The Word Is Murder(18)

‘You want mahogany, you pay for mahogany!’

I have no idea whether my father was buried in mahogany or plywood and frankly I don’t care. The fury of the undertaker and the words he spoke have echoed in my memory for almost forty years. They have made me determined that my own funeral will be short, cheap and non-denominational. And they were still with me as I followed Hawthorne into Cornwallis and Sons, closing the door (silently) behind me.

The funeral parlour was very much as I have described it, smaller and less threatening than the office I remembered from my past – but this time, of course, there was no personal connection for me. Hawthorne introduced himself to Irene Laws, who took us directly to Robert Cornwallis’s office at the end of the corridor, the same room where Diana Cowper had made the arrangements that she would now be requiring. This time, Irene stayed, planting herself firmly in a chair as if Diana Cowper’s untimely death had been her fault and she expected to be interrogated along with her cousin. Again, I found myself wondering what it must be like to work there, sitting in a room with those miniature urns, a constant reminder that everything you were and everything you’d achieved would one day fit inside. Hawthorne hadn’t introduced me, by the way. He never did. They must have assumed I was his assistant.

‘I have already spoken to the police,’ Cornwallis began.

‘Yes, sir.’ It was interesting that Hawthorne called him ‘sir’. I saw at once that he was quite different when he was dealing with witnesses or suspects or anyone who might help him with his investigation. He came across as ordinary, even obsequious. The more I got to know him, the more I saw that he did this quite deliberately. People lowered their guard when they were talking to him. They had no idea what sort of man he was, that he was only waiting for the right moment to dissect them. For him, politeness was a surgical mask, something he slipped on before he took out his scalpel. ‘Because of the unusual nature of the crime, I’ve been asked to provide independent support to the investigation. I’m very sorry to take up your time …’ He gave the funeral director a crocodile smile. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘Well, actually …’

It was too late. The cigarette was already between his lips, the lighter sparking. Mrs Laws frowned and slid a pewter saucer onto the desk for him to use as an ashtray. I noticed an engraving around the side: Awarded to Robert Daniel Cornwallis, Undertaker of the Year 2008.

‘Would you mind going over your meeting with Mrs Cowper once again, starting from the beginning?’

Robert Cornwallis did exactly that, speaking in the same measured tone that he must have used many times in his years spent dealing with the bereaved. Hawthorne may have criticised some of the embellishments which I added in my first chapter but what he told us corresponded more or less exactly to what I had written. Mrs Cowper had been reasonable, business-like and precise. She had arrived without an appointment and she had left once everything had been agreed.

In retrospect, I may have been a little unfair to Robert Cornwallis. I described him as crumpled and mournful but it may be that I was confusing the man with his profession, and this time I was struck by how very ordinary he was. Take away the corpses, the embalming fluids, the interments and the tears and I’m sure he’d be perfectly pleasant, someone you’d be happy to chat to if you met him at a party. It would just be better not to ask him what he did.

‘How long was Mrs Cowper with you?’ Hawthorne asked.

It was as if Irene Laws had been waiting for the question. ‘She was here for just over fifty minutes,’ she replied with the clipped exactitude of a speaking clock.

‘I was going to say an hour,’ Cornwallis agreed. ‘We went over all the arrangements very carefully. And the prices.’

‘How much was she going to pay you?’

‘Irene can provide you with a complete breakdown. She already had a plot in Brompton Cemetery, which saved a considerable amount of money. The price of a resting place in London has increased greatly over the years, in the same way as property. The final figure, including the Church of England burial fee and the gravedigger, was three thousand pounds.’

‘Three thousand, one hundred and seventy,’ Miss Laws corrected him.

‘Did she pay with a credit card?’

‘Yes. She paid in full although I assured her that there was a ten-day cooling-off period should she have second thoughts. In that respect, we’re rather similar to double-glazing salesmen.’ This was his little joke. He smiled. Irene Laws frowned.

‘What do you do with that money?’ I asked. ‘I mean, if she hadn’t died …’

‘We would have placed it in escrow. We belong to a trust known as the Golden Charter which takes care of payments and also, of course, calculates for inflation.’ Somewhere in the back of my mind it had occurred to me that the funeral parlour might have welcomed Mrs Cowper’s death because they would be the first to profit from it, providing the funeral. But if she had already paid, the very reverse was true. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned it.

Even so, Hawthorne threw an angry glance at me, letting me know that my contribution had annoyed him. ‘What sort of mood would you say she was in?’ he asked, changing the subject completely.

‘The same mood as anyone who comes here,’ Cornwallis replied. ‘She was a little uncomfortable, at least to begin with. We have a great reticence, talking about death, in this country. I always say it’s a shame we don’t adopt the practice of the Swiss, who invented what they call the Café Mortel, an opportunity to discuss one’s mortality over tea and cake.’