by Rebecca Tope
Drew nodded. ‘Only moved here a few months ago. Hadn’t got around to finding a new dentist until I got toothache.’
‘Is it bad?’ She peered at him worriedly.
‘Let’s say it isn’t a real emergency. Is he going to be here tomorrow?’
‘W-e-e-ll,’ she hesitated. ‘He isn’t usually in on a Saturday. But he might be persuaded. What exactly is the problem?’
Drew hesitated. The ploy to meet the dentist and somehow turn the conversation to the Lapsfords now seemed half-baked and foolish. It would be obvious that there was nothing wrong with his teeth, as soon as the man examined him. ‘Actually,’ he said, with a boyish grin, ‘to be honest, it’s been a lot better since I phoned. I think it might have settled down again. Maybe I’ll just leave it for now, and get back to you if there’s any more trouble.’
‘If you like,’ she shrugged. ‘It isn’t usually me here, anyway. I generally just do Mondays. But the usual receptionist is on compassionate leave. Everything’s a bit thrown because of that, you see.’
Drew seized his chance. ‘That’s Mrs Lapsford, I suppose?’ he asked with a little frown of sympathetic concern.
‘That’s right, poor Monica. She’s such a nice lady – doesn’t deserve such trouble, she really doesn’t.’
‘I gather it was very sudden.’ He saw no reason to pretend ignorance. In fact, it had been his experience that people talk much more readily if they think you already know what they’re going to say.
The girl sucked in a hissing breath of concurrence. ‘Wasn’t it!’ she agreed. ‘No warning at all, the way I heard it.’
Drew shook his head. ‘None at all.’
‘You know them then?’ queried the girl, belatedly.
‘Well, I didn’t – but I’m working for Plant and Son now—’ He paused. ‘You know – the undertakers.’
‘Gosh! Are you! That must be a bit … I mean—’
He smiled. ‘It’s amazing what you can get used to. Anyway, I mustn’t keep you. If there’s really no chance that the dentist will be able to see me?’
She lifted an apologetic shoulder. ‘Sorry. Actually,’ she leant forward slightly, and lowered her voice, as if there were invisible listeners, ‘I think he might have gone to see Monica. They’ve always been very good friends.’ She winked awkwardly. ‘If you know what I mean.’
Drew pretended not to understand her. ‘That’s nice,’ he smiled, inwardly rejoicing at this confirmation of his hunch. ‘She’ll need her friends.’
He departed with a light step. Only when he was back in the car did he begin to wonder what use the information could be. It might constitute grounds for divorce, but it was a weak motive for murder, in this day and age. On the other hand, he mused, a dentist presumably had access to various toxic substances – the anaesthetics they used could be fatally injected in large doses, for a start. If he was totally obsessed with Monica, he might decide to dispose of her husband. ‘Hmm, hmmm,’ he hummed to himself, deep in thought. At least it was something tangible to talk over with Karen.
Before that, he ought to find some constructive use for the hour he had gained. There must be all kinds of connections between the Lapsfords and people in the town, if he could only discover what they were. Always inclined to draw patterns and links, he urgently wanted to make a more complete picture of where Jim had fitted in.
He tried to think of a pretext to call in at Jim’s printworks and have a look at the set-up, and the other people who worked there. All the obvious ploys involved the funeral, and a pretended message from Daphne, and that would be extremely embarrassing if Daphne found out. Only if he learnt something important about Lapsford’s death would he be forgiven. A straight gamble.
He knew there was no real choice. He drove to the estate and scanned the big wide-fronted warehouses for the printworks. It took him some time to find Capital Press and recognise it for what it was.
He tried to walk with nonchalant confidence as he parked the car and headed for the small door beside a big corrugated roll-down barrier where he supposed that deliveries of paper and collections of finished work were made. Inside the small door, all was immediate chaos. The whirr of machinery was surprisingly loud, augmented by a ringing telephone and a loud radio playing pop music. Stacks of paper stood solid and obstructive, forming crooked corridors. In a glass partitioned-off room a thin girl sat in front of a computer.
Carefully he threaded his way to the office and tapped on the door. The girl glanced up, and then stared blankly at him. He opened the door. ‘Hello,’ he said brightly. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Are you selling something?’ she said without a smile.
