YOU WILL NEVER GIVE UP TRYING TO FIND HIM
DAY NINETEEN
The funeral cortege slowly draws away from the Black’s house on Westrick Road and makes the short journey to St Mark’s Church on Hillside Lane. The coffin is carried into the church, Derek Black and his brother Donald, Emily’s uncle, are two of the pallbearers. Jenny Black is helped into the church by her mother and father. She has aged ten years in appearance and is barely keeping it all together.
For some strange reason, she blames Derek, and however much he has tried to comfort her, she pushes him away. He is seriously worried about her mental state. Most days she just sits on the window seat in the bay window of the front room in their house, the hand-tinted photograph of Emily in her hands, simply staring out of the window as if expecting Emily to be coming home.
After the service, the tiny coffin is once more carried out to the hearse, and the cortege sets out for the cemetery.
All along the route, Garside folk stop whatever they are doing and stand silently by the roadside to watch the cortege pass. Many of the women are openly weeping; some men surreptitiously wipe away a tear as hats are doffed in respect. All traffic stops to allow the sad procession through.
At the Cemetery, Yarrow and several of his team are waiting, Harding, Rawlings, Balderstone, and Eustace Pink amongst others.
The weather is fine, a bright early September day, with fleecy white cloud-lambs watching over little Emily for her final journey and resting place.
Slowly the procession wends its way through the graveyard to the prepared grave.
Suzanne Fillmore is walking with the family, Jenny Black especially asked that she be present with them at the graveside service. Although Suzanne feels honoured by the request, she feels uncomfortable amid so much grief and is close to tears herself as she walks beside Jenny and her parents. Derek has been relegated to a position behind Jenny and her parents, and he feels the hurt acutely, his tearing grief at the loss of his beloved daughter and the cruel, unwarranted rejection by his wife only adding to his devastating heartache.
The Reverend Michael Wingate, his white surplice flapping in the light September breeze, opens his prayer book and begins his final prayer. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ Jenny Black can barely stand as the coffin, with Emily and the fluffy blue rabbit called Bunny clutched to her chest, is lowered into the ground and has to be supported by her father as Derek watches in impotent grief, wanting to be the one to support his wife but she waves him away as he steps up alongside her.
Yarrow and his men, their hands clasped respectfully in front of them, are only giving scant attention to the service. They are watching the crowd of curious onlookers who have made their way to the graveyard; Yarrow thinks of them as curious ghouls, but he is looking out for someone, anyone taking more than the usual interest in the proceedings. It is by no means unusual for a murderer to attend the burial of his victim.
Yarrow could not say exactly what he was looking for; he did not expect the killer to make himself known by rushing to the graveside shouting ‘It was me; it was me,’ but he hoped, not very confidently, that something, something in the demeanour of a watcher might give him away.
He scanned the faces of everyone, those closely gathered around the grave and the others, the curious, the ghoulish, the sad and reverential, the respectful, and those with nothing better to do with their time.
But nothing, no one caught his eye and aroused his suspicions.
As Derek and Jenny make their slow, sad farewell from the graveside, Yarrow walks over to offer his condolences. He doffs his hat and holds it awkwardly in both hands in front of him.
‘Mr and Mrs Black, Jenny and Derek, please accept my condolences. I know words mean very little on occasions like this, but please, they are the sincerest of words, given sincerely.’
‘Thank you, Mr Yarrow,’ Jenny whispers. ‘Thank you. Please tell me one thing, please tell me that you will never give up trying to find him, you know, the man that took my Emily from me.’
‘I promise. I promise that we are doing all that we can and that I will never, ever give up on Emily.’
‘Thank you, thank you, that gives me some hope, some comfort.’ At that, she walks slowly on as her husband follows discontentedly behind her, his own personal misery compounded by Jenny’s rejection of him.
However, the funeral seems to act as a form of closure, a catharsis, as though Jenny Black has finally accepted that Emily is not coming home. The trouble has been, although there have been tears in abundance, she has not been able to cry properly, to really let loose her sorrow in howling, deep wrenching cries, to allow all the pent-up anguish, sorrow, and hurt to flood out in the necessary cathartic relief of her torment. That night, in bed, for the first time since Emily’s death, she allows Derek to hold and comfort her, and at last, she is able to cry, properly cry, for her murdered child, the tears and racking sobs shaking her body in spasms of grief, her tears liberally soaking Derek’s pyjamas, tears cold and chill on his chest, but he bears them no mind as he strokes her hair and her back, glad only that she has come back to him at last.
Perhaps it was the shock which so disorientated her, so distanced herself from him, but no matter, she is back in his arms, where she belongs. He comforts her, whispers his love to her, whispers their love of Emily, she turns to him, lifts her nightdress, and they make love, losing themselves in each other, pouring out their grief in tears and sobs and eventually moans of ecstasy. Their first lovemaking is wild and passionate, all their pent-up emotions driving them into furious lovemaking that eventually leaves them drained and spent.
They lay in each other’s arms, comforted by each other. Later, they make love again, slowly, lovingly, and finally, they sleep, for the first time Jenny sleeps through, drained emotionally and physically.
The long, slow healing process has begun. It will never end, of course, there will always be the aching hole in their hearts, but they can grieve together, draw strength from each other, share memories of Emily together. And cry together.