by Rebecca Tope
‘Aren’t you meant to apply in triplicate, ten months ahead?’
‘Theoretically. But nobody really does.’
‘Where will you start, Mr Detective?’
‘Maybe we could have a go at the computer?’
‘What computer? We haven’t got a computer.’
‘No, but when I cut Mrs Graham’s hedge last year, she said I could use hers any time, in return. And seeing as how she’s only next door, that should be quite easy and convenient.’
‘Surfing the Net?’ She grinned at him.
‘Something like that. I’m not sure they call it that any more. It’s time I got a bit more up to date on the subject, anyway. I feel as if I’m being left behind.’
‘OK, give it a go. But no chat rooms, right? I know what that can lead to. My mum’s been having some bother in that department, ever since my dad got himself online. It’s terrible, you know.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ he groaned. ‘What your dad gets up to is none of my business. Or yours, come to that.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ll find anything, anyway,’ she said. ‘You’d be better off walking round the countryside using your own eyes and ears. Talk to people, have a look at what’s growing in the fields.’
‘You might be right,’ he said.
‘It’s beginning to look like a team exercise,’ she went on. ‘All four of us trying to solve the mystery. We can’t fail, really.’ She paused. ‘Are you going to tell your friend Danny everything we come up with?’
He gave that some thought. ‘Why? Do you think I shouldn’t? Are we in competition with the police?’
She dimpled. ‘It’s more fun that way.’
‘Maggs, my angel, that’s not a good attitude, as you very well know. You worked with the police when that little girl went missing, last year. I remember it well.’ He gave her one of his soft looks, that she always thought of as leans, because he leant over her when he did it.
‘Don’t call me your angel,’ she said. ‘It sounds idiotic. And patronising.’
‘It’s meant sincerely,’ he persisted. ‘And you have been my angel. You rescued me from a lonely miserable existence.’
‘I know I did. They say it’s a mistake to take up with a man that nobody else wants. There has to be something wrong with him.’
Den sighed. ‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘I’ve got all the character defects you could wish for.’
‘Nothing that can’t be changed,’ she said briskly.
Drew took a phone call at eleven that evening, notifying him of another death. ‘You’re happy to keep him with you overnight, are you?’ he asked the new widow. She and her husband had been in to pre-arrange the burial, five months previously. It would be an easy funeral to conduct. She agreed that was not a problem, and he promised to collect the body next morning.
‘Sad,’ remarked Karen, half asleep beside him. ‘Dying in May when the weather’s so lovely and summer getting going.’
‘May’s often quite busy,’ he told her. ‘It’s August when it goes quiet. Though you can never really predict.’
‘Funeral on Friday? Or Thursday?’
‘I’ll have to try and keep him until Friday. We can’t leave Grafton longer than Thursday.’ He smacked himself on the forehead. ‘I must be half asleep. We’re collecting him tomorrow morning, first thing.’
‘Can’t you do them both in one journey?’
‘I suppose we can. I’ll have to put the shelf back in the van. Haven’t used it for ages. I can’t even remember where it is. We ought to have a shed for things like that.’
‘There’s nowhere to put a shed. We need all the space for garden and graves.’
‘Maggs’ll probably know where to find it. She probably knows how to fix it in the vehicle, too.’
‘Early start then,’ Karen said. ‘Better get some sleep.’
Tuesday morning was a whirlwind of activity, compared to the usual pattern for Peaceful Repose. Some of the urgency was generated by Maggs arriving late – another breach of the usual scenario. Den had dropped her outside the gate and turned the car around with undisguised haste. He was just as obviously late for work.
‘Come on,’ Drew urged her from the office doorway. ‘There’s loads to do today.’
She moved heavily up the path, eyes unfocused, hair in a tangle. Drew knew without even thinking about it that she’d only recently climbed out of a warm connubial bed. And good luck to them, he told himself conscientiously. And it wasn’t strictly connubial, either, he supposed, since they weren’t actually married.
