A Grave in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  Judith rolled her eyes to the ceiling and then looked at her silent son. He reminded me of Detective Paul, withdrawing from the conversation, gazing out of the window, chasing particles in his back teeth. Charles Talbot was abnormally disinterested, given the nature of our business. Two people dead, a disputed grave, a redundant house-sitter who still sat stubbornly in place like Horton hatching the egg – didn’t any of it capture his imagination?

  ‘I suppose we can tell them,’ his mother said, trying to obtain his agreement. ‘What do you think, Charles?’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t see why not,’ he muttered, for all the world like his much younger brother.

  Judith took this as permission, ignoring anything her husband might have to say on the matter. ‘It’s no great mystery. My father had a horse, which needed a paddock. He rented that field a year before he died. That was seventeen years ago. I have no idea what the rent was, or how they paid it. For all I know, it was simply an annual standing order from the bank, and nobody gave it a thought. They probably forgot all about it.’

  ‘But your sister didn’t forget it, did she? She arranged for herself to be buried there, after all. And standing orders expire if the account holder dies.’ I had had enough of picking my way through the skeletal facts, making little sense of them, and yet it needed to be done. Somehow I felt sure the fact of Mrs Simmonds’ grave connected to the killing of Mr Maynard, although it would have been just as likely there were two parallel problems going on, neither of them looking at all good for me.

  Thea was frowning, her eyes flickering in deep thought. ‘So, when did your mother die?’

  ‘Three years after Dad.’

  ‘Right. And Greta’s husband?’

  Judith blew out her cheeks. ‘Marcus? God, he disappeared decades ago. They were only married for five minutes. No need to bring him into it.’

  ‘I never even knew him,’ offered Charles, from his seat by the window. He looked slowly from me to Thea to his mother. ‘Where’s all this getting us, anyway? I think we ought to go.’

  ‘Right,’ I agreed heartily. ‘I don’t think there’s any more we can do at the moment. The ball’s in the council’s court now. Once they’ve recovered from the loss of Mr Maynard, they might pursue it – or they might forget the whole thing. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

  ‘But the police were involved, weren’t they?’ Thea remembered. ‘They contacted you in the first place.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I agreed. ‘So?’

  ‘So, it’ll be on file, something to be followed up – especially now there’s a homicide as well. They’re not going to just forget about it.’

  We all paused to entertain gloomy thoughts about what was to come. ‘Poor old Greta,’ said her sister. ‘I always thought she was being unrealistic to think she could get away with it. But she would just steamroller her way through, ignoring anything we said to her. It was the same when she joined that dopey community. We all said it could never work out.’

  ‘How long was she there?’ asked Thea.

  Judith smiled ruefully. ‘Six or seven years altogether. I admit it was a lot longer than we expected. She helped to set the whole thing up, from the beginning. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing, not by any means. She was always fighting with one or other of the people there, complaining about their dogs or their noisy cars. Just one thing after another. They must have been so glad when she finally left.’

  ‘Who lived here, then? Who were the tenants?’ Again, I admired Thea’s sharp mind, deftly filling in the gaps in the story.

  ‘They were called Andreason, a youngish couple. I met them once or twice, that’s all.’

  ‘They didn’t come to the funeral,’ I observed.

  ‘No.’ Judith laughed grimly. ‘If they had done, it would have been to dance on the grave.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They hated her. She threw them out, with minimal notice, when she needed to come back here to live, and they had nowhere else to go. Susan said there was a massive scene, right outside the house, with screaming and shouting, and all kinds of threats.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said again, rather wishing that it had been Greta Simmonds who had been murdered rather than the infuriating Mr Maynard, since here was an apparently obvious motive. ‘Judy,’ said Oliver warningly. ‘That’s nae quite true, is it? Greta wasn’t personally involved, which is how you made it sound. She had an agent handling it all.’

  His pedantic delivery plainly annoyed his wife. ‘It comes to the same thing,’ she insisted.

  He held up an admonitory finger. ‘And she did give the tenants fair warning. Anybody would have done the same as she did. She hadna any choice once the community people asked her to leave.’

