any confrontations.
Outside the church, Sally, her high heels sinking in the sod, traced a zigzag path across the lawn, tearing out chunks of the soft spring grass in her advance on the hall.
Fourteen
With her head high, Hollis concentrated on her breathing while the pallbearers removed Paul’s casket. He was to be cremated after the service and his ashes interred later.
Accompanied by quiet organ music, she marched down the long aisle. Sally, her arms pinioned by the two police officers, hissed at her as she passed. In the church hall, Marguerite hurried to her side. Together they wove their way through the throng who’d followed them.
Sally, along with the two officers, followed them into the hall. When Sally arrived, the crowd drew away from Marguerite and Hollis and, almost as if two circles had been drawn on the floor, left them isolated in their little circle and Sally in hers. Like spectators at a tennis match, the crowd waited for the first serve and volley.
Time to maintain rigid control. Their handlers always instructed politicians to keep their hands quiet. Clamped behind like Prince Phillip’s or locked in front? Hollis opted for the latter. “Wasn’t that a scene?” she whispered to Marguerite.
“When we planned a baroque spectacle, we obviously should have consulted Sally. What a finale!”
“And, if she has her way, it may not be over. I’m not staying here waiting for her to move—I’m going over to speak to the UCW women.” Conscious of the many eyes watching her, Hollis forced her raised rigid shoulders to relax and strolled across the room to a long table, where serried ranks of cups and saucers almost covered the white cloth. Two women presided over the service of tea and coffee.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done,” she said and followed up with inconsequential small talk.
Once the crowd saw her carrying on as if nothing untoward had happened, they approached in ones and twos. She accepted a flowing stream of condolences. Sally, flanked by Detective Simpson’s sidekick, hunkered on the far side of the room, glowering at everyone.
The crowd ebbed and flowed around the three long tables laden with egg, ham and tuna sandwiches, cut-up vegetables, pickles and a variety of cookies and squares. Instead of the irrelevancies usually heard at funerals (the opening of bass season, the number of papers a colleague had marked, the problems of talking to teenagers), Hollis overheard snatches of whispered conversations about “that woman” and “what the police have found”.
Eventually, having lunched on the UCW’s sandwiches and cakes, the numbers thinned. Sally, who hadn’t moved from her chair, lurched to her feet.
“Hey, Ms Detective,” she shouted, “you’ll be happy to hear I’m getting the hell out of here. And you, Mrs. Smugface, you haven’t heard the end of me. You’re not going to get away with murder even if you do have the cops in your pocket.” A lascivious grin curled the corners of her lips but didn’t reach her eyes, “A dyke, you’re a fucking dyke. No wonder your marriage was dead.”
She careened out of the hall.
Thank God she’d gone. Hollis’s feet hurt. The necessity of maintaining a brave front had ended. It was time to go home.
What an awful day. Sally had really crossed the line—she’d been totally out of control. Hollis should hate her; instead, she pitied her. And Sally was right. Paul had been as over-the-top as she was.
They’d wanted a memorable funeral. After Sally’s performance, no one would forget it any time soon. She’d made it “an affair to remember”. Great choice of phrase. The way Sally told it, that’s exactly what they’d had—an affair to remember.
Hollis took a final sip of tea and headed for one of the ladies carrying a tray and collecting cups and saucers. Before she reached her, Elsie, a mainstay of the UCW, cut her off and removed the cup from her hand. “I’ll take that, dear.” She held Hollis’s free hand for a moment. “You go home. I’ll be over in a bit to make sure you’re okay.”
The walk over the lawn from the church to the manse took great effort. Every bone in her body weighed a ton or more. The wound in her thigh throbbed. All she could think about was reaching the manse, letting MacTee out, changing into a track suit, and snuggling her aching feet into fleece-lined moccasins. As she groped in her handbag for her key, she almost felt the soothing warmth of those slippers. Enveloped in anticipation, it took a few seconds for her to register the half-open door.
Elsie would have locked it when she came over to the funeral. Hollis had just spoken to her in the hall—she hadn’t had time to come over and unlock it. Someone had—the door was open. Time to be smart. This wasn’t Jane Eyre and she wasn’t blundering inside searching for trouble. Simpson would still be in the hall.
Even as her mind processed the information, her tired feet took her down the steps and back to the hall, where she hovered in the doorway searching for Simpson, who, she soon realized, wasn’t there.
In the rapidly emptying room, where the custodian noisily collected and piled the steel and plywood chairs, Jim Brown and Knox Porter, impervious to the end of activities, continued an animated conversation. The clean-up crew swirled around them while Jim jotted things down in a small notebook as Knox spoke.
When she approached them, both men stopped talking and waited expectantly.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. I think an intruder is in or has been in the manse. Would either or both of you come over with me?”
Jim Brown bent protectively toward her. “Hollis, of course we will. Poor woman. Isn’t this the last straw? But, let’s not be alarmist. There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation. Wait a second until I’ve told Yolanda where I’m going.”
Moments later, he was back. “Yolanda wondered if she should come, but I didn’t think you wanted an expedition. She’s calling the police.”
At the manse, the door, slightly ajar when she’d left, was wide open. Hearing a noise inside, Hollis tensed apprehensively until the noisemaker, MacTee, stuck his nose around the corner before he trotted out with tail wagging. Relieved, she laughed more than the situation warranted and went inside to tour the house.
Jim, leading their parade, moved to the hall and stopped abruptly. Knox and Hollis, following closely behind, braked and gawked over his shoulder at Paul’s downstairs study.
Every desk and file drawer had been emptied and tossed aside. Drifts of paper and debris littered the floor.
Not again. Hollis registered inconsequential details. Amid the wreckage, the paper clips remained tidily secured in the desk’s brass inkwell. The sight of the stew of papers and files enraged her. She stamped her foot, a gesture she believed existed exclusively in Victorian novels.
“This is the last straw. I can’t believe this mess. Don’t touch anything; we’re leaving.”
Rhona, driving to the station, received a message telling her there had been another break-in at the manse. Before she screeched into a U-turn and floored the accelerator, she ordered the ident team to the scene. Braking sharply in the driveway, she saw Hollis, still dressed in her funeral outfit, slumped on the porch with her arm wrapped around MacTee, who leaned
