Murder My Neighbour

by Veronica Heley

  They were sympathetic, of course. ‘I can think of one person who would be suitable, but she may not be free. I’ll ring you back, shall I? Is everything else all right, Mrs Quicke? You sound a bit fussed. Not like you.’

  ‘Ah well. I did a silly thing.’ Ellie repeated the story about the Pryce boy and his search for his great-aunt. ‘Now am I dreaming it, or did one of my cleaners also work for Mrs Pryce in the past? Was there something about her cats being taken away?’

  ‘Vera and Pet? They should have been with you by now. What’s the time? Eleven, just gone?’

  Ellie took the phone away from her ear and listened. A vacuum cleaner whined somewhere. ‘Yes, they’re here.’

  ‘They used to go on to Mrs Pryce’s when they finished with you on Tuesdays and Fridays, I think it was. The old lady was very particular who cleaned for her and liked those two, used to give them a nice bonus at Christmas. She paid us by cheque, on the nail. Hold on a minute, I’ll access her account . . . Yes, here it is. All paid up, no problem.’

  ‘Forwarding address? Did she ask for anyone to pop in and look after the house, or anything?’

  ‘No, a clean break. No forwarding address. She was going into a retirement home, I gather. They didn’t allow pets, so she had the Cats Protection League come in to take her two. Vera said she’d have liked one of them, but I don’t know what happened – maybe she came to an arrangement with the cat people.

  ‘I only remember about the cats because I thought we might have a mouse here at the office, and Vera said Mrs Pryce was getting rid of hers. A something and a nothing, as you might say. I’m so sorry about Rose. I hope she gets better soon.’

  Like Ellie, they knew that when older people had a fall, it could be the beginning of the end. Luckily Rose hadn’t broken anything, but the shock might start off any number of problems: pneumonia being the one which occurred most frequently, often proving fatal.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ellie, and she put the phone down.

  She tried to collect her wits, which seemed to have gone gathering wool round the Wrekin, or wherever it was they went when they left her. How could she have been so stupid as not to remember the cleaners were due that day? How could she have been so criminally careless as to let the Pryce boy into the house and not keep an eye on him? How was she going to deal with Diana’s challenge . . . for challenge it was?

  Ellie heard herself groan.

  Dear Lord, I suppose you want me to find the money for Diana somehow or other. We have to do this for our children, don’t we? Please, tell me how?

  She got to her feet, restless. What would the other trustees of her charitable trust say if she asked them to bail Diana out? They’d refuse. They must refuse. Their responsibility was to look after the money, and to disburse it to needy people.

  She must talk to Thomas about it instead. Now.

  Tuesday noon

  In the garden of Pryce House.

  The gardener parked his van by the garage, tucked away under the overgrown hedge. He unloaded his tools and the wheelbarrow, trundling the lot through the door into the yard, and from there on through the far door into the back garden. As he made for his vegetable patch he was thinking there ought to be just one more picking from the broad beans, after which he’d cut them to the ground. Quite often they’d spring up new growth, and he might get another crop later on. Blackfly was the big problem with broad beans; with runner beans as well. He’d brought his spray gun, just in case.

  One of these days he must put a new washer on the outside tap, as it tended to drip. Not that it mattered, as he didn’t have to pay the water rates, did he?

  He stooped to unload his tools and stared. There was the fresh imprint of a woman’s shoe in the damp patch under the tap. It hadn’t been there yesterday, and it was smaller than that made by the shoe of the girl living in the house.

  He swung around. The breeze swayed a tendril from a rambler rose, which caught on his shirt. He shook it off. The breeze died away. The windows of the house looked blindly down at him. He looked back. He moved his shoulders uneasily.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  The garden seemed to be listening to him. The girl was nowhere to be seen. She knew his times, wouldn’t come down to the garden while he was around.

  He looked at his watch. He was between jobs, had an hour on which to work his patch. He’d better get on with it. His wife would be wanting the beans for supper. Every little helped.

  He scuffed out the telltale footprint. He wasn’t going to panic; not he! After all, he had a better right to be in the garden than anyone else, didn’t he?

