Murder in the Garden Page 5

  She sprinkled salt and pepper on a baking dish, added a dash of milk, put in the fish, covered it with foil, and popped it in the oven to cook. She made a pot of tea, and laid out mugs, milk and sugar. ‘Help yourself.’

  Ms Willis said, ‘Shall I be mother?’ Meaning, should she pour out the tea?

  ‘Yes, please do.’ Ellie started to peel potatoes with rapid efficiency. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

  Ms Willis seemed to be choosing her words with care. ‘We've been doing a house to house, asking about the people who lived next door, but people don't seem able to tell us very much.’

  ‘There's a very good reason for that,’ said Ellie. ‘Nobody socialized, because - if I can speak frankly - we couldn't talk to them. And I mean that both ways. Some of them didn't want to communicate with us, and others couldn't speak English.’

  ‘I gathered as much. Now this list …’ Ms Willis produced Ellie's list from her bag.

  Ellie couldn't apologize quickly enough. ‘I'm so sorry, I know it wasn't at all what you wanted. I'm bad at remembering dates. I did have some more information on the Chaters, but your sergeant didn't have the time to listen.’

  ‘We can get names and dates from various sources, power suppliers and the like,’ said Ms Willis, passing a mug of tea back to her silent companion in the hall, and providing herself with a mug of almost black tea. ‘What we can't get is a feeling of what these people were really like. I can trust you not to fob me off with all the politically correct talk about “making allowances” that I've been getting from other people.’ She scrabbled in her handbag, produced some painkillers, and took two. Had she got a headache?

  Ellie was embarrassed. ‘Well, we did all make allowances. I can't tell you much about them, because I hardly knew them. In those days I didn't have the time to talk to them, even if they'd been the sort who liked a chat, which mostly they weren't.’

  Ms Willis produced another painful-looking smile. ‘So tell us why they didn't want a chat. You're a really shrewd judge of character. Everyone says so.’

  Ellie blinked again. Was she a good judge of character? She wouldn't have claimed that for herself.

  ‘Look,’ said Ms Willis, ‘the woman in the garden …’

  ‘Woman? Oh dear, I did hope it was just a tramp who'd died of natural causes. Though you do get some women who take to the streets, don't you?’

  ‘It was a woman, that much we're sure about, and it was definitely not natural causes. Afterwards she was stripped and buried. We think she's been in the ground for some years. They're doing more tests, but they'll take time, so …’

  ‘Not a tramp, then. Oh, I am sorry. Poor thing. How terrible.’

  ‘Until we can - hopefully - narrow down the time of death, we've not the slightest idea who she was. Thousands of women go missing every year. There's no clue as to identity. So you see, we need to account for any woman who might have gone missing from next door over the last few years. Absolutely anything you can tell us would be helpful.’

  That was a shock. Thoughtfully, Ellie put the potatoes on to cook, added milk to the tea which Ms Willis had poured out, and reached for her list. What did she really know about these people? Not much. But if she could help to narrow the time down, then she supposed she must try.

  ‘Well, now. What I was going to tell your sergeant - why don't you send him on a relationship course, by the way?’

  ‘He's been on one.’ Ms Willis met Ellie's eyes with a bland stare.

  Ellie shook her head. ‘It hasn't taken, has it? Though, to be fair, he didn't sink so far as to call me “ducky” again today. What I was going to tell him was that I had a word with a friend today about these people -’ and here she placed her finger on the list - ‘the Chaters, husband and wife. Names: Shirley and Donald …’

  She repeated what she'd learned from Mrs Dawes and what she'd remembered of her own accord.

  ‘… and I think I might know someone who's been in touch with them more recently. Another neighbour. I was going to pop out and see her when I'd got the supper on, and before my guests arrive. Which reminds me …’

  She put some marge in a heavy pan and let it melt, added flour, stirred, added milk and kept on stirring while she talked, till the sauce thickened.

