Dark Undertakings Read online

  David looked at him for a long moment. ‘Did we?’ he challenged. ‘Aren’t you forgetting the way Dad always came between us? One minute you’d be the blue-eyed boy, doing so well at school, playing in the school soccer team, with me just a menace he had to put up with. Then, overnight, he’d switch it all around, and take me out on my own, buy me things, leaving you high and dry and Mum just bleating uselessly in the background. Most of the time we hated each other, because we were fighting to be his favourite. And I never believed Mum loved me as much as you.’

  Philip swung his jaw from side to side, unconsciously chewing over what David had recalled to his mind. ‘Well, yeah,’ he conceded. ‘It was like that sometimes. But – I can’t believe this adoption stuff. I mean – look at you. You’re so like Dad. You’ve got his features, his shoulders, his hands.’

  ‘Yeah. Mum said he always regarded me as his natural son – something like that.’

  Philip was sidetracked for a moment, thinking about Jim. ‘I always thought of him as being like a bloody great tree. Keeping out the light a lot of the time, but basically good to have around.’

  David gave a snorting laugh. ‘And now it’s fallen down, right on top of us. There’s something else, while you’re here, by the way.’

  Philip waited, knowing it wouldn’t be anything pleasant.

  ‘People are saying stuff about the way he died so suddenly. Some chap’s been talking to Mum.’

  ‘Saying what, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Hinting at poison, apparently.’ David glanced sideways at his brother, but quickly looked away again. The silence lasted a long time.

  ‘Well, it’s not so surprising, when you think about it,’ Philip said at last. ‘He certainly was always healthy. The last person you’d expect to die young. But Mum was so sure the doctor knew what he was talking about—’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s down to him now, isn’t it. I’ve no intention of rocking the boat in that department. Just roll on Tuesday, that’s all I can say.’

  Philip grimaced. ‘I’m not sure about that,’ he said. ‘I’m not in any hurry at all for Tuesday to come.’

  At the printworks, Jodie was half-heartedly feeding pages into the folding and stapling machine, her mind on David and Jim. She didn’t know what to make of the discovery that Jim hadn’t been David’s father. It was certainly news to her, and she thought she’d known most of Jim’s secrets. Working alongside someone for years brought a special intimacy where the need to hide and prevaricate was quickly lost. She knew about Roxanne and Lorraine and others. She knew Jim enjoyed women and felt free to indulge his pleasures. Jodie had worried slightly about Lorraine. She was too young and too vulnerable to make a success of the affair. That kid of hers stood to lose out badly if Frank ever heard about what was going on. But there hadn’t been much that Jodie could do to ensure that he didn’t.

  When she’d joined the business, at eighteen, Jim had been paternalistic towards her, and a perfect gentleman. It had taken her a while to realise that she would have been off limits to him, even if she’d had a better face and figure. She was too close to home. The relief of knowing this had made her very contented. She threw herself into the work, brought new ideas to it, mastered the computer valiantly, and kept abreast of technological developments. ‘You’re a godsend, Jode,’ Jim had said many a time.

  The short-lived relationship with young David, a year or two into the job, had been unexpectedly complicated where Jim was concerned. He had seldom referred to it, but when he did it was with a sullen look. When she had talked about this to David, he had grinned. ‘He’s jealous,’ he said. ‘Poor old bloke.’

  She had refrained from correcting him. In some ways it might have been true. It hadn’t taken her very long to realise that she herself was substituting the son for the father, getting as close as she could to Jim, who, she supposed, she loved as more than a fatherly boss. She had worried about how she was to extricate herself without hurting David, only to have the matter resolved for her. David’s sudden disappearance had been as much of a shock to her as it had been to everyone else. The most hurtful part of all had been Jim’s insistence that she must know where David had gone.

  ‘But you’re his girlfriend,’ he had shouted at her. ‘Didn’t he tell you he was going?’

  ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘Not a word.’ And together they had waited and worried, even printed flyers asking if anyone had seen the boy. In the end it had brought her and Jim even closer.

  Now, she wanted to explain to someone how much Jim had cared about David; how it was impossible that they weren’t father and son. The idea was almost offensive to her.

