Burying the Past

by Judith Cutler

  ‘You know you’re supposed to come to the back door,’ he hissed. ‘Sorry,’ he said, addressing Mark. ‘Chef’s night off, and this is what he feeds his face on so he doesn’t have to cook. But I can rustle up something plain if you like. I do a pretty mean steak, and my mum reckons my chips are better than the boss’s.’

  ‘Two steak and chips it is, then, please. And a large jug of tap water.’

  As they sat, they had their usual bicker about who should drive; eventually, Fran gave way more speedily than usual – a glass of red wine was becoming a pressing need.

  ‘Not a bad send-off for the old bugger,’ Mark said, sinking back against the squabs of an ageing banquette that still smelt of long-dead cigarette smoke. ‘Better than the proper one will be, probably. Though he does like a bit of pomp, doesn’t he? A few speeches and toasts?’

  ‘And he’ll lead me down the aisle beautifully,’ Fran agreed. ‘But I don’t see us at the Cathedral, Mark. Unless you really want to—?’ she added quickly.

  He said nothing, eyeing her glass of wine. She pushed it towards him, and he drank absently. Goodness knew where he was. But he was probably at least as tired and twice as stressed as she was, so she said nothing until the barman, who’d brought their cutlery, rolled in proper linen napkins, left them on their own again.

  ‘In fact,’ she said bravely, trying to sound as unconcerned as possible, ‘there’s no point in even thinking about it while everything’s up in the air like this. But I’m so proud of you for turning down the chance to be chief.’

  For the first time he smiled. ‘No-brainer, that one, Fran. It’s going to be bad enough being picked over by Devon and Cornwall Police, not to mention the Police Standards people, when they investigate Simon’s death, without taking on the pressure of being chief. A heart attack at this stage is not on my agenda, believe me. Ironic, isn’t it, that Simon was once in the rubber-heel brigade himself? What must it do to a man’s psyche, always to be sniffing out his colleagues’ mistakes? I bet you forget what it’s like to have a friend.’

  ‘Which is possibly why he became so infatuated with Caffy and saw no way out but to end it all. I wish she wasn’t so phlegmatic sometimes. I know, I know, I’m sure it was the way she learned to deal with being a prostitute, but even so.’

  ‘Thank God for whoever it was that sorted her out. She’s got an amazing mind, Fran – she ought to be more than just a decorator.’

  ‘You know she’s more than just anything, Mark. She’s been on every course going about restoration and period materials and so on. I just wish she could find a nice bloke: she must be thirty at least, and the old biological clock must be ticking.’

  ‘You old romantic.’ He took her hand and smiled with great affection. ‘I’m glad I’ve got you.’ He kissed the hand, in what she always found the most erotic of gestures, and played briefly with her ring. Her actual engagement ring, no longer just a pretty jewel. Perhaps the wedding was still on. ‘Actually, rumour has it she did have a bloke, a cop with the Met, but he couldn’t hack her past. Or maybe she was just too overpowering in other ways. I wonder what her idea of a stag night will be. What if it involves that pop star that adopted her? Todd Dawes?’

  She smiled nostalgically. ‘I had pictures of him all over my bedroom wall when I was a kid. God, he was so sexy. Look, he’d be wasted on mere stags. My hen party, on the other hand—’ She broke off as the barman approached with their food, wishing she’d had a moment more to check he really was prepared to go ahead with the wedding. Really, truly. Cross your heart sure. But he was talking about it all with something like amusement.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be frozen veg people so I did a couple of salads. The dressing’s my own recipe,’ the young man said, putting a jug in front of them, ‘but I shan’t be offended if you want a packet of salad cream. Not everyone likes balsamic vinegar and virgin olive oil.’

  ‘We do. And –’ Mark sniffed like a Bisto kid – ‘garlic!’ He waited till they were on their own before saying, ‘Now, tell me about our skeleton.’ Before she could point out that a corpse might not be the best company for supper, he added quickly, ‘Has it put you off the house? Do you want to pull out?’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, Mark. But I take your point. If you really wanted, we could always do it up and sell it – though probably at a huge loss, the way the market’s going.’ Her heart hurt as she made the offer.

