by Rebecca Tope
‘Stop!’ Maggs ordered. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere. You two can go somewhere else to talk about people we don’t know. Unless you want me and Den to leave you in peace, of course, and just drive off home again.’
For two seconds, Thea found herself wanting precisely that. The sheer number of people was adding to the sense that everything was out of control. But a glance at the faces of Drew and his children was enough to change her mind. ‘No, of course we don’t want that. We’re being ridiculous. You need to talk to Drew, for one thing. And it’s lovely to get to know Merry now she’s so grown-up. I don’t think I’ll be wanted by the police at all. I haven’t got anything whatsoever to tell them. So why don’t we leave Drew to get all that side of things settled, and then all of us get together for lunch somewhere? That was the original plan, after all. We don’t have to change it.’ She waited for a thunderbolt that never came. Surely she couldn’t simply abandon Gladwin, Rosa and even the alarming Clovis Biddulph, and simply go out for the day with family and friends? Apparently she could.
‘That sounds like sense to me,’ said Maggs. ‘We can’t stand round like this all day.’
‘Right. Come on, kids – let’s find shoes and things, and see if we can make a proper plan. Den – maybe you should have a look at the map. You don’t know the area as well as the rest of us.’
Meredith squawked warningly, prompting her father to release her from her seat and wipe her sticky face.
Maggs and Drew were suddenly left alone in the kitchen. ‘Are you going too?’ she asked him.
‘It depends what DS Gladwin wants me to do. I expect I can get away once I’ve shown her where I saw Juliet.’
‘What happens if a new funeral comes in this morning? Nobody’s going to be here for the phone.’
‘It gets diverted to my mobile – the same as it does for you, if anyone wants a burial at Peaceful Repose. It doesn’t happen very often at a weekend, for either of us, does it? The hospice knows my limitations – but there’s nobody there just now wanting my services. The most likely thing is general enquiries, and I can usually handle them wherever I happen to be.’
‘Does Andrew ever take the calls?’
‘He never has, but we should probably think about changing that. He’s still a bit hazy about the paperwork.’ Drew gave her a long thoughtful look. ‘You surely know all this? Have we got so out of touch you have to ask? Is that part of the problem?’
‘We haven’t had a real discussion about procedures since well before last Christmas. We know basically what goes on, but we don’t talk like we used to. It’s lonely, Drew – even with Den and Pandora, it’s not the same. I knew it wouldn’t be, and I can cope with the big stuff. It’s all the little stories, mistakes and funny moments I can’t really share with anybody but you. I bet you know what I mean.’
He could not deny it. Thea would never fully grasp the unique undertaker’s witticisms, which ranged from the many sounds a dead body could make to the barely avoided disasters during a funeral that could cause a person’s heart to stop with terror, but which sounded trivial to someone not involved. The necessary balance between respect, sympathy, professionalism and trustworthiness could not fail to produce comic moments that only someone else in the business could understand. The small deceptions and sudden shocking truths could both be funny at times. ‘Well, however tedious they are, you’re bound to miss them,’ was a favourite quote from a new widow, acknowledging frankly what a trial her demented husband had been. It made Drew laugh every time he thought of it.
‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘But we’ll have to leave all that for another time. This police thing is going to trump everything else for a while. She was really sweet, you know – Juliet Wilson. I only met her briefly in Stanton, but she was one of those people you don’t forget. If somebody really has killed her, they deserve every punishment there is.’
‘It could turn out to be an accident,’ said Maggs optimistically. ‘It doesn’t sound as if anyone could possibly be vile enough to deliberately murder her.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ he said, with little conviction. ‘Apart from anything else, a murder so close to my burial ground would give us all the wrong sort of publicity.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ Maggs said, reminding him of events that happened long before he met Thea. ‘And I notice you still haven’t given the burial ground here a name. Not even “Peaceful Repose Two”.’
‘Very funny,’ he groaned. ‘Somehow, none of us seem to be able to think of anything.’
