Skeletons

by Robert Innes

  Silence filled the kitchen once more. Blake looked like he wanted to burst into tears. He stepped forwards and pulled Harrison into him.

  “I’m sorry,” Blake whispered.

  “We’re both in the clear,” Harrison replied. “Luckily for you, but Blake please. Promise me. I’m not that scared little boy cowering away from the world with only a goat for company any more. You’ve help me grow into somebody more confident and self-assured. Please, trust me with that.”

  Blake smiled and nodded. “I promise.”

  He pulled Harrison’s head gently towards his and kissed him. It felt right, much more so than anything Tom could have provided him. It also felt long overdue as if the pair of them had not touched each other in months. Finally, when they parted, Harrison smiled back and then said, “Now, what was all this about a funeral?”

  13

  Blake knew that he could rely on the villagers of Harmschapel to turn out for an event that would result in something to keep their tongues wagging for a few weeks, even if it was a funeral for somebody they barely knew at all. He was almost amused by what he could overhear being discussed amongst them.

  “I can’t say I knew this woman, but from what I’ve heard, she had a terrible relationship with her husband.”

  “I heard he murdered her.”

  “No!”

  “Yes! Battered her right over the head if you listen to the gossip, which of course I never do.”

  “No, of course not. I’m sure we’ve both got better things to do than listen to idle tongues wag.”

  Harrison glanced back at the pair of old women behind them with an expression of disbelief. “It’s like listening to one of those old soap operas from the sixties. You can just imagine them gathered around a table with a milk stout.”

  Blake chuckled. “It’s perfect.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, DS Harte,” said a voice to his side. Inspector Angel was in what he had assured Blake was his Sunday best, though to Blake it looked remarkably similar to his uniform.

  “As sure as I’ll ever be, Sir,” Blake replied.

  The congregation gathered around the grave in St Abra’s churchyard that had been dug for them to place the coffin into.

  “At least she already had a coffin to go in,” Harrison murmured as they watched the pall bearer approaching. On top of their shoulders was the coffin they had found the body inside, originally meant for Patrick Coopland.

  Blake carefully lifted up the lapels of his suit jacket. “All units in position?” he whispered.

  “Ready, Sir,” Mattison replied in his ear.

  “In position,” Patil’s voice added.

  “Yes,” Gardiner said. “Though God knows what you expect to happen here.”

  “Just do as we agreed, Michael,” Blake hissed. “Keep an eye out and tell me the minute you see anything.”

  A crackle on the radio signified Gardiner’s reply. Blake rolled his eyes. Even on an important operation like this, Gardiner still found room to be awkward.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” the vicar announced as the pallbearers arrived at the foot of the grave, the coffin still held high on their shoulders. “First of all, I’d like to thank you all for coming. We are gathered here today to lay to rest Angela Coopland.”

  “When exactly do you expect something to happen during this charade?” Angel whispered as the vicar continued.

  “Patience, Sir,” Blake replied. “They’ll be here. This is one funeral I don’t think they’ll want to miss.”

  “How do you know they’ll even know about it?” Angel asked quietly. “According to you, Harmschapel gossip should have reached them, but I’m not so sure.”

  “Trust me,” Blake said. “If they heard this was happening, they’ll be here.”

  The vicar clasped his hands together as the coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. Blake was surprised to see a number of the congregation sniffing and wiping tears from their eyes. Harmschapel, it seemed, could always be relied upon to keep up traditional appearances.

  “For as much as it has pleased Almighty God to take out of this world the soul of Angela Coopland, we therefore commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, looking for that blessed hope when the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.”

  “Anything yet?” Blake whispered into his microphone.

  “Not that we can see, Sir,” Mattison replied. “I’ve got a clear sight of the graveyard from my vantage point. There’s nothing untoward happening yet.”

  “Same here,” Patil confirmed,

  “Told you,” Gardiner said. “Complete waste of time.”

  Blake turned to Angel, slightly annoyed. “Sir, may I ask that you speak to Gardiner about his lack of cooperativeness in an operation?”

  “Until we get the result you seem so sure of,” Angel replied, “I fail to see how we can regard this as anything other than a waste of time, DS Harte.”

  Blake bit his lip in irritation as he watched the coffin be lowered further into the grave. “Come on,” he murmured. “Where are you?”

  The service continued. Blake had specifically asked for it to be as simple and as complication free as possible, but as time ticked on with nothing out of the ordinary occurring, he was beginning to wish he had not come up with the idea at all.

  Suddenly, Mattison’s voice sounded in his ear. “Sir, there’s somebody by the tree. Three O’clock from your position.”

  Blake’s eyes darted to the tall oak tree at the far side of the cemetery. Just visible through the low hanging branches was a figure watching them from beneath a hooded coat.

  “Okay, Matti,” Blake whispered. “You’re the closest. Move in slowly. Mini, check your vantage point for anything and then make your way around to him.”

  The radio crackled in response.

  “I hope that’s a result, DS Harte,” Angel murmured.

