She could. She got back inside the cab and found her mobile phone. Tried the police station. Learned that DI Willis had just started a week’s leave. Learned that WDC Milburn was not in that day. Left a message for them to call her. Discovered she was trembling.
‘Is all right now?’ The cab driver was anxious. ‘Not a scratch on my car. Is it good idea to tell the police? I can say nothing, nothing at all. I was almost asleep, I swear it. Then I heard the van and I screamed and you heard me and saw what was happening. I saved your life, no?’
That wasn’t how Ellie remembered it, but she wasn’t going to argue. She nodded.
‘So where to now?’ The driver was anxious to get rid of her.
She had intended to do something else this morning. Something to do with flowers. She shook her head. She couldn’t remember. She ached all over and needed the loo. ‘Take me straight back home, will you? And thank you.’
She got back home in time to see a rolled-up carpet being carried through the hall by a couple of hefty lads. The long mahogany table in the dining room had been moved to stand against the wall, and there was her ex-son-in-law, laying out his laptop and some paperwork. Stewart was a big man who liked space around him, so they usually talked business in that room, rather than in her study at the end of the corridor.
Was the carpet going to be put in her study, or in Thomas’s? Thomas didn’t want his room disturbed, did he? She rushed along the corridor, to make sure the men knew that. No, it was going in her study. Somehow or other. Oh well.
She returned to the dining room saying, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ and trying to disentangle herself from the bag she’d been wearing on a strap across her body. She was conscious of a blinking light on the answer phone in the hall, indicating that there was at least one message for her. Tough. It would have to wait.
Rose came across the hall with some coffee for Stewart and nearly dropped the pot when she saw Ellie. ‘Now what? Are you all right?’
‘I fell in a bush. Quite all right. I’d love some coffee, too. But first I must wash my hands. Stewart, would you give me five minutes?’
A good wash in hot water. A few scratches to add to those she’d collected the other day. Perhaps a new bruise or two. Her shoe didn’t look too bad. A bit dusty. She brushed herself down, did some deep-breathing exercises. Found she was still shivering. This would never do. Stewart was a busy man. She mustn’t keep him waiting.
She held on to the washbasin, and closed her eyes. Dear Lord, I don’t understand what’s going on here. Two vehicles trying to run me down in a week. It’s a bit much, don’t you think? Although, of course the first one was an accident, and this one was probably some stupid fool wanting to give an older woman a fright.
On the screen behind her eyes she replayed Monday’s tragedy: the sprawling pushchair, the spinning wheels, the toddler, the body of the young mother. Oh, make it go away! Please!
She was going to hyperventilate. No, she wasn’t. Breathe deeply, that was it. And again.
Please, Lord! Keep me calm so that I can help those who rely on me. There’s so much to do at the moment – not that any of it is really important in terms of global warming and wars and suchlike. I know it’s trivial stuff really, but, well, if you could keep an eye out for me, I’d be grateful. Amen.
She was smiling as she went into the dining room. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Stewart.’ She found herself a chair and drew it up to the table. ‘Sorry about the mess. We’re having to clear the decks for the wedding, you know. Oh, I am stupid. Of course you know all about it, don’t you? How your Maria can keep the cleaning business going while being a successful wife and mother, I don’t know.’
‘They tell me women are good at multitasking.’ Smiling. ‘She has a really good assistant now to help her, worth her weight, you know? We both owe you so much, we’re delighted to be able to repay, even in such small matters . . .’
‘You’re a lucky man, Stewart, and I’m lucky to have both of you as friends.’ Before they got maudlin, she moved on to business. ‘You have some news for me about the house in Castlebar Road?’
He had his laptop out, and not one but two mobile phones on the table. ‘The letting was handled by Elaine. The paperwork says that the prospective tenant is a Mrs Summers, divorced, large family, wants to take in an aged parent as well, understands there can’t be any subletting. She gave two references and a cheque for the deposit, intending to move in at the end of this month.
‘It sounded all right, but I trust your instinct so I did a spot of delving. We have Internet banking, so I looked to see if Mrs Summers’ cheque has been cleared yet, and it hasn’t. It may be some glitch or other. It may not. I will enquire further.
