Shallow Be Thy Grave (37 page)

“He says they had nothing to do with it,” said Stuart.

“Well, tell him, I need to hear that from Yvette.”

Stuart translated, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Is that all?”

“No, there’s one more thing.”

“What now?” asked Jo, when Stuart had finished the call and replaced the receiver.

Lily looked at Stuart. He’d spent the night tied up in the tool shed. He looked like shit. “Sleep,” she said. “We’ve got six hours.”

When they got back to the hotel, Jo and Stuart went straight up to the room, while Lily went to speak to the receptionist.

“I’ve locked the tape in a safe deposit box,” said Lily, coming into the room a few minutes later. Jo and Stuart both lay on the double bed, Jo flicking through the television channels using the remote control. She stopped when she got to
The Sound of Music
being shown in English with French subtitles. Jo threw the remote control to the bottom of the bed and leant back against the headboard. Stuart’s eyes were already closing.

Lily’s head was still fuzzy from whatever it was that Alain had used to knock her out. She took a shower and wrapped herself in the soft white towels the hotel had provided. By the time she got back to the bedroom, both Jo and Stuart were asleep. Lily collapsed onto the single bed and thought about rolling a cigarette. She never got further than the thought.

When Lily rang Yvette at twenty minutes to six o’clock that evening, Yvette sounded like she’d been bursting to speak to Lily. “Wait a minute,” she said, and Lily heard the sound of a door closing through the earpiece. “What happened?”

“Hey, Yvette,” said Lily, smiling. “What do you know?”

“I’m now in charge of the investigation into your sister’s murder and two hours ago two men handed themselves in for questioning. It’s the first time I’ve ever had someone come into my station and ask to be cleared of murder, particularly as, as far as I can see, no one has ever accused them. What’s going on?”

“I haven’t got time to explain now,” said Lily. “It’s my grandfather’s funeral tomorrow. I’m flying back to England, but I’ll be back in a few days. Will you do me a favour?”

“Anything?”

“Make sure, I mean really sure, they didn’t kill her.”

“You have my word, Lily.”

“And Yvette?”

“Yeah?”

“You know we had that conversation, about French men and their attitude to women?”

“Yes.”

“These two, they could both do with some of that gender awareness training you were talking about.”

“Leave it with me, Lily,” said Yvette and Lily could tell she was grinning as she hung up the phone.

They took the train straight to the Charles de Gaulle airport but had to wait until almost midnight before they found a flight to London that had three spare seats on it.  They arrived back to a damp, drizzly night and Lily liked the feel of the rain on her face. It made her feel cleaner, somehow. Fresh. There were no trains to Leeds until after five in the morning, so Lily moved down the line of taxis, until she found one willing to take them north up the M1.

“How much does that cost?” asked Jo, her eyes wide.

“Don’t ask, but I knew there was a reason I’ve never spent any of me granddad’s dosh. Wait here. I’ve got to find a cashpoint. For some reason, he wants paying up front.”

They turned off the motorway at just past four in the morning and the taxi driver dropped them up past the University at Hyde Park Corner. Lily noticed the sky already beginning to get lighter over to the east as she joined the queue of students at the twenty-four hour garage. The heavy-lidded guy behind the reinforced glass window looked like he might kill himself, as he was sent round the shop by one stoned student after another. “Actually, can you make that two packets of milk chocolate Hobnobs and a Crunchie? No, a Mars bar,” asked the guy in the Stone Roses T-shirt in front of Lily.

As they walked down Hyde Park Road, along the edge of the park, Lily felt like crying at the familiarity of it all. The street light outside her bedroom window still buzzed orange, and she was glad no one had got round to fixing it while she’d been away. There was no time to sleep, but the six hours in the hotel in Paris had chased away the worst of her tiredness.  Stuart made tea and bacon sandwiches, while Lily and Jo got bathed and changed.

