Crisis in the Cotswolds Read online

  ‘All of them,’ Drew confirmed. ‘They’re staying the weekend.’ He sighed contentedly. ‘Won’t that be wonderful.’

  Friday was mainly dedicated to housework, thanks to the imminent arrival of three guests. There was a spare room for them, kept available for visitations that seldom happened. Thea’s siblings had not once come to see the Broad Campden set-up, but her mother had stayed a few days at Easter. The only other person was Thea’s daughter, Jessica, who had recently taken to making monthly overnight stays, belatedly eager to get to know her stepbrother and -sister. ‘It’s brilliant to have more relatives,’ she enthused. ‘And they’re such great kids, aren’t they?’

  ‘Drew’s not so bad, either,’ Thea had laughed.

  ‘He’s a catch,’ the girl agreed.

  Now there was dusting, washing and shopping for food, all on a bright sunny day that had been scheduled for idling about in the garden. The school half-term holiday was rapidly approaching, bringing demands for entertainment from the children. When she suggested to Drew that he clear some days for himself so they could go out as a family, he’d raised his eyebrows and said people didn’t die to order, unfortunately.

  ‘No, but you could put the funerals back a couple of days, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ was the closest she got to agreement.

  The phone call came at half past ten next morning. The dog barked up the stairs to inform her mistress that she was wanted. Drew was not yet back from burying Mr Fleming. If the landline wasn’t answered, the call would be redirected to his mobile, but he preferred that not to happen, and if it was during a funeral, it would go unheeded. Thea had been schooled in the procedures for handling reports of a death, as well as enquiries. Only as she reached the final stair, two strides away from the phone, did she remember the Biddulph business.

  ‘Hello? Drew Slocombe Undertaker,’ she said briskly.

  ‘Ah. Yes. Hello. I understand that you’re handling the funeral of a Mr Stephen Biddulph. I wonder if you could tell me the day and the time?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Oh, let me see.’ She rustled a piece of paper, probably very unconvincingly. ‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve got anybody of that name in the diary. You did say “Biddulph”, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. And please don’t play games with me. I know for a fact that you’re burying him sometime next week. That’s not in question at all. All I’m asking is for a civilised response to a perfectly normal enquiry.’

  Her heart was thumping, mostly with shame at her own behaviour. ‘Well, I really am sorry, but I can’t help you any more than I have. I’ve got no more information for you.’

  ‘I see.’ Anger filled her ear, along with distress and frustration. ‘So I have to camp out in your benighted little village for a week, then, do I? Because there is no way in the world my family and I are going to miss it, you see. I don’t know who you are, but I can tell you, you’ve got yourself drawn into something pretty unsavoury.’

  ‘I’m Thea Slocombe, actually. My husband runs the business. And I might add that I don’t know who you are, either.’

  ‘My name, if it matters, is Clovis Biddulph. Stephen was my father. But it’s perfectly clear that your husband has been told to make bloody sure no unwanted relatives show up to ruin the nice natural little burial they’ve got planned. I get it. Well, Mrs Thea Slocombe, you can tell the lot of them it’s not going to work. It beats me how they ever thought it could. Even if they bury him at midnight, I’m going to be there. And it’s not just me, either. Tell them that, and see what they do then.’

  She made a wordless sound and put the phone back on its stand. ‘Dear me,’ she said to the spaniel. ‘Looks like trouble.’

  ‘I did your lying for you,’ she told Drew when he came in at lunchtime. ‘Except I made rather a poor job of it. That man knows perfectly well you’re doing the funeral. Somebody probably Facebooked it. Nobody can keep secrets any more.’ The whole business had made her irritable. ‘Honestly, Drew, it’s all wrong. How can people let themselves get into such messes?’

  He was twisting his hands together, as he had the day before. It made him look like a very worried undertaker.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ she said. ‘It’s starting to be a habit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wringing your hands. I didn’t know anybody actually did that, but now you are. What are you so scared of?’

