Grave Concerns

by Rebecca Tope

  It was her first real accident. Drew’s heart stopped at the sight of his bloodstained baby. She stared at him in shocked amazement, before closing her eyes and going limp in his hands. ‘Oh God!’ he cried, and shook her. ‘Wake up, Steph! Hey!’ It was long seconds before his nurse training took effect and he thought to check the pulse in her neck, and listen to her breathing. Both seemed reasonably normal. He was lifting the telephone receiver to call an ambulance when she woke up and began to scream. Her hands fluttered in front of her face, touching her head tentatively at first, and then pressing both temples. The screaming increased, pain and panic combined. Blood flowed down her face, and Drew eventually realised it was in her eyes, gumming them up and blinding her. That was the main cause of her panic. ‘Hey, hey!’ he soothed. ‘Hush, Steph. Daddy’s here.’ His words went unheard in the noise his daughter was making.

  ‘Good God, what’s happened?’ came a man’s loud voice in the doorway. ‘Here – let me see.’

  Drew clutched Stephanie defensively to his chest before recognising Dr Jarvis. The ‘Doctor’ part filtered through his frenzy, and brought a flash of relief. He relaxed his grip slightly.

  ‘She hit her head,’ he said superfluously.

  ‘It always looks worse than it is,’ said the doctor calmly. ‘She’s more frightened than damaged, I’d say.’

  ‘She was unconscious at first,’ said Drew urgently.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Oh – well, a few seconds, I suppose. I was phoning—’ He looked at the receiver in his hand, unable to remember how far he’d got in dialling 999. There was silence at the other end, so he assumed he’d left the task unfinished. ‘Only a few seconds,’ he repeated.

  ‘Probably just a faint, then. Now, little lady, let’s wipe this mess away, shall we?’ He looked at Drew enquiringly. ‘First aid kit?’ he suggested.

  Drew shook his head, cursing the oversight. ‘I’ll run and get some stuff from the house,’ he offered, handing the child to the doctor. ‘I’ll be very quick.’

  Stephanie’s screams had subsided into whimpers. Dr Jarvis pulled her hands away from her face and rocked her soothingly. ‘Poor little girl,’ he said. ‘Poor old head.’ He brushed wisps of hair away, where they risked getting stuck in the coagulating blood. Drew left him, the beginnings of disabling relief threatening to paralyse his legs if he didn’t hurry.

  He found lint, antiseptic, a soft towel and a bowl for warm water in barely a minute. Running back to the office, he prayed there’d be no need for stitches. A scar would inevitably result, and the idea appalled him. In the tiny lavatory and washroom alongside the cool room that served as a mortuary, behind the office, he ran the hot tap until the water came through warm. Together the two men wiped away the blood and made every effort to mollify the injured child. Despite being retired, Dr Jarvis carried some medical supplies in his car, including butterfly sutures. ‘Always come in useful,’ he remarked. ‘These should be more than enough – and they shouldn’t leave a scar.’

  Drew’s gratitude knew no bounds. In no time the wound was cleaned and dressed, the swelling minimal. ‘Pity it wasn’t a bit higher up,’ said the doctor. ‘It might just have been a bump, then. How did it happen, anyway?’

  Drew indicated the filing cabinet, rather to the doctor’s bewilderment. ‘The drawer came open,’ he explained. ‘She was pulling herself up by the handle.’ Only then did he notice that the cabinet’s key was protruding from its lock, on the top left-hand corner, above the first drawer. Neither he nor Maggs ever left it there: they were scrupulous about taking it out and putting it away.

  Somebody had opened the cabinet and left it unlocked. Not Maggs – she’d left the office before him the previous evening and hadn’t come in here that morning. And not Drew – he was certain of that. And not Karen, surely? She took no interest in the paperwork of Peaceful Repose.

  Somebody had been in the office since five o’clock the previous afternoon and gone through his records.

  For the rest of the day, puzzles swirled round Drew’s head, clamouring for solutions. The afternoon had been spent rocking Stephanie, singing to her, telling her stories, letting her relax and regain her confidence, while trying to keep her awake as Dr Jarvis had advised. Maggs had returned at one, as promised, and expressed genuine concern at Stephanie’s accident. When he described how valiant Dr Jarvis had been, she posed the question Drew had completely forgotten to ask. ‘What did he come for?’