  ‘Missing him, ain’t you?’ said Ajash, at her elbow. The little man was a good four inches shorter than her. She smiled down at him, putting on a brave face.

  ‘Yeah,’ she admitted. ‘Does it show?’

  He nodded at the machine. ‘Is it meant to be folding them with the cover inwards?’

  With a squawk, Jodie punched the STOP button, and grabbed at the remaining unfolded sheets. ‘Oh Christ,’ she groaned. ‘How many have I done like this?’

  ‘A hundred or so,’ he said. ‘No problem. We can turn them right side out, by hand.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The we was a consolation to her. For years, Ajash had been eclipsed by Jim, teased and patronised by the print manager, but endlessly good-humoured, he had laughed at himself and earned everyone’s affection. Even Jack, who never laughed, and was seldom in a good mood, could find little reason to dislike his workmate.

  ‘Are we opening on Monday?’ he asked her. ‘Or what? We’ll get behind if we don’t, what with taking Tuesday off.’

  Jodie shrugged. ‘Not for me to say. We’re meant to be doing Jim’s Order of Service. Mrs L. hasn’t sent us the copy yet, though. You’ve finished the cards, have you?’

  Eagerly he trotted back to his work table and gathered up a stack of printed cards. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Good, eh?’

  He had used expensive vellum-look card, and printed a black border, with scallops to lighten the effect. All three of them had worked out the wording, from what Jack reported as Monica’s suggestions:

  Monica, Philip and David

  would like to thank you

  very sincerely

  for all your kind wishes,

  cards or flowers

  at this sad time.

  ‘Bit vague,’ said Jodie, doubtfully.

  ‘Too late to change it now,’ he said. ‘And it’s the thought that counts, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose so. Funny it doesn’t mention Jim. Like the water’s closed over him, and he doesn’t exist any more.’

  ‘Well—’ Ajash was groping for some reply when he noticed her tears. Without further words, he produced a large clean white hanky from his trouser pocket. Smiling at the incongruity, she took it and dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Silly cow.’

  ‘No, no. It’s good to cry. At this sad time.’ He quoted the words hollowly, flapping one of the cards at her.

  ‘Nothing ever gets you down, does it,’ she remarked, half admiring, half disapproving.

  ‘Oh no, not me,’ he agreed, wagging his head from side to side. ‘I’m just the joker around here. Everybody knows that.’

  As if drawn by a magnet, Drew kept returning to the mortuary, where the two bodies lay. It was as if the lifeless flesh might speak to him, if he listened closely enough – give him a name, or a hint as to what had brought about its death. He pretended to Sid that he wanted to understand more about the process of embalming, asking searching questions about how much of the fluid reached the internal organs and what effects he thought it had when released as gas during cremation. ‘Polluting sort of business,’ he remarked, thoughtfully. ‘Shouldn’t wonder if it gets banned before long. Can’t be very good for the environment.’

  Sid stared at him. ‘Never heard that one before,’ he said. ‘Come up with some daft ideas, you do, and no mistake.’

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p; ‘Never heard of the natural death movement, then?’ Drew was needled. ‘Shallow burials in baskets – plant a tree at the head of the grave. That’s how it’s all going to be in the next century.’

  ‘Won’t worry me if it is. I’ll be long gone.’ Sid paused to consider. ‘Anyway, can’t see it, somehow. There’s too much money in funerals, specially with the Americans taking everything over. Strikes me you’re more likely to have dirty great caskets and embalming for everyone. Only a few nutters’ll go for the baskets, you see.’

  ‘Meanwhile, Mrs L’s taking a stand on having him home before the funeral. Just like in the olden days. You can really go to town on him – you’ll have a proper audience this time. And I shouldn’t wonder if he’ll have his little pet dog snugly under one arm. That should jerk a few more tears from the mourners.’ His attempt at a mischievous piece of banter fell flat; Sid said nothing, but swallowed hard. Drew was amused at his nervousness, supposing it was a trifle daunting to have your handiwork under such scrutiny. The incisions necessary for the embalming were well hidden, and it wasn’t as if there’d been a post-mortem, with the top of the head removed and replaced, and the torso ripped through from throat to pelvis.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured Sid. ‘It’ll be perfectly all right. In a way, it’s rather a nice idea. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Lovely,’ Sid responded glumly. ‘All that loading the hearse and carrying into some pokey front room with the fire on, and trying to keep track of the flowers. Lovely. Yes.’

