Chapter Fifteen
Grace
The gravel crunched beneath my boots as I walked triumphantly from the learner-vehicle with my instructor inside, holding my certificate at my breast. When Nick suggested an intensive driving course, spread over a mere week, I’d laughed, certain I could never master the skill in such a limited time – but I had.
I was licenced to drive a car now; another fine string to my bow.
I couldn’t wait to tell Eugenie, but first, I wanted to surprise my husband-to-be.
I found him in the mortuary, gowned and masked, using the trocar to apply cavity fluid to Mrs Sugi.
She was a wealthy client who had already planned and paid for her care decades ago, desiring a viewing in the Crowthorne Chapel, a church service, and a cremation with an antique Japanese urn to contain her ashes.
I waited for a moment on the steps, enjoying the view of him at work.
I observed his crooked nose and the low, stern brow that had sent shivers up my arms on our first meeting.
I wondered how I had ever found him steely and distant.
He was so handsome that I wanted to throw my arms around him and pepper him with kisses, even while he stood there, attending to the body.
Especially while he attended to the body.
Nicholas and his work were one. It was as much a part of him as I was, and would be for ever after, once we were married.
The thought alone made my skin pebble, the downy hairs on my arms standing on end. To think that we would live here, work here, together. That we would one day rot together in the same grave.
“You look so magical when you’re working, sir,” I said, bringing a slight smile to his lips as he withdrew the trocar.
“Thank you, darling. Would you like to take over? You’re back a little earlier from your lesson than I expected. I know how you love to use the trocar,” said Nick, inserting it again beneath the heart.
“I’m afraid I told a slight fib,” I said, holding up the little blue piece of paper. “I told you my test wasn’t until Monday morning, but it was actually this morning, and I passed.”
Nick looked startled, and then only surprised, blinking rapidly – but he didn’t look so pleased. I ran to him to show him the certificate, searching his eyes for his approval, and found confusion, instead, and even a hint of annoyance.
“Aren’t you proud of me?” I asked.
Nick’s hand curled around the back of my neck and drew me to him to kiss my forehead.
“Of course I am, Grace – I’m immensely proud. Now you’ll be loading and driving the hearse by the time you start your course in January. This is fantastic, really. You impress me more with every passing day.”
Nick’s words flooded me with endorphins, but his eyes told me another story. Something about me passing my test so quickly was bothering him, but I couldn’t imagine what.
“You didn’t think I’d pass on my first go, did you? Be honest. I can see you’re in shock,” I said, giggling. I felt heady and overwhelmed, like I’d downed half a bottle of wine.
“I never doubted you,” he said, cupping me beneath the chin. “Not for a moment.”
I wondered, then, what was bothering him, but pressing him didn't seem productive. Why spoil a happy moment?
“I’m going to go upstairs and call Eugenie, and then I’ll be right back with you,” I said, planting a kiss on Nick’s stubbled cheek.
He turned the trocar in his hands, frowning slightly, clearly thinking something over. His voice came in a soft murmur, but there was something a little darker behind it, more sinister. When Nick spoke to me in that voice, I pulsed between my legs, enjoying the authoritarian tone in his voice.
“Remember what I told you, won’t you, Grace?”
I paused on the stairs, looking back at him over my shoulder. It was late November, the sky outside darkening already before it was even midday. A sudden chill made me shiver.
“Of course. Only Eugenie knows, and she’s sworn to secrecy. She’s proven a very loyal friend to me, you know, “ I said.
“So far,” said Nick, withdrawing the trocar once more.
He held it upright like a spear while he examined Mrs Sugi’s corpse, watching her thoughtfully.
“I’m keen that we don’t let any of my competitors find out until we’ve had the chance to announce it ourselves, properly, with dignity.
It could ruffle too many feathers. They’re looking for excuses, Grace, to drag my name through the mud. ”
“Of course, sir. I remember,” I said.
I understood, I really did – but he piqued my curiosity in moments like this, when I could sense his intense anxieties, his need for control.
It unearthed a vulnerability in him that I had fast fallen in love with.
Beneath his cool, composed exterior, Nick was afraid.
He needed, at least, the illusion of control; to feel as though he could influence the opinion of all those who doubted his past, who blamed him for the catastrophic fire that killed his family and Louisa.
