25
Antonia had left the Bentley round the corner in Charlwood Street. She didn’t speak until they were travelling in slow convoy up Vauxhall Bridge Road with the early morning traffic from south of the river.
‘Rose.’
‘Yes?’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Doing what?’
‘Coming back to the house with me. It’s only for Hector’s sake, isn’t it?’
‘Does it matter?’ Rose stared ahead at the adverts on the back of a bus. She felt weary, but more in control. Before leaving the house she had fitted in a wash and forced herself to eat a slice of bread and Marmite. She was wearing stockings and shoes again and a jumper and skirt. She had also dug out her grey demob overcoat that buttoned at the neck.
Antonia persisted with her point about Hector. ‘The fact is, you want to find out for yourself if he’s really dead. You don’t know whether to believe me.’
‘Can you blame me?’
Antonia smirked. ‘He cared bugger all about you. You know that, don’t you? Women were always making fools of themselves over bloody Hector, wanting to mother him.’
‘Who said I wanted to mother him?’
She gave a single, high-pitched laugh. ‘If it was sex you wanted, he just wasn’t up to it, sweetie, believe me.’
‘It takes two.’
‘Go to hell,’ Antonia snapped back, no longer amused. ‘That’s bloody good coming from you. It takes two! How was it with Barry, then? Did you satisfy him? You and who else? Was it two or two hundred?’
Rose didn’t answer. Her other compelling reason for agreeing to come was that she needed to keep tabs on this murderous woman after two nasty shocks in twenty-four hours. She meant to stick with her now until it was safe to be alone again.
Antonia steered the car through the mews entrance behind Park Crescent and into a garage.
‘Come on, then. Come and see for yourself.’
She opened a gate and let them into the yard at the back of the house where the two dustbins stood. Then she unlocked the kitchen door and led the way in. Yesterday’s shopping still lay unused on the table.
Rose followed, her skin suddenly so sensitive that she was acutely conscious of every movement of her clothes. Pulses throbbed in her face and neck. She said a silent, desperate prayer that Hector might still be alive.
Antonia crossed the room and hesitated at the door that led to the hall. Rose tensed, sensing that she ought to be ready to defend herself against another sudden attack. Then Antonia spoke over her shoulder. ‘Take a long, deep breath, my poppet.’
They stepped into the hall.
Rose took the breath, and held it. And held it longer.
Just inside the front door, where Antonia had said it would be, lay a corpse in a camelhair overcoat like the one Hector had worn to Reggiori’s. Dark trousers and brown shoes. Hands still in leather gloves. An ear partly covered by a black woollen scarf. Curly red-gold hair.
‘Want to look at the face?’ Antonia was standing beside the body preparing to give the shoulder a prod with her foot.
‘There’s no need.’ Rose heard herself say in a flat voice that sounded like someone reading lines without understanding them. She picked up a green porkpie hat that was lying against the skirting board. ‘It can’t be anyone else.’
Outwardly controlled, she ached from her throat to the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t the piercing pain of shock; she had felt increasingly certain from the way Antonia had been behaving that this time she had spoken the truth. No, it was grief that she felt, a bitter, grinding grief for Hector and for the loss of a life that she had known was threatened and she would have saved.
‘Feeling strong?’ Antonia took off her coat and threw it over a chair. ‘Do you need a snifter first or shall we get started?’
‘Do you want to move him?’
‘I didn’t bring you here for tea and biscuits.’
‘All right. Let’s do it now.’ Rose steeled herself. Numb as she felt, she was determined not to give way to panic in front of Antonia. She placed Hector’s hat respectfully on a chair and stepped closer.
She wasn’t new to the sight of death. She had seen air-raid victims brought out on stretchers from bombed buildings and she had gone through the ordeal of identifying Barry at the mortuary. But this was the first time she had been called upon to touch a corpse.
‘You take the legs, then. We’d better get him straight first.’
The body was lying on its side in a bowed attitude with the left leg bent into a near right angle and the other almost straight. His left arm lay along the length of the body and the right was trapped under the head.
It was necessary to bring the legs together to lift them. She moistened her lips and told herself to treat it straightforwardly as a simple, mechanical task. To forget that this had been Hector. Stooping, she took hold of the bent leg above the ankle. She gave a gasp of shock and let go at once. Through the trousers it felt as if the limb were encased in plaster.
Antonia had taken hold of the arm that lay under the head and was trying unsuccessfully to straighten it. ‘God, he’s as stiff as a board.’
‘Is it rigor mortis?’
‘It must be.’
‘I think I do need that drink.’
‘You’re not the only one.’
They moved into one of the sitting rooms and Antonia poured generous brandies into wine glasses. She spilled some and didn’t even notice. She had gone very pale.
Rose made an effort to be practical. ‘It wears off after a time, I believe.’
‘Any idea how long?’
‘No.’
‘There’s no movement at all. It’ll be the devil to get upstairs. It’s the arms and legs. They’re in such awkward positions.’
‘Can we wait for it to wear off?’
