Nemesis of the dead, p.20
Nemesis of the Dead, page 20
Corrie interrupted. ‘But that isn’t murder, Marjorie. He didn’t have to do it, did he?’
Marjorie smiled wanly. ‘Maybe not, but that isn’t the worst of it. While we were rowing along in the sunshine, I asked him if he realized that day was our thirtieth anniversary. I told him thirty years meant “Pearl” and how I’d really like a pearl necklace I had seen. I was happy to buy it myself. He snarled at me then – told me to save my little bit of money because I was going to need it. He had decided to throw me out when we got back to Hampshire. He’d had enough of me and my quarrelsome attitude – answering him back all the time. He said I could take just what I stood up in, nothing more. He was furious, really red in the face. Everything was in his name, he said, the house, the car, everything and I wasn’t getting any of it. He told me to go and live with Dan.’
She stopped again and sipped coffee, clearly finding it harrowing to recall the cruel insults. Sid put an arm around her.
‘You don’t need to tell us any more, Marjie. It must have been awful for you.’
‘Yes, I do, Sidney. I have to tell you how Ambrose died. I stood up for myself, you see. I shouldn’t have argued, but I did. I said divorce wasn’t like that these days. Wives had rights. I would get myself a good solicitor and sue him for every penny that I was entitled to. He started to rant and rage and I told him not to get so worked up – to think of his heart. He sneered at me, then. Said his heart wasn’t as bad as I thought. Never had been. He had exaggerated, so I would wait on him like a servant. He said he had every intention of getting very worked up – especially when we got to your cove, Diana. He said some hideous things – things I couldn’t repeat – about what he was going to do to you. It made me feel sick and ashamed. He even suggested I should stay and watch – I might learn something. It was then that I lost control of myself. The worst of it was his blithe assumption that I had to go along with his wickedness – that years of bullying had made me too feeble and pathetic to do anything about it. I told him he was a disgusting, filthy old man and I was going to put a stop to him. It was then he hit me with the oar.’
She fingered the angry red weal running down the length of her face. ‘We were quite a distance from the shore and I was frightened he intended to knock me out of the boat – leave me to drown. I grabbed the end of the oar and we struggled, then the blade struck a patch of rotten wood in the bottom of the boat and went right through it. Water came pouring in through the hole. I don’t swim very well and I was terrified. Ambrose jumped over the side and left me – just splashed ashore without a backward glance. I climbed out and managed to cling on to the boat until my feet touched the sand, then I dragged it ashore, as far as I could.’
‘Why?’ Jack asked. ‘Why didn’t you just leave it to sink?’
‘Well, for a start it was hotel property. Loaned to us in good faith. I couldn’t just abandon it. Besides, I thought if I left it out there on the beach, you’d spot it when you came to look for us.’
‘Good thinking, Marjie,’ said Sid.
‘The picnic basket was still in it, so I rescued that too, seeing as I didn’t know how long it would be before we were missed and someone came to find us. I hadn’t a clue where we were but I knew we were a long way from the hotel. Then I went to look for Ambrose. He was sitting on the floor in the cave where you eventually found us. I thought he’d be feeling terribly ill but he seemed fine for a man with a badly congested heart – just a bit out of breath. Straight away he started shouting at me, telling me I was a stupid, useless, dried-up old woman and how this whole disaster was my fault. He said he’d never loved me and now he couldn’t even bear to be anywhere near me. As soon as we got home, he had every intention of replacing me with a young prostitute he had met who knew how to please him, how to satisfy him. Then he spotted the basket and he said, “Give that to me. I’ve had nothing since breakfast and it could be hours before those idiots find us.” He snatched it and started to help himself to Diana’s lunch. After that, he completely ignored me and just sat there cramming food into his mouth and slurping orange juice.’
‘Didn’t the bastard share it with you?’ Diana asked, appalled.
