Murder by Suggestion

by Veronica Heley

  Kat wrung her hands. ‘Please, I am not slave. I am wife. I have papers to say I am married. Barbie and Russet tell me I must have proof of wedding. They show me how to have safety deposit box in bank for my passport and papers. I have the right to live in this country. I not have to go back home, no? There is no work. Will you help me get another job? I work hard, I not steal again. I swear it.’

  Ellie sent a kind thought to Barbie and Russet, who did indeed seem to have looked after Kat well. ‘Kat, I am pretty sure you have every right to stay here, and that you do not have to go back home. Of course you can get another job, but in the meantime I think it would be good for you to consult with my friend from the police so that your mind can be put at rest. She is definitely not here to arrest you.’

  ‘Who is to trust? Is all so difficult!’

  Ellie thought of how it would be if she had landed in a foreign country where she did not speak the language well and did not understand the laws of the land. To add to that, Kat had been brought up to believe marriage was for life and look where that had landed her!

  ‘Trust me,’ said Ellie. ‘I guarantee that Lesley will not arrest you. She will be able to tell you what your position is with regards to getting some kind of payment from your husband. Do you understand?’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Yes, I am sure. Come through to the kitchen and meet Lesley.’

  Kat followed Ellie. Reluctantly. But she did.

  Lesley looked up from studying the emails. Ellie introduced Kat and explained her position. Lesley was no fool. She did her best to put Kat at ease and managed to get the woman to sit down at the table, even though Kat gave the impression that she was longing to flee.

  Ellie left them to it. She wanted to speak to Diana before she did anything else. Back in the hall, she tried ringing her daughter’s number again, and again it went to voicemail. She tried her solicitor, Gunnar. That call went to voicemail, too. She tried his chambers. They were shut for the day.

  She could have wept with frustration. The hall was full of other people’s luggage. Thomas was … who knew where?

  Her ginger tomcat, Midge, suddenly appeared from behind a pile of luggage and wound himself round her feet. Where had he been? He didn’t like visitors much. Correction, he approved of certain people who would feed him titbits, but he avoided Diana and he was probably finding this influx of people and their belongings rather too much to cope with.

  He purred, loudly. She told him he’d find Lesley in the kitchen, and that Lesley would probably feed him if he asked nicely. She pointed and shooed him in the right direction. He gave her an old-fashioned look but, seeing that she was not prepared to indulge him, he slunk off to see who else might pay him some attention.

  Ellie went into the conservatory at the back of the house. If she could do nothing else, she could finish potting up the geraniums. Where had she left her gloves? Well, never mind them. Best get on with the job. She’d worry about everything else later. She set to work, her topmost mind concentrating on the plants, while the underpart of her mind worried away … Diana … her grandson … Thomas! All those women … poor Trish! Oh dear!

  She looked at her watch. Susan, who the women had called her ‘cook person’ was not scheduled to cater for Ellie and Thomas tonight. In truth, it was not in the terms of her tenancy agreement that Susan should cook for them at all. The fact that she did so every now and then was a bonus and much appreciated. It could not be taken for granted. Susan would probably be out tonight with her fiancé, whom she was due to marry in a few months’ time.

  Thinking about young Rafael, Ellie wondered if he might help in finding some accommodation for these homeless women. He was an unusual young man who had ploughed an inheritance into buying a rundown block of flats, which he was doing-up himself. Perhaps he might like to accommodate one of these dispossessed women?

  A stir in the doorway and there was Trish, blinking herself awake, trying to smile. The bruise on her jaw had turned almost black. ‘Can I help?’

  Ellie indicated a collapsible chair which had ended up in the conservatory instead of having been put away in the garden shed. ‘Seat yourself. Relax. Talk to me.’

  Trish had her mobile phone in her hand. Ellie wondered who she’d been talking to, or was planning to talk to.

  ‘You’ve contacted your parents?’