  ‘I’m not scared. I just don’t know what I should do about it. It takes me back to when I was at Plant’s and reputation was crucial. Daphne used to give us little lectures about being seen to be absolutely reliable and straight. Which she wasn’t, really, when it came to the crunch. That was why I left. I didn’t like the way everything was stitched up with the nursing homes and the coroner’s officer.’

  ‘I thought it was because you disapproved of the overcharging?’

  ‘That too. I always felt the families were being quietly exploited, and I wanted to be on their side.’

  ‘And you are. But sometimes people make things impossible. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘It is, though. I should have told them straight yesterday. What did the man on the phone say?’

  ‘He said there was no way he was going to miss the funeral and, if he had to, he’d camp here. He thinks you’ve planned a secret midnight burial.’

  He laughed. ‘We never thought of that.’ Then his features straightened again. ‘But who would be idiotic enough to put it on Facebook? After everything Mrs Biddulph said to me?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Could be somebody secretly sympathises with the first family and wanted to alert them. How many are there in the second family?’

  ‘Wife. Lawrence. He’s got a wife and a little daughter.’

  ‘Has he? I thought he sounded too young for that, the way you were talking yesterday. How old is his mother, then?’

  ‘She must be fifty or so. Stephen was only twenty when he married the first time. He was probably well under forty when Lawrence was born. He’s had plenty of time to marry and have children.’

  ‘Hang on, Drew. This isn’t adding up.’ She looked at him with a frown. ‘It’s not like you to get in that sort of muddle. If Stephen was forty, that was nearly forty years ago, which makes this wife only ten when she had Lawrence, if she’s fifty now. You’ve got it wrong somewhere.’

  He bowed his head in mock misery. ‘I’m losing it,’ he moaned. ‘Midlife crisis or something. Let’s start again. Stephen was seventy-nine. Linda – that’s the second wife’s name – looks about fifty. She didn’t say how long they’ve been married, but she could have been only eighteen at the time. So Lawrence could be thirty. That works, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Just about. Did you meet him? Or his wife and child?’

  Drew shook his head. ‘Just Linda. All I know is what she told me.’

  ‘But Lawrence has got a wife – right?’

  ‘Yes. She’s very upset about the old man dying, apparently. Got on wonderfully well with him. And he was a devoted granddad to the little one. She’s called Modestine, which is a source of some disagreement, I gather.’

  ‘So I should think. Poor little thing. What would you call her for short?’

  He shrugged. ‘History doesn’t relate that detail.’

  She gave him an admiring look. ‘I know I’ve said it before, but it’s miraculous, the way you get all this information from one short session. I can’t imagine how that works.’

  ‘It all comes easily enough. Talking about flowers, for example. People go through all the friends and relations who might be sending some. And when it’s my sort of funeral, you get all the different opinions about burial and cremation, and ecology and religion. It’s a serious business. It makes everybody focus on the important stuff.’

  ‘It’s a special talent, and you know it. You and Maggs are the only people I’ve ever met who could do it.’ She sighed. ‘I know because I tried, and failed. Although I ca
n tell you that the son who phoned me is called Clovis. I don’t think I can entirely dislike someone with such a wonderful name.’

  ‘You didn’t give yourself a chance with that funeral I asked you to arrange. It was my fault for throwing you in at the deep end.’

  She let it drop there, a conversation they’d had many times before. ‘So, are they local? The Biddulphs, I mean. I suppose they must be if he wants to be buried here. But Clovis and Modestine both sound rather French. Has somebody got an exotic Parisian grandmother, do you think?’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ he said vaguely. ‘Linda and Lawrence are more or less local. The first lot aren’t very far away, from the sound of it. Stephen saw that piece about us in the paper last year. He put it into his will and told his family. All much as usual.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘You’ve gone all distant.’

  ‘I was thinking about Maggs,’ he said. ‘It sounds as if she wants to tell me something.’

  ‘It’ll be another baby,’ said Thea with confidence. ‘She knows that’ll make things complicated back at North Staverton.’

