Grave Concerns

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘So, can I?’ she persisted. ‘Go and see them again?’

  ‘Not now,’ Drew decided. ‘Give it a few more days.’

  But events superseded Maggs’s intentions. At twelve o’clock, they heard a motorbike approaching, and exchanged meaningful glances. Maggs rushed outside, making no pretence at playing hard to get. ‘It’s him!’ she called back to Drew. He’d never heard her so excited.

  Stuart came shyly into the office, clutching his crash helmet to his chest. He eyed Stephanie with a momentary surprise, but then shrugged and laughed. ‘Kids everywhere,’ he muttered. ‘Can’t get away from them.’

  ‘What can we do for you?’ Drew asked. ‘We were just talking about you.’

  Maggs shot him a fierce warning glance, and he said no more, remembering the terror of being teased in front of a new friend or potential lover. He didn’t think she’d ever had a proper boyfriend, and her sudden display of vulnerability touched him. He was just wondering whether he should make an excuse to give them some time together, when he heard a car drawing up outside.

  ‘Looks like Mrs K,’ he said. ‘You two might have to leave me alone with her for a bit.’

  ‘You can show me my gran’s grave,’ said Stuart. ‘If that’s what it is. That’s really what I came for.’

  Drew orchestrated the next few minutes with some skill. Maggs and Stuart walked up the field, heads close together, while Drew settled Caroline Kennett into the larger of the two office chairs and took her through the details of the funeral offering her a variety of choices at every juncture. She was obviously out of her depth, and he suggested she bring her son in from the car. It seemed odd that he should sit outside on his own.

  ‘No, no,’ she shook her head. ‘He says he can’t face it. He’s always been rather sensitive about this sort of thing. He didn’t want to bring me, to be honest, but there wasn’t any option.’

  ‘Did he know Mrs Jones well?’

  ‘Hardly at all. I could never persuade him to go and see her. He found her rather frightening when he was little, and never really got over it, I think. She was a bit eccentric,’ she added.

  Which is why she wanted to be buried here, thought Drew ruefully. It was going to be a long time before burial grounds like his were the norm.

  ‘Well,’ he pressed on, ‘we’ve decided on a shaped cardboard coffin, with me and my assistant helped by your husband and your son. How many people do you think will attend? Will they mind that there’s no church service first?’

  Caroline sighed. ‘There are five or six friends who might come along. But the distance makes it awkward for them. Uncle George should be here, of course. He should be doing this now, instead of me, but he’s just not up to it.’

  ‘No, you said. Poor man,’ said Drew with feeling. He paused, contemplating the cruelties of old age and death for a moment.

  ‘To be honest, I think George would have chosen a normal funeral,’ she confided. ‘But once Aunt Hilda had heard about this place, she couldn’t think of anything else. It’s my own fault, I suppose. I should never have opened my mouth about coming here.’

  Drew raised his eyebrows encouragingly; he had a feeling a few more jigsaw pieces were about to be forthcoming.

  Mrs Kennett obligingly continued. ‘You see, Hilda’s best friend, Vera Mannion, lives next door to some people called Slater. And Mrs Slater had a mother – Gwen something. Last summer, this Gwen was staying with her daughter for a few days, and she got chatting with Vera – well, everybody does, she’s a terrible busybody. Gwen told her she’d been to Egypt recently. She – Vera, that is – made some comment about the woman’s lovely thick hair. Really dark grey it was. Very eye-catching, she said, or something of the sort. “Oh dear,” said the woman, “I hope not. I wanted to remain unobtrusive for a while.” Well, Vera laughed about that and said she was far too tall and striking for that. And anyway, why should she want such a thing? Then this Gwen apparently got very upset and said there might be people looking for her, and she was staying out of sight as long as she could, because there might be trouble if they found her.’

  Drew kept his reaction cool. ‘How odd,’ he murmured. ‘I wonder what she meant by that?’

  ‘Well, Vera asked her, of course – but she wouldn’t say any more. She left a day or two afterwards, and was never seen again.’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘But, you can see how she might have jumped to conclusions, reading what was in the paper. A tall elderly woman with some sort of Egyptian necklace, buried not ten miles away from Gwen’s daughter’s house. Vera and Aunt Hilda between them decided the body in your field here must definitely be the same woman – this Gwen.’

