by Rebecca Tope
And just now, his conscience was murmuring Karen in his ear. He had been cold and distant with his wife, when all the time he knew how hurt and frightened she was. And tired and guilty. She was going through a low time, and a large part of the responsibility of that lay with him. He urged himself to stand up and go to her. To tell her he understood and assure her it would be all right. But his legs wouldn’t obey. Dimly, he was aware that there was something stronger at work within him than his conscience, and he was alarmed by it. Something irresistible was in control of his actions. The image of Genevieve Slater’s grey eyes and wild black hair, her ivory skin and ready laugh, was superimposed on that of his suffering wife.
There were two obvious courses of action open to him. Firstly, he could phone Genevieve and tell her he wanted no more to do with her. He would bury her mother on Friday and leave it at that. No more investigating, no more leaving Stephanie with her. But he’d already let Maggs convince him that this wasn’t in his nature – that it wasn’t a serious option for him. So that left the second option: he could knuckle down to completing his enquiries as fast as possible. Square things with the police and make the whole business official. No secrets or repeat contact with the Slaters. Uneasily, he ratified his decision. Tomorrow he would devote the entire day to visits, phonecalls, questions and serious detective work.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Karen still wasn’t very communicative the next morning, but she raised no objection when Drew told her he was leaving Stephanie all day with Genevieve again, provided – he qualified silently – he could get hold of her first to make sure she was at home. He hadn’t mentioned the previous day’s lapse to Karen; any hint that Genevieve was unreliable would send everything into a spin. Karen merely shrugged impatiently when he tried to apprise her of his intentions. ‘Fine, fine,’ she said inattentively, rummaging in her school bag. ‘I know I had that list somewhere …’
Drew didn’t try to help. Karen’s job involved more papers, leaflets, instructions, than he could begin to comprehend. She lost something vital most mornings.
Eventually she’d gone, and Drew set about the routine of clearing up the breakfast debris and preparing Stephanie for her day.
Jeffrey arrived at nine, with a view to establishing the exact position of the grave for the new burial. ‘Do Council funerals have a special area?’ he asked doubtfully.
Drew tutted reproachfully. ‘Of course they don’t. Remember what we agreed – unless people specifically ask for a particular spot, we follow in rotation.’ Rotation, as Drew and Maggs had defined it, did not mean straight lines, but a snaking zigzag across the field, which they hoped would eventually produce a natural-looking woodland made up of all the different trees and shrubs that families chose for the graves. ‘The new one can go next to Mrs Smithers. It makes it easier for the paperwork, apart from anything else. By the way, Jeff—’ he tried to sound casual and friendly, ‘– have you been into my filing cabinet? I found it unlocked yesterday, and I couldn’t think who else it might have been.’
The gravedigger’s lean face darkened. ‘I have not,’ he said hotly. ‘What would I want with a filing cabinet?’
Drew shook his head slowly. ‘I thought it was unlikely. But, you see – nobody else knows where we keep the key. Although I suppose it’s not hard to find. But how would anybody get into the office? That’s kept locked at night, too.’
‘That lock—’ the man scoffed. ‘Not worth tuppence. Anybody could get through that.’ It was true that Drew’s security arrangements were rudimentary. There was a Yale lock on the office door that didn’t always clip properly when the door was pulled shut. Drew had been cavalier about it until now. ‘Who’d want to break into an undertaker’s?’ he’d laughed. ‘There’s nothing here to steal.’ Now he felt less sure.
‘Well, there isn’t anything missing, so not to worry,’ he said, with a brief frown. Of course he should worry, he told himself. The office was in the same building as his home, where his wife and daughter slept. Intruders could be violent. It was irresponsible not to take the matter seriously. ‘Right,’ he continued, referring Jeffrey back to the matter in hand. ‘You can mark the new grave out today, but don’t start digging until tomorrow afternoon, will you? If it rains, we’ll have a horrible mess.’
Sullenly, Jeffrey nodded. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he muttered. ‘I’m going to leave two foot clear from the lid to ground level. Is that all right with you?’
