Murder By Accident

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Yes, I do. Thanks, Ellie. Must go. Maria’s just arrived.’

  He put the phone down.

  Ellie phoned Rose to see how she was. The line was dead. Perhaps she’d misdialled. She tried again. Still no ringing tone. She’d try again later.

  Lunch was a strained affair. Aunt Drusilla came downstairs, but immersed herself in the Sunday papers. There was no conversation.

  It wasn’t raining exactly, but there was a fine cold drizzle which made it a miserable job to do any gardening. Ellie pottered about her conservatory – what was it that was eating her geraniums? She felt rather tired after the dance the night before, and had a little nap.

  Roy came round at tea time. Very subdued. He sat with his mother for a while, though neither seemed inclined to talk. He asked Ellie if she’d enjoyed the dance. She said she had and that it was good to catch up with old friends every now and again.

  She asked him if he’d enjoyed himself and he said he had. He said that Helen was a delightful woman whose company he’d enjoyed, and it was a pity she lived so far away, up in the West Midlands somewhere, and yes, she’d already gone back up there.

  They didn’t speak about Stewart or about Diana.

  In fact, they were rather formal with one another.

  Ellie phoned Bill’s house. No reply.

  They were all suspended in time, waiting.

  At four o’clock Bill telephoned. Diana had been charged with the manslaughter of Mo Tucker. Bail had been refused.

  Worse still, Bill told Ellie that manslaughter carried a wide sentencing range, and could be more than Life.

  The news that Diana had been charged released them from the house. Aunt Drusilla said she’d like to take a walk to look at progress on the housing development she’d gone into with Roy. It was just across the Green and if Roy took her arm, she’d quite fancy it.

  The sun came out, rather inefficiently trying to dry the ground. Aunt Drusilla set off with Roy. Ellie put on her long winter coat and wandered over to the church. That morning the place had been thronged, but now it was deserted. Everyone had long since gone home; the bishop, the dignitaries, the worthies of the parish. The church would probably be all locked up.

  Ellie wondered if it would help if she went in and prayed quietly, all by herself. She tried the vestry door, but it was locked. As it should be.

  ‘I’ve got a key, if you want a quiet time in the church.’

  Tum-Tum was sitting in a sheltered nook, on a wooden seat near the main entrance. He was eating a banana and looked relaxed. He radiated serenity.

  Ellie said, ‘Oh. I didn’t see you. I’m sorry I missed the service. Family problems. Was it good?’ She thought, That was a silly thing to say.

  ‘Terrifying,’ said Tum-Tum, patting the seat beside him.‘Have a banana? They’re only small.’ He produced a couple more from his pocket. ‘Give you strength. Someone said the pundits on the Antiques Road Show always eat a banana to recoup their strength at the end of the day.’

  Ellie accepted the banana, then stared at it as if she didn’t know what to do with it.

  ‘First you peel it,’ said Tum-Tum. ‘And then you eat it.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit distracted today. Oh, you won’t remember, but my name’s –’

  ‘Ellie Quicke, widow of this parish. Yes, Gilbert told me to look out for you.’

  ‘I must apologize again for missing the service …’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, cheerfully.‘I gather your name’s mud around here.There’s nothing like a parish get-together to spread gossip.’

  ‘Oh dear. They’ll be telling you that I have too much money and ought to have handed it all over to the church, that I encourage men to hang around me, that I take in stray dogs and paedophiles and that I left the church hall in a mess the other night.’

  ‘That’s about it, except I didn’t pick up the bit about the stray dogs. Gilbert told me you had a daughter from hell, an unusual capacity to see the bigger picture, and that I was to go to you if I were in trouble at any time.’ He smiled at her, clasping his hands over his capacious stomach. ‘So tell me all about it.’

  ‘What? I mean … you won’t want to hear …’

  ‘Have I got anything better to do?’ He started twiddling his thumbs, which made her smile.

  ‘Very well, then. My daughter’s just been arrested for manslaughter. They’ll allege that she tried to murder her great-aunt for a possible inheritance – or got someone else to do it. Only, she killed a cleaner instead. That’s what they’ll say.’

