Murder With Mercy Page 18

  She smiled and opened her eyes. The rest had done her good. Thomas would be all right, with care. Vera was a strong lass; she’d cope. As for Mikey; well, Ellie could do something about him this very minute.

  Back in the hall, she settled herself down by the phone. First off, she rang the school secretary. This call was probably going to take some time, but it had to be done …

  Lesley Milburn arrived with a gust of wind that blew the front door back on its hinges. Ellie was upstairs seeing to the invalids, so it was Rose who let her in. Ellie hastened down the stairs, talking partly to herself and partly to Lesley. ‘I really ought to keep a chart of what painkillers I’ve given to which person at what time and what their temperature was. Hi, there; Lesley. Only one of my patients’ temperatures is anywhere near normal, and he’s the one who really ought to be checked out by a doctor. If they’d time to see him, that is. It’s an epidemic, isn’t it?’

  ‘Flu? Several people at the station have got it.’

  Rose said, ‘More tea coming up. With chocolate biscuits.’

  Lesley shed her coat and went into the sitting room. Ellie followed, collecting dirty cups and saucers and depositing them on the ledge in the hall. She picked the post and the newspapers out of the cage behind the front door and tossed them there, too. It looked like two days’ worth of post. Maybe three. Well, her priorities had changed. Invalids first. Mysteries second. Everyday life could be resumed when things calmed down. She turned on the lights and drew the curtains.

  ‘Yes?’ said Lesley. ‘You have some information for me?’

  ‘The bad news first, or the good? Mikey has—’

  A grimace. ‘You know I can’t discuss Mikey.’

  ‘Let me gossip about him till the tea comes. I’ve discovered that he played truant because he was being bullied.’

  ‘What? Are you sure?’

  ‘Would I say so, if I wasn’t sure? I rang the school. At first they would only say they had a strong policy of dealing with bullies, and they had no knowledge of any of that happening in Mikey’s form. So I spoke to his form master. It’s Mikey’s first term with this man, and it’s clear he thought the boy is rubbish. He said that Mikey needed to change his attitude. The words “insolent” and “unteachable” hung in the air.’

  Lesley shrugged. ‘A lad on the downward path.’

  ‘Unhuh. I needed a second opinion, so I rang an old acquaintance of mine who has a child of Mikey’s age at the same school. She keeps her ear to the ground, has three cats, one of whom only has three legs, not that that’s of interest to you. She said the boy’s teacher this year is fresh out of college and a poor disciplinarian. The kids always know when a teacher hasn’t proper control, so they play up. The class bully – and yes, I know his name – has taken advantage of this laxity to target boys who try to stand up to him – which Mikey does, though my informant’s son is more circumspect. Apparently, it’s well known that this bully and his gang rule the playground and in particular “own” a spot behind the art room where they can smoke or beat people up without being spotted. They also wait round the corner after school and lie in wait for anyone they haven’t dealt with during the day.’

  ‘The teachers should have picked up on his problem.’

  ‘So they should. A more experienced teacher would have done so, but this one obviously hasn’t. As soon as Vera is better, I’ll go along there with her and create the biggest stink in history. Without telling us what was going on, Mikey tried to keep up with his homework but avoided playground times and the after-school exodus. You can see how he became labelled a truant, can’t you? Then he was assaulted and hauled off to the police station. He didn’t know which day of the week it was when we saw him on Wednesday, did he? He still can’t speak.’

  Lesley swept this aside. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie; I can’t get involved in this matter. The social workers now have a file on Mikey, and believe me, they will follow it through. You’d better get the boy to a specialist. The fact that you hadn’t even noticed he was mute is going to tell against you. In the meantime, you said you had something for me.’

  Ellie stared into space. She understood Lesley’s point of view, but the more she thought about what had been happening to Mikey, the more worried she became. Something was very wrong with, well, everything. Especially – and here she frowned – with Hugh’s account of the incident in the road.

  If Ellie had been asked her opinion of Hugh early that morning, she’d have said she’d trust him with her life. And now, quite simply, she had the gravest of doubts gnawing away at her. Why had he said …?

