by Rebecca Tope
And still, like everyone else, Geraldine could not understand precisely how Karen had been shot. Where had the gun been? Where had the shot come from? Geraldine couldn’t recall anything useful about the direction of the sound. It had seemed to envelop them all, to come from the whole procession all at once. If she’d been forced to say, then she’d have plumped for the back of the group. Someone from the village, then? Someone who had not been amongst Peter’s closest family and friends. But that was unreliable. Geraldine herself had been walking next to Hilary Henderson, with Hilary between her and Karen. In front of them had been Joe Richards and Maggie Withington. Others were straggling somewhat, whispered conversations erupting here and there. She remembered thinking Sally Dabb ought to have been close by, as another stallholder. Then she had wondered just where Sally might be, given the uneasy circumstances. Probably right at the back, she’d concluded, with a pang of sadness at poor Sally’s grief, which presumably could not be openly expressed.
The shot had not been deafeningly close. It had been frightening, shocking, in a way more immediate than the killing of Peter Grafton had been. That had only dawned slowly, with Sally’s cries and Karen’s pushing progress to the place where Peter lay. The second time, Geraldine’s mind had simply frozen for a few seconds. It hadn’t even occurred to her that there might be another murder victim. It had taken more seconds to notice the skirmishing at the garden gate, the shrieking child, the abandoned coffin. Suddenly there had seemed to be ten times the original number of mourners, all clustering and talking. Geraldine had stepped slightly back, away from the focus of attention. Hilary had stepped with her, and Mary Thomas appeared beside them. There were people enough seeing to Karen, they silently agreed. This time, they would stand aside, mere observers, unless called for.
It hadn’t been Hilary. Nor had it been Maggie or Joe. That much Geraldine could vouch for. She would have seen their arms and hands, if they’d been holding a gun. The noise would have been inescapable.
And so she had to make her list. Everyone she could think of who had been present, no matter how unlikely they might be as killers. And then she had to let them know, indirectly, that she’d been Karen’s confidante. The logical problem glared at her: she couldn’t speak directly to any of them, and say ‘Karen tells me it was you who shot her.’ Neither could she say, ‘Karen told me who shot her,’ in case it was the person she was addressing.
She paced the room again. She’d have to enlist some help – that much she’d already concluded. And her choice had been Maggs Beacon. Maggs who seemed so sensible and competent; who was clearly above suspicion and had that ex-policeman boyfriend who might be expected to assist.
But Maggs was on the phone, and Geraldine was in a hurry. Well, then, it would just have to be Hilary, after all.
Hilary had been her first thought. Lifelong friends, understanding each other, privy to each other’s secrets, it had initially seemed obvious to recruit her. But then she thought again. Hilary had that son, Justin, who seemed to be going rapidly off the rails. He was involved with some unsavoury characters, it seemed to Geraldine, although Hilary wouldn’t have a word said against him. It might be far-fetched to link him with the market murder, and he certainly hadn’t been at the funeral – but Geraldine wanted to be careful. Whoever she confided in would be given the task of spreading the word that Geraldine knew who the killer was, and would be going to the police with the information when … Here she hit another logical difficulty. Why hadn’t she already gone to the police? What was she waiting for? She paced again.
OK. She was waiting to see how Karen was, over the next day or two. If the actual victim woke up and told everybody around her who had shot her, then Geraldine would not need to get involved. That would be a lot more direct, infinitely preferable in every way. It wouldn’t be mere hearsay evidence. The police would take note, but they might not act on the information.
But that might not happen, and Geraldine still needed to act. She tried Maggs’s phone number again, with the same result. So she would call Hilary, and give her very careful instructions.
Hilary would have to pass the information on as if telling no one else. It was so sensitive, so alarming, that obviously she couldn’t shout it from the rooftops. And, of course, she would be slightly worried about her own welfare.
On a sudden thought, she phoned the hospital, persuading the ward sister to disclose the basic fact that Mrs Slocombe was still in a coma, but had rallied briefly, to speak to her husband and children just for a minute or two.
