Chapter Eighteen
Nicholas
There was no time at all to rest.
Tom Stoddard, a man I barely knew and yet detested, was dead and buried.
But not for long. The question remained: what to do with him?
I pondered his case as I drove, with Grace asleep in the passenger seat beside me. Dawn was breaking as we crossed the boundary for London, the pink and orange hues rising faithfully above the city skyline.
I’d known Grace had a stalker; I’d seen him myself, though only from a distance, peering through the wrought iron gates even before the night he first confronted her.
I began to monitor him, waiting for him to appear again, and he did, several times.
Once, I even saw him among the gravestones, I was certain of that now – but at the time, I couldn’t be sure it was the same man.
We had many members of staff who roamed around the grounds.
I knew he had been asking about me in the local pubs, lapping up their rumours of this or that, especially those regarding Louisa.
On the very same day that Grace and Eugenie had traced my steps to the church, Tom had followed.
He had witnessed what they had seen: my poor, tortured wife, attending the church service.
It was the only social normalcy she had left, and a promise I intended to keep, to accompany her there weekly.
He would have seen not only Louisa, but Grace’s investment in me.
Her curiosity in my whereabouts, the distress in her expression when she saw the commotion, when Louisa became unwell. All of it would have tormented him.
I knew, because if I were in his shoes, it would have tormented me.
When he continued to follow her, day after day, observing her every movement – he will have seen, at some point, a sapphire glimmering on her ring finger.
It was then, I believed, that he sought and discovered Louisa’s home in the hospital.
He heard of the annual ball in conversation with his new friends, my critics, in the pub, and there he formed his plan to manipulate her.
What he hadn’t expected, apparently, was that part of the rumours about me were true.
I did have a capacity for violence. Not for pleasure, however – not like my brother Alexander, or Tom Stoddard himself – but for necessity.
For prudence. I tried not to think of it, but it was there, festering in the back of my mind, this knowledge that I was capable of murder.
There’d been a few times, in the early days with Louisa, when I was savagely in love with her, that I thought I might unleash that aspect of me.
When men stared, or made whispered promises to my vulnerable, fragile young bride-to-be, it awoke the murderer in me.
On a few occasions, with their throat in my hands, I had been tempted by some darkness to squeeze just a little tighter.
To twist, quite abruptly, and wait for the tell-tale clicking sound.
But for her sake, and mine, I’d always let them go. In the time it took to show them how brutal I could be, I would come to my senses, and stop myself just shy of seeing the deed through.
When it came to Grace, everything was different.
The hell-beast inside me was snarling and, at the sight of Tom above her, its cage was unlocked.
Its movements calculated, its bite inevitable, I needed only to stand back and let it happen.
When it came to finishing him, I knew, even as I wound the mortuary wire around his neck, that I had pocketed it for this very purpose.
That when I’d hastily fetched my coat, I had seen the reel in an open package in the office and taken it, in case fortune should smile upon me, even briefly, and I found opportunity to use it.
I had no regrets. The hell-beast couldn’t have been unleashed on a finer person. But still, the question remained...what to do with him?
Timing was critical. The last anybody saw of Tom Stoddard was at Crowthorne House, right before he led Grace to his truck.
The neighbours might have seen Grace with him, or even guests, who were milling around outside.
He would be on our CCTV system, and the police would undoubtedly want to look at that.
It crossed my mind to erase the last 24 hours, like a fool, but I knew that would only work against me.
It was as good as admitting I had something to hide.
No, that wouldn’t do. I would stay calm and think of something.
In any case, Grace’s connection with Tom’s family and the village would lead them straight to Heather House, and it wouldn’t take them long to find his body then.
I tapped my fingertips on the wheel as I wondered how long it might take for Tom’s family to report him missing.
Perhaps it would take a day or two of no contact before they became suspicious.
Perhaps I still had time before the police were alerted, and they came knocking at our door.
As I drove through Hampstead Garden Suburb, it occurred to me that it was my connection to the village in the Dales that had brought Grace to me in the first place.
Crowthorne Funeral Care had a branch in that very village, with its own crematorium.
It made sense to incinerate Tom along with someone else, and disguise his ashes amongst theirs.
A plan was building in my mind as I pulled into the back of Crowthorne House, parking up on the gravel. The horses whinnied from the stables. Grace was roused from her sleep, blinking into the early morning light. She tipped her head back and sighed.
“Part of me hoped it was all a terrible dream,” she said sleepily. “But at least we’re home.”
I smiled, pride swelling in me to hear her describe my home as her home. Soon enough, she would have legal entitlement to it all, when our marriage certificate bore the name Grace Emily Crowthorne.
“There’s something we need to discuss before we go inside, my love,” I began, watching the back of the house for movement as I spoke.
Sure enough, I could see Margaret, moving around in the kitchen.
The cleaning staff would arrive soon to restore the downstairs rooms to their usual state.
There would be no funereal staff, mercifully, to interrupt us over the holidays.
“What is it?” she asked with trepidation.
“First, let me do this,” I said, pulling her in for a kiss. She sighed against my lips. “Merry Christmas, Grace.”
She gasped.
“I’d completely forgotten! Merry Christmas, sir.”
Hungrily, I kissed her again. I held her face in my hands, caressing her sore cheek very delicately with my thumb.
“When the police pay us a visit, they’ll want to know what happened between you and Tom.
You’re going to tell them that you rejected him in the lay-by, that he took you into the forest, and that I rescued you before he could hurt you.
Besides, that much is true. I threatened him, and he vanished into the woods.
We drove on to Heather House, where we spent the night, and then we drove home early to spend Christmas in Crowthorne House.
