Murder With Mercy

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Mother!’ Diana was calling from the hall.

  Ellie started. Diana needed attention. Of course. How many days till her baby was due?

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Ellie, ushering Rose out and closing the door behind them. ‘Rose, how about supper?’

  ‘The beef stew, remember? With dumplings. Now don’t you fuss about Vera. I’ve been up to see her, gave her some more lemonade and aspirin, and she’s gone back to sleep again. She asked after the boy, I said he was with you, and she said that was all right.’

  Well, it might or not be all right and Rose oughtn’t to have to climb all those stairs, but for the moment everything seemed to be under control. Except for Diana.

  Diana was restless, walking around, massaging her lower back. ‘My back aches, and I’m so tired. However much longer can it be? I went to the hospital this afternoon and they said it would be a couple of days yet.’

  ‘Babies come when they’re ready and not before.’ Ellie let herself down into her big, high-backed chair with a sigh. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.

  Diana twisted herself into a chair, but couldn’t settle and got out of it again straight away. ‘I can’t get comfortable. I had a call from Evan and found him on the floor. He’d tried to switch the kettle on or something, and fallen. I had ever such a job to get him back into his chair, and he’d, well, wet himself.’ She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Was that really a tear? Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Diana cry. Mind you, her situation was pretty dire. ‘Was he alone in the house?’

  ‘He was. I do think you might have stayed till his daughter got back from school. She was supposed to be back by then but she was late, some after-school club she helps out with, as if it isn’t more important to look after her father than some brats who are truanting more often then not and who have no intention of doing anything with their lives but deal in drugs and get pregnant. Excuses, excuses. She’s useless at looking after Evan. I did think she’d take her share of sitting with him, but no, it’s all me, me, me!’

  ‘She’s a nice girl,’ said Ellie, non-committal. ‘It’s good of her to volunteer for the after school club, you know she’s working for her exams, and she does do the early morning shift with Evan.’

  ‘It’s not enough.’ Diana tried another chair only to heave herself out of it again. ‘I did think I could rely on you for more than the odd half hour.’

  Ellie bit back some sharp words. She thought of all the things she ought to be doing at that very moment: finding out what had gone wrong for Thomas, seeing to supper, checking on Vera, sorting out what it was that Mikey had done … and then Lesley Milburn wanted news of the dodgy suicides … and there were all the usual problems arising from her charity work … she hadn’t passed Edwina Pryce’s latest missive on to her solicitor yet … And Diana wanted a babysitter!

  She said, keeping calm, ‘You’ll have to pay someone. A professional. Perhaps a man who could help Evan with his walking? A man might be less embarrassing for him, don’t you think?’

  ‘I can’t afford it. The business is not doing well enough. I’m juggling too many balls in the air. If I stay at home we lose customers.’

  ‘Has the doctor any advice?’

  ‘He suggested an agency in the Avenue which might be able to provide him with a full or part-time carer. The thing is, I don’t like to use people who come without a recommendation. And the cost! I’m not made of money.’

  ‘How about a volunteer? Ah, but would they know enough to be of any use in an emergency? What about a District Nurse, or whatever they’re called nowadays. Surely the doctor can advise—’

  ‘I was thinking more on the lines of someone he knows, someone whose company he’d enjoy.’

  ‘Someone he could flirt with, you mean?’

  That annoyed Diana. ‘Certainly not! He wouldn’t be interested. But he has been ringing around giving the old sob story to some of his old flames, and he did mention a couple of people, golf club members, who might be persuaded to spend time with him. I wondered if you might know them. There’s Marcia something-double-barrelled, Rosemary, and someone called Polly or Pauline. I think I’ve met them in passing, but I don’t know one from the other. All widows, all left comparatively well off, I think.’

  Ellie shrugged. ‘I never really got to know the golf club lot.’

  Diana laid a piece of paper on the table. ‘Here’s their names and addresses. You could perhaps visit them, explain the situation—’

  Ellie didn’t know whether to laugh or to slap her daughter. ‘You’ve got a nerve.’

