Murder in House

What a sight! A splendid party was in progress round the kitchen table, with Rose presiding over their biggest teapot. Thomas – girded in his favourite apron with cats on it – was grilling a couple of pounds of sausages, while a frail-looking man in a dog collar sliced buns lengthways. Hot dogs were in the course of preparation, presumably. Ellie thought of the salad stuffs she’d bought to make them a sensible meal, and accepted she’d lost the battle for dieting before a shot had been fired.

‘Just in time!’ cried Rose, who looked tinier than ever, but was flushed with enjoyment. She’d even dressed herself, after a fashion, in a purple cardigan over a fuchsia pink T-shirt and a decent skirt. No stockings, but she did have her bedroom slippers on. Ellie smiled, because Rose was obviously feeling so much better.

A large, fair-haired man backed out of the larder, holding up various jars. ‘Is this the right mustard?’ Stewart: little Frank’s loving father, Diana’s ex-husband, and the invaluable manager of the Quicke properties to let. He saluted Ellie with the Dijon mustard. ‘I dropped in to see you with an update on the old house, and got roped into making tea. Hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not. Especially if you’ve got some news for me.’

‘All the utilities are back on. The decorators started two days ago, and are scheduled to finish within three days if we promise overtime.’

‘Promise anything you like. Well done, Stewart.’

‘I wish I could stay to eat with you,’ said Stewart, looking longingly at the sizzling hot dogs, ‘but Maria will kill me if I fail to do justice to supper at home.’

Maria wouldn’t, as they all knew, but Ellie smiled forgivingly as he retrieved coat and briefcase and made his way out of the kitchen door into the night.

‘Feed a cold, and starve a fever. Comfort food coming right up!’ Thomas pierced sausages to make sure they were cooked all through. ‘Shed your coat, Ellie. I’m cooking tonight. Oh, and this is my friend Peters from St Mary’s.’

‘It’s good to meet you at last,’ said the dog collar. ‘I rang to thank Thomas for taking the service yesterday, and he invited me round. He said you’d want to ask me about Lloyd.’

She did, indeed. So after a fairly raucous high tea, which finished up with lashings of Rose’s Bakewell tart and cream, they adjourned to the peace and quiet of the sitting room.

The Reverend Peters swallowed pills. ‘The antibiotics are kicking in at last, thank the Lord. Pleurisy’s no joke, especially at my age. Forgive me if I leave soon. I still tire easily.’

‘I’ll run you home,’ said Thomas, patting his frontage as a signal to the cat Midge to make himself at home there.

‘Of course you mustn’t overdo it,’ said Ellie, handing them both a cup of good coffee. How many cups had she had that day, and would she be able to sleep on them? ‘Can you tell me about Lloyd before you go?’

‘A bright mind. Old for his years. Thought for himself. He’d been brought up a strict Methodist by Welsh parents. In their late teens, some youngsters slough off whatever religion they’ve learned at their parents’ knee, in favour of experimentation. Sometimes they turn their backs on religion altogether. Lloyd had gone through such a phase and come out the other side. He approached me after a morning service about a year ago and started asking questions. I run a discussion group for young people on Wednesday evenings and he joined that. He knew his parents would have preferred him to go to a Methodist church, but he felt at home with us. Just before Christmas he asked me to prepare him to take communion, and he was thinking – I don’t know whether he’d have gone through with it – but he was thinking that one day he might train for the ministry.’

‘Did he drink at all?’ asked Ellie.

The Reverend Peters shook his head. ‘A half pint occasionally. He said he’d tried getting drunk and it hadn’t done anything for him, so he didn’t bother nowadays. As for drugs: never. And, of course, as he was a student he had to be careful with his money.’

‘Sex?’

Again, a shake of the head. ‘I don’t think so. He said there was a girl in the group he went around with – something to do with his digs? Anyway, he said he really fancied her, but she was already spoken for. He said there’d be plenty of time later to find someone he really liked, someone he could commit to. He had – not tunnel vision exactly – but I would say he was a remarkably single-minded young man. He had two goals: to get a good degree and teach, and to find out what God wanted him to do in life. He said everything else could wait.’

‘What did you think when you heard he’d got drunk and dived off a high roof?’

He looked anguished. ‘When I saw the paragraph in the local paper, I thought it must be some other person of that name. I rang his digs and was told that yes, it was him, that he was being cremated. We couldn’t even have a service for him at our church. Human nature never fails to surprise me. He’s the last person I would have thought . . . well, it’s all over. I suppose I misread his character, that the front he put on for me was a false one.’

