Dark Undertakings

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ said the senior policeman he’d spoken to outside. ‘Threatening behaviour. Holding a person hostage at knife-point. Disturbing the peace. Can’t just let him go after all that, now can we?’

  ‘But it isn’t David you should be arresting,’ said Jodie, her voice loud with frustration. ‘It’s him.’ She pointed at Jack. ‘He killed Jim!’

  ‘All right, miss – we’ll look into that, in due course. Although, if the body has been cremated …’ He shook his head.

  Drew felt a sense of crashing disappointment. He had no doubt that Jodie was right: at last it was making sense. From the look of Jack Merryfield’s face when she accused him, there had been little room for doubt. But an expression suggestive of guilt and some resentful words spoken in the heat of the moment would hardly qualify as evidence in court.

  As preparations were being made to leave the house, Drew looked back and caught Monica’s eye. She was crying; Jodie was holding her hand. Drew hesitated, wanting to console her. ‘David’s going to be okay,’ he offered.

  ‘I’m not crying for David,’ she mumbled, almost too low for him to catch. ‘I’m crying for Jack.’ The tears ran without stopping.

  Disappointment was almost tangible. Had it all come down to this? David reprimanded for threatening behaviour and Drew going home with Elastoplast on his side, before having to explain himself to Daphne and others? He felt like crying himself.

  A beeper went off; at the same time, the telephone warbled. One of the policemen answered it and then handed it to his superior. ‘Coroner’s Officer, sir,’ he said, with evident surprise.

  The man listened. ‘Yes … that’s right,’ he said. ‘Not as far as I know … Good God!’ The conversation was abruptly cut short. ‘They’ve held back the cremation,’ he said to nobody in particular. ‘The superintendent at the crem had a call for him to stop it. Perhaps you, miss—’ he nodded at Jodie, ‘and you, sir—’ to Jack, ‘would be kind enough to come with us and answer some questions. And if you, sir and madam—’ encompassing Drew and Monica, ‘would remain where we can find you for the next day or two, we might get to the bottom of this. All right?’

  Karen had gone back to bed when Drew reached home. She was pale and he saw tearstains on her cheeks. ‘What is it?’ he demanded, already knowing.

  ‘I’m bleeding,’ she told him.

  So am I, he wanted to say, still unsteady from the day’s traumas. Instead he sat down next to her and pulled her to him. ‘How much?’ he asked.

  ‘Not much. But there shouldn’t be any. Oh, Drew. Why is it so difficult? It isn’t supposed to be like this.’

  ‘Look,’ he murmured, resting his cheek against hers, ‘it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. You’ve had the test, remember. Women often get spotting in the early stages. I remember that distinctly from my training. Would it help to take your mind off it if I tell you what’s been happening to me?’

  She nodded like a little girl. ‘I was worried about you. You’ve been ages.’

  He told her the whole story, embellishing it with imitations of the bewildered policemen and comments on his own part in the action, but leaving out his reaction to his own minor injury. Then he leant back with a sigh. ‘It’s out of our hands now, anyway,’ he said. ‘So much for Drew Slocombe, Ace Detective.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she murmured sleepily beside him. He wondered how much she really cared about who killed Jim Lapsford.

  There was still plenty of unfinished business, Drew realised, as he carefully extracted his arm from behind Karen’s shoulders and tiptoed downstairs. He had to phone Daphne and explain his absence from work that afternoon. And he had to straighten out his story before the police summoned him for interview. A nervous fluttering in his stomach reminded him that he could yet find himself in trouble. He could be accused of withholding evidence of a crime, along with Lazarus, who had only wanted to help. He could even lose his job. And Karen could lose the baby – if there ever had been a baby to lose. It might have been simply what they called ‘a chemical pregnancy’. It could all have been wishful thinking from the start.

  It had been a long week since Lapsford died. Wearily he picked up the phone to call Daphne. When Olga answered it, he heard an unusual level of animation in her voice; when he asked to speak to Daphne, she almost squealed. ‘About time too! She’s been hoping you’d call, all afternoon. She’s got loads to tell you.’

  Daphne came on quickly, her voice loud with portentousness. ‘Drew, we’re in trouble. Not just us, but Julian Lloyd, Sid, Susie … I don’t know who else. Why ever didn’t you say something to me from the start? It’s obvious now that Lapsford should have gone to the Coroner. It’s all a serious mess, it is really.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have listened to me,’ said Drew, too tired to watch his words. ‘Nobody wanted to listen to me.’

