Sweet Poison by Douglas Clark

Author:Douglas Clark [Clark, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-09-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

As Green had forecast, the funeral was a quiet one. The only mourners were Compton and Syme from the staff of Throscum House, Lorna Thoresby and her husband, Becky Honingham and her husband, a rather fat, well-fed man in a black jacket and pin-stripe trousers, Masters and Green, accompanied by Superintendent Mundy, who had slipped into their pew just before the vicar preceded the coffin down the aisle.

For Masters the whole affair proved a dichotomy of interest. Subconsciously he paid attention to the service. ‘I am the resurrection and the life . . . man that is born of woman . . . commit our sister, Fay Marion . . . earth to earth.’ Consciously he was scanning faces, as well as he could from his chosen position in a transept pew. Apart from the fat man’s clothes and the black ties of the men, there was no sign of mourning wear. The two women kept their faces decently lowered. The man Masters took to be Thoresby appeared unfamiliar with both the layout of a church and the service. He looked about him, much the same as a sightseer trapped against his will in a cathedral he is visiting by an inconveniently timed saying of Evensong. Masters watched him carefully. Cadaverous. Too tall for his width, balding, a bit smug, considerably older than his wife and—the thought came to Masters for no reason he could think of—looking as if he’d be a bore at parties. He certainly evinced no signs of distress.

Honingham appeared fully versed in church behaviour. He stood when he should, and knelt without the momentary hesitation that shows when a person is not a churchgoer. He was clearly younger than Thoresby, with a full head of fair hair and a healthy, weather-beaten complexion. Masters could make no surmises about him except that he looked to be an ordinary, pleasant man, affected slightly by the more emotive parts of the service.

Compton appeared to have an awareness of the solemnity of the occasion. He wore that shattered look men often assume at funerals. And though his grief appeared genuine it was quiet and controlled compared with that of Ernie Syme, who wore a white polo-necked shirt under a burgundy corduroy jacket. Syme gestured. When he went on his knees his hands fluttered to his brow. When he stood they looped down as gently as those of a ballerina doing her dying swan act. He gazed on the coffin mournfully. Masters saw he was carrying a bunch of violets—probably for dropping into the grave.

He was right. The violets went down with the remains of Fay Partridge. As they turned from the grave Green said: ‘No luck. No bosom pal who could have given her those pills.’

Mundy said—and Masters could have kicked him because of it—‘Mingling with the crowd in the hopes?’

‘Crowd?’ Green sounded scornful: as if to imply that he had been affronted by the simplicity of the ceremony: as if to indicate that if he’d been in charge

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