  Drew winced. ‘It certainly would. I couldn’t believe how much harder it was with two than one. But it didn’t really sound like that. Surely she’d have just told me on the phone and said she wanted to come and discuss the implications if it was only that?’

  ‘You think it’s more serious? Like what? I bet you it’s a baby and she wants to watch your face when she tells you.’

  ‘I’m trying not to think about it until they get here. Once I’d got to Den having a life-threatening illness, or them suddenly deciding to emigrate to Tasmania, I thought I should just wait and see.’

  ‘Such self-control!’ she applauded. ‘But I doubt they fancy Tasmania, all the same.’

  They were eating bread, pâté and salad, and drinking fruit juice. Thea was keen to put a permanent table outside, but most of the suitable space had been set aside for Drew’s hearse. Bodies had to be collected from wherever they’d died, and for that he used a medium-sized van, which also had to be parked somewhere. The house, left to him by an impressed client, was on a narrow lane with houses set at various angles, built before anyone dreamt of owning two cars. People coming to arrange a funeral were advised to park further away and walk the final distance. The inconvenience was permanent and insoluble. After a year of conducting the business there, frustration was, if anything, increasing.

  ‘Someone’s coming to the door,’ Drew said suddenly. ‘I saw a head.’ He pointed out of the kitchen window. From the front room, Hepzie gave a single bark of confirmation, two seconds before the doorbell rang.

  ‘You’re not expecting anybody, are you?’ said Thea.

  But Drew was already in the hallway, opening the door.

  Chapter Three

  ‘You told them!’ came a loud, accusing female voice. ‘After you promised not to. I’ve just heard from the only person who knows both families, saying they’ve found out about the funeral.’

  ‘Mrs Biddulph. Come on in and we can talk about it,’ he said calmly.

  Thea was hovering at her husband’s shoulder before she had time to think. ‘That was quick,’ she said, realising a moment later that she should have known better. The obvious implication that she had spoken to the forbidden stepson hung in the air for all to hear. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she went on. ‘It’s none of my business. Sorry. I’ll just …’ she flapped a hand towards the kitchen. ‘Come on, Heps. We’ve got work to do.’ It was a dreadful parody of a busy housewife that would have shamed any amateur theatre company.

  ‘Come through,’ said Drew, ignoring Thea completely.

  ‘What did she mean?’ the woman asked suspiciously as they vanished into the back room.

  Thea sank onto a kitchen chair and tried to persuade herself that it had not been obvious after all that she had dropped Drew into boiling water. There were several steps between her refusing to tell a downright lie to the man on the phone and the second Mrs Biddulph accusing Drew of treachery. But it was a mess, however one looked at it.

  She cleared the table and put the kettle on, thinking Drew might offer his visitor some tea. It was not his usual practice to do so, but this funeral was in no way usual. The bereaved could frequently be irrational, argumentative and quite often intoxicated, but they very seldom made wild accusations.

  The tea was not required, in the event. After twenty minutes, the two emerged from the sanctum, grim-faced but civil. ‘I hope I’ve made my position clear,’ said Drew, sounding very unlike himself.

  ‘It’s not your position that matters, though, is it?’ She sounded as if she’d said the same thing a few times already. ‘I just can’t have that woman putting in an appearance, telling Lawrence who he is, perhaps bringing all sorts of others with her.’

  Drew sighed. ‘I’ve given you my suggestions,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could have a think about them and let me know tomorrow what you’ve decided. It’s completely up to you, as I said. You’re under no obligation to me at all.’

  They had somehow drifted to the front door, which Drew opened. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Biddulph, and please let me say I really am extremely sorry it’s come to this.’

  She turned to face him, her features softening. ‘You don’t have to be sorry. I know it’s not your fault.’ She peered into the living room, where Thea was visible, plumping cushions. ‘I’m still not sure what your wife meant when she said “That was quick”,’ she said. ‘I suppose everything’s quick these days, with everybody texting and messaging and so forth. Nobody gets a moment to think any more. But I suppose we’ll have to go ahead on Tuesday. I don’t seem to have much choice, do I? I wouldn’t know what to say to Lawrence if we postponed it.’

