Authors: Rebecca Tope
‘She’s not a gypsy,’ muttered Drew.
‘May as well be,’ Sid corrected him. ‘The way she lives.’
‘What was that just now with the girl from the printworks? Did you catch what she said to Mrs Dunlop?’
‘Something about her having a nerve, showing up like that, pushing in where she wasn’t wanted. All true. I was shocked myself.’
‘The Mrs didn’t seem to mind,’ remarked Drew. ‘Women can be funny like that. Unpredictable.’
‘Yeah,’ laughed Pat, and Vince and George echoed the laugh.
‘You can say that again,’ Vince added with feeling, ‘I’ve been having a right earful from
Alicia lately. Worse than ever since she heard about young Rawlinson.’ Drew barely listened. He was repeated over and over,
Jack Merryfield is David Lapsford’s father
. Almost bursting with the frustration of not knowing enough of the background, and the stress of the imminent cremation, he still had no idea what he should do next.
Everyone was presumably going back to Monica’s house after the funeral. He glanced at the road ahead and behind, hoping to see one of the cars that had followed the hearse earlier. ‘Where did they go?’ he wondered aloud.
‘Who?’ asked Vince.
‘The family. They left at the same time as us.’
‘Most of them turned the other way. Going back to work, apparently.’
‘Surely not!’ Drew was shocked. The
cold-bloodedness
of it was almost offensive. Then he remembered – the wake had been the previous day. To gather everyone together for a second time, with another round of tea and sandwiches would be excessive. How would Monica be feeling now, he wondered. Did he have the nerve to try to find her and ask?
The phrase ‘back to work’ stayed with him. Work meant the print place. Work was Jodie and Ajash and Jack Merryfield. And that little group included the people he might most
fruitfully speak to. ‘Drop me off here, will you?’ he said suddenly as they entered the outskirts of Bradbourne. The industrial estate was a quarter of a mile away. ‘I want to … er … go and see someone. Tell Daphne I’m having a long lunch hour, because of Karen. She won’t make a fuss about that.’
Walking into the industrial estate, Drew realised he ought to have gone back to Plant’s first, to retrieve his car. He’d forgotten that he’d used it that morning, since Karen had no need for it. It would take a precious twenty minutes now to get back to it – time that might make a crucial difference to what happened next.
And what happened next depended on the reactions of Jodie and Jack when he appeared at their workplace.
It was twelve twenty-five when he got there. The door, when he tried it, was locked: not surprising, he realised, when he paused to consider his next move. At the very least, the threesome would surely have gone for some kind of drink or meal after the funeral. He dithered for several minutes, torn between waiting for someone to turn up and needing to make the best possible use of the time remaining.
While he stood there, a car drove up, with a woman at the wheel. He didn’t recognise her, but
she seemed to be heading directly for him. For a second he worried that she intended to drive right into him, but she braked in good time. She met his eyes as she opened the car door. ‘You’re Drew, aren’t you?’ she said. He nodded, and she introduced herself. ‘I’m Alicia, Vince’s wife.’
His mouth dropped open. ‘It’s all right,’ she laughed, ‘there’s no mystery. I work at the Path Lab at the Royal Vic and I know your friend Lazarus. I caught him doing some unofficial tests this morning and he told me a bit about it. Well, obviously I’d heard about Jim and I put two and two together. I was waiting for the hearse to get back to Plant’s just now, to have a word with you or Vince. I saw him and he told me where you were headed. And I just made an assumption – lucky I was right.’
‘Right,’ he said, still bewildered. ‘But …’
‘Look,’ she said briskly, ‘it’s pretty obvious that Jim was deliberately given that codeine. Laz is in a state because he thinks he’ll be arrested for concealing important evidence. He wants your permission to discard that sample – but first he has to be sure that the actual cremation has taken place. We both know it can be quite a while after the funeral. So I said I’d come and find you, take you back to the hospital and do the necessary together.’
‘Right,’ said Drew again. His mouth was dry.
‘I’d better get my car, otherwise I’ll be stranded at the hospital.’ It was the only way he could find to give himself some time to think.
‘No problem,’ she smiled. He noticed what a friendly, open face she had, what intelligent eyes and generous mouth. For the first time, in spite of his discussions with Karen, he wondered just what it would be like to have been married to an undertaker for the whole of your adult life. Alicia made him think you probably had to be someone rather special.
