Murder in Time (4 page)

‘Don't even think of it … Ellie, I know that look of yours. You mustn't interfere. Vera and Abdi need to work things out for themselves.'

‘Don't you think Vera could do with a little help up against a man like that?'

‘Indeed.'

She knew what he was going to say about it, and he did.

‘I shall put in some praying time.'

She nodded, the very picture of a submissive little wifey. But, she told herself, she was no longer the browbeaten woman of her first marriage. She'd learned to stand up for herself. She had resources in the millions she'd inherited and which she administered through a charitable trust. She had friends. And she had many contacts in the community. Prayers were just fine. Thomas was a powerful prayer, and she believed in prayer. But she also believed that God had given us a lot of tools to use in times of distress: such as a tongue, and a brain, and hands and feet.

‘I'll get supper started,' she said, wondering which of her acquaintance she could approach first. She did recall something about the doctor's murder, but not much. She hadn't been particularly interested at the time.

Rose had started to make a cake, but hadn't got as far as putting it in the oven, so Ellie did that for her, and rummaged in the fridge for salad stuffs. Thomas joined them to set about peeling potatoes to fry some chips. Ellie didn't mention his diet, thinking they needed carbohydrates for the shock they'd had.

Rose asked if Vera and Mikey were joining them. Ellie had to say she didn't know.

Rose had a new toy, a mobile phone with pre-programmed numbers in it. Rose loved it dearly. There weren't many numbers on her phone, but Vera's was one of them. Before Ellie could say that Vera might prefer to be alone that evening, Rose had produced her mobile and got through to Vera. ‘Are you two coming down for supper? Thomas is doing chips.'

Ellie could hear Vera making excuses.

Rose put the phone down. ‘Now what's up? And don't tell me nothing's the matter, Ellie Quicke, because I'm not as gormless as I look.'

‘You're not gormless, Rose. You're as sharp as they come. And yes, you need to know what's happened. Vera had a visitor this afternoon, who …'

Between them, Ellie and Thomas brought Rose up to date.

Rose was distressed. ‘He can't take Mikey away from us, just like that. Can he?'

‘I shouldn't think so, but if he takes it to the courts …' Thomas was not happy about it.

Rose folded her arms across her chest and rocked to and fro. ‘Whatever next!'

The cat Midge came prowling to see what there was for him to eat, and Ellie put some food down for him. Midge was a noisy eater.

Ellie wondered who she could ask for information about the deceased doctor. She was in a different medical practice and always had been. She'd heard … searching her memory, which did let her down now and then … that one of her friends had gone to him and thought him excellent. Now who was that?

Ah, she had it. Her old friend Mrs Dawes, who had not only been the redoubtable head of the flower arranging team at Ellie's old church but was also a first class gossip. Now, wait a minute! Hadn't she heard through someone … something about Mrs Dawes having been housebound the previous winter? Ellie had meant to visit her, but this and that had happened, and the weeks had slipped by.

Oh dear! Ellie knew she ought not to have let old friends drift out of her life, and in this case she was pretty sure that Mrs Dawes would have noticed that Ellie had not been to see her and would be holding it against her. Well, that gave her two reasons for a visit.

Before getting ready for bed that night, Ellie stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom. She imagined herself facing an intruder who wanted to have his wicked way with her. Well, all right, he probably wouldn't want to rape her, not at her age, and with a far from perfect figure, but …

All right. Suppose she was faced with an intruder who wanted to mug her. Now, Vera had brought her knee up … so … and he'd collapsed. Vera's aim had been perfect.

Ellie practised the same manoeuvre. Or tried to. It didn't work with the tight skirt she was wearing. She ought to be wearing trousers. Only, she didn't possess any trousers. Or jeans. She had never felt comfortable in them, although she realized that if she went on a diet, she might shed enough pounds to consider wearing them. But, she wasn't going to go on a diet, was she? Any more than her dear Thomas would. He really ought to take dieting more seriously, but …

All right. Suppose she wore a full skirt?

Mm. Might be all right. She shed her skirt and stood there in her slip. And tried again.

