One to Six, Buckle to Sticks (Grasshopper Lawns Book 11)

by EJ Lamprey

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Monday – tidy up for Marjorie

  Buster, exhausted by his walk and muddied up to the elbows, submitted to having his legs rubbed down by Edge before loudly emptying his water bowl. He tottered through to rejoin Edge in front of the fire with a heavy sigh while Vivian busied herself in the kitchen.

  Edge’s fingers tingled as warmth pumped back—the morning had been the coldest so far this winter, with a mocking wind and even a dusting of icy spicules as they turned and hurried for home. Worse, she’d been lost in thought and had allowed Buster, usually so sensible, to choose a short cut through the boggiest end of the campsite and they’d both got thoroughly splashed. As warmth crept back she remembered what she’d been turning over in her mind at the time.

  ‘Vivian,’ she called abruptly, ‘you wouldn’t have murdered Betsy just for being annoying, would you?’ There was a startled silence from the kitchen before her friend appeared in the doorway and Edge had to laugh. ‘I’m not accusing you! It’s—well, I don’t see why she was murdered! I got to thinking of it on the walk. We all disliked her to some degree, but it was a passive kind of suffering for the most part. Yes, I could have strangled her once or twice, but the wish was enough.’

  Vivian trundled through a hostess trolley bearing a pot of tea and all the trimmings, including several slices of home-made malt loaf. ‘The way she kept on and on about me having children and wondering how I could still be here, used to make me want to smack her silly face,’ she agreed comfortably. ‘Help yourself, poppet, this’ll get the colour back into your cheeks.’ She was shaken by a bout of rumbling coughs that made her sit down abruptly, but waved off Edge’s concern.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ she said when she could speak again ‘Matron was here this morning and left me some stuff. She’s getting the doctor to call by this afternoon to decide whether I’m to move into the Frail Care until I shake this stupid cough off but really, it is getting better, this is only the second surge this morning.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take Buster in, if you have to. It’ll be a pleasure. You had your ‘flu shot, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I did, but this is my smoking legacy, I get at least a few days of bronchitis every winter, you know that. Now. Back to Betsy. You said she had a queue of people wanting to kill her.’

  Edge helped herself to malt loaf. ‘In one way, yes, nobody would think twice about her being murdered because she so obviously deserved to be. But being annoyed by somebody isn’t really a motive, is it? I was trying to think it through before Buster led me into the bog. We’re all accepting that the murderer heard her on the phone to the police saying there’d been murder done, and nipped in to suffocate her. But no one seems to know who was murdered? And also, if you think about it, Thursday was sunny but a cold day, windows and doors shut. So the only person who could reasonably have heard her is Matilda next door and I’ve been in Matilda’s when Betsy had her TV booming away next door. You can only hear occasional words, mostly it was just a sort of whum whum whum noise which I quite agreed with Matilda was very annoying. And unless she was standing in the kitchen, no passerby in the walkway could have heard what she was saying. She’s much more likely to have been on the living room phone and then nothing could have been heard from the walkway. If it was summer she might have had the French doors open but even if she did, in winter, who’d be meandering slowly by in the garden at this time of year? And then—well, we all know what she was like when she’d been having a rant. Very fired up and restless. I can’t see her letting anyone in and sitting quietly down so they could suffocate her in her chair.’

  ‘Well, that’s true enough.’ Vivian emptied their dregs into the slop basin and poured out more tea. ‘And she was a big woman—and very fit with all her walking and gym classes. So to hold her down with one hand and hold the cushion over her face with the other, you’d need to be bigger and stronger. That cuts out most of the residents. But you know, Edge, she did have that trick of throwing herself back in her chair and bracing herself against the arms, when she’d made a point. What if someone was in there already with her?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Edge buried her face in her cup. ‘Good point. Her little victory pose. So someone could circle the chair, maybe clonk her on the head, have the cushion across her face and Bob’s your uncle. Which still brings us back to who, and why. The thing is, Mose definitely wasn’t murdered. I managed to pry that much out of Kirsty. Poor man had pastry flecks in his lungs and the chunk of pastry was exactly where it would be to choke him. Although it is odd he didn’t buzz for help—choking isn’t immediate, is it? There’s a couple of minutes at least.’ She gave an involuntary shudder.

