Dark Undertakings (20 page)

‘We’re just getting deeper all the time. Look, I’d better warn you – I’ve spoken to my dad about it. I can’t take any more, not after what’s happened. It’s making me ill. Look at me.’

Jack couldn’t resist checking to see if the boy did as instructed. It was true that the girl was pale, with dark smudges under her eyes.

‘You look okay to me,’ said the boy. ‘You needn’t make so much fuss. Nobody’s going to bother about you. It’s me that’s going to get mullered.’

Jack’s work and hobbies all centred on words.
Mullered
, he thought.
That’s a good one. Wonder how you spell it
?

The couple seemed to have reached an impasse, and were quietening down again. But the boy appeared to be in genuine distress, and Jack decided he was on his side. The girl was a hard little bitch, reneging on something she’d agreed to do. Typical bloody woman. The boy had a note of desperation in his voice which Jack had heard before. Craig, she’d called him. Must be the Rawlinson lad, friend of Jim’s David, he realised. Couldn’t recognise anybody these days, the things they did to themselves. Not just his hair, but the clothes he wore, seemed designed to conceal who he was. Buckles and chains adorned his outfit, from neck to feet – even his boots glinted with silver appendages. Jack sighed. It was a different world. He turned back to his drink, and tried to forget they were there.

A few minutes later, the youngsters got up to go. The girl paused beside Jack’s table, and looked at him. She forced a little smile, as if desperate for a friendly gesture in the midst of
her trouble. He had seen her before somewhere, definitely. He held her gaze.

The boy was barging ahead and was almost at the door, when the girl leant over and said, ‘You know my dad, don’t you? Sid Hawkes, works at Plant’s? Do me a favour – don’t tell him about what you’ve just heard.’

Jack was puzzled. ‘I know Sid, yeah, vaguely. But I didn’t know he was your dad. How’d you know me?’

‘It’s a small town,’ she said. ‘More’s the pity.’

He watched her go, and decided he’d leave as soon as the beer was finished.

When Drew presented himself at the surgery of Gerald Proctor, the receptionist gave a crooked, wide-eyed smile, indicating helpless apology. ‘Oh, heavens,’ she squeaked. ‘I forgot all about you! We thought everything was clear for the afternoon. Mr Proctor’s not here, I’m afraid. I was going to go home myself in a minute. You’re a new patient, is that right?’ She tapped a few keys on the computer in front of her.

Drew nodded. ‘Only moved here a few months ago. Hadn’t got around to finding a new dentist until I got toothache.’

‘Is it bad?’ She peered at him worriedly.

‘Let’s say it isn’t a real emergency. Is he going to be here tomorrow?’

‘W-e-e-ll,’ she hesitated. ‘He isn’t usually in on a Saturday. But he might be persuaded. What exactly is the problem?’

Drew hesitated. The ploy to meet the dentist and somehow turn the conversation to the Lapsfords now seemed half-baked and foolish. It would be obvious that there was nothing wrong with his teeth, as soon as the man examined him. ‘Actually,’ he said, with a boyish grin, ‘to be honest, it’s been a lot better since I phoned. I think it might have settled down again. Maybe I’ll just leave it for now, and get back to you if there’s any more trouble.’

‘If you like,’ she shrugged. ‘It isn’t usually me here, anyway. I generally just do Mondays. But the usual receptionist is on compassionate leave. Everything’s a bit thrown because of that, you see.’

Drew seized his chance. ‘That’s Mrs Lapsford, I suppose?’ he asked with a little frown of sympathetic concern.

‘That’s right, poor Monica. She’s such a nice lady – doesn’t deserve such trouble, she really doesn’t.’

‘I gather it was very sudden.’ He saw no reason to pretend ignorance. In fact, it had been his experience that people talk much more readily if they think you already know what they’re going to say.

The girl sucked in a hissing breath of
concurrence. ‘Wasn’t it!’ she agreed. ‘No warning at all, the way I heard it.’

Drew shook his head. ‘None at all.’

‘You know them then?’ queried the girl, belatedly.

‘Well, I didn’t – but I’m working for Plant and Son now—’ He paused. ‘You know – the undertakers.’

‘Gosh! Are you! That must be a bit … I mean—’

He smiled. ‘It’s amazing what you can get used to. Anyway, I mustn’t keep you. If there’s really no chance that the dentist will be able to see me?’

