Funeral Sites (Tamara Hoyland Book 1)

by Jessica Mann

  ‘Don’t mention it. Your rooms are always ready.’

  John Dawson’s voice, and, presumably, Aidan Britton’s, muffled by the draperies into something different from what Tamara had often heard broadcast.

  ‘What news of the PM?’

  ‘Holding his own, they say,’ Aidan Britton said. The two men came into the room. The half inch clearance of chintz above the carpet allowed Tamara to see no more than their feet.

  ‘I suppose you had to run the gauntlet.’

  ‘Oh, my boys deal with that kind of thing for me.’

  ‘We could do with them here then.’

  ‘Damn. Rosamund. At this of all times …’

  ‘Indeed, indeed.’ Tamara wondered whether Dawson could be a parson, and was gratified to hear him say, ‘No rest for the cloth tomorrow. You can manage?’

  ‘Yes, you leave me to it. I expect I’ll be gone before anyone is around in the morning. There isn’t anyone here?’

  ‘Just the au pair and a research student. One of Harriet’s protégés.’

  ‘A student?’

  ‘Another one doing the architecture. You would think there was nothing left to say, wouldn’t you?’ Chuckling, the clergyman left the room. The black shoes did not move. Side by side, facing the door. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, and its springs sagged downwards. Is he going to bed in here for God’s sake? Tamara edged her way further towards the middle.

  He was taking his shoes off. But then he got up and began padding around the room in his silk socks. Tamara heard the wardrobe door spring open, the drawers of the burr walnut tallboy, the lid of the window seat. Back to the wardrobe. He found the key to the desk. Then he went softly through to the sitting room. With her face far enough exposed to see his image in the glass, Tamara watched him search all the little drawers and compartments. He knew the combination of the safe, and pulled out the thin sheaf of bank notes. He muttered something under his breath before pushing them into his pocket. He stood with his hands dangling at his sides, looking around. Then he smoothed his hair back with both hands, and turned to come back into the bedroom. Tamara pulled herself into complete concealment again. He sat down on the bed, and reached out for the telephone. 01. He was ringing a London number.

  ‘Hullo, that you? Has she been in touch yet? Stick near the phone, won’t you. I’m here at Middlewood. There isn’t anything … yes of course I have. Everywhere. It’s certainly not here … no, the family have cleared it all out. That old woman Dawson probably … yes, I know you wanted me to come sooner but I do have other commitments you know … after all these years. Yes, I heard this evening that he’s sinking. Shouldn’t last out another week. Then it’s in the bag. Nobody’s putting up against me.’

  He listened in silence for a while. Tamara could not hear a sound. Then he spoke again, almost humbly.

  ‘Yes, I’m perfectly aware. I’m sorry. It was out of my control. After all, you should know … Wootton, Hardman? But my man assured me … no, nothing at the penthouse. Nor the bank … yes, I agree with you, it does leave no other alternative … I think time fuse is putting it a little high. Let’s not over react … of course I’ll let you know. Much more to the point, you keep me informed … the usual channels … in the same boat? Do you think I don’t realise that? After a twenty year race with the last fence ahead? … Yes. No. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.’

  He put down the receiver and lit a cigar. Tamara felt the fumes stealing towards her, but the bed springs were absolutely still and she tried to remain so herself. After a time, probably short, but subjectively endless, Aidan Britton bent to put his shoes on, making wincing sounds as he slipped his feet into the unyielding leather. He went into the bathroom, noisily urinated and farted, flushed the chain and came back through the bedroom to the door. He waited for a moment, his hand on the light switch, looking around the room as though wondering what he could have missed. Then he turned off the light and went out.

  Tamara lay still, to see whether he would bob back. After a while, she too left the room. The corridor was empty and she returned to her own bedroom apparently unobserved.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Memorandum to the Minister from Duty Officer. From 15.44 until 16.13 hrs. I interviewed a Bruce George Pilger; 35, naturalised British, born Darwin Australia, unmarried, salesman of rubber goods, assigned to East Anglia and the Midlands.

  The Doormen report that subject was aggressive and almost violent until I agreed to interview him.

