Untimely Graves

by Marjorie Eccles

  Cleo stared thoughtfully at the sketch. Tone had exactly caught the determined chin, the sideways perch of her head, the closed smile. What would his reaction have been if he had seen, as she had, that gun tucked away amongst this dear old lady’s embroidered tablecloths?

  Presently, he came back with two enormous burgers and two coffees. The burger smelled hot and savoury and she took a large, hungry bite. She chewed, more slowly and more suspiciously, swallowed hastily, then pushed it away. ‘Yuk. There’s something wrong with this. It’s disgusting. The meat tastes all mushy.’

  ‘That’s because it’s not meat. It’s a lentilburger, you said you didn’t mind what.’

  Aaargh! She thought she might be sick. If she’d known it was lentils she was eating, OK. But chewing it, thinking it was meat … what sort of person was it, could do such a thing?

  He said miserably, ‘I’m sorry, but you did say … I’ll get you something else.’

  She was sort of getting used to his face now and she saw from its expression that she might have really hurt him. ‘No, it’s me that should be sorry – I did say anything. Tell you what, you come home with me and I’ll heat us some soup or something,’ she heard herself saying, and smiled at him to show she really meant it. It was nobody’s fault but her own, yet she somehow couldn’t fancy eating anything else, not for a while, at any rate.

  One thing that could be said for him, he wasn’t the sort to take offence. ‘Right.’ He grabbed a fistful of paper napkins out of the holder on the table and wrapped both burgers up, not intending to let anything go to waste.

  Marge raised her eyebrows at their hurried exit. ‘Anything wrong?’

  ‘No, just something we suddenly remembered.’

  Tone told her as they walked home that he lived in one of the blocks of high-rise flats quite near her own road, an infill that faced some of the bigger houses. It was OK, he said, now that the rest of the family had left home and there was just him and his mum. Quieter, like. She gave him a swift glance, but didn’t ask him what that meant.

  Later, after some soup, tooth-achingly sweet, vinegary and luridly coloured, which the label alleged was tomato, and of which no fewer than eight cans had been left in the cupboard by Angel Honeybun (which must have said something about her), Cleo said, ‘What are you doing working for MO with a talent like yours, Tone? You could get a really interesting job if you wanted to.’

  ‘I’ve no qualifications.’

  ‘Who needs qualifications when you can draw like that?’

  ‘Everybody needs qualifications these days.’

  ‘Then why not get some? You could do, easily.’ Look who was talking, but it was different when it was someone else, wasn’t it?

  ‘Nah,’ he said dismissively, and something in the way he said it told her to leave the subject alone.

  After Tone had demolished both, now cold, lentilburgers, when they were still sitting at the table in the kitchen, Cleo suggested they took their coffee mugs into the other room to sit more comfortably.

  ‘Wow!’ he exclaimed when they went in, staring around. ‘You have a thing about Art Deco?’

  ‘Not me. It’s just as my Aunt Phoebe left it.’

  ‘You can make whatever changes you want,’ Daphne had said, ‘but I’m afraid you’re stuck with the furniture …’

  ‘I don’t mind the furniture, Mum, but maybe a coat of paint on the walls?’

  Throughout the house, Phoebe’s beige, textured wallpapers, with their indeterminate patterns, had now faded, so that the walls had taken on the colour and consistency of porridge. ‘I’m thinking of painting the walls,’ she told Tone now. ‘And that fireplace! It’s driving me mad. I keep trying to balance things on it but they slip off, because of its curve. I wondered about a shelf just above it. Dad got some ready-made ones with brackets from B & Q the other week.’

  There was a stunned silence from Tone when she told him this. Then he said, reprovingly as a museum curator, ‘That’d be sacrilege. You don’t want to go ruining everything with things like that.’ He thought for a while. ‘I could do you some murals.’

  ‘Some what?’

  ‘Murals. No, hang on and listen – could be great.’ He warmed to his theme. ‘Deco stuff to go with the gear, you could choose what before we started.’ He saw her face. ‘OK,’ he went on, though obviously disappointed. ‘Sylvan scenes and all that, if you really want. Though I was thinking more on the lines of trompe l’oeil, you know? Deceive the eye, make the room seem bigger.’