She drove him back to Plant’s and waited discreetly out of sight while he went to fetch his car. He followed her the six miles to the hospital, impressed by her fast and competent driving. They pulled up side by side in the small car park next to the mortuary; only them did Drew become aware of a third car pulling up next to them. With some apprehension, he waited for a police constable to emerge and walk towards him. His thoughts were turning slowly, gradually coalescing on the crematorium and a sense of stubbornly unfinished business there.
‘Mr Slocombe?’ asked the policeman.
‘That’s right,’ nodded Drew, with a sense of impending doom.
‘We have to ask you some questions, sir,’ the officer continued. ‘Would you please follow us back into town?’
‘But—’ Drew looked wildly at Alicia. ‘I’ve got important things to do here.’
‘They’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. We’ve got an officer at your house with your wife. Now, now, sir, there’s nothing to worry about.’ These last words were spoken with a soothing motion of outspread hands, in response to Drew’s
anxiety-impelled
forward jerk. ‘Everything’s quite all right. We know about her accident and she’s in no danger at all. We just wanted to settle a few little worries that have arisen. Would you follow us, sir, please? Now.’
Drew looked again at Alicia; she nodded sympathetically and moved towards the mortuary. Drew could only hope that she would protect Laz from trouble, while at the same time preserving the stomach contents sample for a little while longer. It would be disastrous if it were destroyed at this juncture.
With a sigh of resignation he turned his car round and followed the police vehicle back to Bradbourne. It was five to one when they reached his house. Another police car was parked outside.
The next forty minutes passed grindingly slowly: Drew assumed the police had stopped the cremation, and therefore had all the time in the world. They allowed him five minutes upstairs
alone with Karen, during which the couple exchanged puzzled guesses as to what was going on, and mutual reassurance. ‘It’s all terribly mysterious,’ Karen said. ‘It seems to be more to do with Craig Rawlinson than Jim Lapsford. Apparently they’re here mainly because of what I said when we stopped on Saturday afternoon. Do you remember?’ Drew shook his head. ‘I said “It’s not David Lapsford, is it?” I never thought they’d register that as remotely important.’ Then they all sat down in the living room: Drew and Karen, the policeman who had stopped Drew at the roadside, and a policewoman.
The officers were very gentle and polite. And agonisingly slow. Unsure of the precise nature of their suspicions, Drew was careful not to give them too much information. It felt like walking on eggshells, where one false step could incriminate the wrong person. Images of Sid and Susie, Roxanne, Jodie, Monica and David flitted through his mind, each of them vulnerable to accusations of murder or something very close to it. If he’d been certain, he would have freely told them all he knew. As it was, he felt all too aware of the trouble he might cause. And anyway, it soon became apparent that this was far from being an investigation into the death of Jim Lapsford.
Karen had been right – they were trying to
satisfy themselves about Craig Rawlinson, in the light of a rumour they’d heard concerning the illegal sale of drugs. Did they have any idea why he had hanged himself? None at all, Drew and Karen insisted. They had never seen him alive – apart from Drew’s glimpse of him arguing with Susie on a pavement a week ago. Had they any knowledge of his criminal activity? Certainly not. What precisely did they have in mind, Drew demanded, losing his patience. The policeman rubbed his jaw and indulged in a long thoughtful silence. ‘Young Mr Rawlinson was not unknown to the police,’ he said repressively. ‘Now perhaps we could proceed.’
The questions continued. What exactly did they know of David Lapsford, who had been a close friend of Rawlinson? Why had Karen believed the body in the field might be that of David?
Glancing at the clock, Drew saw that it was now one forty-five. With a growing sense of disbelief, it dawned on him that they had no suspicions about Jim at all. Was all his work going to be in vain? The following ten minutes, spent discussing the relationship between Craig and Susie, with Drew earnestly trying to convince them that he knew almost nothing about any of these people, confirmed his worst suspicions.
Then something snapped. ‘Tell me –
please
tell me – why you’re here,’ Drew begged them. ‘We’re getting nowhere and I still haven’t any idea what you’re hoping I’ll say. Is this an investigation into the death of Craig Rawlinson or the death of Jim Lapsford? Or is it just such a quiet day you thought you’d pass it in a pleasant chat?’
