A Grave in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘But the police are convinced that you killed Gavin,’ Susan Watchett said, speaking for the first time. ‘You’re only out on bail because they’re still collecting evidence. As I understand it, you’ve already been charged with murdering Gavin. I don’t know how you can have the gall to come amongst decent people, you two-faced creature. Swindling poor Greta out of her money and then bashing Gavin to death when he threatened to expose you for what you are. It’s all quite clear to me what happened. You made that stupid mistake about the field, which obviously meant you wouldn’t inherit the house as you expected. So you thought if you could shut Gavin up, it might not be pursued by anybody else. It might all be hushed up and you’d get what you’d wanted all along. Of course, you killed Greta as well. That much is perfectly obvious.’

  She spoke without drawing breath for most of this speech. Her face was pushed forward, with red cheeks and wide staring eyes.

  ‘That’s right,’ endorsed Judith Talbot, with scarcely less passion. She proceeded to repeat much of what Susan Watchett had just said, which was quite unnecessary, to my mind.

  The melodrama was finally getting going, it seemed, in accordance with Thea’s plan. Furthermore, she was stating the received wisdom about what had happened, in a summary that was both painful and frustrating to hear. I wondered whether I would ever see myself in the same light again, after being so directly accused of a double murder. For some reason, my glance fell on young Jeremy, still fiddling with his phone. Wasn’t he too young for all this adult hysteria, for accusations about murder and greed? Feeling my eyes on him, he looked up and met my gaze. He smiled tightly, embarrassment evident on his face, and something that suggested shame. He might well feel ashamed of his raving mother, I thought. Any boy would.

  I was grateful for the smile, at least. Here was someone who apparently did not believe I had committed murder, who had not recoiled from me as everybody else had done when I first entered the room. I was something close to monstrous in their eyes – or at least in the eyes of all those who had not themselves killed Mr Maynard. Perhaps this, too, was part of Thea’s plan – to observe which person failed to react that way, knowing I was actually quite innocent. Trying to visualise that initial scene again, it seemed to me that it was the women who had been outraged and vituperative, while all the men showed varying levels of fatigue or exasperation. Except Jeremy, who seemed to care for nothing but his phone.

  In the brief silence following the two female tirades, I wondered about motivation. What could be so bad that it drove a person to kill? Mrs Watchett thought it was basically about property and business expansion. Plus an element of face-saving, perhaps. ‘You’re wrong,’ I told the women. ‘Completely wrong.’

  ‘Why would it mean he wouldn’t inherit the house?’ asked Thea slowly. ‘Why would the mistake about the field lead to the loss of his inheritance?’

  ‘It’s in the will,’ supplied Judith Talbot. ‘A condition of him getting the house is that he establish a natural burial ground in that field.’

  ‘Didn’t you know that?’ I asked Thea. ‘Surely I told you?’ I remembered our fractured conversation in the car. ‘I thought you knew about it.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’

  It was one reason why I had decided that honesty was the best policy, very early in my career: I could never remember what I had told which person. The deliberate evasions over the past week where Karen was concerned had been one of the most unpleasant aspects of the whole affair. I could only cope with it by telling her almost nothing. She still had no idea there had been a murder, never mind that I was the chief suspect. But I did think I had been completely frank with Thea. ‘I meant to tell you,’ I said.

  She was clearly thinking hard. ‘Hmm,’ she said, unhelpfully. Only then did I realise she was acting for the benefit of her byzantine plan.

  ‘So, what now?’ came a new voice. Finally, Jeremy had spoken from the corner of the sofa.

  I remembered that he and Harry must surely know each other. How had the boy reacted when Harry first showed up at the Watchetts’ door? Had he contributed when Thea’s friend had delivered his little speech about enemies at the commune? He had, after all, told Thea and me that his aunt had effectively been killed by the people there – like dogs, he said. Jeremy, at least, did not believe that I was in any way involved.

  I addressed him directly. ‘Jeremy – you don’t think I murdered your aunt, do you?’ Before saying more, it struck me that he might not want his mother to know about our conversation on Saturday. Evidently, he had decided to return to his family, instead of hiding away in Somerset.

