What Will Burn by James Oswald (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

‘Some ceremonies must be borne witness to. This is one. Will you accompany me inside?’ Madame Rose gestured towards the building, its doors now being opened for the mourners who had begun filing in like well-trained ants. On the other side, a different group would be making their way out, their short time slot over. Such was the business of death.

Inside the crematorium was much as McLean remembered it from his last visit. How many years was it now since he’d said a final goodbye to his grandmother? The room was far too large for the congregation, which at least meant he could avoid Lord Bairnfather. There had been an ominous silence from that quarter since their brief conversation at the chief superintendent’s house, but McLean knew a reckoning was on the cards sooner or later.

‘I don’t think the Cecily Slater I knew would have liked such an ostentatious coffin,’ Madame Rose said, as they sat near the back and waited for the ceremony to start. ‘She was never one to make a fuss. That’s what made her so powerful.’

It was an odd thing to say, even for Madame Rose. McLean hadn’t thought much about the coffin, sitting at the front of the chapel waiting for them. Sometimes coffins were brought in after everyone else, sometimes they were already there, and one looked pretty much the same as another, didn’t it? There was no time to ask what the medium had meant by her words, though. As the community celebrant stepped up to the lectern to speak, a last group of people hurried in and squeezed into the row beside them both.

‘Oh good. You made it,’ Rose whispered, and when McLean looked around to see who her friends were, the nearest one waved. Izzy DeVilliers had tidied herself up considerably since they’d spoken a few days earlier. Her hair was still a short-cropped, spiky red mess, but she wore a loose-fitting black cotton jacket over a simple, dark, ankle-length dress and plain white blouse. The transformation from the surly teenager was quite impressive.

‘Hi, Tony. Hey, Janie.’ She even smiled as if she were pleased to see him, although that might have been meant for Harrison. Then she was shushed by the person sitting beyond her. McLean nodded a quiet greeting and turned to face the front again, but not before seeing a tall, thin woman with straight grey hair that fell well past her shoulders. If he hadn’t seen her in photographs already, he would have known Mirriam Downham at once. The only thing that troubled him was that those photographs had been taken more than half a century earlier and she looked exactly the same.

The service was mercifully short, overseen as it was by a community celebrant who had clearly only heard the name Cecily Slater a day or two before. McLean felt that familiar mix of horror and dread as the curtains drew together to hide the coffin on its way to the furnace. Was it really fifty years now since he’d watched his parents go that same way? Near enough as didn’t matter.

Outside, the promised rain had arrived, albeit half-heartedly. Few people hung around to chat, heading straight to cars as swiftly as they could. Tam Uist came up and told them there was to be a wake at Bairnfather Hall.

‘His Lordship said to tell you. All who knew his late aunt are welcome,’ the farmer said, eyeing Madame Rose, Izzy DeVilliers and Mirriam Downham with a certain trepidation. To DS Harrison he gave a warm smile of recognition before trotting back to his lord and master.

‘I wouldn’t set foot in that house in a hundred years,’ Mirriam Downham said, the first words McLean had heard her speak. Quite unusually, Madame Rose had not yet introduced her.

‘Ms Downham, I presume?’ McLean said.

‘Doctor Downham, but it will do. And you are Anthony McLean, if I am not much mistaken. You have your grandmother’s eyes.’

‘I . . .’ There wasn’t much he could say to that. As far as he was aware, nobody had ever made the comparison before. ‘You knew her?’

‘Not well. We corresponded from time to time. And she supported the trust, for which I remain grateful. I understand you wanted to talk to me?’

‘I did, yes. About Cecily Slater, in fact.’ McLean held out his hands to catch the rain, growing ever more persistent. Behind them, the crematorium was already filling up for the next service. ‘This isn’t maybe the best place.’

‘Agreed. I need to arrange to collect Sissy’s ashes, first. They are to be scattered at Burntwoods, not placed in the Bairnfather mausoleum. She made that abundantly clear.’

‘Perhaps we could meet back at my place,’ Madame Rose suggested. ‘I’m sure you all have much to talk about.’

Downham turned to look at the medium, her face utterly unreadable. The rain had damped her hair, making it hang even straighter, but she seemed quite unperturbed at getting wet.

‘That’s very kind of you, Rose. Perhaps you could take young Isobel with you and I’ll meet you all there.’

Tea at Madame Rose’s house was never much of a chore, especially if you didn’t mind being stared at by cats and surrounded by esoteric clutter. McLean couldn’t help thinking it was infinitely preferable to expensive canapés and booze at Bairnfather Hall. The medium had produced an enormous cake, and enough tea to drown in. After a damp drive across town, being in the warm and dry was a welcome change, too.

They were all in the living room where McLean had first met Izzy DeVilliers. The young woman sat on the sofa next to Harrison as if they were old friends, and she seemed like a completely different person. It wasn’t just the funeral clothes, but her entire deportment, and it wasn’t hard to see the reason why she was behaving herself.

Mirriam Downham sat close to the fire, as if she needed its elemental heat to survive. She held her cup and saucer in long-fingered hands, balanced elegantly in her lap,