Murder by Suspicion

by Veronica Heley

Mikey shot off, saying it was his job to lay the table, while Vera and Dan flanked Ellie as she made her way past Claire and into the kitchen. Mikey had eased Rose into a chair at the table and was tying a large bib round her neck. He was chattering away. Mikey either talked a blue streak or withdrew into silence. ‘… so I got this new saddle for my bike, and it felt a bit strange at first, and I tried some panniers, but it’s better to wear a satchel on my back …’

  Vera made for the oven and started to dish up from a large casserole. ‘His father gave him this bike, which can’t be left out in the rain and has to be polished every day—’

  Dan handed Ellie into her chair. ‘It gives him freedom. He’s been popping in to see Rose on his way back from school most days and at weekends—’

  ‘I bring her crisps and smoothies,’ said Mikey, throwing knives and forks on to the table. ‘We both like them. And sucky sweets.’

  ‘And chocolate chip biscuits for us to dunk in our tea,’ said Rose, cackling. She had perked up wonderfully and now looked as lively as ever. No need to call the doctor in yet?

  ‘And,’ said Mikey, ‘we sit and eat them together. Claire wouldn’t let me have a key, so Rose gave me hers—’

  Claire had followed them in. ‘You little imp! So that’s how you’ve been getting in!’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter if I hadn’t a key,’ said Mikey. ‘I’d still have got in.’

  He would have, too. Like Midge the cat, Mikey could climb anything and knew which windows were always left open at the top in summertime.

  Of course, Ellie thought, aiming for a frown at Mikey and failing, it was all very reprehensible that the boy should think he could enter a house in which he no longer lived as and when he wished to do so, but understandable in the circumstances. She noted that Dan looked as if he were trying not to grin. Vera bit her lip, exchanged a glance with Ellie and said, ‘Now, Mikey …’ Without heat.

  Ellie looked for the cat, but he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was still on her bed?

  Rose said, ‘Mikey waits till Claire’s back is turned, and up he pops. He gave me such a jump the other day that I was all of a fluster. Ellie, I’m making a new will, now you’re back. I’m leaving a bit to my daughter that never comes to see me and everything else to you and Mikey.’

  Sensation. Vera ceased to ladle out bowls of stew. Dan stopped sawing up chunks of crusty bread. Claire let out a squawk.

  Ellie didn’t know what to think. Rose had actually gone ahead and made a will? Should she pinch herself? Rose had always refused to consider making a will before.

  Claire had seated herself at the end of the table, isolated from the others. She suspended operations on her piece of her cold nut roast … no beef stew for her!… and sat there with her mouth open.

  The news had also taken Vera and Dan by surprise. They looked at one another for a lead.

  Mikey seemed to have heard about this before. ‘Yackie yackie doo-da. I told you, Rose, I don’t need it.’

  Vera recovered sufficiently to say, ‘Rose, your daughter will expect—’

  ‘Much she cares about me,’ said Rose, whose spoon was already at work. ‘I’ll give her something, of course. As for the rest, I was going to give it to Ellie to use for her charity, but now I’m giving a bit to Mikey so’s he can buy a racing bike.’

  Dan frowned. ‘But Rose, we can afford to—’

  Claire bared her teeth. ‘Rose, you’ve already made a will.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Rose, ‘but I don’t know these people you said needed my money so badly, and I know Mikey because he takes care of me.’

  Claire dabbled at her mouth. ‘Rose, you can’t change your mind!’

  ‘Of course I can,’ said Rose, tearing the soft dough out of her bread and smashing it into the stew. ‘I can make a new will any time I want. You said so yourself. You said my daughter would rather have the money go to a good cause than buy her a conservatory or a new car or whatever it is she fancies.’

  Claire put both hands over her face and rocked to and fro. ‘You’re going to spoil everything!’

  Rose dropped her spoon and leant back in her chair, looking her age and more. ‘I’m a bit tired. Nice stew that, Vera. Well up to your usual standards. Now, Mikey; can you help me to my room? I could do with a lie down.’