It was this knowledge that had prevented me from questioning him about the church visit, and the strange people I’d seen him standing with – especially the one who appeared to have suffered a seizure.
I couldn’t imagine why Nick would feel the need to keep those associates from me, or me from them, except that he simply wasn’t ready to reveal our relationship.
Deep down, I knew, my resemblance to Louisa played its part in that. I knew people would draw comparisons. I no longer cared about that, but Nick did, and so I made the decision not to pry – at least, for now.
Eugenie was not so keen on that decision.
“You still haven’t demanded answers? Grace, you’re getting married to a man who keeps secrets from you!” Her voice came shrill from the speaker.
“I liked you better when you were cheering wildly down the phone because I’d passed my test,” I said, massaging the ever-present creases between my eyebrows. “Now you’re admonishing me.”
“I’m not admonishing you,” she said. I could almost hear her eyes rolling.
“I just don’t want him to get away with it.
You know, this is hard for me to say, but.
..there are rumours about Nick. Nasty ones.
I never paid much mind to them, but now that you’re getting married.
..are you sure you know what you’re getting into? ”
I shook my head privately, dismissing her question. “Shame on you for believing any of those vicious lies!”
“I don’t believe them, I just...there’s no smoke without just a teensy little bit of fire, you know?”
We shared a silence.
“Not to mention the way he treated poor Dorian. He’s apologised, I know, but still...”
I bit my lip until a tiny bead of blood sprung up. I brushed it away with my tongue. I wished I could change the subject entirely, away from any ghastly claims about the man I loved.
“Does this mean you don’t wish to be my bridesmaid any more?” I asked tiredly.
“Don’t be silly,” she said in a sardonic tone.
“I want what’s best for you, that’s all.
You’re younger than me. I see you like my little naive sister, the blushing bride, walking potentially into disaster,” said Eugenie.
I could hear that she was fiddling with something on her end, tapping it against the table; a stone necklace, maybe, or one of her ceramic Chinese hair pieces – more like works of art than accessories.
“I’m sorry, it’s just...the fact is that I didn’t get quite the reaction from Nick as I got from you when I told him about my driving test. He’s angry, somehow, or bothered about it at least, and I don’t know why,” I said.
Eugenie hummed a little, pondering.
“Perhaps he was hoping to keep you nice and busy for a little while. Long enough, say, to put any questionable things you’d seen recently out of your mind?” Eugenie sounded so smug I wished I could reach through the phone and shake her, but of course, I wouldn’t. She was my friend.
“I didn’t see anything questionable,” I said, in a clipped tone that revealed my annoyance. “I saw Nick at a church service with some people he didn’t want me to meet yet. That’s all. I’m sure it’ll all be worked out in the end and I’ll get to know them.”
Eugenie sighed. “All right. If you’re happy, then I’m happy, I suppose. “It’s your funeral”, so-to-speak.”
I sighed.
“Let’s talk about you,” I said, hoping to move on breezily, as if her warnings hadn’t bothered me. “I was hoping to see Dorian before the Christmas party, to apologise to him face-to-face. It was all my fault. I should have told him.”
“He’s a tough old lad, don’t worry about him. Takes after daddy. I’ve been having a worse time of it. I was targeted by some shitty little vandals, believe it or not,” she said, quite carelessly.
“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting up straight. “What happened?”
“It was the strangest thing. Something woke me last night in the early hours – I forget what the noise was – and when I went to the window to look down at the street, there was a commotion going on around the driveway. I threw on my kimono and went down to investigate with my house mates and, well, you really wouldn’t believe it. Someone had set fire to my car.”
“Set fire to it?” I asked.
“Mm. Bastards. If it hadn’t been for a late-night dog-walker who spotted the car smouldering, it would have been reduced to a blackened shell.
We had to call the fire brigade, the police.
..it was really a lot of bother, and in the middle of the ruddy night, too.
Flames were licking the roof by the time they arrived to put it out,” said Eugenie, sounding as if she was describing a botched hair appointment rather than a deliberate fire.
“That’s terrible,” I said. Coming from the Dales, where I lived without running water or even reliable electricity, her cavalier attitude to the loss of her valuable car – let alone the implied threat to her life – left me flabbergasted. How could she not care?