The Reaper

by Peter Lovesey

  So pass round the jug, boys, and pull at it free,

  There's nothing like cider, rough cider, for me."

  With the singing under way, it was time to start on the dishes. Some had already been stacked on the serving table. The four women set about collecting the rest and bringing them into the kitchen for the wash-up.

  Rachel was running the water, wondering if it would get hot enough, when a voice at her shoulder said, "I'll do that."

  A man.

  She turned to see. That strange young man Burton Sands already had his jacket off and was rolling Up his sleeves. Now that there actually was a man on hand to help, Rachel wasn't sure if she wanted one there. Not this one, anyway.

  She said, "You'll miss all the fun."

  Nice try, but there was no stopping him. "It's no fun watching people you know make fools of themselves."

  "Your clothes will be ruined."

  Daphne, returning with a stack of dishes, said, "Don't turn the man away, for God's sake. We'll find you an apron, Burton."

  So he was kitted out for washing-up duties and took over at the sink, with two of the four women wiping up and the others tidying. He worked solemnly and thoroughly, saying little, while the others chatted as freely as before, or almost.

  The stacks of dishes were steadily reduced and in a surprisingly short time the kettle was on for tea. Burton said he didn't want one, yet showed no inclination to leave. Only when Rachel got up and rinsed her cup did the young man roll down his sleeves and reach for his jacket.

  "Are you going back in there?" he asked her.

  "No, I thought I'd slip away now. I didn't come for the party."

  "I'll go with you."

  Daphne, not missing anything, said, "Ay-up."

  Solemn as ever, Burton said, "What's that?"

  "Now we know why you volunteered-so you could walk Rachel home."

  It was meant as part of the banter that had been going on for the last hour, but Burton's response made it seem intrusive. "I want to ask her something. Do you mind?"

  "No prizes for guessing what," said Daphne, to hoots of laughter.

  Rachel kept quiet. When the sexual innuendos start, you're better off saying nothing.

  "He was only the washer-up, but he went home with the best dish."

  Then Daphne's friend Dot said, "Leave off, Daph. We'd still be washing up if it wasn't for the help Burton and Rachel gave us."

  It all turned into a chorus of thanks.

  And Rachel, much against her inclination, found herself walking up the street with Burton at her side.

  He came to the point at once. Small-talk wasn't his style. "How much experience of book-keeping have you got?"

  This night, of all nights, she could do without being quizzed about the job she hadn't wanted in the first place. Not wanting an argument, she said, "Enough-if you're talking about the church."

  "You've done it before?"

  "A certain amount." Not quite a lie. She'd learned the basics at school.

  He said, "I was wondering why you put up for treasurer."

  There was an easy answer. "I think we all ought to help where we can, don't you?"

  "I could have done it."

  "So I heard," she answered. "At the time, I didn't know you were interested."

  "It was your decision, was it? Nobody asked you."

  "The rector asked me. I don't expect he knew you were a candidate." Why don't you let go? she thought.. What's the point in pursuing this?

  "He knew I wanted it. I told him myself. He said he'd already spoken to someone else-obviously you. He must think a lot of you."

  "That doesn't follow," she said. "He thought I could do the job, that's all."

  "If it were me, I'd do it on computer."

  "I'm sure you'd do it brilliantly, Burton, and I expect your turn will come."

  "Have you got a computer?"

  "No."

  "The rector has. I've seen one in his study up at the rectory. He could let you use it."

  "Maybe, but I'd rather work from home."

  "It's easier on the computer."

  "It's easy, anyway, or I wouldn't have taken it on," she said, irritated by his manner.

  "Have you met the bank manager yet?"

  "Look, I don't need you to tell me how to do the job, Burton. I'm sure it's kindly meant, but I happen to believe the most important part of being a treasurer isn't knowing how to add up columns or use a computer or talking to bank managers. It's to be independent of everyone, whether it's the rector or the other members of the PCC or someone like yourself with a professional training in accounts."

