Murder With Mercy (15 page)

‘Excuse me,' said Ellie, and went to the door to look out into the hall. There was no sign of Mikey but there were plenty of doors nearby behind which he could hide, including the dining room, the cloakroom and the big junk cupboard in the hall.

The door to the kitchen quarters was open, as usual. Ellie could hear Rose's telly from where she stood … also, the washing machine swishing away. Well, at least that was working properly now. She hoped.

She returned to the sitting room, shutting the door carefully behind her. ‘How long do you think we've got before they come asking questions?'

A shrug. ‘A couple of days? Normally, it would take longer, but the pressure's on. Your solicitor can advise you.'

‘I'll get him on to it. Meanwhile, let's see what Hugh can discover. Will you give us warning of any visitation?'

‘I will if I can but I may not hear. I'm not in the loop on that one.' Lesley got to her feet, brushing herself down. ‘You didn't by any chance have an opportunity to look into the untimely deaths we spoke about?'

Ellie tried to put Mikey out of her mind. ‘Um, that girl Petra came to see me. I think she imagined I'd give her a job at the hotel just like that, but she isn't qualified for anything she wants to do and she isn't interested in training for it. To tell the truth, I wasn't impressed, though I must admit she did make me feel uneasy about Auntie's death.'

‘Oh, her. Well, she's out of it for the moment, anyway. Tumbled down some stairs outside her flat and wasn't found for a few hours. Concussion and a badly sprained ankle. They're keeping her in hospital overnight and then sending her home. She's way off her rocker, in my opinion. You won't believe this, but she rang the police from her hospital bed, wanting us to charge her cousin with causing her to fall down the stairs.'

‘Really? And had she?'

‘Of course not. Ears told me to check her out, so I went to the hospital and took her statement. Then I went to call on the cousin, which was a nice waste of my time, as she had a solid alibi for the whole day, out shopping with a friend who's getting married. Social Services have taken Petra's boy into care until she can cope again.'

‘Really? How come she laid it at her cousin's door, apart from the fact that she thinks the cousin is the Wicked Witch of the North and responsible for everything from global warning to the milk going off?'

A shrug. ‘She says her cousin was lying in wait for her on her return from the shops, and that she'd booby-trapped the stairs with her child's scooter, causing her to lose her balance and crash down the stairs. Sheer clumsiness, if you ask me.'

Ellie said, ‘Petra told me she had a live-in boyfriend, but I must admit he didn't sound the type to step in and take care of her or the boy.' Ellie allowed herself a flicker of amusement. ‘Two single parent families in trouble. Petra's child is taken into care, and Vera's is threatened with the same fate. If I know anything about Petra, she'd be bound to say there's one law for the rich and another for the poor. I can afford to fight for Mikey – who has certainly strayed from the straight and narrow – while Petra's boy has done nothing wrong as far as I know, and his life is going to be at the mercy of officialdom for months to come.'

‘Yours may be, too,' warned Lesley. ‘Once they think a boy is at risk—'

‘Understood.'

‘You didn't hear of any other doubtful deaths?'

Ellie hesitated. ‘Yes, I did, but I can't see what good it would do to dig up someone who took an overdose when she was facing a recurrence of cancer. Oh, I don't mean that you ought, physically, to dig someone up. That was a figure of speech. Best let sleeping dogs lie.' She laughed at herself. ‘There I go again, misusing words.'

‘You must tell me if you've heard of anything suspicious. What about the elderly woman who lived in a house overlooking the park?'

‘Nothing there. The only death I've heard about is … You know, I can't see what earthly good it would do to tell you about it. It would only cause a great deal of distress to the family, who are already deep in grief.'

‘I can't afford to overlook anything. You must let me be the judge of what is or is not important.'

Ellie held her gaze. ‘If your mother was dying a painful death, and she asked you to fetch her some strong sleeping pills from the chemist, would you do so?'

‘That's not the point.'

‘Yes, it is. If Petra's aunt and this other woman that I've heard about, if they committed suicide, surely there's nothing you can do about it?'

‘If she was helped to commit suicide …?'

