First, a bit of news: Debt of Honour has sprouted a five-star rating, for which I’m hugely grateful. If you’re curious about my most recent book, you can find it here.
And now I’m going to share Untouchable, in three fairly long parts. Here’s part one.
Rebecca Falstaff adjusted the rest slightly, so the young woman’s neck was supported rather than the back of her head, then brushed her hair out. As she gathered the long, soft, chocolate-coloured strands together, she glanced at the mirror she’d positioned above the table the woman lay on and the pictures – one taken from the front, one from the rear – that she’d attached to it, and started to wind her hair into a French pleat.
‘She was so young,’ she said.
‘Just seventeen. Such a tragedy.’ Matthew Goodsir, Rebecca’s father, was busy adding the finishing touches to the face of an elderly man before he was seen by his relatives one last time.
Rebecca threaded pearls onto a wire and wove them into the young woman’s hair, then checked the picture again. ‘Glenda’s mother said being bridesmaid for her sister was the happiest day of her life.’ She added hair combs, also decorated with pearls, then sat back. ‘There, I’m finished. She’s a bridesmaid once more.’
Matthew walked over to the table the young woman lay on. Her make-up was flawless and her hair perfect. ‘She looks beautiful,’ he said. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job.’
‘She just needs her dress on now and we can get her into her coffin and take her to the chapel of rest. The family are coming in this evening.’
Matthew checked the clock on the wall. ‘Half past two. We should have time to see to that before the children get home from school.’
Rebecca’s children, eight-year-old Grace and ten-year-old Peter, were due home around four. The three of them had moved in with Matthew eighteen months earlier, following the deaths of Rebecca’s husband and eldest daughter, and Matthew’s wife, the family drawing closer together in the face of the tragedy that had befallen them.
Rebecca pressed a button on the arm of her wheelchair and an electric motor whirred into life. She guided the chair over to the table Matthew had been working at. ‘You’ve done a fine job with Mr Arnold. He looks better than when he was alive.’
Matthew walked back over. ‘It’s not so long since Freddie looked like this in life,’ he said. ‘The cancer … it was quick and cruel.’
‘Life is so unpredictable.’ Rebecca paused, and her father knew she was thinking about events in her own life, events that had led to her being in a wheelchair. He squeezed her shoulder, and she placed her hand on top of his. After a moment she sighed. ‘Well, we’d best get on. Will you fetch Glenda’s dress, please?’
‘Of course,’ said Matthew.
Later that day, as the early evening sky turned violet and the light fled from the heavens, Matthew escorted Glenda Marsh’s family into the chapel of rest. Glenda lay in her casket – pink, studded with rhinestones and lined with pale pink silk – looking like a sleeping princess.
‘She looks so lovely and peaceful,’ said her father. ‘It’s almost like she’s going to wake up any minute.’
Mrs Marsh clutched Matthew’s hands. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you.’
Matthew returned the pressure, saying nothing. This was their time, their opportunity to say a private farewell to their precious daughter. There’d be a public farewell later in the week, at the funeral, but for now the family was together once again.
Glenda’s sister, Monica, stood at the side of the coffin. She reached out and stroked her sister’s face, as tears streamed down her own. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘One time she tried a pill, just one time …’
Monica’s husband pulled his new wife to him and comforted her. ‘She was unlucky,’ he said.
‘I’ll leave you to say your goodbyes,’ said Matthew, as Mrs Marsh finally relinquished her grip on him. ‘Take as long as you like; I’ll just be next door.’
Over the next few days a stream of people, many of them the same age as Glenda, came to pay their respects. For many it was their first brush with death, their first clear glimpse of their own mortality. It left them shocked and vulnerable, unable to process the experience, or articulate it other than through tears and the urge to leave flowers, teddy bears, cards, candles and poems at the spot on the roadside where Glenda had collapsed and then died, alone.
It had happened a week earlier. A group of teenagers had been at a house party. Glenda had taken a pill that she expected would make her feel invincible, but it had made her feel peculiar instead and she had decided to go home. She left without telling anyone and by the time she was missed, it was too late. She was spotted, lying crumpled at the side of the road, by a postman heading into work for the early shift. He pulled over then called for help, even though he could see his call was pointless.
Fewer people came to see Frederick Arnold – his brother, some friends from the local pub – but he, too, had been loved and would be missed.
Frederick Arnold passed in a hospice, kind hands and words the last he knew.