That gave Geraldine some pause. Had Karen told Drew who shot her? Would it make any difference if she had?
She realised she would be disappointed now if she couldn’t enact her plan. She was excited, eager to get on with it.
She phoned Hilary Henderson.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Drew talked to Maggs again when he got home, for twenty minutes, repeating himself, describing what had happened, consulting her on what should be done. ‘She knows who shot her,’ he said, again and again. ‘And she was just going to tell the policeman.’
‘She’ll wake up again at any time,’ Maggs assured him. ‘And when she does, the policeman’s there to listen.’
‘He’d better not let anybody else in to visit,’ Drew grumbled. ‘I still think it was wrong to let Geraldine Beech in.’
‘Of course it was,’ Maggs agreed vigorously. ‘It could easily have been her who shot poor Karen.’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest that,’ he objected. ‘Not really. Didn’t we decide she was unlikely, last night?’
‘Oh, well, you can’t be sure, can you? She ought to have checked with you first, and she should have told you afterwards, as well. At best, it’s a bloody cheek.’
Drew sighed.
Maggs went on, energised by this new twist. ‘I tell you what, though,’ she said, suddenly conspiratorial. ‘We could pretend that Karen told you who did it. I could get Den to mention it here and there, just say he thinks the police know who they want, but they need more evidence. That sort of thing. Flush the person out. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know.’ Drew’s head was feeling clogged again, as it had after Karen was shot. He couldn’t seem to follow a logical thread. ‘Why do I keep thinking about Julie Grafton?’ he asked. ‘Something she said. Was it her, do you think?’
‘She’s certainly on the list,’ Maggs agreed.
They talked around it, Drew struggling to keep his thoughts in order. Even when in enthusiastic mode, Maggs was somehow soothing. She seemed so eternally confident, so sure that everything would eventually come right. Up to now, he supposed, it always had. When you worked as an undertaker, you accepted death as a normal part of experience – or at least you got closer to that state of mind than most people did. You knew it was the eventual outcome of any story; that it was probably the cleanest option in many situations. Sometimes Drew wondered whether he and Maggs both jumped ahead a trifle too readily, assuming death to be more imminent than it actually was. Hadn’t he just done that, with his own sweet Karen? Hadn’t he automatically preferred her death to a long lingering survival in a coma, or a helpless paralysed state? And didn’t that make him horribly abnormal?
If it did, then Maggs shared his aberration. And that was soothing.
‘I’ll get Den onto it, then,’ she eventually wound up. ‘He can go and see Mary Thomas first, and make her think he’s telling her a big secret. I could pay Julie Grafton a visit, maybe.’
‘It does sound very contrived,’ Drew worried. ‘Shouldn’t we just leave it to the police this time? It’s Karen we’re talking about.’
‘Yes, Drew,’ she said patiently. ‘It is Karen, and we want to know who did this to her, don’t we? We don’t want it to happen to anybody else.’
‘Don’t pull that one,’ he snapped. ‘It’s unworthy of you.’
‘Sorry. You’re right. Well, then – call it revenge, if you like. Call it nosiness, even. But I for one need to know who�
��s roaming the countryside shooting people we love. Right?’
‘Right.’
The children ate toasted cheese and drank milk while Drew skittered around the kitchen trying to get them organised. The cheese was rather burnt, but edible. At least he’d got them through another day, he told himself. And Karen had made a joke. And Maggs was on the case in a big way. Perhaps it would all be OK in the end.
‘Someone’s at the door, Daddy,’ Stephanie told him, her voice loud. He hadn’t heard a knock.
‘Hello?’ The visitor had evidently let herself in. ‘Anybody there?’
‘Della!’ Stephanie announced. ‘It’s Della.’ She didn’t get down from the table, but the half-eaten cheese toast remained in mid-air.
Drew frowned. Hadn’t there been some reason for coolness towards Della? That seemed weeks ago now.
‘Come in,’ he invited. ‘We’re in the kitchen.’
