Murder in the Garden

by Veronica Heley

  Tum-Tum frowned. ‘You think her ghost has been giving grief to everyone who lives in that house?’

  ‘No, I don't. I've seen where she was found and it was a quiet and peaceful grave. Kate and Armand think so, too. They don't know all the bad bits that have happened in that house before. I - I suppose I toned it down when they asked about it. They were at first revolted, thinking the murder had taken place in their house. They wanted to move, straight away. But now they know the girl never lived there, was probably never even in their house, well … they want to give her a Christian burial. I said I'd help. What do you think?’

  He scratched the side of his face. And thought about it. ‘You want me to go into that house and bless it? Just in case?’ Ellie sighed. Shrugged. ‘I think a spot of prayer wouldn't do any harm.’

  ‘That's one thing you can count on. Prayer always helps. But it's their house and they're not churchgoers.’

  ‘If I suggested it and they agreed?’

  He nodded. ‘You deny that you're sensitive to atmosphere, though I know you're sensitive to your surroundings. The way you've done up this house and garden proves that. Is there an atmosphere next door now?’

  ‘No, I don't think there is.’

  ‘Good. Well, let me know if they could do with my help. Or you may be able to deal with it yourself. You say you've had your ups and downs while living here, but the face you show to the world is one of hard-won peace.’

  Ellie blinked. ‘You mean I'm showing my age?’

  He laughed. ‘I meant that your practical Christian lovingkindness shines through.’

  ‘Oh.’ She flushed. She didn't think she was much of a person. She certainly hadn't been much of a good neighbour. In fact, when she thought about all that had gone on next door, she felt nothing but guilt. But she couldn't confess that, when he'd just paid her such a compliment. ‘I'm not always calm, you know.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  He stood up to leave, and so did she. She used his proper name for the first time. ‘Thank you, Thomas.’

  As she waved him off, she wondered if she would dare to talk to him about the ethics of abortion some time. He'd have heard about Diana's miscarriage from other members of the choir, but Ellie hadn't raised the subject, so he hadn't, either. It seemed he trusted her to deal with things. It was a compliment. Probably.

  He also seemed to think she could deal with Kate and Armand's problem.

  There was one thing she could do, and that was track down the year in which their shed had been burned down. She kept all her old diaries at the back of the big drawer in Frank's desk. She'd never been one for writing a journal, but she did jot down appointments and reminders to herself and kept them because you never knew when they'd come in useful. Like checking back when she'd last seen an old friend and when so and so had got married. She got out the plastic bag in which she kept the diaries and discarded them one by one, denying herself the temptation to dip into this one or that.

  What she was looking for was some appointment with the insurance people about the shed having been burned down, which would probably be within a couple of weeks of their return from holidays.

  Summer vacations had to be taken in the school holidays while Diana had been growing up. For some years they'd shared a holiday cottage with another family. Frank had grown up and been to school with the man, his wife had been delightful, and their daughter about the same age as Diana … though they'd been very critical of Diana not helping with the chores around the house, but …

  No. The year the shed had burned down, they'd gone alone to a tiny place, renting a house on Dartmoor, where it had rained and rained and …

  No. It hadn't been that year.

  Think, Ellie, think. It must have been after they'd stopped sharing a house with Frank's friends. Before or after the holiday on Dartmoor? The diaries weren't in the right order. She must have missed one.

  Finally she found it. Diana had invited a friend to join them that year, and they'd stayed at a B&B near Brighton. Near enough to get down to the beach when they wished, but quiet enough in the evenings. One week after their return to London, she'd scribbled down an appointment for someone to come from the insurance company.

  1984. The worst year. No wonder she hadn't wanted to remember. She'd been five months pregnant. Diana accused of bullying and worse. Diana thrusting her down the stairs, the fall … the pain … the loss of the long-hoped-for child … the hysterectomy.

