Murder in Style (28 page)

‘Showing me up like that, in front of everyone!'

‘So you got Juno to yourself on the return from the crematorium by telling Clemmie to go in someone else's car—'

‘She didn't want to travel with me, any more than I wanted her around. She was happy to go with Ray.'

‘Um?' Ray, bleary-eyed. ‘Yeah, that's right. She came back with me. Trixie was with her agent and Gordon told Clemmie to come with me. Clemmie's all right, you know. Not a bad kid. Always been fond of her Nunky.'

Gordon laughed. ‘“Nunky!” indeed. If you think she cares about any of us …!'

‘Well, she does,' said Ray. ‘She said she was worried about me. Asked if I'd eaten anything that day, and should she get me something when we got home. Which I didn't want, but it showed willing. I don't believe she stole from the firm, either.'

Gordon laughed again. ‘So Clemmie's pulled the wool over your eyes, eh? I wasn't going to make a scene in public, but I could see Juno didn't even want to touch me at the funeral. So I got her on her own, and I told her I'd seen Clemmie going into The Magpie just before Poppy died. I said I didn't want to go to the police about it, unless she forced me to do so. She understood exactly what I meant. She was devastated.'

‘I'll bet she was. Especially since it wasn't exactly the truth, was it? You told Charles you'd seen Clemmie hammering on the door and ringing the bell, but you didn't say anything about Clemmie actually going inside because she didn't. Right?'

‘Near enough.' Gordon's face transformed into a grinning death's head. ‘I told my dear wife that she was going to have to change her ways in future. No more giving me the cold shoulder, and leaving me out of family discussions. I told her that when we got home, she was going to have to go down on her knees to me and beg me to take her back into my bed.'

So that was how it had been. Ellie sighed. ‘Juno had sacrificed a great deal to keep her marriage going, but once you had laid out your terms for the future, she could see it meant nothing but misery. Also, perhaps you hadn't noticed? She was unwell.'

Gordon frowned. ‘Nonsense. It was all in her mind.'

‘She looked ill to me,' said Ellie. ‘Celine thought so, too. After the reading of the will, Juno almost passed out. Clemmie and Celine were both worried about her. She was not only grieving for Poppy. But also, on the way over from the crematorium, she had received your ultimatum. That's when she decided to run away.'

Gordon waved his cane in triumph. ‘She'll be back this evening. She knows I'll fulfil my promise to go to the police tomorrow if she doesn't.'

‘Perhaps she's betting that you won't do it. Because once you've been to the police, you will have lost your power over Clemmie, and thus, over Juno. And now, I'll be on my way.'

Gordon smiled. Not nicely. ‘But you haven't had a drink yet, Mrs Interfering, Prying Old Woman. Charles, get her a drink. Make it a big one. No ice, no water.'

‘Thank you, but I really don't drink,' said Ellie.

‘I insist,' said Gordon. ‘I want to see you falling over drunk. I want to take piccies of you disgracing yourself in public. I shall put them on Facebook and send them to the newspapers. Everyone is going to see that the High and Mighty Mrs Quicke is nothing but a broken-down old sot. A drunk and a has-been.'

‘R
eally? You want to get her drunk?' Charles wasn't sure whether Gordon was joking or not.

‘Snap out of it, Charles!' said Gordon. ‘Give the lady a drink. After she's had one drink, she'll have another and then another till she's totally out of it, and she won't be so keen to pry into other people's lives then, will she? The way I see it, Charles, is that we can't let these women walk all over us. We've got to make an effort. We've got to show them what a man expects of his women, right?'

Charles grinned. He liked the sound of that. Though, if Ellie were any judge of the matter, Charles had never worn the trousers when he was married to Marge, and still less did he have the upper hand of his ex-wife now.

Ellie said, ‘My husband will be expecting me home any minute now, so—'

‘So what are you doing here, on a Sunday afternoon, when you should be looking after him, baking him buns for tea, ironing his shirts, making a proper home for him to return to after his day's work?'

‘Well, he's supposedly retired but he still fills in for—'

‘And he lets you go out, poking and prying into other people's lives? Shame on him. Isn't it shame on him, Charles?'

