Viridian Tears (18 page)

He sighed. “Of course, love. It probably wouldn’t happen. I was just imagining the worst.”

She smiled and released her hold, smoothing the finger marks from the fabric. “You do that quite a lot, you know. Graham the Pessimist, that’s what I ought to call you. I should take better care of you so you never feel the need to worry about things that will never happen.”

“Would you?” His smile was a flash of reflected streetlight in the shadowed car. “I’d like that very much. Maybe we could…”

He was interrupted by her phone bleeping again. She knew this was a big speech for him but couldn’t resist just having a look to see who’d left a message. “It’s Vera, replying to my text. Vera from the seance?”

She stared at him until he nodded and carried on. “She says she did think it might be a ghost but didn’t like to say that to a policeman in case he laughed at her.”

“I’m sure they take every lead seriously. Just remember Vera’s one of the chief suspects on the Inspector’s list and treat her with a bit of caution, eh?” He reached over and tried to give her a cuddle.

Michelle let him. It wasn’t a proper cuddle and would satisfy his craving for intimacy for the rest of the night. She could smell the apple shampoo he used on his hair and the slight smell of fish from the aborted dinner plans. “That’s enough. You need to get to bed and I want to get online and check to all the replies to my message.”

“No names though, eh? The police can be real sticklers about that in an ongoing investigation.”

“I wouldn’t use real names anyway. Not in public.” Michelle reached for the door handle. “I suppose its safe enough?”

“What? The street?” Graham grinned as he got out and came around to her side. “Safe as it ever is at…” He checked his watch. “Ten past midnight.” He let out a long breath, shaking his head. “Come on, love. I’ve got to be up again in five hours.”

“One moment.” She replied to another text. “That one was George.”

“George from the seance? What did he want?”

“He wants me to delete the original text and not make any more references to the seance. He’s worried it will adversely affect his business.”

“What is his business? Something that makes a small fortune, at a guess.”

“I think he took over from his father. A building company. Retail parks, warehouses, tower blocks, that sort of thing.”

“There’s certainly money tied up in that.” Graham rubbed his arms. “Can we go in? It’s freezing out here.”

“Yes. Sorry.” Michelle took his hand and stood. “What should I tell George? I’m not dropping the subject. I’ve never been so popular.”

“Tell him you’re too tired tonight and you’ll sort it out tomorrow.” He let go of her to lock the car. “Then in the morning you can accidentally forget to remove it and apologize if he asks you again.”

“I thought you’d be on his side, considering you didn’t like me using Shirley’s death as publicity material.” She banged out the reply.

“That was before he had a go at you over it. I can say it because I care about you, but someone else? They can get stuffed.”

“You’re ever so sweet when you get protective.” She deliberately linked her arm in his, knowing exactly how good it would make him feel. She might even get another meal out from him tomorrow if she played it right. Talking of which, she needed to check if Federico had accepted her friend request yet.

They walked along the street in companionable silence. The air had dropped below freezing and the pavement sparkled with frost. It was dustbin collection day tomorrow and people had already put their bins of the street, forcing them to dodge past the squat sentinels that took up half the width. She trailed the fingers of her free hand over the lids, making wavy lines in the frost.

Graham cleared his throat as they approached their house. “I meant what I said. I do care about you.”

“I know you do.” Michelle gave his arm a squeeze and skipped ahead to open the front door. “Would you put the bin out? You know what the council is like. If the bin’s out they won’t come until mid-afternoon but if you don’t put it out it’s a guarantee they’ll come at seven in the morning. Make me a cocoa, while I look on my Facespace page, would you?”

“It’s after midnight.” Graham shook his head and went into the kitchen.

Michelle pulled up her page. Seven friend requests since she’d gone out this evening. That was a personal record. She clicked on the friends tab and began confirming them. Nobody she knew personally, and certainly no Federico, but then he was probably still at work. There were seventy comments on the post she’d texted from the car. Seventy! In twenty minutes!

She began to scroll through them, friending any people who weren’t already on her contact list and labeling them according to whether they were skeptics, believers or just interested parties. One from Shirley gave her pause. It was timed at eleven-fifty and sent from Shirley’s phone.
Take this status down. It’s a complete lie.
She read it three times until she realized Shirley’s phone would have been going non-stop and one of the family must have used it to reply. That would explain the message from George.

Graham put a mug of cocoa on the tablemat. “I’m away to bed then.”

“Mmm. ‘Night, Graham.”

“You’re not going to stay up all night, are you?”

She tore her gaze from the screen and looked up at him. From this angle she could see his nostril hair. “No. I’ll just run through these and I’ll be up.” She picked up her phone and waved it at him. “This is the start of something big. Just you wait and see.”

“Let’s hope so. It’d be lovely to see you making a go of your business.”

“I will.” She grinned and tapped the phone. “Wait until I upload the photos.”

“What photos?” His face paled. “You didn’t?”

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t take a photograph of that poor woman.”

“All right. I didn’t.” Michelle pursed her lips, holding back a smile. “I took two.”

“How? When?” He put a hand up. “Actually, don’t tell me. I really don’t want to know. What I don’t know can’t hurt me, eh?”

“Unless it’s a jumbo jet coming through the roof.” Michelle connected the phone to the laptop and waited while it installed the driver software. It did that every time. You’d think it would hang on to it by now.

