The Sting of Death

by Rebecca Tope

  Miriam wrote old-fashioned chatty notes, which sounded just like her speaking voice. She ran a small holiday hotel in North Wales, and like Angus, was rarely seen in person. She was now asking Helen, with some urgency, for advice on making her new man a partner in her business. Helen was both irritated and flattered.

  Penn, her daughter, wrote her usual cool page, printed out on the computer, and containing little more than a list of social events, films seen, outings, plans for the coming few weeks. Most people would have kept in touch by telephone, but Helen was out a lot, and would probably never remember to return missed calls. More than that, mother and daughter both acknowledged that they had so little to say to each other that such calls would be full of awkward silences. Much safer, they’d concluded, to maintain the illusion of a relationship with these routine sheets of paper. But this one was different. ‘I’m going to see Aunt Roma on Sunday,’ Penn wrote. ‘And then I’ll call in on my cousin Karen, who lives quite close by. You always said I should.’ Then it went on:

  ‘By the way, I haven’t seen Justine for a bit. In fact, she missed a lunch with me that we’d planned, and now she’s nowhere to be found. I’ve been getting really worried. I feel a bit of a fool to get worked up about her, but Justine has always seemed so vulnerable, and I’ve got this overwhelming feeling that she’s in trouble. She’s never done anything like this before. She always tells me if she’s going anywhere.

  ‘But it’s probably nothing. Don’t worry about it. It’s only that if you have heard anything, you might let me know? Thanks.’

  Helen sighed. Justine definitely was not her responsibility, and she didn’t have the least intention of worrying about her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tuesday morning’s post brought the note from Penn, which Drew read over his coffee and toast.

  ‘Why bother with a letter when she knows I’ll be speaking to her today, anyway?’

  ‘Manners, I suppose,’ suggested Karen. ‘And I think she’s got too much time on her hands, all these weeks of holiday from college.’

  ‘I don’t remember that being a problem for you when you were teaching.’

  ‘No, well I had you, didn’t I?’ she gushed playfully. ‘Penn doesn’t seem to have anyone to distract her.’

  ‘I could phone her from the office, tell her everything we found yesterday. That could give her something to think about.’

  ‘You won’t have time,’ Karen reminded him. ‘You’ve got all the preparations for Mr French’s funeral. They’ll want it this week, won’t they?’

  ‘Thursday,’ he said distractedly. ‘I should think.’

  ‘And it might be better to wait for her to phone you. Then she’ll be paying for the call.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ he said, wishing they didn’t have to watch the pennies quite so closely.

  ‘Look, there’s Maggs,’ Karen changed the subject. ‘Will you do the removal right away? Do you want me to take the phone?’ After a somewhat hostile beginning, where she’d refused to act as unpaid secretary for Peaceful Repose, Karen had very gradually permitted the boundaries between the business and the house to blur, so now she would cover for the times when Drew and Maggs were both out. They had lost business and annoyed several people in the early days, when the phone had sometimes gone unanswered.

  ‘If you can cope,’ he accepted. ‘You’re not going out, then?’

  ‘I might this afternoon, if the weather bucks up, but I’m planning a lazy morning. Stephanie’s doing some drawing, with any luck.’

  ‘We’ve got to go and collect Mr French,’ was the first thing he said to Maggs, in the office. ‘He died at six o’clock yesterday.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said with no sign of emotion. ‘Let me get the doings.’

  She unhooked a tailored black jacket and well-pressed trousers from the back of the door and slung them over one shoulder before disappearing into the adjacent cool room to change. Coming back two minutes later, she gathered up a printed pad of ‘removal dockets’ that Drew had copied from Plants, the undertaker he’d worked for before setting up on his own. Most of the intricate bureaucracy had been dispensed with, but he’d found it necessary to keep a detailed record of removals. On it they noted any jewellery on the body; the name of the doctor who certified death; the exact date and time; mileage travelled, plus full name and address of the deceased.