  ‘So why didn’t one of them go to the police?’

  ‘Well, Vera didn’t like to. Neither did Aunt Hilda, for that matter. For one thing, she was worried about the effect on Uncle George if she started getting involved with the police. And Vera would never have the nerve to go on her own. She thought it would make for bad feeling with the Slaters – which it would, of course. But she kept thinking she should, and last week, she and my aunt had almost decided to do it. There was more, you see.’ She paused again for dramatic effect. ‘She heard Willard Slater telling his mother-in-law she ought to be dead. Something about her deserving to be punished for what she’d done, she was such a callous bitch.’ She whispered the last word. ‘That’s what he called her. And some other things that Aunt Hilda wouldn’t tell me. So, of course, they felt awful about keeping it to themselves – but they just never managed to get up the courage to tell the police. I mean, you can understand it, can’t you? They knew the police would tell the Slaters where they’d got their information—’

  ‘I don’t think they would,’ Drew argued mildly. ‘But I can see your point.’

  ‘I don’t know Mr Slater at all. It could all be a silly mistake, from start to finish. And I only made it worse when I told Auntie about what I’d seen from the train. I only hope it wasn’t the worry of it helped kill her. I never should have told her what I saw – that really set her off and no mistake. But it isn’t too late. As soon as this funeral is over and done with, I’m going to tell the police myself.’ She clamped her lips together determinedly.

  Drew closed his eyes in shock and fear. So it’s right back to Square One he thought.

  Maggs stood back as Stuart knelt unselfconsciously beside the new grave. ‘Funny things, families,’ she murmured after a while, sensing that he’d had enough silence, but not sure how to break it.

  ‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘I never knew her well, but now she’s dead, I feel as if a big hole’s been cut in my life. I wanted to know her – to talk about travelling and stuff. There’s something about Egypt in particular – it must be in the blood. Willard’s crazy about the place, though he hasn’t been for twenty years. He’s got loads of books about it all over the place. And the only really good talk I ever had with Nathan was about the Pyramids. Sarah’d got him interested – she was always on about mummies and those old gods they had. Even named her dog after some Pharoah.’

  Maggs stood completely still, a hand across her mouth

  He frowned at her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She was torn between the pleasure of being with him and the urgent need to run back to the office and tell Drew she’d been right abouty Sarah. She had to be right. The decision was made when she remembered that he still had the Kennett woman with him.

  ‘Why don’t we go for a walk if you’ve finished here?’ she suggested. ‘There’s a nice bit of woodland down the lane.’

  ‘I’m finished,’ he said.

  Half an hour later, they returned along the winding lane, in time to see Drew and Mrs Kennett standing beside her car together. They shook hands, and she got in beside the patiently waiting Jason.

  ‘Drew looks a bit agitated,’ Maggs observed. ‘Wonder what’s she’s asked him to do?’

  Without noticing the pair, Drew went back into the office, and Maggs hurried to catch up with
him. Stuart trailed behind her. They all met at the door, Drew with Stephanie on his arm.

  ‘Out of the way!’ he said impatiently. ‘I’ve got to go out.’

  ‘But I’ve got something to tell you,’ Maggs protested. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘So is this,’ he flung back. Then he looked at Stuart. ‘I’ve got to go and see your uncle and aunt,’ he said. ‘There’s a witness who’s convinced Willard killed Genevieve’s mother and she’s talking about going to the police’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Maggs ordered him. ‘If there is good evidence and somebody else supplies it to the police, that lets you off the hook, doesn’t it? And if it turns out to be nothing, there’s no harm done.’

  ‘He didn’t do it.’ Drew stared her in the eye. ‘We’ve got the alibi from the hotel. Genevieve got the whole thing upside down. If the police get hold of Willard’s name now, it’ll ruin everything.’

  ‘So how are you going to stop them?’

  He shook his head in frustration. ‘I don’t know. I just have to be there. One last time.’

