Murder by Mistake by Veronica Heley

to stay in the past, if you wish. Or you can move forward.’
    ‘When I was at my aunt’s I didn’t really care whether I lived or died. I was worn out. Now I’m daring to hope that I might have a future, but every time I think that, I have to remind myself that it may never happen. Perhaps I’ll never even make it to the wedding.’ She put the dress back in the wardrobe. ‘I wonder who my mother’s got in her sights now. She won’t want to stick with Daddy Prior.’
    Ellie remembered the letter signed ‘Adelina Rossi, ex-Prior, née Parham’. ‘You think she’ll divorce him?’
    ‘Of course. She’ll take him for what she can get and then . . . Who will she go after next? Someone even richer, with even more to offer? She’s a honeypot, you know. Men flock to her, they really do. She used to be stunningly beautiful. I used to sit on a little stool and watch her dress and make herself up, wishing I could be more like her. But I’m not like her, and I never will be.’
    ‘Be grateful for that,’ said Ellie. ‘I must tell you she knows you’re back in Ealing and says she’s just as much an innocent victim as you. How can she be innocent? She did know you were locked in your room and abused, didn’t she?’
    ‘She never came in to see me. At least, I don’t think so.’ Mia rubbed her forehead. ‘I was drugged, things are hazy, but I thought I heard her voice outside my room one day, asking when they planned to move me on. I think it was her voice. Yes; because who else could it have been?’
    ‘You told the police that she knew all about it?’
    ‘I don’t know. Those weeks in hospital and afterwards . . . they’re a blur. I remember people coming with a camera and me answering their questions. I know I had to stop once or twice because I was crying so much. Did they ask me about her? I suppose they did, but . . . I’m not sure.’
    Ah, so that was why Mrs Prior had managed to get bail; Mia had not been specific enough about her mother’s involvement.
    Tuesday evening
    Ellie was restless. She wanted to talk to someone, but all the other members of the household were otherwise engaged. Mia was cooking supper, Rose was dozing in front of the television set, and Thomas was muttering over some paperwork. So Ellie went through the hall to potter in the conservatory.
    Rose was right; there was not a great deal in flower at the moment. How about introducing some gerberas? A brilliant bougainvillea might be fun, or perhaps something striking in the form of a gardenia, in full flower? Or a collection of streptocarpuses? Or should that be streptocarpi? She must look up what flowers Ursula had ordered for her bouquet. Perhaps that would give her some ideas.
    She drifted on into the garden, which she rarely dared to do nowadays. She loved flowers and had worked hard in the garden of the semi-detached house in which she’d lived most of her adult life. The garden in this big house was larger and offered more scope for trying out various planting schemes, but she never entered it without feeling like a trespasser because when Rose had gone to look after Miss Quicke she’d taken over the garden with a vengeance. She hadn’t altered the basic layout – which was basically a large rectangle of lawn surrounded by herbaceous borders – but she’d filled every spare inch of ground with the wildest possible combination of flowers. Miss Quicke hadn’t known one plant from another, but had indulged Rose in her enthusiasm. It was Miss Quicke who had added the conservatory at the back of the hall, to provide Rose with somewhere to grow tender plants in the winter. Only, since Rose had become rather frail, both garden and conservatory had begun to look a trifle neglected.
    The air felt heavy. Maybe there would be a storm later? But as of now the annuals were signalling that they needed help. Ellie wielded the hosepipe for a while; a pleasant occupation in the early evening. The Busy Lizzies in the borders