by Rebecca Tope
We both stared at him wordlessly for a bit. Then I found my voice. ‘Were you here?’ I asked him.
‘For a bit. She and I were going to Paris for three days, and then on to Berlin and Moscow. We had the tickets and everything. It was cheap, because I was young and she was a pensioner, and it’s out of season. Anyway, she had plenty of money.’
‘Oh, gosh – how awful for you!’ Thea’s sympathy was genuine. She even reached out a hand to the boy, but he avoided it with a neat backward step.
‘I went home to pack my stuff, and fixed up to meet her at St Pancras. Nobody told me she was dead, so I waited, and she never showed and I missed the train. Can you see what a fool that made me feel?’ He was flushed with pain and rage and perhaps guilt.
‘Didn’t you phone her?’
‘She never had a mobile, and I never thought to call here. I thought she’d changed her mind. I was in a major strop with her.’
‘So when did you find out?’
‘My mum called me the next day. She didn’t know about our holiday.’
‘Weren’t you supposed to be at school?’ Thea demanded. ‘What was your aunt thinking of, taking you off in term time?’
‘It was only a couple of weeks early,’ he shrugged. ‘And it’s college, not school. And I hate the fucking place, if you must know. What chance do I have of a decent job, whatever they say?’
‘You look as if you can work well enough when you want to,’ she observed. ‘We saw you digging, earlier on.’
‘They don’t count that as work, though, do they? No exams and stuff for digging. That’s only fit for Romanians and Latvians now.’
He could be a gravedigger, I thought with some irony. There was still money to be made if you were prepared to travel to several different churchyards at short notice. Probably not enough to live on, though, even if it was cash in hand and little risk of the taxman finding out, provided the undertakers played along. Which most of them didn’t any more, unfortunately.
We all seemed to be drifting off the main subject. For a moment, I couldn’t even recall what that was. Right – Mrs Simmonds and her funeral. ‘You came to the burial,’ I said. ‘With your family. You looked quite together then. What’s all this about avoiding your mum?’
He gave me a look that seemed to contain a sort of yearning, as if needing me to understand something, but unable to voice it directly. ‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘The funeral was good. Just what she’d have wanted.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Jeremy,’ Thea said gently. ‘You didn’t really mean the people here killed your aunt, did you?’
‘I meant they stressed her out. She wanted to set things straight – tie up the loose ends, was what she said. But it ended up in a fight, though they’d never admit it.’
‘Was she ill?’ Thea asked.
He nodded, his face clouded with misery. ‘Yeah. She never said it right out, y’know, but she dropped little hints about it.’ He sniffed and said nothing more for a minute, before squaring his shoulders and facing us full on. ‘And now I need a bit of space, OK. I’ve got stuff I need to think about.’ It struck me that his relatives had been planning to sell his aunt’s house without consulting him. Perhaps, I thought wildly, I could let him stay in it as my tenant, if I really did gain ownership of it. He could even run the cemetery for me, if that ever materialised. Suddenly it all looked neat and almost predestined. I gave him a beaming smile that seemed to startle him.
‘Do you know the Watchetts?’ Thea asked him, surprising us both.
He shook his head. ‘Not really. Seen them once or twice.’ His features hardened. ‘None of the others came, did they? The tenants, and old Mr Kettles. Her neighbours. They all stayed away.’
‘I don’t think they knew about it,’ I told him. ‘Your mother wanted it to be kept very discreet.’
‘Yeah,’ he sneered. ‘A lot of good it did her.’
‘Oh?’
‘She thought she and Charles between them could just take over the deeds of the house, and sell it in a few weeks and pocket the cash.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not that she cares a fuck what I think.’
‘How did you know?’
He gave me another complicated look. ‘I knew she’d left it to you. She told me not to be upset about it. Said you were a good bloke.’
I remembered, for the first time in hours, that I was under suspicion of murder, and therefore not at all a good bloke in society’s eyes. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I liked her, as well.’
