Murder in Mind Read online

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Footnote

  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 IN MIND

  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 world edition published 2012

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2012 by Veronica Heley.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Heley, Veronica.

  Murder in mind.

  1. Quicke, Ellie (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Widows–Great Britain–Fiction. 3. Detective and

  mystery stories.

  I. Title

  823.9'14-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-289-4 (Epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8179-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-435-6 (trade paper)

  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

  Ellie Quicke considered she had more than enough to worry about ahead of a visit from her husband’s family, before a couple of murders sent her stress levels right off the scale . . . and her daughter Diana’s latest problem came to light!

  Monday, after school

  ‘You freak me out, treading on my heels! Angelika will do her nut if she finds you in her own personal gym. You know she doesn’t let anyone else use it. Well, apart from me, duh!

  ‘Oh, get out of my way! I want to use the treadmill. Whatever are you like! Don’t fiddle with the speedo. I don’t like to go any faster than . . . are you deaf as well as stupid?

  ‘I said don’t touch the . . . Omigod! I can’t . . . not so fast . . . take your hand off so I can turn it down! Aaargh!’

  She stepped awkwardly off the treadmill, caught her foot, tripped and plunged across the room, arms flailing. Helped on her way with a kick from a well-aimed boot, she ran head first into the opposite wall. Blood sprayed. She folded down on to the floor.

  Silence.

  She’s dead? Must check. Yes.

  Well, that couldn’t have gone better, could it?

  Now, wipe fingerprints off the speedo.

  Leave the treadmill running.

  Close the door on leaving.

  Wednesday afternoon

  Ellie had never considered herself a great brain, particularly where mathematics was concerned, but it did occur to her that allocating rooms for all the visitors she was expecting was like trying to fit a quart into a pint pot. She had inherited a large sum of money – which she’d put into a charitable trust – and a spacious Victorian house into which she, her second husband, Thomas, and their elderly housekeeper, Rose, fitted without any trouble.

  Now that dear Rose found the stairs so difficult and had moved into a bed-sitting-room next to the kitchen, her original bedroom and bathroom upstairs could also be used for guests . . . except that it hadn’t been decorated for years and the furniture and furnishings were a hotchpotch of leftovers.

  Marrying a widower late in life, Ellie had acquired a second family who lived in Canada but who planned to visit the United Kingdom for the first time in many years. Of course it would be delightful – if slightly intimidating – to meet Thomas’s children by his first wife. Would they like her? Thomas said that of course they’d adore her, but he was biased, wasn’t he?

  Thomas couldn’t see any problem. He said his family would go to a hotel and he’d cover the cost, but Ellie felt this would be wrong when they lived in such a large house.

  Only, she couldn’t make the maths work.

  The guest room had a double bed in it and was en suite. This would be ideal for Thomas’s son and his wife.

  They had two children. Now, if Ellie arranged for a second single bed to be put in the room her grandson used when he stayed overnight, then that would do for the twins, though they’d probably quarrel over who had which bed. Well, their parents could sort that out. So far, so good.

  Ah, but where could she find a second single bed? Was there one in the unused room at the end of the corridor upstairs, currently filled with junk furniture? Might that room be made habitable as an extra bedroom in time? She made a note to herself to investigate.

  Suppose she could manage to get that end room cleared out, would it be suitable for Thomas’s daughter and her partner?

  Oh dear, Ellie did so dislike this modern trend of having ‘partners’ but not bothering to get married. She knew that nowadays people tended to have trial relationships, as if they could turn their emotions on and off like a tap. They seemed to think it was perfectly all right to move in with one man because he had a nice line in chat, then move on to another when they got fed up with the first one getting legless every night. If there was a child involved before they split up, why worry, because everyone does it and children adapt, don’t they?

  Well, no; they didn’t. Ellie could think of several children, including her own grandson, who had had trouble adapting to the break-up of their parents’ marriage.

  Supposing she could get that end room cleared and furnished, where could she put their child? Rose’s old room at the top of the stairs wouldn’t be suitable for a young girl.

