Hold on. Neil threw the paint. You’ve already worked it out that there was more than one person involved – the paint-thrower, the one who writes handprinted letters, and the one who uses a computer. Plus a fourth, perhaps, who killed the cat.
Look at John’s handwriting: neat, square letters. Now look at the wavering capitals used by whoever wrote on the same pad as John.
His wife? What was her name? Sue? She was hardly ever seen out of the house. Nerves, poor thing – or so people said.
Ellie could hardly remember what she looked like. Had they ever met? Oh, she must have met her sometime in the past, at a church do or something. An out-of-focus picture of a droopy, washed-out, greyish woman floated into Ellie’s mind and crystallized. A permanent sniffer? Liked wearing sandals in winter. Bunions? A stiff face without much expression. On medication?
Almost a recluse. Children grown up and gone away. John out at the charity shop most days. A car? Yes, but nothing splashy. Sue didn’t drive. ‘Too nervy, you know, for London traffic.’
Holidays? ‘No, Sue can’t face it this year.’
Birthdays? Anniversaries? ‘I wish I could take her out to a show, but she gets palpitations; the crowds, you know.’
Gilbert had visited her, Ellie knew.
Ellie picked up the phone and dialled St Thomas’s Rectory on the other side of London. Gilbert wasn’t in – surprise, surprise – but his wife Liz was.
‘Ellie, lovely to hear from you … Sue? Yes, I remember her. Gilbert used to visit. He doesn’t now, of course. Why do you ask?’
‘These poison-pen letters. I’ve come across something that points in her direction. What do you think?’
A long silence.
‘Liz?’
‘You’ve thrown me, Ellie. I hardly knew the woman. I’m trying to remember what Gilbert said about her. Agoraphobic? Couldn’t leave the house by herself, except perhaps at night. That’s it. Couldn’t stand crowds. On medication for it. Quite bad, I think. Very supportive husband, who spent a lot of time at the charity shop. Is that the right person?’
‘I think so. Could she have written the poison-pen letters?’
‘I’m no expert. Someone whose life was very circumscribed and who had come to depend on Gilbert’s visits might perhaps resent it if he wasn’t able to give her as much time as he had been doing.’
‘Such as when Nora flipped after her father’s death, and mopped up all his free time?’
‘Do you think that’s what it was?’
‘I don’t know. It looks rather like it. The last letter written to Nora and the ones written to me come from the same pad of paper, which was quite innocently taken home by John, Sue’s husband.’
‘That’s horrible.’
‘No, it isn’t. It makes it much easier to deal with if you know who sent the letters, and you can get some understanding of why they should have done such a thing.’
‘What are you going to do about it? Go to the police?’
Ellie sighed. ‘Would you? Knowing what a poor sort of creature she is?’
‘But the damage she’s done! Not to you, perhaps, because you’re so strong, but what about the harm done to Nora? You could say that Sue murdered Nora. Oh, perhaps she didn’t mean to, but that’s what happened.’
‘I have to think about it. I’ve met another couple who were targeted by the poison-pen letters before Christmas. I have no idea why Sue should have picked on them. Then paint was thrown at Nora’s door. I found out who that was, but it was reasonably harmless and I don’t want to set the police on him … Liz, are you still there?’
‘Yes, but the front doorbell’s just rung, and I’ll have to … can I ring you back later? Oh, bother. No, I can’t. We’re going out tonight to the theatre. I’ll ring you tomorrow or Monday, right? Bye.’
Ellie cradled the phone, and it rang again immediately.
‘Ellie, this is Kate. Listen, I’m on my mobile at the conference, can’t stop for long. Brilliant sessions, and I’ve actually been asked to speak at the next one, would you believe! What I wanted to say was, that young man Neil Something was outside the house this morning when I left and …’
‘We’ve met. He’s cleaned up your front garden and is turning out my garden shed at the moment. You want me to pay him, and you’ll reimburse me.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, then. I got so caught up with things here, I only just remembered …’
‘Before you go, Kate, did you manage to get anything about poisonpen letter-writers on the Internet?’
