Murder in Time Page 19

  It was supper time. Diana had left a message for Ellie to say she wouldn’t be able to collect Evan till late, and would she see that he wasn’t offered anything green to eat, as he didn’t like it. So he was still with them.

  Thomas often cooked on a Friday evening, and this time he’d produced a huge pie containing several different varieties of fish, including prawns. Plus greens. Thomas liked cooking and usually served up more than could be eaten at any one meal. But that was all right, because Dan had appeared at the table, having collected Vera from college. Nobody said anything about Dan being there. His presence had become both natural and inevitable.

  Vera had alternatively hugged and scolded Mikey when he arrived back with Ellie and the baby. Now she sat as close to him as possible, ladling food on to his plate as fast as he cleared it. Mikey was wide-eyed with fatigue and didn’t object to his mother fussing over him. Suddenly, he drooped, leaning against her. And yawned.

  Vera supported him with her arm around his shoulders. ‘Well, that’s done it. I’m going to the police tomorrow to charge Abdi with everything under the sun, no matter what it costs me.’

  ‘Don’t be so hasty,’ said Ellie. ‘I think we can get through this business without you having to do that. First, I want a look at this statement he says he’s got, of someone seeing you argue with the doctor. It wasn’t in that bundle of papers he sent you, and we need a sight of it.’

  ‘We all know he’s got someone to make it up. And now I can charge him with kidnapping Mikey. How dare he! Mikey’s only twelve, when all’s said and done.’

  ‘Some twelve year old!’ said Ellie. ‘You should have seen him at work. Abdi’s going to rue the day.’

  Mikey grinned, shook himself awake and looked to see what else there was on offer to eat. The cat Midge sat next to him, as usual.

  Ellie noticed that Rose was spooning puréed spinach into Evan. Ellie opened her mouth to say that he wasn’t supposed to like spinach, and closed it again. Rose had no opinion of Diana’s ability as a mother and had ignored the instruction. Evan smacked his lips in appreciation and then, worn out with all the alarms and excursions of the day, fell asleep in his high chair. Good.

  Ellie reminded herself to change Evan before Diana spotted that he’d been wrapped in Abdi’s towels.

  Ellie said, ‘Gunnar did warn me that Abdi might try to snatch Mikey and take him out of the country, but it never occurred to me that he would act so quickly. Gunnar even advised getting him a pepper spray. Where does one get a pepper spray, if they’re illegal?’

  Dan grinned. ‘All sorts of things get confiscated at school. I have something in my desk which Mikey might like to try out some time. It will only be a toy, of course.’

  Mikey took the offer into consideration and accepted it with a nod.

  Ellie said, ‘What is the world coming to? If Mikey hadn’t been so clever, he’d have been on his way out of the country at this very minute.’

  Vera shuddered.

  Ellie counted his deeds off on her fingers. ‘He started a fire by the net curtains, which set off the sprinkler system. He did something in the bathroom, though I’m not sure what. He broke windows, which set off the burglar alarms. He destroyed Abdi’s laptop and put some superglue into the power point and on the remote for the television. That’ll do it a lot of no good. As for the cars in the garage, they’ll all have to go to the body repair shop. The damage he did was considerable.’

  Mikey said, ‘What’s for afters?’

  Thomas stirred some goo in a saucepan. ‘Ice cream with my special sauce; Mars bars melted with condensed milk. Heart attack city. But for a celebration …’

  Mikey said, ‘Yummy.’

  Ellie dished out ice cream, and Thomas poured the syrupy mixture over it.

  Vera was struggling between horror at the destructions and delight in her offspring’s cleverness. ‘What Mikey did … Abdi will be so angry!’

  ‘Probably,’ said Thomas. ‘But he’ll think twice before tackling Mikey again.’

  Mikey yawned. His eyes closed, and he slid sideways. This time he came to rest against Dan.

  Vera rose from her seat. ‘Oh, poor lamb. He’s worn out. I’d better get him up to bed.’

  Dan shook Mikey, gently. ‘Would you allow me to carry you up to bed, Mikey?’

  Everyone froze. Ah, that was a question indeed. Would Mikey accept Dan’s help?