‘Yeah…well, at least she got the grave as she wanted it. Good old Auntie Greta.’
‘We must go,’ I realised with a sudden panic. ‘I said I’d be home by four.’
‘Quarter to, now,’ said Jeremy, consulting his mobile. ‘You won’t make it.’ It was some seconds before it dawned on me that this meant he knew where I lived. Understandable, since I’d performed his aunt’s funeral, but still quite a surprise. I hadn’t expected him to take that much notice.
‘Well, we can do our best. Thanks, Jeremy, for talking to us,’ said Thea, coming over all brisk. ‘We’ll see you again, maybe.’
‘Can I take your phone number?’ I asked, on a whim. ‘Just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’
‘Oh…well, we might want to keep in touch, don’t you think? We both liked Auntie Greta, and want what she wanted, don’t we?’
‘OK then. Give me yours and I’ll put it in.’ With relief I handed over my phone and watched his rapid thumb add his number to my meagre list of names.
‘However did we manage before mobile phones?’ breathed Thea. ‘Now, come on. We’ll be in trouble with your wife.’
It was a careless comment, not meant unkindly at all, but it gave me a little pang.
Chapter Twenty
Karen was not remotely reproachful when I walked in at half past four. She gave me a sunny smile and poured out a big mug of tea. ‘Nice day?’ she asked.
I had resisted any temptation to invite Thea in, despite knowing she would probably be glad of a drink before her long drive home. My head was full of impressions, questions, tentative connections and the perpetual dread of what the police might decide to do to me next. Peaceful Repose burial ground was well down the list of my priorities, and my neglected family only a notch or two higher.
‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘Did anybody phone?’
‘Not a soul. It’s been blissfully quiet. The kids have been brilliant, making Easter cards and stuff. Timmy’s got religion. He won the Head Teacher’s Merit for telling the Easter story at school. He seems to have got the Gospel of St Matthew off by heart.’ She chatted brightly, the perfect happy housewife, and almost had me convinced that everything was utterly normal.
I winced at the reference to religion in the children’s school. Karen hadn’t been surprised at all by it, having worked for years as a teacher, but somehow it came as quite a shock to me to discover the casual use of prayers and mangled Bible stories and grace before meals. I had assumed that institutionalised religion had somehow withered away, but it appeared to be staging a strenuous revival, with a lot more than I ever had in my own early years.
‘I suppose he’ll grow out of it,’ I said.
‘He’ll do as he sees fit,’ she said pertly, and I registered that this was my old Karen speaking – the wife who had had opinions and stood her ground in an argument.
‘I just wish they’d go easy on the brainwashing,’ I replied, eager to seize the moment.
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Karen.
It was a topic we couldn’t agree on. I could never work out whether it was my experience as an undertaker, or something prior and deeper, which made me so sceptical. I understood quite well that ‘Abide With Me’ and the standard funeral service were consoling to almost everybody. The ritual had been carefully constructed, and stood the test of time. As far as I could see, it had almost nothing to do with the basic tenets of Christianity, where mankind had somehow been ‘re
deemed’ because a man was tortured to death on a crucifix. There seemed to be a glaring logical gap between all that and the visceral human need to cling to some hope that death didn’t instantly obliterate who and what they had once been. Personally, I was content to have my molecules continue as dandelions or honeybees or even a lump of stone – but I could appreciate that this view might change as I approached my final days.
‘Well, you know what I think,’ I said, wearying suddenly of the topic.
Karen asked me nothing about my day, as I sank unresistingly into the easy jumble of family life. I took charge of the evening meal, cooking sausages in a casserole with our own onions, stored over the winter, in a sauce made from our own tomatoes – also bottled in the summer and stored. That co-housing crowd couldn’t have taught me anything about growing vegetables. Originally Karen’s department, I had taken it over after her injury, and made it my own. I liked to think that my poor showing as a money-earner was balanced out by the cash I saved on food.
