Murder by Suggestion Page 2

  The library also held a huge table covered with papers and two computers; one for Thomas and a second for his part-time assistant, who didn’t come in on a Monday.

  Thomas had retired from the ministry some time ago but was still called on to take the occasional service for a colleague. He also edited a Christian quarterly magazine.

  He looked up from his computer screen when Ellie came in and, seeing her worried expression, said, ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Diana.’

  ‘Ah.’ He half-closed his eyes but gave no other sign of annoyance. However badly Diana chose to behave, he would not say anything because he loved Ellie and backed her up in everything she chose to do. His eyes strayed back to the screen and he lifted his hands to put them back on the keyboard. She wondered if something were troubling him, too.

  She said, ‘Can you spare a moment?’

  He swivelled away from his screen. ‘I’m all attention.’

  Ellie moved some books off a chair, sat down and told him what had happened. He stroked his beard and nodded. She waited while he thought over what she’d told him.

  He said, ‘One thing sticks out a mile. That was a successful coup, planned with military precision. Evan had it all worked out; her things packed up, her cards cancelled, the instruction not to let her back into the office.’

  Ellie sighed. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. It’s most unlike what I know of the man. He used to be a force to be reckoned with – they didn’t call him the Great White Shark for nothing – but in recent years, and in particular after he had the accident which put him in a wheelchair for a while, well, he’s not the man he was. I’m wondering if he had help?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘Diana didn’t see it coming.’

  ‘Her reaction is interesting. She isn’t fighting her banishment. She wants to cut her losses and get a divorce. She didn’t take long to come to that conclusion, did she?’

  ‘Agreed. I’d have thought she’d want to hang on to him. Marriage gave her a lifestyle many would envy. I’m not sure she ever really loved him as I understand love, but she wanted what he could give her. I suppose you could call it a marriage of convenience. She gave him a son. She looked after him and the house. And there’s the boy. Poor little mite. I grieve for him. How is he going to cope? How can he possibly understand what’s happening? I can’t bear to think of what he must be going through.’

  Thomas nodded. He was fond of his step-grandson, too.

  Ellie and Thomas looked after little Evan for several sessions a week although they’d seen less of him of late because he’d started to attend a nursery school. He was part of their everyday life. Ellie in particular would miss him terribly if he were not allowed to visit as usual.

  Thomas said, ‘Evan’s been married before, hasn’t he? How many times? Three? He must know the ropes by now.’

  ‘And the cost. Divorcing wives can be an expensive affair. I thought he and Diana were jogging along all right. I thought the marriage suited both parties.’

  ‘Something sparked this off. Diana’s not likely to have dallied in green fields outside the matrimonial home, is she? It’s almost as if he engineered her dismissal. Do you think he has yet another youngish woman in his sights and has used the excuse of somebody else’s unfortunate demise to get rid of his present wife? In other words, what has prompted him to do this now, today?’

  As usual, Thomas had put his finger on the crux of the matter.

  Ellie said, ‘I would have thought he was a bit past it, wouldn’t you? I mean, he’s our age, near enough.’

  They both smiled and Ellie went pink, because although she and Thomas were in their sixties, their marriage had been a love match and continued to be so.

  ‘Right,’ said Ellie, ‘leaving that aside … I’m not on the gossip circuit, but I can certainly ask around to see if Evan has another wife in view. Diana may be this and that, but I don’t think she broke her marriage vows and it’s not right to separate her from her son. You agree we have a right to interfere?’

  ‘Gunnar can tell you what the position is in law. I have a feeling that grandparents have no rights at all. Morally: yes, we can interfere. Legally: probably not.’

  ‘Morally is good enough for me. I suppose I’d better go and see Evan.’ She started to her feet. ‘Heavens! I was potting up some geranium cuttings when Diana came, and I’ve left everything all over the place.’

  ‘You clear up in the conservatory and I’ll put a sandwich together for lunch. By the way, you’re sure there wasn’t anything suspicious about Bunny Brewster’s death? You said Diana described her suggestion as a joke, but jokes don’t usually lead to murder, do they?’

