by Rebecca Tope
‘I don’t know what a barney is.’
‘Yes you do. It’s an argument. Disagreement.’
‘I thought it was a fight. I haven’t been fighting, if that’s what you’re worried about. Didn’t we say all this already? You don’t have to keep on about it.’
‘I do, because you haven’t told me anything about what’s actually been going on.’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’ Stephanie looked at her. ‘I don’t mean that nastily. You just wouldn’t. There’s a sort of gang – it’s mostly an online thing, but they talk about it as well. The whole thing’s stupid – that’s what you’d say, and you’d be right. But – it’s always there. They don’t like people who don’t want to be part of it.’
‘Like you.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, it’s the end of term tomorrow. I can forget all about it for a bit.’
‘Okay. Well, you have to keep us informed, you know. Talk about this sort of stuff and it often loses its power over you – if you see what I mean. But you’re right, I’ll never properly understand what it’s like. So I’m not going to interfere unless you ask me to, okay?’
‘Thanks,’ said Stephanie. ‘I expect it’s all very character-forming.’
‘Sure to be,’ said Thea, only too aware that she was being quoted back at herself.
Thursday was generally Thea’s favourite day, harking back decades to when the school timetable had nearly always suited her very nicely on that day. History, Art and English seemed to predominate, and never any games. This evening, with her family in Broad Campden, something of these echoes still lingered. ‘What do you want to do at the weekend?’ she asked the children. ‘We should go and buy Easter eggs, I suppose.’
‘Isn’t that meant to be kept secret, like Christmas?’ Drew wondered. ‘My mother always pretended there wouldn’t be anything special, and then there it was – a great big egg in a box on the breakfast table.’
‘That would only work once, surely?’ said Thea.
‘Nope. Somehow it always came as a splendid surprise.’
‘Your mother’s a good actor, then.’ Drew’s mother had been widowed recently, and after years of estrangement, had decided to bury the hatchet and pay regular visits to her son and grandchildren. She had last shown up in February, with her big, unreliable dog that followed Timmy everywhere. The next visit was scheduled for late April. ‘Making up for lost time,’ said Drew. ‘Brace yourself for her appearing every couple of months.’
‘I rather like her,’ said Stephanie.
‘You like everybody,’ the other three chorused.
It was past five o’clock when Caz Barkley came to the door. Hepzie greeted her like an old friend, but Drew and Timmy both withheld any enthusiasm. ‘For heaven’s sake, we’re just about to eat,’ muttered Drew. ‘Why is she here now?’
‘Hush, Dad,’ Stephanie admonished him. ‘She’ll hear you. We’re not eating for ages yet, anyway.’
Thea took the young detective sergeant into the living room. ‘If I’m not done by six, start without me,’ she called into the kitchen. ‘I don’t expect we’ll be that long. Supper time,’ she told the visitor.
‘Right. Sorry. I’ll be in the doghouse with your husband, then.’
‘You and Gladwin both. Can’t be helped. I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘Last summer,’ Barkley nodded. ‘And now here we are again.’
‘Northleach I suppose.’
‘Right. Oliver Sinclair, twenty-eight, died of injuries to head and neck. Bled to death, essentially.’
‘Horrible! And I was looking after his stepmother’s house and had just spoken to his father and his … whatever she is, when they found the body. She calls herself his partner, I expect.’ She waved Barkley to a seat. ‘Which really doesn’t make me very useful – does it? I’d never heard of Ollie until yesterday.’ Numerous thoughts were popping into her head, making speech less coherent than it might be. ‘What was the time of death? Who found him? If he’d only been dead an hour or so, I can provide a whole string of alibis. That would make me useful, at least.’
