Murder of Innocence Read online

  MURDER OF INNOCENCE

  Veronica Heley is married to a retired probation officer and they have one musician daughter. She is actively involved in her church in Ealing, West London - the London suburb in which the Ellie Quicke mysteries are set. She has had over 60 books published.

  The Ellie Quicke Mysteries MURDER AT THE ALTAR MURDER BY SUICIDE MURDER OF INNOCENCE MURDER BY ACCIDENT MURDER IN THE GARDEN MURDER BY COMMITTEE MURDER BY BICYCLE MURDER OF IDENTITY MURDER IN THE PARK

  MURDER OF INNOCENCE

  Veronica Heley

  Ostara Publishing

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

  First Published by Severn House 2003

  Copyright © 2003 Veronica Heley

  Veronica Heley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A CIP reference is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781906288 32 7 Ostara Publishing

  13 King Coel Road

  Lexden

  Colchester CO3 9AG

  www.ostarapublishing.co.uk

  One

  S

  moke seeped under the door. She’d always been afraid of fire. She got the boy to help her, and in the dark they felt around for something, anything, to prevent the smoke suffocating them. Any old towel would do. The sides of the door fitted pretty well. Not so much smoke came in now. Would it be better to die of suffocation than to burn alive?

  Ellie tried the door again, and again. Immovable.

  The house was empty except for the two of them, shut into that tiny room with no means of escape. There was no window, and the fire was gaining ground around them.

  It would be easy to give way to hysteria.

  Calm down.

  How long since that fiend in human form had shut them in? How long would it take for the fire to reach her … or the smoke to suffocate her … and the boy?

  Breathing wasn’t getting any easier …

  For the recently widowed, some days are better than others. This had been a bad day from the start. Ellie had woken up and asked her husband Frank the time. Only to remember that he wasn’t going to answer.

  Ouch.

  Some days she looked forward to a future in which she wasn’t just the ‘little woman’ at home. Today was not one of those days. She laddered her tights. She dressed in yesterday’s cream jumper and blue skirt because it was too much trouble to sort anything else out. Anyway, with her short silvery hair and clear complexion, she’d always looked good in blue and white.

  She used the last of the loo paper.

  There wasn’t enough milk left to have cereal and tea. One or the other. Midge the cat needed feeding, so he took most of the remaining milk. Ellie tried to cheer herself up. She would spend the morning making a list of plants for her new conservatory. It wasn’t finished yet, but the builders were making good progress and it would give her something to do. Frank’s early death had left her a comparatively wealthy woman, but she wasn’t used to spending money on herself and still felt guilty about doing so.

  She was making herself a pot of tea when the phone rang. At the same time the foreman of the builders barged in through the back door.

  ‘Seen this, missus?’ He was brandishing a soiled piece of paper with figures on it. It was obviously bad news.

  ‘One moment … the phone.’ She lunged for the phone in the hall.

  ‘This can’t wait, missus.’

  ‘Is that you, Ellie?’ Her husband’s elderly aunt Drusilla was on the phone sounding less imperious than usual. ‘I’ve had a fall … I need you …’

  Ellie tried to hush the builder, who was saying, ‘Time’s money, you know, and these aren’t what you ordered.’

  ‘Aunt Drusilla, I …’

  The doorbell rang and as it did so, Ellie’s daughter Diana turned her key in the lock and entered, manoeuvring the pushchair in front of her. Ellie could see that her daughter was in a foul mood, while baby Frank was yelling, red-faced. Ellie covered her free ear in an effort to hear her aunt, who was explaining how she’d come to fall.

  ‘Mother, what’s going on? You promised we’d discuss my moving back here this morning …’ Diana could be very intimidating.

  ‘Please!’ said Ellie. ‘Everyone …’

  No one was prepared to give way to anyone else. Builder, daughter, aunt: all spoke at once, demanding attention.

  Ellie reflected that a water cannon might have quelled the disturbance. Might. What chance did a fiftyish widow have? Especially one who liked a quiet life.

  ‘Ellie, are you still there?’ quacked Aunt Drusilla on the phone. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  The builder wasn’t going to be put off by a crowd of silly women. ‘You see, missus, we opened up …’

  ‘Mother!’

