Brock waved aside Kathy’s suggestion that they take the handicapped persons’ lift to the upper concourse, and, grey-bearded chin thrust forward, he grunted his way up all fifty-two of the broad steps with the help of the handrail and his stick. When they reached the lecture theatre they discovered that Springer had attracted many more people in death than in life. Looking at the size of the large hall, Kathy could see how pathetic the twenty or thirty audience for his lecture would have appeared, and how impressive the present turnout was, both in numbers and range of the university hierarchy. Even Richard Haygill, the subject of Springer’s venom, was there, accompanied by a rather glamorous looking blonde several inches taller than himself.
A small, elegantly printed leaflet on each seat explained that this would be a secular celebration of Professor Max Springer’s life and achievements, in accord with his creedless philosophy. Despite this, the service began with the stirring opening of the Faure Requiem, the haunting lines of the Kyrie reverberating through the auditorium, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.
After the notes had faded away, the University President, Professor Roderick Young, moved to the simple lectern in the centre of the stage and delivered an eloquent eulogy on what he described as his ‘most highly esteemed colleague’. He spoke in a commanding, sonorous voice of the irremediable loss to the international community of scholars and to the ‘UCLE family’. After several minutes of this, Brock began to stir and make noises of either discomfort or disgust, Kathy couldn’t be sure.
Young was followed by an elderly man introduced as Springer’s cousin, speaking on behalf of the family. He seemed rather overwhelmed by the occasion, and spoke in a wavering Midlands accent, mainly of his recollections of their shared childhood in Solihull during the War. Kathy got the impression that there hadn’t been so much contact in more recent years, and she imagined that Max had probably had little in common with the English family into which, an intellectual cuckoo, he had been introduced in 1937.
Other speakers followed. An American academic and a leading member of the London literary scene both spoke powerfully about the values Springer stood for, to the accompaniment of much flash activity and note-taking from the press contingent which occupied the rear third of the raked seating. Perhaps the most surprising contribution, and for Kathy the most moving, came from a reasonably sober and clean looking Desmond Pettifer, who took the lectern and announced that he would recite his friend Max Springer’s favourite poem, which henceforth, he believed, would carry redoubled meaning for all present. With an accent becoming more pronouncedly Welsh with every syllable, he then spoke the lines of Dylan Thomas’ ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and began to appear around the hall too, as he intoned the final words with a fierce passion, ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’.
The contrast with the interment of Abu Khadra that afternoon could hardly have been greater. After a light pub lunch, Kathy drove them to a large public cemetery near Tooting in South London. The morning sun was now hidden by a sullen grey cloud mass, and as they turned in through the gates and slowly wound their way through endless silent lanes of death the prospect became more and more grim, and, it seemed to Kathy, Dylan Thomas’ defiance more and more forlorn.
In a bleak corner most distant from the entrance, a small area had been set aside for those of the Shia Muslim faith. They were early, and reversed the car and parked at the roadside on the fringe of the area, with a view towards the newly excavated hole visible at the end of a desolate row of stones and markers inscribed with Arabic characters, a few freshly delineated in gold, the majority old and faded. As she stared out through the misting window at the scene, it occurred to Kathy that this was an appropriately terminal backdrop to the final moments of what looked to be her last case.
To avoid any possibility of fresh disturbances, there had been a strict news blackout on Abu’s burial. Only the imam of the Nur al-Islam mosque had been consulted over the arrangements, and he had been entrusted with inviting only the closest intimates of the dead man, in strictest confidence. Shortly before 3:00 p.m. a black hearse approached, followed by a single car, a battered red Toyota. They stopped just beyond the grave, steam coiling from their exhausts. Two men got out of the front of the Toyota, and Brock pointed out the heavy bulk of Qasim Ali, proprietor of the Horria Cafe, as he eased himself with difficulty out of the driver’s seat. He didn’t know the other man. Both wore overcoats and were holding black Homburgs which they arranged carefully on their heads before moving forward to the hearse, where two attendants in black suits were opening the rear door. Together the four men slid a plain casket out of the vehicle and gripped its side handles. Another man got out of the front of the hearse, wearing the black robe and headdress of a cleric, and led the way towards the grave.
Now the back doors of the Toyota swung open and three women emerged. All had covered heads, two wrapped from head to foot in loose black chadors, the other in a quilted coat and black headscarf. The last hesitated and stared curiously at Kathy’s car before following the men.
‘That’s Briony Kidd, isn’t it?’ Kathy pointed at her. ‘I was looking out for her at Springer’s service.’
‘You’re right. What about the other two?’
Kathy shook her head, unable to recognise them. They walked together, comforting each other, heads bowed, handkerchiefs held to their eyes. ‘They look like Arabs, don’t they? Maybe Abu’s relatives?’ It was impossible to tell their ages.
As the group gathered around the grave and began the rites of interment, Brock nodded towards the far end of the road along which they had travelled, where it emerged through a cluster of extravagant Victorian sarcophagi. Another car had appeared there, dark blue or purple, and had come to a halt in a position where it could observe the proceedings, though without switching off its engine. A light drizzle had begun, and its wipers began to beat very slowly across its windscreen.
‘The next funeral?’ Kathy suggested, but they had seen no other freshly dug graves at this end of the field. As she spoke the dark car began to creep forward, as if trying to maintain its view in the diminishing visibility.
‘Probably Russell’s boys,’ Brock said. ‘I thought they’d be here. Like us, unsure whether to show their faces or not.’
The other car had moved forward into a dip, its windshield visible, but not its grille and numberplate, like a half submerged crocodile, watching.
For a while nothing moved, the rain becoming heavier. Then the graveside party began to stir. The officiate spoke to each in turn, then the whole group began walking back to the cars, flanked by the two men in suits, now carrying umbrellas.
There was movement on the road ahead, too, the windscreen glinting as the dark purple car slid up out of the dip and came forward, steadily putting on speed. Puzzled at first, and then alarmed, Brock and Kathy watched as it accelerated towards the back of the Toyota. The funeral party was unaware of it at first, then Ali and the other man jerked up their heads and suddenly began shouting. With a squeal of brakes and skidding rubber the dark car juddered to a violent stop inches short of the Toyota, boxing it in against the back of the hearse. Its doors flew open and three men jumped out, waving clubs as they dived for the women.