  ‘Yes, I have, haven’t I?’ Was that another tear on her cheek? ‘But you see, I’m at my wits’ end. I want to do the best I can by him, and I know my strengths and my weaknesses. I can run a business but I can’t do the sympathetic, caring bit very well. You can. So, will you help me out?’

  Against her better judgement, Ellie said, ‘I’ll see what I can do. I’ll pop over to visit him tomorrow lunchtime, stay with him for a bit and try to see one of your lady visitors in the early afternoon. I’m not promising anything more than that, mind!’

  Wednesday evening

  She was terribly upset. She would have a little sit down, turn the telly on, put her feet up.

  It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t even touched the girl!

  Ruby had said she didn’t like the look of her sister’s baby when she was born, and had she been right! Caught thieving from the shops before she was ten, cautioned so many times, no one could remember how many. Ruby had been upset about it, but there, the girl had taken after her father, hadn’t she? Thought the world owed him a living which, as Ruby said, it never had done and never would.

  At least the girl hadn’t started truanting till she was fourteen, after her first abortion, but after that it had all been downhill. She’d never seemed to understand about contraception. Three abortions, was it? Or four? Regular as clockwork.

  How the girl had managed to hide that last pregnancy of hers nobody knew. She’d put on so much weight, maybe she hadn’t even noticed it herself. No one was going to worry too much about what had happened to a girl like that now, were they?

  Petra had been carting bags of shopping up the stairs, tripped over a child’s scooter on the landing and fell. Clear as the nose on your face.

  No one had touched her. Called out to her, yes. Petra had turned round to see who’d been calling her name, and that’s when she fell over the scooter. Bump, bump, bump.

  The stairs were in a quiet cul-de-sac at the back of the shops. There was no one else around. The older woman had thought at first she should call for help but she hadn’t got her mobile phone on her. She did have one, but she wasn’t sure where it was, and she didn’t want to wait around in the rain, it made her hip ache. Someone would be bound to come along and see the girl in a minute.

  She had got on the bus round the corner and had been in such a fluster she couldn’t find her bus pass at first, but then she did find it, so that was all right. The whole thing had shaken her up, rather.

  She was still all of a tremble. Perhaps she would have a shot of something to calm her nerves.

  Wednesday evening

  ‘Thomas, wake up! Supper!’

  He groaned, and stirred.

  Mikey slept on, oblivious. Ellie touched the boy’s forehead. His skin seemed cool. Could he really have managed to produce a temperature in order to avoid questioning at the police station? She wouldn’t put it past him.

  But not speaking? The doctor didn’t think the boy had concussion but wanted Ellie to keep an eye on him. Well, she would do that. His not speaking was an emotional thing, wasn’t it? Nothing to do with his bang on the head. Or was it?

  Thomas yawned, and stretched. ‘What’s the time? And –’ as he tried to stand up – ‘why is Mikey sleeping on my feet?’

  ‘He’s had a hard day. I’ll tell you all about it later. Leave him be and come and have something to eat. You’ve had a difficult tim
e too?’

  ‘Urgh.’ He shook himself. ‘You could say so, yes. Plagiarism. I know students crib from the Internet and try to pass the stuff off as their own unaided efforts, but you don’t expect it from a colleague.’ Still yawning, he followed her out to the kitchen.

  ‘No one you know and like, I hope?’

  ‘Far from it, but I only just spotted the problem in time. Another day and it would have been too late. We’d have gone to press and then what a furore there would have been! He’s an important man – at least in his own estimation – and he’s not best pleased that I pulled his article. I had to go and see him to explain why I did so, and what he might do to produce something I could accept in the future. Luckily, I’d got another article in hand which I’d put by for the next edition.’ Thomas chuckled, regaining his usual composure.

  Rose served up a good, rib-sticking supper of beef stew with dumplings and they all felt better when they’d cleared their plates. Rose put some aside for Mikey to eat when he surfaced, and told Ellie and Thomas to leave her to clear up as they’d only be under her feet if they stayed in the kitchen. Rose was rising to the occasion. Ellie only hoped she wouldn’t pay for it later on.

