Murder Among Us (11 page)

"Of course she wasn't with me, hasn't been with me!" Merle declared vigorously. "If you seriously mean to suggest such a thing, you're a fool!"

"Yes, yes, I am a fool, aren't I?" Denis was getting more and more agitated, purple-faced and sweating. "And you've both played me for one! But I'm not quite so thick as you imagined. Okay, Leah, if you weren't with him, where were you and with whom?"

"I'm not going to discuss this now, Denis! Meredith, I'm so sorry about this little scene—"

"Stop apologising for me!" Denis bellowed. "Stop acting the injured innocent! I'm the injured party, dammit!"

"Indeed yes," observed Merle. "But only in so far as you've cut your thumb, Denis. Otherwise I'm afraid it's all in your imagination! Have you thought of having a word with your doctor about these delusions of yours?"

"That does it!"

As bad luck would have it, Denis had fetched up standing by a pair of ceremonial daggers fixed in a wall display. Without warning he whirled round, seized one of them and lunged at the astonished Merle.

"I'll bloody injure you! Go on, get out of my house!"

The blade glittered in the bright electric light as it swished through the air. "Go on," yelled Denis jumping back and forth in a clumsy parody of fencing steps. "Or I'll slice you into ribbons!"

"As it happens, this is my house!" Leah said loudly. "Victor, stay right where you are. Denis, you're just being childish. I think perhaps you ought to go upstairs and lie down. Your behaviour is inexcusable. I can only suppose you're ill."

"My, my behaviour!" Denis appeared about to choke. He spun round to face his wife and the dagger flashed dangerously near to her. She stepped back with an alarmed cry, throwing up her hands.

"Watch out, you idiot!" cried Merle.

Shouting wasn't going to do much good! thought Meredith in exasperation at it all. Denis was going to do some damage with that dagger at any moment, if only to himself. She looked round. Someone, presumably the late Marcus, had been quite a collector of militaria. Also on the wall was a silver-topped swagger stick.

Meredith snatched it off, raised it on high and brought it down with a crack on Denis's forearm.

"Ow!" Denis shrieked and the knife dropped from his fingers to the floor. Meredith stooped and grabbed it.

Silence fell. Denis nursed his arm and glowered at her. "You've probably broken my wrist! Maniac!"

"I'm sorry, but this dagger is very sharp and you wouldn't want to hurt anyone, would you?" Meredith returned reasonably.

Denis's fury and belligerence evaporated. "No— oh—oh, shit!" He turned and stumbled out of the room.

"Thank you, Meredith," said Leah, breathing heavily. "I am sorry, I apologise to both of you. I can't think what's come over Denis. He really isn't a violent man. Victor, you know him. He's been under a lot of stress."

"Quite, quite, Leah my dear. These things happen.

But are you sure you can manage now? Who is in the house besides the maid?"

"Dolores' husband, Raul, our cook. But I can manage. He won't make any more fuss. You saw him ..." She smiled sadly. "Denis isn't good at standing up for himself. What—what you saw just now, that was just a flash in the pan. Over and done."

"Then I think I should be going now. It really is quite late." Merle managed to make it sound as if almost nothing had happened. "But try and get him to see a doctor or take a little holiday."

Outside on the steps when the door had closed behind them Merle paused and asked, "May I give you a lift home, Meredith?"

He actually wore a cloak, a black one which he threw dramatically round his shoulders as he spoke. Standing on the bottom white-washed step, one hand resting on the wrought iron balustrade and light from a street lamp gleaming on his silver hair, he presented a quite extraordinary sight. He was, Meredith realised, quite well aware of it.

Denis really did get it all wrong, she thought in a burst of insight. Leah hasn't been seeing Merle. Victor amused himself with that kiss-hand routine but it was just empty gallantry. He would never compromise himself. Really Victor wasn't interested in women, nor in men either come to that. Only in himself and in things, beautiful things. Houses, paintings or sculpture had meaning for him. People had none.

She shivered, possibly because of the cool evening air and said aloud, "I've got my car, thanks."

Merle had noticed the shiver. "Well, we mustn't stand here while you catch cold!" He glanced up at the first-floor windows of the house they had just quit and an extraordinary expression crossed his face. There was a new sharpness in his eyes and the silver wings of his waved hair stuck up like pointed ears.

