The Spring Cleaning Murders (29 page)

“We’ll tell them little Rose has come to us for her holidays and leave it at that for the time being.”

“They’ll like having Mrs. Malloy here. I asked her to stay for a while, Ben, which has the added bonus of our being able to keep an eye on her.”

“You’re really worried about her, aren’t you, sweetheart?” Again he held me close.

“Put it down to lack of sleep.” I kissed the edge of his mouth. “I know I’m probably being irrational, but I’ll make sure she tells us everywhere she is going until these murders are solved. I promise to always keep someone apprised as to my whereabouts, too, darling.”

“And just where do you think you’re off to now, without so much as a backward glance?” he inquired as I retied the cord on my dressing gown and headed for the door.

“To have a bath, as it seems to be closing in on morning.”

When I returned to the kitchen, Mrs. Malloy stood resplendent in a bottle-green brocade dressing gown, heating up Rose’s bottle in a saucepan. But the holdall on the table was empty.

“You’ll have to change the wallpaper in that bedroom you put us in, Mrs. H., if you want us to stay more than a couple of nights.” She tested the heat of the formula on her wrist. “Blue’s a chilly color and that’s not good for the baby.”

“I’ll move you.”

“The wee mite’s had enough of being bounced around.” Mrs. Malloy’s heavily powdered jowls tightened. “No use you standing around like a bus with seats to fill, Mrs. H. Why don’t you make us a cup of tea while I go and give little Rose her bottle?”

“Could I do that?”

“I suppose.” She sized me up. “But what about the twins? Won’t they be down in a minute, wanting their breakfasts?”

“Ben’s getting them dressed and he’ll see to fixing them something.” My hand wasn’t completely steady as I took the bottle. “Where is Rose?”

“Jonas has her.” Mrs. Malloy’s face softened, a sure sign that she had been up most of the night. “He came in here a half hour since, and it was a treat the way his face lit up when he saw me holding her. I don’t remember nothing so gentle as the way that old man sat down and held that little scrap. So after a bit I got them into the study and left them cooing away together like they spoke the same language. Go and see for yourself if they aren’t a picture to hang on a wall.”

Mrs. Malloy was right. My heart turned over when I tiptoed into the study. Jonas wasn’t afraid to love this baby, even though it was next to impossible that he would live to see her grow up. And here I was, feeling my resistance mounting, as I looked down at her snuggled in the crook of his arm. It would be agony to give her up once the bond was formed.

“Vanessa’s daughter, and promising to be a beauty herself.” I set the bottle down on the table beside Jonas’s chair and studied the baby’s sweet face with its rose-petal cheeks. “Look at those eyelashes, and she’s going to have her mother’s tawny hair.” I almost said “Lucky little girl," but caught myself in time. She was anything but, and a wave of anger flowed over me. How could Vanessa have handed her child over to me like a windup toy? Was she completely without feeling? Did she think
I
was?

“I reckon you be wanting to hold her.” Jonas smiled, but his eyes were troubled. He knew me so well.

“In a minute.” I tried to speak lightly. “I’m enjoying watching the two of you together.”

“If I was a fairy godfather, do you know what I’d wish for her, Ellie girl?”

“Tell me.”

“That she’ll grow up to be loving and loved. That’s enough for anyone in my book.” The tenderness in his gruff old voice was for me as well as the baby, and I longed to drop down beside his chair and rest my head on his knees. I knew his gnarled hand would stroke my hair, but I didn’t feel I deserved to be comforted. For what? Being asked to take care of a dear, innocent baby while her mother was off slogging down the modeling ramp in Italy?

There wasn’t time for such nonsense. Rose stirred and began to mew.

“You give her this, Jonas.” I handed him the bottle. “I think I hear the twins out in the hall.” Opening the door, I beckoned to Ben, and he brought Abbey and Tam into the study. “Look, darlings”—took hold of their hands— “here’s your baby cousin. Her name is Rose, and her Mummy has asked us to look after her for a little while.”

“She looks like my doll,” whispered Abbey, tiptoeing away from me to lean over Jonas’s chair.

“What can she do?” Tam gravitated to his father’s side.

“Not too much at the moment,” said Ben.

“You mean she don’t sit up or crawl or nothing?” My son screwed up his nose. “Then what good is she? Let’s send her back, Daddy.”

Dropping down beside him, I stroked his silky dark hair, “But, darling, Rose needs us to look after her. Only think what fun you and Abbey will have teaching her how to splash in the bath and play with toys.”

