Dark Undertakings

by Rebecca Tope

  He glanced in through the window of the reception area, as he mounted the bike, seeing Olga standing over the computer, apparently in the act of switching it off. At least she looked as if she’d be going home in another few minutes. Daphne, however, could be seen at her desk, telephone to her ear, papers spread out in front of her. Daphne was an enigma to Drew, and he always made a point of looking for her when he passed the office. Somewhere around forty, she was obviously struggling against her body’s inclination to gain weight. Her legs were short, and substantial, especially just below the knee, where they ballooned unbecomingly. She also had rather short chubby arms. Dressed in classic navy suits and white blouses, the elegance she was obviously aiming for just eluded her. Thick hair, beginning to acquire a frosting of silver in the dark brown, was cut short. The overall impression that Drew gained was of a woman in the wrong place, having to hold herself in, act a part, when the reality beneath was something much more uncontrolled and adventurous.

  She’d taken on the business from her father, with no reluctance by all accounts. Her younger brother, Nigel, had made a complete escape and now lived in Vancouver with a wife and five children. Local gossip assumed the childless Daphne would eventually pass the baton to one of her Canadian nephews, and good luck to him.

  As he had half hoped, Daphne noticed him, and raised a hand to indicate that he wait where he was. She came to the open window, and said, ‘Do you mind hanging on a minute? Come round to the door, will you?’

  Obediently, he presented himself, and she came to meet him, holding the removal chitty he’d completed that morning. ‘I just wanted you to fill me in about Lapsford.’

  ‘Did I leave something out?’ he said, trying to read the piece of paper.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I just wondered how it was at the house. I mean – what sort of set-up. I knew him, of course, vaguely. He was a well-known figure. One of the King’s Head crowd. How was the wife?’

  Drew paused, wondering what exactly she was asking him. It felt like more than idle gossip. ‘She was very shocked,’ he said.

  ‘Shocked rather than upset?’

  ‘Well – yes, I suppose. One of the sons was in a real state. Couldn’t stop shaking.’

  Daphne nodded. ‘I’ve heard that the younger one’s always been a bit – odd. They’ve had problems with him, I think.’

  Drew waited for further questions. His unease over the morning’s experience had not gone away in the course of the day. If anything, he was more agitated that ever, especially now that his boss was showing an unusual interest. He could still feel the peculiar atmosphere of the house, the intensity of the shock, which had something else mixed with it. A horror that somehow suggested more than mere surprise.

  ‘Did you see the doctor?’ Daphne continued. ‘I gather he’s going to sign him up.’

  ‘He let us in, and then scooted off about two minutes later. He saw the chap last week, about a stiff knee. The wife said he was happy that it was a heart attack.’

  Daphne smiled the smile of a conspirator, mischief and relief both evident. ‘He’s a rascal, isn’t he. But nobody likes a post-mortem. Did she say when she’d go and register?’

  Drew shook his head. ‘She didn’t look up to it today.’ He stopped, wanting to say more, but wary of her reaction. There was something going on that he didn’t properly understand. Even if it was only a habitual avoidance of involving the Coroner and the police, he would have to tread carefully. Any hint of disapproval would be very misguided, he realised. His job was to follow instructions and keep the customers happy. He had to look smart and behave tactfully, even when he was boiling with frustration inside.

  ‘She’ll be along tomorrow then, I imagine. We’re not certain it’s a cremation, of course. George tells me we did another Lapsford funeral, about twenty years ago. He never forgets a name. He thinks it might have been this one’s aunt. I’ll get Olga to look it up tomorrow.’

  Bradbourne was ill supplied with grave spaces. The swing to cremation had been both cause and effect of the shortage, to the point where it had become a general assumption that cremation was the preferred option. Some people had family graves in the small cemetery, others had firm objections to cremation, and insisted on a burial space being found for them, but the proportion of cremations to burials currently stood at just under nine to one. The doctors rejoiced in this. It was a rare week that passed without the perk of the forty-one pounds fee for the extra papers coming their way.

  ‘I’ll be getting off, then,’ said Drew, awkwardly.

