Murder in Time (25 page)

Dan said, ‘Vera is determined to go to the police and file charges of rape and kidnapping against Abdi. She knows this will mean the case will be in the newspapers, and she's prepared for that.'

Vera looked defiant. ‘We'll survive. Mikey and I, we are survivors. I realize I might have to find somewhere else for us to live, another school for Mikey, another college for me—'

‘Don't be ridiculous!' Yes, Thomas was definitely not his usual calm self. ‘You stay here as long as you want.'

Ellie said, ‘Vera, don't be so hasty. There are more ways than one of dealing with Abdi. I hope it won't be necessary for you to bring the police into it, but if it is, then of course you stay here. It's your home. And I don't think the school will want to turn Mikey away. Yes, there may be some temporary unpleasantness but, as you say, we can work through that.'

‘And,' said Dan, ‘your real friends will stand by you.'

There were tears in Vera's eyes as she looked up at Dan. ‘I never used to be able to look up to you, when we were at school. I remember I had to wear shoes without a heel, because I was taller than you then. You've shot up since.'

‘You certainly haven't shrunk.' He looked down at her well-filled T-shirt.

Vera started to laugh, and if there was a note of hysteria in her laughter, nobody mentioned it. Dan kissed her, hard. Then sat her down and looked at Thomas. ‘Coffee on the way, sir? Can I make it for you?'

Thomas clattered mugs on to the table. ‘Coming up.' Narrow-eyed, he looked at Ellie. ‘My wife here has a theory she'd like to try out on you, Dan. Ellie …?'

Ellie reddened. ‘Oh dear. Dan, this is terribly awkward. I know I've asked you before, and you said “no”, but I really do need you to think back. Someone who knew your father in the old days said that we ought to look for the lady in the case. Now, I know you were at school and it might never have crossed your mind then, but a good doctor often attracts a fan club of women who think he's the bee's knees. Sometimes this becomes a family joke. Were you ever aware of that sort of thing going on?'

‘You're not serious?' Dan looked at Vera, who frowned and shrugged.

‘Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous,' said Ellie. ‘But if you two could step out of the past, when you were just schoolboy and schoolgirl, and think about it for a minute. Did you perhaps overhear something which didn't make much sense at the time, but might mean something now? I asked your cousin Sam, and he … I'm pretty sure something occurred to him, but he didn't want to tell me. So he got angry and stalked off.'

‘Sam? You asked Sam if my father …?'

Ellie winced. ‘I know. It wasn't very tactful of me, was it? I'm afraid I upset him.'

Vera put her hand on Dan's arm. ‘Wait a minute. There was that receptionist of his …?'

Dan burst out laughing. ‘Oh, you mean old Miss Whatever? Adored him.' He shared the joke with Ellie. ‘She must have been sixty if she was a day. Terribly refined. Bit of a laughing-stock. But didn't she retire around that time? Yes, I think so. Before my party. Went to look after her mother in a bungalow somewhere down on the South Coast.'

Vera said, ‘I remember that she was terribly protective of him. Then he got that big, fat, jolly woman … What was her name? Married to some handsome oaf or other, used to keep his photo taped to her computer, remember? And there was someone else—'

Dan thumped the table. ‘Old Mrs G, who left him her budgerigar and some money—'

‘And her daughter-in-law was going to take him to court, claiming undue influence, only—'

They were both laughing so hard, they could hardly get the words out. ‘Only,' said Dan, trying to keep a straight face, ‘it turned out she, the daughter-in-law, had been feeding the old dear with some weird and wonderful herbal concoction which might have hastened Mrs G's death … and it all came out in the end, and she had to admit what she'd done, but she was just stupid, not malicious, so the police didn't take any action.'

They laughed so much that Vera ended up with her head on his shoulder. Then they were quiet. His arm went around her.

‘You know,' said Vera, ‘I used to think your father liked me.'

‘He did,' said Dan. ‘He told me so.' He smiled at Ellie. ‘Sorry, I can't think of anyone else.'

Ellie saw that he spoke the truth as far as he knew it, but persisted. ‘He was a good doctor and much loved by his patients. At home, if I understand correctly, your mother ruled the roost. He loved her, I'm sure, and perhaps gave in to her more than she gave in to him. Am I right?'

