A Grave in the Cotswolds (2 page)

A long silence followed. I waited for the mother to go to her unhappy boy, in vain. The father was equally unresponsive. I almost went to give him a hug myself, but resisted. After a minute or so, a small woman I had not managed to place in the general scheme of things strolled calmly to the lad and laid a hand lightly on his arm. I couldn’t see the look they exchanged, but it seemed to be right.

The funeral was over. I filled in the minimal paperwork required by the law. Mrs Talbot – Judith – came up to me, looking relieved. ‘Thank you, Mr Slocombe,’ she said formally. ‘I think we’ve satisfied my sister’s wishes, haven’t we?’ As I had seen before, when she and Charles had come to my office, there was irritation lurking just below the surface. She had actually said, on that occasion, ‘When my mother died, we had a cremation. For myself, I think that’s by far the most sensible option. But I’m afraid Greta hated it. That’s why we’ve got all this carry-on now.’

‘It’s what she wanted, Mum,’ Charles had said, more than once. Until the funeral I had not met the husband or the younger son. Nor the two middle-aged couples whose names I didn’t know, and who seemed to find the whole experience altogether fascinating. One wife kept nudging her husband and whispering. Nor did I know the pretty woman who had gone to console Jeremy Talbot. Throughout the burial, she had hung back, giving the impression she thought she ought not to be there.

The wind blew fiercely from the east, and I hoped I wouldn’t have a long wait for the gravedigger to arrive, it being unthinkable to leave an open grave unattended. To my relief, I glimpsed a man in heavy boots, leaning on the gate, when we began to straggle back to our cars. He was with two young people, who I took to be idle onlookers, curious as to what was taking place in this quiet corner. Having checked with Mrs Talbot that there was nothing more she required of me, I approached the gravedigger, exchanged a few words, and paid him in cash.

Behind me a voice spoke. ‘Er…would it be OK if I helped?’ he said.

I turned to see that Mrs Simmonds’ younger nephew was addressing the gravedigger. ‘It’d be good if I could see her covered up,’ he continued. ‘And my brother, if he wants to.’

The gravedigger nodded understanding. ‘There’s a spare spade in the van,’ he said easily, as if this was no new experience. He gave me a quick wink, full of a wisdom and tolerance that made me think he would be exactly the companion young Jeremy needed.

I had some doubt as to whether Charles Talbot would be similarly moved to assist in the filling of the grave, though. He had not looked to me like a man who could abide to get his hands dirty. Then I wondered how Jeremy would get away, if he stayed behind while his family all departed. My little flock of mourners still felt like my responsibility while any of them remained in the vicinity of the grave.

‘How are you getting home?’ I asked Jeremy.

‘On the bike,’ he said, as if this was obvious. He indicated a blue racing bicycle, leaning against an oak tree, on the verge outside the field gate.

I smiled, and waved him a final farewell, turning to go straight home again. And I would have done, if it hadn’t been for the small woman standing slightly apart from the others, watching my face so intently. I smiled, pleased to have a chance to learn more about her.

‘That was very…different,’ she said, holding out a hand. ‘I’m Thea Osborne. I was looking after Mrs Simmonds’ house when she died. I feel sort of
involved,
although I’m not really.’

I took her hand self-consciously. People were not always comfortable shaking hands with an undertaker. They expected something bloodless, perhaps faintly redolent of formaldehyde. Thea Osborne did not appear to have any qualms. ‘Did you not know her at all?’ I asked.

‘No, not really. I only met her once, when she gave me my instructions about the house. Then she went off to Somerset and died.’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘That’s never happened to me before.’ She spoke as if a lot of other things had happened, and this was something new to add to a collection. Here, I thought, was a woman who had seen things that many others had not. A woman like Maggs, who could confront the truth without flinching. A rare creature. Then she added an extraordinary remark: ‘At least she wasn’t murdered.’

I laughed. ‘Why – do you often encounter people who’ve been murdered?’

‘Actually, yes. It happens rather often. Partly because my…um…former boyfriend, I suppose you’d call him, is in the police. So are my daughter and my brother-in-law. And there’s something about house-sitting that skews the balance of the status quo.’

‘Oh?’

