Murder By Committee

by Veronica Heley

  ‘And Sir Arthur?’

  ‘I have had no dealings with him.’

  ‘And will not?’

  Another shrug. ‘Sometimes we have to deal with people when we'd rather not. I have been fortunate so far.’

  ‘What about Mrs Meadows-Fitch?’

  He was reluctant. ‘I have heard … but it is only gossip, you understand … that Sir Arthur persuaded her husband to remortgage his nice big flat at Haven Green, in order to invest in one of Sir Arthur's schemes, and that he lost the lot. I have heard that Mrs Meadows-Fitch was talking of suing Sir Arthur but had to drop the case, and that she now has to sell her flat and move to a small place. There is a general feeling that if you wish to dine with Sir Arthur, you should equip yourself with a long spoon … have I got that idiom right?’

  ‘You have indeed,’ said Ellie, remembering the old saying that he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon. So, Mr Patel - discreet as he might be - thought Sir Arthur was the devil?

  Seven

  She wondered about taking a cab home. Or should she walk, because she could do with the exercise? After all, there was no one waiting for her at home to ask how her day had been, and what was for supper.

  She recollected with a start of dismay that it was desperately important to find out who had poisoned the dog. How on earth was she going to fulfill her promise to Chris Talbot to befriend his daughter? She used her mobile to phone for a cab. Waiting for it to come, she wondered what her dear husband would have advised her to do when faced with the problem of the dog's death.

  She sighed. When her dear husband Frank was alive, she hadn't had the time or the energy to get caught up in other people's problems like this. Nor, let's face it, would he have been amused if she had. He'd wanted her to stick to the role of little wifey. He'd made all the decisions, and she'd gone along with them. It would have been out of the question for her to go visiting gentlemen pirates or indeed visiting gentlemen of any kind, while he'd been alive.

  Still, she did wonder what he'd have made of Sir Arthur, Felicity, and Chris Talbot. Would he have been as intimidated by Sir Arthur as she had been? Would he have talked to Chris Talbot on equal terms?

  The cab came and she asked him to cruise round the far end of the park. Perhaps she'd be able to spot the ravaged garden.

  Dear Frank, she realized, would have recognized Sir Arthur's nastiness and had as little to do with him as he could. Ellie concurred.

  How would Chris Talbot have struck Frank? Ellie's imagination refused to cope with this question. She could no more picture Frank being whisked up to the penthouse suite in the City to be given details of Chris Talbot's private life, than … pigs might fly. Her dear husband had had many excellent qualities, but sympathy … empathy … putting himself out for others … no, that had not been his forte.

  Which brought Ellie to the point where she wondered what would happen if Frank were suddenly resurrected and standing in front of her. He wouldn't want her ‘wasting time poking her nose into other people's business'. He'd be asking why his supper wasn't in the oven at this very minute, and had she taken his suit to the dry-cleaner's as he'd asked her to do, and why was she allowing his aunt to be looked after by a stranger instead of doing it herself?

  Yet - sigh - he'd been a faithful and loving husband and the centre of her life for all those years.

  The cab driver wasn't paying much attention to what Ellie had asked him to do, but halfway along a road lined with nice-looking houses overlooking the park, she cried out to him to stop. He drew up twenty feet along from where a For Sale sign had been set up outside a dingy, rather neglected-looking house. Quite a contrast to the other houses in the road. The front garden looked as if someone had run a chainsaw through it. Yes, this was it. Now what should she do? Ring the estate agent and ask for details to view the house?

  A man with a clipboard came out of the house, smiling, ushering a depressed-looking middle-aged couple along the drive to the pavement. They stood there, talking for a bit, then the couple got into their car, the agent got into his, and all three of them drove off.

  A mousy little woman, sixty-ish, stood in the doorway, watching them go. She was not smiling.

  Ellie dismissed the cab, walked along to the house and rang the doorbell. The mousy woman had put the door on the chain, and saw no reason to open up for a stranger.

  ‘I'm so sorry,’ said Ellie. ‘Am I too late? I thought I could catch up with the estate agent here, but I was delayed in traffic.’

