After the Funeral Read online

  ‘And why try to befriend Julia now?’ interposed Pete, who had been quietly eating his soup during their exchange.

  ‘That is strange,’ Edith agreed.

  ‘Have you told Aunt Ada about her?’ asked Julia.

  ‘No. I thought your mother would have done. But from our chat this morning, I don’t think she did. Very odd, don’t you think?’

  Whatever Julia thought was lost. ‘Julia! There you are!’ To her astonishment, Linda stood in the doorway, teetering in her high-heeled purple boots. Silence spread throughout the dining room as people stopped speaking at the sound of her raised voice.

  Linda swayed down the three steps into the dining area. She wasn’t wearing a coat. Rain dripped from her short geometrically patterned orange and turquoise dress on to the crimson carpet. Her long curly hair lay tangled about her shoulders like seaweed. Mascara had run down her cheeks and her heavily made up eyes looked bruised from lack of sleep. ‘Julia!’ she called again. ‘I’m so pleased to find you!’

  Julia felt a deep flush rise to her cheeks as all eyes turned to her. She didn’t move. The wine had gone to her head. She was afraid she would stagger if she rose and went over to Linda. And actually she wanted to pretend she didn’t know the bedraggled woman who was wending her way towards her, obviously drunk.

  ‘Whoever is this?’ rapped out Ada as her guests continued to stare between Linda and Julia. ‘And who let her in? This is a private party!’ She turned to the acne riddled waiter. ‘You, boy, don’t just stand there gawping! Go and fetch the manager!’ Then she glared down the table towards her niece. ‘Julia, is she one of your cases?’

  ‘ “One of Julia’s cases?”’ Linda threw her head back and laughed wildly. She staggered towards the table. ‘Let me guess. You must be Ada.’ She leaned across the table towards the old woman in the wheelchair, picking up a bottle of red wine. Ada stared at her.

  ‘Do you think she’s dangerous?’ squawked Edith. No one moved or responded, frozen by the unexpected visitor.

  Linda’s hand was shaking as she raised the wine bottle to her magenta lips. ‘Happy birthday, Ada!’ She tipped her head back, and took a long draught, then tottered to the top of the table. There she waved the bottle around the room of mesmerised guests. ‘And good health to you all!’ she slurred.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Ada, an unusual quaver in her voice. ‘What do you want?’

  Linda laughed raucously. ‘ “What do I want?” she asks. “Who am I?”’ She stumbled the last few steps towards the old woman, then bent down so her face was level. Ada shrank back in her wheelchair. ‘Have a good look. I’m sure you can work it out.’

  Ada stared back at her and began to tremble. Julia had never seen her aunt afraid and felt an unexpected jolt of sympathy for her. The old lady’s fear broke the spell which had mesmerised the guests. Pete rose to his feet, as did James at the other end of the table.

  ‘I think you should leave.’ James spoke calmly but firmly as he drew alongside Linda. He laid a hand on her arm. The other guests murmured assent. ‘I don’t know who you are, but you shouldn’t be troubling my aunt, a defenceless old lady.’

  ‘Defenceless you call her, do you?’ Linda threw her head back with a cackle of laughter, shaking off James’s hand. She looked around the table. ‘You don’t know the half of it, do they Ada?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Ada croaked wheezily.

  ‘Now look,’ began James again, but Linda suddenly gripped her head with both hands and closed her eyes. ‘My head! Oh!’ She swayed forward, tripping over one of the wheels of Ada’s wheelchair. She fell diagonally across the table, knocking over glasses, bowls and cutlery.

  One of the guests screamed, others gasped and one old lady began to cry. Those sitting near Ada and the sprawled figure of Linda began to move away from the table, feet crunching in the broken glass and shards of pottery.

  ‘Police! Ambulance!’ shouted Edith as the manager finally appeared. He ran down the stairs as he took in the mayhem, nearly tripping over the bottom step.

  Linda was lying so still that for a moment Julia wondered if she were dead. It was Pete who had the presence of mind to lift her up out of the mess of glass and crockery. She moaned as he pulled her to her feet, then leaned heavily on him as if she were incapable of supporting her own weight. He guided her to the chair by the table where Ada’s presents were massed. Linda’s hazel eyes were glassy and unfocused. She began to cry.

