A Grave in the Cotswolds Page 6

  David was leaning against the gate, looking grey. That left me and Paul to be masterful and manly and all that stuff. Paul was looking at his phone in a dazed sort of fashion, which gave me a flicker of satisfaction. Even he couldn’t order up a signal at will, it seemed. But then he began keying in numbers and I realised he was connected after all. I handed Thea’s spaniel back to her, and strode to the gate, pushing my way through the opening, which was less than a foot wide.

  ‘Hey!’ said Officer Jessica. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘For a look,’ I said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It might be a crime scene. You’ll contaminate it.’

  ‘And what if the man isn’t actually dead? You’re standing back when you might be saving his life. Who said anything about a crime? Maybe he just had a heart attack.’

  ‘You won’t say that when you’ve seen him,’ croaked David, the birdwatcher.

  ‘I order you to stay this side of the gate,’ said Jessica, sounding more like the military than the police.

  I paused, but already I could see what David meant. A fully clothed man was lying on his side only three or four yards away, with his face towards us. The top of his head was thick with blood, which had made a pool like a ghastly halo around him. His lack of protective hair made the wound somehow more terrible. At least two things indicated that he was unarguably dead: firstly, his wide-open staring eyes, and secondly. the clotting of the blood on the wound. His heart could not be beating – if it had been, the blood would still be flowing.

  But these details occurred to me slightly later than the most startling and major observation. I knew this man. I had seen him only a few hours previously.

  It was Mr Maynard, council officer, responsible for Parks and Recreation.

  Chapter Five

  If I hadn’t been so annoyed with Jessica’s heavy-handedness, I might have told her immediately who the victim was. Instead, I backed away from the gate, hands melodramatically raised as if she were a Wild West sheriff pointing a pistol at me. Perhaps this piece of foolish play-acting brought about the subsequent avalanche of trouble that landed on my head. At any rate, I couldn’t help feeling that quite a bit of it served me right.

  As it was, PC Jessica Osborne went to the gate herself and took a good long look at the corpse. I quickly understood that I had underestimated her powers of observation. ‘Isn’t that the man you were with this morning?’ she said slowly. ‘I remember that jacket.’

  Which was more than I did. His clothes had made no impression on me whatsoever. ‘I’m afraid it is, yes,’ I said. ‘Mr Maynard.’

  ‘What? Who? What do you mean?’ demanded Thea, who had been hovering on the grass verge with her dog. ‘It can’t be someone you know, surely?’ She stared from me to her daughter and back again.

  ‘The man from the council who was making a fuss about the grave,’ I explained. ‘Who summoned me here in the first place.’

  ‘And who you might well want dead,’ said Detective Paul, with reliably bad timing.

  ‘Good God,’ I huffed scornfully at him. ‘You think I killed him?’

  The resounding silence on all sides made my internal organs quiver. Every single person – and the dog – looked at me.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Thea. ‘You couldn’t possibly have done. That’s obvious.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Jessica slowly. ‘He was gone for half an hour, right here. He’s just told us he came past this exact spot. He looked flustered when he came back. When I met him this morning, it looked to me as if he’d been in an angry argument with this man. Hadn’t you?’ she challenged me.

  I could not have said anything even if I’d wanted to. I was sandbagged, stunned. I even wondered whether she might be right – had I gone mad for a few minutes and bashed the annoying Mr Maynard on the head? Enough of Jessica’s accusations were true for me to feel there might be something in the idea that this was my work. I had indeed been on this precise spot, approximately two hours earlier.

  Thea was scrutinising me with an uncomfortably probing stare. ‘He’d have been more flustered,’ she said. ‘He’d never have acted so normally over lunch.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Jessica demanded.

  ‘So – prove it,’ Thea challenged. ‘Where’s the murder weapon, for a start?’

  Jessica beckoned her to the gateway and pointed. I followed, peering over Thea’s shoulder. A large stone lay a yard away from the body. ‘That?’ snorted Thea. ‘It’s just a stone. It hasn’t even got blood on it.’

