The congregation was four-strong and he knew them all. The young woman from the circus wintergrounds, presumably Joe Smith’s daughter, was in the back row. She ducked her blonde bobbed head when she recognized Dryden. The mayoress, Liz Barnett, was in the front row. Having found her ‘romantic’ link with Tommy Shepherd in the file Dryden wasn’t surprised, but he admired her loyalty. A lot was still at stake even if the passage of time had lessened the risk to reputations. Dryden had spotted the civic limo outside with the chauffeur asleep under his peaked cap. She sat still, and rigidly upright, and didn’t turn when Dryden closed the chapel door. The last time he’d seen her she’d been calmly finishing her drink at the Maltings while her husband had been rushed off to the Tower. He’d checked on Roy’s condition on Saturday afternoon. The mayor had discharged himself and refused a twenty-four-hour heart monitor.
Former Deputy Chief Constable Bryan Stubbs was in the second row. He turned to see Dryden slip into the third row behind him. He was welcomed with a weak smile. No guilt, no embarrassment, no discomfort. Stubbs Senior returned to the Book of Common Prayer.
Beside him sat Dr John Mitchell, the district coroner. Dryden had seen Mitchell at funeral services before; he seemed to make a point of attending if there was any chance nobody else would. For a coroner Mitchell had the wrong face: he always looked like he’d been treated to a good joke and the punchline was just about to be delivered. Jovial expectancy. Perhaps it was job satisfaction. Mitchell’s head was back and he was studying the Victorian painted ceiling – a sickly arrangement of blue sky, stars, and fat angels. Dryden caught a thin whiff of whisky on the air. Mitchell and Stubbs clearly had something in common. It was a good job it wasn’t a Catholic service, one candle and they could have both gone up in a ball of fire.
With only a mild shock, Dryden realized he was wrong, he knew five people at the funeral of Tommy Shepherd. The presiding priest was the Reverend John Tavanter of Little Ouse. He stood from seated silent prayer and his dove-grey eyes swept the congregation. There was no need to wait for silence. He made a brief fuss with his simple vestments and placed a modest wreath on the coffin which stood in plain pine on a draped trestle. A brass plate had been engraved Thomas Shepherd: born 1947, disappeared 1966.
The service was like Tommy Shepherd’s life: short and bleak. The congregation seemed uninterested, each lost in a private world of memories. Dr Mitchell stuck with the ceiling. There may have been some snuffling in the back row, but everyone had the good British manners not to look. Otherwise there wasn’t a wet eye in the house.
Dryden sneaked a miniature pork pie into his mouth. He thought, not for the first time, that religious ceremonies brought out the worst in him. It was one of the few good things about a Catholic education. Finally the great moment of comedy arrived. Dryden could never watch the end of a cremation without wondering how everybody else kept a straight face. The Reverend Tavanter pressed a button by the pulpit lectern and the coffin began to slide electronically towards some parted purple curtains. The music was insipid, pastoral and piped. When it ended there was a silence in which the sound of a gas furnace was distinctly audible. Dryden suppressed the image of some superannuated grave-digger frantically ramming 10p bits into a gas meter. Then the music returned, upbeat, hopeful and entirely inappropriate. It was worth making a will, thought Dryden, just to make sure that it didn’t end like this.
Tavanter, hands together around his slightly rounded frame, moved towards the tiny congregation, but almost everyone was too quick for him. The woman from the travellers’ site bolted for the door and the mayoress was halfway down the aisle before he’d got to the front row. She had failed to dim her usual patchwork of colours for the funeral – save for a jet brooch at her neck. She gave Dryden a look which mixed a lot of anger with just a little self-pity.
But Bryan Stubbs and Dr Mitchell were slowed down by infirmity and alcohol. Tavanter helped them into the aisle and they processed on, arm-in-arm, like old comrades. Swaying like a couple of stage drunks in an end-of-the-pier-show they weaved towards the door. The coroner gave Dryden a nod. Stubbs paused, effortlessly guiding Dr Mitchell on towards the west end, as though he’d launched a toy sailing boat across a pond. He met Dryden’s question before it was asked.
‘Just tying up loose ends.’
‘You take a very personal interest in your old cases.’
Tavanter joined them. Up close he looked ill, as if he’d lost a lot of weight in a very short space of time. His skin was too big for him.