  ‘That community sounds interesting,’ suggested Thea, who looked desperate to avert an argument. ‘Did you ever go there?’ She asked the question of all three Talbots, eyes wide with encouragement.

  ‘I did,’ said Judith reluctantly. ‘It was one of the first co-housing groups to be set up. They were a weird lot, talking in jargon most of the time. They pooled all their money and bought a big farm. All the barns and sheds were converted into little houses. Heaven knows how they got planning permission for it all, but they did.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they?’ asked Thea.

  ‘Plenty of reasons. Dense occupancy. Change of use. Adverse effect on the local villages. There were about a dozen families altogether – nearly thirty people.’

  ‘You know something about planning laws, then,’ I said, noting her familiarity with the language.

  ‘Doesn’t everybody?’ she snorted. ‘I sometimes think that half our lives are spent wrestling with planners.’

  Nothing had been resolved, but neither had I heard anything that made my situation worse, which was a relief in itself.

  ‘This house must be mine now,’ said Charles, unexpectedly. He looked around at the walls with new eyes, as if only then understanding his changed status. ‘She said she’d leave it to me. I still haven’t checked the will, but I can’t imagine there’ll be any difficulties. I’ll get onto an agent tomorrow, with a view to selling it.’

  I frowned at him. ‘But you’re her executor. Surely you saw the will when it was drawn up?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. She told me where it was and the name of the solicitor, and said I wouldn’t need to do anything until after she died. We both thought that was twenty years away. It just goes to show,’ he added vaguely.

  ‘So it’s for you to give me my instructions,’ Thea realised.

  ‘And pay you,’ I said firmly.

  He looked cornered for a moment. His mother humiliated him by coming to the rescue. ‘Yes, yes. We came with the intention of doing just that.’ She began to rummage in her handbag. ‘The chequebook’s here somewhere.’ I had half expected her to launch into an argument with Charles about selling the family house, the one she had grown up in. People were generally rather sentimental about such things.

  ‘Not you, Mother. Me,’ said Charles, although making no mirroring effort to produce any means of payment. ‘Gosh!’ He almost rubbed his hands. ‘This is going to put Clare’s nose right out of joint. She’ll wish she hadn’t been in such a rush to sign those divorce papers now.’

  His mother sighed. ‘Oh, Charles. Sometimes I think you care about nothing but money.’

  ‘Not fair, Mother,’ he protested weakly. ‘But Auntie Greta knew what she was doing. She could see I was going to need some capital.’

  Mrs Talbot looked at me, and then Thea, and rolled her eyes ambiguously. I had the impression that everything there was to be said had already been covered in numerous family discussions. ‘You haven’t got a chequebook, have you?’ She looked at us again. ‘He does all his finances on the computer. Says cheques are obsolete.’

  ‘I quite like cheques,’ said Thea inconsequentially.

  ‘Well, as for instructions,’ said Charles, slightly too loudly, ‘it would be helpful if you could stay on just for another couple
of days. We need a valuer to come and have a look, for one thing. And meter readers. Plus, if there’s any more trouble about the grave, it would be good to have somebody on the spot.’

  ‘We haven’t settled anything, have we?’ said Judith, as she stood up and reached for her coat. ‘Greta is still dead.’

  I blinked at her. Had she hoped that her visit would resurrect her sister? ‘Try not to worry about the grave,’ I said. ‘I don’t think they’ll make us move it, when it comes to the crunch.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said with a quick smile. ‘That is the main thing, I suppose. She can melt away into the ground, just as she wanted to. Pity we’ll be selling the old house, though. It holds a lot of happy memories.’ I inwardly reproached myself for my premature assessment. She looked round, much as Charles had done. ‘But none of the family wants to live here now.’

  ‘Jeremy does,’ muttered Charles. ‘You always forget about Jeremy.’

  Odd, I thought, how late they’d left it to mention their other son, so much younger than his brother, born apparently to a much older mother than normal.

  ‘He liked his aunt, didn’t he?’ said Thea. ‘He said she always sent him some cash for his birthday, and read the stories he’d written.’

