Murder at the Altar

by Veronica Heley

  ‘She said what about the car? She’s mad! She—’

  Ellie shut her bedroom door on the outside world, grinning as she

  thought of the consternation Diana would now be feeling. Of course

  she wouldn’t really take the car away from Diana, but she would make

  her ask for it nicely. Then she would go out and buy a nice new car of

  her very own, an automatic, and take driving lessons.

  She decided against having a bath. She didn’t think she could get in

  and out of the bath without help and she was certainly not going to ask

  Diana to help her. Besides which, she remembered now that the hospital

  had told her she must keep her grazes dry for a few days. So she washed,

  put on her prettiest nightie, took a couple of paracetamol and rolled into

  bed.

  There was an excited babble of voices outside. Not another visitor!

  Followed by a peremptory two rings on the doorbell.

  Oh, no! Ellie knew her own doorbell. You would think that one person

  ringing it would be just like another. But it wasn’t true. Frank had always rung with three short pushes, Diana with one short and one long.

  Ellie didn’t suppose they were aware of doing it, but that’s what they

  did. Aunt Drusilla always rang twice, two long pushes.

  Ellie did not, definitely not, feel up to coping with Aunt Drusilla that

  night.

  She could hear a murmur of voices down below, and then Diana ran

  up the stairs to Ellie. ‘It’s Aunt Drusilla, just arrived in a taxi. She hasn’t

  any money for the fare, of course. Where’s your purse?’

  Ellie turned off the bedside light, as a signal that she was not going to

  get up again. ‘In my handbag in the hall somewhere, but don’t be taken

  in by the old bat. She can well afford to pay her own fare.’ ‘Mother, really! You know she’s only got her old age pension. Oh, I’ll

  pay it for her. Don’t you bother to come down again. I’ll bring up your hot

  milk in a little while.’

  Ellie hadn’t the slightest intention of getting out of bed again. She had

  a nasty feeling that if Diana and Aunt Drusilla got together it would mean

  trouble, but she was too tired to care.

  She was just drifting off to sleep when Diana came in with a mug of

  steaming hot milk. ‘Drink up, now.’

  Ellie touched the mug with her lips and set it down again. ‘I’ll just let it

  cool a bit.’

  ‘Mind you drink it.’

  Ellie smiled and didn’t reply. She had no intention of drinking it. She

  supposed Diana would have put some more of those sleeping pills in it,

  just as she had done over the period of the funeral. They’d made Ellie feel woozy. No, she wouldn’t drink the milk. She hated hot milk, anyway.

  That horrible skin that formed on it … ugh!

  She went to sleep very quickly but woke, sitting upright, chest tight,

  heart pounding. Reliving the experience of being blown up. Two o’clock.

  Every movement hurt. She thought of taking the now cold milk, but didn’t.

  A couple more paracetamol. Tip the milk down the sink. No sound from

  Diana’s room. Back to bed.

  It was painful to move, but then it would be after what she’d been

  through. She wondered where Kate was sleeping tonight. She cried a little because Kate had been so kind to her and because

  her bruises hurt. Then the paracetamol began to take effect, and she

  slept again.

  The errand boy reported in from the back seat of the fat man’s Saab which he’d adopted for his own use. ‘Gone to bed early. Reporters still outside. Two taxis brought women. One’s staying the night, I think, because she hasn’t come out again. The other – grandma type – she was there about an hour, then left in another taxi … yeah, I tried to get in with the old rigmarole about the gas again, but the younger woman – daughter or something – she wouldn’t let me in. She said, though, her mother wasn’t staying, but moving up north with her. Yes, going up tomorrow. If she does … well, we’re in the clear, aren’t we?’

  The fat man also reported in, from the bedroom of the empty house. ‘Yeah, there’s someone staying in the back bedroom. All quiet, otherwise. No filth. Nothing … well, if she’s going north, we can forget about her, can’t we?’

  Ellie woke slowly. Very slowly. It was fully daylight, so she must have overslept. A bright morning, for once. Good.

  She made to sit up. Not so good.

  The door opened and Diana came in, bearing a breakfast tray.