‘Ursula didn’t believe the official version, either. Was she the girl he liked so much, do you know?’

He shook his head. ‘He didn’t give me a name. Old-fashioned in some ways. I liked him all the better for it. Ah me. I must admit, I grieve for him and for myself that such a bright star should have fizzled out like . . . like a damp squib.’ He tried to laugh, coughed, blew his nose. Stood to depart. A stooping, elderly cleric, disillusioned but soldiering on. ‘Must go.’

‘I’ll run you home,’ said Thomas, dislodging Midge to get to his feet.

Turning the volume up, Rose said, ‘Wouldn’t Miss Quicke have enjoyed it this evening? She always said that what this house needed was filling with lots of people.’

Lots of people. Ouch. Again Ellie thought of the vast, unoccupied attic storey and wondered if she were being selfish in not allowing Diana and Frank to take over there.

She was restless until she heard Thomas return and let himself in through the kitchen quarters. He was unsettled, too, though he took her arm and made her sit down in the big chair in the sitting room, saying, ‘Now, tell me what’s going on.’

She told him, watching his face the while. She told him about Daniel and his reaction to the return of his ring, and then what had happened when she spoke to his mother . . . and finally about the conversation with Mrs Belton.

‘. . . Oh, and Roy’s in deep trouble financially. He promised to put money into Prior’s Place and now he’s trying to raise a mortgage on the block of flats that my aunt left him, or to sell it. In the current state of the market, he’s going to lose hand over fist. Felicity wants the Trust to bail him out, but I’m not sure that I should. I don’t think the trustees would let me, anyway.’

‘No, I don’t suppose they would, but I suppose you’ll want to try.’ He fidgeted, frowning, sighing, shaking his head. ‘This Ursula business, though. What a mess. I don’t know what to think.’

‘She impressed me. I thought at first that she was a manipulative little madam, but sincere in her belief that something had gone very wrong. By the time I’d finished with the two mothers I’d decided that Ursula was imagining things, that Lloyd’s death was an accident, and that her sit-in at church was her way of grieving over lost innocence. She said her friend had gone missing. Well, young girls do get carried away and run off with unsuitable men and leave their families without a forwarding address. I convinced myself that I didn’t need to take the matter any further. I’ve got a call in to her to ring me, and I thought I’d say that I’d done as she asked, and that that was the end of the story.’

‘My friend Peters made you rethink?’

‘Yes. What do you make of it all, Thomas?’

He pulled a face, rubbed one hand over his beard. He stood up, his eyes wandering around as if looking for something. ‘I don’t know, I really don’t. I need to . . . is it still raining? It was when I came in. I wonder if . . .’

He wandered out into the hall, opened the door to the dining room, which had been set up for Ellie’s next business meeting. Closed that door. Went along the passage to his office, opened that door, and stood looking at the piles of work, the computers, the books. Closed that door. Didn’t touch the door of the room which was now Ellie’s study.

Ellie followed him, wondering what on earth was wrong. He seemed frustrated, looking for something. But what?

He said, ‘I used to be able to pop across to the church to sort myself out, and it never occurred to me, now I’m no longer a parish priest, that I’d want to . . . I mean, with all the vandalism that’s around, it’s quite right that churches are locked up out of hours, but . . .’

Ah-ha. Ellie understood, at last. He needed a space in which to be by himself and pray. Of course he could, in theory, pray anywhere. And, in fact, he did. But every now and then he needed to go away by himself to a quiet place and put in a bit of concentrated one-to-one at the feet of the Almighty. She knew he was capable of praying for an hour at a time. She hadn’t that rigorous concentration herself. She was all for action in a flurry of arrow prayers. But Thomas was different.

She caught hold of one of his hands, led him back along the passage and up the stairs to the first floor. Past the master bedroom they went, past the pretty guest room and the room in which Frank occasionally slept, to the unused bedrooms at the end of the corridor. The house had been built to hold a large family, and there were five bedrooms on this floor, not counting Rose’s bedroom and bathroom, which were over the kitchen quarters.

Reaching the end of the corridor, Ellie threw open the door to the first of the two unoccupied and unused bedrooms. Miss Quicke had had the furniture in these two rooms piled into the centre and covered with dust sheets, while the walls had been painted magnolia. There was an ancient blind at the window, and surprisingly little dust.

Thomas looked bewildered as Ellie dived under the piled-up furniture to retrieve a high-backed wood-framed Windsor chair, a roll of carpet and a small table. She pushed the chair against one wall, laid the carpet before it, placed the table at the side of the chair and stood back. ‘There you are, your own chapel. I’ll have the cleaning women move the rest of the furniture out tomorrow, and give the place a good hoover.’

