Dark Undertakings

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I think she took care not to know – the details, anyway. She gave him all the space he wanted, especially when she finally woke up to the fact that that gave her more freedom.’

  ‘But she never had anyone else, did she? Jim was always quite certain she’d never in her life slept with anybody but him.’

  ‘Then it’s my belief that Jim was fooling himself,’ said Pauline, with a triumphant laugh.

  Roxanne shook her head disbelievingly. ‘He’d have killed her if he’d known.’

  Pauline laughed again, genuinely amused. ‘Have you any idea how funny that sounds?’ she spluttered. ‘In the circumstances.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Roxanne protested. ‘He’d have felt – inadequate, if he’d thought he wasn’t satisfying her. That was what nobody grasped about Jim. He wanted to be everything to everyone. If you ask me, that’s what killed him. He just couldn’t take the pace of it, in the end.’

  ‘From what Monica’s saying, he thrived on it, to the end. Always so well, she keeps repeating. I remember him boasting about his fantastic health often enough, too. Anyway, enough of this. I’ve got to get on. When will I see you?’

  Roxanne gazed at the ground, and then began to pick at a tuft of grass. ‘I get the feeling I should stay out of the way for a bit, if I’m sensible. I’ve got no reason to come into town. I’ll see you when I see you, okay?’

  ‘I brought you these.’ Pauline dropped two batteries into Roxanne’s hand. ‘For your phone. Make sure it’s working. I might need to speak to you again.’

  ‘Why? Do you think you’ll have to warn me that Monica’s on the warpath, and coming out here to call me names, when she finds out I was screwing her husband?’

  ‘I just like to know I can get you if I want to. And I thought it was the man who did the screwing?’

  ‘You always were the naïve one,’ grinned Roxanne.

  On his way home, Drew stopped at a phonebox outside the Post Office, checking a number in the small notebook he kept in his wallet. It was over a minute before anyone picked up the other end.

  ‘Pathology, please,’ he said. Another long pause, then, ‘Oh, yes. Is Lazarus still there, please? Thanks.’

  Unconsciously, he placed his hand over the pocket containing the sample from Jim Lapsford’s stomach. Several times during the day he had wished he could just throw it away and forget about it, but he knew only too well that he’d gone past that point. The little bag had weighed heavy on his mind.

  ‘Laz? It’s Drew Slocombe. How are you? Still dropping petri dishes all over the floor? Listen, I’ve got something on the go. I need something analysed. Can I come and see you? Meet you when you knock off, maybe? Okay? Six, then.’

  He phoned Karen then. ‘I’ll be late back,’ he told her. ‘Not before seven or half past. I’m fine – how about you?’ He laughed at her reply. ‘See you.’ The fact that she hadn’t asked him where he was going was entirely in character.

  The hospital was five miles away, cycling against the flow of the rush hour traffic, he easily reached it by six. Lazarus appeared from a squat brick building, just as Drew was securing his bike in a rack close to the car park. The distinctive shaggy black hair was impossible to miss. He hadn’t changed since Drew first met him five years earlier, when for a few months they were adversaries in the squash court provided by the health authority. Week after week they’d played a slow, polite game, each wondering why he was wasting time in this way. Before long they’d confessed their lack of enthusiasm, and taken to drinking coffee or beer together instead and sharing horror stories about their work.

  ‘Come for a coffee,’ Drew instructed now, starting to walk down the hospital approach road. ‘I assume Billy’s is still there?’ The café had been a favourite bolthole, away from the institutional canteen where the majority of the hospital staff took their breaks. Lazarus trotted alongside him, the long legs appearing to be barely under control. He’d been born in Tunisia, to Christian parents, who made their faith clear by naming their children after New Testament characters. His sisters had been christened Magdalene and Dorcas.

  Drew led the way to a table at the back. ‘What’s all the secrecy, man?’ demanded Laz. ‘This ain’t like you.’

  Drew produced his plastic bag. ‘Stomach contents,’ he said, with no preamble. ‘I think they might contain some sort of poison. Would you be able to run some tests, without making it official?’

