‘Later on today, Sir, if I can arrange it. I’ve got everybody on standby and I’m meeting the son this afternoon. The coroner will give his direction today, then it’s just a matter for the ecclesiastical court. I’m hoping the chancellor will make the order without a hearing.’
‘A hearing?’
‘It’s consecrated ground.’
‘Would be, wouldn’t it. What about the post mortem?’
‘We’ll bring the body to Taunton and Roger Poland will do it straight away. It’ll cost me another curry, but it’ll be worth it.’
Chapter Ten
‘I’ve never been to Somerton before,’ said Louise, staring out of the passenger window of Dixon’s Land Rover as they crept along Pesters Lane.
‘Really,’ replied Dixon, idly. ‘What are the house prices like around here?’
‘You’re being sarcastic now. I can tell.’
‘It’s that one down there.’ Dixon was pointing to a driveway that sloped down to a bungalow, the roof level with the lane.
‘Jane said that Mrs Rosser knew Deirdre and Michael Allam, so it should be interesting.’ Louise had noticed the estate agent’s ‘For Sale’ board attached to the fence with cable ties, but must have thought better of mentioning it. That didn’t stop her sliding her phone out of her pocket and googling it, though.
Dixon glanced over at the screen as he parked the Land Rover across the drive, not bothering to turn in. ‘I’d go for five-fifty.’
‘How the . . . you checked before we came, didn’t you?’
‘Jane did.’
‘Must have a big garden out the back.’
A ramp gave wheelchair access up the steps to the front door, railings bolted to the wall and a key safe mounted on the door frame. ‘It said on the Rightmove listing there’s no chain, so my guess is she’s going into a care home.’
‘Well, she is ninety-four,’ replied Louise. ‘She’s done well to stay in her own home this long.’
Dixon rang the doorbell, at the same time peering through the frosted glass. Then a wheelchair appeared from the door on the far side of the inner hall.
‘It’s open.’ A weak voice, struggling for volume.
He pushed open the door.
‘I got Alison to leave it unlocked when I knew you were coming, dear.’
It was an electric wheelchair, mercifully; the old lady would never have had the strength to move it.
‘Mrs Rosser, I’m Detective Superintendent Dixon,’ he said, warrant card in hand.
‘Come in, come in. I know who you are.’
They followed her into the living room, Mrs Rosser expertly positioning her wheelchair next to the fire, just where an armchair would have been. ‘Let me switch that off,’ she said, reaching for the TV remote control on the table next to her.
Everything within reach; apart from the wheelchair, it was a mirror image of Deirdre Baxter’s front room. And Michael Allam’s for that matter.
‘Poor old Deirdre.’ Mrs Rosser dropped the TV remote into her lap and gave a sad smile. ‘Living in Berrow; not gone far from the old place then. Not that it’s there any more. They knocked it down and put houses on it. Lovely old building. Such memories.’
‘You’re selling up?’
‘Going into a care home near my daughter in Tavistock. Funny isn’t it, I spend my entire working life in a boarding school, and now, at the end, I’m going back to a boarding school. That’s what it feels like anyway.’
Louise was perched on the edge of the sofa, her notebook open on her knee.
‘I just hope there’s someone to talk to,’ continued Mrs Rosser. ‘You worry that everyone’s got dementia in these places.’
‘You’ve been to see it, presumably?’ asked Dixon.
‘My daughter has.’ There was resignation in the old lady’s voice – to her fate.
Dixon decided that a change of subject was called for. ‘Tell me about Deirdre Baxter.’
‘Deirdre was lovely. We worked together for . . . must be thirty-five years. Thirty certainly. Right up until St C’s closed down in 1992. She was maths and science and I was English and history. She did hockey, and I was netball. We were roughly the same age, had a lot in common, but lost touch eventually, you know how it is.’ She was rummaging for a paper handkerchief stuffed up her sleeve. ‘We met for lunch occasionally, then it was Christmas cards, then we got too old for that even. You can live too long,’ she said, dabbing the corner of her eye with the tissue.
It was a thought that had occurred to Dixon.
‘You’re still at that age when you think it’ll never happen to you. I thought that.’ She sighed. ‘Then you wake up one day and, all of a sudden, it has. Still, at least I can look back on my working life and feel nothing but happiness. Will you be able to say the same?’ She fixed Dixon with a steely glare, the fire still burning brightly in her eyes.
‘It’s not a question to which I have applied my mind.’ A rehearsed answer for batting away awkward questions, but Dixon hesitated. ‘And I dread to think what might happen if I did.’
‘You were telling us about Mrs Baxter,’ said Louise, clearly feeling that her intervention was necessary.
And it was.