  Subject claimed to have been in contact with Miss Rosamund Sholto yesterday. Stated that he had first met her on arrival, previous day, from Gatwick Airport; he drove her into Central London.

  Subject claimed that on the next day he recognised her in Cromer, Norfolk. She was in a stationer’s shop, in the company of an unidentified white female, about 25, fair hair, blue eyes, five foot six inches, slight build.

  Subject claims that he followed the two women, in a yellow Fiat 127, reg. no. appended, back to the Sunny Skies Holiday Camp. Computer states owner of yellow Fiat is Miss Tamara Hoyland, Saltmarsh House, Plymouth Devon. The two women entered a hired caravan; blonde woman left in Fiat not long afterwards.

  Subject claims he was uncertain as to his duty, knowing that Miss Sholto’s whereabouts has been a matter for speculation. Subject finished his day’s work, had dinner and returned to the caravan approximately 21.45 hrs.

  Subject claims to have been admitted by Miss Sholto, who recognised and welcomed him. He gave her a bottle of whisky, and they spent the evening together. He stayed the night.

  (Sir, my impression was that he forced his attentions upon Miss Sholto, possibly violently.)

  Subject’s account of the morning is unclear. He says that he either hit his head (drunk?) or was hit on the head. He claims to have been rendered unconscious until he regained consciousness at approx. 11.00 hrs, when he found himself alone in the caravan.

  Subject said: ‘She was a good screw but no bint makes a fool of me. Britton had better find the bitch before the press do. She won’t help his reputation any.’

  Since Pilger made it plain that his story would be sold to the highest bidder, I took it upon myself to advance £25 from petty cash. This was later retrieved and returned to petty cash. I arranged that subject should be followed out of the building by operatives 3 and 4, whom I briefed.

  Addendum attached.

  *

  From The New Standard:

  Victim of a hit and run driver: Australian born rubber goods representative, George Pilger, knocked down and killed in High Holborn by van which did not stop.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘What my father would have said!’

  ‘Wouldn’t he have thought all this your bounden duty?’ Tamara asked.

  ‘I meant all this hiding and running away. In the twentieth century, in England! And that man, Pilger. You don’t think you really hurt him?’

  ‘He will have come round long ago, I told you, and been on his way none the worse. Anyway, it served him right.’

  ‘He didn’t rape me, though,’ Rosamund said.

  ‘Not by physical force. But it was rape; after all, you didn’t want him.’

  ‘I couldn’t have done what you did, Tamara. Hit him, I mean.’

  ‘I couldn’t have done what you did, Rosamund. Sleep with him, I mean.’

  Mist wisped round the windows of Tamara’s little car, and through the smudged darkness they heard the drone of fog horns and the squeak of cranes. The queue to drive onto the ferry had been stationary for nearly an hour.

  Tamara had driven that day from Middlewood to London, where she had picked up tickets for the ferry crossing, and taken passports from her office. The stack of those belonging to her fellow excavators was in her desk, for she had arranged the visas for the whole party. She decided that it would be more convincing, if their loss was noticed, for the whole lot to have gone, so she took the envelope full of blue and gold booklets and was careful to leave the drawer unlocked,
in the hope that some other thief would be suspected. She had read somewhere that British passports had a high resale value.

  Then she went to the flat, where she half hoped to see Ian, and half dreaded it. He was not there, and a note on the bed said, Wish I hadn’t missed you, I didn’t know you were going away. They said you had been called away to a threatened site. The note was signed with many endearments, but Tamara left it where it was; she would have liked to believe that Ian did not know what he had got himself into, but could not help thinking that his reticence implied the opposite.

  Tamara loaded some clothes, and some excavation equipment for verisimilitude, into the double-parked car, had a quick flirt with the policeman who had deterred the traffic warden for her, and drove back to Norfolk. She had found Rosamund embroiled with an aggressive man; the caravan reeked of whisky, he reeked of sweat. He said he’d either go with them or go to Britton, the police and the press. Tamara had no hesitation, and actually enjoyed the first use she had ever had occasion to make of the skills she had learnt in evening judo classes.