‘Yes, it is.' Charles was beginning to enjoy this. He fetched a tumbler from the kitchen and poured a hefty measure of whisky into it. ‘Would this be enough?'

‘For starters,' said Gordon, also enjoying himself.

Charles hesitated. ‘It seems a little extreme.'

‘Do it. You owe me! Women should understand their place,' said Gordon, reaching behind his chair for something, and producing a cane. ‘That's the problem with the world today. We're not educating girls to know their place. I think you need to go back to school, Mrs Quicke.'

Charles, uneasy, began to laugh. ‘Gordon, I'm not sure that—'

‘I'm sure. Very sure.' He whipped the cane up and down. Slash, slash. It cut the air.

Ellie shivered. ‘Did you use that on Clemmie?'

‘Of course. The only way to tame her.'

‘And on Juno?'

‘It was never necessary.' A silky tone. ‘I only had to threaten her little darling, for Juno to do whatever I wished.'

Ellie's phone rang in her handbag. ‘Excuse me,' she said, and rummaged for it. At the same time, the front door bell rang.

Charles dithered. ‘Shall I answer that?'

Gordon shouted. ‘Get that drink down her! Ignore her phone! I want to see her crawl around the floor, puking like a baby. Do it, I say!'

The phone went on ringing. Charles took a step towards Ellie and stopped. Indecisive.

Ellie tried to keep calm and carry on. Her hands shaking, she extracted her phone and pressed the right button. She hoped. ‘Mikey, is that you?'

Ray stirred, managed to get his eyes open. ‘Is that the front door? Or the phone? Whose phone is it?'

Charles said, ‘Look, Gordon, I don't think—'

‘You never did think. Give me that glass. I'll do it myself!'

It was Mikey on the phone. ‘Is this the right house? We're at the front door, ringing the bell, but nobody's answering. Are you there?'

We
are outside. Who was ‘
we
'?

Gordon dropped his cane and launched his wheelchair at Ellie, preventing her from rising by pushing his bony knees up against her legs.

Ellie raised her voice. ‘Yes, I'm here, Mikey. I'm being held against my will.'

‘Permission to break a window?'

‘Now!' Gordon wrested the phone from Ellie and tossed it to the floor. He was a lot stronger than he looked.

Ellie yelled, ‘Permission granted!' and hoped Mikey would hear it.

‘Give it here!' Gordon gestured to Charles to hand over the full glass of whisky, while keeping Ellie pinned to her seat with his wheelchair.

Ellie struck his hand away and might as well have tried to deflect an iron bar. His eyes were wide open, staring. A drop of saliva formed at the corner of his mouth. His hand cupped her chin, pushing her head back and back and …

Bang!

Ray started upright in his chair. ‘What was that!'

‘What the …!' Gordon swung round in his chair, spilling the whisky.

Crash,
crash!
BANG!

Tinkle of falling glass.

A draught blew into the room from a broken window, the one which overlooked the street.

Mikey was using one of the plant pots which stood outside the front door to smash glass out of the window. His head appeared in the centre of the hole he'd made. Tinkle, tinkle. ‘Hello there! Didn't you hear us ring the doorbell?'

Ellie managed to push Gordon's chair away from her long enough to stand. First things first. She scrambled to rescue her phone, shouting, ‘Thank you, Mikey. Good work!'

‘WHAT!' A shriek from Gordon. ‘What have you done?'

Mikey was grinning. ‘Rescuing a damsel in distress. You OK, Mrs Quicke? Thomas is working his way round to the back to let you out, but I wanted to be sure you were all right.'

Charles leaned back against the wall, and put his hands to his head. ‘Oh, my God!'

Ellie said, ‘Well, yes, Charles. You could do with some help from Him, couldn't you? Don't you think you ought to start thinking for yourself, instead of acting as enforcer for Gordon?'

‘WHAT!' Another shriek from Gordon. ‘You can't do this! Breaking and entering! Damaging property! Trespass! I'll have the Law on you! Charles, get me my phone. Ring the police!'

Charles slid down till he was sitting on the floor, legs stretched out before him. Charles was in shock. Charles was re-evaluating his position.

Ray had his phone out, staring at it. ‘This is Poppy's phone, isn't it? I'm not sure how to …!

