Grave Concerns (28 page)

Drew decided he should update Maggs after the events of the previous day. He told her about the ticket stub in the coat pocket. ‘If the Kennett woman was right about the date when she saw the body being buried, from the train – then it wasn’t Willard doing it,’ he concluded.

‘You mean it wasn’t him who
buried
her,’ she said pedantically. ‘He might still have killed her, sometime earlier.’

‘In that case, there’d be at least three people involved in her murder. Possible, but somehow it doesn’t seem very likely. And where would he have kept the body?’

Maggs pouted. ‘Are you sure a theatre ticket is proper evidence? They could have booked seats and then never gone to the show.’

‘That’s true,’ Drew admitted. ‘But we can check with the hotel. She told me its name. A famous one. Um—’

‘Hilton? Savoy? Waldorf?’

Drew shook his head. ‘No, not so expensive. Two words. It’ll come in a minute.’

Maggs waited impatiently for thirty seconds, and then said, ‘Never mind. Assuming they are off the hook, and assuming it was only two people, where does that leave us?’

‘Good question. It might mean that Genevieve won’t want me to investigate any further, if she’s convinced Willard had nothing to do with it. She’s got her baby now, and that was a kind of deadline all along.’

Maggs watched him closely. ‘You don’t want to stop, though, do you? It’s got too many loose ends. You don’t want to leave that grave without a name. It’ll niggle you for years. People will
remember the mystery. It’s a hobby with some nerdy blokes – great unsolved murders. You’ll get visits from people who think it just
might
be their long lost cousin.’

Drew ignored this typical Maggsian flight of fancy. ‘Besides, we owe it to Gwen Absolon,’ he said. He gave a deep sigh, and looked thoughtfully out of the window, remembering the scene of the previous night. ‘Regent Palace!’ he said brightly. ‘Regent Palace Hotel. That was where they stayed.’

‘Congratulations. That should be easy to check. Now – that horrible cross. It seems we didn’t pull it down quickly enough. There was a chap at the gate just now, when I arrived. Said he’d seen it. Said he’d told the blokes in the pub about it last night, and they all decided they weren’t happy “for that sort of thing to be going on round here”.’ She mimicked the west country accent. ‘’Tis master queer, that ’tis. There’s been no such business as ’e, till that Slocombe turns up.’ Reverting to her normal speech, she added, ‘It could lead to real trouble if anything like that happens again.’

‘Trouble?’ Drew echoed, trying to pay attention. He’d been reliving the events of the day before, remembering Genevieve naked and vulnerable, scarcely listening to what Maggs was saying.

‘If people think we’ve got weird goings-on like that, they’ll think twice before burying their relations here,’ she spelt out. ‘Won’t they? It’ll be bad for business. We’ve got to do something about it.’ She spoke deliberately, slightly louder and more slowly than necessary.

‘OK,’ he nodded irritably. ‘I get the drift. I just don’t see what we can do about it.’

Before she could offer him any suggestions, there was a small crash and a wail from Stephanie’s corner. The child had crawled over to a metal wastepaper bin and tried to use it to pull herself up. It topped over and sent her tumbling onto the floor.

‘She’s going to start walking soon,’ Maggs observed coolly. ‘She won’t stay in that corner, then.’

‘She doesn’t stay in it now,’ he remarked.

‘No,’ said Maggs, putting a wealth of meaning into the single word.

Drew sighed. ‘All right. I know what you think about having her in here. It won’t be for much longer. Karen will have her when term finishes.’

‘Which is the end of July. More than two months away. Look – I think you should find a minder. An au pair or something. They don’t cost much. You’re not giving the business enough attention, Drew. You know you’re not.’

As always, he felt an uneasy mixture of adult
affront and boyish humiliation when told off by someone so much younger. Her words were so obviously concerned, so deeply sincere, that the affront quickly evaporated. They were partners, after all. And in recent weeks, she had demonstrated all the good sense and commitment he could have asked for.

The phone took things off in yet another direction. It was Olga, the office assistant at Plant & Sons Funeral Directors. Drew listened to her with a sense of being saved.

‘Daphne asked me to ring you,’ Olga began. ‘We’ve got a family here who’d like an alternative officiant. The deceased is a woman of fifty-four. Breast cancer, I think. They want cremation, but nothing religious. Somebody’s mentioned your name to them. They’re wondering about an ashes plot in your field.’

‘Great!’ he said, hardly able to credit what he was hearing. ‘When?’

