NINE

Wednesday noon

Vera held up an empty shampoo bottle. ‘We smelled shampoo in the bathroom, didn’t we? And here’s some twists of black hair – from her hairbrush, I suppose, yuk!’

‘Thirteen, fourteen.’ Rose counted sets of plastic knives and forks. ‘How long has she been living there?’

‘Hello!’ said Ellie. ‘Here’s a disposable razor. His or hers?’

Vera held up another, larger one. ‘His AND hers. There were two people living there.’

Rose pried apart a stack of plastic food containers. ‘Mostly salads. For two.’

‘They didn’t use the kitchen so they didn’t cook anything.’ Ellie set aside an empty box which had once contained paper tissues. ‘The cheapest supermarket brand.’

Rose was back to counting again; this time flattened pizza boxes. ‘Seven, eight, nine. All vegetarian, no meat dishes. I suppose he brought them in hot.’

He? A man and a woman? Perhaps she’d been a prisoner there, and he’d taken in food for her.

Midge the cat decided this was where he took part in the proceedings and leaped on to the table.

‘Off!’ yelled Ellie. Midge flattened his ears, but evaded Ellie’s hand to sniff at the food containers. ‘Rose, can you shove them back into the bag, or he’ll have the lot on the floor.’

‘Look what I’ve found.’ Vera pulled out a stack of glossy magazines.

‘Mm,’ said Ellie. ‘So the woman is young, possibly a Muslim, certainly a vegetarian. A prisoner, or a squatter?’

‘Lots more cleaning rags,’ said Vera.

Ellie pounced. ‘Torn up receipts for credit card payments.’ She laid them out on the table and began to piece the scraps together. ‘Someone’s been buying petrol and foodstuffs at the big Tesco’s on the A40. Bottled water and toiletries. They also bought cleaning materials, toilet rolls, foodstuffs, mostly salads. We must keep these. If we can get the police interested, the man can be traced by his credit card number.’

‘He definitely had a car, because he bought petrol for it.’ Vera liked this game.

Ellie smoothed out another torn-up bill. ‘Now here’s something different; he – or possibly she – visited a hardware store, but it’s in Hayes, further away, and the date is . . . over a month ago.’ She thought about it. ‘The hammer and nails were to fix up curtains over the windows. I wonder where he got the black material from? Perhaps it was a cheap skirt she had. At the same time he bought an electric kettle and two long-life lamp bulbs. Luckily the paperwork wasn’t in with the wet cloths for long, or it would be unreadable.’

‘They expected the rubbish to be removed by the binmen this morning.’

The front doorbell rang, and they all looked round. Mia had gone out as soon as Ellie and Vera returned. Thomas didn’t answer the doorbell unless he was expecting someone.

Vera glanced at the clock and yelped. ‘I ought to be . . . where ought I to be by now? Pet will kill me if I’m late, especially after taking the morning off. And remember, Mrs Quicke, if you want me to go round with you again, this evening, say, then I’m game, provided I can bring Mikey, too.’

Rose got up on spindly legs, balanced herself and made for the door. ‘I’ll answer the door, Ellie. You clear up.’

The Lord be praised, Rose was looking far more like herself today. Ellie flourished two new black plastic bin liners. ‘Thanks, Vera. I do think someone ought to search that place properly, but it’s out of our hands at the moment. I’ll stow everything away till we can get the police interested.’

‘Thanks for letting me in on this, Mrs Quicke.’

‘Call me Ellie.’

Vera smiled and nodded, but probably wouldn’t.

Rose reappeared, frowning. ‘A woman. Says her name is Pryce, but she’s not old enough to be our neighbour that was. I didn’t let her in the house, said I’d see if you were in.’

Vera snapped her fingers. ‘Edwina, her stepdaughter?’

‘Vera; leave your telephone number, will you?’

‘My mobile do? No landline.’ She scribbled on the shopping list.