  An afternoon buying Rosamund a different style of clothes in Marks and Spencer; a moment of despair at the headline that the Prime Minister was sinking, and a photograph, seen through the window of a television hire shop, of a rally of Britton supporters; and on to Harwich. It had been a long day. Tamara slid backwards to rest her head on the seat, and closed her eyes.

  Rosamund pulled down the sun visor to look at herself again in the mirror. The passport showed a young woman with very short hair, glasses and a mutinous expression, whose image, Tamara said, had changed remarkably in the years since the photograph was taken. Rosamund had plastered on the unguents and outlined her mouth in scarlet. She wore the sunglasses she had used earlier, and had a scarf wound, turban-like, around her head. ‘Gilliam Adams, born in Bristol, aged twenty-eight,’ she reminded herself. ‘Mark Two.’

  Tamara’s mouth had fallen open and her breathing slowed. The sodium lights on Parkstone Quay gave just enough light to read by and Rosamund took Phoebe’s scribbled notebook from her bag. It contained the sad account of the last months of a sad life, for Phoebe had only started to write, in this book at any rate, after Marco’s death, and her tiny, uncontrolled, messy words straggled all over the pages.

  I rang Roz in NY to tell her that it’s all over. I had to speak to her answering machine. Blankness in my life. Blank future. How shall I ever forgive myself for letting Marco get involved in my affairs and meet his death? No doubt that Aidan arranged it. He has no scruples, none. He would not hesitate to have his staff do worse for him than murder. Not that there could be worse.

  Has Aidan changed? I think he was always like this, but his success has made him less careful. He knows he’ll win. He has never mentioned Marco. Never shown that he knew anything about him. Never mentioned his existence.

  His boys are all over the place, even more than ever. They are respectful on the surface, yes madam, no madam, they open doors for me and drive where I tell them. They are like zombies or automatons. I believe they spy on me. I believe they bug my rooms. Could I leave him? How far would they let me get?

  But only Rosamund would believe me about him. Everyone else is hypnotised. They think the sun shines out of his eyes.

  A different coloured ink, a more controlled script:

  The certainty of doom overhangs me, as though I’d been told I have a fatal illness. Or as though there had been a death in the family. There has been a death.

  Is it doom already experienced, or doom impending? Perhaps both. My life is ordained. I don’t choose it. Today I had to open the constituency summer fete. The Ladies’ Guild had made embroidered photograph frames, blue and red, with Aidan’s picture in the middle. They sold out. Crowds of people reached out to touch him as he went by. Tomorrow is a State Occasion that Aidan says I must attend with him. He says I must collect the tiara from Carrington’s with two of his boys to protect me. What would happen if I ran away then, or had hysterics, in public, in the middle of Regent Street? Straight back here, probably, to compulsory tranquillisers. Aidan has already threatened me with psychiatrists. He says it is ‘my time of life’.

  I hate this penthouse. There is nothing in it that feels like mine. When I come in at the bottom door and the men salute, I feel I’m returning to gaol. The lift is my Black Maria.

  And another entry:

  Middlewood is tainted too. We are here for the weekend. The house and garden are open in aid of party funds. Aidan gives me orders about my clothes and how often I’m to smile. The eyes of the world are upon me, he says. Aunt Anne agrees with him. She says she brought Sholto’s daughters up to wear public faces.

  I have turned out my desk, and have burnt letters etc. in the fireplace, and then powdered the ash, and put shovelfuls of it down the loo. I am sure the boys go through my waste paper baskets, and my letters, and probably through my desk too. But I never showed Aidan the secret compartment. It always seemed disloyal to Rosamund, even in the days when I wanted to be loyal to Aidan.

  The air still doom-laden. But I’m only too fit, physically, and broken hearts don’t seem to be fatal any more.

  I must have married Aidan in a stupor. He told me that I loved him and I believed it. He carried authority, standing in Sholto’s place. But he has substituted charisma for integrity.

  Nobody else can see through him. Kenneth Hardman was appalled at my new will.

  Under this entry, Phoebe had sketched her late father’s profile; it could have been Rosamund’s.