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Just for a moment, in his dark cloak, he looked like a great black bat.

"Denis really isn't a bad chap," Merle said. "But not good at coping. Such people often go to extremes. It was interesting, don't you think, that he automatically reached for that knife? It really makes one wonder if he hasn't done something similar before?"

Eight

''There's something wrong with these figures!" said Markby firmly.

"But I don't understand!" protested Margery Collins.

It was Monday afternoon and it was raining, a steady drizzle which beat against the windowpanes of the upstairs flat which had been Ellen's and where Markby sat with Margery at Ellen's dining table. It was chilly in there. Margery, after some hesitation, had made them both coffee in Ellen's kitchen. But she hadn't drunk hers and the steam from it curled into the cold air, growing gradually fainter as the coffee cooled and an unpleasing thick skin formed on it. "It's like sitting at table with the dead!" Margery had said.

Markby had replied he hoped she didn't mean him, which had roused a brief weak smile. But he was inclined to agree with her. The flat resounded with that echoing emptiness which said the owner had gone away for good. A faint smell of damp had invaded it. Dust had settled on the furniture. The welter of papers scattered across the table top only emphasised that this had ceased to be anyone's private home and sanctum. It was now the scene of a post-mortem on a business.

Markby reached out and picked up several bank statements, clipped together.

"Now look, according to these statements Ellen banked increased takings from the shop on several dates during the past eight months. Roughly these dates are every six weeks. The spacing isn't exact but it's near enough to suggest a regular pattern of sorts. The leap in the amount on those dates suggests that the shop wasn't

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just doing well but doing outstandingly well—once every six weeks. Why is the increase in turnover not more evenly spaced out?"

He tapped one entry and Margery peered at it from beneath her untidy fringe. "This is an increase here of one thousand pounds over the equivalent date last year. And we're supposed to be in the middle of a recession!" Markby stretched out his hand and indicated another stack of papers. "But looking at the corresponding invoices for goods delivered in the period and checking the stock held in the shop as you have so kindly done, well, you can see for yourself that the two sets of figures don't tally.

"According to goods ordered and stock held, the shop was doing no better or worse than average for the time of year. Was it your impression, Margery, that Needles was doing exceptionally well over the past six to eight months? Sales up? Bumper demand for any particular item?"

She shook her head. "No. Summer is a slow time for wools. People start buying in August, looking ahead to the long winter evenings. They think they'll start a tapestry or embroider something or knit a cardigan, you know, looking for a winter hobby. We are expecting a new delivery soon to anticipate that. Or at least, we were. I wrote and asked the suppliers if they could hold off for a bit. I didn't want to cancel it—but I didn't want boxes of stuff arriving just at the moment. I mean, the will's not yet been granted probate and I don't know how I'd pay for it."

"Yes. But going back to the past year. Where did all the extra money Ellen was banking in the name of the shop come from?"

"I don't know, Mr. Markby!" She was becoming agitated. The rain beat more insistently at the window and she threw a hunted glance in that direction. "I had nothing to do with that side of things. I never went to the bank. Ellen took the money there. She banked every day. She didn't believe in keeping money on the premises.

96 Ann Granger

She said, word would get round. I keep telling you she

didn't discuss it with me!"

Markby sighed and began to put all the papers together again. 'Til have to get an expert to cast an eye over them, someone who knows more about business accounts than I do." He meant someone in the regional Fraud Squad, but he didn't want to alarm her even more. "Did Ellen never use the professional services of an accountant 0 "

"She did it all herself. She did have a firm in Bamford do it for her the first year we were here, but after that she said she'd got the hang of it and didn't see why she should pay anyone else." Biting her lip. Margery watched as Markby shoved papers and ledgers into a document case. "Mr. Markby, I know Ellen was—was horribly murdered and you have to find her killer. But all this, this poking and prying into her private affairs, is it really necessary 9 Ellen would have hated it so. I feel, sitting here in her room, as if she were here and could see us. I feel so guilty."

