What, I wondered, would have happened if I hadn’t been here?
I called back the official at the coroner’s office.
“The police are happy, after all, that a cremation of Mr. Talbot’s remains can take place,” he said. “And the CPS doesn’t seem to be bothered at the moment because no one has been arrested yet for the crime.”
“Great,” I replied. I had discovered that the cost of a cremation was much less than that for a grave plot. “Tell me,” I went on, “who organizes and pays for a funeral of someone who turns up from abroad and dies in England without any family or friends?”
“The local Environmental Health Department would have to see to it,” he said.
“And they pay?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But they then try and recover the money from the family or from the deceased’s estate. But that won’t happen here because you are the next of kin and you’re here, so you can pay for it.” He made it sound so easy.
“How about if I couldn’t afford to?” I asked.
“You could apply to the Social Fund for help,” he said. “But you’d have to be receiving some sort of state benefit to qualify.”
Somehow it didn’t seem quite fair that my father had turned up out of the blue when I had thought he’d been dead for thirty-seven years only for me to be saddled with his funeral expenses, especially when his death was due to someone else sticking him in the guts with a carving knife. But I could tell that it was going to be no good arguing about it. There wouldn’t be a huge amount of sympathy for someone who had murdered his wife even if he himself had been the victim of a violent end. I would just have to shut up and pay up.
I called the first funeral director on the Internet list.
“We could fit you in this coming Friday,” the man said. “We’ve had a cancellation at Slough Crem. It’s a bit short notice, though.”
I amusingly wondered how a funeral director could have a cancellation for a cremation. Perhaps the deceased had miraculously returned to life.
“What time on Friday?” I asked.
“Three o’clock,” he said.
Friday was just two days away, but I didn’t think that really mattered. It wasn’t as if there would be anyone else coming. I wondered if I should try to contact his family in Australia to ask if any of them would want to attend. But I didn’t even know who to contact, and no one from there had been in touch with me during the past two weeks, either directly or through the Coroner’s Court, and they had my address.
“Three on Friday will be fine,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “Where is your father’s body?”
Good question, I thought. “I presume he’s still at Wexham Park Hospital,” I said. “But I’m not sure. The coroner’s office will know.”
I started to give him their number.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got it,” he said. “We’ll fix everything.”
For a fee, no doubt, I thought rather ungraciously.
“Do I need to book someone to take the service?” I asked.
“We can also fix that if you like, but you don’t have to have anyone religious if you don’t want to,” he said. “Anyone can take the service. You can officiate yourself, if you want to.”
“No,” I said. “I think he would have wanted a vicar or something.”
I couldn’t imagine why I thought that. Perhaps it was me who would rather have a clergyman. I wasn’t a very religious person, but I did think it would be slightly odd if I officiated at the service and, at the same time, was the only mourner present. Better to have an expert, so to speak.
“Any special request for music or hymns?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Whatever the vicar thinks is fit will be fine by me.” I didn’t exactly say that just a couple of quick words and straight into the fiery furnace would be ideal, but I made it clear that all I wanted was a simple funeral. The minimum that was acceptable would do well, I told him. It wasn’t as if I’d had a lifelong affection for my father.
“Do you want any flowers placed on the coffin?” he asked.
“I think not,” I said. Historically, cut flowers were placed on and around coffins to provide a sweet scent to cover any other unwelcome aromas that might emanate from the decomposing corpse within. I assumed my father’s body had been stored in appropriate refrigeration since his death, so flowers should be unnecessary.
“As it’s such short notice,” the man said, “could we have full payment up front by credit card?”
“Is that normal?” I asked.
“Quite normal,” he assured me. “Especially as the deceased was not resident in this country, with no estate to be probated by the courts.”
As it was the custom in Britain to cremate the coffin with the body, I could see that it would be rather difficult for the funeral director to take it back due to lack of payment once the event had occurred.
I gave him my credit card number and my address.
“Thank you, Mr. Talbot,” he said. “Of course, we will send you an itemized account after the day.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The business of life and death went on.
I thought that it must be difficult to be a good salesman in the undertaking trade. There had to be a line where selling a higher-class, and hence more expensive, coffin to a bereaved family became exploitation rather than acceptable good corporate practice. Especially if the coffin was almost immediately to be incinerated to ashes in a crematorium at a temperature in excess of eight hundred and fifty degrees centigrade.
“Is there anything else I need to do?” I asked.
“The death will need to be registered with the registrar,” he said. “But if it’s still subject to an inquest, that will have to wait until after the inquest is over. In the meantime, the coroner will issue a temporary death certificate, and you will have to sign Form A.”
“Form A?” I asked.
“Application for a cremation. It has to be signed by the executor or the next of kin. But you can do that just before the service. Everything else we need we’ll get from the coroner.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll see you on Friday afternoon.”
I sat in my office for a while wondering who I should tell. I expect the police would want to know, but was I required to inform them? And should I tell my grandmother that her son’s funeral was on Friday? Perhaps not, I thought. It would be far less distressing for her if I didn’t.
And how about Sophie?
We had never really discussed my parents as I’d never had any memories of either of them. She still thought they had both died in a car accident when I was a baby. Should I now explain to her that Alan Charles Grady, the man who had owned the black-and-red rucksack, the man who had been murdered in the Ascot racetrack parking lot, had actually been Peter James Talbot, my father? Not dead for the past thirty-seven years, as Sophie had thought, but dead for just fifteen days? And did I tell her that my mother had also not died in a car crash but had been strangled on the beach under the pier at Paignton? And did I further tell her that it had been my father who was responsible?
I decided that I would, in time, tell Sophie all about the events of the past two weeks, but not just yet. She had enough to deal with at the moment, having just come home from the hospital. I certainly didn’t want to upset the balance of her life, not while she was still adapting to her drug regime.
I decided I would go to my father’s funeral alone.
Luca arrived at Station Road, Kenilworth, at noon, and he had a spiky-haired boy with him. Douglas Masters, I presumed. He looked about sixteen. He was wearing a red-checked shirt with rolled-up sleeves, fawn denim trousers that looked like they were about to fall down off his hips and dirty white trainers over yellow socks.