“She don’t get my red lorry.” Tam had made his position clear. Knowing my little boy, I accepted that he had to be allowed to warm up to Rose at his own speed. Making things harder for him was the fact that his sister was enchanted with the miniature intruder.

“Careful, darling.” I moved up close to her. “Don’t jostle Jonas while he’s giving Rose her bottle.”

“She ain’t bothering us none.” Jonas came close to beaming. “Here, Abbey, do you want to help me hold the bottle?”

“Oh, yes!” Her eyes shone as she perched cautiously on the edge of the chair and reached out her hands. “Mummy, can’t we keep her? Please! It won’t be very ‘spensive; she can sleep in my bed and wear all my dresses.”

“Sweetheart, Mummy and I can’t make that promise,” Ben told her lovingly. “Let’s just enjoy little Rose while she’s here.”

“I wish her was a boy,” said Tam.

“A pity you ain’t interested in her.” Jonas looked around at him from under bushy eyebrows. “Babies make for lots of work, Tam Haskell. Could be you’re too busy to help out, but that’s a right shame, seeing as you already know so much from being on this earth three long years afore this little one come along.”

“I s’pose I could teach her stuff, like how to play trains.” Tam didn’t exactly throw resentment to the winds, but he did inch forward. “Can I hold the bottle next?”

“It take know-how,” said Jonas. “Not many people gets the knack right off.” Abbey solemnly agreed. And Ben and I waited to see Tam join Rose’s feeding team before slipping out into the hall.

Ben grimaced. “Ellie, I hate to do this, and it won’t become a habit. But I have to go down to Abigail’s. Freddy came up a few minutes ago to say that there are some details about payroll that need clearing up. I may be gone for a few hours.”

“Say no more.” I smiled into his eyes. “I promise to let you know if things aren’t absolutely perfect here. Now, doesn’t that set your gallant heart at ease?”

I don’t think it did completely, but I strove to remain cheerful. After watching him drive away, I returned to the kitchen to find Mrs. Malloy, now dressed in one of her black cocktail frocks, laying the table for breakfast.

“You must be exhausted,” I said.

“Speak for yourself, Mrs. H. You look like you’ve been round the world on a bicycle with two flat tires. Them bruises under your eyes do nothing for you, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I always go smudgy,” I protested, “even if I just stay up late. It’s you I’m worried about. It must have been awful finding out Rose isn’t your granddaughter.”

“Well, that’s life.” Mrs. M. turned her back to me and began splashing water around in the sink, rinsing out the saucepan she had used to heat the bottle. “I’ll just bloody have to get on with it, won’t I? Same as George. And talking about getting on with things, what’s the next step in the criminal investigation?”

Before I had time to reply, Jonas appeared with the baby in his arms, followed half a second later by Tam and Abbey.

“Mummy the baby needs her nappy changed.” My son informed me in the voice of a social worker not entirely happy with the care being provided in case number 342.

“And then can me and Jonas and Tam put her in the wheelbarrow and take her for a walk?” Abbey clasped her hands imploringly as she pranced around me.

“First things first.” I settled her at the table. “You and your brother have to eat your breakfast and—"

“I’ll go and change little Rose,” Mrs. Malloy took her from Jonas and hurried out into the hall.

“That be one precious baby.” Jonas took his seat, eyeing the plate of toast on the table with enthusiasm. Then he noticed Abigail Grantham’s green-covered notebook lying next to the milk jug. “A real trip down memory lane,” he said wistfully as he opened it up and began turning the pages, although he had read through it several times before. As I filled the children’s bowls and urged them to eat every spoonful of their porridge, he occasionally muttered a few lines aloud. And when I set his portion in front of him, he polished off the lot as he continued reading. He was even reaching absent-mindedly for a second slice of toast when Freddy breezed into the kitchen apologizing profusely for being late for breakfast.

“I do better with bacon and eggs, Ellie; I can smell them frying before they even go in the pan. Porridge is more difficult.” Freddy headed for the cooker and slopped some into a bowl with the wooden spoon. “I have to rely mostly on my psychic powers, which, while formidable, are not infallible.”

“Freddy”—Tam bounced towards him Pogo-stick fashion—”Mummy and Daddy got us a new baby.”

“Her’s called Rose.” Abbey slid off her chair, wiping her hands on her blue-and-white-check frock as she did so.