  The front door burst open again. Diana couldn’t have shut it properly. Mrs Coppola, a near neighbour of Ellie’s, fell into the hall. ‘Tod, have you got him? You have, haven’t you?’

  Brittle blonde, single-parent mother of Ellie’s young friend Tod who lived just up the road. Mrs Coppola was usually immaculately turned out. Today she’d forgotten her careful make-up and was actually wringing her hands.

  Ellie blinked. She hadn’t seen the boy Tod for a couple of days. He spent a lot of time in her garden shed, at her kitchen table or on her computer, because his mother was out all day at work, but … missing? No, impossible!

  One thing at a time. She spoke into the phone. ‘Aunt Drusilla, listen. Ring the doctor – get an ambulance if you think it’s bad enough. There’s a spot of trouble here. I’ll ring you back as soon as I can.’

  ‘Mother …’

  ‘Missus, it’s like this …’

  Mrs Coppola screamed, a thin sound. Even baby Frank stopped yelling and looked at her.

  Tod’s mother had bedroom slippers on but no eyebrows. She made a blind sweeping gesture. ‘You’ve got to help me! I was out last night … office do … thought he was asleep … lights were all out when I got back. Not in his room. Hasn’t been to bed. He’s never … I can’t think where. I thought he might be here … with you for some reason? Camping out in your garden shed? It’s my last hope!’

  Ellie felt the blood recede from her own head. Tod missing? It didn’t bear thinking about. Ignoring Diana’s furious face, Ellie took Mrs Coppola’s hands in both of hers. Fear of what might have happened to a ten-yearold boy flowed from one woman to the other. They’d never touched one another before, never even liked one another much.

  Ellie struggled to keep calm. ‘Sit down.’ She pressed the distraught woman on to the hall chair. ‘We’ll find him. Have you rung the police? No? Well, you must, if … Diana, just run down the garden and look in the shed, see if he’s there. Take Frank with you, let him run around outside for a bit.’

  ‘Are you mad? I’m not taking Frank out there, not with all the builders’ materials around. Besides, I have to get to work. I’m going to have to leave him with you anyway, since the babysitter’s taken the day off to go to the doctor’s.’

  Ellie couldn’t take this in, had no room in her head for anything but the news that Tod was missing. She turned on Diana. ‘Shed, now!’

  Diana didn’t usually take any notice of her mother but this time she sped out through the kitchen and half-built conservatory to the garden, leaving Frank behind in the hall. As Diana went out through the kitchen Ellie heard a thump, followed by the clatter of the cat flap. Midge – Ellie’s ginger tom cat – didn’t like Diana.

  The builder leaned his massive weight against the kitchen wall. ‘That the
boy I seen here a lot? Dark-haired, cheeky? Climbs trees?’

  Mrs Coppola opened her mouth, but no words came out. She was in shock.

  Ellie flicked a glance at the builder. ‘Could you put the kettle on?’ Tod is missing?

  He shrugged but obeyed. Outside the kitchen window work had stopped. The gaunt framework of Ellie’s new conservatory stretched across the back of the house, enclosing both the kitchen and living room. The roof of the conservatory and most of the windows had been glazed, but the doors to the garden beyond were propped up against the interior wall. Concrete had been laid on the floor and concrete steps led from the conservatory down into the garden.

  A pedestrian alley ran along the bottom of Ellie’s garden, dividing it and the neighbouring gardens from the grounds of the church beyond. The lawns around the church were criss-crossed with paths and shaded by mature trees. It was an outlook people paid good money for, but it didn’t contain a missing small boy.

  Tucked into the bottom corner of Ellie’s garden beside the alley was the substantial shed which Tod used as a playhouse.

  Back in the kitchen the kettle boiled and Ellie refreshed her pot of tea. She poured out a mug for Mrs Coppola, took it into the hall and thrust it into her hands. That took the very last of the milk. Mrs Coppola sipped, shuddered and made a face. ‘Ugh! Sugar.’

  ‘Drink it.’