  Drew shook his head in self-reproach. ‘He never got round to saying. I took Steph back into the house as soon as he’d patched her up, and then I heard his car driving away. I wonder what he wanted.’

  He told Maggs the cause of Stephanie’s accident; she confirmed Drew’s assumption that she hadn’t touched the filing cabinet for at least the past two days.

  ‘How’s Auntie Sharon?’ he asked warily.

  ‘Angry,’ she said. ‘With herself for taking so long to accept she was really ill, and with the doctors for being so certain it’ll kill her. And with God, too, probably. Oh – and she wants one of our graves,’ she added as an afterthought.

  For a while they each attended to routine office affairs. There had been a larger than usual delivery of mail, which Drew left Maggs to process and respond to as appropriate. He went back to the filing cabinet, trying to ascertain whether anything was missing.

  The plan of the burial plots was the most vital document, and that seemed to have been untouched. Copies of correspondence, ideas for publicity, newspaper cuttings, a list of all the doctors in a wide surrounding area, catalogues from suppliers – everything apparently in its place, neatly labelled and apparently undisturbed. Only the top drawer of the three actually contained anything; the middle one, which had injured Stephanie, was equipped with hanging files, but every one was as yet unfilled. In the bottom drawer, they kept teabags, sugar and biscuits and nothing in the way of paperwork.

  ‘Whoever left it open must have found the key,’ he muttered. ‘Not that that would be difficult.’ He kept the key in the little unlockable wall cupboard above the filing cabinet.

  ‘What?’ Maggs asked, from the desk. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘There must have been an intruder here last night, and yet there’s no sign of any disturbance. The door hasn’t been forced. Karen didn’t say she heard anything.’

  ‘It must have been Jeffrey,’ she said. ‘He knows where you keep the key. He’d have been looking for something.’

  Drew was only half convinced. ‘But he shouldn’t come round here at night. Why would he do that?’

  ‘Search me,’ she shrugged.

  ‘I’ll speak to him about it.’ After all, it was Jeffrey’s fault Stephanie hurt herself. He shouldn’t go in the filing cabinet for anything. Why would he? he repeated to himself.

  Maggs put down her pen, and sighed. ‘Maybe he wanted to check the positions of the plots? Maybe one of his cronies showed an interest in having a grave here, and asked for a particular spot. He could have been in to see if it was clear.’

  ‘He knows what’s clear. He doesn’t need to look it up on the plan.’

  ‘Well ask him,’ she said impatiently. ‘Your trouble is, you do everything by guesswork, when you could save loads of time by just asking.’

  ‘Do I?’ He was startled. ‘Is that what I do?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘It’s a man thing. They don’t like to admit they don’t know everything.’

  ‘Not me,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I listened to a man talking for an hour or more last night, and learnt a lot. He told me the whole story of that shooting in Egypt.’

  ‘What – the girl in Gwen Whatnot’s tour party?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ He gave a smug smile. ‘I went to visit Karl Habergas, and he described the whole thing. He’s a funny chap – lives with his old mother.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Not another carer?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Sounds as if she’s terminal.’

  ‘Like Auntie
Sharon,’ Maggs remembered, her mouth drooping solemnly.

  ‘I suppose so. By the way – who’s going to be doing the caring for her, if she can’t stand hospitals?’

  She narrowed her eyes at him defensively. ‘We’re all going to muck in,’ she said curtly. ‘I s’pose I’ll be there at the weekends, mainly. It’s different with her though. I like Auntie Sharon. She’s not going to be bad-tempered and whingeing and wanting things all the time. She can be left on her own, as well.’

  A new silence ensued, but they both knew more talk was imminent. Drew spoke first. ‘There was no reply from Genevieve when I tried her this morning,’ he said. ‘Maybe I ought to have another go? She was meant to be minding Stephanie for me again.’

  ‘Irresponsible cow,’ remarked Maggs. ‘You can’t trust her an inch – I told you.’

