Murder in Mind (14 page)

‘Nothing else, thanks.' A short laugh. ‘You wanted to know what Fiona was like? Well, I'll tell you. She used to try out all Daddy's booze and blame it on the help, so the housekeeper left and we had to get another one. I told Fiona if she did that again I'd tell on her, so she started going out with boys who'd take her to clubs. She'd tell Dad she was having a late night with a school friend or a sleepover, and he never checked. Sometimes she'd stay out all night, and at other times she'd come back in the early hours of the morning, wobbling around all over the place.'

‘But she was only, what, fourteen or fifteen?'

Freya pulled a face. ‘She looked older. I told Mummy, but she said Fiona was just having fun. Fun! Do you know what I did first thing when I heard my sister was dead? I went through her room and got rid of all her drugs and the contraceptive pills that poor dear Daddy had no idea his daughter had been taking.'

‘Where did she get them from?'

‘Mummy dearest, of course. Fiona was growing up to be just like her. I could see it happening, and I couldn't do anything about it. Fiona said she knew exactly what she was doing and that she wasn't giving up sex just because I was a po-faced virgin. I know she took the morning-after pill a couple of times.'

‘You might have told your father.'

Freya gave her a weary look. ‘Then what? I hinted once or twice, but he doesn't see what he doesn't want to see, and Angelika thinks of nothing but her career. I did think Fiona's last boyfriend might turn out to be a more stable character, but then she had a row with him and broke up because he said she was getting fat. Which she was. That's when she went on a fitness binge.'

‘Hence the session on the treadmill?' Ellie polished off the last of her ice cream and sighed, replete. ‘I'm always talking about going on a diet, but . . . They used to say that if you wanted to please your husband, you made sure to feed him well.'

‘What's your husband like?'

‘Overweight.' Ellie smiled. ‘A good man. Trustworthy. Comfortable.'

‘Like old shoes?'

‘If they're ones that keep the rain out, yes.'

‘That's . . . nice.' And very unlike her own family.

Angelika drifted in, looking lost, hooked up to some music. She didn't look at Freya, and Freya didn't look at her. They walked around one another like two cats, aware of one another, careful not to touch. Freya dumped their pudding plates on one of the piles of crockery waiting to be washed and departed without another word.

Ellie said, ‘Angelika, would you like something to eat?'

Angelika might have heard, or might not. She looked as if she were thinking about something – or someone – a long way away. She opened a high cupboard door and lifted a key off a hook inside. ‘I'll be in the gym, if anyone wants me. Which they won't.'

The gym in which her stepdaughter had died. Of an accident. Or an incident. Whichever. Ellie was interested. ‘Is that the only key to the gym?'

‘Of course. I can't have just anybody traipsing into it and using the equipment.'

‘Would you like to show me?'

Another voice. ‘Show you what?' Diana, bringing back the dirty dishes. ‘What's for pudding?'

‘Ice cream and maple syrup,' said Ellie.

‘Nothing hot?'

Angelika and Diana ignored one another, just as Freya and Angelika had done. Diana hesitated, not finding a space to dump her dirty dishes. She opened the dishwasher. ‘It's full. Why didn't you start it?'

Ellie shrugged. ‘Diana, why don't you and Angelika decide who runs this household? Count me out. I've got my own house to run and –' looking at her watch – ‘it's time I rang Thomas to come to fetch me. Unless, of course, you're going to give me a lift home.'

Diana froze. So did Angelika. Unexpectedly, Angelika began to laugh. ‘It's up to you, Diana. If you don't like the heat, stay out of the kitchen.'

Diana went pale with fury, and then red. She said, ‘Evan will have to get another housekeeper in. I can't look after this house as well as his business. Where are the pudding plates kept?'

Angelika continued to laugh. ‘Find out.' She unlocked an unobtrusive door at the back of the kitchen and disappeared through it. Ellie heard the key turn in the lock on the other side. So that was where the gym was to be found?

Diana rummaged through cupboards. ‘All the good china's in the dishwasher. Where did you find your plates, Mother?'

