by Rebecca Tope
Thank goodness for that, thought Drew. The prospect of having to fill a full twenty minutes had been one cause of his initial panic. ‘Was his death expected?’ he asked. This had always been one of Daphne Plant’s favourite questions to people coming to arrange a funeral. Drew had assumed it guided her in how much sympathy to manifest, though it had niggled him the first few times he heard her use it. Now, God help him, he was doing the same thing.
Mrs Hankey eyed him narrowly. ‘I’m hoping for better than that of you,’ she said tartly. ‘My husband was seventy-nine and suffered from the normal aches and pains you associate with a man of that age. We expected that he would die one day, but hadn’t quite bargained on it happening this week. Death is all the more extraordinary, don’t you think, for being both utterly predictable in a general way, and frighteningly unforeseen in specific cases. Harold was very ill for a week beforehand, and we had the sense to talk briefly about the possibility that he would die. On his last day, I could tell that he felt something had changed. A kind of shift, if that makes any sense. But we needn’t dwell on that. I don’t want you to go into that sort of detail. Just see us through the ritual aspect of it. He’d probably have wanted something even plainer – no real ceremony at all – but I want to do this for myself. I can’t just let him go without marking the moment in some way.’
Drew knew what she was talking about now, knew he could give her what she wanted. It was just a matter of being in the right frame of mind, and avoiding the usual clichés and euphemisms.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I understand.’ He was in no way surprised when he looked into her face and saw tears like splashes on the powdered cheeks. Violent little tears, which had shaken loose without her consent. Drew took a risk. ‘Don’t try to deny the sadness,’ he advised. ‘There’s no shame in being sad.’
She managed a little laugh of self-reproach. ‘It’s this damned stiff upper lip,’ she said. ‘I can’t help regarding tears as weak. Now listen – I don’t want you to make me cry at the funeral. If you could manage to be genuine without getting too close to the bone, I’d be grateful.’
The phrase lingered in his mind, as he invited her to feed him a few salient facts and they planned the sequence of events on Tuesday afternoon. Genuine without getting too close to the bone. It made him think of Genevieve and the strange contradictory service she was asking of him. She was saying much the same thing. Find out the truth, but don’t get in too deep – don’t get me into trouble or rock my family’s boat. It made a bit more sense now, after this encounter with Marjorie Hankey. Hadn’t someone once said that human beings could only bear so much reality?
Aware of Karen’s displeasure at this whole exercise, he did his best to keep the meeting brief. After forty minutes or so, he tried to bring things to a conclusion. ‘You haven’t taken any notes,’ Mrs Hankey observed. ‘Are you sure you’ll remember everything?’
‘I think so,’ he assured her. ‘It’s quite simple, after all. We start with my introduction, then the first piece of music. Then Colin does his piece about his dad. Me again, followed by music and the committal. I’ll jot a few thoughts down when I get home, but I don’t think I’m likely to forget anything.’
‘I was impressed that you did your talk to the Women’s Institute without any notes,’ she said. ‘That suggests confidence – and a degree of sincerity. People find that very appealing.’
He gave a little shrug. ‘I’d be so worried about losing notes,’ he smiled. ‘I prefer to rely on my head. I’m glad you approve.’
‘I should think a lot of women approve of you, Drew Slocombe,’ she told him. ‘You’re a most personable young man.’
Receiving such a compliment was a lot more difficult than being honest about death, he discovered. The accident of boyish good looks combined with a genuine respect for women was probably all that was needed to account for his appeal. He could take credit for neither of them. A quiet ‘Thank you’ was his only response.
They parted company without ceremony. Marjorie Hankey stood at her door, dispassionately watching Drew climb into his van. If she was surprised or disconcerted by its age and lack of gravitas, she betrayed nothing of this on her face. Still warm from her approbation, he drove directly home, trying to compose Tuesday’s funeral address in his head.