Mr Arnold’s funeral was a run of the mill affair, attended by the brother and friends who had paid their respects at the funeral home, plus a cousin, who had made the journey north for the occasion. The brief service at the crematorium was sad, but there were years of memories to look back on, laughter and joy to be found amidst the tears, and people consoled themselves with the thought that Freddie and his late wife, Rita, would be reunited.
On the day of Glenda’s funeral, Matthew walked in front of the hearse down the road the parents lived in. He was dressed in formal attire – a tail coat, gloves, top hat – and he walked slowly, eyes cast down, hands clasped in front. The curtains at the windows were drawn as a mark of respect, and the streets outside the church were crowded when they got there. People flooded in behind the coffin, tears already flowing, and there was an even bigger crowd at the crematorium. The death of the young quite rightly moved people enormously.
That evening Matthew met his old friend, Conrad Pike, for a drink.
‘It’s been a difficult day,’ Matthew confessed, as they sipped the froth from pints of beer. ‘The funeral of such a young person … it takes its toll.’
Conrad shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you can do it. Why do you?’
‘Someone must, and it falls to me. My destiny. I think of it as an honour and a privilege to care for the dead, to bring some small comfort to the living, even if at times it can be hard to bear.’
Conrad set his pint down on the table. ‘You spend so much time with the dead. Don’t you get scared?’
‘Scared?’ Matthew shook his head. ‘No, no, I don’t fear them. As you well know, my friend, it’s not the dead that hurt you.’
Conrad was a police officer of thirty years’ standing. He nodded his head slowly, acknowledging the truth of that.
‘Besides,’ Matthew added, ‘you’ve seen many a body yourself in your time. Do they scare you?’
‘They did, at first. Well, not so much scared me as horrified or unnerved me. The first one was a fisherman who’d been swept off the pier. He shouldn’t have been on there; the gates were closed because of the weather, but he’d clambered over the barriers and then been swept away. The sea gave him back about a week later.’ Conrad shuddered at the memory. ‘Bloated … green … incomplete … it was horrible.’
‘I’ve dealt with victims of the sea,’ Matthew said. ‘It’s never easy.’
‘Then there are the car crashes, the drugs overdoses, the murder victims … always worse when they’re youngsters. Seeing little ones dead tears at my heart.’
Matthew nodded, memories of tiny coffins that could be carried by just one person parading through his mind. Then two larger coffins and a smaller one, two adults and a child, all taken before their time.
‘It’s almost a relief when someone dies peacefully in their sleep,’ said Conrad, ‘although if they lie there for too long …’
‘Indeed,’ said Matthew. He finished his pint – the first one always seemed to go down quickly – and stood to go to the bar. Same again, with a whisky chaser?’
Conrad nodded. ‘Aye, please. And some pistachios, while you’re there.’
Next morning Matthew collected a body from the local hospital, laid it on one of the metal tables and made initial preparations. The hospital had ensured the jaws were closed when rigor mortis set in, so all he had to do was glue the lips together. He put caps beneath the eyelids and ensured the eyes stayed closed, too.
That done, he covered the body with a sheet, pulled up to the chin. He checked his watch – less than five minutes to eleven – and waited. At eleven exactly, there was a tap at the door and he opened it to see Rebecca, accompanied by an elderly lady, small and neat.
‘Mrs Bishop, do come in.’ He took the overnight case she was carrying, then nodded to Rebecca.
‘Thank you for letting me do this,’ Ena Bishop said.
‘That’s okay.’
‘I just need to—’ She stopped as she saw the body on the table. ‘Oh, Billy,’ she said, and she kissed the man’s forehead gently, then stroked his cheek.
Matthew gave her a moment. She was coming to terms with the loss of her husband of almost sixty years, the love of her life. Even though his death had been expected, it was still shocking to her.
‘I brought clothes, his razor and his favourite aftershave,’ she said, pulling herself together.
‘Thank you,’ said Matthew.
‘I brought one of his favourite CDs, too. Everything’s in the bag.’
Matthew put the bag on the other table and opened it. He set out the things it contained, then took the CD out of its case and popped in it the player. He pressed play and the unmistakable voice of Dusty Springfield singing ‘Mama Said’ filled the room. He turned it down a little – it was intended to be background music.
‘What now?’ said Mrs Bishop. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Well, we’ll wash his hair and his body, and give him a shave. Then we’ll put on his aftershave and dress him.’
‘Hair first, then.’ She smiled. ‘It won’t take long, but you should have seen him in the Sixties and Seventies. He had quite the mane.’
Matthew smiled. ‘Really? Tell me about him.’
