Murder of Innocence Page 2

  ‘They’ve sent the wrong hinges for the door and windows. Don’t you worry yourself. I’ll sort it. Off you go.’

  What a nice man. It’s a good job Diana’s not here to hear him, or she’d accuse me of flirting with him – oh dear, oh dear, as if I would …

  She made sure baby Frank had his favourite toy within reach but attached to the pushchair, and left.

  Mrs Coppola had left her front door open. Her house had the same layout as Ellie’s, but in reverse. It looked different because the garden was under concrete back and front whereas Ellie’s was full of plants. Instead of a parquet floor in the hall, Mrs Coppola had a cheap dark-red carpet.The woman seemed to like red.There were red-and-black curtains in the sitting room disagreeing with a flower-patterned green carpet. The three-piece suite was rather the worse for wear.

  Oh, Tod. Are you dead?

  There was no sign of Mrs Coppola, but looking around, Ellie thought she could interpret what had happened. Two wine glasses were on the floor by the settee, one overturned. An empty wine bottle and corkscrew. A pair of very high-heeled shoes kicked off here, a crumpled blouse there, a man’s handkerchief wadded under the settee.

  Humph! thought Ellie, with a sour taste in her mouth. A lift home in someone else’s car, a nightcap of wine, followed by a roll on the settee. I suppose that handkerchief might contain traces of what had happened, if one needed to find its owner.

  She sighed. No trace of Tod.

  She made her way up the stairs to the landing. Mrs Coppola was using a pole with a hook on the end, vainly trying to reach the catch of a trapdoor which gave access to the attic. It was a similar arrangement to the one in Ellie’s house. Mrs Coppola’s face was streaked with dirt, the pole coated with cobwebs, as was the catch on the trapdoor. It was clear no one had attempted to open it for ages.

  Suddenly there was a shout. ‘Police! Missus, are you there?’

  Mrs Coppola allowed Ellie to take the pole off her and be led downstairs to face officialdom.

  It was mind-numbingly awful. Questions … a policewoman summoned. More questions. Tramping up and downstairs. They assumed Ellie was Mrs Coppola’s mother and when she explained they told her not to go, they’d need to talk to her, too.

  Ellie made herself useful. She washed all the dirty plates in the sink and made cups of coffee for the police and Mrs Coppola.

  The phone rang and rang till Ellie answered it.

  ‘Loose, are you there?’ A man’s voice, peremptory, annoyed.

  Ellie was wryly amused. Loose, indeed. Short for Lucy? ‘This is a neighbour speaking. Who is it?’

  A policewoman appeared at her elbow, took the phone off her, held a short exchange and put the phone down before reporting to the man in charge. ‘Someone from Mrs Coppola’s office, asking why she hadn’t come in.’ And to Ellie, ‘I’ll answer the phone in future.’

  They think it might have been a demand for ransom? Dear Lord, no. Please.

  Later the builder and his workmen came to the door offering to help search the park. The police said they’d search this house first. Then they’d see where else they might need to go. The builder was annoyed. Hadn’t he offered to help?

  Ellie managed to get him to one side. ‘Baby Frank?’

  ‘Mrs Rose took him off for half an hour. Made us a cuppa first and fed the toddler. Said she’d call round here later if you hadn’t got back home by the time she returns. She could talk for England, that one, couldn’t she?’

  Ellie tried to smile, because it was true. Rose did talk a lot.

  The builder dropped his voice. ‘Look, we’ll just have a look round the park on the quiet like. Can’t wait for the police to get organized. Right?’

  She thought, This is a judgement on me. I love Tod more than I love my own grandson. I have left my own flesh and blood with a builder whom I hardly know, consigning him to the care of a friend. I wouldn’t have done that to Tod. He’s dearer to me than my own grandson. Oh, I can’t bear it.

  Mrs Coppola was reviving a little, not unconscious of the fact that the police sergeant was a youngish man with astonishingly blue eyes. Talking non-stop. ‘No, no, you’ve got that wrong. Tod’s father and I were married, of course we were, but he went off years ago, thought he wanted a child but when I got pregnant decided he didn’t. By the time he finished agonizing about whether he did or didn’t, I was too far along to do anything about it and anyway, his real passion in life was football, wouldn’t talk about anything else. So he took a job in Glasgow when Tod was barely a year old, and I went back to work, of course.

