Murder by Mistake

by Veronica Heley

  Instead, he’d been in ministry all his adult life, serving in many different capacities. He was harder on himself than on others, and gentle with life’s victims. Even Mia, with her phobia about being touched by a man, was able to let him near her without shrinking.

  Ellie was dreading the moment when she and Thomas would be alone together, for she’d read in his eyes that he was . . . not exactly disappointed in her, but withholding judgment. It made her miserable. She knew he loved her, yes. He really did love her to bits, and he’d forgive her sins of omission when she’d stated her case. But she had yet to break the news to him that she’d agreed to host not just Ursula’s wedding reception – which he already knew about – but Diana’s as well.

  She knew that if he’d been in her shoes, he’d have contacted her yesterday to ask her opinion and advice about taking Mia in, and he wouldn’t have agreed either to Ursula’s plea or Diana’s plans without consulting him.

  After supper Mia said she’d help Rose clear away the dishes while Ellie and Thomas took their coffees into the big sitting room at the back of the house. It was getting late and the room was gathering shadows, but the garden outside the big windows was still bright with colour and the sky cloudless. Ellie fussed around, putting on side lamps and checking that Thomas had taken sugar for his coffee.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her to the settee. He retained hold of her hand, patting it, smiling. ‘I don’t mind about Mia staying, really I don’t. Of course it was right to ask her to stay. I seem to remember that Ursula’s mother is a – well, a difficult woman, to put it mildly – and of course she wouldn’t want to be inconvenienced by having someone sleeping in her sitting room.’

  ‘I ought to have asked you first.’

  He shook his head. ‘You knew what I’d say if you did ask.’

  ‘Oh, you . . .’ She touched his cheek. ‘Thank you, Thomas. But I still ought to have asked you first.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I, too, have had difficulty adjusting to marriage the second time around. Especially when I find myself living in a mansion with a millionairess.’

  She laughed, as he intended she should. Looking around at the big Victorian sitting room, with its velvet curtains and polished antique furniture, she, too, gave thanks. ‘Some millionairess, with everything tied up in a trust so we can’t spend it . . . for which thank the Lord. I do thank Him, you know, for it’s very pleasant to live in a big house with plenty of room for guests and know we can afford it. But Mia may need extra care.’

  ‘Have you the time to give it to her?’

  ‘You’ll say I may need to call on more professional help for her, and I think you’re right. She seems convinced that she was the target for the car today, but of course that’s nonsense.’

  Silence.

  She turned her head to look up at him. ‘You don’t really think someone might be trying to kill her?’

  ‘I think you might check with the police tomorrow, see who’s her liaison officer, speak to them. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would have had time to arrange an attempt on her life when she only came back to Ealing two days ago. On the other hand, her testimony could send a number of important people to prison for a long time – if she ever gets to trial. As she says, although the key members of the group are locked up, they do have friends. I don’t know, Ellie. Does it seem to you that she was targeted?’

  ‘No. Well . . . no, I don’t think so. I was on the outside nearest the traffic. We were both sent flying by that remarkable young man, Leontes. Remind me to check up on his progress tomorrow. The car was travelling so fast it couldn’t stop and then it crashed into . . . not that I actually saw the impact, but . . . I think it must have been some young man who’d taken the car for a joyride and couldn’t handle it. I hope that was it.’

  She closed her eyes momentarily and again saw the havoc on the pavement, the sprawling bodies, the wheel of the pushchair spinning, spinning . . .

  He put his arm around her. ‘I’m glad you’re still alive. The thought of what might have happened, that I might now be coming into an empty house . . . that would be unbearable.’

  ‘Yes. Me, too.’ She flicked tears from her eyes as the door opened, and Rose pushed Mia into the room.

  Rose closed the door firmly behind her. ‘I thought we’d better have the reading of the will in here, before witnesses.’

  Mia was half laughing, half crying. ‘I wanted to put it on the fire and burn it, but Rose wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Thomas, sitting upright. ‘Let’s do this right, with all pomp and ceremony. Wills ought to be read after a roll of drums and a flourish of trumpets, don’t you think?’

