Undertaking Love

Chapter Thirty-Five




Like most plans, Gabe’s was fraught with the potential for disaster.

The main challenge with this particular plan was timing; he required a morning when Marla was going to be alone in the chapel.

He definitely didn’t want an audience.

Dora had proved herself to be an excellent inside spy, and a long three weeks later she confirmed that Operation M was good to go. Jonny and Emily were safely squirreled away across the other side of Shropshire at a wedding fayre, and Marla would be holding the fort on her own at the chapel.

Gabe hovered inside the funeral parlour at just after 7.00 a.m. on the morning in question. Autumn had well and truly blown into Beckleberry over the last few weeks. There was a sepia wash of leaves across the High Street as he kept watch for Dora.

He stuck his head outside again and scanned the deserted street.

Nothing.

Where was she?

A frown ploughed tramlines across his brow. There was no way Dora would have forgotten, she’d taken to espionage disturbingly well; he’d had to strain to catch her whispered instructions on the phone the previous day, even though there was only Ivan around to hear her and he was half deaf at the best of times.

‘Seven o’clock sharp,’ she’d said.

He checked his watch again.

7.12 a.m.

She was cutting it fine; at this rate Marla would be here before she was. He huffed in exasperation. Where the hell was she? She wasn’t the type to oversleep; he’d half expected her to be on his doorstep at 6.00 a.m. in a mac and trilby.

As the clock inched slowly towards half past, Gabe stopped looking out for her and started to worry instead. Had something happened to her on the way here? Dora and Ivan’s cottage was barely a five-minute skip and hop away from the High Street, but still …

He locked the front door and set off at a jog.

The lounge curtains of Dora’s cottage were still closed when he arrived. Gabe sagged with relief. She’d just overslept. Lord knows the woman was entitled to at her age. He leant on the gate for a second to get his puff back; he’d gathered pace into a panicky sprint as he’d neared the cottage.

He glanced up again, and it struck him that although the lounge curtains were closed, the bedroom ones had been opened.

Maybe she had got up, after all.

He nipped up the path and let himself in through the unlocked side gate. Dora would no doubt be in the kitchen in a flap because she was running late.

He’d just let her know that there was no need to rush anymore.

A quick glance through the kitchen window showed it to be empty, but the kettle on the lit gas stove was screaming for attention. Gabe tried the door and found it open, so stepped inside and flicked off the shrill noise.

‘Dora?’

He called out just loud enough to be heard, but not so loud that he’d startle her.

Silence answered him, and the ball of unease returned tenfold to his gut.

‘Dora?’

He tried again. A little louder, a little more urgent.

Still no answer.

He went through into the hallway, not certain of the unfamiliar layout of the quiet cottage. He stuck his head around the first of the two doorways, and found a small, neat-as-a-pin dining room, but no Dora.

He moved along and stepped just inside the doorway of the little front room.

To the untrained eye, Dora might have been sleeping in her cheery yellow chintz armchair.

But Gabe knew different.

He crossed the room and dropped down on his haunches in front of her, then reached out and held her cool hands for a few moments.

Dora wasn’t snoozing.

She had died.