Murder at the Altar Read online

  The silhouetted figure laid his torch down on the bedside table, with the beam pointing towards Rose’s feet.

  He lifted a heavy bar above his head …

  Ellie tried not to let herself think about what she had to do.

  She screamed.

  Grasping the heavy radio with both hands, she swung it against the man’s backside. And screamed again as he fell across Rose’s body.

  The man grunted with pain. To her horror Ellie saw that he had not let go of his weapon.

  A nightmare of a face turned towards her. She had hurt but not disabled the intruder. She despaired. She had not hit him hard enough, and maybe you only ever got one chance to hit such a man. If you didn’t disable him with your first blow, you might well not get another chance.

  She drew back, panting. ‘Get out!’

  ‘Bitch!’

  The man pushed himself up on to outstretched arms. He was wearing a thick black sweater over black jeans, which must have absorbed much of the force of the blow. He was still strong, and now he was also very angry.

  The masked head turned to look down at the stirring figure of Rose, and then turned back to look at Ellie.

  ‘You …!’

  Using his knees to lever himself off the bed, he turned his attention to Ellie, lifting the heavy bar to aim at her head.

  Horrified, she jerked backwards as he swung again.

  The bar missed her cheek by a fraction.

  He cursed. Raised the bar high once more.

  Ellie lifted the radio high, hoping it might break the force of the blow.

  The man took a half step forward, seemed to trip over his own feet, and crashed to the floor.

  Rose, sitting up in bed, had seized one of his legs from behind and brought him down.

  The bar dropped from his hand. Ellie had just enough presence of mind to stand on it so that he couldn’t retrieve it.

  The man shuffled back on his haunches, holding on to his right shoulder.

  Rose was flailing around, caught up in the bedclothes. And screaming. She had a painful, ear-splintering scream. Ellie joined her.

  Unnerved, the man began to crawl towards the open door. He gained it, pulled himself to his feet by the handle and lunged out on to the landing.

  ‘Quick!’ Rose had found what she was looking for … the heavy fryingpan.

  Ellie dropped the radio, grabbed the frying-pan and rushed out on to the landing after the intruder. In the dark, the man was feeling for the top step.

  The hall was icy cold. The front door was wide open, the hall patched with light from the nearest street light.

  Right, my laddo! thought Ellie. You’ve asked for this!

  She’d played a considerable amount of tennis in her youth, when her forehand drive had been much admired. She swung the heavy fryingpan with both hands, connecting with the intruder’s backside and sending him into orbit.

  The man crashed down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom. And didn’t move.

  Beside the open front door lay Ellie’s television and video, together with her silver vase and photograph frame. He must have opened the door before he came up the stairs, to facilitate a quick getaway.

  Rose peered under Ellie’s arm. ‘What can we tie him up with?’

  ‘The cord off Frank’s dressing-gown. Behind the door in the bedroom.’

  Still carrying the frying-pan in case the man was shamming, Ellie switched on all the lights and made her way down the stairs. The man didn’t move. She didn’t trust him, though. She held the frying-pan ready while Rose managed to tie the man’s hands behind his back. Ellie sacrificed her own dressing-gown cord to tie his feet.

  Only then did she put the frying-pan down, close the front door and lift the phone to call the police. After that she put the central heating on again.

  Rose sat hunched up on the bottom step of the stairs, staring at the man’s masked head. ‘I’ve never been so frightened in all my life!’ She looked vividly awake, rather than terrified.

  Ellie sat on the chair by the phone and tried not to shake. Thanks, Lord, she thought. She said, ‘Rose, I thought you’d taken a sleeping pill. How come you woke up at the right moment?’

  ‘Well, dear, I didn’t like to say anything, but the sleeping pill you gave me wasn’t very strong. I have some special pills from the doctor to help me sleep. So I wasn’t deeply asleep, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘But I heard you snoring.’

  ‘Snoring, dear? Oh, I don’t think so. Breathing a little heavily, perhaps. I have to sleep sitting upright. My hiatus hernia, you know.’

