Murder at the Altar Read online

  ‘I suppose.’ Was the girl being deliberately vague? ‘He didn’t rip people off too much, so they used to go back to him for their next car, and for repairs. Yes, I suppose he did all right. He used to boast he’d make a million before he was thirty. Don’t suppose he would have done. Though he did say …’ She frowned and stopped.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He did say …’

  This was like drawing teeth out of a toffee apple.

  ‘… well, I expect it was a joke, but he did say something about an offer being made to him for the business. It must have been a joke. I mean, who would want to work that hard, in the open, no proper site or garage or anything? I must go.’

  Joyce smiled invitingly at a bony young man who was holding up her coat for her. No doubt this was the acceptable suitor, the scout leader. Joyce slid into the coat and departed.

  Well, that was a waste of time, thought Ellie.

  Lunch at the vicarage on Sundays was a feast that expanded to include whoever Gilbert and Liz felt needed feeding either in body or spirit. So Nora was invited, and two elderly women. Archie Benjamin angled for an invitation but to Ellie’s relief was not asked. The curate and his wife came, plus their five-year-old boy. The lad was badly behaved but his parents’ pride and joy, so no one said anything when he spread his food all over the table.

  Ellie noticed that Liz got a little tetchy when Nora burst into tears in the middle of lunch and fled from the room, followed by a worried-looking Gilbert. They were absent for a good ten minutes, by which time everyone else had finished their pudding, and Ellie was helping Liz to clear away and stack dirty plates in the dishwasher.

  Ellie whispered to Liz, ‘What’s up with Nora?’ Liz said, ‘I’ll tell you as soon as we’ve got the place to ourselves again.’

  The elderly visitors drifted away for their Sunday naps, but the curate and his family, plus Nora and Ellie, helped the vicar secure the Christmas tree in the chilly hall, resurrect dusty decorations from their boxes and hang them on the branches.

  After tea Nora went home, and the curate withdrew with his wife into their flat at the back of the house, taking their fractious son with them.

  It had begun to thaw outside, and to rain in a spiteful, hard-hitting way. With their other guests gone and the teenagers out, Liz switched on the fire in the drawing-room while Gilbert drew the curtains.

  ‘Gilbert,’ said Liz, ‘I think Ellie might find it helpful to know why Nora is in such a state these days. It wouldn’t be breaking a confidence, because Nora will talk about it to anyone who’ll listen.’

  13

  ‘Yes, I’ve been thinking that myself,’ said Gilbert. He sat on the arm of Ellie’s settee and took her hand in his, patting it. ‘You know that Nora used to live with her father in one of the nice flats overlooking the river? He’d been a headmaster somewhere, had a good pension. Horrible old tyrant, though I say it as shouldn’t. Never wanted Nora to do anything but dance attendance on him, but let her play the organ because it was “a nice hobby for a woman”. Well, when he died, she discovered that not only did his pension die with him, but he’d only got a short lease on the flat, and didn’t own it.

  ‘She has no proper job, is completely untrained for anything. She does go into the primary school here to help children to read, but that’s not going to get her a mortgage to buy a flat, is it? Especially not a spacious luxury flat overlooking the Thames. She simply didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘Came round here, crying, all hours of the day and night,’ said Liz, crossing and recrossing long legs.

  Gilbert continued to pat Ellie’s hand. ‘She was distraught. Had no friends who would put themselves out for her. So I went with her to her father’s solicitors – very old-fashioned firm, miles away, and made them take her case up, try to get an extension of the lease. We thought that if she could get the lease extended, she could continue to live there, perhaps take in lodgers to make ends meet. The solicitor found out that the building was managed by Jolleys, the estate agents at the bottom of the Avenue here. They refused to extend. They said she could negotiate a new lease if she liked, but the price asked was wildly beyond her means.

  ‘So I went down to Jolleys and had words with them. The interview became somewhat – ah – heated, I’m afraid. I demanded the name of the owner of the flat so that I could contact him direct. They refused to give it to me, but as I was leaving I bumped into old Miss Quicke coming in. I said something rather sharp about hoping she wasn’t planning to do business with Jolleys because they were a load of sharks and she pulled herself up and said she had done business with them for many, many years and that as far as she was concerned, they were the best in the business …

  ‘I jumped in with both feet and asked if she was responsible for turning poor little Nora out into the cold, and she said that if someone wanted to live in one of her flats, then they must pay the market price!’

