by Roberta Kray
He sat down opposite her, took a swig of his pint and put the glass back on the table. ‘So, Maddie Layne,’ he said, gazing directly into her eyes, ‘tell me about yourself. You got family here in Kellston?’
She shook her head, overly aware of his scrutiny. ‘No, not here. My mum lives in Portugal, and my dad… well, he lives wherever the fancy takes him. He’s in the States quite a lot, California mostly. That’s where he comes from. To tell the truth, he’s a bit of a hippy.’
‘What, all long hair, beard, love, peace and Bob Dylan?’
‘Ah, you’ve met him.’
Rick laughed. ‘I know the type.’
‘Yeah, well, he turns up from time to time, but he’s not what you’d call the reliable sort.’ She paused and then added, ‘But I’ve got Zac’s grandparents, Winston and Alisha. They’re great. I couldn’t manage without them.’
‘And Zac’s father? He’s not on the scene?’
Maddie hesitated before answering. She didn’t want to go into it all, not right now. The murder of her sister was an emotional subject and she didn’t want to explain until she got to know him better. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You’re not. It’s fine. Maybe another time, huh?’
Rick sat back and put his hands behind his head. ‘So you’re saying there is going to be another time?’
‘I think the word I used was “maybe”.’
‘Still,’ he said, giving her a wide smile, ‘sounds like progress to me.’
Maddie raised her eyebrows. ‘Good to know you’re the optimistic sort.’ She picked up her glass and took a sip of wine. ‘Anyway, enough about me. Tell me about your family.’
‘It’s not very interesting.’ He gave a dismissive flap of his hand. ‘I wouldn’t want to bore you.’
‘I’ll take the chance. But if I start to yawn, you’ll know it’s all going horribly wrong.’
Rick laughed and gazed at her for a moment. ‘Well, there’s not a whole lot to tell. My parents live in Kent, in Canterbury. Dad’s a cabbie, and Mum works a part-time job at the local deli. I’ve got two brothers, younger than me, one married, one not, but both equally annoying. And that’s about it, really.’ He laid his hands on the table, his palms facing up. ‘My family in a nutshell.’
‘There, I didn’t fall asleep once. Are you close to them? Do you get on? I mean, apart from the brother thing.’
‘We get by,’ he said. ‘You know what families are like. We have our ups and downs, but nothing too dramatic.’
Maddie forced a tentative smile. Drama was her family’s middle name. She wondered how he’d react if she ever told him the truth. And then, before he could return to the subject of the Laynes, she quickly shifted the focus off family matters. ‘So have you always worked in cemeteries, or is this your first time?’
‘No, I’ve worked in a few. I like them. I’d rather be outdoors than stuck in an office – or a cab, come to that. Although I probably won’t be quite so happy when I’m freezing my bits off in the middle of January.’ He grinned at her. ‘That’s the downside, but I reckon there are more positives than negatives. And I’m pretty much my own boss. I don’t have anyone breathing down my neck all day. Although that reminds me…’ He paused to take a drink before continuing. ‘Delia Shields was asking about you yesterday.’
Maddie’s brow furrowed. ‘Me? Why?’
‘She wanted to know who was paying you to tend that grave over on the west side.’
‘You’re kidding? And what did you say?’
‘I said I didn’t have a clue. She didn’t seem best pleased about it, though. I mean, she was trying to act all casual, but I could see she was desperate to find out.’
‘She asked me too,’ Maddie said.
‘And you wouldn’t tell her? Why’s that?’
Maddie took hold of the stem of the glass, twisting it round between her forefinger and thumb. ‘I wasn’t sure that it was any of her business.’ She stared at the glass for a while before raising her eyes to him again. ‘Although, I probably would have if she hadn’t got all antsy about it. There was just something about her attitude. She was saying that the family wanted to know, but if the family was that concerned, why have they neglected the grave for so long? It all felt odd, a bit wrong somehow. That’s why I didn’t tell her.’
Rick’s mouth slid into an amused smile. ‘The secret of Kellston Cemetery.’