  ‘Diana said that he’d muddled up his pills and that was that.’ Ellie thought over what Diana had said and the way she’d said it. ‘That’s what she told me, and that’s what she believes. I suppose I could ask my policewoman friend if there is anything in it. After we’ve had lunch. Let’s eat before we do anything else.’

  Thomas left his desk with a lingering glance at the computer. It was approaching one of his busiest times of the year and this interruption was going to bite into his working hours, but he still had to eat, didn’t he?

  While Ellie sorted out her geranium cuttings, Thomas put some sandwiches together and they ate at the kitchen table, as they usually did. Midge, their marauding ginger tomcat, appeared, demanding sustenance. Midge did not care for Diana – the feeling was reciprocated – so he had waited till she’d gone before he arrived.

  After they’d eaten, Thomas carried Diana’s belongings up the stairs and along the corridor to the main guest room where Ellie tried to arrange them neatly. After that, Thomas retired to his study, saying there was a small problem he needed to sort out.

  Ellie felt like a nap, but instead made herself go to the phone to ring her friend Lesley, who was doing well in the police force and who would have been doing even better if she didn’t have to report to a man who thought the most appropriate job for women in the force was making the tea.

  ‘Lesley, I’m glad to have caught up with you. How are you doing?’

  ‘Not bad. I’m wondering if I’m getting that Sad Syndrome that they talk about. These dull autumn days get me down.’

  Ellie had difficulty broaching the subject on her mind, so continued to go down the polite route. ‘How’s your husband?’

  Lesley said, ‘Cut the chat, Ellie. What’s up?’

  ‘Oh. Well. Brewster, nicknamed Bunny. Deceased. There’s a rumour he got his pills mixed up and died of an overdose. Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘No, I don’t. That sort of thing happens.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. It hasn’t come to the attention of the police?’

  Lesley was no fool. ‘Ellie, what are you trying to say?’

  ‘I’m not trying to say anything. I’m asking if the police are interested, that’s all. I have no grounds, absolutely none, for thinking foul play is involved.’

  Silence. Lesley waited.

  Ellie said, ‘Forget I asked. I’m sure it’s nothing. You know how people make jokes about things and then they actually come true.’

  ‘Jokes? What jokes? Ellie, are you involved in his death in some way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You rang me, Ellie. You asked about a particular death. You say you have no reason to believe there is anything wrong, but you haven’t asked me to forget that you spoke.’

  Now it was Ellie’s turn to be silent. She didn’t know what to say.

  Lesley said, ‘All right. I’ll ask around and get back to you. Are you in this evening? I could drop in then. I think my husband’s got a meeting somewhere so I’m free.’

  ‘I’m in.’ Diana would be in, too. Oh dear, Diana’s advent was going to cause all sorts of problems. Diana despised people who ate in the kitchen for a start, and Ellie didn’t use the big dining room for anything but committee meetings.

  Ellie put the phone down. She couldn’t decid
e whether she’d done the right thing or not. If Lesley thought there was nothing suspicious about Bunny Brewster’s death, then Diana was in the clear.

  On the other hand … Could you murder someone by mixing up their pills?

  TWO

  Monday afternoon.

  Ellie didn’t drive. She decided to walk rather than take a cab because it wasn’t far to where Diana and Evan lived. They had a big, detached, red-brick house in good repair. There were two cars in the driveway: Diana’s sleek black model, and another which was a tad sleeker and larger in every way. Someone with money was paying a call.

  A name popped into Ellie’s head. She rang the bell and wasn’t surprised to find the door opened by a woman in her early seventies with the head of a Roman emperor. Her figure was thickset but she was beautifully turned out. She was leaning on a stick. Really leaning on it. It was not a fashion accessory, but a necessity.

  Enter Monique, Evan’s first, long-divorced wife.

  Monique had been some ten years older than Evan when they’d had a one-night fling leading to a short-lived marriage. Between them they’d produced a boy who had never been quite the thing and who had ended up in a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital. Monique had divorced Evan when his fancy strayed to another woman … and then another.