  Ellie savoured the words. ‘One of her flats? You mean, she owns more than one of the flats in that block?’

  ‘That’s what it sounded like. So I asked Frank if he had any influence with his aunt in the matter. He said I must have got the wrong end of the stick. He said his aunt had nothing in the world but her old age pension. I told him I was absolutely sure she owned some property in that block, and eventually he promised me to look into it.’

  ‘And that’s when he wrote to the enquiry agents,’ said Ellie. ‘He paid for their report, but the actual paperwork is missing. I thought Diana must have taken it, because she’s hand in glove with Aunt Drusilla at the moment. I rang the enquiry agents and asked them to send me a copy of their report. I wonder …’

  Liz uncurled her legs. ‘Nora’s still hoping Gilbert will be able to swing something for her, though he’s told her again and again there’s nothing that can be done. She says he’s the only one who cares tuppence about her. And maybe …’ she shrugged, ‘… maybe that’s true.’

  Gilbert said, ‘Come on, Liz. You know you’ve been marvellous, listening to her, mopping her up, all hours.’

  ‘Mm, but it’s really your shoulder she wants to cry on.’

  Ellie frowned. ‘What’s going to happen to her?’

  Gilbert shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She’s lived in that flat all her life. It’s true she can’t afford to purchase a new lease at the price Miss Quicke is demanding. I told her to put her name down at the council …’

  ‘Oh, she wouldn’t do that!’ said Liz, half ironical and half sympathetic.

  Ellie sat up straight. ‘I always thought tenants had rights in these matters as well as landlords. Is her solicitor any good? Can’t he see what can be done under the law? Do you think it would be a good idea for her to go to Bill Weatherspoon instead?’

  ‘She can’t afford solicitor’s fees.’

  ‘Well!’ said Ellie, breathing a little faster. ‘I think that’s a pretty poor show. I’ll ask Bill to take her case on, and see what can be done. If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll pay his fee myself!’

  ‘Bravo, Ellie!’

  ‘I hope that by tomorrow morning I’ll have a copy of that report. Hopefully that’ll give me some ammunition to deal with Aunt Drusilla.’

  ‘Double bravo!’

  ‘And I suppose …’ with a sigh, ‘I ought to tell the police what I think about Mrs Hanna’s disappearance … that fridge, you know.’

  ‘To be fair,’ said Liz, ‘she could have planned to disappear, and been abducted after she’d gone to all the trouble of clearing out the fridge.’

  ‘Would her abductors carefully take away with them the perishables she had removed from the fridge earlier? I don’t see that. But I’ll look into it tomorrow.’ She put her hands to her head in mock despair. ‘So many things to do. Do you think I’ll ever get myself sorted?’

  Gilbert leapt to his feet and fled the room saying, ‘I think I’ve got the answer!’ He returned dragging a metal stand with a flip chart on it.

  ‘Oh no!’ said Liz, laughing. ‘T
hat’s what we use for parish meetings!’

  Gilbert tore off used sheets and produced a large pen. ‘It concentrates the mind to write down your aims in life. Ellie, tell us what you have planned.’

  ‘Find out where Mrs Hanna’s gone … take delivery of my new bed … see Bill Weatherspoon about Nora’s lease …’

  Gilbert, writing rapidly in enormous letters, added, ‘See the police about Kate …’

  Liz put in, ‘Have a showdown with that awful woman at the shop …’

  ‘No!’ said Ellie. ‘I was shocked – humiliated even – when she gave me the sack, but even if she begged me to, I wouldn’t go back.’

  ‘Oh yes, you would!’ said Liz. ‘You’ve been the backbone of that place for ever.’