  ‘Blimey!’ said Judith, raising a general smile. ‘You must be a good listener! He never tells anybody about his stories.’

  ‘I felt sorry for him,’ she said simply. ‘He seemed rather lonely.’

  ‘They keep trying to convince me he’s got Asperger’s, or one of those things, but he’s just an ordinary teenager, the way I see it. Of course, he’s had to cope with his sister—’

  ‘Mum,’ said Charles warningly. ‘Don’t start on that.’

  By a friendly, encouraging waggle of her head, Thea managed to elicit slightly more on this new member of the family. ‘She’s called Carrie,’ said Judith. ‘She’s been ill for a long time. It’s been a big strain on us all.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Nineteen. They were very close when they were little. He followed her everywhere.’

  ‘Poor Jeremy,’ murmured Thea.

  ‘Oh, he’s fine, really,’ asserted the boy’s mother. ‘He’s always done well at school.’

  ‘It’s just people he doesn’t like,’ said Charles, inscrutably. ‘All except for Carrie and Auntie Greta, of course. Trust him to choose the misfits in the family.’

  After they’d left, Thea and I indulged in a few minutes of debriefing. I edged hesitantly towards the door, little by little, as we talked, knowing I had to leave before the question of lunch arose. If I stayed to eat with her, it would be past two before I left, nearly four when I got home, the weekend almost over, and my conscience twingeing.

  ‘We have to assume that the murder had nothing to do with Mrs Simmonds’ grave,’ said Thea.

  I agreed with her.

  ‘After all, he probably had loads of enemies at work, or people he annoyed with his nit-picking.’

  I agreed again.

  ‘I’m going to leave here on Tuesday, and go back home. Witney, I live. It’s near Oxford. I’ve got my own house there.’

  I nodded. ‘Sounds nice,’ I said.

  ‘There’ll be a lot of dusting, and weeding, and sorting out to do. There always is after I’ve been house-sitting somewhere. I have to spend a week just getting back into my life there.’

  I was at the door. I opened it, looking out at my car.

  ‘Bye, then,’ I said.

  Chapter Nine

  Monday was almost surreal. I had the threat of being accused of murder hanging over my head, while making every effort to carry on with normal family and business life. After much internal debate, I had opted to say nothing about the murder to either Karen or Maggs. I elaborated extravagantly on the matter of the grave, the ownership of the land, the family involvement, which worked very well as a smokescreen. When asked about Mr Maynard, in his role as council official, I merely said I thought he would present little further difficulty. ‘It’s mostly resolved now,’ I lied. ‘Although I might have to go up there one more time, to really make sure it’s all going to be OK.’

  There had been an awkward moment when I realised I was wearing an unfamiliar tracksuit that even Karen would spot was not part of my wardrobe. I solved it by pulling on an anorak I kept in the car and dashing upstairs the moment I got into the house, shouting that I was desperate for the loo. I quickly changed, and stuffed the alien clothes into a plastic bag.

  Maggs had successfully transported Mr Everscott in Den’s trailer to our tiny mortuary, where he lay on a slate slab, awaiting his cardboard coffin. ‘Wednesday,’ she told me. ‘Better go and get digging.’

  We dug our own graves, with a recently-acquired mini digger that I still regarded as more of a toy than a practical tool. We went four feet down, as opposed to the usual six, hoping there would be better aerobic activity, aiding decomposition and releasing nutrients to the soil. Any shallower, and there were risks of wildlife making inroads, with resulting distress to all concerned. Despite Mrs Simmonds’ cavalier attitude, the reality was far from acceptable.

  ‘Any mourners?’ I asked.

  ‘Two, I think. One from the nursing home, and the granddaughter who’s paying for it. She phoned on Saturday, wanting to know the routine. She sounded nice.’

  Mr Everscott, unlike Mrs Simmonds, had not paid all expenses in advance. He had wanted to, but his only interested relative had insisted that she would carry the costs. It was one of our strengths, that we would go along with all sorts of different financial arrangements to suit the myriad family patterns that existed.