‘Oh, no. I’m from Plant’s. We – er—’ Suddenly he realised he had not adequately prepared for this.
‘Plant’s?’ she interrupted. ‘You mean the funeral place? About the service sheets, is it?’
‘Right,’ he nodded, relieved. ‘The service sheets.’
‘We haven’t done them yet. It’ll be late Monday, probably. We’ll deliver them, shall we? Makes sense for you to have them. I should have thought of that. Were you trying to phone? We’ve been letting it ring today. Sorry about that.’
‘No problem,’ he reassured her. ‘It’s just, well, we were wondering when …’
‘Always a rush at times like this,’ she finished for him briskly. ‘Not that we’ve done any work for you before. It’s always gone to the opposition till now.’ She laughed grimly. ‘It’s an ill wind – isn’t that what they say?’ she went on.
‘Terrible business,’ he offered. ‘You must be feeling the loss. I mean – it looks busy out there.’
‘Oh, God,’ she sighed. ‘It’s always busy. And Jack’s gone missing again. Was there anybody out there at all?’ She tried to peer around him into the main room. He half-turned to look with her.
‘One chap,’ he said.
‘That’ll be Ajash. I’m Jodie, by the way. And yes, we’re missing Jim. Not so much workwise—’ She stopped suddenly, and her nose became pink. He could hear her sniff over the printing noises.
‘Knew him long, did you?’
‘Yeah. This should never have happened to him. Everyone’s saying the same. What do you do at Plant’s, then? You did my Granny’s cremation, eighteen months ago. Not you personally. I don’t recognise you.’
‘No, I’m new. Drew Slocombe. Should we shake hands?’ He held his hand out invitingly, deliberately comic. The girl was appealing in a funny sort of way. She reminded him of a stork or heron.
Jodie took his hand in a cool grip. ‘Well, let me give you a quick tour,’ she said, as if this was an idea she’d rather not follow up, but courtesy demanded it. ‘Maybe you’ll persuade your boss to use us for the service sheets in future. Especially when you see what we’ve done for Jim. It’ll be a masterpiece, I promise you.’ He followed her through another crooked corridor, waiting for her to switch off the radio. A minute later, the chuntering printing press went silent too. The relief was tangible.
‘That’s better,’ he said.
‘That’s Ajash,’ she said nodding towards the small brown man. ‘He’s a bit shy, so we won’t bother him.’ Drew stared curiously at the figure. He was like something out of a fairytale, a shy elf or gnome. ‘He’s brilliant with the machinery,’ she added, waving kindly at Ajash. He clearly heard her, and gravely nodded back.
‘What sort of things do you print?’ Drew asked, inanely.
‘Oh, newsletters, brochures, labels, tickets, calendars, invitations—’
‘Not books, then?’
‘Booklets, now and then. We’re not really set up for full-sized books, though we could have a go if anyone really wanted us to.’
He picked up a sheet of card from a stack beside him. It was bright orange, and carried a warning – Poison – at the top of other smaller text. ‘What’s this?’ he said, eyebrows raised.
‘Oh, a label for some pharmaceutical thing. We do a lot of work for the factory in Grensham. You know? They
make medicines and stuff. We do labels in all different languages for them. No idea what they mean. We just scan it in from what they give us. See – it’s self-adhesive. That was a job that Jim got for us.’
Drew could see wistfulness returning, and marched towards another big stack. Jodie followed, and gave brief explanations of the next few items they encountered. He began to wonder how long she would put up with his presence.
‘I removed Mr Lapsford from his house, you know,’ he said suddenly. ‘On Tuesday morning.’
‘Did you?’ she didn’t seem very interested to hear this. ‘Must have been unpleasant.’
‘Not really. He seemed to have gone very peacefully. I just thought you might like to know that.’
‘Peacefully? Funny the way people use that word. I don’t think death is ever peaceful. Torn away from all your family and friends, without warning. How can that be peaceful?’ She was almost shouting. Drew pushed his hands into his pockets and felt again the single Viagra tablet. The association between this and his last words struck him as incongruous. Maybe Jim hadn’t died peacefully after all. Maybe he’d been dosed up on the drug and in the extreme stages of sexual ecstasy. Pity he couldn’t suggest this to Jodie.