‘I don’t need—’

‘Yes, you do. You’ve always needed a space of your own in which to pray. You should have said, sooner. I thought you were sickening for something.’ She looked around, frowning. ‘You’ll need a cross on the wall, won’t you?’

‘Ellie, I can pray anywhere, in my office, anywhere.’

‘No, you can’t. Well, you can, of course. But not without distractions, the emails, the unanswered letters, the phone calls. Here there’s nothing but you and the cross. If only I can find you a cross. Ah.’ She had had a thought. ‘One minute.’

She hurried down the stairs. A while ago she’d found a Victorian religious picture worked in wools in the cupboard under the stairs, which probably hadn’t been turned out in decades. It might have been worked by some distant member of the Quicke family – though certainly not by Miss Quicke, who had despised all womanly arts. Perhaps it had been bought on impulse at a church fête and immediately consigned to oblivion as being both ugly and of no value? Ellie had dusted it down, resolved to put it on the bric-a-brac stall at the next church fête, and forgotten about it.

It was definitely not her cup of tea, but perhaps it wasn’t quite as hideous as she’d remembered it to be, and maybe Thomas would like it.

She fished it out, and had to laugh. It was even worse than she’d remembered. The Good Shepherd was in a beige coloured nightie, trying to balance a black sheep across his shoulders and looking distinctly unhappy about it. She took it back upstairs with her to show to Thomas, who was still standing in the middle of the room, looking stunned.

She said, ‘I thought this might do for the moment, but I’m afraid it’s past it.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Thomas, smiling. He took the picture from her and balanced it against the piled-up furniture. ‘See, he’s got a beard like mine, and a comfortable figure, and he’s finding it hard to carry that awkward and very naughty sheep across his shoulders. I’m sure that sheep is trying to wriggle down, but he’s holding on to it for dear life. Just like I have to hang on to my faith at times.’

He was actually laughing! He put his arm around her shoulders and held her tight. ‘Thank you, Ellie.’ Was his cold getting worse again? ‘You are a pearl of great price. You give me so much more than I ever dreamed possible. Yes, I can pray here. And I will. If I’m late coming to bed, you’ll know where I am.’

Ellie made her way downstairs, thinking how strange matrimony could be. It wasn’t all cuddles in the bedroom, or companionship, or facing problems together. It was about adapting oneself to someone else. It made her smile – a trifle wryly – at the idea of her first husband Frank wanting space and time apart from her. If he’d wanted it, he’d have taken it without reference to her wishes. By going out to play golf, for instance. But he’d expected her to be at his beck and call whenever he condescended to come home.

Thomas was different. He needed his quiet times; times in which to pray. It was part and parcel of what made him what he was. She was extremely glad that she’d worked it out at last, because he would never have asked for it himself.

As she reached the ground floor, she heard the telephone ring and smiled again, thinking that there was no way Thomas would hear it up in his new room. She glanced at her watch. Whoever could it be at this time of night?

It was the operator, asking if she would pay for a call from Ursula in Portsmouth. Of course. The line was poor; background noises indicated dance music and people talking, laughing.

‘Hi, Mrs Quicke. I’m ringing from the Student Union. It’s a public telephone. You wanted to speak to me?’

‘Very much so. I returned your ring to Daniel, who refused to accept it. I spoke to Mrs Collins, who gave me your mother’s address. I left the ring with her.’

‘How is she? I’ve been really worried about her.’

‘Improving.’

‘That’s all? You’re satisfied with the official verdict on what’s happened?’

‘Ursula, will you please stop playing games with me? Give me one good reason why I should look any further than the end of my nose.’

‘Gut reaction doesn’t count?’

Ellie sighed. ‘It might. Tell me in words of one syllable what you know. Not what you’ve been told by others, but what you yourself know.’

‘Half the time I think I’m going crazy, but . . . well, all right. Our crowd was asked by Anthony to act as “hostesses” and “guides” for the Grand Opening of Prior’s Place. We were to dress up prettily, and show would-be buyers around the flats and the gym. We were sucker bait. We chatted them up, gave out leaflets, and so on. Anthony said our crowd was going to continue the party upstairs when the guests began to leave, but I had to shove off to the airport to catch my plane. Daniel came with me to Heathrow, so we actually missed what happened.’

‘Then whatever you’ve heard about Lloyd’s death is hearsay. Inadmissible evidence.’