She lifted an apologetic shoulder. ‘Sorry. Actually,’ she leant forward slightly, and lowered her voice, as if there were invisible listeners, ‘I think he might have gone to see Monica. They’ve always been very good friends.’ She winked awkwardly. ‘If you know what I mean.’

Drew pretended not to understand her. ‘That’s nice,’ he smiled, inwardly rejoicing at this confirmation of his hunch. ‘She’ll need her friends.’

He departed with a light step. Only when he was back in the car did he begin to wonder what use the information could be. It might constitute grounds for divorce, but it was a weak motive for murder, in this day and age. On
the other hand, he mused, a dentist presumably had access to various toxic substances – the anaesthetics they used could be fatally injected in large doses, for a start. If he was totally obsessed with Monica, he might decide to dispose of her husband. ‘Hmm, hmmm,’ he hummed to himself, deep in thought. At least it was something tangible to talk over with Karen.

Before that, he ought to find some constructive use for the hour he had gained. There must be all kinds of connections between the Lapsfords and people in the town, if he could only discover what they were. Always inclined to draw patterns and links, he urgently wanted to make a more complete picture of where Jim had fitted in.

He tried to think of a pretext to call in at Jim’s printworks and have a look at the set-up, and the other people who worked there. All the obvious ploys involved the funeral, and a pretended message from Daphne, and that would be extremely embarrassing if Daphne found out. Only if he learnt something important about Lapsford’s death would he be forgiven. A straight gamble.

He knew there was no real choice. He drove to the estate and scanned the big wide-fronted warehouses for the printworks. It took him
some time to find Capital Press and recognise it for what it was.

He tried to walk with nonchalant confidence as he parked the car and headed for the small door beside a big corrugated roll-down barrier where he supposed that deliveries of paper and collections of finished work were made. Inside the small door, all was immediate chaos. The whirr of machinery was surprisingly loud, augmented by a ringing telephone and a loud radio playing pop music. Stacks of paper stood solid and obstructive, forming crooked corridors. In a glass partitioned-off room a thin girl sat in front of a computer.

Carefully he threaded his way to the office and tapped on the door. The girl glanced up, and then stared blankly at him. He opened the door. ‘Hello,’ he said brightly. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Are you selling something?’ she said without a smile.

‘Oh, no. I’m from Plant’s. We – er—’ Suddenly he realised he had not adequately prepared for this.

‘Plant’s?’ she interrupted. ‘You mean the funeral place? About the service sheets, is it?’

‘Right,’ he nodded, relieved. ‘The service sheets.’

‘We haven’t done them yet. It’ll be late Monday, probably. We’ll deliver them, shall
we? Makes sense for you to have them. I should have thought of that. Were you trying to phone? We’ve been letting it ring today. Sorry about that.’

‘No problem,’ he reassured her. ‘It’s just, well, we were wondering when …’

‘Always a rush at times like this,’ she finished for him briskly. ‘Not that we’ve done any work for you before. It’s always gone to the opposition till now.’ She laughed grimly. ‘It’s an ill wind – isn’t that what they say?’ she went on.

‘Terrible business,’ he offered. ‘You must be feeling the loss. I mean – it looks busy out there.’

‘Oh, God,’ she sighed. ‘It’s always busy. And Jack’s gone missing again. Was there anybody out there at all?’ She tried to peer around him into the main room. He half-turned to look with her.

‘One chap,’ he said.

‘That’ll be Ajash. I’m Jodie, by the way. And yes, we’re missing Jim. Not so much workwise—’ She stopped suddenly, and her nose became pink. He could hear her sniff over the printing noises.

‘Knew him long, did you?’

‘Yeah. This should never have happened to him. Everyone’s saying the same. What do you do at Plant’s, then? You did my Granny’s
cremation, eighteen months ago. Not you personally. I don’t recognise you.’

‘No, I’m new. Drew Slocombe. Should we shake hands?’ He held his hand out invitingly, deliberately comic. The girl was appealing in a funny sort of way. She reminded him of a stork or heron.

Jodie took his hand in a cool grip. ‘Well, let me give you a quick tour,’ she said, as if this was an idea she’d rather not follow up, but courtesy demanded it. ‘Maybe you’ll persuade your boss to use us for the service sheets in future. Especially when you see what we’ve done for Jim. It’ll be a masterpiece, I promise you.’ He followed her through another crooked corridor, waiting for her to switch off the radio. A minute later, the chuntering printing press went silent too. The relief was tangible.

‘That’s better,’ he said.

