Murder in the Garden

by Veronica Heley

  It had become something of a routine that Ellie would help him with the gardening at church on Tuesday mornings. One or two others would join them on a regular basis; others would come along when they could and lend a hand for half an hour, an hour - whatever time they could spare. And whoever was still there at twelve o'clock would end up having coffee at Ellie's house.

  Yes, Tum-Tum was there as usual, on his knees, weeding among the annuals. Bamboo canes and string nearby showed where he'd been staking some Michaelmas daisies and rudbeckias.

  ‘I'm delighted to see you, Ellie.’ He got off his knees, with an effort. ‘I was praying someone would come along and give me an excuse to stop.’ He seated himself on a bench and beamed at her.

  She handed him her bag of bulbs. ‘What do you think of these? I thought we might plant them under the trees for next spring. Miniature daffodils of all sorts.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ He patted the seat at his side. ‘OK for next Tuesday? If you're not too busy with your neighbours.’

  Ellie relaxed. ‘Of course you've heard, haven't you? I suppose everyone's talking about it, and speculating who died there. What's the latest theory? I'd love it to have been a tramp, but I don't think it is. It must be someone who lived there once. But who? I think and think and get nowhere. You're the only person who says I should spend more time with my neighbours than with my family.’

  Tum-Tum produced a couple of bananas and handed one to Ellie to eat. ‘A nice couple. How are they coping? It's enough to put them off living here.’

  Ellie nodded. ‘Armand's the sensitive one, talks about there being a grey mist in the house. Of course, he's only seen that since the body was discovered. Kate -’ Ellie hesitated - ‘Kate will be the one to decide if they move or not.’

  ‘You're doing what you can for them? They're not churchgoers, or I'd pop round to see them. They'll be safe in your hands, though. Someone said it was a woman's body.’

  ‘Mm. Doing further tests. The police want me to help them with information about families who lived there before. That's upsetting, because I can see so clearly that I ought to have been more neighbourly. I could have done a lot to help them, if I'd not been so bound up with my own family.’

  ‘Don't be too hard on yourself. From what I've heard, it would have taken an archangel with the muscles of Hercules to have helped some of them. Besides, you had your hands full with your own family.’

  She had to laugh. ‘An archangel with the muscles of Hercules!’ ‘Did they ask for help?’

  No, they hadn't. They'd actually repelled the small advances she had made in their direction. She sighed. ‘I suppose you're right. I'm a terrible worrier, when I get going, aren't I?’

  He knew what she needed better than she did. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a key to the church, laying it on the bench between them. ‘Drop it back through the letterbox at the vicarage when you've finished, as usual.’

  He gathered his gardening tools together, dumped them in an ancient wheelbarrow, topping the lot off with the bulbs she'd brought him, and trundled away, stopping en route to talk to an elderly gentleman who was also pushing a wheelbarrow, having just come from the allotments at the far end of the park.

  Ellie slipped into the church, which was full of rosy light from the setting sun. On Sundays she sang in the choir but when she went in by herself she sat at the back, leaning against one of the great pillars that upheld the roof. She didn't know what to pray about in the present situation. God knew all about it, of course.

  She spread her hands out, palm upwards, and bent her head.

  ‘You know all about it … that poor woman, lying in that garden all those years … how terrible! How lonely! Please look after Kate and Armand and …’

  She didn't know what else to say.

  ‘Look after me, please!’ That didn't sound right. What had she got to fear? Nothing. Except her own guilty conscience.

  ‘Please forgive me. I ought to have helped them, somehow. I ought not to have let Frank stop me.’

  She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, once. She didn't want to criticize Frank, not even in her heart. Tum-Tum had been right. She'd done what she'd thought best at the time. It was no good looking back.

  She hoped the police would soon identify the poor woman, and they could all go back to being as they were.

  To thinking as they had done. ‘Please, Lord. Keep your eye on all of us. Comfort us, strengthen us. Forgive us our sins.’

  The surgeon was driving down the M1, and using his hands-free mobile to talk to his brother. ‘The last operation was cancelled, so I'm on my way down. Listen, I've been thinking. We can't risk doing nothing, with our father in such a bad way. Did you get the local paper? What does it say?’