  Sobered by the disturbance, Julia moved towards Ada. James had wheeled her chair away from the table. Clare was leaning over her, murmuring soothingly.

  ‘Aunt Ada,’ said Julia, taking a mottled hand, ‘are you all right?’

  All colour had drained from the old woman’s face. She was staring at the weeping Linda. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came.

  ‘It’s all right, Auntie,’ said James. ‘We’ll make sure she doesn’t come near you again. She’s clearly mad, whoever she is.’ He looked accusingly at Julia. ‘How come she knows you, Julia? Is she one of your clients?’

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ Julia tried to keep her voice level for the sake of the sick woman. ‘It’s the woman who came to Mother’s funeral.’ She found her aunt’s pulse. It was faint and irregular. ‘Call an ambulance, would you? You’ll be OK, Aunt Ada,’ she said with a conviction she didn’t feel.

  Ada looked up at her. She raised the index finger of her right hand in the direction of the chair where Linda had been sitting and opened her mouth again. Julia turned, but the chair was empty. There was no sign of the woman. She leaned over Ada.

  ‘It’s her,’ whispered the old woman. She stared up at Julia, her face contorted. She struggled to breathe, her hand grasping Julia’s wrist in a painful grip. ‘I never told her…’ she gasped out.

  ‘Never told who what, Aunt Ada?’ Julia bent over her aunt, held by the tormented grey eyes.

  Again the old woman gasped for air. ‘He was…’ a rattling breath, ‘… alive.’ She slumped sideways in her wheelchair.

  –  CHAPTER 14  –

  ‘Clare and I will follow Aunt Ada to the hospital,’ said James, as the paramedics carried the old lady through the hotel door on a stretcher. Ada hadn’t regained consciousness in the fifteen minutes it had taken for the ambulance to arrive. ‘You look like you’re over the limit, Julia. I assume your… friend is driving you?’

  ‘Yes, Pete is driving me,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m not in the habit of drinking and driving.’

  James glared at her, knowing the barb was directed at him following his drunken arrival at her cottage the previous Sunday morning.

  Clare intervened quickly. ‘I’ll call you later, Julia, shall I? Let you know how she is?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Julia. She turned on her heel and went back to the lounge bar where Pete and Edith were sitting in brown leather tub chairs by a round table. ‘I knew when I first clapped eyes on her there was something not right about her,’ the old lady was saying. ‘Befriending Julia’s mother like that, without Julia knowing anything about her. How do we know she wasn’t threatening her too?’

  Julia sank into the next chair, suddenly overwhelmed by weariness. ‘We don’t,’ she said. ‘But why would she have painted Mum if she was threatening her? She’d taken a lot of care over those paintings. And she seemed genuinely sorry she’d died too.’ She remembered how Linda’s tears had irritated her at Giuseppe’s. ‘I can’t believe she would have any reason to threaten Mother. But then I can’t imagine Aunt Ada…’

  ‘From what I saw of Aunt Ada, she wasn’t exactly pleasant,’ cut in Pete. ‘Sorry, but first impressions and all that.’ He glanced at Julia, who looked in turn at Edith.

  ‘Don’t worry about offending me, duck,’ said the old lady. ‘I’ve known Ada nearly sixty years, and she’s never been an easy person, not even as a young woman. Bitter she became, after her husband left. And you know,’ she turned to Julia, ‘I always thought she resented him dying within the year. She said once
it would have spared her the shame if he’d died when they were still together.’

  ‘Nice.’ Pete looked at Julia. ‘So that’s what she was on about earlier, asking what you’d told me about her?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Julia shook her head. ‘Imagine being so concerned with appearances that you’d prefer your husband dead rather than be separated.’ But then, she reminded herself, there was a theory that it was easier to move on with your life if a partner was lost through death rather than separation. It was a theory she had found borne out several times during her counselling practice. Was the same true for her? Would she have coped better with Greg’s death than his unfaithfulness? She sighed and laced her fingers pensively over her mouth.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Edith leaned over and patted her knee. ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right.’

  ‘What?’ Julia looked up. ‘Oh, you mean Ada.’