The police officers exchanged baffled looks. ‘
Jim
Lapsford?’ said the man. ‘Why would we investigate him?’
‘He’s dead,’ said Karen with a little laugh. ‘Doesn’t that count for something?’
‘Rawlinson’s dead too,’ said the policeman. ‘And not by natural causes. You seemed to think there was a link to David Lapsford, and we ran his name through the computer in the office and found a file on him. Unstable, missing from home for a year, been in odd bits of trouble. But he’s not dead.’
‘No, but his father is,’ said Karen with a sigh. ‘We thought you knew that.’
Another glance. ‘Did we?’ asked the man.
The woman shrugged. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘No, you wouldn’t, because the doctor signed him up,’ said Drew with exquisite patience. ‘He put him down as a heart attack. And when you asked me so politely to accompany you back here for questioning, I assumed it was not unrelated
to that fact. Because just at that very moment I was going to instruct a laboratory technician to hand over some evidence than Jim Lapsford was poisoned. I was going to do that to save him – the technician – from being implicated because I thought I had time to go back to the crematorium and insist they phone the police and the Coroner and declare it to be an unsafe certificate in the light of new findings. And then I thought they could do a post-mortem and just possibly find enough tissue – despite his being embalmed – to prove he was poisoned.’
‘Wait, wait,’ pleaded the policeman. ‘You lost me five sentences ago. All we’ve got is a suspicion of some link between Rawlinson and a break-in at Plant’s, where you work, which might have something to do with David Lapsford.
David
, not Jim. Quite honestly, we thought it was a fool’s errand, just somebody at the station trying to be clever. But when we cottoned onto the fact that Mrs Slocombe here was hit by Miss Plant’s car, it seemed worth following up. Too many coincidences always make the police uncomfortable, you see. And now you’ve gone charging off with some story about poison. You’ll have to start again, sir, if you don’t mind.’
Drew had just opened his mouth to do so when a bleeper went off in the policeman’s
pocket. He scanned the room for a telephone. ‘Sounds as if I’m needed,’ he said weightily. ‘Could I use your phone, do you think?’
Drew nodded. ‘It’s in the hall.’ Another glance at the clock: one minute to two. Whether or not Gavin was back from lunch; whether or not Lapsford was next in line for charging, he felt an overwhelming sense of lost opportunity. The great slough of mist and plodding procedure that was the average police mind was certain to defeat any efforts he might make to see justice done. He looked at Karen helplessly.
‘I really think,’ she began, addressing the policewoman, ‘that you should listen to us.’
‘Please don’t worry, madam,’ came the calmly patronising reply. ‘We—’ She never finished. Her colleague came into the room with rather more animation than he left it.
‘We’re needed,’ he said shortly. He turned to Drew. ‘Thank you, sir. We’ll follow up what you’ve told us as quickly as we can. You realise you might be required for a further interview at some stage?’
Drew began to laugh, at first quietly, then with a rising hysteria. ‘Yes, officer. Forgive me. It’s been a very long week.’
Left on their own, Drew and Karen sat together on the sofa, his arm across her shoulders. ‘Are
you all right?’ he asked her, more than once. ‘This can’t be doing you any good in your condition.’
‘I’ll survive,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s all rather exciting, isn’t it.’
‘I wish I could be there when they find they’re too late and Jim’s already ashes.’
‘What about poor Monica?’ she said suddenly. ‘This isn’t the end for her, is it? Shouldn’t you try to see her, perhaps warn her? I can tell you’re not just going to settle down here to wait for whatever happens next.’
He kissed her gratefully. ‘If you’re really all right, I think I might just do that. I knew the police were dim, but this is ridiculous. You show them an obvious murder, right under their noses, and they go running round in circles like a dog chasing its tail, following up everything but what’s important.’
‘That’s not really fair,’ she objected. ‘You were miles ahead of them, by a whole week. And they have connected the scraps of the story that have come their way. I think they’re doing quite well, under the circumstances. I bet you they’ll be wide awake once they’ve had a chance to think.’ Drew pursed his lips doubtfully. ‘Go to Primrose Close,’ she said, giving him a little push. ‘The story’s not over yet. There’s a fat lady waiting to sing somewhere, you see if there isn’t.’