  ‘Hideaways in Kent will always fetch a high price in one area of the market,’ he pointed out with a quizzical smile. ‘Come on, we both know there are more criminals lurking in remote Kent houses than you can shake a truncheon at.’

  She returned his grin. ‘No one shady shall buy our dream home,’ she declared. ‘Even if we have to have ghosts exorcized, I draw the line at that. Truly. All houses have secrets and sadnesses, especially old ones. Who knows who suffered what in my cottage?’ She stopped and tucked into her salad. No point in reminding Mark that his beloved wife had actually died in his house. Not to mention what was going on there now. She bit back the question she was desperate to put: had he contacted his solicitor to start proceeding to evict Sammie? She flushed, but for another reason. ‘I’m sorry – it’s our cottage. You’re not a visitor, for God’s sake.’

  ‘It won’t be yours or mine soon,’ he said soberly. ‘Has Paula said anything more about the rectory wiring?’

  ‘She wasn’t on site when I went to look at the skeleton,’ she said. ‘But truly, Mark, with or without electricity, I can’t see it working. Not if young Kim wants to strip it down to its bones again. And even if she doesn’t, there’ll be no comfort anywhere. I know we could shower and eat at work, but I can’t fancy using the Portaloo in the middle of the night with only a torch to guide us. It’ll have to be a short-term let.’

  ‘A bottom of the range, tiny short-term let? It’s all we can afford with the wedding coming on too.’

  ‘Bugger the wedding!’ she said, not meaning it at all.

  ‘Bugger the grotty short-term let, too. Or rather, instead. I’ve been chasing round like the proverbial blue-arsed fly all day but I did remember one thing – I phoned the Rottweiler. The letter will be in Sammie’s hand tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘But I thought you wanted her out!’

  ‘Of course I do. But I don’t think she’ll take it lying down. Do you?’

  ‘Not really. Which is why I had a word with Cosmo Dix.’

  ‘Cosmo! But he’s Human Resources, not PR!’ And had told her she wouldn’t be organizing the collection for Simon, not if she took his advice.

  ‘A wilier old bird you’d never find. He says – and I think he may have something – that, for all its horrors, camping at the rectory would be a better deal as far as the media are concerned. Who could argue against people wanting their own place back if they’re living in a tip? And it’ll have the added bonus of stopping Kim undoing all the Pact team have done. How’s about that? After all, we do want to hold the reception there, and the sooner all this is sorted the sooner we can reclaim the garden too.’

  It all seemed too good to be true. Perhaps it was. Because then he said, ‘Or we could always accept retirement and run. It’d make financial sense, what with the lump sums and all. It’s what the chief’s advising.’

  ‘He’s what?’ She repeated, more quietly, ‘He’s advising what?’

  ‘Actually, he suggested a sideways move for me – to Bramshill, to teach there. Assuming they’d have me. Failing that, some university with a criminology department might want me.’

  He sounded so appalled by the prospect that she said briskly, ‘I doubt if that would wash. The Grove of Academe’s been deforested. Even worse cuts in higher-education funding than we’ve got. If they need staff, they’d want someone young and part-time and cheap. You’d be far too expensive. Tell me, just assuming the chief or his successor can dispose of you, what are their plans for me? Before or after he’s given me away, that is?’

  ‘He’d s
till like you to take over cold cases. But not at your present salary. More as a part-time consultant.’

  ‘Blow that for a game of soldiers. Cancel the old bugger’s wedding invitation,’ she added with a laugh, but not a happy one.

  ‘It’s just his way of trying to tie up all the loose ends before he left. And, poor man, he’s got absolutely no say in what happens next. But I think cuts and senior staff reductions’ll be very much what his successor wants. Needs! Retirement – or even redundancy – would certainly ease our cash-flow problems, and there’s no denying our pension provision’s not bad. At the moment. There is a case for jumping ship.’

  ‘In my book it’s the rats that jump first. Losing one chief, one deputy chief and one ACC at a stroke—’

  ‘Exactly. Not to mention a pretty sound chief super. Not good for morale. And there is something else: I can’t see you moving out until you’ve sorted out our skeleton.’