  FIVE

  Tuesday noon

  Ellie hurried along the corridor and tapped on the door of her husband’s study. Too late she remembered that Thomas had a visitor . . . who turned out to be a bishop, no less. ‘Sorry to interrupt. I was wondering . . .’

  The bishop was plump, with a fat smile and rimless glasses. Ellie disliked him at sight, while telling herself she had no reason to do so.

  ‘Ah, the little lady of the household. Yes, coffee would be much appreciated.’

  She thought he was the type of man who avoided professional women and condescended to those who weren’t. He probably thought of them as ‘man’s little helpmeets’, had been vehemently against them being ordained, and believed the skies would fall if they ever became bishops.

  Thomas sent her a look in which sympathy and irritation were nicely blended. Sympathy for her, and irritation for the bishop. She hoped. Half rising from his seat, he said, ‘I’ll make it, Ellie. I know you’re busy.’

  Ellie managed a smile, somehow. ‘Not at all. It won’t take a minute.’

  She shut the door, considered kicking the wall, decided it would hurt too much as she was wearing open-toed sandals, and dutifully went away to fulfil the bishop’s order.

  She found her two cleaners in the kitchen having their elevenses with the gardener, as they always did on or about noon. On seeing her, the gardener lumbered to his feet, threw her a wounded look and disappeared – as well he might, considering he ought to have tied back that rambling rose himself, so that Rose didn’t try to do it.

  Ellie glanced around. The cleaners’ first job on Tuesdays was to deal with the kitchen quarters, which they had done. There was no sign of Rose or of Mia.

  Ellie told herself to get her priorities straight. Coffee for the bishop. Check on Rose. Talk to the cleaners.

  She said, ‘Thomas’s visitor would like some coffee, and so would he. Do you think you could you make some and take it into them? And let the rest of the cleaning wait, as I need to pick your brains about something.’

  Ellie didn’t usually have time to sit down and talk to the cleaners because she was always so busy, rushing around the place. Rose saw to it that they were appropriately deployed around the house and that they had their break at half time. Rose was interested in everybody and everything, and she often passed neighbourhood gossip on to Ellie, who sometimes listened with half an ear and sometimes didn’t listen at all.

  Ellie popped her head round the door into Rose’s sitting-cum-bedroom and found her dozing in her big chair with the television on. Rose’s colour was good. She started awake when she heard Ellie come in and said she was just having a little rest and was that all right?

  Of course it was.

  ‘And Mia?’

  ‘Out shopping for food.’

  Ellie nodded and returned to the kitchen, trying to recall what Rose had told her about their two cleaners.

  Vera was the big, bony blonde. She had a long horse-like face, an amazing capacity for moving heavy furniture, and a son reputed to be autistic – or was it Attention Deficit Disorder that he had? A difficult child in some way. No husband or partner apparent.

  Rose liked Vera; said she was reliable and thorough. Blue rosette for Vera.

  Pet – short for Petula – was a Humpty Dumpty. She wore the kind of tracksuits which emphasized large hips. She had no children as yet, but was
always hoping she’d get lucky one day. Was she saving up to try IVF? Ellie had heard that it was costly and didn’t always work.

  Pet’s husband – who was even fatter than her, said Rose – worked as a night porter in the local hospital and, as Pet got up early to clean, they didn’t seem to spend much time together. Rose said you had to watch Pet or she’d scamp her work.

  When coffee had been made and taken through to the men, Ellie seated herself at the table for a chat. ‘Vera. Pet. I did a very silly thing yesterday. I let a young man into the house who said he wanted to find a Mrs Pryce who lived in the next road. He said he’d tried the retirement home and they’d given him the runaround, denied she was there. Anyway, when my back was turned, he made off with my engagement ring, Thomas’s Kindle, and my aunt’s little china snuffbox. Naturally I want to find him. Did you ever hear of or see a young man who might have been related to Mrs Pryce when you were working for her?’

  The huge rings in Vera’s ears caught the light as she whacked the table. ‘Would that be her great-nephew, Terry Pryce? You remember, Pet? The one who brought her the turkey, the Christmas before last it would have been. Tell a lie; three Christmases ago.’

