A Grave in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Do you live in Broad Campden?’ I asked, thinking I should already know the answer to that, and remembering Gavin Maynard walking away from his encounter with me, unaware that he was living out his final moments.

  ‘More or less. We’re half a mile out, on the road to Draycott. Why?’

  ‘Well, your husband appears to have walked everywhere on Saturday. At least there was no sign of a car when I met him.’

  ‘No, that’s right. I needed the car. It was a Saturday,’ she added defensively, and a picture began to form in my mind: a row between the couple, with him insisting on pursuing the outrage of an illicit grave on council property at the weekend, instead of waiting until Monday. Her telling him he’d have to do it on foot, then. Wondering where he was, taking so long to come home, thinking he must be sulking after their argument, then the gradual realisation that something was wrong – police, stunned disbelief, tears, rage. And maybe guilt at having spoken harshly to him, panic as to the implications – and, surely, grief?

  ‘I’m truly sorry for your loss,’ I said, making my voice as firm as I could. It was a tone I had naturally developed in the course of my work: sincere, straightforward, reliable. Nothing smarmy or false, as in the worst caricatures of undertakers. Besides, I really was very sorry that Mr Maynard had been murdered. It affected me personally quite badly.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, her own voice quite steady. ‘I suppose you won’t be surprised when I say I still can’t believe it. At least – I know it’s true, but it hasn’t got through to the heart of me yet. If that makes any sense.’

  Finally, she was beginning to sound more human and vulnerable. ‘Oh, yes,’ I assured her, thinking she was – at least for longer than was usually the case – to be deprived, by the restrictions of a police investigation, of the solace of a funeral, and the distraction of deciding about music and clothes and where to eat afterwards. It would be weeks, at least, before her husband’s body was released for disposal. ‘Do you have any children?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ came a low reply after some seconds. Either there had been a child, or the lack of one caused ongoing pain. I regretted my question. ‘There’s only me,’ she added.

  Why had she called me? We were skirting around something that still had to be voiced. She wanted information from me, that much I understood. But what exactly did she need to know?

  ‘Well’ I began, ‘I hope they won’t keep you waiting too much longer before they tell you everything that happened, and release the body. I know it’s horrible having to wait.’

  She murmured a wordless hint of acknowledgment that I had understood her complaint. ‘It was Greta Simmonds’ grave, was it?’ she went on. ‘That the trouble was about? I heard she’d died, of course, but I never knew…I mean, nobody seemed to know the details of her funeral. I’d have liked to have been there.’

  ‘You knew her?’ Something from the scrambled disclosures made by Judith Talbot rang in my clouded memory.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And your husband? He knew her?’

  ‘Yes, yes. She lived here when she was younger, and again for the past year or more. She was always great fun. Gavin met her later, after we were married. She was a friend.’

  ‘But…’ I was desperately trying to recall every word I’d exchanged with Mr Maynard, ‘he never said. Your husband never gave the slightest sign that he knew her.’

  ‘Well, no, he wouldn’t, would he? It was official council business. Whether or not he knew the person in the grave would be irrelevant to what he had to say to you.’

  ‘But…’ I stammered again, struggling to grasp the complexities. ‘Surely…? I mean, it seems strange that he could behave as he did. He said it was a travesty,’ I remembered with a surge of bitterness.

  She remained quite calm. ‘It was, to him. Not just a trespass, but a kind of sacrilege. He was a devout Christian, you see. He thought Greta would be an outcast in the next world, being buried where she was.’

  ‘So it wasn’t at all irrelevant,’ I said. ‘His personal feelings were involved, if not in his words, then in his whole attitude.’ A kind of relief went through me. The council man and the outraged Christian had not been kept as separate as all that. Neither was his wife as uninformed as she had first implied. She knew quite a lot about the events that preceded his death, after all.

  ‘Who killed him, Mr Slocombe?’ The question burst urgently into my ear. ‘That’s what I’m asking you. Who killed my Gavin?’

