Murder in House (10 page)

‘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.'

‘
You there, Dumbo?'

SIX

E
llie put the phone down, thinking about a mobile for Ursula. Diana had given Ellie a brand-new, all-speaking, all-dancing mobile for Christmas, so her old mobile was, in theory, redundant.

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?'

It was past eleven the next morning before Ellie had attended to various business matters and got herself out of the house. As she nerved herself to push open the door of the police station, she told herself that helpful and intelligent members of the police force did exist, and that not all the officers at this station treated her as a bumbling idiot, although she could think of several who did.

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?'