Murder in House

All that was true. What was also true was that Ellie was frightened silly by the new instrument, which was sleek and slender and would show you television programmes and doubtless also put you in touch with the moon and the stars, if you so wished. There were so many functions on it that you needed a degree in further mathematics even to turn it on.

Her old phone also had a lot of programmes she had never learned how to access, but she did at least know how to make a phone call on it, and how to switch it on to receive one, though texting was still a foreign language. And, in fact, she’d still gone on using it to this day.

How would it be if she sent Ursula the new one? The girl would probably be able to master its intricacies in ten minutes, whereas Ellie knew that she’d never get beyond ‘the cat sat on the mat’ stage in a hundred years.

Diana had said that Ellie must learn to live in today’s world, face up to the new technology, and embrace the opportunities it offered.

Ellie didn’t see the point of owning a gadget which was a lot cleverer than she was. All she wanted was to send and receive phone calls on the odd occasion when she was out of reach of a landline. She was dearly tempted to send her clever box of tricks to Ursula . . . except that, sigh, Diana had given it to her, and it had doubtless cost more than was reasonable for her daughter to spend. And so . . . what we do for our children! . . . Ellie must learn to master at least the basic functions on it. She’d send her old one to Ursula tomorrow, which would force her to come to terms with the new.

This settled, Ellie sat in her big chair by the fire, and patted her knee so that Midge understood he could leap on to her lap and spread himself out. Rubbing his head to make him purr, Ellie listened to the sounds every old house makes. A whisper in the central heating, the faintest of murmurs from the television in Rose’s sitting room, the wind gusting around the conservatory. The rumbling purr of the cat.

No sound from upstairs, where Thomas would no doubt have rolled up the carpet she’d laid down for him, and seated himself in that hard chair to pray. In another age, perhaps he’d have spent his life in a monastery, except – Ellie grinned to herself – that he was satisfactorily enthusiastic in bed, had two grown-up children living in the North to show for it, plus two grandchildren on the way.

Midge pushed his chin at her hand to remind her to continue rubbing. Midge only came to sit on her nowadays if he couldn’t get at Thomas, but the room she’d chosen for Thomas’s retreat had a doorknob and not a handle. Midge could handle handles, so to speak, but doorknobs were, so far, beyond him.

The room was dim and quiet around her until Thomas stole in to sit beside her and reach out for her hand. As usual when he’d been praying, he brought serenity into the room with him.

‘All right?’

She nodded. ‘And you?’

‘I’m good.’

She grinned, knowing he hadn’t meant it literally. ‘So you are.’ Teasing him.

He laughed; slapped her hand lightly. ‘You know what I mean. You’ve talked to the girl?’

‘She wants me to find her friend Mia, who’s gone missing.’ She told him what Ursula had said.

He stirred, sighing, shaking his head. ‘Smashing her phone was vindictive. The man’s a bully.’

Ellie discovered that her own doubts about the girl’s story had dissolved. ‘Her mother, Dan’s mother, and your friend the Rev, all accepted that boys will be boys and that girls do go astray. Ursula didn’t. She spoke up, and got clobbered. And now she’s scared.’

‘Whistle-blowers do get hurt.’

‘She’s safe enough now she’s back at university, but she’s worried about her mother, who’s had flu. I think I might drop in to see how Mrs Belton’s getting on tomorrow. Am I being naive, Thomas? Ursula said the Prior boys had threatened to throw her mother out of her job, because Mr P sits on the right committees. Can he really do that? I hate to think that he can.’

Thomas stroked her hand. ‘It happens. I hear tales, sometimes. What would you like me to do to help?’

She wanted to say that she hadn’t a clue, and that she had never understood why he thought she could tackle problems of this magnitude when she was really only just able to cope with being a housewife. Oh, and grandmother. And a part-time business woman. But deal with crime? Everything she’d achieved in that direction had been done by chance, by asking around in the neighbourhood and occasionally being able to put two and two together.

Thomas had moved on. ‘Silly of me. Of course you’ll want to find out if the tales about the Priors have any truth in them. And I suppose you’ll want to check with the police that they have definitely closed the case.’