‘Did someone put a gun to their heads? Or hold pillows over their faces? No. The most you can say is that someone, when asked to do so, provided them with extra pills. No one is saying that the women who committed suicide were forced to take them, were they?'

‘They might have taken them by mistake, thinking them to be harmless.'

‘I grant you that would be murder.'

Lesley grimaced. ‘Murder with mercy? Names, Ellie. Please.'

‘I'll think about it and let you know.'

Once she'd seen Lesley off the premises, Ellie searched for Mikey. He was not in the kitchen, but the washing machine was doing what it ought to, and Rose was happily peeling potatoes for the night's meal. Wait a minute, weren't they having a lasagne? With
potatoes
?

Oh well. There'd be some frozen green vegetables in the freezer, and they could easily be cooked at the last minute. And for pudding? They'd have cheese or fruit and lump it. Or maybe ice cream.

Mikey wasn't in Rose's bed-sitting room and neither – she checked – was his sleeping bag. He wasn't in Thomas's quiet room, nor in his study at the end of the corridor. He wasn't anywhere on the ground floor.

Ah. She knew where he'd be. Upstairs in bed with his mother, which would ensure he couldn't be questioned. Yes, there he was. Asleep. Or pretending to be asleep. In his own sleeping bag, on top of his mother's bed.

Vera was still in the grip of flu. She opened bleary eyes, tried to smile at Ellie and made as if to get up … and fell back with a grimace, hand to head.

‘Don't worry about anything,' said Ellie. ‘Is it time for you to take some more painkillers? And I'll bring you up another jug of lemonade. You concentrate on getting well again.'

Mikey slept through it all.

Well, he didn't open his eyes, even when Ellie laid her hand on his forehead. She thought he was warm but not feverish. She stood over him, wondering what was best to do. He was an imp and an angel and deserved a good telling off, but she suspected he was going to run rings round her if she tried. Perhaps Thomas would have more luck when he returned from setting the world to rights.

She went downstairs to make some more lemonade and carried it back up to the top of the house for Vera. Neither Mikey nor his mother seemed to have moved while she was away. Midge the cat was now sitting in a sort of hollow between mother and son. Oh well.

So many trips up and down the stairs. It would have been easier if Vera and Mikey had been put to bed in the guest rooms at the end of the first floor corridor, but Ellie hadn't anticipated the problems of having to look after people in the attic, had she?

The landline phone was ringing as Ellie reached the hall, and she sank on to the hall chair to take the call.

‘Hugh here. I know it's a bit late, but would you like to come over to the site? The men are working overtime to catch up so they're still around.'

He wasn't asking a question, but issuing a summons. Ellie winced, hearing rain beat against the front of the house. Hadn't she done enough for one day? Rose needed help in the kitchen, or who knew what would be on the table for supper? Mikey needed watching twenty-four seven, and Thomas would be home soon, needing the consolations of the fireside. Plus it was still raining.

She held back a sigh. ‘I'll get a cab and be with you in fifteen minutes.' If she could find her old mac, and perhaps some strong boots? Where had she left her umbrella?

Dusk had fallen with a heavy hand. Street lights hardly alleviated the gloom. Traffic swished through the rain, gutters overflowed. Tempers didn't just fray, they disintegrated.

The site was not looking its best under these conditions, but security lights illuminated the scene to some extent. Ellie followed a lorry through the gap in the fencing which protected the site from vandals and petty theft. The forecourt was waterlogged, with piles of unidentifiable but no doubt essential components stacked around. Men in hard hats scampered here and there, shouting incomprehensible directions to one another. Polish? Ah, but there was an Indian, a Sikh by his turban … which headgear was now sensibly covered with a blue bath cap.

Hugh's site office was in what had once been the mansion's garage. The strip lights in there were so bright that they made her blink. Hugh himself was on the phone, but brought the conversation to a close when he spotted Ellie. No smiles today.

‘Like to visit the scene of the crime?'

