The Sting of Death

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Laurie offered, already levering himself out of his armchair. As he bent forward, shifting his weight onto his feet, he emitted a low grunt and put a quick hand to his middle. It became a frozen moment; Drew concerned at the obvious stab of pain, Roma studiously looking away, Laurie struggling to recover himself. In those three seconds, Drew understood that whatever might ail the man was not to be mentioned or even acknowledged. So powerful was this unspoken instruction that he had little difficulty in dismissing it as insignificant. Just a twinge of indigestion, a fleeting stiffness, nothing more. Laurie stood upright and walked steadily out of the room. Roma met Drew’s gaze unperturbed. She even smiled slightly. ‘It’s a lovely evening, isn’t it,’ she said. ‘After such a dull day.’

  Drew nodded, knowing she didn’t really want to discuss the weather. He also knew her well enough to suspect that she would find it difficult to come out with what she wanted to say. She reminded him sometimes of his mother: a brisk and impatient manner on the outside covering a host of hidden uncertainties and anxieties.

  ‘This policeman,’ she began. ‘You put him onto me, I presume?’

  Despite himself, Drew felt under attack. Her face remained impassive, but the words were clearly accusatory. ‘Well …’ he mumbled. ‘I suppose I did in a way.’

  ‘You went and reported my daughter as being missing? Is that right?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I thought there was enough to justify reporting it, yes. She obviously left her cottage in a big hurry.’

  ‘Did you speak to Penn first?’

  ‘No I didn’t.’ He lifted his chin. ‘She asked me to go and look round, to confirm her worries about your daughter. She involved me and I just took it from there.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She tapped her fingers on the glass-topped table beside her chair. ‘You took it much further than I thought you would. And the police seemed more interested than might be expected. I must admit I was cross with you when I got that phone call. I’m still not happy about it.’

  ‘But if she is in trouble, surely you want to know about it? And Penn …’

  ‘Penn’s a fool most of the time.’ Roma clapped a hand to her chest in an ambiguous gesture. ‘I shouldn’t say that – she’s always been good to me and manages to keep on the right side of everybody. But I don’t think she’s got a very subtle mind. She often seems to get the wrong idea about things. I can’t imagine why she sent you off like that. If she’s seriously worried about my daughter, she ought to have gone to the police herself.’

  ‘I think she assumed they wouldn’t be very interested. That’s what she said.’

  ‘Anyhow, it’s done now. I think I managed to convince them that I have absolutely no idea where the wretched girl’s got to. It’s damned bothersome, all the same.’

  They both turned as a clatter announced Laurie with a trayful of savoury snacks and a large jug of home-made ginger beer that he announced as his speciality. Drew helped to distribute glasses and plates and helped himself to an assortment of nibbles. He was surprised at the selection: not mere crisps and peanuts, but more the kind of thing to be found at a smart cocktail party, carried round by girls in silly costumes. ‘You haven’t made these, have you?’ he asked Laurie.

  Roma answered for him. ‘No, we got them from the little delicatessen in Bradbourne. We have rather a weakness for this sort of thing. Try the cream cheese whirls.’

  Drew needed no urging, and was enjoying the various taste sensations when there was a sound from the garden, where the light had almost gone. Before he could work out what it was, a thin voice called, ‘Hello? Is anybody there?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Roma responded sharply. Drew heard disbelief in her voice. And fear.

  ‘It’s me,’ said the visitor, appearing slowly around the corner. ‘I rang the doorbell, but I don’t think you could have heard it.’ A young woman was standing there like a character from a fairytale. Her black hair hung down her face like a gypsy’s and her face was streaked with grey smudges and seemed to be bruised. Her bare legs were caked with mud up to the hem of a grimy cotton dress. Nobody spoke for a long moment, before the girl said again, ‘It’s me, Mum,’ and burst into tears.