Before bed, I watched a film with the children, squashed uncomfortably into our big armchair with them both on top of me. I put them to bed, reading a long chapter from The House at Pooh Corner, and helping them plan the coming week of their school holiday.
Life went on, regardless. If I was convicted of murder and given a twenty- or thirty-year prison sentence, life would go on. My children would be outcasts, my wife reduced to a shadow by the shame and stress, but Maggs and Den would come to the rescue – even my mother might show hidden strengths in such a crisis. I would find a niche for myself in the prison garden, and get through it somehow. I sat with Karen in our living room, passively accepting my fate, for well over an hour, before I heard Thea Osborne’s voice in the distance, telling me not to be such a wimp. Where was my passion, my sense of justice, my self-belief? How could I even for a moment contemplate wrongful imprisonment, without a massive rise in blood pressure and an iron determination to see that right prevailed?
OK, I sighed inwardly. OK. That wasn’t going to happen. We would find whoever had killed Mr Maynard, and clear my name in the process.
Sunday dawned invitingly, with sunny skies and singing birds. I had nothing planned, other than a vague promise to the children that we could go out somewhere. Karen suggested we drive to Cadbury and climb the ancient ramparts and pretend we were back in the Dark Ages. She had a thing about Cadbury, which Stephanie shared, whereas Timmy and I could see nothing but long grass and occasional sheep. But I made no objection, and having phoned Maggs to tell her where I would be if she needed me, we set off in the middle of the morning.
It was a good enough day, all in all. Karen made sandwiches and drinks, and we had a somewhat chilly picnic on the side of the old hill fort, observed by two squirrels. The children ran free and invented stories about knights and dragons and witches which seemed to fully occupy them for hours.
‘Imagine if we’d only had one,’ said Karen, as we sat watching them. ‘How terrible that would be.’
I couldn’t imagine it. Karen was an only child, and having drifted away from her original family in recent years, she insisted that siblings would have improved her life in numerous ways. They would have given her more reason to stay in touch, for one thing. I knew she was obliquely arguing Timmy’s case to me, anxious because I demonstrated less love for him than for his sister. Watching him, his lean little body recovering from falls and bumps with typical male bravado, I felt my heart swell a little. ‘He’s amazing,’ I said feebly. ‘We’re twice blessed, having both of them. It’s the ultimate miracle.’
‘Don’t overdo it,’ she said, just as I was beginning to believe my own words. ‘They’re just children. Anybody can produce children.’
‘Not as good as these,’ I insisted, earning a contented wifely smile.
We went home in time for tea, and the evening was a near replica of the one before. I had survived a whole weekend with my family intact, my freedom uncurtailed, my future no darker than it had been on Friday. It was with a confused sense of gratitude that I collapsed into bed, giving no thought at all to Monday.
But Monday arrived all the same, and the phone started ringing. Three calls in half an hour left me with a scatter of important notes on my work desk and a return of the sharp pangs of guilt towards Mr and Mrs Kaplinsky, because she called to ask if we could try again. I grovelled and apologised repeatedly, until the poor woman lost patience with me. ‘Just get over to the hospice, that’s all I ask,’ she ordered. ‘If you can’t guarantee a specific time, then just turn up and ask to see my husband.’
The hospice itself called about another inmate who had expressed an interest in my services. ‘Better come today,’ they warned me. ‘She hasn’t got long.’ I began to feel less well disposed towards people who wanted to organise their own funerals. There was something to be said for the nice condensed time frame in which they had already died, and had to be buried within the week. ‘I’ll do my best,’ I said, ‘but things are a bit unpredictable at the moment. One of us will be there as quickly as we can.’ I wrote the woman’s name on a large sheet of paper, with ‘Visit at hospice asap’ underneath, and pinned it on the corkboard that Maggs and I used for important messages and the details of work to be done. I had already decided that my partner would get the job. She could go on her bike. Then I took the paper down and wrote ‘Mrs Kaplinsky has forgiven me – also needs a visit, but make appt first’. It made perfect sense for the two hospice patients to be interviewed on the same visit.