‘No dear. That wasn’t his way. I wasn’t hungry anyhow.’ She hesitated, then braced herself and looked steadily at Jack. ‘It was then that I did something really terrible. Something I must confess to you, Jack, and a crime I shall have to pay for – not just in this world but probably in the next.’
It went deathly silent – not a breath of breeze or birdsong. Even the cicadas stopped chirping.
‘I went across to the shrine of St Sophia, knelt down, and I prayed to her to punish him. Right then and there, in her sacred grotto. I asked her, on behalf of all wretched and oppressed women, to destroy him. A few minutes later, he started to gasp for breath and moan. I went across to him and felt his chest. His heart was beating wildly, erratically, much faster than it was supposed to. Naturally, I didn’t have any of his medication with me – his digoxin. He wasn’t due a dose until evening and he wasn’t supposed to take extra ones in between. I tried to loosen his collar so he could breathe better but he beat me off, yelling and screaming, as if he was having some kind of hallucination. He vomited violently a couple of times – then he shuddered and slumped back against the wall, still and quiet. I felt his pulse but I knew straight away that he was dead. That I’d killed him.’
‘No, you didn’t, Marjorie,’ said Corrie vehemently. ‘Dear God, if every time we wished somebody would drop dead they actually did, the world would be littered with corpses. Tell her Jack! Tell her she isn’t responsible.’
‘’Course you’re not Marjie,’ added Sid.
Jack looked sombre. For a while he said nothing, summing up the evidence associated with Dobson’s death, or rather the lack of it. Marjorie Dobson was either an unusually ingenuous woman – or a very clever one. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. There was no point in doing anything else. If she had somehow murdered her husband, there was no way in the world that here, on illusive, treacherous Katastrophos, he could find enough evidence to prove it. And even if he could, a good brief would plead all kinds of mitigating circumstances and no jury in the land would convict her.
‘Nothing you have told me inclines me to suspect that Ambrose died from anything other than natural causes. It may be that he underestimated the severity of his heart condition. Clearly, the unaccustomed exertion – rowing some distance – the shock of falling in the sea and his bouts of uncontrollable temper and excitement proved too much for him. They might well have proved too much for any man his age so I suggest you try to forget what you did in the cave, Marjorie. You were driven beyond endurance and even at the end, you tried to help him.’
Marjorie seemed to shrink back into her chair – become smaller and lighter with the lifting of her burden. ‘Thank you, Jack.’
‘What we have to do now, if you’re up to it, is decide how to proceed with regard to Ambrose’s remains. To be frank, I’m not at all sure what the options are. I’m sorry to face you with it so soon, but in a hot climate …’ Jack left the sentence unfinished. He knew the score with regard to standard procedures when a British national dies abroad but he was damned if he could see how they applied to a sparsely populated island like Katastrophos where none of the usual support structures was in place.
‘Maybe I can assist.’ Tina Stephanides spoke quietly and with much less venom than had been her custom. ‘I was born and brought up on Katastrophos and local procedures are, of necessity, more relaxed here than on other Greek Islands. A foreigner dying on the island is a rare occurrence – I can only recall one such instance in my lifetime – and the course of action is much more complicated. The next of kin must decide whether to take the deceased home or carry out a local burial, here in the churchyard of St Sophia. Naturally, the permission of the priest must be obtained for that.’
‘What about cremation?’ asked Marjorie.
‘Cremation is not permitted. For that, you would need to take Mr Dobson back to the UK. And if he is to be repatriated, his remains must be embalmed as soon as possible and placed in a zinc-lined coffin. This may cause delay and distress, since many certificates – civil registry of death, embalming certificate, doctor’s death certificate and another giving permission to transfer the remains to the UK are all required in order to ship the body. These can only be obtained on the mainland and will take time. Mr Dobson has already been dead for over eighteen hours. It will be another two days before his body can be transported to the mainland and we still have no means of communication to speed this up.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Marjorie. ‘I was really hoping to be able to go straight home when the ferry comes on Saturday.’ She looked down at her hands from which she had removed the wedding ring. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand when I say that I have no desire to take Ambrose’s body home with me and I certainly don’t want him embalmed. Our son, Dan, would not wish to attend his father’s funeral. I should much prefer to bury him here as quickly as possible.’ She looked at Tina. ‘What must I do to achieve that?’
