Ashes to Ashes

by Margaret Duffy

  ‘We did, but I don’t think they’d shut her in there because they fancied a little fun later on.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She may have unwittingly stirred up a mobster sewer inhabited by someone along the lines of Jinty O’Connor.’

  ‘I think you ought to explain.’

  ‘Why? I’m on holiday, this isn’t an official case and I happen to know that you’re snowed under with work.’

  ‘Patrick, when you get involved in shoot-outs with mobsters and it’s become an official case with the Met I need to know about it,’ Greenway virtually snarled.

  ‘OK,’ Patrick agreed. ‘It all goes back to a woman complaining to my father that after her husband was cremated she was handed a whole lot of hip replacements and similar stuff that hadn’t been his.’

  There was a rather long silence.

  ‘Are you sure you want to know about this?’ Patrick broke it by saying.

  The commander has a collection of brightly coloured paper clips with which he makes patterns on his desk when he’s thinking and which otherwise reside in a small antique Chinese bowl. Now he swept up those that were scattered around in front of him and tipped them back into it.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do.’

  Patrick gave him the story, concisely but with every important detail. He is very good at this – army officers have to be. When he had finished the commander sat still, giving it thought, staring into space.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ he then murmured.

  ‘What, the wrong bodies being cremated?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Well, not that we know of, but there have been wrong bodies buried and people’s late nearest and dearest turning up in strange places.’

  ‘Yes, but that was the Mafia, in Italy,’ Patrick said. ‘Plenty of handy catacombs there.’

  ‘There were a couple of cases in Victorian London where coffins were hijacked during the night and the rightful occupants chucked into the Thames,’ Greenway recalled. ‘Does this manager and his secretary have anything to do with it, d’you reckon? With what happened to Joanna, I mean.’

  Patrick said, ‘She was asking questions in the neighbourhood where the secretary’s parents used to live. And, having been a cop, she has a forthright manner that screams the law or, at the very least, a private investigator because she’s been one of those as well. And, as I’ve just said, she was asking about a guy, the secretary’s father, who has, or had, a criminal record. We don’t know if he’s still alive. She, Sarah Dutton, has a criminal record for shoplifting, and it goes without saying that these people might be dangerous. The only way to find out is to make more enquiries.’

  ‘But it sounds like one of those estates where a large proportion of the population have form,’ Greenway countered.

  ‘That too,’ Patrick concurred. ‘And I have to say that the men who abducted her were a little drunk and hanging around outside a pub.’

  ‘So really, all we can do now is wait and see if the Met turn up anything. What you do at your end of the woods is your affair but I can only advise, frankly, that you tell this lady your investigations have come to nothing and forget it.’

  It seemed best not to tell him that the Met had not been given the full story.

  We agreed to follow part of Greenway’s advice: go home and wait. There was no point in staying in London with no real leads and I, for one, would far rather be around if Joanna was delving into the problem of possible missing late not-very-lamenteds. This might have been something to do with what my father had described as my ‘cat’s whiskers’, a certain intuition I have that also told me that there was something strange about Anne Peters.

  As it was, she was soon back and banging on the rector’s door. Elspeth was not at all happy about that as, quite rightly, she values their privacy. Patrick was called in to John’s study again and gave her an edited version of what he had done so far and how his enquiries had come to nothing. She was not pleased and, rather rudely, left abruptly, saying she would contact the police. All Patrick could do was forewarn James Carrick with a request to give Joanna the news. Obviously her involvement had not been mentioned to the widow.

  ‘Methinks the lady protests too much,’ Patrick muttered after telling me what had transpired.

  ‘Yes, but why?’ I said. I had heard the annexe front door slam as the woman herself had gone out. So had Mark, woken from sleep in his pram in the garden nearby. ‘Why is she making such a fuss? Is she really thinking her Archie’s in a ditch somewhere? She seemed quite glad he was dead, so what’s going on?’

  ‘You don’t like her, do you?’

  ‘No, she sets my teeth on edge.’

  ‘So if you switch on your oracle …’ Patrick had picked up Vicky and was waltzing around the room with her, much to the child’s delight.

  ‘Oh, I shall go right over the top. You don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘All right. We really must answer the question of why she protests so much. She’s angry. There’s a lot of resentment there. I also get the impression she’s frightened. It might be nothing to do with her husband but she seems bent on making trouble. She’s that kind of woman and I’m convinced she really will go to the police. If there’s a criminal angle to all this then she’s probably part of it, or has been.’

  ‘That’s creative, Ingrid.’

  ‘I know, right off the wall. But she might enjoy the prospect of the police tinkering at the edges of whatever scam it is, if it exists – get people really nervous.’

  He seated himself and the pair cuddled Vicky’s teddy bear. Then he said, ‘How much money would you put on this theory?’

  ‘Not much. I’m also wondering if she’s acting.’

  ‘Acting!’

  ‘Yes, you know, one of those attention seekers and it’s all hogwash. Either that or trying to cover herself, having been part of whatever it is.’

  ‘I wonder if the woman has any form.’

  There was no listing of anyone called Anne Peters who fitted the woman’s age and description in Criminal Records.

