Some Deaths Before Dying (35 page)
“Bureau. Bottom drawer. Brown envelope. Big.”
“Told you so! Like wrapping our Christmas presents up to look like they weren’t, remember?”
She disappeared out of Rachel’s line of sight. The drawer scraped. Papers rustled.
“This what you mean?…Oh, good heavens! You remembered where you’d put them? No, you didn’t. You’d known all along, you wicked
old thing! That’s wonderful. I’d better take them straight along to the bank tomorrow, don’t you think?”
“Wait. You don’t…need…money?”
“Lord, no. I don’t know how Jack does it, but we seem to get more disgustingly well off every year. I’m really ashamed to
think about it.”
“Anne?”
“She’s all right. It’s those quarter horses she breeds, tough as old boots but such sweeties, and they keep winning championships
so everybody wants one now. And anyway, I’m not at all sure she’d accept…Oh, Ma! You’re not going to give them to Dick after
all! I couldn’t stand that! I’d make a really shameful fuss! Please, Ma…Oh you are an old tease! It isn’t fair at your age!”
“Send Dick…something…My…trust.”
“Well, I suppose, if you must. I’ll ask Jack. How much? It was five thousand last time, and a darned sight too generous, to
my mind, though he didn’t seem to think so.”
“Same?”
“Oh, all right. What about the pistols?”
“Grisholm…Ebury Street…Ask him…sell…Money…to Sergeant…Fred…Trust…You and…Mrs….Pil…cher…”
“Don’t try and talk anymore, Ma. You’re wearing yourself out. I think it’s a terrific idea. I’d been wondering if we oughtn’t
to do something about Sergeant Fred. And you want me and Mrs. Pilcher to be trustees, is that right? No, don’t try and talk.
She’s a funny little thing but I rather took to her, she was so sweet about the house—I mean it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.
And apparently both their jobs are a bit iffy at the moment, and they’ve been subsidising Sergeant Fred at this home he’s
at, and they don’t know how long they can go on doing that—you remember you asked me to find out if he was all right that
way? Oh, good heavens, wasn’t Grisholm that funny little man on the antiques programme? You think he’d be interested? Oh,
Ma, don’t tease! You’ve been up to something, going behind my back again. And I bet Dilys is in it too. What a pair you are!
Thick as thieves.”
M
rs. Matson died in August. Flora Thomas telephoned next day with the news. Though she seemed to have elected Jenny as a kind
of honorary chum during the process of arranging the trust for Uncle Albert, it still for a moment seemed surprising that
she should have found the time to do so.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Jenny.
“Best thing that could have happened, really. She was absolutely longing to go.”
“That doesn’t stop it being hard on you.”
“No, it doesn’t. Still…I try not to think about it. Look, I was talking to Ma about the funeral—she couldn’t talk any more,
poor thing, just blink her eyes for yes or no while you asked questions, like one of those nursery games—she actually managed
to make it rather fun, dear old thing—she was a great tease…oh yes—Sergeant Fred. She wanted him to come to the funeral. Do
you think that’s on? We could send a car this time—at least I hope we can. I think you know Eileen Cowan, don’t you? She’s
a parson not far from you, and she’s the niece of an old friend of my father’s—Ma wanted her too, but she’s got a wedding—did
I say it was Saturday week, the funeral?—but she’s going to see if she can get somebody else to take it—I must say I thought
that was a bit much to ask—I mean she didn’t even know Ma but she said Ma was the only person who visited her uncle when he
was in prison, except herself—so if she
can
come, Sergeant Fred knows her apparently so he’ll be all right if we send a car for the two of them, and you don’t have to
worry about it.”
“No, I’ll bring him,” said Jenny. “Then it won’t matter whether Nell Cowan can come or not.”
“Oh. Are you sure?”
“I’d like to, if that’s all right. I won’t come to the service, if you don’t mind—I don’t suppose there’ll be much room, anyway.”
“Just as you like, but there won’t be a lot of us there, if you change your mind—just us family, and the servants, and a few
locals. All Ma’s proper friends are dead—goodness I hope I don’t live that long—I can’t think of anything drearier—being the
last leaf on the bough, you know…well, that’s splendid, if you really want to, but don’t forget, if Miss Cowan can come…Is
that right? It doesn’t feel right—but Mrs. doesn’t feel right either—not that it matters with everyone using Christian names
straight off—who was it tried to call me Flo the other day? Oh, yes, the Deputy Mayor, but you never know where you are with
Liberal Democrats—they’re such a rag-bag, don’t you think?…And don’t forget, we could easily send a car, and if you want to
come you could just hop in and save all that driving…”
“No, it’s quite all right, really. I’ll be glad to do it.”
