Murder by Mistake (4 page)

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Ought to have erased it. Storm in a teacup. All over now.’

He held her at arm’s-length. ‘I turn my back for five minutes.’

‘That’s what Rose said.’ She tried to laugh, tried to smile, buried her face in his shoulder, held on to him. He was big enough to take it, luckily. He was a large, bearded man who looked like a sailor, but was a respected academic. Once the minister of her parish church, he was now editing a national Christian magazine and being invited more and more often to speak at high-level conferences.

‘Should I check that you’ve still got both your arms and legs?’

‘How about my fingers and toes? I’m all right. Hungry, though.’ She picked one of her silvery hairs from his shirt. ‘I’m afraid quite a lot’s been happening. I should have rung you.’

‘Now what?’ He tucked her within his arm. Midge the cat arrived from nowhere to wind around his legs. Midge – a misnomer if ever there was one – approved of Thomas because he had a frontage large and comfortable enough to sit on.

The door to the kitchen quarters opened, and Mia crept out into the hall. Thomas checked for a moment, taking in the fact that they had a visitor, and then – blessed man that he was – held out his free arm to Mia. ‘Lovely to see you, my dear. How are you doing?’

Mia wasn’t afraid of him, much. She didn’t take his hand, but she didn’t run away, either. ‘Fine, thanks. And thank you for having me to stay. You’ve heard what happened?’

He swept them both into the sitting room. ‘Sort of. Tell me all.’

He sat with his arm around Ellie on the big old settee, while Mia perched a little way off on a stool. Six months ago she had been ‘a little cracker’, as one of her admirers had put it; a stunningly beautiful girl with long dark curls, peach-like skin and eyes which were at once soft and intelligent. She’d been studying modern languages at Thames Valley University while living at home with her mother, her wealthy stepfather and two stepbrothers.

She and her best friend Ursula had been part of a bright, party-going set until, at a party on New Year’s Eve, Mia had been drugged and offered to a local councillor in an attempt by her family to influence the outcome of a controversial planning permission. If it had stopped there, it would have been bad enough, but a young man who’d tried to come to Mia’s rescue had been thrown from the top of the building and killed. Worse; still drugged out of her senses, the girl had been taken home and locked in her bedroom for further abuse by her family and their friends. After all, as one of her stepbrothers had said, she was second-hand goods by then, so what did it matter?

She’d survived after a fashion, but it was only Ursula’s insistence that something terrible had happened to her friend which had brought Ellie into the picture. It had taken a lot of hard work to find Mia, and then more hard work to mend the broken doll. For she had been broken and, despite a long stay in a clinic and a lot of therapy, she would never be the same bright, carefree girl again.

Nowadays she crept around with her eyes down, cringing if a man came anywhere near her. She’d chopped off her long hair after her ordeal, but though it had grown again, it was now pulled back untidily into a band. Her skin looked unhealthy, and she no longer cared how she dressed. Today she wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt over jeans, but had lost too much weight to look good in them.

Ellie watched as Thomas’s large heart filled with pity for the girl. ‘Tell me,’ he said, using his gentlest voice rather than the lion’s roar which he could employ on occasion.

Mia twisted her hands together between her knees. ‘They tried to kill me again today.’

THREE

T
homas’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Someone tried to kill you today?’

Ellie said, ‘Well, I don’t really think so, Mia. It was the most awful accident, and I’m sure it wasn’t aimed at you.’ She explained what had happened.

Thomas gave her another of his bear-like hugs and said again, ‘I turn my back on you for five minutes!’ Then to Mia, ‘And you, my dear? Not hurt?’

Mia shook her head. ‘A bit bruised. Not that that matters. I know I’m on borrowed time. I don’t really expect to live long enough to give evidence.’

Thomas rubbed his eyes. He’d had a tiring journey and didn’t really need to cope with this at the end of the day. ‘Well, my dear, as far as I know, all the men who hurt you are now locked up in jail.’

‘Yes, but they have friends who could act for them, don’t they? That’s why I was so glad to leave London for a while, with only the police and Ursula knowing where I was.’

