"Gill, B M - Tom Maybridge 03 - The Fifth Rapunzel 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gill B M)

B.M.Gill - The Fifth Rapunzel (1991)

(Scanned by: Kislany)
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1.

There was no time for terror. The sudden horrific impact with the oncoming lorry sent the Saab spinning off the Lovcen road like a flaming meteor into the valley of the Boka below. The cab of the lorry, sliced in two by an outjutting rock, decapitated the driver. His head was found later amongst his bloodied cargo of grain.
Had anyone been left alive, the Montenegren authorities would have found it difficult to apportion blame. The British couple in the burnt-out car might have taken the hairpin bend too wide. The driver of the lorry, what was left of him, had smelt strongly of Sljivovica.
The enquiry was short and uncomplicated by eyewitnesses. The charred remains of the car's number plate, together with a couple of items of jewellery, helped identification. The bodies of Professor Peter Bradshaw and his wife, Lisa, were in due course flown home.

Detective Chief Inspector Tom Maybridge attended the funeral as a colleague, neighbour and friend, and as such was invited to read a few appropriate verses from the Bible. He found choosing the verses extraordinarily difficult and eventually settled for St John, chapter 14. The words were simple and compassionate. When he reached verse 18: "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you", he glanced at the Bradshaws' son, Simon, seated in the front pew. Someone had given him a black tie and the knot had worked loose. It looked incongruous worn with his maroon school blazer. At eighteen, the blazer looked wrong on him, too. Sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows was making crimson pools on the surface of the pale ash of the two coffins directly in front of him. A cloudy day full of green tranquillity would have better suited the occasion. A grey soft rain would have been kinder still.
Maybridge read on: "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." He paused. If Simon was like his father he would conceal his emotions very tidily, as he seemed to be concealing them now. Peter Bradshaw had never appeared to be disturbed or troubled by anything. Perhaps his career as a forensic pathologist had a formalin effect, pickling the emotions. On the few occasions Maybridge had been forced to have a consultation with him during an autopsy, the professor's skilled fingers had probed the cadaver with slow rhythmic movements like a concert pianist playing Bach on a bloodied instrument. Maybridge's hands, balled into fists to stop them trembling, had been thrust behind his back. Bradshaw, noticing his discomfort, had politely pretended not to. Very polite. Peter. Very controlled. Not like his wife, Lisa, an artistically gifted woman, but deeply neurotic.
Maybridge disciplined himself to read the remaining verses without letting his thoughts stray, and then finally and with relief he came to the last verse: "But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence."
Simon, thrust into awareness by what seemed a peremptory command, half rose, then, realising it wasn't an order, sat again and blushed.
Blushing was an adolescent embarrassment, like acne. And still being a virgin. The Magdalene in her red robe up on the east window was gloriously provocative, aglow with sunlight, the colour of wine. Keeping his eyes on her most of the time made this funeral bearable. It was the first he had been to. He didn't know the ropes. Words his father had spoken came back to him: "Valedictories, Simon, are the few pieces of hyperbole untinged by envy. As for funerals, let the dead bury the dead."
The dead weren't burying the dead today and the hyperbole in the tabloids would have rung the bells of heaven. The heavies were more restrained. The Daily Telegraph obituary was typical:

Professor Peter Bradshaw, M.A. (Oxon.), M.D. (Lond.), F.R.C.P., F.C.Path., tragically killed together with his wife, Lisa, whilst on a motoring holiday, will be greatly missed, not only by his professional colleagues who had great admiration for his skill, but also by his students at London University where he was a part-time lecturer. The professor was an academic who performed brilliantly at the practical level and was able to impart sufficient enthusiasm in his lectures to recruit other medics into the perhaps not so popular speciality of forensic pathology.
Bradshaw's recent involvement as an expert witness for the prosecution which led to the conviction of the serial strangler, Charles Hixon, brought him a high degree of publicity which he endured with quiet good humour, but obviously didn't enjoy.
Lisa Bradshaw, an art historian, will be remembered for her book on nineteenth-century illustrators of children's fairy stories in which she compared and contrasted the styles of John Tenniel, A. W. Bayes and Monro S. Orr.
The Bradshaws made their home in the Avon area, within commuting distance of London. Both were in their forty-ninth year at the time of the accident and had recently celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. Their only son, Simon, survives them.

