by GJ Minett
Holloway and Horgan watched from the doorway as the cars emptied and other formally attired employees moved into dignified action. Holloway caught his first glimpse of Abi Green, dressed simply in a knee-length black dress, looking at once attractive and vulnerable. At her side was a tall, square-shouldered man whom Holloway assumed to be her brother – he was meant to be flying in from Lyon when he’d last spoken with her. No sign of her parents though, which told a tale.
Phil Green came round from the other side of the car and joined her briefly to check she was OK, then walked over to join the other pall-bearers, taking his place at the head of the coffin. Together they hoisted it onto their shoulders, steadying themselves to make sure everyone was ready before the procession made its way indoors. Holloway and Horgan lingered for a moment, waiting until everyone else was seated before stepping inside.
At the entrance Horgan took hold of his colleague’s elbow and nodded in the direction of the footpath where a woman was hurrying towards them, head bowed. As she drew closer Hannah Reid looked up and nodded without saying a word, then walked past them and took a seat at the rear of the chapel. Her arrival seemed to go unnoticed by everyone else.
‘Jesus,’ whispered Horgan, as one of the attendants offered her an order-of-service sheet. She thanked him with a smile that barely made it to her lips before dying away, exhausted.
Holloway watched her for a few seconds, then switched his attention back to Abi Green who was taking her seat at the very front, waiting for Phil to join her. Two women, both grieving for the man they’d lost, neither able as yet to come to terms with what had happened. Two lost souls with so much in common. And no way on this earth of making the connection.
ABI
She hadn’t looked at the coffin since they got out of the car. Not once. Not even on the short walk down the aisle to the front of the chapel. Instead, she’d looked resolutely at the floor, avoiding the well-intentioned but no less intrusive looks of sympathy which would inevitably be coming her way. She didn’t want to know who was or was not there. Didn’t want to speculate as to what they might be thinking. Just wanted to get to her seat and block everything else out. Grit her teeth. Get it over with.
Having taken her place between Phil and Richie in the front row, she couldn’t bring herself to look up from her shoes other than to consult the order of service. Phil had designed a split-page front cover, bearing two photos of Callum. One showed him at the age of six, straining to go higher and higher on a swing in his grandparents’ back garden. Higher and higher. Pushing it just that little bit further every time. The other was more recent, a favourite of hers. She’d taken it herself at a party to celebrate his twenty-sixth birthday and she’d caught him unawares, managing to capture that sly, enigmatic grin she’d never been able to resist, the one that hinted at secrets she’d always believed herself to be a part of. Us two against the world. You and me, babe. Cross my heart and . . .
She wouldn’t look at the coffin. Refused to invest in it any meaning it didn’t merit. It was a box – expertly crafted but still just a box. There wasn’t a single level on which she was prepared to accept that it was Callum in there. The Callum she’d known almost all her life no longer existed . . . if indeed he ever had. At some stage the curtains were going to draw slowly across as the rollers took the coffin on its way, but even then she wouldn’t dignify it with as much as a glance. This wasn’t the end. The life she and Callum had known had been blown apart long before she arrived at this soulless place – she just hadn’t known it. She’d been feeding and caring for a corpse all this time.
Alongside her Richie held out a tentative hand as they stood for the first hymn. She grasped it, clinging on for dear life. She was so glad to have him there; so grateful he’d made the effort. When her parents had bought a farmhouse in Bourg-Saint-Andéol, they’d taken her younger brother with them and she’d seen very little of him since. They’d tried blackmail, threats, everything short of kidnap to force her to go with them, just as they’d gone out of their way to try to break up her relationship with Callum. So overt and virulent was their disapproval of him that right up until the last minute they were convinced she’d give way, to the extent that they’d even bought a ticket for her. But they’d misjudged her – she was eighteen and stubborn. She’d stood firm, moved in with Callum and his parents for the remaining weeks of her A levels and married him three years later.
Her parents had been implacable in their response. They’d contacted her just twice in the eight years since they left for the Ardèche: once to decline the wedding invitation in the most formal and hurtful tone imaginable and then, shortly after her twenty-first birthday, to inform her that they were handing over to her responsibility for a savings account, which they’d set up for her when she was very young (subtext: before she became damaged goods) and which was now worth something in excess of £12,500. It had felt at the time like a pay-off, a ritual washing of the hands, but in case it was actually intended as an olive branch of sorts, she’d written to thank them and asked how they both were. Neither had replied.
In such an atmosphere it had been difficult for her and Richie to maintain the sort of contact they would have liked. She could only guess at the emotional blackmail to which he’d been subjected because, even at the age of twenty-two, he still found it hard to shake off the feeling that any move towards her was a move away from them. But she’d been sure, when she phoned to tell him what had happened, that he would be there if he could. Just as she’d known her parents would not. She just hoped the price Richie would have to pay for this show of solidarity wouldn’t be too exorbitant.
