Murder in Style Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
Gazette
, she’d have imagined that people like Gerald and Marika would have gone for a church service, with organ and choir and bells and smells and a slap-up buffet lunch afterwards. Especially since she thought it likely that Marika might have been brought up a Roman Catholic, and would have taken the rituals of passing seriously.
    This felt stingy.
    A middle-aged couple came in. He would be a successful businessman, not flamboyant but quietly sure of himself, in a good, grey suit. She was slender, with a tiny black toque on well-cut short grey hair. Well dressed by The Magpie? Were they neighbours of the deceased? They didn’t attempt to speak to the senior Cordovers, but took seats at the back opposite Ellie.
    Three women followed, also looking unsure of themselves. Two were fortyish, but the third looked as if she’d only just left school. Businesswomen? Office workers? They exchanged greetings with the couple who’d immediately preceded them – they knew one another well? – and filed into the pew directly in front of them. Perhaps that whole group were people from The Magpie shop and agency?
    Another good suit arrived. A greyish man in a grey suit and an expensive haircut. A solicitor? He had the air of one who was accustomed to going to funerals and who didn’t allow the hushed air of the crematorium to faze him. He took a seat behind the Cordovers. They nodded to him, and he to them. Yes, they knew one another.
    A stir outside. Two more women arrived, middle-aged, not in black but in dark clothes, looking flustered. Neighbours? Close friends of the deceased? They took seats halfway down, looking around them, perhaps for faces they recognized? They didn’t seem to know the people at the back or the elder Cordovers at the front.
    A creaking. A wheelchair was pushed down the aisle to the front pew on the right, a pew reserved for family. The occupant of the wheelchair was a middle-aged, slender man in black. A man who would have been tall if he’d stood up. A triangular face topped by smooth dark hair with streaks of grey at the temples. Black eyebrows in straight lines over pale grey eyes. His face was paper-white and lined. There was no kindness in his face. Pain could do that to you, of course. Or, Ellie wondered, was he something of a control freak? Now, why had she thought that? A man in a wheelchair couldn’t be a control freak, could he?
    The pusher was a girl with a coffee and cream complexion: latte rather than cappuccino. Young. In black. A quiet face, with strong planes. Emotionless, hiding … what? Was this Clemmie, the grandchild whom Gerald hadn’t wanted to talk about?
    Beside them and with them came Grief.
    Grief was all in black. Grief was one of the most beautiful women Ellie had ever seen. Fair, well-brushed hair in a chignon under a tiny hat. She was high of cheekbone, blue-grey of eye, commanding of demeanour. Tall, well built. Sleepwalking.
    The twin sister: Juno? The man in the wheelchair would be her husband?
    On their heels, in a stir of air, came the clip-clop of high heels on the tiled floor. A dark-haired girl wearing a black silk coat and a black satin bandanna round her hair. Bright red lipstick. Would this be Trixie?
    At the girl’s side came a fortyish, dapper man with slicked-back hair and an easy smile. Charming? Yes, but it was surface charm. Ellie disliked him on sight. She remembered Thomas saying that Cocks’s Garage was dicey. No, that’s not exactly what Thomas had said. He’d heard
someone else
say that it was dicey.
    Would this be Poppy’s bereaved husband? His head turned this way and that, eyes snapping, checking on who was there and who was not. He followed the dark-haired girl into the front pew on the left, moving the senior Cordovers along. Yes, this must be Ray Cocks, widower. His daughter tried to hand him a service book. He flicked a dismissive hand at her, and a large gold watch slid down his wrist