‘She’s not a profiler,’ said Fry automatically.
‘So much for our special advisor, then. I guess her advice was just too special for me to cope with.’
As Cooper arrived at the crematorium, a hearse was creeping down the access road towards the chapel, followed by two black Daimler limousines, their gleaming paintwork streaked with raindrops. All three vehicles had personalized number plates starting with HS, indicating they belonged to Hudson and Slack.
Mourners who had already gathered under the portecochere to be out of the rain moved to one side to allow family members to disembark on the chapel side. By the time Cooper had parked and got out of his car, he could see Melvyn Hudson himself moving among the family, grey-haired and solemn, offering a few words of consolation.
At the side of the chapel, near the car park, was an area where the floral tributes from mourners were displayed. The day’s cremations were announced by a line of name cards on metal stakes, like place markers for an absent queue. Shirley Bramwell 10 a.m., Billy Booker 10.30 p.m., Lilian Outram 11 a.m. Each person’s slot in the schedule lasted half an hour.
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A cremation service was hardly an elaborate ritual, after all. It was more of a gesture, a quick farewell wave as the body passed through on its way to the flames.
Cooper noticed that the display of flowers included hearts and crosses, arrangements wired together to spell out ‘Dad’ or ‘Nan’, and a huge tribute in the shape of the Pearly Gates, with one of the gates invitingly cracked open an inch to welcome a new arrival to Heaven.
To get to the crematorium office, he’d have to pass through the portecochere, where the cortege had just pulled up. Rather than trying to push his way through, Cooper stood and watched as four drivers and bearers gathered at the rear of the hearse. Billy McGowan and Vernon Slack were among them, but he didn’t recognize the other two. No doubt they’d be on the staff list when he eventually got around to asking Mr Hudson for one.
McGowan and the others all seemed to have flat shoulders, like shelves designed specially for carrying a coffin. Were bearers made that way, or did they develop flattened shoulders as an occupational hazard, like a police officer’s bad back?
Cooper watched one of the bearers open the tailgate to reveal the coffin and its covering of flowers. None of them spoke to the mourners. Instead, they stood looking at each other, or at the ground, shuffling their feet a little, uncomfortable in their black suits and ties. McGowan looked particularly out of place. His shaved head and prominent jaw gave him an aggressive look that didn’t fit the occasion at all. The collar of his white shirt was too big, and it made him seem to have no neck. Yet when a late mourner arrived with an armful of flowers wrapped in cellophane and didn’t know what to do with them, it was McGowan who went across to relieve him and put his flowers into the hearse with the others.
Then began those awkward few minutes while the party waited outside for the previous service to finish and the chapel
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to be vacated. Everyone knew that someone else’s coffin was just sliding through the curtains into the cremation suite, but they all tried to look as though they weren’t aware of it. A female relative began to cry. A mourner smoking a cigarette by the roadway threw it down and stubbed it out with the toe of his shoe. A thin trickle of blue smoke rose from the butt until it was dampened by the rain and died.
Cooper started to feel as though he was intruding. He didn’t always find it possible to be a detached observer, unaffected by other people’s grief. But it would seem odd and disrespectful just to walk away now, so he waited until the bearers had slid the coffin out of the hearse. Hudson stepped forward to help the four men raise it on to their shoulders smoothly. Then they lowered their heads in a practised movement and entered the chapel. Gradually the mourners followed them, until they had left Cooper standing on his own in the rain.
He began to walk towards the office block behind the chapel. But he was barely halfway there when the music started, and his pace slowed instinctively until he had to stop. Cooper could never hear the first hymn of a funeral service without being pierced by that sudden sense of loss. It seemed to come from nowhere, entirely unexpected, and unrelated to any thoughts that had been in his head. The feeling was somehow bound up in the music, buried deep in the raw sound of untrained voices faltering into the opening verse of ‘Abide With Me’.
But it was ridiculous to be standing alone outside a crematorium chapel feeling like this. He tried to recall whose loss was being mourned. Was it Shirley Bramwell or Billy Booker? Their names had stayed in his mind, but the order of their disposal was already a blur.
In the office, he announced himself to a secretary, who told him that Mr Lloyd was engaged in a meeting, but would be with him shortly if he cared to wait. Cooper looked at his watch. It was his own fault - he was a bit early. He’d been
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too eager to get out of the office, even if the alternative was the crematorium.
‘I’ll take a walk round and come back in a few minutes,’ he said. And the woman looked relieved to have him out of the building.
At least the rain was easing off a bit. The cool air felt quite refreshing as Cooper walked up the roadway to the other end of the chapel. Mourners from the previous service were still milling around in the exit, and a few of them were inspecting the floral tributes. Someone exclaimed in admiration at the Pearly Gates, even though they were from a cremation earlier in the day, a tribute to a stranger. This party was in a completely different mood from the one that had just gone in. They were chatting and laughing with relief at being outside, despite the rain. Their laughter seemed odd when another service had begun behind them, the tears and the music just starting over again for someone else.
Two limousines had been waiting here to take the family mourners away, even as the next hearse rolled into the portecochere. Cooper watched the two men in black frock coats who seemed to be in charge. They were a discreet presence, taking a party of mourners each, one coming in and one going out. Crematorium attendants, presumably.
As the crowd dispersed into the car park, they left only Cooper, the two Hudson and Slack limousines and their drivers, who were taking the chance to have a break. They were standing in their black suits near the cars, smoking cigarettes and chatting. Or, rather, three of them were - Billy McGowan and the other two whose names he didn’t know. The exception was Vernon Slack, who’d lifted the bonnet of the leading limousine and was tinkering with something inside the engine compartment, checking the oil level or testing the tension of the fan belt.
Cooper began to walk towards him. Slack didn’t look up, though he was aware of somebody approaching. He
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surreptitiously disposed of his cigarette in the nearest flower bed and moved back towards his limousine, pulling a yellow cloth from the pocket of his jacket. If he kept that sort of thing in his pockets, it was no wonder his suit didn’t fit too well.
By the time Cooper reached him, Vernon had put the bulk of the limousine between them and was bending down to rub at the bodywork, wiping off the raindrops. He seemed to be trying to hide his face behind the wing mirror, as if afraid to look anybody in the eye.