‘Fine. Now you be off, and I’ll see to the visitor. Rose; please don’t let Midge get at anything while I’m gone, will you?’

‘As if he would.’ Rose picked Midge up and stroked him – which he permitted for all of five seconds before jumping out of her arms and disappearing under the table.

Edwina Pryce was dressed as if for a garden party at Buckingham Palace in a silk designer suit complete with a cute little hat which she’d perched high up on tightly curled, sparse, ginger hair. Freckled hands clutched a Louis Vuitton handbag, which must have cost a fortune. High-heeled shoes. A couple of thousand pounds on the hoof?

No boobs, Pet had said. Pet had been right about that. Ms Pryce looked as if someone had ironed her flat, and the process had removed all kindliness from her personality.

Ellie remembered Pet’s mimicry of this woman and tried not to smile as she ushered her into the house.

Edwina looked about her. ‘I need to speak to the man who phoned me last night about my stepmother, Flavia Pryce. Stupidly, he omitted to leave his address, but there’s only one Quicke in the phone book, so here I am. Are you his cleaner? I do not appreciate being left on the doorstep like that.’ Her tone of voice was even sharper than her nose.

‘It was my husband who rang you. I’m Mrs Quicke.’

Edwina’s eyes darted around, pricing everything in sight, and Ellie was unpleasantly reminded of Terry Pryce . . . Edwina’s nephew? He’d had the same trick of calculation, hadn’t he?

Edwina wore a gold wedding ring on the fourth finger of her right hand, not her left. She’d had a daughter, but kept her maiden name. Divorced? No, never married. Hadn’t there been some tale of the man abandoning her when she got pregnant?

‘These big houses,’ stated Edwina, ‘cost a fortune to run, as I should know since I was brought up in one.’

Ellie didn’t respond, but led the way to the sitting room and asked her guest to sit. Ought she to offer tea or coffee? No. Ellie didn’t like the woman enough to do that. ‘I’m afraid my husband’s busy, but I know what it was about, so—’

‘I prefer to deal with him, as it was he who phoned me.’

‘In a minute I’ll see if he’s available to speak to you, but in the meantime, may I explain why he called?’

A hard stare. ‘I don’t care to deal with hired help.’

Ellie was wearing one of her everyday outfits: a good white T-shirt and well-cut denim skirt. Did that make her look like hired help? No. Ellie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream.

Edwina fidgeted. ‘All right, then. What is it?’

‘My name is Mrs Quicke. My aunt knew your stepmother. On Monday evening I received a visit from a young man who claimed to be searching for his great-aunt, Flavia Pryce. He had failed to find her at her old house, and the retirement home people said she wasn’t there, either.’

A compression of lips. ‘He’s no favourite of Mummy’s. I expect she told the people at the home she didn’t want to see him.’ Yet her eyes failed to meet Ellie’s, and she seemed to be feeling the heat. She produced a lace-edged hankie and dabbed at beads of sweat on her forehead.

‘I’d like to be sure we’re talking about the same person. May I describe my visitor to you? Not much taller than me, casually but expensively dressed, his hair cut very short, rings in his ears, nose and lip.’

A thin-lipped smile. ‘Terry Pryce. My uncle’s grandson. Nothing but trouble from the day he was born. Wanting money, I suppose.’

‘Yes. I refused, but when my back was turned, he made off with my engagement ring, my husband’s Kindle, and a valuable snuff box.’

‘I hope you informed the police.’

‘I did, but I couldn’t tell them where to find him.’

‘If that’s all, I can give you his address.’ She scrabbled in her handbag, found a blank page in a diary, wrote out an address and tore the page out for Ellie. ‘He may have moved on, though. That sort does.’

‘Do you know where he works? He said in a bedding department of a big store.’

A sniff. ‘Not in Oxford Street, if that’s what he was trying to make out. Some place in West Ealing, I believe. Well, if that’s all you wanted . . . ?’ But she made no move to depart, and her clutch on her handbag was so tight that her fingers turned white. Why was she so anxious?

