by Rebecca Tope
‘Anyway, thanks for the lift. It was kind of you. Now I’d better go and see if Annie’s home yet.’
There were no lights on in the house, which seemed a clear enough answer to that particular question. Eager to avoid any further involvement in Ursula’s life, I put the car into reverse, for another turn in a village street. This time I executed it without any jolting, and was quickly back in my own front room. Thomas was waiting, tail flicking irritably, green eyes fixed on the cupboard containing his food.
CHAPTER NINE
If I had to identify my very best friend in the world, it would have to be Stella. By all normal definitions, she would qualify. I was most relaxed in her company, able to converse in a kind of shorthand where we finished each other’s sentences, and understood all the references. We could be rude and careless with each other, accepting failings and small crimes. The only problem was that we seldom actually saw each other because she gave top priority to her job, followed by her husband and small son. I never doubted that I was her best friend, just as she was mine, because I was the only person she had any time at all for. And not everybody, it seemed, wanted to have an undertaker for a soulmate.
She lived and worked in Stow, in a handsome house with a huge mortgage on it. She worked full time plus as a partner in a local funeral director’s business. That was how I met her – going with my mother to arrange my Gran’s funeral, seven years previously. Although it had been a perfectly ordinary service, followed by burial, I had somehow got talking about pagan death rituals, which Stella had found interesting and informative, to the point of asking me to go back later and tell her some more.
Now, on a Sunday evening, I took the risk of phoning her. As expected, she answered with ‘Brown Brothers. How can I help you?’ in a creamy voice that was perfect for conveying unflappable professionalism and calm sympathy for the newly bereaved. I had long ago exhausted all the flippant responses that said I’m-your-friend-damn-it-I-don’t-want-a-funeral. She was on call most of the time out of office hours, thereby saving having to pay anyone else to do it, but mercifully liberated from her own four walls by the handy invention of the mobile phone. Or so I kept insisting. The reality was that she very seldom left the house during the on-call hours. ‘I’d need to take a whole mass of paperwork everywhere,’ she said. ‘People phone at midnight to ask when and where their cousin’s funeral’s going to be. Or there’s a call from Nigeria needing a body repatriated, and I have to look up the procedure.’
‘Stell? It’s me,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard what’s happened.’
‘Er – that woman getting murdered? Your friend Gaynor. I was going to call you about it.’
Stella of course made it her business to keep abreast of all the local deaths. Very often she was actively involved, sending Brown Brothers men to collect bodies from scenes of sudden death as well as from family homes and residential institutions.
‘Don’t tell me your people removed her,’ I groaned. I had not stayed at the Long Barrow for long enough to witness the collection of the body. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that Stella might have taken the call from the police.
‘Actually, no,’ she said. ‘But we had a traffic accident around the same time, and Paul heard the story at the mortuary. He told me about it and I recognised the name.’
Another strand in the news network, I realised. The bush telegraph that ran from hairdresser to undertaker, school gate to public bars, and a dozen other points where people gathered together. It made me feel sticky, like a fly encased in spider’s web. The invisible threads of gossip all seemed to connect to me, and I didn’t like it.
‘I found her,’ I said, half expecting her to know this already.
‘What? My God!’ Her surprise was at least slightly gratifying. ‘At the Barrow? But – why? I mean, what were you doing there?’
‘Checking it out for the Samhain ceremony.’ The police had asked the same question, of course, and I had given them a much less definite answer. With Stella I could be frank. ‘She was stabbed with a knitting needle,’ I burst out, half crying. ‘Can you believe that?’
‘Hey, steady on,’ she soothed me. ‘You sound really upset.’ She paused, and I could hear the thought processes in the silence. Could she spare an hour or two for me? Where was Johnnie – could he watch out for the kid? Was the mobile reception okay at Cold Aston? Stella always had to think hard before taking any action. ‘Do you want to come over here for a bit?’ she asked, finally. ‘I’d come to you, but Johnnie’s gone out, and I can’t leave Zak.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m too tired to go out again this evening. Where are you tomorrow? I might drop in and see if you’re free, if you’re at the new office.’