  Pet looked bewildered.

  ‘Ah,’ said Vera. ‘I forgot; it was before we teamed up, wasn’t it?’ She spurted into laughter. ‘He brought her a turkey and it was off. We gave it to Fritz to bury in the garden, only he didn’t. He took it home to his missus and she gave him a right rollicking. Dunno what he did with it in the end.’

  ‘I’m enchanted,’ said Ellie, with truth. ‘Fritz is the gardener? Where could I find him?’

  ‘Oh, him.’ Pet fiddled with her nearly empty mug of coffee. ‘Lives above the shops in the Lane at the far end, over the Co-op. Missus Pryce never minded if he took home some of the stuff he grew for her.’

  A lightning glance passed between the two girls, and Ellie caught it. She remembered that the vegetable garden was still being worked by someone. By this Fritz, presumably? The girls knew and were not going to say. Well, well. It was no concern of Ellie’s.

  ‘You said her great-nephew Terry brought her a turkey and you think he might be the lad who stole from me?’

  Vera furrowed her brow. ‘Mrs Pryce always said she wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in trouble. She never did think much of her husband’s side of the family.’

  Ellie looked a question, and Vera was happy to explain. ‘Mrs Pryce used to sit down along of us when we was on our break sometimes, and she’d tell us such tales of her family, had us in stitches. The turkey tale was one, but some of the excuses they came up with to get money out of her! She used to say, “If I didn’t have myself a laugh about that load of sharks, I’d cry.”’

  Pet stabbed the air with a pudgy forefinger. ‘It could well be Terry that visited you yesterday. He must be, what, mid-twenties? She used to tell us how he’d come round now and then to make sure she was still in the land of the living. And then he’d touch her for a sub. A “smarmy git”, she said.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Dunno, really. Never saw him. What was it she used to say about him? I know; each time he come round he had another ring in his ear or his eyebrow, and she wondered where else he had them. She said it was a wonder he hadn’t got blood poisoning because of all the piercings. She couldn’t think how he’d got himself a job in a respectable shop.’

  ‘Did he have a sister, by any chance?’

  Both girls shook their heads. ‘He was an only.’

  So he’d lied about that. ‘Did Mrs Pryce like Liquorice Allsorts, by any chance?’

  A grin from Vera. ‘She did, at that. We used to get her a box for Christmas and birthdays, didn’t we, Pet?’

  So maybe the Pryce boy had spoken the truth about some things.

  Vera had gone all wistful. ‘I liked Mrs Pryce. Sparky. Never let nothing get her down. No nonsense, tell us off if something weren’t done right, but no side to her in spite of all her money. Her old man was in the hardware business, see; had five shops which she sold for a mint after he dropped off the twig on account of his liver. She was nobody’s fool.’

  ‘As she used to tell us, regular.’ Pet’s voice went fluting up. ‘“My Edgar left everything to me because he knew what his scumbag relatives were like, and I’m not letting them settle on me like a crowd of blowflies.”’

  Vera was enjoying this, squaring her elbows on the table. ‘She promised him she’d go on looking after them, but they did get her down sometimes. She was his second wife, see. His first wife spoiled the children rotten and then ran off with a tennis player or football coach or something when his children were nineteen, twenty, maybe more. They’d never lifted a finger for themselves and spent money left, right and centre. The old man was subbing young Terry now and then, too. That’s the one that come round with the turkey, remember?

  ‘Then he, that’s Mr Pryce, met our Flavia, who’d been doing all right for herself in a little boutique over in Maidenhead and they hit it off straight away. That’s when Mr Pryce told his family that the good times were over; his children were to move out and fend for themselves, and there’d be no more handouts to Terry, either. They were furious, thought he ought to bankroll them all their lives, what a hoot!’

  Ellie was both amused and appalled. ‘They were old enough to earn their own living, I suppose. What did they do?’

  ‘Oh, Mr Pryce’s bark was worse than his bite. He helped them set up in business, and if they fell behind with the rent or couldn’t pay the gas bill, he bailed them out. She, Mrs Pryce, carried on doing that all these years since. Apart from Terry-with-the-rings, there was a son and a daughter called Edwina. Now let me see; Pet, what was that she said about Edwina’s wedding-that-wasn’t?’

