Murder by Suspicion

by Veronica Heley

  Ellie wondered whether this incident was behind Claire’s fear of her own cat, Midge. Had Claire’s father smacked her too hard, or was she allergic to cats? It was a puzzle.

  ‘… and then Beryl was having trouble, miscarriage after miscarriage. I was sorry for her because I’d had my first easily enough, and the second came along soon after. Beryl was desperate for a son. She got him a couple of years later, and that was Malcolm. A nice enough lad, if not the brightest coin in the treasury.’

  Emmanuel interrupted. ‘Malcolm’s all right.’

  Ellie heard a note of warning in the old man’s voice. Was he telling Agnes not to gossip?

  Yes, Agnes had heard the warning and coloured up. ‘Well, we made allowances for Claire, as one does. We thought she might have felt pushed out of the limelight because her mother wanted a boy so much, but she wasn’t easy to like. She was a whiny little thing, never satisfied. Her dad used to say the girl took after one of his aunts, who’d never been known to smile unless someone fell over and hurt themselves. After Malcolm was born she got worse. I caught her pinching her brother one day and told her off for it, but … If Claire broke something she’d cry buckets and blame it on Malcolm, when he’d been nowhere near.’

  ‘That was just for starters,’ said Emmanuel. ‘When the boys were all in their teens she said that Malcolm, and our boys as well, had been interfering with her.’ His hand shook as he replaced his cup in its saucer. ‘At first we wondered if it might be true, seeing as they were all of an age to experiment, though it seemed odd as Claire was so much older and … I’m sorry to say this, but it’s true … she was no raving beauty. The boys all swore that they’d been out together on the evening Claire said they’d been doing things to her. So we knew she’d been lying. It caused us all a lot of grief.’

  Ellie could well imagine. Mikey was wide-eyed. Did he understand what they were talking about? Probably. Oh dear.

  Agnes said, ‘You can imagine how miserable it made us all feel. It was hard to see her about the place, knowing what she’d said. Our boys avoided her. Malcolm was so upset; I reckon it was that which put him off girls for a long time. He installed a lock on his bedroom door and spent more time with us than in his own home, which was nice for us but hard for Beryl, especially since shortly after her husband had a series of strokes and died.

  ‘Malcolm was pretty cut up about his dad’s death. He blamed it on all the trouble Claire had caused, and maybe he was right. Beryl kept excusing Claire, saying she was having a difficult time at work, but we were all going through a difficult time. One by one we lost our partners; first Beryl’s man, then my husband, and finally Emmanuel’s wife. The boys went off to college and university and got themselves jobs. One of mine’s working in Scotland on the oil rigs, and the other’s in local government and lives locally. Both married, both with sprogs.’

  Emmanuel chipped in: ‘One of my boys is in Leeds, he’s something high up in IT and is in a long-term relationship, while the other is working in Australia and has just got engaged. Only Malcolm stayed at home and stayed single. Well, and Claire, of course. She never had a man interested in her. She took a secretarial course after school and got an office job at the local supermarket. She even got promotion eventually. Things settled down, after a fashion.’

  ‘But it wasn’t the same,’ said Agnes, with a sigh. ‘It couldn’t be the same. Malcolm and Claire were hardly on speaking terms. As soon as you opened their front door, you could tell that it was an unhappy house. Malcolm was always good with his hands, and he went for an apprenticeship with a builder and, if he was a bit on the slow side, he was also conscientious. He built up a nice little connection, getting jobs all over the place, not only local. He couldn’t afford a place of his own, and why should he have to? It was his mother’s house, and of course she’d leave it to him and Claire eventually.’