Ellie pointed. ‘Top cupboard, to the right of the freezer. I think we used the last two.' She bent to open some other cupboards. There were a lot of them. Some held pots and pans. Some swung out to reveal racks of Pyrex dishes. A carousel of spices.

‘Ah. Will these do?' A miscellany of china, odds and ends of plates, some old-fashioned soup plates, which nobody seemed to use nowadays. A stack of thick white china plates, crazed from long use.

China plates. White. Thick. Pottery, rather than china.

As used by the clown to carry a load of biscuits into the park. Biscuits which contained peanuts.

With intent to kill.

Diana swooped on them. ‘I suppose they'll have to do. Give me a couple and I'll take some pudding through to Evan, though I suppose he might prefer cheese.' She scooped ice cream on to the plates and found some spoons. Put the maple syrup on her tray to take in with her.

‘You're not going to give me a lift home, Diana?'

‘Can't you see I'm busy?'

Diana left the kitchen with her loaded tray, and Ellie looked despairingly at the mess in the kitchen. She hated mess. Like Freya, it made her uncomfortable. If this had been her own house, she'd have set to and got it cleared up. As it was . . . She pulled out her mobile phone and asked Thomas to come to fetch her.

He'd been waiting for her to phone him. ‘Five minutes,' he said.

It was still raining.

All the way home she was thinking that Diana hadn't killed those two girls, or Fern. Neither had Angelika. Nor Freya.

And certainly not Evan.

Those plates. Old stock, donkey's years old, placed at the back of a cupboard. Not in use. They hadn't been thrown away because they might be useful in an emergency, for standing house plants on to drain, for feeding a visiting dog or cat.

Of course, such plates might be found in many a household hereabouts, or in a charity shop. There was absolutely nothing to prove that the plate which the clown had used came from the Hooper kitchen.

Diana hadn't reacted at the sight of them. But then, Diana hadn't seen the picture of the clown, which had been taken in the park.

Diana hadn't killed Abigail. Definitely not.

Angelika was in the clear, too. She had not been responsible for killing her child.

The gym was kept locked, and the key was kept in a cupboard in the kitchen. You'd have to know where it was, to get into the gym.

Who would know where the key was kept, apart from members of the Hooper household?

They all would know. But, none of them had killed Fiona.

Or had they?

Round and round and round we go . . .

Monday morning

T
ime to ratchet up the terror.

A phone call to a couple of the seedier tabloids should do the trick. If they get the merest whiff of infanticide, the whole boiling lot will be banging on the front door, asking which member of the family did away with the little chick and begging neighbours for interviews.

Then . . . what about taking it one step further?

Suppose I mix and mingle with the reporters? That way I can point them in the right direction.

There'd have to be a different look. Perhaps long hair, a padded bra, a black jacket and jeans. A camera.

Knowing my way around the neighbourhood, I could get in through the back door before they realized what was happening. And then . . . who should be next? Angelika or Freya?

Ellie woke up feeling tense with anxiety. Surely she didn't need to worry about the Hoopers, of all people! No, no. She could put them out of her mind with a clear conscience. Or try to.

Nag, nag . . . three members of the family down and how many more to go?

Nonsense. Think about something else. Lots to do. A bright sunny morning for once. Good.

Rose chattered away at breakfast time about restocking the conservatory with plants for the winter. Neither Thomas nor Ellie listened. Thomas grunted over the newspapers. Ellie tried to concentrate on anything but the Hoopers. Would the remains of the roast do for supper tonight? Mm, yes.

There was something at the back of her mind . . . Something she'd forgotten to do, or promised to do?

She wondered, smoothing out a grin, how the Hooper household had got on that morning at breakfast. Would they eat their cornflakes out of ancient and unmatched pudding bowls, or had someone actually managed to switch the dishwasher on?

Again, Ellie turned her mind away from the Hoopers. What had she done with that picture of the clown? She felt guilty about mislaying it. It wasn't like her, and it was an important piece of evidence.

The phone rang. Thomas slid out of the kitchen and into his study, leaving her to answer it.

Diana. Oh.