  ‘Not really. Oh, perhaps. I was devastated at first. At first I couldn’t imagine my days without the framework of helping in the shop. It’s been my life for so long. But now – it’s hard to explain, and you’ll think I’m being very selfish – but when I think about working in the shop I keep remembering how I always have to be so kind and patient to everyone there—’

  ‘But you are naturally kind and patient!’ argued Liz.

  ‘You won’t believe what dark feelings I’ve been having lately. About my nearest and dearest, too!’

  Gilbert ran a thick black line through ‘Charity shop’. ‘Scrub that, then. Shall I put “make peace with Diana”?’

  Ellie didn’t object, but she didn’t say she agreed, either. She still had a nasty hard place inside her when she thought of Diana. Maybe in the morning she’d feel better.

  She said, ‘There’s so many things I have to do. Finish writing ta notes for everyone’s sympathy letters. Book myself in for driving lessons … yes, I mean to do it, I really do. I don’t care what you say about Kate, she’s been marvellous to me. Then I’ve got to find the PCC notes on Frank’s computer. Gilbert, you’ve been an angel, not asking me about them. They’re there somewhere, of course. Only he’s put them in a file or a folder or whatever you call the wretched things, and I can’t find out where.’

  Gilbert wrote down ‘Sympathy letters. Driving lessons. PCC notes.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry too much about the minutes. If the worst comes to the worst, we can reconstruct them from what everyone remembers at the next meeting.’

  ‘Yes, but it irritates me, not being able to find them,’ said Ellie, crossly. ‘Gilbert, what would you file them under, if you’d done them?’

  ‘Frank might have filed them under the name of the property committee, because that was the committee he sat on. Or under church hall? Because he was so involved with getting the grant to rebuild it? Or perhaps the initials or name of the church, St Saviour’s?’

  ‘I’ll look tomorrow.’ Ellie sighed. ‘You’ve been so good to me, you two. I don’t know what I’d have done without this weekend away from it all.’

  Gilbert solemnly tore off the sheet of suggestions, folded it, refolded it, and folded it again to form a neat package which he handed to Ellie with a bow. ‘My dear … any time.’

  ‘Bed,’ said Liz. She turned out the fire. There were kisses all round, and Ellie went upstairs thinking that she would be glad to get back to her own bed tomorrow …

  ‘… and SNAP!’ The errand boy slapped down his last card and scooped the pile. They’d been playing for hours. First they’d played for who was paying for their supper. The fat man lost that one. Two more cartons of pizza had been added to the pile on the floor, plus another six-pack of beer.

  Then they’d upped the stakes and played for the fat man’s car, which he won back after a hard-fought contest. The errand boy gave in with apparently poor grace, keeping to himself the fact that he was going to have to get rid of it sooner rather than later, since it had the turning circle of a tortoise. Definitely something wrong, there. He said he’d get hold of something else to use tomorrow, and leave the Saab outside Ellie’s house, dropping the keys back to the fat man the following evening.

  The fat man said, ‘About time, too.’ He’d been taking minicabs to get to and from the council flat he called home. He didn’t bother to say it, but with his leg in plaster he couldn’t have driven anyway.

  Now they were so bored, they’d been driven to playing Snap, using matches for stake money.

  They were gradually making the upper room more comfortable with a deckchair, a fan heater and some sacking tacked over the windows. The errand boy had managed to turn the electricity supply and the water back on that day. The fat man had brought in a sleeping bag, so that he could spend the night there in the chair. The stairs were difficult for him to manage.

  For the umpteenth time, the errand boy lifted the sacking at the window, and looked out.

  ‘No change. I reckon she’s gone north, all right. Can’t think why we have to keep watching.’

  ‘She says she has to be certain. You-know-who can’t risk being seen until we’re dead sure the old lady’s hopped it.’

  ‘Reckon she has.’

  ‘Try telling her ladyship that!’

  Neither had forgotten – or forgiven – their past rivalry, nor the matter of the fat man’s ‘borrowed’ car. But for the moment, they were as one.

  ‘If she does come back,’ said the fat man, eyeing his companion over the rim of his can. ‘If she does, then I reckon the best way is a quick hit and run with the motor. Not mine, of course.’

  The errand boy gave no sign that he approved this suggestion, although he had in fact thought of it himself already. ‘Nah, if she does come back, I’ll get in and fix the gas.’