  Ellie pushed herself to her feet and went to investigate where a strong draught was coming from. She found one half of the French windows was off its hinges. She stared at it, wondering what on earth she was going to do about that.

  There was another unearthly, banshee-like shriek from Rose as someone pounded on the front door and rang the bell.

  As Ellie returned to the hall, Rose leaped at her, and clung. ‘He’s awake!’

  ‘Yes, dear, but you see he can’t get away. And that’s probably the police.’

  It was Armand, with a greatcoat slung over his pyjamas. ‘What on earth is going on? You’re not being raped, are you?’ He was as angry and unpleasant as ever.

  ‘Do come in,’ said Ellie, pleasantly. ‘We’ve surprised a burglar, and would feel a lot safer with a man around till the police get here.’

  ‘What?’ Armand stared at the intruder, whose mask stared back at him. Armand inspected the man’s bonds, remarked that women never knew how to tie a knot, and tore off the man’s mask. He recoiled.

  ‘Heavens!’ said Ellie, feeling rather faint. ‘It’s that gas board man that wasn’t!’

  Rose transferred her grasp to Armand’s arm. ‘We’ve been burgled! I woke up and there he was standing over me, menacing me with an iron bar! So I tackled him and threw him to the ground, and then he got away and fell down the stairs and knocked himself out. Do you think I could sell my story to the newspapers?’

  ‘Good … grief!’ said Armand, blinking.

  The doorbell rang again, and this time it was the police. No faces that Ellie knew. They seemed not too sure that they weren’t being called out on a fool’s errand till Rose proudly showed them the prostrate burglar, and told her tale all over again.

  ‘This your house then, missus?’ one of them asked Rose, producing a notebook while the other spoke into his walkie-talkie.

  ‘No, no!’ said Rose, with a smile which was almost coquettish. ‘I was just staying the night. I always knew I’d catch a burglar some day, and now I have!’

  Ellie let Rose ramble on. She was looking at the winking light on the answerphone, and wondering if Kate had left a message on it, and if so, would the police notice and want to listen to it.

  At last Rose began to unwind and dark shadows started to appear under her eyes. Her vivacity drained away and she looked what she really was, an elderly lady whose sleep had been rudely disturbed, and who was beginning to feel shaky.

  The burglar was by this time fully conscious, humiliatingly aware of having been defeated and tied up by two women, and uttering threats about prosecuting them for attacking him. Ellie silently led the way upstairs and pointed out the tyre lever in the bedroom to the policeman.

  She said, ‘I did hit him, it’s true. He was standing over Rose with that bar in his hand, and I realized he was going to kill her. Then he turned on me and I thought I was going to die, but she tackled him, and he fell. I think that’s when he hurt his shoulder. Then he got away and I hit him again as he was hesitating at the top of the stairs. He fell down the stairs and knocked himself out. That’s when we tied him up and rang for you.’

  The policeman’s eye wandered over to the frying-pan. He didn’t ask what Ellie had hit him with. He just nodded and said, ‘You two ladies deserve a medal. You pushed him down the stairs, and he knocked himself out. Quite right, too. You’ll be prepared to make a statement about this down at
the station?’

  Ellie nodded.

  Armand was by now trying to assert himself, exclaiming at the pile of swag which the burglar had collected by the front door, and asking what the police proposed to do about the broken French window.

  Ellie put the kettle on and made tea for them all. The burglar’s arms and legs all appeared to be in working order, so he was removed by a back-up car with the assurance that they would have the police doctor look at him soonest.

  Rose drooped, and Ellie coaxed her up to bed. No doubt the despised sleeping pill was kicking in by now.

  Armand strode about, complaining of the inefficiency of the police in not providing a carpenter to mend the broken window that very night. One of the policemen went to inspect the damage with him, and promised to send someone along in the morning.

  Was that man really trying to kill me, thought Ellie … or was he just an ordinary burglar?

  The older policeman said, ‘Well, if that’s all …’ He and his companion were ready to leave, and Ellie realized she was not going to feel safe if they did.

