The Keeper of Lost Things(70)

The woman behind the reception desk looked up at the sound of the bell and gave Eunice a smile of genuine welcome. Pauline was a large lady, dressed in Marks & Spencer’s finest, with an air of capability and kindness. She put Eunice in mind of a brown owl. Unfortunately, the news she had to deliver was the cruelest and most shocking that Eunice could possibly hear.

“It was very small. Family only at the crematorium. The sister organized it; the one who writes those mucky books.”

It was clear from the ring of repugnance with which Pauline imbued the word “sister” that she and Portia had not exactly bonded. Eunice felt her head go into a tailspin and the floor rise up to meet her. Not long afterward she was sitting on a comfy sofa drinking hot, sweet tea with a nip of brandy and Pauline was patting her hand.

“It was the shock, love,” she said. “Your face went as white as a ghost.”

Fortified by tea, brandy, and biscuits, Eunice was made party to the whole dreadful story by a very forthcoming Pauline. Portia had wanted it done and dusted as quickly and quietly as possible.

“She was off on her book tour, you see, and she didn’t want her schedule disrupted.”

Pauline took a sip of her tea and shook her head vigorously in disapproval.

“But she’s having a proper showy-offy shebang when she gets back; a memorial service and then a burial of the ashes. She’s inviting ‘everyone who is anyone, darling,’ and the music will be provided by choirs of angels with His Holiness the pope presiding by the way she was talking. It’ll knock Princess Diana’s do into a cocked hat, apparently.”

Eunice listened in horror.

“But that wasn’t what he wanted at all,” she whispered tearfully. “He told me what he wanted. He was the love of my life.”

And now, right at the last, she was going to fail him.

Pauline was good at listening and mopping up tears. It was her job. But deep inside her sensible suit and her easy-iron blouse beat the brave heart of a maverick. Back in the day, her blond bob had been a pink Mohican and her nose still bore the tiny scar of a safety-pin piercing. She handed Eunice another tissue.

“All the boys are out at a big funeral this afternoon. I wouldn’t normally do this but . . . Follow me!”

She led Eunice through from the reception area down a corridor past the staff kitchen, the Chapel of Rest, and various other rooms to the place where the cremation remains were stored awaiting collection. From one of the shelves she took down an impressive wooden urn and checked the label.

“Here he is,” she said gently. She checked her watch. “I’m going to leave you alone with him for a bit to pay your respects. The boys won’t be back for another hour, so you won’t be disturbed.”

Less than an hour later, Eunice was sitting on a train with Bomber’s ashes in a Huntley & Palmers biscuit tin on the seat beside her. She had had to think and act fast after Pauline had left her. She found a plastic carrier bag and a biscuit tin in the little kitchen where Pauline had made tea. She emptied the biscuits into the bag and then tipped Bomber into the biscuit tin. She refilled the urn with the biscuits, but it was too light. Frantically searching for additional ballast, she found a box of decorative gravel samples in one of the other rooms. She threw in a couple of large handfuls and then screwed the lid back on as tightly as she could and returned the urn to its shelf. As she made her way out through the reception area clutching the biscuit tin, Pauline didn’t look up from her desk, but raised her thumbs to Eunice in a good-luck gesture. She hadn’t seen a thing.

As the guard blew his whistle, Eunice patted the tin affectionately and smiled.

“Brighton it is.”

Laura was astonished. She picked up the tin and gave it a gentle shake. It was certainly heavy.

“Don’t shake it!” said Sunshine. “You’ll wake him up.” And then she giggled at her own joke.

Laura was wondering what else might be lurking in the dark corners of the study.

“No wonder this place is haunted,” she said to Sunshine.

After lunch, Laura helped her to post the details on the website, but this was one thing she was fairly certain no one would come forward to claim.

That evening, Freddy, Laura, Sunshine, Carrot, Stella, and Stan had a celebratory dinner in the garden of the Moon Is Missing, to mark the birthday of the website. Sunshine was full of stories about all the things that were currently posted, but most especially about the biscuit tin.

“It’s certainly a queer thing to lose,” said Stella, tucking into her crumb-dusted, sautéed crayfish tails with hand-cut chips. “And why on earth would you put your loved one in a biscuit tin?”

“Perhaps that’s just it, love,” said Stan. “Perhaps the bloke in the tin wasn’t particularly loved and someone was just trying to get rid of him.”

“Perhaps it’s not human remains at all. Maybe it just the sweepings out of somebody’s fireplace. That’s exactly what it looks like,” said Freddy, taking a long swig of his ice-cold beer.

Sunshine was about to remonstrate with him, when he winked at her and she realized he was only joking.

“It is a dead person and he was the love of her life and she will come and get him,” she replied defiantly.

“Okay,” he replied. “Let’s have a bet. What do you want to bet me that someone will come and get the biscuit tin?”