  Monique had not been the loser by the divorce as she herself owned an estate agency even more upmarket than Evan’s. She had remained on good terms with her ex-husband throughout all his matrimonial ups and downs but had only encountered Ellie a couple of years ago, after Diana had strayed into his orbit.

  Monique was a formidable, practical and intelligent woman. Ellie liked and respected her. It was now clear to Ellie that it was Monique who had helped to mastermind Diana’s eviction and, if Monique had taken a hand in the game, there was no way that Diana’s broken marriage could be mended.

  Monique said, ‘I thought it might be you. Come on in.’

  The house seemed unusually quiet. No scampering sounds of a small boy playing. Ellie looked for the little boy’s favourite toy, which was a pink velvet hippo, but it was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t at home, was he?

  Monique led the way to the big front room where Evan was usually to be found, watching television. As he was now. With a cut-glass tumbler of whisky and water in his hand.

  Evan had been known as the Great White Shark in the old days when he was captain of the golf club and ran his agency, but now, although he was younger than Monique, he looked older. He lifted his glass towards Ellie. ‘Welcome, Mother-in-law. We were wondering when you’d be round.’

  Ellie took a seat, looking around her. She remembered the transformations which had attended this house as first one wife and then another had redecorated the place to their own taste. Diana had gone in for the leather-and-glass Harrods look, which wasn’t particularly comfortable to sit on. Evan, of course, had his own reclining chair near the built-in bar with its constantly renewed supply of whisky and soda.

  Ellie was shocked by Evan’s appearance. He’d lost weight and become even more beaky than when she’d last seen him. Did the hand holding the glass tremble? Yes, it did. Early Parkinson’s disease?

  Diana had said that Evan rarely turned up at the agency any more. Not wanting to be outshone by the hired help, Diana had appointed a woman of limited ability as her second-in-command. The agency was going to go downhill if Diana were not allowed back. Who would run it in future? Ellie recalled that Evan had a grown-up daughter who seemed to have some business sense, but Ellie hadn’t heard anything about her for ages. Diana had eased her out of the house. To university, perhaps?

  Evan said, ‘Have one?’ and lifted his glass suggestively.

  Ellie shook her head.

  Monique said, ‘Tea would be more your thing, Mrs Quicke, but the nanny’s out and I can’t carry a tray around.’ She tapped her stick on the wood-block floor in a meaningful fashion.

  Ellie recognized this as a ploy. She was supposed to offer to make the tea and bring it in like a servant, which would put Monique in top dog position. So, no thank you.

  ‘Monique, I haven’t seen you for ages. You were due for an operation on your back when we last met. It didn’t go to plan?’

  Monique snorted. Diamond drops shimmered in her ears. ‘No, it didn’t. Keep away from doctors if you can. That’s what I say.’

  Evan wafted his empty glass. ‘I could do with another.’

  Monique wasn’t playing. ‘Get it yourself, you lazy lump.’

  Yes, Monique was definitely top dog here.

  Monique and Evan looked at Ellie with slight smiles on their faces. They thought she’d come on a fool’s errand and maybe she had. Did they expect her to plead Diana’s cause? Yes, they probably did. But Ellie was not going to do that.

  Ellie eased forward on her chair. Like its predecessors, it was too deep for a small woman’s feet to reach the floor. ‘Diana wants a divorce and I suppose you do, too, Evan?’

  ‘I have already instructed a solicitor.’

  ‘I see. Well, Diana has been a good wife to you, Evan, so—’

  ‘Tchah!’ said Evan.

  ‘She has,’ said Ellie, refusing to show annoyance. ‘She has done the best she could. She has been faithful. She has looked after you well. She is fond of you. I can’t see any good reason for a divorce myself, but I do understand that if you think the marriage is over, you would want it tidied away. The boy, though. You’ve been a trifle high-handed there, haven’t you? You can hardly expect to get sole custody. Diana is a good mother and she loves the boy dearly. The courts will, I am sure, give her custody and you – if you want them – visitation rights.’

