Ellie preened. ‘I don’t think I’d be any good at it, you know. I’d be sure to forget in which street I left the car.’
A laugh. ‘Well, I don’t think that particular scenario would work, because if they left a body in the car in this heat, we’d soon have had neighbours complaining about the stink.’
A body. Oh. Ellie hadn’t allowed her imagination to stretch that far. ‘So you think she’s dead? I suppose I do, too. She loved life, you know. She put her make-up on every day, and her false eyelashes. She liked a good laugh. She was nobody’s fool, and she was kind to my aunt when she was alive. By the way, I believe she had some rather good jewellery. I wonder if that’s been the motive for her, er, disappearance.’
More note-taking. ‘I’ll see if I can get a list from the stepdaughter, and I’ll check if anything’s turned up through the local jewellers. While I’m about it, I’ll enquire if any of your stolen pieces have turned up as well. Now, what about the gardener? Have you spoken to him yet?’
‘No. You think he bashed her over the head and buried her in the cabbage patch?’
‘And then drove her car away somewhere? You did say he could drive, didn’t you?’
‘So I was told. Ms Edwina says she can’t drive, and I believe her. There are recent car tracks in the front drive, but I think they were made by the getaway car – I mean, the car which the young squatters used to remove themselves and their belongings. You’ll want to take away the two bags of rubbish we collected from the site, I assume? We can’t prove that they came from that house, but everything seems to point to it.’
‘I’ll collect them another day. If there was no breaking and entering involved and they didn’t do any damage, I don’t think we’ll be taking that little matter seriously.’ The DC put her notes away and got to her feet. ‘Set your mind at rest, Mrs Quicke; you’ve given me plenty to get on with, and I’ll be doing just that. Meanwhile, may I ask you not to go round muddying the waters, so to speak?’
‘Leave it to the professionals? I know. Are you sure you’ll be allowed a free hand to investigate?’ Which was one way of asking if Ears would let Milburn proceed?
‘Leave it to me.’ DC Milburn offered her hand for Ellie to shake, and Ellie did so. It was an enormous relief to think she needn’t worry about Disneyland any more.
Only after the policewoman had gone did Ellie remember that Vera had said the back door key to Disneyland had disappeared. Oh well. Perhaps it wasn’t important. Only, it was important, wasn’t it? Ellie shook her head at herself. She really must stop poking her nose into other people’s business.
What should she do next? Was it too early to soothe Rose into bed?
The phone rang.
‘Mrs Quicke?’ A man’s voice, accustomed to command. ‘My name is Hooper, Evan Hooper. We have a mutual friend who suggests we should meet. Are you free to lunch tomorrow?’
Hooper? Now how did she know that name? And what was she doing tomorrow? ‘I don’t think I—’
‘I apologize for my staff. You ought never to have been exposed to a dunderhead like Mr Abel this morning.’
Ah. Ellie was beginning to see where this was going. ‘I thought Mr Abel dealt admirably with a difficult situation.’
‘You are very forgiving, Mrs Quicke, but I feel I should make amends. Shall we say noon tomorrow at the Golf Club? They serve a decent enough meal. I will collect you, of course. Perhaps you will be ready by eleven forty-five, on the dot? Good. I’m happy to make your acquaintance at last.’
He put the phone down, and so did Ellie. She gazed into space, thinking hard. Who was their ‘mutual’ friend? It must be Diana. Who else would suggest that the senior partner in a successful estate agency should meet with Mrs Quicke, who had inherited money and headed up a charity based on an empire of property to let?
Definitely Diana.
Ellie picked up the phone again and got through to Stewart, who should be able to give her the low-down on the gentleman concerned.
‘Stewart? Ellie here.’ Noises off. Children playing; Mother saying: ‘Bedtime, girls.’
‘Ah. Ellie. Did you like the Pryce house?’
‘No, not at all, and no, I’m not suggesting that we buy it.’
‘Good. I had put it on the agenda for our meeting tomorrow.’ The Trust had a regular weekly meeting at Ellie’s to discuss the properties to let. ‘I’ll take it off, shall I?’