  Mikey half opened his eyes. Nodded, pushed the cat away from him. Closed his eyes and relaxed.

  Everyone started breathing again. Dan smiled across to Vera who, with some reluctance, perhaps, smiled back.

  ‘Show me where.’ Dan lifted Mikey, who settled into his arms with a yawn that cracked his face in half.

  ‘Back in a minute,’ said Vera, leading the way out of the kitchen.

  Ellie scraped her bowl clean. ‘To echo Mikey … Yum.’

  Rose stirred in her doze and dropped the spoon she’d been feeding Evan with on to the floor. Evan started, then collapsed back into sleep.

  Ellie cleared a space on the table so that she could change Evan. His improvised nappy was clean and dry. Hurray. She put him into his buggy. Still he didn’t wake. He lay there with his arms above his head. Both Rose and Evan snored, lightly.

  Thomas put his arms around Ellie from behind. ‘You went off without saying where you were going. Rose didn’t know. You didn’t leave a message. I was worried.’

  ‘I remembered when I was halfway down the road. It was stupid of me.’

  He kissed her neck. ‘It might have led to a tragedy.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I suppose. I had confidence that Mikey would get us out of it. And it gave me an opportunity to talk to Sam … Dan’s cousin, you know? The one who was supposed to control everything at the party? Only, I upset him by suggesting that his aunt might have had something to do with the doctor’s murder. He was not amused.’

  Thomas was not amused, either. Perhaps he hadn’t forgiven Ellie for her ‘interference’ earlier that day? He was certainly not trusting her judgement as he usually did.

  ‘It’s this “cherchez la femme” business that’s got into you, isn’t it? Have you thought that it might have been the good doctor who was playing away?’

  ‘It is a definite line of enquiry.’

  ‘After what Mikey’s done – and I’m not saying that I don’t understand his desire for revenge – I think the best thing we can do is to keep quiet. Let sleeping dogs die. No, it’s lie, not die.’ He released her to throw up his hands. ‘Now you’ve got me at it.’

  Ellie nodded. She started to clear the table. She wondered if Vera would be returning to the kitchen after Dan had put Mikey to bed, or whether she and Dan might take the opportunity to have an hour or two to themselves. One thing might lead to another and … No, here they came, treading softly, looking grim.

  Dan said, ‘Vera is determined to go to the police and file charges of rape and kidnapping against Abdi. She knows this will mean the case will be in the newspapers, and she’s prepared for that.’

  Vera looked defiant. ‘We’ll survive. Mikey and I, we are survivors. I realize I might have to find somewhere else for us to live, another school for Mikey, another college for me—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Yes, Thomas was definitely not his usual calm self. ‘You stay here as long as you want.’

  Ellie said, ‘Vera, don’t be so hasty. There are more ways than one of dealing with Abdi. I hope it won’t be necessary for you to bring the police into it, but if it is, then of course you stay here. It’s your home. And I don’t think the school will want to turn Mikey away. Yes, there may be some temporary unpleasantness but, as you say, we can work through that.’

  ‘And,’ said Dan, ‘your real friends will stand by you.’

  There were tears in Vera’s eyes as she looked up at Dan. ‘I never used to be able to look up to you, when we were at school. I remember I had to wear shoes without a heel, because I was taller than you then. You’ve shot up since.’

>   ‘You certainly haven’t shrunk.’ He looked down at her well-filled T-shirt.

  Vera started to laugh, and if there was a note of hysteria in her laughter, nobody mentioned it. Dan kissed her, hard. Then sat her down and looked at Thomas. ‘Coffee on the way, sir? Can I make it for you?’

  Thomas clattered mugs on to the table. ‘Coming up.’ Narrow-eyed, he looked at Ellie. ‘My wife here has a theory she’d like to try out on you, Dan. Ellie …?’

  Ellie reddened. ‘Oh dear. Dan, this is terribly awkward. I know I’ve asked you before, and you said “no”, but I really do need you to think back. Someone who knew your father in the old days said that we ought to look for the lady in the case. Now, I know you were at school and it might never have crossed your mind then, but a good doctor often attracts a fan club of women who think he’s the bee’s knees. Sometimes this becomes a family joke. Were you ever aware of that sort of thing going on?’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Dan looked at Vera, who frowned and shrugged.