She looked taller somehow, standing over the table, her head bent down towards the children. She seemed to fix her attention on Stephanie to the exclusion of Drew or Timmy. ‘Everybody OK?’ she asked brightly.
The children nodded. Drew indicated a chair. ‘Cup of tea?’ he asked.
Della sat down obediently. ‘Lovely. Thanks. Sorry I haven’t come over sooner. I didn’t know whether you’d be at the hospital all day. How is she? What do the doctors say?’
‘She woke up this afternoon, actually. Just for a few minutes. She was completely normal; even made a joke.’
‘Timmy did it,’ Stephanie said, without emotion. ‘He climbed on top of her, and she woke up. Then she went to sleep again.’
‘Made a joke?’ Della echoed.
‘Sort of. She was so normal.’ He rubbed the side of his face. ‘And then went right down into the coma again. Deeper than ever.’
‘How awful! What do the doctors say?’
‘I don’t know, really. I mean, they don’t know. They say her memory and awareness and all that part of the brain are undamaged – but it’s the pons – do you know about these things?’ She shook her head. ‘Well, it’s the hindbrain, where the motor controls are, if you like. And a bullet does a lot of collateral damage. Everything gets shaken up. Blood vessels rupture. It’s all terribly unpredictable.’
‘You poor things.’ She smiled at Stephanie. ‘Do you want to come to me tomorrow?’
‘It’s Monday tomorrow,’ said Stephanie. ‘That’s not your day.’
Drew tutted. ‘Hey Steph, things aren’t really as usual now, are they? If Della wants you to go to her house, you should be grateful.’
‘No, no,’ Della corrected him. ‘Don’t say that. We all like our routines, don’t we? It’s just that I’m not going anywhere, and if you need some back-up, I’d be happy for them to come to me. Finian and Todd would be very pleased. I mean, we all feel as if they’re all one big family, really, don’t we?’
Drew forced a smile. Is that how they felt, he wondered? Stephanie seldom talked about Della’s boys, and he had the impression she didn’t expend much feeling on them, other than an apparent partiality for Finian’s help with some activities. For the first time, he tried to understand what it was like for his daughter, expected to spend four days each week playing with three boys. Finian was older than her, but much less bright. Todd and Timmy had paired up fairly harmoniously, as far as Drew could tell, which left Stephanie somewhat isolated, he feared. How hard it was, he thought despairingly, to read the mind of a child.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Can you bear it if we don’t decide anything now? It all depends, really …’
‘Of course,’ she beamed. ‘That’s not a problem. Will you be going back to the hospital again this evening?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He noted the lurch of anxiety at the suggestion. His reluctance to visit Karen had not abated. If anything it seemed stronger than ever. Irrational, almost shameful, but nonetheless real for that. ‘They’ll phone if they think I need to be there.’
And anyway, he had to be with his children. He had to put them to bed, read to them, and then stand guard over them. There wasn’t anybody who could perform that role for him – not for the whole night. And he knew how hard it was to leave Karen’s bedside, once he got himself there. Maybe that was why he resisted going in the first place? He was a mess, and he knew it. And there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it.
‘I can babysit any time, you know,’ Della pressed him. ‘Bill can take care of our two. I could even stay the night, if that helped.’
He shook his head, trying to hide the irritation he felt. He never really liked being helped; refusal was automatic, even when the offer came from Karen or Maggs. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Thanks, but I’d rather be here. I know Karen’s being well looked after. They’ve even got a police guard on the door, just in case.’
Della blinked. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘How boring for the poor chap.’
‘He’s waiting for her to say who shot her.’ Stephanie spoke into a silence, her words echoing and important. It seemed to Drew almost as if some other entity had spoken through the child.
‘Is he?’ Della’s voice was faint by comparison.
‘She nearly told him today, you see. She remembers everything.’
Drew felt as if he was being forced to confront something he’d been very eager to avoid. The moment could no longer be side-stepped. ‘Steph,’ he said gently. ‘You didn’t see who it was, did you?’