It was the last thing she wanted to do. Her relationship with Detective Inspector Willis had started with mutual mistrust and gone downhill from there. Ellie swallowed. What Thomas said made sense, but she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to tangle with the woman again. It required a vast expenditure of energy even to think about it, and at the moment she felt completely and utterly limp, without a working muscle anywhere in her body.

Thomas had cocked his head, listening. Rose must have turned her television up, for they could hear it quite clearly now. ‘My dear, do you think it’s about time we reorganized things for Rose?’

Another anxiety. ‘I promised she wouldn’t have to go into a home.’

He patted her hand. ‘Of course not. But the stairs are getting too much for her, so couldn’t we rearrange her sitting room to make it into a bed-sitting room? There’s a washbasin and toilet in the cloakroom off the hall, which she could use temporarily, but perhaps we should put a shower in that little room off the kitchen that we only use for storage?’

‘I didn’t want to make any changes while she could still get up the stairs to her bedroom, but you’re right. I’ll ask Stewart to get things moving.’ She sighed. ‘Some days she brightens up and is almost her old self again. We’ve been friends for so long, and she made Aunt Drusilla’s last few years so happy that I feel really bad about this. I did think I could do everything for her myself, but I can’t and now I worry about leaving her when I go out shopping or to see people. Now there’s this troublesome affair of Ursula’s to worry about. I agree. It’s time to do something.’

‘Don’t lay a guilt trip on yourself, Ellie.’ He was right, of course, but facing facts was never comfortable. Ellie got up to turn off the sidelights and put the day’s papers into a tidy pile for recycling. ‘The other day she said she was sure she could hear my aunt’s bell ringing for her to take in the tea. Then she laughed at herself, and I laughed with her. Five minutes later she’d cupped her hand around her ear, listening for it again. But she’s not unhappy, is she?’

‘No, my dear. She’s not. Now, come to bed?’

She fantasized that in response to her request to see DI Willis they would say that the DI was away on a sabbatical, or had been transferred to another division – perhaps to the moon? – or even, of course, that she had been demoted and was therefore no longer available to reduce Ellie to the quivers.

‘Detective Inspector Willis?’ The desk sergeant raised his eyebrows. ‘You might just be lucky. Who shall I say?’

‘Mrs Quicke. Ellie Quicke. It’s about the student who was killed early in January.’

His eyes sharpened. It was clear he’d heard of her, and that what he’d heard failed to amuse him. He accessed an internal phone. ‘There’s a Mrs Quicke here to see you, about that student who killed himself.’ He listened, flicking a glance up at Ellie, smoothing out a smile at what he was hearing from the DI. He put the phone down. ‘I’m afraid she’s not available. Perhaps you’d like to talk to one of our WPCs?’

Ellie reddened. ‘I’ll wait.’

‘Perhaps you’d care to sit over there?’ He was being elaborately polite. Ellie wondered if forced politeness were worse than rudeness, but now that she was here, she would wait and see what she could find out. So she sat. And waited. The seat was hard. Several people came in from outside and spoke to the desk sergeant. And left. Policemen and women drifted in and out of the building. Some were in plain clothes, others in uniform. Some looked over her head, one or two of those leaving the station glanced her way and then averted their gaze. She imagined those might know who she was, and have been told not to pay her any attention. Or was she getting paranoid? No one came to speak to her. Perhaps DI Willis thought Ellie would give up and go if she ignored her? Ellie was annoyed with herself for not having brought a book to read.

How long should she wait? Please Lord, is this where you want me to be right now? Because if not, there’s a thousand things I need to be doing.

She got out an old envelope on which she’d made a list of things to do. Some of them she’d already done, and she ticked them off.

Rose. Rose had not gone upstairs to her bedroom last night, but had curled up in her big armchair downstairs. In consequence she was so stiff this morning that she could hardly move. Oh dear. Ellie tried to help Rose get her circulation going again, but wasn’t a nurse and didn’t know which bits to rub.

Rose herself had been flustered and upset, worried that she was causing Ellie more work, and saying that she’d be up and climbing those stairs again in next to no time.

‘Dear Rose.’ Ellie was much distressed. ‘We can’t have this. How would it be if we got your bed downstairs and set it up over there in the corner, so that you can watch your telly in peace and quiet when you want to go to have a rest? Just until you feel like climbing the stairs again.’ It was a big enough room to take the bed, with a little reorganization.

