Murder My Neighbour

by Veronica Heley

  Mr Abel? This ought to be interesting.

  It wasn’t Mr Abel. It was a slightly built, dark-skinned youth with beautiful eyes and springy black hair.

  ‘Nirav?’ she said as he came into the room, nervous, looking around him.

  He nodded. She indicated that he should sit down. He did so, on the edge of the chair. ‘I need . . .’ He stopped. Blushed. He was very young still.

  She decided to help him out. ‘Why have you come to see me?’

  ‘He gave me the sack today. Said I hadn’t done my job properly, had failed to look after his interests. But I had. I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Mr Hooper, you mean? A man of hasty temper.’

  He nodded. ‘I need to work, because . . .’ He stopped, but she could complete that sentence for herself. He needed to work not only for himself but also to look after his girlfriend. He settled himself more firmly in the chair. ‘I thought you might have a job for me.’

  Did he want her to find him a job in Stewart’s office? Really? He was an optimist, wasn’t he, when he’d betrayed his previous employer’s trust by moving into Disneyland?

  Well, there were extenuating circumstances, and she supposed a job might be possible, but first she must clear up a little mystery. ‘When you were with Hoopers, you were responsible for seeing that the Pryce house was cleared, the meters read and the services turned off?’

  He nodded. ‘I did all that, to the very letter of the law.’

  ‘Don’t let’s talk about the law here, or we’ll be discussing how trespass comes into it.’

  He winced.

  ‘You expected to see Mrs Pryce on that last day, but she didn’t turn up. She left you a message of some sort?’

  He was eager to explain. ‘On the answerphone. It is my job to listen to the messages first thing in the morning and make a note of what needs to be done. She said she’d decided to leave very early on her last day so that she’d be settled in her new home by teatime. She wanted us to see to sending off her last bits of furniture, and then we were to close up the house for her and get it cleaned. Which is what I did.’

  ‘Hold on a minute. Did you recognize her voice? Had you ever met her?’

  A wide-eyed stare. ‘No, of course not. Mr Hooper made all the arrangements.’

  ‘It was an old woman’s voice?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ A shrug. He didn’t understand what she was getting at.

  ‘Do you keep the answerphone messages?’

  ‘No. Why should we?’

  So anyone could have left that message on the answerphone on behalf of Mrs Pryce. Or perhaps it had indeed been the lady? ‘Go on. You were sent to her house to see to the last load of furniture being cleared out and to read the meters, but you didn’t check that the gardener had turned off the water properly. The tap was stiff, and he had to leave it. You didn’t report that, did you?’

  He shifted his feet. ‘I didn’t know he’d not done it properly until, well, later. I asked him to do it, and he said he had.’

  But, thought Ellie, you didn’t check, did you? She said, ‘So after the weekend you went back with a cleaning team. Now, for them to be able to work, you turned the electricity back on?’

  ‘Just for the day. The client would pay.’

  ‘And the water?’

  ‘The team had orders only to sweep and vacuum throughout, which they did. You must understand that there was a lot to be done. I trusted the gardener had done what I’d asked him to do. Mr Hooper says I should have checked and got a plumber in if the mains water couldn’t be turned off, that I deserve to lose my job. But I’ve worked well for him all this time, and I don’t think—’

  ‘Does he know you were dossing down there?’

  Silence.

  Ellie sighed. She thought Nirav had given ample grounds for his dismissal. ‘Well, let’s leave that for the moment. When did the window cleaner put padlocks on the outside doors?’

  ‘The day she left. Friday.’

  ‘Was that before or after the car disappeared?’

  ‘The car? Mrs Pryce took the car before we arrived on Friday.’

  ‘I see. And did Jack, the window cleaner, give you the keys to the padlocks when he’d fitted them, or did he hang them up in the kitchen somewhere?’

  ‘He gave me two, and I handed them in to the agency with the other keys for the house.’

  Ellie counted on her fingers. How many padlocks had there been originally? Garage outer door, one each to get in and out of the covered yard, one for the door from the yard into the garage, and one for the tool shed at the end. Had there been another door from the yard? She couldn’t remember. Well, make it five, minimum.

