Grave Concerns

by Rebecca Tope

  It took Drew rather longer than that. In fact, Maggs accused him later of being so uncharacteristically slow-witted he’d never have got there without some help.

  ‘I asked him, while we were on the bike, what sort of dog Sarah had,’ she prompted. ‘Guess what he said?’

  Drew took his eyes off the road for an instant, staring at her in disbelief. ‘Surely not a labrador? What did the Graingers say theirs was called?’

  ‘Seti. I thought it was S-E-T-T-Y, but I finally worked out that it must be S-E-T-I. And he was one of the Pharoahs. I remember a school project about him. He’s one they still have the mummy of, in a museum in Cairo. I remember being fascinated by the pictures of him. Egypt, Drew. It always comes back to Egypt.’

  ‘But—’ Drew protested. ‘But—’

  ‘They said they had another sad loss last year. Another tragedy. It must have been their daughter. Don’t you think? Maybe they took the dog on when she died or left home to get married. Drew – don’t you think –?’

  ‘I think we’ve still got to give Stephanie some lunch. After that, I don’t know what I’m going to think.’

  Maggs chafed impatiently all afternoon, while Drew sat on the floor playing with Stephanie and pleading with her to calm down. He could hardly listen to what she was saying; his head was still full of the Slater tragedy. In the end, Maggs decided she’d do best by letting him get it out of his system.

  ‘Gwen ruined Genevieve’s life, you know. It was Gwen’s fault that Nathan was born with such defects - and that the father was killed. I reckon, subconsciously, that’s why she came to me in the first place.’ He punched the table lightly to mark the dawning insight.

  ‘Explain,’ invited Maggs.

  ‘To satisfy herself that the woman really was dead. She told herself she was doing it to ease her conscience – but the idea that someone might have murdered her mother didn’t horrify her half as much as it should have done. Even if it was Willard she’d have forgiven him. It might even have endeared him to her. That’s why she wouldn’t go to the police, and why she lost interest in the investigation after we’d pretty much ascertained the body was Gwen’s. She hated her mother enough to want her dead. It would be easily worth two thousand quid to have it confirmed. She could never forgive her mother, you see.’ He shuddered. ‘I could feel the hatred. She isn’t fit to bring up that baby and she knows it. She’d do best to give it up for adoption. There are thousands of couples who’d give it a loving home.’

  Maggs folded her arms on the desk, and rested her chin on them, eyeing him critically. ‘It isn’t that easy,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘Adoption, I mean.’

  He met her eye uneasily.

  ‘It’s all very logical, I know,’ she said. ‘On the one hand you’ve got people with such messy lives they can’t cope with their own baby. They’d forget to feed it, or spend half the time dead drunk, or knock it about. So the nice social workers step in, saying, We’ve got this lovely young childless couple in the better part of town. She’s got infected tubes – or he’s got sluggish sperm – they’d be the perfect parents for the poor little thing. I know about this, Drew. It happened to me.’

  ‘But it worked for you. You get on brilliantly with the people who adopted you.’

  She sighed. ‘Yes, I do. I did more or less from the start. That’s not the point.’

  ‘Of course it’s the point,’ he told her crossly. ‘Don’t tell me you’d rather be knocked about, neglected, resented. And worse – much worse than that can happen, you know.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said regretfully. ‘You wouldn’t – you’re the sort of person the social workers would call the perfect parent.’

  He absorbed that without response, ‘So – you think Genevieve should keep the baby, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. It’s not for me to say what anybody should do. I only said, it’s not that easy.’

  He let her have the last word.

  ‘Can we talk about Sarah now?’ she asked, after a few minutes. ‘Have we got Genevieve Slater out of the way for today?’

  ‘All right then,’ he sighed. ‘Run it past me again.’

  She repeated what Stuart had told her about Sarah Gliddon, her dog and the glaring implications. Or some of them – Drew wasn’t quite sure why she wanted to go rushing through the countryside so urgently.

  ‘Nobody’s going anywhere,’ he said. ‘They can’t possibly know we’ve made the connection. We’ll have to wait for Karen to come home, and even then—’

  ‘We are going to see them,’ she ordered sternly. ‘And see what they’ve got to say for themselves.’