  Maggs locked up the office, making sure her two exanimate clients were covered in damp cloths before she went. It was only the second time ever that there had been two bodies in the cool room simultaneously and the effect was to make it seem decidedly crowded. The warm evening was bad news, and the cloths were her own idea, as some small defence against the natural processes that would inexorably advance during the next two days. There was never going to be any chance of the sort of industrial refrigerator used by most undertakers, not even of an air conditioning unit. The most she could hope for was a large stone slab, acquired from some old farmhouse dairy, which would certainly be a help.

  Mr French was her bigger worry, thanks to his chemotherapy. The wholesale poisoning of his system, at a point in his illness where all chance of recovery had long evaporated, made her angry. It also made him malodorous. It always struck her as an unnecessary extra burden for the families if their loved one had begun to smell of putrefaction even before the burial. In a warm August, the problem could only be exacerbated.

  She fetched her bike from its place beside the back door and wheeled it into the road. She still lived with her parents, six miles distant, and the Yamaha knew the way without any conscious direction on her part. It was her usual habit to spend the journey letting the wind slap into her face, enjoying the sensation of naked speed and thinking of nothing. It was an essential cleansing process that she had learnt early. After her first few weeks working for a funeral director, her mother had reproached her for the stream of graphic stories she’d brought home with her.

  ‘I don’t mind you doing the job, if it’s what you really want,’ she’d said. ‘But I really don’t want to hear too much about it. And your father says it makes him feel sick.’ Maggs had done her best to comply. Her parents were in their late sixties, having adopted her as a small child. It had been as successful as such a transaction could ever be. She respected and admired them, was grateful for their care and concern, but she secretly grieved for her natural parents, that feckless mixed-race couple who had somehow failed to get it all together.

  She had friends, but none of great intimacy. The job created the same kind of barrier as it did for Drew. It made people uneasy. They would look at her hands and flare their nostrils like nervous horses. Maggs didn’t mind. She loved the work and wholeheartedly shared Drew’s zeal for the alternative way of doing business. She was popular with the families and knew exactly how to pitch her dealings with them. She dreamt of expanding Peaceful Repose out of all recognition, in a future time when the majority of funerals were conducted their way. She would be a pioneer, a teacher of forthcoming generations of undertakers. And in the process, incredible as it might seem now, she would make a lot of money.

  Absently, she mounted the bike, gunning the engine, enjoying the sensation of power beneath her. Stephanie appeared in the open doorway of the Slocombes’ house and waved to her, as she often did. Maggs was increasingly fond of Stephanie, despite some disagreements with Drew about being used as an unpaid childminder. Every now and then she allowed a fantasy scenario to enter her mind where she and the little girl became joint owners of a big improved Peaceful Repose Funerals while Drew took early retirement and got out of their way. An all-female business had a lot of appeal for her.

  Turning her attention back to the road from her answering wave to the child, she had to abort her intended departure with a hurried slewing, to avoid a car inches from her front wheel. It had quietly come to a standstill beside Drew’s gate and a very tall man was unfolding himself from the driving seat.

  It was the friendly Okehampton policeman and the sight of him did strange things to Maggs’s insides. Nine or ten thoughts struck her simultaneously: she wasn’t wearing her crash helmet; she was dressed in completely the wrong clothes; it was ama
zingly pleasant to see him again; it was very scary to see him again; he was fantastically tall; she’d be able to talk to him all on her own, without Drew; he must have some exciting news about the Case of the Missing Cousin; and, damn it, it was Karen’s cousin they were looking for, so he’d probably want to see her, not Maggs.

  ‘Hello,’ she said carelessly. ‘What brings you here?’

  He pushed out his lower lip in a boyish grimace of comic embarrassment. ‘The usual answer to that would be “I was just passing …” but—’ he swept the small country lane with a rueful glance, ‘you wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed.

  ‘So let’s say I was intrigued by your cemetery. I’ve never seen a wild burial ground, or whatever you call it.’ He focused on the signboard beside Drew’s gate. ‘Peaceful Repose, eh? Sounds cool to me.’

  ‘We like to think it is. Do you want me to show you round? I was just going home, actually,’ she added superfluously.

  ‘Don’t let me hold you up.’ He scratched his chin, embarrassment still evident. ‘It was only a whim.’

