Cause of Death

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Didn’t it, Ted? Didn’t it really matter?’

  He shrugged. ‘Andy, I don’t know. Yes it would have done, yes it might have been something that festered, but we’ll never know, will we, because of what I did.’

  ‘And what did you do, Ted?’

  ‘The wrong thing. I said the wrong thing, didn’t I? Kath didn’t want to be forgiven, she wanted me to notice her, to feel angry and jealous and be . . . exciting, I suppose, the way that man at work had been. Andy, something I’ve understood since is that people want their moment. They see anger as cleansing, somehow, as what it takes to really make amends. If you don’t get mad, it means you don’t care. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, it was that I cared so much she could have done just about anything and I’d have forgiven and still loved her.’

  ‘Would you?’

  Ted shrugged. ‘I don’t know. What does anybody know?’

  ‘So what happened, Ted?’

  Ted Eebry poured their tea and offered Andy the milk.

  ‘She flew at me, all fists and fury and words she knew would hurt because she wanted to be hurt herself. Wanted me to be angry so she could be forgiven properly. At least, that’s what I think she wanted.’

  He paused for a moment and looked at Andy as though trying to work out what he wanted to hear.

  ‘So what did you do?’ Andy felt oddly calm now.

  ‘I pushed her away. I pushed her away and she fell. Hit her head on the edge of the spade we’d just left half stuck into the ground. She fell back and she hit her head on the corner of the blade and then she just lay still and that was it. My Kath was dead, and all I could think was that the kids would be home soon and they mustn’t see her lying there like that.’

  Andy wasn’t sure how to proceed. ‘Are you sure she was dead?’ he asked gently. ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘I checked for a pulse. I tried to wake her up. I was so scared, Andy, I could only think that the kids mustn’t see her.’

  ‘You could have called the police. Called an ambulance. Ted, what did you do?’

  ‘I buried her. In the garden. I took the top off the old compost heap and dug down inside as far as I could go, and once I’d got a hollow place underneath it I put her in, then I shovelled the muck back and I covered her over and I put the top layer back like it had been before, and then I came in and got things ready for the kids’ teas.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  Andy stared at Ted, his brain whirring. ‘And you left her there? We all played there. We all climbed and jumped and . . .’ Andy felt sick.

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do. I took the kids out of school and we went off for the summer. The school was sympathetic, everyone was. I knew by the time we got back she’d be . . . Well, the worst of any smell would be gone, you know. I’d dug down deep before I put her under and things rot down fast in a big heap like that and we were gone from May right through to September.’

  ‘This was your wife, Ted.’

  ‘And they were my kids. I had to do it for them.’

  Andy no longer knew what to think. ‘Ted, why did you move the body?’

  Ted sighed. ‘It was a false alarm about five years ago,’ he said. ‘The water company said it was going to run a new main across behind the crescent and it looked on the plans like they’d be coming through the hedge, like. Through the heap. So I waited till the kids were away for the day, staying with friends. Not that Stacey was a kid by then of course, already a young woman, and she looked so much like my Kath. And I dug up what was left of her and I put the bones in an old tin box I’d got in the shed and I left her there. I left her in the box.’

  Andy swallowed hard, wishing he’d done as he should and accompanied Mac, or Frank, or someone else, anyone really, so that he’d not been here alone.

  ‘Ted, I think I need to call my boss. We need to get this down official like. A proper statement.’

  Ted nodded. ‘Then our Stacey wanted me to move and I had to think what to do. Then I saw the story about the old bones they found at the aerodrome, and I thought, why not put my Kath’s bones there too? Hiding in plain sight, if you see what I mean. But I knew I’d have to kind of do a bit at a time.’

  ‘You couldn’t possibly have thought that would work, Ted.’

  ‘I didn’t think,’ Ted said. ‘I think that’s the long and the short of it, I didn’t think.’ He paused, stirred what was left of his tea. ‘So, how do we do this?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose I’d better caution you,’ Andy said.

  ‘Then you better had. I don’t want you getting into trouble for not doing things properly.’

  Andy took a deep breath. ‘Ted Eebry, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You don’t have to say anything . . .’