  Ellie darted back into the kitchen to peer out of the window. Diana was shading her eyes to peer through the window into the shed. She rattled the door. The door was padlocked, just as it should be. Tod had a key, but obviously hadn’t used it or the padlock wouldn’t be on.

  Frank wailed in his pushchair in the hall. Diana plodded back up the path, calling, ‘Not there.’

  The builder said, ‘You tried his friends, missus?’

  ‘They haven’t seen him. He went swimming as usual yesterday, was still in the baths when they left. No one’s seen him since. Oh …!’

  Ellie dialled 999. ‘Police, please.’

  Mrs Coppola ignored her mug of tea, staring wide-eyed at the parquet floor. She was shivering.

  ‘He’s not there.’ Diana, repeating the obvious. ‘Look, I’ve got to go.’ She hesitated, looking at Mrs Coppola. ‘So sorry. Dreadful thing. Sure he’ll turn up.’ And to Ellie, ‘I’ve got an appointment in half an hour. Ring you later. Kiss, kiss.’

  As she left the house Frank opened his mouth and yelled. Ellie passed the phone to the builder and grabbed the biscuit tin, thrusting something, anything, into the toddler’s hand to shut him up. The builder passed the phone to Mrs Coppola, who tried to speak into it but failed. Her shivering became convulsive.

  Ellie took the phone off her. She pressed one hand to her forehead. One of them must keep calm. It would do no good to give way to tears.

  ‘Police? We need to report a boy missing. Oh yes, my name is Ellie Quicke, Mrs.’ She gave the address while joggling the pushchair with one hand. ‘The boy is called Tod. His mother is Mrs Coppola, she’s here with me, but not in any fit state to talk to you … yes, she lives nearby, three doors away. Our gardens back on to St Thomas’ Church grounds, Ealing. His mother’s tried his school friends, but no go. He hasn’t been seen since he went swimming after school yesterday.

  ‘Description? He’s aged ten and three months, smallish for his age, dark hair, brown eyes, goes to the primary school just across the road from the church … we can almost see it from here. Last night – it was Tuesday, wasn’t it? He would have gone on to Swimming Club straight from school. His mother works. She leaves supper for him though he often comes here to spend the time after school with me. She came home rather late, lights weren’t on, everything looked normal, so she went to bed …’

  The woman had probably had too much to drink and wouldn’t have noticed if the place had been turned over by a burglar.

  ‘What’s that? What would he have been wearing? School things, I suppose. The uniform is grey sweatshirt with the school logo on it, white shirt, grey trousers. The school tie is yellow and blue and he wears black shoes, not trainers. His jacket is olive brown, padded. He’ll have a school bag with him, brown plastic, I think, quite ordinary. And swimming things, probably in a separate plastic bag.’

  She put the phone down. ‘They’ll come straight round.’

  The builder said, ‘Like us to look round about, missus?’

  Mrs Coppola gasped and put her head down between her knees.

  Ellie realized the builder meant that Tod’s body might be out there. She leaned against the wall. At the second attempt she managed to say, ‘Yes. Would you? Back gardens, the grounds around the church.’

  He nodded and left, calling for his two workmen to drop everything and go with him.

  Ellie thought, Doctor? Brandy? Dear Lord, help. What do I do? TOD!

  Little Frank began to scream, growing purple in the face, trying to get out of his pushchair. He’d covered the lower part of his face with chocolate and was now smearing it on the hall table.

  Ellie thought, I can’t cope. I’ll go to pieces. Tod … Mechanically, she tore open a banana and gave it to the boy.

  Mrs Coppola’s eyes were wide open and her lips were moving. She was still shivering. Ellie plucked an overcoat from the hallstand and put it round Mrs Coppola’s shoulders.

  The woman looked up. ‘What do you think’s happened to him? You hear such things. His dad’ll kill me!’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ The woman didn’t mean it literally, of course, but from the little Ellie knew of the long-ago divorce, Mr Coppola had possessed a lively temper.