  ‘You mean we march in and demand to know why they never told us their daughter knew Gwen Absolon. That’s the only thing we can accuse them of and that wouldn’t make any sense. It’s amazing to think they might have run slap bang into Genevieve, when they first came about the dog. She was right here, just the other side of the door. Imagine how that would have changed things.’

  ‘How would it?’

  ‘If she’d realised who they were—’ Drew spoke slowly, ‘–she would have wondered what they were doing here. How they knew about this place.’

  ‘They said they saw it in the papers, like everyone else,’ Maggs put in impatiently. ‘What else?’

  ‘Well, if they’d recognised her – and it’s very likely they met when Nathan was alive – they’d have known that she knew about Sarah being killed. Because they knew she was Gwen’s daughter, Nathan’s sister.’

  Maggs interrupted. ‘This is all just talk. When can we have some action?’

  ‘Simon Gliddon!’ Drew remembered with a jolt. ‘I never did manage to speak properly to Simon Gliddon.’ He looked up at Maggs, eyes sparkling with certainty. ‘Trevor said Simon blamed Gwen for Sarah’s death. I was going to try and see him in person, but he lives in Salisbury. Maggs – the person we really want is Simon Gliddon.’

  ‘We are not going to see Simon Gliddon,’ she told him obstinately. ‘We’re going to see the Graingers.’

  It was five o’clock when Maggs and Drew walked along the row of bungalows on the southern side of Bradbourne, having parked fifty yards down the road. The river widened at this point, flanked by gently rolling meadows. It would have been a pleasant spot, but for the new dual-carriageway slicing through between the town and the river, removing in the process most of the gardens from behind the bungalows. Traffic noise was a constant backdrop, and the road had already brought light industry in its wake, with garages, warehouses, and workshops strung along much of its length.

  ‘This must be the one,’ said Drew, pausing beside a low wrought-iron gate. The bungalow in question looked much the same as all its neighbours: tiny well-tended front garden, net curtains, no hint of individuality. In the road outside a blue-grey Volvo caught Drew’s eye. ‘Ah!’ he said, as one more cog slipped into place. He was pretty certain it was the car that had hovered in the lane during the interment of Gwen Absolon’s remains.

  ‘Do you know what you’re going to say?’ Maggs asked him nervously.

  ‘Not really. Last time I did anything like this, I almost got my head punched, and I came away feeling it would have been only what I deserved. But I think the line we take is that we’re very much afraid the police are about to arrest the wrong man for Gwen’s murder, and from things we’ve learnt, we were wondering whether they might not have something to contribute.’ He spoke in a rush, marking each word with a hand movement, as if conducting an orchestra. ‘No accusations – just appeal to their better nature. Give them a chance to have their say.’

  ‘OK,’ she agreed dubiously.

  Mildred Grainger opened the door, bewilderment on her face as she recognised her visitors. ‘Can we come in?’ Drew asked. ‘It’s about the cemetery. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we felt a personal call—’

  The woman turned away from them, a hand still firmly grasping the half-open door. ‘Hubert!’ she called, in a tremulous voice. ‘Hubert!’r />
  ‘What’s the matter?’ he appeared, holding a newspaper in one hand, wearing carpet slippers.

  ‘See who’s here.’

  The man’s expression changed dramatically. His mouth drooped downwards in unmistakable suffering. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘They’d better come in, I suppose.’

  Drew felt unclean as he stepped into the house, as if he’d brought something filthy into a carefully preserved sanctum. ‘We’re very sorry about this,’ he heard himself saying weakly. ‘We weren’t really sure what to do for the best.’ He felt Maggs’s disbelieving eyes on his face, but avoided looking at her.

  ‘An unusual way in which to accuse somebody of murder,’ said Hubert with dignity.

  Maggs could not repress a squeal of surprise.

  ‘Hubert!’ his wife reproved him gently. ‘Nobody mentioned murder.’

  ‘Why else would they be here?’ her husband said. He folded the newspaper slowly, and laid it down on the hall table. ‘Come into the living room,’ he invited. With courtly manners, he gave them each a comfortable chair, before positioning himself by the mantelpiece and his wife on an upholstered stool beside the window.

