Murder My Neighbour

by Veronica Heley

  Ellie lifted the other. ‘Heavy.’

  ‘Wet rags would make it heavy, if they used them for wiping down the floorboards and cleaning the bathroom and toilet up top.’

  ‘We should ring the police . . .’

  The refuse lorry turned the corner into their road. ‘They’re coming!’

  ‘If we leave them . . .’

  The binmen were walking along the road in their Day-Glo jackets, collecting black plastic bags from the driveways, piling them into a heap in the road for collection by the lorry as it moved slowly along.

  ‘Take those for you, missus?’ A dustman, large, black and smiling.

  ‘Oh, no. Thank you, but I’ve put something in the trash, something valuable. I shall have to go through . . . You understand?’

  ‘Ah. Never mind, then. If you find it, just put the bags in the next road for us to collect, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Ellie and Vera picked up one bag each and started to walk down the road away from the binmen. Vera gave way to the giggles. Ellie did, too.

  Vera said, ‘What do we look like?’

  ‘Bag ladies,’ said Ellie as hers slipped from her grasp. She stooped to get a better hold on it, and her glasses fell off.

  ‘Let me.’ Vera took Ellie’s bag from her.

  ‘We’re destroying fingerprints,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m sure we’ll get into trouble about this.’

  ‘You can talk us out of it,’ said Vera.

  How nice to be appreciated! What a splendid girl Vera was!

  Ears shrieked down the phone at Ellie. ‘You stole two bags of rubbish! Tell me this isn’t happening!’

  ‘Not stole. They were put out for the binmen to collect. They’d been out overnight and the foxes had torn one open but—’

  ‘Give me strength. You picked up two bags off the street, without any idea where they might have come from—’

  ‘The squatters – if that’s what they were – had been eating pizza. We could smell it, and one of the bags had an empty pizza box in it.’

  ‘And what, may I ask, makes you think that the police are going to waste their time chasing up squatters who exist only in your fertile imagination?’

  ‘It’s true that they’ve gone now, but don’t you think it’s worth investigating since Mrs Pryce never arrived where she said she would? And her car’s missing.’

  ‘So she changed her mind and booked herself into a luxury hotel somewhere. Have her family complained? No. Have you checked the hospitals to see if she had a traffic accident? No. Give me one piece of evidence—’

  ‘We thought you’d find something in the bags. We’ve gloved up so we don’t destroy any fingerprints.’ Ellie was rather proud of the phrase ‘gloved up’, which she’d learned from watching crime programmes on television. The bags were on the kitchen table at that very moment, being investigated by Vera and Rose. Midge the cat was keeping an eye on everyone from his perch on top of the fridge.

  Heavy breathing from Ears. ‘No doubt you’ve found detonators and plastic jelly for making explosives, and this is a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. You’ll be telling me next that you’ve seen little green men in the attic and unidentified flying objects circling round the chimneys. I am trying,’ he said, enunciating each syllable, ‘to work out how we can spare a detective to investigate this mythical plot of yours, but at the moment – if you’ll forgive me – we have more important things to attend to.’

  The phone crashed down.

  Ellie winced.

  Vera giggled. ‘Prince Charming he is not, by the sound of it.’

  Ellie held up her hands and let them drop. ‘He’s got reason, I suppose. I mean, what have we got that would convince the police there is a case to answer?’

  ‘Apart from masses of J-cloths which have been wetted and used for wiping dust off from wherever it is they’ve been hiding?’

  ‘We can’t prove any of this came from the Pryce house.’

  ‘Who else would leave their rubbish out on the pavement under a tree, instead of just inside their gates? And how about this?’ Vera spread a fine black scarf with a frayed edge out on to the table. It had been much used and had a hole in it, which was probably why it had been discarded. ‘Of course, lots of women wear scarves, though not in this hot weather. But Muslim women cover their hair all the time when they go out, don’t they? Plus it stinks of cheap perfume. Yuk!’

  Ho hum. Ellie considered a possible scenario. ‘Rose, I wonder if that’s who you saw at the window? Suppose a Muslim girl had been hiding up there – which someone certainly was – and she tied her head round with a black scarf as they do, and looked out of her window, wouldn’t it have looked as if her face was floating in mid-air?’