  Mrs Coppola shrieked, ‘Tod!’ and began rocking backwards and forwards. Frank mashed his banana against the hall table and joined in. Ellie joggled Frank’s pushchair but he failed to respond. She tried to undo the straps that held him into the pushchair, but he fought her off. Till Christmas he’d been a cuddly little toddler, but with the advent of teething problems, he’d turned into a little monster, rejecting her every advance. And strong with it, too. She gave him another biscuit to keep him quiet.

  Bedlam, thought Ellie. Oh, Tod. Where are you? She had a flashing picture in her mind of a broken body lying in the shadow of her shed. She shook her head to drive it away. She made herself take one deep breath, and then another. She told herself to breathe deeply, think clearly, pray for help.

  Please God, not that. Oh, please … I beg you …

  Moving stiffly she manoeuvred the pushchair away from the hall table and dialled the number of the charity shop in the Lane. She had worked there for many years and made some good friends, one of whom she still saw on a regular basis. She needed help and with any luck, dear Rose might be there and have time to spare.

  She wasn’t. Madam, who managed the shop, was extremely surprised

  – she meant displeased – that Ellie should ring there to speak to one of her friends on a busy day like this. Ellie apologized, put the phone down, couldn’t think which day of the week it was. Dialled Rose’s home number and thank God, she was there.

  ‘Rose, dear. Something terrible’s happened. Tod … you know, the little boy from down the road who comes round here a lot … yes, the one you’re so fond of … well, he’s been missing since last night, the police will be at his house in a minute and Mrs Coppola’s in no fit state to be left alone. And I’m looking after little Frank. Could you come and help me look after him, take him for a walk or something till his babysitter gets back?’

  Rose was shocked, but willing to help. ‘Oh, my dear, how awful. I’ll be there in two ticks, just wait till I get my coat on, and as it happens, I was meaning to call you today because we’ve run into a spot of bother over the wedding arrangements …’ Rose’s daughter was getting married in six weeks’ time. ‘… but this is more important, of course …’

  Action helped. Ellie phoned little Frank’s babysitter, left a cry for help on the answerphone. Phoned Aunt Drusilla – how awful to have forgotten her – and got no reply. The old bat hadn’t even got an answerphone e
ven though she was as wealthy as Croesus … Ah, at last someone had answered. The cleaning woman. Limited English. Polish. Probably.

  ‘Hello-oh? Miss Quicke? No, she cannot come to phone. Is resting. Who is? Ah, niece, Ella. I tell her, yes. You come soon, no?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Mrs Coppola was rocking to and fro, her face blank.

  Oh, Tod. Where are you?

  Try not to think about him. Try to think about practical matters. Stop Frank yelling. Give him a drink … there, there, now … splash some water on your own face … cold water … bracing, very. Pull the coat back over Mrs Coppola’s shoulders. Coax Frank to hold his cup.

  Mrs Coppola started up. ‘I must look … perhaps our attic …?’

  ‘Wait a minute and I’ll come with you.’ Clean Frank up. Chocolate and banana mash everywhere.

  The front door opened and banged shut as Mrs Coppola flew out. Frank threw his cup at the wall. The lid came off and water splattered everywhere. The builder came to the door.

  ‘He’s not in any of the gardens that go down to the alley along here. Nor in the church grounds. My lads found a drunk in the porch there, sleeping it off, that’s all.’

  Ellie covered her eyes with her hands. I must not give way. Frank howled. The builder put his big hand on her shoulder and patted it. That was nice of him. If only my dear husband Frank were still alive, he’d know what to do.

  She straightened up, ran her fingers back through her hair. ‘Thank you. I’m waiting for my friend Rose to come and take care of Frank and then I must get round to Mrs Coppola’s. The police will be there in a minute.’

  ‘Your friend Mrs Rose that was with you the other day? I’ll let her in. Look, I’ve got grandchildren of my own. Let me take the laddie out into the garden till she comes. We can’t work with this on, anyway.’

  ‘I’ve just had a thought. The park’s not far away. The river … perhaps he’s there?’

  ‘We’ll have to wait for the police.They’ll tell us what to do, right, missus?’

  She nodded, tried to put her overcoat on, got the sleeves the wrong way round, and was helped by the builder to get it right side out. ‘You wanted to see me about something?’