‘Leave it on. I’ll explain why when I see you. Meanwhile, a Mr Evan Hooper has rung me, wants to take me out to lunch tomorrow. He’s—’
‘I know who he is. They call him the Great White Shark.’
‘You’re warning me to be careful when I see him? You think he’ll persuade me to buy the Pryce mansion against my will? Now, come on, Stewart. You know me better than that.’
A reluctant laugh. ‘Yes, I do. Sorry, Ellie. A bit out of sorts today. Frank came back from school OK, but says he doesn’t want to go to his mother’s this weekend. Wants to come to you instead.’
Ellie quickly rethought their plans for the weekend. ‘That’s all right, though it is the time of the month when Thomas disappears from view to put the magazine to bed. Actually he’s a trifle distracted at the moment, but don’t worry; we’ll manage. One more thing. Diana said she was merging with another agency. Does that mean Hoopers might be taking her over?’
‘It is the likeliest one.’
‘She also said she had a new man in her life. It wouldn’t by any chance be this Mr Hooper, would it?’
‘He’s on his third wife, who’s a model in her twenties. Four children so far, ranging in age from twenty down to one and a half. It’s not likely he’d want another divorce in the near future. Too expensive.’
‘Right. Thanks for the information. See you tomorrow morning as usual.’ Ellie put the phone down.
So if Evan Hooper’s ‘mutual’ friend was Diana, then what was in it for him? Or for her? The sale of the Pryce mansion, presumably.
Ellie checked to see whether or not the kitchen had been cleared after supper, and it had. She found Rose struggling out of her clothes, ready for an early night. Rose’s wrist was still paining her, though the swelling had almost disappeared. Ellie helped Rose undress and have a shower before getting into bed.
Mia hadn’t yet returned. Ellie hoped the girl wouldn’t be out late, but there . . . It was a good sign that she was going out and about, wasn’t it?
Midge the cat arrived, demanding to be fed, and got his own way, of course.
Thomas wasn’t in his study, though he’d left the lights on there and his computer was running on a screen saver. She wished he’d tell her about the problem he was having at work. He hadn’t joined her to watch telly or sit in the garden that evening. So, where would he be?
Ah, upstairs in his special place, the room in which he went to talk to God in peace and quiet.
Yes, there he was, sitting in his big chair in the dusk and holding his bible – which he put down when she came in. She clicked on the light.
He blinked, and she clicked it off again. ‘Sorry, too bright?’
He held out his hand to guide her into the chair next to his. ‘I was just about to come down. My dear, I’ve been neglecting you.’
‘Your work is important.’
‘It’s not that important, but I’ve been acting as if it was. The bishop has been calling in favours, and one or two important people – or people who think they’re important – are putting pressure on me to “oblige” him, which I am refusing to do. Threats have been uttered. I was so angry I came up to tell God about it. Halfway through with my rant, I realized He’d a smile on his face, which threw me completely. Then I realized, what does it matter if one or two people bad-mouth me? I can stand it, can’t I?’
He picked her hand up and kissed it. ‘After I’d come to my senses, He slid into my mind a picture of a young man so desperate that he stole some of our pretty toys, and of a kindly lady who used to give lifts to your aunt being tossed around between gre
edy relatives. He reminded me that Diana’s in trouble again, and so is little Frank. He asked what I was doing to comfort Rose – who is deadly afraid of dementia – and Mia, who is torn between staying to look after Rose and moving out to get on with her own life. He made the point that I’d left you to deal with sorrow and sin all by yourself. I am ashamed of myself.’
‘Oh, Thomas.’ She patted his arm, pleased and touched. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘No, my love. I’m going down now to turn off my computer. We’ll go and sit on the settee side by side, you’ll tell me what’s bothering you most, and we’ll have a stab at dealing with it together.’
What was bothering her most? Diana. Tears came. She sniffed and felt for a hankie in her pocket. No pocket, no hankie. ‘Sorry.’
He handed her one, only slightly used. She laughed, blew her nose, said she knew she was being silly, but it had all got rather too much for her, and it would be bliss to talk about it. Except that she wasn’t going to tell him she couldn’t pray about Diana, because he’d be horrified and sad and want to do something about it, and she couldn’t see any way out of the situation.