  ‘Tried to. They’re out. I left a message saying I’d ring back later.’ She fidgeted with her phone. ‘Terry rang. Checking up on me. He seemed to think I wasn’t going home to my parents’ house but moving in with some man or other.’ She reddened. ‘I really don’t know why he thinks that. He’s terribly angry. I told him I was here with you tonight and was going back to my parents tomorrow.’

  She gave a long, long sigh and sat down to watch Ellie. ‘What are you doing? Are those geraniums? I don’t know much about gardening. Terry said …’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I’m hopeless at it.’

  ‘You just need to be shown, that’s all,’ said Ellie. ‘Tell me, how come you women ended up as friends? You’re all so different from one another.’

  SIX

  Trish said, ‘How did we get to know one another? Yes, I suppose it does look odd. It was our husbands, really. The five of them are always together, thick as thieves. The golf club is their second home, and they like us to go with them but not to join in their conversation. To show us off, I suppose, while they talk business. Sometimes it’s a bit tiresome, going out when I’d rather have a night in, watch telly, that sort of thing. Terry didn’t want me to be left alone at home. He said he wouldn’t know what I was up to. I thought it meant he wanted me with him at all times because he loved me, but now I see … perhaps … It’s difficult.’

  ‘He was jealous?’ Ellie knew that people talk more easily if their hands are occupied at the same time. ‘Trish, would you like to help me with these cuttings?’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  ‘These geraniums have got a bit leggy and the stems have gone brown, so I want to start new plants from them. Can you see that the growing points are still green? Take this double pink geranium. You cut off the green shoot at the end, maybe six inches or more, use these scissors, and take off the lower leaves. That’s right. Now, you were saying …?’

  Trish slowly and carefully selected a geranium shoot and cut it off. ‘Terry seemed to think that I started flirting with someone else the moment his back was turned, so he was happy to take me to the club if I sat with the other wives. Barbie and Russet were already friends – they go to the gym together and the same beauty parlour. They were kind to me, included me in their group. They’d both known Terry’s first wife, and they were worried that I might also end up in hospital. They were right, weren’t they?’

  Ellie demonstrated. ‘Now you dunk the cut end of the green bit you’ve cut off in this powder, which helps it to root. Like this, see? Kat was also part of this group?’

  Trish dunked as instructed, with the tip of her tongue poking out of her mouth in concentration. ‘Am I doing this right? Well, Kat … Poor dear Kat. Rupert brought her along one evening and asked us to look after her. She looked so lost, so out of place. Barbie wasn’t there that evening, I remember. Russet and I tried to make small talk with her and didn’t get far. Then she told us that Rupert didn’t want to leave her at home because she might be on the landline to her mother back home, who was poorly. Kat was so worried about her mother. She did have a mobile at one time but had run out of credit and he wouldn’t give her any money for it. How could he!’ She held the cutting up. ‘Now what do I do with it?’

  Ellie pushed some empty pots towards her. ‘Fill one of these with compost from that bag over there and tap it to make the earth settle. Then you poke a pencil down into the middle to make a well for the cutting to drop into. That’s right. Firm the compost down around it using … No, not your fingers. Use your thumbs. That way you don’t damage the shoot. Splendid! You’ve got the idea. Do you want to try another one?’

>   Trish did. She selected another shoot and cut it off the plant. ‘Ah, well, we all knew Rupert was a bit of a tightwad though the word is that he’s stinking rich. He wouldn’t let Kat run up a bill on his landline so of course we lent her our phones so that she could talk to her mum. Not for long. Kat was always careful about that. I suppose you could say we sort of adopted her, but it wasn’t all one way. She’s a brilliant seamstress. She alters our clothes for us, taking the skirts up, that sort of thing. We make sure to pay her well for what she does, in cash. She found an old sewing machine in the loft at Rupert’s and I think that was the one thing she liked best about living in his house. She’ll miss that. Perhaps I can find another for her somewhere.’

  ‘You paid her so that she could buy chocolate?’

  Trish laughed. ‘She loves chocolate. Why not?’ She filled another pot with compost, made a well and dropped in her cutting, firming the earth around it.

  ‘How does my daughter Diana fit into this group?’

