Murder in Mind (2 page)

‘It's Evan's, of course.'

Ellie took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

She'd had a brush or two with the Great White Shark when she'd inherited a huge white elephant in the shape of Pryce House nearby . . . and that inheritance was another can of worms, wasn't it? Ellie's mind skittered over that problem and returned to Evan Hooper.

Pryce House was too large for private use without a host of live-in servants, and Ellie planned to turn it into a hotel for visitors who would appreciate its quirky charm. Evan Hooper had had the house on his books for sale for a few weeks and, although the instruction for him to sell had been withdrawn, he maintained he was owed the considerable amount of money his agency would have taken if the sale had gone through his books. He had been unpleasant about it, even though Ellie's solicitor assured her that Hoopers hadn't a leg to stand on.

This was the man whose estate agency had recently absorbed Diana's much smaller business. Not that he'd have had it all his own way, for Diana's chief characteristic – after ambition – was a ruthlessness which wouldn't have disgraced Attila the Hun.

Diana was perhaps not entirely as composed as she had tried to appear, for she started to tap on the window. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. ‘He's said he'll marry me, under certain conditions.'

‘Wait a minute. To the best of my knowledge he's paying alimony already to two of his past wives, and the current one is only in her twenties. Plus he's quite a few children to support.'

‘Only three now. One died earlier this week. An accident in his private gym.'

‘Poor man. I hadn't heard.'

‘It'll be in the local
Gazette
on Friday, I suppose.' A twist of the lips. ‘He's upset, of course, but he's bearing up, looking to the future. He wants a son to take over the business.' Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.

‘Sexist of him. Haven't any of his children inherited his brains?'

‘Apparently not. He still has two girls and a boy, but none of them are up to scratch for one reason or another. His current wife is a model, swimsuits and underwear, doesn't want to spoil her figure having another child.'

‘So you took a calculated risk that you might produce a son for him?'

‘It's just been confirmed, today. A boy. Everything is as it should be.'

‘I see.' Ellie didn't see. Not really. She'd often wondered how she and her first husband had managed to produce someone as self-centred as Diana but there it was, and you couldn't send your children back where they came from if they turned out to be a disappointment to you. She'd observed that men could cut their emotional ties with unsatisfactory children much better than women. She wished she knew how they did it.

‘If I can produce a healthy boy child, he'll divorce Angelika – which she spells with a “k”, believe it or not – and marry me.'

‘A son being more important to him than a loving wife? What if the boy turns out not to be interested in the business – will he discard you for someone else?'

Diana ignored that. ‘There's one other condition. He wants you to give him the money he'd have earned if the sale of the Pryce house had gone through him – which it was supposed to do, remember. He doesn't want it to go through the agency. He needs a private pot of gold to pay off Angelika.'

Ellie laughed, then sighed. ‘You mean he wants me to pay off his current wife so that you can take her place? What rubbish. You know the trustees would never allow it.'

Diana's lips twisted. ‘You know that you have the final say in everything at the trust. What skin is it off your nose to let him have his cut?'

‘It's the principle of the thing.'

‘Huh.'

Yes, quite. What had Diana and Evan Hooper to do with principles? Ellie would take a bet they couldn't even spell the word, never mind explain what it meant. She said, meaning it, ‘No.'

‘Think about it. I know the plans for converting the place have been approved by the local Council. Evan made sure they went through, so you owe him for that.'

Ellie shook her head. ‘A councillor he may be, but he's not on the planning committee. Everyone there thought turning the Pryce mausoleum into a hotel would be good for the borough, so I don't owe Evan Hooper anything. Try again, Diana.'

Rat-a-tat-tat. Diana swung away from the window to sit in Ellie's favourite high-backed chair by the fireplace. ‘You might at least pretend to be pleased for me. I'm sure you want to see me happily settled at last.'

‘Indeed.'

‘I'm only going through with the pregnancy if he gets a quickie divorce and marries me. Otherwise I'll have an abortion.'

