A Grave in the Cotswolds (16 page)

By four-fifteen we were all reunited, Stephanie’s head sporting an angry lump that was already purple with smudges of blue at the edges. Timmy was playing up, angry without quite understanding why. I tried to be patient with him, letting him talk about his short stay at Colette’s house, where the twin girls had forced him to eat cake with marzipan on it, even though it was horrible. ‘Never mind, Tim,’ I consoled him. ‘You’re home now.’

‘It was an emergency,’ said Stephanie, nodding earnestly at her little brother. ‘That’s why you had to go to that other house.’

‘Mrs Harris said it was annoying, not knowing who was taking me.’

I glanced at Karen, imagining the scene. Home time at the primary school was a laborious drawn-out process, whereby every child in every class was carefully liberated in turn, the teacher clutching the shoulders of each child until its parent was identified standing on the pavement outside. If someone was missing, the child had to wait. It meant teachers having to recognise two or three faces for each pupil. Mrs Harris clearly found the whole procedure as stupid as I did, her patience worn thin after a day in the company of twenty-two five-year-olds. The surprising part was that she stuck to it so religiously, week after week, term after term. It caused delays and traffic jams and quite a lot of bad temper, but still nobody dared to permit a child to leave the building without clear evidence of a responsible adult five yards away to receive it. Even I, in my late thirties, had almost forgotten there had ever been a time when things were different – when schoolchildren strolled along streets or across fields, or down quiet pathways unsupervised, and arrived home without ever having encountered the word ‘safety’. Now, the parting shot after many lessons or excursions was ‘Be safe!’ – an injunction that encapsulated society’s attitude all too comprehensively.

Karen smiled back at me a bit vaguely, content that everything was back to normal – that she had done what was necessary to come through the small crisis without mishap. She knew, I presumed, that it had actually been me who did everything – all that had been required of her was to make one or two phone calls. But this was to miss the point. She had not fallen apart, or lost the plot, or withdrawn into some safe, quiet corner. She had
functioned
, and still, after three years, we both knew this could never be fully taken for granted.

I had almost forgotten the unfinished business in Broad Campden, the continuing threat hanging over me of being charged with murdering Gavin Maynard, of being remanded in some distant police cell, unable to fulfil my duties to family or work. As Tuesday drifted uneventfully to a close, I found myself hoping that it was all being settled without me, that DI Basildon had solved his case and deleted me from his database, seeing no need to let me know. Did the police go to the bother of telling suspects that they were off the hook, as part of their routine? I doubted it. We were probably meant to keep an eye on the local press, and draw our own conclusions. I found myself feeling glad I had not burdened Karen with the full story. She knew nothing of the council official’s death, and only a few scraps of the complexities of Mrs Simmonds’ family and property. Even Maggs had been given an edited account.

There was only one woman who shared the full story with me, who understood my position and sympathised with it. And it was beginning to look as if I would never see or speak to that woman again.

Chapter Eleven

Mr Everscott’s funeral was the big event of that Wednesday. Even with only two mourners, and with everything well in hand, Maggs and I were fully absorbed in the preparations. We seldom had more than one burial a week, which meant that every one was important. This is not to say that every funeral isn’t important to much larger and busier undertakers, but there can be a certain conveyor-belt mentality if there are five or six cremations in a single day, as is not unusual. We were at the other end of the spectrum. We fiddled with the cardboard coffin, sealing down the lid and checking the weight. Lowering it into the grave was a challenge when there were only the two of us to do it. Maggs was almost as strong as me, and we had a good system worked out, but even so, it could easily become undignified if we weren’t careful.

There was to be no service, as such. I would read some words, agreed with Mr Everscott in advance, and the granddaughter had expressed a wish to say something, even though there would be so few of us to hear her. ‘I’ll be doing it for myself,’ she said. ‘If you can understand that.’

I did, of course.

Two o’clock was the planned time for proceedings to begin. At one-fifteen, the telephone rang, and I answered it from the office. A small part of my mind formed the thought that it would be the school again, with Stephanie complaining of a blinding headache or double vision.