“My word, Ellie!” My cousin clutched the wooden spoon to his chest, getting porridge on his sweatshirt. “I knew you and Ben were fast workers, but this takes my breath away.”

“She’s Vanessa’s baby.” I busied myself clearing the table. “Mrs. Malloy brought her here last night. The idea is for Ben and me to keep Rose until Vanessa ...”

“Finds time to be a mother?” Freddy tossed the spoon in the sink.

“She had to go to Italy on a modeling job.” Brushing past him I deposited the dishes on the working surface.

“And when is our adored cousin coming back to collect her bundle of joy?”

“That’s up in the air.”

“What does George have to say about this arrangement?”

I dried my hands on a damp cloth. “Freddy, we’ll talk about all this later.”

“Okay.” He looked at the twins, then draped an arm around my shoulders. “Anything I can do to help, Ellie?”

“And I used to call you feckless Freddy!” Returning his hug, I blinked back silly tears and told him I would appreciate his fetching the cradle—the one I hadn’t been able to use for the twins—down from the attic.

When he did so in five minutes, I took it into the drawing room to give it a wipe-down. The carved hood was as practical as it was beautiful in that it would protect little Rose from drafts. And the walnut had a lovely sheen even without my polishing it, but somehow it seemed important to do so—a sort of ceremonial purifying. So I went and fetched a bottle of Abigail’s Homemade Furniture Cream and a couple of cloths. I also checked on Abbey and Tam, who were busy putting together a puzzle on the study floor while Jonas read in his chair. Mrs. Malloy was upstairs putting Rose down for her nap.

I was in the hall about to go back into the drawing room when the doorbell rang. Bunty Wiseman stood on the step. She blew inside like a breeze.

“Ellie, I love you, but do you always have to looks so disgustingly busy?” her eyes went to the bottle of polish and the cloths in my hands, while I tried to decide if she looked like a woman about to be arrested for murder.

“Forget the compliments,” I said. “Tell me how you are.”

“In what respect?” Twitching her skirts, Bunty sashayed past me into the drawing room. “My love life? My ability to pay my bills on time? Or are you speaking about the little matter that had me so tweaked the other day?” Truly Bunty at her most exasperating. But I had to forgive her giddy behaviour. She was living on her nerves. And who could blame her? The police had questioned her again. And, understandably, she was unable to take much consolation from their impartiality in appearing equally interested in Joe Tollings and his wife.

“Are you scared, Bunty?” I put the polish and cloths down beside the cradle.

“Who, me?” She dropped into one of the Queen Anne chairs, adjusting a cushion behind her blonde head and crossing her shapely legs. “You should know me! I never do things halfway, Ellie! What I am is frigging terrified! But that hasn’t stopped me from doing what you asked.”

For a moment I wondered what she was talking about.

“Checking out the newcomers,” she told me.

“That’s right, I did ask you to do that.”

“It was a labor of love.” She continued to sparkle. “Anything to help put someone other than my precious self behind bars. And I found out some interesting tidbits from the gabby-mouthed employees of the real estate firms that handled the sale of the former residences of Clarice Whitcombe, Tom Tingle, and the Miller sisters.”

“Let me get you a glass of sherry.” I promptly did so and decided on having one myself.

“First, Clarice Whitcombe.” Bunty spoke between sips. “The word on her is there was a lot of gossip when her parents died in a double suicide from overdosing on sleeping tablets. You know the idea, Ellie, repressed middle-aged daughter gets fed up with looking after Mummy and Daddy and decides to bump them off so she can finally be free to spend their money and kick up her heels. But if that’s true, she seems to have got away with it. According to the verdict, the parents committed suicide while the balance of their minds was disturbed. The woman I spoke to said it was rubbish to think anything else. She liked Clarice and was convinced she was just the butt of gossip in a place where nothing had happened for decades on end.”

“What else?” I asked Bunty.

“That’s all on Clarice. Shall we progress to Tom Tingle?” My friend’s eyes peeked impishly at me over the rim of her sherry glass. “He was definitely party to a death.”

“He told me that he accidentally struck his headmaster with a cricket ball, but he didn’t say the man died. And he was only a boy at the time.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about—but it does sound as though the man was cursed with an unfortunate knack for causing accidents.” Bunty straightened her face. “A woman in the firm that sold his London flat told me that Tom was taking a walk one afternoon. He spotted an acquaintance on the other side of the street and shouted out a greeting. The other man stepped incautiously out into traffic, looking to see who was hailing him, and promptly got plowed under by a lorry.”