Murder With Mercy (19 page)

Ellie felt as if she'd like to go back to bed with the electric blanket full on, thank you, to be waited on by a team of sympathetic women with hushed voices and soft hands, who wouldn't allow any visitors or phone calls.

She said, ‘I'm just going to have a cup of coffee. Would you like one?'

‘Coffee?' He stared at her as if she'd suggested a cup of hemlock.

‘Have you had any breakfast?'

‘Breakfast?' He repeated the word. Clearly, it had no meaning for him.

Ellie rolled her eyes at Rose, who rolled them back. ‘Can you manage some coffee for us, Rose? Then you must have a nice rest. I'll deal with the invalids later.'

‘Invalids?' Freddie repeated that word, too. ‘You mean Evan?'

‘No. Members of my family are down with flu. Which reminds me, weren't you expecting some relatives of your own?'

‘My sister arrived early. My older sister. She took charge. Do you have an older sister? Bossy. Very. Anita couldn't stand her. She's rearranged everything, food for the wake, the Order of Service. She's taken over the job of phoning people to tell them about the funeral, ordered May to go back to work, driven me mad. So I got in my car and went to see Evan. When I got back, she'd started taking Anita's clothes out of the wardrobe and was putting them into black plastic bags for the charity shop and I …'

Ellie divested him of his wet coat and led him into the sitting room, which was beginning to look neglected, with newspapers littered around the place, dying flowers on the table near the window, and more dust on the mahogany. She consoled herself by saying that Freddie wouldn't notice. He didn't.

‘Couldn't get her to stop. We had a row. We always row. Ever since we were children, whenever we meet, we row. I put the bags in my car, thinking I'd take them to the office and keep them there till she'd gone. Then I remembered May would be there, and I couldn't face her. I didn't know what to do.'

Ellie indicated he take a seat. He did so, but jumped up again immediately and began to stride about the room. He hadn't shaved that morning, and he had odd socks on. Oh well.

‘What Evan said … I mean, he wouldn't say it if other people weren't saying it too, would he? I can't stop thinking about it, now. That's what happens, isn't it? You wish you'd not heard the words, but once you have, you can't push them away and pretend you haven't been told. If everyone is saying it … What am I to do? You can see why I need your help, can't you? He said you don't charge because you don't have to, but I'd be prepared, honestly, it would be well worth it if I could only be sure … But then, if it's true, I can't let it go on, and yet … To tell the police … What good would that do?'

Rose brought in some coffee and a plate of biscuits. No chocolate ones, Ellie noticed.

She handed a cup of coffee to Freddie, who stared at it as if he'd never seen the like before. His hand trembled. He was going to drop the cup. Before he could do so, Ellie took it off him and put it on the table beside him.

Was that a faint cry from upstairs? She was needed up there, looking after the invalids, having it out with Mikey and getting on with things. She did not, repeat not, want to listen to this man drivelling on about something in the past which he couldn't have prevented, anyway.

She said, ‘Now, Freddie; calm down. Sit down and explain yourself in words of one syllable.'

This worked, in as much as he sat down for two seconds, but sprang up again almost immediately. ‘Evan said everyone thinks May gave Anita the pills that killed her. He thinks May worked on Anita to commit suicide because I'd got fed up with … and she thought I was giving her encouragement to … to …' He gagged.

Was he going to be sick? Oh dear! Understandable, but difficult to clean the carpet afterwards, and the smell did tend to linger. ‘Dear Freddie, please sit down. Count to twenty, very slowly. Backwards. Twenty … nineteen …'

He sat, nodded his head as he counted. At least that had shut him up for a moment.

She said, ‘Now, drink your coffee and eat a biscuit. That's what I'm going to do, too. After we've drunk our coffee and eaten our biscuits, we will be calm enough to discuss the matter in rational fashion.'

She wondered at herself, giving orders like this, but it seemed to work. He took a sip or two of coffee. Ate a corner of a biscuit. A slurp of coffee. The whole of one biscuit. He took another. Sat back in his chair.