  He hurriedly strapped the sleepy Stephanie into her seat in the van, and was driving off before Stuart or Maggs could reply.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  There was a familiar car outside the Slaters’ house. Drew hoiked Stephanie hurriedly out of her seat and charged up the path to the side door. His intemperate knocking was answered by Dr Jarvis. The baby’s crying was clearly audible. ‘Saw your car,’ said Drew curtly. ‘It looks as if we can all be in at the kill.’

  The older man blinked, and blew out his cheeks. ‘Steady on, my friend,’ he warned. ‘You’re walking into something of a disaster here. I’m not even sure I should let you in.’

  Drew shouldered past him, using Stephanie as a lever. In order to stop him, Doctor Jarvis would be forced to lay hands on the child. ‘Too late,’ Drew said. ‘You already have.’

  Williard and Genevieve were standing in the living room. The besmirched sofa was obviously still uncleaned, although a large blue blanket had been thrown over it. The baby lay on the armchair, red-faced and noisy. Even its bunched fists were red, and Drew could see it had worked itself into a paroxysm of enraged misery. Stephanie twitched in alarmed sympathy.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Drew asked. All his instincts screamed to gather the baby up and do what he could to pacify it, but with his own daughter already ensconced in his arms, there was little he could do.

  ‘Genevieve’s taken against it,’ said Willard bleakly. ‘Says she doesn’t want to keep it.’

  ‘More to the point, she’s stopped feeding it,’ added Doctor Jarvis. ‘I’ve just been phoning the domiciliary midwife, trying to get hold of some formula, with bottles and so forth. The poor child’s starving. The nephew’s gone missing just when we need him.’

  ‘But—’ Drew stared around the three faces, wondering once again what sort of madhouse this was. ‘But, hasn’t there been somebody visiting every day? Somebody who could have seen this coming?’

  Nobody bothered to reply. The baby’s wails made conversation difficult. Stephanie wriggled, and Drew decided that her need was less than the baby’s. He put her down on the floor and scooped up the little one, all in one rapid movement.

  The wails diminished instantly, but did not abate entirely. He felt the universal male helplessness inherent in the situation. Without a bottle and some substitute milk, there was little he could do to satisfy the suffering infant. But he couldn’t endure the noise, and instinctively thrust his little finger into the rigid little mouth. With pitiful desperation, it clamped down and began to suck feverishly. It hurt. He could feel the hunger and the fear. But at least the child stopped crying. Relief settled on the room like sunshine flooding through the window. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Genevieve. Drew noticed for the first time that she was wearing the same knitted coat he’d found for her as the baby was being born. Williard looked tired and distracted. Doctor Jarvis was flushed with anxiety.

  ‘What you do with your baby is none of my business,’ Drew began. ‘I came about the death of Gwen Absolon. I can see this is a bad time, but now I’m here, I might as well say my piece.’ He looked at Willard, forcing the man to meet his gaze. ‘I’ve just been told that you were overheard threatening her shortly before she went missing,’ he said. ‘And that there’s a strong chance that the story will be passed to the police, later this week. Whether or not it’s true, whether or not you killed your mother-in-law – you’ll be questioned, investigated and possibly charged. I came to give you a chance to do something about it.’

  ‘But the tickets!’ said Genevieve, indignantly. ‘We’ve got those tickets! The hotel will have a record of our being there that night. And you said there was someone who knows the exact date it all happened.’

  ‘By a strange coincidence, that witness is the same person who’s planning to go to the police,’ Drew told her. ‘I suspect there are quite a few people out there who think they know who the mystery body is. It would only be a matter of time before they come forward. But yes – your best hope is the Regent Palace Hotel. They’ve got a full record of your stay there, and there’s a chance they’ll be able to identify you. But Genevieve—’ he struggled to keep all emotion out of his voice. ‘I’d like a truthful answer from you, just for my own satisfaction. Do you really know who killed your mother?’

  Afterwards, he wondered whether she would have answered him. As it was, the doorbell rang and the appearance of a health visitor laden down with equipment for feeding the baby interrupted proceedings entirely. She took the hungry infant from Drew’s arms, leaving his finger throbbing and swollen. Stephanie began to grizzle.