Survival. An evocative word.
Simon moved restlessly, hemmed in by women, and tried not to think of his mother. Mrs Maybridge, on his left, smelt of scent, rather light, a sort of clover, honey clover. Mrs Sutton, the vicar's wife, on his right, smelt of peppermints and sweat and horses. She kept a couple of ponies in the paddock behind the vicarage and mucked out the stables herself. Had the vicar done the mucking out while she wrote the sermons, it might have been a better arrangement. Parts of his funeral address, or whatever it was called, were gruesome. The organ began to play. Apparently it was time to sing. He dropped his hymnbook.
It fell on Meg Maybridge's foot and she bent over and picked it up, then turned to the right page and glanced at the words before handing it back. "When our heads are bowed with woe, when our bitter tears o'erflow, when we mourn the lost, the dear, Jesu, Son of Mary, hear." Damn it, she thought, crossly and irreverently, whoever chose this ought to be shot. You don't sing hallelujah that the dead are dead, but neither should you twist the knife in those who are left behind. She looked anxiously at Simon. He smiled at her ruefully. "It's all right," he said.
But he wouldn't sing it, though he wouldn't have broken down if he had. The funeral was a charade to be endured. A public expression of private grief. But he didn't feel anything. When Kester-Evans, the headmaster, had called him out of the biology tutorial and told him that both his parents had been killed, he hadn't felt anything either. They had been words he couldn't believe. Later, when he had heard the details, he had formed a mental image of the accident in slow motion, a dream disaster in which flames lapped the car as it fell softly towards the grey smudge of the valley below. A terrible gentleness in the falling. A deep, long silence afterwards. In his imagination the car had been empty. As yet he couldn't envisage the bodies inside it. Couldn't. Wouldn't. Shock blotted out the unacceptable.
After the hymn the vicar intoned a prayer and then it was time for the bearers to approach the coffins. Simon hadn't been invited to be a bearer - out of kindness - concern - or maybe at five feet eight he was too short? He was strong enough, the same build as Maybridge who was one of them and only a couple of inches taller. The other five carrying his father's coffin were representatives of the local police, with the exception of a friend from one of the Home Office laboratories.
Of the six men carrying his mother's coffin he only knew Alan Drew, the family's solicitor, and Dr Donaldson, the medical superintendent of The Mount nursing home. Donaldson's lean, sheeplike face with its crest of thick wavy grey hair looked drawn and ill. Grief? Simon wondered. Well, yes, of course. Everyone grieved, or pretended they did. And they smiled at weddings.
The walk down the aisle was slow as the congregation shuffled out of the packed pews. The small nineteenth-century church had been designed for a small nineteenth-century village. Macklestone village in the twentieth century had expanded, but mercifully not a great deal. It still retained its rural character, despite its proximity to Bristol, mainly because the lie of the land precluded the building of large estates. The few commuters to London built their homes on the village perimeter and for the most part merged with the locals. They helped to swell the congregation, but they didn't make it burst at the seams.
That all these people were here today, these strangers, on account of his parents, or more specifically on account of his father's being hyped up by the Press, Simon found hard to understand. Ghoulish curiosity? His father had been doing clever things with genetic fingerprinting and other scientific oddities as long as he could remember and no one had taken any notice. Until the Rapunzel murders - as the Press called them. Was interest multiplied by five? Five longhaired prostitutes murdered by Charles Hixon in the space of fifteen months. The Rapunzel ratio. One murder in fifteen months would scarcely raise an eyebrow. His father had dealt with quite a few of those. Most of them ordinary. All of them nasty. When he had first discovered the nature of his father's job, he had been about nine at the time, he had refused to touch him and had voluntarily taken baths. If his father had been hurt he hadn't shown it, just waited patiently for common sense to prevail.
And now, in the porch, neatly coffined, he was waiting again. Someone had dropped a camera and it had spewed its innards over the top step. Disapproval drifted in the air like gunsmoke. If the media wanted a picture then it should be taken with decorum and at a distance, Simon heard someone mutter. His parents' dignity in death, someone else implied, had been sullied. Meg Maybridge touched his arm, "Okay? Just a bit of a holdup." Yes, he was okay, he told her, not bothered.
It was cool in the porch, verging on chilly, but very sunny. Bright enough for a good picture, perhaps. He noticed Kester-Evans had pushed his way forward and was helping whoever it was who owned the camera to pick up the pieces. Typical headmaster behaviour. He'd probably quote something disapproving in Latin as he did so. Being rude in an ancient tongue was one of his foibles.
Maybridge, uncomfortably aware of the weight of the coffin on his shoulder, glanced at Superintendent Claxby who was sharing the weight with him at the front. Claxby, thin and dapper, hadn't the build or the temperament for carrying the dead. The Chief Constable
had dragooned him into it, he'd complained bitterly to Maybridge. Not that he hadn't the greatest respect and liking for Bradshaw, he'd added, but six strong young p.cs would have done just as well, or five p.cs and the son. "What," he'd asked Maybridge, "was wrong with the son?"
Maybridge, not understanding the question, couldn't answer it. There was nothing wrong with the son other than bereavement. And that was a disease, curable eventually, that ran its own peculiar course. This double funeral would have been easier for the boy if it hadn't attracted so much attention. Maybridge wondered which of the tabloids the owner of the camera worked for. She was a woman of about thirty, dressed inappropriately in bright yellow. Only her hair looked funereal. Long and pitch black, it framed her pale face like a nun's coif. Whoever she was, she had behaved unprofessionally. She stood at last, looked closely at the flagged floor as if to make sure that no fragments were left, and then gave Kester-Evans a curt little nod and stepped back into the crowd.
Carefully, slowly, the bearers of the coffins walked to the porch doors.
Simon, aware of imminent movement, like cars revving up at amber traffic lights, spent a few moments reading the announcements on the church notice board. A light breeze rustled through them. An appeal for donations towards the cost of repairing the church roof. Lists of various duties. Flower arranging. Brass cleaning. A sponsored walk was to take place on Saturday, proceeds to go towards buying a minibus for the local senior citizens. Simon wondered where the O.A.P.s would go when they had it. A trip to the Cotswolds, perhaps. What would they sing as they went - old war songs? 'Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye'? In times of war it could be goodbye for ever - and they knew it. Had his father had it in the back of his mind - a premonition, perhaps - that his goodbye to him was a final one? He had been unusually demonstrative. A warm last hug. And during the holiday he had seemed troubled - different in some indefinable way - or maybe he was imagining it.
And now it was time for the interment. He moved forward slowly with everyone else. Meg, at his side, resisted slipping her arm through his. She sensed that he was dazed rather than calm and didn't know how to help. He had no close relatives who might have taken over. His father's cousin had left his medical practice in the U.S.A. for a brief visit to assist with the identification and transporting of the bodies, but had been unable to stay on for the funeral. Grandparents would have been a godsend, though perhaps too old. She wondered how her own son, David, would cope in similar circumstances, but couldn't make the comparison. David was
twenty-three and worldly wise. This boy had been incarcerated in a boarding school since the age of nine, a narrow environment which might suit some, though possibly not Simon. Facially he resembled his mother: fair haired, pale skinned, a tender mouth and eyes that were guarded.