  Mia managed a full laugh that time. She thrust the stiff folded paper at Thomas. ‘Then you’d be the right person to read it out to us. Will you?’

  Thomas stood up, hooked a thumb into his jacket, and said, ‘Ahem. Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, are you seated comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Where’s my reading glasses?’ He sought for them in his pockets and found them.

  Mia tapped her forehead. ‘I can’t remember the name of his cat. Was it Mog? I think I could bear to have his cat.’

  Rose patted Mia’s arm. ‘My dear, what a lovely thought.’

  Maybe, thought Ellie, but what would their own marauding ginger tom, Midge, feel about another cat entering his domain? He wouldn’t tolerate an incomer for one second. She shuddered. She told herself that it would be very good for Mia to have something small and helpless to look after. Then she sighed, because Mia had been out of circulation for six months, and the small cat that she remembered might have grown into a monster, or even perhaps be dead by now. Best not think about ‘dead’. Sprawling bodies, a wheel spinning . . .

  ‘A codicil about a cat, you think?’ said Thomas, starting from the back of the will and moving forwards. ‘You don’t want the gobbledegook, do you? There is a codicil, but there’s nothing about a cat in it.’ He stared at that page, frowned, turned back to the beginning. ‘I think we’d better start on the first page and work forward. My poor brain dislikes jumping around.’

  A lie. His brain was razor sharp. What was going on?

  Mia was anxious. ‘Perhaps he didn’t leave me anything, then. Oh, but I suppose he must have, if the solicitor needed to give me a copy of the will.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thomas. ‘Let me just . . . There’s a paragraph about why he’s changing his will and downsizing bequests that he’d made in earlier wills. No immediate family, I gather. He’s left bequests to various charities, yes, yes . . . What you’d expect, roughly. Then a bequest to the live-in couple who . . .’ He turned back to the end. ‘He cancelled that in a codicil because they left him in the lurch when the scandal hit the papers. Mia, give me a moment or two, will you? There’s a whole lot of business talk here.’

  ‘I’d really like his cat.’

  Rose said, ‘It’s been some time, dearie. I expect that by now they’ve found someone else to look after his cat.’

  Mia sniffed and brushed her hand across her cheek. Fighting off tears?

  Thomas rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Mia, as far as I can make out, you are his residuary legatee.’

  ‘What?’ Puzzled. She looked around at each one of them. ‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s much, after all the bequests. I think he meant to give me a keepsake. Or, maybe, his cat.’

  ‘His solicitor was appointed executor. There may be debts, of course. They’ll all have to be cleared, and taxes paid. Was he a wealthy man?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? I mean, he used to go abroad a lot. I used to know what he did. A family business? Printing? Yes, I seem to remember as a child going round his works to see the machinery. My mother used to hold on to his arm and squeak, pretending to be frightened of the noise, though she wasn’t in the least bit frightened really, of course.’ She bit her lip. ‘If I’d have thought about it, I’d have said he’d have left the lot to her. Because, if you see what I mea
n, she and he . . . Well, on her side, at any rate.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Ellie said, quietly, to herself.

  Thomas folded up the papers and held them out to Mia. ‘My dear, he may have left you an estate of five thousand pounds, or fifty thousand. Probate takes time, and only after the will has been proved, and taxes paid, will you know exactly how you stand. I think you’d better go back to the solicitor tomorrow and find out.’

  Mia stared at the papers, didn’t take them. ‘I don’t want any money from him.’ Her skin had turned ashen. ‘His cat, yes. Perhaps.’

  Something to love, yes. Blood money, no.

  Rose was soothing. ‘You can go out and buy a cat for yourself.’

  Mia stood up. ‘I don’t think so. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed now. It’s been a long day.’

  Rose bustled out after her and Thomas stood, fingering the will, looking at nothing in particular.

  Ellie sighed. ‘You think he left her a lot of money?’

  ‘A house in Madely Road – those big houses fetch up to a million, don’t they? Then there’s the business, stocks and shares, insurance policies. Deduct any debts, taxes, other bequests. Yes, I think it may be a sizeable estate.’

  Blood money. ‘She won’t want to take it.’

