Viridian Tears

by Rachel Green

  “That was before he had a go at you over it. I can say it because I care about you, but someone else? They can get stuffed.”

  “You’re ever so sweet when you get protective.” She deliberately linked her arm in his, knowing exactly how good it would make him feel. She might even get another meal out from him tomorrow if she played it right. Talking of which, she needed to check if Federico had accepted her friend request yet.

  They walked along the street in companionable silence. The air had dropped below freezing and the pavement sparkled with frost. It was dustbin collection day tomorrow and people had already put their bins of the street, forcing them to dodge past the squat sentinels that took up half the width. She trailed the fingers of her free hand over the lids, making wavy lines in the frost.

  Graham cleared his throat as they approached their house. “I meant what I said. I do care about you.”

  “I know you do.” Michelle gave his arm a squeeze and skipped ahead to open the front door. “Would you put the bin out? You know what the council is like. If the bin’s out they won’t come until mid-afternoon but if you don’t put it out it’s a guarantee they’ll come at seven in the morning. Make me a cocoa, while I look on my Facespace page, would you?”

  “It’s after midnight.” Graham shook his head and went into the kitchen.

  Michelle pulled up her page. Seven friend requests since she’d gone out this evening. That was a personal record. She clicked on the friends tab and began confirming them. Nobody she knew personally, and certainly no Federico, but then he was probably still at work. There were seventy comments on the post she’d texted from the car. Seventy! In twenty minutes!

  She began to scroll through them, friending any people who weren’t already on her contact list and labeling them according to whether they were skeptics, believers or just interested parties. One from Shirley gave her pause. It was timed at eleven-fifty and sent from Shirley’s phone. Take this status down. It’s a complete lie. She read it three times until she realized Shirley’s phone would have been going non-stop and one of the family must have used it to reply. That would explain the message from George.

  Graham put a mug of cocoa on the tablemat. “I’m away to bed then.”

  “Mmm. ‘Night, Graham.”

  “You’re not going to stay up all night, are you?”

  She tore her gaze from the screen and looked up at him. From this angle she could see his nostril hair. “No. I’ll just run through these and I’ll be up.” She picked up her phone and waved it at him. “This is the start of something big. Just you wait and see.”

  “Let’s hope so. It’d be lovely to see you making a go of your business.”

  “I will.” She grinned and tapped the phone. “Wait until I upload the photos.”

  “What photos?” His face paled. “You didn’t?”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Didn’t take a photograph of that poor woman.”

  “All right. I didn’t.” Michelle pursed her lips, holding back a smile. “I took two.”

  “How? When?” He put a hand up. “Actually, don’t tell me. I really don’t want to know. What I don’t know can’t hurt me, eh?”

  “Unless it’s a jumbo jet coming through the roof.” Michelle connected the phone to the laptop and waited while it installed the driver software. It did that every time. You’d think it would hang on to it by now.

  She navigated to the camera folder and clicked on the pictures she wanted to copy. She’d taken them while everyone else had been running about like headless hamsters phoning the police and panicking. No one had noticed her snapping off a couple of Shirley’s dead body.

  The first was a general view from the perspective of where Michelle had been sitting. The second was a more artful shot taken by holding her phone just past Shirley’s bent head. There was a line of blood running down the inside of her left arm.

  She copied both pictures to her Facespace account and made them private to ensure that only people she gave the URL to could access them. She clicked on the first. She should have resized them before uploading. They were huge. She used the browser sliders to track across the picture but her attention was arrested by a glint of light from the top left of the photograph.

  She closed in on the area. She hadn’t used her flash so it was something reflecting the overhead light. A glass, perhaps, or a piece of silverware. She tried to remember if there was a candlestick there.

  The image cleared. Not a candlestick.

  The knife.

  Chapter 19

  Eden was up so early she made a full breakfast for David before he went to work. Bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, toast and jam, tea for him, coffee for her.

  “If I didn’t know better I’d suspect you of trying to feed me into a heart attack.” He grinned as he added a generous dollop of tomato sauce to his bacon and salted his eggs and mushrooms. I still haven’t thanked you properly for last night.”

  “There’s honestly no need.” She poured his tea before she sat to a plate half the size of the one she’d made him. “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t enjoy it myself.”

  “I’ll have to make it up to you.”

  “That would be nice but don’t put yourself out.” She buttered a piece of toast. “Your pleasure is my reward.

  He looked at his watch. “I wish I could say that to my clients but sadly I need their money.” He rose, cramming another piece of bacon in his mouth and picking up another piece of toast along with his briefcase. “Toodles.”

  Eden waved him off and cleared up before she went down to the cryotorium. Slipping on her overall she greeted the chamber as if Edward Burbridge was an old friend who’d been sleeping on the couch.

  She checked the inspection chamber to make sure he was as close to dust as was going to get and switched the machine off. She opened the side panel and rattled the base tray to sift through all the ashes and dust into the collection chamber, then slid out the tray with the rest of the body. She picked out the bones and teeth that hadn’t been reduced and dropped them in the grinder. This just left the parts of the body that Eddie hadn’t been born with, which she tipped into another box then washed, sterilized and replaced the tray.