But instead – and I found my lack of surprise an indication of how all along this was what I had been expecting – it was the Gloucestershire Police.

‘Mr Slocombe – I’m afraid we need you here again as soon as possible. We have a new development.’

‘I can’t,’ I said flatly. ‘I’m conducting a funeral in half an hour.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘Forty-five minutes,’ I lied, multiplying by at least three.

‘So you could be here by five quite easily,’ he asserted.

No
, I shouted inwardly. There wasn’t enough fuel in the car, I had no wish to spend another night in the Cotswolds, and the subtle humiliation that went with police questioning was to be resisted as far as humanly possible. ‘It would be extremely inconvenient. Can’t you send somebody to talk to me here?’

It seemed to surprise him, whoever he was. ‘Well…just hold on a moment.’

Surely, I thought, people were normally questioned in their own homes? It was a stratagem to find out more about them, seeing how they lived. If it came to a choice between that and being dragged yet again to Sodding Hampton or whatever Maggs had called it, I chose the former. But even that was far from inviting. Karen and the children would want to know what it was all about. The uncertainty on the part of the officer made me think I was in no very serious trouble, at least. If they believed they’d found evidence of my guilt, they’d have sent a car to collect me. Wouldn’t they? My friendship with Den Cooper, one-time police officer, had taught me that theory and practice seldom coincided. There were always constraints or distractions: issues about the weather or bank holidays, maverick individuals who broke the rules for the sake of it, and sheer clumsy incompetence, all leading to a reality that bore little resemblance to the slick operations we all watched on the TV.

The man came back. ‘We could leave it until tomorrow,’ he offered.

This was very strange. ‘And then what?’ I queried.

‘Then you come up here to answer some questions.’

‘Where, exactly?’

‘Cirencester.’

‘And it has to be there, does it? Not here?’

‘Definitely.’

‘And you can’t come to collect me?’

‘Normally, sir, that would be the procedure. But just at present we have nobody available. There are trains, I believe.’

His sarcasm went over my head, my mind racing down other lines. They wanted to confront me with tyre tracks, or shoe impressions, or a picture of my fingerprints on the dead man’s neck, or a witness picking me out of a line-up to say I was seen bashing the hapless Gavin with a rock.

I gave in. ‘All right. I expect I can be there by about eleven. How long will your questioning take?’

‘I suggest you bring a toothbrush,’ he said, with a very inappropriate little laugh.

I had to lie to Karen. And then I had to ask Maggs to do much the same. I could not bring myself to disclose to my wife the embarrassing fact that I was involved in a murder enquiry. Three years had elapsed since any of us had brushed against the violence and brutality of deliberate killing, but that wasn’t long enough to eradicate the trauma of it all. All it had done was lull us into a false sense of security. We had all three somehow forgotten that such things could happen. We had lost the ability to deal with it, the thick skin, the black humour, since Karen herself had almost died at the hands of another person. I remembered the startled little lurch that had happened inside me when Thea Osborne had said, ‘At least she wasn’t murdered,’ when speaking of Greta Simmonds. Perhaps, I thought wildly, Thea had somehow triggered the subsequent events. The word ought never to be uttered lightly. The imps and demons that lurked invisibly around us must have heard her and decided to do something about it.

‘I’ve got to go back to Broad Campden again,’ I told Karen, after the burial of Mr Everscott had taken place.

‘What on earth for?’ she demanded, unusually animated by her annoyance.

‘Oh, just more nonsense to do with the new grave. It’s completely my own fault, for not checking ownership of the land properly. They’re talking about exhuming the body, now, and I have to try to prevent that.’

‘Why didn’t you sort it out once and for all, at the weekend?’

‘The important people weren’t around. I did my best. Don’t be cross, Kaz.’ I only called her
Kaz
when I was wheedling. She didn’t really like it as much as she had ten years earlier.

‘So we’re back to the school problem again. Honestly, Drew, we’ve got to get another car. This just gets more and more ridiculous.’ We had had two cars until one of them catastrophically failed its MOT, and the finances prevented either its repair or replacement.

‘I know,’ I said meekly. ‘I’ll go on the train.’