  She said, ‘Officer, one of your men came round this afternoon because I wanted to report that a conman has twice tried to gain entry to this house, pretending to be from the gas board. It’s the same man who came here tonight. Do you think we’re safe here?’

  The policeman was, perhaps, tired. It was, after all, the dead of night. He said, with barely concealed amusement, ‘He’ll not be back tonight, that’s for sure.’

  She nodded, realizing that he thought her a frail, rather stupid woman. She said, ‘I think he’s tried before. Someone tampered with the wiring of my electric lawnmower. Then there was that very odd incident with a big, heavy man on the bridge … though that might have been just an accident … I was very upset that day … and of course he ended up in hospital with a broken leg, but looking back, I do wonder if perhaps he wasn’t intending to hit me with that piece of scaffolding he was brandishing …’

  She looked at the officer and from the amused, rather distant expression on his face, realized that he thought she was rambling.

  She added, ‘Then there was Kate’s car blowing up. They might have thought it was my car, because she did take me out in it the night before. And if someone is trying to kill me and not Kate, then … oh, I don’t know. I really don’t. But yesterday a car tried to run me over in the Avenue. Rose warned me only just in time.’

  He was bored, going through the motions. ‘Did you get the number of the car?’

  ‘No, but Rose said it was a Saab. It looked black to me, but it wasn’t really black, I think. It might have been dark green. The number plate was muddied.’

  ‘Dozens of those about, missus.’

  And the next question, she thought, would be, Do you know of anyone who wants to do you in?

  Ellie felt a shiver run up and down her spine. Both Diana and Aunt Drusilla would benefit from her death.

  No, the idea was ludicrous. Diana wouldn’t know how to engage a murderer to kill her mother. Anyway, selfish as Diana was, it was not the sort of thing which would ever occur to her.

  Aunt Drusilla was a different proposition; she might easily have got to know all sorts of unscrupulous people through that dreadful estate agent. But would Aunt Drusilla really go as far as putting out a contract on her?

  No, of course not.

  Ellie realized she was overtired. She knew it probably wasn’t anything to do with either Aunt Drusilla or Diana, but that was all she could think of. She held back tears with an effort.

  ‘There, there, now! Things get out of proportion at this time of night, don’t they? It’ll all look better in the morning,’ said the policeman, stuffing his notebook back in his pocket.

  Armand strode back in, saying that he’d wedged the broken window frame back into place with a couple of chairs, but he really thought it would be best if he slept on the sofa that night … or what remained of it.

  Ellie looked at him and saw what had first attracted Kate to him. He was concerned for her. Probably he was at his best when taking care of someone weaker than himself. Kate – being a stronger character – would bring out the worst in him. So let’s make the most of it, thought Ellie.

  ‘That’s good of you, Armand,’ she said, blowing her nose. ‘I must admit I don’t know what I’d do otherwise. I’ll fetch you some bedding down.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Armand, throwing himself down on the settee, with his greatcoat over himself. ‘I’ll be quite all right here, and the police promise they’ll send someone round first thing tomorrow to make the place safe.’

  Ellie thanked the policeman, who left saying that if she were disturbed again, they would come straight back. She left a light on in the hall, retrieved the frying-pan and took it up with her to the back bedroom. Half past three in the morning.

  She hoped she’d sleep, but feared she wouldn’t. She had too much to think about.

  The two policemen were returning to their patrol car when they interrupted the fat man trying to break into his own Saab. ‘Hang about,’ said one of them. ‘Is that chap trying to break into that car? The number plate’s suspiciously muddy, too. Do you think it could be the same car which the old dear thought was trying to run her down?’

  His mate said, ‘And wasn’t there a call to the station about a fake gas man seen in a green Saab?’

  ‘So who’s that trying to get into it now? A friend of the burglar’s?’

  The fat man’s luck was right out. When challenged, he tried to run away. But with the cast on his leg, he hadn’t a chance.

