by Rebecca Tope
‘Don’t count chickens,’ he advised her. ‘Whatever it’ll be, we won’t know for days yet.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she dismissed. ‘But eventually; and think how much publicity there’s going to be. “Murder Victim’s Funeral in Natural Burial Field”. Great stuff. There’ll probably be media.’
‘So we’d better get cracking on some grass cutting, hadn’t we? The paths are awful.’
‘Den said he’d have a go at it on Saturday, if you like. He loves cutting grass. Says it reminds him of hayfields. I’m not sure when he’s ever been in hayfields, but it’s probably best not to ask.’
‘We’ll have to work out an action plan. Where people won’t be allowed to go – that sort of thing. We don’t want cameramen trampling on the new graves.’ He stopped himself abruptly. ‘Listen to me – running ahead. It’s your fault.’
‘Naturally,’ she dimpled.
The afternoon was sunny, and the office door stood open, facing the lane and gateway. Long shadows were dappling the small front lawn and the parking area inside the gate.
‘Karen’s a long time getting back from Della’s,’ Drew observed. ‘It must be gone five.’
‘And your supper’s going to be late, is it?’ she taunted him. ‘Maybe you should go and get it started. Give her a nice surprise.’
‘I don’t know what we’re having,’ he said helplessly.
The phone rang at his elbow, and he picked it up. ‘What?’ he said after a minute spent listening in silence, puzzlement outweighing alarm. ‘Is she OK? Have you phoned Bill? Oh, all right. Give me three minutes and I’ll be there.’
Maggs raised her eyebrows.
‘Della’s fainted, and Karen can’t leave her – or her kids. She wants me to go and collect ours, and she’ll wait there until someone can take over.’
Accustomed as they both were to sudden summons to jump in the van and drive to scenes of death and despair, Maggs and Drew fell into a smoothly choreographed sequence.
‘OK,’ Maggs nodded. ‘Den’ll be here soon, anyway, but I won’t leave till you get back. You might need another vehicle, if Bill’s held up. Did Karen call an ambulance?’
‘No, no. It’s not that bad. Just shock. Della knows Peter Grafton, apparently.’
‘Course she does. They all know each other around here.’
Drew jigged impatiently. ‘Well, anyway – she passed out when Karen told her he’d been killed.’
Maggs’s eyebrows took another leap skywards. ‘Oh-ho!’ she breathed. ‘Fancy that.’
Drew was halfway down the path, and missed the innuendo. His concern was all for his children, Stephanie especially. He didn’t want her witnessing a prostrate woman, and the trauma of such an unexpected collapse. Not after Saturday, not with Karen already in a state of tension. He urgently wanted to remove her from further shocks, and restore normal life as quickly as he could.
Della was sitting up on the grass in her back garden when he arrived. Karen was kneeling beside her, one arm around her shoulders, the other outstretched as a sort of barrier between Della and the children. Finian and Todd were standing as close as they could, watching their mother’s face. Todd was sucking his thumb, Finian simply watching, his features expressionless. Stephanie and Timmy were slightly further away, and turned quickly to greet their father. ‘Della fainted,’ Stephanie announced. ‘But she’s all right.’
‘I hurted my knee,’ Timmy muttered, evidently worried that he’d been upstaged.
‘Is she all right?’ Drew asked Karen, his gaze on Della.
‘I think so. She wasn’t out for long. It was just a couple of minutes of chaos, but we’ve calmed down now. You go, and I’ll walk back as soon as I can. Bill’s on his way home. I phoned him. Poor chap, he sounded really worried. Watch out for Timmy’s knee. It’s got a nasty bruise.’