  ‘Now; no. One half of me applauds. But the other, more practical, half says that she’s no money of her own, is not fit to earn her own living at the moment, and in fact may never be. That part of my mind says that she could do with a reasonable amount of compensation for what she’s gone through.’

  ‘Her family had money.’

  ‘Her stepfather’s empire took a headlong dive when he was arrested. He was deep in debt before, which is why he used Mia in an attempt to lever himself out of trouble. Would there be any of his wealth left now? And if there were, wouldn’t his wife and his two boys get there first?’

  ‘Couldn’t she get compensation through the law courts?’

  ‘Only after the trial, but that isn’t scheduled for months yet, is it? What is she to live on till then? Social security? And who will pay for any further therapy that she may need? Are we to fill in the gap? Not,’ he added, ‘that I’d be against that. But I’m not sure that in this case it would be right for you to give her money from your charitable trust – money which might instead go to other deserving cases who haven’t got any alternative – if she has money of her own. I don’t know.’

  She looked at the clock. It was late. She yawned. ‘I’ll think about it tomorrow.’ If she went to bed and closed her eyes now, she’d see sprawling bodies, a wheel spinning. Let’s put it off. ‘Tell me about the conference. How did it go?’

  ‘All right.’ He brought his mind back from Mia with difficulty, and then grinned. ‘All theory and no common sense, as usual. One of these days I must play you a tape of a typical debate. You’ll be horrified how much gas the gaiters produce. Most of the subject matter is ten years out of date by the time it comes up for discussion, and the rest is too contentious to touch and so isn’t mentioned.’ He yawned. He must be tired. He needed sleep, even if she was afraid of closing her eyes tonight.

  ‘Do you want to back into parish work?’ She began to turn out the lights.

  ‘The nitty gritty as opposed to the airy fairy? Did I get anything right when I worked in a parish? Do I do any good as the editor of a magazine? Are poets more important than leader writers?’

  She smiled. ‘Come to bed. You’re overworking your brain and mine. I’ll just pop in on Mia, see she’s all right.’

  ‘Quantify “all right”,’ said Thomas, following her up the stairs. ‘An unquiet soul, landed in our lap for healing. Dear Lord above, give us wisdom to do and say the right thing.’

  ‘Agreed. But clean towels and a hot shower help.’

  MONDAY NIGHT. . .

  Well, he could always try again. As soon as he could work out when and where. She had to leave the house every now and then, didn’t she? What he really needed was for her to go out alone on a dark night. Not much hope of that in mid July. How about a thunderstorm, with lightning flashes and a heavy downpour of rain? People do slip and hurt themselves on wet pavements, don’t they? They hit their heads on kerbs. And die. Nothing but death would do.

  FOUR

  Monday evening

  Mia was not in her bedroom. Nor in the en suite beyond. Had she flown the coop? Surely not. Ellie nearly panicked, and then faintly from below she heard Rose’s television blaring away. She hurried along the landing and peeped into the bedroom Rose had used before her illness last winter. Rose’s old bedroom was empty, too.

  Down the back stairs Ellie went and into the big room which had been converted into a bed-sitter for Rose next to the kitchen. There was Mia, curled up in the big armchair beside Rose’s bed. Both Mia and Rose were fast asleep, with the television on. Mia was fully dressed, with a blanket thrown over her.

  Ellie fetched another duvet from upstairs and tucked it around Mia. Let her sleep in peace. She withdrew as quietly as she could and went up again to tell Thomas what had happened, nerving herself at the same time to break the news about Diana’s wedding plans . . . only to find him asleep, too, glasses on his nose, prayer book in hand. She removed glasses and book, whereupon he snuggled down, muttering something unintelligible.

  As she slid in beside him she prayed, Thank you, Lord, for bringing us safely through another day. Please, grant me sleep without nightmares?

  She lay with her eyes open, not daring to close them for a long time. Finally, she slept, and did not dream till the night was nearly done.

  Tuesday morning

  Two obstinate faces greeted Ellie when she went down to breakfast.

