Dark Undertakings (4 page)

Dr Julian Lloyd had finished his lunch – a scotch egg, Mars bar and apple – while idly flicking through the
Independent
and ignoring the telephone which rang several times in the adjacent office. Despite its late start, his morning surgery was long since over. He had gone home again after confirming that Jim Lapsford was indeed dead, and treated himself to a breakfast of cereal and toast; he hadn’t turned up at the surgery until twenty past nine, regardless of his first appointment being at nine o’clock. The patients had waited for him restlessly, but without overt complaint. Now he had little to do until the afternoon stint at five, apart from a handful of home visits and a brief attendance at a nursing home to administer flu vaccine.

Susie, his young receptionist, was taking the phone calls, and dealing with anyone who came in for prescriptions or to make appointments. She seemed to be in the grips of some sort of crisis, which he had been trying not to notice. Her eyes were red and she kept dropping things. There was to be a baby clinic shortly and Dr Lloyd planned to be out of the way for that. Strictly an all-female affair, it made him
feel decidedly surplus to requirements.

‘Many takers for this evening?’ he asked Susie, having folded away his paper and disposed of his apple core. ‘Doesn’t seem to be much going around at the moment, praise the Lord.’

‘Let’s see,’ she ran her eye down the computer screen. ‘Five, so far.’ She spoke in a flat tone, completely unlike her usual chirpy self.

‘That’s good,’ he said lightly. ‘I like it quiet.’

‘Don’t speak too soon,’ she said, grimly. ‘Things happen.’

‘Now what might
that
mean?’ he twinkled at her, in a desperate attempt to lift her mood. If he’d had the energy or the courage, he might have been tempted to start something with Susie. In the gloomy dash towards forty, the appeal of a girl in her early twenties was increasingly powerful, and he suspected that there would have been some serious satisfaction in a sexual liaison. Time enough yet, he told himself. That spotty boyfriend of hers could surely be readily ousted. And Susie’s normal smiling manner was very appealing. Today, though, he wasn’t so sure. Moodiness was unattractive, and if she couldn’t leave her messy personal life at home, he was much less interested.

‘It’s something my dad often says,’ she answered him, making an effort to be conversational. ‘Like poor Jim Lapsford this
morning – that was a thing that happened, sure enough.’

‘Ah yes. Poor fellow.’ The doctor’s collar began to tighten and he could feel the label on his shirt chafing the back of his neck. He wriggled his shoulders uneasily.

‘Poor wife, more like,’ Susie corrected him. ‘What a shock for her. And how funny, you seeing him only last week, about his leg. After all those years!’

‘Pardon?’

‘I told you at the time, don’t you remember? He hadn’t seen a doctor since nineteen eighty-six, when he had his vasectomy. Must be close to a record – at least amongst our patients.’

‘Well, I hope nobody thinks it had anything to do with me. I didn’t prescribe anything for him, did I? You know the chaos my prescriptions get into. I seem to have mislaid yet another pad, God help me.’

Susie hesitated long enough to cause him to glance up at her face. She was sitting very still, apparently debating with herself. ‘Did I?’ he repeated.

She shook herself, and flicked at the computer keyboard, lips pursed. ‘Ummm – nope. Not according to this.’ Still watching her, he observed a flush on her cheeks. An inner voice reminded him that he should at least ask her if she was all
right. He was her employer, her friend, and she was quite obviously in distress. But he spent all day being kind and sympathetic, against his real nature. Doing the same for his receptionist was just too much.

He turned away with a fleeting laugh. ‘As it happens,’ he said, ‘it’s rather lucky. From the paperwork point of view, at least. His wife’ll probably be in tomorrow for the certificate. Can you ask her if it’s a cremation, and if so, I’ll do the papers.’

‘Even luckier, if it is,’ Susie added sharply. ‘You’ll get your forty-one quid. A few more like this and you’ll be getting that ride-on lawnmower in time for next summer after all.’

Dr Lloyd frowned. ‘Shush, Susie. You know I’m as embarrassed as anyone at the way we get that money for doing virtually nothing. But the rules are the rules and who am I to complain?’

Roxanne Gibson heard the news about Jim from her sister, Pauline, who’d been one of the irritable patients at Dr Lloyd’s morning surgery that morning. Pauline had overheard Susie talking to the District Nurse. She phoned Roxanne as soon as she got home.