  Slap, slap went the cards. ‘You said she got a gadget which goes off if there’s a gas leak.’

  ‘I can turn that off, easy. Five minutes, that’s all.’

  Slap, slap.

  ‘She won’t let you in.’

  ‘Do it when she’s out.’

  Slap, slap … ‘Bingo!’ said the errand boy and lifted both the pile and the stakes.

  ‘I need some more painkillers,’ sighed the fat man. ‘Bring some in for me in the morning, will you?’

  ‘Sure … if she’s not back.’

  A cold, wet and thoroughly wretched Monday morning. Liz had gone off to her counselling job and Gilbert had a long list of sick to visit. Ellie took her time sponging around her grazes, stripping her bed after breakfast, hoping the rain would stop before she had to cross the church grounds to get back home. The rain didn’t stop.

  She was trying to remember exactly what food she had in the fridge and freezer as she turned into her driveway. A pity she couldn’t have gone up through her garden to the back door, but she’d bolted the kitchen door on her way out.

  A cruel gust of wind and sleet caught her as she reached the porch and felt in her handbag for her key. Shaking down her umbrella, she tried to hold on to the door as the wind took it from her. It flew into the house with a bang. She dropped her umbrella and overnight bag and, using both hands, eased it shut.

  She stopped. Opened the door wide. And stared.

  On the gatepost at the top of the drive was a For Sale sign. Jolleys. By appointment only.

  Ellie blinked. It was still there. Advertising her house for sale.

  Wind and rain blew into her face. With shaky hands she closed the door. The red light was blinking on the answer-phone. She was standing on the daily newspaper, and she’d left a fresh pint of milk on the doorstep.

  Diana. It must be.

  Diana had put her house on the market, without telling her.

  Of course Diana had planned that Ellie would go back up north with her, and so would not see the sign. Once up north, Diana had no doubt intended to present Ellie with a fait accompli. ‘You can’t go back. The house has been sold. Now you can buy something close to me.’

  It might have worked. Yes, it might very well have worked.

  There was something at the back of Ellie’s mind, something Bill Weatherspoon had said. Ellie already owned half the house. Frank had left the other half to her for her lifetime. After
her death, his half would go to Diana. But if this house were sold, then what happened?

  Ellie felt sick. It was one thing to know with your head that your daughter was a bit of a bully, but to be bullied like this was … devastating.

  Ellie pushed herself off the wall, hung up her wet coat and, turning the central heating indicator up to normal, went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea and to think. She could of course ring up Diana and scream at her. No, no good. Diana would be out at work. And Diana could shout louder than Ellie.

  She could get Bill Weatherspoon to write to Diana. Yes, of course. But wasn’t it a little weak to rely on someone else to fight her battles for her?

  She would deal with this herself. She opened curtains, switched on the immersion heater, rescued the milk from the doorstep, picked up the post – nothing from the enquiry agents yet – threw dirty washing into the machine, switched it on and listened to the messages on the answerphone. Nothing much there, except another message from Kate saying that she was just fine and would be in touch again soon. Oh, and a blustering threat from Armand, to the effect that if Ellie didn’t tell him where Kate was hiding, he’d come round and make her.

  ‘Let him try!’ thought Ellie.

  She phoned Jolleys, who billed themselves as THE Neighbourhood Estate Agents, and asked for an appointment with Mr Jolley. She was told he was busy with clients all morning. Check. She phoned Bill Weatherspoon, only to be told ditto.

  Right! Up to me, she thought. She put on her heaviest winter coat and fished out Frank’s extra-size umbrella. She remembered that Diana had not used her own house keys when last she returned to the house. If the For Sale sign said ‘By appointment only’, it meant that the house agents had a key to get in with. Had Diana given them her key?

  What a horrible thought!

  Ellie did not, definitely did not wish to have would-be buyers looking over her house while she went up to the Avenue. Also there was that very dodgy gas man hanging around … she ought to have rung the gas board when he presented himself with a half-smoked cigarette butt behind his ear. Suppose he tried to get back in, while the house agent was showing someone around?