  Laz blew out his cheeks. ‘Jesus, Drew. I’m not Chief Pathologist yet, you know. They don’t let me just do whatever I like. And what kind of poison did you have in mind? Half of them aren’t detectable anyway.’

  ‘I know it’s a long shot. Just do what you can. Something painless, so it isn’t strychnine. The chap just died in his sleep. Something that wouldn’t taste too obvious, as well, I guess.’

  ‘Wait.’ Laz held up one hand. ‘I’m not sure I’m getting this. Some bloke’s passed quietly away in his bed, and you don’t really know why, but you think he ingested something toxic. Right?’

  ‘I have a hunch he didn’t die of natural causes, and poison’s the only thing I can think of that fits the facts. But his wife says she was lying next to him all night, and he didn’t cry out or move much.’

  Laz shook his head. ‘Needle in a haystack, my friend. Take an army of tests to sort that one out. Isn’t the Coroner seeing to it, anyway?’

  ‘The doctor signed him up. It never went to the Coroner. Look, I know you can’t do miracles, but if you get a chance, just run it through one or two procedures. Have a look down the microscope, at least.’

  Laz reluctantly allowed Drew to press the bag into his hand, giving a distasteful glance at the contents before tucking it into his pocket. ‘What do I do if I find something?’

  ‘Phone me. Not at work, though.’ He thought for a minute. ‘Call me in the evening – or you could try Karen at school, in her lunch break. She knows all about it.’ He wrote down the number. ‘Don’t lose it, okay. The deadline’s Tuesday. After that, we can just forget the whole thing.’

  Laz grinned. ‘Deadline – ha ha. I can tell you now I’m not likely to find anything. Have you any idea what a song and dance it takes to find something like aconitine or ricin? And they’re the ones that best fit your story. Or some sort of hedgerow herb. Hemlock’s common round here, like most of the nightshades. The others are harder to get hold of.’

  ‘But not impossible, right?’

  Laz shrugged. ‘The recipes are probably on the Internet these days. Along with how to make a bomb, and where to buy a Kalashnikov.’

  ‘Well, whatever. Thanks, Laz. I owe you one. Don’t get yourself into trouble over it. I know it’s a long shot.’

  ‘Don’t worry – I won’t. I’ll call the minute I’ve got anything. You off then?’

  Drew was pushing back his chair. ‘Yeah. Sorry to be in a rush. Glad to see you again, boy. You’re the one thing I miss about this place.’

  ‘Thanks. I miss you, too. Keep in touch, now.’ They knocked fists for a moment, the way they’d always done. A boyish parody of the orthodox handshake.

  Karen wrinkled her nose when he told her what he’d done. ‘Sounds gross,’ she said. ‘Sooner you than me. But quite a good idea, all the same. So the investigation continues, does it?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he confirmed. ‘Except that I haven’t the least idea where we go from here.’

  David Lapsford phoned his mother at ten-thirty that evening. She answered it on the second ring. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be in bed,’ he said.

  ‘I was just going to have a bath.’ Why, she wondered, did she sound so defensive? ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m alive,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you mean.’

  ‘I should have told you what we’ve arranged about the funeral,’ she apologised. ‘But I thought it could wait till the morning.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’ The sarcasm was impossible to ignore. So was the slurring in his speech.

  ‘David, have you bee
n drinking?’ she couldn’t prevent herself from asking. ‘You sound very peculiar.’

  ‘Never mind that. I just need to ask you one thing, Mother—’ He said the word with a profound ironical emphasis which sent alarm tingling through her system. ‘I want to ask you whether you don’t think the time has come, what with my father dying and everything – whether you don’t think the time has come, at last, to tell me who my real parents were. I just thought I should know exactly how I’m related, if at all, to the man whose funeral I’m supposed to go to.’

  The bombshell almost rendered Monica speechless. She swallowed.

  ‘David!’ she said sharply. ‘Listen to me! Are you on your own there?’

  ‘Angus is here, but he’s gone to bed.’

  ‘Well, I want you to put the phone down now, and go straight to bed as well. I’ll see you tomorrow, and we’ll talk about it then.’

