The weekend passed peacefully. Even Pom seemed to have simmered down for the occasion. In fact, he was a little quiet. Rain didn’t stop play and Sam seemed particularly pleased with a couple of passes he’d made and had even taken a shot at goal – which hit the post and bounced back on to the pitch. Martha celebrated the team’s draw with a Sunday roast – lamb and rosemary with accoutrements, followed by rhubarb and ginger crumble with custard which Sam and his friend Tom, Sukey and Pom all wolfed down with the silent appreciation that goes with a good dinner and hungry youngsters. They all helped her load the dishwasher afterwards, which was a bit counterproductive. Each passing a plate, stacking and restacking was actually not very efficient – she’d have been twice as quick doing it all by herself – but hey ho. They were trying to help and there was something about the jolly comradeship which felt like the family they should be.
She and the entire family went to bed with a glow of happiness which lasted right up until she walked through her office door on Monday morning.
Monday, 3 April, 8.50 a.m.
She could tell instantly that Jericho had news to ‘impart’ – a rather pompous word, in her opinion, that he was over fond of using. He was standing in the middle of the hallway, waiting for her, a spare frame, not tall, rounded shoulders, leaning forward, eyes focused in mock humility on the floor, where he looked in times of trouble. His mouth was pursed, his straggly grey hair almost quivering in anticipation. Bad news then. Jericho’s speciality. She could read all the signs. Sometimes she thought he had deliberately chosen a career as coroner’s assistant because it would give his macabre, almost ghoulish character a chance to blossom – like deadly nightshade.
Martha greeted him, passed him and entered her office, closing the door gently behind her. She knew better than to prompt her officer. He would ‘impart’ soon enough. In fact, wild horses couldn’t have persuaded him to keep news to himself. He could have got a job as town crier. All she had to do was wait. Seconds stretched into a minute or more. But the troubling thing was that when he finally knocked on the door and she called him in, instead of blurting out his news he couldn’t even meet her eyes. And this puzzled her. Jericho was a person who loved passing on bad news. It was practically a hobby of his. And this patently wasn’t good news or he would have passed it on already and wouldn’t have looked so – she ran her eyes up his face – apprehensive. She knew the drill so well. With news to impart, his eyes would light up, his mouth drop slightly open so she could see those sharp lower teeth. He’d shake his unfashionably long grey hair as though mimicking a rather disapproving Dickensian character – maybe the ‘ever so ’umble’ Uriah Heep. He’d offer her coffee and chocolate biscuits if the news was harrowing or, he imagined, would prove particularly distressing to her – the death of a child, a motorway pile-up, a wife beaten to death by a husband, a murder, a suicide, a cot death, a house fire with tragic consequences. The list was endless. She’d heard them all from him first. All these events would send him into sympathetic mode. So working in a coroner’s office was the ideal place for him. His mournful demeanour and looks suited his role to perfection.
Had he been given the part by a casting director, Martha would have applauded the choice. Clap clap clap. But today, here, on this early indication that spring – the season of optimism and warm promise, the season when a young man’s fancy was supposed to turn to love, maybe a middle-aged woman’s too – would finally arrive, she was pulled up short by a feeling of dread as though someone had dropped a black velvet curtain in front of the window that looked out over that lovely town and those blue skies, blocking out the view and replacing it with a shrouded nothing. What could this news be that was so awful he could hardly bear to pass it on?
Yet he would.
She waited, still observing. And picked up on something even more disturbing. On this bright, beautiful morning there was something even more worrying than usual, something foreign, some emotion she’d never read before. There was, deep in his grey eyes, when he finally looked up at her, a touch of sympathy. And now Martha was more than curious. She was apprehensive. He was sorry for her? Anxious now, she spoke. Quietly.
‘Jericho?’
‘Mrs Gunn …’
The elongated pause worried her even further – almost frightening her.
She was going to have to prompt him.
‘Jericho?’ She kept her voice soft and gentle, inviting his confidence.
He was looking past her, towards the still half-open door as though he expected someone or something to walk through it. Trouble.
‘Jericho,’ she prompted again, trying to stem the anxiety that was rising.
He gulped. ‘Mrs Gunn,’ he began, then wet his lips and his frown deepened, scoring his forehead with deep, unhappy lines. ‘You haven’t heard.’ It was a statement – not a question.
‘Jericho,’ she said again, gently prompting. ‘Heard what?’
‘About Inspector Randall’s wife.’
And that stopped her breathing. Now she was puzzled. Alex’s wife? Erica Randall? The woman whom he claimed was mentally and physically unstable? The woman he claimed was a blight on his life?
It was as though a black crow had entered through that door and now it flapped, unwelcome, around the room, cawing its harsh message and perching on her shoulder, claws embedded too firmly in her flesh for her to shake it free. And even if she opened the door it would not fly away.
She kept her voice steady. ‘Heard what about Mrs Randall?’ It was taking a gargantuan effort to keep the panic out of her voice.
‘She’s died,’ Jericho said bluntly. ‘She fell down the stairs and died. Saturday night. Late.’ Now he’d begun, the words were accelerating, spilling out of his mouth uncontrolled. ‘The circumstances, Mrs Gunn.’ There was a note of accusation in his tone – or was she imagining it? ‘The circumstances are very suspicious. Even now they are questioning DI Randall down at the station. Detective Sergeant Talith wants to speak to you as soon as you arrive.’
That was when her thoughts and vision turned into a tumbling, dizzying black screen, everything out of focus, waves of orange flickering in front of her eyes. She blinked, trying to control the picture throbbing, trying to return to the familiar room. She needed to sit down. She needed air.
And so found herself sinking into a chair, head drooping into her lap, Jericho handing her a glass of water, his eyes carefully, neutrally blank, but she could read the emotion behind it. He pitied her. It was a new experience.
Jericho knew she and the inspector were friends. More than friends. Much more than colleagues or simply acquaintances. They were close. Much closer than was right and proper for a widowed coroner and a married policeman, even if he claimed his marriage had been less than happy. Especially as he claimed his marriage had been – frankly – unhappy.
Oh, yes, Jericho knew all right as he drove the dagger home with his next sentence.
‘They’re treating it as a suspicious death. It’s been referred to you, Mrs Gunn.’