  Pete was watching her. She had an uncomfortable sense he knew something of what she was thinking. Colour rose to her cheeks as she remembered how defensive she had been about Greg with him.

  Edith raised a pencilled eyebrow. ‘Of course. Who else?’

  Julia’s flush deepened. She was grateful when Pete took over, maybe registering her confusion, ‘This woman, Linda, was very hostile. Ada was seriously rattled, wasn’t she? She looked like she’d seen a ghost.’

  Julia shivered. She pictured again Ada’s trembling forefinger, her hoarse whisper, ‘It’s her.’ Pete was right. ‘I just don’t know what to think. And who knows where Linda went? Do you think she’ll be all right?’ The woman had looked so disorientated and distressed before she disappeared, almost as if she couldn’t remember how she’d come to be there. She had clearly been very drunk.

  ‘I wouldn’t spare any sympathy for her,’ said Edith briskly. ‘She didn’t want the police after her, that’s why she disappeared so fast. Disgraceful. Turning up here and threatening an innocent old lady, causing chaos and upset.’

  Not wanting to upset Edith, Julia refrained from pointing out that ‘innocent’ wasn’t a word she would apply to her aunt. She rubbed her temples, trying to make sense of it all.

  ‘You look done in, Jules,’ said Pete. ‘Ready to go? I’ve offered Mrs Bradley a lift and loaded some of Ada’s presents into the car. There’s just a few left.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful. Thanks.’ Julia had forgotten about the presents.

  ‘No worries.’ Pete went down to the dining area to collect the rest of the gifts.

  Edith patted Julia’s knee again. ‘He’s a good one,’ she said. ‘You try and keep him.’

  ‘But he’s just…’ Julia sighed. ‘Anyway, I think he’s attached.’ She regretted the words as soon as they were out. She should have made clear that Pete wasn’t her type. Edith would think she was interested now.

  ‘Not married, is he?’ said Edith.

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘Well then!’

  Pete emerged through the doorway laden with the remaining presents. Julia rose and relieved him of a few. She wondered if Ada would ever open them and shivered again. She was a spiteful old woman, bitter, as Emily had written in her diary, but it had been a shock to see her so frightened by Linda.

  Julia climbed into the back of the two-door Fiesta, knowing the old woman would find this awkward with her hip replacement. She could barely hear Edith’s chatter above the noise of the heater which Pete had put on to dispel the condensation. It was still raining hard, and Pete drove carefully along the Burton road where water was backing up above the drains.

  She was convinced now that there was a secret in her family’s past, something Ada and Linda knew, something related to her mother. More than ever, she shied away from knowing the secret herself. Linda’s hints and her animosity towards Ada, her own childhood memory of Emily’s anger towards William Prescott, Emily’s diary entry recording how she believed William Prescott had told Leonard something which hastened his death, all these pointed to the secret being disturbing. In her mind’s eye she saw again her parents’ wedding photograph, her mother’s stiff pose. It might be cowardly and childish, but she wanted to preserve her memory of her parents’ happy marriage, a memory which she had clung to throughout the years since her father’s premature death.

  Pete slowed down as they approached Scampton Parish Church where cars were parked on both sides of the road. A rotund man in a grey morning suit held a large black umbrella above a plump bride making an unseemly dash for the church door. Two teenage bridesmaids in burgundy were struggling to match her pace and keep the train of her ivory dress out of the mud.

  Edith turned round from the passenger seat, smiling at Julia with her uneven yellow teeth. Julia leaned forward to hear her better above the noise of the heater and windscreen wipers. ‘Just like my wedding day! Robert had three days’ leave from the Army that weekend, and oh, it did rain. I told you your grandfather married us, didn’t I, Julia?’

  ‘Yes.’ A thought struck Julia. ‘Was that the same year Mother got married?’

  ‘I think that was two years later, just after the end of the war, wasn’t it? I got married in 1943. I didn’t know her and Ada so well then, with them being that bit older and me coming from the next village. I could have got married there, but Robert’s mother was keen on us having our wedding here, and she was quite ill by then, poor lady. I didn’t mind, and neither did my parents, as we could see it meant a lot to her. Ada was at my wedding though, she was very involved in the parish. I seem to remember Emily was away somewhere, helping out some family on her mother’s side or something.’