‘An abortion?' Ellie gaped. Then recovered. ‘No, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't jeopardize your future with Evan by having an abortion . . . How could you even think of . . .? Oh, this is unbearable. We're talking about a person, here. Not a . . . a
thing
, to be disposed of down a rubbish chute. Someone who will love you unreservedly.'

‘Oh my! Are we going to go all soppy and talk goo-goo? That's not really me, is it?'

Ellie kept her voice down, with an effort. ‘Someone to love you, Diana.'

‘I have you.'

‘I love you, yes; but not unreservedly. I don't always like what you say or do.'

A shrug. ‘Little Frank loves me unreservedly.'

‘He used to. Nowadays his love is mixed with pain because you often find something better to do with your time than spend it with him, and then you brush him aside as if his feelings were of no consequence. You've tried him hard, Diana, and he's growing a tougher skin.'

‘It's good to be tough. The world needs “tough”.'

‘May I remind you that he loves his father, Maria and his three little stepsisters – not unreservedly, because there has to be a balance of what you can and cannot do among siblings – but they love him back and he knows where he is with them. He knows they'd never let him down. He has learned that you often do. So, no; he doesn't love you unreservedly.'

Diana turned her head away. ‘I have to look out for myself. No one else will.'

‘You think that making a bargain with Evan will ensure you a life of Happy Ever After? You know better than that.'

‘It will give me what I want in life. A man I can respect, a son to keep him happy. A nice house and business.'

‘I notice you think of the baby as Evan's son, not as your own.'

A shrug. ‘He can share his youngest daughter's au pair. I understand the present girl's not much cop: more interested in chatting to her friends than looking after the little one.'

‘Doesn't the mother – what's her name? Angelika—?'

‘She's off here, there and everywhere on fashion shoots. Her brat needs watching twenty-four seven because she's got some sort of allergy. Peanuts. If necessary we'll employ a trained nanny to look after both children.'

‘Your poor child. Born out of ambition, on the wreckage created by divorced parents. What damage will this loveless liaison do to Evan's other children? One has died, you say. That still leaves . . . how many?'

Another shrug. ‘Three, but I told you, they're out of it. No use to him.'

‘And you want to add to this unhappy family? Oh, Diana.'

A touch of steel. ‘Wish me luck, Mother dear. Think about what I've said. Pay Angelika off for me and I'm out of your hair for good.'

Ellie's husband Thomas used his key to let himself into the house and called out, ‘I'm back!'

Ellie pushed Midge the cat off the kitchen table – again – and hurried out to give Thomas a welcome-home kiss. His beard and hair were beaded with rain, and his car jacket felt damp as she hung it up for him. She couldn't remember exactly what it was he'd been doing so, she said, ‘Was it good?'

‘For a funeral, yes.'

‘Oh. Sorry. Forgot.'

Thomas had retired from parish work, but occasionally still took a service to oblige a colleague. His appearance was misleading, as he looked like an old-fashioned sea captain – complete with beard and moustache – but was in real life the editor of a small but influential Christian magazine, and one of the kindest and most thoughtful of men. Also, solid in every way.

He gave her a hug. ‘I diagnose a need for food . . . or perhaps Diana has paid you a visit?' He picked Midge up, and that perspicacious animal purred. Loudly. Midge knew who would give him titbits from his plate at supper time, and it wasn't Ellie.

Ellie said, ‘Dear Thomas. Both.'

He tensed. It was only a slight movement, but she caught it and sighed. Well, best to tell him straight away. ‘She's pregnant. I've always thought of abortion with horror, but I'm beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be better for some children if they'd never been born.' She peered up at him, to see if he was shocked by what she'd said, because it shocked her to hear such words come out of her own mouth.

He absorbed the news with a nod and, with Midge superglued to his shoulder, propelled her towards the kitchen and tea. ‘Light of my life, you'll feel better when you've had something to eat.'

