one of the fish. But instead he skimmed a handful of dead leaves off the surface and flicked them on to the stone paving.
‘I’ll need to net the pond soon. You mustn’t let leaves lie on the water in the autumn. When they decompose, the oxygen level drops, and your fish die.’ He looked at Fry as he stood up. ‘It would be a stupid way to lose your fish, wouldn’t it?’
‘What do you think, Diane?’ asked Cooper, on the way to the Hudsons’ home. ‘Is Christopher Lloyd telling the truth?’
‘I think it’s very convenient for him that Richard Slack is dead. He’s useful for taking the blame, isn’t he?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, what if Mr Lloyd was telling us part of the truth, but not quite all? What if it was Melvyn Hudson who approached him, not Richard Slack? By telling us that story, he might be hoping we don’t question Hudson too closely about it.’
‘But it was Richard Slack who was his friend, not Hudson.’
‘Was it? That’s only what Lloyd tells us.’
‘And if it was Melvyn, then …’
‘Then Lloyd might actually have agreed to sign off the job.
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He could be hoping to put us off the scent by shifting attention to Richard Slack.’
Cooper nodded. ‘You know the other thing that’s worrying me about what Lloyd said?’
‘The cremations that take place without a service in the crematorium chapel?’ guessed Fry.
‘Right. There must be a period of time when the coffin is in the sole charge of a couple of funeral director’s men, en route between the church and the crem.’
‘Giving them the chance to swap the body?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What about Audrey Steele’s funeral? Was it at the crematorium chapel?’
Cooper thought back to his interview with Vivien Gill. ‘You know, I don’t think her mother ever said. And I never thought to ask.’
‘You’d better ask her, then.’
‘Won’t a detail like that be in the records we took from Hudson and Slack?’
Fry looked at him. ‘You’d still better ask her.’
The Hudsons had a marble fireplace, but no fire. They had brass candle holders without any candles. And they had pine bookshelves, but very few real books nestling among the ivory paperweights and Chinese vases.
The house reminded Cooper of a flat he’d once visited in North London. The place had belonged to a friend of a friend, someone who worked in the hotel business. As soon as he walked in, he’d found himself openmouthed with astonishment at the size of the kitchen. It had been tiny - even smaller than the bathroom. Big enough to brew coffee and make toast in, perhaps, or to heat something in the microwave. But far too small to cook a proper meal. To Cooper, it hadn’t been a kitchen at all, but some other room that no one had thought of a name for yet.
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Barbara Hudson was in jeans and a sweatshirt, with her hair loose, and she couldn’t have looked less like a funeral director.
‘Do you need me?’ she said. ‘If not, I’ve got things to do.’
‘We’ll let you know, Mrs Hudson.’
She disappeared and left them waiting in the hall. Cooper noticed a large, ornate mirror hanging at the foot of the stairs. It was in an odd position, not where you’d readily see yourself in it. He stooped to look at the edges of the glass. There were no fingerprints, not a single smear or smudge. It had either been polished to within an inch of its life, or just never used. He wondered if this was the sort of mirror that stood reflecting life silently to itself, like a camera without a subject.
Cooper straightened up, and found Melvyn Hudson standing in the doorway. He ushered them in silently, with a practised gesture of his right hand, as if inviting them to view the deceased. In his case, the casual clothes didn’t seem to make any difference.
‘Mr Hudson,’ said Fry, ‘we’ve been talking to Christopher Lloyd, the manager of Eden Valley Crematorium. You know him?’
‘Of course. Well, in the way of business, you know.’
‘He tells us that your partner, Richard Slack, asked him to do something illegal, but he refused. Do you know anything about that?’
‘No. I have no idea what Lloyd means. But Richard knew him better than I do. They were both members of the Rotary Club.’
‘This would have been shortly before Mr Slack was killed in the road accident.’
‘Yes, that was last May.’
‘How exactly did the accident happen?’
‘He ran off the road late one night, on his way to do a removal. There was an inquest, so you can read all about it, if you want to.’
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‘He was alone at the time?’
‘So it seems.’
On the surface, Hudson seemed composed and relaxed. But the look in his eyes didn’t match either his voice or his manner. It was more difficult to control the expression in the eyes. Ben wondered if Fry had noticed it.
‘Where were you at the time, sir?’ asked Fry.
‘Here at home, with my family. Why do you ask?’