‘Mother, I rang Evan just now and he said you hadn't turned up this morning. You could at least help me out for a few days. You know I have to be in the office today. Evan said he might try to come in for a few hours this afternoon, but there's no one there to look after the house for him.'

‘You didn't really expect me to—?'

‘Who else?'

‘I have my own work to do.' She'd just remembered who she'd arranged to visit that morning. She looked at her watch. She had half an hour to get organized and get there. ‘Diana, I have people to see this morning. Why don't you get a cleaner in?'

‘At such short notice? Don't be ridiculous.'

Ellie was silent. The obvious thing was for Diana to ring Maria's agency and arrange for a team of cleaners to descend upon the Hooper household, but Maria was married to Diana's ex-husband Stewart. Happily married, with children. Diana wouldn't call Maria if she were dying.

Ellie sighed. ‘You want me to call Maria and organize something?'

‘Get someone good.' The phone clicked off.

Ellie growled at the receiver, but dialled Maria's number. It was half-term, so Maria might not be there, though she had a good assistant. Luckily, it was Maria herself who answered the phone.

‘Dear Maria; Ellie here. I'm so pleased to have caught you. I thought you might be off with the littlies. Half-term and so on.'

‘I know. It's difficult. My assistant has children too, so she and I are working half the week each. The children are all at my parents', including Frank. He's happy as they are going out for the day. Legoland? Something like that. So I'm working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and taking the rest of the week off. What can I do for you?'

‘I've got a job for the Archangel Gabriel. Can you find a couple of good cleaners straight away, and a man and wife housekeeper/gardener to live in as soon as possible?'

Maria was amused. ‘That might be difficult. A lot of my customers are away, but so are many of my cleaners. Why do you need an archangel? Won't an ordinary angel do?'

‘Well, no. It's for the Hooper household. You may have read in the papers about the accidental deaths of a teenager and a toddler. A previous, divorced wife was also found dead at the weekend. There are questions which need to be answered, though so far the police are treating the deaths as misadventures. Their housekeeper and gardener have walked out, and the household is at sixes and sevens and rapidly descending into squalor. The Hoopers are all very upset and finding it difficult to come to terms with what's happened. I must warn you, though. Diana has plans to become the next Mrs Hooper, even though Evan's current wife is still living there.'

‘Diana's living there?' Amused.

‘No, but she's in and out. Taking over at the office while Evan Hooper recovers his wits.'

‘Mm.' Maria didn't sound happy about sending someone to work for Diana.

‘Yes, I know. Can you find a pair of experienced workhorses who'll go through the place like greased lightning and give Diana as good as they get?'

‘Not this week, I shouldn't think. Next week, let me see . . . Yes, next week, with luck. I'll have to ring around, maybe switch . . . But this week? I'm not sure. Listen, Ellie, I'll see what I can do, ring around, get back to you, right?'

Ellie put the phone down, picked it up again to order a minicab, darted into Thomas's office to say she'd be out most of the morning, collected her handbag and an umbrella – because you never knew in October – grabbed her jacket and . . .

The landline rang. Ellie ignored it. She sang out to Rose that she was off, and then slipped out of the front door before anything else could happen.

Ellie had long cherished a plan regarding Vera, her one-time cleaner, but had put it on hold when the girl had moved on to nurse and then marry Edgar Pryce, a man who had only a few months to live.

The Pryce fortune – including the house which was being turned into a hotel – had been left to Ellie on condition that she kept the remaining members of that feckless family from poverty. Edgar had been the best of the lot, and before his death he had passed responsibility for his wife Vera and her son to Ellie. He had left Ellie a letter in which he asked her not to give them an income but to help Vera to a decent job and, since he lived in a rented flat, find her somewhere to live.

Ellie had kept a watching brief since the funeral, but now that Vera had asked to see her, perhaps the time might be ripe to mention her own idea for the girl's future?

Some time soon, perhaps this winter, Rose would need more help just to stay where she was. Rose, being Rose, had said she must go into a home when the time came, but Ellie and Thomas hated the thought of it. Rose had a daughter but, alas, not one who would put herself out for anyone, let alone her mother.