On their way downstairs, she turned on the lights as the front doorbell rang. At the same moment Thomas’s phone rang in his office.
He hesitated. ‘Oh, let it ring for once.’
‘You get it. I’ll answer the door.’
He peeled off to his office while Ellie paused halfway down the stairs, wondering why the mere fact of turning on the lights should be so significant. And shook her head at herself.
A stranger in a sleeveless T-shirt and cut-off jeans was on the doorstep. Fiftyish, strong-looking, recently shaved head showing the advance of male-pattern baldness. A tan that hadn’t come out of a bottle, crow’s feet round his eyes from working outdoors. Big hands. A tatty-looking green van stood in the driveway. There was no sign on it, but the man himself advertised his trade: gardener.
Ellie opened the door wide. ‘Come in. You’re Fritz, I take it?’
‘Fitz, as in “son of”. A joke that started at school. My dad was George, his dad was George, and I’m George. So my first teacher called me “Fitz George” to distinguish me from the other two Georges in the class. Mrs Pryce said it should be Fritz for some reason, something to do with French fries, I think. Whatever. It stuck.’
He wiped his feet with care on the doormat. Big feet in trainers. ‘Vera dropped in on me and the wife, said you were taking an interest. Must admit I been worried, too. But the wife, she says, not our business, nothing to do with us, don’t start something you can’t finish. She’s right, of course. But I can’t stop thinking, can I?’
Ellie nodded. ‘Will you come through into the garden? It’s cooler there at this time of the evening.’
He checked that his trainers weren’t leaving tracks across the polished floor and followed her through the conservatory and into the quiet, shadowy garden. He looked round with a professional, critical eye; he’d probably noticed where the rambling rose had come off the trellis work and the gardener had missed a stranglehold of ivy, but he wasn’t going to say so.
She patted the bench for him to sit beside her. ‘You’re worried about Mrs Pryce.’
‘I wasn’t, not at first. She did say I could take what I wanted from the vegetable garden, you know. No sense it going to waste.’
‘Sensible.’ And we won’t talk about water not being turned off at the mains so that he could continue to work the plot. ‘Your runner beans look a treat.’
‘If we get some more rain, they’ll be all right, maybe.’ Did he know the water had been turned off that morning by Mr Abel? Would Vera have told him? Probably.
She said, ‘Did you put the padlocks on the outside doors?’
He shifted his feet. ‘Jack the Lad did that. Window cleaner.’
‘Later you took two of them off so that you could get into the back garden?’
He shifted big feet again, didn’t reply. The answer was obviously ‘yes’. But there was no need to admit it, was there?
‘Tell me about Jack.’
‘Big man. Hard. Tattoos all up his arms and legs. Divorced. Got a timeshare in Spain. Mrs Pryce said we mustn’t be prejudiced, and if he had done a stint in prison, he’d been straight for a long time and we should make allowances. Cleaning the windows used to take him all morning. He did a fair job, I’ll grant you that. It was him that offered to put the padlocks on, knowing the house would be empty for a while. I said I’d have done it, but he give me a look which I didn’t like, me thinking he might have a knife in his back pocket, if you follow me.’
‘I think Mrs Pryce was a brave woman, giving people the benefit of the doubt.’
He relaxed, met her eyes. ‘When he said he’d put the padlocks on, I thought he might be wanting to keep a key for himself so’s he could poke around, perhaps lift something he’d no right to. I wouldn’t have trusted him, not an inch, but she was like that. Gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.’
‘What might he have wanted to steal from an empty house?’
‘Fireplaces, bathroom and kitchen stuff. Lead guttering. There’s a market for them, if you know where to look. And he’d know.’
‘When did Jack put the padlocks on the doors?’
‘It had to be after Mrs Pryce left or she couldn’t have got her car out of the garage. I suppose he gave the keys to the estate agents.’
‘Was it you or Jack who took the spare key to the back door?’
