THE crematorium was on the main road out of the town, a site both familiar and unknown. Ana had driven past the building many times but this was the first time she had ever turned off the main road into the car park. The dead in her family, thankfully few to date, had all been buried in the traditional Spanish way; with a ceremony in the town church, if possible the very next day, followed by burial in the cemetery.

 

In the car, on the way to Sarah’s funeral service, she tried to tell Daniel how nervous she felt. But when she described to him how she had always averted her gaze as she drove past the crematorium, he had been less than sympathetic, telling her it was just a building, and that anyway, Sarah was not being cremated, she would be buried, just like Ana’s family.

 “Surely you wouldn’t want to go to a church and have some mumbo-jumbo recited by someone who didn’t even know Sarah.” 

 

The car park was almost full when they arrived and on the way in Daniel spoke briefly to people whom Ana had never seen before. She was surprised to see Manuel Camps and Luis, standing near the desk where a book of condolence was being signed and she avoided catching their eyes.

 

Perhaps they are watching everyone, to see if anyone is acting in a suspicious way, she thought, before chiding herself for an overactive imagination. As they reached the large, light, room where the service would take place, she saw with relief that George and Juana Rutherford, her oldest and dearest British friends were there, already seated, in the front, near to the platform where the coffin stood alone. Juana gestured at the two seats next to them which she had reserved with her bag and scarf. Ana knew the couple had always planned to come but their health was a worry and, despite his new hip and knee, George sometimes found driving difficult. Juana clasped her hand as Ana leant across to give George a kiss. 

 

Looking around the rapidly filling room, Ana realised that she and the two policemen were probably the only Spanish mourners.  

The odd looking group who had a look of 1960s hippies must be the German motor caravaners, she thought, the ones who had discovered Sarah’s body on the beach. The rest of the people looked somehow British, possibly the conventional clothes they wore, and this added to her feeling of being a stranger in her own town. 

 

Now she was living here again she realised how much the place had changed; low-rise apartment complexes had been built over the old orange groves that had once separated the old town from the port, and villas covered the hills around the town. Her father said the town had more foreigners than Spanish inhabitants now.  According to him, the money that the Spanish natives gained from selling land for the new houses for the foreigners had been used to buy cars. Papi was a great reader of statistical reports. “Our town has more cars per inhabitant than any other in the region,” he had told her almost proudly, and indeed there were cars everywhere, in the small narrow streets of the town, on the stones at the edge of the sea, in every conceivable space near the beach. “Well you see, mi corazon, it’s the status. The townsfolk sold all the old family fruit and vegetable huertos for development and now the size of their car is their way to show the world, or at any rate the neighbours, just how much they are worth.”  

 

For most of her adult life, Ana had lived in cities, with good public transport systems. She had never owned a car, although she passed the driving test and had a licence, so she was unimpressed. “Madre mia, Papi, did you see Kika’s black monster, with a bull bar in front? She was parking it by the market yesterday and she doesn’t live ten minutes’ walk away. No wonder she’s a lot bigger than she used to be.” 

 

The mourners filled all the seats, with quite a few people standing at the back, when Mark finally walked to the front, a woman at his side. Ana thought her quite beautiful, probably in her 60s, immaculate in a plain black dress and a man’s black hat, an elegant, timeless style that spoke of the King’s Road, Chelsea, in its heyday.  Mark stepped forward to the lectern and began to speak. 
 

It was the first non-Catholic funeral that Ana had attended and the first not held in a church. The previous year she had flown home for the funeral of her mother’s oldest brother, Jose-Juan. He died on a Friday night and was buried the following Monday afternoon. Ana thought the whole town must have turned out to pay their respects to him;  the Church had been filled to overflowing. 

 

Daniel told Ana that Mark’s only family, his brother and sister-in-law in Dubai, could not come to Spain as his brother had recently had a new heart valve inserted. It made Mark, Ana thought, seem very much alone. 

 

By unspoken consent, neither Daniel nor Ana had talked more about the files Daniel had found on Sarah’s computer.  Sarah’s sad story haunted Ana and she wished more than ever that she had been able to get to know her better. As she looked at Mark now, so tall and dignified, she realised she would never again try to judge people by their looks. Who would ever have guessed that Mark, who looked and behaved like a typical bureaucrat, so proper, a man who did everything by the book, would have torn his world, and Sarah’s, apart for a grand passion?  

 

And Sarah’s discovery of the son in India.  Who knew about that apart from Holly?  She hoped Holly hadn’t shared the information, Mark deserved privacy.

 

When Mark spoke Ana tuned out all other thoughts so she could send her sympathy to help him get through this ordeal. 

Despite everything that had been thrown at him, he had organised everything perfectly.  Sarah’s favourite flowers filled the room and on top of the coffin was a bunch of the palest lilac and pink tulips.  Mark spoke beautifully and he was helped by his elegant companion whom he introduced as Charlotte Hunter, Sarah’s Aunt Charlie, the woman who had taken over the role of mother and who seemed to have loved her very much.