‘I mean…it creates opportunities, leaves a vacuum, changes the pattern in a community.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not really as fey as that sounds. And it might not even be true. Every murder has its own set of motives, after all.’

‘Well,’ I echoed her own words, ‘at least Mrs Simmonds wasn’t murdered. It wasn’t even much of a coincidence that she’d prearranged her funeral with me, and then died twenty-five miles from my house. She was visiting her former home, apparently. I assume those are friends of hers, from the place she lived before she came back here.’ I tilted my head discreetly towards the two couples who had been amongst the mourners. They were looking back at the new grave, quietly talking.

‘No, they’re locals,’ Thea told me. ‘But I agree it’s a very thin turnout. I’m glad I came.’

‘There’s not usually a crowd at these natural burials,’ I said. ‘They tend to be rather discreet.’

‘So
you
knew her?’ she said.

‘No better than you. She came into my office a year and a bit ago, and made arrangements to be buried here, where she lived as a child. I didn’t realise it was now her full-time home.’

‘She inherited it ten or fifteen years ago, apparently, when her mother died, and let it out for a while. That was when she was in some kind of cooperative place in Somerset. Which I suppose you knew.’

‘They call it co-housing. Horrible word.’

‘Indeed. Odd, don’t you think, that she left it? People generally expect to stay for ever when they join something like that.’

‘Ructions,’ I shrugged. ‘It can’t be easy to get along together in that sort of set-up.’

‘Well, she seemed nice enough. Unusual. Interesting.’

We were scattering stray comments back and forth, the wind making us uncomfortable. Skirts were whipping around female legs, which I suspected would normally be encased in trousers of some kind. ‘After all, not many people plan their own funeral when they’re only sixty – especially not a funeral like
this
.’

‘I had the impression of someone rather, well,
forceful
. I made some joke, if I remember rightly, about her living another thirty years or more.’

‘She seemed quite healthy to me,’ Thea agreed. ‘But perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps she knew this was likely to happen.’

‘According to the certificate, she died of an occlusion.’

Thea Osborne blinked. ‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘A blockage, basically. Generally impossible to predict. Very quick.’

‘Oh. So she approached you because she wanted a woodland burial, and fixed up all the details – is that right? That weird coffin, for a start. Don’t you have to make some special application to use something like that?’

I smiled. ‘Actually no, hardly at all. You don’t really want to know the whole story, do you?’

‘Not if you can’t be bothered to tell me.’

She meant it literally – not in a nasty way, but giving me permission to save my breath, if that’s what I preferred. I saw her looking around at the people in the field. She had the air of a person slowly coming to understand that her role was over, the last line delivered, and all that remained was to leave.

The Talbots had begun to get into their somewhat elderly BMW, apart from the boy nephew who was hanging back as if wanting time alone. I wondered fleetingly about his bike and where he would go on it. The family lived miles away, somewhere the far side of Oxford. Was he intending to cycle the whole way? I watched the family for a moment. ‘Who’s Carrie – do you know?’ I asked Thea.

‘What?’

‘The boy said something about Carrie, in his little speech.’

‘Must be a girlfriend, I suppose.’

‘And why isn’t she here?’

She looked at me with a parody of patient understanding. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Sorry. I wasn’t really asking you. Just wondering. It’s funny the way families get to you, in this business. You want to figure all the relationships out, and understand the patterns. Loose ends niggle at me.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘I’m the same, but in my case, it’s just idle curiosity. I really should get myself a life, one of these days.’

I had no answer for that, other than a string of inappropriate questions that I would have liked to ask her. Like, was she married? Where did she live? Why was she doing house-sitting, of all things? Instead, I stuck firmly to the matter in hand. ‘Is there a get-together somewhere?’ I asked, thinking I would have heard if this was the case. Mourners were moving off slowly, apparently with nowhere definite to go. Nobody had said anything about adjournment to a local hostelry, or glanced at watches as if due somewhere.

‘Doesn’t look like it. How sad.’

It was time for me to go. The melancholy little funeral had given me scant satisfaction – the woman had died too soon, with only the teenaged nephew showing any sense of loss. Every death should be important; the survivors should acknowledge that the pattern had changed. The permanent hole left by the deceased should be given its due recognition. In this case, I sensed surprised relief amongst the relatives, except for Jeremy, and an almost careless reaction from the middle-aged couples in attendance, who were purportedly local friends. Nowhere could I see evidence that Greta Simmonds’ death caused much more than a momentary pain to most of the people who knew her.

