Murder in House (14 page)

Diana jolted upright. ‘You? Don't be stupid! You've never laid a finger on me.'

‘A mistake. Your father and I believed sweet reason would prevail, but—'

‘I could always wind him round my little finger.' Diana shrugged. ‘Oh well, if I promise to leave poor ickle Thomas alone in future, you'll help me out, right?'

‘You're going too fast. Suppose you fill me in on what's been happening.'

‘Well,' Diana leaned forward, tears forgotten, ‘Denis and I have been an item off and on ever since we started the agency, which is not to say that we didn't both of us look elsewhere from time to time. Oh, don't look so shocked, his wife hasn't been interested in him forever.'

‘Remind me how many children they have? Three or four?'

Diana frowned. ‘They're part of the problem. Their school fees are horrendous. Denis raised a mortgage on their house to start the agency, but what with everything falling apart in the housing market, and his wife throwing him out, we're in real trouble financially. The agency is all we've got left. Somehow or other we've got to keep it going until things improve.'

‘Do you suppose Denis will ever marry you?'

Diana shrugged again. ‘I don't care about marriage. I'm not defined by a wedding ring.' Did she mean that Ellie was? ‘Anyway, Denis said that if we keep our heads and maximize our assets, we'll be all right.'

‘By which he meant moving into your flat instead of buying one for himself when his wife threw him out? By which he meant taking over and letting out the house that I was giving you to live in?'

‘Well, you don't need the income from your old house, and we do. I know that I can always rely on you to keep me off the streets, even if you don't always like the way I behave.'

‘No, I don't like the way you behave, and no, I'm not giving you an easy way out. You've intentionally made yourself homeless, and I've changed my mind about handing over my old house to you. As you say, the housing market has taken a dive, and my income has been reduced. So if you're not going to live in it, I must maximize my assets and let it out myself.'

‘What!' For the first time a shade of uneasiness crossed Diana's face. ‘You don't mean it. You're just trying to frighten me. All right. I'm sorry if I took you for granted, but I'm desperate for somewhere else to live, and you are my only hope . . . as if you didn't know it. You really shouldn't try to play hard to get. People will think you're more interested in money than in your own family.'

Family? Thomas was more her family than Diana had ever been. Ellie remembered how Diana had rubbed herself up against Thomas and the thought drove her to her feet, itching to send Diana flying into orbit around the world. ‘You can't expect me to let you stay after what you tried to do to Thomas. I don't know where you're going to sleep tonight, and I don't care. So long as it's not here.'

‘What?' Diana couldn't believe what she was hearing. ‘Mother, you can't be serious. I'm relying on you.'

‘Just go, will you?'

Diana looked undecided. She jiggled her lips, frowned, unable to comprehend her mother's unexpected defiance. ‘You can't turn me out. Where would I go?'

‘Go back to your flat. Tell Denis to make it up with his wife. If he takes his boys out of private school, he could save himself a fortune.'

‘He thought of that, but he had to sign up for a year and . . . no, I'm not going back to the flat. It's too small, too cramped. I outgrew it ages ago. I need—'

‘You need a dose of reality, my girl, and that's what you're about to get. Sleep in your car, if you wish, but not on my doorstep.' Ellie marched out to the hall where she seemed to remember Diana had left her coat, briefcase and handbag in a pile. Yes, there they all were. Ellie opened Diana's handbag, sought for, found and removed Rose's keys.

Diana hovered in the doorway, frowning and then smiling. ‘Mother, you can't do this. I'm not going to let you—'

Ellie drew back the bolts on the front door, used Rose's keys to open it, and flung it wide. The chilliest of winds rushed into the hall, and someone exclaimed something about the draught. Thomas, coming out of the kitchen with a tray in his hands? Ellie, still on a high, picked up Diana's belongings and threw them out into the drive.

Diana screamed, high and thin, and went after them. ‘What on earth do you think you're doing?'

Ellie slammed the door behind Diana, and drove the bolts home. She dusted her hands off, one against the other, and said, ‘Ha!'

Thomas laughed. ‘Would madam have time for some food now?'

Ellie was too angry, too tired, to be reasonable. The fact that he was offering her some food on a tray was, in some way she couldn't explain, an insult. Food? In this crisis? No way.

She snatched the tray from him and threw it with all her strength across the hall. Soup splashed richly across the panelling. Sandwiches flew across the floor. Plates broke. Cutlery scattered.

She screamed, as loudly as she could. ‘Aargh!'

EIGHT

S
ilence assailed her ears. She could almost feel the astonishment of the big house, which had never, in all its hundred years of existence, been subjected to anyone screaming in that unladylike way.

And Thomas? Undoubtedly he would be shocked by her behaviour, so she didn't look at him. She turned on her heel, pounded up the polished wooden staircase and went straight into their bedroom, slamming the door behind her. If he dared to follow her, she'd . . . she didn't know what she'd do, but he'd better not!

