A Market for Murder (10 page)

‘No, I don’t think so. Della was reminiscing about schooldays a while ago. I was getting her to fill me in on the Food Chain people. I still feel like a newcomer sometimes, even after nearly four years. Anyway, if I remember rightly, Della and Sally knew each other, but Julie’s an incomer like me. She’s from Yorkshire, I think.’

Drew nodded. ‘She has got a bit of an accent, now you mention it.’

‘Oh, and she told me about the older generation, too. Della’s mother’s dead, but she was good friends with practically everyone around here. Hilary Henderson, Maggie, Mary Thomas – they all went to the Grammar School. Della’s got one of those long photos with every single pupil on it. There were only about two hundred in the entire school.’

‘Another world,’ said Drew. ‘I never see anyone I was at school with.’

‘Me neither,’ said Karen. ‘Not that I’d want to, really.’

The removal went very satisfactorily. The woman at the nursing home turned out to be broad-shouldered and good-humoured. She insisted on giving him a cup of tea in her office before they did the deed. ‘Give them time to settle down a bit,’ she smiled. ‘One or two pop back to the
rec room for a magazine or their glasses or something.’

‘Did you find the name of the friend?’ he asked. His curiosity had become intense as he’d driven through the Saturday afternoon tourist traffic.

‘Oh yes. I remembered. She used to talk about this woman quite a lot, a few years ago. You know how old people go back in time, and somehow get stuck?’ Drew tilted his head, indicating uncertainty. ‘Well, they do,’ she assured him. ‘Elsie’s been with us for seven years, which is a lot more than usual. She’s ninety-five.
Was
ninety-five, I should say, poor old love. The friend was someone she knew in her fifties, I think. A much younger woman. They were neighbours, and Elsie minded the little girls. Actually,’ The woman leant forward confidingly across her desk ‘I think there was a lot of very strong feeling between them. On Elsie’s side, anyway. You should have seen her face when she talked about this Gwen …’

‘Gwen?’ Drew’s heart lurched. ‘You did say Gwen?’

‘That’s right. I see you know who we’re talking about. I understand it was rather a celebrated burial. We had to do a bit of research, you see, when Elsie decided she wanted to be buried close to her.’

Drew knew there was only one Gwen buried in his field. And he had ample cause to remember her: she had been the very first body to be interred there. In fact the interment had happened before he’d even opened for business. And Gwen Absolon had been murdered.

‘But surely she’s got family? Or more recent friends?’ He was stunned at the way the memories came flooding back. For several weeks, Gwen Absolon’s name had been acutely significant to him; but that had been three years ago, and he’d hoped he’d forgotten it by now.

The woman shrugged. ‘Evidently not. When we discovered your natural burial ground, and read all about it, she got very excited. I think she’d have wanted to go there regardless of Gwen. It fitted with her outlook, you see. Pity you never knew her. She was a splendid old lady.’

A new and awful idea struck Drew. ‘The daughters. Gwen’s daughters, I mean. Have they been in touch? Do they know Elsie’s here?’

How would he cope if Genevieve Slater turned up again, after everything that had happened between them? And what – oh God,
what
would Maggs say?

The woman mercifully shook her head. ‘We did write to one of them at an address in North Wales when Elsie was obviously failing, but never got a reply.’

‘So, how did you find out where Gwen was buried?’

‘The Internet, of course. You can find anybody these days. And Gwen was rather a celebrity, not very long ago. The papers were full of her. A search threw up loads of references, right away.’

They carried the defunct Elsie easily down the stairs and out through the back door to Drew’s waiting van. Driving her back to North Staverton, he pondered on life’s coincidences and the impossibility of remaining out of sight. Your lapses would always come back to haunt you. He had been mesmerised by Genevieve Slater, Gwen’s daughter, allowing her to manipulate him and draw him into the unsavoury tangle that was her family life. Maggs had watched and warned, to no avail. The only good thing was that Karen had never been fully aware of what was going on. Pregnant with Timmy, at a point of crisis in her own life, she had let Drew work his own problems out.

Or so he had assumed.

‘New customer?’ Maggs stared at the small body in the cool room in astonishment. ‘Who did the removal with you?’

‘Nobody. The woman at the nursing home. She’s so small, it wasn’t a problem.’

‘My God. What would Daphne say?’