  Ted Eebry watched him closely, pain in his eyes, but something more. He wants my anger, Andy thought. Like he reckoned Kath did. He wants me to punish him.

  Caution over, Andy took out his mobile phone and did what he should have done an hour before. He called his boss.

  Epilogue

  It was all a bit of a mess, Rina thought. She felt terribly sorry for Ted and his family, and terribly sorry also for young Andy.

  ‘My fault,’ Mac said. ‘I left too much for him to do. He wasn’t ready for something like this.’ He paused at his favourite point of the promenade and looked out to sea.

  ‘Oh, he’ll survive,’ Rina said. ‘It will hurt for a good while, but he’ll come out of it wiser and stronger.’

  ‘Will he?’

  ‘I believe so. What happened to Haines? He’ll be charged?’

  Mac nodded. ‘He has powerful legal representation, but the evidence is mounting. It will take time, but when Haines comes to trial it will be a major event.’

  ‘And Vashinsky?’

  ‘Ah, now Mr Vashinsky didn’t make himself available. He’s long gone.’

  Rina was thoughtful. ‘Do you think there’s a chance for Jerry and his wife?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Mac said. ‘But I suppose stranger things have happened. Have you talked to George yet?’

  ‘I have, yes. He says he doesn’t want anything to do with it, but he’ll come round. He’s just upset and confused.’

  ‘Maybe it would be best if—’

  ‘If he turned down Karen’s gift to him? Mac, he’s going to have a hard enough time in the world as it is without imposing further penalties. If he wants to give the whole damned lot away to the local dog’s home, well that will be his choice, but I’m not going to deny him options. That wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘Do you think she’s really gone this time?’

  ‘Karen? Oh, I think so. For the time being, at least. She’s completed her mission as Stan calls it. Two bad men dead, others about to be punished and her little brother looked after. Not a bad mission, I wouldn’t have thought.’

  ‘It’s still murder, Rina. She is still the cause of their death. Others too.’

  ‘And Ted Eebry was the cause of Kath’s.’

  ‘The difference being, Ted has spent the rest of his life grieving over it. I doubt Karen will even spare a thought now she’s done. I had to tell Kendall what she said to Stan, about Brig Morten. If she ever comes back she’ll be arrested, you know that. She’s wanted by too many.’

  ‘You took your time telling him,’ Rina observed. ‘Is there some part of you that hopes she’ll stay hidden? That she won’t ever be arrested?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘Rina, I just don’t want to have to be the one, you know? Frankly, I don’t give much for my chances either, if I crossed Karen again.’

  Rina admitted to herself that he was probably right. But despite everything, even despite the fact that Karen was capable of scaring her witless, Rina cherished a certain affection for the girl. She knew it was wrong, but she just couldn’t help herself. Karen was alive and intense and it was scarily attractive.

  So long, as Mac said, she kept her distance.

  ‘We should
go back,’ Rina said. ‘It’s tea time and the boys have been baking. Miriam will be there ahead of us.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me what the celebration was?’

  ‘Ah.’ Rina smiled. ‘My agent called yesterday. The new series has got the go-ahead. We start shooting next spring.’

  Mac stopped, took her arm. ‘Rina, I’m so pleased for you. But what will that mean? Are you leaving Frantham?’

  She shook her head and patted the hand that lay tight about her elbow. ‘Oh, no. Frantham is home now, always will be I suspect. I have far too many dear friends here. I’ll go and stay wherever we’re filming and then come back in between. There’s even talk of them looking around here for locations. Lydia Marchant was always more rural sleuth than big city crime fighter, so . . .’

  Mac laughed and they turned and walked back along the familiar promenade. ‘It will do you good to get a proper job again,’ he said. ‘Instead of all this amateur sleuthing.’

  Rina punched him playfully on the arm. ‘I have never ever been an amateur at anything,’ she said.

  Her arm through Mac’s, Rina basked in the contentment of the moment and the exciting times to come, and silently wished Karen well, wherever she might be.

  Footnotes

  TWO

  1 See Fragile Lives

  TWELVE

  1 See Night Vision, a Naomi Blake mystery