it … but what was the point?