  ‘Yes, off you go. Thanks, Drew,’ she released him with a nod. He mounted his bike, and headed for home, wishing he could forget the whole Lapsford business.

  ‘Good day?’ Karen asked him, when she got in at six. He had one of his home-made pizzas ready to go under the grill, and the breakfast plates and mugs all washed up. Normally Karen arrived home before him, but this was the first full week of the new autumn term and she’d stayed late to a staff meeting. She was in her first few days at a popular junior school on the edge of town, teaching year five. Previously she’d worked in a much more urban school, and the change was proving very refreshing.

  ‘Confusing,’ Drew said, in answer to her question.

  Karen raised her eyebrows. ‘Let me go and change,’ she said. ‘Then you can tell me.’

  Since he’d finally found a job, they’d allowed themselves a larger alcohol budget. He got two bottles of French beer out of the fridge.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she prompted, perching on a kitchen stool. ‘What was confusing?’

  Drew began warily. Today was Day Twenty-Five in Karen’s menstrual cycle, and tension was rising. As it happened, it was also Month Twenty-Five of their attempts to start a baby. The baby should have been at least a year old by now. They’d made a Plan, and its failure to achieve reality was a perpetual subtext to their lives.

  ‘Well,’ he said, drinking beer straight from the bottle, ‘you know about doctors having to certify a death?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘They have to put the cause of death, for the death certificate. That it’s some kind of natural causes.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘We had a chap this morning, Vince and I went to remove him. His wife found him dead in bed beside her, and kept saying he’d been really well. The doctor said it was a heart attack.’

  ‘Sounds okay to me. Isn’t that what happens with heart attacks? What did Vince say?’

  ‘Seemed to think it was all quite normal.’

  ‘What else could it have been?’

  ‘Nothing, I s’pose. But—’

  ‘Surely if it had been poison or something, he’d have been sick, or showing signs of awful pain? And you’d have noticed if he’d been strangled or shot or stabbed.’

  ‘The point is, my darling, that it isn’t for us to look out for these things.’

  ‘I know that.’ He could see she was losing patience. She began to speak to him as if he were a child. ‘The doctor had been, hadn’t he? He must have looked for all those signs. I don’t understand your problem.’ Not until he had been silent for a good two minutes did she remember. ‘Oh, hell, Drew. Not that again?’

  Drew sighed. ‘It seems as if it might be.’

  ‘I told you. I said this would happen, if you took this job. It was bound to. People die in all sorts of bizarre ways – you know that. You can’t save them, or see that perfect justice is always done. You have to take the doctor’s word for it. What else can you possibly do, anyway?’

  ‘I can’t explain it rationally. But I am sure there’s something wrong here. Little things. He was too peaceful, as if he’d gone into some sort of coma first. And – oh, it’s nothing I can really describe, but the atmosphere at the house, one of the sons looking as if he was being eaten up with guilt – it might sound crazy, but I’m absolutely sure he was murdered. And I want to do everything I can to prove it.’ He stared at her, hearing his own words. He’d finally said it. Jim Lapsford
had been murdered. The thought settled something inside him. Yes, he decided. That’s the truth of the matter.

  ‘You’ll lose your job,’ she said flatly. ‘They’re not going to stand for this sort of nonsense.’

  ‘I lost my job before, for not doing anything. Funny old world.’

  ‘You lost your last job because there were budget cuts.’

  ‘But why was it me? Because there was always that cloud over me. If I’d been more careful, that child wouldn’t have died. Everybody knew that. It suited them to get shot of me.’

  ‘And nothing’s ever going to convince you otherwise. Okay, I know. So, what are you going to do about this heart attack chap?’

  ‘Well, first thing tomorrow, I’m going to examine the body. Sid’ll be out, so I’ll have a free rein. After that, I’m going to think of a reason to go back to the house – or find somebody who knew him well. I’m going to need some help – are you up for it?’

  ‘Good God! What did you have in mind? I’ve never envisaged myself as a private detective.’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but it’s always handy to have a woman’s angle.’ He went to her, and pulled her to him in a long hug. ‘I think we’ll make a great team,’ he mumbled into her hair.