  ‘Nah!’ he said carelessly. ‘Course you didn’t. The whole thing’s daft.’

  ‘Jeremy!’ His mother looked as if she would like to smack him.

  ‘Well, it’s true. You’ve got it all wrong, as usual. You never did understand Auntie Greta, did you? None of you understood her.’ He looked around the crowded room, his gaze finally resting on Charles, his much older brother. ‘But she put one over on you all, in the end. She got what she wanted, exactly the way she wanted it.’

  ‘Except now it’s all going to be ruined,’ said Thea softly.

  The effect on Jeremy was galvanising. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘It’s not gonna happen. This bloke never went near her. How could he have killed her? You should get your facts right before going off to the police with your rubbish ideas.’ He switched his attention to Harry, twisting round to look at him where he still leant over the back of the sofa. ‘You know,’ he hissed. ‘You tell them.’

  Reprieved from the full glare of a room full of people, I found my brain starting to function more effectively than it had done for some hours. I had understood that Thea was not divulging every detail of her plan, but a startling suspicion took root, germinated by Jeremy’s words. I checked it from all angles, but it held fast.

  Harry reached out to lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Sorry, lad, but I think it is. If we can’t convince the police that your mother’s accusations are groundless, then they’ll be forced to do another post-mortem examination.’

  ‘It’s rubbish,’ insisted Jeremy. ‘And you all know it is,’ he challenged the whole room.

  His mother seemed to become more aware of him than she had so far. ‘Jerry – who’re you texting?’ she suddenly asked.

  ‘Who d’you think?’

  ‘It’s not your sister, is it?’

  ‘Christ, Jeremy!’ exploded big brother Charles. ‘You’re not, are you?’

  ‘None of your business,’ snapped the boy, closing the front of his phone. I caught a fleeting look of pain cross his face, as if his mother and brother had somehow wounded him. I gave the phone a closer examination, wondering just what functions it possessed, only dimly aware of the speed at which technology was moving, and the dinosaur nature of my own elderly gadget. This one looked more like a tiny computer than a telephone.

  ‘Can it do pictures?’ I asked.

  He gave me a withering glance. ‘Does a bike have wheels?’ he said with impressive sarcasm.

  Susan Watchett stood up, moving fluidly. She spoke to the gathering in general. ‘Well, I don’t know about you lot, but Frank and I are almost ready for bed.’ She gave her husband a meaningful look. ‘Can you put the cat out?’

  As far as I could tell, they had all four Talbots as house guests. One of them was very likely to be sleeping on the sofa. I tried to catch Thea’s eye, for instructions as to what happened next. As far as I could figure out, her plan had failed. The high stakes had been called, and if my hunch was right – a hunch that Charles Talbot evidently shared – she was about to be unmasked as a troublemaker with no rights, and every reason to be thrown out of the house.

  My idea took a knock as I tried to think it through to its source. ‘When did you go to the police with your accusations against me?’ I asked Mrs Talbot.

  ‘She did it for me,’ she said, indicating Thea. ‘She knows some high-up bloke in
the police, who could pull the right strings.’

  Aha! ‘Oh, yes, I see,’ I said, carefully avoiding Thea’s eye. More rapid thinking threw up new difficulties.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Drew,’ said Thea. ‘It must feel like a terrible betrayal to you. But I felt that justice had to be done. I knew Greta Simmonds, after all. I couldn’t just let it go, if she really had been murdered.’

  ‘You never have completely trusted me, have you?’ I accused her.

  ‘I didn’t know you,’ she defended. ‘And when I heard that you’d inherited the house – well, you must see how bad that looks.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong, I tell you!’ cried Jeremy, thumping a fist on the arm of the sofa. ‘You’re not listening to me. Nobody ever listens to me.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ growled Charles, who had clearly lost the thread some minutes ago. ‘Grow up, why don’t you.’

  ‘But what about Gavin Maynard?’ asked Oliver Talbot, who had apparently been half asleep for the past twenty minutes. ‘Where does he fit in?’

  I almost laughed at having my line so helpfully stolen.