Yes, that was more successful, but she'd needed to hold on to the mirror to steady herself while she brought up her knee. That couldn't be right. You couldn't expect a man to stand still while you held on to his shoulders in order that you might knee him in the groin.

Perhaps she ought to leave such movements to the young and nubile?

She brightened up. What about getting a pepper spray? Or … were they illegal? She must ask Thomas.

Breakfast was difficult. Rose was restless, worrying about Vera and Mikey, deploring her uselessness in the face of the threat to their peace and quiet. Rose was getting frail. She hadn't been out of the house for months and could fall asleep as soon as she sat down in her big chair in the kitchen, or in her bed-sitting room next door. This morning she was on the verge of tears. ‘I hardly slept a wink, thinking what I'd like to do to that nasty Abdi. If only I were ten years younger, I'd give him what for.'

Ellie tried to soothe her. ‘Dear Rose, keep on loving and scolding us and worrying about us. You're better than a grandmother to us all.'

‘Grandmother, indeed!' But Rose was pleased by the compliment.

Ellie dreaded the day when Rose would need nursing, but so far, fingers crossed, she hadn't fallen and broken anything, and her little ailments remained just that, little. On her good days she did some cooking, and it often turned out all right.

The only odd habit of hers which did cause a frown was that she occasionally ‘saw' and ‘spoke to' her old employer, Ellie's Aunt Drusilla, who had died years ago. This only happened nowadays in moments of stress, when Rose would report that Miss Quicke was worried about Ellie doing this or that. Sometimes the warning had proved timely. It was an eccentricity which the household could take in its stride. Was Rose going to ‘see' Miss Quicke today?

Nowadays, Vera and Mikey usually had their breakfast upstairs before going respectively to college and to school. Ellie was keeping an eye out for Mikey, but he slipped silently down the stairs and out of the house before she could catch him. And Vera … oh dear! Vera swept through the kitchen, her manner so cheerful and her smile so bright that it hurt. ‘I'll get some fresh veg on the way back, all right? Ta-ra, all.'

Evidently, Vera did not want to talk about Abdi, or Mikey, or … well anything. So what could Ellie do about it?

Well, there were more ways of killing a cat than by confrontation, and Ellie decided to try one. So, once she had seen Thomas settled down to work in his study, she went into her own office to consult the phone book. And then had to find a magnifying glass to read the teeny-weeny print. Why did they bother to produce a phone book if no one could read it without a magnifying glass?

No Doctor McKenzie. Well, of course not. He was dead, wasn't he? And his son must long ago have graduated and got a job anywhere in the world from Aberdeen to Addis Ababa. She checked to see if there were an entry for a Dan or a D. McKenzie living locally, but there wasn't. Of course, he might be ex-directory.

With that out of the way, Ellie set off to see her old friend, Mrs Dawes, who had once been a patient on the old doctor's list. It was a fine morning for a walk, or it would be when the sun broke through the early morning mists. She wondered what she'd take to Mrs Dawes for a present. Fudge? Perhaps. No, a box of chocolates would be better. Soft centres, of course.

Ellie didn't often visit this part of town nowadays. As she walked along she identified the places she had once known so well. There was the church, encircled by its lawns and enclosed in trees … that was where she'd first met Thomas. Across the road was her own dear little house, the ordinary but pleasant little semi in which she'd lived all the years of her first marriage, the house in which Diana had grown up.

Next door had had a big loft conversion done. That house looked trim and well-cared for, whereas the one which had once been Ellie's had been sold on and now looked a bit neglected. Ah well. Never look back.

Ellie went on round the road and up the hill to Mrs Dawes' house. Another semi-detached, three-bedroom house, slightly smaller than the one which had been Ellie's. Mrs Dawes was a keen gardener, and …

Oh. The front garden had been paved over, and the curtains at the window had been replaced with those wooden shutters which were supposed to tilt this way and that to let in or exclude the light. Mostly, they worked. Yes, this lot looked new. Mrs Dawes would never have paved over her garden. So what had been going on here?

Sinking feeling.

Ellie rang the doorbell, which had a dog-barking chime. If ‘chime' was the right word. Probably not.