‘Bugger Daphne.’

‘Right. Will you do it or shall we get Den onto it?’

‘Don’t be filthy.’

‘So where’s she going?’

Drew paused long enough for her to notice. She gave him a searching look. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

‘It’s a small world,’ he began. ‘It seems she has a friend buried here. A friend from nearly
forty years ago. They lived next door, so now she wants to be buried alongside her, too.’

‘Are you going to make me guess?’

‘That’s a good idea.’

‘Drew!’

He sighed. ‘Gwen Absolon. Remember her?’

Maggs clapped her hands like a small child, and crowed. ‘I don’t
believe
it. Really? What a hoot.’

Drew frowned and said nothing. He’d expected something like this.

‘Is the hellion daughter coming? Does she still know this neighbour lady?’

‘Apparently not, thank God. And I haven’t had time to check that there’s space next to that grave. I suppose there will be.’

‘Course there is,’ Maggs assured him. ‘You’ve been steering clear of that bit of the field for three years now.’

‘No I haven’t. Or not for the reasons you think. I just didn’t want people being ghoulish about it. Luckily most of them seem to have either forgotten the story or never heard it.’

‘People have short memories.’

‘Except for this Elsie Watkins. She hadn’t seen Gwen since about 1960, but suddenly she has to be buried beside her.’

‘What family is there?’

‘There’s a great-nephew in Dubai or
somewhere. He’ll probably show up, if only to collect whatever goodies she’s left him.’

‘And pay for the funeral.’

‘With any luck, that too,’ Drew agreed.

With little more to be said on the subject, Drew asked Maggs about her weekend. She suddenly turned coy, and became busy with the morning post. ‘It was fine,’ she said. ‘They let me have a go at milking the cows.’

‘Gracious! On a three-legged stool in a
straw-strewn
cowshed?’

‘Don’t be stupid. It was very modern. There were lambs, too. Funny ones with long black ears. Blue-faced Leicesters, they’re called.’

‘I’m amazed.’

‘What did you do, then, besides removing the Watkins woman?’

‘Nothing, really. I had a visit from Mrs Grafton. That was interesting. And Karen was there when the police arrested Mary Thomas. And Della phoned this morning saying she didn’t want Karen to have the boys until after lunch, so she’s feeling a bit let down, I think. She’d got all geared up for some heavy duty glueing. Stephanie doesn’t like doing that sort of thing without Finian.’

‘The police arrested Mary Thomas?’ Maggs repeated slowly. ‘Is that the woman from Ferngate?’

‘Right. She seems to be involved in something mysterious. Karen’s got some rather wild ideas about it all.’

‘I thought I was the one with the wild ideas.’ Maggs pouted exaggeratedly.

‘So did I.’ This had all the signs of the last word, and Maggs took it as such. She went to the filing cabinet and extracted the detailed chart that showed precisely which grave was where. As expected, there was empty space on each side of Gwen Absolon’s burial place.

Before she could point this out to Drew, the phone rang. He answered it, saying after a few seconds, ‘Hello, Stanley. Haven’t heard from you for a while … Oh, good. We’ll be over for him tomorrow, then, all being well. Depends on the wife, of course. We can’t keep him here more than a couple of days. I’ll phone her, then. Right. Thanks very much. Bye.’

‘They’ve released Peter Grafton,’ Maggs summarised.

‘Not quite. The inquest is this afternoon. Then, as likely as not, they’ll let us have him.’ Drew screwed up his nose, in a parody of disgust. ‘You know something?’ he said. ‘We haven’t had to deal with a body that’s had a post-mortem – not since …’

‘I know. Gwen Absolon,’ Maggs supplied.

The new funeral, in addition to the large event that would accompany Peter Grafton’s burial, seemed to send everything off balance. Drew couldn’t help thinking about Genevieve, despite his stern admonitions to himself to stop it. Maggs appeared to find the whole thing both amusing and intriguing, and a side effect of this was a dramatically increased interest in the murder of Peter Grafton. It was as if the reminder of an earlier murder mystery had awakened something dormant in her.

‘Den’s been chatting to his old Inspector – man called Hemsley,’ she told Drew. ‘He thought he might be able to help with the market murder, seeing as how he was more or less there at the time.’

‘And could he? Help, I mean?’

‘Not really, except he knows Karen and she seems to be pretty much involved in the whole thing.’