  ‘No girlfriends,’ said Emmanuel. ‘He used to take a girl out now and then, but nothing ever came of it. In any case, he was out late and early, working. And, to give her her due, so was Claire. Beryl; well, she went a bit funny. Someone she met at a jumble sale told her about a wonderful preacher she’d heard and invited Beryl along to one of his meetings. No church that I’ve ever heard of carries on like that, but Beryl loved it. Soon she was going twice a day on Sundays and several times in the week, too. Then she started on at us to go with her. She went on and on about it. Agnes went once, didn’t you, Agnes?’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘You’ve never seen the like. They were all weeping and wailing and chanting. I think it’s called a Love Fest, or is it Love Bombing? Would that be right? They were almost tearing the trousers off this big black man, who was screaming at them about repentance and I don’t know what else. As I said to Beryl, “I’ve always been a Methodist, and a Methodist I shall die.” Not that I go to church every week, but I never miss Easter and Christmas.’

  Ellie said, ‘Where did these people meet, and what did they call themselves?’

  ‘They used to meet in a big house about a mile from here, though they moved away later. The room was heaving with people, I’ll give them that. They called themselves the people of the Vision. There wasn’t much about God or loving your neighbours, but a lot about worshipping this man they called their leader. Beryl was captivated. She said that following him made sense of her life, though I couldn’t see it, myself.’

  The old man chuckled. ‘Malcolm went once and came in afterwards to tell us all about it. He was laughing, but angry, too. He said the leader had worked the congregation up till a woman had a seizure or a fit and the pastor “healed” her. Malcolm reckoned it was all faked. He wouldn’t go again, no matter how much his mother asked. Claire started to go and was there morning, noon and night; well, apart from work hours, that is. What I think is that those two women needed someone to boss them around once they’d lost their husband and father. Malcolm distanced himself from them. He wouldn’t even sit down at the table and eat with his mother if Claire was there. I told him, families ought to eat together, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.’

  Agnes said, ‘Our boys have all kept in touch, mind you, and when one comes home we all try to get together again.’

  Emmanuel blew his nose. ‘Anyone could see what these Vision people were after. First they cut you off from your friends, and then, when they have you where they want you, they raid your purse. After a while Beryl came round to say she couldn’t “consort” with us any more if we didn’t repent, mend our ways and start going to this Vision thing with her. “Consort”, indeed! By that she meant she’d put a chain on the door and she and Claire refused to let us in if we called on them. That was when Malcolm had that electronic door put on the garage, which has a door into the cellar, the same as all the houses have on this side of the road. So he could come and go without running into them. We didn’t think … We never suspected … But what could we have done more than we did?’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘We’d been friends for so long. We tried, you know. To keep in touch. Even if I met her out shopping, Beryl’d start on at me to repent and give my life to some Vision of heaven that this “leader” had had. One day I made her sit down and have a cuppa with me, and she took a dose of something out of a bottle with her glass of water. No more tea or coffee for her. I said I hadn’t known she was poorly and asked her what the doctor had said, but she said doctors were all rubbish and the stuff in the bottle was harmless, you could buy it over the counter, and it was to keep her mind focused on what was important. She told me a rambling tale about how Claire was being persecuted at work by some woman or other, but had got the better of her by feeding her some of this same syrupy stuff and asking the pastor to put a curse on her. The woman had then gone off sick permanently, and what did I think of that!’

  Ellie tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. ‘A woman at the supermarket had crossed Claire, who fed her some medication until she went off sick?’

  Agnes nodded. ‘I said to her, “Wasn’t that
very wrong?” Beryl got really angry with me and said I was an agent of Satan, which as far as I know, I never have been. So I told Emmanuel here, and he didn’t know what to do either, because it might all have been something Beryl had imagined, but he said I should tell my son that’s in local government and see what he thought. And he said he’d have a quiet word with someone he knew in the supermarket chain to see if they’d like to look into it. He did have a word, as we found out later. But what happened next was …’ A sigh. ‘You tell it, Emmanuel.’

  Emmanuel shook his head. ‘It was bad, very bad. Agnes had her son and his wife over one evening with the baby, and they asked me and Malcolm round for a bite. Malcolm was working late, but said he’d try to pop in later. Anyway, we were having a good time catching up when Beryl hammered on the door and demanded to be let in. She was in a right state, her hair loose and in her nightie, if you please. She said she’d made a will which Malcolm had torn up before she could sign it. So she’d got another will form from the stationer’s and written it all out again, and she wanted us, there and then, to act as witnesses to her signature. She said she knew what she was doing and the house was going half to some people who were doing some good in society and the other half to Claire. She said that Malcolm was bound for hell and would get nothing.’

