Murder My Neighbour (33 page)

Edwina's eyes flew open. ‘I'm not going anywhere, except home. Edgar, take me home. I'm in no fit state to listen to this wicked nonsense.'

Ellie said, ‘I don't suppose you'll spend much time in jail, if any. They'll probably give you a suspended sentence.' And I'll have to see to it that you're supported for the rest of your wretched life.

Edwina ground out, ‘You don't know anything. You can't prove anything.'

‘True,' said Ellie, ‘but I can tell you what I think happened. Shall we move back into the hall, because it's easier to explain in there?'

Ears turned to the safe expert. ‘We won't need you any longer.'

‘Ah.' The man looked as if he'd rather have stayed, but he grudgingly removed himself and his tools. He banged the front door on his way out, which made everyone jump.

The black-suited PA moved smoothly into action. ‘Mr Greenbody will be taking charge of the contents of the safe, as they form part of Mrs Pryce's estate. I will take an inventory now and let the police have a copy in due course.'

DC Milburn said, ‘Sir, is it all right if I stay here and help take the inventory? That way, we get a copy straight away.'

Ears nodded. ‘I suppose so.'

Mr Greenbody held the door open for them to pass back into the hall.

Edwina would have gone straight out of the house through the front door, but Ears exclaimed something sharply, and her brother barred the way. ‘Best get it over with, Edwina.'

‘Much you know about it.' Edwina turned back into the hall with a gesture of despair.

‘You have the floor, Mrs Quicke,' said Ears. ‘But make it snappy, will you?'

‘I'll try. It's all a question of sorting out who had keys, who could drive, and what they did afterwards, isn't it?' Ellie looked up the stairs. ‘What I think happened is that a number of people came to see Mrs Pryce on her last night in this house. The first one arrived soon after all the removal people had gone. She walked here because she didn't have a car. She had a key. She probably came with the intention of seeing what she could do to help Mrs Pryce pack up and leave, but she also came to ask for money.'

‘Not me!' whispered Edwina.

Ellie shook her head and continued. ‘No, not you. Mrs Pryce had sorted out and packed most of her things already: her clothes, favourite knick-knacks and books, all the personal items she was taking into her new life. She hadn't yet opened the safe, as she wanted to leave its valuable contents till last.

‘Because she had trouble with her knees and was finding it difficult to carry everything down the stairs, quite a few of her things were still on the landing when her visitor arrived. This person offered to help Mrs Pryce finish loading the car, which at that point was still in the garage. Her offer was accepted.

‘The visitor asked for money, and Mrs Pryce refused. They happened at that moment to be in Mrs Pryce's bedroom. There was an argument, and Mrs Pryce fell, hitting her head against the wall and staining the wallpaper. The visitor panicked, thinking she'd committed murder. She didn't dare ring for an ambulance. She was desperate for someone to help her decide what to do, so she used her mobile to phone her husband—'

Ears said, ‘Oh, she's got a husband, has she?'

‘He was working, had no car, but there was Mrs Pryce's car in the garage, all packed up and ready to go. The visitor seized Mrs Pryce's handbag in order to get at her car keys and drove off to collect her husband. Perhaps she was hoping he'd help her get the old lady to the hospital. Perhaps not. Do you follow so far?'

‘Not me, nothing to do with me,' moaned Edwina.

‘No, of course not,' said Ellie. ‘Mrs Pryce wasn't dead, anyway, was she? She came to after a while, got to the bathroom, washed the blood off her face, took off her diamond earrings and changed into a housecoat. If she'd only rung for the police . . . but she didn't. She was disorientated. She'd always loved the hand-painted wallpaper in her bedroom. It had been a gift from her dead husband, and she couldn't bear to see the blood on it. In her confused state, she set to work to clean it off . . . only to be interrupted some time later by another visitor, who had also come on foot, who also had a key and who was also after money.'

‘Edwina?' guessed Ears.

All eyes switched to Edwina, who give a stifled cry. ‘No, not me!'