The child turned large eyes onto his. ‘There were too many people,’ she whispered. ‘I should have seen.’ She pounded a small fist on the table. ‘I should.’
‘No, no, sweetheart.’ He went and wrapped his arms round her. ‘It’s good that you didn’t. It’s not a nice thing to see.’ He visualised a cold-eyed killer, pointing the concealed barrel of a gun at his wife and child. His little girl meeting those eyes, and being haunted by them for the rest of her life. ‘It’s really good that you didn’t see,’ he repeated.
Sunday evening was unusually active. Visits, phone calls, conspiracies, all quietly coming to a crescendo. Maggs imagined it as a sort of underground eruption, hardly stirring the surface of the sleepy villages enjoying a long May evening. But just below ground, there were tunnels and rumblings, plans and secrets, terrors and determinations.
Den had gradually warmed to Maggs’s idea. ‘It can’t do any harm,’ he judged. ‘Not so long as Karen’s being properly protected by that PC at the hospital.’
‘He let the Beech woman in,’ she reminded him. ‘Maybe you should tell Danny to tell him to be more careful.’
‘I wasn’t planning on speaking to Danny,’ he demurred. ‘Not until we’ve got something concrete for him.’
‘Mmm.’ Maggs gave this some consideration. ‘I suppose that’s OK.’
‘It is,’ he said firmly. ‘At the moment there isn’t anything to tell him. We obviously can’t reveal what we’re going to do. He’d feel obliged to try and stop us. So we get on with it, and with any luck by tomorrow morning, it’ll all be sorted.’
‘Um.’ She frowned. ‘Even I think that’s rather optimistic. How can it possibly be sorted by then? We need somebody to have another go at Karen, don’t we?’
‘Maybe not,’ he said mysteriously.
Maggs’s image of subterranean tunnels was not far removed from the way Geraldine Beech was viewing things. She was still determined to see the whole matter through to a conclusion before another day was over.
‘It can’t go on like this,’ she had said to Hilary. ‘We have to cut through all this inertia and really do something.’
Hilary had seemed very slow to understand the logic. ‘But – I still don’t see.’ she’d grumbled. ‘Are you suggesting we confront Sally and Julie? And is there anybody else you have in mind?’
‘We’re not confronting anybody. I just want you to phone them both, all natural and chatty. Tell them you’ve just been talking to me, and I told you I’d been to see Karen and – big secret – I now know who it was who shot Karen. Bu
t I didn’t tell you who it was. Now do you understand?’
Hilary had sighed. ‘Not entirely. I mean – you don’t really know who it was, do you?’
‘No. But the list has got a bit shorter, once I started to really think about it. All we’re trying to do is flush the person out. If my hunch is right, they’ll find some pretext to go and see for themselves just how Karen is. If she’s showing signs of waking up – well, they’ll either do something stupid, or they’ll run away.’
‘Something stupid?’
‘Well, something to stop her from talking to the police.’ Geraldine felt her fragile patience crumbling. ‘Just do it, Hills. Trust me. This business is causing all sorts of damage to our campaign. We have to identify the person responsible, and make sure nothing else happens. Don’t you see?’
‘I suppose so. What about Mary?’
‘What? What about Mary?’
‘Does she know about this plan of yours? Is she one of your suspects as well?’
‘No, you fool. She was right beside you and me, wasn’t she? How could it possibly have been her?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose she was – at the funeral. But what about Peter? I must admit I couldn’t help wondering – the way she suddenly turned up like that. It seemed very artificial somehow.’
‘Don’t worry about Mary,’ Geraldine instructed. ‘She’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘Well, I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Hilary stiffly.
‘Come on,’ Geraldine urged, refusing to let her friend have the last word. ‘Bear with me, will you? I’m only asking you to do it because there isn’t any way I can manage on my own. You do want to know who it is, don’t you?’
‘I suppose I do,’ Hilary acknowledged. ‘So long as it isn’t someone I care about.’
Geraldine took a deep breath. It had to be faced. ‘You’re not thinking about Justin are you?’