‘That’s Ajash,’ she said nodding towards the small brown man. ‘He’s a bit shy, so we won’t bother him.’ Drew stared curiously at the figure. He was like something out of a fairytale, a shy elf or gnome. ‘He’s brilliant with the machinery,’ she added, waving kindly at Ajash. He clearly heard her, and gravely nodded back.

‘What sort of things do you print?’ Drew asked, inanely.

‘Oh, newsletters, brochures, labels, tickets, calendars, invitations—’

‘Not books, then?’

‘Book
lets
, now and then. We’re not really set up for full-sized books, though we could have a go if anyone really wanted us to.’

He picked up a sheet of card from a stack beside him. It was bright orange, and carried a warning –
Poison
– at the top of other smaller text. ‘What’s this?’ he said, eyebrows raised.

‘Oh, a label for some pharmaceutical thing. We do a lot of work for the factory in Grensham. You know? They make medicines and stuff. We do labels in all different languages for them. No idea what they mean. We just scan it in from what they give us. See – it’s self-adhesive. That was a job that Jim got for us.’

Drew could see wistfulness returning, and marched towards another big stack. Jodie followed, and gave brief explanations of the next few items they encountered. He began to wonder how long she would put up with his presence.

‘I removed Mr Lapsford from his house, you know,’ he said suddenly. ‘On Tuesday morning.’

‘Did you?’ she didn’t seem very interested to hear this. ‘Must have been unpleasant.’

‘Not really. He seemed to have gone very
peacefully. I just thought you might like to know that.’

‘Peacefully? Funny the way people use that word. I don’t think death is ever peaceful. Torn away from all your family and friends, without warning. How can that be
peaceful
?’ She was almost shouting. Drew pushed his hands into his pockets and felt again the single Viagra tablet. The association between this and his last words struck him as incongruous. Maybe Jim hadn’t died peacefully after all. Maybe he’d been dosed up on the drug and in the extreme stages of sexual ecstasy. Pity he couldn’t suggest this to Jodie.

As if attracted by the raised voice, another man appeared from a side door. He seemed alarmed to see Drew there. Drew recognised him as Monica’s visitor of the day before: the mysterious Jack.

‘Who’s this?’ the man asked, coming closer and looking hard at Jodie. ‘And what’s all the noise about?’

‘This is Drew Slocombe, from the undertaker’s,’ Jodie said, her voice still unsteady. ‘He’s come about the service sheets. This is Jack Merryfield,’ she told Drew. ‘Jim was at his place, the evening before he died.’

Why did she tell me that
?
wondered Drew. ‘Oh?’ he said.

‘Yeah. We had a regular Monday thing. Usually played on my computer, or had a game of cards. Sometimes did some fancy font work, trying out new designs for posters and stuff.’ The man shrugged. ‘Seemed right as rain, he did. I still can’t believe what happened later that night.’

Right as rain
?
thought Drew, struck for the first time by the cliché. What was right about rain, anyway? ‘Did you and Jim get onto the Internet, too?’ he asked. ‘That’s something I still haven’t got into at all.’

Jack nodded. ‘Yeah, a bit,’ he said. ‘Jim liked to look things up.’

A connection wriggled itself into Drew’s head. Didn’t people buy Viagra through the Internet? Wasn’t that the central element to the black market in all kinds of things, these days?

‘It’s a
crime
,’ Jodie interrupted. The word lingered, as the three of them glanced at each other. ‘I mean, a crime against nature. Nobody should die like that,’ she added.

‘You’re making it sound almost violent,’ Drew said, quietly.

Jodie paused a moment, looking at him in surprise. ‘I am, aren’t I,’ she agreed.

Monica was enduring another restless evening, the days crawling by, her emotions all over the
place. She had cooked and eaten a small supper for herself, and washed everything up in a sort of trance. Her thoughts were chaotic. Many a time she had eaten alone – when Jim was away with the boys, or late home from work, or out for some other reason. This was no different, except for the knowledge that she would always eat alone from now on. She mused on what a total change that would make. Knowing that Jim would never speak to her again, never sit down and start his meal, only to jump up for something she hadn’t provided. A meal with Jim had seldom been a restful business. She had eventually realised that she could never hope to anticipate his every requirement – this was not the nature of the game. Some need in him ordained that he must forever be searching for Worcestershire sauce, or a slice of bread, or a twist of lemon. Over the years, she had made it easier for him by providing no peripherals at all. Even the salt and pepper now lived in a cupboard across the room from the dining table, and she put them back there at the end of every meal.