  There was more than the dead bodies occupying Drew’s thoughts: he could not get the image of Roxanne out of his mind. He had never seen a woman like that before, so firmly-planted, so careless of how she looked to other people and that smile she’d given him – how many women these days would do that? Fearless and confident, it was as if she’d possessed an extra dimension. There was a hint of the same forthrightness about Karen – it was what had appealed to him from the outset – but Karen, unlike Roxanne, wanted to be liked, and that made her nervous and off balance at times.

  It was a slow afternoon, as it had been a slow week. All he wanted to do was get home and go through the jottings in his notebook with Karen’s help. They had to work out a plan of campaign for the weekend. Forty-eight hours in which to come up with some watertight findings. Maybe he could persuade his wife that the obvious first place to start was Roxanne Gibson’s caravan. Except that he didn’t want Karen to go with him. However sharp she might be at detecting clues and reading between the lines, he definitely intended to treat himself to some time alone with that woman. It would be innocent enough. Just a harmless bit of self-indulgence. Karen could be given the job of finding out exactly who Lapsford’s other girlfriends had been, and perhaps try to line up some casual-seeming encounters. He knew that several of his fellow workers knew the whole story, but saw no reason to share it with Drew – one of his many frustrations. And he couldn’t ask them outright, for fear of further castigation about being obsessed with Lapsford’s death. The best he could hope for was to overhear more useful snippets, as he’d been doing all week.

  The snippet, when it came, was considerably in excess of his hopes. Vince and Big George had been given a mountain of old funeral records to put through the shredder, and they were doing it as slowly as they could, making the job last. Vince took the papers out of the big box Daphne had given him, and passed them to George, who carefully inserted them between the jaws of the machine, two or three at a time. Every few minutes they stopped and emptied the hopper underneath. The results were used as pillows in the cheaper coffins, which didn’t come provided with their own accoutrements.

  The records comprised carbon copies of letters to ministers, information for the crematorium, notes jotted down during phone calls. Everything except for the actual record card, which was filled in as the arrangements were made with the relatives, and which was kept for ever in the large attic over the main building. The decision to shred the copies was a recent one, and the men had worked steadily through yellowing handwritten documents dating from 1932, when the current premises were established. They had now reached the seventies, and Daphne was becoming increasingly nervous. ‘We’ll stop at 1980,’ she said. ‘We ought to have twenty years’ worth still to hand. Heavens!’ she’d sighed. ‘I’m glad my dad can’t see us now. He’d go berserk. Never threw anything away, my dad.’

  Vince was breaking the monotony by reading the surname of every sheet he gave George, and waiting to see whether the older man remembered the funeral or could provide a reminiscence.

  ‘Satterthwaite.’

  ‘Burial. It was raining, and the grave had a foot of water in it.’

  ‘Cedriksen.’

  ‘Norwegian chap. Nearly a hundred, he was. Came over here at the turn of the century, as a youngster. Had thirty great-grandchildren, and they all came to the funeral.’

  ‘Jones.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Lapsford.’

  ‘What? Give me that. Hey, Andy! Here it is. Remember me telling you I remembered a Lapsford. Let’s see. Julia Catherine Lapsford, Miss. Age 31. August 1976. Told you! They buried her in that little churchyard near Appleham – St Francis’s. New single depth. It’s closed now – no more space. Hey, listen to this. The funeral has been arranged by Mr James Eric Lapsford, brother of the deceased. There you are! This is Jim’s sister. Jim and Julia. Nice.’ George beamed around the workshop proudly. ‘I ought to be on Brain of Britain, me, memory I’ve got.’

  ‘You should,’ agreed Drew, his heart pounding. ‘I’m amazed. Does it say what she died of?’