  ‘Promise?’ he whined, as he had done all his life.

  ‘Yes, David, I promise to tell you what you need to know. And by the way – Jim’s funeral is next Tuesday morning. Can you remember that?’

  But he hadn’t heard her. The phone was unresponsive in her hand.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Thursday

  Monica woke at eight o’clock next morning with the remnants of a dream still flitting through her mind. Something with Jim and David and Cassie, mingled with Sarah and Dottie as a sort of Greek chorus, peering in through the house windows and commenting on what they saw. With a groan, she heaved herself out of bed. As had happened every morning for months now, the words nearly fifty flashed through her mind as she faced the day. A stab of fear accompanied them. Fifty was much more than halfway through most people’s lives – her own mother had died at sixty-eight. And still she hadn’t done anything. Was this all there was ever going to be? She remembered how Jim had been at fifty, desperate to sample everything that life could offer, before it was too late. She had watched him with a mixture of admiration and amusement, and wondered how it was that her own efforts felt so feeble by comparison.

  David – that was the first challenge of the day. She had promised him that she’d meet him for a talk. The prospect was unnerving. She had no idea what she would tell him, or how he would react. She wanted to make the truth reflect well on herself, in some ways at least. David was unpredictable at the best of times. There was a real possibility that he would reject her completely when he heard what she had to tell him.

  Her anxiety increased as she dressed and went downstairs. She looked for Cassie, expecting to see her curled up in her basket. But the dog had jumped up onto Jim’s reclining chair, where he had often sat with her on his lap. She was lying on her side, stretched out in an unnatural pose.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Monica moaned. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Hesitantly, she prodded the animal, and was hardly surprised when her finger encountered cold, unresponsive flesh beneath the dull, ratty hair. At least it looked as if she’d died fairly peacefully, although the stretched posture was worrying. Who could say what pain an animal might suffer, uncomplaining or merely unnoticed? Guilt washed through her, followed by a helplessness as to how to deal with the body. You didn’t call the undertaker’s men for a dog, more’s the pity. Though perhaps, in the circumstances—? The idea took root and she toyed with it as she quickly fetched an old towel and threw it over the body. So long as she couldn’t see it, she might manage to forget about it for a while.

  She made herself a mug of coffee and put bread in the toaster. A scatter of letters lay on the doormat, most of them the distinctive thick white or cream envelopes denoting cards of sympathy. She opened them as she drank the coffee, finding the stereotyped messages disappointing. Only one sympathiser had handwritten something more personal, and this was Jodie at the printworks. ‘Please phone me if there’s anything I can do,’ it said. ‘I knew Jim for eight years, and will miss him terribly.’

  Monica knew Jodie quite well, not just because she had worked so long with Jim, but also because she had been David’s girlfriend for a year, when he had been eighteen and Jodie was twenty-one. They had made a strange couple, but Monica had trusted Jodie to help the boy, then in the midst of one of his worst phases of emotional turmoil. Whether or not she did manage to do any good had been a topic of debate ever since. A week after his nineteenth birthday, he had gone missing, and they’d heard nothing from him for eleven months. Monica tried not to think about that terrible time. She had never come close to understanding what it had been about, and how she might have prevented it. Jim had been frantic enough for both of them. She had seen no option but to keep calm and welcome the boy when he came back, as she had trusted all along that he would.

  Perhaps Jodie should be with her when she saw David that morning. A third person, who presumably had a working knowledge of David’s past, and his profound vulnerability, might be extremely useful. After all, she had offered her help, in the card. Forgetting the dead dog, Monica went to the phone.

  Another quiet day for funerals, with Drew, Vince, Pat and Sid sitting over their morning coffee for longer than usual. ‘Got Lapsford’s coffin to do this morning,’ said Sid, nodding slightly to himself. ‘Soon as the second doctor’s been, we can get him embalmed. You can help if you like,’ he added to Drew. ‘Daphne’s going to want someone to take over that when I retire.’

  ‘Does he really need to be embalmed?’ queried Drew, already inured to Sid’s frequent, but premature, references to his retirement. ‘It isn’t particularly warm.’