‘Where were you? Can you tell us?’

‘I have an aunt whom I hadn’t seen for ages, though we’d always kept in touch with birthday and Christmas cards. When I was convalescing I realized I’d missed her birthday, so I wrote and told her what had happened. She invited me to stay if I’d help with the housework. I needed to be somewhere quiet away from London. It seemed a perfect solution to the problem of what to do with myself until the trial. So I went.

‘She lives in a big house in Cambridgeshire, the nearest village nearly a mile away. She’s very frail. At first I was so grateful to her for taking me in that I couldn’t do enough for her. I took on the shopping and cooking, and kept the house going as best I could. I wasn’t strong enough to do the garden as well, but she had a couple of lads come over now and then to mow the lawn. They heard what had happened to me and assumed that I would like them to . . . Oh, it was horrid.’

‘Didn’t your aunt stop them?’

‘She is of the old school. She means well, I suppose, but . . . when we went to church that first Sunday, she told everyone what had happened to me. Gossip like that spreads. She really believes I’m ruined. Maybe I am.

‘I’d written to tell Ursula where I was. She replied, asking me to keep in touch, but though I wrote back, she didn’t reply. I tried phoning her mobile, but the number was no longer obtainable. I thought she probably didn’t want to be friends with me any more. My aunt had a landline phone which she kept for emergencies only. She was always on about the cost of everything, and I didn’t like to ask if I could use it just to keep in touch with my friends. I tried my best to please her, but she became more and more demanding. I hardly had any time to myself, and then I was so tired in the evenings I just went to bed and slept. I didn’t notice how the weeks had gone by until one day I realized I hadn’t heard from Ursula for ages.

‘I asked my aunt if I might use her phone for one call. She didn’t like it, but eventually she agreed. I rang Ursula’s mother, who gave me a new mobile number, and when I got through to Ursula, well, did I get an earful! She’d been writing to me and ringing me and why hadn’t I replied? Was I or was I not going to be her bridesmaid when she got married? I didn’t even know she’d got herself engaged!

‘My aunt had been intercepting my mail and phone calls. I understood why. I’d been her unpaid carer for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, which had made it possible for her to stay on in that big house. The next day Ursula arrived and there was the most almighty row.’

Ellie smoothed out a smile, and Thomas guffawed. ‘I can imagine. If you’re going to get into a fight, you need someone like Ursula by your side.’

‘Yes.’ A tiny smile. ‘She is rather wonderful, isn’t she? She tore into my aunt, who had an attack of hiccups and swore she was going to die. She didn’t, of course. Ursula told me to pack up and return to London with her. She said I could sleep on the settee at her mother’s for the night, and she’d find somewhere else for me to stay next day. She demanded the letters which my aunt had intercepted. There were six from Ursula and two from a solicitor here in Ealing.’

Mia stirred, uneasy. ‘The solicitor is the one my stepfather used. I didn’t want to open those letters and I didn’t want to come back to Ealing, but Ursula isn’t afraid of anything, is she? She opened the letters and made me read them. The solicitor wanted to see me because one of the men who . . .’ She gulped. ‘I used to call him Uncle Bob. When he went abroad, he used to bring me back little presents. He didn’t have any children of his own, you see. He always took an interest in me, encouraged me, praised me. Which was more than my stepfather ever did. I used to like my Uncle Bob more than I liked my stepfather.

‘Anyway, he was one of those who . . . after . . . when I was kept prisoner at home, he came in and . . .’

‘Yes,’ said Thomas. ‘Give that bit a miss.’

She shuddered. ‘I can’t think about what happened even now without getting into a state. I know they’re all locked up and can’t get at me. None of them got bail except Uncle Bob and my mother, who swore she knew nothing about my being kept in my room . . . though how anyone can believe that, I don’t know. But then, they don’t know what she’s like, do they? Uncle Bob got bail because he was diagnosed with cancer of the liver. He died six months ago. The solicitor asked me to see him, as he had a letter for me from Uncle Bob and I was mentioned in his will. I thought Uncle Bob wanted to say sorry for what he’d done to me; perhaps he’d left me a keepsake? I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to hear that he was sorry, either. But Ursula . . .’ She sighed.