‘Yes, sorry, forgot to give it to you last night. Usually female of a certain age, frustrated in some way. Typically a spinster, though not always. Very rarely found out because they have a certain low cunning. Quite often uses capital letters cut from newspapers, or writes with the left hand to disguise the handwriting. Takes pleasure in hearing the victim’s name dragged in the mud, but rarely makes personal contact. A watcher, not a doer.’
‘Writing with the left hand. That makes sense. Kate, I think I know who wrote the letters on coloured paper, though I can’t say at the moment. Have to check it out. But would such a person also use a word processor?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so, would you? I mean, why bother to write if you can type? Typing’s even more anonymous than writing with your left hand. Are we perhaps talking about two different people here?’
‘Possibly three. Kate—’
‘Sorry, got to go. I’ll try to ring you later. If not, I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon and we can talk then. See you!’
The phone went dead.
Ellie put the stained letters into the middle drawer of the desk and locked it. She trusted both Liz and Kate, but perhaps not all her friends had such clean hands. Mrs Dawes, for instance, must know more than she had said. Neil had admitted throwing the paint. Mrs Dawes must have known that, or at least have suspected it.
Ellie sighed. No, Mrs Dawes would never have countenanced any such activity, if she had known about it. Gossip was her forte, but there was no malice in her. At some point Ellie would fill her in on what had happened, and Mrs Dawes would be shocked, really upset that her careless words might have had such a dreadful result. But even if she got a bad fright, it wouldn’t still her restless tongue for ever. That was the way she was.
Now Kate had confirmed that it was probably a third person who had used a computer for the typed letter. The thought pounding through Ellie’s head was that there must be a connection between the letterwriters, the paint-thrower and whoever had made the wax model and killed the cat.
She considered the women likely to have gossiped with Mrs Dawes. She knew both by sight. Elderly widows, arthritic, short-sighted. There was something she knew about one of them … if only she could remember. But neither of them could have operated a word processor, or stalked a cat. What was more, John’s wife would never drop into Mrs Dawes’s house for a coffee and a chat. The connection must be elsewhere.
Should Ellie go to the police with what she knew? No. No, because Neil didn’t deserve that, and Sue – if it was Sue – was not mentally strong enough to cope.
So what should Ellie do? She could go round to John’s with the evidence and confront Sue. But this would probably drive poor Sue even further into her problem. She could take John aside and show him the proof and leave him to decide what to do about his wife. He would know how to stop her. That might be best. Or would it be too awful for John to cope with?
Perhaps it would be best to leave it. Now that Ellie knew the identity of the person concerned – or guessed it, rather – she could cope with it. Couldn’t she? The damage was done and poor Nora was dead. Ellie herself would survive any gossip stirred up by Sue’s letters. In fact, they might have done her a good turn by making her question Roy’s attentions to her.
Or perhaps Kate and Liz had got it all wrong, and it had been John himself who had …? No, ridiculous!
But, said a voice in her head, it’s only instinct that tells you so, and instinct can lea
d you astray.
There was something happening in the garden. A man was laughing, a full-bellied laugh – that was Neil, chasing something or somebody with a besom. Young Tod, dressed in sweater and jeans, was also leaping about and laughing.
Streaking in and out of the shed, crouching low and then bounding high into the air, tail wagging furiously, was Midge.
What had he found? Spiders? Mice? Rats?
Ellie found herself smiling as she pulled on an anorak and went out to join them.
Tod saw her and ran up the garden. ‘It’s your cat! He thinks the end of the hosepipe is a mouse or something! He’s crazy!’
Midge suddenly lost interest in the hosepipe, scratched his left ear with a hind paw and walked sedately up the garden path, erect tail gently waving. He purred around Ellie’s legs as she bent to tickle him. This is happiness, she thought. For the first time since Frank died, I can feel happy. People laughing, a cat purring, the garden being attended to.
Tod hopped over on one leg, just to show he could. ‘I was supposed to go straight home and do my homework after swimming, but Mum’s out and the computer’s still broken and I saw Neil working in the shed, and I thought maybe I could help and stay for tea.’
‘Of course you can,’ said Ellie, consigning thoughts of Roy to the dustbin. ‘Show me what you’ve done, you two.’