  Wonders would never cease!

  ‘Don’t bother to get up.’ Diana was all smiles. ‘I brought you your breakfast up, so you can have a nice long lie-in. Don’t worry about a thing. I’m here to take care of everything for you.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you, dear. Thank you.’

  Diana drew back the curtains. ‘There’s only one reporter outside now. The police must have had a word with them … or there’s been another more important news story come up. Why don’t you stay in bed this morning?’

  Diana left, still smiling. Ellie suppressed a suspicion that Diana had been up to something she didn’t want her mother to know about. There was a definite ‘cat been at the cream’ look about Diana that morning.

  Ellie eyed the breakfast tray with dislike. If there was one thing she hated, it was having to eat toast in bed. The buttered side of the toast always ended up on the duvet, and the crumbs inside. And the tea spilt itself everywhere.

  She couldn’t possibly be so ungrateful as to tell Diana that. So Ellie sat on the dressing-table stool and ate her breakfast. Far more than she usually ate. Cereal, scrambled eggs – rather hard and cold – two pieces of toast. Diana had given her margarine instead of butter. Ugh! But Ellie wasn’t looking gift horses in the mouth that morning. Two cups of tea, plus some more paracetamol.

  Refreshed, she dressed and jerkily descended the stairs. Slowly. The phone was back on the hook. Good. The morning paper and the local paper had arrived. The local paper had given Ferdy’s death a prominent spread, and reported Mrs Hanna’s disappearance – which was giving rise to considerable concern – separately.

  In other words, the paper thought Mrs Hanna had been done in, too. They also mentioned a body dragged out of the river, but did not put a name to it.

  Hm, thought Ellie. I wonder if I ought to say something to the police about what I saw in Mrs Hanna’s flat …

  The doorbell rang. It was Diana, saying she’d forgotten her key. She looked pleased with herself. ‘Down already, mother? Why don’t you go back to bed, take it easy till this afternoon. Then you can just walk to the car and I’ll whisk you up north. See, I bought another kettle so you can have your usual mid-morning cuppa. Just relax and leave everything to me.’

  ‘Thank you dear. But I’m perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. I really do appreciate your coming down at such short notice, but …’

  Diana continued to smile but not to meet Ellie’s eyes.

  Diana has certainly been up to something, thought Ellie. The explosion had taken more out of her than she had thought. She realized she simply did not feel up to dealing with Diana at the moment. The doorbell rang again.

  This time it was Mrs Dawes, huffing and puffing, well wrapped up against the cold outside with a hairy woollen beret and scarf added to her padded green jacket.

  ‘My dear Ellie, how are you? I was going to call round to see why you didn’t come to my flower-arranging classes, but then someone told me

  – little Rose McNally, I think – that you’d been blown up, what a thing! How are you, my dear? And this is your daughter Diana? Quite grown up now, aren’t you, dear? I remember you when you were so high and in Brownies at church …’

&nb
sp; Diana showed her teeth again. ‘Mother, do take Mrs Dawes into the sitting-room, and I’ll bring you some coffee. I won’t join you, if you don’t mind. I have some phone calls to make.’

  Ellie resigned herself to being bossed around and settled Mrs Dawes in the big armchair. But no sooner was the dear lady settled than she was leaning across to the coffee table to test the earth in the azalea pot which Archie Benjamin had given Ellie.

  ‘A little too dry, dear. Syringe with warm water once a day in centrally heated rooms, stand on a basin and pour hot water into the sink around it twice a week, and never ever let the compost dry out or the leaves will fall and the flowers droop. So tell me, what exactly happened?’

  Diana brought coffee for them both before Ellie had finished telling her tale. Ellie didn’t much like the way Diana carefully closed the door behind herself. Who was she phoning and why? Aunt Drusilla, presumably. So why had Aunt Drusilla turned up late last night, and what was she plotting now?

  But Mrs Dawes must be attended to.

  No, Ellie didn’t really think flower-arranging classes were quite her ‘thing’ but she had agreed to join the choir and was looking forward to that, although she was afraid that she wouldn’t know what to do, and her voice was not brilliant.