"There's no need for that. I dare say Ellen wouldn't have liked it if she were alive—but she's dead and if her shade is watching over us I'm sure it wants us to do justice by her!" Markby smiled, he hoped encouragingly. "If it weren't necessary, I shouldn't do it. I am a busy man with other things demanding my attention."

"Yes, I appreciate that." she mumbled. "But what exactly are you looking for? All those numbers, they might be slightly out here and there but there's probably-some reason for it and it doesn't matter, does it 0 " Margery's eyes, exaggerated by her round spectacles, looked enormous in her pale, triangular face.

She reminded Markby vaguely of Minnie Mouse. He wondered whether she was really so naive that she believed it didn't matter that the books didn't balance—or whether in her obscurely loyal way she was trying to protect Ellen's reputation. What a strange creature she was. Despite himself he couldn't help but find her slightly repulsive.

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"I am looking for a motive," he said gently.

Her slight form seemed, if possible, to wither and wilt even more, subsiding on to her chair, hunched and miserable. "Money is the root of evil!" she said in a sullen resigned way.

"And yet, Margery, people so often kill for other reasons, not money. Love, jealousy, envy—"

Almost inaudibly she whispered, "I don't know anything about any of those things ..."

"Some people," Markby returned almost as quietly, "would say you were fortunate."

A gust of wind scooped up a flurry of rain and tossed it noisily at the pane, rattling at the latch as if impatient fingers tried it. Ellen's shade after all, he thought, wryly, trying to get in here and prevent me. Too bad. He was in charge now.

"I was looking for a motive," he said later to Pearce in his office. "And I fancy I may just have found one." He tapped the wet document case he had put on top of his desk and pulled off his green waterproof, sending a spray of raindrops across the room. "That shop, Pearce," came his voice muffled as he hung the Barbour up on a hook and attempted to smooth his hair, "was being used not only as an arts and crafts centre but as a laundry!"

He turned and saw Pearce's eyebrows had rocketed up to his hairline and added, "Not for dirty linen: for dirty money! Although dirty linen and dirty money do often go together!"

"Blimey," said Pearce after a moment. "You think she was into blackmail?"

"Unexplained sums of money paid into her account at roughly equal intervals starting eight months ago? Purporting to be part of the shop profits but untraceable in the day-to-day running of the business? What else?"

"But she didn't need the money, exactly, did she? The shop did pretty well."

"Financial gain isn't the only motive of blackmailers."

"Think the girl, Miss Collins, knows about it?"

"Doubt it. Painfully honest. Might have had a suspicion something was wrong though. She's fighting a rearguard action to stop me asking any more questions. Odd sort of relationship, that. Ellen was never very nice to Margery, but left her a tidy amount plus the shop. Bad conscience? Warped sense of humour 0 Just didn't care who had the money 0 We'll never know. Margery seems to have admired Ellen but not exactly liked her. Now 7 , I think, she's burdened with what she feels ought to be gratitude. Poor kid's in a complete muddle about it all"

"Blackmail . . ." repeated Pearce. "The victim won't come forward, that's for sure."

"Perhaps the victim did come forward . . . came forward holding a knife and put an end to the sorry business." Markby's gaze settled on the document case. "Ellen Brvant was playing with fire. How very, verv foolish."

"I have no regrets!"

Although Ms. Mapple echoed the words of the late Edith Piaf she hardly resembled her. Fully dressed and seated in her own living room Markby found her twice as alarming as when she had been unclothed out in the open. She wore a sort of pleated tent which fell from a round yoke and was coloured in shades of violet. Her abundant black hair was brushed out in a wild halo and long earrings dangled to her shoulders. They were the sort of earrings made by hobbyists, beads threaded on silver wire. He was sure she had made them herself.

Other examples of her artistic talent abounded in the room, paintings, clay mugs and vases and an abstract collage made of buttons and scraps of brightly coloured material.

"Ah, you've spotted that," said Hope, seeing his eyes rest on this last creation. "My students made that."

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"Oh, at the polytechnic?"

"No, in the psychiatric wing at the hospital. When the mind is closed in some areas, Chief Inspector, windows open in it in others. I have seen the most wonderful artistic work done by those whom society would view as mentally impaired or ill. You are acquainted with the work of the nineteenth-century artist, Richard Dadd?"