‘You're right,' he said. ‘I was hungry. I didn't fancy having any breakfast. I told the workmen to stop work on the lights. I said I'd pay them for their time, but that I didn't want … Not now. It's not right.'

Ellie felt like patting him on the head and saying, ‘Good boy.' She said, ‘Perhaps you could switch them on just for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.'

He was hanging on her every word. ‘Yes. You're right. That would be the thing to do. Anita would like that.' A shuddering sigh. ‘Would have liked that. So, you don't think I encouraged May to help Anita kill herself, do you? Because it never crossed my mind.'

‘No, of course not.'

He bowed his head over his cup.

Silence.

Ellie worked it out. Should she speak the words, or pretend she didn't know what he was thinking? Correction, what he had thought?

Dear Lord, tell me what to do. If I'm mistaken and I mention my suspicion, he'll be even more distressed than he is now. Is it better to pretend I don't know? Because I really don't know for sure, do I?

She said, as gently as she could, ‘Anita was the strong one, wasn't she?'

He nodded.

‘When you heard that the cancer had returned, you must have felt dreadful, for her and for yourself. Watching someone you love gradually slipping away is a terrible thing. I know, because I had to watch my first husband die.'

His lips moved, but he did not speak.

‘The bad news must have crashed in on you like a giant wave. A tsunami. You must have wondered how you were going to cope, how you could support her through it all, knowing there was no hope. Then practical issues had to raise their head. How long was it going to take? Did you need to alter the household arrangements? Get in Macmillan nurses?'

He nodded.

‘Of course you thought first of her; but you also had to think of yourself. How to keep cheerful, how to make things easier for her, and how to keep going yourself. And yes, at some point you must have wondered what the future was going to be like without her.'

He put his head in his hands. ‘Yes.'

‘Did you know how long it was likely to be?'

‘The doctors said that if she refused more treatment, it might only be a matter of weeks. If she had accepted the treatment, it would have prolonged her life for, maybe, six months.'

‘How did you feel about that?'

‘She said straight away that she didn't want any more treatment. She even laughed when she said it. She wasn't afraid to die. I didn't know what I felt about it. I backed her up. Whatever she wanted was all right by me.'

‘You didn't think of asking for help with the extra nursing, from May, from your sister, from anybody?'

‘We could have had the Macmillan nurses come in at night, but she said she didn't want them yet. I asked her if she wanted anyone else during the day, but she said she didn't. Just me. We knew it wouldn't be long, and I could cope. I thought, take it day by day. Every time I thought of the future without her, I went blank. And then I'd say to myself, “Time enough to think about that later.”'

‘Anita, on the other hand, looked at the situation and, rightly or wrongly, did something about it.'

‘I did suspect … or not exactly suspect … But, at the back of my mind, we knew one another so well, you see, that I thought … Which was why I checked her medication before I went off for the weekend.'

‘What more could you have done?'

F
reddie looked at Ellie in despair. ‘I should have had it out in the open. I should have got her antidepressants.' He straightened up. ‘I should have got the sleeping pills for her.'

‘She didn't ask you to do so, did she?'

He shook his head.

‘She didn't want you to bear any guilt in this. She arranged that you would be away.'

He was silent for a while. Eventually, he nodded. ‘I hear what you're saying, and of course you're right. I still wonder if May helped her, thinking that perhaps I'd turn to her when Anita had gone.'

‘I don't think it's so much a question of your turning to her, as of her trying to …' Ellie hesitated. It had just occurred to her that it might never have entered May's head that Freddie would turn to her on the rebound. Perhaps she was only being kind-hearted and helpful.

Freddie said, ‘You should hear what my sister called May. “Avaricious, man-eating, husband-stealing whore.” I didn't know what to say.'

‘Did she say all that on the phone to May? Or to her face?'

A reluctant grin. ‘May came round to see that I'd eaten my breakfast, but I was hardly up and in my right mind. Must confess, had a tot or two of spirits when visiting Evan, and then had one or two more last night, what with my sister going on at me and, well, everything. I ought to have told my sister to shut up and not talk to May like that, but I didn't. I'm ashamed that I didn't. May didn't deserve that. At least, I don't think she did. What I mean is, if she did help Anita to die … I've asked myself how I'd feel about it if she did, and it's odd. I don't feel anything. Nothing at all.'