This was the literal truth. It felt necessary that she should make the effort. It was as if her original visit to Forde Place
had started vibrations which would whimper uncomfortably on, like the dwindling notes of a rapped wine glass, unless deliberately
stilled. Repeating the journey would perhaps do that.
“Well, if you say so,” said Flora.
By now Billy Cochrane was merely an exorcised demon, gone with his golden handshake. Jeff, on a recommendation from Sir Vidal,
was deep into his first heavy consultancy contract, but insisted on coming to the funeral. To share the driving, he said,
but Jenny guessed that it was at least as much that he wanted to be with her, in case she found the event unsettling. He worked
at his laptop whenever she was at the wheel. They dropped Nell Cowan and Uncle Albert at the church gate, drove the hundred
yards back to Forde Place and parked with the other cars halfway down the drive.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said.
“Want me to come with you?”
“It’s up to you. But I’ll be all right. I’m fine, darling. Really. This is all—I don’t know—all the way it’s supposed to be.
Sorting itself out. OK. You carry on with your stuff, and then you won’t be up half the night getting it finished.”
“Sure?”
“Yes. Funerals don’t last that long. I’ll be back in forty minutes and then we’ll go and find a pub while they’re all at the
reception.”
She left him juggling equations and walked down the mown grass beside the drive. A caterer’s van was parked in front of the
house, with last supplies being carried in. She followed a path round to the south side and on, still downwards, past a couple
of terraced lawns, and then along the outside of a walled garden to a small meadow with a river beyond it. A mown grass path
led to a footbridge.
Still without any particular purpose, beyond a sense of peace and well-being and vague, unformulated expectation, Jenny climbed
the four steps and onto the worn grey timbers of the bridge. It turned out to span only an arm of the river, which at this
point ran in two channels separated by a narrow island. Trees partly obscured the further channel, but Jenny could see no
sign of a second bridge by which to reach the far bank.
She stopped halfway across and looked around. Upstream the river, shallow at this time of year but still fast-flowing over
a rocky bed, was visible for two or three hundred yards. Several more gardens, some with boat houses, lined its bank. But
downstream the view was blocked only thirty yards away by a curious industrial structure, with small buildings both on the
island and the shore, and between them a sort of dam, brick, pierced with two low arches to let the water through. It looked
Victorian, but not contemporary with the main house—some kind of primitive hydroelectric device, perhaps.
Jenny stared at it, puzzled. Though she had never before stood on this bridge, there was a resonance, an echo in her mind
of something else she’d seen, something that had spoken strongly to her…In a dream, perhaps…No…The sunlit brickwork, the impenetrable
shadows beneath the arches, the water steadily flowing out of light into darkness…a photograph, on the wall of Mrs. Matson’s
sickroom…She had turned away from the bed, engulfed in her own private horrors, and been rescued first by the photograph of
the monster fungus, and then by other images of life and death, including this view, cropped down to include nothing but the
dam and the river.
She stood for several minutes, simply gazing at the moving water, then turned and walked back to the meadow. A clump of wild
ox-eye daisies was growing close to the path. Using thumbnail and fingernail she nipped off two of the flower heads, carried
them up onto the bridge, leaned on the rail and held them out over the water, side by side. She waited a ritual moment, then
whispered their names.
“Norma. Sister Jenny. Thanks.”
She dropped them, saw them settle onto the current and race off towards the dam. They vanished in ripple-glitter before they
reached the darkness.
“It isn’t over,” she told Jeff later. “I don’t think it ever will be. But from now on I’ll manage on my own. Just me.”
Jeff took the first stint of the journey home. He regarded ninetyfive as a sensible cruising speed on the motorway, so they
were booming south through the shimmery, fumy harvest sunlight when Uncle Albert spoke suddenly from the back seat.
“Had to do it, didn’t I?”
“Do what, Bert?” said Nell, sitting beside him.
“None of your business, miss.”
“Are you sure? It sounds a bit like something you’d like to get off your chest—that’s part of my job, you know. Think about
it, Bert.”