  ‘How many keys did you say that Jack gave you?’

  A puzzled stared. ‘I said. Two. I handed them in to the office.’

  So Jack had kept three keys for himself?

  All those keys . . . it made her head ache to think of them, coming and going, spinning around. Think, Ellie; think. ‘Let’s talk about the front door key. Did you keep one for yourself, or did you have it copied for your own use?’

  No reply.

  She sighed. ‘All right. Moving on. When did the “For Sale” board go up?’

  ‘About a week before she left, I suppose; I don’t know exactly when because Mr Abel handled that side of things. There was another message on the answerphone afterwards—’

  ‘How much later?’

  He thought about that. ‘On the Tuesday after she left, I think. I logged it into the telephone message book as usual. She rang to say she was taking the house off the market. Mr Hooper was very angry. He said I must have done something to annoy her, but I hadn’t, really I hadn’t. I never even saw her.’

  ‘Only, you forgot to tell the signs people that the house had been taken off the market?’

  ‘I told you, that wasn’t my job. I did pass the message on to Mr Abel, but then I heard Mr Hooper tell him to leave the sign up, in case someone happened to show interest and they might get the sale after all. I thought that was wrong,’ said Nirav, virtuously, ‘so when I saw the sign was still there, I knocked it down and threw it aside.’

  ‘When did you move into the house?’

  ‘Thursday evening.’ He lifted his hands in despair. ‘You must understand, Kyra and I were at school together and hoped that one day . . . But that evening she rang me, they’d had a family council and said she’d disgraced them by going out to a friend’s party with me and that she was to be sent to Pakistan to marry a cousin she’s never seen. She made an excuse to fetch something from the kitchen, slipped out of the back door and ran away.

  ‘She phoned me in a terrible state, didn’t know what to do, they were all out looking for her. I thought of the Pryce house lying empty, where she could hide for a few days. I took the front door key and got her there in safety. They forced their way into my father’s house to search for her and threatened me when I got back. I’ve had to take all sorts of precautions in case they followed me when I went to see her. I don’t suppose you understand, but that’s the way it is.’

  ‘I’ve heard about such things, yes. So you hid her in an empty house, where you knew you could turn on the electricity and had water on tap?’

  A despairing nod. ‘We thought, just for a few days, till I could think of something better. We want to get married, and we will as soon as she’s eighteen, though even then . . . you know? They may come after her.’

  ‘You tacked thick black cotton over one window and card over others, screwed in a new long-life bulb, swept the floor, and every day took her food and, perhaps, slept with her?’

  ‘I bought her a futon, and food and clothes and . . . everything, but we did not sleep together. We are waiting to be married, which is the right thing to do. She walked outside in the garden in the evenings when it was safe. She saw the gardener come almost every day, and then she hid herself away but it was so hot that sometimes she lifted the cloth over the window to let the a
ir come in.’

  ‘My housekeeper saw her at the window and thought she was going mad.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ An ingratiating smile. ‘When you came into the garden Kyra heard you talking about searching the house, so we cleaned up and moved out.’

  ‘Where to?’

  His smile disappeared. ‘That is a secret.’

  Of course. And perhaps the pair would some day marry and not be pursued by her angry family. And perhaps not.

  ‘So,’ he said, tossing his hair back, pretending nonchalance, ‘any chance of a job?’

  There was a lot against it: the possibility of action being taken by Kyra’s family, which might well involve him in fisticuffs if nothing more lethal, and the fact that he’d undeniably slipped up over shutting off the water at the Pryce house. On the other hand, it would annoy Evan Hooper immensely if she gave Nirav a job, which was, of course, not at all Christian, but might be amusing. Yes.

  ‘Give me your mobile phone number and I’ll see if Stewart, my property manager, can find something for you. But don’t count on it.’

  ‘Thank you, oh thank you. You are as delightful as everyone says, and I swear I will be totally efficient and never miss a trick.’ He gave her a slip of paper with his number on it and bowed himself out.