  ‘… but if you like to go round there and have a word with her … does this need salt, yes, just a little? Yes. Then you could find out from her if both Shirley and Donald left here alive. Mrs Dawes seemed to think one of them died out in Spain, and I suppose that's why the house was put back on the market and not rented out to social services again. My neighbour's name is Mrs Coppola, a couple of doors along.’

  DI Willis turned her head to the hallway, from which a disembodied voice said, ‘I tried her a couple of times, but she's been working late, and there was no one there. A neighbour said the boy was staying over with a friend down the next road. I checked, and he was.’

  Ellie sighed. It was par for the course. Mrs Coppola enjoyed her occasional flings with an admirer, and who was to say she shouldn't? The boy Tod was perfectly happy staying with friends. Probably happier, because then he'd get a proper meal after school instead of junk food.

  DI Willis nodded. ‘So, Ellie. What about the people who've lived here since? Is there anyone else you can think of who could have been a candidate for murder?’

  Ellie rescued a packet of peeled prawns from the fridge, and stirred it into her sauce. ‘Well, the refugees came next. I think they were Bosnian. They didn't speak any English at all. There were a lot of them, and the number varied. The father was in his late forties, maybe, and his wife was a bit younger, not Muslims, no. At least so far as I know they weren't, because the women didn't wear headscarves. Then there was the daughter. I should think she was in her early twenties, but she looked older. No husband. I think he'd been shot or otherwise disappeared and that's why they came here, for safety.

  ‘The daughter had two tiny children. Then there was Grandma; she was tiny with black, black eyes. There seemed to be lots of uncles and aunts and cousins all coming and going and … I don't know. Sometimes it was just the nuclear family - is that the right word for it? Just the two grandparents, the mother and two children, anyway. And then there'd be lots of others. How they all fitted into that house, I really don't know. They left … now, let me think … about three years ago, in the summertime?’

  ‘Did you see them go?’

  ‘No, I was at work - I was putting in a lot of hours at the charity shop then, because … well, you won't be interested in that. Frank was at work, too. When I came back, I noticed that the front windows were hanging open, and there was a fresh lot of mess, cardboard cartons, discarded children's clothing, that sort of thing, in the front garden. And that it was very, very quiet. It hadn't really been quiet all the time they were there.’

  ‘So you don't know how many women were living there at that time, or whether they all left with the rest or not?’

  Ellie had been staring out of the window. She started. ‘I was just wondering who cleared the place out between lets? I wondered if they'd notice anything wrong. If there was anything wrong, I mean.’

  ‘Social services are responsible for returning a house to its original condition after a let.’

  Ellie nodded. It had occurred to her to wonder if Maria Patel's cleaning service had done that job. Maria had told her that she used a team of men to clear and clean a house at the end of a tenancy. Perhaps it would be a good idea to ask if her agency had been responsible for clearing the house next door.

  Ellie retrieved the cooked fish from the oven, flaked it, removed one or two bones, and tipped it into a large ovenproof bowl, stirring the prawn sauce into it.

  ‘What were their names?’ asked Ms Willis.

  ‘I ought to know, oughtn't I? But I don't. They had the radio on all the time, full blast, and when they shouted at one another, it was hard to understand them. I must have heard their names. Of course I must have heard them, but they didn't sound like English nam
es, apart from the two women who were both called Maria something. Not plain Maria, but Maria hyphen something. Like Maria-Joseph, all run into one.

  ‘They hardly ever spoke to us, unless it was to ask for directions to the shops, or the tube. Then they'd hold up a piece of paper with a picture on it, or a word, and say, “Please?” If anyone tried to talk to them, they'd sort of fade back into the house. Looking back, I suppose they were scared of us, but at the time we thought they weren't interested in being friends. They didn't go to our church or come to any of the social events in the neighbourhood, and the children were too young to go to school here.’

  ‘So you can't tell us whether all the women left when they vacated the house?’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘Perhaps … perhaps one of them was sick and died, and they wouldn't know what to do about it, and were afraid they'd be blamed for it in some way. I can see how that would happen. Suppose one of them had an accident, fell downstairs, or suddenly went into labour and died. They might have been scared to report it, have buried her in the garden and hoped for the best.’