  ‘Quite. Plus the cable theft, which I’m also inclined to take personally. Oh, and I’ve got a rape and a stabbing now, too,’ she said, leaning forward to share the details.

  ‘Thanks to you giving permission to question your solicitor, we have a name for the previous owner,’ Kim told Fran the following day. As in the classic TV movies, they met in the women’s loo, but by chance, not design.

  Fran had just emerged from yet another bruising budget meeting, which had managed to last till almost noon. She had almost forgotten about the real world as opposed to the world of figures. She was washing her hands, as if, like Pilate, to absolve herself of responsibility for bad decisions. And this was before the new round of spending cuts the government had just threatened. ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t have time to wait for an answer myself. Anyway, name?’

  ‘Marion Lovage.’

  ‘Lovage? How very herbal,’ Fran observed. ‘For real, Kim?’

  ‘According to the land registry,’ Kim said huffily. ‘And we have other information too. She was a headmistress. Dr Lovage. She ran a junior school in a village not far from yours – what will be yours, I mean, when you move into the rectory.’

  ‘Someone with a doctorate running a tiny school? Weird.’

  Kim didn’t seem to think so. ‘She did very well there, too, according to the present head. Got it out of special measures, whatever they are. She did so well that some government minister came to congratulate her. It made not just the local but the national news: they’ve still got the fading photos up in the head’s office.’

  ‘Good for her. What happened next?’ If Fran was hoping that Dr Lovage had suddenly left the neighbourhood, leaving everyone in the lurch, she was to be disappointed.

  ‘She worked there till she retired – a couple of years later. Then she told the staff she was going to take the holiday of a lifetime, and shut the rectory up and left it. Well, it’s so off the beaten track that vandals might not notice. Or squatters . . . But she told the school secretary she’d put some of her best pieces of furniture in store. Just that. Not where. I’ve got someone on to it. It’d be nice to see if she reclaimed them before she died.’

  ‘It would indeed. And you have a year of death?’

  ‘It fits in with what you said about the house not being sold till ten years after her death and the market going flat – March, thirteen years ago.’

  ‘Excellent. Where?’

  ‘Hammersmith. Sheltered accommodation. She bought her apartment outright, lived there a couple of weeks, talking to the warden every day, and then just died. Phut. Heart, according to her death certificate. She had a minimalist funeral, ashes scattered on Dartmoor. Near those sodding badgers, maybe.’

  ‘Is her solicitor still alive?’

  Kim blinked.

  ‘I just thought that putting a ten-year moratorium on the legatee selling something as lucrative as a house might be a bit unusual – he or she might have tried to talk to her about it. Sometimes solicitors are just as nosy as the rest of us – might have wanted reasons.’

  Kim retired to a cubicle. Fran blasted her hands with the drier until Kim emerged again, to use the basin next to Fran’s.

  ‘You’ve got the team working well, by the sound of it, Kim, not always easy for someone from another force. Is anyone trying to be too clever by half? You’re sure there isn’t? Good. Remember, if anyone plays you up, come down on them like a ton of bricks.’

  ‘Thanks. But you won’t like what I’ve got to say next too much, Fran.’ She wrinkled her nose and rubbed one leg against the other, like a schoolgirl. ‘I’m afraid there was no trace of any ID on the skeleton, and, more to the point, no trace of a murder weapon. So it looks like we’re going to have to give your garden a bit of a going over.’

  ‘As I said, the garden’s not a problem. In fact, we’d be grateful to have it dug for us,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘But you still don’t want us to touch the house itself, even though from what that Paula woman says, you can’t move in for a bit anyway?’

