Chapter Thirty-Five
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, if somewhat heavy on the espionage drama. Their first attempt last week had been aborted at the last minute when she’d called him to say Jonny had turned up unexpectedly at the chapel. It had taken Gabe a while to decipher her loudly whispered telephone message. ‘The peacock has landed. I repeat, the peacock has landed. Operation Lovegood aborted. Abort mission and await instruction. Over and out.’
He’d stared at the telephone for several perplexed seconds until Dora herself had slunk out of the chapel and over to the funeral parlour, a long beige mac over her pinny and a headscarf over her iron-grey curls.
‘“The peacock”?’ he’d asked, ushering her inside.
Dora untied her scarf from beneath her chin. ‘Jonny,’ she’d said, still whispering and craning her neck to see out of the window. ‘I don’t think they saw me slip over here.’
Gabe had shaken his head and laughed, even though disappointment coursed through his veins. ‘Dora, it’s okay.’
She’d moved to stand with her back against the wall next to the window frame and bobbed her head around quickly to look through the window as a car pulled up.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ she’d muttered. ‘It’s the raven.’
‘“The raven”?’
Dora flattened herself against the wall and rolled her eyes. ‘Emily,’ she hissed, as if he really ought to get with the programme, as Emily’s glossy black hair appeared while she hauled herself out of the passenger side of the car.
‘Do you have a name for me, Dora?’ Gabe had asked, interested.
‘Archangel,’ she’d shot back, as if he really should have known.
‘And Marla?’ He’d tried to suppress his smile.
‘Hollywood.’
He’d nodded in approval. ‘Figures.’ The chapel door opened. ‘Well, looks like the mission is well and truly aborted. The peacock, the raven and Hollywood have just locked up and left the chapel.’ He’d squinted at the driver’s seat. ‘Tom’s driving.’
‘The dove,’ Dora had supplied, shrugging out of the mac. ‘The dove’ seemed an odd choice to Gabe, but Dora no doubt had her reasons.
It was two long weeks later that she called him again to confirm that Operation Lovegood was once more good to go. The peacock and the raven were safely squirrelled away across the other side of Shropshire at a wedding fayre, and Hollywood would be holding the fort on her own at the chapel.
The plan was set. Dora, or D, as she’d assigned herself in the style of Judi Dench’s M, was to come up to the chapel bright and early to let him in before Marla arrived, giving him enough time to go inside and arrange a surprise breakfast for Marla – or Hollywood, as Dora insisted on calling her.
Gabe hovered inside the funeral parlour at just after 7 a.m. on the morning in question. Autumn had well and truly blown into Beckleberry over the last few weeks. A sepia wash of leaves swirled 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, 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 a.m. in her mac and trilby.
As the clock inched slowly towards half past, Gabe stopped looking out for her and started to worry about her 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 …
The more he thought about it, the faster his heart started to beat. It was easy to forget Dora’s age because she was such a livewire, but he’d never forgive himself if she’d tumbled in the lane or something. Oh God. What if a car had been speeding, not expecting to find any walkers at that early hour, especially ones dressed for espionage? Unable to wait any longer, he locked the funeral parlour door and set off at a fast walk. As he reached the end of Dora’s lane, his walk turned to a jog, and by the time he reached Ivan and Dora’s cottage he’d broken into a full-scale run.
The lounge curtains of Dora’s cottage were still closed when he arrived. Gabe sagged against the gate post with relief. She’d just overslept. Lord knew the woman was entitled to that luxury at her age. He stood for a few seconds to get his breath back before he walked back to the funeral parlour. This cloak and dagger approach wasn’t working. Marla would be alone at the chapel that morning. He was going to walk right on in there and tell her once and for all that he loved her.
His mind set, he glanced once more at Dora’s cottage, and it suddenly struck him that although the lounge curtains were closed, the bedroom ones had been opened. That was strange.
Maybe Dora had got up, after all.
He nipped up the path to double-check 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 pop in quickly to reassure her 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 frowned as he tried the door. Finding it open, he 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 the carpeted hallway and stepped just inside the opposite doorway to the little front room.
To the untrained eye, Dora might have been sleeping in her cheery yellow chintz armchair.
But Gabe knew differently the moment he saw her. His wasn’t the untrained eye.
‘Oh, Dora,’ he whispered. ‘No.’
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. He brushed his fingertips gently over her eyes to fully close them, a tight ball of pain in his chest.
Dora wasn’t snoozing.
She’d passed away.
A couple of hours later, the ambulance bearing Dora’s body rumbled off up the lane, and Ivan, still in his dressing gown, sat in his small living room with Marla and Gabe, and also Ruth, who lived two doors down.
They drank sweet tea, and Gabe found a bottle of whisky in the dining-room sideboard to help steady Ivan’s nerves. Waking the old man with such devastating news had been heartbreakingly difficult, and all of the funeral director training in the world hadn’t made it any easier to watch the shell-shocked pensioner cry like a child.
He’d called Marla without a second thought, because he wanted to tell her himself, and also to ask if she’d come and be with him and Ivan while they waited for the ambulance. She’d been there in a heartbeat, shaken and red-eyed, but also amazingly strong and beautiful as she spoke quietly to Ivan and gripped his shaking hand.
Gabe followed her into the kitchen when she excused herself to make a fresh pot of tea. She picked up the kettle to fill it, but just stood at the sink with the tap running, her mind on Dora.
‘I can’t believe she’s gone, Gabe,’ she said softly. Gabe turned off the tap and placed the kettle down on the side, the crack in her voice too much for him to take.
‘Come here.’ He gathered Marla against him, holding her close with his chin resting on the top of her head, as she cried in his arms. She hugged him hard, giving him solace as much as drawing it from him. Dora had been Gabe’s true friend and ally, and he hated the thought that he’d added to her burden of stress by asking for her help with Marla.
Marla in turn hated the prospect of Beckleberry without Dora at its heart, or the unbearably sad thought of Ivan having to find a way to live without the love of his life.
They held each other like that for long, precious minutes, all of their usual barriers down in the face of their overwhelming sadness. Marla closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar scent of Gabe’s skin, the smoothness of his neck treacherously close to her salty, damp lips.
Gabe wanted more than anything to kiss the woman in his arms. To kiss her endlessly, and tell her how much he loved her, that she filled his heart up so much that it hurt. His lips rested against her hair, and his emotions led him to stroke a hand down her back. She was real, and here, and his. He needed to tell her. Maybe it was entirely the wrong time, but then maybe it was the best time of all.
And then the back gate banged and Marla jolted away from him a second or two before Emily, Jonny and Tom appeared, stricken, at the kitchen door.