‘Three bodies in the cool room at once!’ She woke up slightly at this prospect. ‘That’s serious overcrowding.’
‘Three graves to dig. Three families to keep happy. Three lots of paperwork. And we still don’t know what two of them want, in any detail. Grafton’s going to be church first, I should think.’
‘Surely you asked the wife when she came to see you?’
He sucked his teeth for a moment. ‘No, she didn’t seem to want to talk about that.’
‘Well, the vicar’s not going to be too pleased if you don’t fix it with him right away. He likes a bit more notice than that.’
‘And he knows he won’t get it with us. Damn it, this country’s gone so sloppy over the timing of funerals …’
‘Don’t start that again,’ she interrupted. ‘Save your breath for these phone calls you’re going to have to make.’
He looked at his watch. ‘We should be at the Royal Vic by now. Gary’s going to be fractious with us.’
‘Calm down, Drew,’ she ordered. ‘This is not helping. You go and phone the vicar. I’ll get the shelf thingy for the van. I know exactly where it is.’
‘Where? Just for future reference.’
‘Behind the cardboard coffins. I’d have thought that was obvious.’
‘Right. Well, go on then.’
Suddenly everything fell into place, and by lunchtime all three funerals were arranged, with times, details of the ceremonies themselves, paperwork filled in and bodies safely stored in the cool room next to the office. There were several more tasks to be performed during the afternoon, such as ordering a special woven basket for Mr Lancaster, the most recent customer, but Drew felt he was in control again.
The willow baskets were an odd development, Drew sometimes thought. They were quite difficult to handle, and resembled nothing he’d ever come across in his browsing through the funeral customs of other societies. The only advantage he could see was that the body would quickly decompose, as air and water and underground organisms passed freely through the spaces in the weaving. The basket itself would not degrade very rapidly. But they looked quite nice, and a number of his clients requested them.
Peter Grafton’s body was, as anticipated, not particularly pretty. Although it was near-miraculous the way a face and head could be restored after a post-mortem that involved removing the top of the skull and taking out the brain to be weighed and analysed, the throat and mouth closely inspected, there were additional problems in this case. The injury from the crossbow bolt was not the neat hole Drew had hoped for. The pathologist had cut it free, widening the wound considerably. Lower down, he was a mass of crude repair suturing, the assumption being that nobody was going to look beyond the head and face. As his temperature rose in the not-very-cool room, he became unavoidably malodorous.
‘This isn’t very good,’ Drew worried to Maggs. ‘What if Mrs Lancaster wants to come and see Mr?’
‘Make her wait until Thursday afternoon. She had him with her all last night. I’d think she’d leave him be for a couple of days.’
‘Thank goodness Elsie Watkins hasn’t got any family. We can park her in the corner. This room isn’t really big enough for three, is it?’
‘It’s OK. Nobody expects us to have four star facilities. That’s the whole point, Drew. Sometimes I think you forget that.’
‘You’re right,’ he laughed. ‘As usual.’
Karen was having a bu
sy day herself. Without the children she felt obliged to pack as much constructive activity into the day as she could. There was another farmers’ market due on Friday, and she was worried there’d be a shortage of produce to sell. Vigorous watering and weeding might just bring a few extra lettuces on by last thing Thursday, when she would pick them and pack them up ready for the early start the next day. Except, she suddenly realised, there was no certainty that the market would actually happen this week, thanks to Peter Grafton’s funeral.
There were also other urgent matters on her mind, primary of which was Mary Thomas and her behaviour on Sunday. It infuriated Karen that her testimony should be so flatly contradicted, and despite Drew’s interpretation, that there could be a good and important reason for it, she couldn’t shake off her anger. Threading itself amongst the fury was a worry that she might have unwittingly got Mary into trouble by revealing her presence at the supermarket when the bomb went off.
