Shilpa tightened the belt on her black trench coat as she stepped into the crematorium. She stood at the back and peered towards the front, where a bunch of calla lilies had been placed on top of the casket. The coffin lay poised to enter the incinerator at the touch of a button. There was murmuring as a woman in her seventies took to the front of the room to say the eulogy.
‘Poor thing,’ a woman sitting in front of Shilpa said to her partner. ‘She’s been put on the spot. Roy’s daughter was supposed to be saying a few words now.’ The woman in front of Shilpa turned, and Shilpa quickly looked away. There was more whispering when moments later Caroline’s husband and her two boys entered. They went to the front of the room and sat in the front row, the opposite side to Annabel who was with two women, one of whom Shilpa was sure she had seen at Roy’s party.
‘Where is she?’ the woman in front of Shilpa spat. ‘This is so disrespectful and completely unlike Caroline.’ Her partner was silent. Shilpa, too, wondered where her friend was. Something must have gone drastically wrong for Caroline not to be at her father’s funeral. Shilpa jumped to conclusions as she usually did. She felt panic rising as the woman at the lectern finished saying how wonderful Roy Arden was and took her seat again. If Caroline’s husband and children were here, Caroline must have been okay. There would be a reasonable explanation. Shilpa listened to the priest, but she couldn’t concentrate. She couldn’t get her mind off Roy’s daughter. As the congregation sang a hymn, Shilpa slipped out.
There were only a handful of cars in the car park, one being Shilpa’s. She didn’t know what car Caroline had, but she was convinced that her friend was in the car park, possibly overcome with grief, which would explain why she wasn’t at the service.
When Caroline had asked Shilpa to attend Roy’s funeral, she had told her that only a select few had been invited to the crematorium; the rest would be able to attend the memorial at Arden Copse afterwards. Shilpa walked the length of the first row of cars. Nothing. In the second row of cars, she didn’t see Caroline, but she saw a silver Mercedes estate.
People were filtering out of the crematorium. Caroline had said that the ashes would be taken back to the house to be buried in the mausoleum they were building for Roy Arden in the copse. There was something familiar about the car she stood in front of. She peered inside and saw a pile of paperwork on the back seat. She desperately searched for a name. Nothing.
‘What are you looking for?’ She heard a voice behind her, making her jump.
‘What the–’ Shilpa asked, turning. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Working,’ Robin said.
‘At a crematorium? I’m not buying this,’ she said, walking off.
‘Shilpa, wait,’ Robin said. She didn’t. She got into her car and locked the door. Her heart was beating fast and her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes.
‘Let me in,’ Robin said. Shilpa opened her eyes and saw him peering through the passenger window. She took a breath and opened the door. He got in. It was then that she noticed his camera around his neck.
‘You can’t possibly be in a crematorium taking pictures of wild birds. Oh wait, is there a rare species that resides in these grounds?’
Robin was silent. ‘I’ve not lied to you,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t tell you everything. And I may have let you jump to conclusions.’
‘Get out,’ Shilpa shouted. The gathering from the crematorium was making their way to their cars.
Robin stayed put. ‘Just let me explain,’ he said.
‘What is it exactly that you do?’ she asked as she looked past him. Shilpa’s eyes were drawn to the striking woman with auburn hair getting into the silver estate car.
‘Is that why you were looking at that car?’ Robin asked. ‘Is that the car that ran you off the road?’
‘I don’t know,’ Shilpa said. She didn’t know who the woman was, but she had seen her moments ago, in the crematorium, sitting with Annabel. Shilpa felt her stomach churn. ‘Something about that car is familiar.’
‘That’s Gill Walker,’ Robin said. ‘Best friend to Annabel Arden. Her husband is Christian Walker. Made his money from ladies’ fashion. Cheap ladies’ fashion. He’s a retail oligarch. All those cheap brands that outsource their labour to sweatshops in developing countries. He’s kingpin of all of that. Times are changing now, so they’re having to change their business model, but he still turns a tidy profit for selling dresses for under a fiver. You wonder how little they cost to make. The young are getting more retail savvy though, and many have a conscience. All this organic cotton is taking off. It sounded like a fad. But you know…’
Shilpa had stopped listening to Robin. Her mind was reeling. ‘Annabel’s best friends with Christian’s wife?’