It had rained during the night and the coffin bearers walked with care, their shoes caking with mud. Wreaths piled high on either side of the open grave shone with a sweet beauty on the artificial grass. The real stuff, Simon noticed, grew weedily and wantonly. Eventually, he supposed, the grave diggers, now discreetly out of sight, would roll up the fake turf, fill up the grave, which was deep enough for the two coffins, and collect their pay. Another day's work.
The vicar intoned the prayers of committal and then waited for Simon to throw a handful of earth on to the coffins. He hadn't been told about this part of the proceedings and thought it archaic, disrespectful, almost funny. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection.
Well ... maybe. He wondered if the remains, obviously very few of them, had been placed in the right coffins. If not, would a hybrid male and female parent one day arise? Confusing. Or two parents with a swopping over of careers and personalities, perhaps? His mother performing wild and bloody autopsies. His father painting pictures and performing domestic chores, calm and controlled, in a mansion in the sky.
The thought of domestic duties reminded him that after a funeral it was etiquette to provide the mourners, i.e. these people standing around looking embarrassed, with cups of tea and sandwiches at his home. He had made no provision for this, but perhaps someone else had. The villagers had rallied round ever since they'd heard the news of his parents' deaths. He appreciated their compassion, was even a little touched by it, but there were times when he wished to be left alone. The vicar was approaching, his hand outstretched. "Dear boy," he began, "dear Simon ..." Simon backed away. The vicar's hand had traces of cemetery soil on it. So had his. He felt sick suddenly. Sweaty. Dirty. He mumbled something about it being a nice funeral - and thank you very much - but he had to go - rather quickly because - sorry, and all that, but ...
Simon turned and ran.
He managed to reach the copse midway between the cemetery and the road to his home before flinging himself down on his knees and vomiting.

With the chief mourner suddenly taking off, the vicar wasn't sure what to do. He knew it was up to him to try to cope with the situation, but how? What should he say? The Bradshaws, though neighbours for a long time, had rarely attended church and he hadn't known them well socially. He scarcely knew their son at all. It was the Church's duty to christen, marry and bury, he believed, though some of his ecclesiastical colleagues made protesting noises about the Church being made use of by hypocritical non-believers. The Bradshaws'faith, or lack of it, in the Almighty, wasn't his concern any more; what to do about the boy was. His wife had arranged a light lunch up at the vicarage for Simon and personal friends amongst the mourners who had travelled more than a few miles to attend the funeral, but it was quite possible she had forgotten to tell him. She tended at times to be distrait, especially when something was wrong with one of her horses. The piebald had a bruised fetlock. And the boy had a bruised heart. The Reverend Sutton, kind, sentimental and totally inadequate as a pastor and leader of men, ran nervous fingers through his thick white hair while his parishioners and the strangers amongst them looked at him for guidance. He couldn't give it.
Down on the road the hearse driver switched on the ignition and crashed the gears noisily before moving off. It was the only sound in the startled air. Everyone turned and looked at it.