Murder in Style (11 page)

‘Thankfully, yes. Off you go.'

Trixie grabbed Clemmie's shoulder. ‘Where are you going?'

‘You know very well I work in the shop on Saturday mornings, and in the office upstairs in the afternoon.' Patiently. Then, provocatively, ‘Celine's busy. Perhaps
you'd
like to help her here in the shop for a change?'

‘Come on! I'm no shop girl.'

‘Well, I am. I have to work for my living, remember?' There was no animosity in this exchange. The cousins weren't at one another's throats, but there was a sense that each was testing the other.

‘Fortunately,' said Trixie, almost to herself, ‘I don't have to.'

Clemmie nodded, twisted away from Trixie and withdrew into the back room.

Trixie stamped her foot. ‘Oh!' She swung on her heel and stormed out of the shop, just as Gordon was trying to leave in his wheelchair. They collided in the doorway, did some ritual shouting at one another, and exited.

Peace and quiet. Stares from customers. A sigh of relief and more apologies from Celine.

Ellie went through the back room into the kitchenette. The fire door was open on to the tiny yard. A tall, grey-haired, well-dressed man was standing at the base of the fire escape, talking to Clemmie. It was the same man who'd accompanied Celine to the funeral. Ellie had put him down as married to Celine. But was that right?

When he saw Ellie watching, the man turned away and went up the stairs.

Clemmie made as if to follow him, but changed her mind and returned to the kitchen, saying to Ellie, ‘I'm off in a minute.'

‘Is that the man Ray and Gordon call “The Monkey”?'

‘I don't know why they call him that, but they were all at school together, so …' A shrug. ‘His name is Mr Mornay and he's helping out at the agency for the time being.'

‘He's Celine's husband?'

‘What? Oh, no. Celine's a widow.'

‘He was at the funeral with her.'

‘He came to the funeral because he's a family friend and because he's been helping us out recently, but he didn't want to get involved in the reading of the will. He was just checking that I'd be able to work upstairs this afternoon, which I can. The office has been closed for a week and there's a pile of stuff to deal with. I'm going out to get some lunch for us all, and then I'm on duty upstairs.'

Ellie said, in a conversational tone, ‘I hate to be a nuisance, but either you start talking to me, or I tell my policewoman friend that Juno has gone missing in mysterious circumstances. The police will put out an APB for her, and start questioning the family all over again.'

Clemmie produced her tiny, pussycat smile. ‘Yes, I thought that's what you'd say. Give me half an hour, then ring the bell on the door next to the shop, and I'll let you in.'

‘I'll do better than that. Tell me what you want to eat for lunch, and I'll get it for all three of us.'

‘There's four of us upstairs. The first café along the Avenue knows what we like. Two sausage baguettes, two egg and cress sandwiches, two lattes with sugar, one Ribena, one chocolate milkshake. Collect the money from us on your return.'

Returning to The Magpie, Ellie looked for and found an unobtrusive door immediately to the left of the shop. A discreet plaque advertised the presence of the PJ agency. P for Poppy, J for Juno? That was easy to interpret. It was amazing they'd kept their activities secret for so long … or had they? Who – apart from the senior Cardovers and Celine – had known about the agency's success? Clemmie? Mm, yes. But who else?

There was a query in Ellie's mind about how much the husbands had known. Ray certainly hadn't realized how extensive The Magpie's activities had grown to be until he'd opened some wrongly addressed mail. An eruption comparable to Vesuvius blowing its top had ensued. Words such as ‘treachery' had been chucked around.

How much had Gordon known?

Ellie pressed the button on the speaker system, gave her name and was buzzed in to a tiny lobby. Clemmie's voice floated down from above. ‘I'm on the phone. Come straight up.'

Steep stairs rose ahead of Ellie, ending in a small landing off which a door led to the right.

It was down these stairs that Poppy had fallen to her death.

Ellie was not in darkness, as some light came from a transom window above the front door behind her, and more came from the open door at the top of the stairs. Also, there were timed buttons at top and bottom of the flight to operate a light in the ceiling. Ellie tested the nearest switch with her elbow and the light came on.