  A folding trolley was kept permanently in the back of the van, as well as the zip-up bag into which the body would be placed, for purposes of delicacy and discretion. Drew had a recurring dream where the van was involved in an accident and dead bodies spilt horribly out all over the road, naked and mutilated in some scenarios.

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ Maggs chivvied him. ‘The daughters’ll be after us if we don’t bustle.’

  The hospice was nearly twenty miles away, so they were out of the office until close to eleven o’clock. Although accustomed to driving around with a dead person in the back, there was always some slightly dampening effect on conversation as a result. Maggs lolled against the back of her seat, apparently lost in thought, and they said little to each other. Drew found himself wondering what Mr French’s last words or thoughts had been. He often wondered how it must be to die, and encouraged stories from relatives which went some way to enlighten him. ‘He didn’t go peacefully at all,’ two or three wives had said fiercely, as if they’d been badly deceived. ‘He fought it every inch of the way.’ Only one person had gone into such graphic detail that Drew had felt he’d been there himself. It was a woman recounting the death of her mother. ‘She howled all night, making a terrible unearthly noise. Full of fear and horror, as if she knew exactly what was happening and couldn’t bear it. The nurses gave her painkillers, but it didn’t make any difference. I sat in the downstairs room and listened for nine hours. She was like an animal in a trap or someone being tortured. And yet when I went to look at her, every now and then, she was lying there, eyes closed, quite relaxed. It was all going on inside, beyond anyone’s reach.’

  She’d shuddered. ‘I’ll never forget it. Nobody ever said it could be like that.’

  Drew tried to convince himself that the woman hadn’t really been terrified or in awful mental agony. It was just some strange physiological response to the closing down of her system, like the spasmodic kicking of an animal. But it left him uneasy.

  The most common story, which he’d heard dozens of times, was the one where the person died unexpectedly at the very moment when their attentive relative had gone out for a few minutes or gone home for a rest. ‘It was as if she did it on purpose,’ said one daughter. Drew generally assured them that this was probably true. ‘I think people do prefer to die alone,’ he sometimes said. ‘Funny as it sounds. Or perhaps they just feel they’ve been released somehow, when their loved ones aren’t there. While they’re being watched over, there’s some kind of link that keeps them hanging on.’ His customers invariably responded well to this sort of remark, as if greatly relieved to have his permission to discuss the taboo subject.

  ‘I wonder if Justine’s dead,’ said Maggs, breaking the long silence.

  ‘The police chap didn’t seem to think so.’

  ‘He’ll be contacting Penn, don’t you think? For a proper description and the car number. It ought to have been her who reported it in the first place.’

  ‘I wonder whether she’ll mind that we went to the police,’ Drew suddenly thought. ‘She won’t have been expecting us to do that. And I imagine she doesn’t want me to talk about Justine to Roma.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because of the rift between them. Didn’t I mention that?’

  ‘No. What happened?’

  ‘I have no idea. One of those messy family things. They haven’t spoken for five years. I sometimes think that’s the default position, actually. Look at Mr French’s daughters.’

  ‘They do at least speak to each other. As far as we know, anyway.’

  ‘Well, this thing with Roma and Justine seems to be q
uite heavy.’

  Maggs was suddenly excited. ‘Hey, that’s probably got something to do with it, then. Justine going missing, I mean. Don’t you think?’

  ‘I can’t imagine how. It’s old history, whatever it was that caused the fight in the first place.’

  ‘You really don’t know what it was?’

  He shook his head. ‘No idea. Though I suppose Penn must know.’

  Den Cooper had the phrase something and nothing going round his head. A young woman missing, reported by people who’d never met her, and yet had become sufficiently concerned to make a special detour to a police station.

  On the face of it, the person who ought by rights to have come in was the girl’s cousin, Penn Strabinski. Slocombe had supplied part of her address with some hesitation, claiming that was because he had difficulty in remembering it. He didn’t have her phone number. It was all oddly tenuous. But Den had been in the job long enough to know that it was a good idea to listen to stories like this; that breaks with normality very often did signal breaks from the accepted codes of conduct. And then there were the mobile phone and the toothbrush. Oh yes, there was plenty of substance here, just below the surface and Den was more than happy to give it his attention, at least until something more urgent came along.