  ‘It wouldn’t, if it was only used once,’ said Paul. ‘The bleeding wouldn’t start instantly. Blood would indicate repeated blows.’ I could almost visualise the page in the textbook he was quoting from.

  ‘But Drew can’t be strong enough to make such a wound. He’s probably not even tall enough,’ my defender protested. I was warmed by the use of my first name, while thinking, yes, I probably was both strong and tall enough for the deed if I’d been sufficiently determined. Mr Maynard hadn’t been very tall, after all.

  ‘This is not the way it should be done,’ Jessica recollected herself. ‘We have to wait for the proper procedure.’ She gave me a narrow stare. ‘But I will have to report what I saw this morning, as well as the fact that you walked this way earlier on.’

  ‘I can see it looks bad,’ I said, aiming for a reasonable tone, the sort that an innocent man would use.

  We’d been there perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, at most, eyeing each other warily, and studiously avoiding any further scrutiny of the corpse. I found myself wanting to give it a decent covering, to engage my normal undertaker’s stance and remove the vulnerable body to a place of safe keeping. I felt a burgeoning pity for the wretched man and his soulless beliefs about burial. All too grotesquely soon, he was going to be the occupant of either a grave or an ashes urn. There was something fateful in the sudden turn of events, as if he had brought ill fortune upon himself by his opinions.

  Which was, I realised, rather the way Jessica Osborne saw it. The man had argued with me, and now he was dead. How could there not be a connection?

  The backup began to arrive, summoned by Paul. Cars, people, a few more onlookers – all slowly assembled and disposed themselves in a more or less organised fashion along the verge. Only a tiny handful possessed the authority to pass through the gate onto the patch of land where the body lay. I found myself joining the two women who had been there from the start, asked by Jessica to stay in their car, even though they insisted they had seen nothing but Mr and Mrs David, clearly in some distress. ‘We should never have stopped,’ the older one said crossly. ‘This has nothing to do with us. We tried to call 999, but we couldn’t get a signal.’

  Innocent bystanders, I thought, detachedly. Just utterly bad luck to be passing at that particular moment. But then, why did they stop? ‘Do you know them?’ I asked, indicating the Davids, wondering whether I was allowed to address witnesses. Nobody made a move to stop me.

  ‘Her, vaguely, by sight,’ said the cross woman. ‘We live in Chipping Campden, and I think she works in a shop there. It is her, isn’t it?’ she said to her companion.

  ‘What – in the chemist, you mean?’

  ‘Right. Don’t remember seeing him, though.’

  I looked again at the older couple. He had binoculars slung around his neck, a bizarre detail given the circumstances. Perhaps he had glimpsed the murderer speeding off across the fields, while scanning the area for his woodpecker. His wife was well turned out, her hair neat and her shoes clean. They appeared to be content to stand patiently by, awaiting their moment in the police spotlight. I moved towards them, trying to focus on their plight, thinking I might ask them one or two questions, just for politeness’ sake, but before I could speak, a newly arrived policeman approached me and politely told me to remain where I was, until a more senior officer arrived and questioned me. My head throbbed with the strangeness of what was unfolding around me.

  Thea attached herself to my side,
the spaniel sitting quietly at her feet, licking a paw as if nothing interesting were going on. Thea’s spaniel was already a permanent part of my image of her, a kind of daemon, automatically going everywhere with her. Except she had not been at the funeral the day before – left in the car or Mrs Simmonds’ house, I supposed.

  ‘Murder,’ I managed to mutter. ‘Murder most foul.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to look,’ she said. ‘I forgot, when Jessica said about the stone. It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?’

  I nodded. ‘Poor chap.’

  ‘I suppose you’re used to it – seeing broken and bloody bodies, I mean.’

  ‘Not really. I mean…you could never exactly get used to it, and I’ve never encountered one so…well, fresh.’

  ‘Mm.’ She turned away, her lips pulled back, her nostrils flexing, creating a vivid expression of disgust and distress.

  ‘I didn’t do it, I promise you.’ It seemed important to say it, to make every effort to keep her on my side. ‘The thing is, he probably had quite a few enemies if he was the same with everyone else as he was with me. I suppose I shouldn’t say it, but he did seem a bit of a pest.’