  ‘What’s that? No, his father hasn’t taken any interest for years. Doesn’t even send him a present at birthdays or Christmas. He wouldn’t kidnap the boy, really he wouldn’t.’

  Ellie said to the policewoman, ‘Look, I’ve got my grandchild to see to. A neighbour’s taking him for a walk but I really have to get back.’

  ‘In a minute.’

  Mrs Coppola’s voice went on and on, all on one note, monotonous. ‘Tod’s a good boy, not mixed up in any gangs, no bullying, nothing like that …’

  Ellie needed to go to the loo. She went upstairs; the loo wasn’t particularly clean, but it wasn’t really dirty. Then she peeped inside Tod’s bedroom. She knew his bedroom was at the front of the house overlooking the road. He’d told her he kept a notebook there with his dad’s old binoculars, watching the neighbourhood for signs of burglars or foreign spies or men from Mars.

  The decoration here was not as strident as in the living room, but it was furnished and decorated with the same colours. A plain dark-green carpet, stained here and there, inexpertly put together from offcuts. Thomas the Tank Engine wallpaper, young for a ten-year-old who was into computers.

  Tod’s own computer – an ancient and unreliable model – sat on a wide desk under the window, surrounded by the detritus of a busy schoolboy’s life. A stool nearby held binoculars and a notebook. The floor and bedside table displayed comics, stamp catalogues, stamp album, science-fiction paperbacks, a dilapidated old dictionary which had lost its outer covers … a dented portable radio/cassette player/alarm, with batteries scattered around it …

  The duvet cover pictured Star Trek characters. The bed was neat. A large toy panda looked out of place, peeping out from under the bedclothes. Ellie smiled; she’d given him that panda for Christmas a couple of years ago.

  There was a grey jumper slung over the back of a chair and muddy football boots in a torn plastic bag under it. The built-in wardrobe door was ajar. Most of the clothes inside were on the floor instead of on hangers.

  Ellie told herself that she had to be strong, she must not give in to the temptation to throw herself on the bed and have hysterics. Dry eyed, she went downstairs to make yet another round of cups of tea. At least Mrs Coppola had plenty of milk in her fridge. Not much else, but plenty of milk. Some of it had gone off.

  Ellie had another mental flash of her padlocked shed.

  She told herself that Tod couldn’t be inside if the padlock were securely fastened on the outside. It was his favourite place to play, that was the reason she kept thinking of it. But thinking of it wouldn’t get him back.

  Two

  The room had once been a nursery at the top of the house. It had barred windows overlooking a large garden below. The boy hadn‘t been able to see anything from the windows because they’d been blacked out when the room had been converted to a photographic studio and darkroom. Once upon a time, children had played here and been happy. Now there were splashes of blood on the flowered wallpaper.

  Ellie said, ‘I must go home. My grandson needs me.’

  It was past lunch time but no one was interested in food. The policewoman volunteered to return home with Ellie. Taller than

  Ellie, big-boned, mid-thirties, long hair tinted to that peculiar mahogany colour which never quite convinced. She seemed efficient. They reached Ellie’s gate just as Rose hove into sight, taking one step at a time, pushing the baby buggy. Frank was fast asleep. />
  ‘I walked him all along the shops and back, but was he a handful! Why don’t young mothers of today have those reins like the ones we had when we had our children? He wouldn’t go in his pushchair and I had to keep running after him and bringing him back and then he’d yell. It tired him out nicely, thank goodness. I bought some of those nice sausage rolls from the bakery, thought you wouldn’t have had anything to eat. Phew, is he heavy!’

  ‘Dear Rose.’ Ellie hugged her friend, who hugged her back. ‘Go and sit down. I’ll warm the sausage rolls and make some tea while you put your feet up. We’ll leave Frank in his buggy in the hall while I tell the police everything I know in the kitchen, and then you can tell me about whatever it is that’s been worrying you.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, I couldn’t bother you with all this that’s going on. Mine is such a little problem when all is said and done.’

  The policewoman was about to do a ‘goo-goo’ act over Frank, till she took a good look at his frowning, pudgy face. Instead, she produced a notebook and seated herself at the kitchen table.

