Jeffrey had no time for Mr and Mrs Whitehead and never really spoke to them. As far as he was concerned, they were Londoners and had no place in Saxby-on-Avon. The village didn’t need an antique shop anyway. It was a waste of space. You could take an old mirror, an old clock or whatever, put a stupid price on it and call it an antique but it was still only junk and more fool those that thought otherwise. The fact was, he didn’t trust either of them. It seemed to him that they were pretending to be something they weren’t – just like the stuff they were selling. And why had they come to the funeral? They’d hardly known Mary Blakiston and certainly she’d never have had anything good to say about them.
Dr Redwing and her husband had every right to be here, on the other hand. She was the one who had found the body – along with Brent, the groundsman, who had also turned up and who was standing with his cap in hand, his curly hair tumbling over his forehead. Emilia Redwing had always lived in the village. Her father, Dr Rennard, had worked in the surgery before her. He hadn’t come today but that wasn’t surprising. He was in a residential home in Trowbridge and the word was that he himself wasn’t much longer for this world. Jeffrey had never had any serious illness but he had been treated by both of them. Old Doctor Rennard had actually delivered his son – a midwife as well as a doctor back in the days when it was quite common for one man to be both. And what of Arthur Redwing? He was listening to the vicar with a look that teetered on the edge of impatience and boredom. He was a handsome man. There was no doubt of that. An artist, not that he’d made any money out of it. Hadn’t he done a portrait of Lady Pye a while ago, up at the hall? Anyway, the two of them were the sort of people you could rely on. Not like the Whiteheads. It was hard to imagine the village without them.
The same was true of Clarissa Pye. She had certainly dolled herself up for the funeral and looked a little ridiculous in that hat with its three feathers. What did she think this was? A cocktail party? Even so, Jeffrey couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. It must be hard enough living here with her brother lording it over her. It was all right for him, swanning around in his Jag while his sister taught at the village school, and she hadn’t been a bad teacher by all accounts, even if the children had never much liked her. It was probably because they sensed her unhappiness. Clarissa was all on her own. She had never married. She seemed to spend half her life in the church. He was always seeing her coming in and out. To be fair to her, she often stopped to have a chat with him but then of course she didn’t really have anyone to talk to unless she was on her knees. She looked a bit like her brother, Sir Magnus, although not in a way that did her any favours. At least she’d had the decency to turn up.
Somebody sneezed. It was Brent. Jeffrey watched him as he wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve then glanced from side to side. He had no idea how to behave himself in a crowd but that was hardly surprising. Brent spent most of his life in his own company and, unlike Clarissa, he preferred it that way. He worked long hours up at the hall and sometimes, after he finished, he might be found having a drink or supper at the Ferryman, where he had his own table and his own chair, looking out over the main road. But he never socialised. He had no conversation. Sometimes Jeffrey wondered what went on in his head.
He ignored the other mourners and settled on the boy who had arrived with the hearse, Robert Blakiston. Jeffrey felt sorry for him too: it was his mother they were burying, even if the two of them had been at it hammer and tongs. It was well known in the village how the two of them didn’t get on and he’d actually heard with his own ears what Robert had said to her outside the Queen’s Arms, just the evening before the accident had happened. ‘I wish you’d drop dead. Give me a bit of peace!’ Well, he wasn’t to be blamed for that. People often say things they regret and nobody could have known what was going to happen. The boy was certainly looking miserable enough as he stood there, next to the neat, pretty girl who worked at the doctor’s surgery. Everyone in the village knew that they were courting and the two of them were very well suited. She was obviously worried about him. Jeffrey could see it in her face and the way she hung on to his arm.
‘She was part of the village. Although we are here today to mourn her departure, we should remember what she left behind …’
The vicar was coming to the end of his address. He was on the last page. Jeffrey looked round and saw Adam entering the cemetery from the footpath at the far end. He was a good boy. You could always rely on him to turn up at exactly the right moment.
And here was something rather strange. One of the mourners was already leaving even though the vicar was still speaking. Jeffrey hadn’t noticed him standing at the very back of the crowd, separate from them. He was a middle-aged man dressed in a dark coat with a black hat. A Fedora. Jeffrey had only glimpsed his face but thought it familiar. He had sunken cheeks and a beak-like nose. Where had he seen him before? Well, it was too late. He was already out of the main gate, making his way towards the village square.
Something made Jeffrey look up. The stranger had passed beneath a large elm tree that grew on the edge of the cemetery and something had moved, sitting on one of the branches. It was a magpie. And it wasn’t alone. Looking a second time, Jeffrey saw that the tree was full of them. How many were there? It was difficult to see with the thick leaves obscuring them but in the end he counted seven and that put him in mind of the old nursery rhyme he had learned as a child.
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told.
Well, wasn’t that the strangest thing? A whole crowd of magpies in one tree, as if they had gathered here for the funeral. But then Adam arrived, the vicar finished his address, the mourners began to leave and the next time Jeffrey looked up, they had gone.
TWO
Joy
1
The doctor did not need to speak. His face, the silence in the room, the X-rays and test results spread across his desk said it all. The two men sat facing each other in the smartly furnished office at the bottom end of Harley Street and knew that they had reached the final act of a drama that had been played out many times before. Six weeks ago, they hadn’t even known each other. Now they were united in the most intimate way of all. One had given the news. The other had received it. Neither of them allowed very much emotion to show in their face. It was part of the procedure, a gentlemen’s agreement, that they should do their best to conceal it.
‘May I ask, Dr Benson, how long would you say I have remaining?’ Atticus Pünd asked.
‘It’s not easy to be precise,’ the doctor replied. ‘I’m afraid the tumour is very advanced. Had we been able to spot it earlier, there’s a small chance that we might have operated. As it is …’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘There is no need to be.’ Pünd spoke the perfect, studied English of the cultivated foreigner, enunciating every syllable as if to apologise for his German accent. ‘I am sixty-five years old. I have had a long life and I will say that in many respects it has been a good one. I had expected to die on many occasions before now. You might even say that death has been a companion of mine, always walking two steps behind. Well, now he has caught up.’ He spread his hands and managed to smile. ‘We are old acquaintances, he and I, and he gives me no reason to be afraid. However, it will be necessary for me to arrange my affairs, to put them in order. It would help me to know, therefore, in general terms … are we speaking weeks or months?’