‘Then I turned up her application form. Mrs Summers’ current address is in Oak Tree Lane. The houses there are small, two- and three-bed cottage types. You wouldn’t normally expect to find a large family in one of them, but at first I gave her the benefit of the doubt; perhaps it’s because she has a large family that she needs to move to a bigger place? On the way over here, I detoured to call at the house she’d given as her current address. A Sikh family live there now. No Mrs Summers, and they don’t know of any Mrs Summers in Oak Tree Lane, either.
‘She gave two references. The first was a doctor in Pitshanger Lane. Maria has a friend who attends that surgery, so I asked her to check that they knew a doctor by that name. She says not. She says that that particular doctor retired a couple of months ago and is now living in Cornwall. The second reference was from a magistrate on the Isleworth circuit.’ He indicated his mobile phones. ‘I’m waiting for a call from him now.’
His phone trilled, and he answered it. ‘Yes, I did leave a message for you. Sorry to trouble you, but we’ve had your name given to us by a Mrs Summers . . . Yes, Summers. As in winter and summer, but with an “s” on the end. She says that . . . You don’t know anyone of that name? Are you sure? Yes, of course you’re . . . Yes, I must be mistaken. I’m so sorry to have troubled . . . Oh, your husband passed away last year? I am sorry to hear it. Yes, it must be very disturbing . . . Again, so sorry.’ He put the phone down, shaking his head.
Ellie helped them both to some more coffee. She felt she needed it, even if Stewart didn’t. He was twisting a pencil around his fingers, rapping the table with it, then jotting down sums.
Ellie said, ‘You will, of course, turn Mrs Summers’ application down. A false address, false references, and we’ve yet to discover what happened to her cheque. The house goes back on the market. It’s not worth turning the matter over to the police.’
Stewart shook his head. ‘There’s no obvious link to Denis. It might not be him behind it. There are other large properties on the market that he might be trying to rent, but I’ve worked it out that he could make a fine living out of that house if he got it rent-free and sublet rooms. The point is; does Diana know?’
Ellie sipped coffee, trying to clear her head. ‘No, I don’t think she does. If she had gone to you asking to rent one of our largest houses, alarm bells would have rung all over the place, wouldn’t they? I don’t think even she would think I’d give them a place like that rent-free. Diana told me that it was Denis who was getting them a large house, and I think she spoke the truth; this is something Denis has thought up for himself. You didn’t see this Mrs Summers yourself? Can you ask Elaine what she looks like?’
‘Will do. One thing, though. Mrs Summers must be a real person, and she must be local, because she presented a cheque in the name of Summers. OK, so it bounced, but she’s got a chequebook with that name on it, right? Banks don’t hand out chequebooks without making sure the person concerned really does live at the given address. Also, she gave references from people who do or did live nearby. Suppose I check how many people with the surname of Summers are in the phone book?’
Someone knocked on the front door and at the same time rang the bell.
‘Heavens!’ Ellie jumped to her feet. ‘The party people for Diana’s wedding recepti
on! Can you manage without me for a bit?’
She shot into the hall and opened the front door, to admit a stately figure carrying a silver-topped cane, dressed in a bright pink shirt over grey jeans, and crowned with a mass of carefully curled yellow hair. Gay as a lark.
Behind him came a downtrodden-looking little man carrying folders and clipboards which kept slipping from under his arms, and a woman holding not one, not two, but three mobile phones.
‘Behold the hour and the Party Planner arrives! Let me introduce myself. Freddie Balls, the man of the moment. You’ll be Mrs Quicke, I assume?’ He revealed blindingly white teeth in what was supposed to be a welcoming smile. The smile quickly morphed into a downturned mouth. ‘I thought the hall would be bigger than this.’
‘Oh,’ said Ellie. ‘Diana did measure it.’
He frowned. ‘If anyone can work miracles, it is I. Show me the reception rooms.’ He turned to the room from which she’d come and threw open the door. On seeing evidence of a meeting in progress, he reeled, the back of his hand to his forehead. ‘Is this all the space I have to work with?’