She’d got through Monday, busy in the afternoon with four small children, without giving the matter much sustained thought, which only meant that now it came back in full force. She had to find out whether Mary was still being kept by the police. Surely that couldn’t possibly be the case? They’d have had to have charged her by now, and the news of that would have got round by this time. She gave herself a rest from tending the vegetables and rang Geraldine Beech’s number.
There was no reply on the home line, so Karen rummaged for the mobile number. Why are they always so difficult to remember, she asked herself irritably. Normally she had people’s phone numbers firmly in her head.
Eventually, Geraldine answered. There was traffic noise in the background. ‘Where are you?’ Karen asked, before introducing herself.
‘Who’s that? Della? Is that you?’
‘No, it’s Karen. Can you hear me?’
‘Perfectly. What do you want?’
‘I wondered whether you’d heard what’s happened to Mary. I was there on Sunday when the police came for her. It was all rather shocking in a way. I wondered.’
‘There’s nothing to worry about. She was only there an hour or two. They had no right to take her in like that. She’ll probably sue them.’
‘So she’s all right, is she? I’ve been wanting to have a talk with her for ages now. Somehow I never seem to get the chance.’
‘Leave it, Karen.’ The voice was hard and cold. ‘Why are you so intent on interfering?’
‘I’m not!’ Karen’s heart was thundering. This wasn’t at all like the Geraldine she thought she knew. ‘I just—’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure your motives are pure. But you’ve done enough damage already, blundering about. If we need you, we’ll contact you, all right? I thought we had made that clear already.’
Karen felt ridiculously upset. She could feel tears gathering behind her nose. She swallowed. ‘What about Friday?’ she asked, trying to sound grown up and unscathed. ‘Is the market still on?’
‘Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?’ The organiser’s tone was less abrasive now, despite the abrupt words.
‘Because …’ Karen’s voice rose uncontrollably, ‘because, you stupid woman, that’s the day after Peter Grafton’s funeral.’
‘Calm down, for God’s sake. Life has to go on. Nobody would expect us to abandon the routine like that. We can’t just cancel the market. We’d lose credibility – and customers. Garnstone’s tricky enough without any interruptions like that. I’ll expect you to be there.’
‘And Sally? Is she coming, too?’
‘As far as I know, yes. She seems to be functioning fairly well. After all, she’s not really in a position to display too much naked grief, is she?’
‘Poor Sally,’ said Karen softly.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I’ll see you on Friday then.’ And she slammed down the receiver, her hands shaking.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Den was another person with plenty to think about on the drive from North Staverton to Bradbourne. He and Maggs had scrambled out of bed, both knowing they’d be late for work, but neither much caring. The weekend away had taken their relationship a giant stride forward, and both were still glowing. They had even, in a very oblique and jokey fashion, mentioned marriage as something that could conceivably happen one day.
The idea of acquiring a farm had come out of nowhere, as far as Den could see. And it was completely crazy. Farms cost vastly more money than he and Maggs had earned in their combined lives so far. Unless they both found well paid professions instantly, he didn’t see that there was the slightest chance of putting the idea into practice. And if they were both working fulltime, what would be the sense in having a farm anyway?
At least that had been his initial position. Maggs had clearly done some homework, and bombarded him with facts and figures about special loans, subsidies, grants, discounts all available to people wanting to act as ‘stewards’ of the land.
‘They won’t be called farmers for much longer,’ she asserted. ‘The whole thing’s in a state of flux. It’s all going to be very exciting.’
‘But what about Drew?’ he had asked, several times. ‘It sounds as if you want to abandon Peaceful Repose.’
And she hadn’t satisfactorily answered that. She’d frowned and changed the subject, scuffling a toe in the dry mud of the yard they were walking round at the time. All she would say was, ‘I’m happy enough working with Drew, but there isn’t enough for both of us to do. The quiet times drive me mad.’