  It was Ellie’s turn to explain herself. No, there was no Mr Quicke – he’d died last November. No, she wasn’t Tod’s grandmother, merely a neighbour with whom he often spent an hour after school before his mother returned from work. Yes, she lived alone. Her daughter Diana lived not far away and occasionally Ellie looked after her grandson when Diana was working. As had happened today.

  Then they got down to the nitty gritty. What was the boy Tod like? Ellie thought, His hair sticks up at the back, no matter what he does with it.

  She said, ‘Normal, nice-looking. Impulsive, imaginative, inquisitive, confident but not brash. Into computer games.’

  She thought, My cat Midge adores him and Midge is supposed to be a good judge of character. But she won’t want to know that. Nor that Tod’s interested in spiders and knows the difference between a plant and a weed.

  When had Ellie last seen him? Saturday morning. He’d arrived early, about nine, told her his mother was working. But in truth he made any excuse to go round to Ellie’s, play with the computer, the cat, get a cooked meal. That day he’d come round to see if he could ‘help’ the builders, who tolerated his presence surprisingly well.

  Ellie and Rose – they were old friends – had already arranged to go shopping in Oxford Street. They were shopping for Rose’s wedding outfit because her daughter was getting married in six weeks’ time. Ellie had agreed that Tod might stay and play games on her computer if he wished. She’d given him a couple of biscuits and warned him not to make a nuisance of himself with the builders. Then the taxi had arrived to take her and Rose to the tube station. That was the last she’d seen of him.

  ‘Builders?’ said the policewoman.

  ‘A reputable local firm, building a conservatory on the back of my house.Their premises are just off the Avenue, down a side road. Everyone uses them.’

  ‘Workmen?’

  ‘Two. Been with the foreman man and boy. When they heard Tod was missing they searched our gardens here and the church grounds. They’re out looking in the park now, I think.’

  Ellie said she hadn’t seen Tod on Sunday as she’d been to church – where she sang in the choir – and then out to lunch with an old friend. No, she didn’t mind giving his name. Bill Weatherspoon, her solicitor, and they’d gone to the Carvery.

  She hadn’t seen Tod on Monday, either. It had rained. She supposed he’d gone straight home after school. Tuesday afternoon – was it only yesterday? – she’d been working in the front garden. She’d been half expecting him, as he was always hungry after swimming and would often drop in on her afterwards for a cuppa and some biscuits. But she hadn’t seen him.

  ‘Tod has keys to his own house, of course. The quickest way home from school for him would be across the main road by the zebra crossing, over the Church Green, into the alley and up his back garden to the kitchen door. The same if he’d gone swimming. He’d take the bus from the swimming pool to the stop by the school, or even walk. It’s not that far. Working in the front garden, I wouldn’t expect to see him but the builders know him and they knew where I was. If he’d wanted me, he’d have asked them if I was in and then come through the house to find me.’

  I don’t know how I can keep so calm … Dear Lord, be with him …

  Frank woke from his nap, stretching, making grunting noises. Oh dear, that meant a full nappy. Diana didn’t believe in early toilet training, which was all very well when dear little babies could be lifted with ease, but another matter altogether when they were struggling, kicking toddlers.

  The detective sergeant recoiled as the stench filled the kitchen and Ellie explained, ‘I’ll have to change him.’

  Dear Rose was fast asleep in the sitting room, her coat unbuttoned but still on, her knitted tea cosy of a hat squashed over her permed grey hair.

  Ellie heaved Frank out of his buggy, changed him on the kitchen table

  – she was not going to struggle upstairs with him, despite the distaste on the policewoman’s face. She put Frank in his chair seat at the kitchen table, rescued the sausage rolls from burning and made a pot of tea. There wasn’t any fresh milk of course, but she had some long-life which would do if you were desperate. And she was desperate. Frank ate more than her but she managed two cups of tea, and the policewoman had one, too.

  ‘Did anyone see you working in the garden yesterday?’

  Ellie flushed. The sergeant was actually considering the idea that she, Ellie Quicke, had been responsible for the boy’s disappearance?

