Free A Grave in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope Page B

or not. ‘There must be plenty of B&B places around here.’ My mind was buzzing with worries, self-reproaches and obligations. ‘I told Karen I’d be back before dark,’ I said, to nobody in particular. I hated to break a promise – an undertaker above all had to be reliable.
    The DI moved away to speak to Jessica, and then the women in the car, who were finally given permission to go on their way. Mr and Mrs David were also permitted to drive off, with promises of a call by a police liaison officer very soon, to make sure they were all right. It was an improvement, I supposed, on the olden days when witnesses were left to their own devices, regardless of the trauma they might have suffered. The police force was awash with a range of civilian and semi-civilian personnel who participated in almost every aspect of the work, with the idea of keeping everybody happy. My friend – and Maggs’s husband – Den Cooper had found himself just such a post after leaving his job as a full-time police constable. A bit like a dysfunctional marriage, where the couple can’t live together, but neither can they live apart, with Den incapable of abandoning law enforcement altogether.
    ‘Come on,’ Thea urged me. ‘At least come back to the house for a cup of tea – assuming the power’s still on. I’ve had enough of this. I don’t want to be here when they remove the body.’
    Remove the body was the phrase used by undertakers. Had she uttered it by chance, or did she know the routines and practices of the funeral business from personal experience? I remembered that she was a widow, with several close connections to the police force. Even so, it seemed surprising to me that she should use those words. It was tempting to think she had done it in order to offer me a kind of solidarity, an antidote to the isolation I was feeling.
    As always, I found myself wondering about my alien status in society. I could go along for weeks, thinking I was just a normal bloke, chatting with ordinary people, taking the kids to school, going to the shops, and then something would happen to remind me that I was actually a pariah. I handled dead bodies; I kept them in a room that was part of my own house. I performed mysterious and dreadful acts on their lifeless corpses, seeing them naked and undignified. Even the vibrantly alive young mums at the school gate were aware of this, and kept me subtly at arm’s length. I think every one of them had visualised herself in one of my coffins, helplessly at the mercy of my sinister tools. ‘Thanks,’ I said to Thea. ‘That sounds nice.’
    It wasn’t until we were in the house that I had another good look at Thea as she bent down to unclip the dog lead from her spaniel’s collar. Her face was at an odd angle, foreshortened, giving her an elfin appearance. But it was the fact that her lips were quivering that really struck me. When she stood up again, she dashed a finger under one eye, and sniffed.
    I had seen enough women close to tears to grasp instantly what was going on. ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
    ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Take no notice. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, be nice to me or I’ll be a complete mess.’
    ‘Easier said than done,’ I warned her. ‘Besides, crying doesn’t bother me. Don’t bottle it up on my account.’
    She laughed then, a little explosive laugh that seemed to disperse the oncoming tears. ‘I’m fine, really. I just felt so sorry for that man, bleeding to death in a gateway. Somebody must have hated him intensely to do that to him.’
    ‘I can’t pretend to have liked him,’ I confessed. ‘I thought he was a hidebound little time-server, with a complete absence of common sense.’
    She laughed again. ‘None of which would make you want to kill him,’ she said with total confidence.
    ‘No more than I wanted to kill your wretched Jessica,’ I ventured, aware of stepping over a line.
    ‘I told you – she’s not usually so bad. Trying to