Murder in the Garden

by Veronica Heley

  She thought of the Bosnian refugees, their numbers always fluctuating … the young mother grieving for her husband, who'd been killed in the troubles. Was it her body which had been buried in the garden? How very sad it all was.

  She thought of Shirley and Donald, heavy drinkers, noisy neighbours.

  None of them had been happy, and certainly not serene. She remembered that when they'd first arrived, Kate and Armand had spent a lot of time quarrelling and that Armand had even hit his wife.

  Could feelings of violence and distress - even of murder - be left behind in a house, to be picked up by the next people who lived there? Was the house jinxed?

  No, of course not. She was being fanciful. But she didn't really want to tell Kate about the people who had lived there.

  She said, ‘The police are following up all the leads I've been able to give them. All I can say is that the people who lived there before you were all very noisy. They had lots of parties, which were fun if you like that sort of thing. They used to shout at one another and the children and the animals. I don't suppose any of them liked the classical music which Armand plays, and they would have been amazed at all the lovely gadgets and modern furniture you've put into the house.’

  She was saying the right thing. Both her visitors began to relax. ‘And you're on the case, right?’ said Kate.

  Ellie demurred. ‘I wouldn't have said that, exactly. I'm giving the police my impressions of the people who lived here, that's all.’

  ‘I've always had an active imagination,’ said Armand, trying to laugh at himself.

  ‘So you have,’ said Kate, smiling at him. But her smile was strained. ‘Thank you, Ellie. I'm sure we'll sleep better tonight. Before we go, we must settle up for the meal last night. You were an angel to put up with us.’

  ‘It was my pleasure,’ said Ellie. ‘And please, keep the key to this house, just in case. I don't suppose you'll need it, ever, but I'd feel safer if a good neighbour had a key, in the event of my mislaying mine.’

  Kate saw through that, of course, though Armand didn't seem to. Kate was very tense as she kissed Ellie and thanked her, saying she'd keep the key safe, of course she would.

  As Ellie let them out, she wondered how she'd feel if the body had been found at the bottom of her garden. She shuddered. How terrible! If Frank had still been alive, she would have been able to go to him, share her fears with him. He would have told her to stop worrying about something that had nothing to do with them. Perhaps he'd have suggested they have a glass of brandy to go to bed on. He might even have given her a hug and kissed her ear.

  Or would he? Wouldn't he have told her roughly that that's what she got for poking her nose into someone else's business?

  She was all alone in the house with no one but Midge for company. She double-locked the door, which she rarely bothered to do, and put the chain on. Then she went round the house making sure every door and ground-floor window was locked up tight, and the keys taken out and hidden out of sight.

  She played back the message Diana had left on the answerphone and deleted it, sighing. What else would Diana demand? This time she wanted Ellie to use her influence with Roy, to let her prepare his show house for viewing. As Diana was into open-plan minimalism with candles, and Roy had very properly slanted the town houses towards the family market, there was no way Roy would agree. Even if he hadn't already asked a local firm to do the job.

  She rang Diana back. Diana was not picking up the phone, and her answerphone was on. Ellie left a message that she'd rung and would no doubt be seeing Diana soon.

  Ellie decided to do a little praying for everyone as she washed up the last of the supper things, and went up to bed.

  The businessman sat outside his house in his car, making another call to his brother.

  ‘You got the message that I rang earlier? Yes, I guessed you'd be in theatre all day. Well, you're right. They've found her. But I've been thinking. There's absolutely no way they can connect us with her. All we have to do is sit tight.’

  ‘Have you told father?’

  ‘No. He really is most unwell. I told you.’

  Silence.

  The surgeon said, ‘I have operations scheduled tomorrow at the private hospital. But afterwards I will come down to London. We must talk.’

  ‘Of course, you are welcome, as always. My wife and daughter will be delighted to see you, but … is there any need? In my opinion, we should do nothing whatsoever to draw attention to ourselves.’

  ‘If they find out, we'll be ruined.’