‘Permission to sign the necessary documents for an island burial is devolved to the Mayor of Katastrophos in situations such as this. He could assist you, providing Inspector Dawes, as the only representative of UK law, has no objection to going ahead.’
Jack nodded.
‘I didn’t know there was a mayor of Katastrophos,’ said Sid, surprised.
Tina smiled at him. Everyone smiled at Sidney. ‘I think you have met him. He owns the kafeneíon in St Sophia.’
Sidney had met him all right – got to know him well over the last couple of weeks. He was a man in his early forties with a droopy moustache and lugubrious jowls whose ruling characteristic was his good nature – certainly unlike the pompous, self-important civic dignitaries down at the council offices whose sanitary ware Sid had installed.
‘Well, I’m blowed. Small island, innit? How soon can we get the documents for Marjie?’
‘We could really do with the help of someone who speaks Greek to ask the priest for permission to bury Ambrose in the churchyard here,’ added Corrie, looking pointedly at Tina.
‘May I suggest,’ boomed a voice from the perimeter of the pergola, ‘that in disposing of Dobson’s remains, Mrs Dobson could choose to help the environment?’ Professor Gordon, taking brief respite from his studies, was pouring himself orange juice. ‘Bury him in a cardboard box under an olive tree, madam. His decomposing body will provide the tree with nutrients and the tree will convert carbon dioxide into life-giving oxygen for decades.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Probably the only useful function your husband will have ever served in his futile existence.’
Blunt as ever, the professor was no respecter of a widow’s sensitivities.
‘Cuthbert, have a thought for Marjorie,’ said Diana, frowning at him.
‘No, really,’ said Marjorie, ‘I’m not in the least bit offended. Professor Gordon is right. I can think of nothing that Ambrose ever did in his lifetime that was kind, considerate or altruistic. I like the idea of ensuring he does this one thing in death.’ She turned to Tina. ‘Would I be allowed to bury him as the professor suggests?’
Tina looked blank. ‘There is no precedent here for such a thing but I don’t see why not, if we can obtain the necessary permissions.’
It was early evening, still and balmy. A small group of mourners – if they could be considered as such – gathered around the grave in the olive grove. At first the religious islanders had greeted the idea of an environmentally friendly funeral with consternation and the promise of long-term benefits with utter scepticism. But since it was the wish of the widow and nobody could come up with any sound reasons why it should not take place, permissions were granted. Marjorie Dobson, dry-eyed and dignified, watched as the local funeral director and his swarthy son carried out the formalities and her husband of thirty years – all of them miserable – was lowered into the ground in his cardboard box. Foreign Greek soil from the island he had so openly disliked was chucked unceremoniously on top of him. Only Ariadne boycotted the proceedings. Tiny Ariadne, with her crow’s singing voice and her sloppy slippers. With much crossing herself backwards, she invoked her saint not to take this devil’s burial as an insult.
Corrie looked down at the last remains of Ambrose Dobson. She had known him barely a fortnight but had been strongly affected by his gratuitous unpleasantness and meanness of spirit. Unlike those virtuous souls who feel the need to find some good in everyone, Corrie felt no such obligation. The man would not be missed or mourned. His grave would not be marked. Drowsing in the sunshine, watching the coffin disappearing beneath a pile of Katastrophan dirt, the myth of Diana and Acteon popped into her head unbidden. Diana had been the patroness of hunting and there was an incident, uncomfortably analogous to yesterday’s events, when Acteon spied upon Diana and watched her bathing, naked. Incensed, Diana had transformed him into a stag and his own hunting dogs had turned on him and killed him. Dogs that hitherto had been subservient to his bidding, obedient without question – like Marjorie. Corrie snapped out of her reverie, forcing herself back to reality. She had to stop these macabre meanderings – they were not helpful.