Shock? Yes.

Ellie said, ‘Your sister is a harridan. Evan has a fertile imagination. It may well have crossed May's mind that you could do with a shoulder to cry on, but it may be no more than kindness on her part. It's up to you to decide whether or not you want her to step further into your life.'

‘No, I don't. She's a nice enough woman in her way but I've never thought of her like that. She's not my type. And what's more …' He looked pleadingly at Ellie.

She sighed. ‘What's more, you now find her embarrassing and wonder how you can get rid of her. You'd like to give her the sack, but what reason could you give? Unless, of course, you find out that it was she who provided your wife with the means to end her life.'

He reddened. ‘Yes.'

‘That's why you want me to discover what happened.'

‘Yes. Will you?'

Ellie didn't know how to refuse him, for refuse him she must. She turned her head to the door. Was that Thomas calling for her? Rose must not go climbing those stairs again. Then she must get Mikey on his own and shake the truth out of him and … Well, she didn't really want to shake Mikey … Well, actually she did want to do just that, but …

She got to her feet, thinking this would be a good enough hint to Freddie to get himself moving. But he didn't. She picked up the daily papers which lay around and tidied them into a heap. She put the dirty cups and saucers – including one left over from the previous day which was on the floor by Thomas's big chair – and put them on the tray.

The flowers in the vase on the table by the window had had it. She put the vase on the tray, too. She said, ‘Back in a minute,' and took the lot out to the kitchen. Rose was crooning along to the radio, while sitting in her big chair and reading the local paper.

Ellie dumped the dead flowers and put the vase and dirty cups into the dishwasher.

Rose said, ‘The weather forecast's not good. This rain's with us for the rest of the week.'

‘Mm,' said Ellie. ‘Don't try those stairs again, Rose.'

‘Trust me.'

Ellie returned to the sitting room. Freddie was making no move to leave. Should she start dusting around him? Bring out the vacuum cleaner? He was the sort who'd probably lift his feet and let her hoover around him.

He said, ‘I'm sorry to take up so much of your time. I realize I'm procrastinating. The funeral's on Monday, at noon at the church, and then on to the crematorium. Will you come? An ancient uncle arrived this morning, and there's a cousin to be picked up at the airport this afternoon. My sister tries to marshal us all as if we were squaddies and she's the sergeant major. I'll have to go back, try to keep the peace.'

He tried on a smile. It looked as if it hurt. ‘I'm not usually like this, you know. I run a successful business. I make decisions, snap, snap, snap. I think ahead, I plan. I choose my staff with care, and I've assembled a good team. We're weather-ing the economic storm, more than holding our own. I don't usually go to pieces.'

‘No,' said Ellie, pleased to see another side of him.

He squared his shoulders. ‘The only thing I have to reproach myself with … No, I don't think I did encourage May in any way. I really don't think I did. But I'm wondering if she misinterpreted, if I was in any way to blame for her actions. I would find that hard to live with.'

Handle with care. ‘It is possible she may have misinterpreted something you said or did, but that doesn't mean she acted upon it. She may be as innocent as you.'

‘How innocent am I, who did let the thought cross my mind that I hoped Anita wouldn't last too long, not for her sake but for my own?'

‘Don't beat yourself up. If that thought did cross your mind, then you dismissed it.'

‘Sensible little woman, aren't you?' He blinked. ‘You're right, of course. Have to tie a knot and move on, as my mother always used to say when we fell from grace. I think you're right. I'll pop in to the Abbey, make my confession. Then back to work!'

The door slithered open, and in marched Midge. He made straight for Ellie, sat down in front of her and treated her to a giant yawn.

‘Feeding time,' said Ellie, looking at the door and wondering if Midge had opened it by himself or not. He was capable of opening any door with a proper handle rather than a knob. But Midge and Mikey were inseparable nowadays. Suppose Mikey had come downstairs looking for help for Vera, but had stopped short of entering the room when he heard Freddie's voice?