‘Not quite,’ said Ellie. ‘After Terry’s visit, we wondered what had happened to Mrs Pryce, so we went round by the house and found it locked up. I phoned the retirement home; she never arrived there.’

Edwina leaned forward. ‘That’s what age does for you. Mummy doesn’t know her own mind from one minute to the next. I told her she should move in with me and I’d look after her, but no, she wanted to have one last fling, said she might even go on a cruise before she had to take to a wheelchair. As if! I said to her, “What a waste of money that would be,” and she shrieked with laughter! That just shows what she’s like.’

‘Well, it was her money—’

‘So she’s changed her mind again, has she? Not at the home, you say?’ Edwina ran her tongue over her lower lip. ‘And you have no idea where’s she gone?’ There were more beads of sweat on her forehead.

Ellie shook her head.

Edwina’s eyes skittered around the room. ‘She’ll have gone off with another man and come to no good, flashing her diamonds around, made up to the eyeballs with false eyelashes and all. At her age!’

Ellie maintained the smile on her face with an effort, thinking that Edwina’s looks might be improved by the application of false eyelashes. Or would they? No, perhaps not. The venom issuing from her mouth would shrivel any lashes before they touched her skin.

Edwina nodded, not once but several times. ‘That’s what it is, all right. She’s gone off with another man. Then she’ll pop off, leaving him all the money that isn’t hers by right, that ought to have come to me and my daughter. My own dear mother that was – she passed away years ago – must be turning in her grave.’ A false note in her voice; she wasn’t as sure of her facts as she pretended?

‘Mrs Pryce’s car’s gone.’

‘Well, she took it with her, didn’t she?’ But something was worrying the woman. She gnawed at her lower lip, her eyes darting hither and yon but never meeting Ellie’s. She burst out with what seemed like the truth. ‘It’s giving me ulcers, wondering where she is and what she’s doing. She said she didn’t want me visiting her till she’d settled in, that she’d send me a card when she was ready to see me, but not a word have I had from that day to this.’

‘You had the address of the home?’

An unbecoming flush. ‘Yes, of course. Have you tried the hospitals? Maybe she’s met with an accident.’

‘Not yet. Have you?’

‘No.’ The woman drew back, clutching her bag tightly. ‘She wouldn’t like me interfering, she’s made that plain.’

‘Do you have the licence number of her car?’

‘I don’t drive.’ A stare. ‘Why would I have that?’

‘If she’d met with an accident in the car and we had the licence number, we could ask the police to trace it.’

Another stare. ‘Is that how it’s done? I wouldn’t know.’

‘Do you know who her solicitor is?’ Neither Vera nor Pet had known that.

‘The family have always used Greenbody on Ealing Common. I told her to use him, but she had a perverse sense of humour. Regularly did the opposite of what I suggested. You know, Mrs Quicke, I really did my best to get on with Mummy, but she made it very difficult.’

‘Did she make a will, do you know?’

An intake of breath. ‘I have absolutely no idea, and I’m amazed that you should mention it. Now, if all you want is to find the things my nephew stole, I’ve given you his details, you can pass them on to the police and there’s an end of it. I’ve had a difficult enough life without . . .’ She pinched in her lips and stopped. ‘I must be going. You’ll keep me informed, won’t you?’

‘Certainly.’ Ellie showed Edwina out, set her back to the front door, and wondered why the woman had come. The obvious answer was that she’d come in response to Thomas’s message on her answerphone, but her visit had raised more questions than it had answered.

Edwina had implied that her stepmother was a flighty creature who had probably gone off with a new man. Really? Ellie didn’t think that sounded like the hard-headed and responsible person Vera and Pet had described.

Then again, Edwina had seemed anxious to hear of Mrs Pryce’s present whereabouts, but admitted she hadn’t phoned the retirement home herself, or even enquired whether the lady had ended up in hospital for some reason.

