Pestilence by Ken McClure Read Free Book Online Page B

us. We became successful and had everything we wanted except kids but that didn’t matter too much. We had each other and that was enough. Then, one night last year, I confessed to Myra that I still missed the old country. Would you believe it? I actually missed Skelmore. And do you know? Myra said that she felt exactly the same!” Archer smiled as he recalled the moment and took a sip of his drink before continuing. “Well, we laughed and we laughed then Myra said, why don’t we go back? We were both getting on a bit. We could sell the farm and retire, buy a little place back in Skelmore or down here in Gerham. We could visit all our old haunts and pretend that we were kids again.
    At first I baulked at the idea, for selling the farm was not going to be easy and, with things being the way they were, there was no way that we were going to get what it was really worth. But Myra pointed out that that really didn’t matter as long as we got enough to buy our place back here and had enough to live on. So that is what we did. We wrote to an estate agent in Skelmore and asked him about houses in the area and, to our amazement, he wrote back saying that new houses and flats were springing up all over the place, something about a new Japanese company opening up here.”
    Saracen nodded.
    “He sent us some builder’s brochures and we decided on one of the new flats on Palmer’s Green. Myra came over two weeks ahead of me to get things ready and I stayed on to tidy up the loose ends.” Archer paused as if composing himself for what he had to say next. “When I got here last Tuesday a neighbour told me that Myra had been taken to hospital.”
    “Which one?” asked Saracen.
    “The neighbour said Skelmore General but when I got there they told me that she wasn’t there, she must have been taken to the County Hospital. I went immediately to the County but they said that Myra wasn’t there either. I was at my wits’ end; I didn’t know what to do.”
    “I can imagine. What did you do?”
    “I went back to the General and told them what the people at the County Hospital had said. Eventually they apologised for the mix up, as they called it, and admitted that Myra had been brought to the General. She had died shortly after admission.” Archer wrung his hands as he stared at the table in front of him.
    “What did your wife die of Mr Archer?” asked Saracen softly.
    “They said that she had had a heart attack. I can’t understand it; Myra was always as strong as a horse. She’d never had a day’s illness in her life.”
    “It can happen like that,” said Saracen.
    “But it was all so cold and callous as if Myra was some vagrant they had found dead on a parking lot. They wouldn’t even let me see her.”
    Saracen was puzzled but very much aware that Archer was on the verge of breaking down again. “Did they give you a reason why not?” he asked gently.
    “They said that an autopsy had been carried out on Myra and it would not be ‘appropriate’ for me to view the body. They said that they hadn’t realised that she had had a husband or indeed any relations and had arranged for her body to be cremated.” Archer’s voice fell to a whisper as he said, “But I managed to stop them doing that. Part of our reason for coming back to Skelmore was that we bath wanted to be buried in St Clement’s churchyard when the time came. We had gone to Sunday school there when we were kids and we were married there. I managed to fix that yesterday for Myra.”
    Saracen nodded but was still puzzled. If the woman had died of a heart attack the post mortem would have been confined to the thorax. The site of incision could easily have been concealed and the body displayed in the viewing area of the mortuary chapel. Why had Archer been treated so shabbily? Had it really been too much trouble for someone to arrange for him to see his wife? “Who did you speak to at the General?” he asked Archer.
    “Dr Garden, I think he said his