  ‘I know what trompe l’oeil means. But no,’ she said firmly, ‘just paint. And what d’you mean, we?’

  ‘I’ll help you. Better still, do it for you. No sweat.’

  ‘Well …’ she began weakly. ‘That’s really nice of you, but, sorry. I couldn’t pay you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want paying,’ he said stiffly. ‘Not for a mate.’

  Oh dear, had she hurt him again? But no, ‘You just buy the paint,’ he said. ‘Though this paper’d be a bit dodgy to paint on. Needs stripping off before we start. I could begin straight away.’

  This was all going a long way beyond the few cans of emulsion paint she’d been thinking of.

  ‘Tone, it’s an old house, it’ll probably need replastering under the paper.’

  ‘Then I could do you some frescoes – paint straight on to the wet plaster, they’ll last for ever. They used to do that in the olden days.’

  ‘Frescoes?’

  ‘Go for it. Semper sursum!’

  ‘Semper what?’ She gave him an odd look.

  ‘Sursum. Latin for Onward Christian soldiers, more or less.’ He could see she was weakening. ‘Go on, live dangerously.’

  ‘No French maids?’

  ‘I could do you something a lot better than that,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘We-ell … Oh, all right.’

  Maybe she owed him for the mistake over that lentilburger.

  8

  ‘These crime figures …’

  Words of doom, coming from Mayo’s secretary, Delia Brown, she who ruled him like an old-fashioned but benevolent nanny. She stood militantly between him and the bank of foliage plants that some office design consultant, brought in to tart up the working environment, had deemed necessary for someone of his rank Her figure, small as it was, blocked out even more of the light, forcing him to put down his pen and pay attention.

  ‘These crime figures from Inspector Kite,’ she repeated firmly, tapping the sheaf of papers in her hand, ‘they have to be checked and be ready for me to print out by the end of the week.’

  ‘I’ll see to it,’ he promised hastily.

  ‘Right-oh.’ Her eyes held him to his promise, telling him he couldn’t bamboozle her. She knew very well how he hated administration above all things, and juggling with crime figures more than any of it. He suppressed a sigh. He’d do his best to keep his promise: he knew it was her efficiency that helped to keep his head above the sea of relentless paperwork: his subordinates’ reports became comprehensible under her hands, papers magically stacked themselves in order of importance to be dealt with, he wasn’t even allowed to see anything that was irrelevant. She fielded his telephone calls and only put through those which she considered necessary. She had a limitless memory for facts, figures and people. Martin Kite called her Mighty Mouse, with some justification. Mayo noted now, with amusement, that she was exactly the same height as the young rubber plant behind her, less than shoulder height with him, but then, few could match his height and bulk.

  ‘On your desk by tomorrow morning,’ he said, but she raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Don’t make rash promises until you’ve been through this!’ she warned, smiling slightly, putting his appointments diary, open at the day’s date, on his desk. Even from where he stood, he could see that today left little room for manoeuvre – except for what Delia called a ‘window’ around lunchtime, which he didn’t point out in case she found something to fill it with.

  ‘Inspector Kite in yet?’<
br />
  ‘He’s somewhere around – I’ll send him in, shall I?’

  ‘Please. And Delia – I’ll do my best with this lot, hmm?’ He gave her his warmest smile.

  She nodded and went out quickly, before he could notice how pink her cheeks were. She’d have died if he had noticed. The chief reason she defended him against all comers was because he made her heart flutter under her neat jumper and gold chain as nobody else ever had done since she’d had a crush, thirty years ago, on the biology master at school. Mayo went back to his files, not as unaware of the effect he had on her as she would have liked to think, but it embarrassed him, so he pretended not to notice, which suited both of them.

  At ten, he spent half an hour with Kite, who’d requested a meeting to run through the complicated evidence he was required to give in court later that week, a case at last successfully brought to prosecution. A young peer of the realm had been using his recently inherited stately home for activities not usually regarded as compatible with noblesse oblige. Kite had led a spectacular dawn raid, rousing not only his Lordship, but several tired businessmen and their companions, from narcotics-induced slumber. Lord Spenderhill was hopefully due to go down for a long time for supply and possession of illegal substances. Amongst other things.