Ellie suppressed a giggle. ‘Would you like to see the drawing room?’ She felt sure he’d call it the ‘drawing room’ and not the ‘sitting room’. She opened the door and let him take in the splendour of the big room, furnished with antiques from many periods.
His eyes were small, bright and quick. ‘If all the furniture were removed from both rooms, and my own tables and chairs brought in, then we might, possibly, be able to seat fifty people for supper. But it would not be politic to divide the sheep from the goats, would it? Those in one room would envy those in the other, and whichever way we looked at it, communication would be difficult. No, impossible. I cannot be responsible for such a social disaster. My reputation would not permit it.’
Ellie set her teeth. ‘I am not prepared to clear these rooms of furniture; in fact, most of the items are too large and fragile to shift. I suggest you downsize to a buffet supper, served in the dining room, and forget the disco. I am hosting another wedding party earlier in the day for a buffet lunch. We are dismantling the dining room table this afternoon and storing it down the corridor, and bringing in a number of small tables and a lot of chairs. I imagine that arrangement may serve for the evening event as well. After supper they can all go home.’
He swelled like a toad. ‘I do not arrange such makeshift affairs. First Slave!’ He turned on his luckless girl assistant. ‘Get the client on the phone.’
The front door bell pealed again. Rose shot out of the kitchen and opened the door to let in a middle-aged woman with a brutal haircut and a dress sense that her daughter Ursula must often have deplored. Colour and shape all wrong, wrong, wrong.
Ellie stifled a moan.
Mrs Belton was not amused to find the hall full of people. ‘Mrs Quicke, I’ve come to check on the arrangements for my daughter’s wedding, and I don’t understand—’
‘I was asked to be here at eleven,’ said the Party Planner, beaming charm down upon her – to no avail.
‘Did I ask you to explain yourself?’ said the middle-aged woman with the bad haircut. The Party Planner gaped. Mrs Belton had a commanding presence, which was about the only thing her daughter Ursula seemed to have inherited from her.
Mrs Belton turned to Ellie. ‘May I ask what is going on here? My daughter told me I had no need to fuss, but naturally a mother wishes to be involved. Of course if I had my way, the reception would have been held in a hotel, which would have been far more suitable, but—’
Ellie held up her hands. ‘Mrs Belton, Mr . . . er. We need to talk. Mrs Belton, I offered to hold a small reception for your daughter here in this house next Saturday. Unfortunately, my own daughter Diana, without consulting me, appears to have arranged to hold her own wedding reception for a much larger number of people here that very same day. I have no idea how this can be managed.’
She turned to the portly Party Planner. ‘You’ve seen the rooms and understand the problems. May I leave you to produce a solution while I show Mrs Belton around?’
Wednesday noon
Rat poison worked well on animals, and nowadays she was nothing but an animal that needed to be put down. Put her out of her misery. Right.
He had plenty of rat poison from the shed at the bottom of the garden, which hadn’t been cleared out since his father died, yonks ago. He’d looked at some cakes in the bakery but they weren’t quite right for it.
Chocolates, now. She’d had a sweet tooth in the old days, hadn’t she? What was it she’d liked best? Coconut ice? Suppose he were to cut a bar in half, hollow it out a bit, stuff it with rat poison, and seal it up again with a hot knife? No one could tell the difference. He’d experiment with it tomorrow.
EIGHT
Wednesday noon
Ellie ushered Mrs Belton into the dining room, and shut the door behind them. ‘This is where we’ll set up the buffet. For thirty people, right?’
Mrs Belton was displeased to find Stewart on the phone and papers littering the table. ‘This is an office, not at all suitable for a buffet lunch.’
‘As the Queen said about Buckingham Palace, this is a working institution, not a show house,’ said Ellie. And to Stewart, ‘You’ll let me know if you come up with anything?’
Stewart nodded, making notes on a pad as he listened on his phone. Ellie explained to Mrs Belton how the room would be rearranged for Ursula’s reception. Returning to the hall, she found the Party Planner deep in converse with his cohorts. Ellie ignored them all to lead Mrs Belton through into the sitting room at the back of the house. She closed that door behind her, as well.