Marjorie stood on the other side of the grave. Her face was enigmatic, her thoughts impossible to divine. Corrie was transported back to Lavinia Braithwaite’s funeral. Then, Marjorie had been standing opposite her, much sadder and considerably more bereft at the loss than she appeared now. She looked up, suddenly aware she was being watched, and their eyes met. Marjorie smiled.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Friday, the travellers’ last day on Katastrophos, dawned sultry and oppressive. For Corrie, Saturday and the ferry could not come soon enough and she had started packing already. Throughout the last two weeks, the atmosphere on the island had become increasingly claustrophobic and hostile and now she couldn’t wait to go home where things were normal. Normal, that was, if you excluded Lavinia suddenly keeling over with mysterious stomach pains so severe that her heart stopped. But wasn’t that exactly what had been happening here? Coincidence? Probably. Almost certainly. But what if there was a connection? What if that was why Jack had brought her to Katastrophos? Meeting Marjorie Dobson’s eyes across her husband’s grave, just as she had at Lavinia’s funeral, had been a chilling moment from another dimension. What if…? Stop right there, Corrie, she ordered herself. Stop looking for trouble – you’re imagining things. Just go home and don’t interfere. It’s none of your business.
Marjorie was also looking forward to going home and spoke enthusiastically about what she planned to do now she was free and would soon be considerably better off. She fancied a cruise, she said, possibly in the Caribbean. She would ask Dan and his partner if they would like to come; they both worked very hard and needed a holiday. Then she would get on with her charity fund-raising and take driving lessons, so she could use the car. Was this confident, assertive widow, Corrie wondered, the same downtrodden, dispirited ‘little woman’ of a fortnight ago, systematically deprived of independent thought or ambition, who had trotted obediently behind her cruel, despotic husband? For Marjorie, the journey to Katastrophos had been every bit as life-changing as the road to Damascus.
But not everyone was keen to leave the island. The professor was becoming increasingly agitated that tempus fugit and he had not yet completed the single, most important piece of work he had come to do, even though he now had all the resources he needed to achieve it. Tina, who had come home to her island intending to stay for a while, now expected she would be obliged to return to the mainland and possibly even the UK in order to answer serious charges of attempting to murder a senior police officer. For Sidney and Diana, star-crossed lovers by anyone’s standards, tomorrow must see the end of their unlikely but deepening relationship. Katastrophos had given them a glimpse of another, more fulfilling life and it was one they were both reluctant to let go.
Jack, like the professor, was acutely aware that time was running out and he could no longer risk a watching brief. He must act before it was too late. It was imperative that he spoke to Diana but, as he had feared, it was increasingly difficult to prise her away from Sidney. This morning he was lucky. He had woken at dawn, hot and thirsty, and had taken his glass of water out on to the balcony, so as not to wake Corrie. He spotted Diana, jogging alone on the beach. Jack pulled on some clothes and hurried down to join her.
‘Anyone seen Di?’ Sidney came down to breakfast early, anxious not to waste a second of his last day on Katastrophos. His last day with a woman so beautiful and clever and funny, he would never have believed she would even look at him, much less make love to him. But he had no illusions. She was used to the kind of life a rich professor could give her, and a plumber could never compete. To Diana, he had simply been an amusing diversion. Tomorrow it would end and he would never see her again. They wouldn’t promise to keep in touch, write letters, nothing tacky like that. It had been a holiday fling – heady and exhilarating – no point in spoiling it by pretending otherwise. She would forget him the second she kissed him goodbye. And once he was back home in Stoke Newington mending leaky pipes and cheering on the Arsenal, he would forget all about her. Of course he would.