  A beady eye inspected Ellie from head to foot. ‘Come in if you like. But he's gone.’ The woman was dressed in grey and beige, clothes which had once been good but were now limp from many years of laundering. Had she come down in the world? Her grey hair was thin, her skin was pasty, her eyes slightly protruding, giving her a tortoise look. A greater contrast to Mrs Anderson you couldn't find.

  The chain was undone, and the door opened just enough to let Ellie slip into the hall, which was of a good size but gloomy, cluttered with china in old-fashioned cabinets and on picture rails.

  ‘I was looking for a house for my mother,’ said Ellie, whose mother had actually died many years ago. ‘Something near me, but not too near. This has three bedrooms, hasn't it?’

  ‘Only one bathroom. This is the sitting room.’ The woman showed Ellie into a room which was so closely curtained and warmly heated that it made her gasp. It was actually not a bad shape and size, but looked smaller because it was so crowded with cabinets and mismatched chairs and small tables. Everything here was brown too. Yet more china occupied cabinets and shelving. Nothing looked quite clean, or maybe that was an effect produced by the drawn curtains and low-wattage light bulb.

  ‘Ellie Quicke,’ said Ellie, holding out her hand.

  ‘Mrs Alexis,’ the woman responded, her hand brittle and dryskinned. ‘My husband was Greek.’

  Ellie was shown into a large, bare dining room. Was it ever used? Probably not. ‘This is a good-sized room. Have you lived here a long time?’

  ‘Twenty years.’

  ‘What a nice long garden you have at the back,’ said Ellie, trying to find something to praise in the chill of a small kitchen which ought to have been in a museum. ‘You must be sad to lose it. Are you going far?’

  Silence. Mrs Alexis mounted the stairs ahead of Ellie. A carpet runner, ill-secured with old-fashioned brass rails. Dust in the corners. Woodchip on the walls. The woman threw open the door of the bedroom at the front of the house, but stood so that Ellie could not enter, though she could see what was within. Another large room. A mismatched thirties bedroom suite, candlewick bedspread.

  ‘What a pleasant room,’ said Ellie, trying to keep cheerful. ‘Is there much traffic noise at night?’

  The woman didn't answer. She threw open the door to a small bedroom, furnished with a single bed and some cardboard boxes. Then a bathroom with a cracked basin which could have done with a good clean, and finally a second bedroom, with two single beds in it and more cardboard boxes. Everything was brown, if it wasn't grey. No wonder the people who'd just looked round had come out looking depressed.

  Ellie followed the woman down the stairs, wondering how to prise more information out of her. Ellie's brain was empty of ideas. The house, the woman, were so depressing that Ellie herself was becoming downhearted.

  Mrs Alexis said, ‘The garage is full of my husband's things, but if you want to see it, I suppose I can find the key to the padlock. If you like the house - which I don't suppose you do, because I haven't done any decorating for years - then you'll have to take it as seen. I can't afford a new kitchen, or another bathroom, or a loft extension or anything. I'm only the tenant. The landlord can do as he likes once I'm gone.’

  ‘It must be hard for you to have to go, after living here for so long,’ said Ellie, trying to feel sorry for the woman, while thinking she could at least have cleaned the place up to make it look better. ‘Can't you get him to extend your lease?’

  ‘There's plenty wor
se off than me. So, do you like the house?’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘I don't think my mother, at her age, could take on a house which needs so much doing to it.’

  The woman shrugged, and held the front door open for Ellie to pass through. Ellie did so, thinking that she could draw Mrs Alexis into conversation about the ruined front garden, but the door closed on her heels and Ellie could hear the chain being replaced.

  Ellie shivered. Had it turned colder? Or was it just the depressing effect that Mrs Alexis had on people? She would stride out, walk home. Shake off the nasty feeling she'd experienced in that house. So lifeless. Introverted. A suspicion of things lurking in corners.

  No, it really hadn't been that dirty. She was imagining things. Was Mrs Alexis the poisoner? Probably not. Too ground down to take any action to help herself, poor thing.