” I told her, seeing the fear in her eyes as she realised it was a case of when, not if, the police came knocking.
“If you mention Heather House, they’ll go there. They’ll find him,” she said fearfully.
“He won’t be there,” I said. “I’ll have taken care of him by then.”
“But how?”
“Grace, I’m a funeral director. I know how to take care of a body.”
She smiled, just faintly, and I relaxed a little. In my periphery, a figure emerged from the back of the house, wandering forlornly in the garden. Rumpled and with her makeup smeared, Eugenie was still dressed in her evening-wear.
“Go and see to your friend,” I told Grace, gesturing at Eugenie in the distance. “Tell her the very same thing you’ll be telling the police. Tell her nothing of Tom’s fate. Remember, he ran into the forest, and that’s all – ”
“That’s all I know,” said Grace, finishing my sentence. “I’m not an idiot, sir. She’ll bolster my version of events if she’s questioned.”
“When she’s questioned,” I said. “Now, I’ve some work to do. Will you be all right?”
“Right as rain,” she said, with a sleepy smile that made me want to whisk her upstairs immediately. I couldn’t, not now. There would be time for that once everything was in place. Only once my work was complete would I allow myself to relax.
I watched her hurry to Eugenie, who threw open her arms at the sight of her. They embraced, and walked arm-in-arm towards the graveyard, talking.
I knew Grace meant what she said, and that she would keep her word. There wasn’t any part of me that doubted her loyalty to me, especially now.
I left the car and trudged across the gravel to the stables, hoping I could resolve my dilemma before I collapsed from exhaustion. We’d do well, for appearance’s sake, to attempt to celebrate Christmas Day. But the body...I would still have to move the body, and fast.
A notification sounded on my phone, breaking my thought process.
I snatched it from my pocket quite irritably and noticed it was an alert for a processed payment, today of all days, for a service.
The payment had to have been made last night.
I knew from the deposit amount alone that it was for a cremation, but it was the source of the payment that caught my eye. It was from the branch in the Dales.
“Exemplary service,” I murmured. “I must remember to give everyone at that branch a raise.”
If they had taken payment, then the details of the service would be in the system.
Hurrying back to the house, I made straight for the office, my heart beating wildly as I logged in and found the entry.
The woman, Mavis O’Shaugnessy, had died at home in the early hours of Christmas Eve.
A practical and stalwart woman, she wanted no frills, and no funeral.
Only for her mortal remains to be cremated, and for her ashes to be scattered in the dales, where she took her morning walks.
It was clear to me, then, what I should do.
This dear woman would have her wish granted, and I would see to the job personally after I handed the members of the Dales branch their Christmas bonus.
I only hoped her soul could forgive me.
She would be reduced to ashes with a companion.
?
It was New Years Day before I heard news of the police. I’d been granted much more time than I had anticipated, and yet still, it unnerved me.
What I didn’t expect was that it would be Dorian Gable who would arrive to give me the news. He found me in the mortuary, while Grace was in the house, preparing for her introduction to Mortuary Science, starting the very next day.
“They came to the office. Apparently he hasn’t been seen again since that night,” said Dorian. “With any luck, he’s offed himself, I told them – thug that he was.”
I smiled gently as I tightened Mr Wicks' jaw with the mortuary wire to ensure his mouth stayed closed. Eugenie had filled him in, clearly, about Tom.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “He was obsessed with poor Grace. It’s better that he’s gone – if he’s gone.”
Dorian watched me working, fascinated one moment, and a little disturbed the next. This kind of work wasn’t for the faint of heart. I could see then, clearly, why Dorian would never have been a good match for Grace. He didn’t share her darkness like I did.
“They were asking if anyone witnessed him leaving the building. I told them he was gone before the evening began, taking Grace with him. That it was you who went after them and rescued her,” said Dorian, with passion in his voice.
“I told them you’re nothing short of a hero. Eugenie said just the same.”
“They’ll be paying me a visit this afternoon, then,” I said, tying off the wire. “I’ve three more bodies to tend to, yet. No rest for the wicked, eh?”
Dorian shifted his weight from one foot to the other, pocketing his hands. I could tell there was something else, more than just the body, that was making him queasy. Another dilemma was jabbing at his conscience.
“They mentioned something else. They’re considering whether to escalate it to a murder investigation,” he said, his voice quavering slightly.
I noticed he was no longer able to look me in the eye.
“They’re not sure it was in his nature to commit suicide.
His father didn’t think so. Wasn’t the type, he said. ”
“They never are the type,” I said, shaking my head solemnly. “Until the final straw.”
Dorian nodded, nervously, trying to arrange his face into something less perturbed. As if battling his subconscious to convince himself, rather than indicating his agreement with me. Beads of sweat accumulated on his brow.
“I suppose they can’t be sure what happened to him until they find his body,” he said, finally looking up at the corpse on my table. He stared thoughtfully for a moment, and only looked away as I prepared the trocar with a bottle of cavity fluid.
“Put this on,” I told Dorian, handing him a visor with a respirator attached. I fastened mine, and then helped him with his. “Safety first,” I said, my voice muffled by the mask.
“Thank you,” he said, looking more fearful behind the mask than he did without it. He observed my trocar, and the bottle of noxious fluid, as if I held a strange animal in my hands.
“I wonder what the likelihood is of finding him now, especially if he died somewhere outside, left to decay in all weathers...” he swallowed hard, watching the sharp end of my tool glinting under the mortuary lights.
“Besides, if there’s no body, then there’s neither a suicide nor a murder to investigate,” I said, as I stabbed the sharp end of the trocar beneath Mr Wicks' sternum.
“Quite,” said Dorian, the colour draining from his face, until he was ashen.