  Frank had worried that she might not be able to cope with going away on holiday so soon after, but she'd dragged herself out of the horrible black place into which she'd fallen, and said they'd all been looking forward to it for so long, they must make the effort and go. When they came back in September, they'd start afresh. Put it all behind them.

  So they'd gone down to Sussex and it hadn't been a bad holiday in many ways, though she'd been very tired and prone to tears. She'd tried to smile and not cry before the others, because they hated to see her give way. Diana's little friend had been delightful: a strongly built girl without imagination, a perfect companion for Diana, who never tried to bully her. A pity that child - what was her name? - had moved away from London the following year.

  They'd returned in good spirits, mostly. Frank had certainly benefited from the rest, had collected an attractive tan. Diana seemed to have forgotten the past, and was looking forward to the new term and getting some new clothes. Ellie had been feeling deathly tired still, and worried that she wouldn't be able to cope with going back to work and running the household.

  They discovered the shed had been burned out in their absence. Their neighbours, the Spendloves, had unfortunately moved away while they'd been gone, but someone crossing the Green had spotted the flames and called the fire brigade. There hadn't been much left. Some bits and pieces which had once been metal tools, half a charred old cupboard. Some wellington boots, melted. Frank had been accustomed to keeping one or two half-used pots of paint in the shed and they'd added to the fury of the flames. The smell lingered till the autumn gales.

  The insurance had paid up, though not enough to get a new shed. Someone on the allotments on the other side of the park had been throwing out a toolshed which had seen better days, and Frank had picked up some second-hand tools from a car boot sale. They'd managed for some years till they could afford to get a new, solid, purpose-built garden shed with a padlock on it. So, it was in 1984 that the shed had burned down, and presumably that was when that poor girl had been killed and buried. Ellie shuddered. She has glad she hadn't known about it before.

  But now she did know, and what was she going to do about it? Her shilly-shallying, her refusal to look up the dates, must have put back the police investigation. If she'd only been sensible and faced her memories down, they'd probably have found the culprit by now.

  She still couldn't remember having anything to do with an Asian man around that time. No? No. Nothing.

  She phoned the police station and enquired for Inspector Willis, only to learn she was not on duty. Ellie wondered whether the poor woman was still off sick with her abscess. Probably. Would it be appropriate to get her a Get Well Soon card from the post office and drop it through the police-station door? Um, well. Probably not. It might look … well, as if she were crawling to the police. Which she definitely was not going to do.

  She left a message for DC Honeywell instead. Now it was up to him to track down the murderer.

  There wasn't anything else she could do to help. Was there?

  Sixteen

  Well, of course there was something else she could do if she wanted to poke and pry into other people's business. She could look up the Spendloves - if they were still around - and see how they were getting on. It was clear they'd never had anything to do with the murder, but while she was about it, she wanted to know exactly what had happened to all the people who'd once lived next door to her. She now knew what had happened to nearly all of them. Only the Spendloves still remained on her list.

&nb
sp; She would look on it as a sort of spring cleaning, for her memory. Another way of putting it was that she wanted to see if she were in profit or loss as far as being a good neighbour was concerned. She rather feared it was a loss.

  She got out the phone directory but found there were no Spendloves in it. Not one. That was strange. The father might have died by now, of course. Or gone into a home. He'd recovered pretty well from that awful road accident, but once you start breaking bones like that, you find yourself with arthritis and other problems at an early age. His wife had been delightful, hadn't been a Londoner but had come from … the Midlands? Shropshire? If her husband had died, she'd probably have gone back there.

  So what about the two boys? They'd been nice lads, both of them. Bright enough to aim for university. Ellie hoped they'd both made it. They would be, what, thirty-six and thirty-seven by now? Probably married with two point four children. But neither of them were in the Ealing phone book.

  She put the directory away. She'd done what she could, and now … now she must think about what she should wear to Roy's that evening. Who else had he invited? She had intended at first to wear an ordinary summer dress, but if he'd invited another couple, perhaps she ought to look out something a little better?