They worked steadily together, the conversation sporadic, the music taking the edge off what would otherwise have been silence in between their words. They washed William Bishop’s hair, then his body. Mrs Bishop shaved her husband, then patted on aftershave. She inhaled deeply, then blinked rapidly as the familiar scent stirred memories and exacerbated her sense of loss.
Matthew applied a little make-up to enhance the idea that the man was merely sleeping. He and Mrs Bishop dressed Billy in his best suit, then folded his hands across his body.
‘Would you like some time alone?’ Matthew asked.
Mrs Bishop nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak.
‘I’ll just be next door,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea when you’re ready.’ He left Mrs Bishop to say her goodbyes.
Twenty minutes later Mrs Bishop emerged from the room. She had pulled herself together, but still looked very shaky.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for letting me help. I felt I needed to, to say a proper goodbye. We took good care of one another throughout our lives, it seemed only right to do the same now.’
Matthew took her hands in his. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Please, take a seat and I’ll gather up your things. Rebecca is making tea.’
‘I didn’t know what to do about his wedding ring,’ she said. ‘It feels wrong to take it off, but …’
‘A lot of people put their spouse’s wedding ring on a chain and wear it. They keep it close to their heart. Would you like me to …?’
‘Yes, please,’ she said.
Matthew had anticipated this. He slipped the ring off Billy’s finger, then took a fine gold chain out of his pocket. He threaded the chain through the ring and took it back outside. ‘Here,’ he said to Mrs Bishop. ‘Would you like me to fasten it for you?’
‘Yes, please,’ she said, and Matthew put it around her neck and fastened the clasp. Mrs Bishop put her hand on the wedding ring and closed her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘The chain … what do I owe you?’
Matthew shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It belonged to my wife, Sarah. She’d be very happy to know you have it.’
Rebecca came in just as he spoke. It was exactly like her father to be so thoughtful. She remembered a conversation they’d had when she was still a schoolgirl.
‘I don’t care about their religion,’ Matthew had said. ‘If the body has to be prepared in a certain way then I do that, but otherwise it’s none of my business. Mrs Craggs was a lifelong Catholic; Solomon, a Jew; my dear friend Richard claimed he was a heathen; it was rumoured Emily Bruce was a witch. What do I care? Whatever they believe, or don’t believe, everyone deserves a decent burial, a little compassion, which is something many of them weren’t shown in life. Whoever they were, whatever they did, however they died, all of that falls away when they enter this place. This is their second last resting place; it should be a place of peace and acceptance.’
An hour or so later, Matthew and Rebecca sat in stunned silence as the lunchtime news programme played out on the radio.
‘She killed them all,’ Rebecca said, putting her sandwich back down onto her plate. ‘Every last one of them.’ She wiped a tear, remembering the two little girls and their smiles and laughter. ‘Faith was the same age as Grace. They were in the same class at school.’
‘The children will be devastated,’ Matthew said, meaning the whole school as much as his own grandchildren.
‘This will take some coping with. It’s not long since—’
‘I know, my dear.’ Matthew took his daughter’s hand. ‘Will you be okay?’
Rebecca nodded. ‘And you?’
‘Yes, I’m coming to terms with it all still, but yes.’
‘Oh, Dad, why did it have to happen? Mum, John, and Dora …’ Rebecca had lost her mother, husband and eldest daughter, as well as the use of her legs, in the fire that devastated their lives.
‘At least Dora, John and my Sarah weren’t murdered,’ said Matthew softly. ‘That makes it so much worse. It’s like … like a hole has been torn in the fabric of our society. An entire family, three generations, all gone.’
‘So much like us. It’s so hard to bear.’ Rebecca dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. ‘I wonder how she did it?’ There had been no details on the news.
‘I wonder why she did it,’ said Matthew. His memory of Constance Trueblood was of a happy woman who loved her family and always had a kind word for her neighbours. ‘It makes no sense.’
‘We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, Dad. Just because they looked like a happy bunch doesn’t mean they were. There could have been anything going on.’
‘Yes, but to kill your entire family … her children, her husband, his parents …’ Matthew wrapped his hands round his mug of tea, then shook his head. ‘It makes no sense,’ he repeated.
The mood was subdued at tea time. The news had hit everyone badly. The children, eight-year-old Grace and ten-year-old Peter, had little appetite.
‘Do you have any homework tonight?’ Matthew asked, trying to keep to normal topics of conversation.
Peter shook his head. ‘We were excused maths homework because of …’ His voice trailed off and he pushed some sweetcorn around on his plate with his fork. He had moved his food a great deal, but eaten very little of it.