  ‘Well, if it comes to that,’ Vivian said thoughtfully, ‘I did hear Megan on the phone to that maintenance company, you know. She said there was a couple of panic buttons needed replacing. And that they could come anytime because the apartment was empty. I was trying to catch her attention, because I’d gone there to write into the day book that one of my plugs wasn’t working and she could book it at the same time, which she did, but now that you say that, the only apartment that was empty at that time was Mose’s.’

  ‘Still, a non-working buzzer doesn’t amount to murder, does it?’ Edge knotted her brows together. ‘You’d still need to know he was going to choke.’

  ‘Or have a heart attack.’ Vivian offered. ‘He did have a dicky heart, he’d had one heart attack already. He had to be very careful.’

  ‘But that points a finger direct at Matron or the night-nurse.’ Edge’s frown deepened. ‘They’re the only ones who’d have the run of his place.’

  ‘Or the cleaner,’ Vivian corrected her. ‘Or Hamish has keys to everything. For that matter they’re kept in the admin office, they’re not even locked away. So that could be anyone who walked into the admin office and pinched the keys. Here’s a nice suspect for you—I happen to know Mose had been having major barnies with Sylvia. Megan blew the whistle on them and hauled in Harriet to sort them out. ‘

  Edge smiled involuntarily—Megan, as direct liaison for the residents, had to be scrupulous about not taking sides but she would tip off the administrator, who would surge in to confront both parties and forge a truce. Sylvia’s abrasive personality had kept Harriet busy for several years, and Edge had herself had a ticking-off re that same difficult little woman not long ago.

  ‘Sylvia as a murderess—she’d absolutely love it, too. But she’d not be in his apartment without him, and if they were quarrelling he wouldn’t just sit there if she started fiddling with his buzzers. And we can probably cut out the Trust staff, I had a word with Patrick and I know they actually lose out when there’s a turnover in residents. The cleaners are from an agency, so they wouldn’t be affected either way. And now I think about it, every apartment has three buzzers, they can’t have all been broken.’ She looked automatically at the panic button in Vivian’s comfortable room, which winked its green light back at her. ‘They’ve never switched mine off, for sure. And yours is working.’

  ‘And the ones in the kitchen and bathroom.’ Vivian agreed. ‘I check them all the time. So, we’re saying Mose was unlikely to be the murder victim Betsy was talking about.’

  ‘Angus was more likely, but it comes down to why, again—nobody benefited directly. He left most of his money to this place, to the Trust, and the rest to charity. And it was ages ago. Yet somehow Betsy, with her stream of questions which nobody ever answered, had decided she had enough proof of a murder to phone the police. And yes, I agree with you, the only possible answer is that there was someone with her because otherwise there wasn’t enough time. You’d have to have someone listening outside the French doors, hearing enough to panic, getting invited in, calming Betsy down enough to sit her down, and all the time knowing the police could have been two minutes away and that he or she could open the door to slip out and found themselves running straight into coppers. If you were in there already it would have taken a few seconds and the risk would have be
en minimal. But Vivian, that implies the person had egged her on to make the call, don’t you think? Betsy certainly didn’t suspect whoever it was of the murder she believed had been committed. And if they had committed one murder already, they certainly wouldn’t sit quietly by while she reported it to the police. So either they grabbed the chance, hoping it would be pinned on the first murderer, or there hadn’t been any previous murders and the killer had intended to kill Betsy all along, and was muddying the water with a false trail.’ She turned it over in her mind and added with satisfaction ‘I like that theory.’

  ‘Your mind is incredibly convoluted,’ Vivian said admiringly, ‘but it still comes down to why. Why kill Betsy?’

  ‘Why not?’ Edge grinned at her. ‘The temptation was always overwhelming! But until we know what her will has to say, we still don’t have a real motive. Unless it was to do with her past. That whole warder thing, she could know something about someone who’d kill to keep her quiet. Not necessarily a resident, but say one of them had a relative who’d visited recently, and Betsy had recognized the relative as an ex-con?’