  Overdoing it, what? But he was an attractive young man who’d gone out on a limb to help his girlfriend, and that must count for something. He’d need watching, of course. But Stewart could do that.

  She reached for her handbag, found her mobile phone and left a message on Stewart’s office phone, explaining the circumstances, and asking him to interview Nirav – giving Stewart the phone number – for a temporary post. That done, she fished out her diary, found a clean page at the back, and started to make some notes on all that she’d seen and heard recently. The pages were too small. She moved across to her aunt’s roll-top desk and settled herself down with some larger sheets of notepaper.

  First of all she made a timetable for Mrs Pryce and her removal from her house. Most of this she had got from Fritz. All of it needed to be checked.

  One week, possibly two before she disappeared . . . Mrs Pryce asks Mr Hooper to arrange the sale of her house, and a contract for the lawns to be cut. The ‘For Sale’ board goes up.

  Monday: the big auction firm take the best of the antiques.

  Tuesday: the local auction house takes the everyday furniture.

  Wednesday: the house clearance people take the rest.

  In between whiles, different people come for: two cats, the kitchen equipment, urns, lawnmower, etc., from the garden, and the billiard table.

  Thursday evening or early Friday morning: Mrs Pryce – or someone impersonating her – rings Hoopers, to say she’s leaving early. She asks them to supervise the last day’s clearance, read the meters and organize a clean-up.

  Friday morning: Nirav takes the message, arrives at Disneyland, supervises reading meters. There’s no sign of Mrs Pryce. The last load of her furniture leaves for her new home. Fritz arrives; notes the car has gone. Nirav asks Fritz to turn off the utilities. He tries and fails to turn the water off, but does turn off the electricity and gas. Jack puts at least five padlocks on, gives two keys to Nirav. Keeps three?

  Saturday: Mrs Pryce, or someone impersonating her, phones the retirement home to say she’s changed her mind and won’t be arriving. Nothing else happens over the weekend.

  Monday: Nirav supervises cleaning crew of three men. Turns electricity on. Turns it off when leaving. His men don’t need to use the water.

  Later that week: (Tuesday?) Mrs Pryce or someone pretending to be her leaves a message on the answerphone at Hoopers asking them to take the house off the market. Hoopers decide to keep the sign up, still hoping to get the sale, but cancel the contract to keep the lawns mown.

  Thursday of that week: Nirav gets a despairing call from Kyra and moves into the house with her. The water is still on. He turns on the electricity, which he forgets to turn off when they eventually leave. He takes the ‘For Sale’ sign down and throws it in the shrubs in the front garden.

  Ellie hummed to herself. So the electricity was on from that point until Mr Abel turned it off weeks later, when showing Ellie and Vera round.

  Ellie got out another sheet of notepaper. This business of the electricity . . .

  Why was the big freezer left behind in the garage when everything else was moved out? By mistake? Perhaps someone had been booked to take it, but at the last minute failed to do so? Had it been emptied of food by that time? The power had probably been switched off at the plug on the wall at that point.

  Ellie thought that needed checking, too, and made a note to herself to do so.

  On the other hand, perhaps it been left there by design? In which case, the murder – if that is what it was – had been premeditated.

  Ah, but shoving the body in the freezer looked like a panic-stricken move to hide the body somewhere as a temporary measure. Whoever had done it had been in such a hurry that they’d failed to tuck all of Mrs Pryce’s robe inside, so the lid hadn’t shut properly, which had aided decomposition.

  One person might have done it, but it was more likely to have been a two-person job. They hadn’t wanted her found straight away, so they’d turned the electricity back on at the plug on the wall. This had frozen her body and prevented the start of decomposition.

  Ellie looked back at her notes. The last time anyone had seen Mrs Pryce in the flesh had been on the Thursday. Ellie didn’t count the phone messages, which could have been left by anyone, really.