‘What luxury to watch the telly in bed.’ Rose was greatly relieved, as they both skated over the fact that she was probably not going to climb stairs ever again. ‘But won’t it be a lot of trouble for you to arrange?’

‘I shall enjoy it,’ said Ellie, laughing to see Rose perking up. Ellie fetched down some of Rose’s clothes, helped her to the toilet, and got her dressed. Then, with some tea and toast inside her, Rose settled down at the kitchen table to make a shopping list of food for the week. Ellie guessed she’d probably have to do the list all over again in due course since Rose, once such an efficient housekeeper, was now inclined to ask for onions when she meant potatoes.

Ellie blew her nose fiercely once she was out of the kitchen. When their two splendid cleaners arrived – only five minutes late but keen to get on with it – Ellie took them up to Rose’s bedroom, only to discover that the bed she’d been using there had an iron frame that refused to come apart and therefore couldn’t be taken out through the doorway and down the stairs. Luckily there was a divan bed among the jumble of furniture in the farthest of the unused bedrooms, and they managed to manoeuvre that, and a small cupboard with hanging-space, down and into Rose’s sitting room. Old-fashioned pieces, but practical.

Ellie made sure that all Rose’s favourite bits and pieces were taken downstairs, plus her clothes. She asked if the cleaners might stay on that afternoon, to clear out the room that Thomas had taken over for his prayers. The odd bits of furniture he didn’t need could be stored in the only other unused bedroom, which was rapidly taking on the appearance of a junk room.

Ellie had her own personal assistant who helped her deal with correspondence that couldn’t be handed over to her Trust fund. Pat had, however, also gone down with this flu-like cold, so there was a stack of mail, which Ellie opened and then decided to ignore for the time being.

After that she checked on Thomas and his secretary, whom she left hard at work but listening out for the locksmith, who’d said he’d come at half nine and hadn’t arrived by the time she left at ten.

Before she’d left, Ellie had spent some time with glue and Sellotape, fitting together the torn-up photographs she’d taken from Dan’s room, and making photocopies of them. The more she’d looked at the pictures, the more her eyes had been drawn to the smiling face of the little dark-haired girl called Mia. Mia the missing.

On her way out, she’d phoned Stewart to say she’d like to check on the progress at her old house in person, and could he meet her there this afternoon? And then perhaps he could come back with her to the big house to see about putting in a shower downstairs? Stewart would probably have to rearrange his day to do this, but she didn’t often interfere in his schedules, and he made no demur.

When she’d finally got out of the house, she’d stopped by the post office to put some more money on to her old mobile phone and send it off to Ursula. Now, looking at the new one as she sat at the police station, she hadn’t a clue how to make it work. It seemed to be leering at her, thinking no doubt that she’d never be up to taming it. Which was probably true.

Suppose she were to buy herself another plain and simple one? Diana need never know. Oh dear, Diana. Problems. And what about Roy overreaching himself financially? She really ought to get out of there and tackle him.

A puff of air stroked her cheek as the inner door opened again. DI Willis: her hair now more ginger than mahogany, her mouth tight with displeasure. ‘Are you still waiting, Mrs Quicke? I heard you had a query for me. I can only give you a few minutes, but I’m sure . . . would you like to come through?’ She issued the invitation through gritted teeth, but held the door open for Ellie to pass in front of her.

Ellie told herself not to be intimidated. The DI was an intelligent, hard-working officer who had a lot on her plate, and if she thought Ellie a bumbling, ineffectual waste of space who happened – most unfortunately for the DI – to stumble across cases that Ellie hadn’t the training or intelligence to solve, then so be it.

Ellie in turn thought the DI had had a charm bypass, but told herself that this was not in itself a good reason to dislike the woman.

‘I hear you’ve got married again,’ said the DI, implying that this was the oddest thing she’d heard in a fortnight.

‘And you?’ enquired Ellie, who was pretty sure no man had ever invited the DI into his bed. She was sorry, as soon as the words escaped her, but admired the DI’s restraint as she showed Ellie into the usual small, grey interview room without further comment.

‘Oh, well . . .’ The woman was actually blushing?

Ellie was astonished. Was she going to have to revise her opinion of the DI? Well, well.