  Mikey sprang to help Rose to her feet. Dan’s mobile phone rang. He answered it, listened and said, ‘I’ll check the diary and get back to you.’ He disconnected. ‘Sorry, Ellie. Sorry, Vera. I have to go home and attend to this tonight.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Vera collected plates and put them in the sink. ‘Fresh fruit for afters, Ellie, with ice cream or yogurt. I’ll be round tomorrow for an hour before I go in to work.’

  Ellie watched Mikey help Rose out of the room. Mikey was growing up. Rose was so fragile … Ellie felt she ought never to have left her. Even if Rose were looking better since Ellie had returned, it would be best to have her checked over by the doctor.

  Dan helped Vera clear the table and stack the dishwasher. Good for Dan.

  Claire was back to chewing on her nut roast, her beady eyes on Ellie. Claire was going to start on her the moment the others had gone.

  Dan stooped over Ellie. ‘Sorry, have to dash. Will you be all right?’

  ‘Thank you, Dan. For everything.’

  ‘I owe you big time, Mrs Quicke. I’d never have met up with Vera again if it hadn’t been for you. We’ll be round tomorrow again. At least—’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Vera, her hand pressing Dan’s shoulder. She explained to Ellie, ‘He’s got a meeting after school tomorrow, but I expect Mikey will pop in some time.’

  Mikey emerged from Rose’s room, saying, ‘She says she’s off to the land of Nod.’

  Dan looked at his watch. ‘We have to go, Mikey. Do you want to come with us?’

  ‘I’ll get on my bike and be there before you.’

  They waved goodbye and departed. And then there was silence.

  Ellie decided to have a healthy, non-fat pudding. She helped herself to some yogurt.

  Claire scraped her plate along the table to get closer to Ellie. ‘I have never, ever, pushed Rose to make a will. I wouldn’t! Yes, I told her all about our plans for the future, and said how the Way had been eased when another old lady had left us a share of her house, but I didn’t put any pressure on her to do the same thing.’

  Ellie thought that she was too tired to argue. She added some fresh strawberries to her yogurt.

  Claire moved up a gear. ‘Rose must leave her money as she thinks best. Her daughter doesn’t need it. She told me that herself. Got a good job: bank manager, or something? Married to a man who provides well for her. Never comes to see Rose. So, why give the tax man more of the same?’

  Bother the diet. Ellie got out a carton of double cream and stirred some into the mixture.

  Claire clasped her hands together. ‘You employed me to look after Rose, and I have done so. I have looked after her as if she were my own mother. I have prepared good, wholesome food for her and changed her bed linen and seen that she has clean clothes to wear, though they’re a total disgrace, if you ask me … which is why I spent some of my own money on buying some new ones for her.’

  Ellie pulled the sugar bowl towards her. The strawberries were a trifle on the tart side, and she had a sweet tooth.

  At least Claire wasn’t in tears for the moment.

  ‘Yes,’ said Claire, ‘we did discuss the matter of her making her will, and I did say I’d arrange everything if she decided she wanted to do it. And she did. So I arranged it. All legal and above-board. As for moving the furniture around, that was me thinking how much more comfortable you would be when the spirits could move around the house without meeting a sharp corner. Everything in our lives must be channelled into the forces of good. We must look always to the Vision. We must live the Vision. We must clear the dross from our lives. Beds must face to the east so that the first thing we see w
hen we wake is the morning sun and—’

  Ellie sighed. ‘False pretences.’

  ‘What?’ Claire didn’t like being interrupted mid-flow.

  ‘You got this job under false pretences.’

  Claire flushed. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Your references were, shall we say, incomplete? If you had told me what happened in the past, would I have taken you on? No.’

  A toss of the head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Her bulging eyes told a different story. In a moment, they’d fill with tears. Again.

  ‘A girl who went missing.’

  Out came the tears. ‘It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t! The police cleared me, they did! She ran away to be with her boyfriend.’

  ‘Crocodile tears.’ Ellie wouldn’t have thought she had it in her to be so hard. But then, this woman had taken advantage of Rose in the most appalling way.

  Claire sobbed, ‘You have no idea what I’ve been through. I’ve suffered so much. I’ve been thrown out of the house I grew up in, I lost my job and my little flat and my car, and now you want to turn me out into the cold!’