  Ellie was still uncertain of her taste in clothes. Kate had shown her how much better she looked in well-made clothes that hung well, and in the sweet-pea shades that suited her colouring. Could she ask Kate to help her choose something appropriate? No, surely not. Kate and Armand had enough on their plate without bothering about dressing Ellie up for a supper party.

  Before she did anything else, she had a mental apology to make to her husband's memory. She'd been thinking of him rather harshly, imagining that he hadn't really understood how awful those early years had been for her. She wondered if all widows went through these mood swings. One minute she missed Frank because he'd always taken such good care of her, and the next she wished he'd let her do more for herself.

  Recently she'd seen him as - almost - as selfish as Diana. Now she'd learned that he'd protected her from the knowledge of Diana's wild behaviour and she was grateful to him. She couldn't have borne to know about it at the time.

  And now? She was glad she'd learned what Diana had been up to then, because she could see that her daughter wasn't consistently awful. She'd done bad things, yes, but she did seem capable of learning from her mistakes. At least some of the time.

  Of course, it would be better if Diana didn't feel obliged to make those mistakes in the first place, but the fact that she never made the same mistake twice did give Ellie a tiny glow of hope for the future.

  She wondered if Diana was going to forgive her for her harsh words the previous evening. There'd been no message from her on the answerphone today, which was bad news. If Diana had as much as a slight sniffle, she was on the phone to her mother asking - no, demanding - to be looked after.

  At that point in Ellie's musings, the phone did ring. It wasn't Diana, but Jean from church, asking - no, demanding - that Ellie should prepare the coffee and tea for Women's Hour the following evening. Someone had dropped out for a Very Good Reason, said Jean, insinuating that Ellie's defection after church the previous Sunday had not been for a good enough reason, and had to be atoned for.

  Ellie wondered what would satisfy Jean by way of an excuse. Death, presumably? A car accident requiring hospitalization? An atom bomb dropping on Ealing?

  No, Jean would consider an atom bomb dropping on Ealing a very good reason for us all to Get Out There and Pull Our Weight. She would exhort her team to Pull Their Socks Up.

  ‘Of course I'll do it,’ Ellie promised, and remembered too late that Stewart and Maria had asked her to babysit that evening. And wasn't she supposed to be going out to supper with someone? She rang Stewart at the flat and caught him just as he and Maria were giving little Frank his bath. Ellie smiled, thinking how adorable little Frank looked in his bath, surrounded by all his brightly coloured toys, many of which she'd given him.

  ‘So sorry, Stewart, you asked me to babysit on Thursday but I've got a church “do” on and I can't get out of it. Can you get someone else?’ Stewart relayed this to Maria, manlike, leaving her to cope.

  Maria came on the line, sounding cheerful. ‘Yes, of course, Ellie. You mustn't think you have to drop everything just to help us out.’ Which meant that Maria did really think Ellie ought to drop everything to help them out. Didn't it? Or was she being oversensitive?

  Maria continued, ‘We're popping out in half an hour to see a house Stewart found, which we thought you might like to see as well. Someone at work told him about it. Stewart had a quick look at it this morning and thinks it worth a second visit, so one of our neighbours is going to look after little Frank, which is kind of her. Would you like to come, too?’

  Ellie was in a quandary. If she said yes - and she would like to say yes - then, if Diana rang and needed her, she'd be out. ‘I'll see if I can disentangle myself from something else I promised to do, and ring you back, all right?’

  ‘You're brilliant, Ellie.’

  Am I? thought Ellie, grimly. You want something, my girl, if you're prepared to stoop to flattery. You want me to help you buy a house and, yes, I've already said I would. You also want me to back you and Stewart in keeping little Frank, and now I'm in such a muddle about that that I can't think straight.

  ‘Pull yourself together, girl.’ That's what her husband would have said. He used to say that when she got into a state about silly little things. Like the shed burning down.

  He'd had no idea there had been anything sinister about it. ‘Kids!’ he'd said. ‘Playing around with matches, just to see what would happen. If I'd caught them, I'd have tanned their backsides for them.’