  ‘I have no idea, Mrs Maynard,’ I said firmly. ‘I have no knowledge of Broad Campden and its residents. I’d never been there before Friday. I had the bad luck to meet him shortly before he died, which brought me to the notice of the police. But I know nothing whatsoever about how or why he was killed. You must believe that.’

  ‘Must I?’ she said, suspicion ripening. ‘And what about that woman in Greta’s house? What’s she doing, hanging around, now that Greta’s dead? What does she think she’ll gain by it?’

  ‘Mrs Simmonds’ nephew asked her to stay. He owns the house now. He wants her to supervise the preparations for the sale, which I understand is to happen as soon as possible.’

  An unpleasant laugh came down the line. ‘Is it, now? Well, he’ll have to think again about that, won’t he? I happen to know there are several anomalies to do with ownership of that particular property. I think Mr Nephew will find that the Land Registry has a long list of questions for him, before he can even think of selling it.’ Before I could ask my next question, the answer came unbidden: ‘I should know. I work for the solicitor who handled old Mrs Goodwin’s will. That was Greta’s mother. There are things about that house which will ruffle a lot of feathers, once they’re out in the open.That’s what happens, you see, when a property changes hands.’

  She wouldn’t tell me any more, and I found myself reluctant to persuade her, even though experiencing a strong curiosity. My thoughts had flown to Thea, and the prospect of her being embroiled in disagreements about ownership rights, and access issues. I had known a number of cases where battles over property had raged fiercely, only days after someone had died. It was almost a cliché. Only when payment of the funeral bill was jeopardised did I ever get personally involved, but I had heard many a dreadful tale of what could happen.

  Maggs had appeared at my elbow, listening attentively to my end of the conversation and waggling her eyebrows at me. ‘Mrs Maynard, I have to go now,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you, but I’m sure you won’t be kept waiting too much longer before being given all the facts you need.’

  I’d reverted to my initial stilted delivery, but this time it was deliberate.

  ‘I expect we’ll meet one of these days,’ she said, as if making a threat, before abruptly replacing the receiver at her end.

  ‘What was all that about?’ demanded Maggs. She had no reservations about coming into my house, if she couldn’t find me in the office or out in the graveyard. She was, in effect, part of the family. At times she had been the central pillar on which we had all relied. She had earned the right, many times over, to free access anywhere she liked.

  I took her outside, one hand on her shoulder, rapidly debating with myself what I should tell her. Already I had kept important information back from Mrs Maynard – who was bound to discover that I was chief suspect in her husband’s murder. Similarly, Maggs was sure to get the whole story sooner or later, even if my worst fears were not realised, and I was not forced to stand trial for murder. So I gave her a rapid summary of events, omitting all reference to Thea.

  ‘When did all this happen?’ she demanded, with a frown. ‘You said there was some trouble over the grave, and that was it. When you didn’t mention it this morning, I thought everything was OK.’

  ‘I know, but we were preoccupied with Mr Everscott. The Cotswold thing isn’t your problem.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she sniffed crossly. ‘I thought we were a partnership.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. If it comes
to me being charged with murder, then you can come and be my character witness. As it is, I’m only under suspicion, and it’s quite likely to stay that way.’

  ‘Right. And if you’re found guilty I’ll have to do everything here on my own, won’t I? You’ll be banged up for twenty-five years. Do you want me to keep the seat warm for Timmy – or is Stephanie your main heir to the business?’

  I gathered my tattered shreds of dignity. ‘Listen – don’t say a word about this to Karen. It’ll only upset her for nothing. I did not kill him, Maggs. I won’t be going to prison, unless it’s for driving an untaxed car.’

  ‘And having bald tyres,’ she reminded me. ‘In fact, I would give that top priority for this afternoon. Sounds to me as if you’re likely to be ordered back to Sodding Bunkum, or whatever it’s called, any time now. I can’t pretend I understand all that stuff about stones and gateways, but they’re not going to just forget about you, are they?’