  ‘I got it. There's something in it, but nothing we didn't know already.’

  ‘Good. So the police will be looking for a lead. Suppose we give them one? Suppose we point them in the direction of the neighbour.’

  ‘You said that yesterday, but I'm reluctant to do anything. If the police know nothing, then why not leave it at that? They'll have to drop the case.’

  ‘If they know nothing, they'll start digging around, asking questions of the people who lived there. We don't want that.’

  ‘It's not the same people that we knew. The people in the newsagent's told me …’

  ‘You talked to them about it?’

  ‘No. Everyone else in the shop was talking about them, so I listened, and nodded and said how terrible it was. Even my wife has heard about it now. She and the girls were talking about it this morning. I warned them not to tell Father, said that he shouldn't be worried with bad news, but of course they don't understand.’

  ‘I have a plan. We will divert the police so cleverly that no one will be able to trace the diversion back to us. We will discuss it this evening.’

  Saturday mornings were always busy, even if Ellie were not helping someone to move house. Today was going to be frantic. What on earth had possessed Aunt Drusilla to give a dinner party today of all days? Ellie looked out her best blue with the low neckline which she'd always thought too low, but which Kate said showed her assets off nicely. That would do nicely for the supper party. She wondered for the umpteenth time who else Aunt Drusilla had invited. Not Diana, of course. Perhaps Aunt Drusilla's unknown solicitor? The old dear was getting on a bit, and might want Roy and Ellie to have at least a nodding acquaintance with her solicitor.

  The phone kept ringing as Ellie tried to eat some breakfast, pay some bills, water the plants in the conservatory, feed Midge and tidy up the place before she left.

  One call was from Jean, one of the church's busiest bodies, wanting to make quite sure Ellie would do coffee after tomorrow morning's service. As Mrs Dawes had already asked Ellie to do this and Ellie had agreed, she found Jean's double check on her annoying. But, sitting on an impulse to tell Jean to stuff her coffee, Ellie meekly returned the call and said that yes, she would certainly be there.

  Then it was Diana, wanting to drop off little Frank at Ellie's that afternoon.

  Ellie only entertained the idea for two seconds. Could she manage to look after Frank while helping Roy to settle in? No, she couldn't. ‘I'm so sorry, Diana, but I did warn you I couldn't look after him today. Why don't you come over for lunch tomorrow?’

  ‘Mother, really! You've always said I could always count on you, and I really can't have Frank with me this afternoon. I have clients coming to see the flats at three o'clock, and at four. Then I'm going out with Derek in the evening.’

  ‘I daresay you are, dear. But I really can't look after him today. Sorry.’

  ‘I'm sure you can rearrange your day, which is more than I can do. You know how important it is that I should-’

  ‘No, dear. I'm sorry, but I can't.’ Ellie didn't want to tell Diana who it was she would be spending time with, because Diana thought Roy a fortune-hunter after his mother's money, and never missed an opportunity to snipe at him. ‘I really must go.
I'll be late.’

  ‘I don't believe this! I really don't! It's not as if I-’

  ‘I really must go,’ said Ellie, and put the phone down as the front doorbell rang. The local newspaper had sent a man snooping round for information. ‘I don't know anything,’ said Ellie, trying to think whether she had a clean pair of nylons for the evening, and where she'd put her spare pair of washing-up gloves to take to Roy's, because men never did think about such things. Frank always thought housework did itself by magic, because he didn't like seeing her doing it when he was around, so she had to cram it into the time he wasn't in the house.

  She popped a pad and pencil into her overnight bag on wheels and made sure she'd got her mobile phone with her.

  Armand was mooning around in his front patch - for garden you could not call it, being mostly under concrete. ‘I suppose Kate's working?’ He nodded. ‘Dear Armand, why don't you go out for the day? You can't do any good here and you're better off not knowing what's happening in your house.’

  Armand snarled, ‘I can't leave. Suppose … it's a nightmare. No, I'll get on with my marking.’