She’d suggested that Ellie should make those enquiries. Why? Wasn’t Edwina the most appropriate person to do so?

She’d had nothing good to say about her nephew Terry and had been quick to hand over his address. She didn’t like Terry much, did she? Well . . . who did?

What on earth, Ellie wondered, was going on?

A movement caught Ellie’s eye. A small brown figure was pottering around in the conservatory. For one heart-stopping moment Ellie thought it was her beloved aunt. Then she remembered that Miss Quicke had never in her life lifted a watering can to care for plants and couldn’t tell one from another. It was Rose who cared for the plants, it was Rose for whom the conservatory had been built, and it was Rose who, with a watering can, was checking on the plants now . . . favouring her wrist.

‘Rose dear, let me do that.’

‘No, no. It’s lovely being able to get up and about again, though I must admit I’m only using the little watering can because the big one would be too much for my wrist, which is healing nicely, I must say, and only gives me a twinge when I pick up something heavy. Isn’t the plumbago a picture, all lacy and blue? And what about the hoya carnosa? I’ve counted over thirty flowers on it today.’

‘I don’t want you tiring yourself out.’

‘Doing a little of what you want to do never tires you out. There, now. I’ll sit down here for a while. As I said to Miss Quicke a while ago, it was clever of her to put a chair here where I can relax and put my feet up for a bit, and she said she felt the same way but preferred her own chair in the sitting room, the one you like to sit in, too, and sometimes I come upon you and think it’s her . . . if you see what I mean.’

Ellie relaxed. ‘You’re feeling much better.’

‘Miss Quicke gave me such a scolding about going up on that ladder. She’s worried about her old friend Mrs Pryce, though. I met her a couple of times, you know. Mrs Pryce.’

‘What did you think of her?’

Rose grinned. ‘A big lady with a big laugh, all in lavender with diamond earrings and a socking great diamond brooch so big you wouldn’t believe. She came round one day soon after Miss Quicke had begun to put the place right and I’d moved in to look after her, and we had builders and decorators everywhere, and so many cleaners that we’d had were no good, all scamping their work and leaving the doors and windows open and needing cups of tea and biscuits every half hour. She – Mrs Pryce – had seen the scaffolding go up and heard the gossip from the cleaners, that’s the lot we had before Vera and Pet, of course, and she’d wondered what was going on.’

She took a deep breath. ‘They’d known one another for ever, Mrs Pryce and Miss Quicke, going up to town together for business meetings, but up till then Miss Quicke had always pretended she was short of money and Mrs Pryce had found out the truth and come round to have it out with her. She looked quite fierce when she arrived but Miss Quicke invited her in, and I served them tea in the drawing room and Miss Quicke introduced me as her dear friend and companion . . .’

Rose sniffed and delved for a hankie.

Ellie said, ‘Which you were, indeed you were.’

‘After that they used to meet up in town for lunch now and again until your aunt began to fail.’

‘I wish I’d met her.’

‘But you did. Don’t you remember that cyclist knocking her over on the pavement in the Avenue and you rushing over to help her and pick up all her shopping that had got scattered all over the place?’

‘Was that her? I thought her name was Fay something. I remember I wanted to get her to a doctor to check her over, but she just wanted to sit down and rest for a while.’

‘Not Fay; Flavia. And you treated her to lunch—’

‘And she asked me about my charity work and got me talking . . . She was a good listener. I remember I ordered a cab for her, to take her home, and she said she’d be in touch, but I don’t think I ever saw her again.’

‘She came to the funeral, but I don’t suppose you noticed.’

‘Really? That was nice of her. But no; I don’t remember much about that day, I’m afraid.’

Rose was fidgeting. ‘There really was someone in the window at the top of Mrs Pryce’s house? I didn’t imagine it?’

‘No, you didn’t imagine it. There really was someone.’