  ‘Another thing,’ said Vera, ‘they only wear scarves if they have to go outdoors, but if she had lots of very dark hair hanging down on either side of her face—’

  ‘You mean I really didn’t imagine it? Well, praise be!’

  Wednesday morning

  At Hoopers’ estate agency.

  ‘Hello, where’s the keys to the Pryce house, then?’

  ‘Mm? Oh, Mr Abel’s gone out there with a customer, someone with money to burn.’

  ‘You mean someone’s actually taking an interest in the White Elephant? An Arab, maybe?’

  ‘Nah. English. An old dear who made a fortune in the property market and might want it to turn into flats for sale and make another fortune. The boss is furious, has only just found out she’s interested, says he should have taken her round himself. But he wasn’t around yesterday when the appointment was made, so Mr Abel got the job. He says the place is in a right mess, our sign’s been taken down, the lawns not cut.’

  ‘Mr Abel had better get our “For Sale” sign back up, pronto. And who was supposed to be keeping the lawns cut?’

  ‘The boss said not to bother with the lawns when the Pryce woman took the house off the market—’

  ‘Use your head. If there’s a potential buyer in sight, she won’t be quibbling over that, will she?’

  NINE

  Wednesday noon

  Vera held up an empty shampoo bottle. ‘We smelled shampoo in the bathroom, didn’t we? And here’s some twists of black hair – from her hairbrush, I suppose, yuk!’

  ‘Thirteen, fourteen.’ Rose counted sets of plastic knives and forks. ‘How long has she been living there?’

  ‘Hello!’ said Ellie. ‘Here’s a disposable razor. His or hers?’

  Vera held up another, larger one. ‘His AND hers. There were two people living there.’

  Rose pried apart a stack of plastic food containers. ‘Mostly salads. For two.’

  ‘They didn’t use the kitchen so they didn’t cook anything.’ Ellie set aside an empty box which had once contained paper tissues. ‘The cheapest supermarket brand.’

  Rose was back to counting again; this time flattened pizza boxes. ‘Seven, eight, nine. All vegetarian, no meat dishes. I suppose he brought them in hot.’

  He? A man and a woman? Perhaps she’d been a prisoner there, and he’d taken in food for her.

  Midge the cat decided this was where he took part in the proceedings and leaped on to the table.

  ‘Off!’ yelled Ellie. Midge flattened his ears, but evaded Ellie’s hand to sniff at the food containers. ‘Rose, can you shove them back into the bag, or he’ll have the lot on the floor.’

  ‘Look what I’ve found.’ Vera pulled out a stack of glossy magazines.

  ‘Mm,’ said Ellie. ‘So the woman is young, possibly a Muslim, certainly a vegetarian. A prisoner, or a squatter?’

  ‘Lots more cleaning rags,’ said Vera.

  Ellie pounced. ‘Torn up receipts for credit card payments.’ She laid them out on the table and began to piece the scraps together. ‘Someone’s been buying petrol and foodstuffs at the big Tesco’s on the A40. Bottled water and toiletries. They also bought cleaning materials, toilet rolls, foodstuffs, mostly salads. We must keep these. If we can get the police int
erested, the man can be traced by his credit card number.’

  ‘He definitely had a car, because he bought petrol for it.’ Vera liked this game.

  Ellie smoothed out another torn-up bill. ‘Now here’s something different; he – or possibly she – visited a hardware store, but it’s in Hayes, further away, and the date is . . . over a month ago.’ She thought about it. ‘The hammer and nails were to fix up curtains over the windows. I wonder where he got the black material from? Perhaps it was a cheap skirt she had. At the same time he bought an electric kettle and two long-life lamp bulbs. Luckily the paperwork wasn’t in with the wet cloths for long, or it would be unreadable.’

  ‘They expected the rubbish to be removed by the binmen this morning.’

  The front doorbell rang, and they all looked round. Mia had gone out as soon as Ellie and Vera returned. Thomas didn’t answer the doorbell unless he was expecting someone.

  Vera glanced at the clock and yelped. ‘I ought to be . . . where ought I to be by now? Pet will kill me if I’m late, especially after taking the morning off. And remember, Mrs Quicke, if you want me to go round with you again, this evening, say, then I’m game, provided I can bring Mikey, too.’