‘Are you sitting down, pet?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Roxanne was made instantly suspicious by the
pet
. That wasn’t a usual way for Pauline
to address her. ‘Why? I’m stirring soup, if you must know.’

‘Put the spoon down, then. This’ll come as a bit of a shock. Unless you’ve heard already.’

‘Heard what?’

‘Jim. He’s had a heart attack. Went in the night; out like a light, apparently.’

‘You’re kidding me. Jim wouldn’t go like that.’ She spoke with confidence. Her sister’s words hadn’t even scratched the surface of her attention yet. They bounced off her and floated around the caravan for a moment or two before hitting her a second time.

‘You mean he never said goodbye?’ Pauline spluttered a little at her own flippancy. ‘Sorry. It’s true, though. Jim Lapsford’s dead. Everyone’ll be talking about it by this evening. I’ll have to phone Monica. She is my friend, after all. It’s a wonder she hasn’t been onto me already.’

Roxanne’s heart was doing something strange, like trying to climb out of her mouth. ‘Christ,’ she gasped. ‘How do
you
know? Doesn’t sound as if you had it from your
friend
.’

Pauline explained. ‘It’s going to be a shock all round,’ she added superfluously.

‘But – he was here only yesterday. We – er – had a rather good time.’ She glanced at the bed, which occupied a good quarter of the available
caravan space. A rumpled quilt still carried the smell and memory of Jim. ‘Shit, Pauline, I don’t want to hear this.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s life, I guess. Kicks you when you’re down. Or something.’

‘I’m not down. What are you talking about? I’d got everything exactly as I wanted it for once. Look, I don’t want to talk any more, okay? Come and see me tomorrow, will you?’

She heard Pauline sigh. ‘I’ll see. I’ll probably have to go and sit with Monica. It’s going to be awkward, Rox. You know how things always come out when somebody dies. Why am I always caught up in the middle? My sister sleeping with my best friend’s husband. She’s going to kill me when she finds out.’

‘I thought Maisie was your best friend.’

‘Well, what does it matter. I can’t believe you’re arguing even now. Don’t you ever give it a rest?’

‘Habit,’ Roxanne offered. ‘Try and come, okay? Who else am I going to talk to?’

‘I will if I can. Sorry it was me that told you.’

‘Better you than reading it in the paper. Bye now.’

Roxanne pressed the ‘off’ button on the phone and threw it onto the seat running down one side of her caravan. Then she went to the open door and looked out across the fields. Dusty
September hedges ringed them round, protective and concealing. Blackberries grew luscious on the brambles, hazelnuts ripened and red haws clustered. Roxanne, latterday gypsy, had turned to the rural lifestyle with enthusiasm. The soup she’d been stirring comprised wild mushroom and common sorrel, an experimental mix, which she’d grown to enjoy inordinately.

She stretched her bare arms out in front of her, as if blind, and then looked down at her own skin. Jim had loved her dark colouring, the all-over swarthiness of her. Her black hair was always glossy, like an Arab’s, but curly, with threads of white in it. Making love with Jim had been quite something, despite their ages. His unconcealed enjoyment had been a real turn-on. She believed herself to be like most women – happier to arouse passion than to have it aroused in herself. For three years, she had taken delight in Jim Lapsford’s uncontrolled appetite for her. Three years ago, she had walked out on Martin, her insurance salesman husband, and decamped to the caravan. For her, life had changed from monochrome to technicolour on that day.

‘I knew it couldn’t last,’ she said to herself, now, as the view blurred and her nose began to run. Then a thought hit her, and she pushed a knuckle between her teeth in sudden horror.
‘No,’ she insisted to herself. ‘No – it can’t have been.’ She got up and went back into the caravan, bending to a low shelf beside the little stove. A jam jar of brownish fluid met her hand and she lifted it out. ‘Just to be on the safe side,’ she muttered, and took it outside, unscrewing the lid as she went. At a point in the hedge, some yards away, she poured the contents over a patch of thistles, murmuring, ‘Enjoy!’ to them.

Drew wheeled his bike from behind the hearse, and called a goodnight to Sid and Big George, who were walking around the corner to the car park. Five o’clock, on the dot, they all downed tools for home, unless there was a rare late-afternoon cremation, which could delay them by fifteen minutes or so. The office staff were more dilatory, which made Drew uneasy. He didn’t see himself as a clock-watcher, a mere time-server. Once, he’d stayed to finish a coffin, but the firmly critical reaction from the other men had convinced him that this was not a good idea.