  Mikey appeared, dragging his sleeping bag and with the cat in tow, as Thomas made himself a cup of good coffee and Ellie prepared to move out of the kitchen.

  ‘Are you all right, Mikey?’

  He hunched his shoulders and didn’t reply. Midge settled himself on the chair next to Mikey and prepared to receive a portion of the boy’s supper.

  Ellie turned the boy’s head to her. His eyes looked all right to her. She didn’t think he’d got concussion.

  Now, how was Vera? Ellie toiled up the stairs to the top of the house to make sure the girl didn’t need anything and found her fast asleep. Good. Then down to the sitting room to have a chat with Thomas.

  ‘So, tell me what’s been happening,’ he said, subsiding into his big La-Z-Boy chair with his cup of coffee. ‘When I got home Rose was flapping around but not making much sense. I gather Vera’s gone down with flu, Mikey’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, that you went to babysit for Evan, and then rescued the boy from somewhere.’

  ‘I really don’t know what to do about Mikey. Sometimes I think he’s a lot cleverer than I am, and that it’s no good second-guessing what he’s up to. A workman at the hotel site hauled Mikey off to the police station, saying the boy had been sabotaging the work on a regular basis. He laid a formal complaint, emphasizing that Mikey was truanting from school and was from a single parent family. He said the boy had fallen down the stairs and bumped his head when he’d been caught, which explained why his clothing was in a mess. The police took this at face value, and in a way I don’t blame them for doing so, because Mikey didn’t defend himself in any way or even bother to speak.’

  Thomas was concerned. ‘Not speaking?’

  ‘I know. I’m worried about it, too. The boy had been roughly treated to put it mildly, but it was only when I arrived and started asking awkward questions that they called in a doctor and had him properly examined. The doctor noted various bruises which didn’t tally with the workman’s story and, worst of all, a defensive knife wound on his forearm—’

  ‘What?’ Thomas shot upright in his chair. ‘The boy was knifed?’

  ‘Don’t be alarmed. It’s only a scratch. His jacket took the brunt of it. But if he hadn’t been wearing a couple of layers of clothing, his arm would have caught it. And yes, he was knocked about. He was also running a high temperature. I thought that in addition to everything else, he might have flu and indeed he still might have, because how he could produce such a high temperature on demand I do not know. I brought him home, I turned my back on him for a second, he made his way to your quiet room and ended up at your feet, asleep … and his temperature now seems normal. Work that one out.’

  Thomas relaxed, laughing, stroking his beard. ‘The young imp. But, a knife?’

  ‘Definitely a knife. But, if he really has been sabotaging the work at the hotel—’

  ‘It’s his playground. He feels proprietorially towards it. He wouldn’t damage it. Why would he?’

  ‘Yes, he does love the place. For that very reason I wondered if he’d resented the fact that the work there is nearly finished and tried to delay it. Hugh has banned him from the site, but—’

  ‘It didn’t stop him going there again today.’

  Ellie raised her hands in the air. ‘Tell me about it. I delivered him to school this morning. I saw him walk through the school gates. What else could I have done? Now, it’s too late to phone Hugh tonight but I’ll have words with him tomorrow, see what I can sort out. If I offer to pay for the damage, I’m sure Hugh won’t press charges. The big worry is if the police involve Social Services they might start poking around, wanting to take Mikey into care. It would kill Vera.’

  ‘We won’t let that happen.’

  She was comforted. If Thomas was on the warpath, who could withstand him?

  ‘And that’s all that’s troubling you?’

  Ah, he knew her so well. ‘I spent some time with Evan, who is about the dreariest of companions you could imagine, all doom and gloom. Diana wants me to sort out an official companion for him from among his circle. Well, I can’t vet them all, but I could sound one or two of them out to see if they are sympathetic and sensible.’

  ‘Hmph!’ said Thomas. ‘Isn’t it up to Diana to soothe his fractious brow?’