  A couple of evenings later, James Carrick called at the rectory on his way home from work. It is not on his direct route but only involves making a detour of a couple of miles. His visit was unusual insofar as if he wants a chat he usually suggests we meet at the local pub, the Ring o’ Bells, this being more convenient for one very obvious reason.

  ‘A dram?’ Patrick asked, endeavouring to repair the damage.

  ‘Thank you, but my conscience tells me to have half a dram,’ the DCI replied. ‘We have a big crackdown on drinking and driving right now and your drams are very generous.’

  We were sitting in the conservatory, where the younger children are allowed to play only if supervised, Justin in particular not respecting his mother’s collection of tender and semi-hardy plants. Having to research which of them might be poisonous if munched on by unknowing and curious youngsters has been a nightmare and I had ended up by having to give away a few that were iffy in that direction.

  ‘Joanna’s really getting into this Mrs Peters thing,’ Carrick then said, sinking into one of the cane chairs. ‘She’s not saying much but I’ve a nasty feeling that she’s poking around God knows where looking for the corpse.’

  ‘But with what evidence?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea. As I said, she’s not being forthcoming. I was wondering if – well, you’d have more success in finding out exactly what she’s doing. To be honest, I’m getting really worried, especially after what happened last time.’

  ‘She’s probably worried that you’re going to ask her to stop investigating if she tells you too much,’ I pointed out.

  ‘That had occurred to me.’

  ‘And the Peters woman still hasn’t made an official complaint?’ Patrick put in.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But, on reflection, she must be realistic enough to know that her bag of bits and pieces isn’t actually evidence that points towards a crime hav
ing been committed,’ I said. ‘And she can’t know what happened to Joanna.’

  Or, on the other hand … a little inner voice seemed to say.

  Carrick was looking at us rather searchingly, which was probably the reason for Patrick saying, ‘Suppose Ingrid asks her over for coffee one morning and just happens to mention it?’

  ‘No,’ I immediately objected. ‘Joanna knows full well that I don’t normally have people here for coffee as I don’t have the time, and we do our socializing in the evenings. It would look odd. Why don’t you both come to dinner on Saturday and we’ll introduce the subject?’

  ‘Well?’ Joanna said when we were relaxing over coffee. And when everyone just looked at her, added: ‘Isn’t this all about finding out what I’ve been up to?’

  ‘And of course for the pleasure of your company,’ Patrick responded with a big smile but avoided my eye. I had told him that I was sure she would suspect there was a hidden agenda.

  ‘When James just pops in to see you on the way home from work and comes back with an invitation, having been pestering me for days about what I’m doing …’ She beamed at us all and then laughed out loud.

  Patrick handed over a box of chocolates as a peace offering. ‘As far as I’m concerned please don’t feel obliged to say anything if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s interesting and I didn’t find out one of the best bits until this afternoon.’ She took a chocolate and bit into it, giving him a little wave by way of thanks.

  ‘I really hope you haven’t been trawling around in lonely places,’ fretted her husband.

  ‘No. Today I was in the public library actually.’

  ‘Public records?’ I guessed.

  ‘Sort of – back numbers of the local paper. But to start at the beginning, I thought I’d find out where Anne Peters lives. I drove to Wellow – as you know it’s all of ten minutes from where we live – and asked at the pub. The girl behind the bar was a foreign student and didn’t know but then I was lucky and spotted a man delivering gas bottles. He told me that she lives at a hamlet about a quarter of a mile down the road at what used to be a small market garden. He delivers both coal and gas bottles there. He said that the land had been sold off quite recently and built on, and local people had been furious about it as several fine protected trees had been cut down.’

  ‘Was that the Peterses?’ James asked.

  ‘Well, him anyway. I was just going to tell you about that.’

  ‘Sorry. Do go on.’

  ‘They were fined and she’s still pretty unpopular apparently. But you know what village life is like – people still winge on about things that happened generations ago.’

  ‘There be nuthin’ loike a good sloice of ferret pie,’ Patrick said in a broad Somerset accent.

  ‘Oh, please don’t start on that,’ I begged, laughing, remembering all too well him transfixing the public bar of a village pub with his ‘recipe’ for this non-existent rural delicacy.

  ‘Anyway,’ Joanna continued loudly, displaying a hint of her one-time DS mailed-fist manner, ‘it turned out to be a run-down bungalow almost surrounded by the newish, much more attract-ive ones. Rather handily, one was for sale, so I pretended to write down the agent’s details and it gave me the excuse to have a look around. A man was clipping the hedge in the front garden of another house so I wandered over and asked him what it was like living there. He said it was very quiet. He sounded like a local so I then asked him if he remembered the market garden and he told me that his father had worked there and, as a boy, he’d spent a lot of time there in the school holidays. So coming back evoked old memories and he was carrying on growing the chrysanthemums his father had excelled at. The place was owned by people called Robertson in those days, who he said grew wonderful produce, and it was sold to a couple he couldn’t remember the name of when Mr Robertson had to give up due to arthritis. They sold it to Mr Peters. He went on to say that he thought the man had only bought it with a view to selling the land off for housing – it had been turned into paddocks for horses – and he was glad he couldn’t see her house from his.’

