Juliet and I shuffled along a row of chairs. I hoped the stain on mine was old and dry. We’d dressed in black for the occasion; Juliet in a knee-length dress with her nails painted a deep red, me in one of my many jumpers and a pair of skinny chinos.
We’d chosen chairs two rows from the back. Those in front were already filled with sombrely dressed teens and clusters of older people. The air was filled with whispers, too fleeting to be captured. The building was nothing like Mum’s church. The windows here were clear, not etched with biblical scenes, and the chairs marginally more comfortable than Mum’s beloved pews.
Ida sat in the front row. Her face was covered with a thin black veil, her back hunched. Evie sat beside her. She wore a bulky grey jumper, her mouth pinched into a wrinkled line as she patted Ida’s shoulder. She caught sight of Juliet and me and swiftly turned to the front, her brow furrowed.
Jordan sat surrounded by friends. They thrummed with suppressed energy, their normal boisterousness tamed out of respect. Jordan’s hair was gelled flat and he looked older in an ill-fitting suit.
All whispering ceased as the minister walked up the centre aisle. He wore a creased grey suit, thinning strands of hair combed over the top of his freckled head. Coming to a stop at the front, he pointed a remote at a projector hanging from the ceiling. A picture of Melanie, her smile wide, filled the wall behind him.
‘We are here today to celebrate the life of Melanie Pirt, who was so cruelly taken from us.’ His amplified voice reverberated around the hall. ‘Her grandmother, Ida, has picked some of Melanie’s favourite songs for us to sing. Let’s begin with Amazing Grace. Please stand.’
A shiver ran up my spine as the keyboard player pressed the first notes. She wasn’t as talented as Leo, but through the verses Melanie’s voice haunted me. Juliet seemed unaffected, the same reserved smile she’d erected as we stepped into the church playing around her mouth.
The back door opened as the song finished and everyone sat down. Leo slipped into the final row of seats on the other side of the aisle. He clutched an order of service, his mouth downturned. He flinched when he caught me watching him.
‘Leo’s here,’ I whispered to Juliet.
Unabashed, she swivelled to look at him. He hunched in his chair, staring at the folded paper on his knee. I wondered if his reaction was purely because he’d been confronted with our presence when he’d expected to grieve in peace, or whether he was thinking of something we might have found on his laptop. We’d had a message from the IT team before we left the station this morning. The laptop was still updating. Juliet was worried someone had done a factory reset.
The minister spoke about Melanie’s life in a generic way, noting her intelligence, beautiful singing voice, and loving family. When he prayed, he closed his eyes and reached one hand towards Ida. Her shoulders shook as she cried.
I swallowed. This wasn’t the first funeral I’d been to since Barnabas’s, but they were uncomfortably alike. We hadn’t had a body to bury, and my parents had been broken by his death.
Juliet nudged me with her elbow and inclined her head towards Jordan. We weren’t the only ones who’d spotted Leo. Jordan had twisted in his chair to glare at him. One of his friends whispered something in his ear and he turned back to the front, his jaw jutting.
Leo missed it all. Sitting alone, he bent his head towards his lap. During the last hymn he walked out of the church, his eyes brimming with tears.
‘Thank you for coming,’ the minister said. ‘Ida would like to invite you all to the back hall, where she’s laid on a spread of Melanie’s favourite cakes. There’s also tea and coffee, and pictures of Melanie.’
He sat down on Ida’s unoccupied side, placing a soothing hand on her back. His and Evie’s hands spread across the curved black fabric like uneven white spiders.
Jordan talked to his friends, their voices an ominous rumble. He stood but froze when he spotted Juliet and me. She waved at him with her fingers. Jordan said something in the liberally pierced ear of the boy beside him, and they hurried into the back hall.
‘Wonder what he was plotting?’ Juliet smoothed her dress as she stood.
‘We might have saved Leo from some unwanted attention.’
We edged sideways towards the centre aisle. Ida stood as we walked over.
‘Thank you for coming.’ She cupped my hands in hers. ‘It’s good you could be here.’
Juliet nodded, hands clasped behind her back. Evie looped her arm through Ida’s and guided her to the back room ahead of us.
It was cosy. Plants grew in mismatched pots on windowsills and bright posters, exhorting the benefits of giving your life to Jesus, dotted the walls. Worn sofas stood at odd angles, interspersed with the same mass-produced chairs from the main hall.
We beelined towards the photo display, eschewing the decimated table of cakes. Conversation rose, the hushed atmosphere of the memorial shrugged off. Jordan lounged with his friends in one corner, their paper plates piled high with baked goods.
‘Do you find it strange that Melanie didn’t seem to have any friends?’ I asked. Apart from Jordan and his cronies, there were no other young people at her memorial.
‘Classic abuser trick,’ Juliet said, examining the photo display. ‘Isolate the victim, then even if they cry out for help there’s no one to hear them.’
An incredibly grim take on Melanie’s friendlessness, but no doubt accurate.
The photo display was put together with care, pictures of Melanie decorated with flowers and the inspirational quotes from her bedroom wall. In one photo, a toddler stood holding the hand of a young woman. In another, a child sat reading a book. Melanie grew older, posing and smiling with Ida.
‘When can we leave?’ Juliet whispered, smiling blandly at the groups dotted around the hall. She hadn’t come to anything like this before, preferred detachment in her cases. She’d only tagged along today because she was going mad with no new evidence to pick over.
‘Look at this,’ I said. Melanie, at around five years old, stood proudly in a fluffy dress, her feet encased in ballet shoes. A young woman stood beside her, their smiles radiant.
Juliet squinted at the woman. Her hair was pinned under a green hat that matched her boxy coat.
‘Recognise those buttons?’ I asked.
Juliet’s eyes widened, then her mouth quirked downwards. ‘It wasn’t important then. I’d hoped it would be from the murderer’s jacket, something significant.’
I sealed my lips. I’d had similar hopes but wouldn’t have expressed them in that same way. The button wasn’t going to crack open our case, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important or significant. It meant enough to Melanie that she’d carried it with her always.
Evie walked over, brushing cake crumbs from her hands. Her wispy hair escaped from a low bun, the white strands curling around her sunken cheeks.
‘How’s the case going?’ she asked without preamble.
‘It’s moving along as expected,’ I said, glad Evie focused on me and didn’t notice the face Juliet pulled at my bending the truth. ‘How have you been?’
‘Fine,’ Evie batted away my question and nodded at Jordan. ‘Have you talked to him yet?’
‘We have, but I’m afraid we can’t tell you more than that.’
‘Make sure you take him seriously,’ she chided. ‘He might be young, but that doesn’t mean he’s not capable.’
She spun around and hurried over to the table, her twisted hands moving quickly to rearrange the remnants of cake.
Juliet tapped her shoe. ‘Time to leave?’
‘Yeah.’
I waved at Ida as we slipped back into the main hall. She sat on a low sofa, a plate of untouched cake on her knee. I rubbed my face as I followed Juliet. There were many reasons to want to find Melanie’s killer, but one of the strongest was to give some modicum of peace to her loved ones. They deserved closure.
Not knowing wore away at a person. I wouldn’t let that happen to Ida.