Murder by Suggestion Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Further Titles by Veronica Heley from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Further Titles by Veronica Heley from Severn House

  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 HOUSE

  MURDER BY MISTAKE

  MURDER MY NEIGHBOUR

  MURDER IN MIND

  MURDER WITH MERCY

  MURDER IN TIME

  MURDER BY SUSPICION

  MURDER IN STYLE

  MURDER FOR NOTHING

  The Bea Abbot Agency Mysteries

  FALSE CHARITY

  FALSE PICTURE

  FALSE STEP

  FALSE PRETENCES

  FALSE MONEY

  FALSE REPORT

  FALSE ALARM

  FALSE DIAMOND

  FALSE IMPRESSION

  FALSE WALL

  FALSE FIRE

  FALSE PRIDE

  MURDER BY SUGGESTION

  Veronica Heley

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by Veronica Heley.

  The right of Veronica Heley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8805-1 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-932-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-987-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  ONE

  Monday morning, noon.

  It had to be her daughter, Diana. No one else hung on to the front doorbell like that.

  Ellie dropped her trowel and gardening gloves in her haste to answer the summons. What on earth was Diana doing, ringing Ellie’s doorbell on a Monday morning when she should be at work?

  Ellie opened the door and Diana pushed past her into the hall, tugging a large suitcase on wheels after her and thrusting a couple of coats in plastic covers into her mother’s arms. ‘You took your time, didn’t you?’

  ‘What …?’

  Diana was already dragging in another suitcase and a folding travel bag for long dresses. Out in the drive a taxi driver was unloading a number of heavy plastic bags.

  ‘Diana …?’

  ‘You might help me!’ Diana thrust a tote bag at her mother. ‘I’ve got to get everything under cover before it rains.’

  Ellie had been potting up geranium cuttings. Were her hands clean enough to touch Diana’s precious things? Well, they’d have to be. Ellie slung the tote bag into the back of the hall and went back for another. What on earth was Diana doing, bringing her belongings here?

  Surely the girl hadn’t quarrelled with her husband and decided to move out? No, of course not. Yet the mounting piles of luggage seemed to suggest that was exactly what she had done.

  Only, if Diana had left her husband, what had she done with her delightful if tiring small son? Ellie couldn’t see any children’s things among the piles of luggage on the floor.

  Finally Diana dragged the last of her bundles inside and shut the front door. It did look as if it were going to rain. The panelled hall suddenly seemed very dark.

  ‘Diana, what is this?’

  Diana drew her hand across her forehead. ‘He’s thrown me out! I went off to work in the usual way. He wasn’t up by that time – he likes a good lie-in nowadays – but the new nanny was bustling around, getting little Evan’s breakfast, seeing him off to the nursery. Everything seemed normal. Nothing prepared me for the shock.’ She sank down on to the hall chair.

  Yes, she was in shock. Visibly trembling.

  Ellie tried to grasp the situation, and failed.

  ‘Don’t just stand there gaping, Mother! Do something!’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why—?’

  ‘I was in a meeting with a prospective buyer for the flats behind the cinema, a project I’ve been working on for months. He rang through and ordered me to drop everything and get back home. He ordered me … ordered me! Me who’s kept him and the business going all these years – he ordered me to get back home! I said I couldn’t leave just like that, and he said that if I didn’t I’d find all my things out in the road. I couldn’t believe it!’

  Diana wrenched open her jacket with fingers that trembled. Yes, she really was in shock. As always, she was wearing a black suit over a white shirt. She kept her black hair cut short and her only make-up was a bright red lipstick, which today was slightly smudged.

  If it had been anyone else in trouble but Diana, Ellie would by now have been giving them a cuddle and urging them to have a good cry, but Diana had always repelled physical contact. So instead Ellie asked, ‘Why?’

  A tinge of colour came into Diana’s cheeks. ‘It was a joke! If it went wrong, it wasn’t my fault!’

  Ellie blinked. Diana didn’t do jokes.

  Diana scrabbled at the neck of her blouse, tearing the collar open. ‘He says I plotted the death of one of his friends – a golfing buddy, you know? It’s ridiculous, and I’m going to sue him for …’ A glitter of tears. ‘Mother, I don’t know what to do. He’d got the cleaner and the nanny to pack up all my things and put them in the hall. He wouldn’t even let me go up to my bedroom to check if anything was left. He said that if I’d missed anything, he’d send it on. He grabbed my keys from me so I can’t get back into the house and he said I couldn’t take my car because it belongs to the business, and that’s why I had to get a taxi to come here.’

  Ellie would have subsided into a chair herself at that point, but there was only one in the hall and Diana was occupying it. So Ellie let herself down on to the next
to bottom of the stairs. ‘He can’t do that. Can he?’

