One For Sorrow

One For Sorrow

A bright spring day, the temperature rising, blue skies scratched with wisps of cloud.
         Shaw slowed the Alfa Romeo through the gothic stone archway at the entrance to the crematorium. Cars lined the roadside, a sure indication that the car parks were full. Hardly surprising.
         He drew the Alfa to a stop behind a new-looking Renault, then climbed from the behind the wheel, careful to avoid any sudden movements—the wound to his abdomen was still not fully healed. Straightening his coat, he started the painfully familiar walk along the tree-lined lane.
         As he neared the chapel, he caught sight of the mourners gathered outside: a sea of black flecked with blue. A scarf, a hat, a tie. Little adornments in her favourite colour.
         A solitary figure stood far removed from the crowd, head bowed, long black overcoat fluttering in the light breeze. Hannah Wilde had pulled her hair up in a severe ponytail, and she wore dark glasses.
         Shaw crossed the grass to join her. Neither spoke. They were uninvited observers, there to pay their respects to a woman they’d never known in life. The family wouldn’t want them there—another reminder of what had gone before.
         The hushed murmur of conversation drifted from outside the chapel, underscored by the minor chords of a pipe organ from within.
         When the cortege started to move, the detectives moved with them, keeping a respectful distance. Shaw scanned the crowd. Near the front, he caught sight of a frail-looking couple. They’d only be in their sixties but, bent over and shuffling, Eileen and David Fields looked decades older. Beside them, holding her mother’s arm, a blonde woman, hollow eyes and pale skin stealing her natural beauty. Anna, the victim’s sister, barley keeping it together. The mourners filed into the chapel, and Wilde and Shaw hung back until everyone was inside.
         On the roadway outside the entrance, stood a black hearse, the coffin on display in the back. Shaw studied the oak casket. Difficult to believe Laura Fields was inside.
         A burst of movement caught Shaw’s eye. In a commotion of black and white, a single magpie settled on the grass not ten feet away. It regarded Shaw with bright, beady eyes. Head cocked, judging.
         Shaw turned away. The coffin, now being pulled from the back of the car by two undertakers, slid onto a wheeled trolley. He hadn’t known it at the time, but Laura died because of him. And that was something he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life. The truth, the crushing guilt, weighed on him until he could barely breathe.
         He looked back to the bird. It hadn’t moved. Still watching him, it opened its beak as though to call out, but it made no sound.
         ‘One for sorrow,’ Wilde said, moving to his side.
         He turned to her. ‘I’m sorry.’ He stumbled over the words. ‘For everything.’
         ‘You don’t need to apologise. You’re the one who got stabbed.’
         Shaw couldn’t form a reply. Wilde hadn’t escaped the cellar unscathed.
         The trolley clattered as the undertakers pushed the coffin into the chapel.
         When he looked back, the magpie had been joined by two others.
         ‘I’m going to be a father,’ Shaw said, the words tumbling out. ‘Victoria’s pregnant.’
         If the news surprised Wilde, she didn’t miss a beat. ‘Congratulations.’
         The birds had lost interest in him, and were picking at the grass.