  ‘There is nothing to find out.’

  The surgeon persisted. ‘We'd be arrested. Father would be … it doesn't bear thinking of.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘A diversion. We must point them in another direction.’

  ‘What sort of diversion? I am against our doing anything at all.’

  ‘We could tell the police about the man next door. We'll discuss it again tomorrow.’

  Friday morning. Ellie woke from a hazy dream which faded as she sat up in bed, dislodging Midge, who'd arrived in the early hours after a hunting expedition. He smelled of fish; now how had he got hold of some fish? Or had he been raiding a goldfish pond somewhere? And did goldfish smell of fish?

  The dream had faded, but something remained. A snatch of overheard conversation in a shop in the Avenue … one of the refugees speaking in her own language to a shop assistant in … the grocer's? The shop assistant was a dark-skinned woman who'd been there for ever. Ellie had never thought of her as being ‘foreign' but it was true that her hair was very dark and so was her skin. She spoke perfect English, and was always very helpful to the elderly who fumbled with their change, and couldn't always put their own purchases in those flimsy plastic bags. A really nice woman. Ellie didn't often buy things in that shop, but perhaps today she should make an exception?

  Mentally she reviewed the jobs lined up for today. She must see Aunt Drusilla and check up on the Gate House, as Roy wanted to call his new quarters.

  She must shop for the weekend, take her library books back, because they were running out of time. She would also call in on the grocery shop and see if the woman there knew anything about where the refugees had gone.

  Once there had been a very large Co-op store in the Avenue, but that had long since gone. Two of the newsagents had expanded their premises to include mini grocery stores, but most people still went to the slightly old-fashioned shop right in the middle of the Avenue. Especially if they didn't have a car and couldn't visit the supermarkets, which were some distance away.

  Ellie was unlucky. The shop was full, and there was a queue to pay at the till. The manager was there as well, taking money, chatting away. It wouldn't be possible to have a quiet word with anyone. A pity, but the police should be able to track the family down much better than she could. She had plenty of other things to do that day.

  Miss Quicke was enjoying herself, pointing out to the jobbing gardener that he hadn't cut the laurels in the driveway back hard enough. Miss Quicke appreciated order and symmetry. Perhaps, thought Ellie, Aunt Drusilla would have been happier with topiary, rather than shrubbery. This fancy led Ellie on to wonder what shapes Miss Quicke would have wanted to cut her bushes … perfect cubes, perhaps? With every edge sharp?

  Although Ellie was not tall, she had to bend to kiss Aunt Drusilla's cheek.

  ‘You're looking well, Ellie. Have you checked up that everything's all right for the dinner party tomorrow?’ Miss Quicke left the

  chastened gardener to attack the offending bushes again, while she led Ellie indoors.

  Ellie shuffled in her handbag for the menu. ‘I just popped into the French restaurant in the Avenue, and everything's in order. Supper for eight, dishes as selected by you from their menu, to be brought in hot and ready to serve at half past seven. They will send someone to lay the table, serve and clear away. Neither Roy nor Rose is to know anything about it, except that you're giving a dinner party for Roy
and that they're both invited. Yes, that's all arranged, but who else is coming?’

  ‘You'll see when you turn up with Roy. Rose is pottering away in the back garden this morning, but she's left the coffee things out for us.’

  Ellie made coffee and took it through into the enormous lounge at the back of the house. Miss Quicke had at first declined to change anything in here, but as new wiring had made redecoration essential, she'd allowed Ellie to get the walls repainted a lighter shade of cream and to replace the ancient lined velvet curtains with modern replicas. As Rose had a mania for polishing good furniture, the effect nowadays was rather more Antiques Roadshow than the abode of Miss Havisham.

  Miss Quicke rested her stick against the arm of her high-backed chair. ‘So you've found another body, have you?’

  ‘Really, Aunt Drusilla. I didn't find it, and it's got nothing whatever to do with me. It happened next door.’

  ‘So tell me all about it.’