  ‘And did she do it?’ He was as inquisitive as a robin.

  ‘She’s capable of doing almost anything when she’s in a temper, and she did believe that my aunt would leave her a substantial fortune. As to whether she did it or not, she says she didn’t, that it had never occurred to her.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  Ellie winced. ‘I was so afraid Diana had done it that I haven’t been able to think straight since it happened. The same with everyone else in the family. But now, yes, I do believe her. First because she said she didn’t, and second because she wouldn’t get someone else to do something she wasn’t prepared to do herself. If she’d picked up a heavy object and hit someone in the middle of an argument … yes, I can see her doing that. But this was a devious sort of crime so … no, I don’t think she did it.’

  ‘I love detective stories. Read ’em all the time. So who are the other suspects?’

  ‘I’ve been over and over in my mind, thinking about the other people who stood to gain by my aunt’s death and I can’t believe any of them would do it. Oh, there are lots of people whom she’d irritated. She has high standards and she sacked workmen, builders, cleaners … you name it, she’s fired them. But is that enough motive to want to kill someone … and in such a complicated way? I can see why the police think they’ve got the right person. I don’t know what to do about it.’

  ‘You could do nothing …’

  ‘Not an option,’ said Ellie, suddenly disliking him.

  ‘There’s always one option open to us. So as I said at the beginning, would you like to borrow the key to the church?’

  ‘Thank you, Tum-Tum … I mean … oh dear, I didn’t mean to say that.’

  He laughed. ‘Now I know I can cope. Starting a new job is always a frightening experience, however much you realize it’s what God wants. I’ve been out of parish work for some years, you see. Been teaching at a theological college. Tried and failed to write a book, went a bit haywire, Bishop said I needed a different sort of challenge. So here I am in a new parish, dumped down in the middle of a lot of strangers, with only my bananas and my detective novels to keep me company, and you greet me by my pet name. Thank you, Ellie. Here’s the key. Drop it through the letter box at the vicarage when you’re through. I’ve got to come back later for Evensong. I’ll pray for you, of course.’

  ‘Surely you don’t want people here to use your nickname, do you?’

  ‘Why not? It keeps me humbly aware that I can’t do this in my own strength, but must always rely on Him.’

  Ellie gaped. He was telling her she’d been relying on her own strength, instead of God’s. Quite true. Though he’d probably be called by his nickname behind his back, she didn’t think, somehow, that anyone was going to take advantage of him. He might have twinkling bright eyes and a rotund figure, but he also had an impressive dignity of his own.

  She took the key. ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded and set off down the path to the vicarage, only to turn and shout back at her, ‘Think outside the box, right?’

  Whatever did he mean by that? The church was still warm from the morning’s service, the flowers still splendid – most of them had been left where they were after the wedding yesterday. Was it only yesterday that she’d stood in the choir pew and watched Joyce walking down the aisle? So much had happened since.

  She didn’t sit in a choir pew, but took a seat near the back of the church by a pillar. She’d sat
in that pew, or thereabouts, all the years she’d been coming to the church, before Gilbert had pushed her into the choir as a diversion after she’d been widowed. Dear Gilbert … but he’d been right about his friend. Tum-Tum would do them proud.

  She wanted to pray, but her thoughts simply would not obey her. ‘Dear Lord, I can’t think straight’ didn’t seem an acceptable sort of prayer. Nor, ‘Here’s a pretty mess’, which might be an accurate quote from one of W. S. Gilbert’s better comic operas, but didn’t have quite the gravity the situation deserved.

  ‘Think outside the box.’ Whatever did he mean by that? Something very clever, no doubt. She wasn’t clever. She’d never understood the first thing about stocks and shares or philosophy or algebra, come to think of it.

  ‘You know people.’ Well, yes. She did think she knew a bit about people. Usually. Only, they would go and do unexpected things, like …

  She couldn’t think of a good example for the moment.

  Like Rose leaving the phone off the hook, which she never did, normally.

  Or Diana taking up with Derek Jolley.