Over a substantial fry-up-cum-high-tea in the kitchen, Neil asked about clearing Kate’s garden. He was a good worker, he said. Always stuck at a job till it was finished.
‘Half-term soon,’ said Tod, eyeing the last two biscuits. ‘Nothing happens, holidays. Mum’s working. The computer she got me was secondhand. Well, passed on from someone at work, actually. She says she can’t afford to get another, but I could play on yours, Mrs Quicke, couldn’t I? After swimming I could come round and help Neil, and then perhaps I could play on the computer here for a while, couldn’t I?’
‘Can you mix concrete?’ asked Neil. ‘Can you?’ said Ellie, amused. ‘At least Tod knows what a weed looks like – most of the time, anyway.’
‘Only ’cause you taught me.’
Neil concentrated on wetting his finger and collecting the last of the cake crumbs on his plate.
Tod said, with the crashing truthfulness of the very young, ‘Neil doesn’t know much about gardening, he says. But you could teach him, couldn’t you, Mrs Quicke?’
Neil reddened. ‘I can mow lawns a treat. Cut hedges. Dig. Dad had an allotment when I was a kid. I used to help him on that. Sometimes.’ He met Ellie’s sceptical eye and fidgeted, dropping his knife on the floor. ‘Well, there was football, like.’
Ellie understood how it had been. It occurred to her that it would be pleasant to teach young Neil how to look after plants. Perhaps she could lend him some of her gardening magazines for a start? But she needed to know more about him first. ‘Your cousin Chloe tells me you started A levels?’
‘Thought I might as well. But then, well, things went pear-shaped.’
Both glanced at Tod, rummaging in the freezer for ice cream. Ellie liked Neil all the better for not going into the sordid details of his home life in front of the boy, although she reflected that Tod’s own father had walked out on his mother when she became pregnant. Tod had never seen him, wouldn’t have recognized him if he saw him in the street. Maybe their single-parent background was another bond between the two boys.
She said, ‘It’s true that next door are thinking of having their garden redesigned, and they’ve asked me to produce a scheme for it.’
‘They could have a heated outdoor swimming pool, wow!’ said Tod.
‘A really fine lawn,’ said Neil.
Ellie laughed. ‘Can you see them using an outdoor swimming pool? And Neil, they’re not the sort to spend time keeping a lawn under control.’
Neil leaned back to allow Tod to give him a plateful of ice cream. ‘Suppose I offered to mow the lawns for them and cut the hedges on a regular basis?’
‘A contract gardener?’
‘Why not? I really like the work, helping people, making things tidy. I’ve been studying the neighbourhood, going round doing odd jobs. There are lots of people here who go out to work all day, let their gardens go. And even more old people who can’t manage their hedges or cope with their mowers any more. You can see it everywhere, if you look.’
‘That’s brilliant!’ said Tod, shovelling in the last mouthful and eyeing the carton for seconds. ‘You could do ours, for a start. Mum’s put it all under concrete, but if we had some big tubs and stuff, you could come along and fill them with plants and then look after them for us. That would be brill!’
Ellie was amused, even intrigued. ‘Mm, it’s an idea. But Neil, wouldn’t you need to buy all the equipment – a new mower and a strimmer, for a start? And I suppose you could store them in a van, but it wouldn’t be really safe, would it? You’d need somewhere to work from, rent a garage or something.’
‘I could get a start-up loan from the government.’
‘What about keeping the books? VAT and all that?’
Neil looked stricken. ‘I don’t think I could manage that.’
‘No. Well,’ briskly, ‘let’s deal with one thing at a time. It’s getting dark, and we need to get those things back into the shed.’
Working half by torchlight – Tod’s own big torch – and the light from the lamps around the Green, they sorted out what needed to be kept and what needed to be thrown.
‘Hang about!’ said Neil, bringing out a clean white shoebox from the shed. ‘I don’t remember this being here before. It’s addressed to you, Mrs Quicke.’
‘Is it a bomb?’ cried Tod, leaping up and down.