As if attracted by the raised voice, another man appeared from a side door. He seemed alarmed to see Drew there. Drew recognised him as Monica’s visitor of the day before: the mysterious Jack.
‘Who’s this?’ the man asked, coming closer and looking hard at Jodie. ‘And what’s all the noise about?’
‘This is Drew Slocombe, from the undertaker’s,’ Jodie said, her voice still unsteady. ‘He’s come about the service sheets. This is Jack Merryfield,’ she told Drew. ‘Jim was at his place, the evening before he died.’
Why did she tell me that? wondered Drew. ‘Oh?’ he said.
‘Yeah. We had a regular Monday thing. Usually played on my computer, or had a game of cards. Sometimes did some fancy font work, trying out new designs for posters and stuff.’ The man shrugged. ‘Seemed right as rain, he did. I still can’t believe what happened later that night.’
Right as rain? thought Drew, struck for the first time by the cliché. What was right about rain, anyway? ‘Did you and Jim get onto the Internet, too?’ he asked. ‘That’s something I still haven’t got into at all.’
Jack nodded. ‘Yeah, a bit,’ he said. ‘Jim liked to look things up.’
A connection wriggled itself into Drew’s head. Didn’t people buy Viagra through the Internet? Wasn’t that the central element to the black market in all kinds of things, these days?
‘It’s a crime,’ Jodie interrupted. The word lingered, as the three of them glanced at each other. ‘I mean, a crime against nature. Nobody should die like that,’ she added.
‘You’re making it sound almost violent,’ Drew said, quietly.
Jodie paused a moment, looking at him in surprise. ‘I am, aren’t I,’ she agreed.
Monica was enduring another restless evening, the days crawling by, her emotions all over the place. She had cooked and eaten a small supper for herself, and washed everything up in a sort of trance. Her thoughts were chaotic. Many a time she had eaten alone – when Jim was away with the boys, or late home from work, or out for some other reason. This was no different, except for the knowledge that she would always eat alone from now on. She mused on what a total change that would make. Knowing that Jim would never speak to her again, never sit down and start his meal, only to jump up for something she hadn’t provided. A meal with Jim had seldom been a restful business. She had eventually realised that she could never hope to anticipate his every requirement – this was not the nature of the game. Some need in him ordained that he must forever be searching for Worcestershire sauce, or a slice of bread, or a twist of lemon. Over the years, she had made it easier for him by providing no peripherals at all. Even the salt and pepper now lived in a cupboard across the room from the dining table, and she put them back there at the end of every meal.
She tried to visualise how it would be after the weekend, when they brought Jim back to the house for his last night at home. She would sit beside him, talking to him, keeping candles burning, remembering their life together. Thinking about it now, she smiled a little. It felt brave and imaginative, and she congratulated herself. The coming weekend would be an irritating delay, an interlude in which she could do little but try to prepare herself for the funeral, and the new phase of her life which would follow on from there. People would keep visiting and writing and phoning, she supposed, although Sunday was a worry. She’d have to sort something out for Sunday, if she didn’t want to sit here going mad, all on her own. It was still a day when people withdrew into their own homes, to mow lawns or watch old movies on TV.
Outside, it was almost dark. The summer was ending, every fine day a bonus in the slow decline into autumn and dark evenings and dead leaves. When a car pulled up outside her gate, she could hardly see it in the twilight. The occupant was in shadow as she came through the front gate, but Monica knew who it was, and went to meet her.
‘I didn’t expect to see you today,’ she told her friend, on the doorstep. ‘Glutton for punishment, eh?’
Pauline shook her head dismissively. ‘Thought you’d be all on your own, so I’ve just dropped in for a bit.’
‘Nothing better to do, then. You should get yourself another husband,’ Monica told her, with a twinge of irritation. Sometimes Pauline just seemed to have too much time for others, and virtually no life of her own. I’m not going to get like that, vowed Monica.