  ‘It's possible,’ said Ms Willis. ‘Yes, that is a possibility, though … but we'll follow it up and see what happened to the family. What happened after they left?’

  ‘Well, you have to allow about a month for the house to be cleared out and made ready for the next lot. Next was a woman with her two children and her man, who was not her husband. I think he was Nigerian. He had a long name with lots of consonants in it, and a gap between his two front upper teeth. He was rather charming, though idle. Frank said he smelled. I think Frank meant that the man smoked cannabis, although I can't be sure because I don't think I've ever smelled cannabis myself. He used to drink beer out of the can and throw the cans into the road, into our garden, anywhere. The woman was quite dreadful.’

  She could see that her words surprised Ms Willis.

  Ellie firmed her mouth. ‘I'm sorry, but she was. I used to call her the Shrieker; to myself, you know. Not to others, of course.’

  She'd been on good if distant terms with all their neighbours through the years - except for that one person. She'd kept up a façade of politeness even with the noisy Shirley and Donald. She had tried - now and then - to communicate with the Bosnians by smiles and nods. But that one last neighbour had defeated her.

  She drained the potatoes, tipped in some milk and a knob of marge, and mashed them. ‘Let me explain. In the first place, the woman had a voice like a parrot. That sounds awful, but you didn't hear her. We all said Shirley was noisy, and she was. Shirley shouted at everyone, but it was a sort of full-bellied good natured shout, if you know what I mean. This last woman whined and shrieked in a most unpleasant way. I can't describe it, except by saying it set your teeth on edge.

  ‘She shrieked at the kids, she shrieked into her mobile phone, she shrieked and whined at her boyfriend and actually screamed at their pet animals. She had the television on all the time, turned up full pitch. The boyfriend's name was … Aymo? No, I don't know how you spell it.

  ‘She was home all day, smoking, drinking instant coffee, eating takeaway food, shrieking at the kids, who were really not very nice kids, though I suppose I shouldn't say that. We all thought -’ she reddened - ‘well, naturally we discussed them. They were so noisy and their behaviour was antisocial in the extreme! We all thought the elder child ought to have been at school, because he certainly looked old enough, but when I asked her once she said he was big for his age and what business was it of mine, anyway. The two boys used to throw stones at anyone who used the alleyway, they upset the litter bins on the Green and played rather nasty tricks on elderly people. They'd wait for you to come along the pavement and they'd spit on the pavement just in front of you and laugh.’

  Ellie shuddered. ‘I tried to give them some biscuits once. I thought they looked as if they could do with someone to give them a bit of loving care, but … the woman shouted abuse at me … ugh! Frank said, “What did you expect from that sort?” They weren't very clean, either. Also, I saw nits … lice on one of the children. Just the once.’

  She spread the mashed potato on top of the fish mixture, sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on top, and popped the dish back into the oven to keep warm and to brown the top.

  ‘I suppose we were bad neighbours, really. I mean, nobody liked to go near to either of those families, not because they'd come through the social services, but because they didn't live the way we did. The litter, the graffitti, the noise, the loud arguments. The neglect of the house and garden. They say you can never tell what goes on in a house behind closed doors, but I think now that those people did everything in the open.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to have made more of an effort. I think now that I should have tried harder, particularly with the Bosnians. Perhaps if I'd taken round some cooked meals for them, or offered to babysit with the children? But I didn't. It never occurred to me even to try. You see, I was pretty busy with my own family and Frank. Frank didn't think it was up to us to … well, to try to civilize them. That's what he said. If it happened again now, perhaps I'd be better able to cope.’

  Ms Willis finished her tea in silence. Ellie washed up the pans she'd used, and started slicing some runner beans.

  Ms Willis said, ‘As far as you know, the woman you call the Shrieker left this place safe and sound?’