  ‘Broad Campden. It’s actually a very nice little village.’

  ‘Sounds it,’ she said. ‘I bet you’re thrilled that you had to go there on Friday.’ She gave me a closer look. ‘I meant that sarcastically,’ she explained. ‘You’re not supposed to look like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you’re not as totally unthrilled as you should be.’

  ‘Maggs, I promise you I have no reason whatsoever for liking Broad Campden, and the things that happened to me there. Now, let’s get on, shall we?’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar,’ she told me cheerfully. ‘Well, I’ll find it out in the end – you know I always do.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I said, wondering whether Karen, too, could see through me, the way Maggs did.

  Chapter Ten

  To my relief, Karen seemed entirely focused on the children and the state of our bank account that day. I tried to shield her from the depressing facts about our financial situation, but she insisted on knowing the full details, blaming herself for our precarious position. ‘That’s daft,’ I told her, over and over. ‘Without your compensation money, we’d be in real trouble.’

  ‘Without my injury, we’d be perfectly all right,’ she always countered.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. You’re lucky to be alive. The money doesn’t matter, sweetheart, compared to that.’ I repeated these and other reassurances, on roughly a weekly basis, and had done for the past three years. It never seemed to change: Karen never let it drop. I did my best to imagine what it must be like to have a scar in your head left by a bullet. Her brain had only been grazed, according to the doctors, the bruising and swelling dangerous at first, but soon dispersed. She had been unconscious for a day or so, but when she woke up she knew who everyone was, could remember her whole previous life, and insisted on returning to normal. But there were repercussions that only gradually made themselves manifest. A tremor in her right arm and leg that never went away; poor focus in her right eye; and the permanent scar where hair would no longer grow, along the side of her head. And a kind of low-level lack of coordination that sometimes seemed more psychological than physical. She was still my Karen, still the mother of my children, but strangely changed.

  I had devoted the past three years to working out precisely how she was different. It occupied a lot of my waking thoughts, and I never gave up trying to revive the person she had been before. But it was like trying to track down the end of the rainbow. When I told myself she was understandably anxious about small, silly things, she would do something reckless, with no thought for the consequences. When I reorganised my working week so as to be available to cope with the children, she would push me aside saying she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. The new Karen was deeply, impossibly unreasonable. The old Karen had been entirely logical and balanced. The difference never got easier to live with.

  The only point on which she remained consistent to the point of tedium was money, and how it was her fault we never had enough of it.

  I could not tell her about the events of Broad Campden, and Maggs knew better than to mention it in front of her. Karen’s reaction could equally well be a relaxed chuckle or a frantic terror that I would spend the rest of my life in prison. Or both. Or something else again. Sometimes I wondered whether that bullet had broken a kind of mainspring inside her head, some regulatory function that no longer worked. So her inner mechanism now ran insanely fast or slow, like a clock in a cartoon, hands whizzing round its face, only to stop abruptly every now and then. The only strategy that worked was to keep life predictable, with routines and habits that helped us all to feel secure. The children mostly colluded with this quite happily. They seemed to understand their mother a lot better than I did. When she was worked up, they simply sat quietly and waited for her to calm down again. She never hit them and seldom directly accused them of causing her flare-ups. If they were too noisy for her, she put her hands over her ears and they quietened down. I worried that they were being unnaturally repressed, but then remembered that most children through the past umpteen centuries had been prevented from making undue noise, at least in the Western world, and it was more or less the human condition by this time.

  It was surprising, I sometimes thought, the way we had all adapted. The facts, starkly described, painted a picture of a family badly damaged by a single act of violence. But the reality was that we were still Drew and Karen and Stephanie and Timothy, and we all loved each other and got on with life as we’d constructed it for ourselves. We laughed and played together. We had catchphrases and silly stories. And there was Maggs, who had always provided a kind of safety net, simply by being her own extraordinary self.