‘And leave him lying in the hall? It could be hours and hours. It only wants someone to knock at the door and we’re sunk. Christ Almighty, Rose, why didn’t I think of this?’
Rose was incapable of dealing with anyone else’s state of panic, least of all Antonia’s. The revulsion she’d felt when she handled that hardened limb had taken a grip on her mind.
Antonia stood in the middle of the room with hunched shoulders and folded arms. ‘Even if we managed to get him up to the bedroom how would I get him into pyjamas? I’d have to rip them apart to get the arms and legs in. Blast you, Hector!’
‘Is it important to have him in pyjamas?’
‘Important? He’s supposed to have died in bed, of cardiac failure. I’ve written it on the death certificate.’
To Rose there seemed only one feasible course of action, but she wasn’t going to suggest it herself. She waited for it to come from Antonia, as it eventually did.
‘We’ll have to drag him into one of these rooms for the time being and move him later.’
‘I don’t think I can bear to touch him again.’
‘Bloody hell.’
She despised herself for giving way after she had held herself together so well. ‘You can say it. I’m a coward.’
Antonia curled her lip and said rather more. ‘If you fill your knickers over a little thing like this, I don’t like to think about your date with Mr Pierrepoint.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘The hangman.’
It was a telling threat. Rose had a vivid mental picture of herself in the execution chamber. Even in the black hours after Barry’s death she had never let her thoughts move on so far as that horrid possibility. She stared at Antonia for some seconds. ‘All right. I’ll try.’
They went out into the hall again. Rose took a grip of one of the coat sleeves. Shoulder to shoulder they dragged the body to the back room.
‘On the sofa.’
‘He won’t look natural.’
‘Shut up and pick up the legs.’
Rose obeyed. She avoided looking directly at the face and as soon as the job was done she ran to the toilet and retched r
epeatedly.
In the kitchen Antonia made black coffee. When she put the cup in front of Rose there were two pills beside it.
Rose turned them over suspiciously. ‘What are these?’
‘Benzedrine. I get them on prescription from my doctor. I’m supposed to be slimming. Try them.’
‘Not likely.’
‘What’s up? It’s going to be another long night. They’ll keep you awake. Give you a marvellous feeling in your head. Didn’t you take them in the war?’
Rose took a sip of the coffee and said nothing.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Antonia snatched up the pills and swallowed them.
They sat without saying anything to each other. Soon the silence became unendurable. Antonia switched on the wireless. Someone was playing a cinema organ. Finally Antonia went out to see if the state of the body had altered. She shook her head when she came back.
‘Just the same. I was planning to see the undertaker this morning.’
‘You can’t have him here yet.’
‘I could ask him not to come until late.’
‘How do we know when it wears off? It could be hours and hours. Haven’t you got a medical book in the house?’
‘I never bother with books.’
‘You’ve got a room stacked with them upstairs.’ Rose realized as she spoke that she hadn’t mentioned going upstairs before. Antonia shot her a look.
Searching for information in some book was better than doing nothing. They went up and eventually found an Enquire Within Upon Everything that omitted to mention rigor mortis. Most of the books were in foreign languages.
‘Hector could have told us to the minute,’ said Antonia with an oddly belated note of pride in her murdered husband. ‘He was very well informed on things like that.’
Rose thought what stupid comments people come out with in times of stress.
26
Shortly after three that afternoon they were admitted to the office of Longshot and Greely, Funeral Directors, an oak-panelled or more likely oak-veneered inner room behind a curtained shopfront in Marylebone Road. When Rose was introduced as Antonia’s friend and Mr Greely put out his hand, she had to steel herself to make the first human contact since handling Hector. Her sense of touch was more sensitive than ever she had suspected. Actually she would have found Greely’s soft handshake obnoxious at any time. Probably he was not much over forty, but his movements were decrepit.
‘Park Crescent? I know it like my own house, ladies. That magnificent colonnade. And such commodious houses. Rest assured that any arrangements you should favour us with will meet the highest standards. Longshot and Greely have conducted funerals for some of the great families of London for generations. We shall be honoured to perform this last duty for your dear father.’
‘Husband.’ Antonia corrected him from under a veil. She had changed into a black fitted coat with frogged fastenings.
‘Indeed?’ An additional set of furrows appeared on Greely’s brow. ‘My dear lady, forgive me. One assumed . . . You appear so young for such a tragic eventuality.’
‘It was his heart.’
‘Ah.’
‘There was a weakness. We’d known of it for years.’
‘Even so.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Was it sudden when it came?’
‘Completely. He died at home in the drawing room.’
‘Today?’
‘Yesterday, about six in the evening.’
‘And he is still there? Have no worries, my dear lady. I shall arrange for him to be conveyed to our chapel of rest within the hour. From what you say I assume that there will be no need of an inquest and we can proceed with the arrangements within the next few days. I dare say you are too distressed to discuss such things as yet, but possibly tomorrow . . . ’
‘I want to settle it now.’ Antonia spoke in a soft, yet decisive voice.