  Rose clattered dishes. ‘Before you start, Ellie, it’s no good. I know what you’re going to say, but it’s like when you’re a child in the dark, and there’s nothing really to be frightened of, although perhaps in this case there is, but if Mia wants to sleep in my room, she’s welcome. Besides, when I woke in the night and wanted to go to the loo, she was there to help me in and out of bed. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that bed’s a trifle on the high side for someone who’s vertically challenged – which is what they say nowadays, although I’ve always called a spade a spade, if you know what I mean—’

  ‘I like looking after Rose,’ said Mia, who was wearing yesterday’s clothes.

  ‘And I like looking after Mia,’ said Rose. ‘And now there’s a perfectly good shower room and loo down here, there’s no reason on earth why we shouldn’t please ourselves.’

  Ellie threw up her hands. ‘I understand how it happened that Mia slept in your room last night, but Mia –’ playing the joker – ‘I don’t think your friend Ursula will think it a good idea. Sleeping in an armchair will give you a bad back, and that won’t help either of you. I realize you want to be near Rose, and Rose wants you near her. May I suggest that Mia sleeps in what was Rose’s old room upstairs, which is directly above her bed-sitter and which has a bathroom next door to it. If one of you needs the other, you’re within hailing distance.’

  Silence while the two conspirators considered this offer. Finally Rose said, ‘Mia could always come down in the middle of the night for a little while, if she wanted to, and she could sleep with the door to the stairs open and a light on her room.’

  Mia wriggled, but gave way. ‘We could try it, I suppose.’

  Having won a temporary victory, Ellie tried not to show relief or pleasure. She helped herself to cereal. ‘Good. Now we have to plan what we do today. Ursula’s coming round some time, isn’t she? Will she go to the solicitor’s with you, or shall I? Also, don’t you have some kind of police liaison officer? Don’t you have to tell them that you’ve left your country retreat?’

  ‘I don’t think I want to go out today.’

  ‘I can understand that, but if Ursula went with you? Or I did?’

  ‘I feel a bit tired.’

  ‘So do I. If you give me the liaison officer’s details, I�
��ll get her to call here.’

  Silence. ‘They did pass me on to someone when I left London, and she did call. My aunt told her I didn’t want to see her, that I wanted to get on with life without being bothered about all that, and I agreed. Honestly, I couldn’t see the point.’

  ‘I don’t think your aunt had your best interests at heart, do you? Give me the name of whoever it was, and I’ll see who it should be here in London.’

  ‘I’ve decided,’ said Mia, ‘that there is no way I can touch anything that man left me.’

  Ellie used Thomas’s reasoning. ‘You’d sooner go on Social Security and live in a hostel somewhere, waiting for a place in a council flat?’

  Rose clattered a plate of scrambled egg down in front of Ellie. ‘That she won’t do, not while I’ve a penny left in the bank.’

  Mia reddened. ‘That’s silly. As if I would take money from you, Rose.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ellie. ‘We have to balance this and that, compensation against false pride, etcetera. By the way, Mia, I suspect your wardrobe needs replenishing. Shall we ask Ursula to buy you some new clothes, or shall Rose and I get something on approval for you?’

  Rose eyed Mia’s fragile figure. ‘Size eight, I should think. We must make out a list. Marks & Spencer will let us have things to try on here and, if they don’t fit, we can take them back. Also, she needs a good haircut and a facial. Who do we know who could come to the house to do it for her?’

  Mia went white. ‘You won’t leave me alone in the house, will you? Please?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ said Rose, who had clearly been thinking of doing just that. ‘No, no. Of course not,’ she repeated, meaning it.

  ‘If I go out, they’ll get me!’

  Ellie’s mouth was full of scrambled egg and toast, but she knew panic when she heard it. ‘We’ll do our best,’ she said, indistinctly. ‘But you must help us, as well.’

  Mia twisted a tendril of hair round a finger. ‘I know I’m being silly, but yesterday . . . If I’m to live my life as if every day might be my last . . . I tell myself to be brave, that it doesn’t matter if I die today . . . but how can I forget? I do feel safe here. At least, I think I do. But I wouldn’t want to be left in this big house all by myself.’ She brushed her hand across her cheeks. ‘Now tell me I’m being unreasonable.’