Maggs and Den were standing beside their car when Drew got back with the children. Their faces were filled with expressive questions, but neither spoke. Drew got out of the van and paused a moment, savouring as always the strange asymmetry that the couple presented. Den so tall and pale and careful; Maggs round and black and impulsive. That they loved each other was beyond question, but Drew still couldn’t feel confident that their relationship would last. Den had a past, and was almost ten years older than Maggs. Drew’s business partner’s attention was very much on the job and her career, despite her unconcealed passion for Cooper. Peaceful Repose Funerals had grown, much as she’d predicted, and could become something very much bigger with substantial levels of commitment and investment. Could the one-time police detective, now seemingly so aimless and shadowy, keep up with her in the coming years? Drew doubted it. Karen went further. ‘Not a chance,’ she said, whenever they discussed it.
‘No need to hang about,’ Drew told the couple. ‘It’s nothing much. Karen’s coping and I’ll get these two started on their supper.’
‘What happened exactly?’ Den asked, narrowing one eye as if suspecting some sort of obfuscation.
‘Della fainted, that’s all.’
‘She’s probably pregnant again,’ said Maggs, with a certain sourness. People who kept having babies did not earn her wholehearted approval.
‘Very likely,’ said Drew with an understanding smile.
‘She fainted because Mummy said the man was shot,’ Stephanie said shrilly. ‘The Peter man.’
Den scanned all the faces before him. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said.
‘I thought so,’ Maggs agreed, reaching for his hand. ‘I wasn’t serious about her being pregnant.’ Too late, she realised that the suggestion made in front of Stephanie had probably been unwise. The saying about small pitchers and large ears came to mind.
Stephanie was clearly undiverted. ‘What’s pregnant?’ she demanded. ‘Is it having babies?’
Nobody answered her. Maggs and Den began to move towards their car.
‘I hurted my knee,’ said Timmy, quite loudly.
‘OK,’ Drew assured him. ‘I’ll look at it as soon as we’re indoors.’
Maggs and Den took their leave. ‘What’s for supper?’ she asked him as they drove home.
‘Lamb chops. I got them at the farmers’ market this morning.’
‘Oh? The same farmers’ market where the Grafton bloke got killed?’
‘The same. Though before it happened. I popped out early on, when they were first setting up.’
‘Your office isn’t that close to where they have the market,’ she noted. ‘Didn’t they mind you bunking off?’
‘Hardly anybody was in. They work funny hours, that lot.’
‘You knew about the shooting then?’
‘Only missed it by a few minutes.’
‘No, no,’ she protested. ‘This isn’t making sense. Karen said it was after eleven …’
‘I went back. Sort of.’
‘Explain.’
He went through his morning in detail. An early visit to the market to buy the chops; a couple of hours in the Social Services office, discussing two or three cases being presented in court; leaving to go to the house of the old man, noticing an unusual clustering of people and vehicles at the far end of the High Street, where the market was; the encounter with Karen.
‘I get it,’ Maggs nodded, at the end. ‘Small place, Bradbourne. You’d be bound to notice something was up.’
‘Only because I’ve been trained to it,’ he said.
‘And once a cop, always a nosy parker,’ she jibed.
‘Maybe so.’
‘You didn’t see a person carrying a crossbow running away then?’
‘No such luck. Karen’s the only proper witness, as far as anyone knows. Which is very odd, given there were so many people at the scene. Karen was watching Grafton when he took the hit. It’s important to know where the killer was at the time – which side of the street and so forth.’
‘Why?’
‘Because then we could eliminate some people.’
‘We?’
‘S
orry. I meant they.’
‘But whoever it was got away. It’s too late, surely, to worry about where they were standing. Even if forensics work out the angle and distance, they won’t have a complete picture of where everybody was. Besides, it sounds as if they must have been in a car, or inside one of the buildings. If they’d been standing in full view in the street, loads of people would have noticed. Unless the crossbow was disguised as an umbrella or something.’ Maggs’s flights of fancy were getting under way, as always.
‘Er – I suppose …’ he stammered.
‘There’s all sorts of possibilities, and most of them are unprovable. Seems to me it’s hopeless,’ she summed up cheerfully. ‘You’ll need to get Drew and Karen onto it. Drew does this sort of thing quite well. And we think we’ll get the funeral. Grafton’s sure to have wanted something natural.’