‘But I did pull up the gladioli, forgetting you’d planted them beside the montbretias, and I do get things mixed up on the orders, and as for climbing the stairs . . .’

‘We’ll put in a chairlift, if it pleases you.’

Rose was horrified. ‘Not on that beautiful staircase. Miss Quicke wouldn’t like it, and neither would I.’

‘Up the back stairs, then.’

‘We’ll see. I’ll ask her what she thinks about it. Isn’t it coming up to supper time? And here’s me sitting here, not having done a hand’s turn for it.’

‘Sit still. I’ll go and see what there is.’

So information had passed between the two houses, both ways? Miss Quicke’s cleaners had gossiped to their mates about the turnaround in Miss Quicke’s fortunes, and they had passed the gossip on to Mrs Pryce, who had probably checked with her financial contacts only to discover that Miss Quicke was not poor but a miser. Now the information was coming back the other way; from Mrs Pryce through Vera and Pet to Ellie.

The phone rang as Ellie was on her way through the hall, and she picked it up.

‘Mrs Quicke? It’s Vera here.’

‘Yes, my dear?’

‘I was talking to Pet about Mrs Pryce and the car being gone. Pet and her husband used to have a car once, and she used to collect him from work late at night until it died, the car died, I mean. I thought she might have remembered the number but she didn’t. Then I thought Fritz might know, and of course I should have thought of him straight off, I can’t think why I didn’t.

‘So I popped in on him on the way home . . . In a minute, Mikey; I’m just on the phone . . . Sorry, Mrs Quicke, but it’s getting to the end of the day and he needs his tea. Anyway, I asked Fritz, and he says it was a silver Toyota with NYD on the licence plate. He remembers because Mrs Pryce was annoyed with herself about not getting her old plate transferred to her new car because she couldn’t recall the new one for the life of her. So he made up words for her out of the new initials. It was “New York Detective” for NYD. So I said to Fritz that he should ring you about it, and he said no, it wasn’t anything helpful. But I thought you might like to tell the police.’

‘Yes, I will. Thanks, Vera. Though whether they’ll listen to me or not—’

‘Tell the truth, I get a funny feeling every time I think about her not getting to the retirement home and, well, I wouldn’t like to spend a night in that house alone now.’

‘Neither would I. Thank you, Vera. That’s most helpful, but don’t go . . . ! Did you ever hear Mrs Pryce talk about my aunt, Miss Quicke?’

‘Oh yes, she told us she used to give Miss Quicke lifts to town in the old days, until she found out she was only pretending to be poor. Mrs Pryce said she’d been a bit cross when she found out, as who wouldn’t be, and that she was going to pay Miss Quicke out some day for pulling the wool over her eyes. They went on seeing one another for a bit, but then your aunt frailed up and they stopped meeting. Mrs Pryce was ever so sorry when she heard Miss Quicke had died. Said it was seeing your friends go that made you realize the world was changing. We told her how good you’d been to Miss Quicke at the end, and how well you looked after Rose, and . . . well, something about your daughter, who’s a bit like Edwina, isn’t she?’

‘I suppose she is. Thank you, Vera. It’s good to know.’

Wednesday lunchtime

Hoopers, the estate agency

‘The Shark’s been looking for you. Where’ve you been?’

‘Trying to shift the Pryce mansion.’

‘He wanted to handle that himself.’

‘Well, I didn’t know that, did I? The call came in, I took it. Routine.’

‘Nothing’s routine when dealing with the Quicke Foundation. Apart from Middle Eastern sheikhs, who else would want to buy that house as it stands?’

‘Mrs Quicke wants to have a second viewing, so I can’t have done too badly, can I? It’s lucky I did go, for all the mains had been left on. I dunno what the old lady was thinking of, not seeing they were turned off; also there’s a mountain of post there that should have been redirected.’

‘You’d better go in and report. And don’t blame me if he chews your ears off.’