Jo drove them to Skipton in her Mini. They had enough time to call into Top Man and buy Stuart a new shirt and jacket and Lily stuck a plaster over the cut on his cheekbone. They found the church, burst through the doors as everyone was filing into the pews. The church was full, mainly of old people, old men. His snooker and bowling friends, Lily assumed. He was a nice guy, her granddad. Stuart and Jo sat at the back, and Lily was about to sit down beside Jo, when she noticed her grandmother, dressed all in black, sitting in an almost empty front pew. Fiona’s voice came into her head, for the first time since she’d seen her lifeless body in the morgue in Paris. “We’re family, Lily. We’ve got to stick together.”

Lily paused and then held up her head and stepped slowly down the aisle, to the front pew, where her father and her grandmother sat. She hadn’t seen either of them for over a year and she wasn’t sure what reception she was going to get. Her grandmother’s eyes filled with tears as they acknowledged each other, without speaking, as the vicar welcomed everyone, his deep tones echoing round the small church.

Lily took her seat quickly. She tried to concentrate on the service, as her grandmother’s thin bony hand squeezed her own. Only once she’d been in position for a few minutes, did she dare sneak a glance at David, her father, sitting on the other side of her grandmother, his face thin and gaunt. He kept his face firmly forwards, as if he was listening intently to what the vicar had to say.

As the vicar brought the proceedings to a close, the coffin disappeared on some kind of conveyor belt, through a pair of red curtains, and Lily said goodbye to a grandfather she’d barely known. Alice, her grandmother, and David stood and eased past Lily, to lead everyone out of the church. There was to be no graveside service and for that Lily was grateful. She hated looking down on the open pits, when she felt she should be looking up.

Outside the church, she stood out of the wind and lit a cigarette. As she took her first drag, she noticed Ruth, standing on her own. “Are you coming back for a cup of tea?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Is, did you bring Fiona…”

“She’s at the funeral home. I took her there last night.”

Lily closed her eyes.

“I’m staying ’til the funeral. At the Trusthouse Forte hotel. If you wanted a coffee, or lunch. Just let me know.”

“Ok.”

“Lily?”

Lily opened her eyes to see Ruth looking uncomfortable, out of her depth.

“I think Fiona would like it,” said the older woman. “I mean, if we stayed in touch.”

“I think so too,” said Lily, as her sister blew raspberries inside Lily’s head.

The wake was held at her grandmother’s house. Lily chatted to people she didn’t know, tried to act like Fiona would have acted had she been here.  She carried plates in from the kitchen, passed round tired sandwiches and homemade sausage rolls.

“We always meet at funerals,” said a familiar voice.

“Aunt Edie? What are you doing here?”

“Well, thought I’d pay my last respects. I know the families didn’t always see eye to eye, but he was a good man, Arthur.” Aunt Edie dropped her voice. “Wasn’t his fault he married her.” She nodded towards Lily’s grandmother, who was on the other side of the room, talking to the vicar.

“Who’s fault was it then?” asked Jo, suddenly appearing at Lily’s side. She spoke in a whisper. “You’re not saying it was one of those arranged marriages?”

“You mean like the Asians?” asked Aunt Edie. “They’re not so green as they’re cabbage looking.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Jo.

“All that interest with the down below. Soon wears off, you know. You take it from someone who knows.”

Jo looked confused.

“Now, now, Aunt Edie,” said Lily. This wasn’t the time to get involved in Aunt Edie’s way of looking at the world. She tried to steer the little old lady away from Jo and Stuart, but she was surprisingly robust.

“It’s a good job he went before the news about Fiona,” Aunt Edie continued. “If he hadn’t have been dead, that news would’ve killed him.”

 Stuart and Jo left in the afternoon. They both offered to stay, but Lily thought she stood a better chance of surviving the wake if she was just allowed to get on with it, to act her part. “Besides, Yvette might ring. I want to know how she’s getting on with Alain and Carlos’s alibis.”

Jo gave her a hug. Stuart hesitated, then did the same. “Are you going back to Lancaster?” asked Lily as she walked them both down her grandmother’s path.

“I guess,” said Stuart. “Keep in touch, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Lily, even though they both knew she wouldn’t.

“I’ll drop you at the station,” said Jo, flinging open the passenger door on her red, white and blue Mini.

Lily waved them both off. “I’ll see you back in Leeds later,” she called to Jo, as Jo’s pink mohican ducked down into the car.