  This was, of course, the magic formula. Ellie relaxed, sinking into an equally comfortable high-backed chair, and closing her eyes for a moment. She was not quite sure how it had come about, but this fierce old woman, who had once been the bane of Ellie's life, had gradually become a trusted friend and confidante. What was more, as Miss Quicke's mind was as sharp as a tack, her comments were likely to be a help rather than a hindrance.

  ‘Well, the earth digger turned up a skeleton in Kate and Armand's garden. It's upset them both.’

  ‘And you, too?’

  Ellie nodded. She sipped her coffee, looking out of the windows on to the once bare and uninteresting garden, which dear Rose was gradually transforming with a stone container for plants here, and a stand of herbaceous flowers there. Why, she'd even imported a sundial! Ellie reflected that Rose could probably humanize a municipal park, if she put her mind to it.

  ‘I don't know how long the body's been there. Long enough to become a skeleton. The police say it was a woman, and they're doing tests. They want to know everything I can tell them about the people who've lived in that house before Kate and Armand came. It's … disturbing.’

  Aunt Drusilla's eyes gleamed as she, too, sipped her coffee. ‘Not a nice lot of neighbours, as I remember.’

  ‘No. Frank used to say …’ Ellie stopped. ‘What's the point of looking back? It doesn't change anything. He's dead and gone. I hate remembering.’

  Aunt Drusilla nodded.

  Ellie put her cup down with a click. ‘He's been gone nearly a year now.’

  ‘It comes up and hits you every now and again, doesn't it?’ ‘You think you've got over it. Crying all the time. I've moved on, done lots of new things, made new friends.’

  ‘But every now and then, you hear something or see something, and it all comes back, just as raw as when it first happened.’

  Ellie dived for a handkerchief, and blew her nose. ‘It's ridiculous!’ She scolded herself.

  ‘It happens,’ said Miss Quicke, who never allowed herself to weep in public.

  Ellie poured out more coffee, and they drank it in silence, watching Rose, hair all over the place, cardigan buttoned up wrongly, lovingly insert some miniature dahlia plants into containers which already looked full. The result was not just pleasant, but spectacular.

  Miss Quicke said, ‘I told Rose some of these plants will have to come in soon, or the frost will get them. She doesn't care. She's been spending her own money on buying them, would you believe? Now, Ellie, this is a secret, between you and me. Don't tell Rose yet, but I'm thinking of having a conservatory built on at the side of the house, so she can enjoy her plants throughout the year. I suppose I have to ask your permission, since it's your house? But I'll pay for it myself.’

  Ellie blew her nose again. ‘Of course I agree. It will add to the value of the property and please Rose enormously.’

  ‘I used to think that this house was my shell, and that if it was taken away from me, I'd die.’ She gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Hark at me, being fanciful. I hated the idea that it didn't belong to me, but to my feckless brother … and then to my nephew. I suppose that's why I never did anything to it. It gave me a grim pleasure to watch it deteriorate around me. And then my nephew died and left it to you, and I was worried you'd turn me out …’

  ‘No, you weren't. You knew I'd never turn you out.’

  Miss Quicke gave a yelp of laughter. ‘No, you're right. I know you better than that. I know you don't want to live here, and you've been left comfortably off. Then you found Rose to look after me, and made me put some money into the house, and now I'm actually starting to enjoy living here. What's more, since you've altered the layout, it's no longer a burden. I don't even have to worry about the cleaners any more, because dear Rose sees to all that for me.’

  ‘Rose is good with people.’

  ‘So are you, Ellie. So are you. It did occur to me to buy the house off you, so that I could leave it in my will to Roy … but who knows how much longer I've got left? It saves death duties to leave things as they are.’

  ‘Do you want me to make the house over to Roy?’ Ellie didn't know how she felt about that. ‘I could do, I suppose. He'd never turn you out, either, but if it was in his name he could raise money on it, to fund his next development scheme.’

  The development on the Green had been funded partly by the sale of Roy's house in the country and partly by Miss Quicke. They both stood to make a fortune from the development, which they planned to reinvest in another concern in future.