He was silent for several minutes. Jenny had the sun visor down to mitigate the glare and could see him in the vanity mirror.
His eyes were open but he was nodding drowsily, as if he was about to drop off any moment.
“You’re wrong about that,” he said suddenly. “It’s never bothered me that much. Something’s got to be done, then it’s got
to be done, that’s all. Terry didn’t like it, mind you—not from the first. Kept trying to talk us out of it…All right, I suppose
I might as well tell you, now I’ve started…”
“One moment,” said Nell. “Do you mind turning the radio on, Jenny? I’m sure you’ll understand. Music, if you can find it.”
Dutifully Jenny tuned to Radio Three and adjusted the volume to give them the privacy of the confessional.
“Can’t have that,” said Uncle Albert. “Let me hear myself think, will you, miss.”
“You don’t mind them hearing too?” said Nell.
“What’s the odds any longer? They’re all dead and done with. Dead and done with. That’s how it goes.”
He fell silent again and settled back into the corner. His eyes closed but his lips moved from time to time, and when he spoke
it was in a matter-of-fact tone, quiet but confident, suggesting that he had now ordered his thoughts. Jenny strained to hear,
but could catch only snatches through the noises from the motorway.
“…didn’t like I was saying. ‘Suppose the bugger gets you, stead of you getting him.’…got it all worked out…boat business at
Brightlingsea, and Ben kept a couple of yachts…lost overboard…note to give to Mrs. Matson…not like it was with crooks. Crooks
don’t go running to the police soon as someone goes missing…got an answer for everything, so we talked Terry round in the
end. It wasn’t only that, of course, it was knowing we couldn’t’ve done it without him. He’s got the contacts. There was this
big fellow—forgotten his name—began with a B, didn’t it?…he’d pay whatever it took, but the B fellow…take the rap for the
fellow’s brother as long as he could hang on to the money…”
The road surface changed to corrugated concrete, setting up a resonant drumming that vibrated through the bodywork of the
car, drowning speech. In the mirror Jenny could see Nell leaning right across to catch Uncle Albert’s words. There was a brief
switch to tarmac as they crossed an interchange, and a few more words came through.
“…drove his own cab—he’d been on the Road too, of course— so I told him time and place he was wanted…”
Then they were on the concrete again. Jenny saw Nell put her mouth to Uncle Albert’s ear. He nodded understanding and stopped
speaking. Nell settled back in her place, out of Jenny’s line of sight. Uncle Albert closed his eyes and slept until they
stopped at a service station for Jenny to take over the wheel.
At first as they drove on he seemed to have forgotten what he’d been doing. Jenny could glimpse him now in the driving mirror,
and thought he’d fallen asleep again, but then he began to speak, picking up the story almost where he’d left off, but in
a very different voice, a kind of dreamy monotone, like that of a subject under hypnosis, not addressed to Nell or to anyone
in particular, but slow and clear enough for Jenny to catch almost every word at her quieter pace of driving.
“…Must’ve been about one in the morning before we got there. Sort of a farm place, by the smell of it, right out at the end
of nowhere. No one around, which there wasn’t supposed to be, of course. There was a big shed we could drive the car right
in, and we tied Stadding up and let him lay on a pile of straw and we each took a go of watching him while the other two kipped
in the car. He never said a word all night and slept better than any of us, far as I could make out. Then soon as it was getting
light I did a recce and found a place and we marched him out along the track. Like the end of the world, it was…”
He paused. Glancing in the mirror Jenny saw that he was leaning back into his corner with his eyes closed, a look of contentment,
like an old man basking in a deck chair. The story, Jenny was sure, was coming to no good end, but he seemed to have removed
himself from it completely. Nell didn’t prompt him, but after a while he did that himself.
“Yes, like the end of the world,” he said. “Dead flat, but for these dikes, and reeking of dried-out mud, and salt in the
wind, and gulls, though you couldn’t see the sea, but you could tell it was there all right. I’d picked a flat bit of field
in a corner between a couple of dikes so we were well down out of sight. We’d no reason to hang around, so I paced out the
distance and we stood Stadding at one end and untied him and gave him a couple of minutes to move around a bit and rub himself
where the cords had bit. I’d got the revolver on him, of course, in case he tried anything, but he didn’t act that interested,
more like we were setting up to play a game or something and he thought it was a waste of time but he was going along with
it to keep us happy.”