  Ellie wondered whether she had ever known her difficult daughter. In fact, could you ever really know anyone, ever? Not really, not deep down.

  She sighed. Here she was sitting in church, trying to pray and not getting anywhere. She supposed Jesus must be used to that. People coming in, looking for answers and then all they could think of was whether they’d turned the gas down under the roast.

  She could hear that it had started to rain again outside. She hadn’t an umbrella, so she’d just sit there till the rain stopped. If it did. And think about nothing at all, if she could manage that.

  Diana … no.

  Think outside the box. She’d heard someone else talk about that, perhaps on the radio? It meant … widening the scope? Thinking laterally? Extending your lines of thought beyond the immediate vicinity? Something like that.

  She hadn’t a clue how to do it.

  She leaned her shoulder against the pillar and let herself relax. It was quiet in here. At home Aunt Drusilla and Roy would be expecting her to provide them with supper. But not just yet.

  Thinking laterally. Thinking about all the people involved …

  She sat upright. ‘I should be praying …

  Then relaxed. What was the use? If Jesus were here, he knew all about it and would forgive her wandering mind.

  Which kept homing in on one particular face and figure for some unknown reason. It had popped up everywhere this week. Stupid name, Tracy.

  All right, turn everything around. Stand it on its head.

  Begin at the beginning. Mo Tucker had turned on Aunt Drusilla’s television set, and got a shock which – because she’d a bad heart – had killed her. An accidental death. You couldn’t get away from the fact that it was an accident.

  It was the starting point. A known and accepted fact.

  All right, try standing that on its head.

  It wasn’t an accident. It had been meant. If Aunt Drusilla had turned the televsion on as usual, she would have had a bad shock but she would have survived. Except of course that Aunt Drusilla hadn’t been using that television set since Rose moved in.

  And where did Tracy fit into this? Nowhere. Forget Tracy.

  All right. Who would know that Aunt Drusilla wasn’t using that television set? No one. How could they?

  So it really was meant for her and to think otherwise was ridiculous. Consider the scenario as our would-be murderer knows it. Aunt Drusilla goes up to bed. Rose goes up with her to see that Aunt Drusilla had everything she needed for the night. Whoever had fixed the electrics would imagine that Aunt Drusilla would then turn on the television and …

  No, she wouldn’t. Of course she wouldn’t. She’d tell Rose to turn it on. Rose would then reach out to adjust the aerial and … bingo, get a nasty shock.

  Why would anyone want to give Rose a bad shock?

  (And why hadn’t Rose answered her phone?)

  Tracy?

  No, don’t be stupid. What’s Tracy got to do with anything?

  Except that she wrote to Aunt Drusilla offering to work for her. Silly girl.

  No, it was all too thin. It didn’t make sense.

  Think outside the box. Ellie drew a box in her mind, and in it she put little doll figures labelled Aunt Drusilla, Roy, Diana and Stewart, the builders and so on. They all fitted neatly into the box. They had a reason for being there and they had a motive but not a good enough motive.

  So what players were left outside the box? Well, Ahmed, obviously. And Tracy. Who else? Maria? No. The Tucker family, including Norm? No, no, no.

  It suddenly seemed clear to Ellie that it hadn’t mattered who’d got the shock from the aerial. The person who arranged it couldn’t have known who’d get it, unless they were as familiar with what was going on in the house as Aunt Drusilla and Rose.

  So if it didn’t matter who had got the shock, then perhaps she could work out why. The possible recipients were Mo Tucker, Aunt Drusilla and Rose. The electricians couldn’t be ruled out, either, though they hadn’t yet started on that part of the house.

  So what it came down to was that someone wanted to unsettle Aunt Drusilla, perhaps get her out of that house? And they’d succeeded, of course. But why?

  Random thoughts about buried treasure wavered in and out of Ellie’s mind, till she laughed them away. Ridiculous.

  The light was going. Soon people would be arriving for Evensong, she must return the key to the vicarage and get back and see to the supper. She found she’d eaten the banana while she was doing her thinking. She put the skin in her pocket to take home with her.