  ‘She might have gone into labour – or be ill.’

  ‘She looked fine last night. Probably taken that boy out, to show him around. He had a very strong accent. Welsh, I think. Sort of sing-song. Rather nice.’

  ‘If he’s her sister’s boy, he’s from Anglesey. That’s an island off the coast of north Wales,’ he added. Maggs’s ignorance of geography was an ongoing theme between them.

  They were interrupted by the phone. Fiona, the Council Officer responsible for funerals, wanted to confirm the date for the burial of the nameless woman. ‘It’s a bit sooner than I expected,’ she admitted. ‘I’d have thought they’d want to keep her a few more weeks – but there’ve been twenty post-mortems this month already, and the fridges are overflowing. Everyone’s trying to go on holiday now spring’s here, and quite honestly, the sooner we bury her the better. They’ve taken all the samples they can think of, or so Stanley says. What can you offer me, then Drew? Your first Council burial, eh?’

  Drew forced a laugh. ‘We thought Friday,’ he said. ‘Stanley told me already that you wanted it done soon. We more or less decided then that it ought to be Friday.’

  ‘That’s OK. It makes no difference to me. I usually try and turn up – but I don’t feel very involved with this one. No family or anything.’

  ‘No identity,’ Drew reminded her, feeling he had to say it, in spite of the sharp stab of guilt it gave him. ‘Sounds as if the police have been too busy to worry about her much.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Fiona agreed emphatically.

  ‘That’s how it goes sometimes,’ Drew continued. ‘Twenty postmortems is a lot. You’d think at least one of them would fancy a nice natural cemetery, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘It’ll catch on,’ she assured him. ‘People take time to change, that’s all. It’s a lovely idea. I’m tempted myself, if I’m honest.’ Fiona was thirty-seven. Drew inwardly sighed.

  ‘Ten-thirty OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Perfect. Can you quote me a price, so I can get things settled this end?’

  ‘Will there be a minister?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, yes. Got to keep up appearances. The police want it put in the paper. I’ll get it in for Thursday. Unless you want to do that for me?’

  ‘I will if you like. All part of the service. What do you want it to say? It’ll look funny under Deaths, with no name.’

  ‘Maybe I’d better do it. Try to make a news story out of it. It’ll be a follow-up to the stuff they did when you found the body.’

  ‘With the minister, and cardboard coffin, all services, purchase of plot – four hundred and fifty,’ Drew said, answering her earlier question, having totted it up in his head.

  ‘Is that all? Look, Drew – unless a person has specified cremation, I think we might be able to give you all the Council funerals from now on. I’d have to get it confirmed from higher up – but I don’t think there’ll be a problem. That’s if you’d like them? And if you can keep it at this sort of price. The main cemetery costs nearly twice that, with Plant’s doing it – even for the Council.’

  ‘Well – thanks very much,’ he said slowly, hardly believing his luck. ‘Though Daphne’s not going to like it, is she?’

  ‘That’s business,’ Fiona laughed. ‘She’ll survive. She’s tough as old boots.’

  Maggs waited a moment, before remarking, ‘Funeral definitely on Friday then?’

  ‘That’s right. And she says we can have probably all the Council burials from here on.’

  ‘Hey! That’s fantastic. And Daphne’s going to be upset, right?’

  ‘Right. I just hope I don’t bump into her for a while. She’ll scratch my eyes out. What were we talking about before Fiona phoned?’

  ‘Genevieve Slater, of course. What else do you talk about? And I was just wondering whether you’ve told Karen all about this.’

  Drew eyed her furtively, saying nothing. Maggs elaborated, ‘I mean, she ought to know you’re taking rather a risk, getting involved. If you’re arrested in the middle of the night, for playing games with the police, she isn’t going to like it.’

  ‘She knows the basics. But she’s got other things to think about at the moment. It isn’t a problem for her. She trusts me.’

  ‘Does she? I’m not sure I would.’

  ‘OK.’ He held up his hands in surrender. ‘It’s just – I can’t let it drop now. I don’t like loose ends. I don’t like to stand by and let things go wrong if I can do something about it. I don’t like injustice.’