‘Evangeline was pulling pints in a pub,' said Ellie, ‘So, yes; it had to be you.'

‘How dare you!' Shaking, Edwina pressed a handkerchief to her mouth.

Ellie continued, ‘You had the only other front door key; all the others were accounted for. I think you discovered the old lady wobbling around the landing. Perhaps there was another argument, perhaps Mrs Pryce missed her step and accidentally fell; either way, she ended up at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck.'

Edwina stifled a scream. ‘No argument. What you said; she missed her step and fell.'

‘Perhaps she did,' said Ellie, with compassion. ‘Either way, you panicked. You realized how badly it would look for you if you rang the police, because you believed you were due to inherit a fortune when your stepmother died. You fled home to phone your daughter for help. You don't drive, so it wasn't you who took the car.'

‘Not guilty, not guilty!' cried Edwina. ‘I'd no idea what happened to her, had I?'

‘That's true,' said Ellie. ‘You hadn't. While you went off in search of Evangeline, Mrs Pryce's first visitor arrived back in the car with her husband, whom she'd managed to winkle out of his place of work. Perhaps his shift had finished or perhaps he got someone else to cover for him. The police can check that. They found Mrs Pryce lying dead at the foot of the stairs.

‘More panic. How did she get there? The first visitor had left her at the top of the stairs, wearing different clothes and with a bleeding head wound. They wondered if she'd regained consciousness, only to fall down the stairs after all. Perhaps the husband shouted at his wife, accusing her of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

‘They feared the police would say it was no longer a case of assault, but of manslaughter or even murder. What to do? They dithered. It occurred to them to gain time by making it appear that Mrs Pryce had driven off to start a new life on the following day, as planned. To do this, they removed everything she'd left out for that one last night in her home: her jewellery boxes including her diamond drop earrings, her overnight case and toiletries, her make-up, alarm clock, bedside light, and all the other bits and pieces which might prove she'd spent her last night at home, including her briefcase, with all the paperwork in it, and her laptop.

‘By this time the car was piled high with Mrs Pryce's belongings, and there was no room for her body to go in as well, yet they couldn't leave any of her things behind or no one would believe she'd gone away under her own steam. They decided to stash the body somewhere until they could deal with it. While this first visitor had been piling everything into the car earlier in the evening, she'd noticed that by mistake the freezer had been left behind by the removers. That gave them an idea of how to delay discovery of the body. Between them they carried Mrs Pryce out through the kitchen and the yard, and put her in the freezer. They switched the power back on to keep the body fresh. In their haste they didn't realize they'd left a fold of her housecoat outside the freezer.

‘I don't suppose they gave a second thought to the safe. In any event, they hadn't the combination so couldn't have opened it even if they'd known exactly where it was. When they'd finished clearing away all traces of Mrs Pryce, they drove off in her car, or more probably, one drove and one walked home.'

‘Oh, the devils,' cried Edwina, pressing her handkerchief to her forehead. ‘If only we'd known where they'd put her!'

‘When Evangeline finished her shift at the pub she came back here with you, Edwina, prepared to deal with a dead body . . . which was nowhere to be found. All Mrs Pryce's things had gone, and so had the car. I suppose you concluded that she'd recovered consciousness and driven off in her own car. You must have thought she was so furious with you for causing her to fall that she wanted nothing more to do with you. So you weren't particularly surprised when she failed to make contact with you in due course. Did you think she was punishing you, by disappearing?'

‘Yes, I suppose so. Of course that's what happened.'

‘Unfortunately for you, it wasn't. Time passed and no news came. You became really worried. Bills were mounting up, you couldn't pay them, and you didn't know where Mrs Pryce had gone so you couldn't pass them on to her. It must have driven you mad, not knowing. And that is why you paid me that very odd visit, trying to push me into investigating Mrs Pryce's whereabouts.'

‘She wouldn't have let me starve!'

‘Starving wasn't an option. Perhaps you might have downsized and started buying your clothes in Primark instead of Harrods. That would have helped. But it isn't your style, is it? Let's get back to what really happened. The husband and wife had not only taken the car – a valuable car – but they had Mrs Pryce's laptop and business papers in her briefcase . . . not to mention all her personal effects.