  That dealt with, Mayo braced himself for a meeting with the ACC, who was found to be clutching a copy of the Advertiser in one hand and what was left of his hair in the other when Mayo went into his office. ‘Seen this?’ he barked, pointing to yet another article on the lines of ‘What are our police doing about the use of guns in our midst?’ It had at least replaced the sniping at the lack of further discoveries about The Mystery Woman. There was little Mayo could say to this and Sheering knew it, but his impotent fury with the paper added to Mayo’s own. This latest case was fizzling out like a damp squib. He didn’t need this, he told himself, grinding his teeth. If anything was needed to make him even more edgy than he already was, it was being told, if not in so many words, to get his finger out.

  Back in his own office, he worked off his soreness and frustration on routine stuff all morning. Delia at least would be pleased with him. At twelve thirty, he decided to skive off, for once, and take advantage of that unprecedented free hour, and to kill two birds with one stone. For a start, it wasn’t often he had the chance to enjoy a proper, uninterrupted midday meal these days; formal working lunches were more likely to be his lot, or sandwiches and coffee snatched at his desk. And for another, it would save him cooking when he got home tonight – he didn’t think he could face the thought of another frozen Cordon Bleu meal.

  He’d initially had the notion that Alex’s enforced absence would be an ideal opportunity to take a couple of weeks’ leave for a walking holiday, but the backlash of the Fermanagh case had put paid to that and somehow, the idea of going alone, without Alex, didn’t appeal. Maybe, then, he’d take himself off to a few concerts, or listen in the evenings to the sort of music that was his personal idea of heaven (the sort mostly without tunes, Alex said) but there was a dearth of decent concerts on at the moment, and at home he found his attention wandering from the music he switched on. He had a clock or three that needed tinkering with, but no patience. Moreover, Alex’s weekend break had not turned out to be the unalloyed bliss he had hoped, but had been tetchy and unsatisfactory, for no obvious reason. She was there, but not in spirit, and had left yesterday morning to go back to her course, full of smiles. What did she have to be so cheerful about?

  Miraculously, he escaped from the office without being waylaid and took himself across to the Saracen’s Head. Once outside, the sharply cold air acted as a tonic to a brain jaded with the stuffy, recycled air he’d been breathing all morning. Dolly, the flower-seller on the corner of Milford Road, was selling golden mimosa. For a moment he hesitated, thinking of buying some for Alex on the way back, before remembering how fragile and transient it was, that its essence of spring would be over long before the weekend.

  He walked on, but still thinking of Alex. He was having to admit that he might have been mistaken in his original doubts about the wisdom of what she was doing, this new career she was set on. No one likes to admit they’ve been wrong, least of all Mayo, but there was no denying the results: a distinct return to the person she’d been before she left the police service. Cheerful, dynamic, with a sparkle in her eyes that said she was happy once more in her own skin. She’d had a tough time of it one way and another over the past few years but, amazingly to him, what he thought of as the boring routine of the CPS offices seemed to be giving her back the energy and vitality that were essentially hers. The work, learning a new discipline, was keeping her on her toes, she said, sharpening her wits, unlike the undemanding last few years, when she’d worked with her sister in her interior decorating business. Mayo considered that had been very demanding. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes with Lois French, nor she with him. But then, he wasn’t her sister, thank God. He could only suppose their entirely opposite natures complemented each other.

  Lois hadn’t been pleased with Alex’s decision to pull out of the business, not least because it was simply beyond her understanding why Alex should find designing interiors for discerning clients less challenging than helping to compile cases for the prosecution of criminals. But Lois was, for all her grumbles, doing very well without her, as Alex had predicted. A new man on the scene went a long way towards restoring Lois’s equilibrium. And Pilgrim was very much on the scene. An architect with a recently acquired practice in Lavenstock, he had been prepared to invest money, and to take an interest in the shop that wasn’t perhaps solely due to Lois’s attractions, but also concerned with its financial potential when he’d finished with it. He was trying to get her to expand, to lease the vacant premises next door.