‘True. I had a brilliant time in New York, texted Daniel and Mia – she’s my best friend here – from time to time, but only got one text back from Daniel, and none from Mia. I didn’t worry too much, thought my battery was run down, hadn’t got my charger with me. I bought presents for everyone; Daniel met me at Heathrow on my return. He told me then that Lloyd had got drunk, messed about with Mia, had tried to fight someone who interfered and, in taking a swing at them, had gone over the balcony to his death. He said Mia had subsequently run off with another man.’

‘Did Daniel see any of this happening himself?’

‘No, it happened after we left. So yes, what he told me was hearsay too. I was so shocked, I couldn’t take it in. Lloyd drunk, dead? Mia playing around, running away? No way! Daniel dropped me off at home where I found Mum really poorly, so I couldn’t talk to her about it. I put her to bed, made hot drinks for her. The next day I tried ringing Mia but her phone was out of order. I phoned her parents but they said she’d left and they didn’t know where she’d gone and what’s more, after the way she’d behaved, they couldn’t care less. It was like dropping into Alice in Wonderland; everything had changed.

‘I met Dan at the café; didn’t want him coming to the flat with Mum so ill. I tried to discuss it with him but he lost his temper, said didn’t I believe him. The awful thing was that I didn’t. He looked . . . guilty. I realized then that he knew something, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. That was a terrible moment. I knew he hadn’t been there when it happened, but I thought he must know something, have been told something. I said I needed to talk to someone who’d actually been there, and he went all huffy on me, said if I didn’t believe him I could do what I liked.

‘He wouldn’t come with me, but I knew Anthony and his special friends would probably be at the new gym that evening, and so they were. Anthony said there were eye witnesses to Lloyd’s getting drunk, that there was vodka all over his clothes and in his stomach, and that Mia was a little slag and I’d been deceiving myself if I thought she wouldn’t lift her skirts for anyone who fancied her.’

Ursula gulped. ‘It’s not true, Mrs Quicke. Lloyd hardly drank at all, and he wasn’t the sort to lose his head just because the others were overdoing it. Mia wasn’t a slag; we told one another everything and she’d only tried once and that hadn’t worked because she was tiny, you know? She’d decided to wait till she met someone who really turned her on, and as of eleven o’clock on the night of the party, she was fancy free. I’d stake my life on it. Besides, where is she? No one seems to know.

‘I was so angry, so miserable, I went to the police. They said, like everyone else, that boys will be boys and Lloyd’s death was an accident. Case closed. As for Mia, they said she was over eighteen and if she chose to leave home that was her prerogative, and if she wanted to get in touch with me then no doubt she would.’

‘That sounds sensible.’

‘So I’m not sensible! But I tell you . . .’ Her voice rose, and she brought it down again with an effort. ‘Mia is Anthony and Tim’s stepsister, right? Mrs Prior had Mia by her first husband, whom she divorced ages ago. Then she met Mr Prior, and married him. He’d also been married before and brought the two boys to his second marriage. So what sort of stepbrothers are they, not to care when Mia goes missing? All right, they weren’t a very lovey-dovey family, but . . . you see what I mean?’

Ellie was silent. Ursula had a good point, there.

‘Nothing made sense any more. When I tried to find out what happened, I got nowhere. Daniel let me down, big time. I’d always thought it didn’t matter that I was the strong, stable one in our relationship. When he chose to side with Anthony rather than back me up, I realized what sort of future I was letting myself in for, always nursing him along, always having to be the strong one, the one who made all the big decisions. I told myself that it didn’t matter, but it did. It took some time, but eventually I realized that however much I loved him, I couldn’t go on being engaged to him. Breaking it off was really hard . . .’

Her voice wobbled. She cleared her throat. ‘I was stuck, like. I didn’t know what to do next, but I felt I had to do something. That’s why I pulled the church stunt. I needed space to grieve for Lloyd and Mia and I couldn’t do that at home, with Mum being so poorly, and I thought . . . I’m not sure what I thought. I’m not sure even that I believe in God, but I felt the need to get away, to be quiet, to think. I told Mum I was going back early to uni, and I took my gear to the station and left it there while I went to church. Then you came, and everything went wrong.’

Ellie thought about this. ‘You haven’t given me one fact to disprove their story. Except . . . what happened to your mobile phone?’

‘Anthony smashed it.’

‘Anthony Prior smashed your phone? Why?’

‘To show me who’s boss. I don’t want to say what he did next, but it wasn’t nice.’

‘He hurt you?’

‘He tickled me. The others held me, and he . . . I thrashed about, I couldn’t help it. In the end . . . he made me cry. That’s what he wanted, I suppose. They all laughed.’ Humiliation leaked out through every broken phrase.

‘You told Daniel?’

