Chapter 3
THREE
I’ve always had something of an issue with belching when I’m feeling particularly nervous and it’s a very real, reasonably common problem, I’ve googled it.
Greta liked to make fun of it a lot. But that was fair as I would always mock her for still sleeping with three different teddy bears each night well into her late twenties.
Apparently, stress can make you swallow more air without realising it, and it can even affect how the brain communicates with the gut.
So, I was quietly pleased that as I hung up the call, only a short little burp, easily muffled by keeping my lips tightly shut, escaped my throat.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and switched on the vacuum to start hoovering up any of the stray petals left against the hearse window.
‘Who was that, Ruth?’ Sophie, my cousin-cum-frenemy, asked, peering down the length of the vehicle from the passenger seat as she sprayed another healthy dose of cleaner onto the console and began wiping it vigorously across the cheap faux-leather dashboard.
Sophie, too, had been drafted into the family business by dint of not knowing what else to do with herself.
None of Uncle Phil’s three sons had any interest in dealing with the dead, so his nieces from his two younger brothers – Sophie and me – had stepped, somewhat resignedly, into the gap.
She was, by far, the more capable between us and she liked to remind me so as unsubtly and as often as she could.
Truth is, she had always been my least favourite cousin, and we had one who put a hamster in the microwave to see if it would work as a hand warmer.
The hamster, miraculously, was fine.
‘Oh, it’s just the detective who worked on Greta’s case,’ I replied. ‘She says she wants to speak to me at eleven today.’
‘Maybe it’s good news?’ she said in a tone that was a bit too faux perky for my liking.
It wasn’t as if Detective Carlota was going to tell me they’d managed to resurrect Greta in some Frankenstein’s monster-like experiment now, were they?
How good could the news really be? My hope, of course, was that she was going to say they were reopening the case.
My worry, of course, was that she knew what I had done to poor Mrs Lambert.
But I didn’t want to be rude to Sophie, so I just nodded and made some sort of agreeable ‘mm-hm’ sound and focused instead on ensuring no rogue petals had got stuck into the one of the hearse’s many grooves.
There was a definite chance that Detective Carlota – whose phone voice never gave anything away – might be coming to ask me some very particular and specific questions, like where I was on Saturday night, or maybe more directly: why I’d decided to impersonate a serial killer, and why I’d left an extracted human heart outside the police station.
When I woke up on Sunday morning three days ago, it felt like the strangest kind of hangover as I slowly came to terms with what I’d done the night before, or more accurately, the potential consequences of what I had done.
I’d had similar mornings full of regret in my life, only this time, at least there wasn’t a flaccid dry-mouthed stranger in my sheets, asking whether I believed in the lizard people.
But now, with Detective Carlota’s impending visit, the murky crimes I’d committed on Saturday – the blurry haze of a woman possessed – were slowly hardening into stone-cold memory in my mind.
‘Coming through,’ I heard the annoyingly chipper voice of Clive call out as he and Eddie rolled a very familiar-looking coffin from the morgue. Oh dear, I knew exactly who was in there.
Urgh. Clive and Eddie, the two trainee funeral directors Uncle Phil had hired just before me, both had what I liked to describe as room temperature IQs.
They flicked on the brakes, hoisted it up from the gurney by the huckle and slid it into the hearse with far less delicacy than they’d show in an hour’s time in front of the family that had gathered for their last goodbyes.
‘And how are you doing, Ruth? Did you have a nice evening last night?’ Clive asked as he began tightening the car pins around the edges of the coffin.
Don’t be fooled by his pleasant-seeming words, his tone was dripping with a vile saccharine ooze that we both knew was insincere.
The man often liked to crack glib jokes in the break room about my abysmal lack of social life.
Clive gave off that deeply unappealing vibe of someone who clearly peaked in high school and was desperately trying to cling onto it at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.
‘I did, Clive. How about you?’ I replied.
I know I came off as a bit mechanical with how I spoke, but I had always struggled with the right tone of voice with almost everyone, and it was especially bad with Clive, who seemed to find everything I said somehow worthy ammunition for mockery.
He shot a look at Eddie, and the two of them broke into an overly masculine baritone laughter.