  Tracy.

  No. Why should Tracy want to shock anyone? Unless the real target was not Mo Tucker, nor Aunt Drusilla, but Rose. If someone had known that Rose was doing everything for Aunt Drusilla … but how could they? And why should they care?

  Why had Rose not answered the phone?

  Ellie eased herself to her feet, and looked up at the cross on the altar. She’d come in with a lot of questions and was leaving with more. That was her fault, she knew. Not His.

  ‘Sorry, Lord,’ she said. ‘A bit preoccupied today. Hope you understand.’

  He seemed to smile.

  ‘Well, thanks, anyway. And … see you again soon.’

  Eighteen

  ‘ Aunt Drusilla, did you ever have a cleaner called Tracy something?’ ‘Dreadful girl. Banged the furniture about. Couldn’t stand her. Pass

  the salt, dear. Can I taste garlic in this?’

  ‘No, I know you don’t like garlic. Did Tracy come to you through the

  agency?’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend her, if that’s what you’re getting at. Besides, you

  do all your own cleaning, don’t you? When you’ve time.’ Which was a dig

  at Ellie for not having cleaned the kitchen floor that day.

  Roy ladled some more spaghetti bolognaise on to his plate. ‘Lines

  your stomach, this. I’ve had some of the frozen stuff from the supermarket.

  Doesn’t taste like this. What do you put in it?’

  ‘Oh, this and that. Start with an onion, fry the meat, add tomatoes and

  seasoning. It’s quite simple.’

  ‘I’m not eating mine with a fork,’ said Aunt Drusilla. ‘Get me a spoon,

  there’s a good girl.’

  Ellie complied. ‘How long did this Tracy work for you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. A couple of months, I suppose. I kept on at the agency

  to send me someone else but they said they didn’t have anyone available.

  Then Rose came to me, thankfully, and that solved the problem.’ Rose’s phone was still out of order.

  Ellie passed Roy some more grated Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on

  his food. ‘Did you sack Tracy when Rose came?’

  ‘Sack her, dear? No, we still needed someone for the heavy work with

  the builders in the h
ouse and everything. She stayed on for a bit, just to

  help Rose out. Rose said she’d try to train her but it was hopeless, of

  course. Dear Rose has such a soft heart. I keep telling her sob stories

  don’t do anything for me, but she felt she ought to try. Where is Rose,

  anyway? I thought she said she’d come back tonight.’

  Roy pushed his empty plate away. ‘That was good. If her phone’s still

  out of order, I’ll pop over and see what’s happened to her after supper if

  you like.’

  ‘I meant to give her a mobile phone,’ said Aunt Drusilla, fretting gently. ‘But she said she couldn’t cope with one at her age.’

  ‘What sob story?’ asked Ellie. ‘Tracy, I mean.’

  ‘Something about her boy being excluded from school. Stays at home all day and plays loud music. Vandalizes cars. Terrorizes the neighbourhood along with a couple of other lads. I didn’t really listen.’ ‘Did Rose know the family, then? I know she’s always saying that some neighbours played their music too loudly.’

  ‘It was all the fault of the school, Tracy said. She wanted to move into the house with her son, be my official carer, or some such nonsense. Naturally I told her I wasn’t interested.’

  Ellie gaped. Could this sordid little story really be at the root of the mystery? ‘So when she pressed you to let her be your carer, you finally got rid of her and got someone else instead?’

  ‘She was a nasty piece of work. She tripped Rose up, coming down the stairs. Dear Rose said it was an accident, but I was just coming into the hall and I saw it all. I told Tracy to go that minute and of course she cried. Why do these women think tears will solve everything? Her tears might have fooled Rose, but they didn’t fool me. I got on to the agency straight away. I was going to tell them that the woman had tried to make Rose fall down the stairs but Rose begged me not to. So I didn’t. And then they sent me the Tucker woman instead.’

  Roy turned his head from Aunt Drusilla to Ellie and back again. ‘You think this Tracy might have had something to do with the accident? That it was nothing to do with Diana?’