Thomas said, ‘Surely that's enough, Ellie. Here's the coffee. Shall we go in the other room?'

Ellie was silent. She wouldn't go against Thomas's wishes. Well, not in public, anyway.

But once they were seated in the other room – Dan and Vera on the settee together, and Thomas on his La-Z-Boy – Dan took the initiative. ‘I can see where you're going with this, Mrs Quicke, and I'll try to be objective. The French used to say that there is always one who kisses, and one who turns the cheek. My father adored my mother and did his best to please her in every way. She loved him in return. She was always caressing and kissing him, and making much of him when she was in a good mood, and she never snapped or argued with him. But it's true that she wasn't always like that. She wasn't really interested in his work, she didn't want to hear about a difficult patient, or if he were worried about someone's health. She would cut off such topics before they started. She got her own way by withdrawing herself from him, if he displeased her. Yes, I observed that, and I thought –' he frowned – ‘at the time I thought that I wouldn't lie down and let a woman walk all over me as he did.' He gave Vera a quick smile. ‘But maybe I would. Maybe it's in the genes.'

Vera, sitting next to him, smiled back and shook her head.

Dan said, ‘So I do understand why you're asking about him, Mrs Quicke. You wonder if he had a sympathetic woman friend, perhaps someone of his own age, that he could visit now and then, and talk to as a friend or colleague. I don't think I'd have blamed him if he had done so, but all I can say is that I never got the slightest hint of it. No name cropped up in conversation that shouldn't have. He never made excuses to miss out on family occasions. Sometimes he'd withdraw to his study and say he needed to listen to some serious music. Jazz, mostly. My mother didn't like serious music, and she couldn't stand jazz.' He considered what he'd said. ‘Who was it who thought he might have had a lady friend?'

Ellie sighed. ‘An elderly lady who used to be a patient of his. But she's now in a nursing home. Alzheimer's.'

Dan twitched a smile. ‘Oh well. That explains it. I suppose there's always gossip about people in the public eye.'

‘Yes, I'm sure that's all it is,' said Thomas, with a sideways look at Ellie.

Vera was also looking at Ellie. But Vera knew Ellie better than Dan, and Vera knew Ellie didn't give up easily.

Ellie thought she'd probably got as far as she could go that evening and said, ‘Thank you for being so frank, Dan. That helps a lot.'

Then Diana arrived, and woke up Rose and Evan, who howled when he saw his mother. Diana was livid that her expensive baby buggy had somehow acquired some dents and scrapes, and that Evan had not been given his evening bath and put into his pyjamas. Ellie admitted they'd been out for a walk that afternoon, and she apologized for not having woken the baby after supper to give him his bath. No one said anything about kidnappers or improvised nappies. Fortunately, perhaps, Evan hadn't the words to betray them. Diana left with a flurry of instructions for the morrow, from which it appeared that she wouldn't trust Ellie with her precious boy if she could think of anyone else who might be able to look after him, but as it was, she sincerely hoped … Etcetera. Ellie waved her off, hoping that she'd feel better able to cope with Evan after a good night's sleep.

Dan took Vera off to view his temporary accommodation which, he assured her, she was going to hate.

Rose grumbled herself off to bed, and the house fell quiet.

Thomas took his time undressing. He sat with one shoe on and one off, gazing into space. There was something on his mind.

Ellie hadn't seen him like this before, and it bothered her. He hadn't ever criticized her before, either. It left a nasty black hole in her stomach. Well, not a real hole, obviously. But that's what it felt like. She climbed into bed and waited for him to speak.

He didn't.

Finally, she said, ‘What is it, Thomas?'

He opened his mouth, closed it again. ‘Hostage to fortune.'

‘Mm?'

‘You.' He took the other shoe off and wriggled out of his socks. ‘I've been telling myself not to panic, and it's not working. I know you lead a charmed life, and that nothing and no one is going to get you down, but I must admit that when I discovered you'd gone out without leaving a message this afternoon, I was fit to be tied! I pictured you in dire straits, being chased by villains, run over by cars with tinted windows, imprisoned in dark cellars …'

‘Oh, Thomas!'