I’m sure they’d both had a very wholesome Tuesday evening researching the best mirror-selfie angles.
Their brains, as you can probably ascertain, were mostly protein shake with a very light dusting of oxygen.
I tried not to let their remarks faze me, and rifled through my memories for something comforting: the time Eddie, when he thought no one was looking, picked his nose with such zest he gave himself a nosebleed.
Clive swaggered back inside, quickly conducting his body language into something more proper, as Uncle Phil emerged from the office into the loading bay in his full funeral directors’ regalia.
His black top hat perched smartly on his head, and a whipcord coat, which his protruding belly now eked and strained against, was wrapped around him.
‘How we doing, gang? All set?’ he asked, I think trying to instil some spirit into all of his employees who were, to be honest, just there for the pay check.
‘Yep, all good,’ I was the only one to reply. ‘After lunch, I’ll make sure everything’s buffed, fluffed and casket stuffed.’
Unfortunately, there was a reluctant acceptance of gallows humour in this place.
‘Perfect, perfect. Thank you, sweetheart,’ Uncle Phil said with his signature warm smile. I noticed him glance discreetly at the car, double-checking for any stray flower petals; we all knew that was his pet peeve. ‘And how are you feeling? After, you know…?’
Urgh. You know what really pisses me off? Mum, Dad and Ben, my ex-husband, mind you, had a group chat all about me. With Mum and Dad so far away, Ben would give them regular updates on the Ruth-Report on my ‘well-being’ and, clearly, Uncle Phil now had the same level of intel on how I was.
‘Oh, the case? It’s fine, don’t worry about it,’ I said with a scoff and an indifferent wave of my hand. Much like Ben, Uncle Phil clearly knew me well enough that he didn’t buy my supposed apathy towards the news that the case had been put on ice. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.
‘It’s okay not to be okay,’ he remarked softly. ‘You do know that, right, Ruth?’
He must have taken the mental health first aid training to heart.
I’m 100 per cent not okay, I thought to myself as I stared back at his prolonged eye contact, realising he had one eyelid that drooped further down than the other. But I was doing significantly better than Mrs Lambert, so there was that.
‘It’s all going to be all right,’ he said when I didn’t respond to his remark as he took a glance at his watch and then gestured for Sophie to get in as she diligently wiped a small smudge off the bumper, making sure way too obviously that he would spot her assiduousness.
Rumour was, Uncle Phil was keen to retire in the next year or so and she was, obviously, the heir apparent.
Good for you, babe, you’ve just inherited a building chock full of dead people, hope it makes you happy.
‘Ooops, you missed a petal,’ Uncle Phil said, crouching down as much as he could without his belt buckle snapping, and holding the tiniest petal from the hearse aloft for both Sophie and me to look at. Sophie didn’t say anything, her eyes fixed on me as Uncle Phil turned to see who the suspect was.
It was a pretty tense rest of the morning after the hearse bearing Uncle Phil, Sophie and most of Mrs Lambert’s remains left, and I found myself anxiously tapping my fingers or rapping my feet as I watched the computer clock creep gradually towards eleven.
Surely, I wasn’t in trouble. Detective Carlota wouldn’t have called ahead if she was going to arrest me, that’s not a thing the police did, right?
Or was it? I’d never been arrested before.
Would this ruin my mum’s ambassadorial posting?
I hadn’t thought about that on Saturday, but then, I hadn’t thought about much other than finding a way to stop the police from closing the case.
She arrived at 10.56, as always impeccably punctual.
I’d always imagined detectives would wear dark flowing trench coats with loosely knotted ties wrapped around their necks, but Detective Carlota was different.
Notably, she had a penchant for the most fabulous jumpers, they were always professional, usually cashmere, with a range of varied necklines.
V-neck, roll-neck, cowl, you name it. She was a stunning woman, with sharp, defined cheekbones and long, dark, voluminous hair threaded with small glimpses of grey all while standing at a height that must have been close to, if not, six feet, with a muscular, verging on stocky build that I imagined put most of her colleagues to shame.
If I’m honest, I think part of me might have been a little bit in love with Detective Carlota.