‘Den doesn’t know Karen very well, though,’ Drew pointed out. ‘He doesn’t know anything about the Food Chain stuff, or why anybody might have killed Grafton.’

‘He soon realised that when Hemsley started asking questions. I think he was a bit sheepish about it. You know what it is, of course.’

‘What?’

‘He’s missing the police. This is the first
murder he’s come across since he left, and it’s making him restless. He wants to be in there, like the old days.’

‘Must be a bit strange,’ Drew sympathised.

‘Yeah, well, he should have known this would happen. Now I’ve got to try and distract him.’

‘Oh?’ Drew was careful to keep his face straight. Saucy innuendo between the two of them had always been kept to a minimum. It wasn’t very difficult – Drew usually missed even the most obvious risqué jokes. Karen had pointed this out, years ago, saying she assumed it must go along with being an undertaker.

‘No, no, I just prefer my gratification to come through actual contact, not through words and jokes,’ he’d responded pompously.

This had changed slightly when Maggs moved in with Den. It evened up the balance; they were both now officially with sexual partners and could afford to relax their carefully platonic relationship. Even so, Drew still shied away from overtly prurient remarks.

‘That’s why we went away this weekend, to give him something else to think about,’ she explained seriously. ‘But now we’re back, he’s as bad as ever. Wants to come and talk to Karen, actually. See if he can spot anything significant in what she saw.’

‘But …’ Drew frowned. ‘I’m not sure what she’ll tell him.’

‘I expect it’ll be OK. He says he’ll be very sensitive and low key about it. He’s going to try and get here early this afternoon, and see if he can catch her. Don’t say anything, will you,’ she warned. ‘It’s up to him, if he wants to risk getting told off.’

‘Actually, she might be quite cooperative,’ Drew predicted. ‘She’s been having a few off-
the-wall
ideas about Mary Thomas, since Saturday, and might want to share them with a professional. She didn’t really get very far with me. I tried to show an interest, but, somehow …’

‘You’re losing it, mate,’ she told him blithely. ‘Getting altogether too middle-aged you are, these days.’

‘Middle-aged! I’m not even thirty-five yet.’

‘So act it,’ she said. ‘Have a bit of fun, why don’t you.’

Drew blinked, surprised at how much her words stung. ‘Are you saying I’m getting dull?’ he demanded. ‘Me?’

‘I expect it’s only temporary,’ she smiled.

‘Just because I didn’t go off for a romantic weekend rolling in the hay,’ he grumbled. ‘You wait. I’ll show you.’

‘I’ll look forward to that.’

He went back to opening the post, and she put the map of the graves away carefully. The silence became more and more uncomfortable.

Maggs sighed noisily. ‘Don’t forget to phone Mrs Grafton then,’ she said eventually.

‘I’ll wait until late this afternoon – after the inquest. Nothing’s really certain until then.’

‘OK.’

‘We haven’t been of much use to Sally Dabb, have we?’ she said, a few minutes later. ‘Nobody’s asked me about her affair with Peter Grafton, at any rate.’

‘Nor me,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s early days, I suppose.’

‘Will they catch who did it, do you think? Den can’t see it. There aren’t really enough bits of evidence. Unless they get some inside information. I suppose that’s the way they usually solve crimes, when you think about it. They can’t do much otherwise.’ She was prattling, talking as much to herself as to Drew, as she copied Elsie Watkins’ details into their record book.

‘They might find the crossbow,’ he said vaguely.

‘Well, I really do think it’s all very exciting,’ she burst out, slamming the updated volume closed. ‘There must be a connection between the farmers’ market and SuperFare. I mean, it could be some kind of food politics, couldn’t it? Somebody trying to stop something that could cost them money. Like – what if the supermarket was feeling threatened by the success of Karen’s
lot. They’d try some dirty tricks, wouldn’t they?’

‘They wouldn’t have a chap shot, and they’d hardly blow their own place up with a bomb,’ Drew pointed out. ‘You don’t really change, do you,’ he added.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Same wild ideas, half-baked guesses,
farfetched
conclusions.’

‘But I’m quite often right, all the same,’ she said, with a straight look. ‘Aren’t I?’

‘You’ve been right once or twice,’ he conceded. ‘But usually for the wrong reasons.’

‘Ha!’ she snorted.