‘Probably,’ Den agreed vaguely. ‘And I know there’s not much prospect of forensics doing any good. But it’s all there is to go on.’
‘Bollocks!’ she scoffed. ‘People don’t just shoot people at random in Bradbourne. It’ll be all down to motive. And murder weapon. They’ll have to find the crossbow. That should help. Wake up, Denzy. You’re slipping. Been too long away from the job.’
He turned to look at her, the car slowing as he gave her words some thought.
‘Don’t call me Denzy,’ he said.
‘Sorry.’
‘Anyway, I’m finished with the police,’ he said heavily. ‘This is nothing to do with me. Or you.’
‘Oh, I’m not so sure about that,’ she flashed back at him.
Karen and Drew were surprised when their doorbell rang later that evening. Drew opened the door to meet Geraldine Beech on his step. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Can I come in? Is Karen here?’
‘She’s just getting the kids to bed. They’ve had rather a hectic day, and it’s taking a while to settle them.’ He stepped aside to let her in. He knew her only slightly, through Karen, and was uncertain as to how to approach her. He needn’t have worried. She followed him into the living room and dropped unceremoniously into a chair. She was wearing baggy trousers which stopped well short of her ankles. Her legs seemed very long as she stretched them out before her.
‘You get on, if you’re busy,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait for Karen. I don’t mind if she’s a while. I need to have a bit of a think, anyway.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Coffee would be great, if it’s not a bother. Black, no sugar. Thanks.’
Drew disliked people who wanted black coffee. It made instant seem so churlish somehow. They’d obviously really prefer thick dark espresso, made in a proper machine and stronger than any instant could manage to be. But he did his best, piling two large spoonfuls into the medium-sized mug, and hoping it was black enough for her. When he took it through, she seemed to have forgotten her injunction to him to get on with what he was doing.
‘It seems ages ago now,’ she said with a tightening of her features. ‘This morning, I mean. Karen and I went for coffee together, just before it happened. We were talking about him.’
Drew slipped effortlessly into his undertaker mode. ‘How well did you know him?’ he murmured.
‘Oh – fairly, I suppose. We went to a lot of meetings together. He was always rather an ally of mine. We got on famously. I admired the way he worked so hard, building the juice-making up from nothing. He was quite an asset. We need people like him. He’s a big loss.’
‘It’s going to be a huge shock for everyone.’ He spoke with authority, the platitude emerging as a piece of hard information. ‘A sudden death takes people in funny ways. On one level, we all adjust amazingly quickly. We absorb that basic fact of the death without too much difficulty. But the trauma goes on for a long time, and takes all sorts of different forms. I must admit I’m a bit worried about Karen. She actually saw it happen, as I suppose you know.’
‘What?’ Geraldine pressed a hand across her nose and mouth, compressing her nostrils for so many seconds that Drew wondered when the next breath would happen. Eventually she inhaled noisily through her fingers. ‘What do you mean?’ she mumbled.
‘She saw him as the bolt hit. It’s not something you’d ever choose to witness. She’s going to have that picture in her head for a long time.’
The woman frowned, her gaze fixed on a patch of wall across the room. ‘Did she see where it came from?’ she asked.
‘Well, no. Obviously not, if she was watching Peter. It doesn’t sound as if anybody saw who did it. He must have been in a car, or one of the buildings, presumably. Must have tucked the weapon inside a coat and just walked casually away, I suppose. Though I think a crossbow’s quite a big thing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one close to. Have you?’
‘Poor little Sally was in a bad state,’ Geraldine changed the subject after a perfunctory shake of her head.
‘Yes, she must have been.’ Drew nodded, not at all sure what he thought about that side of the story. Karen hadn’t mentioned it before today, and it had taken a poor second place to the primary fact of the shooting. Only now did it strike him that this was a glaringly obvious motive for the murder. ‘Was her husband around this morning?’ he asked slowly.
‘No, no. He’s working up near Gloucester on a big new block of flats, doing the electrics. Doesn’t get back till eight most evenings. He’s always landing some contract like that. Can’t be bothered with the small domestic stuff these days.’