But to the matter in hand. Settling herself, Ellie said, ‘I wanted to talk to you about the young man who took a dive off Prior’s Place early in January.’

The DI raised both eyebrows in a don’t-waste-my-time gesture. ‘It was an accident. Case closed. Is that all?’

Ellie hadn’t expected anything else, had she? ‘I’m also interested in the case of the disappearing student.’

The upright line between DI Willis’s eyebrows deepened, and for the first time she looked uncertain. ‘Name?’

‘Mia Prior.’

The DI exhaled loudly. ‘Mia Prior? Oh, now! Come on, Mrs Quicke! You cannot be serious. I have the greatest respect for you,’ she lied through her teeth, ‘but Mia’s disappearance is no mystery.’ She got to her feet. ‘Now, I’m very busy, so if you have no fresh information?’

‘I believe I do.’

‘What is it?’

‘A girl called Ursula Belton—’

‘The name rings a bell.’ She sighed. ‘I’d better fetch the files.’

She wasn’t away long. Ellie had got out her new phone and tried to ring Thomas to tell him she’d be a while, but couldn’t even work out how to switch it on. She did hope the locksmith had come. And that the cleaners had made up the bed for Rose downstairs. And that Diana hadn’t tried to get in.

The DI returned to slap a couple of files on to the table. Seating herself, she leafed through the thinnest one, and looked up. ‘Ursula Belton called at the station last week, to report that a girl called Mia Prior had disappeared. The parents were interviewed by one of my sergeants. The parents said that although Mia had an innocent face she slept around, that she’d been finding the restrictions placed on her at home too much for her, and so had packed her things and lit off with a bike-riding boyfriend.’

Ellie gaped. ‘Mia’s not like that. Why would her parents say she was?’

She shrugged. ‘There it is. Dead end. The girl’s old enough to kick over the traces if she wants to.’

‘What you’re saying is that if a girl is given a bad name, no one cares if she disappears?’

‘Fact of life.’

Ellie winced. ‘Yet I’ve been told that as of the night of the party during which Lloyd died, Mia had no particular boyfriend and was definitely not sleeping around. Surely you can check this out with other people; perhaps with fellow students at her university?’

The line between her eyebrows deepened. ‘The parents should know what goes on with their daughter. Besides . . .’ She focused on a note in the file, then closed it. ‘We can’t waste time on girls who choose to disappear. End of story.’

‘I don’t understand why you’ve closed the case without investigating it properly. Or do you know more than you’re saying? You’ve some information that I haven’t?’

A momentary expression of discomfort passed across the DI’s face. ‘No comment. You have no fresh evidence, so that’s it.’

‘I know that Mia and her best friend, plus best friend’s fiancé and their friend Lloyd, were invited to the Grand Opening at Prior’s Place. Young and pretty things of both sexes were paraded before prospective buyers. Heady stuff, influential circles, money no object. Drink flowed. My informant—’

‘This same Ursula Belton, whose take on Mia is contradicted by her parents?’

‘She’s a strong, stable personality from a middle-class professional background. Struggling to make ends meet as a university student, but nobody’s fool. Ursula says that up to the time when she left for the airport with her fiancé – she was going abroad for a holiday – all was well. She says that Lloyd was a strong, practising Christian who hardly drank at all, and that Mia was her best friend, a hard-working student, a good friend, and fancy free.

‘I think the party got out of hand after Ursula left. The youthful sales staff moved upstairs, away from restraining adult influences. And then something happened. I’m not sure what, but Lloyd went over the balcony and Mia dropped out of sight. My question is: were the two events connected, and if so, how?’

The DI raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Very well. Let’s go through the motions. You think that Lloyd made up to Mia at the party, and that his death upset her enough to take off into the blue?’ She opened the second file, read, and frowned. ‘Statements were taken from three young men. Lloyd didn’t normally drink much, but he’d guzzled some vodka that night. He was out of his tree, got into a fight, took a swing at someone, missed and went over the balcony. All three lads were duly horrified, expressed regret, etcetera.’

‘No one asked Mia to make a statement?’

The DI rifled through the pages. ‘Names were taken of those present at the time.’ She ran her finger down the list. ‘No, she wasn’t among them.’