  ‘Well, I think your wife has got that part right,’ said Thea. ‘He threatened to forcibly remove the grave from that field. And that put him against the whole family.’ She looked hard at Judith Talbot. ‘Who at that point had no idea of what was in Greta’s will. The trouble and notoriety that would arise from the whole messy business would reflect badly on them, and probably reduce the value of the house. It might also raise inconvenient questions about actual ownership of the whole property. That’s why they were in such a hurry to find a buyer. Naïve, perhaps, since the searches would have thrown up the anomalies, but since they’ve never actually had to buy or sell a house, they probably wouldn’t have known that.’

  I waited, in some confusion. What was she trying to say?

  ‘You think my parents killed Gavin Maynard?’ queried Charles, on behalf of us all.

  ‘Right!’ asserted Thea, with rock-solid certainty. ‘That’s absolutely right. It all fits.’

  Judith, her artificially red hair glittering in the bright light, drew back her lips in a snarl. ‘How dare you!’ she spat. ‘You bloody interfering little bitch.’

  At which point, in true melodramatic style, a loud knock came on the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Harry Richmond went to answer the knock. Helena Maynard came in slowly, startled at finding so many people, obviously in the middle of a heated argument. ‘What’s going on?’ she faltered, losing much of the aggression that had so far characterised her.

  ‘Mrs Osborne just accused my mother and father of killing your husband,’ said Charles in a neutral tone. ‘And Ma’s not pleased.’

  Jeremy snorted, apparently highly amused by this summary. Given the matter under discussion, everyone seemed remarkably relaxed, except for Mrs Talbot, who continued to glare at Thea and flare her nostrils. Her husband had his face in his hands, his knees uncomfortably raised, a low rumbling sound emerging from him.

  ‘Judith?’ Helena said. Then, ‘Susan?’

  It was, after all, the Watchetts’ house. It must have been them she wanted to speak to. The three middle-aged women began to gravitate together, forming the core of the assembled group, leaving the men on the outside. They all had Thea in the full beam of their attention.

  ‘You’re not seriously accusing Judith, are you?’ Mrs Maynard demanded. ‘After what we talked about this afternoon?’ She threw a contemptuous glance at me, and I wondered whether Thea had actually reinforced the widow’s certainty as to my guilt. It wouldn’t have surprised me.

  ‘I believe she has a lot of questions to answer,’ said Thea. ‘Now, we can’t stay much longer. The police want Drew at the grave quite soon, and I dare say it’s almost Jeremy’s bedtime.’ Two or three people glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, registering amazement at the lateness on the hour.

  ‘What?’ The boy regarded her with outrage. ‘I’m seventeen, not seven, you know. Bedtime!’ He flounced back on the sofa, oozing indignation.

  ‘Although…don’t you think it would be the right and decent thing to call off the exhumation?’ Thea went on, looking first at Charles, then at his brother. ‘After what’s been said, does anybody really believe that Mrs Simmonds was murdered? Drew really couldn’t have done it. He was busy with a funeral on the day she died – and the post-mortem was absolutely clear as to the cause of death. It’s a wild and silly idea.’

  ‘The police didn’t think so,’ said Judith. ‘And you didn’t think so this afternoon, either.’

  ‘Well, I do now. I’ve spoken to Harry since then, and he’s convinced me it’s all completely untenable. And when the second post-mortem comes to exactly the same conclusion, you’re going to be asked to foot the bill for the whole thing.’

  ‘My fees alone will be five hundred pounds, at least,’ I said, daringly. ‘As I understand it, I’ll be there in my capacity as funeral director, not murder suspect.’

  ‘Come on, Ma,’ said Charles. ‘They’re right, aren’t they?’ He gave me and Thea a slow discerning look.

  But Judith held firm. ‘We can’t back out now,’ she insisted. ‘And what harm can it do?’

  ‘It’s no light thing, to disturb a grave,’ I said.

  Thea waited quietly, her silence more effective than any words. One by one, everybody looked at her.

