Murder in House (26 page)

‘I expect that, as I'm younger than you, I shall recover more quickly.'

Mrs Belton bridled. ‘I understand you were only attacked by one man, whereas I had two assaulting me.'

‘Mine was something of a gorilla—'

‘One of mine moved like an eel—'

‘Ladies,' said Thomas, ‘could you manage a trifle more food?'

Both declined.

Ellie was puzzled. She'd thought both women had been attacked by the same man, but there seemed to be a discrepancy here. ‘Diana, Stewart said your man was as tall as him and well built, probably in his late twenties. Well dressed.'

Diana nodded. ‘And strong.'

‘Mine were strong, too,' said Mrs Belton, not willing to be outdone. ‘The one who clasped me from behind, I shudder just to think about it. His breath stank. I don't know when he visited the dentist last. I can still feel his greasy leather jacket across my throat. I shall have nightmares, I know I will.'

‘Leather jacket?' said Diana. ‘Mine was wearing . . . oh, I don't know. A good quality suit, I think. Definitely not leather. But his mask . . .' She pushed her plate away. ‘Ugh. A wolf's head with a horrible sort of mane.'

‘A skeleton,' insisted Mrs Belton, ‘and a Dracula's head. As if I could forget!'

Ellie collected dirty plates and put them into the dishwasher, while Thomas dished up apple crumble and got some cream out of the fridge. As Ellie returned to her seat, she took a good look at the two women, sitting side by side. Mrs Belton's face bore the most damage on her right side. Diana's on her left.

Ellie asked Diana, ‘Was your man left-handed?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Mine was,' said Mrs Belton. ‘I don't know about the man who held me from behind, but the man who hit me was definitely left-handed. Odd how much one remembers, isn't it? Oh, dear –' with a hand to the side of her face – ‘I have a horrid feeling that he's jolted one of my crowns loose.'

Diana arched her eyebrows. ‘I'm happy to say that my teeth are all my own.'

‘Give it time,' said Mrs Belton, grimly.

Ellie avoided Thomas's eye, lest she laugh out loud. What a duel! Who'd have thought Diana could be bested by words. She remembered something she'd meant to do earlier. ‘Diana, you'd better use the landline here to phone Denis; warn him that he might get a visit at your flat.'

‘I don't need advice from you,' said Diana, causing everyone else in the room to grit their teeth.

Mrs Belton waved away the offer of a pudding. ‘I really must speak to my daughter. I expected her to be here long before now. You have children, Ms Quicke?'

‘A son. Too young to help.'

‘I'm more fortunate than you, there. My daughter is always ready to help.'

Before Diana could have a fit, Ellie ushered Mrs Belton out of the kitchen. ‘I'll show you where there's a phone you can use in private. Press the Redial button and you'll get through to her.'

Ellie left Mrs Belton and returned to the kitchen, where Thomas was clearing the table. There was no sign of Diana.

Thomas said, ‘Diana wants some coffee taken up to her room. I agreed, to keep the peace. I checked on Rose, and she's OK. What did you make of the two women's stories?'

‘I don't understand. I thought there was just one attacker, and that he was Anthony Prior, but there seem to be three. Do you agree?'

‘Diana's attacker is different from the other two. Mrs Belton's assailants were probably younger, from the way she says they moved. One moved like an eel, remember? Of her two, one was left-handed and the other had bad breath and wore a leather jacket. But, they all wore masks.'

‘Masks are the trademark of the youngsters who've been creating mayhem locally – supposedly a teenage gang. Now where did I get that idea from? Not sure it's even right – but Anthony Prior isn't a yob, is he? I'm bewildered. I thought the attacks were all tied up with someone looking for Mia, and now I don't know what's going on.'

‘I think you're right, and they are.'

‘I wish I knew what to do next; apart from getting rid of Diana, that is.'

‘My love.' He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Your instincts are infallible. How do you propose to do it?'