‘To make it seem as if Mrs Pryce had driven off into the blue of her own accord, they accessed the paperwork on Mrs Pryce's laptop and in her briefcase. They left messages on the Hooper Agency's answerphone to the effect that she'd changed her mind, was leaving early, and would the agency please close up the house for her. They phoned the retirement home, to say Mrs Pryce had decided not to go there after all. And – to keep the secret safe – they told Hoopers to take the house off the market. If the house was never sold, no one need ever find out what had happened to Mrs Pryce.

‘I imagine they thought the freezer would keep the body frozen until they could get back to dispose of it. But when they did return, they found padlocks had been placed on all the doors, and they didn't dare remove them lest someone should notice and start asking questions.'

‘Fritz removed two,' said Ears.

‘He acted in all innocence, and he didn't touch the ones on the garage, which proves he didn't know his old employer was there.'

There was no need to mention how the electricity came to be turned on and off and on again. Protect Nirav and his runaway girlfriend if possible.

‘Who was this husband and wife team?' said Ears. ‘And why don't you think it was the window cleaner?'

‘Because it was a woman who phoned Mrs Pryce's excuses around, and I think if it had been the window cleaner, he'd have taken everything in sight that he could sell, but have left her body there – as he did after he killed Evangeline.

‘Now, I've heard someone who can imitate Mrs Pryce beautifully, and I know she was saving like mad for IVF treatment. You've probably never spoken to her. Known as Pet, she was one of the cleaners who worked for many years for Mrs Pryce. She had the keys to the house, as a member of the cleaning team, and only returned them to the office on the Monday after Mrs Pryce disappeared.

‘I think she and her husband put the car in a rented garage somewhere till they thought it would be safe to sell it. And waited, and waited. Nothing happened. They began to relax, and perhaps to dispose of some of the less easily recognizable items they'd stolen: the briefcase, the laptop, the clothing, the costume jewellery and the knick-knacks. Perhaps through car boot sales or second-hand clothes shops? That's how I would have done it.

‘The car and the good jewellery – including her diamond earrings and the rings she wore every day – were another matter. They'd stepped out of their comfort zone and didn't know how to dispose of these expensive items. They hadn't the contacts to get rid of diamonds or, for that matter, a top price car. The moment they tried to sell one of her diamond rings to a quality jeweller, say, they'd be asked to account for their possession of it. They might have taken some of the stuff to a backstreet pawnbroker and got a few hundreds here and there, but the police have circulated a description of the good items locally and there's been no news of them by now. I think the police may have to look further afield.

‘Mrs Pryce was not missed for some weeks until her great-nephew Terry needed money and started to stir things up. As soon as they heard about this, Pet and her husband cleaned the car out, ditched it at the airport, and took a holiday down to the Isle of Wight. Shortly afterwards they announced that they were giving up their council flat here in London. I expect you'll find they've started selling Mrs Pryce's jewellery down there.'

‘Right,' said Ears, breathing hard. ‘We'll get on to that. So what can I charge Edwina with?'

‘I think failing to report an accident is the only charge that will stick.'

‘Is that all?'

Edwina gave a silent shriek. ‘Isn't it enough that I've lost my daughter and have been made ill with anxiety all this time?'

‘I'm sure you were anxious,' said Ellie. ‘Your pot of gold has disappeared.'

‘Unkind!' said Edwina. ‘I really cared for Mummy, and I miss her terribly!'

Eyebrows were raised all round. Even her brother's went up.

‘I shall need this Pet person's full name and address,' said Ears.

‘I believe Mr Greenbody has her old address because Pet was mentioned in the will. Ironic, that.'

‘Correct, dear lady,' said Mr Greenbody. ‘Mrs Pryce was careful to give the current address of all her beneficiaries. Of course, this person might or might not have given a forwarding address when she left London, but I'm sure the police will be able to find her.'