  “So do I, Sir,” Blake replied. He watched the figure, trying to work out who it was, but they were too far away to be distinguishable.

  Then, Blake saw Mattison approaching from behind, slowly and carefully.

  “I’m nearly there, Sir,” he whispered into his radio.

  The coffin finally hit the bottom of the grave with a dull thud as the vicar finished his committal.

  “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort ye one another with these words. Amen.”

  “Amen,” rumbled the congregation.

  Suddenly, the figure made a run for it.

  “Suspect is on the move!” Mattison shouted into his radio.

  Immediately, Blake was in action. He turned to Angel. “This is it, Sir!”

  “Carry on, DS Harte,” Angel said sharply.

  “All units go, go, go!” Blake cried into his radio.

  The congregation all jumped in surprise as his sudden outburst.

  “This is most irregular!” the vicar objected, but Blake was already running towards the figure.

  “Good luck!” he heard Harrison yell from behind him.

  The figure was now clearly aware they had been tricked. They were now running full pelt towards the open gates of the cemetery, with Mattison and Patil in hot pursuit.

  Blake caught up with the two officers and the three of them ran through the gates of the churchyard. The figure was now sprinting down the road towards a red Mini Cooper. The passenger door of the car suddenly opened as the driver apparently realised what was going on.

  “In the car,” Blake shouted to Mattison and Patil. “Michael, get ready, they’re going to be coming your way in around two minutes!”

  “Oh, good,” drawled Gardiner.

  They all piled into the unmarked police car which was waiting for them a little further down the road as the figure final
ly reached the Mini. As they dived into the car, the hood slipped from their head and a familiar mass of wavy brown hair cascaded down the shoulders of Angela Coopland.

  “It’s her,” Blake said urgently.

  As soon as Mattison had slammed the car door behind him, Blake revved the engine just as the Mini zoomed past them. Blake slammed his foot down and swung the steering wheel around, before screeching down the road after the Mini.

  “I thought you must be way off the mark, Sir,” Mattison said as they sped down the road. “But that was her, wasn’t it? That was Angela Coopland?”

  “Trust me, Matti, I didn’t want to be,” Blake replied, watching the car in front carefully. He leant down and turned on the siren. “We don’t know the half of the story yet though. That woman has a lot to answer for.”

  Onwards they went through the village, with the cars screeching around bends and narrow streets until finally the road started to widen as they made their way towards the outskirts of the village.

  “We’re with you in thirty seconds, Michael!” Blake called.

  Ahead was the part of the village where the whole case had begun and Blake desperately hoped that history was not about to repeat itself.

  As they rounded the final bend, the flashing of blue police lights became instantly visible. The road ahead was blocked with barricades and police cars, but for one terrifying second, Blake thought that the car was not going to stop. But just at the last moment, the Mini screeched to a halt, stopping inches from the patrol cars lined up across the road.

  Blake manoeuvred the car behind so that their captives were now completely blocked in. The chase was over.

  With adrenaline that only ever came from car chases still surging around his body, Blake got out of the car and walked towards the Mini staring through the passenger window.

  There was Angela Coopland, looking horrified and in tears, whilst next to her, behind the wheel was Patrick.

  “I think it’s fair to say,” Blake said loudly so they could both hear him, “that I’d like you both to come along with us while we’ve got the pair of you alive.”

  14

  Angela looked like she had been through a terribly traumatic event. Her hair, which had once appeared beautifully wavy now had the appearance of rat tails. There were dark bags underneath her eyes and she seemed incredibly jumpy. Blake watched her through the mirrored wall with his arms crossed, debating on how best to question her. He turned to face Angel as he joined him in watching her. She was staring straight ahead, looking utterly defeated.

  “She doesn’t look that terrible, considering we thought she was dead,” Angel said. “Who would you like to go in with you? Sergeant Gardiner and Constable Mattison are interviewing Patrick Coopland.” He frowned. “That is Patrick Coopland we have in there?”

  “Oh, it definitely is,” Blake replied. “The man Angela originally fell in love with wouldn’t have turned her into this. I think, Sir, it might be best if I just talk to her on my own, at least for now. She knows me, and she’s opened up to me before. I don’t know how much of that was true, but she doesn’t look like she’s got it in her to try and make anything up at the moment.”

  “Very well,” Angel replied. “I shall be watching.”

  Blake nodded, then picked up his case notes and walked into the room.

  Angela barely registered his arrival. Blake studied her carefully and then sat opposite her. As her eyes darted up to him, he gave her a smile in the hope that she would take it as communication that it was safe to talk to him.

  “Hi Angela,” he said gently. “I didn’t think I’d get to speak to you again.”

  She said nothing, merely brushing her hair out of her face.

  Blake leant over and pressed the tape recorder on. “Interview commencing at 12:22. Present in the room, Detective Sergeant Blake Harte and Angela Coopland.” He clasped his hands together and eyed the empty plastic cup on the table. “Do you need some more water?”

  Angela glanced at the cup and shook her head.

