Chapter Thirty #2
‘It was good of you to come,’ Jonathan’s voice was clear, and Matthew could hear the words from where he stood. ‘I hope Matthew can make it. He intended to.’
So, Venn had no option but to join them. He was always less relaxed with his mother than Jonathan was. He sensed, or imagined, her disapproval and resented it. Jonathan shrugged it off.
‘Shall we go in?’ Jonathan said now. ‘Lucy’s already there.’
The church was full. There were village families and people who must be contemporaries of Maurice, school friends perhaps or colleagues from his days working in Barnstaple’s Butchers Row.
The vicar had known the dead man, and she spoke warmly of him.
The Woodyard community choir sang one of the hymns.
Matthew found himself lost in the service.
The sunlight shone through the stained glass and formed patterns on the floor.
This was warm and simple, a community coming together to support Lucy, a long way from the tangled jealousies of his investigation.
But perhaps, Matthew thought, he was being seduced again by appearances. There could be people in the congregation who’d been appalled that Maurice had fought to keep Lucy in a mainstream school and had gossiped when he’d allowed her to live on her own in Barnstaple.
His mind wandered during the brief eulogy. He wondered what the dead girls’ funerals would be like. Private family affairs or more public appreciations of their brief lives? Emotions on show as performance art or sincerely felt?
He hated the idea of Paul Armstrong using his daughter’s funeral for political ends. He thought Cath would be firm about keeping it private. But perhaps his colleagues were friends as well as members of government and lines would be blurred.
Lottie Cauldwell’s father would fly in from LA, and presumably her parents would weep genuine tears at her passing.
But if Lottie’s social media followers got wind of any service, they’d be gathering outside with more flowers and balloons and handwritten cards just to be a part of the event, to see their images on Insta or TikTok.
Even invited members of the congregation might turn up in the hope that the Cauldwells’ celebrity would rub off on them.
It could turn into another kind of performance.
And perhaps, thought Venn in his jaundiced state of mind, Maurice Braddick’s funeral was a performance too.
When the service was over, the mourners stood talking outside the church, surrounded by graves.
Matthew waited to speak to Lucy. Jonathan had helped her to arrange lunch for family and close friends in the pub, where she and her father had often eaten together, but Matthew wouldn’t go.
He couldn’t face it. Because he’d no longer been a believer, he hadn’t been allowed into his father’s funeral, and this brought back the shame and the hurt.
Lucy had been crying. She rubbed at her face with a handkerchief Matthew recognized as Jonathan’s. Matthew put his arm around her.
‘If there’s anything we can do, just let us know.’ It seemed inadequate, but he meant it.
She nodded and squeezed him hard.
As he was walking away towards the lychgate, he heard footsteps behind him. Light and quick. He turned, expecting to see one of Lucy’s friends, someone young. But it was his mother.
Matthew waited.
‘We didn’t have a chance to speak.’ She was a little breathless. She must have been rushing to catch him up.
‘I’m sorry.’ Matthew wondered why he always felt the need to apologize to her. ‘I’m working on a double murder case. I don’t have much time.’
He expected a familiar lecture about how she’d never understood why he’d chosen the police service as a career. So much unpleasantness! she always said. He would be mixing with such unsavoury people.
So, her words surprised him: ‘Jonathan was telling me that he was looking for his mother.’ A pause. ‘His real mother.’
‘Was he?’ Matthew was astonished. This seemed such a private thing. He would never have discussed a matter like this with Dorothy.
‘I’m glad,’ she went on. ‘I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose a son.
Even worse to make a decision to give up a son and then regret it.
It would be devastating. Heartbreaking.’ Her face was haunted, and he realized for the first time how much it had cost her to cast him away when he’d made public his lack of faith.
He didn’t know what to say. Instead, he took her in his arms and felt her bones, so fragile under the thin black dress that it seemed they might snap. They’d never before had a conversation of such intimacy. Such honesty. He was bewildered.
They separated and stood for a moment in silence, looking at each other.
‘You know, I think your father would have liked Jonathan very much,’ Dorothy said at last. There was a pause. ‘My husband had very fine judgement.’
She turned without waiting for a response and ran back to her friend with the same light, girlish steps.
In the car, Matthew looked at his phone. There was a text from Jen to say that she was home from hospital.
It’s my left arm that’s broken and I can still work. Heading in once I’ve had a shower and I’ve changed.
Then a missed call followed by a text from Vicki.
Karen Kinzalow turned up at the front desk. She wants to speak to you. She says she’ll wait.