Grave Concerns

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I’ll tell Stuart that we think his gran’s dead, OK? But I’m not going to say anything about the body, or your burial ground.’

  Drew shook his head in disbelief. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said flatly. ‘You make death sound such a casual thing. You can’t just say We think your gran died last year sometime, but we’re not sure. Death doesn’t lend itself to equivocation. A person is either dead or not dead. And if they’re dead, you’re supposed to inform the authorities, get the certificate, close the bank accounts.’ His voice was getting loud and Stephanie was staring frowningly up at his face.

  ‘Sorry, baby,’ he said to her. ‘I didn’t mean to alarm you.’ He picked her up and pulled her gently to him, rubbing the top of her head with his chin. ‘We’re going home now.’

  ‘Drew,’ Genevieve said his name slowly, cajolingly. ‘Don’t be cross. I’m not feeling too good today. I had a bad night. I must have sounded terribly callous just then. It’s only that I’ve accepted my mother’s dead, and will never see this baby. I’ve done my grieving about that—’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he interrupted her. ‘You’ve already explained. I just think you could give your sister the chance to get her grieving done, as well.’

  She raised her eyebrows and then blinked deliberately. ‘Brigid grieving?’ she echoed with an expression very close to a sneer. ‘She wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.’

  ‘But she’s worried enough to send Stuart down here.’

  Genevieve sneered again. ‘He was coming anyway. He’s spending a year bumming around, and this is as good a place to freeload as any.’

  Drew could see she was strained; even speaking seemed to be an effort. Much of the gloss of his early encounters with her had rubbed off by now, and he thought he was seeing something more like the real person. Without the ready grin, the warm eye contact, she ought to have come across as somebody much less attractive. Unfortunately, this was not the case. She now seemed vulnerable and frightened; a cornered animal, angry with her persecutors. If anything, Drew was now even more determined to understand her – and why she had approached him in the first place. A reversal had taken place in the last few moments. He had been annoyed at her coolness, wounded at her failure to notice Stephanie’s poorly head, on the verge of walking off and leaving her to her own family chaos. But he couldn’t do it.

  He sighed, and shifted Stephanie to a more comfortable seat in the crook of his arm. She was getting too heavy for this, he noted, and remembered at the same instant that she would soon be ousted from such cosy physical intimacies by a new sibling, in any case. It seemed impossible, against nature. This was his baby. He didn’t want another one.

  ‘OK,’ he said. Then he looked at Genevieve. ‘You’re calling the shots – you’re paying me, after all. Tell me what you want me to do.’

  She swept a hand lightly across her brow, as if to organise her thoughts. ‘That hasn’t changed,’ she said. ‘Find out what’s happened to my mother. Full stop. If that body is her, then what happened to her? I wish you wouldn’t keep asking me this. I don’t know why you can’t just get it into your head that the assignment is really very simple.’

  ‘If it was that simple, you’d save yourself some money and go to the police,’ he said coldly.

  ‘And the police would do bugger all,’ she snapped back.

  ‘They’d give you a definite identity, at least.’

  ‘Right. And then, as I’ve said time and again, they’d crawl all over our lives – and yours, now you’ve got so involved. You said it yourself on Monday – there’s no going back now.’

  He could hear fear spicing her voice, a tremor that seemed to have something to do with her physical condition. She put both hands across her bulge in a gesture that seemed more for her own protection than the baby’s. Drew was puzzled. There was something about the baby that he hadn’t grasped. Something central to the way Genevieve was behaving and thinking …

  ‘Well, we’ve got a couple more days,’ he said reassuringly.

  ‘So – are you leaving Stephanie here or not?’ she asked, showing clearly that she understood his caution. ‘I really am quite reliable in that respect, you know,’ she added.

  There was still one piece of unfinished business. ‘Where were you yesterday then?’ he demanded. ‘I rang and rang and you never answered the phone.’

  She blinked. ‘I thought you’d just changed you mind without telling me,’ she said. ‘I never heard the phone.’

