James wore a rucksack that contained a number of large keys. He hadn’t been sure which was the right one, not having had cause to unlock the mausoleum before.
The building stood in the far corner, a stone structure with a gabled roof and sculptured angels at the corners. In the graveyard, around the mausoleum, were the last resting places of more distant family members and the occasional favorite servant. The river ran alongside it by the edge of the graveyard and off toward Upper Iffley.
On the side walls were the names and dates of all the people interred within. Most of them had been rendered illegible over the years from the weather and the lichen. The only names that could be read clearly were Lord Ashbury’s and the two lords immediately before him.
I imagined James wanting to add Lennie to the list. “Phone an engraver,” he’d bark at me on his way out one morning. “And make sure they spell it right.”
“We should’ve used Mr. Billings’s wheelbarrow,” I said, regaining my breath as we dropped the body at the wooden door framed by decorative Roman-style columns and rested for a moment.
“Now you tell me.” James opened the rucksack and started trying the keys in the lock. It took a few goes, but eventually it opened, the stiff metal sounding loud in the night as it ground against itself.
“What if someone hears us and comes to see what’s going on?” I asked, wincing at the creaking hinges as James heaved the door open.
“Who’s going to hear us?” he said. “We’re miles from anywhere. It’s the middle of the night.”
“But what if they do? It’s a public right-of-way, someone could be passing.” There was a public footpath running through the field. “An insomniac.”
“We’ll lock them in here as well, in that case.” He stepped back from the doorway. He put his hand in his pocket, took his phone out, and used it to shine a light into the cavern. “After you,” he said.
I hovered on the edge, inhaling the fetid odor that came from inside, and took a pace backward.
James stepped past me into the interior and shone his phone around. I thought about taking him up on his own threat and locking him in there…
That would be quite the conundrum when they were found: James in the mausoleum, probably at the door, having died trying to claw his way out, and Lennie, battered and bruised, outside.
But I was too slow; he came back out and started hauling Lennie by the shoulders.
“Help me. Come on.”
For the last time, I picked up Lennie’s ankles, and we moved him in.
We always referred to the building as the mausoleum, the whole village did, but really, it was more of a huge walk-in tomb. The coffins were all on shelves along the walls, the oldest at the back. I could hardly see those and I didn’t want to: after centuries they couldn’t be much more than sticks and bones. Nearest the door was Lord Ashbury and it made me shudder because I’d seen him in the village when he was alive, and I remembered him as a posh and affable old man.
We got Lennie over the threshold and dropped him on the floor, toward the middle, then we hurried back out, locked the door, and made our escape.
Back at the house we saw Lennie’s satchel lying by the chaise longue.
“We should’ve taken that with us,” James said, but we would’ve risked dropping things out of it again, leaving a trail of evidence to follow from the house to the mausoleum. Instead, exhausted, we put it in a cupboard in the drawing room.
I took my makeup off, brushed my teeth, changed into my pajamas, and got into bed on autopilot, the shock setting in and making me numb. But in bed I lay awake, thinking about the moment of the accident, Lennie’s lifeless face, the trip to the mausoleum. I thought of us running back from the graveyard, stumbling over the uneven ground, trying not to run into trees in the dark, and I thought about how I wasn’t going to be leaving James the next morning after all.
Chapter Five
I didn’t get up when James did the following day. I lay in bed, my eyes closed, delaying the moment I would have to rise and face reality.
I heard him a couple of rooms away, going through his usual routine as if this were any other morning and not the morning after our lives changed out of all recognition—and Lennie’s as well. He went into the main living area and began banging about in his usual manner; he sounded like he was looking for something. I thought back, trying to remember if I’d hidden anything from him the night before. My memory was hazy on the details; mostly my thoughts were of images of the scene, the airbag flying up in my face, the toy spider on the passenger seat, Lennie lying in the road, on the back seat of the car, on the chaise longue, his eyes closed, his skin pale.
For all that I could and couldn’t remember, I was sure I hadn’thidden anything. For once, it was the furthest thing from my mind. He must have mislaid whatever it was without my help.
“Daisy, have you seen my phone?” he asked, barging into my room. I sat up in bed and looked around.
“No.”
He began opening drawers and looking under the furniture. I stood up and shook the duvet out, thinking back to when I’d last seen him with it, but I hadn’t been watching that closely. And anyway, he hadn’t been in my room.
“Call it, will you?” he said, standing up.
I took my own phone from the bedside cabinet, scrolled down to his name, and pressed call. I put it on loud and we waited as the ringing began. One ring, two, three… We listened for the hum of his phone in reply.
