Throughout Monday, Drew thought of Thea, recapturing the images on the TV screen and wondering what trouble she might have got herself into this time. The report had not specifically identified her as being involved in the killing of a young woman, but knowing her as he was beginning to, he could only assume that she would sooner or later become involved, even if only as a helpful spy for the police.
His routines for the day entailed the usual juggling of children and work, heavily reliant on Maggs for continuity with their customers, and clouded with worry for the well-being of Stephanie and Timmy. On some days they seemed quite relaxed and cheerful, secure in the rituals of school and meals; at other times, one or both would be pale and silent and averse to all suggestion of food. This was a relatively good day. Stephanie’s throat seemed to have settled down, and she got herself and her brother dressed in clean clothes, then they both ate some cereal and toast. Drew had slept through much of the night, despite the reappearance of Thea, and was giving at least half his attention to a rambling story that Timmy was trying to tell him. They were all in the car in good time, and to all appearances, both children went in without reluctance.
Maggs was a bigger challenge. There had been a phone call at four in the morning from a nursing home, requiring immediate removal of a body, before the other inmates woke and realised what had happened. Since Drew could no longer participate in these call-outs, having no wife at home to babysit, a standby person had been enlisted to go with Maggs. This was a school-leaver called Jackson, broad in shoulder and narrow in outlook. His employment was strictly unofficial, being paid in cash, with no retainer for being perpetually on call. He had no objection to handling dead bodies, but no ambitions to join the business on a full-time basis, either. ‘It’s just till I get sorted, with a proper job,’ he told Maggs and Drew. From what they could see, this might well take a decade or two to achieve.
‘I had to go and bang on his door,’ Maggs complained. ‘He said he never heard the phone.’
Drew clucked sympathetically.
‘He’s a dead loss, Drew, honestly,’ she went on. ‘I know I’ll get there one of these days, and he’ll be out somewhere for the night. Then what?’
‘Then we fire him. I dare say there are plenty more where he came from.’
‘Dream on! Anyone else’d want all the perks and paperwork, which we’d never have a hope of affording. It’s hard enough to scrape up the twenty-five quid for Jackson every time we use him.’
‘I know, Maggs. What do you want me to do about it?’
‘Sell the field and house in Broad Campden. Consolidate. It was never going to work out, and now it’s just a weight around your neck. The whole thing’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth.’
Broad Campden was where he had first met Thea, six months earlier. Since then, there had been a protracted and inconclusive attempt to open a second burial ground in the Cotswolds. It could have worked – if Karen had been alive and well and Maggs had been more amenable to the idea. As it was, it had never stood much of a chance. He had been left a house, as well, although the legal ramifications were still some distance from being resolved.
‘Just sell the damn thing,’ Maggs said again.
‘I suppose I will, but it seems a shame,’ he agreed. ‘I’d rather struggle on a bit longer, and see if we can manage. I could put tenants in the house, and bring in some income that way.’
She puffed out her cheeks in a sceptical grimace. ‘Who wants to rent a house in a tiny little village?’
‘Plenty of people, I imagine. It’s convenient for lots of bigger places.’ A week ago, he wouldn’t have had the energy to argue with her, he realised. Was it possible that a flicker of normality was finally returning? Could it be that the story of a murder in the Cotswolds, with a number of intriguing elements, had revived his spirits where daily life had thoroughly failed to do so? A new puzzle to solve might be the very thing to kick him out of his despondency.
‘Well, there’s a funeral to arrange, anyway,’ Maggs said, with some emphasis. ‘They’ll be phoning us any time now. It’s a Mr Orridge, aged ninety-five, who read about Peaceful Repose when it first opened, and put us in his will, there and then. Wouldn’t it be nice if more people did that?’
‘A nice surprise,’ he agreed. ‘Just shows you can never predict what’ll happen.’
‘If the nursing homes would just be a bit more proactive in recommending us, things would be a lot better. Three-quarters of their inmates have no idea we exist. I think it’s a dereliction of duty. They ought to have posters up about us.’
‘That’ll be the day!’ he laughed. ‘When they do all they can to pretend everybody’s going to live for ever. You’re not allowed to even mention funerals.’