  So, let’s suppose Mrs Pryce had died – never mind how for the moment – and been put in the freezer on the Thursday night. The car had gone by Friday morning when Nirav arrived. Then Jack had arrived to put padlocks on all the doors, including that of the garage. He might or might not have entered the garage, but he wouldn’t have noticed any smell because at that stage there wasn’t any.

  How quickly does a body decompose and start to smell?

  Ellie checked her notes. Back to the beginning . . . The mains electricity had been on till Friday when Nirav cleared the house and checked the meters. Nirav got Fritz to turn the electricity off, and it remained so till Monday morning, when he returned with the cleaning crew.

  It takes a good twenty-four hours to defrost a large chest freezer. Decomposition might have started on the Sunday, but not enough to be noticeable even in the garage, because on the Monday it had been turned on again for the day. The freezer had got down to temperature and frozen the body again.

  When the cleaning crew left on Monday the electricity had been turned off and the freezer started to defrost. Decomposition started once again, until Thursday when Nirav moved in with Kyra and turned the electricity on again, which held up further decomposition. Stop and start. The garage had been securely locked up and no one had had cause to visit it . . . except blowflies.

  This ruled out Jack the window cleaner as the murderer since – as he’d retained keys to the padlocks – he could have got into the garage at any time and taken the body away for burial. Nobody would have been any the wiser.

  Nirav and Kyra had left the electricity on when they fled. The motor in the freezer had been under stress during the period of their occupation, because the lid hadn’t been properly closed, but it had kept decomposition at bay until Mr Abel turned the electricity off for good.

  Which takes us to this last Wednesday. Give it a day to defrost again. The current heatwave had speeded up decomposition, and death had at last begun to spread its message through the garage and out into the courtyard beyond. By Thursday afternoon when Ellie had gone to investigate, the telltale smell was unmistakeable. Not to mention the blowflies . . .

  Ellie put down her pen, sighing, easing her back.

  She thought she’d probably got the timeline right, but there was a sheaf of unanswered questions in her head. What had become of the car? What had happened to Mrs Pryce’s personal effects and, in particular, her jewellery
box? Who had phoned Hoopers and the retirement home, saying they were Mrs Pryce? And who had killed her in the first place?

  FIFTEEN

  Friday evening

  ‘The police are here again,’ said Thomas, putting his head round the door. ‘Do you feel up to seeing them?’

  ‘Probably not, but I’ll try. Thomas, would you photocopy these two pieces of paper for me? It’s a bit macabre, but may explain what’s happened.’

  In came Ears. It would be him, wouldn’t it? His ears were red even before he started, which indicated he was already in a state about something, and that something was bound to be Ellie’s ‘interference’. After him came DC Milburn, looking subdued.

  Ellie wished she hadn’t said she was up to seeing them. She didn’t feel up to it, not at all. Ears said, ‘No solicitor present?’ with snarling irony. ‘Well, what a surprise. How long have you been obstructing the police in their enquiries, may I ask?’

  ‘Have I?’ said Ellie. ‘About what? I’m not aware that—’

  ‘No, you never are aware, are you? Always so innocent, making out you’re helping the police but actually hiding information from them.’

  DC Milburn said, ‘We found Mrs Pryce’s car in a long-stay car park at Heathrow Airport.’

  Ears shot her a look of annoyance and returned to focus on Ellie. ‘You should have told us it was missing.’

  Ellie blinked. She got up with an effort and made her way back to her own chair by the fireplace. ‘Forgive me. I’ve had an accident and am not quite the thing. I suggested you look for it in conjunction with Mrs Pryce’s disappearance.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  The DC shot a resentful glance at her superior officer, lowered her eyes and clenched her mouth shut.

  ‘The airport?’ said Ellie, feeling tired but making an effort. ‘An excellent place to leave it. No one would look twice until the car overstayed the amount of time they’d paid for. Did you find her belongings, including her handbag and a leather jewellery case?’

  ‘The cupboard was bare,’ said the DC.

  ‘Jewellery case?’ Ears swung round on the DC. ‘What do we know about a jewellery case? Has one been reported missing?’