Murder My Neighbour (27 page)

The DC looked as if she had something else to say, but changed her mind at the last minute. ‘Do you fancy anyone else for it, Mrs Quicke?'

‘Why ask me? There's a son, I believe, and a granddaughter. But the same problem arises; why try to hide the body? What about Jack, the window cleaner?'

The DC took out her notebook. ‘We heard there was one, but the inspector doesn't think he's of interest. What's his full name, and where does he live?'

‘No idea. He probably does a round of houses in that area once a month. Some householder will be able to give you details.'

‘You don't fancy Fritz the gardener for it?'

Ellie smiled, shaking her head. ‘He's a bit of a rogue, but not in that league. He was fond of her, you know.'

‘The inspector favours him for it.' Non-committal. ‘We've had him in a couple of times for questioning. He's admitted to trespass and to theft of tools and such like from Mrs Pryce, and to using her water supply without permission, which can be construed as theft.'

‘Oh, poor Fritz. No, you can't be serious.'

‘The inspector is. He's talking to all of Fritz's other employers, uncovering a long list of minor offences. The man admits he was always hanging around, that last week of her life. What's more likely than that she confronted him with his petty thefts and he pushed her down the stairs, perhaps not meaning any harm . . . and then put her body in the freezer until he could dig a grave for her later?'

‘Nonsense. It was a woman who phoned the retirement home to cancel her stay there, and it was a woman who phoned Hoopers to rearrange the removals, bring in a cleaning team and take the house off the market.'

‘We don't say he did it by himself. We assume his wife helped him.'

‘No, no. He hasn't got that sort of mind. Besides which, he has a little van that he runs around in. If he'd caused her death, he could have put her in that and taken her off somewhere to bury her—'

‘Or have driven her car away himself?'

‘Why would he do that?'

‘We assume that she was in the middle of packing up her car with her personal possessions on the night she died, when she was interrupted by someone probably asking her for money—'

‘Assumptions, again.' Though it did sound likely, didn't it?

‘You've said yourself there was probably quite a bit of saleable stuff in her car; a laptop, a briefcase, jewellery? I wondered if she might have possessed a fur coat or two. She was the kind of lady who wouldn't have bothered with political correctness and would have worn fur coats whatever people said, wasn't she?'

‘None of that was in the car when you found it?'

‘It had been emptied of all personal items and valeted professionally before being left in a long-stay car park at the airport. Edwina Pryce has given us a list of the things she thought Mrs Pryce would have packed to take with her. Apart from the stuff you've mentioned, there should have been some valuable Victorian jewellery, a carriage clock in a leather case and a couple of small but valuable seascapes, not to mention silver candelabras and photograph frames containing pictures of her husband and parents. All those were saleable. Fritz would have seen that the car was full of valuables, and he could have driven it away to dispose of them at his leisure—'

‘Leaving her body behind in the freezer? Oh, come on.'

‘Yes, because he planned to bury her later in her own garden.'

‘Then why didn't he do so?'

‘Because the window cleaner fitted padlocks on the doors next morning and he couldn't get in.'

‘Nonsense. Fritz knew how to remove padlocks with a screwdriver. It was he who removed those on the doors in and out of the courtyard, so that he could tend his vegetables in the back garden. If he'd known Mrs Pryce's body was in the garage, he could easily have got in there and done something about it. But he didn't.'

‘I'm only telling you the way the inspector is thinking. The other suspect is, of course, the cleaner Vera.'

Ellie shot to her feet. ‘What? That's even more nonsensical.'

‘Ah, but you've forgotten her little boy, who by all accounts has behavioural problems. Suppose Vera took him there after school that last day, perhaps innocently enough, to see if Mrs Pryce were coping all right? The little boy might have demanded something from the old lady, and when he didn't get it, gave her a push . . . down the stairs.'

Ellie told herself it was no good to lose her temper. ‘Then why not call a doctor?'

‘She was protecting the boy from the consequences of his actions, of course. That's why she hid the body in the freezer and drove off in Mrs Pryce's car.'

‘Vera did not know where Mrs Pryce's body was. Believe me, she didn't. And in any case, Vera doesn't drive. I'm not listening to this. Would you please go?'

‘I think this was a two-person job. She had help.'

Ellie deflated, staring into space. A two-person job sounded right. She'd been thinking it had needed a strong man to put the body in the freezer, but two women . . . ? That was just about possible. Also, it had been sloppily done, leaving a fold of Mrs Pryce's housecoat outside. Panic. Yes.

But it couldn't have been Vera. Ellie would stake her life on that.

The DC got to her feet. ‘You'll think about what I've said, won't you? And perhaps you'll remember some little thing which might help to prove or disprove our theories?'

Ellie wandered into the kitchen, only to be told by Rose to make herself scarce, as she was busy. Midge the cat turned his back on her; as far as he was concerned, she'd deserted him for half his lifetime and he wasn't prepared to kiss and make up.

There was no sign of Mia, who was, Rose said, out visiting old friends. Ellie drifted down the corridor to her office, where a pile of letters had been dealt with and left for her to read. For information only. Pat had left her a note saying there was nothing there which required urgent attention.

Two envelopes marked ‘Private & Confidential' had been propped, unopened, against Ellie's computer. She eyed them with dislike and left them where they were. After all, Thomas had said she needn't do any work yet, hadn't he?

She could hear his voice, faintly, as he talked on the phone in his study. No doubt he was making up for lost time and ought not to be interrupted.

Out into the sunny garden she went. The gardener had mowed the lawn recently, and someone had dead-headed the roses. There was nothing for her to do.

