‘Who? Stuart?’
‘Yeah. The Fat Controller.’
That had made her start for a moment. Perhaps she was thinking of Philip too. ‘Because he’s kind. Really. He’d do anything for me. He’s a sweetie.’
But I’d remembered what Dickon had said about his mother hating Howdon and I wasn’t taken in. If she was the sort of woman who needed admirers to feel good about herself, there’d be plenty of other men to play the part. I’d heard the way the rugby players talked about her at the funeral. Howdon had some power over her. I wished I knew what it was, but only in a vague, curious way. It didn’t seem personal any more.
When I replaced the receiver after talking to Farrier, I supposed I should celebrate. I was in the clear. The trouble was that I had nobody to share the celebration with. Jess was out with Ray and anyway I couldn’t spend all my time with a mother substitute. It suddenly hit me how lonely I was. It hadn’t always been like that. When I’d worked at the unit I’d had lots of friends: colleagues, people from university who’d stayed in town. I’d done all the usual stuff – drank too much, danced, laughed. Since Nicky I hadn’t wanted company. Now, for the first time, I missed it.
So I thought I’d celebrate alone. I drove up the coast to Craster, left the car there and walked out to Dunstanburgh Castle, grey sprawling ruins surrounded on three sides by the sea. The headland was almost empty. A stiff westerly blew against the incoming tide and helped clear my head. I walked back along the beach and hit the pub in the village in time for an early supper: crab soup, then smoked salmon from the smokery over the road sandwiched between chunks of home-baked bread. I made the food last. I didn’t want to hurry home.
When I got back to Sea View I was still feeling a bit low. It hadn’t been fun being a suspect in a murder inquiry, but it had been exciting. And it had given me an excuse not to think about my future. What was the point of making plans if I was likely to be arrested at any moment? Now everything seemed flat and I was restless and disengaged. Jess and Ray were sitting in the living room, cuddled up together on the sofa, listening to music. Not folk this time but that sort of jazz where all the notes slur into each other, so it makes you think of a drunk telling stories, being mellow and nostalgic. No one else was in. The bad lads were out causing chaos in town.
‘There’s some wine open in the kitchen,’ Jess said. She was as mellow and sleepy as the music.
I poured myself a glass, then went back and joined them. It was nearly dark but they’d not bothered to close the curtains. A light buoy was flashing in the bay. Three sharp flashes then a gap. I sat cross-legged on the floor and looked out at the water.
‘That solicitor’s realized he’s made a mistake,’ I said, without turning towards them. ‘He’s told Farrier.’
‘Eh, pet, what a relief!’ She didn’t ask how I knew. She didn’t even care that much that Howdon had lied. She was so full of happiness that there wasn’t much room for a response to my good news. I was pleased for her. Really, I was. But I was jealous too. I wanted to be curled up on a sofa with someone who made me feel that way. I didn’t want to feel empty and bitter and frustrated.
‘They’ve released his body,’ Jess said suddenly. ‘That lad, Thomas. It was in the Journal. His funeral’s next week.’
I decided then to go to the funeral. There seemed no reason not to. I thought that for me it would be the end of the matter. If Philip’s funeral had marked the start of my troublesome relationship with the Samsons, then Thomas’s would mark the finish. I didn’t tell Jess. She’d have thought it was an intrusion, sick even. Why, Lizzie, a funeral’s a time for families, pet. Families and close friends. You didn’t even know him.
But I knew his father, I thought. And that makes me family in a way. None of the other Samsons will be there. I’ll go to represent Philip. Of course, that wasn’t the real reason. My motives were more mixed up than that. Not nearly so noble. It was about missing the excitement, and wanting to see Ronnie Laing again, and feeling that until I knew who killed Thomas I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the money Philip had given me. All that besides a sense that by not finding Thomas alive I’d let Philip down.
Thomas’s funeral was in a new Methodist church not far from where the Laings lived. It was built of red brick. Inside the brick was exposed and hung with banners, a bit like the ones the unions carry on gala day. The banners were in bright primary colours and letters cut from felt spelled religious texts. It wasn’t like being in St Bartholomew’s. I left my car at Nell’s house and walked to the church with her and Dan. I’d phoned Dan up the day before to find out if they were going.
‘Nell’s keen,’ he’d said. Then, ‘Why on earth do you want to bother?’ I could tell he’d be glad of an excuse to get out of it but he’d go because of Nell.
‘Oh, you know, to show my respect.’ I still wasn’t sure I had a real answer and that was as good as anything.
It was a close and overcast day, with thunder flies swarming under the trees outside the church. We waited at a distance and watched the mourners go in. There were a number of well-dressed women in early middle age. The Methodist Wives, I thought, there to support Kay and to eye up each other’s black frocks. Thomas’s grandparents, Mr and Mrs Mariner. Mrs Mariner was already patting her eyes with her hanky and Archie was doing his best to comfort her. He had to take her arm to help her up the steps. Harry Pool with Kenny and a couple of lads from the yard. Ellen from Absalom House in a snot-green velvet skirt and jacket, her hair freshly dyed. A young man wearing an expensive suit who could have been Marcus Tate. Without the animal mask it was hard to tell. As they climbed the white stone steps, everyone wiped the thunder flies from their faces and their clothes, and shook their heads to clear them from their hair.
‘Well,’ Nell said, ‘are we going to stand here all day?’ And she led us in behind the stragglers and we flapped and shook the flies away just as the others had.
We sat near the back, sheepish, as if we had no right to be there. The church seemed mostly to be full of Kay’s friends. Apart from the boys from Harry’s Haulage and Marcus, I thought we were the only people Thomas would have bothered with. When I turned round once, halfway through the first hymn, I saw Farrier across the aisle from us, singing lustily. He must have come in at the last minute. He didn’t seem shocked to see me. He winked.
I didn’t see Kay and Ronnie until they followed the coffin out. They had been sitting on the front row with the little girls. It appeared that Thomas would be cremated. There would be a brief service but only for close family. I thought Ronnie saw me as he walked out, holding the hand of a little girl on each side. He gave a brief glance in my direction – shocked recognition, disbelief. Then something else which I couldn’t place immediately but which could have been fear. Almost a hunted look. Why would he be frightened of me? I waited in the church until all the other mourners had left, blocking the pew so Nell and Dan couldn’t move either. I didn’t want to meet Ronnie there, and I certainly didn’t want to see him in Kay’s company.
When we did get outside the hearse had gone.
Harry Pool wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. His face was even redder than I remembered, glistening with sweat.
‘I don’t know about you lot,’ he said. ‘But I could use a drink.’
So we all trooped off to the pub on the corner, which was one of those soulless, cavernous places, built in the 1930s but more recently done up in mock Victorian, with two different wallpaper prints and dark furniture and hunting pictures. And even that had started to look shabby. It had just opened for the day. It had that morning smell of last night’s beer and last night’s cigarettes. We must have seemed an unlikely crowd to the barmaid, who stood, her bum leaning against the wall, languidly rubbing glasses with a tea towel. Harry Pool got in the first round. He’d loosened his tie and undone the top button of his shirt, but he still seemed breathless and wheezing.