  He found P. Strabinski easily enough in the phone book, and was on the brink of calling her, when he decided that a face-to-face visit might be more effective. Leaving a copy of his five-line report on the DI’s desk, and logging himself out, he drove off towards Crediton, where Slocombe had said she lived. Den was fond of this quiet back road, remembering it from his boyhood, when he had a best friend who lived in the village of Bow. Memories of summer days spent cycling to and fro always surfaced when he used this route.

  Events of the last year had done much to sour these associations, however. Foot and mouth disease had ravaged the area and the police had been closely involved in the implementation of the appalling culling that had traumatised virtually everybody for several ghastly months, more than two years earlier. Many of Den’s lifelong friends had lost all their animals and the whole nature of farming had changed. Although superficially back to normal after two years, he knew that the spirit of west Devon had been weakened, that reliance on providing leisure activities for uncomprehending townies was the best many people could hope for by way of a livelihood. He knew, deep in his bones, that he couldn’t go on as he was, either; not just because of outside changes or his hopeless love life, but because he was getting so little fulfilment from the job. Perhaps that was the real reason he’d been so attracted by this something and nothing story. It fitted his mood.

  Penn Strabinski came to the door warily. As always, there was the flicker of shock at Den’s height before the acceptance came. He could almost hear the thought processes. Goodness, what a tall man. Oh well, tallness is okay, was roughly how it went.

  He introduced himself and presented his official ID card, before explaining that he was looking into the apparent disappearance of a Miss Justine Pereira, who he understood was a relative of hers.

  Her sudden loss of colour came as quite a surprise. She put a hand to her throat and seemed to find the next breath hard to manage. ‘That comes as a shock?’ he queried.

  ‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Not really. I mean – I didn’t know the police were involved.’ She stared anxiously at his face. ‘You haven’t found her, have you?’

  He smiled. ‘Not yet,’ he said, thinking there was considerable ambivalence in her words and manner. Almost as if she did not want him to have found the missing Justine. But he was quite prepared to discover he’d got this wrong. ‘I understand you’ve been worried about her,’ he went on.

  ‘Drew!’ she realised. ‘Drew’s been to see you. And he gave you my address. At least … it wasn’t Aunt Roma, was it?’

  ‘Hold on! Perhaps I could come in, and you can tell me all about it? All I seem to have so far is a name and some vague suspicions.’

  She hesitantly led him into a small and rather dark room in her little terrace house. ‘You live here alone?’ he asked casually. The place was sparsely furnished, with little left lying about. Nothing unusual or handmade caught his eye; the furniture was plain and serviceable. No gleam of polished oak or lovingly burnished silverware. Unloved was the word that came to mind.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I did think of getting a lodger to help with the mortgage, but then I managed to get some extra marking work, which helped. And I’ve got a few private pupils over the summer, cramming for their Common Entrance.’

  ‘You’re a teacher?’

  ‘Well, my main job’s at the FE college, but the pay isn’t too good, as you probably know. Luckily, there’s usually some extra stuff for the asking.’

  ‘Like the cramming.’

  ‘Right.’

  She seemed to be relaxing slowly, as he’d hoped. He remembered Drew Slocombe’s comments about tensions and undercurrents, and thought he knew just what the undertaker had meant. Something certainly wasn’t right.

  ‘I gather you’ve had a look round your cousin’s cottage, since she went missing? What was your impression?’

  She sucked her lower lip. ‘Well, it was untidy, but then that’s not unusual. It did look as if she’d gone out in a hurry. But I’m more worried by the lack of word from her. A phone call at least. And it’s out of character for her to miss a date with me. We were having lunch together last Thursday in Exeter and she never showed up. That was when it all started. By Saturday I was quite alarmed, so on Sunday, when I went to visit Karen and Drew, I decided to ask him to help.’