Lily walked back into her grandmother’s small house. She hadn’t spoken to her father, the whole afternoon. They’d both got lost in their roles, Lily trying to pretend to be Fiona, and her father attempting to fill his father’s shoes. Every time she saw him he was talking to some old fellow, and drinking John Smith’s bitter straight from the tin.

Finally it was just David and Lily left in her grandmother’s front room. Memories of Fiona were everywhere, framed in photographs on the mantelpiece, and stuck in Lily’s head. She had lived here, with her sister, for almost six weeks last year. Some of the happiest memories she’d ever had of family life, even if some of it had done her head in.

“Well, that’s everyone,” said Alice, coming back from the hallway, where she’d just seen off the last guest – an old woman in a black outfit that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Queen Victoria. “I’m glad it’s over. I’m going to make a pot of tea.”

“I’ll do that,” said Lily.

“No, let me. I just want to be in me own kitchen, doing me own thing for a few minutes. How will you get back to Leeds?”

“Train.”

“You can stay here if you like?”

“Not tonight, thanks anyway.”

David sat in her grandfather’s armchair, staring vacantly into the fireplace, even though there was no fire lit. “David?” Alice asked again. “Cup of tea?”

David raised the glass of whisky that was sitting on the arm of the chair, a sign he didn’t need or want tea. Alice left the room and Lily felt immediately uncomfortable. She turned her attention to the photographs of Fiona that filled the top of the bureau in the corner of the room, picking up the silver frames and examining each one in turn.

“Put those down,” said David, so quietly, she thought she may have misheard.

She turned to face him, still holding the picture frame. “What did you say to me?”

“You’ll never take her place, so don’t even try.”

Lily bit down on her lip until she tasted blood in her mouth. She took a last look at Fiona, the twelve-year old Fiona she’d never known and returned her to the top of the bureau. Outside she could hear a pair of magpies cackling in the trees. She breathed in slowly, trying to inflate her lungs, which felt like an iron cage bearing down on her body.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that. Not after what you’ve done.”

She paused waiting for her father to look at her, to issue some denial. He continued staring at the empty fireplace like she hadn’t spoken.

“You killed her,” she said, keeping her voice as even, as soft as she could. “You killed her, didn’t you?”

The magpies fell silent. He didn’t move. Didn’t do anything to suggest he’d even heard what she said. Just sat there, staring into the hearth.

“That Thursday night,” Lily pressed on, her cheeks burning hot, “when she rang me. She was so upset. In tears. On the message, she said she had no one to talk to. She was pregnant, Beaumont wasn’t going to stand by her, her best mate had just let her down. She had no one to turn to.”

Lily noticed a tear falling down her father’s cheek. She allowed herself to breathe slowly, evenly and then continued. “I kept feeling so bad, that I wasn’t there for her, that she had no one to talk to. And then I thought, she did have someone. She had you.”

She paused, gave David the chance to say something. He didn’t.

Lily exhaled, allowed the words to come. “She wouldn’t hav given up, not Fiona. She would have rung you.”

Lily lit a cigarette and paced the room. She was speaking the words aloud, but they were addressed more to herself than to David. The first time she’d allowed herself to say them out loud. “There were a couple of things. Things that gave you away. I found a book she was reading, down the back of the settee. She was using a train ticket as a bookmark. A Metro ticket, Pigalle to the airport. Friday 4
th
May.”

She stared at her father again. “She came to meet you. She rang you on Thursday night, told you she was pregnant and alone. You did what you always do. Rushed straight over.”

“And then what happened?” Lily asked. She waited a moment, gave him a chance to speak, but when no words were forthcoming, she continued. 

“You, being you, would have decided what she had to do. So, you would have probably told her she had to come back to England. Get an abortion, go back to school and do her A levels. And she didn’t want to come back, did she? She was all excited because she was going to the University of Paris.”

He looked up at her for the first time. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his nose was running. He made no effort to clean himself up and Lily flinched, revolted at the sight of her father looking like a six-year old child. “It was an accident,” he said. “You’ve got to believe me. I never meant to hurt her.”

“You killed her and buried her body for a dog to find.”

He sank his head into his hands and sobs ran through his body, making his shoulders shake.