Ellie couldn't think of anything she'd like less, but she nodded and followed him across the covered courtyard – in the process of being reglazed – and into what had once been the kitchen quarters of the old house and had been transformed into communal sitting rooms for the guests who would soon grace the premises. The kitchens themselves, plus the laundry and maintenance rooms, were all now to be found in the basement. Painters and decorators were everywhere. So many, in fact, that it seemed they would be falling over one another in their haste to get the job done. Where the painters had finished, carpets were being laid. Where the carpets were down, curtains and blinds were being fitted and furniture unpacked.

The lift was not working, so Hugh led the way up the grand staircase to the first floor … and then to the second … and on to the top floor with its pretty dormer windows … one of which overlooked Ellie's own garden in the next road. Hugh paused to let Ellie catch him up on the top landing. She was breathing heavily by the time she reached his side. Too many stairs to climb in one day. All right, she knew she ought to do something about her weight, but really …!

Through open doors she could see electricians attending to light and power fittings in a number of newly furnished bedrooms, while their en suites next door were being cleaned by a couple of heavily muscled young women in skimpy vests and jeans. Polish cleaners?

The landing was littered with boxes of tiles and discarded cardboard. Mirrors, bathroom cabinets, light fittings and glass shelves stood around, partially unpacked. Through a newly decorated bedroom they went into a small en suite beyond. Bath, washbasin, toilet, bidet and heated towel rails had already been plumbed in, but the walls were only now being tiled, the floor hadn't yet been dealt with and the cladding for the bath leaned against the wall.

A burly man in his early sixties, wearing a peaked cap instead of the regulation hard hat, was rapidly and efficiently tiling the walls over the bath. He was being assisted by a gormless-looking younger man with a prominent Adam's apple and a sniff, whose only function appeared to be handing over materials to the man actually doing the work. The younger man's jeans were worn so low that Ellie wondered how on earth they were kept up. Both workmen suspended operations when Ellie and Hugh stepped through the doorway.

‘Mrs Quicke, this is Preston and his apprentice, Dave,' said Hugh. ‘Preston's already told me what happened yesterday, but I said you'd like to hear it yourself.'

‘All these interruptions. I'm falling behind,' said Preston in a toneless voice which grated. The voice of one severely deaf? Ah, yes. He wore hearing aids in both ears. He might be working on a bathroom but he himself didn't look all that clean.

Sniff, went his assistant.

‘If you please,' said Hugh, in a mild tone which nevertheless brooked no argument.

‘What?' said Preston.

Hugh repeated himself, in a loud, clear tone.

Preston turned on Dave. ‘You carry on. I'm watching you, mind!' He addressed a point above Ellie's shoulder. ‘I can't see what good this will do. We caught him red-handed, using a wrench to loosen that nut down there.' He gestured to a fitment on the wall under the bath. ‘If he'd not been stopped, he'd have flooded the place. I shouted. He shot out of the door and took a tumble down the stairs. I never laid a finger on him. He's a liar if he says I did.'

Sniff. ‘That's the truth, innit!' echoed the gormless-looking assistant.

Ellie measured distances with her eye. She hadn't realized there were two people involved. But, if there were, then it was easier to see how Mikey sustained his various injuries. She told herself to tread carefully.

She said, ‘Do you two always work together?'

‘What?'

She repeated the question, a little louder.

Preston nodded. ‘My nephew. I'm learning him the trade.'

Ah. Hugh had once mentioned that there were some family members on the workforce, which made it necessary to use tact if he had to deal with minor infractions of rules.

‘You travel together to work?'

‘What?'

She repeated the question, louder and enunciating clearly.

‘He lives next door but one. Some days I gives him a lift, some days he comes on his own. Yesterday he come in with me.'

‘So you arrived together. You came up the stairs together?'

He leaned towards her, frowning. Had he understood? Yes, for he nodded. ‘We come up together.'

‘You'd been working in here the day before?'

‘What?'

Sniff.

Ellie redirected the question to the gormless Dave, who said, ‘We finished tiling next door, see, then started in here. But there weren't enough tiles. Behindhand, we were.'

Preston grinned, catching on. ‘And you not helping, holding us up.' Still that monotone.