He glanced in through the window of the reception area, as he mounted the bike, seeing Olga standing over the computer, apparently in the act of switching it off. At least she looked as if she’d be going home in another few minutes.
Daphne, however, could be seen at her desk, telephone to her ear, papers spread out in front of her. Daphne was an enigma to Drew, and he always made a point of looking for her when he passed the office. Somewhere around forty, she was obviously struggling against her body’s inclination to gain weight. Her legs were short, and substantial, especially just below the knee, where they ballooned unbecomingly. She also had rather short chubby arms. Dressed in classic navy suits and white blouses, the elegance she was obviously aiming for just eluded her. Thick hair, beginning to acquire a frosting of silver in the dark brown, was cut short. The overall impression that Drew gained was of a woman in the wrong place, having to hold herself in, act a part, when the reality beneath was something much more uncontrolled and adventurous.

She’d taken on the business from her father, with no reluctance by all accounts. Her younger brother, Nigel, had made a complete escape and now lived in Vancouver with a wife and five children. Local gossip assumed the childless Daphne would eventually pass the baton to one of her Canadian nephews, and good luck to him.

As he had half hoped, Daphne noticed him, and raised a hand to indicate that he wait where he was. She came to the open window, and
said, ‘Do you mind hanging on a minute? Come round to the door, will you?’

Obediently, he presented himself, and she came to meet him, holding the removal chitty he’d completed that morning. ‘I just wanted you to fill me in about Lapsford.’

‘Did I leave something out?’ he said, trying to read the piece of paper.

‘No, I don’t think so. I just wondered how it was at the house. I mean – what sort of set-up. I knew him, of course, vaguely. He was a
well-known
figure. One of the King’s Head crowd. How was the wife?’

Drew paused, wondering what exactly she was asking him. It felt like more than idle gossip. ‘She was very shocked,’ he said.

‘Shocked rather than upset?’

‘Well – yes, I suppose. One of the sons was in a real state. Couldn’t stop shaking.’

Daphne nodded. ‘I’ve heard that the younger one’s always been a bit – odd. They’ve had problems with him, I think.’

Drew waited for further questions. His unease over the morning’s experience had not gone away in the course of the day. If anything, he was more agitated that ever, especially now that his boss was showing an unusual interest. He could still feel the peculiar atmosphere of the house, the intensity of the shock, which
had something else mixed with it. A horror that somehow suggested more than mere surprise.

‘Did you see the doctor?’ Daphne continued. ‘I gather he’s going to sign him up.’

‘He let us in, and then scooted off about two minutes later. He saw the chap last week, about a stiff knee. The wife said he was happy that it was a heart attack.’

Daphne smiled the smile of a conspirator, mischief and relief both evident. ‘He’s a rascal, isn’t he. But nobody likes a post-mortem. Did she say when she’d go and register?’

Drew shook his head. ‘She didn’t look up to it today.’ He stopped, wanting to say more, but wary of her reaction. There was something going on that he didn’t properly understand. Even if it was only a habitual avoidance of involving the Coroner and the police, he would have to tread carefully. Any hint of disapproval would be very misguided, he realised. His job was to follow instructions and keep the customers happy. He had to look smart and behave tactfully, even when he was boiling with frustration inside.

‘She’ll be along tomorrow then, I imagine. We’re not certain it’s a cremation, of course. George tells me we did another Lapsford funeral, about twenty years ago. He never forgets a name. He thinks it might have been this one’s aunt. I’ll get Olga to look it up tomorrow.’

Bradbourne was ill supplied with grave spaces. The swing to cremation had been both cause and effect of the shortage, to the point where it had become a general assumption that cremation was the preferred option. Some people had family graves in the small cemetery, others had firm objections to cremation, and insisted on a burial space being found for them, but the proportion of cremations to burials currently stood at just under nine to one. The doctors rejoiced in this. It was a rare week that passed without the perk of the forty-one pounds fee for the extra papers coming their way.

‘I’ll be getting off, then,’ said Drew, awkwardly.

‘Yes, off you go. Thanks, Drew,’ she released him with a nod. He mounted his bike, and headed for home, wishing he could forget the whole Lapsford business.