  She wondered if he would. ‘You've still got my key, haven't you? I'll be over at my aunt's all day, so you can work at my house if you like.’

  The businessman and the surgeon shut themselves into the study, to consider how best to send an anonymous message to the police. They'd talked late into the night and come to no satisfactory conclusion. Now they were at it again.

  ‘No phones,’ said the businessman, who knew about such things. ‘They can trace calls from land lines if you're on for more than a few seconds. We could use a mobile - no, not yours or mine. The phone companies can trace what calls we make at what time. I suppose we could buy one, give a false name and address, use it and throw it away immediately afterwards.’

  ‘Ridiculous! What a waste of money!’

  ‘Agreed.’

  The businessman paced the floor. The surgeon kept glancing up at the ceiling. In the room above, their father lay dying. Yes, the surgeon now realized that his father was dying. He hadn't wanted to admit it before.

  The businessman had another idea. ‘I've heard it's impossible to trace letters run off from a computer. We could use mine here, making sure not to leave prints on the paper, put it in an envelope and push that through the letterbox of the nearest police station. The only problem is that if we're ever investigated, the evidence would be on the hard drive of the computer.’

  ‘That's running an unnecessary risk.’

  ‘I agree. We could use someone else's computer … but whose?’

  The surgeon snapped his fingers. ‘I have it. Suppose we use one of the computers in the local library …’

  The businessman shook his head. ‘My youngest daughter uses one at the main library for research, but I don't think they have printers. You can photocopy from books of course. But that's different.’

  ‘Send an email, then. Yes, that's the perfect answer. It will have to be you who does it, not me. You know I've never been able to deal with computers. Give a false name and address. No need to worry about fingerprints, because the machine will be used by someone else immediately after you, which will erase all your prints. Type a short message, send it to the police by email and then walk away, knowing it will be impossible for them to trace you.’

  The businessman thought about that, and nodded. ‘Exactly what will we say?’

  It really was good to get out of the house. The cosmeas in Ellie's front garden were doing brilliantly this year. She'd had to stake them, otherwise the wind would batter them to the ground. She loved cosmeas. Or should it be ‘cosmos'? Or possibly ‘cosmi?’ What did it matter, anyway?

  There was a nice show of snapdragons in one of the gardens fronting on to the Green. The old-fashioned sort, not the new kind with the open trumpets, which you couldn't call ‘snapdragons' any longer.

  Roy and Aunt Drusilla's new development of town houses was coming on well. Roy had asked her to fill the narrow flowerbeds fronting the Green, and the strip of raised bed along the back wall, with some small trees and low growing plants, and she noticed that the beds there had now been filled with good topsoil ready for planting. She'd already asked her favourite nurseries to look out some sapling trees and well-grown evergreen plants for her. An old friend had said he'd take her out to make her final selection early next week; she must check to see if he could still manage it. Once the beds were planted, the whole development would look ready for sale. Perhaps people would be moving into the houses before Christmas.

  She picked up some bits and pieces in the delicatessen on her way, aware that while no one ever thought about lunch on removal day until noon, it was the first thing men wanted at that point. That and tea. Probably dear Rose would be able to supply that. There, the removal truck had arrived already. She greeted Roy with a friendly kiss on his cheek, dumped her purchases on the shining granite work surface in the brand-new kitchen, and started to unpack boxes marked ‘kitchen'.

  Boxes … boxes … men shouting at one another about the turn in the new stairs … dear Rose popping across with mugs of tea and coffee … lots of cupboard space, what a blessing. Perhaps some time she would have her own kitchen redone, because it hadn't been touched since dear Frank put it in himself soon after they bought the house … sigh … so many years ago. She remembered the difficulty he'd had with the shelf over the boiler …

  And then she thought of that poor woman stumbling into the garden next door and dying there, alone. It had been comforting to think she'd been a tramp, perhaps someone who preferred to die alone under the stars. It was better to think she'd been a tramp, rather than one of the Bosnian family. Not that you could see many stars in the city nowadays. Light pollution, they called it. But still … the poor creature had been so close, and Ellie had never known.

