Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
She’d wanted to wait for Matt to get home before breaking the news to the children, but The Old Tennis Court was still a hive of activity when she went to pick them up from their buses – as well as the police car and ambulance, there was now the unmistakeable glossy bulk of a hearse.
So she told them in the car, as gently as she could, without mentioning that it was suicide.
‘How did it happen? Did he have a heart attack?’ Will asked.
‘I don’t think they know yet,’ she lied.
She suspected the children would find out in the end, but she instinctively wanted to protect them from the truth as long as possible.
Tilly was already in tears. Perhaps more worryingly, Will wasn’t – he was just at that age where he wasn’t sure if crying was unmanly.
She suspected it might happen later, when he was alone.
He’d adored Paul. It wasn’t just the shooting lessons or the eagerness to hear about dens and forts and walks with Biddy.
Paul’s larger-than-life bonhomie had acted as a foil for Will’s pre-teen shyness.
For her part, she kept getting flashbacks to the carnage behind Paul’s head, the awful dripping of bloody matter down the wet-room wall.
It was a huge relief when Matt arrived and she could cry over him.
He, too, was devastated. He’d never taken Paul out for that bury-the-hatchet drink – he’d been too busy with work – and felt guilty as a result.
‘I wish now I’d taken his advice about the French, too,’ he added. ‘Not that I could have changed the deal by then, but I could have been firmer with them at the beginning.’
Already, he said, flowers and cards were being left outside The Old Tennis Court’s front gate.
Presumably Rosemary was taking them in, since there were none the next morning when Kate took Will and Tilly to the bus.
But when she collected the children that afternoon, there were masses – bouquets, cards, even some teddy bears and bottles of Pol Roger: a spontaneous outpouring of local compassion.
She wondered how quickly Jamie and Tessa would get there.
Soon, she assumed – if Jamie was currently jobless, presumably there’d been nothing stopping him from jumping on a plane as soon as he heard, while Tessa, she recalled Rosemary saying, was in Wales, so even nearer.
For that reason, she didn’t go back to The Old Tennis Court to see how Rosemary was.
Instead, she bought flowers and a card. Thinking of you at this awful time.
I won’t pester you, but please, PLEASE, if you would like a cup of tea or a glass of wine or just to talk, I’m around.
She used the gate in the hedge, leaving the flowers and card beside Rosemary’s door.
As she walked back to Trade Cottage, the ignominious thought crossed her mind that, once the dust had settled, things might actually be easier now.
With Rosemary grieving – lonely, even – she might be more approachable than when Paul, energetic chair of the Pelham Preservation Committee, had been alive.
Kate tried to think back. What had Rosemary’s involvement in all that discord been?
She’d been at the planning committee meeting, true, but she hadn’t spoken.
There’d been that ‘fucking barbarians’ comment, and the subsequent apology, but, now Kate thought about it, all the excitement about Jamie relocating to the UK, and the request to buy back Trade Cottage, had been led by Paul – Rosemary’s reaction had actually been quite muted.
So perhaps this death would be . . . not a good thing, of course not that, but it might reset the relationship between Trade Cottage and The Old Tennis Court somewhat.
An even more ignominious thought occurred to her: Jamie wouldn’t be able to dress up coming back to the UK as a selfless act for the benefit of his terminally ill father now.
Was it too much to hope he might even decide to stay where he was, and look for a job in the US instead?
God, she hoped so. But first, of course, there would be the funeral, probably delayed a little by the need for a post-mortem.
He’d certainly want to stay in Pelham until after that.
At the thought of him being in her vicinity once again, she felt a shudder of dislike.
She must have another look for that key.
She’d given a statement to the female police officer on the day of Paul’s suicide, and was visited a few days later by a man in plain clothes who introduced himself as Oliver Wray, the coroner’s officer.
He was equivalent in rank to a detective sergeant, he told her, and was responsible for gathering information for the inquest.
‘There is one thing I want to check,’ he added. ‘You told the officer you heard a shot over the noise of machinery in your garden?’
‘That’s right. I was painting, and the window was open because of the fumes.’
‘And it was definitely a single report you heard? One bang, rather than two?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Why?’
‘The shotgun in question has two barrels and two triggers – it’s what’s called a side-by-side,’ he explained.
‘Both barrels were fired. The reason I’m checking is that one of the men working on your roof also remembers hearing the gun.
But he says that, to the best of his recollection, there were two bangs, in quick succession. ’
‘But that’s . . .’ She stopped, rendered speechless by the implication. Then she breathed a sigh of relief. ‘He heard the echo.’
‘The echo?’ Oliver Wray repeated.
‘Yes. Acoustically, the woods at the bottom of the garden act like a cliff – any really loud noise bounces back a moment later. We’ve noticed it with gas guns, the shoot, even party noise from The Old Tennis Court.’
‘And you definitely heard the echo when the gun was fired?’ Oliver Wray asked.
‘I’m certain of it. I remember the birds coming out of the trees.’
‘It would have been a doubly loud bang, of course, even though it was just a .410,’ he said thoughtfully, making a note. ‘So that explanation does make sense.’
For reasons that weren’t entirely clear to her, the police asked that the builders hold off work for two more weeks.
With time on her hands, she started walking again.
On one of these excursions, she saw a notice in the window of the village shop: The funeral of Paul Finch will be held at noon on Tuesday 16th and afterwards at the Pelham Arms. Due to anticipated high numbers, it will also be streamed online.
Perhaps because funerals were in her thoughts, on her way back she went into the church to see if there was a book of condolence.
As she came in, she heard someone crying.
She looked around. At the back, sitting in one of the pews, was Rosemary.
She’d clearly been weeping for some time – her face was wet, and she was rocking, her shoulders heaving.
‘Oh, Rosemary!’ Kate exclaimed. Hurrying over, she slid into the pew alongside her. ‘I’m so, so sorry. This must be awful for you.’
She put her arm around Rosemary’s shoulder.
The older woman turned and buried her face in Kate’s jumper, bawling without restraint.
Like a child, Kate thought – it was like having Tilly or Will in her arms, making the kind of unfettered, full-throttle, unselfconscious wailing that adults almost never did: mucussy, anguished, full of horror.
Kate pressed her hand against Rosemary’s tiny back and rocked her, making motherly sounds in an instinctive effort to soothe her.
Eventually, the other woman struggled upright and stared bleakly at the altar.
‘I only came to choose hymns.’ She gestured at an open hymn book on the ledge in front of her. ‘He’d have hated some awful dirge in a key no one could manage. Jolly sing-songs were more his thing.’
‘It must be so overwhelming,’ Kate ventured. ‘But it’s good you can let your emotions out.’
Rosemary shot her an angry glance. ‘Oh, I wasn’t crying for him.’
‘Really?’ Kate said, surprised. ‘What, then?’
‘I was crying for Tray,’ Rosemary said bleakly. ‘If he’d only done this a year ago, I wouldn’t have had to move out.’