Grave Concerns

by Rebecca Tope

  She looked doubtful. ‘I suppose I could. He never throws anything away. But aren’t you clutching at straws? It was months after the Egypt thing that she died, by the look of it. I think you’d do better to concentrate on where she was and what she was doing in August.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he sighed. ‘But at the moment, Egypt seems to be cropping up so often that I don’t feel I can just ignore it.’

  She screwed her mouth sideways in an exaggeration of uncertainty. ‘I’ll have to think of a reason for asking him,’ she said. ‘Or he might get suspicious.’

  Drew shied away from any further examination of Willard’s role in the business. His brief, as he understood it, was to try to find some alternative perpetrator of the killing of Gwen Absolon. He kept his thoughts firmly focused on the morning’s finds. ‘If he and Gwen wrote to all the people,’ he said slowly, ‘would he have done it on the computer?’

  ‘Of course! Willard does everything on the computer. How clever of you! We can go and find the addresses now, without ever having to ask him.’

  ‘Won’t he know?’

  ‘Not a chance. I’ve learnt how to cover my tracks. Come on.’

  Following slowly up the stairs, carrying Stephanie and trying not to move too closely to Genevieve, Drew recalled every single fairytale where young boys are lured into danger by beautiful women. Hansel into the gingerbread house, Kay and the Snow Queen, the Prince and the Little Mermaid. He thought of every story about lovers being caught by outraged husbands and savagely punished. Going upstairs with Genevieve felt like the first step on a very rocky road.

  In Willard’s study, the computer had to be switched on, the password given. ‘How do you know his password?’ he asked in a whisper.

  ‘Easy. We used to have a Persian cat called Beulah, the love of his life. It’s the first thing he’d think of. But he doesn’t know that I know.’ She giggled girlishly, tapped keys and clicked the mouse, humming cheerily to herself, until they were scrolling through numerous files with Egypt in their title, dating back to the February of the previous year. It took four or five minutes to find what they wanted. They’d tried Egypttours and Egyplett with no success, but Egypadds yielded a complete list of names and addresses, including that of a Simon Gliddon, with Sarah in brackets after it.

  ‘I’ll print it for you,’ Genevieve said, and proceeded to do so.

  Drew took the opportunity to inspect the room. It was a typical academic’s study: books lined one whole wall, and stacks of papers sat on the desk in the middle of the room. A large abstract oil painting dominated the wall opposite the window. Drew suspected it was by some renowned artist and was worth about as much as a large and powerful car. Along the floor, the whole length of the wall containing the window, were stacks of newspapers and magazines, all of a uniform height – about two and a half feet. He counted seventeen piles.

  Stephanie rocked restlessly in his arms, anxious to get down and explore. ‘No,’ he told her. ‘Keep still a minute.’

  The printer was whirring into life, and a sheet of paper was disgorged. Genevieve laughed as she brought up the three or four document files that she’d already noted were the last visited. ‘Just in case he checks back,’ she said. ‘The dates’ll be wrong, of course, but he’s not suspicious enough to notice the details.’

  Drew watched idly, but was suddenly galvanised by the name of one of the files. HenriettaF. Sensing his sudden tension, Stephanie began to whimper, and then squeal – mercifully, as Drew quickly realised. He didn’t want Genevieve to notice the change in his manner. ‘Hey!’ he soothed his daughter, ‘Not long now, poppet.’

  Genevieve handed him the printed list of names and addresses. He folded the sheet of paper, and slid it into his pocket. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Now we’ll be going. Can I leave Stephanie again tomorrow?’

  Genevieve spread her hands welcomingly. ‘Any time,’ she grinned. ‘We’re best mates already.’ She came up close to him – much too close – and kissed the child on the cheek. ‘Bye, baby. Thanks for the company.’

  Stephanie continued to grizzle. ‘She’s tired, I expect,’ he apologised. ‘We’d better be off.’

  ‘Thanks for what you’ve done today,’ she said graciously. Then she chuckled. ‘Mum would have loved all this, you know. Causing so much mystery and confusion. She always wanted to be the centre of attention.’