  She paused a moment. ‘Well, I think you’re wrong about that. But we won’t argue. Too late now.’

  ‘So what changed their minds?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Why didn’t they just go ahead with the cremation?’

  ‘Oh, that was the dog,’ she said shortly, as if it were obvious.

  ‘The dog?’

  ‘Desmond phoned me at two, to ask if the dog was coming or not. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about, there wasn’t any dog. Or not any more, because it had been disposed of already. I said you knew that perfectly well.’

  ‘We never squared that with Monica,’ Drew remembered. ‘And she never asked.’

  ‘Anyway, it seems that Desmond was bothered by the fact that you’d lied to him, and decided to wait a bit longer before cremating the body. He sensed something must be up and didn’t want to be accused of rushing things, if there was trouble brewing. There’s nothing so final as a cremation, as he knows all too well.’

  ‘So now there’ll be a post-mortem. He was poisoned, you know. We’ve got evidence.’

  ‘If you think they’ll find it after Sid’s embalming, you might be disappointed,’ she reminded him. ‘He does a pretty thorough job.’

  ‘We’ll just have to see then, won’t we? Now just tell me a few more things.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Have I still got a job?’

  ‘Come on,’ she laughed sarcastically. ‘Our only hope is to make you the hero of the hour. I couldn’t fire you now, even if I wanted to. The press would crucify me, not to mention the good citizens of Bradbourne. What else can I tell you?’

  ‘Did you know that Jack Merryfield was in love with you?’

  He heard the deep sigh. ‘Of course I did. After what happened last Easter, I could hardly be in any doubt.’

  ‘Which was?’ he prompted.

  Her voice dropped; perhaps Olga was within earshot. ‘Jack and Jim and I were all in the King’s Head one evening, and Jim started trying it on with me. Nothing unusual in that, but Jack wasn’t having it. He’d had a few drinks, and came after us outside, spitting in Jim’s face and calling him every filthy name you can think of. Said Jim wasn’t fit to lick my shoes, stuff like that. Then he got all maudlin, saying I was the finest woman in Bradbourne and nobody was going to lay a hand on me while he was around. I laughed it off, but I got the message clear enough. Scared me a bit, to be honest.’

  ‘But he never took it any further?’

  ‘Not till he applied for your job. No way was I going to have him around here every day. Far too complicated.’

  ‘So it wasn’t Jim’s bad reference that decided you?’

  She laughed. ‘I barely even read it. Chucked it in the bin.’

  Where Sid found it when they took it out for shredding, and showed it to the wretched Jack, thereby tipping him over the edge from resentment to murder, Drew concluded. Such is fate. ‘There is just one more question: why did you visit Karen in hospital?’

  ‘Julian asked me to. He suspected there was a problem with Susie and his prescription pads and the Viagra.’

  ‘I see,’ Drew lied we
akly, too tired for any more. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘That’s okay, Drew. See you tomorrow.’

  Before he could warm up some soup for a much-needed supper, there was a knock on the door. When he opened it, there was nobody there, just an envelope on the doormat. He opened it cautiously.

  Dear Drew (I hope I can call you that?)

  Want to thank you for being such a good friend to me and my family. If it hadn’t been for you, Jim’s murder would have gone unnoticed and I would always wonder why he died when he did. I saw Jack’s face this afternoon, as I think you did, and I know it was his doing. That teabag came from him. He must have given it to Jim on Monday evening, telling him some story about it being good for virility. I’ve rescued it from the compost heap and given it to the police. I dare say there’ll be others like it at Jack’s place. I do feel terribly sorry for Jack, of course. Jim behaved so badly towards him, if what he says is true. I just hope the courts will be sympathetic, too.

  I didn’t know Jack was David’s father. When Julia developed MS, Jim decided we wouldn’t have any more children in case they inherited it. He wouldn’t listen when everyone told him it wasn’t hereditary, so he had a vasectomy. And that led to his insecurity about his sexual performance. I imagine you understand a bit about how that might be. He was very good to the boy in the early years, even David would admit that.

  I know Jim wasn’t the ideal husband. I always knew about his women, but they didn’t take anything important away from me. I led my own life, as you probably realise. But I loved Jim, and want him back again. Nobody in the family ever for a moment wanted him dead. It seems important that you should know that. It was a terrible mistake on Jack’s part to think that David would be better off without Jim. I won’t ever forget him saying ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’ That’s the most terrible thing I ever heard anybody say.

