Murder With Mercy Read online

  ‘My foreman says Mikey was hanging around yesterday till they threw him out but I’m perfectly aware that, in spite of all our precautions, the lad can get into the building whenever he wishes. Goodness knows how.’

  She lifted her shoulders. ‘What can I say? I’ll have a word.’

  ‘There’s no father around, is there?’ said Hugh, heavily. ‘The girl’s brought him up herself? A nice girl, by all accounts, trying to make something of herself. It seems to me she’s got enough on her plate to be going on with and I don’t want to add to her burdens, but he’s got to be stopped. It’s not just the water. Once I started to make enquiries, the men told me about some other incidents: mislaid tools, switches left on when they should have been shut off, a small fire started with a short-circuit—’

  Ellie paled. ‘You mean that Mikey’s been responsible for …? No, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I don’t want to believe it, either. Neither did the men. That’s why they didn’t tell me. But recently they’ve started looking over their shoulders, watching to see where he is. It’s bad for morale. And I don’t need to tell you that it’s going down badly with the management because it’s made us fall behind schedule again. Not by much. Maybe another two or three days. But it affects the men’s bonuses. So, with reluctance, I’m forbidding him the site from now on.’

  ‘I’m appalled. Of course I’ll have a word with him. You’re right about Vera carrying a heavy burden at the moment. It’s a shame, but I’ll have to tell her, too. How about cutting that rope he’s using to get over the wall?’

  ‘It’s on your side of the wall at the moment. If you’re in agreement, I’ll get someone to take a ladder tomorrow morning first thing and cut it off at the top.’ He stood up, a solid, practical man. ‘You have my word for it that this won’t get any further, provided he stops playing games. Right? But if not …’ He left the threat dangling.

  The doorbell rang again. This time on a tentative note.

  Whatever next? ‘I understand. Thank you, Hugh.’ She led the way back into the hall and opened the door to let him out only to find a stranger standing in the porch, trying to fold up a broken umbrella.

  ‘Mrs Quicke?’ The newcomer was a big girl with straight blonde hair and a heavy bosom. She was wearing a waterproof poncho over a sweatshirt and jeans. Bovver boots. ‘The woman at the police station told me to see you about a job.’ Without being invited, she moved into the hall so that Ellie had to take a step back. A cloud of stale cigarette smoke came in with her.

  ‘Is your name Petra, by any chance?’ Ellie shut the door on the outside world. At that moment she heard another door bang and Vera’s voice raised in the kitchen. If this was Tuesday, then this was the one day on which Ellie ought to have organized some supper. It had completely slipped her mind to do anything about it, and she’d left the kitchen in a mess. Vera didn’t cook on Tuesdays because it was her long day at college.

  Ellie decided to deal with one thing at a time. ‘Come in, do. Leave your wet things on the chair. I won’t be a moment.’ She hurried into the kitchen. There was Vera, looking as if she’d just been fished out of a river. She couldn’t have taken her umbrella that day. Her hair dripped, her jacket dripped, and so did her jeans. She was shivering convulsively.

  Rose was emitting little cries of dismay and trying to help Vera peel off her jacket. The amaryllis pots were still on the side of the sink, and nothing had been done about supper.

  Ellie said, ‘Vera, upstairs with you this minute, and into a hot bath. It’s my turn to do the supper and I’ll get to it in a minute. Rose dear, can you look in the freezer, see if there’s anything I can throw together for a meal? I have a visitor, but I can bring her in here while I cook, right?’

  ‘Brrrrr,’ said Vera. ‘B-b-but—’

  Ellie clapped her hands. ‘Off with you now! No arguments!’

  Rose dithered. ‘I was wanting to see the six o’clock news.’

  ‘So you shall. You go and watch the news and I’ll see to everything.’ Ellie hustled Vera off up the back stairs and asked Petra to come into the kitchen. ‘Sorry about this, but I have to cook. Want a cuppa?’

  Petra shook her head. Her skin looked soft and pasty, as if she spent most of her days in front of the television, smoking and eating junk food. She was carrying far too much weight for her height, and her default expression was sulky. She was wearing a tiny diamond on her ring finger, bright blue studs in her ears and a tattoo on her left forearm. A dragon? A snake?