‘They’d like to meet you first. Can I send them round when they leave here? They’re in a bit of a rush.’

‘Absolutely. Can you give them directions?’

‘Daphne can. Thanks, Drew. I was just checking that you’ll be there, really. Looks as if things are taking off for you, doesn’t it?’

‘Maybe they are,’ he agreed, not sure he believed it himself. ‘Let’s hope they like me.’

Olga murmured something he didn’t catch, and he wondered what she thought of his new role as officiant. At least it wasn’t threatening any competition for Plant’s, unlike his burials. The persistent preference for cremations amongst the population was a cause for regret, but this latest development promised to do a lot to reduce the frustration. ‘Thanks, anyway,’ he said. ‘I’d better do a bit of tidying up before they get here.’

She laughed politely and rang off. Drew looked round the office, at the dozing Stephanie in her cluttered play corner, at the suspicious lack of papers on the desk, and wondered what the approaching people would make of it.
They’ll just have to take us as they find us
, he decided.

Maggs was surprisingly worried by the impression they were going to make. ‘Steph’s sure to wake up and want a drink or something,’ she warned him. ‘And she’ll fill her nappy or throw a wobbly. It’ll look so unprofessional.’

‘We’ve done it before,’ he reminded her. ‘She usually rises to the occasion very well.’

Maggs ran a hand through her dense hair, and scowled at Drew. ‘But – has it occurred to you that she might have put people off? That she’s the reason we haven’t had more business?’

He stiffened defensively. ‘Not really,’ he told her. ‘I think people like it. It shows we’re human. I’m trying to take the fear and distance out of
death and funerals. You know that – I shouldn’t have to keep saying it. What’s your problem with it?’

She wriggled her shoulders. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s this business in the field. And Karen’s more depressed every day. Isn’t that enough to be going on with?’

‘Karen depressed?’ he repeated wonderingly.

‘Of course she is. Who wouldn’t be? Every time she tries to imagine this time next year, she must want to jump under the next train that goes past.’

He sat down at the desk and stared unseeingly out of the window. He’d known, of course, but the knowledge had been kept hidden, while he distracted himself with other matters. With Genevieve Slater. ‘What am I supposed to do, then?’ he muttered.

Before a reply could emerge, his eye was caught by a car coming through the gate. Two people occupied the front seats, and he watched them slowly get out, casting curious glances around the field.

One was a woman, and she went to open one of the rear doors of the car. The other was a man, and he began to walk towards Drew’s office. ‘I’d better go and meet them,’ he said, heaving himself out of the chair.

By the time he was out of the door, the woman was holding a small child over her
shoulder and the man had almost reached the office door, so that he and Drew were only two feet apart. ‘Come in,’ Drew invited. ‘I assume you’ve come about the cremation that Plant’s are arranging?’

‘Right. Vicky and Nigel Gardner. It’s Vicky’s mother who died.’

Drew experienced the familiar warm tingle of satisfaction that came with every new funeral. It was the feeling of
rightness
, of being invited to do what he’d been born to do, of being able to help another family through this great crisis in their lives.

‘And you’d like me to officiate – to conduct the actual ceremony for you?’ he supplied smoothly.

‘We’d like to discuss it with you, yes,’ said the woman. She was narrow-shouldered and fair, her eyes filmed from excessive weeping. Drew recognised the look. Even with make-up to hide the ravages beneath her eyes, the lids were unmistakably pink and the whites veined with red threads. Drew couldn’t avoid making a mental comparison with Genevieve, also coming to talk about a lost mother, weeping admittedly, but very far from ravaged by it.

‘Come into the office,’ Drew ordered, holding open the door for them. ‘Excuse my daughter. I look after her while my wife is at work.’

Maggs was standing in Stephanie’s corner,
looking down at the child. For a moment Drew saw a confused glance pass between the visiting couple, as they assumed he meant the dark-skinned teenager was his daughter. Then Stephanie stirred and began a soft babbling and they noticed her on the cushions.

The woman made an inarticulate sound of pleasure, and gently pulled her own child away from her shoulder. ‘Look, Billy – there’s someone for you to play with,’ she chirped. ‘Can I put him down beside her? They might keep each other amused. How old is your little girl?’

‘Nearly eleven months,’ he said. ‘She’s not walking yet.’

‘Billy’s nine months. He’s getting to be quite a lump.’ She deposited her small son next to Stephanie and for a few minutes the four adults observed the comical wariness of the infants as they took full cognisance of each other.