  Ellie snapped her fingers. ‘Jade! That was her name. It was on the tip of my tongue all the while. It never occurred to me to think there could be anything wrong when she left, but the answer is, I really don't know. I'm trying to be accurate, to tell you what I know for certain, not what anyone else has told me, or what I assumed. What I do know is that after Aymo left, things went from bad to worse. One day he was there, and the next he wasn't. It's not him at the bottom of the garden, is it?’

  Ms Willis shook her head. ‘Definitely not a man. What do you mean, things went from bad to worse?’

  ‘He knew right from wrong. He tried to keep the kids in order. He'd cuff them if he caught them throwing stones, that sort of thing. One day he bought the children a dog. I suppose he thought it would be a humanizing element in their lives, that they'd learn to play with it, and look after it. But he was the only one who had time for it. It was he who used to feed it, play with it, and take it for walks. Give him credit for that. Probably he only went down to the pub and back, but he did use to take it out.

  ‘He left the dog behind when he went, and Jade tied it up in the back garden. I could hear it howling and scrabbling. I do wish I'd done something about that dog, but Frank said we couldn't interfere, so naturally I didn't. I did ask her one day if she was going to keep the dog now that Aymo had gone, but she said it was good for the kids to have a pet and she was going to get them some hamsters or rabbits to keep the dog company, and if Aymo wanted his dog, he should come back and …’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘I'm such a coward when people start swearing at me. I ran away, and Frank said …’ Frank had said that it served her right for interfering. Perhaps he'd been right.

  With an effort, she resumed. ‘Aymo didn't return, but after a while she had men visiting her, day and night. Frank wondered if she were selling drugs but I think she was just selling her body, because they usually stayed an hour at a time. She did get some more pets for the kids, but the children didn't look after them and after a while they stank. And the dog … I used to turn the radio on when I was in the kitchen, because he used to whine all the time, and when I looked through the hedge, I could see he was chained up, and the children used to tease him because he couldn't get at them, you see. And then they used to stand there and laugh at me because I got so upset.

  ‘And the smell! That's what did it in the end. Frank called the council and they came round and took the animals away - some of them were dead. I don't think the dog survived. Then - you'll be able to find out about this from social services - I think the children were taken into care. Jade came round and shrieked that she'd pay us out for getting her into troub
le, although she didn't do anything except throw things into the garden. And then one day, she'd upped and gone.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘I don't know. Someone in the charity shop said they'd seen her get into a big car driven by a man - someone they'd never seen before. That was the last anyone saw of her.’

  ‘Who saw her? Can you give me a name?’

  Ellie thought back. The charity shop was staffed by volunteers, some doing two days a week, some doing only one afternoon. Gossip went round and round. ‘I think it was Anita who told me, but she might have just been passing on what she'd heard from one of the others. You could trace the family by looking up the case with social services, couldn't you? Those poor kids. I wonder what became of them?’

  ‘I'll do that. Anything else?’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘The men came to clean the house out. It was in a bad way, toilet overflowing, kitchen wrecked. They did what they could, and then the For Sale notice went up. Jolley's, in the Avenue. Kate and Armand bought it, and had to pretty well gut it before they moved in. End of story.’

  ‘We'll check it out. Meantime …’

  ‘I'll see if I can find out anything else from the people who are coming to supper, and if I do, I'll let you know, shall I? But my money's on an accidental death in the Bosnian family.’ Which was a comforting thought, though sad for the woman, of course.

  She saw the police out, and as she did so, young Tod walked by on his way home from school with a friend. Since he'd started at secondary school, he'd not come by her house for the occasional snack so often, but they were still on good terms.

  Now he stopped and waved at her. ‘I told my mate you'd found a body in next door's garden and he didn't believe me, but it's true, isn't it?’

  ‘I'm afraid so, yes.’

  ‘I wish I could stay off school to see what's happening. Did they dig it up with one of those earth-movers? I really fancy a go on one of those! You wouldn't ask them if I could have a go, would you?’