  Ellie reached for an apron. ‘Petra; that’s a pretty name. Do sit down.’

  ‘My mum thought it up. She said my dad had been called Peter and she wanted something of his to remind her of him, seeing as he’d walked out on her before I was born. She wanted to call me Petronella, but that’s a mouthful so it came down to Petra.’

  Ellie nodded. She ferried the pots to the utility room, cleaned the sink again, and investigated first the larder and then the freezer for something to eat. A large packet of mince seemed to offer the best hope of getting something on to the table in time for them to eat. Onions, pasta, seasoning, a couple of eggs. A pack of frozen peas. The largest saucepan, olive oil.

  Petra said, ‘This is just like my nan’s kitchen. At least, hers was a lot smaller, of course, but it had the same old cupboards in it. Don’t you want to get it updated? Or perhaps it would cost too much?’

  Well, that was a nice put-down, wasn’t it?

  Ellie chopped onions and put them into the biggest mixing bowl with the mince and the seasoning. She considered explaining that she’d inherited the house from an elderly aunt, whose equally elderly housekeeper – Rose – had decided to stay on to look after Ellie and her husband when her employer died. Rose liked the kitchen as it was. So did Ellie. Petra wouldn’t understand that.

  Ellie broke eggs into the mince and stirred. ‘Tell me about yourself. What made you go to the police?’

  ‘Well, it’s Auntie, see. Over Chiswick way. It’s a bit of a trek but I used to go over there maybe three times a year, for Christmas and her birthday and mine. She was a widow, had carers come in to get her up and put her to bed and someone else made sure she had a meal in the daytime, but there was always trouble with the upstairs people, unpleasant they are, always complaining about something, but what could she do, she could hardly get out and do something about the garden herself, could she? There was this man used to fetch her to church on Sundays in his car, which I think they, the church, wouldn’t have bothered if they’d known how little she had to live on, but there; I mustn’t speak ill of the dead, must I?’

  ‘Er, no.’ Tip some flour into a bowl. Set the big frying pan on to the gas, dump in some oil, let it start to sizzle. ‘But she had other relatives, right? Didn’t they keep in touch, too?’

  Petra grimaced. ‘Florrie, that is. My cousin. Born about the same time as me but she’s one that would sour the milk in your tea, and she didn’t stir herself to visit Auntie more than a couple of times a year, if that. Only, the last time I saw her, and that wasn’t so long ago, my birthday was coming up, and Auntie always had a little something in cash put by for me, and she wanted to meet Dwayne, so we went over there together before we went clubbing, but he agreed with me then that Auntie was losing the plot. She was only a bit of a thing and Florrie had been to see her and she’s a right bully, and poor Auntie had got it in her mind that Florrie was going to get the Social to put her in a home, and she’d been in that flat for over forty years, hadn’t she, and didn’t see why she should have to move? And what if she couldn’t do the garden any more, it was no more than a paved area, and my Dwayne said he’d see to it for her now and then, and that cheered her up no end, because the people up above wanted the garden, see, because of their dog.’

  Ellie nodded, putting spoonfuls of the mince mix into a bowl of flour before dumping them in the fat in the pan. ‘How much did she give you for your birthday?’

  Petra blinked. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

&nbs
p; ‘Sorry. Yes. Go on. Dwayne’s your fiancé? Have you moved in with him or the other way round?’

  ‘His mum wouldn’t hear of my moving in with them, so he moved in with me and Phee, short for Philip – that’s my little boy that I had when I was still at school. He’s old enough that I can leave him with my best friend in the flats, and then I have her little girl back when she goes out clubbing in her turn. He’s not Dwayne’s but they get on all right, and the flat’s not too bad though there’s only one bedroom and it’s stuck at the back of the shops up an alleyway. I did think we might get Auntie’s place, but they say not.’

  Ellie filled the kettle and switched it on. ‘So Auntie had nothing to leave.’

