Standing in Another Man's Grave

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RIP Jackie Leven

Prologue

i

He’d made sure he wasn’t standing too near the open grave.

Closed ranks of the other mourners between him and it. The pall-bearers had been called forward by number rather than name—six of them, starting with the deceased’s son. Rain wasn’t quite falling yet, but it had scheduled an appointment. The cemetery was fairly new, sited on the southeastern outskirts of the city. He had skipped the church service, just as he would skip the drinks and sandwiches after. He was studying the backs of heads: hunched shoulders, twitches, sneezes and throat-clearings. There were people here he knew, but probably not many. A gap appeared between two of the mourners and he caught a glimpse of the graveside. The edges of the grave itself had been covered with sheets of green cloth, as if to mask the hard facts of the matter. Words were being uttered but he couldn’t catch all of them. There was no mention of the cancer. Jimmy Wallace had been “cruelly taken,” leaving a widow and three children, plus five grandkids. Those kids would be down the front somewhere, mostly old enough to know what was going on. Their grandmother had given voice to a single piercing wail and was being comforted.

Christ, he needed a cigarette.

How well had he known Jimmy Wallace? Hadn’t seen him in four or five years, but they’d worked in the same cop shop a decade or more back. Wallace was uniform rather than CID, but the sort of guy you’d talk to anyway. Jokes and gossip and the occasional snippet of useful information. He’d retired six years ago, which was around the same time the diagnosis appeared, along with the chemo and hair loss.

Borne with his trademark humor…

Maybe so, but better to be miserable and alive. He could feel the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, knew he could back away a few yards, maybe hide himself behind a tree and spark up. The thought reminded him of schooldays, when there had been bike sheds blocking the view from the headmaster’s window. Teachers occasionally arrived and asked for a light, or a cigarette, or the whole damned pack.

A well-known figure in the local community…

Well known to criminals he’d helped put away, too. Maybe a few of the old-timers had come to pay their respects. The coffin was being lowered into the grave, the widow giving cry again, or perhaps it was one of the daughters. A couple of minutes later it was all over. He knew there would be a mechanical digger hidden nearby. It had dug the hole and would be used to fill it in again. The mound of earth had been covered with more of the green baize cloth. All very tasteful. The majority of the mourners didn’t linger. One man, face heavily lined, mouth permanently drooping, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black woolen coat and approached with the smallest nod of recognition.