  Without Maggs to confide in, I would have stewed much more over the death of Mr Maynard in Broad Campden. Having dumped most of the story on my stalwart colleague, I felt free to get on with the daily round, which although not arduous, did require my attention. The business was not simply burying the free-thinking dead in my field, but maintaining links with the probable sources of these dead. I had a habit of visiting three or four of the nearest nursing homes, making myself pleasant, reminding them that it was not only perfectly ethical, but actually their duty, to add my name to the possible list of undertakers, when asked by relatives of their inmates. This was akin to the repetition of housework: if I didn’t go regularly, my name got dusty and cobwebby in their minds, and they forgot to mention me. In theory, they had little objection to the way I did things. They all liked me and were taken by Maggs, but they seemed to switch into automatic mode, calling the same number they always had – that of the big efficient undertaker who had men on standby right around the clock, and could be there in twenty minutes. Even when the dead person had expressed an interest in a natural burial, this could happen. I couldn’t bear to count the number of funerals we’d lost, for no good reason at all.

  On Monday afternoon, I went to see Carole Mitchell, matron of a large private nursing home in Wincanton; then I took the car for its new tyres and collected my children from school. I felt complacent at having achieved so much, and ready for the aromatic spaghetti bolognese that Karen was cooking for us. I thrust all thoughts of the Cotswolds from my mind, and was rewarded with some very satisfactory marital sex at the end of the day.

  Tuesday dawned fine and sunny, with birds singing outside. My first thoughts were of the children, with only four more days of school before the Easter holidays began. I relished the prospect of relaxed breakfasts and grubby clothes. We could go out as a family, perhaps, taking a picnic, weather permitting. Somehow the whole miserable business of the murdered council man would be resolved, releasing me from suspicion completely, and letting Mrs Simmonds lie where she was in perpetuity. It all seemed obvious in that first hour of the day.

  At nine-fifteen the phone rang just as I had sat down in the office and started to plan my day. It was a woman whose husband had just been admitted to the hospice. He wanted to be buried in my field, and would I go with her to his bedside and take down his wishes. ‘I don’t want to press yo
u,’ she said, ‘but the truth is, I don’t think there’s very much time.’

  ‘I could come on Thursday,’ I offered, thinking I should give Mr Everscott due attention until then. ‘Would that be all right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said softly. ‘It feels wrong to be in a hurry – and yet…’

  ‘I understand,’ I told her. ‘But please try not to worry. There isn’t really a great deal to decide, when it comes to it, once I know you’ve chosen my burial ground.’

  ‘But he does want to see you,’ she said, more urgently. ‘And could you bring some pictures, as well? He wants to be able to…visualise it.’ Her voice thickened. ‘He’s being fantastically brave.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, sincerely. People who could confront their own demise earned a dozen gold stars in my book.

  ‘Is it?’ she said.

  ‘I promise you. So, I’ll meet you at St Mildred’s at eleven on Thursday, then, Mrs Kalinsky.’ I had jotted down the name as soon as she’d introduced herself.

  ‘Kaplinsky,’ she corrected. ‘With a “p”.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got it now. Thank you for ringing.’

  When the phone went again, five minutes later, I thought it was the same woman, perhaps changing the time or asking another question. But it was a voice I recognised for its clear sweet tones, even though I had not consciously registered it when face-to-face.

  ‘It’s me, Thea Osborne,’ she said, with a shade of apology.

  ‘Hello,’ I replied, attributing my speeding heart rate to fear that I was in more trouble.

  ‘There’s a bit of bother up here, I’m afraid, and I didn’t know who else to speak to. It’s a real cheek on my part, I realise that.’

  ‘Not at all. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Mr Maynard’s wife came here last night, and shouted at me. She’s found out about the grave and you – the whole story, really.’