  ‘We made a terrible mistake,’ he began. ‘We realised only moments too late that we’d allowed ourselves to be moved by irrational motives. But it was too late, for all that.’ Mildred began to weep into a small cotton handkerchief. ‘So we did what we could to make amends.’

  ‘By burying her in my field?’ Drew supplied. ‘Tucking her in so nicely, wrapping her in that pretty sheet, letting her keep her necklace.’ Another thought occurred to him: ‘And you sent that money to the Council, didn’t you? You paid for the funeral?’

  The Graingers reached for each other, clasping hands in a tableau of mutual responsibility. Both held their heads high. Drew caught a glimpse of the unbreakable link between them. Regardless of the strength of their marriage, of how much they loved each other – by jointly committing murder, they were bound together for ever.

  ‘How did you do it?’ Maggs burst in, clearly losing patience with the delicate dance being acted out in front of her. ‘Did anybody help you?’

  ‘Maggs!’ Drew cautioned her.

  ‘You know about Sarah?’ Hubert queried, ignoring the girl’s question. ‘I assume you do.’

  Drew nodded. ‘She was your daughter. She was Nathan Slater’s girlfriend, and she believed that Nathan’s mother hastened his death.’

  ‘She knew she did,’ interposed Mildred. ‘Nathan had told her about an earlier occasion, when his mother tried to poison him with aspirin. He expected that she’d try again one day.’

  ‘That isn’t proof,’ said Drew. ‘What exactly happened when he died?’

  ‘He was in hospital with pneumonia. Sarah visited him that afternoon and he was getting better. He was going home in the next day or so. Then he died – in the evening. Sarah spoke to a nurse, who mentioned that Nathan’s mother had brought him some soup. Sarah was convinced it must have had something in it.’

  ‘But there was no evidence? They didn’t do a post-mortem?’

  Mildred Grainger shook her head. ‘Sarah suspected that the Slaters’ doctor was involved. And he would have advised her to use something undetectable. He’d have easily persuaded a colleague to sign the papers for a death certificate. She was never in any doubt in her own mind, though.’

  ‘And did Gwen know of her suspicions?’

  Mildred shrugged. ‘Nathan came here when they were engaged,’ she went on. ‘We liked him – he was an unusual person. A strong character, and good company when you got to know him.’

  ‘But hard work for his mother,’ Drew suggested. ‘He needed a lot of care. And apparently he could be very demanding.’

  ‘True. But she was going to be free of him, when he married Sarah. That’s what we could never understand at the time – why did she bring about his death, just as he was leaving her anyway?’

  ‘Sarah said she was so possessive, she couldn’t bear him to be with another woman,’ Hubert said. ‘And we believed that was the truth. Until—’

  Drew interrupted. ‘Where does Sarah’s death fit into this?’ he asked, aware of Maggs stirring impatiently again.

  ‘We believed that Gwen had a hand in it,’ Mildred took over again. ‘You see, ever since Nathan died, Sarah had been trying to get in touch with Gwen, to confront her. But you probably know what Gwen was like – a gypsy, always moving around, never in one place for long. She always seemed to be one step ahead. Then Sarah heard via the college grapevine that Gwen was working as a tour guide, running trips to Egypt. I remember she told us what a coincidence it was – she always wanted to see Egypt and it seemed too good a chance to miss. We always knew that Sarah was inclined to see things in black and white terms, as most young people are—’ she glanced at Maggs. ‘She genuinely deplored the Muslim way of doing things. But the tour leader had a responsibility to ensure that nobody in her group made themselves a nuisance. She should have warned Sarah that she was acting provocatively. Instead it seems to us that she did nothing at all. We believe she was culpably negligent.’

  ‘But hardly responsible for what happened?’ Drew said incredulously. ‘The man was a fundamentalist psychopath.’

  ‘We felt that she carried a lot of the blame,’ Hubert said mildly. ‘She knew the people there, understood the politics and so forth. She could have stopped Sarah. Instead, she just stood back and let our daughter put herself in a highly dangerous situation.’