  ‘Nonsense, dear! You stand next to me at rehearsals, and I’ll see you’re all right.’ Mrs Dawes was brisk, well upholstered against the vicissitudes of fortune. A woman comfortable in herself. Ellie found herself envying Mrs Dawes.

  What on earth could Diana be doing, making all those phone calls? And who was she phoning?

  Ellie wished Mrs Dawes would go. But Mrs Dawes wanted to gossip about Ferdy and Mrs Hanna’s disappearance and speculate as to whether the body in the river had been Mrs Hanna or not. Most people thought it would be, but the police weren’t saying. Did Ellie know anything about it? No? What a pity. Mrs Dawes had thought that if anyone had known anything it would have been Ellie, though why she had had to get mixed up with that no-good Kate next door, who everyone knew had been responsible for her ex-boyfriend’s death, and it was probably all a gang killing, the gang trying to get back at Kate for Ferdy’s death by bombing her car, didn’t Ellie agree?

  Ellie didn’t agree, but didn’t have any other suggestions to make. Her head was beginning to ache again, and she wished herself back in bed.

  Finally Mrs Dawes heaved herself out of the chair and announced she must be making tracks. Ellie showed her to the door, still talking. A kindly woman, Mrs Dawes. Ellie noted that the door to the study was firmly shut and Diana still on the phone.

  This required immediate investigation, thought Ellie, but as she let Mrs Dawes out, Inspector Clay plus henchman came down the path and asked if he might have a word.

  Diana must have heard the man’s voice for, finishing her phone call, she came out into the hall to say that her mother was not well enough to be interviewed.

  ‘Of course I’m well enough,’ said Ellie. At that moment the phone rang and Diana darted back into the study to take the call, this time leaving the door half open.

  Inspector Clay looked enquiringly. ‘My daughter,’ explained Ellie. ‘She’s trying to cosset me. Thinks I need a nurse. But really, apart from various grazes and bruises and feeling tired, I’m perfectly all right. Would you like to come through to the living-room?’

  ‘… she said WHAT?’ Diana’s voice rose in anger. ‘But she agreed … yes, of course I realize it isn’t really her fault, but … yes, of course you have to go in, I do see that. But I’m right in the middle of things here, and … yes … yes. Oh, all right, I’ll just have to do the rest from home. Yes, I’ll grab a sandwich and set off straight away. Yes, yes. Kiss, kiss. Bye.’

  Diana erupted into the living-room, looking furious. ‘That was Stewart. His boss wants him in this afternoon and the babysitter can’t come, so I’ll have to get back. And I haven’t got you packed up yet. Do you think you could put some things into a bag and be ready in half an hour?’

  ‘That’s all right, dear. I’d rather stay put, you know. A bit shaky still.’

  Diana nodded, accepting the situation for the time being.

  Ellie felt a mixture of guilt and relief. But habits die hard and she said in reasonably convincing tones, ‘It was good of you to come down to look after me. I shall miss you.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be for long. You’d better come up on the train tomorrow. I expect you can get someone to buy your ticket for you. Take a taxi to the station and get the twelve o’clock. I’ll meet you at the other end. Bring just what you need for a few days.’

  ‘Now Diana, I realize you mean it for the best, but—’

  Glancing at her watch, Diana shrieked and fled up the stairs. ‘I must go!’

  Ellie explained to the policeman. ‘A domestic emergency, you know. Coffee? Tea?’

  ‘Nothing, thanks. I understand you were in the wars yesterday. I know you went through it with one of our people when you were at the hospital, but do you think we could just go over it again for me …?’

  Ellie did so, being careful not to mention her last sighting of Kate leaving the house by the back door.

  ‘Now you were asked yesterday if you knew of any reason why someone would wish to blow up your neighbour’s car …’ The policeman was not perhaps as stupid as he looked.

  ‘… and I said – though perhaps I shouldn’t have – that Kate and Armand had not been getting on well, that he had been using her as a punchbag. Yes, I did say that. But you know, I’ve been thinking and I don’t feel that Armand would want to blow up his wife’s car. He wants to hit her, to make her suffer, but to kill her? No.’

