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He departed, leaving Fleur to the first of the jobs to prepare Arthur for his coffin.

‘I’m going to give you a nice soothing wash,’ she said to her silent companion. Fleur began sponging every inch of Arthur’s exposed body, then took care as she washed his hair. Robbie arrived in time to take care of the regions that he’d covered earlier with the linen, which included packing the orifices to minimise odours or leakage. She was sure that the time was fast approaching where even this nod of courtesy would likely fall away, and the team of women that she planned to assemble would take care of preparing the bodies fully, whether they were male or female. Her argument would be that in days gone it was always the women of the household who prepared a corpse for its final journey, irrespective of its sex. It was done with love, mostly, and a lot of respect, and gave the woman of that house a special time during her early grieving to show her care for whomever had passed within the walls of her home.

Fleur loved this traditional role and was keen to be part of returning that responsibility to women again. We just do it better, she thought, reaching for the shaving kit. Then she spoke aloud, making Robbie smile as he finished up his task. ‘Let’s get that chin of yours beautifully smooth, Arthur, so the family can kiss you goodbye without getting poked by your whiskers.’

Fleur spent another ten minutes carefully shaving Arthur’s stiffened face and was grateful that he had no moustache to contend with. She dabbed his face dry of all soap and water, satisfied the early preparation was now complete. She checked quickly over his exposed body for any wounds or sores and found none.

It was time to close Arthur’s mouth. No one at the Bedford home had thought to put a towel beneath his chin, so Arthur’s jaw gaped helplessly and was now set in that expression by rigor. She would need to suture. She moved to her side table to thread her needle with the fine black thread. There were simple sutures or more elaborate, invisible stitches that her father had taught her from a young age. Appleby’s always used the invisible technique, while others chose to go the easier, faster route, but Fleur’s slim fingers made swift work of the looping stitch, which began on the inside of Arthur’s mouth at the base of his teeth in the lower jaw. She ran the stitch expertly up through the gums of his upper teeth, just above the front pair, and her needle moved deftly and unseen through one of the nostrils, piercing the septum to arrive into the other nostril, before travelling invisibly back into the mouth cavity, where the thread could be gently pulled to close the jaw.

She watched Arthur’s chin move precisely to her instructions and, satisfied that his mouth would sit neatly in rest, she tied off the thread. The skin of Arthur’s face was still malleable and she knew she had time to set his lips so he would look relaxed and untroubled, should Helen wish to see him once more. Fleur checked Arthur’s newly washed hands and decided to clip his fingernails, which she did quickly and then filed down any sharp edges. ‘Now we can fold your hands and they’ll look neat and groomed,’ she assured him.

‘Time to close your eyes now, Arthur,’ she said, always comfortable talking to the people in her mortuary who never replied. ‘You’ve seen your children grow, you’ve lived a good life with a good woman, and now it’s time to sleep.’

As she spoke, she lifted the lid of Arthur’s right eye, which hadn’t closed and was wanting to pull open even further – and would, without her ministrations. The iris gave the appearance of having been drained of colour and was now greyish. She hadn’t known the true colour of his eyes, but the opacity that occurred in the cornea after death meant that everyone’s eyes tended to appear a flattish blue-grey. His pupils were predictably enlarged, another sign of death.

‘Being able to narrow the pupils requires muscles in motion, doesn’t it, Arthur? Your muscles are now quiet,’ she continued amiably, as though keeping him company through her process. ‘I want you to look your best for Helen and the children, so I don’t want to risk your eyes flattening behind your lids . . . I’m just going to do this gently,’ she said, beginning to pack a pledget of lint behind each lid. Fleur had done this so many times now that her fingers worked with expertise to fashion a smooth layering, indistinguishable behind the eyelid. Again her invisible stitching prowess came to the fore.

His eyelids now firmly closed, Fleur stood back. ‘Let’s get you dressed into your smart Sunday suit.’ She cast a soft smile of thanks to Robbie, who had been hovering to help.

‘You’re amazing, Miss. He looks so good.’

Together they dressed Arthur, and Fleur was pleased to note that Robbie moved in perfect concert with her, rolling the body and lifting the head as needed. While he did up Arthur’s trousers, she focused on achieving a neat knot at his tie.

They both took a step back to check their work. ‘You look very handsome, Arthur,’ she remarked and gave Robbie a nod. ‘I’m just going to work on Arthur’s face for a few moments, so you can bring in the coffin.’

‘Will do,’ he said and disappeared.

Fleur spent a final couple of minutes smoothing Arthur’s skin with a make-up she had carefully colour-matched. It was the lightest of applications, simply to give a covering against the inevitable mottling that would occur between now and tomorrow. Next she dusted on a thin layer of powder to set the stickier make-up and finally she tidied his eyebrows, manipulated his lips, though they didn’t need much manoeuvring, and reached for her comb.

The lads arrived with the coffin. Fleur looked at the portrait of Arthur in life. In it his hair was cut neatly around his ears, and she decided she might just give him a trim now. With the pair of sharp scissors she kept for this task, Fleur did her best to approximate the neatness of Arthur’s hair in the image. She knew a lot of the funeral homes didn’t pay sufficient attention to these actions and so often family members wept, claiming they didn’t recognise their loved ones lying there in their final sleep. Fleur wanted her dead to prompt a soft smile of affection from their families. They would look like the person they remembered, as though they were simply sleeping; that was always her aim. It wasn’t always possible, of course, depending on the state of the body. Sometimes the person had been dead for too long or had been involved in an accident. That was usually when Henry suggested to the family that they didn’t have an open coffin for viewing.

‘But you look at peace, Arthur, and now I’ll just comb your hair how you like it,’ she said, wetting the comb and dragging it expertly through his already moistened hair. She achieved his straight parting on the correct side. ‘There!’ Fleur finished with soft triumph.

Both lads nodded their approval. Fleur supervised as they carefully lifted Arthur into his coffin, and she smoothed a hand beneath him to keep his jacket straight as they laid him down.

‘Right, I’ll just get the inside sewn up and his hands in place.’ She sniffed. ‘What’s that awful smell, boys?’

Robbie nodded. ‘I got that earlier. I thought it was him,’ he said, tipping his head at Arthur.

‘It’s not,’ she assured him. ‘But whatever is causing it is turning rank.’ She pulled a face. ‘It smells like fish.’

They both agreed.

‘Best close the door. I don’t want it corrupting the mortuary.’

She frowned as they left the room. Fish certainly wasn’t being cooked today for the dinner with Tom. But she didn’t have time to think further. She had other corpses to attend to.

17

The table was simple; Fleur had taken care of setting it herself. The menu of stuffed roast chicken, accompanied by peas and mashed potato made creamy with hot milk and butter and a good pinch of salt, would be enjoyed by all. She enjoyed the domesticity of shelling the peas while Nan stepped out to their tiny herb patch to pick some parsley for the stuffing and some mint to boil up with the peas.

‘Phew! Smells out there,’ Nan said, bustling back in with a small bowl of herbs. The grassy fragrance of the curly parsley was pleasantly overwhelmed by the fresh scent of mint, cool and woody, and filling the kitchen with its potency.

‘All I can smell is beautiful mint,’ Fleur said, rubbing one of the leaves and inhaling. ‘Is it the traffic fumes?’

Nan frowned. ‘No, it’s a bad smell. Something’s off.’

‘Ah, that again,’ Fleur said. ‘We’ll hunt that down. Now, how’s the pudding coming along? Anything I can do?’