  She thought back. ‘Well, yes. Several people. Everyone stops to talk when you garden by the roadside. I’d promised Mrs Dawes – she’s the head of the flower-arranging team at church – some variegated ivy from my front garden, and she came by to collect it.

  ‘She brought along her lodger. Gus, that was his name. She thought I might be able to find some odd jobs for him to do. My garden gate had come off its hinges. The builders would have done it eventually but Gus was on the spot, so I asked him to repair it. He was at it, on and off, for most of the afternoon. The hinge was broken. He had to go and buy another and then fit it. He finished about five, I suppose.

  ‘I promised to ask my builders if they could find some work for him, but it was getting dark and they’d gone by then. I don’t know who else might have seen me. Oh, I remember. My next-door neighbour, Armand, teaches at the High School, he came back about five and we talked a bit about my conservatory, and his. He’s going to have one done soon, too. That’s when I remembered that I had to get to B&Q that night. They were out of stock of the floor tiles I’d ordered, so I needed to get an alternative before the tiler comes. Armand was kind enough to run me down there – I don’t drive. I said he’d no need, I could get a cab, but he insisted on taking me and bringing me back. I suppose we got back about six fifteen. Something like that.

  ‘Then there was a slide show and talk at the church hall. My friend Rose – she’s the one who took baby Frank out for me this morning – she dropped by and we had a quick snack together beforehand. The talk finished about half eight, quarter to nine, I suppose. Then we had coffee, and Rose and I washed up. I think that’s all.’

  ‘We’ll have to check, names and times.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ellie, trying not to mind. She gave names and addresses, hoping that Armand next door wouldn’t be too sharp with the sergeant. He could be abrasive, but there, a teacher’s job was not an easy one.

  The sergeant stared at Ellie. ‘Where would you look for the boy?’

  The answer was, In my shed. But Diana had looked there. Ellie lifted her hands and let them drop. ‘I’m trying not to think about it.’ She went to wake Rose, to have some lunch.

  Rose was excited by all the hoo-ha but very concerned for Tod, whom she liked. She was in a high old state when the sergeant wanted her to confirm what she and Ellie had done together recently, and when she’d last seen Tod.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear! When did I last
see him? On Saturday. You really want to know what we did after that? Shopping is so tiring, but we did manage to buy a nice royal-blue suit for me, practical for all occasions. To think of dear little Tod going missing. I can’t hardly believe it!’

  ‘What do you think has happened to the boy?’ asked the sergeant.

  Rose gaped, her tongue still for once. She shook her head and replaced the sausage roll she had been eating on her plate.

  Ellie looked out of the window. She didn’t dare put her fears into words, either.

  Frank wouldn’t settle after his lunch, so the two women struggled to insert him back into his buggy and took him for a walk. Ellie called at Mrs Coppola’s on the way.

  The policeman who came to the door said that Mrs Coppola’s sister had arrived to look after her. The woman came to the door. Another brittle blonde, but older, cigarette-stained, putting on weight and straining at the seams. Tears all round.

  As Ellie and Rose made their way slowly to the park they met Mrs Dawes, the flower arranger, on her way to the shops. She’d heard about Tod’s disappearance and was distressed, as was everyone who knew him. She was also in a bit of a state because her lodger Gus had been out all night and not returned. Someone at the shops said they’d seen him reeling down the Avenue last night, very much the worse for drink. His smoking was bad enough – those hand-rolled nasties, ugh! But drink she could not be doing with.

  Uh-oh! What was that about a drunk sleeping it off in the church porch this morning? Was it only this morning? Gus had told her he’d had a problem in the past with the drink, but said that he’d been on the wagon for months and months. He looked so respectable. Ellie had paid him in cash for mending the gate, so he might just have taken that money and got drunk with it. Oh dear.

  ‘I would never have taken him in if I’d known that he was likely to get drunk and disgrace me,’ said Mrs Dawes. ‘He came to me through the church, you know. The curate asked us in the Women’s Guild to be a friend in the community to someone from a hostel. Since my nephew left last month, I could do with the rent and of course it’s all paid by the DSS, so I didn’t think there’d be any problem. But out all night and drunk in the Avenue! Ugh! I suppose he’s sleeping it off somewhere now, but when he comes back, I’ll tell him to mend his ways or get out.’