Murder by Suicide

by Veronica Heley

  Timothy, when reached, turned out to need someone to produce the weekly church notices on a computer, since the parish secretary was off sick, and her back-up had moved away. Ellie was gradually taming Frank’s computer into producing the occasional letter, but she could hardly be said to have mastered it. Timothy had become much more assertive since Gilbert’s departure and, though Ellie tried to tell him that she had hardly progressed beyond the first steps in learning to operate the machine, he persisted. Would she at least give it a try? He was at his wits’ end, etc.

  Eventually she agreed to ask her computer-literate neighbour Kate to help her. Timothy said he’d bring round the draft notices for her to do, straightaway. ‘I thought that by now you’d have signed yourself onto one of those starter courses for computers,’ he said, putting her in the wrong.

  Ellie thought, but did not say, ‘And what about you? I hate computers.’ She reflected that if Timothy went around trying to bulldoze people like this, he would soon lose what little goodwill he had in the parish. What a contrast with their own dear Gilbert, who would have flattered and flannelled her into trying without feeling badgered. Ah me. Happy days. It made her need to contact Kate even more urgent. Hastily she scribbled a note to her neighbour and pushed it through her front door, before telephoning a message through to Roy’s hotel to say that she was sorry, but she was rather tied up at the moment.

  Housework. A great panacea, or a great bore. Perhaps she would get someone to come in to clean for her, once a week or so. She could afford it, and it would be heaven never again to have to hoover the stairs or clean the silver.

  The rain had stopped, so she gathered some sprigs of winter jasmine and some tightly furled buds of iris stylosa – no, wait a minute, it was called something else now. Iris unguicularis, or something like that. She did wish they wouldn’t keep changing the names of flowers. She put the sprigs in a small china vase Frank had bought her on an Austrian holiday. What was she going to do about a holiday this year?

  The silver vase looked dirty, so she put it at the back of a kitchen cupboard. She was not going to clean it any more. She did buff up Frank’s old christening mug and replaced it on the coffee table. She couldn’t put that away. Not yet.

  When it was time for her weekly call to Diana, Ellie nearly funked it. She loved Diana, of course she did. But there was no denying her daughter’s greed and her tendency to bully people. But if the child was really desperate …?

  Ellie wished she could consult Bill about this. He would advise her. Ellie could not allow Diana to get into real financial difficulties. Perhaps a loan? Frank had been against it, though. Oh dear. She phoned Bill at the office, hoping to catch him at the end of his working day, but his secretary said he had already left. So Ellie rang Diana’s number, only to find that the answerphone had been switched on. Well, at least that was one problem which could be put on the back burner.

  Kate came home early and invited Ellie round for supper. Armand was going to be out, so she’d just get a takeaway if Ellie didn’t mind. Ellie didn’t mind. She took a bottle of wine round.

  The two houses had adjacent hallways and staircases, but were arranged differently. On the ground floor Ellie had one long through room with a dining table at the end overlooking the garden. In Kate’s house the sitting and dining rooms were still separate rooms, because Armand used what was Ellie’s dining area as his study. What was the small kitchen and smaller study in Ellie’s house had been thrown into one large kitchen-diner in Kate’s house, and it was there they ate their Chinese meal.

  ‘Don’t look at the garden. It’s a mess,’ said Kate, wielding chopsticks as to the manner born.

  Ellie used a spoon and fork. ‘You haven’t the time.’

  ‘We should get you to redesign it for us. That rockery is so old fashioned.’

  ‘Me, set up as a landscape gardener? I haven’t the training for it.’

  ‘Yes, but you know what needs to be cut back and what needs to be taken out. You could tell me what shrubs to get, to make it low maintenance. Look at it! Everything’s either overgrown or dead.’

  ‘Perhaps when I’ve finished with Nora’s flat, I’ll have time to come in and do something about it.’

  ‘Yummy. I do like ginger and spring onions with beef. Can I finish it up?’

  ‘Bless you, dear. I’ve had more than enough already.’

  Kate gave a tiny belch, patted her stomach, and invited Ellie to come clean.