She threw herself on the bed and told herself it would do no good at all to cry as it would only give her a headache and then she'd be fit for nothing, and someone was going to have to clean up that mess in the hall, and she'd upset Thomas, too, and she didn't care! Not she! They could all go to . . . wherever. So long as she didn't have to see them or talk to them or . . . well, not tonight, anyhow.

She sobbed a little, pressing her face into her pillow. She was not going to allow herself to cry. Certainly not.

She reached for a box of tissues and blew her nose. Her throat was dry and sore. It would serve everyone right if her cold turned to pneumonia. Perhaps she really was sickening for something serious. Well, that would teach them all not to count on her to pick them up every time they fell over and hurt themselves.

It was getting dark. She didn't bother to get off the bed to draw the curtains. Too much effort.

She pulled the duvet over her, fully dressed as she was, and sighed. Let the world go hang.

She woke when one of the bedside lights was switched on.

Whatever time was it?

And oh . . . how appallingly badly she'd behaved. She'd had a full-scale tantrum, how awful! She felt as if she'd been run over by an express train. Her head ached, and her eyes were puffy and she was, astonishingly, hungry.

She tried to sit up, and failed. She felt hot and sticky and horrible. And she needed to go to the loo.

Thomas was bending over her, looking anxious. She avoided his eyes, reached for a hankie, couldn't find one, connected with a box of tissues, blew her nose and sat upright. More or less.

‘I'm sorry,' she said. And then, ‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm all right if you're all right.' He wasn't smiling, either. There was another tray of food on a table in the window. He'd put it far enough away so that she couldn't hurl it across the room. Oh dear. How awful of her to behave so badly, to make so much trouble for everyone else. But how satisfying it had been to throw Diana out! Ha!

Thomas drew the curtains against the night and then stood watching her, stroking his beard. ‘Light of my life! Whatever will you do next? Am I allowed to kiss you now? You look like a white owl, all big eyes and ruffled feathers.'

She tried to laugh and almost made it. ‘I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I don't know what came over me.'

‘Flu, followed by too much pressure from everyone – including me – leading to an extreme reaction which I, for one, fully endorse.'

She got off the bed. ‘But how awful of me, to throw out my only daughter.' Her mouth curled into a grin. ‘I actually did it, didn't I? But I feel so guilty, having all these rooms in this big house and I could easily have said she could stay. Except that I didn't want her to because it would mean an end to our peace and quiet, and of course that's a bad reason. But no, she went too far.'

He knew what she meant. ‘Yes, she did. And no, I didn't handle it too well. It's not as if I haven't had experience of women coming on to me. Pop stars and the clergy often get it, and I suppose it means as little to the pop stars as to the clergy. The pop stars can often get a minder to prise the groupie off their back, but a clergyman can't risk manhandling a woman, so we usually send an experienced woman to deal with the problem. Which you did, very neatly.'

She tried to smile. Not a great effort. ‘I feel all hot and sticky. I think I'll have a shower. It might improve my temper.'

‘I didn't know you had a temper.' He didn't seem to mind. ‘It's good to know there are limits to what you'll put up with.'

‘Actions speak louder than words?'

As she came out of the shower she heard the landline ring and Thomas laughing. She shrugged herself into her white towelling robe – another present from Thomas – and joined him, murmuring, ‘Who is it?'

‘Stewart,' he said, and into the phone, ‘I'll hand you over to her now, but before I do so, tell me, how did Maria react? Ellie broke two plates!'

‘What?' Ellie snatched the phone from him. ‘Stewart? What . . .?'

Stewart was laughing. ‘I was just telling Thomas. You won't believe this! Diana turned up here half an hour ago, hung herself round my neck and demanded that I supply her with bed and board. So I yelled for Maria, who was more than equal to the occasion.'

‘What? How did she . . .?'

‘Maria said that Diana might doss down on the settee in the sitting room tonight if she'd take over the day nanny's job tomorrow, but Diana should be warned that the baby's got diarrhoea and will need her nappy changing every half hour. Diana was so incensed that she upped sticks and drove off, fuming.'

Ellie was enchanted. ‘And did Maria break anything afterwards?'

‘She tidied the room ruthlessly, and then – er – well, she dragged me upstairs, not that I needed much dragging and . . . what a woman! She's making a late night snack for us now, so I'll cut this short. I thought you'd like to know the latest.'

Laughing, Ellie put the phone down. And then blenched. ‘Rose. She was upset! I must go to her at once. How could I have forgotten—'

‘Rose is fine, tucked up in bed downstairs with a sandwich, watching telly, thrilled that you threw Diana out. The cleaners finished turning out my new quiet room and have gone for the day. I cleared up the mess in the hall, so you don't have to worry about that, either. When did you eat last? I put up some more sandwiches, and there's soup in the Thermos.'