  ‘Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous,’ said Ellie. ‘But if you two could step out of the past, when you were just schoolboy and schoolgirl, and think about it for a minute. Did you perhaps overhear something which didn’t make much sense at the time, but might mean something now? I asked your cousin Sam, and he … I’m pretty sure something occurred to him, but he didn’t want to tell me. So he got angry and stalked off.’

  ‘Sam? You asked Sam if my father …?’

  Ellie winced. ‘I know. It wasn’t very tactful of me, was it? I’m afraid I upset him.’

  Vera put her hand on Dan’s arm. ‘Wait a minute. There was that receptionist of his …?’

  Dan burst out laughing. ‘Oh, you mean old Miss Whatever? Adored him.’ He shared the joke with Ellie. ‘She must have been sixty if she was a day. Terribly refined. Bit of a laughing-stock. But didn’t she retire around that time? Yes, I think so. Before my party. Went to look after her mother in a bungalow somewhere down on the South Coast.’

  Vera said, ‘I remember that she was terribly protective of him. Then he got that big, fat, jolly woman … What was her name? Married to some handsome oaf or other, used to keep his photo taped to her computer, remember? And there was someone else—’

  Dan thumped the table. ‘Old Mrs G, who left him her budgerigar and some money—’

  ‘And her daughter-in-law was going to take him to court, claiming undue influence, only—’

  They were both laughing so hard, they could hardly get the words out. ‘Only,’ said Dan, trying to keep a straight face, ‘it turned out she, the daughter-in-law, had been feeding the old dear with some weird and wonderful herbal concoction which might have hastened Mrs G’s death … and it all came out in the end, and she had to admit what she’d done, but she was just stupid, not malicious, so the police didn’t take any action.’

  They laughed so much that Vera ended up with her head on his shoulder. Then they were quiet. His arm went around her.

  ‘You know,’ said Vera, ‘I used to think your father liked me.’

  ‘He did,’ said Dan. ‘He told me so.’ He smiled at Ellie. ‘Sorry, I can’t think of anyone else.’

  Ellie saw that he spoke the truth as far as he knew it, but persisted. ‘He was a good doctor and much loved by his patients. At home, if I understand correctly, your mother ruled the roost. He loved her, I’m sure, and perhaps gave in to her more than she gave in to him. Am I right?’

  Thomas said, ‘Surely that’s enough, Ellie. Here’s the coffee. Shall we go in the other room?’

  Ellie was silent. She wouldn’t go against Thomas’s wishes. Well, not in public, anyway.

  But once they were seated in the other room – Dan and Vera on the settee together, and Thomas on his La-Z-Boy – Dan took the initiative. ‘I can see where you’re going with this, Mrs Quicke, and I’ll try to be objective. The French used to say that there is always one who kisses, and one who turns the cheek. My father adored my mother and did his best to please her in every way. She loved him in return. She was always caressing and kissing him, and making much of him when she was in a good mood, and she never snapped or argued with him. But it’s true that she wasn’t always like that. She wasn’t really interested in his work, she didn’t want to hear about a difficult patient, or if he were worried about someone’s health. She would cut off such topics before they started. She got her own way by withdrawing herself from him, if he displeased her. Yes, I observed that, and I thought –’ he frowned – ‘at the time I thought that I wouldn’t lie down and let a woman walk all over me as he did.’ He gave Vera a quick smile. ‘But maybe I would. Maybe it’s in the genes.’

  Vera, sitting next to him, smiled back and shook her head.

  Dan said, ‘So I do understand why you’re asking about him, Mrs Quicke. You wonder if he had a sympathetic woman friend, perhaps someone of his own age, that he could visit now and then, and talk to as a friend or colleague. I don’t think I’d have blamed him if he had done so, but all I can say is that I never got the slightest hint of it. No name cropped up in conversation that shouldn’t have. He never made excuses to miss out on family occasions. Sometimes he’d withdraw to his study and say he needed to listen to some serious music. Jazz, mostly. My mother didn’t like serious music, and she couldn’t stand jazz.’ He considered what he’d said. ‘Who was it who thought he might have had a lady friend?’