  ‘But they’d know she’d keep quiet about it. That whole ‘I cannae say and I willnae’ thing, she would never be drawn on any of her experiences, she was notorious for that. She couldn’t really even blackmail someone because she’d so established that omerta of hers.’

  Edge dug into her handbag and came up with a pen and a small spiral notebook. ‘I’m getting confused. Let’s tackle this another way;’ she scrawled a circle and wrote a large B in the centre, then draw a line out. ‘Let’s assume for now that Betsy was the specific target. On this line, I’m writing her past as a warder. Next motive?’

  ‘Are we sure it was her on the phone? I mean anyone could have phoned from any apartment, and said they were her. Knowing they’d already killed her. That could completely change the time of death.’

  Edge stared at her, tapping her teeth thoughtfully with her pen. ‘No;’ she said finally, ‘Matilda definitely heard her saying the word police. She was quite taken aback, but then she heard her go back to talking normally and stopped worrying. That was why she glanced at her clock. But I’ll check with Kirsty what time they logged the call, just to be sure. Nice one.’ She wrote ‘time’ on her list. ‘My fingers are still cold, I can hardly read my own writing. Anything else?’

  ‘Her personality,’ Vivian offered. ‘No, don’t laugh, I’m quite serious. Say her visitor had been winding her up deliberately about murders to, I don’t know, scare her into leaving. Which we all really wanted her to do, let’s be honest. But she over-reacted and phoned the police. Her visitor was about to be put through a fairly gruelling time and at the very least risk being charged with wasting police time, so in a fit of rage killed her.’

  ‘You have a fairly tortuous mind yourself.’ Edge flashed a grin at her while drawing another line out and scratching ‘personality’ against it. ‘So what residents can you think of who would voluntarily go into her apartment for the pleasure of winding her up?’

  ‘Well, there it does fall down a bit.’ Vivian admitted. ‘She was quarrelling with half of us and the other half avoided her like the plague. Look, we need more tea, shall we move into the kitchen? The light is much better in there, too.’

  Edge collected her bag and led the way through, Vivian trundling the trolley behind. Buster, ever hopeful of a walk, brought up the rear, then sighed as Edge sat and Vivian re-filled the kettle. He was returning to his bed in front of the fire in the other room when a knock at the door brought him bristling to the alert. Edge, who was nearer, got up to open it.

  ‘Marjorie,’ she said in surprise, and admitted the cleaning woman, who gave her a dentally-challenged smile and exchanged threatening glares with Buster, who hesitated, then retreated.

  ‘Morning, Missus O,’ she introduced herself to Vivian. ‘I’m Marjorie, I’ll be doing your cleaning for a while, anything in particular before I start?’

  ‘Er, no.’ Vivian looked bemused. ‘Is Helen sick?’

  ‘Helen’s took off.’ Marjorie put her bucket and tools down and started to run water into the sink. ‘Got her wee inheritance, she did, and she’s gone. Not seen hide nor hair of her since Thursday—didn’t turn up Friday and hasn’t turned up this morning.’ She looked meaningfully at their cups and Edge picked up her handbag.

  ‘Vivian, let’s get out of Marjorie’s way shall we? We can go back to my place.’

  ‘Nae need.’ Marjorie said gloomily. ‘I can work around you ladies, nae problem.’

  ‘Her inheritance?’ Vivian had obediently picked up her handbag too, but was still looking puzzled. ‘Not a close member of her family, I hope?’

  ‘Not family at all. That Mr McKenzie from number ten, turns out he left her a nice wee giftie. Not enough to retire, we thought she was going to work on but then himself assigned her more units last Wednesday and she took the huff—turned up Thursday but never come back since. So now we’re short-staffed. I’ve got two more units to do every week—would be three if Miz Campbell hadn’t up and died. But I’ll do the best job I can for you while I’ve got you.’

  ‘Was Helen doing for Betsy Campbell, then?’ Edge, who had been standing in a hurry-up-let’s-go way at the door, looked suddenly alert and Marjorie turned to look at her.

  ‘Aye, just started—one of her others said ‘e wanted a male cleaner, ken. But Helen only did her once. Then she were gone, the next day I think. That were her last shift.’ She lifted her soapy bucket out of the sink and put it on the floor.