‘Peaceful Repose is fairly awful,’ she said. ‘I keep wanting to shorten it, but you can’t say “PR” or “Pea-Rep”. You have to say the whole thing.’
Drew shook off the elegiac mood that was threatening to engulf him in this talk with Maggs. Her announcement of the night before still seemed unreal to him. The implications had him wavering between panic and real sadness. It was the end of an era, a crisis for his whole enterprise, and he was filled with nostalgia for the early days. He had dreamt, the previous night, that he was back at Plant’s, where funerals conformed to established norms and people were discouraged from diverging from standard practice. In the dream, he had been shouting at Daphne Plant, only to find Maggs standing beside her, giving her support to entirely the wrong side of the argument.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We can’t stand around chatting. I’ve got to go.’
‘And I need to find my husband and daughter. Listen – we’re happy to take charge of your two if that helps. Just for this morning, anyway. It looks to me as if Thea needs to be with you, while this police business is going on.’
‘You don’t have to do that. What about car seats?’
‘What about them? They can all fit in the back easily enough. We’ll take them to that farm park place, and see you back here sometime this afternoon. That still gives us loads of time to talk. We don’t have to leave here until about three tomorrow. That’s if you can stand us for that long.’
‘Thanks, Maggs,’ he said. ‘If you’re sure. Let me give you some money. That place costs a fair bit to go in.’
‘I hoped you’d say that,’ she laughed.
Chapter Seven
Drew and Thea walked the quarter-mile to the burial ground, apprehensive as to what they would have to face. Gladwin had been imprecise as to the exact place where Juliet’s body had been found, but there was no difficulty in locating it. ‘Oh, God,’ groaned Drew. ‘It’s even worse than I thought.’
In the field that was now the second Slocombe natural burial ground, there were police vehicles, two large dogs with handlers, people in white coveralls and a group of individuals clearly the focal point of the proceedings. ‘At least they’re not walking over the graves,’ said Thea.
There were sixty-six graves, nearly half of them very obviously dug within the past six months or so. They were in two and a half well-spaced rows, starting from the southern edge of the field, stretching from hedge to hedge. Many in the first row had young saplings growing at their head, some were marked with natural stone, none in the traditional headstone shape. Boulders, cairns, even a hand-carved wooden abstract roughly in the form of a large fish. A far greater proportion of the ground was as yet undisturbed, other than by a path running from the road gate to the graves. In the north-western corner was a neglected gateway leading to an adjacent field. Drew and Andrew had fortified the existing wooden gate with lengths of timber, although the prospect of farm animals finding their way in was not especially disconcerting. Drew had done his best to trace the owner of the neighbouring land, only to be passed around by vague officials who admitted it had not been properly registered and the owner could not be identified. Beyond it was an expanse of woodland measuring perhaps twelve or fifteen acres.
The gate had been removed from its hinges and was leaning drunkenly against the hedge. Another larger vehicle could be glimpsed on the far side of the next field, on the edge of the woods. Something white was also visible.
‘But how?’ wondered Thea. ‘Nobody goes over there. There’s no footpath or anything.’
‘Good question. It was a birdwatcher, believe it or not. He saw some sort of hawk or buzzard – several of them, actually – hovering over the place. He’d seen them doing it before when a lamb was dead or dying, so he decided to go for a look. Six o’clock this morning.’
‘That’s the best time for birds at the moment,’ said Drew, looking at his most recent grave.
Thea was quicker. ‘Er … isn’t that a bit of a coincidence? I mean, Mr Fleming and his birdsong – and then this birdwatcher person? Surely there must be a connection?’
Gladwin put a hand to her stomach as if in pain. ‘Please, Thea – don’t do this. Just explain what the hell you’re talking about.’