  Ellie pushed herself up from her seat. ‘In the morning I’m going to ring the police and find out exactly what’s been going on.’

  ‘No, don’t do that! They’ll kill me!’ The woman actually went down on her knees again, with hands upraised and tears on her cheeks.

  ‘Oh, get up, do!’ Ellie was in no mood for histrionics. ‘If you’d been straight with me from the beginning, this would never have happened.’

  ‘Are you going to tell them I trapped Rose into making a will in our favour?’

  ‘Are you admitting it?’

  Claire gulped. ‘I know it looks bad, but really … I beg of you—’

  ‘Enough! It’s getting late, and I won’t turn you out tonight if you really don’t have anywhere else to go. We’ll talk again in the morning.’

  Claire scrambled to her feet, all eager beaver. ‘No, you wouldn’t turn me out, of course you wouldn’t. Everyone says how kind you are. I promise I won’t say another word to Rose about the will, and of course I’ll be listening out for her in the night though she hasn’t rung for me at all. She’s still able to get to the toilet in the night by herself.’

  Ellie knew she was too tired to make a fair judgement about what to do with the woman tonight. She shivered. She had a mental picture of Claire as a slug, crawling around Rose, leaving slimy traces everywhere she went. Ugh.

  ‘Look, I’ll do the dishes, though it’s not my place to do so!’ Claire started to wash up the supper things in the sink, even though Dan and Vera had put almost everything else into the dishwasher. Ellie decided not to speak of it.

  She tapped on the door to Rose’s room and went in. The door had been ajar. Mikey had left it that way. Deliberately? Probably. Rose must have heard every word. She hadn’t even turned the television on, which confirmed Ellie’s guess that Rose had been listening. She was sitting up in bed, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ellie shut the door behind her and went to sit beside Rose.

  Rose said, ‘I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, why I was sleeping all the time. I prayed every night for you to come back. Mikey prayed with me. Well, just the once, he did. I thought I was going gaga. Claire said I’d done things that I couldn’t remember doing. Like signing those papers. Mikey said I wasn’t going round the twist, but that I was drifting off somewhere every now and then. I was going to tell you that I wasn’t responsible for my actions any more, Ellie, and that you must put me in a home.’

  ‘You seem all right to me. Claire has a way of confusing people.’

  Rose nodded. ‘With that stuff in a bottle, yes. Mikey got worried about it, because he caught her putting some of it into my food and she was furious with him and said he was a little sneak, which he wasn’t. He saw her by accident, coming in when she hadn’t known he was there. So then he got worried that she might be doping me, but of course it wasn’t that. It was all the fault of my coughing in the night that was making me feel so tired, so it was the linctus she was giving me which he saw her putting into my food, and that did seem to cure it because I slept better than ever.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a bad cough.’

  ‘Claire said I woke her up in the night with it, and I suppose it worked, even if it did make me feel a bit as if I were floating on the ceiling sometimes.’

  If Rose had had a cough, Claire had been right to give her something for it. But it did sound as if Rose had been given too much. Straight from the bottle?

  Is that what she’d given Ellie, too? Claire seemed to be acting for the best, but was she always correct in her judgements?

  Ellie stroked Rose’s hand. ‘She’s sort of pushy, isn’t she?’

  Rose leaned back and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted.

  ‘You signed things you don’t remember reading?’

  A tiny nod. ‘She said I’d agreed to things, and I wasn’t sure if I had or not. So I went along with it. Ellie, you won’t believe this, but I was frightened of what she might do if I crossed her.’

  ‘I believe you. Did you really want to go to church with her?’

  ‘She told me I’d said I wanted to go, so I suppose I did. When Thomas comes back, he’ll deal with her.’

  Ellie kissed Rose’s thin cheek, folded her hands one over the other, dimmed the light, adjusted the television sound to low and left the room.

  Claire was still noisily clearing up in the kitchen. Ellie passed her by without comment. And the phone rang in the hall. She picked it up and, oh, blessing … it was Thomas, worrying about her.

  She had so much to tell him. Where should she start?

  He sounded full of beans. ‘Are you all right, Ellie? I’m in a bit of a rush, been asked to meet up with someone in five minutes for a chat before we settle in for the afternoon, but I wanted to make sure you were all right.’