‘Should be fine,’ Drew said. ‘I doubt if there’ll be anybody here. You and Maggs and me can lower it. She’ll be in a cardboard coffin.’
‘Is she here?’
Drew shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’m taking the coffin to the hospital this afternoon, and bringing her back in it. She’ll have to be well wrapped up.’
‘Plastic sheeting?’ Jeffrey widened his eyes in mock surprise.
‘Certainly not. I’ve got a length of hessian standing by. And the coffin’s packed with newspapers. She won’t start leaking in that short time.’
‘The worms can finish what they started, then,’ said Jeffrey with a twisted smile.
‘Dust to dust,’ said Drew lightly. ‘There’s no escape.’
Jeffrey shrugged and turned to go.
Drew made a mental note to be back from Genevieve’s by three thirty, to catch the mortuary before it closed at four. The coffin was waiting in the cool room, already prepared by Maggs the previous afternoon. One of her tasks for today was to pack in the newspapers and cut a generous length of hessian. She’d also promised to collect some foliage to put on top of the coffin. ‘I’ll cut some greenery from our garden,’ she told him. ‘That’ll look nice.’
Both she and Drew had been surprised at the simplicity of arranging funerals in the new way, having worked in traditional undertakers’ premises. ‘You realise how much time is spent just faffing about,’ she remarked, after they’d completed their first burial. ‘I suppose they have to look as if there’s a lot to do, to justify the expense.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Drew. ‘I would say we’ve done barely an hour’s work each, plus Jeffrey’s gravedigging, and it’s all been perfectly dignified and proper. Better than a cremation, by a long way.’
‘No comparison,’ Maggs had confirmed.
‘And thank God we don’t have to worry about those bloody cremation papers,’ he added, for good measure.
‘A right old rip-off.’ They’d sighed in complacent agreement, envisaging a steady stream of natural green burials, with themselves as pioneers.
It was still going to happen, he insisted to himself now. It was just taking slightly longer than they’d hoped.
He didn’t, in the end, try to phone Genevieve. The prospect of her once more failing to respond was so disagreeable that he found he couldn’t face it. It was more than possible that she was one of those people who can easily ignore a ringing telephone, for no better reason than she didn’t feel like answering it. Or that she was apprehensive as to who might want to speak to her. So he resolved to drive round to Fenniton anyway. It would give him time to think. As he turned the corner into the main street of the pretty little village, he remembered what it was he urgently needed to ask her.
Leaving Stephanie in the van, he went to knock on the door, craning his neck first to scan the back garden for any sign of Genevieve. Everything seemed quiet and still. He wondered how much useful investigating he could accomplish with his daughter coming along for the ride. He wondered, indeed, what he ought to do next, anyway, if he couldn’t see Genevieve first. He could try and trace the Fletchers from the Egypt tour, and the lesbian couple. He wanted to locate Trevor-from-Luxor, too, but hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about it. And he supposed he should try and speak to Dr Jarvis again before the day was out, to establish his reason for the previous day’s unexpected visit.
Just as he was thinking he might try the back door, he heard steps inside. A key was turned, and a bleary young face appeared. ‘Yeah?’ came a husky voi
ce. ‘What is it?’ There was a Welsh lilt to the accent and Drew quickly made the appropriate connection.
‘Is Mrs Slater in?’ he asked.
The youth regarded him warily. ‘Who’re you?’
‘My name’s Drew. She looks after my little girl sometimes. I was hoping—’
‘Hi, Drew!’ came Genevieve’s musical voice. ‘You’re bright and early.’
It was nine forty-five. He wondered if Willard was upstairs somewhere, too, still in his pyjamas. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘After yesterday, I thought I should try and spend the whole day—’
She interrupted him quickly. ‘Ah, yes. No problem. Bring her in, and I’ll run and get dressed. This is Stuart, by the way. My sister’s son. He’s staying here for a day or two.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Drew threw over his shoulder, as he went back to the van for his daughter. Her welcoming grin was a treat to see. Her damaged head was discoloured from the bruising, but the wound was already knitting together, with a thin line of scab giving her a piratical scowl.