  ‘He has. What’s more, he’s told that stupid Mrs Thing at work that she’s being promoted and will be in charge in future and not to let me back in, so now I haven’t even a job to go to and that big sale I was working on will fall through and I could … I could bite something!’

  Ellie pinched herself. Was this really happening? ‘But Diana, what about little Evan?’

  Diana wept. Her face didn’t distort, but tears ran down her cheeks unheeded. She was a hard, difficult woman in many ways, but she did love her little son who, somewhat confusingly, had been named after his father. ‘My dear husband said he’s going to court to get sole custody. He says he’s rung the bank and told them I’d lost my handbag. He’s cancelled all my credit cards and asked the bank to send replacements to him, so I won’t get them. The taxi took the last of my cash. I can’t believe this is happening!’

  Neither could Ellie. ‘Why, Diana? He can’t just throw you out for … What did he say you’d done?’

  Diana sniffed, found a hankie and blew her nose. ‘He says I killed a friend of his. Bunny Brewster – dreadful little man. They called him Bunny because his nose twitched like a rabbit’s when he ate. He died of an overdose a couple of weeks ago. No one’s going to miss him. It was nothing to do with me, I swear it! I’ve not been near him.’

  Yet there was something in her voice which told Ellie that Diana was not entirely without guilt or, perhaps, knowledge of the event? ‘Why does Evan think that?’

  ‘Oh, it’s ridiculous! There was a group of us, wives of some of the men who are at the golf club every evening. We were looking at a brochure about a murder weekend at the club. We were joking, having fun, making up stories about how we’d murder someone, but it wasn’t serious. How could it be? None of us meant it. It was just saying “What if …?” You know? We’d all drunk a bit, we were bored, the men were off in a huddle as usual, and we were feeling neglected. What does it matter who said it? The fact is that the stupid man did get his pills muddled up and died, and Evan’s saying that I was responsible and it’s not true!’

  Ellie believed her. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘As if I would! What’s Bunny Brewster to me? He was always around when we went to the club, not that I go much, but I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him except to say things like, “How are you doing?” Or, “Is Barbie not with you tonight?” Barbie is his wife. Was his wife. I told you that he’d died, didn’t I? We all went to the funeral. It was sad, but these things happen. Now Evan says … I can’t believe it! Why on earth would I want to kill Bunny? And did Evan really have to drag me away from work like that? Serve him right if we lost the sale of those flats. I can tell you this for nothing; it won’t be him who closes that deal.’

  She sniffed. ‘He won’t remember his dentist’s appointment if I’m not there to remind him, or that he has to have his warfarin levels checked this week. He’s lost the plot, know what I mean? And what will my poor little boy do without me to kiss him better when he falls down, and tell him bedtime stories?’

  What, indeed? Diana’s toddler son was another alpha male in the making but he was devoted to his mother. As for the estate agency, Ellie had heard Diana comment before on her husband’s loss of interest in it of recent years, even though it kept them both in the manner to which they were accustomed. That big house and two sleek cars, the entertaining, the fees to the golf club; all that was paid for by some hard graft on the high street. Diana had a flair for business, and she worked hard. She might cut the occasional corner here or there, but … murder? No way. Had Evan really lost the plot?

  Ellie said, ‘You need a solicitor.’

  Diana straightened up. ‘That’s what I thought. Can you get your man Gunnar on to it? He’s the best, isn’t he? I don’t think Evan knows anyone of his calibre.’ The businesswoman in her clicked into operation. ‘I want a divorce, of course, and sole custody of my son. I know Evan rents our house and doesn’t own it but I shall need alimony. It would best if … Yes, tell him I’ll settle for his signing the estate agency over to me. He’s hardly ever there nowadays, anyway. Also, I’ll need a sum to enable me to buy a decent flat somewhere. Right?’

  Ellie reflected that her old friend Gunnar was indeed one of the best, and also one of the most expensive of solicitors. It didn’t sound as if Diana was prepared to pay his fees. Ellie feared she knew who was going to have to do that, and who would have to find somewhere for Diana to live in the meantime. She went to the phone, found Gunnar’s mobile number and dialled. The call went to voicemail. She left a message for him to ring her.

  Diana was impatient. ‘Trust you to ring the wrong number. Try his mobile, for heaven’s sake, and leave him my mobile number to contact me direct.’

  ‘I did try his mobile.’ Ellie hadn’t left Diana’s number, because she was not at all sure yet what this affair was all about. Was it just a matrimonial spat? ‘Diana, why exactly does Evan say you killed this man?’