‘So he doesn’t know?’
‘About Sally and Peter? I doubt it. Or he didn’t until today. That could all have changed by now, I suppose.’
‘Secrets usually leak out when a person dies,’ Drew observed, from yet more personal experience.
‘Indeed,’ she said, inattentively. She was staring at the wall again. Drew began to feel she was hard work, and he’d much rather be reading the paper or watching television than struggling to make conversation with this woman he barely knew.
‘Karen shouldn’t be long now,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and see if I can take over.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she burst out. ‘I know I’m not very good company. It’s just …’
‘That’s all right,’ he soothed. ‘Let me go and find Karen.’ He scurried out of the room in relief.
Karen was just settling down to read to the children. Drew almost snatched the book. ‘Here, I’ll do that,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a visitor. Didn’t you hear the doorbell?’
‘Ages ago,’ she said vaguely. ‘Who is it?’
‘Your Mrs Beech. Seems in a bit of a state.’
‘What does she want?’
‘Search me. Something about Peter Grafton, I assume. Go on – she doesn’t seem to want to talk to me.’
Stephanie and Timmy grumbled a bit when he started the story. ‘We’ve had that page,’ his daughter informed him, leaning over from the upper bunk bed. ‘Read the part where the sword won’t come out.’
The book was a simplified story about the young King Arthur, which both children unaccountably adored, despite its plodding language. Drew knew it by heart, and disliked it with a passion. But he dutifully read them a full three pages before putting it down and telling them it was time to go to sleep. It still surprised him when they obeyed this command. They would both snuggle into their pillows, Timmy’s thumb would go into his mouth, and Stephanie’s faded pink bear would go under her chin, and they were away, just like that. It seemed miraculous. Dimming the light from the doorway, he whispered, ‘Night, night, then,’ and left them to it.
Karen had not expected a visit from Geraldine, and was even more taken aback when the woman got up from the chair and rushed to meet her as she entered the room.
‘Karen, you have to listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you,’ she said urgently, gripping the younger woman’s shoulders, pushing her face up close. ‘It’s terribly important.’
‘Wh-what is it?’ Karen managed, putting her hands up to fend off the onslaught.
‘You mustn’t say anything about Mary,’ came the incomprehensible reply.
Karen simply stared at her.
‘You know – Mary Thomas.’
‘What about her?’ Karen felt thick-headed and stupid.
‘You mustn’t say anything about her being there this morning. You haven’t, have you?’
‘Well, yes,’ Karen admitted. ‘I told Den and Drew, actually. But loads of people must have seen her, anyway. It won’t just be me. She was the one who said Peter was dead.’
‘Yes, yes, I know that.’ Geraldine backed away, chewing viciously at her own lower lip. ‘But we don’t want it broadcast. I mean – she’s a bit worried about the publicity.’ She paused, breathing heavily. ‘It sounds more sinister than it is. I’m not putting it very well.’ She put a hand to the back of her neck and flipped at some of the wispy curls she found there.
Karen watched in bemusement. ‘No, you’re not,’ she said bluntly. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Never mind, then. I expect I’m being very silly. This has all come as an awful shock. Poor Peter.’ She tweaked her hair again, before adding, ‘Oh, and listen – before I forget, we’re having a meeting on Thursday evening, at my place. All the stallholders. That’s one reason I’ve come to see you.’
Karen tried to clear her head. ‘I expect I can get to the meeting. It’ll be good to see everybody. But I don’t follow all this stuff about Mary. Why does it have to be kept quiet? Quiet from who?’
‘The police, mainly. Did you say anything to the police?’
‘No.’ Karen wondered why she felt so defensive. ‘No, I didn’t. They didn’t ask who was there. It was a whole crowd of people, after all.’
‘Exactly. And probably not many people know Mary by name, anyway.’
‘I told them she was at the supermarket, though. I gave them her address,’ Karen remembered.
Now it was Geraldine’s turn to look bewildered. ‘Supermarket?’
‘When the bomb went off, on Saturday.’