  Petra shifted on her seat. ‘Well, there were all her bits and pieces, her furniture and the like. And she had money in the Co-op, and that’s to pay for her funeral with a bit over.’

  ‘And the Prada handbag.’

  ‘Which is what she promised me I should have. I didn’t mind about the other things, the silk scarves and the fine soaps and that, though I wouldn’t have said “no” to the sherry which she kept on the sideboard to look at, for she didn’t drink, not a drop. They were all presents from the ladies she used to work for. And that bitch Florrie has got the lot.’

  ‘Because your aunt had made a will?’

  ‘She made it …’ Petra concentrated on remembering, ‘“while the balance of her mind was disturbed”. She and I had had a bit of a set-to, you see, years ago, about Phee’s dad not sticking to me, and she said it was my fault for not wanting to wait and get married in church, which I said to her was so old-fashioned, no one believed in that nowadays, but she took against me for … maybe a year or more. Only then I thought, poor old soul, she’s all alone in the world, and I made it up with her.’

  ‘Only, she’d made a will in Florrie’s favour in that time?’

  ‘I didn’t know nothing about it. She never said, not even when I asked her if I could have the Prada handbag when she was gone. Only, when Florrie rang me to say Auntie had passed over, I went round there to collect it, and Florrie wouldn’t give me the time of day. Went all high and mighty, said I could get a solicitor if I wanted, but it was all watertight and I should save my pennies to give myself some liposuction for my hips. Jealous of my body, she is! Skinny bitch!’

  Ellie poured boiling water into two pans, added salt. She threw frozen peas into one and lowered a big handful of spaghetti into the other. She reached for a spatula to turn the rissoles that were cooking nicely. ‘So why did you go to the police?’

  ‘Well, we’d popped over to see her about ten days before—’

  ‘For your birthday present? With Dwayne?’

  ‘All three of us. Phee went to play in the garden, while Dwayne was cutting back the laurel bush that had grown across the window, and that’s when Auntie asked me if I had any sleeping pills. She said the carer would only let her have one each night and she needed at least two to give her a good night. And I said, “I don’t need sleeping pills, do I?” and she said would I go and get some from the chemist’s for her, and I said I would but then Dwayne said he was going to be late if we did that, and the district nurse or the doctor would give her some next time they came round, wouldn’t they? So I gave her some painkillers which was all that I’d got in my bag, and we left. That’s what upset me. She hadn’t enough pills to kill her, so where did she get all those pills that she took?’

  ‘I suppose the district nurse brought some round for her. Or your cousin Florrie.’

  ‘They said not. She wasn’t supposed to handle her pills herself. The carer put the pills for each day in a special box, and she never had the willpower to save them up, which is what they said she did, and I don’t believe it for a minute. So it had to be Florrie feeding them to her, didn’t it? Because if Auntie had had to go into care, then everything she had would have had to be sold up to pay for it, and Florrie wouldn’t have had anything at all, whereas now she gets the contents of the flat and the money from the Co-op and the Prada handbag.’

  Ellie poured a tin of tomatoes into the pan and added some tomato ketchup to give the sauce some bite. ‘Well, Petra; I can’t see that you can do anything about it if the police refuse to act. With what you’ve got, I can’t see that they would.’

  ‘Dwayne’s been on at me to drop it but it riles my stomach to think of Florrie getting away with murder. Auntie wanted me to have that handbag, not her.’

  Ellie sighed, glancing at the clock. She turned the gas down under everything.

  Petra forced a smile. ‘But the policewoman did say you could help me to a job at the hotel in the next road? They’re taking on staff now, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t have anything to do with that side of things, but I could ask when they are interviewing people and let you know, if you like.’

  The sulky look returned. ‘I thought you could do more than that. At the station, they said you could put in a good word for me.’

  ‘Have you worked in a hotel before?’

  ‘No, but it can’t be that hard, can it? I wouldn’t want to do the cleaning or work in the kitchens, but I can see myself in a little black suit behind the reception desk.’

  ‘You’re good with a computer, then?’

  ‘Not my scene, that. But it’s all smiling at people and handing them their keys, innit?’