  They'd reached her cottage. She added, "Thanks for your help with the washing up." Then she put her key in the lock and went inside without looking back.

  Twelve

  The reek of curry was overpowering. She went straight to the kitchen and carried the casserole dish to the toilet and flushed away what was left. Then returned and ran water over the dish, switched on the fan over the hob and opened all the windows. A few squirts of air freshener helped, but it would be hours before she could feel the house was her own place.

  The television was blaring some police programme, and Gary wasn't watching. She could hear him clumping about upstairs.

  She called up that she was back and about to put on a kettle.

  If he answered, it was indistinct. She switched on and got out the mugs. Personally she fancied tea at this time of the evening. She turned down the volume on the television and switched to the news, and watched without taking much in while the water came to the boil.

  She called upstairs again. "Tea, or coffee?"

  No answer.

  "Gary."

  She thought she heard him vomiting. She knew if she went up there to see him she would just get sworn at.

  She made the tea and left it to brew. Collected his dishes and cutlery from the other room and washed them.

  Vomiting was an understatement, judging by the noise from the bathroom.

  The tea would be too strong if she left it, so she poured herself one and turned up the television again to shut out Gary.

  Before the news came to an end she heard the boards in the bedroom creak. Better face it now, she thought, and went up to him.

  The bedroom smelt vile. He was groaning, curled in a foetal position on the bed, still in his clothes. "God, I feel terrible. What was in that bloody curry?"

  "The usual things. Can I get you something? Water?"

  "Yeah. My mouth is on fire."

  By the time she'd fetched a jug and a glass from downstairs he was back in the bathroom, retching. This was shaping up to be some night, she thought.

  When he came out, he could hardly walk straight. "Feel giddy," he said. "L-legs won't hold me up."

  She took his arm and steered him to the bed. "I'd better phone for the doctor."

  "Don't want a doctor." He made a strange hissing sound that became the start of: " 's only a sodding curry. Where's that wa … wa …?" He sat on the edge of the bed and gulped some down. "Can't even swallow … Throat hurts. Bur … burning … right down … g-gullet." The words had to be forced out. "Pain in the gut… unbeliev-"

  "Don't talk, then. Lie down and rest."

  "S-s-spinning round."

  "Sit up if you want, then."

  "Whatyersay? Can't hear you."

  "Sit up. I'll get an extra pillow."

  "Flaming hell." He tried to get off the bed, and his legs folded under him. She grabbed him around the waist and helped him back, ramming a pillow behind him.

  She removed his shoes. "What were you drinking tonight- pure alcohol?"

  He shook his head.

  "Stay put, Gary. If you need to be sick, I'm getting a bucket."

  "Ri…"

  Time to call the doctor, she thought, whatever he says. He was getting more incoherent by the minute.

  When she went back with the bucket, he had tipped sideways off the pillow and seemed unable to get himself upright. She s
poke to him and he mouthed words, but no sound came out.

  She ran downstairs and phoned Dr. Perkins at home. The old doctor-the only one in the practice she wanted for this-told her he was off duty and somebody else was on call for emergencies.

  She wasn't going to settle for anyone else. Working at the health centre entitled her to this favour, surely. "You saw him the other day, doctor. He's much worse than he was then. He's very ill indeed, and I'm worried, dreadfully worried. I've been out at the harvest supper and I came back and found him in a terrible way. I think it's some kind of stroke. He can't speak. Please come."

  He said he would.

  She went back to Gary. He was lying as she had left him, taking noisy gasps of air, saying nothing. She tried tidying the mess of the bedclothes. She told him Dr. Perkins was coming. It didn't seem to register.

  She had no idea how long it was before the doorbell rang. Gary was a dreadful colour and had lost the power of speech altogether.

  Dr. Perkins got nothing coherent from him. He bent over him and listened to the breathing. Lifted one of his eyelids. Tried the stethoscope, and seemed to take an age making up his mind.

  "When you first got in, was he able to speak?"