  Jodie’s going to drop this letter in for me. She has been such a tower of strength. I don’t deserve such kindness.

  Well, I just wanted to say thank you. I wasn’t always polite to you, and you must have been very worried by everything that’s happened. I hope the injury to your side will heal quickly.

  With very best wishes

  Monica Lapsford

  PS Think of me tomorrow – it’s my fiftieth

  birthday!

  Which more or less tied up all the loose ends, Drew concluded, as he settled down next to Karen. She had dozed all evening and he hadn’t heard her going to the bathroom: if a fullscale period had started, she’d have had to deal with it. Perhaps they would be spared the heartbreak after all.

  He thought about Jack Merryfield, and tried to get inside the man’s mind, to grasp the tangled reasons for doing what he did. To poison somebody, you needed a long slow drip-drip of resentment, building up day by day, year by year, to the final idea; the careful planning; the secret nursing of a long-term campaign. The simple idea of doctoring a teabag and then persuading the victim to use it, was as impressive as it was unlikely. Jack must have known every detail of Jim’s routines: the personal teapot and Monica’s preference for coffee. He must have hunted down the ideal bag design, with a single staple holding the thing together.

  And who would ever have guessed at Jack’s quiet persistent passion for Daphne? Jim’s betrayal over that; his imperfect parenting of David; his unsavoury sexual proclivities – it all added up to a powerful hatred. There was no doubt that Jack had had ample motivation.

  Daphne wasn’t really angry with him; Monica Lapsford was positively grateful. There would be evidence enough to convict Jack, even if it didn’t amount to a capital murder charge. Jim’s use of other substances might lead to trouble for Susie and Roxanne, but the loss of young Craig would probably soften any judgements against them. Once they got it straight, the police and the courts might conclude that most people in the story had suffered enough. Jack would get a mandatory sentence and David might even acknowledge the man as his father, eventually.

  The sounds of traffic and an overhead plane came through the open window. Drew thought about Bradbourne and its people. A town with no soul, Roxanne had said. Searching for a pattern in the events of the past week, Drew could find little to condemn Bradbourne, other than a sense of lives frustrated and constrained by the urge for temporary thrills, and the avoidance of responsibility. Roxanne herself had dropped out of society. Monica Lapsford had abandoned any real effort to improve her marriage, turning instead to her boss for distraction. Decent people like Vince and Alicia seemed mere bystanders, doing no harm, but very little good, either. And then there was Daphne Plant, amoral scavenger, looking for the easy way out, fudging the rules, processing dead bodies efficiently and without emotion. She bore her own burden of responsibility. Where she could bring comfort, she brought only a cool politeness; where she could provide a check on the bending of regulations, she only colluded. Whatever might be going on in her personal life, it did not give her the right to exploit and manipulate her customers and employees.

  A soft snore from Karen brought him back to his own life. A lot had changed in recent days. The emotional switchback of potential fatherhood had already carried him away, even if this time it turned out to be a false alarm. The almost accidental blundering into a job as an undertaker would have to be seriously reconsidered. If he chose to stay, he vowed to himself that he would approach the work with the integrity and commitment he knew were necessary for his own peace of mind. He would stay in Bradbourne and see what he could do, in his own small way, to lighten its lack of soul.

  About the Author

  REBECCA TOPE lives on a smallholding in Herefordshire, with a full complement of livestock, but manages to travel the world and enjoy civilisation from time to time as well. Most of her varied experiences and activities find their way into her books, sooner or later. She is also the author of the Cotswold Mysteries series featuring Thea Osborne.

  www.rebeccatope.com

  By Rebecca Tope

  THE COTSWOLD MYSTERIES

  A Cotswold Killing

  A Cotswold Ordeal

  Death in the Cotswolds

  A Cotswold Mystery

  Blood in the Cotswolds

  Slaughter in the Cotswolds

  Fear in the Cotswolds

  A Grave in the Cotswolds

  Deception in the Cotswolds

  Malice in the Cotswolds

  THE WEST COUNTRY MYSTERIES

  A Dirty Death

  Dark Undertakings

  Death of a Friend

  Grave Concerns

  A Death to Record

  The Sting of Death

  A Market for Murder

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  13 Charlotte Mews

  London W1T 4EJ

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain in 1999.

  This ebook edition first published by Allison & Busby in 2012.

  Copyright © 1999 by REBECCA TOPE

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–4023–9

  If you enjoyed Dark Undertakings,

  you’ll love our other books by Rebecca Tope …

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