The hymn came to an end and they took their seats again. Behind her she could hear Alfie making his way to the front to deliver the tribute. He’d offered to do it and she’d been happy to accept. Neither she nor Phil would have been up to it and Alfie had known Callum at least as long as she had – and probably better, if recent revelations were anything to go by. Any tribute would be better coming from him. She’d spent half an hour or so with him, providing a few key dates he’d asked for and filling in blanks. He’d asked if there were any little anecdotes she’d like him to work in and she’d said no.
So now, eyes still glued to her shoes, she squeezed Richie’s hand once more and did her level best not to listen to the sanitised, expurgated version of the life of Callum Green, which was starting to sound like one of the all-time great works of fiction. Easier to tune out, she suspected, than to suspend disbelief.
OWEN
He remembers the policeman. Not the two who were in the car park when he arrived, although he knows them too. They’re the ones who came round to check what time Abi left his house. No, he remembers the other one, the one at the front – knew who he was the moment he walked past, carrying the coffin. Looks a lot older now but he’d recognise him anywhere.
First time he saw him, he was marching through the school playground, taking Callum out through the school gates. Everybody was buzzing, saying, ‘Callum Green’s been arrested’, until they realised it was just his dad come to collect him. Three-day suspension for persistent bullying. No wonder his dad looked so cross.
He remembers pressing his head against the railings as he watched the two of them walk off down the road: the big, angry policeman walking two paces ahead of his son. Callum didn’t look quite so full of himself now. His turn to be scared to death for once. He wished he could have been there when they got home – would have loved to watch Callum getting his comeuppance. Now that his dad knew the sort of things he’d been doing every day at school, maybe that would put a stop to it. He was a policeman after all.
But the moment his suspension was over, Callum was back at school and things were just as bad as before. Worse, if anything – cornered him in the playground first chance he got, accused him of dobbing him in – and it was obvious after the first day back that Callum’s parents had no more influence over him than the teachers. He was free to do what he liked.
Then, not long after that, same policeman on their doorstep. No uniform this time. Wanted to speak to him with his mum there. Off the record, he said. Just a friendly word, although that wasn’t true – nothing friendly about it. Didn’t smile once.
He said he wasn’t about to excuse his son for the things he’d done in the past but neither was he going to let him be blamed for things he hadn’t done. Callum had come home upset because he’d been accused of locking Owen in the drama store cupboard during the lunch interval. The school would have sent him home again if another teacher hadn’t stuck her nose in and said it couldn’t have been Callum – he’d been with her all lunch hour.
The policeman had leaned forward in his chair until he was really close to him; said being bullied was a horrible thing but so was making up lies about other people and if it happened again there would be consequences. And his mum had got really cross – asked him to leave. Slammed the door after him. ‘Blooming cheek,’ she’d said. ‘Telling me how to bring up my own child.’ Next day she went to the school and told them Owen wouldn’t be coming back. She could do a better job of teaching him on her own.
So no, he hasn’t forgotten the policeman. He can see him now, sitting next to Abi, while Alfie Parker tells everyone what a wonderful person Callum was. He wishes someone would stand up and say that this is all lies. He can’t be the only person here who knows what Callum was really like. But this is what you do at funerals, he’s learned. He remembers some of the things Mr Mitchell said when they buried his mother. How she’d been unlucky to die so young – no mention anywhere of the cigarettes that stank the house out. Two packs a day, even when she knew they were killing her. That’s not bad luck. That’s just stupid and selfish. But everyone had nodded and dabbed at the corners of their eyes when he said it. ‘Wonderful mother’, he’d called her. So wonderful she spent the last two years of her life sitting around the house in the same dressing gown she wore to bed. Went months without having a decent wash, let alone a bath. Smelled like sick most of the time. Nothing wonderful about that. But you don’t say that sort of thing at funerals because people don’t want the truth. It will make them sad. And the point is, they’re already sad enough.
He looks at the other person next to Abi, the one who keeps holding her hand. This must be her brother who’s come all the way from France. She doesn’t know him very well and he knows whose hand she’d rather be holding if she could choose. He hasn’t seen her since that night, the one he had to lie about – 8.52, he’d told the police, just like she asked him to. One of them, the older one, said that was very precise, but he knew they’d say something like that so he’d already worked out what he was going to say. Told them he’d noticed because he was supposed to be at the cinema at nine and he was going to be late. They asked what film and he was even able to show them the ticket receipt which shut them up pretty quickly.
She’s been busy since then so she hasn’t had a chance to thank him for helping her but maybe once this is all over she’ll come round and see him again. And when she sees the surprise he has for her, he knows she’s going to be thrilled. He hasn’t forgotten that she kissed him on the cheek last time.
PHIL
The funeral director suddenly materialised alongside them and asked if they were ready to accompany him. He escorted them out through a side door and into a small courtyard, where they waited like society hosts to receive everyone’s condolences: Abi self-conscious but stoical, her brother slightly bewildered by the sea of unfamiliar faces. Not that he was alone in that – Callum’s life had exploded in so many directions in recent years, it was difficult to keep up. There were a few of his old school friends from way back and a number of others Phil vaguely recognised but for the most part he was dependent upon each person offering a few contextual words of introduction.
