Read Online Murder in House by Veronica Heley - Free Book Online Page B

Church—’
    â€˜My daughter doesn’t go to church. Hasn’t been to church since she was in the Brownies.’
    â€˜I daresay, but let me tell you what happened.’ Ellie told the story as she knew it. Mrs Belton sat very still, surprise and some disbelief showing. Even anger. When Ellie came to Ursula’s saying, ‘A broken engagement, a murder and a disappearance,’ Mrs Belton shook her head. ‘What absolute nonsense! What on earth’s got into the girl?’
    Ellie said, ‘Let me tell you what happened when I visited Daniel today.’ At the end of her recital, she took the ring in its plastic bag out of her coin purse and laid it on the coffee table in front of her.
    Mrs Belton looked shocked. ‘Oh no! Oh, how could she!’ She stood up with a jerk, to twitch net curtains at the windows into more even folds. The nets were fresh and very white. The room overlooked the road. ‘I can’t believe it. They’ve been engaged for years. They bought that ring on a day outing to Brighton when they’d just left school. Ursula paid for it with some birthday money her grandfather had given her. Far too young, of course, but Daniel’s a nice boy, and I was glad to see her settled. So . . . why? After all these years?’
    â€˜I think something happened at a party they were both at in the new year.’
    Mrs Belton stared. ‘What do you mean, “something happened”?’ Her eyes shifted and she frowned. ‘You mean, the accident? Well, that happened after she left the party. She left early to fly off to America. I should explain that her father and I divorced when she was little; he went back to America and married again. They have two little boys, but he’s always kept in touch. He paid for her ticket to go over there for a visit in the new year. Naturally she didn’t want to leave me alone, but I’d got a bit of leave coming so went to stay with my sister in Leeds and we had a good time until I started to get a sore throat. I got back just before Ursula and went straight to bed with a temperature. This is my first full day up.’
    She started to cough, fished out a lozenge and put it in her mouth. Ellie did the same, saying she’d had the cold, too, and it was a right terror wasn’t it?
    â€˜Ursula never catches colds, she doesn’t understand how much it pulls you down. She was very good, I suppose, doing the shopping and cooking, not that I fancied anything much. We didn’t see Daniel at all, but I wouldn’t have expected it. The young always avoid you when you’re poorly, don’t they?’
    Mrs Belton pounded one fist against the other. ‘I should have been the first to know. These young people, they get an idea into their heads and before you know where they are, they’re committing themselves to a lifetime of loneliness.’
    Like her, did she mean?
    Mrs Belton straightened the already neat pile of papers on the coffee table. ‘She ought to have told me, we could have talked it over. How she could have thrown over a nice boy like that! Daniel must be terribly upset. The trouble with Ursula is that she’s always been so quick to pass judgment. Ten to one, she’s broken it off over something quite trivial.’
    So Ursula hadn’t taken her mother fully into her confidence? Well, considering that her mother had been in bed ill, her decision seemed reasonable. ‘You say Ursula wasn’t there when the accident occurred?’
    Mrs Belton sniffed. ‘I told her, be sensible, you can go to parties any old time, but you have to be at the airport in the early hours of the morning, so why not give it a miss? But she wouldn’t listen. Off she went to the party with her rucksack, wearing a minidress that showed far too much, but there you are, they will do it, won’t they? Daniel took her to the airport, and she texted me when she got there, saying