‘Oh, it’s not much of a secret. She already knows who employed me – or she’s taken a pretty good guess. She just wanted me to come out and say it.’
‘Really? God, this gets more intriguing by the minute.’
‘You haven’t heard the half of it.’
‘And?’
Maddie tilted her head to one side. ‘And what?’
‘Don’t give me that,’ he said, shuffling closer to her and nudging her elbow. ‘You can’t tell half the story and not the rest. Are you going to spill or not?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I still have to figure out whether you’re the kind of guy who can be trusted.’
‘I am. I’m the most trustworthy guy you could ever hope to meet.’
‘And I should believe that because…?’
Rick’s voice took on a mock-wheedling edge. ‘Because you’re a great judge of character. Because you know that really, deep down, you want to tell. Because your secret’s safe with me.’
‘As I said, it’s not exactly a secret.’
‘What if I crossed my heart and hoped to die?’
‘That tends to work better for eight-year-olds.’
Rick sat back, folded his arms and gave a sigh. ‘Well, I’m done. I’ve given you all my best lines, but it appears that tonight the famed Mallory powers of persuasion are failing to persuade.’
‘Famed, huh?’
‘Well, I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but…’
‘Your modesty is most becoming.’
Rick gave a small bow. ‘Thank you. Although I would like to add that allegedly a problem shared is a problem halved.’
‘Do I have a problem?’
‘Delia seems to think so, judging by the expression on her face yesterday.’
‘Mm, you could have a point.’
And so, finally, Maddie told him what had happened with Delia and what she’d later found out from Solomon. By the time she’d finished, Rick was looking pensive.
‘So what do you think?’ she asked.
‘It sounds kind of…’
‘Kind of what?’
He paused for a few seconds before replying. ‘Like someone else’s argument. Are you sure you want to get caught in the middle of it?’
‘Not especially,’ she said. ‘But until I know what it’s all about, I can’t really make a decision one way or the other.’
‘Maybe you should talk to Delia again.’
Maddie wrinkled her nose. ‘Or maybe not. I don’t think I’m her favourite person at the moment.’
‘You want me to have a word?’
‘No, I don’t want you getting dragged into this. I’ll wait for a while, see if Solomon comes up with anything else.’
‘If in doubt, do nothing.’
Maddie gave him a look. ‘You think I’m wrong to wait?’
‘It just… it just sounds like something you shouldn’t get involved in. This guy’s in jail and he’s in for murder. I don’t mean to be judgemental, but is that really someone you want to be working for?’
Maddie put her elbows on the table and placed her chin in her hands. His view, she noted, was the polar opposite to Solomon’s. ‘And how pleased is Cato going to be if I tell him I’m not going to tend the grave any more?’
‘You worried about that?’
‘Of course I’m worried. Like you said, the guy’s inside for murder. He’s hardly the sort of man you want to get on the wrong side of.’ But in truth that wasn’t the only reason for her reluctance to terminate the contract. She’d develope
d an attachment to Lucy Rivers’s grave, one that was not perhaps entirely healthy but which she didn’t yet feel ready to give up. It was the place she went to think about Greta.
Rick picked up a beer mat and tapped it against the side of his glass. His face had become thoughtful again. ‘It’s too quiet on the west side. If I was you, I wouldn’t spend more time there than I had to. I mean, there was that bloke the other day…’
Maddie was reminded of the drifting smell of cigarette smoke, of the feeling of being watched. She remembered with a jolt the rush of fear, of adrenalin, and her overwhelming urge to run. Fight or flight? She had chosen the latter. Now, even though Rick knew nothing of her sprint down the path, she felt the need to play down the incident. ‘I’m sure it was nothing. I’ve never had any trouble there before. Anyway, I can take care of myself.’
Rick looked at her, concern gathering in fine lines at the corners of his eyes. Then his lips parted and a smile appeared. ‘Yeah, but you’re not the one I’m worried about, babe. It’s the poor bloke who tries to creep up on you. There are enough corpses in that cemetery already.’