  ‘There’s no getting around it, then,’ said Harry Richmond.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘There’s been special Home Office permission, which was quite difficult to obtain at such short notice. Nobody’s going to want to cancel it now, even though it would obviously be the best thing. Official wheels don’t go into reverse very easily.’

  ‘I’d better go, then,’ I said, on the verge of adding that it would be a lonely walk in the dark down the deserted country road. Before I could say it, Harry stepped forward and offered to drive me, using Thea’s car. This had apparently been decided between them in advance, much to my admiration.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, gratefully.

  ‘Not got your motor?’ asked Jeremy. ‘Where’re you staying tonight, then?’

  Touched by his concern, I rolled my eyes ruefully. ‘Police cells, probably.’

  He winced, as if I’d said something offensive. ‘Tough luck,’ he sympathised, seemingly sincere.

  They all saw me off with varying degrees of anxiety. The solemnity of the imminent procedure had quietened them down, and despite suspicions as to my criminal behaviour, they remembered that I was also an undertaker, with special connections to forbidden and frightening worlds.

  Harry and I got into the red Fiesta, greeted joyously by the spaniel, who seemed quite unconcerned at the absence of her mistress. ‘I’ll drop you, and then go back for Thea,’ he said. ‘The police will watch out for you.’

  We manoeuvred around the other vehicles parked outside the house, and drove off through the village. ‘Are we really going to the grave?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he assured me.

  ‘Is there really going to be an exhumation?’

  ‘Oh no,’ he chuckled. ‘Well spotted.’

  ‘Thea set it all up with her police cronies? It was all a pretence – is that right?’

  ‘Absolutely correct. She’s a wonder, that woman. An absolute marvel.’ It was the word I always used about Maggs. I felt blessed.

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘Wait and see,’ he advised. ‘It could still all go horribly wrong.’

  The sky was clear and a three-quarter moon shed enough light to see by, so long as you didn’t want to read anything, or recognise the nuances of a human face. For anybody knowing their way around, it was more than adequate for a midnight walk.

  Harry drove me to the field with the grave, and almost pushed me out of the car. It was completely silent and deserted. ‘What do I have to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Go and sit by the grave, and wait,’ he ordered me. ‘Oh, and take this.
’ He reached over to the back seat and produced a kind of lantern.

  I took it awkwardly. ‘How does it work?’ I asked.

  He showed me quickly. It could be adjusted, from a faint light to a dazzling beam.

  I found myself obeying instructions without any demur. It was no hardship, despite my bewilderment as to what was meant to happen. Of all the people around me on that overcrowded evening, one person above all the others had a hold on my conscience. It was whimsical, and probably counterproductive in several ways, but the more I thought about it, the stronger her claim seemed to be. I acknowledged to myself that I had something to answer for, a duty of care and concern that had not been properly fulfilled.

  She hadn’t gone anywhere, of course, since we had all stood around arguing over her remains. The soil was now damp, and deep black in the strange light. I set down the lantern without turning it on, then occupied myself with tidying the edges of the grave where small clods had rolled down from the dome at the top and made a ragged line. It was heavy stuff, and I wondered how difficult it had been to dig out. Ignoring the effect on the knees of my trousers, I knelt beside the grave. ‘Well, here we are again,’ I muttered aloud. ‘Can’t stay away, can I?’

  It was never easy to simply walk away from a grave. The separation was always painful, even after a short acquaintance. It felt wrong to just abandon the poor, cold body to its fate below the earth. This was why I did the work I did. I wanted everything to be brought to a proper conclusion, for people to have every chance to do and say what they needed to for that separation to be as smooth as was humanly possible. Much of it had become automatic, from the repetition and familiarity. I had learnt that it was good to follow gut instincts: to rush away without looking back was just as valid as to sit for half a day at the graveside. Some people came every day for weeks. Others never once returned. Either way was fine.

  I discovered that I needed this last little communion with Greta Simmonds, in order to gain her absolution for the mess I had made of her funeral. However I wriggled, I could not evade the knowledge that I ought to have checked ownership of the field. I had not even asked her the simple question. And that crucial omission had led to all the subsequent trouble – or so my upsurge of guilt persuaded me out in the midnight field, when I should have been speeding home to my family.