  ‘She wasn’t too popular with him either then,’ Carrick mused.

  ‘Neither of them were, although – and this is a bit odd but there must be a perfectly simple explanation – no one can remember seeing the woman when Mr Peters first moved in. Archie, as you say she refers to him as, was downright nasty. But my confidant did hasten to say that people made excuses for him on account of his being very ill. I gathered, though, that there was relief all round when he died. According to people who live in the village itself, it was a very quiet funeral, hardly anyone there. Then he hesitated a bit before saying that he hoped I didn’t think the people round there were a nosy and gossiping lot but the woman who lived in the bungalow that was for sale had said that she thought how strange it was, seeing that no one appeared to have stayed with Mrs Peters the night before the funeral and hardly anyone turned up, that the coffin had been placed in the house overnight.’ Joanna surveyed our faces. ‘I thought you’d like that.’

  ‘I take it then that the place for sale has good views of Mrs Peters’s place,’ Patrick said as we soaked up the implications and possibilities of this.

  ‘Yes, it’s next door on the Wellow side. And there’s something else. Quite shortly after the funeral last month – and obviously, there might be absolutely no connection – one of the partners of the firm of undertakers was killed in a road accident.’

  Both upholders of the law looked at one another and Carrick said, ‘I remember now. It happened in a lane that joins the A36 in the Bradford on Avon area, which, as you know, is just over the border in Wiltshire. That meant that our Wiltshire colleagues investigated. I seem to remember that his car left the road and went into a tree. No other vehicles were involved. It burst into flames and he was only formally identified from dental records.’

  ‘No one was else in the vehicle with him?’ Patrick wondered.

  ‘No. Was it mentioned when you made enquiries at the firm?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But there’s no reason why they should have done, really. Very sad but these things happen.’

  ‘I agree, but it’s a neat way of getting rid of someone.’

  Joanna said, ‘If Mrs Peters was complicit in anything illegal that took place – and surely she must know what went on in her own home – then why has she brought it to your father’s attention, Patrick?’

  ‘Perhaps she didn’t get paid,’ I said.

  FIVE

  All this was mere conjecture, and Joanna agreed that she could not proceed further with that particular line of enquiry as she had no mandate to do so. Probably as a consolation and acutely worried that his other half might now hurtle off and search old barns, derelict silage and slurry pits in the middle of nowhere for Archie’s corpse, Carrick promised her that he would contact someone he knew at Wiltshire Police’s HQ in Devizes to discover a few facts about the death of the funeral director.

  ‘No crime has been committed,’ Patrick muttered to himself later that night when our guests had departed, we had cleared up and were getting ready for bed. ‘No one’s made a formal complaint. There’s not the merest hint that serious crime’s involved. I shall just have to set up a grass-cutting empire instead.’

  ‘You usually make things happen,’ I told him, remembering his determination to catch up with Jinty O’Connor.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Question Mrs Peters about the night before the funeral. She started all this off and is demanding results. Turn the tables on her and get a look inside the house.’

  ‘I might just do that.’

  I gazed at him, my man with his rangy frame, dark wavy hair going a little grey, those wonderful eyes – a sort of slightly taller Paul McGann – and said, ‘Meanwhile, you could make red hot love to me.’

  He subsided into bed. ‘Tell me why you always get really randy when I’ve been splitting logs all day.’

  I snug
gled up and gently massaged his chest, working downwards. ‘It’s seeing your muscles rippling and the way the axe slices through the wood. It’s dead sexy.’

  He snorted with derisive laughter and commenced to kiss me silly.

  ‘It’s a family tradition to have the coffin in the house the previous night,’ said Anne Peters, obviously very put out by our visit. ‘Goes back a long way. Besides, what business is it of yours?’

  Patrick stared at the woman in amazement. ‘I would like to remind you that you have made it my business. You have also been rather rudely banging on my parents’ front door and demanding answers. Or is this some kind of stupid hoax because you enjoy making trouble?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Well, I’m trying to find those answers for you. There only appears to be one lapse in security in the series of events surrounding your husband’s funeral and that is the fact that the coffin was here, in this house, overnight.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Investigating things involves asking questions. Who else was here besides you?’

  ‘Er … no one.’

  It was a little after ten the following morning and we had called without making an appointment, a certain bloody-mindedness having set in. I had been determined to go along as I was finding the whole affair fascinating, material for novels notwithstanding. As I had expected from both its owner and the outside appearance of the bungalow – which was almost hidden from the road by a wildly out-of-control hedge – the interior was fusty and in dire need of redecoration. The airless living room into which we had been shown was furnished with a brown Dralon three-piece suite that matched the carpet, a coffee table with a Formica top and a couple of other items: a bookcase and bureau that could have been utility pieces and were so old they might have belonged to her grandparents during the last war. The ‘ornaments’ on the mantelpiece of the fireplace surrounding a drab gas fire consisted of a small pair of brass candlesticks, tarnished, a plastic frame holding a black-and-white photo of a couple on their wedding day, the fashions suggesting the 1940s – the said grandparents perhaps – and a group of three pottery dogs of different sizes painted a bilious shade of green.