  ‘But it happened today,’ she almost moaned. ‘That’s the trouble.’

  ‘Yes. And your daughter’s convinced she’s solved it before he’s even cold.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. Jessica isn’t really as – well, rigid as she seems. She’s actually perfectly nice.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I said with a tight smile at this endearing attempt at fairness. ‘I’m sure it’s all my own fault.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ she smiled back.

  But I meant it. It did feel as if I’d brought it all down on myself somehow or other. I should have made sure the car was legal, for a start. As I traced events back, this seemed an important element. With new tyres and current tax disc, Jessica would never have spoken to me. I would have bade farewell to Thea with no further conversation, and therefore not have been invited to join them for lunch. And I definitely should have checked that Mrs Simmonds was the rightful owner of that field. That, more than anything, now appeared crucial. I’d been sloppy and negligent, and see where it had got me.

  I shrugged. ‘Logically, I think I’m right,’ I told my new friend. ‘But thanks for sticking up for me.’

  We walked up and down the road, with an idea of keeping the dog occupied, but could not avoid repeated glances at the crime scene. One of the first procedures was to erect a sort of tent over the body, which was made difficult by the strong wind, corners of it flapping wildly. I found myself hoping that any particles that might have come from me during my earlier encounter with Mr M had already blown away. At least, I thought glumly, there could be none of Mr Maynard’s blood anywhere on my person.

  A man arrived and, after a few false starts, was accosted by Jessica and apprised of the situation. She indicated me, where I remained on the verge, beginning to feel rather shivery. He walked up to me, his eyes narrow. ‘Detective Inspector Basildon,’ he introduced himself. ‘I understand you are Mr Drew Slocombe.’

  ‘Right,’ I agreed, resisting the impulse to put out a hand for him to shake.

  ‘And you can identify the deceased?’

  I shrugged self-effacingly. ‘Mr Maynard from the council – that’s all I know.’

  ‘And that’s very helpful, sir.’

  ‘And I might as well tell you I walked through this gate, over more or less the exact spot where he is now, at about twelve-fifteen today.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, with an impressively straight face.

  ‘I’m an undertaker, and I live in Somerset,’ I carried on, intent on getting the basics out of the way. ‘I conducted a funeral here yesterday, in a field a short distance from this spot. There was a problem over ownership of the land and I was called back today – a round trip of a hundred and twenty miles – to be told off by Mr Maynard. Officer Osborne witnessed Mr Maynard walking away after our conversation, and I told her afterwards that I wished people like him didn’t exist.’ It felt wonderful, like drinking whisky on an empty stomach. The detective scribbled busily on a notepad. ‘You can check the last part, because he used the police to get me back here. I mean…a police officer came to my house this morning and told me I needed to come and speak to Mr Maynard face-to-face.’

  ‘That must have been annoying,’ he said, with a straight look.

  ‘Very,’ I said. ‘But not to the point of committing murder. I expect I should add that I absolutely did not kill him.’

  ‘You’ll appreciate that I can’t comment on that, sir.’ I wondered, with a belated pang of anxiety, just how much of police work these days was performed by computers. Would there be a box to tick that said Suspect seems genuinely innocent, even if there were glaringly incriminating means, motive and opportunity? They’d have the evidence of my footprints beside the body, my stupid absence to make needless phone calls, my rage against the deceased. A computer might think that was ample proof of my guilt. I expected to be arrested there and then.

  But the detective inspector remained calm. ‘Could I take your address and other details, sir? I’m sure you’ll understand that we will need to speak to you again, given the circumstances.’

  It was a relief not to be driven away in handcuffs, so I rattled off my address and phone numbers with alacrity. ‘I can go home, then, can I?’ I asked.

  He frowned at the page in his notebook. ‘Might be best if you stick around here for a day or so, just to be on the safe side. We’ll need a full interview with you, later today. Please do not change your shoes or any other clothes.’

  ‘I couldn’t if I wanted to,’ I said. ‘I haven’t brought anything with me.’