The office was part of the same building as our house, but not directly connected from inside. I had to go out, along a little path, and in again. We had converted and enlarged a lean-to shed, giving it more robust walls and a tiled roof. The separate entrance was designed to give families and officials a sense of privacy, without the possibility of members of my family bursting in without warning. The space had been divided into two, with a tiny area for coffins to sit awaiting burial, and a second trestle, on which bodies might await their turn, on the rare occasions when we were handling two funerals at one time. We never did embalming, but there were still procedures that had to be performed before the final interment.
The post brought a welcome cheque from a recent customer, as well as information about a new supplier of willow coffins who sounded as if they had more realistic terms than the one I’d dealt with before, and another leaflet describing felt shrouds made by a local woman. I had the best of intentions concerning her wares – but repeatedly forgot to advise customers of their existence. Almost all of them opted for the standard cardboard coffin, thanks to the sample one I had in the office. Grandchildren would paint them and write farewell messages on them. They cost about a quarter of what the felt or willow things did.
Perhaps because of the school holidays, I had the feeling I would not be left long alone in the office with my paperwork. Maggs normally showed up by ten if there was nothing urgent to do, but she was unlikely to disturb me without good reason. The children might come and press their noses to the window, giggling and pushing each other, pretending to be afraid of my wrath. The days were long gone when Stephanie and I would work and play cosily together in the office. Now they were both firmly banned from entering.
But the interruption I was most braced for was further attentions from the Gloucestershire Police. It seemed impossible that they would not contact me in some way – impossible and unacceptable. I could not continue in limbo for long without demanding some sort of resolution. A good proportion of my thoughts were fixed on Broad Campden and the people there. That included Thea and Jeremy and the other Talbots, who, while not physically in the Cotswolds, were all part of the picture. The sense of unfinished business, of something crucial held in suspension, only increased as Monday morning crawled on. Not only was there an unsolved murder hanging over everything, there was also the uncomfortable trouble over Mrs Simmonds’ grave and the attitude of the council towards it. A week on, and my worries seemed to be multiplying horribly.
Karen tapped on the door, a bit before ten, and asked whether she could take the car to the shops. ‘Steph needs new shoes, and Tim wants to go to the library.’
‘Fine,’ I nodded. ‘I might have to go to the hospice later, but I’m going to try to get Maggs to go instead. If I need the car for a removal, I’ll call you on the mobile. Keep it switched on, OK?’
‘Right. I assume I should use the credit card for the shoes?’
‘How much will they be?’
She shrugged. ‘Twelve or fifteen pounds, I suppose. Maybe a bit less.’
‘Get good ones,’ I said unnecessarily. ‘There’s still a bit of credit left.’ I held up the newly arrived cheque. ‘And somebody’s just paid us, look.’
‘Excellent. Bye, then. We’ll be back by one at the latest.’
‘Bye.’
I watched her reversing the car out, the children strapped into the back on their booster seats. It seldom occurred to me that there was anything strange about using the same vehicle to transport small children one moment and dead bodies the next. It was a long estate car, the seats constantly being folded down to make space for a body bag on a metal stretcher. It was sometimes necessary to use air freshener, and Timmy once told me a friend of his had said it smelt like mouldy sausages, but it was the way we operated, and we’d all got used to it long ago.
There was a letter still unopened on my desk, in an envelope with a handwritten address. I assumed it was a note of thanks from a customer, although there was faint chance it had a cheque inside. As far as I could recall, all recent funerals had now been paid for, and some sixth sense told me there was no such enclosure.
Opening it inattentively, it took a few moments to register that it was actually quite important.
Dear Mr Slocombe,
Further to our telephone conversation earlier this week, I would like to inform you that I am now aware that you are under suspicion of murdering my husband, and that you are free on police bail. I am also informed that you spent Thursday night at Greta Simmonds’ house with the house-sitter. While your morals are your own affair, I must say I am appalled at such behaviour. The whole village was discussing it this morning.
