Питер Ловси - On the Edge

‘We’ll have to drag him into one of these rooms for the time being and move him later.’

‘I don’t think I can bear to touch him again.’

‘Bloody hell.’

She despised herself for giving way after she had held herself together so well. ‘You can say it. I’m a coward.’

Antonia curled her lip and said rather more. ‘If you fill your knickers over a little thing like this, I don’t like to think about your date with Mr Pierrepoint.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘The hangman.’

It was a telling threat. Rose had a vivid mental picture of herself in the execution chamber. Even in the black hours after Barry’s death she had never let her thoughts move on so far as that horrid possibility. She stared at Antonia for some seconds. ‘All right. I’ll try.’

They went out into the hall again. Rose took a grip of one of the coat sleeves. Shoulder to shoulder they dragged the body to the back room.

‘On the sofa.’

‘He won’t look natural.’

‘Shut up and pick up the legs.’

Rose obeyed. She avoided looking directly at the face and as soon as the job was done she ran to the toilet and retched repeatedly.

In the kitchen Antonia made black coffee. When she put the cup in front of Rose there were two pills beside it.

Rose turned them over suspiciously. ‘What are these?’

‘Benzedrine. I get them on prescription from my doctor. I’m supposed to be slimming. Try them.’

‘Not likely.’

‘What’s up? It’s going to be another long night. They’ll keep you awake. Give you a marvellous feeling in your head. Didn’t you take them in the war?’

Rose took a sip of the coffee and said nothing.

‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Antonia snatched up the pills and swallowed them.

They sat without saying anything to each other. Soon the silence became unendurable. Antonia switched on the wireless. Someone was playing a cinema organ. Finally Antonia went out to see if the state of the body had altered. She shook her head when she came back.

‘Just the same. I was planning to see the undertaker this morning.’

‘You can’t have him here yet.’

‘I could ask him not to come until late.’

‘How do we know when it wears off? It could be hours and hours. Haven’t you got a medical book in the house?’

‘I never bother with books.’

‘You’ve got a room stacked with them upstairs.’ Rose realized as she spoke that she hadn’t mentioned going upstairs before. Antonia shot her a look.

Searching for information in some book was better than doing nothing. They went up and eventually found an Enquire Within Upon Everything that omitted to mention rigor mortis. Most of the books were in foreign languages.

‘Hector could have told us to the minute,’ said Antonia with an oddly belated note of pride in her murdered husband. ‘He was very well informed on things like that.’

Rose thought what stupid comments people come out with in times of stress.

Shortly after three that afternoon they were admitted to the office of Longshot and Greely, Funeral Directors, an oak-panelled or more likely oak-veneered inner room behind a curtained shopfront in Marylebone Road. When Rose was introduced as Antonia’s friend and Mr Greely put out his hand, she had to steel herself to make the first human contact since handling Hector. Her sense of touch was more sensitive than ever she had suspected. Actually she would have found Greely’s soft handshake obnoxious at any time. Probably he was not much over forty, but his movements were decrepit.

‘Park Crescent? I know it like my own house, ladies. That magnificent colonnade. And such commodious houses. Rest assured that any arrangements you should favour us with will meet the highest standards. Longshot and Greely have conducted funerals for some of the great families of London for generations. We shall be honoured to perform this last duty for your dear father.’

‘Husband.’ Antonia corrected him from under a veil. She had changed into a black fitted coat with frogged fastenings.

‘Indeed?’ An additional set of furrows appeared on Greely’s brow. ‘My dear lady, forgive me. One assumed... You appear so young for such a tragic eventuality.’

‘It was his heart.’

‘Ah.’

‘There was a weakness. We’d known of it for years.’

‘Even so.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Was it sudden when it came?’

‘Completely. He died at home in the drawing room.’

‘Today?’

‘Yesterday, about six in the evening.’

‘And he is still there? Have no worries, my dear lady. I shall arrange for him to be conveyed to our chapel of rest within the hour. From what you say I assume that there will be no need of an inquest and we can proceed with the arrangements within the next few days. I dare say you are too distressed to discuss such things as yet, but possibly tomorrow...’

‘I want to settle it now.’ Antonia spoke in a soft, yet decisive voice.

‘We shall see to it, provided, of course, that you find our terms satisfactory.’

Rose thought it appropriate to contribute something to the conversation since she was supposed to be the widow’s support. ‘It will be a very quiet occasion.’

‘Cremation,’ said Antonia.

‘Whatever you wish, ladies. I take it that the deceased — your late husband — expressed a preference for cremation.’

‘He wasn’t opposed to it.’

‘How soon can you arrange it?’ asked Rose.

‘Ladies, there will be no delay in my firm’s arrangements, I assure you. However, the Cremation Regulations do require us to observe certain formalities. Paperwork. Very tedious.’

Antonia opened her bag. ‘We brought the registrar’s certificate.’

‘Yes.’ He held it folded in his hand. ‘In point of fact, I must give you some forms to be completed.’

Antonia opened her bag and took out her fountain pen. ‘We’ll do it now.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Greely. ‘Form A is a declaration that you must make in the presence of a Justice of the Peace or a Commissioner for Oaths.’

‘Is there one nearby? If it’s only a matter of visiting an office, we’ll do it this afternoon.’

‘Ah, but as there has been no inquest, I must also let you have forms B and C, the medical certificate forms. Form B must be filled in by the doctor who certified the death and Form C is for another doctor of at least five years standing, who should also see the — em — body. Then all the forms, including this certificate you obtained from the registry have to be sent to the Medical Referee of the London Cremation Company for his written authority.’

There was a petrifying silence.

‘I understand your feelings, ladies, believe me. I wish the procedure could be simplified. It is, of course, a safeguard against deaths that happen in suspicious circumstances — not that this remotely applies in your case.’

Rose glanced at Antonia’s strained face and then back at Greely. ‘What is the procedure for a burial?’

‘Oh, much more straightforward.’

Antonia reached a rapid decision. ‘We’ll have him buried, then. I just can’t face all these delays.’

Rose nodded. It was the obvious thing to do. They couldn’t run the risk of forging the medical forms as well as the registration certificate. Burial was the answer. It wasn’t as if Hector’s body contained poison or had any obvious injuries. Even an exhumation wouldn’t reveal anything.

Greely seemed encouraged by Antonia’s change of mind. ‘Then we can attend to things at once. Let’s make sure that this registration is all in order. Forty-two, was he, poor fellow? No age at all. And I dare say you also have the other piece of paper in your bag?’