  Ellie was startled. ‘How did you know …?’

  ‘You wanted the lowdown on Roy. Well, I asked around and found a guy in our office who lives down that way, and he asked around and found someone at the golf club who knows the senior partner in Roy’s firm. According to him, your Roy’s got a good reputation as an architect, was a partner in the practice until recently, when he retired. Big house, member of the golf club, social whirl.

  ‘Now for the gritty bit. He married the much younger daughter of the senior partner in the firm, no children, and they’re in the process of being divorced. Yes, divorced, not widowered. She’s claiming half the value of the house, which is now on the market.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ellie. That was a shock. Thinking back, she remembered that Roy had told her he was a widower when they first met, but while he’d referred later to clearing houses after his mother and father and an aunt had died, he hadn’t mentioned a wife.

  Kate said, ‘Sorry to give you bad news. It wasn’t all his fault – the divorce, I mean. His wife was much younger, didn’t want children, liked the company of a toy boy even younger than her and eventually ran off with him. The gossip is that Roy was persuaded to resign from the partnership when the marriage came unstuck.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll have to pay her as much as she’s demanding, but he may not be able to keep the house, which, incidentally, was his family’s home. The other thing is that you thought his partnership had asked him to look out for properties to develop. My informant says this is unlikely. I think he’s on his own here.’

  Another blow. Was Roy so unsure of himself – or her – that he couldn’t tell the truth? Ellie said, smoothly, ‘I expect he’ll go into partnership with a developer. That’s what architects usually do, isn’t it? He thinks that big derelict house on the Green has potential.’

  ‘So it has. But has he mentioned a developer, Ellie? I worry that he’s looking elsewhere for his finance. He hasn’t asked you to –’

  ‘No!’

  The word ‘partner’ floated into Ellie’s mind.

  ‘No,’ she repeated, unclenching her hand from her wine glass. ‘He hasn’t.’

  ‘I hear you saying “but …”?’

  Ellie forced a laugh. ‘Mm, yes, maybe. I’ll be careful. I really like him, Kate, and I believe he likes me. I expect I shall go on seeing him.’ But perhaps not as often as before, she added to herself. She smiled at Kate. ‘But I really didn’t come here to talk about Roy. I need your advice on several counts. To tackle the easiest one first: can you find me a trustworthy accountant?’

  ‘Trustworthy or clever? I know one of each.’

  ‘Keeps his mouth shut, but knows how to sort out my finances.’

  ‘I know a guy who’ll do that. Older man, small partnership of chartered accountants. He does the books for my dear Armand’s father’s firm, but we won’t hold that against him. I’ll give you his number. Next problem?’

  ‘The curate at church wants me to produce the weekly notices for him. Someone has to type them out, add the odd picture and pass the bumpf on to someone else at church to duplicate. An A4 sheet, doubled over. Should I tell him to take a running jump, or is this the right time for me to sign on for a computer course – or will you show me how?’

  ‘Of course I will, if you’ll help me with the garden here. Fair exchange?’

  They clinked glasses. ‘Done!’

  Kate frowned. ‘You still look as if you’ve got something on your mind.’

  Ellie nerved herself. She took the handwritten po
ison-pen letters out of her handbag and handed them over. Kate read them and said ‘Ouch!’ to herself. She turned the pages over, scrutinized the envelopes, and shook her head.

  ‘Nasty. It’s about Roy, of course. A woman who fancied him for herself?’

  ‘His wife, you mean? A woman scorned? No, I don’t think so. You see, they’re written on the same sort of paper and with the same awkward– looking capital letters as the ones Nora received. I found out that the paper probably came from the multicoloured jotting pads we sold through the charity shop before Christmas. I’ve been trying to find out where they all went to, but it’s a bit of a forlorn hope. When I got the first letter, it … it …’ She felt for her handkerchief.

  ‘It did your head in.’

  ‘I felt guilty. As if I had deserved it. I thought all my friends would have received the same letter, because so many of Nora’s circle got them, too. I could hardly bring myself to look people in the eye, afraid that they would be judging me. I began to understand how it had affected Nora. I know she was unbalanced as well, and I’m not. At least, I hope I’m not ...’ ‘You’re not.’