  ‘Any progress on finding Justine?’ she finally asked. ‘Did you go to the cottage?’

  He shook his head. ‘I went to see her cousin. Miss Strabinski.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, something’s not right. I agree with you on that. But that isn’t enough for a real investigation. Just a couple of lines in the log and keep our eyes open for the missing woman. I’m not very strong on hunches as a rule. There’s not usually time for them, anyway. But this one’s niggling me. There’s something so – well, foggy – about it. I phoned the mother, incidentally. She didn’t sound very friendly.’

  ‘Drew’s there now,’ Maggs said carelessly. ‘He likes her a lot. It’s a thing with him, older women.’

  ‘Oh? But isn’t there a wife?’ He glanced towards the cottage, where sounds of Stephanie and Timmy giggling wafted through the open door and windows.

  Maggs grinned. ‘Yes there’s a wife. It doesn’t bother her. He’s always the perfect gentleman. Well, nearly always. No, but honestly, Karen’s got no reason to worry. They’re a great couple.’

  He didn’t say anything more for some moments. Maggs watched him as he took a few restless steps along the grass verge and back again, expecting him to light a cigarette. He had that tense deprived air of someone desperate for a fix of his preferred substance. ‘We could go for a drink,’ she offered unthinkingly, responding to this perceived need.

  ‘Oh no.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d be keeping you. Aren’t you expected at home?’

  She chuckled. ‘They’ve learnt to expect me when they see me, in this job,’ she assured him. ‘On call more or less all the time, me.’

  He frowned in sympathy. ‘Sounds worse than the police. What do you do for a social life?’

  ‘Go without, mostly.’

  ‘Then let’s do the drink,’ he said, suddenly decisive. ‘Lead the way.’

  She took him to a roadside pub some distance from North Staverton and Peaceful Repose, shamelessly showing off her biking technique, staying a mere hair’s breadth inside the speed limit. But she was wise enough to don her crash helmet, making a performance of it, before setting off.

  They sat under a cherry tree in the pub’s garden and drank the local ale. He told her about his recent holiday and she wistfully regretted not having been abroad more than twice in her life. They each came up with amusing incidents from their working lives, observations about human nature and the reactions of their families to how they lived their lives. ‘My mum’s learnt to leave me to it, at last,’ he said. ‘Considering she lives in the same town, I hardly ever see her. She’s always running around on some new project. I don’t know what it is with middle-aged women these days.’

  ‘HRT, probably,’ Maggs grimaced. ‘Do you know how they make that stuff? It’s an absolute disgrace. Totally sick.’ She almost spat the words and he glimpsed the strong character beneath the dimples.

  ‘My ex-girlfriend used to get upset about that, too,’ he remembered. ‘Something about pregnant mares.’

  ‘They have to keep them hidden in some remote part of the American desert, for fear of animal rights activists,’ she said narrowly. ‘I’d put a bomb under their cars myself, given half a chance.’

  ‘Steady!’ he cautioned her. ‘Don’t forget I’m a cop.’

  ‘Right!’ she laughed. ‘Are you a good cop?’

  ‘Not really for me to say.’ He tipped his head sideways in mock consideration. ‘Probably not as good as I thought I’d be by this time. Likely to remain a sergeant forever at this rate.’

  ‘Maybe you should move?’ she suggested. ‘Okehampton seems a bit of a dump.’

  ‘There’s a lot of different kinds of dump,’ he remarked. ‘I’d rather live on the edge of Dartmoor where there’s still some genuine sense of community than in a Teesside inner city. A mate of mine moved to Middlesbrough. He calls it God’s arsehole.’

  Maggs spluttered. ‘How rude,’ she said.

