Murder With Mercy

by Veronica Heley

  ‘It would be a pleasure. Then we can go on to the funeral together.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Ken Greenbody said, ‘Preparation is the key word here, isn’t it? We must marshal our forces, Mrs Quicke. Prepare our lines of attack.’

  Ellie tried to smile. Thomas would say she should put on the armour of God, but she’d always thought armour must have been very uncomfortable to wear, particularly if you were of a well-padded persuasion. Or did the layers of fat insulate you against those bits which would otherwise stick into you in inconvenient places?

  She let Ken out of the front door, noticing as she did so that Mikey had left his skipping rope coiled up at the bottom of the stairs. Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard his ‘thump, thump’ lately. She wondered where he might have got to. He was probably up with his mother now. Yes, that would be it. She’d check later on.

  For now, she needed a good sit-down and a hard think.

  The phone rang. She hesitated. She was in no condition to think sensibly about anything. But she was glad that she did answer it for it was her very own solicitor, Gunnar, booming down the phone at her. ‘Sorry, my dear, got held up. Can’t get into the office today. Family, you know?’

  ‘Yes. No matter.’ She tried to clear her head. ‘I think I have the wording I needed. Mrs Pryce’s will stated that I must ensure the remaining members of the family would never be at a loss for the basics. How would you interpret that?’

  ‘Utility bills. Rent, possibly.’

  ‘She owns her own flat. Service charges?’

  ‘Mm. She could argue that one. If she is of a certain age and unemployed, she would be receiving a basic pension from the state.’

  ‘She is unemployed and of a certain age, so I assume she would.’

  ‘Has she any savings, shares? Own any property to let? That might affect the issue.’

  Ellie thought of the money Edwina had been creaming off them. What would she have done with it? Stashed it abroad in the Canary Islands or whatever? Was she that clued up? Um, possibly not. ‘Let us suppose she got into debt and couldn’t pay her food bills. Would we have to fork out for them?’

  ‘An interesting point. I’d have to check. Off the top of my head, I’d say we wouldn’t pay her debts, but we might be persuaded to pay her an allowance for food. Baked beans, rather than caviar.’

  ‘We don’t have time to consult cases that have gone through the courts in the past. Gunnar, I have a meeting with her tomorrow morning. She’s run up a ton of bills, some of them fraudulent. I could hand them over to the police, and I may have to … but I feel I’m still hamstrung by the terms of the will.’

  ‘You could say that your solicitor has advised you not to pay anything except her utility bills in future. If you’re feeling generous and as a gesture of goodwill – remember to put that in, “as a gesture of goodwill” – you could offer to double her state pension. I think a judge would go for that, unless she can represent herself as an orphan being crushed by a wealthy trust.’

  ‘We’re all orphans at our age, aren’t we?’

  He laughed and put the phone down.

  Ellie was left looking at the coil of Mikey’s skipping rope. She had a horrid feeling that she’d missed something. She listened for the everyday noises which people make when they’re living in a house.

  She could hear Rose clattering about in the kitchen, with the wireless on. Rose was using the food processor. Making another cake?

  Thomas was either talking to himself or on the phone to someone. He had his iPhone with him, didn’t he? It was about time she went up with some more drink for him.

  At the top of the house a door opened and some light-hearted music drifted down two flights of stairs. Someone – probably Ellie herself – had left the door to the stairs leading to the top flat open. Vera had her radio on, tuned to a different station from Rose.

  There was a dearth of Mikey noises. Of course he could be watching telly up top, with the door closed. Or be closeted with his computer.

  She knew he wasn’t. He was nowhere in the house. Which meant … She didn’t want to think what it meant.

  She went upstairs to check on the invalids. Would they like something to eat? Perhaps some home-made soup or an egg on toast? Thomas said, ‘I thought you’d forgotten me. Yes, please.’ Playing the neglected spouse. Ellie blew him a kiss and said she’d bring something up straight away.

  Vera said she was sure she could manage to cook for herself, and Ellie said, ‘All right; I’ll let you try tomorrow, but I’m playing chef today.’ Vera asked where Mikey was, but didn’t seem too worried when Ellie said vaguely she thought he was on her computer downstairs.