  ‘Excuse me, but is that your car, sir?’

  ‘Yes. That is, a friend’s been borrowing it …’

  ‘How did you propose to drive it, with your leg in plaster like that?’

  ‘Hang about,’ said his mate. ‘Do I smell something on his breath, or do I?’

  The fat man began to gasp and perspire, despite the chill of the night, thinking of all the beer he’d drunk that evening.

  ‘What I think is,’ said the first policeman, ‘that we take laddo here back to the station and ask him nicely if he can produce his log book and insurance papers.’

  ‘And then we could ask him if he happens to know chummy with the jemmy, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s your lucky night, mate,’ said the first policeman, as he urged the fat man into their own car. ‘You get a lift to the station out of the rain, and maybe even a nice hot cup of tea as well; but before that, let’s have you blow into this dinky little tube, shall we?’

  The fat man despaired. And him without a mobile phone to call for help. He groaned. She had said that at all costs the goods in the derelict house must not be left unattended, and he’d done exactly that. Thousands of pounds worth …

  She’d kill him.

  Ellie did sleep, patchily. She drifted in and out of nightmares, and woke feeling worse than she had done for many a day. Rose was still snoring next door, so Ellie went down to make sure that Armand would get off to school on time. He was subdued, but very willing to accept her offer to make him a cup of coffee and some poached eggs on toast for breakfast.

  With both hands around a mug, he sat hunched up at the kitchen table. After a while Ellie realized he was watching her. Not with suspicion, but speculatively.

  She smiled at him. She thought he’d been having a rough time recently, even if it were mostly his own fault.

  He said, quietly for him, ‘You are in touch with her, aren’t you? Is she all right? You needn’t tell me where she is. Just tell me that she’s all right.’

  ‘She phones me every now and then, but I don’t know where from. She is all right. She misses you and would like to come back, but daren’t. She thinks someone is trying to kill her.’

  His eyes went dark, but he held on to his temper. ‘Not me, I swear it!’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘No, of course not, but the police haven’t got anyone else for Ferdy’s murder …’

  ‘It wasn’t her.’ Tho
ugh he didn’t sound quite so sure of that.

  ‘No, rest assured, it wasn’t. Believe me, I know.’

  His face twisted and he looked away. She averted her own eyes. This man would hate to be seen crying.

  She said, ‘The police will find the right person soon, I’m sure.’

  ‘And then she’ll come back?’ He sounded like a little boy wanting to be reassured that everything was going to be back to normal soon.

  Ellie sighed. ‘Who knows?’

  He hunched his shoulders and dropped his head, but said nothing more.

  After he’d gone, Ellie checked that Rose was still snoring and took her own coffee into the living-room. She stood by the propped-up French windows, looking up at the church. The wind had dropped. The snow still lay in hollows, but was fast turning to slush. A dreary outlook.

  She was dog tired but her brain wouldn’t stop turning over the facts and fancies that had occupied her since Frank had died … since she had stood on that spot and seen Kate running down the path from the church, crying.

  She tried to think herself back to that time. She’d been half doped.

  The weather had been bright, but threatening rain. She’d been worrying about clearing the leaves from the lawn.

  No, that was the day that Mrs Dawes had come scurrying down from the church after she’d found Ferdy’s body. Which reminded her that she must ring Mrs Dawes and explain why she’d missed choir practice last night.

  She wrenched her mind back to the evening of the murder. She couldn’t remember anything before she spotted Kate.

  She sat down in the big chair and put her head back. Closed her eyes. Tried to concentrate on that one important evening …

  18

  Rose shook her awake. Rose was fully dressed and looking very lively. Of course, she was the heroine of the hour, wasn’t she? Ellie didn’t grudge her that but did perhaps wonder if Rose had been experimenting with Ellie’s own lipstick. It suited Rose, but still …

  ‘Haven’t we had a nice little sleep, then!’ said Rose, all smiles. ‘I didn’t like to wake you, but the builders have arrived to repair the window and I know you wouldn’t want to be seen in your nightie.’