There were handrails on both sides of the staircase, which was carpeted in a coffee-coloured hardwearing material. The walls had been painted magnolia, and decorated with sepia photographs showing how the shops in the Avenue used to look years ago. The decor was in restrained good taste. Perhaps it was slightly dull, like an old-fashioned bank? But that wasn't a bad impression to give if you were aiming to present yourself as reliable and creditworthy.

There was no obvious reason why anyone should fall down the stairs or – if they did stumble and lose their footing – why they had ended up in the morgue.

Ellie put down the food she was carrying to brush the carpet on the bottom steps with her hand. They were dry. There was no sign of bloodstains. If there had been blood, it had been cleaned away most efficiently, but the sort of deep cleaning which removed blood would have left the carpet on the bottom steps looking a shade lighter than the rest. There was no sign of that.

Had the carpet been replaced? No. A new carpet fluffs up. This one hadn't been disturbed for some time. Possibly not for years. Was the bit on which she stood a shade darker than the rest? Possibly. It was hard to tell. No, she'd probably imagined it.

Ellie scanned the walls on either side. If someone tripped and fell, they'd probably have bashed themselves against the walls on either side on their way down, leaving marks on the plaster, even bloodstains or gouges. Nothing.

Did the pictures cover telltale bloodstains? Ellie left her packages at the bottom of the stairs and walked up them, twitching the pictures aside as she went. The walls were clean. The pictures were not hiding signs of someone who'd bounced off the walls in falling.

So, Poppy had fallen from top to bottom without leaving a trace behind.

Or, her neck had been broken at the top or at the bottom of the stairs, and her body left just inside the door to the street?

Ellie retrieved her packages and climbed the stairs as Clemmie appeared on the landing. ‘Sorry about that. I should have come down to give you a hand, but … the phone. Mother arranged for all the incoming calls to be rerouted to Laura's home phone while the office was closed, and she's managed to deal with most of them, but there's a backlog, not surprisingly. No one else has been in, so the post has mounted up, too!'

Ellie looked to see where the pad controlling the speaker-and-entry system was located. It was on the landing next to the timer switch for the light. Not a very good idea. When someone rang the bell at the door downstairs, one of the office workers would have to get up from her desk and walk over to the landing before they could press the button to hear who was calling, and only then would they release the doorcatch to let them in. Which was what Clemmie had just done, interrupting her phone call in the middle.

Ellie handed over her packages and followed Clemmie into a large open office overlooking the street. Here the theme was also cream and cocoa, but now they were in the twenty-first century. Modernity ruled. Desks, computers, printers, maps, ranks of books, samples of carpeting and tiles … everything was neat and orderly. Even a mountain of opened post had been sorted into piles marked: Urgent, Pending and Junk.

Ellie recognized the two women in the office. They'd both been at the funeral. The nearest one had longish, grey hair caught back with a comb, and was packing a briefcase while checking her smartphone. She wore a business suit, discreetly expensive. Forty-ish, efficient, intelligent. No wedding ring.

She gave Ellie a cursory glance, but didn't wait to be introduced. ‘Clemmie, I'll take my lunch with me. Got a viewing in half an hour. Then I'm checking on number nine. There's a complaint about the work that new decorator's done. Should be back about four. The paperwork from this morning's visits is on your desk.'

Clemmie handed her some food, and she was off.

‘That was Ruth,' said Clemmie. ‘She does most of the viewings and inspections. Over by the window is Laura, our office manageress.'

Laura was the other middle-aged woman who'd been at the funeral and who had sat with Ruth and a young girl. Perhaps the young girl was the ‘new' one, who was taking over from Clemmie in the shop this afternoon?

Laura was talking on the phone, frowning, listening, pulling on longish brown hair, and didn't stop when Clemmie placed her food on her desk. Laura wore a wedding ring, and was casually, expensively dressed. She had a pleasant voice, reassuring someone on the phone that a carpenter would be with the caller on Monday morning. Like her fellow worker Ruth, she wasn't interested in Ellie. Perhaps because both Ruth and Laura assumed Ellie was a customer and that Clemmie was looking after her? A reasonable assumption.