‘Do you think—’ said Grace, then she stopped abruptly.
‘Do we think what, dear?’ said Rebecca.
‘Do you think Faith and Hope will find Dora? They could play together, if they did.’
Rebecca stroked her daughter’s hair, unable to speak.
‘I hope they do,’ said Peter, fervently. ‘She needs friends her own age.’ His jaw was tight, tension in every line of his face. It made him look older than his years and for a fraction of a second Matthew saw his son-in-law, John, and also an image of the man his grandson would become.
‘There’s a rightness to all things, eventually,’ said Matthew. ‘We all get the comfort we need.’
‘Not everyone deserves comfort,’ said Peter. ‘People who do evil things don’t.’
The following week Matthew was alone in the workroom, one little Trueblood girl on each of the two worktables. Earlier, Rebecca had washed their hair and put on a little make-up, just enough to bring colour to their cheeks, and Matthew had eased pretty summer dresses onto the small bodies. He wiped away a tear, not for the first time, then tensed, sensing a familiar tingle in the air. Someone was with him. A whoosh of cold air flew past him and around the tables, making the girls’ hair and the cotton skirts of their dresses dance, and then it was still again.
Matthew wondered who had just paid him a visit. The father, perhaps, taking a last look at the earthly remains of his girls? The grandparents? He had prepared all three of those bodies for the family funeral that was planned – an event that would not include Constance. She was, perhaps understandably, persona non grata. The hatred that had been expressed towards her by former friends and neighbours was intense. Her own funeral would have to be conducted with great discretion, but as to who would prepare her, Matthew couldn’t say. She was untouchable.
The tingle faded and the room was still. Matthew sighed and once more went about his business.
Later that evening, Matthew took a telephone call from his old friend, Conrad Pike. They exchanged pleasantries, then Conrad’s voice became businesslike.
‘I’ve been asked by the coroner to contact you with regard to Constance Trueblood.’ Conrad paused; he was about to ask a huge favour of his friend. ‘Matthew, no one wants her. No one will take responsibility for … Will you …?’
Matthew nodded, even though he knew his friend couldn’t see him. He’d been half-expecting the call and had wondered what he would say, if asked. He found out. ‘Of course I’ll take her,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ said Conrad, and he let out a sigh of relief. ‘We’ll bring her at midnight in an unmarked van. People are watching. This isn’t going to be easy.’
It was Matthew’s turn to sigh. People were so vengeful, even towards the dead – sometimes especially towards the dead.
‘There’ll be the issue of the burial …’ Conrad tailed off. ‘We’ve already been turned down by several places. We could put her in an unmarked grave, I suppose.’
‘Let’s only do that as a last resort. I have some contacts who might be more accepting of her. Leave it with me.’
‘Thanks, Matthew.’ The relief in Conrad’s voice was audible.
‘I can’t believe you said you’d take that woman,’ said Rebecca, when Matthew broke the news.
‘She needs to have a funeral,’ said Matthew. ‘Everyone needs some sort of … ritual or ceremony to mark their passing.’
‘Well, I’m not touching her!’
‘That’s a shame, but it’s your prerogative. Still, I’ve learned a thing or two over the years, and while I might not do as good a job as you, or as your mother would have, I’ll manage.’
‘You shouldn’t take her,’ Rebecca said, eyes down and voice low. ‘There’s such bad feeling … we’ll pay for handling her. We’ll pay in bad ways. Costly ways.’
‘No one will know she’s here,’ said Matthew. ‘She’s coming here in secrecy, and, if necessary, she’ll leave in the same way, too. The crematorium at midnight … it’s been done before.’ It pained him to say it, to think that no one would mourn her.
Not no one; he would mourn her. He had fond memories of the woman and her family, and he still found it hard to believe that she’d done what she was accused of having done. It didn’t seem possible.
‘We’ll pay the price,’ muttered Rebecca darkly, then the whir of an electric motor told Matthew she was leaving him alone.
It wasn’t the first time Matthew had taken someone who was considered to be untouchable, their final earthly deeds beyond the pale for ordinary folks. The Connors boy had been the most recent, and that was three years ago now. He was just an ordinary teenager, or so everyone thought until the day the people searching for little Tammy Johnson had searched the Connors’ shed.
The child was under a workbench, wrapped in a picnic blanket, and she looked nothing like the happy little soul who had been playing in the back garden at her granny and grandad’s house the day before.