  ‘If it wasn’t the husband, it’s only logical to look again at the murder of Kate’s ex-boyfriend, isn’t it?’

  Ellie sighed. ‘I realize that, but I don’t believe Kate killed him. Ferdy was an old friend of hers from schooldays. That evening he upset her by denigrating her husband, and she ran away crying. That’s when I saw her.’

  ‘But you didn’t report that when the body was found, did you? In fact I remember you made a statement to the effect that you hadn’t seen anything at all.’

  ‘I know, but when I thought about it, I remembered.’ It sounded weak, even to her. She wasn’t surprised that the inspector looked incredulous.

  The inspector went to the back window. ‘You saw her from this window?’

  Ellie joined him. ‘Yes. She ran down the path from the church, turned into the alley and ran along to the left, which is the quickest way to the park.’

  ‘You get a good view of the church from here.’

  ‘It’s my favourite view. So peaceful usually. Mrs Dawes saw me standing in the window when she came out of the church after finding the body, and that’s why she came here to report it.’

  Diana popped her head around the door. ‘I’m off, mother.’

  ‘Take care of yourself, dear. I’ll talk to you tonight on the phone. We have things to discuss, haven’t we?’

  ‘Kiss, kiss,’ said Diana, disappearing.

  Ellie reflected that when Diana had first started to say ‘Kiss, kiss’ as a child, it had been a charming gesture. Now, not so. The policeman was looking thoughtfully at her and then at the door behind which Diana had vanished.

  ‘Giving you a hard time?’

  ‘Over-protective. Thinks I can’t cope. It was sweet of her to throw everything up and come down yesterday, and I appreciated it. I needed a spot of tender loving care, after being blown up like that.’

  ‘I’m sure you did. Now let’s get back to the night of the murder. You were standing here. Were the lights on?’

  ‘The living-room lights?’ She understood what he was getting at. If the centre light had been on, everything outside would have looked black and she wouldn’t have been able to see Kate. ‘It was dusk, not really dark but getting there. The lights would have been on in the churchyard, because they go on at dusk. That side lamp there is on a time switch, which comes on at dusk. I really can’t rememb
er whether it was on or not.’

  ‘But you must have been able to see everything that happened up at the church if, as you say, you were standing here in the window.’

  ‘Well, yes and no. You see …’ She explained about Frank’s funeral and the pills which had made her feel so strange. ‘… so I really can’t be sure what I saw. For a while I wasn’t even sure that seeing Kate was real. I thought it might have been part of the nightmares I’d been having.’

  He pressed her hard on this, but she stuck to it. She had been standing in the window. She had seen Kate rush down from the church and run along the alley, crying. But that was all that she had seen. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘it would be helpful if I were hypnotized, or if we recreated events under the same conditions?’

  She thought he would laugh at the suggestion, but he said thoughtfully that it might well come to that. ‘And that’s all you can remember?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I told Mrs Hanna—’

  ‘When was this?’ Sharply.

  ‘The night after the body was discovered. She was sitting up there, on that bench next to the side door. I was so sorry for her. She showed me a picture of Ferdy when he was small. She thought I must have seen something, too. That’s what jogged my memory about seeing Kate. Mrs Hanna – poor dear – she wanted me to find out what had happened to Ferdy for her.’

  ‘I wish you’d told us about this earlier. Tell me exactly what she said, and you said.’

  Ellie obliged to the best of her ability. ‘… and that’s it. Just a short conversation. Was it that night that she …?’

  The inspector looked blank, giving nothing away.

  ‘Tell me,’ Ellie said. ‘Was the body in the river …?’

  He relented. ‘No. It was a psychiatric patient from the hospital over the other side of town.’

  ‘Ah. Then … I wonder, did you see Mrs Hanna’s flat yourself? I only caught a quick glimpse, but I did wonder …’

  The policeman rose to his feet. ‘No need for you to bother your head about that. You can safely leave the detection to the professionals, right?’

  This made Ellie so cross that she didn’t complete what she’d been going to say. Well, let them get on with it. She had plenty of other things to worry about.