‘The drawing room. We thought we would take out the smaller pieces of furniture and put in some extra chairs. Ursula has booked a caterer, who will be responsible for the drinks and the service. She’s also arranged matters with the florist, and has a friend who is to take the photographs. All I’ve done is organize a cleaning agency to help move some of the furniture beforehand and to clear up afterwards.’
‘A poor sort of do.’
Restraining herself with some difficulty from hitting Mrs Belton, Ellie opened the French windows on to the garden and led her visitor out that way. ‘We might spill over into the garden if the weather is fine.’
‘If she’d followed my advice and gone to a hotel, she could have doubled the numbers, and then I might have been able to invite some of my colleagues from work.’
Ellie knew that Ursula had wanted only a small, family wedding, so didn’t reply. She opened the doors into the conservatory. ‘We thought we could have the photographs in here. We will, of course, lend Ursula a bedroom in which she and her new husband can change into their going away outfits.’
Mrs Belton sniffed. ‘It seems a paltry affair to me. Those people out there in the hall . . . Who are they? At my friend’s daughter’s wedding – a very upmarket affair I might add – there was seating for a hundred and twenty with a proper dance afterwards. They had a top florist, too. Superb arrangements. Now that’s the style of things I expected for my daughter.’
‘Yes, but she wanted—’
‘She’s made her own dress, if you please, and insists on having that poor girl Mia for her bridesmaid, though I told her that her cousin would expect to be bridesmaid and would really look the part, but would she listen? No, she wouldn’t. She’s far too fond of having her own way, and I don’t envy her husband if he thinks to rule the roost.’
‘I’m sure that—’
‘Ursula tells me I need worry about nothing but turning up on the day looking nice, and that is all very well, but how does she know the way these things should be done? Has she made preparation for pieces of wedding cake to be sent out afterwards, for instance? Who is printing the order of service? What provision has been made for taking care of the wedding presents which will no doubt be brought here on the day?’
‘No doubt she’s thought of those things, too. She knows how hard you work, and she wants to spare
you as much trouble as possible.’
Mrs Belton had been born discontented. ‘If his people are so keen to pay for the reception, they might at least have done it in style.’
The words, ‘You ungrateful cow!’ sprang to Ellie’s tongue. She swallowed them with difficulty. She even managed a smile as she said, ‘Ursula didn’t want a big splash. She wanted a small family “do”. Something intimate, with only her best friends and family around her.’
She thought of the long talks Thomas had had with the young couple, during which they’d explored all the problems they might face in their new life. They’d told him they wanted to make their commitment to one another before God in church. She thought of Ursula making time to see Mia, in the middle of her important job interviews and the preparations for her wedding. She thought of the love and trust between the couple. If anyone was going to start their new life off the right way, these two would.
Mrs Belton sniffed. ‘Well, all I can say is, I’ve been almost ashamed to send invitations to my dearest friends.’
‘Console yourself,’ said Ellie, leading the way out, ‘she’ll make a beautiful bride.’
Surprisingly, the hall was empty of people. Ah, but out of the dining room came the leaves of the long table, hoisted aloft by two burly men, and behind them came not one but two of the cleaning team, carrying another leaf between them. They disappeared down the corridor. Ellie hoped they’d remember not to put anything in Thomas’s room, but hadn’t time to check.
As Ellie showed Mrs Belton out of the house, Stewart appeared in the dining room doorway. Ellie brushed one hand against the other. ‘Phew! Peace at last. Sorry about that, Stewart.’
‘They’ve left me a couple of chairs, but I’ve been warned they’re next to go. The Party Planner is in there –’ he indicated the sitting room – ‘waiting to speak to you. Before I go, I must tell you there are only two Summers in the Ealing phone book. One lives in that road just above Oak Tree Lane. The other’s in one of those flats on Eaton Rise. I rang both. One is a man in his eighties, who thought I was his carer coming to put him to bed – very confused as to the time of day. The other answered the phone to a background of children screaming. I made up a story quickly, asked if she were the Mrs Summers my mother used to know, and she said she didn’t think so. She apologized for the noise, said she was looking after some children for the day.’
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