A startled look. ‘Not me.’ He shifted his feet, cleared his throat. ‘I took the padlocks off the doors into and out of the yard and that’s all. We’d had such a dry spell, I had to get back in to check on my potatoes and runner beans, didn’t I?’
She probed a little more. ‘But now you’re worried about her.’
He nodded his head violently. ‘I wasn’t at first, but I am now. See, she promised to send me a card for my birthday which was two weeks back, and we – that’s Vera and Pet and me – we was all going down to see her next month for her birthday. When my card didn’t come, the wife says to me, why did I think she’d remember, and I couldn’t say anything except that Mrs Pryce wasn’t like that. Then, this and that’s been happening . . .’
‘You mean, the young couple in the attic.’
A closed look. ‘I don’t know nothing about that.’
Wednesday evening
On the phone.
‘Vera, is that you?’
‘Pet? Is there a problem?’
‘No, of course not. I asked my husband if he could remember the licence number of Mrs P’s car, but no go.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose he ever saw it, did he? I got part of it from Fritz, though. NYD. Don’t you remember him trying to think up words, so that she could remember it?’
‘You told the police?’
‘No, I told Mrs Quicke. She’s in touch with the police.’
‘Is she? I didn’t know that. Do you think they’ll take any notice?’
‘Dunno.’ A sigh. ‘It’s a mess, isn’t it?’
ELEVEN
Wednesday evening
Ellie said, ‘Fritz, I believe you when you say Mrs Pryce gave you permission to go on gardening at her place –’ fingers tightly crossed – ‘but you must have wondered if she’d given someone else the right to use the premises when you saw or heard something of her other “visitors”.’
‘I never.’
She gave him a Look. ‘If I’ve understood the matter correctly, they weren’t breaking any law by using a key to get in and staying in the attic for a while. But while you were working in the garden I expect you heard water run off . . . when they used the toilet, for instance. Or perhaps you spotted footprints in the garden. Did they pick any of your produce?’
A shake of the head, a half smile. He wasn’t going to admit that he knew anything. ‘I never saw nor heard nothing.’
‘Did you think they’d taken the back door key?’
No reply except for a frown and a shrug.
Ellie thought about it. ‘There were no tracks in the dust on the floor in the kitchen which means no one has been there recently, so they didn’t come and go that way. I think they must have had a front door key. How do you think they got it?’
‘Dunno.’ He was puzzled. ‘I haven’t got one. Vera and Pet, they handed theirs in. If Mrs Pryce had said for anyone to stay, they wouldn’t have needed to keep themselves to themselves.’ He cleared his throat, backtracking like mad. ‘That is, if there were any visitors, which I doubt.’
‘How soon after Mrs Pryce left did you begin to think someone might have moved into the house?’
‘Not long. She left on the Friday, just before the last of the vans took her stuff away—’
‘Hold on a minute. How many vans, and how many times did they come?’
He was happier talking about this. ‘She told me how she’d planned it; like a battle, she said, bringing up the troops. First there was the top auctioneers, international they were. They came early in the week to wrap up the silver and the china that she didn’t want to take with her, and to take all the valuable stuff away including the big pictures and the best pieces of furniture that she didn’t want to keep.
‘The next day it was the local auction people – another great big lorry for that; all the furniture including her own king-size bed. When that had gone, I moved a smaller, single bed into her room from across the landing, for her to sleep in. That was the one she was taking with her, see. Almost everything else went: the three-piece suite and the good carpets. From the downstairs rooms she only kept her walnut bureau, her own special chair, her fold-down table, and the flat screen telly from the playroom.
‘Then came the house clearance people and the man she sold the kitchen bits to, and the people who took the billiard table, and someone from the garden centre who came for the big electric mower and the urns – great big urns full of geraniums – I was sorry to see them go. Men were coming and going all the time.
‘I come in most evenings to help move this and that, and to see she was comfortable with what she’d got left for the last few days. She cried a bit one evening, saying she’d loved her time in that house, but on the whole she was looking forward to being waited on, and having people around to talk to all the time. She planned to take up playing bridge, she said, so’s she’d always have company in future.
Murder My Neighbour Page 13