  ‘No. But that letter did upset me. Then I got the second one. It looks as if the first one was a warning, sent to me only. The second letter is to tell me that other people are soon going to get the gossip about me. Then at lunchtime today I learned that Mr and Mrs – no, you won’t know them, so I’d better not say their name – they received nasty letters too, and I realized that I have to fight this thing. A couple of days ago I decided that I wasn’t going to take any further action, that it wasn’t worth it. I’m pretty bad at questioning people, anyway.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  Ellie blew her nose. ‘Yes, I am. You should have seen me run away from Joyce at church last Sunday. That girl intimidates me. I knew she’d had a couple of the pads of paper, you see, to use for the Cub Scouts’ craftwork, and I wondered if … but of course that was a stupid idea. Kids don’t go in for this sort of poison.’

  ‘You’ve been to see the police about it?’

  ‘Not yet. I cringe at the thought of anyone seeing the letters and saying there’s no smoke without fire, and of course Frank hasn’t been in his grave that long, and in a way I can understand people thinking badly of me when I went out with Roy. But I do realize that I’ve got to take them to the police, however embarrassing it might be. Though what they can do about them, I don’t know.’

  Kate said, ‘Tea or coffee?’

  They moved into the sitting room. The décor was modern, with lavender-painted walls over a bright green dado, but the prints on the walls were in subdued greys and browns. Lots of candles, pine cones, strangely-angled lights. ‘Do you like it?’ said Kate. ‘I had a decorator friend in to do it. Not sure about all that lavender, though.’

  ‘It’s like you. Stimulating, but comfortable to be with.’ Ellie tried out one of the odd-shaped chairs and found that it was surprisingly comfortable.

  ‘Plan of campaign?’

  ‘All right, I know I have to go to the police. I’ll ring tomorrow and make an appointment. I don’t want to have to tell my story to the desk sergeant and then someone else, and finally reach a man who’ll actually have any power to do something about it. I was thinking about it after lunch. I will check around to see if we can trace where any more of the pads went to. Then I’ll see if I can find out who might have thrown paint at Nora’s front door – it was a rather bright lilac, brighter than yours here. The decorators at Nora’s flat said it was a top-quality paint used for outside woodwork. Perhaps someone locally has had the front of their house painted recently.’

  ‘In lilac?’

  Ellie laughed. ‘Yes, it does sound awful, doesn’t it? But I can always ask around. Then there’s the wax cat. I can visit that craft shop near the tube station and see if they stock a mould like that. Maybe someone bought them on an account and they’ll be able to give me the names of all those they’ve sold them to over the last few years.’

  ‘Let the police do that.’

  ‘You’re right, yes.’

  Kate tapped her forehead. ‘Maybe I can help, too. There’s bound to be some information about the psychology of nasty letter-writers on the Internet. I’ll see what I can find out and let you know – but I’m holding you to your promise to sort out our garden.’

  ‘With the greatest of pleasure!’ Elbe adopted a teasing, businesslike manner.

  A plan of how the garden might be redone leaped into her mind. Something modern, using decking. No, not decking, because it tended to get slimy and slippery in wet weather, although there was something you could treat it with. She must do some research. ‘What sort of budget are we talking about? Shall I draw you up a scheme, like the garden designers do?’

  ‘Where can we find someone to heave rocks about and create a water feature?’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to get the BBC in to do a makeover?’

  They laughed. It was far better to talk about redesigning a garden than to think of poisonous missives winging their way around the parish.

  When she got back home there was a message from an irritated daughter on the answerphone. Why couldn’t Ellie have waited in till Diana got back? Where was she, anyway? Diana was feeling very depressed, because Stewart had been told he would not be considered for any more promotions in the near future, and they hadn’t paid the mortgage for the last month …

  Ellie felt guilty. She really must get on to Bill and see what could be done about bailing Diana out. Except that she had already told Diana what she thought she ought to do, and Diana didn’t want to do it. It was all too difficult to think about.