He heard Stephanie crying upstairs before he reached the front door. It was an angry grizzling, suggesting it had been going on for some time. A tired frustrated sound, designed to get on any adult’s nerves. The kind of crying that Stephanie almost never went in for. He hurried into the house, following the sound, impatient to assuage or console. He saw Karen standing oddly in the living room doorway with the phone to her ear. Her face was white and strained.
‘I keep telling you, it’s nothing to do with me,’ she was saying. ‘My husband’s here now – you can speak to him.’
She met his eye, and he read anger, fear and a terrible mistrust. Before he could move, she’d thrust the phone into his hand. It could only be Genevieve. Genevieve who’d called with unguessable betrayals intended to sour things between him and Karen. Stephanie’s wails filled the house like broken glass, jabbing at him, making him desperate to go to her. He held the phone at arm’s length and pointed up the stairs with the other hand.
‘I’ll go to her,’ Karen said tightly.
Tentatively, Drew finally addressed the phone. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Drew here.’
The intonation at the other end was faintly familiar. ‘I seem to have upset your wife,’ came a rich female voice.
‘Who is that?’ Drew demanded, beyond his usual politeness by this time. Stephanie was quieter now, but Karen’s hostile face still hovered before his mind’s eye.
‘Henrietta Fielding. You remember – you told me you were Wendy Forrester’s nephew, or some such nonsense. It’s taken me all this time to find out who you really are. And before you ask, I’ll explain in a minute.’
But why is Karen so upset? Drew wondered, even as a wave of guilt swept through him. She doesn’t even know who this woman is.
Being caught out in a lie rendered him speechless. ‘Er–’ he tried.
‘I understand she’s been buried in your field – again.’ She chuckled, a warm sound. ‘It would seem that the body you found – the one in all the papers – was our Wendy. Funny how the whole picture falls so neatly into place when you’ve got all the pieces.’
All the pieces? Drew made an effort. ‘Are you asking me or telling me?’ he managed.
‘Just making sure you know that I know. Look – I was hoping not to get involved in this. The problem – or maybe it’s the solution – is, there’s a man called Trevor just turned up, saying he really has to see Wendy. He’s coming back tomorrow, and quite honestly, I don’t think he’s a very nice character.’
He knew better than to believe her. ‘So this is just a friendly warning? What did you say to my wife?’
‘Well, she kept asking me what my connection with you was – she seems to be a bit on the possessive side, poor darling. I judged that it might be unwise to share the whole story with her, so I prevaricated. Asked her to give you a message. She seemed reluctant to do that.’
‘We have an office telephone line,’ he said briefly. ‘My wife has her own concerns, without being expected to handle messages for me.’
‘But what are you going to do about this Trevor character?’ she reminded him.
‘Nothing, probably,’ said Drew. ‘Unless you’ve given him my name and address, he’s surely never going to connect me with his friend. And since he’s presumably left it nearly a year before looking for her, I don’t get much sense of urgency. I should also point out that the body buried here has not been formally identified. Its identity can only be based on pure supposition.’
Belatedly, he remembered the computer file labelled HenriettaF. Willard. That must be her source of information.
‘You’re taking a very big risk, you know,’ she murmured. ‘You should never have become invol
ved. And you should put some hard work into learning how to lie effectively. I knew I’d seen your face before. Did you know your local paper has put all its back issues onto a website – pictures and all? I found you in one from last October, when you got permission for your burial ground. Took me a little while, I admit, but I had plenty of time. So now I know all about you, Drew Slocombe.’
So what good would effective lying have been? Drew asked himself, strengthened by his knowledge of her secret link with Willard.
‘So you’ve given Trevor my address,’ he concluded. ‘Otherwise, I can’t see the point of your call.’
‘He seemed so upset, poor fellow. Terribly worried about his elderly girlfriend – especially when I told him she hasn’t been seen since last summer. It would have been cruel to send him away with nothing.’
Drew’s laugh was bitter. ‘Thanks very much,’ he said, and put the phone down.
Upstairs everything had at last gone quiet, and he took a few steps towards the staircase. Before he reached the first step, the phone rang again.