  Rose got up on spindly legs, balanced herself and made for the door. ‘I’ll answer the door, Ellie. You clear up.’

  The Lord be praised, Rose was looking far more like herself today. Ellie flourished two new black plastic bin liners. ‘Thanks, Vera. I do think someone ought to search that place properly, but it’s out of our hands at the moment. I’ll stow everything away till we can get the police interested.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me in on this, Mrs Quicke.’

  ‘Call me Ellie.’

  Vera smiled and nodded, but probably wouldn’t.

  Rose reappeared, frowning. ‘A woman. Says her name is Pryce, but she’s not old enough to be our neighbour that was. I didn’t let her in the house, said I’d see if you were in.’

  Vera snapped her fingers. ‘Edwina, her stepdaughter?’

  ‘Vera; leave your telephone number, will you?’

  ‘My mobile do? No landline.’ She scribbled on the shopping list.

  ‘Fine. Now you be off, and I’ll see to the visitor. Rose; please don’t let Midge get at anything while I’m gone, will you?’

  ‘As if he would.’ Rose picked Midge up and stroked him – which he permitted for all of five seconds before jumping out of her arms and disappearing under the table.

  Edwina Pryce was dressed as if for a garden party at Buckingham Palace in a silk designer suit complete with a cute little hat which she’d perched high up on tightly curled, sparse, ginger hair. Freckled hands clutched a Louis Vuitton handbag, which must have cost a fortune. High-heeled shoes. A couple of thousand pounds on the hoof?

  No boobs, Pet had said. Pet had been right about that. Ms Pryce looked as if someone had ironed her flat, and the process had removed all kindliness from her personality.

  Ellie remembered Pet’s mimicry of this woman and tried not to smile as she ushered her into the house.

  Edwina looked about her. ‘I need to speak to the man who phoned me last night about my stepmother, Flavia Pryce. Stupidly, he omitted to leave his address, but there’s only one Quicke in the phone book, so here I am. Are you his cleaner? I do not appreciate being left on the doorstep like that.’ Her tone of voice was even sharper than her nose.

  ‘It was my husband who rang you. I’m Mrs Quicke.’

  Edwina’s eyes darted around, pricing everything in sight, and Ellie was unpleasantly reminded of Terry Pryce . . . Edwina’s nephew? He’d had the same trick of calculation, hadn’t he?

  Edwina wore a gold wedding ring on the fourth finger of her right hand, not her left. She’d had a daughter, but kept her maiden name. Divorced? No, never married. Hadn’t there been some tale of the man abandoning her when she got pregnant?

  ‘These big houses,’ stated Edwina, ‘cost a fortune to run, as I should know since I was brought up in one.’

  Ellie didn’t respond, but led the way to the sitting room and asked her guest to sit. Ought she to offer tea or coffee? No. Ellie didn’t like the woman enough to do that. ‘I’m afraid my husband’s busy, but I know what it was about, so—’

  ‘I prefer to deal with him, as it was he who phoned me.’

  ‘In a minute I’ll see if he’s available to speak to you, but in the meantime, may I explain why he called?’

  A hard stare. ‘I don’t care to deal with hired help.’

  Ellie was wearing one of her everyday outfits: a good white T-shirt and well-cut denim skirt. Did that make her look like hired help? No. Ellie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream.

  Edwina fidgeted. ‘All right, then. What is it?’

  ‘My name is Mrs Quicke. My aunt knew your stepmother. On Monday evening I received a visit from a young man who claimed to be searching for his great-aunt, Flavia Pryce. He had failed to find her at her old house, and the retirement home people said she wasn’t there, either.’

  A compression of lips. ‘He’s no favourite of Mummy’s. I expect she told the people at the home she didn’t want to see him.’ Yet her eyes failed to meet Ellie’s, and she seemed to be feeling the heat. She produced a lace-edged hankie and dabbed at beads of sweat on her forehead.

  ‘I’d like to be sure we’re talking about the same person. May I describe my visitor to you? Not much taller than me, casually but expensively dressed, his hair cut very short, rings in his ears, nose and lip.’

  A thin-lipped smile. ‘Terry Pryce. My uncle’s grandson. Nothing but trouble from the day he was born. Wanting money, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. I refused, but when my back was turned, he made off with my engagement ring, my husband’s Kindle, and a valuable snuff box.’