‘The man she’s sleeping with, yes.’
‘I told you that,’ Shilpa said. ‘The other night I told you that.’ She scowled and looked away. ‘You were defending her, from what I recall.’
‘I was playing devil’s advocate.’
‘Does Gill know that her husband and best friend are having an affair?’
‘My hunch is that she does, but she’s turning a blind eye because life without Christian’s wealth would be rather dry for Gill Walker. She’s accustomed to a certain way of living, and I don’t think she would give that up for anything.’
‘But to befriend your husband’s mistress?’
‘I don’t think she knew Annabel was sleeping with her husband when they became friends. I think she realised that only recently and by then it was too late.’
‘I’m sure I saw her at Roy’s party. She’s so tall and her hair really stands out.’
‘She was a model once, I believe. A long time ago. Whether she was at Roy’s party, who knows?’
‘Christian wasn’t invited,’ Shilpa said. ‘So it stands to reason that Gill wasn’t.’ Who knew how rich people with a point to prove operated? ‘Gill condoned her husband’s relationship by her acceptance of it. Surely now she knows that Annabel is pregnant she can’t stand the sight of her.’
‘Maybe she just doesn’t love her husband anymore,’ Robin offered.
Shilpa had to admit Robin had a point. If Gill was staying for the money and didn’t care for her husband, what did it matter who her husband was sleeping with? But surely she had some self-respect. Gill didn’t look like a pushover. Shilpa took a deep breath as Gill drove away. She supposed that appearances could be deceiving.
‘Roy and Christian were best friends, but they fell out. Probably because of Annabel, but it was hidden under the guise of a business deal gone wrong. Roy Arden never had any interest in retail, so when he made a move to purchase a high-street chain, he was having a dig at his friend.’
‘An expensive way to make a point,’ Shilpa said. She thought about what Robin had just told her. If Annabel and Gill were good friends and Gill had been invited to Roy’s party, it was even more of a risk for her husband to attend. So why would he? Unless Gill, Annabel and Christian were in it together.
‘When you’re that rich, you can afford to splash money around like that to make the smallest of points,’ Robin said, rousing Shilpa from her thoughts. ‘So you think Gill may have run you off the road?’
Shilpa shook her head. ‘There’s no reason for me to think that. I can’t recall anything about the car. It all happened so fast.’
‘But something’s ringing alarm bells with you?’
Shilpa couldn’t get her head around why the car Gill had just driven off in seemed so familiar. Was it because she was on the lookout for a silver Mercedes estate car? Or was it something in her subconscious?
‘The friendship between Gill and Annabel doesn’t make sense,’ Shilpa said, going back to her previous point. ‘Not now there’s a baby involved–’ Shilpa started, but Robin cut her off.
‘There’s no baby,’ he said.
‘What?’ Shilpa asked incredulously. ‘How do you know?’
Robin held up his camera. ‘I’ve proof. The day you were going to visit Caroline–’ he started.
‘You were on your way to visit her too. Caroline said that she was meeting someone who had some information for her on her father’s death. That was you.’
‘I never saw her that day.’
‘Because you came to my rescue. Why didn’t you just tell me?’
Robin shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to mix business and pleasure. You’re so keen to get to the bottom of who killed Roy Arden – if he was killed, that is – and I thought that if I told you what I knew, well, honestly, I thought that the waters would be muddied.’
‘But it was okay for me to tell you everything I knew about the Ardens.’
Robin held his hands up. ‘Listen, I was worried it would scare you off. It’s not as if we have a good reputation. I wanted to tell Caroline what I knew about Annabel.’
Caroline. That was why Shilpa was out in the car park in the first place. She had been worried about the whereabouts of her friend. Caroline wouldn’t have missed her father’s funeral unless she had a very good reason.
Jack, Monty and Jacob stood outside the crematorium talking with the priest. They didn’t seem like they were in a hurry to get back to Caroline. Shilpa turned to Robin. ‘Something is ringing alarm bells, sure. How do you know so much, like who Gill and Christian Walker are, for example? You never answered my question: What exactly do you do?’