It was Henrietta again. ‘Look—’ she began. ‘I think you should come and see me. Tomorrow, if you can. I can’t say that I’m on your side, exactly, but you seem a nice enough young man, and I’d hate you to end up with a criminal record, just for helping out a soft-headed thing like Genevieve Slater. I’m sure I’ll be able to help you.’
‘You know Genevieve?’ Drew was surprised at the admission.
‘I know of her,’ said the woman.
What was there to lose? Quickly he agreed, before remembering his earlier promise to Karen. ‘No,’ he amended hastily, ‘not tomorrow. I can probably manage Monday, quite early. I’ll have to bring my little girl.’
‘I’ll see you on Monday then.’
‘What did she say that made you so cross?’ Drew asked Karen, who was sitting on the bed with Stephanie, playing with a jigsaw.
‘It wasn’t so much what she said,’ Karen told him tightly. ‘It was the fact of her. You seem to spend most of your time in intimate conversation with strange women, and it’s getting up my nose. When they start phoning here, when I’m in the middle of doing ten things at once, my temper just won’t stand it. I never said I’d be your secretary, and I’m bloody well not going to.’
The Slocombe family did not go out at the weekend. It was wet and windy and they couldn’t think of anywhere to go. Karen embarked on a major appraisal of all the baby clothes and equipment, making a list of new requirements. Drew was shaken at the lack of enthusiasm the process elicited. When Stephanie was on the way, euphoria had been a perpetual condition for both of them. He trembled for his second child, aware that Karen had as little anticipatory pleasure in the idea of it as he had.
He tried to address the issue when he took her a mug of tea halfway through the afternoon. ‘Do you think we’ve used up all our love on Stephanie?’ he ventured. ‘Does that happen?’
She sat back on her heels, several piles of tiny garments spread out on the floor in front of her. ‘I hope not,’ she sighed. ‘But I knew a girl at school where the parents seemed to have no love for her at all. It was so awful. Her older sister had big birthday parties and lovely new clothes, and poor Anne was like a neglected orphan. One birthday, she invited me and some others to a party – when we got to the house, there was nothing happening. Her parents were furious with her. It was terrible.’
‘We’d never be like that. We’d have the NSPCC after us. There must have been more to it. Maybe she was the result of an affair or something.’
Karen shrugged, and then burst out, ‘It’s just – there isn’t enough time! I feel as if I’m trying to run up an escalator that’s going down very fast. And I feel so tired and useless. Look how long it’s taking me to do this simple job. I’m not doing my schoolwork properly, either. The class is behind in number work, and I can’t get myself to do anything about it. I just lose my temper with them. It’s an absolute nightmare.’ She looked up at him, resentment clear on her face. ‘And then you go charging off after some idiotic murder that nobody else is interested in. Taking Stephanie into God knows what danger. OK, so you’re getting paid for it, but you should be earning that money doing what you set out to do. I don’t like getting calls from strange women at weekends, unless they want you to do a funeral for them. I know it sounds like whining, but I really believe you’re not taking me into consideration at all these days. I feel as if I’m carrying this whole thing all by myself.’
A lesser woman would have burst into tears at this point and perhaps gone to lock herself in the bathroom for good measure. Karen simply knelt on the floor, dry-eyed and despairing. Drew couldn’t move for the pounding of his heart. He’d gone badly wrong somewhere, and he couldn’t help suspecting it was when he allowed himself to start this new baby. That had been careless at best, culpably selfish at worst.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled feebly.
She looked at him hopelessly. ‘Sorry? But you’re not going to do anything about it, are you? Before you know it, the funeral business will have withered away and you’ll be a full-time private detective. That isn’t what I want, Drew. Let me make that very clear. It’s dangerous and it’s silly. And I can’t let you take Stephanie around with you when you’re doing it.’
‘I’ve no intention—’ he began.