Brown Brothers had recently opened a smart new premises in Northleach and Stella sometimes spent a morning there, hoping for passing business.
‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a busy Monday at Stow, from the look of it. There’ve been three nursing home removals over the weekend. Actually, love, I ought to get off the phone in a minute.’ Any call lasting longer than five minutes made her twitchy, worrying that somebody might be trying to get through and would go to another undertaker if the phone remained engaged.
‘Right, right,’ I said, without rancour. ‘I’ll try and catch you sometime. It might be Tuesday.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘I will be,’ I said. ‘Probably. See you.’
I spent the next hour or two spinning beside the open log fire in the back room, a Leonard Cohen CD crooning softly at me for part of the time. There’s nothing like spinning for opening up some of the dustier corners of the mind, releasing old memories or weaving fanciful plans. There’s no place for strong emotion when you have to keep the wheel turning steadily, never gripping the fibres too tightly or letting them get pulled onto the spool too quickly. It’s a regular rhythmic business, which promotes quiet thoughts in a stream that echoes the endless strand of wool, hair connecting to hair. Only a few animals have hair that is spinnable. It has to have tiny hooks along its shaft, which hold onto each other like Velcro. There are a few breeds of dog which produce the right sort of coat – bearded collie is the best of them all. Alpacas and Angora goats will do nicely too. But humans are useless. I liked to think of early women frustratedly experimenting with their spindles and the combings from their long-haired cattle or cats or daughters.
I couldn’t prevent myself from thinking about Gaynor, but it was a more peaceful meditative approach than before. I reviewed her life and the mark she had left on the world. She had made dozens of beautiful garments, which people would wear for years to come. She had created a small garden in a neglected corner of the space she shared with neighbouring flat-dwellers. She had brightened the jangled lives of her ageing parents. She had, I believed, done no harm. I mused on the pagan doctrines of connectedness, working against the extreme individualism of contemporary thinking. People needed each other in ways they seldom acknowledged. They needed to be observed and heard in order to achieve any sort of identity. The image of an invisible underground root system, to which every person was connected, had always appealed to me. Spiritual nourishment flowed up, down and along this matrix, without our being aware of it. With Gaynor gone, we were all the poorer. I hoped she had understood that in her final seconds.
After a strange night where I plunged in and out of deep sleep and fuzzy reruns of seeing Gaynor’s curled-up body, I was awake at seven the next morning. I bustled about, opening up the Rayburn and replenishing it with fuel, setting the kettle to boil and eyeing Greenhaven across the street. There was no sign of life, the house in total darkness.
I found myself considering Thea and what I had learned about her so far. It was obvious that Phil had found a treasure and I was impressed accordingly. There had to be something about him that had attracted her – something reliable and mature while at the same time interesting with auspicious hints for future satisfaction;
all those qualities that a man must have if he’s to hold the regard of a woman over forty. I found myself feeling a flicker of pride at my own appreciation of him, even from his callow days. He’d improved with age and might very well continue to do so if things went well with Thea.
I admired their courage, too. They’d both be well aware of the hazards ahead, the pain and misery that might befall them if things went badly, and yet they’d made some sort of commitment simply by coming here together, for all the world to see. Thea Osborne might be out of her immediate locality, and not especially celebrated even at home – but Phil Hollis was a senior police detective, with a reputation to protect. Even his private life was hedged about with restrictions.
It wasn’t possible to be a practising Wiccan without believing in some sort of power to cast curses. Whenever some disaster occurred I automatically assessed it for its impact on me personally. Perhaps everybody does that? But in my case, I would also review my connection to the victim, checking to see whether they had ever annoyed or impeded me; whether I had ever even fleetingly wished them ill, and thereby perhaps brought about their trouble. Very often, I found that I had. As I did with Phil and Thea, in those first few minutes after they arrived and I had given bitter thoughts to their togetherness and their dogs and his plans for Greenhaven. Had I, perhaps, inadvertently blighted their week in those moments? Was it my fault that Gaynor had been murdered, as a means of interrupting the lovers and their trysting?