He wasn’t sure he believed in all these grants and subsidies that Maggs thought could make her dream feasible. Land was expensive, everyone knew that. When he was growing up, farmers had been the élite. Their children had all gone to private schools and they drove large ostentatious Discoveries and the like. Despite the past six or seven years when things had deteriorated so catastrophically for agriculture, he couldn’t even begin to think of himself as belonging to that class of person. The idea was so new and strange, it made his mind go numb.
And yet, it wasn’t as if he’d never known farm life. His first serious girlfriend had been a farmer’s daughter, and he had spent time helping her with the animals. He had investigated two farm-based murders, which involved, among other things, some close experience of dairy cows. He was a country boy – so why the bewildered reaction?
Because, he concluded, there was a world of difference between living in a rural area, eating locally grown produce and listening to conversations about the weather, compared to getting onto a tractor and trying to plough a straight furrow. If Maggs had her way, Den would spend his weekends ditching, hedging, weeding, cutting grass for hay, applying for government subsidies, filling in a million forms and trying to justify the drastic change of lifestyle. No, no, he mentally shook his head. It just wasn’t him. No way.
It was, though, undeniable that he was in a very unsatisfactory phase of his life, and something would have to change. He couldn’t piddle about as a dogsbody for Social Services indefinitely. It was mildly interesting, but there was no sense of progress or even any feeling that he was significantly helping anybody. Better to apply for jobs with big charities, or get a more focused position as a probation officer or team leader, than what he was currently doing.
He’d known this point would come, but had tried to ignore it. He knew, too, what had precipitated it: the murder of Peter Grafton. Until then, he had managed to quell any stirrings of dissatisfaction. But he still couldn’t work out whether the murder was in any way connected with Maggs’s farm idea. The processes behind Maggs’s thinking were almost always obscure to him – and he often thought they were to her, as well.
She phoned him during the morning, breathlessly, telling him how busy she and Drew were, all of a sudden. She sounded happy. ‘Don’t come for me at the usual time this evening,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to stay a bit late. I’ll call you when I’m ready to leave, OK?’
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll pop in and see if Danny’s still a
round, when I finish here.’
‘I hope he’ll be pleased to see you,’ she said cheerily.
Den hoped so too. He’d be a lot more welcome if he could provide some new information about the murder. It was unrealistic to assume that the police had missed the connection with genetic modification of plants, but maybe the snippet about the ‘three witches’ he’d gleaned from Karen’s friend Della would count for something.
‘Den? Are you with us?’ He looked up, startled. Tony Gibson, the Chief, was frowning down at him, and had evidently been there for some time.
‘Oh, sorry. I was thinking.’
‘I won’t ask you what about. I gather you were late this morning. And I can’t help noticing your socks.’
Den’s long legs, as always, stretched under the desk and protruded on the other side. People had routinely tripped over his feet until a new arrangement of the office furniture had been organised. He couldn’t see his own socks without considerable effort. ‘Are they odd?’ he asked miserably.
‘One blue, one brown,’ Gibson confirmed.
‘Maybe nobody will look,’ Den said feebly.
‘It isn’t professional, is it? What would your Chief Superintendent have said?’ Gibson harboured an undisguised resentment at Den’s change of career, for reasons that were not too hard to ascertain. To an ambitious career man like himself, aiming for no less a post than the Head of Social Services, anybody casting doubt on the desirability of enterprise and ladder-climbing was understandably unsettling. Jibes such as this were commonplace, and Den was mostly successful in letting them fall harmlessly to the floor without retort.
‘It’s sloppy,’ he agreed, swallowing the semiautomatic sir. People in this office never said sir.
‘Well, don’t let it happen again. Now, here’s a job for you. Sounds quite interesting for once. More than you deserve, really.’
Den started to get up, genuinely keen to get out into the sunny streets of Bradbourne.
‘Wait for it. Jenny’ll come for you when she’s ready. It’s a family thing, by the sound of it. Kids of all ages. One of them hasn’t been seen for weeks – and when it was last seen, it had bruises of a suspicious nature. The school called us yesterday, saying he’s absent without any explanation.’