  Ellie checked Vera’s sitting room, which was much too tidy to have been visited by Mikey recently. The window of this room overlooked Ellie’s garden and, as she usually did when she was up there, she looked over the wall which divided their property from that of the Pryce mansion. The rain had stopped, and Ellie could see that although it was Sunday a team of gardeners was beavering away, planting the last of some low-maintenance shrubs at the end of the garden. Someone else was fiddling with the pergola situated at the end of one of the paths. A man in waders was placing pond plants into the newly finished water feature. They were working overtime to catch up. No Mikey.

  Hugh had forgotten to sever the rope that Mikey had hung over the wall. Had the boy made use of it the moment her back was turned?

  Ellie felt a chill race down her back. Didn’t he realize how dangerous this could be?

  She went down to fill the food orders for Thomas and Vera. Rose was putting a chocolate cake into the oven to cook. Ellie hoped Rose hadn’t left out anything important, such as an egg or the sugar.

  ‘Have you seen Mikey? Did he appear for food at lunchtime?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘He must have come in when I was having my nap. He left the butter out of the fridge and half a loaf of bread on the table, together with the wrapping from a packet of ham. And my best kitchen scissors are missing.’

  ‘I suppose he’s gone over the wall, though what he thinks he can do there … and the trouble he can get himself into! Why won’t he listen when we tell him not to do something?’

  Rose was placid. ‘Because he doesn’t think we’re doing enough to catch the baddies.’

  Ellie raised her fists in the air and shook them. ‘I could murder him! I suppose I’d better see what I can do to rescue him. But first, I have to feed the invalids.’ And hope Mikey makes it home again soon.

  Which he didn’t.

  Ellie cooked light meals for the invalids and only after that did she try phoning Hugh. He must be busy because her call went to voicemail. She left a message for him, saying that Mikey might have gone over the wall again and, if so, could Hugh keep a lookout for him?

  Ellie was too worried to eat much herself. Should she go over to the site and look for him herself? No. Not a good idea. Hugh wouldn’t like that, and now the men had heard she was dropping out of the project, they wouldn’t like it, either.

  How to keep the boy safe? Suppose Preston and Dave caught him and … No, she wouldn’t think about that. Dave had a knife and no compunction about using it. They’d clouted the boy good and hard and thrown him down the stairs before. What would they do to him if they caught him spying on them now?

  She shuddered. Tried to pray.

  Thomas said she was looking a little tired, and why didn’t she have an afternoon nap? She promised she would, but couldn’t rest.

  Finally, the front doorbell rang. Both Ellie and Rose scurried to answer it.

  It was Hugh, with a bedraggled scarecrow of a boy who looked as if he’d been in a mud bath.

  The moment before, Ellie had wanted to half kill Mikey but the blank look in his eyes was enough to melt her anger. ‘My dear boy! What on earth—’

  Rose gave a little scream. ‘Whatever have you been doing, you naughty boy?’

  Hugh pushed Mikey gently into the middle of the hall. ‘I wa
s busy, didn’t get your message for a while. Found a couple of the men had cornered him out front, hiding under one of the lorries. You can’t blame them for being angry, but I don’t think they hurt him much. Just rolled him around in the mud.’

  Ellie felt tears start. ‘Thank you, Hugh. I’m really grateful. I’ve told him so many times to keep away but—’

  ‘Let’s have your clothes off and dunk you in the shower,’ said Rose, laying hands on the boy’s muddy jacket. ‘I’m not letting you go up to frighten your mother looking like that.’

  The boy’s left hand was clenched into a fist, and Rose couldn’t get his jacket off till Ellie helped her. And even then …

  ‘What’s he holding?’

  The boy let his fingers relax and dropped a string of filthy felt flowers into Ellie’s hand. She stared at it. Then at the boy. Then at Hugh.

  ‘I think it’s part of the string of flowers which he said was looped around the driving mirror of the van that tried to run him down.’

  A voice came from upstairs. ‘Mikey, is that you?’