  ‘Well, we’ll make it as soon as possible. We’ll be setting up an incident room somewhere close by, to make it easier for the local people. Do you know where Mr Maynard lived?’

  ‘No idea, but I suppose it’s around here somewhere. He didn’t appear to have a car when we met at the grave, so it’s probably within walking distance.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, with one eyebrow lifting at the way I was practically doing his job for him. I was being a trifle too cooperative, I feared. Falling over myself to assist the enquiries might lead to an interpretation of guilt as much as strenuous obstruction would have done. I quailed inwardly at the impossibility of my situation. Whatever I did would be open to suspicious interpretations, if there was already a presumption that I was guilty.

  ‘Those people don’t know him, then?’ I asked, indicating Mr and Mrs David and the women in the car. They’d been kept hanging about for well over an hour by that time.

  DI Basildon merely shook his head and pursed his lips, to indicate that I had no business asking such questions.

  I reviewed what he had said to me. A day or so was alarmingly vague. Where was I going to stay? ‘Until when do I have to stay here, exactly?’ I pressed him. ‘If you interview me today, can I go home after that?’

  ‘Impossible to say,’ he smiled. ‘Depends what we find here, for a start. Early days,’ he added inscrutably and very annoyingly. ‘“Assume the worst,” is my advice.’

  I looked to Thea, as the most reassuring face I could find. She didn’t fail me. ‘You could stay in Mrs Simmonds’ house with me, I suppose,’ she said. ‘There are three bedrooms, all ready to use.’

  ‘Now, there’s an offer,’ said the policeman, every bit as crassly as Detective Paul would have done if he’d heard Thea’s words. Already the damage was done.

  I shook my head regretfully. ‘I can’t do that,’ I said, thinking of how Karen would react if she heard I’d been alone in a house with a woman as lovely as Thea Osborne, for a whole night. People assumed the worst, just as this DI bloke advised them to. And their thoughts changed the reality; they jumped into my own head, whether I liked it or not. ‘There must be plenty of B&B places around here.’ My mind was buzzing with worries, self-reproaches and obligations. ‘I told Karen I’d be back before
dark,’ I said, to nobody in particular. I hated to break a promise – an undertaker above all had to be reliable.

  The DI moved away to speak to Jessica, and then the women in the car, who were finally given permission to go on their way. Mr and Mrs David were also permitted to drive off, with promises of a call by a police liaison officer very soon, to make sure they were all right. It was an improvement, I supposed, on the olden days when witnesses were left to their own devices, regardless of the trauma they might have suffered. The police force was awash with a range of civilian and semi-civilian personnel who participated in almost every aspect of the work, with the idea of keeping everybody happy. My friend – and Maggs’s husband – Den Cooper had found himself just such a post after leaving his job as a full-time police constable. A bit like a dysfunctional marriage, where the couple can’t live together, but neither can they live apart, with Den incapable of abandoning law enforcement altogether.

  ‘Come on,’ Thea urged me. ‘At least come back to the house for a cup of tea – assuming the power’s still on. I’ve had enough of this. I don’t want to be here when they remove the body.’

  Remove the body was the phrase used by undertakers. Had she uttered it by chance, or did she know the routines and practices of the funeral business from personal experience? I remembered that she was a widow, with several close connections to the police force. Even so, it seemed surprising to me that she should use those words. It was tempting to think she had done it in order to offer me a kind of solidarity, an antidote to the isolation I was feeling.

  As always, I found myself wondering about my alien status in society. I could go along for weeks, thinking I was just a normal bloke, chatting with ordinary people, taking the kids to school, going to the shops, and then something would happen to remind me that I was actually a pariah. I handled dead bodies; I kept them in a room that was part of my own house. I performed mysterious and dreadful acts on their lifeless corpses, seeing them naked and undignified. Even the vibrantly alive young mums at the school gate were aware of this, and kept me subtly at arm’s length. I think every one of them had visualised herself in one of my coffins, helplessly at the mercy of my sinister tools. ‘Thanks,’ I said to Thea. ‘That sounds nice.’