  When she reached the Green around the church, Ellie paused to cast a critical eye over the terrace of town houses which Roy and his mother had developed. All sold, of course. Ellie had been responsible for the planting of the landscaping along the side of the development, and liked to check on it now and then. She bent down to stir the mulch she'd laid on the surface, to feel the soil beneath. Yes, it was still damp. The recent rain had refreshed the leaves nicely.

  She shook her head. Frank wouldn't have approved of her getting involved in that either. She sighed, wondering how he'd have dealt with Diana's latest demands for help. He'd reached the end of his patience with her schemes before he died, so perhaps she knew the answer to that one.

  She tried to draw up a balance sheet; when Frank had been alive, she'd been nothing but a timorous wee mousie. Now she had to strike out for herself, and did. Sometimes her courage failed her, especially when she thought about Sir Arthur - the man exuded menace - but on the whole life was a lot more interesting than it had been in the past. She'd even stood up to Jean over preparing coffee the other night, and she'd never have been able to do that in the old days.

  She turned into the alley which ran along the bottom of her garden, and caught her breath.

  There was a lot of activity in her garden. People. Men in uniform. Police? Armand up a ladder resting against the poplar tree which was on the boundary between her garden and a neighbour's and …

  … some of the great panes of glass which protected the tender plants in her beloved conservatory were in fragments.

  She put her hand to her heart, which she could feel thudding in her breast.

  Who …? Sir Arthur, of course. In retaliation for blowing the whistle last night.

  Kate spotted her. Kate was carrying baby Catriona in a sling across her body. ‘Oh, Ellie! We were just too late to stop him! I've been phoning you, but …’

  Ellie never remembered to keep her mobile phone on. Hadn't checked for messages that day.

  She opened the gate into the bottom of her garden, and felt her pulse quicken. The glass … her plants … if there were a frost tonight they'd all be killed.

  What was Armand doing up the tree? She looked up and up, but the sun was in her eyes, and she couldn't see.

  A policeman was asking her questions. Did she know him? She knew some of the local police, but they did tend to get moved around a bit, and … no. She didn't think she knew this one. She answered more or less at random. Yes, she was Mrs Quicke, and yes, she'd been out, away from the house since … she couldn't remember … oh, that morning, quite early. No, wait a minute. She'd come back about … noon? Yes. To change her clothes before she went to see some people. Everything had been all right then.

  Kate was talking. ‘We came back a bit later than we'd intended, because it was such a lovely day and Catriona fell asleep in the back of the car after her last feed, and just as we opened the back door of our house, I heard the most almighty crash, and I thought at first it might be a chimney coming down.’

  Armand was up the tree still, saying, ‘Midge! Here, Midge!’

  Ellie gasped. ‘Midge?’

  Kate was wringing her hands. Kate had lost her cool completely, which was most unlike her. ‘This man - whoever it was - had a hood over his head and he had what looked like a metal bar and was bashing at your conservatory, and Midge must have been sleeping there, you know how he does, and just as I was yelling at Armand to come, because I thought he was a burglar, the man started cursing, and he must have caught Midge a whack, because the next thing it sounded like a major cat-fight … and, oh, I shouldn't laugh, but Midge must have bitten him or scratched him because he was yowling, and just as Armand came out to see what all the fuss was about, the man shook Midge off and ran away down the garden, but he must have scared the cat, because he streaked for that tree and went up it, and I don't think he can get down!’

  ‘Calm down, dear,’ said Ellie, who was shaking, herself. ‘Think of Catriona.’ She took a deep breath. A burglar? No way. ‘Was it that man Marco?’

  ‘Marco.’ Kate brought her voice down from the stratosphere. ‘Why him? Well, yes!’

  The policeman had his notebook out. ‘You think you know who did this?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ellie. ‘At least, I suppose I can't prove it, but …’

  ‘Yes, it might very well have been him,’ said Kate. ‘Only, I didn't see his face.’

  Armand was getting red in the face. A second policeman was holding the bottom of the ladder while Armand tried reaching higher and higher … to where Midge, fluffed out to twice his normal size, was clinging to the main trunk. Far above Armand. ‘Midge, come on down!’

  Catriona woke up and began to wail.