Holloway and Horgan were last in line. He thanked them for coming and asked if they needed to dash off. If not, Abi had organised an open bar and some food (he’d always hated the word wake) at the Chichester Park Hotel just around the corner. There was a moment’s hesitation, which felt a little like reluctance giving way to a sense of propriety, before Holloway agreed.
Half an hour later he found the two of them in a corner, clutching plates of sandwiches and mini sausages and looking about as inconspicuous as a cow in a wedding photo – runaway winners of any Spot-the-Policeman competition. Horgan he barely knew but Andy Holloway was someone he’d worked with a long time ago and for whom he’d always had a sneaking regard. Not a friend exactly – their career paths had gone in very different directions and they’d seen too little of each other – but nevertheless someone he’d viewed as a kindred spirit. Everyone said Holloway was a safe pair of hands. Inasmuch as he could take consolation from anything under the present circumstances, that was something at least.
Both of them turned to balance their plates on the window sill as they saw him approach. They all shook hands and he thanked them again for coming. When Holloway asked how he was bearing up, he offered a grim smile.
‘You see the flowers before you came over?’ he asked. ‘The wreaths?’
‘We did. Pretty impressive display.’
‘Read the cards by any chance?’
Holloway returned his look without blinking.
‘Most of them.’
‘Yeah, thought you would,’ he said. ‘Always worth a look, eh? Never know what you might find in there.’
There was a pause and Holloway and Horgan exchanged a quick glance.
‘I did notice, in case you were wondering,’ he continued.
‘Phil –’
‘Only I was just thinking to myself on the way over here . . . twenty plus years on the job, I don’t know how many names I came across in all that time. Must run into the tens of thousands, I’d have thought. And some of them you wouldn’t believe, you know? The things people call their kids nowadays, no wonder they turn out the way they do, poor sods. But tell you what – all those names, you know how many Ezras I came across?’
There was a crash from the far corner where a plate had been knocked from the table, sending vol-au-vents spilling to the floor. A couple of bystanders quickly stooped to retrieve them and share a joke with the guilty party.
‘Fingers on one hand,’ he continued. ‘That’s how many. And you know how many of those were arrogant enough to feel they didn’t even need to put their surname on a card cos everyone would know who they were anyway?’
‘I was hoping you might be able to offer an alternative explanation,’ said Holloway.
‘You and me both,’ said Phil, wiping a thin film of sweat away from his forehead. ‘Then again, what do I know? It’s not like I ever made much of an effort to get my head round what Callum was up to. Network marketing, portfolios, trust funds . . . motivational speaking,’ he said, wrapping speech marks around the words. ‘Way over my head. You want the honest truth, I haven’t got a clue what he did on a day-to-day basis or who he mixed with. Sad or what?’
Holloway, he realised, hadn’t taken his eyes off him for a moment. Not even when the plate fell to the floor.
‘You don’t know for a fact that there’s any connection there?’ he asked.
‘For a fact? No. I was kind of hoping you’d tell me it’s a different Ezra altogether. You saying this is the first you’ve heard of it?’
Holloway pursed his lips before answering.
‘His name hasn’t surfaced in all of this before today.’
‘What about the Bellamys?’
He shook his head.
‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?’ Phil asked, watching closely for the slightest hesitation. He sensed they were both on the defensive for some reason. ‘Not about something like this?’
‘No. I wouldn’t lie to you.’ Holloway’s reply was decisive and convincing. He turned to lift his cup from its precarious perch on the window sill and took a sip from it. ‘There are things I might not tell you – you know that.’
‘Yeah, I�
�ve had the lecture.’
‘I can’t let you play any sort of active part in the investigation. You’ve got to leave it to us to do our jobs and trust us to get it right. We’re not going to be able to keep you updated on every detail that comes across the desk. But if you ask me a direct question, I’m not going to lie to you, OK? If I can’t answer, I’ll say so.’
Phil took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. For what it was worth, he believed him. It chimed with everything he knew of the man.
‘But you’re not that surprised,’ he said, more an observation than a question. ‘Are you?’
‘This isn’t really the place,’ said Holloway, looking around as if expecting to be interrupted at any minute. ‘Or the time.’
‘So is this one of the things I’m not supposed to ask about?’
And the lack of response told him all he needed to know. He’d been given as clear an answer as he was going to get.
OWEN
Willie thinks he’s crazy. Says he’s got no chance. Total waste of money – he ought to sell it and get whatever he can for it. Does he really think she’s going to be interested? Has he looked in the mirror lately?
Then again, Willie always feels threatened whenever he thinks his own circumstances might be about to change. And besides, he wasn’t there earlier. He didn’t see the way she kept her eyes fixed on the floor, as if forcing herself not to turn round and look at him. She knew she couldn’t do that without others noticing and that would look bad. You can’t ask someone else to come and sit next to you at your husband’s funeral, can you? Even if it is what you want more than anything else.