  ‘Funeral Tuesday. Going home Monday, so I understand. Too long, son. Can’t risk it. And it’ll make him look good for the family.’

  ‘He looked okay to me,’ muttered Drew.

  Sid gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘How you do argue, my boy,’ he said, half-joking, half-exasperated. ‘Dead since Tuesday and you never know what might happen once he’s out of the fridge. I’m hoping we’ll be able to get to it this afternoon.’

  ‘Right,’ shrugged Drew, sensing that he’d gone far enough. ‘What are we doing before that – apart from getting the coffin ready?’

  ‘Waiting for the phone to ring. Might get a removal. Tidy up the workshop. Check we’ve got a good stock of handles, lining sets, name plates. Polish the hearse.’ Vince ticked the jobs off on his fingers. ‘Always plenty to do. It can get a lot quieter than this, and we’ve still got to look busy. Never let the boss think we’re overstaffed. Golden rule, that.’

  ‘And embalm people whether they need it or not,’ Drew added, unable to stop himself. Rinsing his mug in the little sink, he went through to the workshop with Vince and Pat. His bench was empty – there simply was nothing to do. His exchange with Sid had merely reinforced his continuing unease about Jim Lapsford; time was inexorably working against him. His friend Lazarus at the laboratory would probably take several days to come back with any kind of report on the sample of stomach contents, having to fit the job in with his official work as best he could. Now that Lapsford was to be embalmed, any hope of examining further evidence was receding. The lack of activity in the workshop just highlighted the problem. Frustration fizzled inside him, making him jittery and short-tempered.

  Karen’s interest and willingness to help almost made it worse. How do you delegate when you don’t know what you’re doing yourself? There was so much he didn’t understand about the Lapsfords, and so little inspiration as to how he might learn more. He looked suspiciously at Sid, who had followed him out of the kitchen, wondering whether he’d annoyed him; but the man was merely straightening tools yet again on his bench, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

  ‘It must be a bit weird, embalming a mate,’ Drew ventured tentatively.

  Sid looked up and shrugged. ‘Done it enough times. Small town, this. Between us we know most people. He’s not going to feel it, is he?’

  ‘No, but you—’ Drew knew better than to start talking about feelings; about the brush of death’s dark wings on your shoulder when someone younger than you died su
ddenly. ‘He seems to have been a popular chap. Probably be plenty of people wanting to see him off at the cremation.’

  ‘Popular!’ Sid was abruptly transformed. ‘Where did you get that idea? The man was a menace.’

  Drew recoiled at the violence of the words. The air crackled for a moment with Sid’s intense outburst. Then Pat chuckled. ‘Come on, Sid. You’re just jealous that he was having such a good time. A local legend, old Jim. Good luck to him, I say. A short life but a happy one.’

  ‘I thought you were a friend of his,’ Drew was confused. ‘You said you played darts with him. You’ve changed your tune a bit now, haven’t you?’

  Sid was once more fiddling with his tools. ‘I played darts with him, yeah. We were on the same team. And he never did anything to put my back up. Not personally. It’s only that he—’

  ‘Admit it, Sid,’ supplied Vince. ‘He broke your old-fashioned rules. If you went round bad-mouthing everybody who’s strayed off the straight and narrow, you’d be pretty lonely. You’ve got to live and let live.’

  ‘Jim wasn’t so bad,’ confirmed Pat. ‘I knew him a few years back. Handsome bloke, in a bit of a flap about hitting fifty. And that Roxanne – she’s quite something, by any standards. Earthy. Uninhibited.’

  Drew remembered the books and the satin garment in the Lapsford bedroom. ‘Roxanne?’ he queried. ‘Who’s she, then?’

  All three men stared at him. Vince spoke first. ‘You don’t know Roxanne? Sure you do. She’s the woman in that caravan, out on the road to the Crem. You’ve passed it dozens of times. She lives like a gypsy, making potions and jam and all kinds of stuff from what she finds in the fields and hedges. Left her husband and set up on her own. She’s always in the paper, every time the council try to evict her and the town people rally to her support. She’s mad, in a way, but you can’t help admire her.’