At four forty-five that Monday afternoon, Den Cooper and Della Gray met for the first time, with Karen and four children stirred in for good measure.

Della – tall and slim, with a long stride – had walked through the village, just as Karen habitually did in the other direction. It was a warm day, summer announcing itself deafeningly with birds and airliners working up to a crescendo. New bright green leaves thronged the hedgerows and livestock gorged on young fresh grass.

Den unfolded himself from the driving seat of his ageing Fiat, giving his legs the remedial shake he generally did after sitting in cramped conditions. Most conditions were cramped for
him, being of abnormal height. He observed the young woman walking up the path to the Slocombes’ cottage, and hesitated in his purpose.

He had fifteen minutes or more to fill, and hardly anything to lose. He even had his opening line rehearsed, in which he would ask Karen if she had any lettuces to spare, as well as enquiring as to the progress of the other vegetables.

He strode after the woman. ‘Hello,’ he greeted her. ‘Come to see Karen?’

‘I’m collecting my kids,’ came the friendly reply. ‘She has them every Monday. How about you?’

He looked into the clear eyes, enjoying the unusual sensation of a woman barely six inches shorter than himself. She had nice skin, he noted, and smelt of something natural like apples. ‘My girlfriend works with Drew. I’m a bit early, so I thought I’d have a little chat with Karen.’

‘Maggs? You’re Maggs’s partner? Funny I haven’t seen you before. I’m Della.’

The name meant nothing. He smiled in acknowledgement of the introduction. ‘Den,’ he offered in return.

Before either of them could knock, Karen had pulled open the front door. Two small boys stood in front of her, making her bend awkwardly over their heads to get the door open. She moved them aside with deft and not entirely gentle
movements of her feet and legs. ‘Hey, you two! Get out of the way,’ she scolded them.

The children scampered forward, to wrap themselves around Della’s legs instead. ‘Mummy!’ they cried, in a parody of affection.

‘Get off,’ she said. ‘We’re not going for a few minutes yet.’

‘Oh-h-h-h,’ they whined in unison. ‘I want my supper,’ added the larger one.

‘Have they been horrible?’ Della asked Karen.

‘No more than usual,’ she smiled. ‘Oh, hello, Den. Are you coming in?’

‘I thought I might,’ he said. ‘I was hoping for a couple more lettuces if there are any.’

‘Small ones,’ she warned him. ‘But fairly hearty. This weather should bring some more stuff on. Isn’t it fabulous!’

Somehow they all got through the door and into the kitchen, including the children. Della sat down without invitation, and Karen filled the kettle. Den hovered uncomfortably. None of his planned conversation was going to happen at this rate.

Then Karen managed to move things on quite dramatically. ‘You’ll be wishing you could help with the murder investigation I expect,’ she said to him, almost idly. ‘It must feel a bit odd being out of it all.’

‘Absolutely!’ he agreed with fervour. ‘I come over all peculiar every time I walk past the Town
Hall, knowing it’s where they’ve got the Incident Room set up.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Della asked, her attention on little Todd.

‘Den used to be in the CID. He worked on a few murders around here, before giving it all up. He’s with Social Services now.’ She flicked a bright look at Della, then an identical one at Den. ‘Hey!’ she added. ‘Della used to know Peter Grafton. She was really upset when she heard he’d been killed – weren’t you?’ The image of the tall capable Della fainting returned to Karen, but she refrained from telling that part of the story.

‘It was a shock,’ Della admitted in a low voice.

Den remembered the previous Tuesday. ‘Oh, that was you,’ he said. ‘You fainted, and Drew had to go and collect the children. Are you all right now?’

Della laughed. ‘Oh yes. It was nothing. I was better about ten minutes later. Poor old Karen, she did panic a bit.’

Karen pressed her lips together and said nothing. Den cleared his throat uncomfortably and reverted to the earlier topic. ‘I’ve had a word with the DI handling the investigation, actually,’ he disclosed. ‘I used to work with him. I told him I knew you, and one or two others who seem to be involved.’

‘Who else do you know?’ Karen frowned curiously up at him.

‘Well, everybody knows Hilary Henderson and Geraldine Beech, I suppose. And Mary Thomas.’

‘The three witches,’ said Della. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Oops! That was a bit rude, wasn’t it. Everyone calls them that, though.’