  ‘You don’t like anybody to think you’re less than perfect, either,’ she said. ‘That’s not meant nastily. You always have to follow a thing through, don’t you? Like setting this place up. Most people would just dream about it, but never actually do it.’

  ‘That’s nothing to do with perfection,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘That’s just one-track-mindedness.’

  ‘Well – that’s part of it. Whatever you call it – you’re doing it again now, aren’t you? Most people would back off, especially after not getting a reply on the phone. Just let the woman get on with it herself. But you won’t do that, will you?’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘You know I can’t. What about the money, for one thing? It would be the worst possible thing to do – to give it up now. Where does that leave us with the police?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she smiled. ‘I’m on your side. You’re a lot like me,’ she said, with an affectionate tap on his shoulder. ‘I couldn’t let it go now, either. Must be why we make such a good team. Your charm and my common sense; your sense of justice and my ambition – we’re going to be unbeatable.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘All we need now is to earn some money and save my children from starvation.’

  ‘What about all these Council funerals we’re going to get? Things are looking up, Drew. I knew they would. All you have to do now is figure out who killed Gwen Thingummybob, preferably before Friday, and we’ll be laughing.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ he said.

  Karen was far more angry than he’d expected when she got home and found her daughter had been damaged. Drew followed her into the house, trying to convey the truth of what had happened, only to be faced with a cold anger that ranged far and wide in its accusations. She stared grimly at her daughter’s injured face. ‘I thought I could trust you,’ she said. ‘I thought she’d be safe with you.’

  Drew felt a matching coldness. ‘I’m not some hired childminder,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s my daughter as well. I care about her every bit as much as you do. I’m as careful as anybody could be to make sure she doesn’t get hurt. I locked that drawer last time I used the cabinet. I knew she’d climb up it sooner or later. I made sure it wouldn’t tip over on top of her, and I always locked the drawers. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to defend myself. It’s as much of a disaster for me as it is for you. You’re only getting worked up because you feel guilty for not being there for her. It won’t leave a scar. She’s got no lasting ill-effects. Little kids bump their heads all the time.’

  ‘Guilty!’ Karen screeched, and opened her mouth for a renewed onslaught.

  ‘Stop it,’ Drew ordered her.
‘Calm down. I can see it’s been a shock, and I’m sorry. But you’re not helping, going on like this. Get a grip, OK?’

  He told himself he was speaking so coolly because Stephanie was on his knee, and would be upset if he shouted. Because Karen was pregnant, and shouldn’t get herself over-excited. But he knew it was something much less compassionate than that. For the first time, he found himself disliking his wife. Disliking her predictable female hysterics, her rush to attack and blame him, her involuntary recoil from Stephanie because she was damaged. He was disappointed in her, if he was honest with himself.

  ‘As I said, she isn’t permanently damaged,’ he said with finality. ‘She’s been seen by a doctor. These things happen. We’ll have to get used to it.’

  Karen said nothing more, but left the room quickly. Drew was sure she was crying, but made no attempt to follow and comfort her.

  After Stephanie was finally in bed, and Karen busying herself with some lesson plans in the dining room, Drew tried to assess his day. The morning seemed a long time ago; the previous evening a forgotten era. Hadn’t he been on the verge of grasping something about Genevieve and Willard and the dead woman, something important, when Stephanie’s accident had happened? He couldn’t remember what it had been, and soon gave up trying. Tomorrow was Wednesday. Only two more days to the council funeral for the unidentified murdered woman who’d been found in his field. He sighed with resignation. What did it matter? he said to himself. If nobody else cared about her, why on earth should he?

  The same old answer bounced back. He cared because it was unthinkable not to. Because if you didn’t care, you didn’t deserve to live. If you didn’t make some sort of effort, Fate would drop a great hand out of the sky and pluck your child away from you. You had to do what you could to keep things straight. If Genevieve Slater had dubious reasons for wanting her mother’s death explained, then so be it. It was the explanation that counted. He didn’t need to follow the logic or approve the motives. He didn’t even need to obey the letter of the law. All he had to do was follow his own instincts, keep an ear out for the voice of his conscience, and let the rest take care of itself.