  She shook herself back to the present. She would think about that later. Meanwhile, Lesley was waiting for information.

  Ellie produced the plastic bag with the pharmacist’s box in it. ‘Found in the bedside cabinet of a woman who recently committed suicide. Nobody’s disputing the fact that she did commit suicide. The return of a cancer motivated her to end her life prematurely. Her husband suspected … well, not even suspected, but he was uneasy enough about leaving her to check what medication she had on hand before he went away for the weekend. He had a long-arranged date that she urged him to fulfil.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The box is not from her usual pharmacy. If it had been, if the lady had obtained the tablets herself, there would have been no need to tear off the label with the name of the patient on it. Conclusion: someone else acquired the tablets for her, which is what you’ve suspected in the other cases you’ve mentioned.’

  Lesley inspected the bag under the nearest side lamp. ‘Names?’

  ‘In a minute. The husband put the box into a plastic bag and brought it to me because he’s afraid that his right-hand woman at work, a clinging type called May, might have obtained the tablets and given them to his wife. He wants me to find out if she did. He thinks May has a soft spot for him and therefore might have been keen to help his wife into an early grave. That troubles him a lot. Possibly, it’s true.’

  ‘He thinks there may be fingerprints on the box?’

  ‘I suppose there may be several sets: the pharmacist’s, the husband because he picked it up out of the drawer, the wife’s and—’

  ‘The murderer’s?’

  ‘But it’s not murder, is it? Helping someone to obtain the means to commit suicide?’

  ‘Helping someone to die is a criminal offence.’

  ‘I agree, but this is not the same thing, is it? No one forced Anita to take the tablets.’

  ‘I need names.’

  Ellie gave them. She did not tell Lesley that the funeral service would be on Monday, or that the body would be cremated. Perhaps she ought to have done so, but she didn’t. And she didn’t feel guilty about that, either.

  Friday evening

  She thought she was seeing things. Bold as brass, Petra walked out of the Co-op with her shopping and turned up the slip road to the flats. The older woman forgot she’d gone out to fetch some milk and, when the girl started up the stairs, she called out: ‘Petra? Is that you? Someone said you were dead.’

  ‘In your dreams! Been in hospital, I have.’ Petra let herself into her flat with a key. ‘Come in, why don’t you? The place is a mess, mind. The boyfriend’s done a flit and Phee’s with the social people till tomorrow.’

  The flat was full of cheap, flashy furniture which had probably looked all right in the showroom but had not been cared for. The upholstery on the three-piece suite was stained, a padded wooden chair lacked an arm. The room stank of fast food, fish and chips, and cigarettes.

  The older woman clutched her handbag with gloved hands. She didn’t fancy touching anything.

  Petra dumped her shopping on the scratched table. ‘Peace and quiet tonight, but tomorrow I’m going after my cousin that cheated me of my rights. She thinks she’s got away with it, but no one gets one over me, right?’

  ‘She didn’t cause your aunt’s death.’

  ‘What would you know about it, you old crow?’ Petra didn’t bother to take of
f her jacket but collapsed into a chair, chucking off her ill-fitting, down-at-heel shoes. ‘My ankle’s killing me, and I need a drink.’ She scrabbled in her bags to bring out a half bottle of gin. ‘Nothing like it for taking the edge off.’

  She unscrewed the top and took a long swallow. ‘So, what have you come for? I never liked you. As long as I can remember, you’ve been sneaking around, visiting my aunt, tittle-tattling about me.’

  ‘Your aunt and I were good friends for more years than I can remember.’

  Petra took another swallow, and something moved in her eyes. ‘Do you mean …? It wasn’t you that did my aunt in, was it?’ Still holding her bottle, she lunged out of her chair and grasped the older lady’s forearm. ‘Was it you that murdered her? If it was, I’ll do you for it.’ She gestured with the gin, spraying everything in sight, but as she did so she stumbled over one of her shoes and fell sideways awkwardly, knocking all the breath out of her body. ‘Uumph!’

  The older lady didn’t move. Couldn’t. She was trembling.