‘Oh, look!’ said Thea suddenly, as I started to walk away from her.

I turned, following her pointing finger to a tree that stood at the edge of the field. Four big magpies were lined up along a bare branch, staring down at the grave.

‘Four means a parcel or something like that,’ said Thea.

‘Pardon?’

‘“One for a wish, two for a kiss. Three for a letter, four better.” I always thought that meant a parcel.’

I smiled at her naïvety. Magpies were scavengers, and already they had detected the presence of decomposing flesh. I tried to catch the eye of the gravedigger, who would be well aware of the need to proceed quickly with his duties. ‘Maybe somebody’s going to win the lottery,’ I said carelessly.

I walked to the gate, where my vehicle was parked on a wide grass verge. I still sometimes called it a hearse in my own mind, but in reality it was a large estate car, with the rear seats removable to leave space for a coffin. Standing beside it was the young couple who had been chatting to the gravedigger, the woman sideways to me, the man behind her with a hand resting on her shoulder. She was light-skinned, in her early twenties. He was tall and black and a few years older. They were talking about my car.

‘Is this your motor?’ asked the man, unsmilingly.

I admitted ownership readily enough.

‘Are you aware that three of the tyres are illegal, and the road tax expired over two weeks ago?’ asked the girl.

They weren’t in uniform. It did not occur to me that they were police officers, so I laughed. ‘The disc’s in the post,’ I said easily. ‘And the MOT is due next week. I’ll sort it all out then.’

‘Not good enough, I’m afraid, sir,’ said the man. ‘Might I see your licence and insurance documents?’

The penny dropped. ‘Good Lord, are you police?’ I asked.

‘That’s right, sir. PC Jessica Osborne, and Detective Sergeant Paul Middleman.’

‘Osborne?’ I had automatically filed away the name of the small woman I had been chatting to at the graveside. It’s a habit with undertakers – people’s names acquire considerable importance in my line of work.

‘Right.’ The girl gave me no encouragement.

‘There’s a lady called Osborne over there,’ I continued, pointing into the field.

‘She’s my mother,’ said PC Jessica.

Chapter Two

Thea Osborne argued strenuously on my behalf, but her daughter stood her ground. ‘I do not believe the law says he can’t drive home,’ said Thea. ‘That’s idiotic.’

The girl sighed melodramatically. ‘If he lived just a few miles away, it would be different. But no way can I let him go sixty miles on those tyres. They’re
bald
, Mum. They could cause a serious accident.’

Both women looked at me, with very different expressions: the mother with exasperated sympathy, and the daughter with officious scorn. There was little similarity between them anyway – Jessica stood three or four inches above Thea, and was nowhere near as pretty. I was still wrestling with the fact that Thea was old enough to be the mother of this strapping PC – she must have been twelve when she had her, I thought. Or maybe she was a stepmother, or adopted the girl as an older child, when she was still in her twenties.

I repeated my feeble defence. ‘I knew they were a bit dodgy, but I was waiting for the MOT. I haven’t had them all that long. I thought they must have a bit of life left in them.’

‘And the tax?’ queried Jessica.

‘I applied for it on the computer, four days ago. It’ll arrive on Monday, I expect.’

‘You were two weeks late applying, then?’

‘I suppose so. They give you a fortnight’s leeway, don’t they?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Mr Slocombe, sir, that is a complete myth. Besides, today is the sixteenth of March. Your tax ran out on the twenty-eighth of February. By any reckoning, you are overdue. As well as that, the usual procedure is to have the MOT test
before
renewing the tax.’

‘Yes, yes, I admit everything,’ I pleaded. ‘But
please
let me go home. My wife’s not well. She’ll need me to be there this evening.’ I was over-egging it, almost starting to enjoy the whole episode. There was something pleasingly ludicrous about an undertaker being given a rap for an illegal motor. I could see that Thea was aware of some of this – that she felt, like me, that such details were beside the point. A woman had died and been buried, there were wars going on and whole populations starving. The minutiae of vehicle regulations counted for little in the larger scheme of things.