She couldn't help grinning. ‘I'm rather hoping that Anthony – or whoever it is in the wolf mask – is about to pay Denis a visit. With any luck, our most unfavourite estate agent will end up in hospital, and Diana can get her flat back.'

‘What a reprehensible thought,' said Thomas. ‘Thoroughly endorsed, on my part. Now, will you take coffee up to Diana, or shall I?'

Mrs Belton was on the phone to Ursula for some time, but Ellie refused to fret about her phone bill. This was an emergency, and in an emergency you broke all the usual rules about not spending time on phone calls to mobiles – especially when the mobile was still in her name.

Midge the cat came down from the top of one of the bookcases, but was restless, declined to sit on Ellie's lap. He disliked Diana, could smell that she was in the house, and refused to settle. Ellie and Thomas turned on the television, but couldn't concentrate, either.

Eventually Mrs Belton came in, looking worn out. No wonder, thought Ellie; the woman spent last night in hospital. She needs painkillers and an early night.

‘Thank you for the use of your phone. My daughter and I had a good chat. She wants me to go and stay with a friend for a while. She thinks it will do me good to get away and my friend's delighted to have me. I'll phone the office tomorrow and tell them what's happened.'

‘An excellent idea,' said Ellie.

‘As for the mess at the flat –' Mrs Belton shrugged – ‘my insurance policy is New for Old, and I'm looking forward to replacing everything with new furniture. I could do with some new clothes, too, and I can get them in the sales. As for my laptop, I can now get a brand new one. As Ursula says, it's an ill wind.'

‘Indeed it is,' said Ellie, thinking that Ursula knew exactly how to present the situation to her mother. Good for Ursula.

‘There are one or two things I shall miss. My Bristol glass, for instance. And Ursula's art. But she says there are lots of antique shops where I'm going, and I can have all the fun of hunting for something nice there.'

‘Excellent idea,' Thomas agreed.

‘The only thing is,' said Mrs Belton, ‘Ursula would like to talk to you, Mrs Quicke. She says she has something to tell you. She wants us to meet up at Waterloo Station tomorrow morning for a coffee. I must say I can't see the point of it, but she insists on coming up to meet me.'

‘That's a good idea,' said Ellie. ‘She's making sure you are properly looked after all the way. I'll take you to Waterloo by minicab, and we can all have a coffee together before you go wherever it is you're going. It's best if you don't tell me where that is, right?'

‘That's what Ursula said too. I'll leave you the keys to the flat so that you can let the insurance people in, if you will. I'll ring Ursula every night from my friend's house, so you can always get a message to me if anything comes up, but you don't need to take me to the station. I'll take the bus and the tube.'

‘We won't hear of it. Much too tiring for you. Besides, I'd like a word with Ursula myself.'

The phone rang at Thomas's side. He listened to the excited voice at the other end, laughed, and passed the receiver over to Ellie. As she identified her caller, Thomas urged Mrs Belton out of the room, saying he'd get a hot drink for her to go to bed on.

It was Armand. ‘Hey, there! We've just had a visit from some dude who thinks he's James Bond and guess what, his nose bleeds just like everyone else's.'

‘Calm down, Armand. Was it Anthony Prior?'

‘Dunno his name. Tall, well-set-up guy in a good suit. Good-looking in a macho sort of way, but if he were a boy in my class at school, I'd suspect him of bullying. Used to getting his own way. Very pressing to know your whereabouts. I'd got my friend the rugby player here for supper and he'd brought a six pack and well, you know how it is, I don't usually, but when the cat's away—'

‘Kate and the children are safe?'

‘She rang me this evening. She's fine. The babe's teething and she's worried about me, but she needn't have been, eh?'

‘Your visitor knew we were friends?'