  Karen was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he told her so repeatedly. She was braver, stronger and more quick-witted than he was. He had no idea what she saw in him.

  Finally he released her, and went back to the cooker. He slid the pizza under the grill and asked her, ‘Do you want chips with it?’

  ‘Is there any salad? Anything for afters?’

  ‘I can do a salad,’ he offered, bending into the bottom of the fridge. ‘Afters is an apple or a banana. What did you have for lunch?’

  ‘Egg mayonnaise and a Danish. No chips.’ Karen sighed in turn. ‘Although I am hungry.’

  ‘I’m not.’ He cut up two tomatoes, a rump of cucumber and shredded a Little Gem lettuce, humming slightly.

  He could feel her watching him. ‘I haven’t agreed to be your partner in crime,’ she said. ‘I don’t see how we’re going to find the time, anyway. It’s term time, remember.’

  ‘And I never asked you how your day went!’ he remembered. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It went as it always does. I’m getting to like my new class, but they haven’t decided whether they like me yet. That’s it.’

  ‘They’ll like you,’ he said confidently. ‘Now, if I’m right, and Jim Lapsford was murdered, the person who did it will be thinking there’s not a chance in the world of being caught. And if I’m really casual and dim-seeming, it’ll be easy to get them all talking. I might not need you, except to help me think things through.’

  ‘I still think you’re crazy.’

  ‘You see – we’ll have it cracked by the weekend.’

  ‘I wonder.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘Oh, Drew, let’s have chips. Just a few. There’re some in the freezer. I’ll put the fryer on. And you can tell me what else you did today.’

  ‘That won’t take long. I lined two coffins, took some papers over to the crem, delivered some ashes to an old woman in a house full of cats – and that’s about it.’

  ‘And fetched a dead body from—Where did this chap live?’

  ‘Primrose Close. It’s off Churchill Avenue, on the edge of the new Ravens Hill estate.’

  ‘Nice. What did he do?’

  ‘Printer, apparently. Everybody knew him.’

  ‘Everybody knows everybody in Bradbourne. Do you know – four of the kids in my new class are first cousins, in four different families! Isn’t that amazing, in this day and age.’

  ‘Amazing,’ agreed Drew. ‘Right, chips in, salad’s ready. Another beer?’

  Sid and Big George drove home together, as usual. Sid’s wife, Brenda, took the car for her job as a switchboard operator at the hospital, ten miles away. When Big George realised that Sid waited forlornly each evening for the unreliable bus, he offered him a regular lift. ‘What say you give me half what the bus fare would have been?’ he proposed, and Sid had no choice but to accept, knowing that he was more than paying the cost of George’s petrol.

  ‘Quiet spell’s going on a bit,’ George remarked. ‘Only three for this week, and nothing at all booked in for next.’

  ‘Lapsford’ll go Monday or Tuesday,’ Sid predicted. ‘Might even be Friday.’

  ‘Doubt it. Big do, that’ll be. They’ll want time for people to sort themselves out. Cremation, I expect.’

  ‘Bound to be. Yeah. I remember him saying, once, how he’d a horror of burial. All that guff about being buried alive. Been reading too much Stephen King, I told him.’

  ‘You knew him then?’

  ‘Only from the King’s Head. He was there most Fridays. Always making a noise about something.’

  ‘Sounds as if you didn’t think much of him.’ George glanced at his passenger. ‘Not your kind of bloke?’

  Sid frowned. ‘I never said that. I’ve no quarrel with him. It’s his wife that had most reason to fall out with him, the way I hear it.’

  ‘How’s that then?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t the most faithful husband in town, let’s put it that way.’

  ‘Isn’t she the woman at the dentist – Proctor’s, I mean? The one who makes the appointments and everything? I was there a couple of weeks ago, and it seemed to me they were very cosy together.’

  ‘What – Monica Lapsford and Gerald Proctor?’ Sid blew out his cheeks as this news. ‘I never heard anything about that.’