  Drew jiggled his daughter, and managed to hush her enough to venture one last question. Each time he met Genevieve, he became aware of all the things she hadn’t told him, all the things he couldn’t begin to understand. ‘It might help me to get one thing clear,’ he began, ‘if you could you give me some idea of how you actually felt about your mother. I mean, in the last few years. Since Nathan died.’

  Genevieve sighed dramatically. ‘Heaven protect us from New Men and their feelings,’ she said. ‘There was a time when such questions would have been considered irrelevant at best, and embarrassing at worst. Now feelings are regarded as a vital element in everything that happens.’

  Drew frowned his disagreement. ‘When we’re talking about murder, surely you can’t ignore the emotions. You’ve told me a story that involves jealousy, guilt, regret, and then you make jokes about the person at the centre of it.’

  She grimaced and he realised she was close to tears. As if to confirm his perception, she gave a noisy sniff. ‘I know,’ she laughed shakily. ‘I’m all over the place. I thought we’d already established that.’

  ‘So – what’s the answer?’

  ‘To what?’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘Sorry – what did you ask me?’

  ‘How you really felt about your mother.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I thought we’d covered that, by now. How would you feel if she gave every atom of her attention to your younger brother, and then took herself off on an orgy of self-indulgence when he was out of her way? I don’t think there are words for it, really. You’ll just have to use your imagination.’

  ‘Resentment? Loneliness? Longing?’ he hazarded, before becoming aware that he was pushing too hard. What was the point? If Genevieve had killed her mother, she wouldn’t have hired Drew to investigate her death.

  She seemed to have regained her composure. ‘I’ll give you an example. When I got my job at the BBC, selected out of two hundred applicants, she didn’t react at all. Never said a word, when I phoned to tell her. She wasn’t remotely interested. If I had loved her as a child, all that sort of thing was killed later. I didn’t hate her, just left her out of my calculations – as she did me. So, when she came back, wanting to be friends again, sucking up to my husband, I wasn’t inclined to meet her even halfway. I was hurt and angry. I didn’t think I needed her any more. I wanted her to go away again and leave me alone—’

  ‘You wanted her dead,’ said Drew quietly.

  She stopped, shaking her head. ‘That never occurred to me,’ she said. ‘It truly didn’t. The miserable truth is that I wanted, even then, for us to get back to being a normal mother and daughter. But it was hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. When she came here last year, she was just looking for somewhere to crash out for a bit. And I couldn’t bear having her here. She never asked me anything about work, or my interests. And I didn’t trust her an inch with Willard. It was gruesome.’

  So – you feel guilty now, and that’s why you want everything sorted out? If your mother’s still alive, you want her support, and if she’s dead, you want – well, what do you want?’

  ‘You’re more or less right,’ she smiled weakly. ‘Guilt, curiosity. Christ, Drew – why do you keep asking me to give reasons? Wouldn’t you want to know whether your mother was alive or dead, and if dead, then how and when and by whom? Isn’t it perfectly understandable?’

  He watched her for a moment. This was a repeat of the day before. When he tried to push her for something concrete, she turned into an emotional mess and made him feel unacceptably aggressive. And maybe she was being perfectly straight with him. He could hardly claim to b
e used when she was paying so handsomely.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ he said wearily. ‘Now, I’m really going. Madam’s got a wet bottom.’

  ‘Oh – change her here. That bag of nappies is in the bathroom.’

  ‘I’d better be quick then. She’s going to fall asleep any minute. Which way is it?’

  She showed him along the landing, past two closed doors, to the generously sized bathroom at the end. He found the nappies and knelt on the floor, lying Stephanie on a tufted bathmat. Deftly he effected the change, and bundled her back into her clothes. She watched his face throughout, in the way she had, as if awarding him marks for efficiency.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I buried the cat,’ said Maggs, as soon as he walked into the office, having delivered Stephanie to Karen. ‘It looked as if it’d been strangled with wire or something. Its throat was a horrible mess.’

  ‘Nasty,’ said Drew automatically.

  ‘Drew – something’s going on. That complaint – well, people are stupid, I know – but would they just have made something like that up? And after you got those letters – well, I wondered if there was a connection. It’s all beginning to feel a bit scary, don’t you think? What if people come round at night and interfere with the graves?’