  Trish looked hard at Ellie. ‘She’s not like you at all, is she? I mean, she’s a real businesswoman. She didn’t often join us, partly because of babysitting and partly because she runs the estate agency for her husband. I don’t think he goes in more than once in a fortnight, if that. He’s pretty well retired, isn’t he? Yes, she did join us sometimes. Barbie and Russet have known her for ages. They told me Evan had been a bad picker in his second and third marriages, but that he seemed to have done better for himself this time.’ She reddened. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  Ellie passed her another geranium. A white one this time. ‘They were right. Diana did look after Evan well. I think he’s going to miss her. She was with you the night you all started talking about murder, wasn’t she?’

  Trish looked down at her hands, feeling awkward about speaking about Diana behind her back. ‘Yes, she was. Looking back, I wonder how we could all have been so silly. It just seemed a bit of a lark at the time. Do you think the men would have taken it so hard if we hadn’t put our ideas on emails? But you never think something you put on email or on text will be made public, do you? We included Diana in the group because it seemed only polite since she’d been there that time.’

  ‘You didn’t text one another for that sort of thing?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course we did. We texted for the usual, making arrangements for the times we met for lunch, or coffee, or checking if anyone else had an invitation to a party or … all sorts. We’d email one another if we found a cheese the others liked, or needed a carpet cleaner, that sort of thing. Household stuff. We used emails and not social media because we needed to include Kat. That is, until Barbie got her a smartphone and showed her how to use it. Diana didn’t bother with chit chat on email or on her phone. She works hard, doesn’t she?’

  Ellie said, ‘I suppose the right question should be, “What brought those five men together?”’

  ‘Oh, that. They’ve all been members of the golf club for ever, and they’ve got some kind of business deal going on. Not for women’s ears. “Women don’t understand business”.’ She grinned, quoting the men rather than believing in what they said. She winced and rubbed her jaw. ‘Ouch. I must not do that.’

  ‘What sort of business?’

  A shrug. ‘Barbie asked once. Got her head bitten off. She’s pretty bright is Barbie. Clued up financially, plays the markets but keeps it quiet. She said it was something big that the men had all put money into and which they said was going to make them a fortune. She tried to explain the stock market to me once, but I’m a real dum-dum about that sort of thing. Terry says I’ve no head for business and he’s right. I don’t think Diana was there when the subject came up.’

  ‘Do you think Diana knew about this big scheme that was going to make the men so much money?’

  A shrug. ‘Might have.’

  ‘Your friend Russet said something about her husband promising her a swimming pool next year. Is that right?’

  A half laugh. ‘Well, yes; she likes to go to the gym for a swim most days but there’s been some changes there, a new owner or something, and it’s not as good as it was. So yes, she’s mad keen to have a swimming pool, and he did say she should have one some time.’

  ‘What did you do before you married Terry?’

  ‘I was a primary school teacher.’ She smiled, remembering. She’d liked that job, hadn’t she?

  ‘How did you two meet?’

  ‘Singing carols in the Avenue, just before Christmas some years ago. I found myself sharing a carol sheet with Terry. He’s a right softie about carols, as I am. A nasty old man came to stand next to me. He was being a bit annoying, putting his hand on my bum, stuff like that. Terry got rid of him. Some of us went on to a Greek restaurant for supper. Terry sat next to me and it went on from there. It was a real whirlwind romance, like in books. I couldn’t believe this wonderful man wanted me, silly old me. I mean, I’d been going out, sort of, with a teacher from school for months but he was so laid back about it that … Well, when I met Terry, that was it. We met and wed within eight weeks. He took me for the most wonderful honeymoon anyone could ever have, in the Bahamas, but he’d booked it in term-time so I had to give up my job. I did think I’d go back to it because I loved the kids, but he was earning so much that it made my salary look silly. Also, he wanted me there at home. I’d thought, I’d hoped, we might have a child someday, but …’

  Suddenly she looked older. ‘That’s not going to happen, is it? Barbie said he wanted to be the child in the marriage, and maybe she’s right. Barbie’s clever about people, you know. Maybe I’ll go back to teaching now. If they’ll have me. I’ll probably have to wait till next September to get a job, won’t I?’