A frizzy-blonde head appeared in the doorway. Not Mrs Dawes. A bony woman, fiftyish. T-shirt, jeans, trainers and a tan which must have been acquired on a recent holiday in a warmer climate … or by use of a beauty parlour. ‘Yes?'

‘I'm sorry to intrude,' said Ellie. ‘I used to live down the road by the church. I'm an old friend of Mrs Dawes, but I hadn't seen her for a while, and I wondered … She doesn't live here any more, does she?'

T
he woman opened the door wide. ‘Come on in. You don't remember me, do you? Geraldine. I used to help out at the church in the old days, when Thomas was there. You're Mrs Quicke, that used to be a friend of Mrs Dawes? Then you came into money and got married to Thomas and moved away?'

‘Yes, indeed. I seem to have lost touch. It happens when you move out of the parish.'

‘Like a coffee? I've got the lunch sorted and was just about to have one before I start on the ironing. I work at the beautician's in the Avenue, but I don't do mornings.'

In Mrs Dawes' time, there had been two reception rooms downstairs. The front had been the kept-for-visitors sitting room, while Mrs Dawes had used the cosier dining room at the back to sit in while she watched the birds through her binoculars. Now the two rooms had been thrown into one and everything was light and bright, though cluttered with photographs of an extensive family: parents and babies, ancient and modern; wedding photos galore; plus two gowned and capped diplomas.

What a change.

‘Take a seat, do,' said Geraldine. ‘That's my husband over there, that passed two years ago, and my children and grandchildren, quite a tribe we are now and still find time to visit … Do you prefer decaf?'

Ellie sat on a squashy armchair, while her hostess ran in and out of the kitchen next door … Yes, the kitchen had had a makeover, as well. And the planting in the garden had been tidied up almost to extinction.

‘Funny you should drop by. I found something of Mrs Dawes' the other day, a photo album which must have been dropped at the back of the built-in cupboard upstairs. I'd like to get it back to her some time, and you can take it to her if you like. She's in sheltered accommodation now, the one on the main road going up to the Broadway, where they give you a sherry before meals if you care for it, not that I do … care for it, I mean. Sherry's not exactly my tipple but there's no accounting, is there?'

‘No, indeed. The old people's home, you mean? The Cedars?'

‘That's it.' Geraldine bustled in with two mugs, both sparkling clean. ‘Milk and sugar, too? I always say, a little of what you fancy … Yes, poor Mrs Dawes. It was her hip, you know. She had this operation but it didn't go right, and, well, her weight told against her as we all said it would, but she would not diet, would she?'

Ellie shook her head. ‘Very true.'

‘She did manage to keep going for a while, with us taking it in turns to get her food, and then she had those carers, not that they amounted to much. Promise the earth and do as little as they could if you ask me, and she did struggle to church on Sundays, but her temper!' She rolled her eyes.

Ellie nodded. ‘Ah.'

‘So she had to give in and go into care, and those relatives of hers, vultures more like, if you'll forgive the harsh words—'

Ellie nodded again. She'd come across Mrs Dawes' relatives, too.

‘Well, they said they wanted her to go to live with them, or them to move in with her, but her grandson, the only one worth tuppence—'

‘The best of the bunch.'

‘He was realistic. He said from the start it was a no go because when she fell, it took two trained people to lift her up. So I was looking to move after my husband passed away. Such a big house we had with all the children growing up, but after he'd gone it wasn't the same. So she sold up and went into care, and I sold up and moved in here. I visit her every now and then, when I can, though it's not as often as I should, really, and take her a bunch of something, not that they haven't got everything you can think of there. But it's sad, isn't it? No way out of there except in a box.'

‘Talking of health care,' said Ellie, sipping bad coffee and trying not to grimace, ‘one reason I wanted to see Mrs Dawes was that I've a friend just moved into this area and she asked me which doctor I'd recommend. I know Mrs Dawes used to be with Dr McKenzie, but I don't know who took over his practice and whether he's any good or not, so I said I'd ask. That practice would suit her best, being so near.'