It sounds mad, I know. The normal world insists that we have negligible power over events at best. I believed it to be otherwise. It had been demonstrated to me often enough, after all.
But I absolved myself in the matter of Gaynor. It was too convoluted. It required too devious an intelligence to grant my sneaking wishes in such a way.
I saw Phil drive off at eight-fifteen, Thea kissing him on the doorstep like a nineteen-fifties wife. The dogs milled about, tails wagging slowly, working out what was happening in their usual anxious way. That’s another thing I don’t like about them. Cats don’t know the meaning of worry.
I wasn’t surprised when she came knocking at my door at nine o’clock. What else was she going to do? I did my best to be gracious about it.
‘How’s the bad leg?’ I asked.
She didn’t have to pause to wonder what I was talking about. ‘A bit sore, I think. But she’ll be fine. It was her own fault.’
Yes it was, I wanted to say, but restrained myself. ‘She probably didn’t understand about pigs.’
Thea smiled. ‘I think that was the first one she’d met.’
‘Perhaps she’ll know another time.’ Of course, she wouldn’t. Dogs are not quick learners – unlike pigs. I ushered her in and shifted the kettle onto the hot part of the Rayburn. ‘Tea?’ I offered.
‘Have you got any coffee?’ she asked, as if ready for a negative reply, but determined to give it a try.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I keep forgetting to buy some. There’s about ten different sorts of tea, though. How about peppermint? Or rosemary and ginger? They’re both good in the morning.’
‘Peppermint sounds nice,’ she said bravely.
‘Is Phil going to be out all day? What’s going to happen about packing up Helen’s things? Will you be doing it without him?’
She sighed. ‘I can’t, really. I don’t know what he wants to keep, or who he might want to give things to. We’ve already taken everything out of drawers and cupboards, so there are great piles of clothes and linen everywhere. I gather there’s a cousin somewhere with some daughters, who might like a few bits and pieces.’
I snorted. ‘That’ll be Beatrice. If she wanted anything, she’d have claimed it by this time. She hasn’t been back to the UK for twenty years or more. She wouldn’t have known Helen if she’d met her in the street. Forget about her and send it all to Oxfam. That’s what Helen would have wanted.’
‘Some of it’s rather good for that. There’s a lovely diamond necklace with matching earrings. Haven’t you seen it?’
I gave her a straight look. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I never ferreted in her jewellery box, and she never wore any of it. Phil ought to give it to you.’
‘Or you,’ she said. ‘They really are nice. Very simple, but fabulously sparkly. Especially in firelight. We were looking at them last night.’
‘So you’re at a loose end,’ I noted.
She shrugged. ‘I’m used to it. I do house-sitting, you know. I can cope with dull days if I have to. It’s just – well – not what I expected.’
‘And you didn’t bring your books or pack of cards or whatever you usually use to fill the time.’
‘My computer, actually. I play Scrabble online, or browse websites. That’s a brilliant time-waster.’
‘Scrabble online?’ It sounded faintly perverse, and inescapably sad.
She laughed. ‘I’m really rather expert at it. But there are always loads of people even better. I tell myself it keeps my mind sharp.’
‘Right,’ I said, attending to the tea, once the kettle had finally boiled. ‘And you can always walk the dogs.’
She laughed again. ‘Oh, yes. I’ll have to walk the dogs. Phil found me a map. I thought I’d give the Macmillan Way a try.’
It was obvious that she wanted me to go with her. But I had other plans. I didn’t take her up on the comment, and she quickly got the message.
‘So what’s with the Mary/Ariadne stuff?’ she asked, after she’d sipped the tea and hastily smothered her disappointment.