  Oh dear, oh dear. If only the council had seen fit to approve the plans Ellie had submitted to convert the unused top floor of the house into separate accommodation with its own outside staircase and parking place. Time and again her plans had been rejected because of worries about those very parking slots, of all things.

  She told herself there was no sense worrying about something over which she had no control. Which didn’t stop her worrying, of course.

  Another thing. Rose might very soon need more help in the h
ouse. If there was one thing Ellie was sure about, it was that her old friend was not going to be shovelled away into the nearest council home, but would be looked after as part of the family as long as possible.

  Ellie had someone in mind who might be enticed to move into the house to help Rose – one of her former cleaners, who’d recently proven herself a trustworthy ally1 – but the timing was all wrong; Ellie had only got Rose’s old accommodation upstairs to offer at the moment, which was not sufficient for a single parent with a child in tow.

  In any case, Vera, the girl concerned, might now like to go to college, to catch up on the higher education that had been denied her when she’d fallen pregnant at a school-leaving party. If so, it would be up to Ellie to see that the girl realized her dream.

  Ellie smiled to herself; she could well imagine what her avaricious daughter Diana would say to her mother giving someone else a helping hand up the ladder of life. Diana would be furious!

  Ellie’s mind slid on to the ever-vexatious question of her demanding daughter. In the past Ellie had been accustomed to panic whenever Diana got into financial trouble, thinking it was up to her to help out, but her generosity of spirit had finally dried up under Diana’s aggressive tactics and there had been a noticeable cooling in their relationship over the past few months.

  That being said, even now the thought of Diana caused Ellie to frown. How long was it since Diana had seen fit to honour them with her presence? Six or seven weeks, perhaps?

  The leaves on the trees were beginning to turn gold and brown and the sun’s rays to lose their warmth. Autumn was upon them. Ellie decided she ought to check that Diana was all right.

  Well, comparatively all right. Diana tended to live in the centre of a whirlwind, always in a state about something. Men or money. Or both.

  Life had been beautifully quiet without her.

  Only, now she came to think about it, Ellie had an uneasy feeling that no news from Diana was not always good news.

  When last heard of, Diana’s failing estate agency was about to be taken over by Hoopers, a large and thriving business in the town centre. Evan Hooper, who ran it, was a businessman of the old school who had earned the nickname of the Great White Shark. Not the cuddly sort, no.

  Ellie grinned. Perhaps those two deserved one another?

  Ellie picked up their marauding ginger tom, mis-called Midge, and tried to cuddle him. He objected, and she let him leap down on to the floor. He was a typically self-centred cat who wanted food, not caresses.

  The front doorbell rang, and who should be there but Diana. Surprise! Shiny black car. Shiny and enormous black handbag. Black business suit with a touch of white around the collar. Black hair stunningly cut to show off a well-shaped head. Make-up rather heavy around the eyes. Diana had not inherited Ellie’s beautiful skin, or the curl in her silvery hair.

  Midge the cat disliked Diana, so he disappeared with a flick of his tail.

  Ellie wasn’t wearing any make-up at all and, as she’d been working in the garden, was wearing a pale-blue long-sleeved sweater, a navy skirt, and useful but clumpy clogs. Diana made Ellie feel frumpish, until she noticed that instead of her usual high heels, Diana was wearing ballerina shoes.

  Ellie couldn’t remember Diana wearing flatties before, not even when she’d been pregnant with little Frank during her first marriage.

  Oh. Surely not?

  No, of course not.

  ‘Long time no see,’ said Ellie, trying to dismiss thoughts of pregnancy from her mind. ‘I was just going to have a coffee. Will you join me?’

  Diana marched into the sitting room and stood by the French windows, looking out on to the garden. ‘I’m off coffee.’

  There are several things a mother – however modern – does not wish to hear from a divorced, single-parent daughter.

  ‘I’m pregnant’ must be top of the list. Or perhaps, ‘I’m gay’? Now, there was a toss-up. Which would you prefer?

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ said Diana.

  Ellie ran down a list of possible fathers in her mind and decided that almost any of the one-night stands Diana had enjoyed in the past might be more welcome than the name which leapt to the forefront of her mind. Please God, let it not be Evan Hooper!

  ‘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. W
hat 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.’