  If the woman had only chosen another garden to die in, perhaps someone would have noticed, would have gone out and helped her, got an ambulance, maybe. But perhaps it had been what she wanted, to die like that. God would have known, of course. Perhaps she'd been a Christian and had chosen that place to die, because of the church nearby. Perhaps her last thoughts might have been of God, asking for her sins to be forgiven, claiming God's love …

  Ellie felt guilty that she'd never known the woman was in such need, dying just a few feet away from her house. Perhaps, if no one claimed the body - and if she'd been on the streets then probably no one would claim the body - Ellie could arrange for the woman to have a proper funeral service in the church, see that she was laid to rest in a decent fashion. It was the least she could do.

  Roy's dinner service went in a glass-fronted cupboard - after it had been carefully washed and dried. His pots and pans went into a carousel in the corner cupboard, his mugs on a stand, spices into a fitted rack on the wall. He had a lot of rather beautiful cut glass, which again she had to wash before drying and putting in another glass-fronted cupboard. Cleaning materials … another bottom cupboard.

  No ironing board? No vacuum cleaner? Perhaps they were still in the removal van?

  Cutlery … in a drawer above the pots and pans. He'd hardly any groceries. Luckily she'd had the foresight to bring tea, coffee and milk with her for him.

  Then it was time to draw breath and ask if anyone fancied a sandwich.

  On the dot of twelve, here came Rose, twittering as usual, her brand-new smart jumper and skirt covered with a plastic apron with cats on it, bearing a huge thermos of hot soup.

  Dear, dear Rose. She always got her priorities right.

  Ellie, Roy and Rose sat round the dusty dining-room table, while Roy mourned the fact that he'd had to leave his furniture in store for so long, and wondered if it would ever look good again.

  ‘Of course it will,’ said Ellie.

  ‘I'll just fetch some proper wax polish from home,’ said dear Rose, already thinking of her new quarters in the big house as ‘home'. ‘Now, don't you fret, and don't try to use any of those spray can
s on your furniture. Old furniture likes being treated to a bit of TLC, and that's what it's going to get.’

  After lunch Ellie busied herself in the bedrooms - there were two, plus a bathroom and shower room - making beds, putting linen away, stowing Roy's clothes in the built-in wardrobe and helping Rose to dust and polish some very respectable antique furniture. Downstairs the men dropped something heavy and Roy yelled at them. But finally the last box was dumped in the huge living room, and the removal men drove away.

  Silence.

  Dear Rose said, ‘Do you think we should say a prayer, perhaps? Or get our dear minister over to bless the place? This place hasn't had anyone living here for ever, has it, and somehow, I don't know why, I just think it would be more comfortable for dear Roy, banish the glooms.’

  The glooms? What was Rose talking about? The Gate House - they'd have to stop calling it a garage - was bright and cheerful. Only Roy, nursing a bruised shin that he'd banged on a coffee table, was looking gloomy.

  Ellie set to work on some bookcases which Roy - manlike - had placed, not quite straight, into the embrasures on either side of the fireplace. He'd acquired a Victorian fireplace, prettily tiled, from a salvage yard. It looked good. Some of his furniture was startlingly new, some old, but the combination worked. Boxes, boxes. Stacks of pictures still to be hung, books to be dusted and put in the bookcases. The vast living room, which occupied all the ground floor except for a small kitchen and study, was going to look great.

  A knock at the door. ‘Sign here!’ Two mature bay trees in tubs were being delivered, and on their heels came Diana with little Frank in a pushchair.

  ‘So there you are! I've had the devil's own job to find you, mother. Did you know that horrid little man from next door was in your house, and that there were workmen all over the place? What on earth are you doing here? What's going on? And … Roy? Is that you?’

  ‘It certainly is, Diana,’ said Roy, deciding to be charming in a detached way. ‘But I'm afraid I'm not able to receive visitors yet.’ Diana was power-dressed in black, as usual. Ellie, scrutinizing her daughter's figure for clues, couldn't be a hundred per cent sure that Diana was pregnant, but rather thought she was. ‘Diana dear, I did say I couldn't look after Frank this afternoon, and I really can't.’