  Petra’s eyelids fluttered. She moaned, putting the hand holding the bottle to her head. More gin slopped out. She said, in a thick voice, ‘I’ll have the police on you for assault.’

  Would they believe Petra? No, surely not.

  Petra tried to sit up. She dropped the bottle, using both hands to pull herself up by the table. ‘You pushed me!’ She held on to a nearby chair, wobbling.

  The older woman hadn’t thought she could kill anyone. It wasn’t in her nature. But the next thing she knew, the bottle of gin was in her hand and Petra lay on the floor, gurgling her life away. Her eyes were half open but unseeing. There was blood everywhere, on the carpet, the table. Everywhere.

  The visitor dropped the bottle, which splashed gin over her shoes. She brushed her gloved hands down her coat, which felt sticky. Her coat and gloves were black, so the blood didn’t show, but her legs … She must wash them. And her shoes, her gloves, her handbag.

  She groped for a chair. She must sit down for a minute. The room was going round and round and … She felt ill, but mustn’t be sick here. She forced herself to find the bathroom – filthy, but what had she expected? – and cleaned herself up as best she could. She had a drink of water. She must get home. Yes, that was what she must do.

  She left the flat, leaving the front door ajar. Someone would find the girl, sooner or later. With her reputation the police would question her boyfriend first, and then they’d conclude it was some druggy chancing on a woman living alone.

  She walked home in the dusk. It took her a long time because she had to stop and rest every now and then. She couldn’t risk getting on the bus, reeking of blood as she did. She would have to have her coat dry-cleaned. Such a pity, but she’d have to throw away the gloves, the handbag and the shoes.

  A nuisance she hadn’t any milk. She could have done with it to make some cocoa, to calm her nerves. Maybe she’d even have to take one of her last sleeping tablets, the ones she’d been keeping for Evan.

  She wished she could find her diary. There’s something she had to do on Monday, she was sure of it.

  Friday night

  A difficult evening.

  Vera was fretful, wanting Mikey. Thomas demanded to know what was going on, but drifted off before Ellie had worked out what to say. Mikey’s bright eyes watched Ellie as she attended to his bruises and the cut on his arm. But would he talk? No.

  Wearily, Ellie tumbled into bed in the guest bedroom, thinking she’d get more sleep there than in bed with Thomas, who was so restless that he needed the bed to himself … only to be woken with a cry from Vera, who’d got halfway down the stairs from the top floor in search of Mikey, before her legs gave way under her.

  Ellie couldn’t carry Vera back up the stairs to her own bed, so helped her on down to the first floor where she could see for herself that Mikey was all right, which he was at that moment. Deeply asleep. Ellie put Vera into the bedroom at the end of the corridor beyond Mikey’s room, making up the bed in makeshift fashion, fetching more drink and more painkillers from up top.

  She fell back into bed only to be woken by Thomas having a bout of coughing, which had to be soothed with linctus and paracetamol, until he was quieter and she could get back to bed herself.

  Then Mikey woke from a nightmare and crawled into bed with Thomas, who woke with a yell, thinking … or not thinking, but reacting in alarm. Ellie rescued Mikey and got him into bed with her, where he lay, quivering, until sleep took him again.

  Ellie lay awake for a long time after that, worrying away … How could she look after everyone … keep Mikey safe … discover who was helping people to commit suicide … encourage Evan to get out of his wheelchair … be with Diana when she gave birth …?

  She must have dozed off because when she woke an hour later, Mikey had gone. So she had to go looking for him again. Upstairs? Had she really left the landing lights on all this time? He wasn’t there. She found him in bed with Vera in the room at the end of the corridor. Oh well.

  Back to bed.

  She was exhausted when the alarm went off at seven, but made herself climb into some clothes and go to check on her patients, who were both sound asleep. Thomas sounded like a train, snoring gently. Vera, with her mouth slightly open, was also snoring.

  Mikey nowhere to be seen.

  Rose wasn’t up, either.

  Ellie found Mikey, still in his pyjamas, curled up in Thomas’s big chair in the quiet room on the ground floor. ‘Budge up,’ she said.