She navigated to the camera folder and clicked on the pictures she wanted to copy. She’d taken them while everyone else had been running about like headless hamsters phoning the police and panicking. No one had noticed her snapping off a couple of Shirley’s dead body.

The first was a general view from the perspective of where Michelle had been sitting. The second was a more artful shot taken by holding her phone just past Shirley’s bent head. There was a line of blood running down the inside of her left arm.

She copied both pictures to her Facespace account and made them private to ensure that only people she gave the URL to could access them. She clicked on the first. She should have resized them before uploading. They were huge. She used the browser sliders to track across the picture but her attention was arrested by a glint of light from the top left of the photograph.

She closed in on the area. She hadn’t used her flash so it was something reflecting the overhead light. A glass, perhaps, or a piece of silverware. She tried to remember if there was a candlestick there.

The image cleared. Not a candlestick.

The knife.

Chapter 19

Eden was up so early she made a full breakfast for David before he went to work. Bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, toast and jam, tea for him, coffee for her.

“If I didn’t know better I’d suspect you of trying to feed me into a heart attack.” He grinned as he added a generous dollop of tomato sauce to his bacon and salted his eggs and mushrooms. I still haven’t thanked you properly for last night.”

“There’s honestly no need.” She poured his tea before she sat to a plate half the size of the one she’d made him. “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t enjoy it myself.”

“I’ll have to make it up to you.”

“That would be nice but don’t put yourself out.” She buttered a piece of toast. “Your pleasure is my reward.

He looked at his watch. “I wish I could say that to my clients but sadly I need their money.” He rose, cramming another piece of bacon in his mouth and picking up another piece of toast along with his briefcase. “Toodles.”

Eden waved him off and cleared up before she went down to the cryotorium. Slipping on her overall she greeted the chamber as if Edward Burbridge was an old friend who’d been sleeping on the couch.

She checked the inspection chamber to make sure he was as close to dust as was going to get and switched the machine off. She opened the side panel and rattled the base tray to sift through all the ashes and dust into the collection chamber, then slid out the tray with the rest of the body. She picked out the bones and teeth that hadn’t been reduced and dropped them in the grinder. This just left the parts of the body that Eddie hadn’t been born with, which she tipped into another box then washed, sterilized and replaced the tray.

She pulled on a fresh pair of disposable gloves and tipped the contents of the box onto a clean, sterile sheet. All she had left were the parts of a body that would not degrade by freezing, vibrating and drying off. Mercury amalgam from old fillings, screws and nails from the coffin, rings and piercings. It made the process more ecological than standard cremation which would have sent potentially poisonous compounds into the atmosphere and allowed her to return items of sentimental value, such as the plain gold wedding ring on the tray, to the client.

This was odd, though. One of Eddie Burbridge’s tooth crowns flashed and sparkled under the fluorescent light. She picked it up with forceps and held it closer to her eye. Prisms danced from a dozens facets on the surface. She was no jeweler, but she was willing to bet that she held a small fortune in a single diamond right here.

She checked the notes she’d taken when Shirley had arranged her husband’s cryomation. Wedding ring, check. Intimate piercing. Check. Surgical pins from a reconstructed kneecap. Check. No mention of a diamond tooth.

Eden wrestled with her conscience. Chances were, Shirley had no idea about the diamond. Eden could keep it and no one would be any the wiser. Would any of the other family know about their father’s hidden fortune? No one had mentioned it, even when they mistakenly assumed he was going up in smoke. She was sure several of them still thought she performed standard cremations.

Her hand hovered over the personal effects bag until she dropped it in. What was an undertaker without honesty? She followed it with the two rings, bagged up the pins to be returned to the hospital and the casket fixings to the cabinetmaker and turned to the remains.

With the bones ground to powder, Edward’s final remains weighed seven pounds and occupied a space of a little under a cubic foot. She set the compressor to the standard memorial box size of fifteen inches by twelve by ten and turned the powder into a solid, compressed lump which fit the boxes she bought from a craftsman perfectly. As long as they were kept dry they would store indefinitely. If wet, they would degrade to nothing in months.

She checked the job sheet. Shirley had requested a plain beech box with a brass inscription plate. She’d ordered that from a local engraver at the time and with any luck it would arrive in today’s post, ready to be screwed to the front of the box. She poured the little bag of personal effects into a cardboard box the size of a business card and added a small condolences card, made by a local artist with real dried flowers attached.

She took off the gloves, made a temporary tag and shelved the casket in the collections room. Shirley had said she wanted to take the remains home rather than have them buried here, which was a common choice. As soon as the nameplate arrived she’d phone to tell her Eddie was ready for collection.

She was back in her office by half-past eight when Emily burst in. “Have you heard the news this morning?”

“Actually, no.” Eden usually listened to the local news on the radio. She felt it gave her a perspective on the community and a good idea of who to expect through the doors. If nothing else it gave her a chance to send condolences to the newly bereaved in the hopes of drumming up extra business. “Why? What’s happened?”

“It’s a real scandal. In the papers and everything.” Emily scurried forward and sat on the client’s chair. She pulled off her woolly gloves and laid them on the desk. “This is the closest I’ve ever been to someone in the papers.”