There had been several moments during the past six weeks when Drew would have loved to avoid all mention of funerals. He despised himself for it, convinced that other undertakers had no such difficulties. They would take the disposal of their own relatives in their stride, with calm competence – not floundering and changing their minds as Drew had done. But he had not been born to the work, as most in the business had. It was often a service that passed down the generations for centuries. Originally builders and carpenters, only burying the dead as a sideline, they had gradually become specialists. Drew had been a nurse in his twenties, only moving to funeral work on a whim. There were still several arcane details that he ignored or got wrong. There had always been elements he disliked – particularly those involving money. He had rapidly come to the conclusion that undertakers made too much profit from people in no position to haggle. Not only did he campaign for more ecological burials, but he kept them cheap. And as a result, his family had lived on the poverty line ever since Peaceful Repose had been set up.
The phone interrupted their desultory conversation. It was Fiona, his old friend from the council. ‘Drew, this is your lucky day,’ she began. ‘We’ve got two funerals for you!’
‘Blimey!’ he said.
‘Totally unconnected. One’s an old dipso we’ve had an eye on for months now. She’s been found dead in a doorway, poor thing. We’ll have to go through the motions, but I can safely say she’s got nobody who cares what happens next. And the other’s a migrant, we think. We’ve had him nearly a month, trying to track down his origins. He died of a brain haemorrhage, in the street, no papers at all. The police have done all they’re willing to, so now it’s down to us.’
Drew felt a wash of sadness at the lonely deaths. ‘They must have an idea of where he came from,’ he said.
‘Somalia is the best guess. It’s chaos there, you know. Nobody has proper documentation. It’s impossible to identify somebody like this. He’s black, tall, young, thin, and he died of natural causes. Frankly, Drew, with things as they are, it’s never going to get top priority. All these investigations cost money, you know.’
‘Okay. We’ll give him a decent burial.’
‘Usual rates, then. That should put a bit of bread on your table.’ Fiona knew most of the details of Drew’s life, having been attracted to his way of doing things from the start. It was she who had ensured that his burial ground got all the council funerals, of people homeless and adrift who died in the streets and ditches across Somerset. She justified the decision easily enough to her superiors by pointing out that Drew charged a hundred pounds less than other undertakers.
Even so, the eventual cheque would indeed buy some welcome bread – or shoes. Timmy had been fobbed off with cheap temporary footwear at the start of term, and would need something a lot more substantial before the winter set in.
They established the time frame for the two new burials, and Drew rang off with an unfamiliar sense of incipient well-being. ‘Busy!’ he said to Maggs, who had been hovering at his shoulder, trying to listen in.
‘Hallalujah!’ she crowed. ‘Maybe we won’t starve after all, then.’
‘They’ll both be on Thursday morning.’
‘Yes, I heard. Is Fiona coming?’
‘Probably. She usually does.’
‘She’s a good woman.’
Drew eyed Maggs thoughtfully. Did she mean anything by that remark? Was she amenable to the idea of Fiona replacing Karen, but not Thea doing so? If so, why? Fiona was forty or thereabouts, divorced, plump, good-hearted. Thea was forty-four, small, slender, impetuous and nosy. Drew was in no doubt as to which of the two would be more fun.
‘She is,’ he said.
When the phone rang again at eleven o’clock, it was to give details of a fourth funeral. Drew could hardly believe it. An inmate of the hospice had just died, leaving clear instructions that she wished to be buried at Peaceful Repose, as her friend had been a year before. Yet again, it was someone Drew had never heard of, a funeral he had been unable to anticipate. It was as if some great oak door had suddenly been opened to admit light and sweet fresh air. As if he had come to the top of a cosmic list and the gods had decided to confer a few small blessings onto him. Because to be busy was a welcome change, a timely test of his powers to concentrate and provide a decent service. He would have to remember how to behave with the newly bereaved – at least in the case of Mr Orridge and the new hospice lady. He would have to attend to details and not leave everything to Maggs.
Irrationally, with a secret inner smile, he associated the abrupt change of fortune with the glimpse he had had of Thea on the TV the previous night. If the gods had begun to smile, then possibly, just possibly, they would find a way of linking him once more with the woman whose image lurked in his mind, nearly all of the time.