  He budged. She put her arms around him, and he managed to get on to her lap. He’d been crying, but she wasn’t going to notice that, was she?

  She thought, Here’s a state of things …

  She’d always relied on Thomas to back her up and give her good advice and on Vera to keep the house running. Now they were out of it. All she had was elderly, frail Rose and a frightened boy who couldn’t speak.

  The odds weren’t good.

  Mikey shifted his position, favouring his right side.

  A cold anger began to form inside her. How dare they assault this boy? She didn’t know who ‘they’ might happen to be, but how dare they!

  A nasty thought wormed its way into her head.

  You know very well who’s behind the sabotage.

  No, I don’t! How could I?

  You’ve known all along, but you don’t want to acknowledge who it is, because you don’t know how to deal with it. With her.

  Her?

  Yes, her. Consult within. What does your gut reaction tell you?

  All right, I agree. But—

  So. Go get her.

  How?

  No answer.

  There was no connection that she could see between the woman she didn’t even want to name inside her head and the workmen on site. Could Mistress No Name possibly be bribing workmen to delay the opening of the hotel? But, why? And what good would that do her?

  Well, as Ellie had said at their business meeting, Edwina Pryce knew she couldn’t upset the will, but she could stir up so much trouble that they’d be happy to pay her off.

  In her dreams!

  Yes, but Edwina only ever thought of things from her own point of view. She had a warped mentality, thinking the world owed her a luxurious lifestyle just because she’d been born into the Pryce family.

  Ellie had been left the Pryce mansion to do as she wished with it. She could have blown it up, or transported it to Mumbai if she had so wished, only providing that she kept the remaining members of the Pryce family out of debt. And there was the rub. Edwina Pryce could run up what bills she liked and they’d always be paid, in order to keep her out of the debtors’ courts. She could engage solicitors and, because she had no money to pay them, the bills would come to Ellie. Edwina shopped at Harrods, she took taxis whenever she wished because she couldn’t drive …

  Which meant that the vague suspicion Ellie had been harbouring about the car which had nearly run Mikey over didn’t work. Edwina Pryce had not been resp
onsible for trying to kill Mikey. Even if she’d been behind the sabotage and knew that Mikey had caught Preston and Dave red-handed; even if she’d realized he could bear witness against them; even if she had seen him in the street and decided that here was an opportunity to silence him for good, she couldn’t have driven that car at him.

  Which meant … which meant … Ellie didn’t know what it meant.

  But there was one thing that she was very sure about. Mikey was not a helpless child but had a highly intelligent, computer-literate brain.

  ‘Mikey, before we have breakfast we’ll get you washed and dressed and do the hospital rounds. After that, you and I are going to put our heads together to confound the wicked. Right?’

  The boy did indeed prove helpful, fetching clean nightwear and toiletries down for Vera from the top floor, bringing up more drinks from the kitchen, and helping Ellie to remake beds which had been ruckled up overnight. Both patients seemed a little better, and Ellie was thankful that Thomas hadn’t developed that awful, grinding chest cough which in the past had meant he was going to be seriously unwell.

  Only, they found Rose in the kitchen, not attending to breakfast, but sitting in her chair, weeping gently.

  Ellie hurried to Rose’s side. ‘My dear, whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘I feel so useless. You’ve got everything to see to, and Mikey’s in trouble, and I’m just a silly old woman who can’t climb the stairs any more. I just tried and I couldn’t and I can’t do anything to help and I’m just in the way …’

  Ellie gave Rose a hug. ‘Listen to me, Rose. Even if you never got another meal ready in your life, even if you never washed a dish, or dusted a room or watered the flowers, you are at the heart of this house. We depend on you to be here for us, to worry about us, to care what happens to us. Please God you don’t get the flu because I don’t know how we’d cope if you did!’

  Ellie tried to make a joke of it, but Rose was beyond joking. ‘Yes, but—’

  Then Mikey proved his heart was in the right place. Because Midge the cat was his constant companion and best friend, he thought the cat would offer the same love and consolation to Rose. So he picked Midge up and put him in Rose’s lap.