Maddie laughed. ‘Is that what they call a back-handed compliment?’
‘That’s what they call a plea from an overworked gravedigger.’
‘I’ll watch my back. I’ll even keep an eye out for those zombies you’re always banging on about.’
‘Ah,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘in my experience it’s not the living dead you need to watch out for; it’s the living, breathing buggers who cause all the trouble.’
‘I can believe it.’
‘And so?’
Maddie met his gaze again, their eyes locking. ‘And so?’
‘You’ll be careful, right?’
‘Course I will.’ But even as she said the words, Maddie felt an odd feeling run through her. It was as if she was having some kind of premonition. It was like someone had walked over her grave.
13
Eli Glass unlocked the heavy wrought-iron gates at eight o’clock precisely. ‘Easy does it,’ he murmured as he carefully drew them back. Every weekend, for almost fifty years, he had carried out the same procedure. First he opened the gates at the main entrance before walking through the cemetery to the second set. During the week Bob Cannon or Delia Shields did the honours, but on Saturday and Sunday the job was his.
Back in the day, his father had done the very same thing. It was a Glass tradition, but once Eli was gone, there would be no one left to carry it on. He had no children. He hadn’t even got a wife. A thin, mirthless laugh escaped from his lips. As if any woman would marry a man like him! Everyone knew that Eli Glass was crazy.
He set off down the main thoroughfare, sniffing at the morning air. It always smelled nicer in the cemetery, fresher and cleaner than on the street. Like the countryside, he thought, although he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d been there. Back when he was a nipper, he reckoned. Anyway, you didn’t need the country when it was all right here on your doorstep, the trees, plants and flowers, the squirrels, birds and foxes. There were plenty of parts you could walk and not meet another human being – leastways, not one who was above ground.
He’d been a nipper too when he’d first set foot in the graveyard, keeping close to his dad, although he hadn’t been afraid. No, not afraid, only wary. And it was smart to be wary with all the dead folks wanting to be heard. His father, though, never listened to a word they said; he kept his ears firmly closed to the clamour.
‘There ain’t nothin’ to hear, son,’ he’d insist. ‘At least, nothin’ that’s any of our business.’
But Eli hadn’t been able to blank out the voices; they’d washed over and around him like waves battering on the shore. It had taken a while before he’d been able to separate one from the other, to make out individuals, to gradually come to recognise the men and women who surrounded him.
‘He’s got the gift,’ his mother had said.
But talk like that made his father angry. ‘It ain’t no gift. Don’t you go encouraging the lad.’
His dad had been small and wiry, but strong with it. You had to be strong back in those days with graves to dig by hand and no heavy machinery to do the hard graft for you. It took a pickaxe in the winter to break the ice on the ground. Things were easier now, but Eli still missed the old ways. He liked the connection to the soil, the hard slog, the feeling of achievement when the job was done. There was something… well, impersonal, about getting a chunk of steel to dig a final resting place.
Eli reached the second set of gates and went through the same procedure as the first. These gates, although solid, weren’t as grand as the ones at the front. He drew them back and dropped the bolts into the holes in the ground. How many times had he done this before? Too many to count. The action was automatic now, second nature to him. After the gates were secured, he glanced up and down the street, saw nothing to interest him and retreated into the cemetery.
Fifteen, he’d been, when he’d first come to work here on a proper legal basis, but he’d been coming with his dad for years before that, learning the trade and getting his hands dirty. There was none of that health and safety lark in the sixties, at least none that was taken seriously. And boys could leave school before they’d started to shave. Glad he’d been, bleedin’ overjoyed, to leave that place behind.
‘You don’t want to take no heed of them boys,’ his mother used to say, as she brushed the dirt off his blazer. ‘Ignorant, that’s what they are. You know the problem? People are scared, Eli. They’re scared of anyone who’s different to themselves. They want everyone to be the same, and by that I mean the same as them. And what kind of a world would that be, eh? A world full of idiots.’