‘We shall see to it, provided, of course, that you find our terms satisfactory.’
Rose thought it appropriate to contribute something to the conversation since she was supposed to be the widow’s support. ‘It will be a very quiet occasion.’
‘Cremation,’ said Antonia.
‘Whatever you wish, ladies. I take it that the deceased – your late husband – expressed a preference for cremation.’
‘He wasn’t opposed to it.’
‘How soon can you arrange it?’ asked Rose.
‘Ladies, there will be no delay in my firm’s arrangements, I assure you. However, the Cremation Regulations do require us to observe certain formalities. Paperwork. Very tedious.’
Antonia opened her bag. ‘We brought the registrar’s certificate.’
‘Yes.’ He held it folded in his hand. ‘In point of fact, I must give you some forms to be completed.’
Antonia opened her bag and took out her fountain pen. ‘We’ll do it now.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Greely. ‘Form A is a declaration that you must make in the presence of a Justice of the Peace or a Commissioner for Oaths.’
‘Is there one nearby? If it’s only a matter of visiting an office, we’ll do it this afternoon.’
‘Ah, but as there has been no inquest, I must also let you have forms B and C, the medical certificate forms. Form B must be filled in by the doctor who certified the death and Form C is for another doctor of at least five years standing, who should also see the – em – body. Then all the forms, including this certificate you obtained from the registry have to be sent to the Medical Referee of the London Cremation Company for his written authority.’
There was a petrifying silence.
‘I understand your feelings, ladies, believe me. I wish the procedure could be simplified. It is, of course, a safeguard against deaths that happen in suspicious circumstances – not that this remotely applies in your case.’
Rose glanced at Antonia’s strained face and then back at Greely. ‘What is the procedure for a burial?’
‘Oh, much more straightforward.’
Antonia reached a rapid decision. ‘We’ll have him buried, then. I just can’t face all these delays.’
Rose nodded. It was the obvious thing to do. They couldn’t run the risk of forging the medical forms as well as the registration certificate. Burial was the answer. It wasn’t as if Hector’s body contained poison or had any obvious injuries. Even an exhumation wouldn’t reveal anything.
Greely seemed encouraged by Antonia’s change of mind. ‘Then we can attend to things at once. Let’s make sure that this registration is all in order. Forty-two, was he, poor fellow? No age at all. And I dare say you also have the other piece of paper in your bag?’
Antonia frowned and opened her handbag. ‘No, what’s that?’
‘If you left it at home, it doesn’t matter at this stage. Doesn’t matter in the least as long as you bring it tomorrow.’
Rose tensed and crossed her legs. ‘What is this piece of paper? She gave you the certificate.’
He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a form and held it up briefly for their scrutiny. ‘It looks like this. This one relates to a burial last week. The registrar will have issued a similar one with your copy of the registration certificate. You see, I don’t actually require the document you handed me. That is for your use. I require the other—’ He coughed behind his hand. ‘—the disposal certificate, as it’s known.’
‘The what?’ Antonia raised her voice in a manner hardly fitting a just-bereaved widow.
‘It’s the certificate that authorizes me as the funeral director – or whoever you should honour with the arrangements – to conduct the burial. Without it, I am unable to proceed.’
Antonia shot a horrified glance at Rose. ‘I didn’t bring it with me.’
Greely smiled reassuringly. ‘Not to worry. Not to worry at all. It isn’t the first time. People get confused, and understandably in the circumstances. Why don’t you see if it’s at home, and if it isn’t, if you’ve mislaid it, I can apply
to the registrar for a duplicate.’
‘No, you will not.’
‘Oh, there’s no extra fee. I’ll tell you what I suggest. You ladies go back to the house and see if this elusive little form is lying about somewhere. In the meantime I’ll drive over with one of my colleagues to collect – that is to say, take care of – your late husband, and if for any reason the certificate is lost—’
‘No.’ Antonia cut him off in mid-sentence. She stood up and snatched the registration certificate from his desk. ‘I’ve never been treated with such callous and pettifogging disregard. I came here looking for sympathy and understanding and you talk to me about disposal, as if my Hector is unwanted rubbish. After this I couldn’t bear to put him in your hands. We’ll get someone with a modicum of respect for the departed to do it. Come on, Rose, before I say something I regret.’
‘Madam, I apologize most sincerely. I assure you I was merely trying to explain the formalities. Upsetting you like this is the very last thing I wanted.’
Rose wasted no sympathy on him either as she followed Antonia out. ‘It’s the last you’ll hear from us, anyway.’
Out in the street Antonia stood tight-lipped beside the car. Although Rose felt in a state of panic too, she offered to drive. In the WAAF she’d driven everything from staff cars to two-ton lorries.
Antonia’s voice was bleak. ‘What on earth do we do now?’
‘Better go somewhere quiet where we can think. Round the Park.’
Rose started up and swung the Bentley into Baker Street and across Park Road to join the traffic on the Outer Circle. For all she cared now, they could drive round and round Regent’s Park until the petrol ran out, a sort of limbo. Hell wasn’t far away.
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