As always, he rebalanced her world. ‘You're right, as always. And I didn't really mean it about abortion. Or not for very long. It's minted lamb chops with lots of different vegetables but only a few potatoes, because we really must try to cut down on carbohydrates.'

He protested, ‘I need carbohydrates when I've just conducted a funeral.'

She managed to smile. ‘All right, but not too many, right?'

On which note Ellie and Thomas put their worries behind them and did justice to their big meal of the day.

Thursday morning

O
nce upon a time Ellie had been content to look after her husband and daughter in an unremarkable, three bedroom semi-detached house. She'd filled her spare time by looking after her husband's aged aunt, working in the local charity shop, singing in the choir at church and helping out wherever required in the community.

With what sometimes seemed like dizzying speed Ellie had been widowed, inherited money and property, and then remarried. Sometimes she felt like the old woman in the song who'd woken out of a nap to find her skirts had been cut off short, and said, ‘Lawks, but this is none of I!'

On the whole Ellie had adapted well to the demands of her new position, though she sometimes found it a struggle to turn her mind to business when she'd far rather be working in the garden.

Rose, their elderly housekeeper, had once loved pottering about among the flowers but had recently found it too much for her to prune and dig, and had concentrated on the care of plants in the conservatory at the back of the house . . . which meant that Ellie could have a go instead.

There was, of course, a gardener; but he couldn't be trusted to deadhead the roses and select fragrant plants for the herbaceous border, or to do much of anything if he could get away with it.

Once a week Ellie had to make sure her fingernails were clean, push a brush through her short, silvery hair, find a lipstick if possible, and put on a decent skirt to attend a business meeting, even if it was only to be held in her dining room.

Ellie had a couple of cleaners who kept the house looking good, but she automatically checked for dust on the big table as she prepared for the day's session.

The dining room would have to be returned to its original purpose when their guests arrived, which meant that a rent in one of the curtains – made by a visiting kitten and not by their own marauding ginger tom – must be mended, soonest. Perhaps the carpet should be professionally cleaned?

She tried to view her house as her visitors would see it and couldn't help feeling it would appear somewhat dark and drab with its old-fashioned, mostly antique, furniture. What could she do about that, in the short time at her disposal?

If only she'd started earlier to transform the unused top floor of the house into separate living accommodation, but even if the new plans were passed this month it would be ages before builders could start work and they wouldn't finish till next summer. If Rose were to fall ill again this winter . . . No, don't think about it. Or rather, think about it later.

At ten o'clock, Ellie's part-time secretary Pat traipsed herself, her laptop and a pile of papers from her office along the corridor into the dining room and set up at one end of the big polished table.

Ellie's ex-son-in-law Stewart – Diana's first husband – was next to arrive with his own laptop, iPad, Blackberry, and goodness knows what else. Stewart now managed Ellie's empire of properties to let. Once he'd recovered from the divorce, Stewart had remarried and was now living locally and happily with his new wife and their three delightful little girls, plus his – and Diana's – son, in a semi-detached house with a garden.

As Ellie's business affairs had expanded, Stewart had taken on more and more responsibility, which meant longer hours and a worry line appearing between his eyebrows. He hadn't complained – he wasn't the complaining type – but Ellie was beginning to think she ought to ease his workload. Only, she couldn't think how.

Today Stewart was accompanied by Nirav, a tricky youngster who had once worked for Evan Hooper but was now making himself useful in Stewart's office.

Ellie wondered why Stewart had brought Nirav. He'd never done so before. The boy had proved himself responsible and meticulous, but she still wasn't sure he was trustworthy. Well, if Stewart had brought him to this meeting, the reason would no doubt emerge in due course.

Ellie's old friend Kate arrived last; in a hurry as usual. Once a month she would drop her children off at the nursery and rush in to update them on the financial matters she handled for Ellie and her charitable trust. Kate was a tall woman, whose heavy eyebrows gave the impression that she was frowning, but she – like Ellie's husband Thomas – was solid gold as a friend and counsellor.