She shook her head impatiently. ‘It’s money at the root of all this. If that woman had never offered you two thousand quid to find her mother, you’d have had the sense to stay out of it. Wouldn’t you?’ She hooked a finger round the bridge of her nose, and rubbed it fiercely. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t,’ she decided. ‘But now she’s paying you, you’re under some sort of obligation. It’s all a ghastly mess, and I want you to get yourself out of it as quick as you can.’
‘Then help me,’ he challenged her, a remnant of spirit asserting itself at last. ‘Like you did last time. I’d never have got to the bottom of that one without you.’
‘I seem to remember ending up in hospital, and you practically losing your job. As a precedent, I don’t think that has much to recommend it.’
‘Even so, it was nice to have you on the same side,’ he said, sadly.
‘I haven’t got time. I told you. All I’m asking is that you do what you have to do to earn the money she’s offering, and then get right out of it. She’s poison, I can feel it.’
He didn’t dare argue. He didn’t dare say, Some poisons are too attractive to resist. But he resolved to do as she asked. If he could find the strength.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He accomplished the appointment with Henrietta Fielding, with Stephanie cooperatively sitting in her buggy, watching the huge woman with fascinated interest. After ten minutes, however, Drew began to suspect that there was very little to be gleaned, in addition to what she’d told him on the phone. She sat monumental in a wide armchair, and played verbal games with him, like a monstrous cat toying with a mouse.
‘Not a squeak out of Trevor since I spoke to you,’ she began. ‘Nothing further to report at all, in fact.’
‘Could you give me a description of him?’
‘Middle-aged hippy. Thin, unkempt. Unreliable. A drifter.’
‘But determined enough to come in search of Gwen after a year or more. Important enough for you to contact me about him.’
‘I want to get him off my back. To pass the buck, if you like.’
‘You did that when you gave him my name and address. Why did you need to speak to me again?’
Her eyes twinkled, as she glanced from Drew to his daughter and back again. ‘I’m sure I told you – I’m a keen observer. I wanted to see how you’d react, where you’d go from here. I don’t get out much, and the computer gets wearisome after a while. Perhaps I felt like a bit of excitement.’
Drew had not forgotten the computer. ‘You’re in touch with Willard Slater, aren’t you. That’s how you know about Gwen being Genevieve’s mother, and about me being asked to find her.’
‘It isn’t
quite that simple,’ she said. ‘But it’s near enough. I know that Genevieve contacted you, because she can’t abide not knowing what happened to her mother. Reasonable enough. But Willard and I don’t waste much time discussing his wife. It’s Egypt that interests us. Modern Egypt, that is. You know, it’s most regrettable the way some countries are perceived as only having a past, with nothing of significance happening in the present. Like Greece and Italy. My husband and I made several trips to Egypt together – we spend our honeymoon there. Willard has a fine mind, you know. I enjoy our exchanges enormously.’
Drew smiled at the picture that came into his mind. Willard and Henrietta shoulder to shoulder, discussing the minutiae of Egyptian economic policy. Except they didn’t do it shoulder-to-shoulder. They did it keyboard-to-keyboard. ‘Have you ever actually met him?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Actually, no. We found each other through a current affairs newsgroup. Even though we’re only twelve or fifteen miles apart, there seems no point in getting together. It isn’t that kind of relationship.’
‘Or Genevieve?’
She shook her head. ‘Never,’ she said flatly. Drew was unsure whether he could believe her.
‘So – was it a complete coincidence when Genevieve’s mother came to live in the same building as you?’
‘Of course not. Gwen had told Genevieve she was looking for a bedsit somewhere quiet. Willard sent e-mails out to several of us – it must have been a couple of Christmases ago – asking if we knew of any cheap places. And I responded. Simple, really.’
‘So you have quite a lot of contact with Willard?’
Henrietta frowned slightly. ‘Not really, no. No more than anyone else in the newsgroup. We were in touch quite frequently after Wendy got back from Egypt. She seemed a bit down, and I wondered why. Willard told me about her involvement in the shooting – obviously it was relevant to our interest, as well. You know, it wasn’t a normal terrorist attack – if it makes sense to call such a thing “normal”. The gunman wasn’t with an organisation.’