Page 65 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
“No, but then I don’t talk about my parents as Mummy and Daddy either.”
“Yeah, when a woman that age talks about her daddy, it usually means something totally different. Think she’s got one of them and all?” I grinned, and then had a light bulb moment. “Oi, you don’t think it’s the bish, do you? Her secret bloke? I mean, he’s got someone secret too, hasn’t he?”
Phil just looked at me.
“What?” I asked, pulling back to gaze at him properly because the nearness was making me squint.
“He’s a bishop, not a Catholic cardinal,” he explained patiently.
“So?”
“So, he’s allowed to have a girlfriend. Why would they keep the relationship a secret?”
“Well, I could see Amelia getting a bit narked about it.”
“Not anymore, she isn’t.”
“Okay, back to the rentboy theory. Or choirboy, I s’pose.” That thought left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Greg reckoned the bishop’s seeing someone,” Phil pointed out. “As in, spending time with them. Not just having an illicit fumble in the vestry.”
“True,” I said, relieved. “So are you gonna follow him? See what’s what?”
“Maybe.” There was that trademark Phil Morrison noncommittal tone again.
I slapped on the sarcasm with a shovel. “You know, if you think I’m talking bollocks, you could just tell me.”
He smirked. “Don’t like to keep repeating myself.”
“Git.”
“You wouldn’t have me any other way,” he said smugly, pulling me in tight again.
“Oi, I’ll have you any way you like,” I said, because, well, it’s true.
Say what you like about Amelia Fenchurch-Majors, she got a good turnout at her funeral. St. Leonards cathedral wasn’t quite bursting at the seams, but there were a sight more mourners than I’d ever seen at any send-off not involving royalty. And that was without any strong-arming people to come along, unless she’d been doing it from beyond the grave.
Course, one or two of those present might just have turned up to make sure they actually buried her.
Not that I’d have included myself in that number, obviously.
Me and Phil had had a brief discussion about whether we still ought to turn up, given our current state of persona-non-grata-dom with Vi. Phil, though, was adamant the little matter that we’d been fired from working on the case wasn’t going to stop him, and anyway, it wasn’t like we’d be intruding on Vi’s grief, seeing as she’d made it pretty plain she wasn’t feeling any. So we went.
This being the Home Counties and not a Hollywood film, most people weren’t in top-to-toe black, just wearing smart and vaguely sombre clothing, and there were definitely no posh hats with veils. I’d ended up wearing the suit I’d got for Gary’s wedding. The grey was a bit on the light side, but it was easily the smartest outfit I owned. Phil, of course, possessed more suits than you can shake a tape measure at, and was in dark navy today.
The grieving widower was in dark grey, which was just as well with Vi hanging on his arm rocking a vivid purple frock. With black tights and heels, mind, so I s’pose at least she’d tried. Uncle Armband was in a navy suit like Phil, but several waist sizes larger and with exponentially more wrinkles. On his arm was a pale lady clearly in dire need of less stress in her life or, failing that, Botox. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but for some reason, she really didn’t look like she belonged there.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Phil.
“Mrs. Fenchurch. Elizabeth. Used to be a solicitor but gave it up due to ill health. For which read anxiety and depression.”
“Yeah? Couldn’t old Arlo give her something shiny to cheer her up?” I looked at her again and realised what had seemed odd about her. “Hang on, how come a jeweller’s wife isn’t wearing a scrap of jewellery?” She didn’t even have the tiniest of studs in her ears. “Is that a funeral thing?”
“Could be. Pearls are traditional, mind.”
I was already scanning the necks of the other ladies present. Yep, a fair assortment of pearls on display. I spotted my sister standing over by a display commemorating local soldiers who’d fallen in the Great War, their faces staring solemnly out from black-and-white photos, every upper lip as stiff as their uniformed spines. Cherry was wearing pearls, or at least what looked like pearls to my unschooled eye. For all I knew she’d got ’em out of a cracker. She caught my eye and smiled, so I waved.
And yeah, I realised that probably wasn’t appropriate even before she gave me a scandalised look and turned pointedly away, ta very much.