‘He said Anthony would never do anything like that.’

‘He probably did believe you, but was afraid to admit it. Daniel is one mixed-up kid.’

‘I don’t need a mixed-up kid. I need someone I can rely on.’ She sounded a lot older than her years.

Ellie held back a sigh. ‘Did you report them to the police?’

‘Anthony said that if I tried that, he’d say I was gasping for him to take notice of me, and they would all back him up. Believe me, they would. He also said that if I went round making trouble, my mother would lose her job with the health authority.’

‘What? But he couldn’t—’

‘Oh yes, he could. His father is on all the right committees. He could put in a lying report saying she’d been racist or anti disadvantaged people or something. Never mind that she works with all sorts and they think she’s brilliant. But if she lost her job then we’d lose the flat, because she had to mortgage it to give me a debt-free run through university. Oh yes, he meant it all right.’

‘Very well. I believe you. So what is it you want me to do?’

‘Find Mia. The Priors must know what’s happened to her. I can’t believe they just let her walk off into the blue. Do you know their address? It’s Prior’s Place, off Mount Park Road. Mr Prior gave the new block of flats the same name. Shows what a big head he’s got. If Mia really doesn’t want to see me again I suppose I’ll have to accept it, but I need to know that she’s all right.’

Ellie thought this was another familiar story: nice girl kicking over the traces.

Ursula was overreacting, from grief and shock. Anthony’s tickling her was a mild enough punishment for being called a liar, though humiliating, yes. He shouldn’t have done it, but it was no grounds for thinking him capable of murder, was it?

There was only one thing that disturbed this picture of modern youth at party time, and that was the smashing of Ursula’s phone. That had been malicious, especially when Anthony must have known that Ursula wouldn’t be able to replace it easily.

And what about Mia’s phone being out of service? Could the same thing have happened to hers?

Ellie said, ‘What makes you think I can find Mia, when you couldn’t?’

‘You’re on the spot and your husband says you have a reputation for solving mysteries. Then again, you’ve enough cash behind you that you don’t need to be afraid of what the Priors might do to you.’

Ellie blinked. Hadn’t she enough on her plate at the moment, what with a demanding daughter and grandson, Rose’s gentle decline, and a nasty little ache at the back of her shoulder – which might be due to her having lain in an awkward position in bed, but might be the onset of rheumatism or arthritis? She hadn’t a clue what the difference was between rheumatism and arthritis, but gathered the effect was probably the same.

‘Ursula, I need to think about this and get back to you. Are you returning to London this next weekend?’

‘I ought to. I’m worried about Mum but . . . you’ll laugh . . . I’m a bit scared of running into the old crowd.’

‘How would it be if I dropped in to see your mother, checked that she was getting on all right, and rang you back? Oh, how will I contact you? Are you getting another mobile phone?’

‘Can’t afford it. I had to get a new laptop this term. The old one died on me.’

‘I’ve got a mobile phone to spare because I was given a new one at Christmas. Let me have your address.’

‘What do you want, Ant? You’re interrupting—’

‘She’ll wait. Listen up. The Man has got a buyer for Prior’s Place.’

‘Sure. The architect.’

‘Nah, it turns out he’s got to raise the ready by mortgaging another property, or selling it or something, and who knows how long that will take. No, a real player’s popped up, a Middle Eastern prince or sheikh or whatever he is. You remember him from the Opening?’

‘Who could forget? He gave the girl a rough ride, and it was only after she threatened to go to the police that he paid her off. Is this a good idea?’

‘It’s him or bankruptcy. Only, there’s a catch. He took a fancy to the long legs and blonde locks of our beloved Ursula at the party. He’s annoyed that she left early, and is hinting – more than just hinting – that he’d be happy to sign the papers if she’s delivered to him on Saturday night.’

‘What? But Ursula won’t play, will she? I mean, she doesn’t . . . does she?’

‘She’s always short of cash. We can make sure she gets a cut.’

‘But I don’t think—’

‘You’re not required to think. Just deliver her on time. If it’s a choice between the Job Centre and a new sports car for you, you’ll do it.’

‘There’s no way to contact her. You did her mobile in, remember? Plus, she’s gone back to uni.’

‘So you ring and leave a message for her to contact you, Dumbo. Make sure she gets the invitation. Promise her a new dress. Honestly, you’ll be asking me to brush your teeth for you next.’

Silence. ‘Did you find Mia?’

‘I know where to look. But she didn’t appeal to His Highness even then, and she’s no good for that sort of thing now, is she?’

‘Is she all right?’

‘Give it a rest, will you? I know what I’m doing.’