Thea pointed to the newest grave. ‘That’s Mr Fleming. Drew buried him yesterday morning, early. When the birds were doing their dawn chorus, only a bit later, because it’s May and they start about five in the morning. It was a request, you see. He got as close as was reasonable. And now, today, this person who found Juliet must have been after the same thing. But why here? The best guess is that it’s a relation of Mr Fleming, come back to commune with him and the birds, and all that sort of thing.’
She had every confidence that her explanation was crystal clear, but Gladwin still looked perplexed, and Drew was showing signs of exasperation. ‘Why bring the Flemings into it?’ he asked her crossly.
‘Why not?’ she flashed back.
‘Now, now,’ said Gladwin. ‘The birdwatcher’s name is Anthony Spiller. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘Nephew,’ said Drew promptly. ‘Sister’s son. Thea’s absolutely right, as usual. He’ll have come for a quiet moment with his uncle, while the birds were singing. Poor chap – he must have been horrified by what he found.’
‘Excited. Overwhelmed. All the usual reactions,’ said Gladwin wearily. ‘He’ll have told someone in the team about his uncle, I expect. It just wasn’t in the notes that came through to me. It gives him a convincing reason for being here, anyway.’ Then she threw a thoughtful glance at Thea. ‘You were quick,’ she commended. ‘Do you know how often you think just like a police detective? Quicker than most, in fact. And all without a day of training.’ She sighed. ‘Some people are born that way, I guess.’
‘It helps to be part of a large family, always trying to work out what the others are up to,’ said Thea modestly. ‘But I admit I was born nosy. I always think people are keeping something from me that I’d really like to know about.’
‘That’ll be the big family again,’ smiled Gladwin.
‘Probably.’
Drew was looking harassed. Thea had followed him as he’d walked a little way towards his rows of graves, as if to check they were all present and correct. The ground was open to the public, for families to come and go as they liked, and prospective inmates were encouraged to have a look. In North Staverton, with the field only yards from the house, he had been able to supervise visitors. In Broad Campden, with a distance of a quarter of a mile separating house from cemetery, he had to be content with daily visits to check that all was well. ‘At least she wasn’t actually on my land,’ he muttered.
‘Not this time,’ Thea muttered back.
He gave her a look full of anguished recollection. ‘They won’t think it was me, will they?’ It was intended as a joke, but neither of them smiled.
‘Well, let’s get on with it, shall we?’ Gladwin was striding after them. ‘I need exact time, place and every detail of your encounter with Miss Wilson on Wednesday. That’s why you’re here, after all. I’ve got a recorder, if that’s okay? We can get it all printed out and ready for signature later on. But, just for now, it’s going to be very useful to be on the actual spot. She was here in your field, was she?’
Before he could reply, she held up a finger. ‘Sorry – let me turn this on first. Right. For the record, this is DS Gladwin interviewing Mr Drew Slocombe at’ – she glanced at her watch – ‘9.57 a.m., Saturday 16th May. Now, sir, could you please tell me in your own words where and when you saw Miss Juliet Wilson earlier this week.’ The sudden formality in the familiar setting, with people coming and going all around them, made Thea think of early outside broadcasts on television. She could hear birds singing, a plane overhead, and the regular swishing of passing cars. Gladwin held her device under Drew’s nose, adding to the sense of something slightly old-fashioned and amateurish.
‘Well,’ Drew began. ‘It must have been about four o’clock. I’d gone to mark the Fleming grave for Andrew, and there she was. She didn’t see me at first, and I tried not to disturb her in case she was a relative on a visit. But she was close to where I had to put the marker, so I had to go up to her. I said something like, “I hope I’m not bothering you” and she laughed. “You don’t remember me, do you?” she said, and I must admit I didn’t. I was trying to think whose relative she was, you see. I think I asked her which grave she’d come to visit, and she said, “All of them.” I thought that was a bit funny, but we do get people who are just curious to see the place, so I told her that was fine with me, and that I was sorry, I still didn’t remember who she was. “I’m Juliet. We were in Stanton. You only saw me for a few minutes. It was Christmas time.” She spoke like a young girl, her head on one side, and that was when I knew who she was. “Oh, yes, of course,” I said. “You were really helpful, when Thea needed to leave the house she was looking after. There was that dog …” Anyway, that’s about it as far as I can remember. I was glad to see her looking well and confident.’