‘Give it here!' Gordon snatched it from Ray, and fumbled with the settings. ‘I'm calling the police! How do I get—'

Thomas arrived from the kitchen, looking larger and more formidable than usual … and he was a big, burly man by nature. ‘Ellie? You all right? The back door was open.'

‘I'm fine, thank you,' said Ellie. ‘I suppose Mikey told you I was coming here. Did you bring the car? I really don't think I can ride on the back of Mikey's bike to get home.'

She was trembling, although she really didn't know why. Gordon was just a vain, stupid man who had tried to become a Big Time Villain, and been defeated by a teenaged boy and a pacifist in a dog collar. Although, to be fair, Thomas's beard did conceal the dog collar rather well.

‘What about the damage you've done!' Gordon, unable to find his way into Poppy's phone, flung it from him in a rage.

‘What about the damage
you've
done, Gordon?'

He was past listening to reason. ‘Tell Juno, remind her! If she's not back this evening, I'm going to the police tomorrow morning, to tell them Clemmie killed her aunt.' He meant it, too.

Thomas put his arm around Ellie and would have shepherded her to the front door, but she made him stop in front of Charles. She said, ‘Charles, why don't you come with us? Get in touch with Marge, talk it over with her.'

‘I …' He didn't meet her eye. There was a flush high on his cheeks. He was ashamed and confused. He didn't know what to do next.

‘Charles!' Gordon, screeching.

‘Let's go,' said Thomas, and guided Ellie out of the house.

She took a deep breath of fresh air. Oh, that was so good. That house – apart from the rotten food smells from the kitchen and the spilled whisky – stank of misery. She looked back at it, broken window and all. ‘I don't suppose Juno will ever return. Perhaps Marge will fetch her clothes and other belongings sometime.'

‘I had to park the car outside in the road, on a double yellow line. I hope we don't get a ticket.' Thomas was using his terse voice, the one which told her he was angry but holding on to his temper.

She pressed his arm. ‘Thank you. I was getting worried. Actually, I think you might have done more good in there than I did. So much distress, so many tangled relationships.'

He said, ‘Look, the sun is shining! It was so dark in that house. I could smell evil. I'm glad Mikey called me. Let's go home.'

Mikey was waiting for them at the kerb, licking at a tiny cut on one hand. ‘I'll ride back and be there before you. I think Susan's baking. I hope.'

‘Never on Sunday,' said Ellie, trying to make a joke. Trying to lighten the mood. Wondering what on earth she could do to stop Gordon going to the police.

Ellie updated Mikey and Thomas once they'd all got back. Neither had had anything to say about what had happened, except that it was a good thing she'd told them where she'd planned to be.

Home again. The house lay quiet about them. Susan had not been baking. She was probably having an afternoon nap, after having been out clubbing the night before. There was no message from Lesley on the landline; perhaps she'd gone to watch her fiancé play cricket, after all.

There was a message on the landline from Diana enquiring when Ellie would be able to take little Evan to the park. He'd been asking, she said. Diana didn't say anything about stopping the cheque she'd given Ray. Ellie hoped that meant it had been stopped.

The garden was looking bright in the sunshine. She stood in the window and thought that she ought to get out there and do some more titivating.

Thomas and Mikey had retired to the library-cum-study at the end of the corridor. No doubt they were on their computers.

‘I'm stuck,' thought Ellie. ‘Dear Lord, I'm stuck. What do you want me to do next?'

She waited, trying to make her mind go blank, to stop thinking, to receive instead of battering away asking for help. He couldn't get through to her if she was shouting at Him all the time.

She was worried about Charles. Gordon had a hold over Charles. Perhaps not just because Charles had been driving in the accident which had left Gordon in a wheelchair? Gordon was a past master at manipulation. He relied on his weakness to get other people to do what he wanted. And he was good at it. Oh, yes.

Charles was not a bad man. Or, not very bad. If Marge were being truthful – and Ellie rather thought she was – then he'd been the one whose adventures had caused Marge to divorce him. He'd broken the marriage. But, they were still talking to one another. Perhaps Marge could drag Charles out from under Gordon's shadow. Charles seemed to have a good reputation as an accountant. Gerald Cordover wouldn't have used him, otherwise.

Charles had had no reason whatever to kill Poppy.