Pauline flinched, and Monica could see the process of understanding and forgiveness taking place. Poor Monica, she’s not herself. She doesn’t really mean it. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me, then?’ she asked lightly. ‘Wait till you see what I’ve brought you.’ She rummaged in a flimsy Tesco carrier bag that seemed in danger of splitting, and produced a wine bottle. ‘Rioja – that’s your favourite, isn’t it?’
Monica forced a smile. Pauline pronounced the word with the authentic hard, throaty sound, thanks to regular Spanish holidays, but she’d had no real idea what she was buying. The irritation flared again. Two or three months ago, the two had gone for a meal together and Monica had chosen the wine more or less at random. The fact that she had enjoyed it more than she’d expected to had obviously lodged in Pauline’s memory. But the idea that she had a ‘favourite’ wine at all was ridiculous. Wine didn’t work like that – you matched it to the situation, the meal, the weather, the mood. The knowledge that Pauline had tried so hard to please her made the irritation even worse. The mood I’m in, she thought, there’s nothing poor old Pauline could do right just now.
With poor grace she fetched glasses and corkscrew and sat down in the armchair. The wine was, after all, very palatable, and she belatedly expressed her thanks. ‘I’m getting rid of that recliner,’ she said, glaring at Jim’s favourite seat. ‘I can almost see him there every time I come into the room.’
‘I’m surprised he ever had time to sit in it,’ said Pauline, from the sofa. ‘He seemed to be out such a lot.’
‘Jim was good with time. Managed to fit everything in without any trouble. Including quite a few hours in that chair.’
‘You’ll have to drink most of this. I’m driving. There’s another bottle in the bag. I thought I’d leave it for next time.’ Pauline drained her glass, then immediately poured herself another, appearing not to notice the contradiction. Drinking and driving laws struck them both as something that applied more to husbands and sons than respectable middle-aged women.
‘So – what happens next?’ asked Pauline. ‘And where’s Cassie? She’s usually on my lap by this time.’
‘She’s dead,’ said Monica calmly. ‘I found her yesterday morning, and we’re putting her in with Jim. Don’t tell anybody – it’s probably against the regulations.’
‘But … how can she be dead?’ The wine increased Pauline’s bewilderment. ‘She was fine last week.’
‘So was Jim. Ma
ybe they made a secret suicide pact. Look, she just is, okay. I don’t know what it was. Old age, probably. Or she pined away. She was miserable on Tuesday, worse on Wednesday and dead on Thursday.’
‘Well, I think that’s awful.’ To Monica’s annoyance, her friend began to cry quietly, making no effort to wipe her face or put the wine glass down. ‘The final straw, that is. And you sitting there so unfeeling! I don’t know about you sometimes, I really don’t. No wonder Jim—’
‘Don’t say it! And don’t make judgements. You might be my friend, but you don’t understand me. Stop crying, you fool. It was only a dog.’
Pauline made an effort, but it took a while. ‘Sometimes,’ she sniffed. ‘I don’t know why I bother with you.’ But she laughed feebly, to soften the words.
‘You’ve got something to tell me, haven’t you?’ said Monica, suddenly. ‘I don’t want to hear it, but I suppose I’ll have to sooner or later. I warn you – I doubt if I’ll be surprised. I’m not a silly little wife, with my head stuck in the broom cupboard, you know.’
Pauline said nothing. Monica took a deep breath, ‘Do you know what worries me most?’ she said, almost casually. Pauline shook her head. ‘Loss of dignity,’ said Monica. ‘People thinking I’m an object of pity, a victim of some kind. I’ve always needed to be in control. To not be dependent. But nobody ever seemed to realise what I was like.’
‘Not even Jim?’
‘Oh, Jim must have done, though we didn’t talk about that sort of thing. We were married for twenty-nine years. It all happens fairly automatically after that much time.’
Pauline looked at her thoughtfully. ‘They’re more likely to see Jim as the victim, aren’t they? Whoever they might be.’
Monica laughed, a single shrill breath. ‘You could look at it like that,’ she agreed. ‘So, let me have it, then. Tell me the worst.’
‘Ah.’ Pauline looked as if she might have changed her mind. ‘You’re not going to thank me for this, are you? I don’t even know, for sure, why I’m doing it. After what you said about dignity, I probably ought to keep my mouth shut.’