‘He wanted your address and I shook my head, all sorrowful, and said yes, we used to be really good friends, but you'd gone all upmarket when you moved away and didn't want to know us now. He saw the kids' toys and said maybe my wife knew where you were, and I said we'd had a bit of a disagreement and she'd gone back to her mother's in Liverpool for a bit. I said I didn't really care if she came back or not.' He belched. ‘Do you think I'll get detention for telling lies?'

Ellie tried to sound censorious. ‘Armand, I never asked you to lie for me.'

‘It was fun, though. It nearly worked too. Only my stupid mate had to give the game away by laughing. That's when my laddo tried to barge past me into the house, to see for himself who might be lurking within, so I popped one over his guard and caught him on the nose. Splat! Amazing how much blood can spray out of one nose. Some got on the wallpaper. Kate'll have my hide for that. Anyway, he limped off. Well, I might have planted a kick on his backside as he withdrew. He's driving a Jag, by the way. Want the number? I wrote it down on the wallpaper just inside the hall. Oops, Kate'll have me for that too.' He reeled off a number and Ellie wrote it down.

‘Armand, you're a treasure beyond compare!'

‘X-factor, that's me. Ta-ra, now. Got one more beer to drink before we doss down for the night.'

Thomas returned in time to find Ellie still laughing. She told him what had happened, and he smiled too. ‘Better take a black cab tomorrow, rather than use your usual minicabs. Harder to trace.'

On that solemn note, they made sure the house was locked up tight, and went up to bed.

Waterloo Station. Hustle and bustle and anxiety. Which platform? Where's the Underground? Where did she say we'd meet up? Under the clock?

‘Here I am,' said Ursula, materializing at their elbows. Something had happened to Ursula. She was wearing a knitted black beret over her hair, a black jacket and jeans. There were dark lines at forty-five degrees under her eyes; she looked as if she hadn't slept much, and yet she was more stylish than ever. She'd lost all pretensions to being pretty, but she was now a very striking young woman. Perhaps ‘handsome' was the right word.

She kissed her mother's cheek, took Mrs Belton's suitcase from Ellie, and whisked them to a quietish coffee bar above the concourse.

‘Time for elevenses,' she said. ‘I'm paying.'

‘No, you're not,' said Ellie, taking out her purse, ‘and I'm buying your mother's train ticket as well.'

‘You've done more than enough,' said Ursula, but Mrs Belton accepted the notes thrust upon her, with a nod of thanks.

‘The thing is,' said Ursula, over croissants and cappuccinos, ‘that you can get into situations without realizing exactly what's really going on, and then it's too late to back out.' She put a hand on her mother's arm. ‘It's not your fault. It's mine. What happened to Mia is partly down to me.'

Mrs Belton wasn't having this. ‘Oh, come now, Ursula—'

‘Yes, it is. You don't know the half of it. Let me try to explain what happened. It started in the school holidays. I was going out with Dan and he knew the Priors because the younger brother – Timothy, the one they call Dumbo because of his big ears – was friends with him from the early days. Dan and I didn't have much money, but the Priors invited us into their set and naturally we were flattered. We paid our way, sort of. Dan coached them for free on the tennis courts, and I'm a good listener.

‘Also, I hit it off with Mia, who was on the fringe of their circle, so to speak. Mr Prior had adopted her when he married Mia's mother, but she didn't fit in. She didn't even look like the rest of the family, being so dark while they're all so fair. And having been brought up without much money, she wasn't used to their wild ways.'

‘What wild ways?' said Mrs Belton. ‘You never mentioned—'

‘I knew you wouldn't approve. They would get paralytic and spew up, have casual sex with the girls who hung around with them. There were plenty of young girls who would do anything to be noticed by the Priors. They drove fast cars rather dangerously, they threw litter around, and bad-mouthed anyone who remonstrated.'

She swallowed, braced herself. ‘At Christmas time it became a point of honour for each of us to steal something from the shops to give as presents. We pooled the lot, gave a prize to whoever stole the most valuable item. I won twice.'

Mrs Belton looked shattered. ‘How could you!'