  ‘I hope you informed the police.’

  ‘I did, but I couldn’t tell them where to find him.’

  ‘If that’s all, I can give you his address.’ She scrabbled in her handbag, found a blank page in a diary, wrote out an address and tore the page out for Ellie. ‘He may have moved on, though. That sort does.’

  ‘Do you know where he works? He said in a bedding department of a big store.’

  A sniff. ‘Not in Oxford Street, if that’s what he was trying to make out. Some place in West Ealing, I believe. Well, if that’s all you wanted . . . ?’ But she made no move to depart, and her clutch on her handbag was so tight that her fingers turned white. Why was she so anxious?

  ‘Not quite,’ said Ellie. ‘After Terry’s visit, we wondered what had happened to Mrs Pryce, so we went round by the house and found it locked up. I phoned the retirement home; she never arrived there.’

  Edwina leaned forward. ‘That’s what age does for you. Mummy doesn’t know her own mind from one minute to the next. I told her she should move in with me and I’d look after her, but no, she wanted to have one last fling, said she might even go on a cruise before she had to take to a wheelchair. As if! I said to her, “What a waste of money that would be,” and she shrieked with laughter! That just shows what she’s like.’

  ‘Well, it was her money—’

  ‘So she’s changed her mind again, has she? Not at the home, you say?’ Edwina ran her tongue over her lower lip. ‘And you have no idea where’s she gone?’ There were more beads of sweat on her forehead.

  Ellie shook her head.

  Edwina’s eyes skittered around the room. ‘She’ll have gone off with another man and come to no good, flashing her diamonds around, made up to the eyeballs with false eyelashes and all. At her age!’

  Ellie maintained the smile on her face with an effort, thinking that Edwina’s looks might be improved by the application of false eyelashes. Or would they? No, perhaps not. The venom issuing from her mouth would shrivel any lashes before they touched her skin.

  Edwina nodded, not once but several times. ‘That’s what it is, all right. She’s gone off with another man. Then she’ll pop off, leaving him all the money that isn’t hers by rig
ht, that ought to have come to me and my daughter. My own dear mother that was – she passed away years ago – must be turning in her grave.’ A false note in her voice; she wasn’t as sure of her facts as she pretended?

  ‘Mrs Pryce’s car’s gone.’

  ‘Well, she took it with her, didn’t she?’ But something was worrying the woman. She gnawed at her lower lip, her eyes darting hither and yon but never meeting Ellie’s. She burst out with what seemed like the truth. ‘It’s giving me ulcers, wondering where she is and what she’s doing. She said she didn’t want me visiting her till she’d settled in, that she’d send me a card when she was ready to see me, but not a word have I had from that day to this.’

  ‘You had the address of the home?’

  An unbecoming flush. ‘Yes, of course. Have you tried the hospitals? Maybe she’s met with an accident.’

  ‘Not yet. Have you?’

  ‘No.’ The woman drew back, clutching her bag tightly. ‘She wouldn’t like me interfering, she’s made that plain.’

  ‘Do you have the licence number of her car?’

  ‘I don’t drive.’ A stare. ‘Why would I have that?’

  ‘If she’d met with an accident in the car and we had the licence number, we could ask the police to trace it.’

  Another stare. ‘Is that how it’s done? I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Do you know who her solicitor is?’ Neither Vera nor Pet had known that.

  ‘The family have always used Greenbody on Ealing Common. I told her to use him, but she had a perverse sense of humour. Regularly did the opposite of what I suggested. You know, Mrs Quicke, I really did my best to get on with Mummy, but she made it very difficult.’

  ‘Did she make a will, do you know?’

  An intake of breath. ‘I have absolutely no idea, and I’m amazed that you should mention it. Now, if all you want is to find the things my nephew stole, I’ve given you his details, you can pass them on to the police and there’s an end of it. I’ve had a difficult enough life without . . .’ She pinched in her lips and stopped. ‘I must be going. You’ll keep me informed, won’t you?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Ellie showed Edwina out, set her back to the front door, and wondered why the woman had come. The obvious answer was that she’d come in response to Thomas’s message on her answerphone, but her visit had raised more questions than it had answered.