  Cooper cocked his head at her. ‘Rather than come to the police?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d take any notice. She’s a responsible adult and there was no sign of a struggle or anything. And I suppose it isn’t really very long since I saw her.’

  ‘When was that exactly?’

  ‘Um … the Friday before last. That’s when we fixed up the lunch and a bit of a shopping spree. She was looking forward to it.’

  ‘Did you know that her landlord, Mr Renton, says she went camping, on the spur of the moment?’

  Again she went white and breathless. ‘Oh.’ She forced a grating laugh. ‘That makes me look very stupid, doesn’t it.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him where she was?’

  ‘He’s never there. I … um … well …’

  Den narrowed his eyes in puzzlement. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged.

  ‘Camping,’ she repeated carefully. ‘How funny. In the Metro, I suppose? That’s really odd.’ She seemed to be regaining composure. ‘Right. Well, Philip ought to know. It looks as if I’ve wasted everybody’s time, doesn’t it. Philip told Drew she was camping, did he?’

  ‘That’s what Mr Slocombe says. The farmer found him and his assistant exploring the cottage and confronted them, probably thinking they were intruders. When they told him they were looking for Miss Pereira, he explained that she’d gone off for a few days on her own, presumably with a tent.’

  ‘Did he say where?’ A look of annoyance crossed her face. ‘And who is Drew’s “assistant”?’

  ‘A young woman, who works with him. You don’t know her?’

  ‘I remember now that he mentioned her. I haven’t met her.’

  ‘She’s …’ he caught himself, with a faint self-mocking smile. ‘She seems quite a talented person. Observant.’

  ‘So why are you still bothering to investigate?’ she asked sharply. ‘If Phil says she’s gone camping, surely that’s the end of the matter?’ She paused, another idea popping up. ‘And why on earth did Drew go to the police, once he’d been told she was all right? What the hell was he playing at?’ The annoyance was thickening into something a lot stronger.

  ‘You’ll have to ask him that,’ said Den primly. ‘Meanwhile, since I’m here, it would be helpful if you could supply the model and registration number of Miss Pereira’s car. And a photograph of her, if you have one.’

  ‘You’
re going to carry on searching for her, then?’

  ‘Just to put our minds at rest,’ he said easily. ‘She might be a responsible adult, but she also sounds rather vulnerable. Wouldn’t you say?’ Without waiting for a reply, he went on, ‘And perhaps I could have her mother’s address as well?’

  This time, Penn’s reaction was to flush crimson. ‘What? Why the hell do you want that? Her mother hasn’t set eyes on her for five years or more.’

  ‘Doesn’t know you’ve been worried about her daughter, then? I understood that you visited her at the weekend. You never mentioned it to her?’

  Penn chafed, eyes darting from point to point in the room. ‘Well, I did phone her yesterday, as it happens. I hadn’t the nerve to mention Justine face-to-face. Aunt Roma tends to get into quite a state if the subject arises.’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  She lifted her chin and looked directly at him. ‘I said I was worried about Justine, who’d apparently gone missing, and that I’d asked Drew to help me find her. She knows Drew, you see. I thought I should at least warn her.’

  ‘Warn her? You think there might be bad news on the way for her?’

  ‘Well, I did think something like that. But now …’ she almost shouted at him, ‘now we know she’s gone camping, everything’s all right, isn’t it? You can just forget the whole business.’

  ‘We’ll very likely do that in a day or two,’ he soothed her. ‘Just bear with us while we give the matter a bit of attention first. If you’ll give me those details, I’ll be on my way.’

  He found himself whistling, albeit rather a mournful tune, as he went back to Okehampton. There most definitely was some sort of case to answer here; something unusual and complicated. There were so many undercurrents you could be swept out to sea by them if you didn’t watch out. And – happiest thought of all – he had every reason to see Drew Slocombe again. Drew Slocombe and his charming, good-looking, observant girl assistant.