‘Don’t be silly!’ Ellie laughed, but her heartbeat went into double-time. The box was identical to the one delivered to Nora with the strangled cat figure inside it. She looked around for Midge, but he had disappeared. Probably sleeping off his tea on her bed.
‘Let me see!’ said Tod. ‘Someone must have put it in the shed while we were having tea.’
Ellie looked both ways along the alley, which was now shadowy and looked threatening instead of picturesque. She slid the box lid up and saw, not a wax cat, but the wax effigy of a woman clad in blue with a silvery thatch on her head. A long pin secured a drawing of a crab onto its torso.
A crab meant cancer, didn’t it? Someone hated her enough to wish her dead of cancer.
‘Oh, it’s only a doll,’ said Tod, disappointed.
Ellie looked at Neil. He, too, had seen what the box contained. ‘That’s sick,’ he said.
Ellie put the lid back on the box with shaking fingers. Well, she thought, at least I know now that Neil had nothing to do with it.
12
Ellie didn’t sleep well that night. She had taken the box inside and hidden it in the drawer in Frank’s big desk. She kept telling herself not to panic. She couldn’t think straight. For the first time she understood that this affair didn’t just threaten her reputation, but also her life.
Neil knew nothing about it, that was plain. He had never seen the doll before. She’d asked him outright, and he’d shaken his head, frowning. She’d believed him.
She was too hot. She threw off the bedclothes.
She got a drink of water, pummelled the pillows. Got indigestion. Took a tablet. Was too cold. She thought, it’s late. Diana is coming tomorrow, and if I don’t get to sleep soon I’ll be good for nothing. And if she starts trying to boss me about, I won’t be able to cope … and woke up shivering.
She went downstairs and made a cup of tea, walking about the house in the dark, with only the light from the kitchen to guide her. She pulled back the curtains in the sitting room, and looked out at the moon dodging in and out of clouds above the church.
She went back to bed. Slept. Woke. Did a crossword, listened to the early dawn chorus of birds, and finally drifted off.
She woke to the consciousness that Diana was coming and she must hurry or she would be late for church. Again. S
he always seemed to be last arriving, even though she lived nearest.
As she was about to leave, the phone rang. Aunt Drusilla.
‘Well, girl? Have you decided to accept my offer?’
‘No, Aunt Drusilla. I can’t work for you. Anyway, I thought you had made up your mind to give the job to Diana. She’ll be here at lunchtime.’
A long pause. Ellie fidgeted.
‘I would prefer to work with you.’
Ellie was surprised, and rather touched. ‘Well, I’m sure Diana will be very efficient.’
Another silence. Then the phone was put down. Was the old girl losing her marbles?
Ellie shot out of the house, trying to calm her thoughts. Poison-pen letters, wax figurines … how did they know she had always been afraid of getting cancer? Her mother had died of cancer. Suppose she did have it? Or the stress of the letters was giving it to her? No. Use your common sense. Of course you can’t get cancer just because someone wishes it on you.
She tried to still her thoughts, to prepare for the morning service. She was overtired. Images whirled around in her mind. Diana, Aunt Drusilla; John and Sue; young Neil, the letters, the quarrel with Bill – oh dear, what was she going to do without him? She’d relied on him for so long. Then Roy and his tempting offer; but really it would be cowardice to leave all her troubles behind by going away on holiday just now. In any case, she was not one hundred per cent easy in her mind about him.
She tried to stop worrying. Tried deep breathing. She must put all these things aside. She knew He was aware of all her problems. She must pray a little. Try to concentrate on Him. ‘Centring down’, they called it. Or some such expression. If only Timothy would preach an inspiring sermon today. There was little hope of that. If only Timothy had been the kind of man you could take your troubles to! But he wasn’t, and that was that.
Praying helped. Offering up her voice in the choir helped, too. She would survive.
Diana unloaded three suitcases, a baby buggy and a fretful toddler from her car. The car really belonged to Ellie. Diana had co-opted it for her own use, sharing her father’s opinion that Ellie would never learn to drive. Handing the sodden child to her mother, Diana said, ‘What a journey! What’s for lunch? I’m starving. Are there any messages for me?’
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