  ‘Had a baby without bothering to get married, didn’t she?’

  ‘I remember now, it was broken off because there wasn’t the money her fiancé imagined there ought to be, marrying into the Pryces, if you see what I mean. Anyway, when he went off and left Edwina with her little girl, the old man bought her a small flat and a partnership in a gift shop where she worked part-time for years—’

  ‘Which Madam said was really beneath her dignity but they appreciated her style; or so she said, silly cow. That is, until it went bust last year some time and she started hanging around Mrs Pryce again with her hand out: give me more, give me more. Enough to make you sick.’

  Vera nodded. ‘Mr Pryce refused to stump up for private school fees for Edwina’s child, even if she was his granddaughter. He said it wouldn’t have done any good, as the girl wasn’t that bright, and it would have given her a false idea of her expectations. I thought at the time it was rather hard, but maybe Mr Pryce was right, seeing how she turned out.’

  ‘Lazy slut,’ said Pet. ‘If I’d had her opportunities . . .’

  Vera was following another train of thought. ‘Mrs Pryce put herself out if she thought it would do any good, though. When his schoolteacher told me my Mikey would do better in the private system, Mrs Pryce helped me get him to the right doctor, and it wasn’t what the school said it was, but something that can be treated and on the whole he’s doing all right in the primary school down the road and that’s thanks to her, as I told her, the last time I saw her.’

  Ellie asked, ‘May I enquire if Mikey’s father . . . ?’

  Vera shook her head, making her earrings swing. ‘A no good boy. My own fault. I drank too much at an end of term party and passed out. A boy I’d fancied had been there, and I’d hoped . . . Stupid of me. It was his friend that done it, and he didn’t want to know. End of.’

  Ellie thought it better not to follow that up. ‘So, the Pryce daughter – Edwina? – that had the daughter, is she retired?’

  Pet said, ‘Shouldn’t we be getting on with the cleaning, now?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m interested. Go on.’

  Vera shook her head. ‘I don’t think Edwina’s capable of holding down a proper job any more . . . if s
he ever was. She must be in her early fifties and that frail-looking, but still gets her clothes at Harvey Nicholls and looks down on us, thinks we’re common as muck and maybe we are, but at least we work for our living. And never a word of thanks to Mrs Pryce for bailing her out every time she got behind with her bills.’

  ‘So that was Mr Pryce’s daughter. What about his son?’

  ‘What happened to him, Vera?’ said Pet. ‘Didn’t she say he ended up as a dustman or something, working for the council?’

  Vera snapped her fingers. ‘School caretaker. The old man bought him a flat – same as he did for Edwina – and helped him start up some kind of business, but it didn’t work out. His eyes was always bigger than his stomach, or so Mrs Pryce used to say. He lost the lot, including his flat. Lives in the caretaker’s house in the school grounds somewhere. Married once, but it never took. Health problems. Sickly lot, that side of the family.’

  Ellie asked, ‘What school, do you know?’

  Heads were shaken in unison. ‘Nowhere near. Other side of the borough. Helping out with after-school clubs and that. He only came round Christmas and birthdays but, to give him his due, he didn’t come begging like his sister.’

  Pet wagged a finger. ‘Mrs Pryce said she wished Edwina lived farther away too, because she used to come round three or four times a week, fetching stuff from the shops that Mrs Pryce couldn’t eat, checking what was in the fridge and putting stuff in the deep freeze for her that she never touched. And always on at her, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, never a moment’s peace with her around. “Why don’t you come and live with me, Mummy? There’s a nice room in my flat you could have all to yourself.” Called Mrs Pryce “Mummy” while trying to smile though you could see it hurt her face.’

  Vera sighed. ‘Tell the truth, I miss the old dear, but her knees were playing her up something chronic. We told her, put in a stairlift, but she wouldn’t have it—’

  Pet put on her fluting voice again. ‘“The day I can’t climb the stairs is the day I move out. And not to Mrs Grabby-bags, either.”’