Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

The car pulled away slowly and suddenly she ran after it, shouting, banging the door panel where the logo had been stuck. Even wearing the thick oiled socks the yard felt very cold under her feet. Peter braked and looked eagerly out of the window. Perhaps he thought after all he would be given the opportunity to confide in her.

“There’s something I have to ask.”

Anything, of course.”

“Did you come to see Bella, the afternoon she died?”

For a moment he was stunned. He seemed unable to speak but perhaps that was only because he had been expecting a different question.

“No,” he said at last. “Why would I? It was your project.”

“You weren’t out on the hill?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

She shook her head and stood back from the Range Rover. He hesitated and then he drove away.

She was convinced he had lied. The memory had been triggered as he stood by the car and turned to wave goodbye. It was something about his posture and the shape of the jacket with the collar pulled up. It had been Peter she had seen caught in her headlights as she crossed Black Law ford on the night of Bella’s suicide. And he had lied.

Bella’s remains were disposed of at the large crematorium at Kimmerston. For some reason Rachael had imagined her buried at Langholme churchyard, which was, in effect, another piece of in-bye land, with sheep grazing just on the other side of a low stone wall and Fairburn Crag in the distance. If she’d been buried, at least Rachael would have had a grave to visit. But Neville and Dougie if Dougie had any say in the matter which she doubted had decided on the cremation.

There was piped Vivaldi and a vicar who seemed to know nothing about Bella to lead the dreary service.

The day of the funeral Grace stayed at Baikie’s, though Rachael had offered her a lift into town.

“I don’t mean that you should come to the crematorium. Why should you?

You’d never even met Bella. But you’re due some time off. Treat yourself to lunch or a browse in the book shops We could meet up later for a meal

… “

But Grace had declined the offer. “I know it’s not allowed to go onto the hill without someone there to check me back in, but I’ve got loads to do. I mean it’ll be a really good chance to look at the material I’ve got so far.” She’d paused, coloured. “Besides, a friend might visit. Perhaps stay the night. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

“Oh no!” Rachael was pleased that there was someone else, that she wasn’t entirely responsible for Grace’s welfare. “If you’ve got company we won’t have to rush back.”

Though she didn’t like to admit it, she hadn’t been looking forward to the drive into Kimmerston with Grace, whose distracted silences deadened the conversation around her. Anne Preece could be irritating and opinionated but she was at least normal. At this thought Rachael felt a stab of guilt. She heard Edie’s voice in her head: What right have you to judge? And what’s normal anyway?

They arrived at the crematorium early Rachael was incapable of being late and they waited outside for a moment, unsure of the proper procedure. There was still a gusty wind which blew clouds across the sun and flattened the dying daffodils which had been planted along the outside wall. Rachael had visited the crematorium once before in autumn. A rare bird, a Bonelli’s warbler, had turned up in the Garden of Rest. Birdwatchers from all over the country had arrived with their telescopes and tripods, mingling with bereaved relatives and irate funeral directors. Later she had described the scene to Bella, who had laughed. She remembered Bella, standing in Black Law kitchen, holding the teapot with the tannin-stained cosy, chuckling so that tea spilt over the table, and for the first time that day she felt close to tears.

Inside the chapel she chose a seat close to the aisle so she could watch the mourners. The building was almost empty. Edie arrived and squeezed in beside her, touched her hand. Rachael felt the sympathy physically. It was like someone jostling her in a queue, thrusting a face too close to hers, demanding a response. She wanted to push her mother away. She thought, I should never have gone to see her, never asked for her help.

There were a few people whom Anne recognized from Langholme. She identified them in a whisper: the post mistress and her husband, the young couple who farmed Wandylaw, tenants of the estate. Peter sat with Amelia close to the back, very smart in the expensive suit he wore for impressing potential clients. If there had been more people in the chapel Rachael would have resented Amelia’s presence. Surely she had never met Bella and she seemed to be there on sufferance, though she too had dressed up. She sat at some distance from Peter and stared with an engrossed concentration at her immaculately shaped nails. As it was, Rachael was glad that there was one more person to mark Bella’s passing.

“Good God!” The exclamation came involuntarily from Anne as a middle-aged couple came in. The woman had her hand on the man’s arm.

They seemed pleasant, ordinary. Rachael hoped that at last these were relatives of Bella’s or friends from her past.

“Who is it?”

“Only Godfrey Waugh and his wife. What the hell are they doing here?

He’s got a nerve.”

Godfrey Waugh was a director of Slateburn Quarries, the moving force behind the development at Black Law, the reason for Anne, Grace and Rachael being in Baikie’s. For their counting on the hills. He seemed mild and inoffensive to have caused such disruption.

Rachael was disappointed, felt oddly that she had to stand up for him.

“They live at Slateburn, don’t they? I suppose in a way they were neighbours.”

But Anne was still fuming. “Well, I think it’s a bloody cheek.”

Rachael thought she would express her feelings more forcefully, but she had to shut up because the proceedings were starting.

Dougie was in a wheelchair pushed by Neville. Rachael thought he was not as smartly turned out as Bella would have liked. He was wearing his best suit but his shirt collar was crumpled. Whoever had shaved him had missed a patch on his cheek. His shoes could have done with a polish. Neville, in contrast, was impeccably dressed. He was a short, muscular man with hair which was the blue-black of crow’s feathers and a full black beard. His shirt looked startlingly white against his dark skin and his shoes gleamed.

The vicar had already started speaking when the door banged open again.

Rachael was reminded of an old, bad British movie, though whether it was a thriller or a comedy she couldn’t quite say. The vicar paused in mid-sentence and they all turned to stare. Even Dougie tried to move his head in that direction.

It was a woman in her fifties. The first impression was of a bag lady, who’d wandered in from the street. She had a large leather satchel slung across her shoulder and a supermarket carrier bag in one hand.

Her face was grey and blotched. She wore a knee-length skirt and a long cardigan weighed down at the front by the pockets. Her legs were bare. Yet she carried off the situation with such confidence and aplomb that they all believed that she had a right to be there. She took a seat, bowed her head as if in private prayer, then looked directly at the vicar as if giving him permission to continue.

Neville had booked a room in the White Hart Hotel and afterwards invited them all back to lunch. Anne gave her apologies, then when no one could overhear she gave Rachael a sly grin.

“You don’t mind, do you? Only I do actually have better things to do with a free afternoon than stand around in the White Hart nibbling egg sandwiches, trying to avoid talking about the fact that Bella committed suicide. I mean she chose to do it, didn’t she? I find it hard to feel sorry for her. I know you were mates, but there it is.”