  Slowly she went out into the hall and picked up the telephone. ‘There’s no dialling tone,’ she said, holding it out to him in a kind of triumph. ‘It must be out of order.’

  ‘Have you had any calls in the last couple of days?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not one – but then we don’t get many anyway.’

  It was never easy to relinquish a sense of grievance, however misplaced it might be. Drew found himself having to do some rapid backtracking. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘And yes, if it’s all right with you, I’ll leave Stephanie for a few hours.’

  ‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ she smiled, holding out her arms for the child.

  In the van outside, Drew paused for a moment’s consideration. He had a trail to follow – broken and faint as it might be – and some glimmering hints at the edge of his mind as to what could have happened to Gwen Absolon. Perhaps it was the out-of-order telephone that had done it – but for whatever reason, his mood was optimistic for the first time in days. He went over what he knew, using his jotter pad as an aid.

  Shooting in Egypt, 12th April. Five surviving group members. Trevor. Sarah’s husband.

  Returns to England a few days later. Stays first with G & W in Fenniton. Ructions with Willard. Henrietta Fielding.

  Probably unhappy or guilty about the shooting. Dr Jarvis. Nathan? Memories stirred up. What happens next? Another job? Money worries? Dates?

  With some excitement, he began to feel his thoughts coalesce. He remembered the file title on Willard’s computer – HenriettaF – and shivered at the implications of the connection. Conspiracies and collusions should be assumed, if there had indeed been a deliberate murder. After all, Caroline Kennett did say she’d seen two people digging in the field. Unfortunately, he had to delete Henrietta from that particular role. If she’d been seen by Caroline, her hugeness would surely have been a major element of the story.

  He tapped his pen against his teeth. One name jumped out at him: Dr Jarvis. The man had called to see him, and been diverted from his purpose. He’d wedged a printed card on top of Drew’s front gate before getting into his car. Drew had retrieved it later, when Stephanie had been settled after her accident.

  The card said Malcolm Jarvis MD. Fir Trees, Grange Lane, Woodleigh and a phone number which began with a code that predated the 01 that all numbers now started with. That made it at least five years old, and Drew suspected it had been printed rather longer ago than that; the corners were fraying, as if it had been in a pocket for a considerable time.

  Woodleigh wasn’t far away. Drew had no hesitation in pointing his van in that direction.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The house was set back from the road, with a garden full of spring flowers and shrubs just coming into leaf. There were mullioned windows and a front porch with a mature wisteria draping heavily over it. Somehow it fitted the man perfectly, to Drew’s mind.

  He rang an old-fashioned bell by means of a leather thong attached to the clapper, wondering whether it would be loud enough to rouse a sleeping doctor to a midnight crisis. Apparently, it was. The door was opened quickly, and the retired doctor greeted him with a welcoming smile.

  ‘How’s the invalid?’ he asked, looking over Drew’s shoulder as if expecting to see Stephanie following him.

  ‘Fine, thanks to you,’ said Drew.

  ‘Left her with her mum today?’

  ‘No,’ said Drew hesitantly. ‘Genevieve’s got her.’

  ‘Has she?’ was all Jarvis said
to that.

  Drew chose to ignore the implied doubt as to the wisdom of using Genevieve as a childminder. ‘You never said why you came to see me yesterday,’ he prompted. ‘You’ve probably realised that I’m having a bit of a go at clearing up the mystery of what’s happened to Genevieve’s mother, on Genevieve’s behalf. I wondered whether you had anything more you could tell me.’

  ‘Come in,’ Jarvis invited. ‘I did have something to say. It isn’t much, but it might fill in one or two gaps for you.’

  They went into a large, light living room with a richly coloured Chinese carpet on the floor. Drew had an impression of shades of blue throughout – curtains, cushions, carpet and paintwork. It was cool and pleasing. There was no evidence of a female presence in the house. No cooking smells or cardigans on the backs of chairs. No sentimental knick-knacks or hand-stitched rugs. Drew’s assumption that he was dealing with a lifelong bachelor had so far taken no knocks.