  ‘Possibly, but that’s not one of her talents.’

  ‘I don’t see why you should have to run around after her, or him. I do worry about you, you know.’

  Ellie tried to explain. ‘I like people and I like to be of use to them. Yes, it’s tiring and sometimes it’s tiresome but I do feel I’m being of use when I’m helping other people.’

  He laid his hands over hers. ‘Aren’t your days busy enough as it is?’

  ‘I inherited all that money. I didn’t earn it and I didn’t ask for it. I don’t feel that I have a talent for handling it, but it’s been dumped in my lap and I have to look after it as best I can. Looking after it is not enjoyable. I prefer dealing with people. I’m interested in them, what they think and do, and how they cope with their lives. I feel I understand them, and sometimes I do feel that I can help them. I infinitely prefer talking to someone to reading the minutes of meetings or rubber-stamping paperwork.’

  He held her hand, then patted it.

  She blinked. It was all the world to her that Thomas understood. He hadn’t married her for her money. That had never been of interest to him. He loved her because she was right for him, and he was right for her.

  She said, ‘Oh, and the oddest things can happen. Detective Constable Milburn – who’s asked me to call her Lesley, by the way – wants to know if I’d heard anything about the untimely deaths of some elderly ladies in the vicinity. According to her, we are surrounded not by ladies who lunch, but by ladies who pass away prematurely, possibly assisted by their friends or relations. Now, Evan asked me to drop something into a friend of his called Freddie, whose wife’s recent death is a possible case in point—’

  ‘Do we know him?’

  ‘Sort of. Golf club acquaintances. Freddie and his wife were friends of Evan’s, and she took an overdose recently. Thomas, gossip drifts your way from all quarters. Have you heard of anything like that?’

  Silence. Thomas stroked his beard. She could feel the intensity of his thinking. He put out his hand to riffle through the Radio Times, checking what might be on the box. Then laid the magazine down again. More frowning.

  ‘Mm?’ she said.

  A shake of the head. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Lesley also mentioned someone else, a former cleaning lady whose niece seems to think she was pushed into the void in untimely fashion; the aunt was afraid she was about to be moved to an old people’s home. I’ve met the niece and was not impressed. I’m not sure what to think of her story. Freddie’s wife was threatened with a ret
urn of cancer. Both took an overdose. In both cases there was a query as to how they’d managed to collect so many pills, and Lesley wants to be quite sure that nobody helped them.’

  ‘Ah. Older people can get confused, take their nightly medication, go to sleep, wake up and mistakenly take another dose.’

  ‘Especially if they’re dreading the future. Especially if they’ve managed to stockpile not just one but quite a few extra doses … which in both cases is denied by the relatives.’

  ‘Relatives are usually understanding and sympathetic if the sufferer is in intense pain and wants to end it. They may not actually connive to supply extra pills, although I think that over the years I’ve been asked to conduct a funeral for several people whose misery has been cut short unexpectedly.’

  ‘What is your position on that?’

  He pulled a face. ‘I pray about it and ask for forgiveness if I’ve overlooked some way that I might have eased their pain.’

  ‘You turn a blind eye.’

  ‘I hope and trust I haven’t misread any signals. How about you?’

  She sighed. ‘I’ve been trying to think of anyone I knew who might have gone down that road and I can’t, except that my mother did say once … but it was years ago, and I didn’t know them. It was some couple she’d known for ever who died within days of one another. I mean, one died in hospital and the other was found dead in her bed at home the next morning. I have no idea how I’d act if I were faced with such a situation. I hope it never happens.’

  She shuddered. ‘Someone just walked over my grave.’

  Wednesday evening

  It was lovely to hear from old friends. She’d been half hoping and half fearing that he’d contact her, because she’d heard he was in a bad way.

  Dear Evan. They’d known one another for ever. The great thing about old friends was that you never needed to explain anything. Mind you, his choice of wives … Well, least said the better. Her husband had always said some men were ruled by impulse, and he wasn’t referring to their choice of shoes, was he?