Ellie tried to think straight. ‘Mia was there at eleven. When did Lloyd fall, and how long did it take for the police to get there afterwards?’

‘After midnight . . . they seem to have sent for an ambulance first. Yes. The ambulance men called the police, but it all seemed straightforward. Yes, there was time for the girl to leave before the police got there, but in view of the other witnesses’ statements, I see no point in taking the matter further.’

Ellie took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to think the worst, but did Mia die, too? How do we know that she did make it safely home after the party? Or did she just disappear into thin air?’

The DI consulted the file again. ‘She didn’t leave home for a week after that, the parents said.’

‘How can we be sure of anything they say, since they lied about what she was like?’

‘Allegedly.’

‘All right, allegedly. Did anyone else see her back at home? You see, if she’d been mixed up in something, her stepfather would want to hush it up, wouldn’t he? He would want to avoid a scandal at all costs, after having invested so much money in Prior’s Place.’

‘Step . . .? There’s nothing here about his only being the stepfather.’

‘Both Mr and Mrs were married before. Mia was her daughter, the boys were his sons. Were the boys asked about her disappearance?’

‘Not that I can see. Mrs Quicke, what makes you think violence was involved?’

‘When Ursula confronted the Prior boys about what had happened to Mia, they manhandled her and destroyed her mobile phone. Isn’t that indicative of something not quite right? What’s more, Ursula believes Lloyd was murdered. Not accidentally killed, but murdered.’

The DI folded her arms on the table. ‘According to her own version of events, Ursula wasn’t there when things went wrong, so how can she say it was murder?’

Ellie sucked in her breath. ‘I know, I know. She says it’s gut reaction, and I know that’s not evidence.’

‘If the girl wishes to make a formal complaint about her treatment at the hands of the Priors, then we will of course investigate. Is she likely to do so?’

Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’

The DI continued to frown. ‘You’re wasting my time, Mrs Quicke.’

‘I have some pictures of her.’ From her bag Ellie took photocopies of the torn-up photos. ‘The blonde is Ursula, and the little dark girl is Mia. The handsome lad leering down Mia’s shoulder is her stepbrother, Anthony. He seems to be the leader of the group.’

The DI took the photos, looked at them for a couple of seconds and then pushed them back to Ellie. ‘Bring me some new evidence, something to convince me that I should get permission to reopen the cases. Otherwise . . .’

‘May I ring you, if I do come across anything?’

‘Of course.’ She stood, waiting for Ellie to go.

Ellie decided she would not apologize for wasting the DI’s time. The DI, however, was intent on driving the message home. ‘Forgive me for keeping you waiting so long, but we do have rather a lot of real crime to solve at the moment, and conspiracy theories are ten a penny.’ She smiled. Falsely.

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’

‘You being such an expert on what goes on in the community –’ buckets of irony – ‘I had hoped you might have been coming in to tell us something about the muggings that are keeping householders indoors at night. Now, there’s something I could do with some help on. A real community problem, right up your street.’

Ellie shook her head, trying to remember. There’d been something in the local paper, perhaps? A gang wearing toy masks had been robbing people out late at night, snatching bags, jewellery, mobile phones?

‘Ah well,’ the DI said, showing her out. ‘You never know. Have you got your car nearby? It looks as if the weather’s turning nasty again.’ The DI knew very well that Ellie didn’t drive. What’s more, Ellie hadn’t brought her umbrella with her. If only she’d a mobile phone which she could use to summon help! Well, she hadn’t. So she’d better put her head down into the wind and get on with it.

‘I tried, didn’t I? You weren’t taking calls.’

‘I was working, didn’t want interruptions – not with that particular customer – if you get my meaning. You got hold of Ursula all right?’

‘I left messages, urgent, for her to ring me. First at the Student Union, and then later I got through to the office and got the phone number of the house share she’s in. Someone there said he’d leave a message for her but she might not be back till late.’

‘You haven’t the brains you were born with. Have you tried her mother? She’ll know how to contact the girl. Ring her, now! Understand?’

Mumble, mumble.

‘What was that?’

‘I said, if you hadn’t done her phone in, we wouldn’t be having this bother.’

‘I had to show her who was boss, didn’t I? Get on with it.’