Quelling a renewed burst of anxiety at the appearance of a scruffy and possibly untrustworthy teenager in the house where he proposed to leave his child, Drew waited for Genevieve to reappear. When she did, he told her he had one or two questions for her. Stuart obligingly slouched out of the room, leaving them alone. Drew waited for her to ask what had happened to Stephanie’s head, but she gave no sign of noticing anything was amiss. His unease increased. How was it possible to overlook something so glaringly alarming as a baby’s gashed forehead? He remembered her failure to answer the phone the day before, and her even larger failure to refer to it now. Wouldn’t a normal person be apologetic, remorseful? Wasn’t it a fairly major bit of letdownhood? He almost decided he wouldn’t leave his baby with her, ever again. He almost decided he was never going to come back, never again going to give in to the undiminished delight of being with her.
But first, he had to ask his question. ‘August the twelfth last year,’ he began quickly. ‘Is there any way you can remember where you and your husband were on that date?’
‘Glorious twelfth, eh?’ she smiled disarmingly. ‘Well, we certainly weren’t shooting grouse. I really haven’t any idea. Neither of us keeps a proper diary. We write engagements and appointments on a calendar, but it will have been thrown away long since. I might come up with something, if I think hard enough, but I couldn’t guarantee it’d be right. Why do you ask?’
Drew hesitated. He had a strong feeling that he should hold his few cards close to his chest from here on. Even though he was officially working for Genevieve, her own dubious role in the story made things a lot more complicated. On the other hand, his reason for naming a date must be fairly obvious, in which case prevarication would only look silly.
‘Somebody’s turned up who thinks she saw a body being buried in my field on that evening,’ he said. ‘If you could prove that Willard was somewhere else on that date, he’s more likely to be in the clear.’
‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘That gives me an incentive, doesn’t it. What day of the week was it?’
‘Saturday.’
‘It would be,’ she laughed. ‘And August, too. All the usual routines fall apart in August. I wish I could say we were in the Bahamas or on a cruise around the Seychelles, but sadly I can’t. But don’t despair. I might come up with something, given time. I guess we can assume one thing, at least,’ she flushed like a young girl, and glanced at her abdomen. ‘It must have been sometime in August when this thing got started.’
Drew, his mind already tuned to gestation periods, did his own rapid calculation. ‘When did you say it was due?’ he asked.
‘Nobody seems to know exactly,’ she giggled. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll be much longer. The doctor says the head’s well down.’ Drew observed something slippery in her manner as she said this, her eyes sliding away from his. But he could think of no reason for it. Unless he thought wildly the whole pregnancy is a hoax, and she’s got a pillow strapped round her middle. For a moment, the idea seemed almost feasible. There was a definite suggestion of a little girl playing houses about Genevieve. That was probably why Stephanie liked her so much, he thought.
‘We haven’t got very much time,’ he reminded her. ‘The burial’s on Friday, and I would really like to have got something definite by then.’
‘Why?’ she said, with disarming simplicity. ‘Why does that matter?’
Drew frowned. ‘It matters mainly for my peace of mind. The police will change down a gear after the burial – though I must say they seem to be about as low-geared as you can get already, on this one. Even so, I have to protect my own interests, and once that body is buried in my field I’m going to feel even more responsible.’
‘You mean, you’re going to come over all guilty about not telling the police everything you know?’
‘Something like that,’ he agreed.
‘Well, I’m quite happy to have a deadline,’ she said breezily. ‘If you think you can find out the whole story in two days, I’d be the last person to try and stop you. But what happens if you don’t make it?’
‘I don’t know.’ But I do know it might not be what you want to hear.
‘But—’ she began, scratching her lower lip with a long forefinger, ‘from the point of view of the police, the burial doesn’t matter too much – am I right? They’ve kept all the evidence they need – photos and samples and stuff. Haven’t they?’
He nodded. Photos, weights, measurements, observations, hair samples, scrapings from under fingernails. The list was a long one – so many fluids and specimens could be removed from a single body, however decomposed. It was true that they were unlikely to want to inspect the original again.
