Police are investigating the death of an elderly male resident of the Happy Haven care home in Blackheath who fell from a second-floor balcony early on Saturday evening. The man, who has not yet been named, was suffering from Alzheimer’s and is believed to have been a retired publisher. A postmortem is due to be carried out later this week and police inquiries into what they are calling “an unexplained death” are ongoing.
THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD
CHAPTER 46
“There’s a dead person in the study,” Sunshine announced in a conversational tone. She had come to find Laura, who was in the garden cutting roses for the house, to tell her this piece of news and to chivvy her along into making lunch. Carrot was lolling lazily on his back in the sun, with his legs in the air, but as Sunshine approached he jumped up to greet her.
It had been a year now since the website had launched and it kept both Laura and Sunshine busy. Sunshine had learned how to take photographs and post them and the details of objects onto the website, and Freddy had even shown her how to run a Keeper of Lost Things Instagram account. Laura dealt with the e-mails. They were still working their way through Anthony’s collection, as well as adding the new things that Sunshine gathered on her walks with Carrot. Laura and Freddy had also got into the habit of picking up things they found wherever they went, and now people had begun to send them lost items as well. At this rate the shelves in the study would always be groaning.
“A dead person? Are you sure?”
Sunshine gave her one of her looks. Laura went inside to investigate. In the study, Sunshine showed her a sky-blue Huntley & Palmers biscuit tin. Its label read:
HUNTLEY & PALMERS BISCUIT TIN CONTAINING CREMATION REMAINS?—
Found, sixth carriage from the front, 14:42 train from London Bridge to Brighton. Deceased unknown. God bless and rest in peace.
Lupin and Bootle funeral directors (est. 1927) was on the corner of a busy street opposite a fancy bakery. As she stood outside, Eunice smiled to herself, remembering Mrs. Doyle’s and thinking that this was an appropriate place for Bomber to end up. He had been dead for six weeks now, and Eunice still hadn’t been to his funeral. The coroner had eventually returned a verdict of accidental death, but the staff at Happy Haven had been severely criticized for their cavalier approach to health and safety procedures and had only narrowly escaped prosecution. Portia had wanted Sylvia’s head in a bedpan. She had been mourning extravagantly all over the press and the media, but Eunice couldn’t help wondering whether it was fueled by genuine grief or the associated publicity it was bound to generate for her forthcoming book tour. Portia was too famous to talk to Eunice directly now. She had assistants for that kind of trivial task. Which was why Eunice found herself staring through an immaculate plate-glass window at a scale model of a horse-drawn hearse and a tasteful display of arum lilies. The only information she had been able to extract from the lowliest assistant twice removed, was the name of the funeral directors who were dealing with all inquiries. She could have telephoned, but the temptation to be in the same building as Bomber was too great.
The woman behind the reception desk looked up at the sound of the bell and gave Eunice a smile of genuine welcome. Pauline was a large lady, dressed in Marks & Spencer’s finest, with an air of capability and kindness. She put Eunice in mind of a brown owl. Unfortunately, the news she had to deliver was the cruelest and most shocking that Eunice could possibly hear.
“It was very small. Family only at the crematorium. The sister organized it; the one who writes those mucky books.”
It was clear from the ring of repugnance with which Pauline imbued the word “sister” that she and Portia had not exactly bonded. Eunice felt her head go into a tailspin and the floor rise up to meet her. Not long afterward she was sitting on a comfy sofa drinking hot, sweet tea with a nip of brandy and Pauline was patting her hand.
“It was the shock, love,” she said. “Your face went as white as a ghost.”
Fortified by tea, brandy, and biscuits, Eunice was made party to the whole dreadful story by a very forthcoming Pauline. Portia had wanted it done and dusted as quickly and quietly as possible.
“She was off on her book tour, you see, and she didn’t want her schedule disrupted.”
Pauline took a sip of her tea and shook her head vigorously in disapproval.
“But she’s having a proper showy-offy shebang when she gets back; a memorial service and then a burial of the ashes. She’s inviting ‘everyone who is anyone, darling,’ and the music will be provided by choirs of angels with His Holiness the pope presiding by the way she was talking. It’ll knock Princess Diana’s do into a cocked hat, apparently.”