  Rose shouted back, ‘It’s all right, Vera. He’s been out in the rain, just come in. I’m going to put him in my shower and clean him up. Can you throw down some warm clothing for him, or he’ll catch his death?’ She whipped the boy round and shooed him down the corridor into her shower room, scolding all the way. ‘… and I suppose you’ve lost my best kitchen scissors, right? I should dock your wages, that is, if you’d ever earned any …’

  Ellie held Mikey’s trophy up to the light. ‘I’ll find a plastic bag to put this in. I suppose he thought that if he cut off part of the string from the van that tried to run him down, it would prove something. But it doesn’t, does it?’

  Hugh shook his head. ‘It proves nothing, except that he was trespassing and did some more damage to the company’s property. If I hadn’t gone looking for him, I don’t know what might have happened.’

  Ellie told herself it was no good crying now. It was relief that was making her feel weak. ‘Thank you, Hugh. I am so grateful you found him in time.’

  He was stiffly formal. ‘I can’t be responsible for him if he enters the site again.’

  ‘No, I realize that.’ She couldn’t find a hankie, so sniffed, hard.

  He nodded and let himself out.

  The phone rang, and this time Ellie ignored it. Mikey was safe for the moment. But for how long?

  Heads were hanging over the banister. ‘What’s up?’ said Thomas, bear-like in his dressing gown.

  Vera, trailing her own dressing gown, had managed to lower herself down to the first-floor landing, holding a bundle of Mikey’s clothes. She looked as washed-out as natural blondes can do on a bad day. And very anxious. ‘Is Mikey all right?’

  ‘He’s fine,’ said Ellie, forcing a smile. ‘Drop those clothes over the banister and I’ll take them to Rose’s shower room. He should have taken his mac if he wanted to go out and play in the rain, but there, you know what he’s like. He’ll be up to see you as soon as he’s been cleaned up.’

  ‘Ellie?’ Thomas’s voice was as gentle as always, but it held a command. Thomas was getting stronger by the minute, and he wasn’t going to be as easy to put off as Vera.

  ‘In a minute,’ she said, rescuing Mikey’s clothes.

  She took them through to Rose, who said, ‘Everything that he had on ought to be dumped, including his shoes, but if that rapscallion has left any hairs on my head after all the worry he’s given us with his shenanigans, I’ll see what I can do to rescue them.’

  Ellie trudged up the stairs and into the master bedroom. Thomas sat her down by the windows and seated himself there, too. He took her hand in his. ‘Tell me what’s going on. Visitors are coming and going without explanation. Phones are ringing, sometimes answered, sometimes not. Mikey has been doing a disappearing act, here one minute and gone the next. Vera’s trying to be brave and not making a scene but she knows that something’s up, as I do.’

  ‘Leave it till tomorrow, right? You’ll feel better then.’

  ‘Ellie, light of my life; if I’m well enough to realize something serious is going on, then I’m well enough to pray about it. Your eyes look tired. I know Vera and I have given you some disturbed nights, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?’

  Was he really up to hearing what was going on? His colour had improved but his hand was a trifle too warm on hers. No, he wasn’t fighting fit yet.

  She turned her hand in his, holding on to it. ‘Prayer would be good. As much as you can manage.’

  There was a stir at the door, and Mikey came in, freshly scrubbed, smelling of good soap, warmly clad. With his mother in tow. Vera’s eyes looked wild. ‘You said not to worry, but Mikey’s in trouble, isn’t he? Don’t shut me out. I have a right to know what’s going on.’

  Behind her came Rose, panting from the effort of climbing the stairs. ‘Council of war, is it? Well, you’re not discussing anything behind my back.’

  ‘Take a seat, all of you,’ invited Thomas. ‘And now, Ellie, tell us what’s going on.’

  So Ellie did, with Rose interjecting now and then that she didn’t understand that bit so Ellie had to go back and fill in. Ellie hadn’t intended to go into detail about Mikey’s adventures, and she did try to minimize how roughly he’d been treated, but Vera wept and clutched him to her when they got to that part. ‘Oh, Mikey! And I knew nothing about it.’

  Rose handed Vera the box of tissues. ‘It’s his own fault. He will not be told!’