  With an unarticulated unanimity, they finished their drinks and prepared to leave. A sense of something begun, foundations established, marked the evening. Neither wanted to risk spoiling it. Maggs sat astride her motorcycle and watched him drive away, his long body filling the driving seat, his hair brushing the car’s roof. ‘Goodness, he’s tall,’ she murmured to herself, before riding buoyantly home.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sheena and Philip Renton seldom coincided. Their busy working lives described complex ellipses that necessitated a small army of staff to perform all the delegated tasks of cleaning, cooking, washing, gardening – and taking care of little Georgia. Sheena earned almost three times as much as her husband, which in her eyes gave her carte blanche to be away from home for almost all the hours of daylight.

  But when she did eventually come home that evening, her husband was waiting for her, sitting in the large kitchen with a cold beer in front of him.

  ‘All right?’ she asked him automatically. ‘Had a good day?’

  ‘You ought to be asking me if I’ve had a good week,’ he grumbled. ‘It’s about that long since I saw you long enough to talk about anything. I don’t count this morning,’ he added with a weak smile.

  ‘Surely I spoke to you then?’ she said lightly. ‘And I’m sure I saw you the day before yesterday. Anyway, with Georgia out of the way it’s a great chance to do some catching up. I went to Swindon this morning to stir them up a bit. Just because it’s August, they think they can switch off and do bugger all.’

  He looked at her closely, wondering when they’d last taken any real notice of each other. They’d only been married eight years, after all. Wasn’t that a bit soon for such routine apathy? They almost never went anywhere together or discussed anything halfway serious.

  ‘I mean it,’ he tried again. ‘I’ve got things to tell you.’

  ‘Shut up, Phil,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve got stacks to do. Haven’t you got somebody you should be phoning? Did you call that Roger chap back?’

  ‘There were people here yesterday looking for Justine,’ persisted.

  ‘Oh? Did you tell them she’s away? Where did she say she was going? What did they want her for?’

  ‘Seemingly Penn’s been worrying about her. She hasn’t turned up for something she said she would. I don’t know where she was going.’

  Something in his tone hooked her attention. She frowned at him. ‘Hang on. Has something been going on here that I should know about? When’s she coming back? Georgia’s due home – tomorrow, is it? We’ll need Justine at the weekend. I’ll be in Edinburgh.’

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten all about Georgia,’ he said harshly.

  She tossed her head. ‘She’s fine with your mother. I don’t see any point in worrying. Maybe we could ask her to keep her a bit longer? Have you phoned them? I bet they’re having a whale of a time.’

  Philip looked away, grabbing blindly for his bottle of beer and swigging from it
. ‘For all you care, Mum might as well keep her permanently,’ he accused.

  She didn’t rise to the bait. There was enough truth in his words to keep her silent. Letting herself become a mother had been the biggest mistake she’d ever made, and she had never been able to hide the fact from herself or from Philip. The child had no doubt been aware of it too. A solemn, well-behaved little girl, she’d quickly learnt not to cling. Instead she went willingly to the day nursery and assortment of babysitters that her parents found for her, quietly playing with bricks or crayons. It was as if the whole family had made a pact to hurry through these inconvenient years of infancy as rapidly as possible, because once Georgia grew up, everything would be so much better for them all. They could have holidays together then, in a civilised fashion, and Georgia would no longer be such a nuisance.

  Sheena was almost grateful to her daughter for the way she seemed to understand. Whenever she experienced a pang of guilt at her lack of maternal feeling, she would ask the child, ‘Are you okay, sweetie?’ and Georgia would always nod briskly and proffer a drawing or toy as if to demonstrate her contentedness. She made it easy for her mother to pursue her own course with none of the anguish of many a working mother.

  How she’d managed to get onto such a treadmill, Sheena couldn’t now quite recall, but on it she was, and it was thrilling, most of the time. If she could swing a couple more meetings, using every female trick available, and then some, she’d be all set for a major step up the career ladder. Two steps, probably. Ladder, she repeated to herself. Not a treadmill at all. Treadmills just went round in a big circle, and dumped you back where you started. She was no hamster. She was a climber. She was going to scale the heights, and look back over her shoulder at all the sad little people down on the ground. Having the baby had been a bad mistake, and for a few months, Sheena had worried that she’d never regain her momentum, but it had all worked well enough, once she pulled herself together.