59
Saturday, 5 May 2012
Marian Williams parked her Mini on Staveley Road, a good distance from a van that, despite being plain white, seemed familiar. Everything rang a bell when you worked for the police. She took the bouquet off the passenger seat. When she had seen Stella Darnell outside Terry’s, her heart had gone out to her. Stella was keeping her father’s house ticking along as if she expected him back. Marian wanted him back too. She had given Stella the flowers on the spur of the moment. She didn’t regret it, but it meant that the next day she had come here empty-handed.
Stella wasn’t fooled by the bruise. The way she had looked at her, like Terry did, with concern. She had quickly worked it out and no doubt felt sorry for her. Marian didn’t want sympathy. Still, with Terry gone, it was nice Stella cared.
A man walked out of the cemetery gates. Marian didn’t want to see anyone. She was snatching precious moments out of time. Despite covering her tracks, he always knew what she had done and he made her pay.
Something about the man caught her attention. She lifted the lilies to hide her face and peered through the petals. He was moving with purpose, heels clipping on the pavement. Most bereaved tended to plod along.
She knew him. David Barlow had been burgled. He had lost pictures and valuable silver crucifixes. Dotty to have them on display, she had thought. He brought photographs of the items. Few victims were so prepared. He came the next week to see how the case was progressing. It wasn’t. The burglary would have been targeted, buyers lined up, no clues, no fingerprints. She suggested he list visitors to the house – cleaners, plumbers, any workmen. He let slip his wife was terminally ill so there were lots of people coming. Nurses, deliveries of oxygen, drugs, equipment. None of them would steal, he said. Marian didn’t like to say you couldn’t trust anyone. She saw the underbelly of life; it skewed perception. Poor man was having a hard enough time. Barlow never made an appointment or rang, which would have saved him, and her, time and trouble. Soon she found him a nuisance. Then he began to arouse her suspicions. He didn’t seem bothered about the stolen goods; it was the principle, he said. Keep your principles to yourself, she wanted to say. He was taking up valuable time. She had made a note: ‘one to watch’. If Barlow was here, Mrs Barlow must have died.
He got into an orange Ford Fiesta. She had not noticed it when she parked. Terry would have seen it. Terry was with her now, spurring her on.
She waited for Barlow to round the corner in the direction of the Hogarth roundabout, then hurried into the cemetery. She knew where the new plots were and found the grave immediately.
JENNIFER BARLOW
LOYAL WIFE OF DAVID
1946 – 2012
A plain, self-referencing epitaph. Nothing about being much missed or deeply mourned. What had tested his wife’s loyalty? An affair. That soft-shoe demeanour had to be a sham. She heard voices and ducked behind a mausoleum.
Two people, a man and a woman, walked along the path from the chapel, arm in arm. She had dreamed of bringing Terry here, her arm through his.
She nearly made a noise. The woman was Stella Darnell. The white van was familiar because Marian had seen it in the station compound. Stella had said nothing about a boyfriend. Terry couldn’t have known, he would have said. Marian must get a look at the man; Terry would want to know. She followed them. Terry had taught her his tricks. Keep them in sight, not too close or they will feel you there.
The van pulled away. Marian broke into a clumsy trot. Her lungs were bursting by the time she started her car, an old-style Mini.
Trailing Stella Darnell into Chiswick High Road, she caught a glimpse of the occupants in a shop window. Only Stella. The man had gone. She was hot with shame. He had got out without her seeing. She was very bad. The voice filled the car.
They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…