Instead of being grateful, she felt, well, excluded. As if she were no longer essential to the life of the house and those who lived in it.

She glanced up as two parakeets squawked their way across the sky on their way to the nearby park, and then dropped her eyes to the gables of Mrs Pryce's house. She wondered who had inherited it and what they'd want to do with it. She supposed it would be torn down soon and the neighbourhood made hideous with the screeches and bangings of a new build. Stewart was probably right, and an ugly block of flats would shortly rise in what had once been Mrs Pryce's rose garden. Ellie shrugged. Not her problem.

Thomas came out of the house and put his arm around her. ‘Everything all right?' He meant, was she coping now she was back home?

‘I'm fine. Rose won't let me into the kitchen, Mia's out visiting friends, Pat says there's nothing for me to worry about and Midge won't talk to me.'

He laughed. ‘Is your internal clock out of kilter? Mine is. But it's still broad daylight and not time for supper yet. Let's have a gentle stroll, work up an appetite.' They'd done a lot of walking while they'd been away, and had agreed it was good for them.

For a moment Ellie hung back; suppose Diana was waiting for them outside? She set her teeth. Well, if so, she wouldn't dissolve into a puddle on the pavement, because Thomas would be beside her. ‘Yes, a walk would be a good idea.'

There was no Diana outside. Good. As they passed the first few houses, Ellie thought to herself that one or two of them needed their windows cleaning – which reminded her to ask Rose who cleaned their own windows. Not Jack the Lad, presumably. Someone like him, though? Rose always dealt with that sort of thing. They could have walked towards the shops or in the direction of the church, but instead they went round the block and so, of course, by the Pryce house.

‘That's odd,' said Thomas as they passed it.

‘What?' Incident tape was no longer blocking the drive.

‘Nothing.' Yet he was frowning. ‘I thought I saw a light . . . It must be a reflection, or the sun shining through the hall from the back of the house.'

She turned back. The house was now showing definite signs of neglect. The front garden was a tatty version of a hayfield, and the windows looked grubby. Of course, windows quickly became grubby in a dry spell of weather. On the other hand, it did look as if there were a light on in the hall, and another in the television room immediately to the right of the front door.

She started up the drive, expecting to confirm that they were merely seeing a reflection of sunlight from the windows of the house opposite.

The porch was deep and dark. The front door was solid, but on either side were panels of stained glass, purple and green in a diamond pattern. The glass was old, thick and bubbly, difficult to see through, but when Ellie pressed her nose to a paler green diamond, it was obvious that the light they had seen came from the ceiling in the hall.

She stepped out of the porch to check on the television room. ‘There's a light on in this room, too. Do you think that the young lovers have returned now the police have finished here? I wouldn't put it past them.'

‘They wouldn't leave lights on downstairs, would they? And do they still have a key?'

She stepped back. ‘I didn't bring my handbag, and I haven't got my mobile with me.'

He patted his pockets. ‘I've got mine.' He pressed the doorbell. A resounding silence. A rustle inside the hall, and something scratched on the inside of the door. Thomas pulled up the flap of the letterbox.

‘It's a cat. It looks like the one which was trying to get into our house.'

The cat mewed, and a tiny white paw appeared, reaching up towards them. Thomas released the flap and stood upright. ‘Didn't you say Mrs Pryce had two cats, which were rehoused when she left? I've heard that cats dislike change and will make their way back over vast distances to their old homes.'

‘How on earth did it get into the house? Someone must have let it in, but . . . I don't like this, Thomas.'

‘I expect there's a cat flap somewhere, and it can get in and out as it pleases. Now that the house is empty, it's probably going round the houses to beg for food. Rose has been feeding it on the sly, remember.'

Ellie tried to remember if there was a cat flap in the Pryce house, but couldn't. ‘We should ring the police, anyway, tell them that lights have been left on.'

He nodded, took out his mobile. Ellie wandered round to the garage. A fresh padlock had been put on the door which led into the courtyard. No one had recently got into the house that way, which meant that whoever had turned the lights on must have had a key to the front door. Surely the police wouldn't have left lights on when they departed?

Thomas was still on the phone when she got back. He grimaced at her, shut it off. ‘They said they'd get a patrol car to drop by some time. I'm not sure they believe me.' He put his eye to a piece of pale green glass and froze.

Ellie waited, feeling prickles up and down her spine.

He stood back. ‘Tell me I'm imagining things. It looks as if someone's lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Perhaps one of the young visitors?'

‘Another dead body?' Ellie applied her eye to the same place, her heartbeat going into overdrive. What she saw – or thought she saw, because it was hard to see clearly through stained glass – was shocking. ‘I think you're right, though it's hard to tell. Oh!' She started back. ‘Did she move? Perhaps she's still alive.'

He knelt down to look through the cat flap. ‘Out of the way, puss. That's it. Just let me have a good look at . . . Yes, there is someone there.' He raised his voice. ‘Hello, are you all right?'

Ellie was still glued to her piece of clearish glass. ‘I think – I'm not sure – did she move her hand? Thomas, if a starving cat is locked up with a dead body, there's no knowing what will happen . . . or rather, I've heard that a hungry cat can attack a—'

‘I'd better phone for an ambulance.' He got his mobile out again and this time asked for an ambulance. Ending the call, he wondered: ‘How can we get in?'

Ellie spotted the discarded ‘For Sale' sign in the long grass and retrieved it, careful of splinters. ‘It's your turn to break a window, Thomas. I did it last time.'