  The police station was a modern building, a short bus ride away near the tube station. Concrete, of course. Bullet-proof glass? An air of being slightly down-at-heel. A whiff of disinfectant, and dead air.

  Ellie hadn’t met this inspector before. A busy man, but courteous. He listened to her tale with eyes that wandered around the room, occasionally flashing a glance at her. She had brought along some of the letters Nora had received, and the wax cat with the sinister ligature around its neck. Then she placed on the desk the two letters she had received herself.

  He opened a file, and with a shock Ellie recognized some more letters, each one bagged in plastic. She said, ‘Nora refused to take hers to you for fear of harming the Reverend Gilbert Adams, but I see that other people have.’

  He sighed. ‘No fingerprints. All posted near the town hall. Received on different days of the week. We don’t have anything much to go on, and frankly, with staffing levels the way they are, we can’t afford to spend any more man hours on the matter. The organist committed suicide, didn’t she? End of story.’

  ‘It was murder, good as. She was hounded to her death.’ ‘Murder by suicide? A new one, that.’

  ‘But you must want to stop the damage this woman is doing in the

  community. Who will she turn on next? I assume it is a woman?’ ‘Probably, yes. Who have you upset lately?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘Well, if anything further occurs to you …’

  And that was that. Most unsatisfactory. She took back Nora’s letters,

  but left the wax cat with the police. She retained her own two letters, feeling obscurely that the fewer people who saw them, the better. In something of a temper, Ellie took a taxi to Nora’s flat, to check that everything was in order. The decorators had left. The rooms looked clean and spacious. It was only in her imagination that echoes of poor Nora’s grey figure lingered.

  Ellie thought of the new tenants who would be moving in within the next few days, and wished them well. Feeling rather self-conscious, she even said a small prayer, aloud, that Jesus would bless the flat and bless the tenants’ lives there.

  Absurd, of course, to think that a short prayer could have any such effect as she wished, but nevertheless it was done and no one had heard her.

  She wondered how Mrs Bowles was enjoying her holiday in Australia. A ki
ndly person, and a good neighbour, whatever you thought about her choice of make-up.

  With a sigh Ellie left the flat for what she hoped was the last time, and made her way through the back streets to Aunt Drusilla’s house. The shower of winter jasmine she had noticed on an earlier journey was fading. Soon the forsythia would be out and the kerria’s golden balls, brightening these dark days.

  Oh dear, Aunt Drusilla had got someone to cut her laurel bushes right back to their main stems. Ellie flinched, then reminded herself that she didn’t like laurel, anyway.

  The door was opened by the same glum-faced cleaner as before. It must be something of a record for Aunt Drusilla to have kept the same cleaner for more than a month. The old lady was sitting in her chair before the fire as usual, and as usual the cleaner brought in the tray of cups and cafetiere for Ellie to make the coffee.

  ‘How are you today, Aunt Drusilla?’

  ‘Never mind about me. What have you been up to, eh?’ Ellie almost spilt the coffee.

  ‘Careful, girl!’

  She’s had a letter about me, thought Ellie. She said aloud, ‘I’ve just

  been to the flat. The decorators have finished. They’ve done a good job, I think.’

  ‘And the cleaners, have they done a good job, too?’

  ‘I was not so impressed, but they did the job properly in the end.’ ‘They have complained to me about your attitude.’

  Ellie set her cup down with a clatter. ‘They disliked me pointing out

  that there were cockroaches in the kitchen. I believe the cleaners would have been happy to ignore their presence.’ ‘Cockroaches? Really?’ Aunt Drusilla implied that she had difficulty believing Ellie. ‘You think that we should employ another firm of cleaners in future? Well, if you wish, you may use another firm on the next flat. Number 18. The tenants leave at the end of next week, and the new people will arrive a fortnight after that, so you will have fourteen days to get it ready for them.’

  Ellie told herself to take a deep breath or two. She pushed herself back in the uncomfortable chair that was always placed for her to sit on. She had never liked that armchair, but it was an antique, of course. Like everything else in the room, including Aunt Drusilla.