  Arranging an alternative funeral was not straightforward. The mainstream undertakers held most of the cards – they were the default removers of bodies from nursing homes or sudden accidents; they operated streamlined procedures that carried the families along before they quite knew what was happening. We got very few requests after the death had occurred, much to my frustration. Despite advertising and word of mouth, we were not high profile. In the shock and haste that followed a death, even an expected one, far too few people made the effort to track us down and initiate our services in those first hours when the body had to be tidied away, retrieved from hospital or home and taken somewhere cool and competent.

  Two mourners sounded forlorn, even to me, who had conducted funerals where nobody came at all. A life ended with scarcely any fanfare implied a person ignored, disliked or forgotten. Mr Everscott was none of these – he had simply lived too long. He had been married, gone to work, joined clubs, had lifelong friends – but, as he had explained to me when I met him, he had outlived it all. Even his two sons had predeceased him, leaving a single grandchild to carry on the line. ‘If I’d been a veteran of the Great War, they’d be wheeling me out every November, and giving me a state funeral,’ he’d chuckled. ‘As it is, I’m just plain Sid Everscott, ninety-three and not at all proud of it.’

  His sight had dimmed, his hands and head quivered constantly, but he still maintained a dry wit and a contented outlook. I liked Mr Everscott a lot.

  ‘Poor old chap,’ I sighed.

  ‘Could have been worse,’ Maggs said.

  She was right. The granddaughter, who was well into her forties, turned up that afternoon to finalise the details and commit herself to paying our fees. She was, as Maggs had surmised, a nice woman, who was full of admiration for her grandfather’s choice of final resting place. ‘He always did have perfect taste,’ she smiled. ‘And he held on to his atheism to the end. The prospect of a service in church before his burial always infuriated him. This is going to be exactly right for him.’

  It warmed me to hear her, and we parted with a handshake that managed to express how much we approved of each other.

  But my complacency was short-lived. I was in the house, having just finished lunch, debating with Karen as to which of us would collect the children from school, when the phone rang. It was the same phone in the office and the house, with an extension
upstairs. We always answered as if responding to news of a death, and the kids were completely forbidden from ever touching it.

  ‘Mr Slocombe? This is Helena Maynard.’ She obviously expected me to grasp instantly who she was and why she might want to speak to me. When I said nothing for a second longer than expected, she added impatiently, ‘My husband was murdered on Saturday.’

  ‘Oh! Gosh. I mean, yes, of course. I’m so sorry. What can I do for you?’ It was an abysmal performance. I was only glad that Maggs wasn’t listening and pulling appalled faces at me.

  ‘I’d like a straight answer to some questions, actually. The police will tell me almost nothing about what happened after Gavin left home on Saturday morning. All I know is that he was brutally murdered by a blow to the head.’

  Gavin? That pompous council official had been called Gavin? It didn’t seem possible. Only as a secondary observation did I note the controlled tone of her voice.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure—’I began, still trying to find my feet.

  ‘He went out to deal with something about a grave – that’s all I know. That’s the last thing he spoke to me about. Somebody phoned here on Friday evening, and Gavin contacted the police straight away. Then he went out to meet you the next morning. I found your name on the pad by the phone. I had to go to some trouble to trace you.’

  Slowly I gathered my wits. This sounded nothing at all like the scores of new widows I had spoken to over the years. This was a brisk and angry woman. ‘Yes, I met your husband on Saturday morning to discuss a burial that I conducted on Friday. And then, in the afternoon, I was present soon after the discovery of his body. I don’t know what else I can tell you.’

  ‘Nobody will tell me anything,’ she said bitterly. ‘We were married for eighteen years, for God’s sake, and now I’m being treated like dirt. Somebody in the village said you were questioned about it. You must know what’s happening.’

  Who in the village, I wondered, had known I was being questioned? I suspected the gossipy Susan Watchett. But my mind was still not properly in gear. The inhabitants of Broad Campden were assembled in a sort of fog in my mind’s eye – couples, and old Bill Kettles and the dead Greta Simmonds.