Eli’s shoulders tightened as he turned off the main thoroughfare on to one of the narrower paths. He’d had no desire to be different, to be anything other than ordinary. For a long time he’d stopped speaking about the voices, but now he no longer cared what others thought of him. If he was still not entirely comfortable in his own skin, he had at least grown accustomed to it.
He came to Lizzie Street’s grave – once the most powerful woman in the East End – and stopped for a moment to gaze at the plot. A bunch of yellow chrysanthemums was turning brown in the urn. Not a loving gesture from her husband or from her son either. Neither of them gave a damn. When it came to family, the only legacy Lizzie had left was one of bitterness and resentment. A faint muttering came from the ground, but Eli didn’t hang about. He had learned long ago not to get involved in other people’s arguments.
Lowering his head, he pushed on until he came in view of the old chapel. A sight for sore eyes it had been back when he’d first come here, with its beautiful white stone, tall steeple and rose-stained windows. Like a fairy-tale castle. They’d held funerals in it then, but not any more. It had been closed to the public for years. The roof was leaking, and vandals had broken most of the glass.
Eli stood and stared at the building. Sometimes, when no one else was around, he would go inside and sit on one of the ornately carved pews. The lower part of the building was boarded up, but he still had a key to the heavy metal door. No one had thought to ask for it back. It was still and peaceful inside, with pure pale light, like rays from heaven, slanting in through the upper windows.
A thin sigh escaped from his lips as he resumed his walk. Nothing was like it had been. Time passed, the world changed, and everything became altered. The shattered windows of the church saddened and disgusted him. There was no respect now for God or religion. Eli wasn’t overly fond of God – the two of them had parted company long ago – but he still believed in a deity’s right to have his house protected from mindless yobs.
‘Animals,’ he muttered under his breath.
The creatures crept in at night, bringing their lager and their foil and their pipes, leaving all the shit behind for Eli to clear up in the morning: empty cans, needles and used johnnies. As if he didn’t have better things to do than pick up all their cra
p. There was other stuff went on too, bad stuff that he didn’t like to dwell on. You messed with the Devil, he thought, and the Devil would mess with you.
In summer, the cemetery closed at six o’clock. Fifteen minutes before, Eli would get into the truck and make a circuit of the grounds, checking that everyone was gone before he locked the gates again. There were, however, some who chose not to leave, who hid in the bushes or the old crumbling crypts. For a few of the Kellston homeless, sleeping with the dead was a more agreeable prospect than taking their chances on the street. Eli knew they were there but never threw them out. As well as the things he pretended not to hear were the things he pretended not to see.
Delia Shields didn’t approve. Her thin lips would purse into a moue of distaste, as if the cemetery was her property and she didn’t want it littered with unfortunates.
‘Do try and move them on, Eli,’ she’d say. ‘This really isn’t the place for them.’
Missing the point, he thought, that the reason they were here was because they didn’t have a place. But then people like Delia had no sympathy for those who had fallen on hard times. She didn’t believe in bad luck, couldn’t grasp how despair could bring a person to their knees.
Eli knew that Delia didn’t like him. It was the kind of dislike that sprang from suspicion and fear. He was odd; he was different; he scared and repulsed her. But it was more than that. She feared him because he knew things. She saw her secrets reflected in his eyes. That was why she couldn’t meet his gaze, why she could barely stand to be in his company. More than once she had suggested retirement, eager to see the back of him.
‘You’ve worked hard for all these years. Why not take a rest? You deserve it.’
‘And do what?’ he’d asked.
‘Oh, you know. Put your feet up, enjoy yourself, have a nice holiday.’
‘I don’t care for holidays. Can’t see the reason in ’em. Come to that, I don’t care much for sitting on my arse all day neither.’
Delia’s face had hardened into irritation and impatience. ‘Everyone has to retire eventually.’
‘And I’ll do it when I’m good and ready.’ He was still strong and active, still capable of doing his duties, and they’d have a fight on their hands if they tried to get shot of him. No, he intended to keep going for as long as he could. He’d seen the old geezers in the pub, their eyes blank and empty, with nothing more to look forward to than the next pint being passed across the bar.