  Doctor Jarvis hovered around the newcomer, assisting her in the task of preparing a feed, muttering to her about the trouble he’d walked into. ‘I’m not even her doctor, you know,’ Drew heard him say. ‘Just a friend of the family.’ They threw questioning glances at Genevieve, who had hardly moved since Drew’s arrival.

  ‘Puerperal psychosis,’ said the health visitor, quite audibly. Drew wondered if that could be the explanation for the way Genevieve was acting.

  But ‘No,’ she said loudly, as if in reply to his thought. ‘It goes back a lot further than that.’ She dropped into the armchair, and rubbed her knuckles across her mouth, mirroring her baby’s frantic search for nourishment.

  ‘I was twelve,’ she said, gazing up at Drew. Slowly he sank onto the floor at her feet, Stephanie on his lap, cuddled against his chest. He rested his chin gently on the top of her soft head, not entirely sure which was protector and which the protected.

  ‘I was the only one who remembered afterwards, exactly what had happened. My mother and father were fighting. He said she should have aborted the baby, that there was no space in their lives for another one. She said it was his fault in the first place, and how dare he expect her to live with the guilt and trauma of an abortion. He said he didn’t think she was capable of feeling guilt. She hit him. She punched the side of his head, while he was driving. The car swerved, just as a huge lorry was coming towards us. It was going downhill, so fast. I still see it in my dreams – like a dragon, rushing at us. It caught the front corner of our car, pulling us along with it.’ She hugged her arms around herself, her face white. ‘The noise!’ she moaned. ‘Tearing metal and breaking glass, and my mother screaming, the lorry hooting its horn on and on. Like the end of the world. Then, ages later, complete silence.’ She was silent herself for several seconds.

  ‘I had a fractured skull, broken scapula, torn ligaments. I was sitting behind Daddy, you see. Mummy and Brigid were just bruised. I spent a month in hospital. They were afraid I’d be brain damaged if I didn’t keep still and let my head mend. My father died. Nobody came to visit me.’ She fixed Drew with a glittering gaze. ‘She never once came to visit me. Can you believe that?’

  ‘She was pregnant, in shock, newly widowed. I advised her not to risk upsetting herself,’ said Doctor Jarvis from the kitchen doorway. ‘You we
re all bandaged up, your hair shaved off – they didn’t know whether you’d ever fully recover. I told her it was better not to see you.’

  ‘Then perhaps all this is your fault,’ said Genevieve flatly, with the shadow of a bitter smile.

  ‘Perhaps it is,’ he agreed.

  When he got back to the van, Drew found Maggs sitting in the passenger seat. ‘Stuart had to go to work,’ she said. ‘I hitched a ride on his pillion. I didn’t know when you might be coming back, and I don’t think we should waste any more time.’

  Drew sighed, and slowly strapped Stephanie into her seat. ‘She’s hungry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to give her some lunch. I should have brought something with me.’

  ‘Haven’t they got anything in the house?’

  He glared at her angrily. ‘In that house they’ve got a starving baby, a mentally disturbed woman and two useless men who between them have turned this whole mess into a grotesque tragedy. It didn’t seem appropriate to start searching the kitchen for a snack for Stephanie.’

  ‘OK,’ she placated. ‘Let’s go home, then, quick as we can. Steph doesn’t look too desperate to me.’

  ‘Comparatively speaking, she isn’t. But after what I’ve just witnessed, I’ve got no intention of neglecting her needs – not for a minute.’ He was already starting the van, as he spoke.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she ventured, after a few minutes. ‘I think you ought to listen.’

  ‘Go on then,’ he invited. ‘But I don’t know how much attention I’ll give you. If you only knew what it was like—’

  ‘Sarah Gliddon was definitely the same Sarah who was Nathan Slater’s girlfriend. No doubt about it. She kept in touch with Gwen after Nathan died, and she was very keen on Egypt. She even named her dog after some old Pharoah.’ She dropped the last remark carelessly, watching him out of the corner of her eye for a reaction. ‘It took me at least a minute to see how that fitted in,’ she added.