‘No sign that she was sleeping rough?’
‘I don’t think so. She was very direct – it was obvious that she still wasn’t too good at social situations.’
‘Direct? How?’
‘Questions. She asked me quite a few. Something about the people I buried and the families. Wanted names, seeing that there aren’t any headstones, and I had to tell her that sort of thing was a bit confidential sometimes.’
‘And she understood that?’ Gladwin hesitated. ‘Is that even true?’
‘Only very occasionally. I shouldn’t have said it really. It was just that she was being a bit annoying and I had to say something. To be honest, I was trying to get away – just saying whatever I thought would satisfy her. I feel bad about that now,’ he admitted, rubbing his forehead.
‘She was like that with me in Stanton,’ said Thea. ‘She didn’t know when to stop.’
‘So then what?’ Gladwin asked Drew.
‘I marked the plot for Mr Fleming and walked back home.’
‘You left her there? Knowing she was someone with learning difficulties? Weren’t you concerned about her?’ Gladwin eyed him reproachfully.
‘It was a warm summer afternoon. She looked to be perfectly in control of herself. It didn’t occur to me to worry about her. And what could I have done, even if I had been?’
‘You could ask her if her mother or friends knew where she was. Whether she needed a lift somewhere.’
‘I didn’t have the car. I walked there. It never crossed my mind to worry about her.’
‘Why did you think she was looking at the graves in the first place?’
He shook his head. ‘People often look at graves. It’s normal behaviour. We’re fairly high profile, as you must realise, so we get visitors who are curious about us. She wasn’t doing anything unusual, just slowly walking along the path, looking at the young trees and things.’
‘All right,’ said Gladwin. ‘So when you left her, it was – what? – four-fifteen? Something like that? On Wednesday 13th May.’
‘Yes. Possibly a bit later than that. I got home about half past, and it’s only a five-minute walk.’
She turned the recorder off and looked at Thea, who had quietly listened to the whole con
versation. ‘And he didn’t tell you he’d seen Juliet, when he got home?’
‘No. It was the usual bedlam, getting tea, feeding the dog, listening to the kids telling us about school. Drew mostly escapes into his office when all that’s going on, sorting out the schedule for the next day. He catches up with it after supper usually.’
‘And by the time the kids were in bed, I’d completely forgotten about Juliet,’ he added.
‘That was three nights ago,’ said Gladwin. ‘Did she spend all that time around here somewhere? If she did, she must have stayed well hidden. You did a funeral here yesterday, right? What about Thursday?’
‘Andrew was here in the afternoon digging the new grave. We can ask him if he saw her. But there was certainly not a sign of her yesterday when we did the Fleming funeral. I can’t believe she’d be here for three nights. She must have gone away and come back – or been brought back, because it’s a quiet place …’
‘To dump a body,’ Gladwin finished his sentence heartlessly. ‘Right.’
Thea cleared her throat. ‘I hate to ask, but how exactly did she die?’
‘You know I’m not supposed to tell you. Let’s just say it wasn’t very subtle. And no, there was no sign of any … interference, as they used to say.’
‘Poor, poor Rosa,’ Thea moaned. ‘How will she ever be able to bear it?’ Images from earlier episodes came to mind: a dead child and its crazed mother; a young man hanging from a beam in a barn; a local eccentric dead in the snow. Death in so many guises, inflicted in so many ways.
‘She was starting to feel her work was almost done. After thirty years of constant worry and vigilance, she was finally letting go. I spent an hour with her late on Thursday, when it was becoming clear that Juliet really had gone missing.’
Thea frowned. ‘But why were you involved? I mean – it couldn’t have been serious enough at that stage, surely? Nobody could have imagined she’d been murdered.’