 

Together they painted a picture of Sarah unfamiliar to most of the people gathered to mourn her, who had only known her in the last period of her life, as an expatriate in Spain. Charlie and Mark brought Sarah to life with short readings from favourite poems and with music that Sarah had loved at different times; they painted a picture of an intelligent, funny woman, sometimes cynical and sometimes sad. Ana felt the pain of loss;  she had hardly known Sarah, and now, in what Mark perfectly called a celebration of her life, she saw the woman who had attracted her on the few occasions their paths had crossed.

 

Today Mark looked older than his years, certainly older than Daniel. But she realised he would probably look exactly the same at seventy, eighty even. The walk a little stiffer, the back a little more bent perhaps, but still a fine man, a man of integrity.  But then perhaps some people, religious people maybe, might judge his actions in India more harshly than she did.

 

The readings and the music came as a surprise to her and although Juana had handed her a printed sheet that she knew Holly and Daniel had designed, she had been too emotional to read it and so when Jeff  Guy, Holly’s husband read the song from Cymbeline, her first reaction was that she hadn’t realised that a man she had always thought rather neutral and even a little cold had a such warm, rich voice.
 

“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, 

Nor the furious winter’s rages; 

Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: 

Golden lads and girls all must, 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust”

 

The words brought tears to her eyes and Juana took her hand and squeezed it. 
 

“So apt,” she whispered in Ana’s ear when Jeff had finished, “she was a golden girl.” 
 

Ana wiped her eyes with Juana’s handkerchief and whispered back, “I didn’t know Jeff had such a lovely voice.” 
 

“Amateur actor, dear, lots of am-dram in Winchester; he used to read passages out loud in our book club, could have been a professional actor.” 

 

As the last notes of Charles Trenet’s La Mer echoed around the room, Holly moved to the front and read extracts from Sarah’s diary about her time in India. Ana heard the sounds of sniffing and noses being blown into handkerchiefs all around the hall as they listened to stories of the Indian children who grew to love the books that Sarah introduced, her delight in their pleasure bringing her words to life. Next to Ana, Juana’s tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. It was Ana’s turn to offer comfort.

 

The Sanctus from the Mozart Requiem gave her some space and her mind wandered again. Perhaps someone in this room with us pushed Sarah over the cliff.  Could Sarah have said something, known something, that made someone so desperate they lost control?

She looked at Mark, standing so still and calm by the lectern. Did Mark know about his son? Perhaps his surprise was a lie.  He might have fooled us, Ana thought, and be secretly planning to return to India and his child. 

 

She saw Kevin sniffing into a handkerchief and leaning against Holly’s arm for comfort. He was the most obviously grief stricken. Did he have a passion for Sarah and she had rejected him?

The Mozart ended and Daniel walked to the front. He was the last reader and the people who had gathered to mourn Sarah Harris sat in total silence as they listened to “Sea Fever” by John Masefield, which Mark introduced as Sarah’s favourite poem. 

 

Mark had chosen Stardust as the final piece of music and when it finished people began to leave. Ana remembered what an ordeal the end of the Spanish funeral had been for her mother’s family, including her mother. Every person in the Church, several hundred people, had filed past the family standing at the front, waiting their turn to shake hands or offer a kiss and murmur their sympathy. 

 

Mark wanted only those closest to Sarah to go with him to the interment in the nearby cemetery. Burial was not the correct word, Ana had told Daniel, as in Spanish cemeteries the coffins were placed in shelves, often seven or eight coffins high. Mark invited everyone at the service to come to his home for refreshments; Ivan and Carole had volunteered to go straight to the house to welcome people. Ana volunteered to drive George and Juana’s car the short distance to Mark’s house immediately, avoiding something she thought would upset all three of them greatly.  

 

Mark had asked Holly to personally invite the U3a members present but although she stressed how much Mark would welcome them at his home, in the end, most of them had found good reasons why they couldn’t come.

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Thank heavens for the German group, Ana thought. They are saving the day. Without them, the wake at Mark’s house would be a rather sad, low key event, peopled for the most part by grieving, worried people entertaining doubts about each other.  All the German group spoke good English and they moved around, talking to everyone. As they left the Crematorium, most people signing the visitors book, Holly came to Ana to confide that her biggest worry was Kevin Somerset and his fragile emotional state.  Ana was relieved now, as she saw him, looking more at ease, with the German group. Holly circulated without worrying Kevin was feeling isolated or even that he might break down. He was even laughing at one stage, a loud and joyful sound Ana heard for the first time. 

 

Manfred had suggested that he go to the caravan and fetch a couple of guitars and a harmonica. The idea came to him, he said, as he talked to George Rutherford and discovered that until the previous year George had played the double base in a local traditional jazz band. He explained to Kevin and Ana, who had joined the group, that they were all touched at the invitation to the funeral, and especially to be invited back to Sarah’s house.

 

“English people, they can seem so stuffy and formal, especially rich ones like this crowd, but then you look beneath the surface and find they are quite different. That guy Mark, I admire him, he couldn’t have managed that service better if he’d been a priest.” They smiled and he added “not that I have heard any priests speak in the last 30 years” They laughed. Ana was touched by the sense of responsibility the German group expressed towards Sarah, as they had been the ones to find her in the sea.  