  Hamish telephoned to suggest that I should publish some drawings. He suggested a calendar, or a rural yearbook. Flowers, trees etc. Aidan is very enthusiastic. He says I should do it and give the proceeds to charity, like Queen Victoria with the Journal of her life in the Highlands. I suppose it was all A’s idea in the first place, another popularity gimmick. I’m sad to think how pleased I would have been once, at such an offer.

  Aunt Anne whispers and nods with Aidan when she thinks I’m not looking. She tells me that I’m at a difficult time of life and should rise above my moods.

  Can she and Aidan discuss me gynaecologically? Marco and I planned to have children.

  There is a postcard from Rosamund. She is working in Mexico before going straight on to a holiday in South America. To think I once resented her attitude to Aidan, and regretted that she had never married.

  Aidan insists that I join him on the Demetrios yacht. A whole month. A team of colour supplement people want to do a ‘verité’ article on him. He says that seasickness is quite unnecessary these days. He says I should keep myself covered up, let the young girls show their figures. He says his image requires my presence. Then he wants to go straight to the chalet.

  And the last page which had been filled in:

  I shall use the cruise to make up my mind. The papers are in the bank in Sierre. He couldn’t get at them there, though I’m sure there is no British bank he couldn’t suborn. But I don’t think he knows that Stefan Czernin’s papers exist, if neither R nor I has yet mentioned them to him.

  It was a relief to know that the Swiss bank had received them. I was so afraid that the package had been lost in the post, and then so afraid that he’d discover about them. So many days enquiring at the poste restante for the letter. I met Marco there. I thought that if the boys knew I went there for that purpose they wouldn’t suspect another, and they knew all about Marco in any case. So many days. Nothing for you today Mrs Umberto, nothing for you today. And then I was afraid that the letter would come addressed to Mrs Britton. But perhaps banks are used to depositors who want their identities secret.

  What shall I do? He isn’t fit to hold office. He’s a danger to more than just me.

  I believe he has gone over the top. He has no scruples any more. All I want is that he should agree to retire. I don’t want public shame for my husband, or for the man people call Sholto’s heir. All I want is for him to go back to big business, and let me leave him. No more. What am I to do if
he won’t agree? What if he gets the papers from me? What if he manages to shut me up? I mustn’t let him know where they are. Not a hint, not a murmur.

  Rosamund will cope if I can’t. She always knew better than I did, what to do.

  Clipped into the back cover of the notebook was a letter from a bank in Sierre. It acknowledged receipt, and promised safe-keeping, of a sealed package entrusted to it by the honoured customer Mrs Phoebe Sholto Britton, and it told her the code number assigned to her account. It listed the documents necessary to prove her identity, or that of her heir, when the package was to be withdrawn, and it accepted that the only person other than herself who was entitled to possession of the package was her sister, Miss Rosamund Sholto.

  Very slowly the tail of cars was beginning to move, its occupants scrutinised with surely unusual care by the customs officials. Rosamund nudged Tamara awake, and she started the engine.

  Uniformed men shone torches into luggage, and peered down to count passengers. Sleepy children wailed when the light woke them.

  ‘The purpose of your journey?’

  ‘We are going to an excavation in Yugoslavia,’ Tamara said. The men glanced at her passport, on which her profession was stated as ‘civil servant’. He said, ‘A kind of holiday?’

  ‘No, I’m an archaeologist.’

  He turned his attention to Miss Gillian Adams’ passport, and then to Rosamund. ‘You an archaeologist too, miss?’

  Rosamund could not remember what it said in the passport. She said, ‘Of a sort.’ He handed it back, and when he had gone, she looked and saw that she was supposed to be a student.

  They drove into the cavernous car deck of the ferry. ‘All according to plan,’ Tamara said thankfully. She had booked a cabin, and Rosamund went to it while Tamara fetched them drinks.

  The sea was very calm, and Rosamund, who was as bad a sailor as Phoebe had been, felt perfectly well, but both women slept uneasily, and in the small hours, when Rosamund flicked the light to see the time, Tamara spoke equally wakefully from the top bunk.