  Ellie said, ‘My knees are shaking. Let's go inside and have a cup of tea.’

  Kate struck the side of her head. ‘After I phoned the police, I got in touch with the builder, asked him to come straight round to assess the damage. He should be here in a minute.’ The policeman persevered. ‘You think you know who did this, Mrs Quicke?’

  ‘Yes, it's possible, but … thank you, Kate,’ said Ellie, trying to sort out her priorities. ‘Armand, you'll fall and then we'll have to take you to hospital and that won't do any good.’

  ‘I'm not leaving Midge up here. Shall I get the fire brigade?’ Ellie ‘washed' her face with both hands, thinking over what she knew about cats. ‘Midge will come down when he considers it safe.’

  ‘Mrs Quicke!’ said the policeman.

  Kate said, ‘Ellie!’

  Catriona stepped up the volume.

  Ellie's faithful builder appeared at the bottom of the garden. ‘Hallo, hallo? What's all this about, then?’

  ‘Time for tea,’ said Ellie and led the way up the garden path, noting that the intruder had managed somehow to topple her stone sundial in his flight. She hoped he'd stubbed his toe on it. He'd also managed to decapitate one of her favourite delphiniums. She hoped Midge had scratched or bitten him really badly. She crunched over broken glass as she stepped into the conservatory. This was going to take some clearing up.

  At the back of her mind, her dear husband Frank shook his finger at her. ‘This is what comes of interfering in other people's business.’

  Yes, it did indeed. But if there was one thing she'd learned since Frank died, it was that she was a survivor.

  Eight

  Friday evening. The nights were drawing in. Ellie told herself to make an effort. She blew her nose, got up off the chair into which she'd sunk an hour ago, and drew the curtains at the window looking up to the road. Then she went through the French windows into her conservatory. Most of the glass had been cleared away. Some of the tender pelargoniums had been chopped to pieces, but others could be tied up and might survive.

  The tiled floor showed glints of light here and there where tiny shards of glass still lay. The broken glass had luckily not reached the goldfish, swimming sedately in their lead tank against the inner wall. It took a lot to frighten a goldfish.

  Marco - if it was he, and she must be careful not to make allegations which might turn out to be false - had only managed to smash two large panes. The builder had
boarded these spaces over for the time being, and would bring replacement glass tomorrow. Ellie had rung Maria Patel, and asked if she could get someone from her cleaning agency along tomorrow with a vacuum cleaner to suck up any remaining fragments of glass. Maria - shocked - had agreed to arrange it.

  The insurance would cover the damage, of course.

  Except that a rather pretty creeper, tropaeolum something, which was a relation of the common nasturtium but much daintier, would never be quite the same again. Also, Midge was still up the tree, though not, thank heaven, clinging to the trunk any more. Rather, perched over a branch and surveying the neighbourhood for foes.

  Ellie opened the door on to the garden, and called Midge once again.

  Midge took not the slightest bit of notice. Midge was offended. He'd been attacked without warning and without provocation, and his minder - Ellie - hadn't been there to defend him. It was not, Midge seemed to be thinking, what any self-respecting cat should have to put up with.

  In the dusk Ellie stood and looked down the length of her pretty garden. The builder had righted the sundial but left it slightly out of position. Typical.

  Her next-door neighbour - a nice woman, the one in whose garden the tree was - had also come out to see what she could do to coax the cat down. Midge ignored her. Midge was ignoring everyone. His attitude was that he was safe where he was, and he was staying put until he decided otherwise.

  Armand had left his ladder against the poplar, saying it might be easier for Midge to come down the ladder than the trunk of the tree. Armand had the softest heart and the hottest temper you could imagine. Ellie was grateful to him. He and Kate were now safely indoors with all the curtains drawn and the doors locked, but had made Ellie promise to leave her mobile on and to carry it with her at all times, in case there was another visitation. The police had gone. She'd told them she suspected Sir Arthur's driver might have wished her harm, and why, and seen only scepticism in their eyes.

  ‘So you think someone would bother to bash in your windows, just because you objected to a planning application? Isn't it more likely to have been someone high on drugs, looking for a way to break into your house? We get plenty of that.’