  He'd gone ballistic about the shed burning down, but he hadn't suspected the Spendlove boys, had he? They were hardly ‘kids' at the time, and as far as she knew had never been involved with any of the petty vandalism which occasionally resulted in arson or graffiti in the neighbourhood. Tod hadn't been living in their road then. Had there been other bands of youths roaming around after dark at that time, creating chaos? She didn't think so. She'd heard of it happening in other parts of London, but not here. Or not recently, anyway.

  The phone rang again. It still wasn't Diana, but a long-time friend who was now living on the far side of London, suggesting a date for them to meet up in town and have lunch, perhaps take in an exhibition. Ellie didn't mention the problems they were having locally, or Diana's miscarriage. Her friend was a respected councillor and dealt with problem people all day long. Though she'd listen patiently, and even with sympathy, it wouldn't be right to burden her with Ellie's particular set of troubles.

  Once that phone call was over, Ellie decided to ring Diana, even if Diana hadn't rung her. Maybe Diana was still so angry with her that she wouldn't answer. There was no way Ellie was going to apologize for what she'd said, though she now wished that she'd been more tactful.

  The phone rang and rang. At last Diana answered, very abrupt.

  ‘Oh, so there you are at last! I've been ringing and ringing. I need you here, right now.’

  Contrary Ellie. As soon as Diana wanted her, Ellie wanted to be anywhere else but.

  ‘I'm on my way out, but thought I'd just check how you were getting on.’

  ‘What do you think? I'm still bleeding. How long does this go on for? Are miscarriages usually so bad?’

  Ellie felt like saying that Diana hadn't experienced anything yet. Just let her wait till she was four or five months gone before she miscarried! But she didn't say it. ‘It varies, Diana. Have you checked yourself out with your GP yet?’

  ‘Have I time for that? How quickly can you get round here? I've got another couple coming round to look at the flats in half an hour, and I'm really not up to it. And I thought you could take over for me tomorrow evening, when I've got two of last Sunday's people coming back to take another look, and I've got a dinner party I simply have to go to …�
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  Thursday evening? Oh no. How many people wanted a piece of Ellie on Thursday? She'd stopped counting. ‘Sorry, Diana, I'm already booked …’

  ‘But I need you! I can't trust anyone else to-’

  ‘No, Diana. Sorry, but no. Now, if you'll let me get a word in edgeways …’

  ‘You don't understand. I can't be in two places at once and-’ ‘Neither can I. If you want to sell your flats privately and not through an agent, then you'll have to find someone to help you …’

  ‘I thought you'd be proud to-’

  ‘No!’ Silence from the other end of the phone. ‘Now, Diana, listen to me!’

  The phone crashed down at the other end.

  Ellie hung up her own phone, feeling limp. Without letting herself reconsider, she phoned Maria and Stewart back and said she'd be happy to meet up with them to go house-hunting, if they'd give her where and when.

  ‘You're sure you can spare the time?’ asked Stewart, who really was a dear. ‘I know how busy you are.’

  ‘Never too busy for family,’ said Ellie. ‘And we really must set aside one afternoon a week, say, in which I can have little Frank all to myself. It's been a moveable feast so far, sometimes this day and sometimes that, but I'd like to settle on a definite day of the week - if you agree.’

  ‘Ellie, you're a marvel. The babysitter's just come, so we'll pick you up as soon as we've got Frank settled. In about half an hour's time, if that's all right with you?’

  The house Stewart and Maria took her to see was shabby but had potential. As the agent pointed out, it was a well-built threebedroom semi in a quiet, leafy street. An elderly lady had lived in it without making any attempt to renew faded decoration or furnishings, but the structure itself had been well maintained. Now the owner had gone into a home, and the house was up for sale. It looked as if it wanted to apologize for its hangdog appearance, but they could all see that with a little tender loving care it would be a perfect family house.