  George laughed. ‘Course not. These are just the copy letters. We don’t have a record of what they die of – you know that.’

  ‘If she was thirty-one in 1976, she’d be—’

  ‘Fifty-five,’ supplied Vince, renowned for his arithmetical powers. ‘Same as Jim.’

  ‘Twins!’ Drew’s excitement was out of all proportion. ‘That was his twin sister.’

  ‘So?’ Vince frowned at him. ‘Why the commotion?’

  Drew made a big effort. ‘No reason, really. I’ve just got a thing about twins. Always have had. They’re … very interesting.’

  ‘Not when they’re dead they’re not,’ said Vince, and pushed the Lapsford papers into the shredder’s maw.

  On his way home, Jack Merryfield called in at the Blue Lion which was not a pub he often frequented. He didn’t think he could face the King’s Head, full of talk about Jim, and inevitable questions directed at Jack, as workmate, as well as one of his closest friends.

  It had been a hard week, and he was hoping for an hour of solitude, drinking slowly and steadily. It was an unpretentious place, with a wide fireplace filled with logs and seats in the bay windows. Jack chose the saloon bar, after a moment’s indecision, on the assumption that it would be quieter.

  It wasn’t so quiet, though, after a few minutes. A young couple at a nearby table were engaged in a fierce disagreement, which had begun in low tones, and grown louder as feelings warmed. He didn’t recall seeing either of them before, although the girl had a familiar look about her.

  ‘I won’t do it, Craig,’ she said in a ringing voice. ‘Just stop asking me, will you?’

  ‘I’m in deep shit if you don’t,’ he threw back at her, his voice shaking. ‘What’s your problem, anyway?’

  ‘We’re just getting deeper all the time. Look, I’d better warn you – I’ve spoken to my dad about it. I can’t take any more, not after what’s happened. It’s making me ill. Look at me.’

  Jack couldn’t resist checking to see if the boy did as instructed. It was true that the girl was pale, with dark smudges under her eyes.

  ‘You look okay to me,’ said the boy. ‘You needn’t make so much fuss. Nobody’s going to bother about you. It’s me that’s going to get mullered.’

  Jack’s work and hobbies all centred on words. Mullered, he thought. That’s a good one. Wonder how you spell it?

  The co
uple seemed to have reached an impasse, and were quietening down again. But the boy appeared to be in genuine distress, and Jack decided he was on his side. The girl was a hard little bitch, reneging on something she’d agreed to do. Typical bloody woman. The boy had a note of desperation in his voice which Jack had heard before. Craig, she’d called him. Must be the Rawlinson lad, friend of Jim’s David, he realised. Couldn’t recognise anybody these days, the things they did to themselves. Not just his hair, but the clothes he wore, seemed designed to conceal who he was. Buckles and chains adorned his outfit, from neck to feet – even his boots glinted with silver appendages. Jack sighed. It was a different world. He turned back to his drink, and tried to forget they were there.

  A few minutes later, the youngsters got up to go. The girl paused beside Jack’s table, and looked at him. She forced a little smile, as if desperate for a friendly gesture in the midst of her trouble. He had seen her before somewhere, definitely. He held her gaze.

  The boy was barging ahead and was almost at the door, when the girl leant over and said, ‘You know my dad, don’t you? Sid Hawkes, works at Plant’s? Do me a favour – don’t tell him about what you’ve just heard.’

  Jack was puzzled. ‘I know Sid, yeah, vaguely. But I didn’t know he was your dad. How’d you know me?’

  ‘It’s a small town,’ she said. ‘More’s the pity.’

  He watched her go, and decided he’d leave as soon as the beer was finished.

  When Drew presented himself at the surgery of Gerald Proctor, the receptionist gave a crooked, wide-eyed smile, indicating helpless apology. ‘Oh, heavens,’ she squeaked. ‘I forgot all about you! We thought everything was clear for the afternoon. Mr Proctor’s not here, I’m afraid. I was going to go home myself in a minute. You’re a new patient, is that right?’ She tapped a few keys on the computer in front of her.