  Ellie sighed. ‘An elderly lady who used to be a patient of his. But she’s now in a nursing home. Alzheimer’s.’

  Dan twitched a smile. ‘Oh well. That explains it. I suppose there’s always gossip about people in the public eye.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s all it is,’ said Thomas, with a sideways look at Ellie.

  Vera was also looking at Ellie. But Vera knew Ellie better than Dan, and Vera knew Ellie didn’t give up easily.

  Ellie thought she’d probably got as far as she could go that evening and said, ‘Thank you for being so frank, Dan. That helps a lot.’

  Then Diana arrived, and woke up Rose and Evan, who howled when he saw his mother. Diana was livid that her expensive baby buggy had somehow acquired some dents and scrapes, and that Evan had not been given his evening bath and put into his pyjamas. Ellie admitted they’d been out for a walk that afternoon, and she apologized for not having woken the baby after supper to give him his bath. No one said anything about kidnappers or improvised nappies. Fortunately, perhaps, Evan hadn’t the words to betray them. Diana left with a flurry of instructions for the morrow, from which it appeared that she wouldn’t trust Ellie with her precious boy if she could think of anyone else who might be able to look after him, but as it was, she sincerely hoped … Etcetera. Ellie waved her off, hoping that she’d feel better able to cope with Evan after a good night’s sleep.

  Dan took Vera off to view his temporary accommodation which, he assured her, she was going to hate.

  Rose grumbled herself off to bed, and the house fell quiet.

  Thomas took his time undressing. He sat with one shoe on and one off, gazing into space. There was something on his mind.

  Ellie hadn’t seen him like this before, and it bothered her. He hadn’t ever criticized her before, either. It left a nasty black hole in her stomach. Well, not a real hole, obviously. But that’s what it felt like. She climbed into bed and waited for him to speak.

  He didn’t.

  Finally, she said, ‘What is it, Thomas?’

  He opened his mouth, closed it again. ‘Hostage to fortune.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘You.’ He took the other shoe off and wriggled out of his socks. ‘I’ve been telling myself not to panic, and it’s not working. I know you lead a charmed life, and that nothing and no one is going to get you down, but I must admit that when I discovered you’d gone out without leaving a message this afternoon, I was fit to be tied! I pictured you in dire straits, being chased by villains, run over by cars with tinted windows, imprisoned in dark cellars …’

  ‘Oh, Thomas!�
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  ‘I ransacked your office, to see if you’d left a message there. I knew Rose wouldn’t have remembered even if you had told her something. I made a list of people I could ring; Vera, friends, Diana, people you work with. I was going to give it another half hour, and then I would have rung the police to report you missing.’

  ‘Yes, at one time I did imagine you might have to do that. On the other hand, I had every confidence that Mikey could get us out of there.’

  ‘It shouldn’t have been necessary for you to rely on a twelve-year-old boy. I should have been there with you.’

  Ellie suppressed the thought that Mikey’s anarchic streak had probably served them better than Thomas’s mild, law-abiding nature would have done. ‘I wish you had been.’

  ‘Don’t try to soft soap me, Ellie Quicke. If I had been with you, I don’t suppose I’d have been able to do much against those … those thugs! But Mikey is, I suppose, one of them in spirit if not in years.’

  ‘You prayed for me? I was relying on that.’

  He said, ‘I prayed till I was exhausted. You’re very precious to me, Ellie. I understand that you feel called to go out and fight the powers of darkness, and I honour that in you, but—’

  ‘I was in no danger.’

  ‘Permit me to contradict you. You were kidnapped. Locked up. Told you couldn’t leave.’

  She said, ‘You’re asking me to stop trying to find out who killed the doctor?’

  A long sigh. ‘I’d very much like to do just that. But no, I’m not. You’ve got a special talent for helping the distressed, especially those who don’t have the power or know the words to defend themselves against aggression. This is the path you have to take, and I ought to be cheering you on, not holding you back with my selfish fears.’

  ‘I’ve tackled problems in the past, and it didn’t worry you.’

  ‘I don’t know why this one has got me so stirred up.’