Maggs was every bit as confrontational when I told her the situation. ‘You still aren’t telling Karen what’s going on?’

‘I daren’t. I don’t know how she’ll take it.’

‘That’s daft. When will you be back?’

‘They didn’t say.’

She looked at me narrowly. ‘Have you really told me the whole thing?’ she probed.

‘I’ve told you most of it,’ I promised. After all, the only detail I’d omitted was the existence of Thea. At that moment, I understood that I was more afraid of the conclusions Maggs might come to than anything my wife would think. There were definitely too many women in my life, I thought next, all of them expecting unreasonably good behaviour at all times.

‘You didn’t kill him, did you?’ Maggs had the nerve to ask. ‘He does sound terribly annoying.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I snapped. ‘That isn’t funny.’ It was not only unfunny, it was rather frightening. She made it sound very nearly possible.

‘Sorry.’ She held up her hands in surrender. ‘How long do you
think
it’ll be?’

‘There’s rules about it. Something about twenty-eight days.’

‘That’s for terrorists, stupid. It’s only twenty-four hours for normal criminals.’

‘That’s a relief. See you on Friday, then. Or Saturday – when you won’t be here, so it’ll be Monday.’

‘And what if we get a removal?’ she said innocently.

‘I’m not taking the car. Karen can’t manage without it. Maybe Den would go with you?’

‘Drew, that isn’t very fair, is it? He’ll do it once in a while, but you can’t expect him to drop everything when he’s not part of the business.’

‘Once in a while is all I’m asking. When was the last time – eh? Well over a year ago, when I took my family on holiday for one week. You’ve just had a fortnight in the sunshine.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she shrugged. ‘Just don’t take us for granted, right?’

‘As if I would.’

Her attitude only increased my stress. She hadn’t seen what it was like to be interviewed by a detective inspector. Even being reprimanded by a young female constable was bad enough. ‘At least the car’s legal now,’ I said. A new thought occurred. ‘I wonder if PC Jessica told the Cirencester people about that? Would it make me a likely suspect, the fact that I didn’t keep my car in order? Put me in a category with members of street gangs and hopeless reoffenders?’

She grinned. ‘Instead of the fantastically upright model citizen that you really are?’

‘Precisely. Don’t they know who I am? An undertaker, for heaven’s sake. How much more respectable can a person get?’

‘Alternative undertakers don’t count. Especially if they drive untaxed cars with bald tyres. Why don’t they come and fetch you, anyway, if it’s so important?’

‘You might well ask. Something to do with pressure of work and nobody being available. Budget cuts, in other words. I’ve a mind to just sit tight and see what happens. They’d have to come for me then, wouldn’t they?’

‘Try it – I dare you,’ she challenged.

I didn’t, of course. Nobody in their right mind alienated the police like that. I had promised to get there, and somehow I would. By Thursday morning – another windy day, reflecting my swirling thoughts – we had checked train timetables and found that I could just about manage to get to Cirencester, changing twice and taking several hours.

‘You need someone to give you a lift at least part of the way,’ Karen concluded. ‘Call the police and see if they can fetch you from somewhere along the way. And ask them when you’ll be able to come home again.’

It was a good suggestion, and I carried it out early that day. The person who answered the phone had no idea who I was or what I was asking, but finally passed me to someone who did. ‘We can make no firm commitments about when you’ll be released,’ he said pompously. ‘But perhaps you could speak to Mrs Osborne. She’s due here this morning, as well.’

‘Thea? What on earth for? She’s not a suspect as well, is she?’ Too late I remembered Karen at my elbow. I still hadn’t said anything about Thea to my wife, nor about anybody being a suspect for anything.

‘I can make no comment on that – but since the two of you are coming here, it just occurred to me that you might share a car.’

‘But she’s in Oxford and I’m in Somerset. How could that possibly work?’

I could hear his shrug. ‘We’re expecting you at eleven, Mr Slocombe.’

‘And what happens if I can’t manage it? Will you come and collect me? That would solve a lot of problems.’ The craziness of the situation hit me all over again. Whenever had such agonising over logistics featured so large in a murder enquiry?