  "Yes, he was fully conscious."

  "Did he speak of a pain across the chest? Difficulty breathing?"

  "A pain, yes. Severe pain."

  "Laboured breathing?"

  "You can hear him, can't you?"

  Dr. Perkins nodded. "I'm afraid it's the heart."

  "Angina?"

  He shook his head. "More serious this time. Help me sit him up."

  They propped him against the pillows at a better angle. The doctor rolled up Gary's sleeve and gave him an injection. That horrible, noisy breathing calmed a little. "Stay with him, please. I'm going to use your phone."

  She sat by the bed, staring at her unconscious husband. His body twitched or convulsed a couple of times.

  "I've called the ambulance," the doctor said when he came back. He felt for a pulse. Used the stethoscope again.

  Gary was silent, his eyes closed. He was ominously still.

  Suddenly Dr. Perkins thrust away the pillows and dragged Gary quite roughly to a flat position and began thrusting the heel of his palm against the lower sternum.

  Cardiac massage.

  Rachel couldn't bear to stay in there. "I'll look out for the ambulance."

  She stood by the open front door waiting, looking along the lane for the flashing blue beacon. How long did they take to answer emergencies? After some time-and still no ambulance- she was aware of a hand on her arm. Dr. Perkins drew her inside, away from the door.

  "Is he…?"

  "Gone, I'm afraid."

  "Gone? Dead, you mean?"

  "Cardiac failure. I tried all I could."

  "Oh, God. I can't believe this is happening." She felt numb.

  "Is there someone who can be with you? Someone I can call? A neighbour?"

  She had a thought, and dismissed it. She couldn't ask for Otis at this time. She gave Cynthia's name.

  He called Cynthia. He also made other calls, cancelling the ambulance and ringing the mortuary instead.

  It was over, then, her marriage to Gary. She was a widow now.

  Dr. Perkins made her some fresh tea, heavily sweetened, and asked her questions about the onset of Gary's heart attack. She tried to recollect what had happened since she got back from the harvest supper. It all seemed remote in time already, as if it had happened to someone else. "I came in about nine, because the news was coming on. He'd left the television on and he was upstairs, ill, being sick and complaining of pains."

  "In the chest?"

  "Yes, but it seemed like indigestion. He'd eaten a curry and I thought that must have upset him. He was going to the bathroom a lot. I tried to do what I could for him, fetching water, and so on. His legs went at one point and then he was getting breathless."

  "Because of the pain," said Dr. Perkins more to himself than to Rachel.

  "And he seemed to lose control of his speech. Well, you saw him. By the time you arrived, he couldn't speak at all."

  "Classic heart attack. You acted promptly" he said. "Nothing else you could have done."

  "The other day you said it was just angina and he could live to eighty or something."

  He adjusted his spectacles and peered at her in surprise. "On balance, that looked the probable diagnosis. No point in alarming the patient until something more serious shows up in the tests."

  "So he was at risk."

  "Sadly, events have proved it so." The elderly doctor was fidgeting with his fingers, clearly uncomfortable with the cross-examination. It was known at the health centre that he got things muddled occasionally, even if his bedside manner couldn't be faulted.

  Still Rachel pressed him. "There's no question that it was anything else but a heart attack?"

  He was firm in response: "That's what's going on the certificate as cause of death, my dear. I'm sorry. He was quite a young man, and unlucky, but there's no telling how long any of us will survive." He said he would leave her some tablets to help her sleep that night, and a prescription for more.

  She experienced the strangeness of being cocooned by shock. Tears wouldn't come. She heard things without really listening. Drank the tea without tasting it. Was distantly aware of men in dark suits coming to take Gary's body out of the cottage to an unmarked van.

  Cynthia arrived and still Dr. Perkins lingered. There were details he needed for the certificate, he said. "When did I see him last?"

  "Don't you remember? Tuesday, wasn't it? About the angina."

  "The angina?" he said uneasily. "Well, with hindsight, it must have been more serious than angina."