  ‘But how did you manage it?’ Drew burst out, letting curiosity overwhelm him. ‘I don’t see how—’

  The Graingers exchanged another long look, not even pretending to miss Drew’s meaning. Hubert looked steadily at the floor as he told the story.

  ‘Gwen came here, a few months after the shooting. She wanted to ask us to pacify Simon. He was utterly devastated by Sarah’s death, you see. And he blamed Gwen, even more than we did. He made awful threats when she visited him after the funeral. Said he’d get his revenge, that she’d ruined his life, and he’d do the same to her. She was obviously terrified that he meant it.’

  Mildred laughed from her seat in the window. Drew heard a note of cruelty, a brief display of satisfaction. ‘She never even imagined that we might be feeling the same as Simon,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that stupid of her? She came to us, with her hair bleached white, calling herself Wendy something, saying she’d been so frightened of him she’d virtually gone into hiding, but couldn’t go on like that. Would we do something to help her? Get him off her back. Since he was our son-in-law … Of course we never suspected that Sarah had betrayed her suspicions to Gwen about Nathan’s death, but we think now that she did tell Simon. She told us, of course. She would always confide in her old Mum.’ The flash of pride was pathetic to Drew.

  ‘We saw red when she tried to turn us against Simon,’ said Hubert, a new grimness on his face. ‘We sat her down, and tried to make her understand how much we loathed what she’d done – first to Nathan, then to Sarah. Seti was here, too, poor old boy. He looked at her as if he understood the whole thing. And she smelt of garlic or curry. Seti hated spicy smells. She just carried on, thinking about nothing but herself, how she couldn’t go back to Egypt after what had happened, and all her friends had deserted her. Neither of her daughters wanted anything to do with her, because she’d given all her love to Nathan. We had to listen to all that, for what seemed like hours.’

  ‘Then she said she’d report Simon to the police if he didn’t stop making threats,’ Mildred added. ‘She said such a lot of awful things – but not the one thing that could have brought us over to her side. She never once said she was sorry. Why didn’t she?’ The woman wept, a little storm of frustration and regret.

  ‘But – surely, you didn’t just kill her?’ Maggs asked.

  ‘We wanted her to stop talking,’ Mildred replied. ‘She was pouring everything out. Hubert has quite a temper, I’m afraid. And she was saying horrible things about Sarah. He smacked her – a slap a
cross the face to make her stop talking. She didn’t like that – flew at him like a cat, scratching and pulling his hair. That’s when Seti joined in. He’d disliked her from the minute she arrived and he was always very protective, you see. He bit her on the leg. Caught the femoral artery – she was quite thin – it wasn’t very well covered, and she started bleeding. And it just wouldn’t stop. The blood kept coming, whatever we did.’

  ‘You’re telling us the dog killed her?’ Maggs blurted. ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘We tried to help her. At first, anyway. We pulled her clothes off, and wrapped her in towels, pressing the wound like a tourniquet. But she kept on talking, threatening to sue us, saying Sarah deserved to die. We just looked at each other, knowing we’d had the same thought. Hubert carried her to the bathroom, and we put her in a warm bath. She was very weak by then, having lost so much blood. Do you know – she wasn’t wearing any underclothes! That said it all, for me. She didn’t deserve to be treated like a civilised person. So we held her down in the bath, while she bled to death. Right at the end, she found the strength to say something, though—’

  ‘When it was too late,’ Hubert rumbled sadly.

  ‘What did she say?’ Drew hardly dared to ask.

  ‘That she truly hadn’t arranged Sarah’s death, even though she deserved it. That we ought to be murdering Willard, not her. He was behind it all. He’d suggested Sarah pretend to be in love with Nathan to cover up their affair. We knew, of course, that she had been his student for a couple of years at college, before she changed to nursing. That’s when she met Simon. Gwen gasped out that Willard had been sleeping with Sarah all the time she was going with Nathan. So when Gwen found out, she’d wanted Nathan dead, to protect him from realising how he’d been betrayed. She said she knew Sarah would never marry him. She said she loved Nathan, she was the only person in the world who did. His name was the last word she spoke. She died smiling at us, at our faces when we realised what we’d done. And knowing she’d poisoned our image of our only child, for ever.’