  Agnes picked up the tale. ‘She was acting so strangely, unsteady on her feet, slurring her words. I thought she must be drunk, though as far as I know she never used to touch the stuff. My son’s wife is a practice nurse, and she said Beryl ought to see a doctor. Beryl started screaming that we were all out to get her, and the baby started crying, and … we didn’t know what to do. Then Beryl sort of slumped down into a chair and started snoring. My daughter-in-law felt for her pulse which was a mite fast but steady enough. She woke her up long enough to make sure Beryl hadn’t had a stroke or anything, and she hadn’t. My son popped round next door to see if Malcolm or Claire were in. Claire was out – at the Vision, I suppose – but Malcolm had come back by that time.

  ‘Between us we carried Beryl back home and put her to bed. Then Malcolm broke down completely. He said he’d been covering up for her for ages, that she was getting worse, that he didn’t know what to do about it. She twisted everything he said, making out he wanted her dead. She’d hallucinated a couple of times, thinking he was her own father taking her to task for some childish offence. Malcolm had tried and tried to get her to go and see a doctor, but she wouldn’t. He’d asked Claire to help him persuade Beryl to see someone, but Claire said the doctors didn’t understand their mother’s condition and she was perfectly all right as she was – though she obviously wasn’t. All right, I mean. He didn’t know what to do for the best. None of us did. Except we all thought she must see a doctor. Malcolm said he had an early start to work next morning, but he’d try to talk to her about it when he got home in the evening. We showed Malcolm this will form that she’d brought over for us to witness her signature and, well, we gave it to him to do what he thought best with.’

  Ellie said, ‘You think he destroyed it?’

  Emmanuel shrugged. ‘We don’t know what he did with it. She didn’t sign it when she was over at our house, and we didn’t witness her signature, so it couldn’t be valid. We thought we shouldn’t interfere. There was nothing to stop her writing a will again. But, we were dead worried about her.’

  Agnes said, ‘I made up my mind that the very next day I’d tackle her about her health and going to the doctor, but that morning she got up early and went down to the supermarket, before I was up. She walked straight into a stand of cut flowers and dropped dead. Heart attack. Apparently, she’d had a heart condition that she hadn’t known about. There was a post-mortem because she hadn’t been near a doctor for a long time, but the coroner said it was heart failure, and she was cremated. The family’s solicitor produced a will that Beryl had made years before, shortly after her husband died, when there’d been all that fuss about Claire saying she’d been interfered with when she hadn’t. That will left Claire ten thousand pounds with the house and contents going to Malcolm.’

  Ellie said, ‘You didn’t say anything about Beryl wanting to make a later will?’

  Emmanuel shook his head. ‘It seemed to us that Beryl wasn’t in her right mind when she brought the will form over for us to sign. We thought we should let sleeping dogs lie. Then we heard Claire had got the sack from her job, and we felt a bit bad about that, but not much, because if she’d been giving the same medication to some woman at the supermarket and arranging for her to be cursed … well, that wasn’t right, either. So Malcolm borrowed the money to pay Claire what she was owed and told her to get out. He said he’d adapt the house to take in a couple of lodgers to make ends meet, and that’s what he’s done.’ He stopped, looking as if he’d said too much. Or too little?

  Ellie said, ‘The lodgers are living there now? We tried the bell, but there was no answer.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Agnes. ‘That didn’t work out. He didn’t really like people staying in the house when he was out, so … He did a beautiful job on it, too.’

  Ellie tried to work it out. ‘Claire took her ten thousand and moved away. The Vision had by that time moved down to Ealing, so she followed them. Ambrose arranged for her to rent one of the larger flats in the same house, and she started looking for work, but with her employment record, she couldn’t find much.’

  Mikey spoke up. ‘What I think is, they should have done her for murder!’