  ‘Oh? I’ve never heard about that.’

  ‘Well, it was a long time before you were born, of course. Sad you didn’t know your grandfather. Such a lovely man. Very understanding and caring. Maybe I shouldn’t say, but I think he would have been sad your mum stopped going to church. A good vicar, he was, always had time for you and practised what he preached. Not always dashing about like they seem to be these days. Do you know, Reverend Smith…’

  Julia sat back again and let Edith’s complaint about Reverend Smith’s pastoral shortcomings wash over her. Although she had moved to the nearby village of Ingham many years ago, Edith had continued to attend the church at Scampton. Ada had worshipped there all her life. She wondered where Emily had gone back in 1943. Might the family she had been helping be connected with Linda? It was possible, thought Julia, looking out of the rear side window at the darkening grey sky. Rain continued to fall over the sodden fields which stretched away towards the cooling towers of the two power stations across the River Trent. Linda had said they were related through Emily’s mother. She determined to find out if she heard from the woman again. Or would Linda be too embarrassed to make contact when she sobered up?

  ‘What do you think, Jules?’ Pete’s question broke into her thoughts. She turned forward to find him looking at her in the rear view mirror as he took the left fork for Ingham.

  ‘About what?’ she asked.

  ‘Have you been asleep back there? I said you looked knackered!’ He grinned, his teeth as white and even as Edith’s were yellow and crooked. ‘Just wondered if you had a key for your mum’s house on you, if you want to go in while I’m here and take a look around in case that mad artist woman’s been back.’

  ‘She’s not been back when I’ve been in,’ said Edith quickly. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye out.’

  ‘I bet you have Mrs B.’ Pete took his left hand off the steering wheel to pat the old lady’s knee. ‘Better than Neighbourhood Watch, you’ll be.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Edith drew herself upright in the passenger seat. I know some people might think I’m nosy, but I just see it as doing my bit. I promised Julia, didn’t I, duck?’ She turned round to Julia.

  ‘You did, Edith, and I’m very grateful. And I do have a key in my bag, so if you’re not in a hurry, Pete…’

  ‘No problem.’ Pete turned left down the hill as Edith directed.

  He parked alongside the ro
w of cottages. Edith looked disappointed when they refused a cup of tea, but cheered up when Julia assured her she would let her know if anything valuable had been taken by ‘that mad artist woman.’

  The heavy white wooden door refused to budge when Julia unlocked it.

  ‘Here. Let me. The wood’s swollen in the rain.’ Pete moved forward and put his shoulder to the door. It yielded slightly on his first thrust, then opened on the second. He stepped back to allow Julia in first, brushing briefly against her.

  ‘Nice place. Cosy.’ Pete glanced round the compact beamed sitting room as Julia flicked on the light to dissipate the gloom.

  She shivered. ‘Not on an afternoon like this.’

  Pete bent to switch on the fire. ‘No harm putting this on whilst we’re here. You OK, Jules?’

  She brushed away a tear. ‘Sorry. It’s just I still expect… Mother…’

  ‘Hey.’ He crossed the room and put his arms round her. She cried softly against his leather jacket for a few moments, then broke away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘I think it’s the wine, and Linda, and then coming here. Maybe not a good idea.’

  ‘Stop giving yourself such a hard time,’ he said gently. ‘Isn’t that what you’d tell one of your clients?’

  She half-smiled. ‘Probably.’

  ‘There you go. Now,’ he assumed a more business-like tone, ‘we don’t know what your long-lost relative was looking for. You said your mum didn’t have any jewellery or valuables, so it doesn’t sound like that was what she was after. Where’ve you cleared so far?’

  ‘Hardly anywhere. Just the desk last week. That’s where I found the diaries. There was nothing else in there apart from stationery and old bills.’

  ‘Right.’ He glanced round the sitting room again and went over to the bookcase. ‘So the only other storage area down here is this? She had some old books, didn’t she?’ He began to pull out the hardbacks from the top shelf, flicking through them. Julia went across and started to go through the paperback novels on the lower shelves.