‘Of course you didn’t want to,’ said Thomas, ‘but Ursula was right. You had to find out what he said.’

‘I suppose so. Anyway, I stayed at Ursula’s that first night, but you know, her mother isn’t exactly . . . Well, it is a tiny flat, and I suppose I was in the way. So Ursula asked Ellie if I might come and stay here last night, to make sure I got to see the solicitor today. Ursula would have looked after me herself, but she had job interviews to go to. Ursula thought – and she’s probably right – that I’d duck out of going to the solicitor if someone didn’t make me go. Ellie said, “Yes, of course.”’

‘Of course,’ said Ellie. ‘Stay for as long as you like.’

Mia gave Ellie a smile so sweet and genuine that both Ellie and Thomas caught a glimpse of the charm that had once been hers. Ellie could feel Thomas turn to look at her, and knew that sooner or later she was going to have to apologize to him for arranging to take the girl in without asking him.

‘Ellie was lovely. She collected me from Mrs Belton’s and brought me here and showed me her beautiful guest room and we ate with Rose in the kitchen, and although everything was very strange, I did manage to sleep for a couple of hours last night. Ursula rang this morning, before we went to the solicitor’s, and said she was on the track of a nice B & B for me, and she’d ring later to confirm. Which she did a little while ago, but if you really mean I can stay on here for a bit, I’d really like to.’

Ellie saw Thomas take this in, but to his credit he showed no dismay at the news.

‘Then this morning Ellie delivered me on time to the solicitor’s and stayed in the waiting room while I went in to see him. He gave me a letter from Uncle Bob, asking for my forgiveness. I read it through and couldn’t feel anything. Not a thing. Then I got angry. How dared he! Did he really think I could forgive what he’d done to me?’

She was trembling, on the verge of tears. ‘I didn’t know what to say to the solicitor. I wanted to tear the letter up, but it was on very good thick paper and I didn’t know if I had the strength to do it. The solicitor said something about the will. He wanted to read it out to me, but I couldn’t concentrate. I said I needed to go, that Ellie was waiting for me. He gave me a copy of the will to take away.’

She started to cry. ‘I trusted Uncle Bob! When he came into my bedroom, I thought he’d come to rescue me and I ran to him, only . . . he . . .’ She broke off and covered her face with her hands.

Ellie got herself off the settee and put her arms round the girl. ‘There, there.’

‘I trusted him. How can I forgive him?’

More silence. There was a stir in the corner of the room. Rose had come in and seated herself near the door. ‘Supper? Things will look better when you’ve all got some food inside you.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Thomas. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m famished, haven’t eaten a decent meal since I left. Mia, you’re welcome to stay as long as it takes. As to forgiving the people who’ve hurt you, well, that’s easy to say and almost impossible to do.’

Mia said, ‘What I’d like to do is to destroy the will without reading it, but I suppose that’s being childish, isn’t it?’ She began to laugh. Ellie identified a note of hysteria. ‘Do you think he’s left me his cat? But it’s all academic, isn’t it, since it doesn’t look as if I’m going to live long enough to collect. I wonder which of my family tried to kill me today? And will they try again tomorrow?’

Ellie tried to be cheerful over supper, but was aware that Thomas was quieter than usual. Rose made up for it, of course, clucking over Mia. Rose was a born mother hen without any scope for her talents since her own daughter showed no desire to produce babies.

Thomas chose to sit on the opposite side of the table to Mia, which was tactful of him. Some people might have thought this big, bearded man an unlikely candidate for the ministry. If they’d seen Thomas on a motorbike – which, by the way, he did not have – they might have put him down as a Hell’s Angel, tearing up and down motorways, dressed in black leather.

Instead, he’d been in ministry all his adult life, serving in many different capacities. He was harder on himself than on others, and gentle with life’s victims. Even Mia, with her phobia about being touched by a man, was able to let him near her without shrinking.