  Drew appreciated that he needed to tread a careful path between taking the man into his confidence – on the grounds that his initial approach ensured his innocence – and a naïve disclosure of everything he had gleaned so far. Drew had been accused of naïvety more than once in his life, and it was a failing he strove to amend. The exact role of Dr Jarvis in the fate of Gwen Absolon was very far from clear – he might yet prove to be instrumental in whatever had befallen her.

  He waited, quelling the temptation to embark on a string of probing questions. The ball was very much in Jarvis’s court; sooner or later he would surely lob it back.

  ‘Let’s see now,’ mused the older man, legs crossed comfortably as he reclined in a new-looking Parker Knoll chair. ‘I think I filled you in quite comprehensively as far as Gwen’s background was concerned. It might not prove to be directly relevant, of course, but at least it gives you something of a picture.’

  Drew found himself wondering just how closely Jarvis was monitoring his progress. Did Genevieve give him a daily update? He contented himself with a nod of agreement.

  ‘I probably ought to have elaborated a little on the subject of Willard.’

  The transparency took Drew aback. Obviously the doctor had spoken to Genevieve and she had revealed her worries – genuine or not – that Willard had been involved in Gwen’s disappearance. So now, rather than stick to his threadbare story about suicide, he wanted to endorse Genevieve’s line, in the hope that Drew would find it doubly credible as a result. He almost laughed. Was the man really so stupid? Or did he think Drew was stupid? Either way, the net result so far was to cast even deeper doubt on the Willard story.

  ‘Go on,’ he invited, keeping his face bland.

  ‘Willard was very fond of Gwen, you see. Although they didn’t meet very often, they found they had a lot in common. Interests and so forth. They eventually developed a very close relationship.’

  ‘Genevieve has already told me this,’ Drew pointed out.

  ‘Has she?’ Jarvis paused. ‘Well, now you’ve had it confirmed.’

  ‘How would you say it helps my investigations?’

  ‘Well – there’s a very real anxiety that Willard carries some – perhaps all – the responsibility for Gwen’s disappearance,’ Jarvis said carefully.

  Drew lost patience. ‘Yes, yes, I know all this,’ he rapped out. ‘It’s Genevieve’s whole reason for not wanting to go to the police. It’s the thing she keeps coming back to. Except—’ He remembered her starting to say something about changing her mind about Willard, and he’d cut her off.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Drew clamped his lips together. ‘Would you tell me exactly when you last saw Gwen?’ he asked after a moment.

  ‘It must have been sometime in July, I think. I just happened to see her in the street in Bradbourne. We’d parted on a rather awkward note, but she was pleased enough to see me – or so I thought. We went for a cup of tea.’

  ‘And how was she?’

  ‘Tired. Rather low in spirits. Not entirely well, in my view. But I managed to cheer her up. I could always do that. We talked about trivialities – nothing that might push us back into the earlier disagreements about Nathan. She seemed reluctant to talk about all that, anyway.’

  ‘What colour was her hair?’ Drew asked suddenly.

  ‘Same colour it always was, of course,’ he said.

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘A sort of dark grey. The colour of—’ he cast his eyes around the room, landing on a pewter jug sitting on the mantelpiece ‘– that jug, more or less. I know why you ask. The dead woman’s hair is white, if the newspaper account is to be believed. It happens, you know.’ His show of professional expertise left Drew unmoved. His efforts to support Genevieve were endearing in a way; Drew had little doubt that he was trying to protect her. There was no way that anything the man said could be taken at face value. He probably made a very good doctor, Drew thought ruefully. Telling people what they wanted to hear, colluding with spouses to conceal harsh truths – and always taking the easy way out of a sticky corner. Yet, paradoxically, he found that he did believe the story about Nathan and his untimely end. It had the ring of truth, and nothing Genevieve had told him had contradicted it. Besides, he had the feeling that the man could be highly susceptible to the entreaties of a pretty woman.