  She went at last, Drew standing in the doorway as she walked up the lane.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Thea abjectly. ‘I was such a fool.’

  ‘It didn’t matter. I’d already decided not to play any more games. I turned it round on her and said I was very unhappy that my wife was being dragged into their problems, and that what she’d asked of me was unacceptable. I suggested she makes contact with the first wife and try to have a civilised discussion. The thing is, absolutely nobody knows that this is the second Mrs Biddulph. ‘But one person knows. She said so when she first got here just now.’

  ‘But she told you almost as soon as she met you.’

  ‘She did. Probably because I asked about death notices and letting people know when we were having the burial. That seemed to open the floodgates. She emphatically rejected any sort of public notice and asked me not to tell anyone if they phoned. When I must have seemed to find that odd, she explained the reason. With a whole mass of family history for good measure.’

  ‘It sounded as if there was some doubt about the funeral going ahead, just now.’

  ‘That’s right. It’s on hold until she tells me otherwise. She’s got until Monday morning. Mr B. is going to be okay at the hospital mortuary until then, anyway.’ He heaved a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘So, let’s forget all about them and enjoy seeing Maggs again. She said they should get here about six. We’ll have to kill a fatted calf for them.’

  Thea had somehow overlooked the expected time of arrival and the need to provide a full-scale meal for seven people. Plus two more meals on the following day and, doubtless, a Sunday lunch as well. Catering was never her strong point. ‘Could we take them to the pub, do you think?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Certainly not. Maybe tomorrow for lunch, but it would be ludicrous to take them out the moment they get here. Don’t forget Meredith. She probably goes to bed at seven.’

  ‘Remind me how old she is? I’ve lost track.’

  ‘She was born two Septembers ago, which makes her twenty months. A toddler. Probably saying quite a lot by now. Still having a daytime sleep.’ His gaze lost focus. ‘I remember it all as if it was yesterday.’

  ‘Well, I don’t. Jessica’s first ten years are a complete blank. I thought I was being a ful
ly committed hands-on mother, but now I wonder whether I was even there much of the time.’

  ‘Doesn’t Stephanie ever remind you of Jess? Doing little girl things? They seem to have a lot of the same interests.’

  ‘Now and then, I suppose. Jessica never watched films the way Stephanie does. She collected things. For years it was leaves. She pressed them, stuck them into books, and made pictures out of them. Carl taught her what they all were, and she labelled them. Like stamps, really. She must still have them somewhere.’

  ‘Hasn’t she told Steph about that? She’d probably love to have a go. I rather like leaves myself,’ he added wistfully.

  ‘Everyone does.’ Thea was impatient. ‘But that doesn’t mean you have to make a fetish of them.’

  ‘It’s nearly two o’clock. Do you need to go and get food? I’m here for the kids, if so. I’ve got plenty to get on with.’

  ‘I suppose I should. Is chicken all right? Then pasta or something tomorrow and a big pot of chilli on Sunday? I don’t have to do a Sunday roast, do I?’

  ‘It’s up to you. I could do Sunday, if you like. What about a barbecue?’

  She stared at him. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? The thing’s on the point of collapse, for a start. And it’ll probably rain. And we haven’t got any charcoal.’

  ‘Pity,’ he said mildly. ‘We should get a new one, and make sure we use it this summer. I love a nice barbie.’

  All men do, she wanted to say, but bit the words back. She could already hear herself sounding like an irritating know-all.

  ‘Chicken’s perfect,’ he told her. ‘And I will do Sunday. It’s only fair. They’re really my guests, after all. You hardly know Den.’

  ‘We did that antique stall together last year. It’ll be nice to see him again. Is he still going to car boot sales or whatever it was?’

  ‘No idea. You’ll have to ask him.’

  She watched his face and saw a return of the anxiety as to what it might be that Maggs had to say. Thea felt a surge of irritation in his defence. Why make him wait instead of saying it over the phone? It was unkind. ‘I bet it’s another baby,’ she said with a smile.