  The boy looked down at his feet.

  Thomas stirred in his chair. ‘Mikey, we see what you’ve been trying to do, but a good general doesn’t win a war by throwing all his troops into battle against overwhelming odds. That way he’s sure to be defeated. A good general thinks long and hard before he acts. He considers the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. He doesn’t necessarily attack where he’s expected to do so. He makes sure his troops are in good condition, well fed and well armed. He gathers information. He takes advice from his officers. He may not follow that advice because his is the final decision about how to fight the war, but he listens to what they have to say.’

  Mikey didn’t look up at Thomas, but he did seem to be listening.

  Thomas went on, ‘When I’m up and about, we’ll have a look at stories of some of the great generals of the past and how they won their wars. The Duke of Wellington, for instance, was wily enough to pull his troops back from territory he’d gained in a summer campaign, to overwinter where he was safe from attack. That way he didn’t lose men by making them fight under adverse conditions and was well prepared for a spring offensive. You follow me?’

  Mikey’s mouth twisted, but he managed a tiny nod.

  ‘Good. Your problem is that you only saw one small part of the picture and, without any particular preparation or forethought, you launched into an offensive you couldn’t win.’

  Mikey flushed.

  ‘Now suppose,’ said Thomas, ‘you’d taken a camera with you when you first went after Preston and Dave. You might have got some evidence which would have stood up in court, saved yourself considerable aggro and us a lot of worry.’

  Mikey ground his teeth. It was clear he hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘Remind me to give you a good camera for your birthday. Or suppose,’ said Thomas, ‘you’d confided your suspicions in me or in Ellie? We could have asked Hugh to investigate and—’

  Mikey treated Thomas to a Grade One glare of contempt.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Ellie, ‘but I don’t think Hugh could have helped much. He’s, well, got a lot of problems at the moment. But Mikey, if you’d told me earlier, I might have been able to help. You were tackling things from the wrong angle. The problem was not what Preston and Dave were doing, nor that someone tried to run you down in the street. The problem was who bribed Dave, or Preston, or both of them to do the damage in the first place.’

  Mikey frowned. So did everyone else.

  Ellie said, ‘I’ve be
en thinking a lot about this. The police can’t always catch people doing bad things, but sometimes they can deal with the problem another way, by tracing the money the villains have made by their crimes. The Inland Revenue can step in and confiscate the fruits of their wrongdoing. The police couldn’t manage to put away the boss of a crime spree in Chicago for the murders he’d committed, but he ended up behind bars because he’d fiddled his income tax. I think I can tackle this problem the same way. With help.’

  Thomas nodded approval. ‘By taking advice from your friends, by attacking at the weakest point and when least expected. Now Mikey, what you have done so far has brought several crimes to light, and it’s time for adults to move in and take action. But we can’t concentrate on what we ought to be doing if we’re in a state of anxiety as to your whereabouts. I want you to promise your mother that you will keep away from the building site until this matter is cleared up. Agreed?’

  Mikey’s lower lip came out.

  Vera gave him a hug. ‘Come on. You know it makes sense. To please me? I shan’t have a minute’s peace if I think you’re going to put yourself in danger again.’

  Mikey gave a reluctant nod and then sagged against his mother, who clasped him tightly, murmuring, ‘There, there. You’ve had a rough time but it’s over now. Let’s go up and have a little nap, shall we? Back in our own little beds.’

  Rose bustled to her feet, easing her back. She muttered something about everyone wanting a nice cup of tea, and disappeared.

  Ellie said, ‘Tell me what to do, Thomas.’

  His eyes were closed, his breathing even. He wasn’t asleep but praying. She stayed where she was, watching him, being thankful for his presence in her life.

  The room stilled around them.

  Thomas was a powerful prayer warrior.

  She wasn’t sure exactly when he fell asleep, for his clasp on her hand remained firm. She heard the phone ring downstairs, and it seemed to disturb him for he stirred, letting her hand drop away. He did not waken. His temperature was the nearest to normal that it had been all week. Rain spat against the window. She sat on in the early dusk, not thinking but resting.