  ‘Nothing goes on at night,’ Drew told her with robust confidence ‘Nobody can get in.’

  ‘They can, though. Easily. The top hedge is full of gaps, for a start. And it wouldn’t be difficult to climb over the gate. What if there are Satanists who come here and do horrible things? That would explain the letters – if somebody’s heard something, and think it’s you at the centre of it.’ She laughed fleetingly. ‘Listen to me! Only a little while ago I was telling Jeffrey he was mad to think the same sort of thing.’

  ‘What was this conversation with Jeffrey? You’ve mentioned it twice now. Sounds as if he got under your skin.’

  ‘Well, yeah – he did a bit,’ she admitted. ‘We found a sheep’s skull, and I said something perfectly innocent and he started raving on about voodoo. You know what,’ she said, on a sudden thought, ‘I bet he’s been mouthing off in the pub, and someone’s picked it up and got everything totally out of proportion. Somewhere along the line, one of them’s gone and called the police.’

  ‘And that was before you found the cat?’

  ‘That’s right.’ They looked at each other. ‘So – that means that somebody wanted the police to start snooping about, find the cat and decide there was something to the story they’d been fed.’

  Drew blinked. ‘Steady on!’ he protested. ‘That would be seriously malicious.’

  ‘Like the hate mail,’ she reminded him.

  Drew refused to be shaken. He waved a dismissive hand at the idea that he was under any real threat. ‘It must be just kids messing about,’ he insisted. ‘Who’s going to take all that trouble just to – well, to do what? And it didn’t work, anyway, from what I can see. Did the police take any notice of the cat?’

  ‘No, but that was mainly thanks to me,’ she claimed, with a show of false modesty. ‘I pretended to think it must have been hit by a train, and they seemed to go along with that.’

  Drew sat down at the desk and tried to change the subject, his head swirling with the cloudy details of Maggs’s turbulent day. ‘Things are quite complicated enough without this,’ he decided. ‘I’m not going to think about it at the moment. How did you get on with the leaflets?’

  ‘Never mind the leaflets,’ she said, suddenly intense. ‘I still haven’t told you that Caroline Kennett came back again this morning. She said she wanted to try and settle in her mind whether it really was our field she saw from the train.’

  ‘Drew sighed. ‘And did she?’ he asked.

  Maggs spread her hands non-committally. ‘She thinks the trees look the same,’ she said. ‘If I’d have to guess, I’d say it had to be our body she saw. Bit of a coincidence otherwise.’

  But Caroline Kennett didn’t seem to matter much more than dead cats, just at the moment. His thoughts were still full of Genevieve and what she wanted him to do.

  ‘Listen, Maggs,’ he said with some force. ‘I need someone to help me untangle this business. Last time, Karen—’ he stopped. Last time, Karen had driven around with him, stood beside him when he confronted suspects, and offered invaluable insights into what must have happened. This time, Karen was distant and distracted, and hardly knew what Drew was doing and cared even less.

  ‘Come on, then,’ Maggs encouraged. ‘It’s about time you remembered who your partner is around here.’

  ‘But first you’ve got to promise you won’t say anything to the police. Not until I say you can, anyway. I know it’s risky. I could probably lose my livelihood, and worse, if it gets out that we’ve been withholding information relevant to a violent death. Even though I gather from Stanley they’re not actively pursuing a murder investigation, that’s not going to count for much.’

  ‘You could go to prison,’ she said, with an unnerving relish.

  Drew laughed weakly. ‘I doubt if it would come to that. So far, I’m not actually withholding any hard evidence. At least—’ he frowned, wondering whether the suspicions he had and the material he’d found in the basement cupboard constituted hard evidence. ‘At least, it’s all completely suppositious at the moment,’ he asserted firmly. ‘And anyway, she hasn’t even been buried yet.’

  ‘Not long now, though. Is the burial your cut-off point, then? Get it all sorted out by Friday?’

  He huffed a cynical laugh. ‘I wish,’ he said dourly.

  ‘So tell me what you found out today,’ she invited.