  ‘Have you ever been married?’ he asked, suddenly. The question hung for a moment, while Jarvis examined it.

  ‘Once,’ he admitted. ‘About a hundred years ago. She left me. I still have some of her shoes under the bed.’ He tried to smile self-deprecatingly at this eccentricity, but it was swamped by a wave of self-pity. ‘I don’t seem to be very good with women,’ he added sadly.

  Nor men, Drew thought unkindly. ‘But you got along all right with the Absolon women – Gwen and her daughters? The family doctor they all loved and trusted for years.’

  ‘Oh yes. They knew they could trust me. I always did what they wanted of me. I still do,’ he concluded.

  ‘It sounds like a very – intimate – relationship.’

  ‘You could say that, I suppose.’ The doctor met Drew’s eyes with his own watery gaze. ‘Yes, I loved them. They were everything to me – Gwen especially. That’s why you’ve absolutely got to find out what happened to her.’

  It felt like a dismissal, but Drew held his ground. ‘So why leave it so long? Why not start searching for her six, nine months ago? Where do you think she was all winter?’

  ‘I tried to find her,’ Jarvis defended himself. ‘I kept asking Genevieve where she was.’

  ‘And what did she tell you?’

  ‘She said she didn’t think Gwen was feeling very well-disposed towards any of us any more, and she’d probably gone to some remote foreign place to forget all about us.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? Especially as she’d been so upset by the Egypt business. I could see she might want to spend a few months on a beach in the South Pacific, just to get over it.’

  ‘But now you don’t think that’s where she was?’

  ‘Not now you’ve found that body. Of course not.’

  ‘So you’re convinced it’s Gwen,’ Drew said.

  ‘I am, yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of something Stanley Sharples mentioned to me, a few days after the body was found.’

  Drew’s surprise was only momentary. Of course a retired doctor would be acquainted with the Coroner’s Officer. Stanley had done the job for ten years or more.

  ‘What was that?’ he prompted.

  ‘The woman wasn’t wearing any underclothes. No bra or pants – nothing. That’s my Gwen. She was well known for it, among her closer friends. And it’s something her doctor would be likely to discover at some point. If we’d been talking about a young girl, it might not be of much importance. But Gwen was seventy. How many women of her age do you think go round with no knickers?’

  Touché thought Drew, happily.

  In the van, he ran over the encounter agai
n. Forget suicide, he thought. He didn’t believe Gwen had ever been afraid of repercussions over her son’s death, or if she was, she very soon got over her worries.

  ‘There’s a message for you,’ said Maggs, as soon as he got back to the office, having collected Stephanie from Genevieve without permitting himself to stay more than ten minutes. ‘You’re to ring a woman called Marjorie Hankey, as soon as possible. Her husband died, but she doesn’t want him buried here.’

  ‘What?’ Drew was distractedly trying to put Stephanie down, but she was sleepy and clinging. ‘I’d better phone her.’

  ‘Tell me about your morning first,’ she demanded. ‘Any further developments in our murder investigation?’

  Drew shook his head impatiently. ‘Maggs – you can see I’m struggling here. At least straighten the cushions for me, so I can put her somewhere. Come on, Steph – let go. Just have a little nap, OK?’ It occurred to him that she was probably thirsty, and there was no doubt that she wanted a new nappy. There was always something, just when he wanted to sit down and assemble his thoughts into some sort of order.

  Sullenly, Maggs arranged a bed of cushions in the corner, but made no further move to help. ‘It’s more like a dog’s bed than a child’s,’ she muttered.

  He pulled his daughter away from himself and deposited her in the cushions. It was suddenly wonderful to have the use of both hands again, despite the grizzling protests from Stephanie.

  Five minutes later, he was calling the mysterious Mrs Hankey. She answered on the first ring. ‘Hello?’ she said, in a strong voice.