Conrad had been the one to find her, and when he left the shed to get a breath of air and call off the search, he had seen Paul Connors at his bedroom window, watching, and had immediately known who was responsible. By the time he got into the house and up the stairs, it was too late; Paul Connors had stabbed himself in the leg and severed his femoral artery. Blood was gushing out of him.
‘Why?’ Conrad had asked him. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Because I could,’ said Paul, and those where his last words.
Matthew had dealt with both bodies, the child and the boy who had taken her life and turned her into a scarecrow – her hair roughly hacked off, fingers, toes, ears and nose missing.
He had shed bitter tears over both, the tragic child who should have lived a long and happy life and the boy with the dark, tainted soul who had done evil because he could.
While Tammy’s funeral had been held on a bright summer’s day, the sun shining and the streets filled with people who lined the pavements to pay their last respects, crying, clutching pictures of the child, Paul’s had been on a hot, muggy night, his bewildered parents and younger brother in the chapel in the early hours, trying to make sense of it all.
Six months later the younger Connors boy was fished out of the River Wear, the pain of being shunned by former friends and the fear that he had inside him the same evil thing that had driven his brother to do what he did too much to bear.
After that funeral, the parents had moved away.
At midnight, Matthew was waiting outside the funeral parlour, the heavy curtains drawn to hide the lights that burned inside. To a casual observer it would appear as if all was quiet, as was usually the case at that time of night. He saw a dark blue van approach, slow down, and then pull to a halt at the kerb. Conrad nodded to him from the passenger seat, and Matthew opened the door of the parlour and drew out a waiting trolley. He rolled it to the back of the van as Conrad Pike and George Marley, the coroner, opened the doors and jumped up into the van. The van held a black body bag, which they hefted onto Matthew’s trolley, then George Marley locked up the van as Matthew and Conrad wheeled it into the funeral parlour. As soon as George was inside, too, Matthew closed and locked the door and the three men went through to the preparation area.
‘I’m glad that’s done,’ said George. He shook hands with Matthew. ‘Thank you for this, it’s very much appreciated.’
‘It’s my job,’ said Matthew quietly, his eyes on the zipped bag.
‘We took a circuitous route to get here,’ said George. ‘I don’t think we were followed.’
‘I didn’t see anyone,’ said Conrad, ‘and I didn’t see anyone watching outside, either.’
‘We won’t be announcing that we’ve released the body,’ said George. ‘It’ll just be between us, so you shouldn’t get any grief.’
Ten minutes later, Conrad and George were heading back to the morgue in the plain van, and Matthew was left in the company of Constance Trueblood. He stepped up to the trolley and drew down the zip on the body bag.
Constance was wrapped in a sheet, which hid the autopsy scar but not the livid red welt around her neck. Her face was bruised and her hair matted with blood. Matthew stared for a long moment, then brushed her hair off her forehead. ‘What drove you to do it?’ he murmured. ‘It’s so hard to believe it of you. What on earth happened?’ He pulled the zipper back up. ‘We’ll get started tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It’s late; time for us all to rest.’ As he wheeled the trolley over to the big cold cabinet, the lights flickered. ‘Odd time for a power surge,’ he murmured, and he manoeuvred the trolley into the cold room.
Next afternoon Matthew rinsed the hair of the woman on the table one last time. The water was finally running clear, all the blood washed out of the locks. ‘So, my dear, how did you wear your hair?’ he said, as he squeezed the water out with a towel, then ran a comb through the long strands of gold. He shivered, as a chill crept over him.
‘Just let it dry naturally,’ said a voice from behind him. ‘The curls will spring back, that’s how I most often wore it.’
Matthew turned, surprised, and saw the same figure behind him as he’d just been working on.
‘Constance?’ he said.
The figure nodded, then glided round to stand next to the table. She looked down at her own form. ‘Best put a scarf round my neck, hide the mark.’
‘Yes, I thought I would.’ Matthew wasn’t used to his clients making demands; it was rare to see them. He’d always expected that he’d see Sarah, but she had never appeared to him.
‘There’s one in the top drawer of my dressing table. It’s lilac. I have a black and lilac dress in the wardrobe that it matches … could you dress me in that, please? For my funeral.’
‘Of course, my dear, whatever you want.’
‘I didn’t do it, you know.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘They’re saying I killed everyone – John’s mum and dad, and John, and the girls – than hanged myself. That’s not how it was. I didn’t— Oh! I have to go. The children need me. Thank you, Mr Goodsir. Goodbye.’
‘Will you come back?’ called Matthew, but the only sound was his own voice, echoing around the preparation area.
I hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter. If you did, please spread the word.
Thanks for reading and see you next time.