  He went to fetch his jotter pad from the van. Putting it in front of her, he tried to explain who everybody was, and how he thought they might fit into the picture. ‘She was a bit of an outsider,’ he concluded. ‘She doesn’t seem to have been close to anyone.’

  ‘But – poor woman!’ Maggs burst out. ‘Having that awful son to look after, and being abandoned by her whole family. It reminds me of my mother – forced into caring, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘What do you mean? Your mother isn’t forced to care for anybody.’

  ‘Not now she isn’t. But when they adopted me, they already had a son. He was hooked on heroin from sixteen, and he died when he was twenty-five. They kept him at home, because otherwise he’d have been living rough on the streets.’

  Drew stared at her, appalled at this belated disclosure of something so important. ‘How did they manage?’ he demanded. ‘Most addicts leave home and never go back. And how could they adopt a baby in those circumstances?’

  ‘I wasn’t a baby. I was four, and it wasn’t easy. None of it. The point, Drew, is that I know what it’s like. And my sympathy’s all with this dead woman.’

  ‘Which explains why you won’t help me with Stephanie!’ he realised.

  Maggs scowled at the floor, and then nodded. ‘Sort of,’ she agreed. ‘I’m never going to fall into that trap. I’ve got better things to do with my life than minding someone’s kid – even my own. So I’m never going to have any.’

  ‘Good for you,’ he said sourly. ‘Meanwhile, I think you’re wrong about Gwen Absolon. She was a lousy mother to the girls, just when they most needed her. Whatever the handicapped son was like, she’s got no excuse for abandoning them the way she did.’

  Maggs checked herself, clamping down on the arguments he could see forming in her head. ‘So – what exactly does this Genevieve want you to do next?’ she demanded.

  Drew approached this question with cautious eagerness. He wanted to hear how it sounded to another person, and whether it carried any credibility. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘she isn’t primarily interested in bringing a killer to book. She just wants to be sure it wasn’t Willard. I think she genuinely does believe it could have been him.’

  ‘But that’s the impossible part – don’t you see?’ Maggs glared at him. ‘You can’t prove a negative, not properly. The only way you can be certain it wasn�
��t Willard is if you find the person it was. Otherwise, you’ve failed.’

  ‘No, no,’ Drew shook his head. ‘If that was true, there’d never be any case for the defence. Don’t try bringing logic into the law, whatever you do. There’s probably any number of ways Willard could prove his innocence. And obviously, Genevieve doesn’t want him to know she suspects him. It might be a peculiar marriage, but it seems to be fairly stable. If he thinks that she thinks he’s capable of murder, I imagine it could rock the boat something chronic.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ Maggs asserted recklessly, ‘Willard, Genevieve and Dr Jarvis are all in it together, trying to muddy the waters. It’s usually the family in this sort of case, you know.’

  ‘Is it really?’ he said, with mock seriousness. He reminded herself how young she was, how little she knew of the realities of life. Disappointedly, he began to think she was going to be much less help than Karen would have been.

  ‘No, Drew – honestly. They sound a very strange bunch to me,’ Maggs insisted.

  ‘You saw Genevieve. Did you think she seemed strange?’

  Maggs cocked her head to one side, thinking about it. ‘Well, she was all over you,’ she offered. ‘Fluttering her eyelashes. And too sloppy over Stephanie. As if she was busting a gut to make you like her.’

  Drew winced. You didn’t talk about busting a gut in reference to a heavily pregnant woman. And he didn’t like the acuity of the girl’s observations. ‘Well, I thought she was just being pleasant,’ he argued.

  ‘So you think her story makes sense, do you? What about the doctor chap? Does Genevieve think he could have driven the woman to suicide?’

  ‘I didn’t ask her,’ he said irritably. ‘We hardly mentioned Dr Jarvis.’

  ‘The suicide idea’s crap, anyway. Even if someone promised her to do the midnight burial, while she was still alive, they’d never carry it through. Not when it came to the point. Can you imagine it? So the doctor’s telling you porkies for some reason.’

  Drew nodded impatiently. ‘But if he’d killed her, why would he come here afterwards, and introduce himself? He’d stay well away and keep his head down.’