Clemmie led the way to the back of the room where a couple of desks were unattended. ‘Laura is the first port of call on the telephone. She gets the enquiry, logs it, passes it to my mother or to Aunt Poppy, and they deal with it or delegate to one of us. I'm the dogsbody, dealing with a bit of everything. I answer the phone if Laura's engaged; I do the filing; I log everything on to the computer. I liaise with the team for repairs and for refurbishing the houses when tenants leave or we acquire another property. Electricians, plasterers, plumbers, decorators.'

‘And enjoy it?'

Clemmie looked surprised at the question, then smiled. ‘Yes. I enjoy it.'

‘Exactly where does Mr Mornay come into this?'

Her expression closed up again. In a flat voice, she said, ‘Mr Mornay is our accountant, as well as a family friend. A couple of weeks ago, Aunt Poppy and Mother asked Mr Mornay to give them an overview of where the company should be going. The business has grown, you see. They thought perhaps we could combine some jobs or, if we're doing well enough – which is what we are hoping – we might afford to take on another person.'

She looked away, and said in a small voice. ‘I don't mean someone to replace Aunt Poppy.' She swallowed. ‘I suppose we'll need someone with a business head to try to replace her. But even before she died, we were running round like mad things trying to get everything done, and we never had time to stop and think about where we're going. When Mum gets back, I suppose they'll have a meeting and sort it out. He's said he'll stay on for the time being.'

‘You don't like him?'

A compression of the lips. ‘Of course I do. I've known him for ever, sort of.'

‘He's a friend of your father's?'

‘They were all at school together, Mum and Aunt Poppy and Mr Mornay and Uncle Ray. When I was little, I called Mr Mornay “Uncle Charles”, but he says it's inappropriate now he's here at the office as, sort of, my boss.'

Ellie frowned. If Clemmie had always called him ‘Uncle' before, why did he have to be so formal now?

‘I'm not complaining,' said Clemmie, looking self-conscious. ‘Because, if that's the way he wants it … sorry! I shouldn't gossip. I don't know why I'm telling you all this.'

‘Because you're caught up in a horrible situation, and you're worried sick about what's going to happen. Because I'm here to help if I can.'

‘Yes.' Another of her considering stares, almost accusatory. ‘You're very easy to talk to.'

Ellie felt herself blush. ‘I'm interested in people. I think that's why they talk to me.'

‘You want to talk to Mr Mornay?' Clemmie gestured to the back of the office. ‘He's working in the inner sanctum for the time being. I'll introduce you.' She led Ellie past a toilet and a kitchenette, through a door into another sunny room, one which must have been built out over the back room downstairs.

Ellie looked around with interest. She believed you could tell a lot about people by the way they ‘nested' in an office. Here there was evidence of two different personalities. Identical desks faced one another across the room: one each for Poppy and Juno. Twin computers and telephones, yes. The computers and telephones on one desk were decorated with stickers; the other set was plain.

One desk overflowed with catalogues and samples. A fuchsia-pink cardigan hung over the back of the chair. A tumble of glittery pens had fallen out of a china mug which lacked a handle. A laptop lay in its case against the back wall. Poppy's?

On the other desk, a stark black mug, complete with handle, held a selection of ballpoint pens in plain black. A dark grey pashmina had been folded up and left over that chair. The desk was severely clear. Juno's. No laptop in sight.

In the centre of the room there was a large table at which Mr Mornay was sitting, talking on the phone and taking notes. His computer was up and running in front of him, and there were ledgers and bills around him. Real ledgers, real stacks of bills. So this wasn't a paper-free office? Not that Ellie had ever had any faith in such. Ellie was suspicious of how safe online banking could be, and what happened to credit card details when given over the phone. She knew this put her in the dinosaur class, and she didn't care.

Mr Mornay looked up, sharp eyes noting that Clemmie had brought Ellie into his office. He nodded. No smile. He said, ‘Not now, Clemmie,' and concentrated on his caller. ‘Yes, I do understand. No, what I'm referring to is …'

Clemmie deposited some of the food on his desk and retreated to the main office, taking Ellie with her. She said, ‘I'll introduce you when he's off the phone. Shall we eat at my desk?'