‘I ransacked your office, to see if you'd left a message there. I knew Rose wouldn't have remembered even if you had told her something. I made a list of people I could ring; Vera, friends, Diana, people you work with. I was going to give it another half hour, and then I would have rung the police to report you missing.'

‘Yes, at one time I did imagine you might have to do that. On the other hand, I had every confidence that Mikey could get us out of there.'

‘It shouldn't have been necessary for you to rely on a twelve-year-old boy. I should have been there with you.'

Ellie suppressed the thought that Mikey's anarchic streak had probably served them better than Thomas's mild, law-abiding nature would have done. ‘I wish you had been.'

‘Don't try to soft soap me, Ellie Quicke. If I had been with you, I don't suppose I'd have been able to do much against those … those thugs! But Mikey is, I suppose, one of them in spirit if not in years.'

‘You prayed for me? I was relying on that.'

He said, ‘I prayed till I was exhausted. You're very precious to me, Ellie. I understand that you feel called to go out and fight the powers of darkness, and I honour that in you, but—'

‘I was in no danger.'

‘Permit me to contradict you. You were kidnapped. Locked up. Told you couldn't leave.'

She said, ‘You're asking me to stop trying to find out who killed the doctor?'

A long sigh. ‘I'd very much like to do just that. But no, I'm not. You've got a special talent for helping the distressed, especially those who don't have the power or know the words to defend themselves against aggression. This is the path you have to take, and I ought to be cheering you on, not holding you back with my selfish fears.'

‘I've tackled problems in the past, and it didn't worry you.'

‘I don't know why this one has got me so stirred up.'

‘The attack on your integrity? The idea that you would have abused a young girl?'

‘I thought I was immune to such lies. I thought I rested secure in God's love. And now I discover I'm as fearful as anyone else. It's a salutary lesson.'

‘I can't abandon Vera.'

‘No. We can't abandon her.'

Silence.

Ellie said, ‘Give us a cuddle.'

One thing led to another, and that was that for the evening.

Thomas sang in the shower, ‘Morning has broken …'

A nice, bright morning. Ellie hummed along with Thomas.

Breakfast for three; Thomas, Ellie and Rose. No school for Mikey, no college for Vera. They were probably having a good lie-in. It was nice and peaceful.

The front doorbell. Diana with Evan. Diana was frowning, impatient, wanting to get on with the day's tasks. Evan was grizzling. Oh dear.

Diana hauled in a bag of his toys. ‘And please, Mother, don't take him out in his buggy again. I don't know what you did with it yesterday, but I'd be ashamed to be seen out with it now. It looks like something that's been used to carry the coal home in. I'll have to get a new one, as soon as I have a minute.'

And she was gone.

Ellie looked at Evan, and Evan looked back. He lifted his arms towards her and smiled. The dear little thing! She picked him up and walked around with him in her arms. Now if only she could work out how to get him a dummy without Diana knowing …

She couldn't ask Thomas to get a pacifier as he'd gone straight to his study and proposed to work all morning. She herself couldn't leave the house unless she took the baby with her – which Diana had forbidden her to do. Rose hadn't been out of the house for months. Vera and Mikey …? If they weren't too busy about their own affairs this weekend?

The phone rang, and she answered it, not bothering to put Evan back in his buggy.

‘Ellie? Lesley Milburn here.' Her friend, the policewoman.

‘You have news for us? Is Thomas supposed to have been raping half the congregation?'

‘No.' Half a laugh. ‘I know it's Saturday. Are you going to be in? Can I drop round in a little while?'

‘It will be a pleasure, especially if you can buy a couple of nice juicy-looking dummies for me. My grandson is here, and there's times I can't do anything with him, but my daughter doesn't want him to have a dummy.'

Lesley was acquainted with Diana. ‘Of course. Do they come in different sizes? I'll ask. See you about ten?'

Ellie wanted to say, ‘Can you give me hint what this is about?' But Lesley had cut the connection.

The doorbell rang.

Abdi. Coldly furious. ‘Where are they? I wish to speak to them, now!'

‘Of course.' Ellie was meekness itself. Mikey had recently hung a cowbell outside the door to their flat, connected by a cord to a tassel dangling in the hall near the telephone.