‘So the deadline isn’t really Friday, is it?’ she persisted. ‘In my mind, it’s the birth of this little monster,’ she tapped her bulge.
‘Which makes things a bit tricky,’ Drew remarked. ‘It sounds like a very unpredictable end date. What happens if I haven’t found anything by then?’
‘Then forget it,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll be able to say I tried.’ A bump from outside the door distracted her. ‘That must be Stuart,’ she said. ‘Apparently Brigid’s worried about our mother and sent him to find out where she is.’
‘He seems a rather unlikely spy,’ Drew said.
‘Oh no,’ she disagreed. ‘He’s a perfect spy. I bet you he’s listening behind that door this very minute.’
‘If so, he’ll be able to tell your sister that a dead woman, who is very likely to be her mother is being buried on Friday, with no identification and some uncomfortable evasions where the police are concerned.’
‘Hey!’ she protested. ‘Why so sharp, all of a sudden? I thought you understood.’
He looked her full in the face, the creamy neck bare where she hadn’t fastened the top button of her shirt, the lips pushed out in a slight pout. She was glorious, he admitted to himself. And terribly dangerous.
‘I don’t know that I do understand,’ he said carefully. ‘I have a feeling I’m being used. Two weeks ago, everything was desperately urgent. Now you don’t seem to care what happens, either way. Did something change?’ Still in his arms, Stephanie was getting bored, wriggling to get down. ‘Can I let her go?’ he asked. Genevieve shrugged, so he set the child on the floor and sat on the sofa beside her.
Genevieve remained where she was, standing beside the window. She sighed and appeared to droop like an unwatered plant. ‘I’m sorry, Drew,’ she said. ‘I’ve treated you very badly, I know. It’s just that – it’s quite difficult to concentrate wholly on my mother, when I’m about to go into labour at the age of forty-two. It’s scary.’ Her eyes bulged, and a hand fluttered against her chest. ‘Plus,’ she continued. ‘I have sort of changed my mind about Willard. He’s been—’
Drew was about to caution her, on the assumption that the nephew might well be listening at the door, when the youth himself made a sudden appearance. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he
said, with a disarming grin, ‘but I wanted to ask you something, Auntie Gen.’
Genevieve eyed him distractedly. ‘What?’ she said shortly.
‘Am I allowed to use Uncle Willard’s computer? He’s left it on. I haven’t played any of my games for three days now, and I’ve got withdrawal symptoms. I promise not to be on it for too long – but as you’ve got a visitor—’ He held up a CD with a rueful grin. ‘I brought a few with me, just in case.’
‘Oh,’ she flapped a dismissive hand. ‘I suppose so. Will it work, though?’
He nodded quickly. ‘Oh yes. He’s got more than enough RAM on that Pentium II of his. I won’t disturb anything. I’ll make sure it’s as I find it when I finish.’
‘Go on then,’ she said.
‘Bit cheeky,’ Drew commented when the boy had gone. ‘Aren’t people’s computer’s like their cars – not for any Tom, Dick or Harry to use when they like?’
‘I expect Willard told him he could use it,’ she said vaguely. ‘He probably left it on for him.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to get Stephanie set up with her own website in another year or two,’ he laughed, stroking the little girl’s cheek. ‘I feel I’ve got left behind somewhere. I’m the only person I know without an e-mail address.’
‘I don’t think you’re missing much.’
The conversation was going nowhere and Drew came to an abrupt decision. ‘Look,’ he said, lifting Stephanie onto his lap, ‘it’s obvious you’ve got things on your mind. I won’t leave Stephanie with you today. The main thing is that date – August the twelfth, remember. I haven’t really got any more leads or ideas that I need bother you with now. I’ve got a lot of detail on what happened in Egypt, when that girl was shot. I’ve got a full list of people I want to talk to. Maybe I should just get on with it. Meanwhile, I think you should tell that boy that he’s right to be concerned about his granny.’ His unspoken disapproval was strong enough to penetrate her distraction. She sighed again, but more in exasperation than shame or concern.