I explained succinctly. I’d been named Mary after a great-grandmother who had died thirty years before I was born. The soft nothingness of the name had always irritated me, with its air of yearning and sadness. Thea raised her brows at this, and then nodded as if taking the point. ‘Then an Irishman I met at a disco told me that every woman called Mary got landed with more than her share of suffering. Every good Catholic knows that, apparently. Well, that was the final straw. I changed it from then on.’
‘Why Ariadne?’
I pointed through to my back room, with the piles of fleece and spinning wheel, and folded jumpers. ‘She was the spinner,’ I said. ‘It tells the world who I am.’
‘I see,’ she said softly, giving it some thought. ‘Not many names do that, do they?’
‘A lot of pagans take a new name. It’s all about transparency.’
‘Right,’ she said, in an identical tone to the one I’d used about the Scrabble.
We couldn’t stay off the subject of the murder for long, of course. She was in a relationship with the Senior Investigating Officer – how could she ignore it?
‘Do you think they’ll want to ask me more questions?’ I said.
She nodded slowly. ‘They might. You’re the most important witness, I imagine – finding the body and everything.’
‘And will Phil tell them about the attic?’ I said.
‘He already has, although he disagrees with us that there’s probably a connection. They’ll be checking for fingerprints sometime today. I’ve got to let the chap in when he arrives.’
‘They didn’t ask me about it yesterday,’ I said.
‘No, of course they didn’t. Phil hadn’t had a chance to report it then.’
‘I don’t think he believed me when I said I didn’t know anything about it. If he didn’t, I suppose nobody will.’ I looked at her hopefully, but she did not respond to the hint. Instead she drained the tea, and straightened her spine preparing to stand up. As she moved, there was a knock on my front door. For a moment, I thought the sound came from Thea, bumping her chair across the floor. Then I realised she was looking at me.
‘Visitor,’ she said.
It was Verona Farebrother, standing with her weight on one leg, a shoulder lightly leaning on the lintel. A study in casual relaxation. ‘Hiya,’ she said. ‘Got a few minutes?’
I let her go in ahead of me, down the little hall, which was at one end of the house, with all the rooms to the left, except for a downstairs
lavatory. She wasn’t expecting to see Thea and I heard the quick gasp of surprise.
I introduced them elaborately, finding myself acutely interested in what they would make of each other. ‘Thea’s just here for the week, staying with Phil at Helen’s house. Verona’s in the pagan group. She’s a businesswoman, I suppose you’d say.’ I then addressed Verona. ‘You’re not usually around on a Monday morning.’
‘What kind of business?’ Thea asked, turning the beam of her lovely face on the new arrival.
‘Food,’ came the succinct reply. ‘Like Ariadne, I’ve gone for one of life’s essentials. People can’t manage without food or clothes.’ She laughed her brittle unsettling laugh.
‘You grow it or something?’
‘No, no. Wholesaling. Supplying outlets. I’m just a link in a chain, but I’ve managed to make myself pretty useful.’
‘She’s being far too modest,’ I interrupted. ‘She’s plugged a gap, or whatever it is people say, and is set for great things. She rents a whacking great warehouse near Gloucester and runs a whole fleet of gigantic lorries. Verona’s a real tycoon.’
Verona sat down without being invited and put her elbows on the table, clasping her hands together. ‘Not quite a tycoon,’ she corrected my words. ‘It’s all still in the early stages. Although,’ she went on, encouraged by Thea’s interest, ‘I can’t really lose. I’m not affected by the whims of the supermarket, because I can just switch products overnight. Mind you, I pity those wretched growers and producers. Their lives must be a total nightmare.’ There was no discernible sympathy in her tone, just a complacency that she’d had more sense than to try to grow anything.
Thea threw me a quick look, almost an apology. ‘Sounds great,’ she said. ‘Now I should go, if you need to talk to Ariadne about something.’
‘Don’t let me drive you away,’ said Verona. ‘I expect you know all about this ghastly business with Gaynor. That’s all I came for – to see if Ari was all right.’