  ‘I must just go to the loo.’ Vivian decided and Marjorie’s face settled into lines of disapproval. Vivian hesitated, taken aback, and Edge made shooing movements with her hands.

  ‘Marjorie was about to do the bathroom,’ she explained, ‘but if you’re quick, it’ll be fine. Won’t it, Marjorie?’

  A few minutes later, as they picked their way carefully along the all-weather walk which, despite all the groundskeeper’s efforts, had icy patches, Vivian wheezed reproachfully, ‘Marjorie could have told us stuff. You were just saying we should be looking at the cleaner, and there it turns out Betsy had just met Helen.’

  ‘We’re not asking Marjorie.’ Edge said firmly. ‘She’s the most ghastly woman. She’s been doing for me for a year and I’ve asked Harriet three times to switch her. I had such a nice woman before, but she retired. Now I just leave the minute Marjorie arrives, because she has an evil genius. If you want the loo, she’s cleaning the bathroom. If you want a cup of tea, she’s cleaning the kitchen. If you switch on the telly, she starts to vacuum. If you give up and go lie down, she wants to clean the window by the bed. And if I hadn’t been there to guard the bathroom door when you went to the loo you’d have come out to find her standing waiting with her most lugubrious face right outside the door. Didn’t you see her looking at our tea cups? The only way to stop her snatching them from under your nose to wash them is to offer her some too, and then she talks for bloody hours. Stands there like Mrs Mop hanging on her broom and telling you today’s woes, and last week’s, and if you don’t shut her up she’s back to the fall she had here and how she’d sue the place if she could find a solicitor to take it on, and how her stepfather beat her as a child—she’s not even that good a cleaner, but at least if we clear out she’ll have nothing to do but get on with her job.’

  ‘Well, she did give poor old Buster the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen.’ Vivian whistled the dog back to heel as they reached Edge’s door. ‘But why do they keep her on if she’s so awful?’

  ‘She’s honest—and reliable, even after that fall she only missed two weeks,’ Edge shrugged and opened her door, ‘but—well, this is Marjorie as a cleaner. She’s already done my place. In her own inimitable way.’

  She picked up a crumpled napkin from the table next to the sofa and lobbed it expertly into the laundry basket, which had been left outside the bathroom door. ‘I’m sorry to drag you out with that cough but I’m doing you a favour. And she’s self-obsessed, th
ere’s nothing she could know about Helen that you don’t, if Helen used to do your place. You can tell me about her.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can.’ Vivian hung up her coat and sank into an inviting chair. Buster gave her a reproachful glance before settling himself on the hearthrug with a deep groaning sigh. ‘She’s been doing for me for about a year, after that Parker bloke left. She was the absolute opposite of what you’re saying about Marjorie—very quiet, very quick, very efficient, even if she was busy in the kitchen when I wanted to make tea she’d whisk off and get on with something else. I preferred her to Parker, because I was convinced he nicked stuff, but she wasn’t one to be drawn on anything, any chat we had was about the weather, that sort of thing. I did ask once how long she’d been with the agency and she said about four years, but just the way she said it was a conversation stopper, her face shut down. So I have no idea what she might have done before, but she looked more intelligent than you’d expect. Oh dear, does that sound awful? I can only say the first day she arrived I was taken aback that she was the cleaner. She looked more like a visitor who’d come to the wrong door. She was—did you ever see her? About forty, I suppose. Blonde hair which she wore in a bun. Sharp features, but fairly nondescript. Always arrived in a red coat with a fake fur collar, winter and summer—oh, and patent leather shoes with diamante buckles. You know the type, everyone had them back when we were girls, but nowadays they’re quite unusual.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen her!’ Edge paused thoughtfully, then added milk to both their mugs and handed one to Vivian. ‘And you’re right, she did look like a visitor. I just assumed she was someone’s niece. Unlike Marjorie, who would look like a cleaner if you met her in full evening dress,’ she added unkindly. She took the chair opposite Vivian’s. ‘But not a big woman. I mean not big enough to overpower Betsy.’

  ‘Still;’ Vivian said stubbornly, ‘it is interesting that she’d just been assigned to Betsy.’