  She pulled on a fresh pair of disposable gloves and tipped the contents of the box onto a clean, sterile sheet. All she had left were the parts of a body that would not degrade by freezing, vibrating and drying off. Mercury amalgam from old fillings, screws and nails from the coffin, rings and piercings. It made the process more ecological than standard cremation which would have sent potentially poisonous compounds into the atmosphere and allowed her to return items of sentimental value, such as the plain gold wedding ring on the tray, to the client.

  This was odd, though. One of Eddie Burbridge’s tooth crowns flashed and sparkled under the fluorescent light. She picked it up with forceps and held it closer to her eye. Prisms danced from a dozens facets on the surface. She was no jeweler, but she was willing to bet that she held a small fortune in a single diamond right here.

  She checked the notes she’d taken when Shirley had arranged her husband’s cryomation. Wedding ring, check. Intimate piercing. Check. Surgical pins from a reconstructed kneecap. Check. No mention of a diamond tooth.

  Eden wrestled with her conscience. Chances were, Shirley had no idea about the diamond. Eden could keep it and no one would be any the wiser. Would any of the other family know about their father’s hidden fortune? No one had mentioned it, even when they mistakenly assumed he was going up in smoke. She was sure several of them still thought she performed standard cremations.

  Her hand hovered over the personal effects bag until she dropped it in. What was an undertaker without honesty? She followed it with the two rings, bagged up the pins to be returned to the hospital and the casket fixings to the cabinetmaker and turned to the remains.

  With the bones ground to powder, Edward’s final remains weighed seven pounds and occupied a space of a little under a cubic foot
. She set the compressor to the standard memorial box size of fifteen inches by twelve by ten and turned the powder into a solid, compressed lump which fit the boxes she bought from a craftsman perfectly. As long as they were kept dry they would store indefinitely. If wet, they would degrade to nothing in months.

  She checked the job sheet. Shirley had requested a plain beech box with a brass inscription plate. She’d ordered that from a local engraver at the time and with any luck it would arrive in today’s post, ready to be screwed to the front of the box. She poured the little bag of personal effects into a cardboard box the size of a business card and added a small condolences card, made by a local artist with real dried flowers attached.

  She took off the gloves, made a temporary tag and shelved the casket in the collections room. Shirley had said she wanted to take the remains home rather than have them buried here, which was a common choice. As soon as the nameplate arrived she’d phone to tell her Eddie was ready for collection.

  She was back in her office by half-past eight when Emily burst in. “Have you heard the news this morning?”

  “Actually, no.” Eden usually listened to the local news on the radio. She felt it gave her a perspective on the community and a good idea of who to expect through the doors. If nothing else it gave her a chance to send condolences to the newly bereaved in the hopes of drumming up extra business. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “It’s a real scandal. In the papers and everything.” Emily scurried forward and sat on the client’s chair. She pulled off her woolly gloves and laid them on the desk. “This is the closest I’ve ever been to someone in the papers.”

  “What?” Eden frowned, torn between waiting for Emily to spit out whatever it was and just clicking on BBC Salisbury herself to see what the local news was. “Do tell me Emily, before I become tempted to make you the next guest of the cryomation chamber.”

  “Sorry. It’s just so exciting. And of course there are ramifications for us, too.” She slipped off her coat. “Assuming they use us, of course, but why wouldn’t they seeing as we’ve just done her husband.”

  “For the love of Mary, Emily. What’s happened?”

  “It’s Shirley Burbridge. She’s been killed dead. Stabbed in her own home. It’s all over the news.”

  Chapter 20

  Meinwen was already working on the computer when she heard Winston’s tread on the stairs. “Morning, handsome.”

  “Is it still morning?” He yawned, stretching his arms above his head and knocking several horse brasses off the overhead beams in the process. “Sorry.” He gathered them and hung them higgledy-piggledy, the intricacies of hanging brasses having thankfully passed him by. “So…if it’s still morning do I get breakfast?”

  “You can have anything you care to prepare.” Meinwen picked up her mug from the right of her laptop and passed it him. “A nettle coffee would be very welcome, too.”

  “Sure. I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” His grin turned into another yawn, the dressing gown he was wearing riding up his arms as he stretched. Meinwen could see a myriad of cris-crossed lines over his skin as if he’d been drawn by a comic artist who’d crosshatched to illustrate shadow.

  “What are those?” She caught his wrist and pulled him closer to study the marks. They went all the way up his arm and onto his chest and back. “What on earth? They look like cuts or something. Were you abused as a child?”

  “Not exactly.” He pulled away and covered the scars. “They’re a tribal thing, so I’m told. A legacy of my real parents.”

  “I thought your mam was a Haitian Catholic?”

  “She was, but I was adopted. She and my dad took me from the agency. Lettie, too. We’re not actually blood relations, though we grew up together and she’ll always be my sister.”

  “So what are the marks from?”

  He scowled. “I don’t want to talk about them. Just give it a rest, will you?” His voice had become louder and harsher. He must have realized it because he placed both hands together, as if in prayer, and touched them to his lips. “Look. I’m sorry, right? It was a long time ago and I really don’t want to talk about it. You were right to mention them. Blimey, if I saw you were covered in scars I’d want to know what happened to you as well.” He put his hands on either side of her head and kissed the top of her fading red curls. “Honestly, I appreciate the concern. I will tell you about them but some other time, okay?”