  Ellie held back a sigh. ‘I think you have to be able to take telephone bookings, make out bills and deal with credit cards. Everything has to be done on a computer nowadays.’

  ‘Well, I’d soon pick it up, wouldn’t I? If you put in a good word for me, I’ll wing it. The only thing is the hours. Dwayne did say he’d pick up Phee when he comes out of nursery – and a right shocking amount I have to pay for that every week, I can tell you – but now he says he needs to be free to pick up some limo work, because his cousin is thinking of starting up a hire-car business in North London, so he won’t be able to do that any more.’

  ‘Can’t he get a regular job?’

  An uneasy movement. ‘Well, it’s the CRB checks, he’s got a bit of a record and there’s no jobs anyway. So I’d only be able to work mornings, and no weekends, because that’s the only time we have to go out and enjoy ourselves.’

  Ellie despaired. ‘Give me your contact details, and I’ll let you know when they’ll be interviewing. In the meantime, why don’t you get yourself on a computer course to brush up your skills? I don’t think they’ll take you unless you can prove you’re computer literate.’

  The girl bridled. ‘Oh, thanks for nothing! I thought you were going to help me!’

  Ellie wanted to say, Why should I? She wanted to tell the girl that unless she stopped making bad choices in life, she was never going to amount to much. ‘Let me show you out.’ In the hall, she handed Petra her poncho and broken umbrella and opened the front door. It was still raining hard.

  Petra quailed. ‘You wouldn’t spring to a cab for me, would you?’

  Ellie shook her head.

  The girl’s colour mounted, and her mouth turned ugly. ‘I was right about you, you’re all the same, filthy capitalists stealing from the poor, but when Dwayne gets going we’ll be living in a big house and you’ll be down at the Council, begging for a squat! And don’t think you can brush me off, you and those toffee-nosed police, because you haven’t heard the last of this, I’ll have my rights and you can all go and suck yourselves silly!’

  Thomas’s car swished to a halt in the drive. A big, bearded man, he got out, putting up his umbrella, smiling his pleasure at reaching home at last. ‘What a day!’ He spotted Petra and looked a question at Ellie.

  ‘She’s just going,’ said Ellie, knowing that, unless directed otherwise, Thomas would put aside his workday weariness to offer Petra a lift.

  ‘Any chance of a lift to the tube station?’ said Petra.

  ‘No,’ said Ellie. ‘In with you, Thomas. Supper’s ready. Goodbye, Petra.’

  ‘You’ll be sorry for this!’ Petr
a put up her umbrella and splashed off into the night.

  Thomas gave Ellie a hug and a kiss. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Trouble,’ said Ellie. ‘And the worst of it is, I think she’s got a point. Who did give Auntie all those pills?’

  THREE

  Tuesday evening

  She remembered yesterday. At least …

  She checked today’s newspaper. Tuesday. She’d picked it up off the mat that morning, so yesterday had been Monday.

  Was it really a fortnight since her last visit to Ruby? Poor Ruby, so frail and in so much pain. How many years had they known one another? Eighteen? Nineteen? Perhaps more. It was hard to remember which year it was that they’d met, but it was long before both their husbands died.

  Almost every Monday afternoon they’d have a cuppa and a chat, and maybe there’d be some chocolate biscuits too, if Ruby’s carer had remembered.

  Ruby had said, ‘I really don’t want to be here any longer. I want to be with my darling husband again, and our lovely son. But it bothers me; I was only twenty-eight when our little one died in my arms, and I was forty-three when my husband copped it. Now I’m past sixty-five. Will they know me again, do you think?’

  A tricky question. They thought about it.

  ‘What I think is that your little son will see you as you were at twenty-eight, and your husband will see you as you were at forty-three.’

  ‘Even at forty-three, I was beginning to creak in my bones. I certainly don’t want them to see me as I am now. I did tell you that the doctor wants me to go into a care home, didn’t I? I can’t be doing with that. You brought the pills for me? I’ve tried to save some of mine, but the pain gets too bad so I have to keep on taking them. It’s a poor night on the telly.’ She winked. ‘Maybe I’ll go to bed early and get a good night’s sleep for once.’