  ‘There was something on email … Someone must have rung Evan and told him where to look because he wouldn’t personally know where to start. The girls email one another all the time. They copy me in, but I don’t always reply. Someone must have shown them to Evan, and he thinks … I don’t know what he thinks! As if I would try to murder someone by mixing up his pills! As if I’ve ever been in the Brewsters’ place, except for the odd party and they only have those twice a year. Oh, I could wring his neck!’

  Ellie could detect a note of panic in Diana’s voice. She said, ‘What is it you’re not telling me?’

  ‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing. I swear I haven’t been inside their house since Easter, when he was made captain of the golf club. Was it Easter? I can’t remember. Springtime, anyway. He had this huge trophy cup, which he filled with champagne. He would do that, wouldn’t he? Horrid little man, throwing his weight about, pinching bottoms, making stupid jokes.’

  ‘Did he pinch your bottom?’

  ‘I’d like to have seen him try!’

  No, a man would have to be pretty far gone to think that Diana’s sleek, well-toned bottom would be pinchable. She gave the appearance of wearing chainmail inside her business suit.

  Ellie tried Gunnar’s chambers, and was told he was in court that day. She left another message asking him to ring her back as soon as possible. This time she did give Diana’s phone number.

  ‘Right,’ said Diana, buttoning herself up again. ‘If you can get started with Gunnar when he surfaces, I’m going to go down to the bank and make sure they know I’ve separated from my husband but will continue to bank with them. Fortunately I’ve always paid my commissions into a separate account and he can’t touch that. He probably doesn’t even know about it, but even if he did find out and tried to cancel my card, the bank wouldn’t play ball, would they? Now, I paid the taxi with the last of my cash and I’m going to need some more to be going on with. Fifty quid, if you’ve got it? A hundred would be better. And keys so that I can get back in here.’

  Diana didn’t explain why she had kept a separate bank account for the commissions she got from work and Ellie didn’t ask her about it. Sometimes, however much you loved a daughter – and of course Ellie did love Diana – there were things you did not ask about. Besides, plenty of wives had separate accounts from their husbands, didn’t they? Ellie herself did, for one.

  Ellie fetched a spare front door key from the cupboard in the kitchen. She found her handbag, which luckily was where she first looked for it, and handed over sixty pounds in cash, which was all she had on her.

  Diana pocketed both, stood up and flicked dust off her skirt. ‘Have you still got that cook person living in the top flat here?’

  Ellie started to say, ‘Susan is not a “cook person”. She’s a student who rents …’ But Diana wasn’t listening. She was checking her make-up, flicking her hair back into its usual severe cut. She said, ‘I suppose I’d better move into your big guest room for the time being. It is e
n suite, isn’t it? Then, when I get my son back, you can shift the cook girl out and we can have the top floor to ourselves.’

  Ellie said, ‘No, I’m afraid that’s not—’

  ‘It’s lucky you’ve no one else staying at the moment. I’ve never known anyone like you for taking in lame dogs. I’m surprised that new husband of yours allows you to spend so much of our family money on them. You’d better get him to say an extra prayer or two for me so that I can get a good settlement from Evan and move on with my life.’

  Ellie gritted her teeth. She supposed that any child, however old, resented their widowed mother making a second marriage, but Reverend Thomas was a darling, a great big teddy bear of a man who was devoted to Ellie. He was also highly thought of by everyone who knew him … except Diana, who could not be brought to treat him with even common politeness. Diana maintained that Thomas was after Ellie’s money, which he was not. It wasn’t Ellie’s money, anyway, but inherited wealth which was held in a charitable trust.

  As usual when Diana made a snide remark about Thomas, Ellie told herself she had to make allowances, and said nothing.

  Diana got out her mobile phone. ‘At least Evan didn’t take this off me. Taxi …? Yes, I’m at my mother’s house, Mrs Quicke. She has an account with you, doesn’t she? Yes. Well, charge it to her account. Her daughter needs to be collected from her house to go to the High Street. Yes, straight away.’

  She clicked off that number and while trying another said, ‘The taxi will be along in a minute. I’ll wait outside for him. I suppose I’d better warn the others. Especially Trish and Russet. Though surely their husbands won’t … No, that’s ridiculous! Still, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to get together and …’ Still talking, she left the house.

  Ellie took a deep breath to calm herself and went down the corridor to Thomas’s study. This was a large room stretching from the front to the back of the house, which used to be a library. The walls were lined with bookcases holding heavy tomes, some of which dated back a hundred years or more. Ellie’s Victorian ancestors considered a gentleman’s library should hold runs of bound volumes of Punch for a start, but Thomas had added to the collection with his own choice of books, which overflowed the shelves and stood around on the floor in piles like stalagmites.