  ‘Can’t you do supply teaching at any time?’

  ‘Mm. Yes. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘Sorry, I’m not making much sense. It was a shock, you see. I’m sure Terry didn’t mean it. He gets upset and acts without thinking. His father used to beat him regularly. I believe it can be handed down, this idea that it’s perfectly all right to discipline someone by physical means.’

  ‘Discipline is one thing. Laying your hands on someone in a temper is quite another.’

  ‘Yes, but … I know you’re right, but … Yes, I know you’re right.’ She shivered, torn between wanting to forgive a man she still loved and the fear that he’d beat her again if she returned to him. ‘I know in my head you’re right, but in my heart … I feel so torn … I never thought I would ever contemplate divorce but now … Yes, I see that unless he agrees to see a shrink … Do you think he will?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think it would be good for you to spend some time apart. Don’t get pushed into making a hasty decision.’

  ‘No, you’re right. I know you’re right. It’s what the others have been saying, too. I’m not sure I have the strength to resist him, though. If he comes round—’

  The front door crashed open.

  Ellie heard it and shot out into the hall. A well-built man with a beard was propelled into the hall, followed by two people looking over their shoulders … And then – of course! – Diana in a fury, shouting, ‘Will you let me pass!’

  Barbie and Russet appeared on the landing above while plump little Kat and policewoman Lesley bobbed up from the kitchen, and Trish came to the door of the conservatory.

  ‘What!’ The bearded man was, of course, Ellie’s husband, Thomas, who’d used his key to let himself in, only to be pushed forward by the others. Thomas was brought up short by the piles of luggage. He said, ‘Ellie, what …?’

  Diana thrust past him. ‘Oh, out of the way, do! Mother, I need you to—’

  Barbie and Russet descended to the hall, both talking at once. ‘Diana, this is all very well, but you do realize—!’

  ‘Diana, did you manage to—?’

  Ellie held up her hands, which she noticed were grimy from potting up the geranium cuttings. ‘If you’ll all be quiet for a minute, perhaps—
’

  Diana seized Ellie’s arm. ‘I said, I need you to—’

  ‘Quiet!’ Thomas had a good yell on him, when necessary.

  And there was quiet.

  Resentful glances were thrown at him. Mouths were opened to expostulate. ‘But …’

  ‘Quiet!’ Thomas said, again. He let his eyes wander around the hall, finishing up on Ellie, who was wiping her hands on her skirt in an effort to get them clean. Thomas said, ‘Ellie?’

  Ellie tried to keep it simple. ‘These ladies are all friends of Diana’s. One of their husbands died. Diana may or may not have suggested the means by which he died—’

  Diana opened her mouth to object, but Ellie carried on. ‘The police may or may not become involved in that, which is why Lesley is here, to make enquiries. Meanwhile, all five of the wives have been thrown out by their husbands or their families, and Diana invited them here to consult. They have nowhere else to go and I have offered to find beds for them for one night only. Their belongings will have to stay here in the hall till tomorrow when they move on. Meanwhile, Diana has—’

  ‘Diana,’ said that lady, ‘has been waiting, first at the bank to get her cards reinstated, and then for my mother’s solicitor to condescend to give me five minutes of his time. I need to know what rights I have if it comes to a divorce, and I want my son. I need—’

  Ellie broke across this. ‘You need money to retain Gunnar, and you haven’t got enough, so you want me to ring him and promise to pay his bill. Is that right?’

  ‘Well, yes. I’m sure you’ll want to. I suppose you think it’s a bit much, having everyone descend on you, but what else was I to do? I don’t have many friends, I’m always so busy, and this lot … Besides, having them here might make Evan think again about what he’s done.’

  ‘It’s not Evan you have to persuade. It’s Monique.’

  Diana blinked. ‘Ah, so that’s it. Right, I’ll phone her and let her know we’re all here and what is she going to do about it? You’ll phone Gunnar again, right? After all, it’s your grandson who’s at risk here, isn’t it?’