  “Of course.” Meinwen took one of his hands and kissed the palm. “There’s no hurry.”

  “Fantastic.” Winston put down her mug to rub his eyes, then yawned again. He dropped his hand to scratch his scrotum, oblivious to Meinwen’s discomfort. He picked up her mug. “Coffee, yeah?”

  “Nettle coffee. It’s in the pot. It lighter than normal coffee. It looks a bit like…”

  “Piss, I know.” He wandered toward the kitchen, paused and turned back. “Incidentally, and I realize how embarrassing it must be I didn't ask this first, but where are my clothes?”

  Meinwen smiled, shook her head and returned to the computer. “They’re in the drier. I put them through a boil wash this morning to try to get them clean.”

  “Really? Thanks” He clattered about in the kitchen for a few minutes and Meinwen pottered on the internet. She could find nothing more about the key or the box it might open, nor the sigil of John Stearne. She eventually went to the website of the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle and emailed them about the symbol. She asked if there were any of his possessions still in existence and that she was interested in his history.

  “What are you doing?” Winston put her coffee on the drinks mat and leaned in, looking at the screen. He smelled of motor oil and sex and the cheesy scent of unwashed socks.

  “Trying to find out more about that key.” She returned to the image search but nothing stood out. “I’ve contacted the Witchcraft Museum so it’ll be a case of waiting for them to return my enquiry.”

  “What are your plans for today?”

  “I really have to go to the shop this afternoon but I might take a detour to the canal first.”

  “Where the old man found the key?”

  “Yes. There might be a clue to where the lock is. Maybe it’s actually in the canal.”

  “Then it will have been lost forever.”

  “You need a shower, love. I hate to be the one to say it but you whiff worse than a cat fart.”

  “Sorry.” Winston lifted his free arm and sniffed the pit. “I suppose I do. Breaking my routine, see? It’s not good for me. Mind if I use yours?”

  “Be my guest.” She watched his bum as he went to the stairs. “Literally.”

  Winston headed upstairs, shedding his robe when he reached the top. Meinwen was glad she’d caught the floor show rather than turn back to her monitor screen, but she took the opportunity to perform an internet search on ritual scarification and spent several minutes reading about tribes in Ethiopia and Papua new Guinea.

  When the shower stopped she printed out a picture of the key, folded it into her handbag and powered down her laptop. She had an email facility on her phone, so she’d be able to see when the museum replied. In the meantime she’d check in with the local place and see if there were any records of him there. Laverstone had only a tangential relationship with the witch trials of the seventeenth century and that was to accuse and board an old woman because James Aquinas, the local landowner at the time, had his eye on her house and expansive land. He accused her of being a witch and confiscated her property. The Watermans were all the same. They’d been selfish old coots for centuries, whatever they called themselves. She really wasn’t set up to have men staying over. They cluttered the house, complained about the lack of red meat in the fridge and invariable missed the toilet, leaving their scent in the bathroom like a dog at a lamppost.

  She emptied the tumble drier and took the clothes up to Winston. Her cottage was a small bungalow with a bedroom and en-suite bathroom in what would have been the loft. There was
no door on the bathroom and she stood watching him as he dried himself, alternatively hidden and revealed by the towel. Tilting her head to one side she caught a hint of a pattern in the scars covering his back. Like a magic eye picture that suddenly resolved into a three-dimensional image, she realized what she was looking at. “It’s an eye.”

  “What?” Winston turned off the water.

  “Your back. It’s an eye, like the eye of Sauron, looking into the abyss.”

  “Out of it, more like.” He rubbed his hair with the towel, not caring his penis was on full display. He grinned as he caught her staring. “It’s like they say. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Didn’t you see enough of it last night?”

  “It was dark last night. I didn’t see it at all.” Meinwen swallowed, mindful of her determination to get on with her day despite the benefits of tarrying. “I just felt it a few times.”

  “With more than your hand, too.” He dried off his face and hands then moved down to his chest, groin and legs. “Is there something you wanted?”

  Meinwen sucked back a gobbet of drool. “I brought up your clothes.” She turned away from temptation and scurried down the stairs.

  “What’s your hurry?”

  “Too much to do. I never indulge my carnal desires in the morning. It sucks the day away.”

  “I thought you said the morning was already over?”

  “It was a white lie. It’s just after nine. I’ve been up since six so it feels like the afternoon to me.” She had to raise her voice for him to hear her from the kitchen. She cut bread and put it under the grill then put three eggs to poach in boiling water.

  Her phone bleeped and took a moment to look at it. The museum in Boscastle had replied already. The refused to commit themselves but agreed it was ‘similar’ to the sigil used by John Stearne. Could they see the original for authentication?

  She frowned. A train to Boscastle would more than likely take her all day despite it being less than a hundred miles. Getting back the same day would be impossible. She checked the toast and managed to turn it over before it burned. In the saucepan, the poached eggs hardened.