  ‘Leave things as they are,’ said Miss Quicke. ‘Roy's good with the larger picture but not so good on detail, and it's in the detail that the balance lies between profit and loss. He may learn. He may not. But so long as he depends on me for financial backing, I can keep an eye on him. Which is not to say that I'm not very fond of him, because I am. And of Rose, too.’

  ‘You've been good to her.’

  ‘She's very good to me. That is one happy woman, Ellie. She actually likes doing things for other people. Little things that make all the difference. She's certainly changed my life for the better. And Roy, too. I wish you'd marry him.’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘I'm not ready for it, especially now when everything keeps reminding me of Frank.’

  ‘Don't look back. Look forward.’

  ‘I wish I could, but I must help Kate and Armand if I can. And don't say, “Leave it to the police …”’

  ‘Leave it to the police.’

  ‘… because they don't know the people involved as I did.’

  ‘Did you, my dear? Now I thought you kept away from them as much as possible.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Frank didn't want me to get involved, and somehow that makes me feel even more guilty. Suppose I had been on friendly terms with them, perhaps I'd have been able to help …’

  ‘Families come first, and you put yours first, which was only right and proper.’

  Ellie sighed. She picked up the coffee tray. ‘I'll wash these up, and then pop in to Roy's place, see if the curtains and blinds are up yet. Moving day tomorrow.’

  Six

  On her way back home she popped into the grocer's shop for this and that: a mayonnaise she fancied, another bottle of milk, some biscuits. But the shop was crowded and the manager was at the till instead of the usual shop assistant.

  Ellie shrugged, thinking the police would surely soon discover the identity of the body in the garden, and that it was none of her business.

  When she got back home, she dashed off a note to DI Willis, telling her what she'd learned about the couple who'd gone to Spain. That should keep the police quiet for a bit. The police had set up an incident centre in the church hall, which was convenient for them, but highly inconvenient for the toddlers' group which usually met there of a morning. Several disgruntled young mothers had removed themselves and their pushchairs to the Green around the church, to meet and moan about it. Ellie dropped her note into the incident room, and went back to change the sheets on the beds and do some housework. She always liked
the place to be neat and tidy for the weekend.

  She stood at her upstairs window for a while, watching men dig over Armand and Kate's garden. It didn't look as if they'd found anything interesting. It was distressing to think of them wanting to dig up the floor of the extension.

  In her inner ear, she could hear Frank saying something sharp about people who spent their time looking out of windows instead of getting on with the housework.

  She began to weep, softly. Why was it that everything she recalled about Frank nowadays somehow tarnished his memory and made her think less of him? She didn't want to think less of him. She wanted to remember him as he was, a man who loved his home and his family and worked hard to provide everything they needed. A successful businessman. Someone who'd worked hard for the church, and who'd put up with his Aunt Drusilla's foibles year after year after year.

  He'd been a good man, and if he hadn't had any time left for other people after caring for his family, that didn't make him any the less a good man.

  She went downstairs to open the parcel of bulbs which she'd ordered. Some of them had been intended for Kate and Armand's new garden. She put them aside with a sigh, wondering how soon the police would let them get on with the garden … or even … if they would. Or even, if Kate and Armand would stay in that house now.

  Some of the bulbs she put aside for her own garden, and some she put in a carrier bag and took across the Green to the church. Their vicar, Thomas - known to his intimates as ‘Tum-Tum' because of his rounded figure - was often to be found, between tea and evensong, pottering around the flowerbeds against the church walls.

  His Victorian Gothic horror of a vicarage had a dull garden of sorts, which their curate was supposed to look after but didn't. Tum-Tum preferred to work around the church. He said people in need of a chat would often come to talk to him if he was poking about in the flowerbeds outside the church, rather than formally walk the crunching gravel of the driveway and stand in the imposing porch to ring the doorbell at the vicarage, where everyone could see that they were calling on the vicar.