  “Okay. Let’s get started.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angela said, her voice raspy. “I didn’t mean to cause you all this trouble. I don’t know how any of this has happened.”

  “Let’s talk about it,” Blake replied. “There’s so much happened over the past couple of weeks to you. Just remember, in here, you’re safe. You’re going to be charged, you know that, but nothing is going to happen to you while I’m sat here. I just want to talk to you. Is that alright?”

  Angela nodded.

  “We need to discuss what happened on the day of the funeral,” Blake said. “Because when we were all gathered around that coffin, watching it being put into the ground, we all thought we were saying goodbye to Patrick. But you knew that Patrick wasn’t the one in the coffin, didn’t you?”

  Again, Angela nodded, but said nothing. Blake opened up the case file and pulled out the photograph he had seen when he had been in the mortuary with Sharon.

  “This was taken when you were still at school. I didn’t think to look at this photo especially hard when I was looking through your house for evidence. Why should I? It’s just your standard class photograph. We’ve all got one, no matter how long ago you were at school. And it’s been sat in that photo album for years, you completely unaware that it would lead me to some of the answers of what I have to say is probably the most bizarre murder investigation I’ve ever come across. I vaguely remembered you mentioning your sister, Annie, and how you’d never got on. One of the brothers even mentioned her in the little red book we found, communicating the days events to the other. What I didn’t realise is that she came to Harmschapel on the day of Patrick’s funeral, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “And before she arrived, none of this madness about you suddenly turning up dead in your husband’s coffin was even in the pipeline.” He turned the photograph over. The rows of smiling children beamed back at her, including two little girls on the front row. “Patrick might have kept the fact that he had a twin brother from you, but you never mentioned to us that you’re also a twin.” He pointed to Angela and her sister on the photograph. “Look at the two of you. Two little girls with the biggest hair in the class. Even then it was your defining feature, and it’s something the two of you kept as you grew older. You might not have got on, but you both had the same idea about how you wanted to look. The only thing you didn’t have that was the same visually was that you broke your arm in the crash.”

  Angela stared down at the photograph, a sad smile appearing in the corner of her mouth as she looked down at a time when her life was easier. “I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. We argued so much growing up. From everything to boys to us stealing each other’s clothes. There’s something about twins. You get some that want to be as different from each other as you could be. That was never the case with me and Annie. It was like we both wanted to just be the better version of each other.”

  “And on the day of the funeral, she turned up?”

  “I was putting the final touches to Patrick, well, who I thought was Patrick, and she just strolled in. She said she’d heard about Patrick’s death and wanted to show her respects. She said she had always liked him. I knew that, because she had spent most of the time during the early days of our relationship practically throwing herself at him.” She placed the photograph face down on the table, but did not take her eyes off it, as if she could still see her sister staring back at her. “I told her that I was happy to see the back of him. He’d messed my head up for so many years, why wouldn’t I want to try and move on with my life? Try and find some real happiness without having to second guess which version of my husband I’d be cooking for that evening.” Angela laughed to herself bitterly. “Little did I know how literal that statement actually was. Annie then started telling me how I must have deserved everything that man ever put me through. Apparently because I didn’t have a scratch on me, how could he have been abusing me? I was greatly exaggerating
how traumatised I said I was.” A furious glint appeared in her tired eyes. “She chose that day to come and harass me and tell me how I must have deserved any aggravation Patrick gave me. How she could sympathise with him, because she knew what I was like growing up. I just wanted her to shut up.”

  “So, you made sure she did just that,” Blake added. “What did you hit her with?”

  “A candlestick,” Angela replied. “All very Cluedo. We have these big heavy gold ones that one of my husbands picked up when we went to Morocco for our holidays. They were just there to smarten the room up a bit. I didn’t mean to kill her, I swear. It was just with everything happening with the funeral, the car crash, I just lashed out.”

  “Delivering a fatal blow to her head,” Blake concluded. “Except now, you’ve got two dead bodies to deal with. One of them was about to be put in the ground never to be seen again. Once you nail the lid shut on that coffin, who would know that it wasn’t who was supposed to be in there?”

  “I don’t know how I even managed logical thought at that moment,” Angela murmured. “There I was, standing over the body of my sister on the floor and the body of my husband on the table ready to be put into his coffin. The answer just seemed obvious to me there and then. I put Patrick, I mean Colin, in one of the spare body fridges and then lifted Annie into the coffin, nailed it shut and spent the rest of the time I had to spare before the funeral trying to make sure that the room didn’t look like someone had just been battered to death in there.”

  “And Colin will still be in that mortuary?” Blake asked. “Obviously not in the one marked ‘Patrick Coopland’, just a random one.”

  “As far as I know,” Angela replied.

  Blake took the photograph away and placed it back in the folder. “So, when we were at that funeral, watching your sister being put into the ground, the reason you ran away was because you were still recovering from the shock of just clobbering your sister to death? It had nothing to do with grief for your husband. When you ran from the funeral and back to the undertakers, you still had no idea that you’d been deceived for so many years.”