When Manfred rather hesitantly asked Mark whether he might play some music,  they were surprised by his enthusiasm. “You know”, he said,  “I think Sarah would have loved that. She was a really good dancer, loved the dance music of the 40s and 50s and she could jive with the best of them." 
 

Gunther paused to re-tune his guitar after a jive performed with some panache by Mark and Charlie and Ivan and Ursula to “Summertime Blues. Ana was standing nearby and although her German was fairly basic,  she thought she understood him to say to Manfred  ”that was a great idea, Man. These folks look so much more relaxed now. And do you know, just for a minute there, by the trees, while they were dancing, I thought I saw a woman with long blond hair watching and I swear she was smiling”.

 

Mark had, Daniel told her, invited Kevin to speak about Sarah during the service, but he had refused. In Mark’s garden, though, she heard him telling Gunther what a superb swimmer Sarah had been and Ana loved the open, easy way the women, especially Ursula, the oldest and the best English speaker, had asked questions about Sarah and wanted to see pictures of her, which Mark loved showing them. 

 

She had also warmed to Aunt Charlie, the woman Sarah said had saved her life, and who had been such a support to Mark at the memorial. Ana again admired her style, as she danced beautifully with Mark, and hoped they would keep in touch, although somehow she doubted it. 
 

She was surprised to see how ell Mark was coping with the day but then she realised that organisation was his forte. She overheard him making George and Juana laugh loudly when he described his dealings with the staff of the crematorium. They loved, they said,  Sarah’s desire for a Viking funeral and that they would like that too, preferably together. 

 

Holly came and talked to her while they watched the dancing. What she had not expected, she told Ana, was that Lynette would cause her such concern, allowing her suspicions of Kevin to show. “Why can’t she think about Mark and how difficult the day is for him? She can be selfish sometimes.” 

 

She gave Ana an embarrassed smile, conscious that criticism of  her to Ana might be thought “bad form”, so Ana squeezed her arm. “Come on, let’s find out if our husbands want to dance with us.” But Jeff had already been invited to dance by Ingrid, the youngest and most beautiful woman in the group and Daniel was not to be seen.  She saw Ivan trying to persuade Carole to dance, but she refused and so he continued to dance with Ursula. 

 

Observing them dance elegantly together, Ana thought that man would be at home anywhere, with anyone, irritated once more by his confidence. It must be the benefit of an English public school education, a pity it so often came over, to her anyway, as arrogance. 

Mark came across and stood by her, putting his arm on her shoulder and giving her a hug.
 

“Sarah would have so loved this, Ana. We did her proud didn’t we?” She hugged him back, unable to speak, and he moved away, to talk to Manfred.  

 

Alone for a moment by a jasmine bush, with the music in the background, she looked back at the form the funeral had taken. Inviting everyone to the house for food and drink? Unusual, although maybe Papi might think it different, but sociable. But music and dancing? She must ask Daniel if it was normal in Britain. It was definitely different, but she thought it rather a nice thing to do. 

She couldn’t help her mind returning to who might have harmed Sarah. How could she even think these things?  Surely Jonathan would never have hurt Sarah and then put Mark through the pain he knew so well. And Lynette, well she seemed somewhat selfish and disorganised but would she have harmed Sarah? 

 

They all seemed such unlikely suspects. Lynette, from the things Daniel had told her, was at her most stable and content in years. But suppose Sarah had found out something that could have threatened to destroy this new-found tranquillity?  Could Lynette have pushed her in a moment of panic?

  

Although she knew it was illogical, Ana ruled out Holly without further thought. There was something so decent and normal about her; her grief and care for Mark were so unforced.  She was having second thoughts about Jeff, he was different today, not as cold as he appeared earlier, and he had read beautifully in the service. 

 

Ivan and Carole were at the end of the list. She wasn’t sure where her antipathy towards Ivan came from but she knew if one of Daniel’s friends was guilty then she hoped it was Ivan. But why did she dislike him so much when Carole, who was a good person, loved him so desperately? And Mayte had certainly been impressed. There must be something about him she couldn’t see. Would he have pushed Sarah off a cliff if it was necessary for his survival? Yes, she thought he would. Did she think he had done it? Ana decided she didn’t; his behaviour since that day had been normal, he seemed as self-centred as ever. Surely if he had something so terrible to hide he would pretend to be at least a little kinder and more concerned. 

 

And then Carole, so utterly undermined by what had happened, trying so hard to keep everything together, keeping things normal.

Ana looked across at Carole, talking to a couple called Barbara and George Jones, distant friends of the group. She looked so small and vulnerable. With all her heart, Ana wanted the mystery of Sarah’s death to be cleared up very soon before corrosive suspicion could cause more damage to everyone here, including her and Daniel. She jumped as Daniel put his arm round her shoulder.

 

 “Lost in thought, my love? Come and dance with me. Do you realise this will be our first dance together in Spain.”