  ‘Yes, of course I am.’ There simply wasn’t time to tell him about Claire and Rose and the Vision and all. ‘Will you be able to ring me again later?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. We’ve been invited out tonight. Everyone’s so friendly, and there’s some really interesting people around. I’d been asked to attend this conference before, but hadn’t realized … What? Oh. Ellie, I’m sorry to cut it short. Ring you tomorrow, right?’ And he cut the call.

  Ellie sagged against the wall. For two pins, she’d have wept.

  She thought of Claire’s tears, and didn’t. In fact, she almost managed a smile. She would take herself off to bed, and in the morning she’d feel better able to cope. Up the stairs to beddy-byes.

  Bother. Her bed was still in the wrong place. Well, she couldn’t shift it.

  She heard the ‘ping’ of the phone being placed back on its receiver downstairs. Someone else ringing her? Rose never used the phone. It must be Claire, ringing out. Ellie shrugged. Did it matter? Claire would have a mobile phone of her own, of course she would. But then, it would cost her nothing to use Ellie’s phone instead.

  A slug. Hm. If Claire were a slug, then Thomas, that great-hearted, wise man, would be … what? She clicked her fingers. An ox. The ox stood for one of the four evangelists, but she couldn’t remember which one for the moment. Luke, possibly? She reached out her hand for her bible – and it wasn’t there. She looked around. It must be there. Her bible was always kept on the table on this side of the bed, and Thomas’s on the other … only, he’d taken his with him, and she had taken a book of the psalms instead. Which meant that her own bible ought to be here. And wasn’t. Claire must have put it somewhere, though why … Well, not to bother now.

  She forced herself to unpack, thinking about Thomas as an ox. He was big and strong like an ox. And gentle. And couldn’t be moved if he’d taken up a certain position. And wise.

  She wondered what she herself might be like as an animal. An old sheepdog, perhaps? And Rose … a tired little grey cat, gradually sleeping more and more.

  What she didn’t expec
t to confront next morning was a fully-grown, charismatic leopard.

  FIVE

  Wednesday morning

  Someone rang the front doorbell. Ellie opened the door and took a step back, wondering if she were still asleep. All night long she’d been dreaming about animals, about slugs and oxen and collie dogs, and here was a full-grown leopard. Or was he a cheetah?

  Black, anyway. Lithe. Handsome. Charismatic. All of those.

  A children’s rhyme popped into her head. ‘He who is born on a Sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay.’ Not that you could use the term ‘gay’ in its original sense nowadays, and in any case this man almost certainly wasn’t gay.

  It wasn’t even Sunday. So what had brought that rhyme to mind? He was certainly ‘bonny’, but that wasn’t enough, was it?

  Power, that’s what. This man leaked power like a damaged electric cable. Now, why should ‘Sunday’ mean ‘power’? It didn’t, did it?

  Late thirties? Forceful. Clever. Self-absorbed. Yes.

  Evil? Mmmm. Not sure. But possibly not good.

  She knew good when she saw it. Thomas was good, and so was Rose. Stewart was good, as were Vera and Dan; even Mikey was, when he was on form.

  ‘Mrs Quicke. Our benefactor.’ He reached out with both hands to clasp hers. His hands were warm. He had a splendid figure. Close-cropped black hair, flashing eyes and perfect teeth, expensive casual clothes. ‘I am so glad you’re back. Claire said you might have time to see me this morning, even though you’ve only just returned from, ah, the States, was it? Without your dear husband, I believe.’

  He made it sound as if Thomas had not returned because he’d left her.

  Ellie thought it was too early in the morning for her to cope with this man.

  ‘And you are?’ Though she’d guessed.

  ‘Pastor Ambrose, of the Blessed Vision church. You were expecting me, weren’t you?’

  No, she wasn’t. Maybe she ought to have been, but … She felt punch drunk. She hadn’t even had her breakfast yet, or roused Rose, or even begun to work out what she was supposed to be doing that day. It occurred to her that this man was pushing her off balance in order to work his wicked way with her, his object being to obtain funds from her trust to purchase the building he was currently renting. She was pleased with herself for working that out. Her brain might be slow, but it did still seem to be limping along.