  Mayo found himself a snug seat in a quiet alcove and then lunched somewhat gloomily on a salad, the result of a battle won between his conscience and the delicious aroma of the hotel’s renowned steak and kidney puddings, wondering if his decision to take this solitary meal here wasn’t a mistake on more than one count. He must be getting old – at one time, he’d have thought nothing of tucking into the steak and kidney, plus chips, but he knew he’d be good for nothing that afternoon if he did. He’d almost given in, telling himself that he wouldn’t need to cook that night if he had a substantial meal now, but Alex’s eyes were, metaphorically, on him and he’d resisted the temptation.

  The salad dutifully eaten, he’d succumbed to the rhubarb and ginger crumble (with custard) almost without knowing it, and was just thinking about ordering coffee when a figure he knew well paused by his table.

  ‘George! What’re you doing in here?’ The Saracen’s was very far from being George Atkins’s usual stamping ground. Too rarefied for him by half, the air was in here, he’d always contended.

  ‘Oh, just passing, fancied a pint.’

  ‘Have it on me then.’ Mayo summoned the waiter and ordered coffee for himself and a pint of bitter for George. ‘How you doing then? How’s business?’ he asked while they were waiting, thinking the old son of a gun hadn’t changed one whit. Pipe drooping from the corner of his mouth, just as seedy-looking. Still unflappable. Eyes shrewd as ever.

  ‘Could be better, you know how it is. Mustn’t grumble, though, it’s early days, after all.’

  ‘We miss you, George.’

  No anodyne politeness, this, but a simple statement of the truth. Mayo couldn’t remember how often he still heard people begin to say ‘Ask George –’ before remembering that George was no longer with them, but had departed hence twelve months previously. The air in the CID office was now slightly more breathable, the cigarette-laden atmosphere relieved of its overburden of pipe tobacco smoke, but everyone was at sea without his instant, encyclopedic knowledge of Lavenstock and its townspeople, unto the third and fourth generation, which no computer could ever give. He’d been not so much a colleague as an institution.

  They chumbled over the CID gossip after the coffee a
nd the beer had arrived – or as much gossip as Mayo was privy to, these days, in his elevated position – and he wondered when George would come to the point and he’d find out just why he’d been tracked down here. George had said often enough that he wouldn’t have been seen dead in the Saracen’s for Mayo to know it was no accident, this meeting. And he wasn’t the sort to make a nuisance of himself, that breed of ex-copper turned private investigator who hung around the station, picking the brains of his old mates about what was going on, he’d have scorned that. A word here and there, maybe, if he happened to bump into anyone, but that was it. The fact that he was here at all put Mayo’s senses on red alert. ‘How’s the family?’ he asked. ‘The girls?’

  ‘Daphne’s still the same. George and the Dragon.’ He grinned. ‘The girls, they’ve just left college, and Cleo –’

  ‘She’s the budding lawyer?’

  ‘No, that’s the other one, Jenna. She’s doing all right, no problems there. Got herself a First, and a job with a big London law firm, but Cleo …’

  He shook his head, looking worried, then sank another couple of inches of his pint while Mayo waited. It wasn’t like George to air his family worries. Or it hadn’t been. Married to the job, and well known for it. Time on his hands now, to do the worrying, perhaps.

  ‘She’s left university, too, but she’s mucking around, can’t make her mind up what she wants to do. Tell you the truth, I’m a bit concerned about her.’

  ‘Oh?’ Coming from George, this was an admission.

  ‘She didn’t do as well in her exams as she should have, and she’s having trouble getting herself sorted. She’s got herself this house-cleaning job – which is a laugh, knowing Cleo! That doesn’t bother me like it bothers Daph … three years at Norwich, and nothing to show for it, you’d think she could do better, she says.’ He laughed. ‘If she’s still doing the same job six months from now, that’s when I’ll start worrying. At the moment, I think it’s just what she needs – good, honest hard work with no need to think too much. Any road, it’s partly why I’m glad I’ve seen you.’