  ‘Not with what we have on her,’ said Evan, grinning like the Great White Shark which he used to be. It reminded Ellie that even in his decline, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

  Now they’d come to the point, hadn’t they?

  Monique said, ‘I’ve made copies of the evidence for you and for our solicitor.’ She handed over some sheets of paper.

  Ellie looked at them in bewilderment. ‘What are these? You’ve printed off some emails from the Internet? Who are these people? I don’t know them, do I?’

  Evan snorted. ‘So-called friends of Diana’s. They email one another every day. Busy, busy, tattling away. Did they think we’d never find out?’

  Ellie scanned the papers. ‘None of these are from Diana. I don’t understand.’

  Monique sighed. ‘Try the one from someone called Russet, who is married to one of Evan’s oldest friends. Read what she says there and tell me Diana doesn’t deserve everything that’s coming to her.’

  Russet was into emojis. Funny faces appeared on almost every line.

  ‘… I thought it was a good evening, on the whole. We had some fun, didn’t we? If only the men knew! Was it Dinky Di who said the best way to kill your husband off was to mix up his pills? I can’t remember if it was her or Barbie. I know it was something about using one of those boxes from the pharmacist with a compartment for each day of the week. My beloved doesn’t need one of those yet, but if he did I now know what to do. I tip all the pills for a week out on to the table and mix them up so that all the ones for high blood pressure end up in one compartment. It only takes four or five, is that right? And then all you have to do is wait till he takes the lot! I’d worry about that, if I were Evan … or Bunny, come to think of it! By the way …’

  Ellie stared at the paper. Read the text again. Dinky Di was Diana? Diana had suggested a neat way of killing her husband and it had been put in an email which could be read by anyone, and forwarded to any number of people?

  No way! She couldn’t believe it! Ellie supposed it was just possible that Diana might have suggested it if she was caught in the wrong mood, but she would never admit to it on an email. Foolish in some respects she might be, but not insane.

  Diana had told Ellie that the whole thing had been a joke.

  A joke?

  ‘You see?’ said Evan.


  ‘No, I don’t see.’

  ‘Read on.’

  The next email was from someone who signed herself ‘Trish’, who said that yes, it had been Diana who had suggested mixing up the pills, but she herself had suggested pushing someone down the stairs, ha ha!

  Ellie put the papers down for a moment and closed her eyes. When Diana had been about to leave that morning, she’d ordered a taxi – which Ellie would have to pay for – and said she was going to warn two people about what had happened to her. Their names? Ellie tried to recall. Yes, they were Trish and Russet.

  Trish and Russet were two of the people to whom the emails had been addressed. Among others. There were five names in all.

  None of them were known to Ellie. Five women in an email group. Copies went to all five. Their names were Diana, Russet, Trish, Barbie and Kat.

  Barbie had written the next one on the list. Barbie didn’t go in for smiley faces but went straight to the point.

  No, I didn’t suggest mixing up the pills. My method was to have been much more pleasurable. Shag him senseless. Give him a heart attack. Trish, how like you to suggest something physical! I can’t remember what Kat suggested. Something straightforward, wasn’t it?

  Another email. Ellie turned to the next page. Kat hadn’t replied, but Russet had, with more smiley faces. I’ve had another think. Suppose we turn ourselves into mermaids and hold them under the water in our very own swimming pools? LOL again. Not that we have a swimming pool! He’s far too mean to spend money on something that I’d like. Perhaps we should just set fire to their pants? I think they all need a shot in the arm, they’re so … well, of course we love them dearly, but … well, you know!

  And so on. Kat had joined in the fun eventually. She’d advocated rat poison, which Ellie thought was rather old fashioned. Perhaps Kat hadn’t much imagination?

  Diana had not replied to any of the emails. She didn’t appear to have taken part in the conspiracy, if that was what it was. Her only involvement was that she’d been copied in to what the others – and she herself – had suggested.