  ‘Bet you it’s true, though,’ chuckled George. ‘I’ve got a nose for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, you ought to have sniffed out Jim, then. Half the women in town will be wanting to come along to that funeral, for old time’s sake. Even that nice little Lorraine Dunlop – d’you know her?’ George shook his head. ‘Well, word has it that’s she’s his latest bit of fluff. Stupid girl ought to know better. Got a kiddie, and a decent chap for a husband. Can’t think what she’s playing at.’

  ‘Sounds to me as if he’s broken a few hearts in his time. Could be some’ll turn up to celebrate, rather than grieve for him,’ George commented.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Sid confirmed, with emphasis. ‘And if you’re right about Monica, they were both as bad as each other. What a world! Makes you sick, doesn’t it.’

  George grunted non-committally, and turned the corner into the road he shared with Sid. ‘Here we are then, sir,’ he said. ‘Same time tomorrow.’

  ‘See you, and thanks,’ said Sid, as he always did. His house stood close to the road, a minimal patch of weedy lawn the only buffer between pavement and front door. Brenda wouldn’t be home yet. Just the cat there to welcome him, and that was only because it knew he’d feed it.

  With a sigh, he let himself in, and went through to the kitchen. They’d come here to live three years ago, when Susie, their only child, left home and got herself a little flat. Middle age seemed to last a long time, with retirement still nearly four years away, and every day the same jumble of bodies and mourners and self-important vicars. In an automatic routine, he switched on the television and the electric kettle, went upstairs to change his clothes, came down again to make tea, and picked up the telephone.

  It rang six times – considerably more than was comfortable. ‘Where were you?’ he asked anxiously. The answer was evidently enough to soothe him. ‘Well, how are you, lovey?’ he continued. ‘Two of the chaps said they saw you fighting with Craig in the street. That isn’t on, sweetheart, now is it? I don’t want to hear stories like that about you … No, I’m not nagging you. Just worried, that’s all. Will I come and see you this evening? Cheer you up? … You know it isn’t any trouble. It’s always good to see you. You know how bleak it is here without you … Well, if you’re sure. You will come to me if there’s anything bothering you, won’t you? That’s what your dear ol’ dad’s for, you know. All right then … Yes … Night, night, then, my darling.’

  Brenda’s
return from work went almost unnoticed. ‘Good day?’ they asked each other dutifully, without listening for an answer. She set a ready meal circling in the microwave, changed into a shapeless ‘house-dress’ before bringing in their plates and flopping in front of the television. ‘You going out?’ she asked him.

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Pity. There’s nothing much on the telly this evening.’

  ‘I could do that light fitting in the roof,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Won’t take long, though. Have to be an early night.’

  Brenda sighed. ‘Yeah,’ she said.

  At six, Daphne was still at work. Olga had left forty minutes ago, and the place was in silence. Daphne’s desk was littered with papers connected with her work life and personal life in equal measure: as time went on, she made less and less distinction between home and work. Since Kevin had left her, and her Cairn terrier had died, there was little to lure her home after a day at work. She’d been to the dog rescue, hoping to find a replacement for Sammy, but came away empty-handed.

  There were, in any case, jobs to be done, which needed the peace of an empty office. During the day, there were constant phone calls, usually requiring instant action or decision. It was often difficult to speak to ministers, and even many customers, in office hours. Tuesday evening was a favourite time for her to phone people to tell them the ashes of their departed relative were now ready for collection. It was a growing tendency for people to retrieve the cremated remains, in the brown plastic jars provided, and take them to a favoured spot for scattering. Personally, Daphne found it unappealing, but she took care to avoid making any comment.

  These phone calls could last nearly an hour, as she encouraged the bereaved person to give feedback on the funeral, and go on to talk about the whole story of how the death had happened, and what they felt about it. She had a natural skill, perhaps bred from the generations of undertakers before her, in listening quietly, and drawing people out. Aware of her strange status in the small town, she knew that people liked her, trusted her, but would seldom seek her out for companionship. Daphne Plant was recognised everywhere she went, but she had very few close friends.