  THIRTEEN

  Ellie said, ‘What do you mean, Mikey? Claire didn’t kill her mother. Granted, she ought to have queried Beryl’s use of her medication, but you can’t stop an adult if they want to dose themselves with something they’ve bought over the counter. It’s up to them to decide whether to take it or not. I suppose, if the family had intervened and got her doctor to look at her … But unless Beryl were sectioned they couldn’t stop her taking the stuff, could they?’

  Mikey said, ‘If Claire had been questioned about her mother’s doping herself silly with medication and the supermarket had publicized the fact that she’d also harmed someone at work, she wouldn’t have dared to go on and try it again, would she?’

  ‘We don’t know that the medication was the same,’ said Ellie, acting the part of the devil’s advocate. ‘It might have been something different. Granted, Rose admitted that she hadn’t known what she was doing while I was away, but that could just have been old age catching up with her.’

  Emmanuel and Agnes’s heads turned from one to the other, trying to make sense of what was being said.

  Mikey shrugged. ‘Well, all I can say is that I was pretty glad to see you back early. Rose was not sure how to get her food from her plate to her mouth. If you’d left it any longer, like, she’d have been a goner.’

  Ellie winced. Had Rose really been that bad?

  ‘And,’ said Mikey, ‘Claire got her to make that stupid will, remember?’

  Emmanuel frowned. ‘Another will? For the Vision people?’

  Mikey said, ‘That’s right. For the same people. Rose wants to change it now she’s back in her right mind. Claire tried dosing you, too, didn’t she, Mrs Quicke?’

  Ellie thought back. ‘You mean, the day I returned, she made us some soup for supper. Rose didn’t drink it, but I did, and I ate the meal she’d prepared for Rose, too. I didn’t think it was very nice, but I did sleep well that night.’

  ‘Which was a bit odd if you’d got jet lag,’ said Mikey. ‘I looked it up, and you ought to have been wide awake till the next day.’

  ‘And then,’ said Ellie, remembering, ‘she did give me something to drink the next day when I felt a bit odd, but I put it down to jet lag.’

  ‘She doctored your food?’ Agnes had her fingers to her mouth.

  Emmanuel’s face seemed to sag. ‘We thought we were doing the right thing by not dragging it all out into the open—’

  ‘And not telling anyone that Beryl had wanted to make another will while she was off her tro
lley?’ Ellie sighed. ‘Well, if she had, it would have had to be challenged in the courts, and what a fuss that would have made. If I’d been in your shoes, I expect I’d have kept quiet, too.’

  Mikey bounced on his seat. ‘So what happens now? Is Claire going to find another old person and poison them, too?’

  Ellie shot out of her seat. ‘Oh, dear lord above! Why didn’t I see it? Diana told me, in words of one syllable … Oh, my goodness gracious me!’

  Emmanuel said, ‘You mean, you know of another case?’

  ‘What do I do now? Tell Lesley, I suppose. Although it’s probably far too late if the woman was cremated, though I don’t know that she was. If she was buried, could they tell after so much time has passed? Wait a minute, didn’t Diana say the whole thing’s going to court, or is it just at the stage where the solicitors are arguing about it?’

  Mikey filled Emmanuel and Agnes in. ‘This “Lesley” she’s talking about is a police woman, who’s not bad-looking either. But she’s all tied up at the moment with the case of the missing girls.’

  ‘Missing girls?’ Agnes frowned and glanced at Emmanuel. For information?

  Emmanuel frowned, too. ‘You mean the girl they found in the canal? What’s she got to do with this?’

  ‘Nothing, I suppose,’ said Ellie distractedly, looking in her bag for her mobile phone and coming across a bunch of weeds. She stared at them. ‘Now where did those come from?’ Ah, milkweed. Plucked from next door’s garden. She felt rather foolish. Whatever had made her put them in her handbag? ‘Oh, I remember. Where’s my phone? I ought to tell Lesley, oughtn’t I? Or no, perhaps I’d better speak to Diana first, get some details, because if the woman was cremated, there’s no point making a fuss. And, it’s no good saying anything now, is it? It’s all hearsay.’ She held up the milkweed. ‘Where can I put …? Do you have a bin?’