‘This is nice,’ said the woman eventually. ‘Not like you’d expect an undertaker’s to be.’

‘Actually—’ the husband began, before checking himself and casting a questioning glance at his wife. Since she made no interruption, he continued, ‘Actually, we had thought of asking you to do the whole funeral. But – well – we heard some story about peculiar goings-on here, and it made us a bit nervous. I probably shouldn’t be telling you. It makes us seem a bit gullible, I
suppose, but we couldn’t feel entirely comfortable after what we’d heard.’

Maggs pushed forward. ‘What have you heard, exactly?’ she demanded. ‘I bet you it isn’t true.’

Vicky Gardner replied. ‘We wouldn’t normally listen to gossip. But two different people have mentioned it to us. Ever since that body was discovered here, and the papers made such a big thing of it, they say you’ve been having … unwanted attentions from Satanists and witchcraft and stuff like that.’ Hurriedly she forestalled Maggs’s outraged intake of breath. ‘I’m sure it’s all been highly exaggerated,’ she said. ‘But look at it from our point of view. We just couldn’t live with the worry that the grave might be desecrated. I mean – we think this is a lovely idea, and we’re very keen to bury Mum’s ashes here. It’s just – well, you must see …’

She tailed off, and Drew put a restraining hand on Maggs’s arm.‘Yes, I see,’ he said gently. ‘And it’s up to us to find ways of setting people’s minds at rest. It was courageous of you to explain it to us. We had no idea there was such widespread talk going on. Now, perhaps we should discuss how you want the cremation to be conducted.’

When they’d gone, with the date and format of the funeral all arranged, after a swift confirmatory phone call to Plant’s, Drew heaved a sigh of relief.
He’d agreed a package with them, whereby he would conduct the funeral service, collect the ashes afterwards and inter them in a special plot in the field, all for a hundred and twenty pounds. ‘That’s slightly less than you’d pay a Church of England minister for the same services,’ he told them, and they seemed more than happy.

Maggs was still disgruntled. ‘We’ve got to sort out this gossip about Satanic rituals,’ she told him firmly. ‘Make a hundred per cent sure it doesn’t happen again. I know we’re fixing up security lights, but what about getting a dog which could live outside at night?’

‘Tricky,’ he demurred. ‘There are so many places people could get in, if they were really determined. A hedge isn’t the same as a high wall or barbed wire. And Karen doesn’t like dogs. But you’re right – we must do something. I’ll ask Jeffrey if he’s got any ideas. Where is he? I haven’t seen him all week.’

‘There hasn’t been anything for him to do,’ she reminded him. ‘He’s been ditching for the farm. I wondered when you’d notice he was missing.’

Drew shook his head impatiently. ‘Don’t get at me, Maggs. I’ve got enough to worry about as it is.’

‘
Sorry
,’ she snarled. ‘I thought those lovely people would have put you in a better mood.’

‘Me!’ He stared at her. ‘
Me
in a bad mood? I thought it was
you
.’

The negative atmosphere – or perhaps just plain hunger – set Stephanie off, and she started a whining complaint. ‘Lunchtime,’ Drew announced, glad of the diversion. ‘And after that we’ll talk about security for the field.’

But things didn’t go according to plan; another phonecall interrupted the feeding of Stephanie. Maggs answered it, and passed it quickly to Drew without explanation. It was Dr Jarvis.

‘Genevieve asked me to phone you,’ he began. ‘She wants to thank you for everything you did yesterday. It was a miracle you were here. She’d led me to believe she’d got full medical back-up for the birth, as you’ve probably realised. I’ve only just found out that she hasn’t even got a GP. She hadn’t seen anybody at all, apart from me. It makes me tremble to think of it now. It really is miraculous that you were here,’ he repeated. ‘Your medical training really saved the day.’

‘I don’t think it did,’ Drew disagreed. ‘It was the easiest labour imaginable. I had no more idea than she did that anything serious was happening, until the waters broke. How are they?’

‘Fine. Unbelievably. It’s all quite bizarre. There’s no equipment – the baby sleeps on Genevieve’s chest most of the time. She’s got it wrapped in an old cashmere shawl that was
Gwen’s, apparently. It’s feeding magnificently, and seems to find the whole business quite acceptable. It happens like this sometimes – the baby takes control, and everything falls into place. Makes you want to burn every book that’s ever been written on the subject.’