  ‘Money, Kim, money,’ Fran said. ‘Twenty per cent cuts. If you don’t cut some expenditure, you cut either front-line staff or the back-room people we all depend on. Last year I had to watch them sacrifice a whole team; this year there’ll be more. If we get extravagant on this investigation, there’ll be less to spend on the next. What if we have to skimp on the investigation of a current murder just so we can say we’ve crossed all the T’s and dotted all the I’s on this? In fact, rather than dig up the whole patch, I’d get a metal detector run over it. Maybe find a keen amateur detectorist – the heritage officer might be able to recommend an honest one. No nighthawks, thanks very much. But I’d bet any possible murder weapon disappeared years ago, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘If the garden’s like the house, yes, I suppose so.’ Kim shook the excess water off her hands, but didn’t attempt to dry them.

  Fran held the door open for her, and they walked into corridor. ‘This Dr Lovage. She sounds a very capable woman – very thorough, very meticulous in her planning.’

  Kim came to an abrupt halt. ‘You’re still thinking of her as the killer, ma’am? But she’s tiny. You can see in those school photos. Five foot four at the most. Slightly built.’ This from a woman who was probably a mere size eight for all she was nearly as tall as Fran herself.

  ‘Might have been whippy. And nothing like needs must for finding a way to do something. Tell you what, Kim, when I’ve got a moment, which may not be for a few days with the house move coming up, I’m going to try a nice informal chat in the village pub with the locals. After all, there’ll be a lot of folk interested in this new couple daft enough to try moving into a building site. I’ll report to your team as soon as I know anything – meanwhile, let me know when you’ve organized the post-mortem.’ She couldn’t imagine it throwing up anything more than they already knew, but she could hardly skip it, not with such an inexperienced officer as Kim at the helm of the investigation. Only bones, at least. No guts or gore to spoil her day. ‘I might not be able to get to all your briefings, but I’d like to be kept in the loop, and not just for personal reasons, either. Nor,’ she added with a grin, ‘merely to see how much of my budget you plan to spend. I hope that nice Dr Valentine won’t cost the earth.’

  ‘He’s my sister’s partner. I’m pulling in a favour.’

  ‘Uh, uh. Favour or not, we pay him.’ Remembering the red column on her much-loathed spreadsheet, she added, with a smile that in her youth would have been called impish, ‘But ask him for a family discount. You’re doing well, Kim, especially as your DCI is conspicuous by his absence at the moment.’ She added with a grin, ‘It’d be nice if you’d got it all done and dusted before he came back from his sick leave. Good for your CV.’ Fran waved Kim on her way as she headed back to her office.

  Meanwhile, how was Jill’s investigation getting on? If she knew Jill, she’d be too busy to think about breaking off to eat; Fran would make that decision for her. She’d even make it sound official; instead of popping her head round Jill’s door, she got
Alice to make a formal phone call asking Jill to present herself.

  So Jill looked both puzzled and apprehensive when she arrived five minutes later.

  Fran grinned. ‘Eaten yet? About to? Gotcha! Canteen, or sarnies here?’

  ‘Canteen. I don’t suppose we’ll have it much longer. Cuts . . .’

  Fran didn’t contradict her. She held open the office door and they headed for the canteen.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d be eating with Mark,’ Jill said, at last, looking for a quiet corner.

  ‘We used to. When we were “courting”.’ With no hand free, she inserted the quotation marks with her voice only. ‘But now we’re living together, there’s less need. Though we still stick to our no-shop rule once we shut our front door. Goodness, I’m so hungry. We’re moving out on Thursday, and breakfasts tend to be a matter of polishing off whatever happens to be left in the fridge or the cupboard. We take another lot of stuff to the self-store tonight, if only Mark remembers.’

  ‘And you’re still moving into the rectory? Despite the body?’

  ‘Skeleton. Actually, that describes the house as much as the corpse. It’s stripped down to the bones. We would have moved in despite that, except someone stole our electric cable.’

  ‘Part of that huge sweep over the weekend? Shit.’

  ‘Quite.’ She tucked into her salad. Perhaps it would be more filling than it looked.

  ‘You can’t move back into Mark’s place?’ Jill split her baked potato to help it cool. ‘Or is his daughter still acting up?’

  ‘If by acting up you mean squatting, yes. But that’s between you and me.’ She suppressed a shudder: Sammie should have had the solicitor’s letter by now giving formal notice to quit. ‘Now, how’s your waif? Cynd?’