  She and Cynthia exchanged a glance while Dr. Perkins hastily finished the paperwork. He folded it, and sealed it in a brown envelope. "You'll need that for the registrar. I'm also leaving a form with some details about all that. And now I must be going. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

  She thanked him for coming out.

  His departure was the cue for a fresh pot of tea. She would be awash.

  Dear old Cynthia was more than equal to the task of saying enough for both of them, wittering on about the harvest supper and what people had been wearing and what they'd said and how much had been raised for church funds as if no other thing had happened in the past three hours.

  "What time is it?" Rachel asked suddenly.

  "Gone midnight."

  "You'd better go now."

  "I'm not leaving you, poppet," said Cynthia. "If I leave, you come with me. There's a spare bed at my place."

  Rachel said she would rather remain in her own place.

  "As you wish," said Cynthia. "I'll make up a bed for you here. You won't want to be upstairs on the bed where he … It's a wonderfully comfortable sofa, yours."

  She was persuaded to take one of the sleeping pills. From under her quilt on the sofa she was vaguely conscious of Cynthia unfolding one of the loungers from the sunroom. She knew nothing more until a fresh mug of tea was put into her hand next morning.

  Cynthia was a staunch friend. Rachel was to discover in the coming days that people she thought she could rely on for support were somehow unable to bring themselves to speak to a bereaved woman, even crossing the street to avoid her. Not Cynthia. She insisted on clearing up the room where Gary had died, and the bathroom, scrubbing and polishing and tidying, eliminating every trace of the tragedy. She loaded the bedding into the washing machine.and hung it out to dry and did the ironing. And she reminded Rachel of things she should do.

  "Does he have parents or brothers and sisters?"

  "A stepsister who lives in France. They didn't have much to do with each other."

  "We'd better contact her, just the same. Any close friends?"

  "His jazz cronies, I suppose."

  "You'll need to inform them, but I think the first thing you have to do is fix the funeral. There's no point in calling these people tw
ice. You want to tell them he's gone and give them the date of the funeral all in one."

  "All right."

  "We'll do it together. Did he want a Christian funeral?"

  "I suppose so. He wasn't a churchgoer, but I think he would."

  "He didn't leave a will?"

  "I'm sure he didn't. He'd have mentioned it."

  "You need to speak to Otis. He's coming, anyway. I phoned him first thing this morning. We agreed on ten-thirty."

  Rachel felt a stab of annoyance that this had been fixed without any reference to her. A meeting with the rector was a necessary part of the process, she knew, but she ought to have been consulted.

  She thanked Cynthia for all she had done, and said she would value some time to herself now.

  "You mean you don't want me here when Otis comes to comfort you? No problem. I'm not short of things to do."

  Rachel hadn't the strength to smooth ruffled feathers.

  Precisely on time, in his dark suit and with his face creased in sympathy, he stepped across the threshold with hands held wide and open. "What an ordeal. My poor Rachel."

  She backed off, turning from him to close the cottage door. It would have been easy to step towards him for the embrace he was offering. This wasn't the moment. She didn't want sympathy from Otis. She wanted passion, and it would have to wait. So she received him formally, showed him into the front room and said, "Why don't you sit there-" (with her back to the sofa and indicating an armchair) "-and I'll make some coffee."

  "Can I help?"

  "No thanks, I need to be occupied."

  He didn't sit. She left the door to the kitchen open and he stood in the living room and talked. "I believe Dr. Perkins was with you when it happened?"

  "Yes, I called him specially."

  "Is he your GP?"

  "No. He was already treating Gary."

  "For his heart?"

  "Angina, he first thought, but it was more serious, obviously."

  She spooned some instant coffee into two mugs and poured on the hot water.

  From the other room, he said, "This will be the medical certificate, in the envelope on the wall unit."

  "I suppose it is."

  "You'll need it for the registrar."

  "That's right."

  "Have you seen what he put as the cause of death?"