‘DI Higgins says you might have some insights and the SIO agrees. You’ve met the parents and probably half the people in the village by now. We’ve been running round in circles for two days trying to figure out the story. No two people tell it the same. And the time of death’s a nightmare. There was heating on full blast in the house, which plays havoc with the pathology. Nobody had seen him since Sunday, as far as we can discover. The closest we can get is that he was in the house all day Monday and Tuesday, alive or dead. There’s stuff in the fridge, the Smart Meter shows quite high usage of power for most of that time. There was a laptop showing activity. And a phone, obviously. The forensic bods have been having a field day, going through it all and fitting it all together. There are countless factors to be considered. Was he killed in his sleep? Did he know his killer? There’s no sign of any sort of fight or resistance. I could go on.’
‘What about the drugs? Everybody says he was an addict.’
Caz shook her head in despair. ‘That’s another thing. The woman who found the body told the first responders that he was known to be on drugs, so it was the first thing in the notes. It’s on the G5. But bizarrely there’s no actual evidence that he was taking any sort of addictive substance. The tox screen is completely clear. He was in work, we can’t find a doctor who’ll admit to having him on the books, and the PM couldn’t find a thing. No score marks, no nasal inflammation, and nothing recent in his system. But at least four people have categorically told us he was a druggie.’
‘Blimey!’ said Thea. ‘That’s weird.’
‘It is,’ Barkley agreed.
‘Who was the woman who found him?’
‘A friend of a friend, who says she’d been trying to get him on the phone since Tuesday morning, to talk about something he really cared about. It’s still a bit confusing, but there’s a girlfriend in the picture, and she’s the one who asked this other woman to go and have a look. We found all the messages she left, so the story checks out. Anyway, she knows a woman who lives locally, by the name of Ms Shapley, and sent her round to see what was what. The door was unlocked, so the poor thing just walked in and found him. Most people would throw a fit if that happened, but not this lady. You should hear the tape of her call. Dead calm, giving his name and the address clear as a bell. Then she says, “He must have got into trouble with his drug supplier.” Just like that. She was still there when the paramedics showed up, but she didn’t talk to them. Just explained that she was only a messenger and had never even met Ollie before.’
‘Weird again,’ said Thea.
‘We’ve interviewed her, of course, and Ollie’s girlfriend. When pressed, neither of them could give any real evidence for drugs. The girlfriend was especially blank about it. Ms Shapley said it went with the territory, as far as she was aware. Mr Sinclair was a film editor, apparently working mostly from that house. She said she had always assumed people in that sort of work took drugs as a matter of course.’
‘The girlfriend ought to know best, presumably.’
‘You’d think so. Did you know that Ollie was a very successful athlete some years ago?’
Thea blinked. ‘I did not,’ she said. ‘Would that fit with drugs? Some sort of agonising injury leading to stronger and stronger painkillers? Would you be able to spot evidence of prescription drugs, rather than heroin or cocaine or something?’
‘The pathologist says there was nothing chemical in his system at all. He had eaten bread, apples and cheese for his last meal, and drunk nothing but water.’
‘Sounds too pure to be true,’ said Thea.
Caz nodded. ‘Could be. Even if he was on something, that might have nothing to do with why he was killed. The oddest thing is the way everyone was so sure about it.’
‘Including his father,’ said Thea. ‘Who I’m sure you’ve spoken to.’
‘We have, obviously. The wretched man’s in pieces.’
<
br /> ‘Is he? So you’re not suspecting him, then?’
‘Go back to how he was when you saw him. Was that yesterday?’
‘In the morning. Before anybody knew about the murder.’
‘So what did he tell you about his son?’
Thea racked her brains. ‘Nothing much,’ she reported. ‘Just that Ollie was not Lucy’s son, and that he couldn’t remember exactly how old he was. It was Tessa who knew.’
‘No mention of drugs?’
‘Ah, yes. He said Ollie was degenerate, and he seemed to actively dislike him. Sorry I forgot that part. A lot’s happened since then.’
‘Degenerate. That’s a strong word.’
‘I know. I was shocked.’
‘Is there any way you could have been speaking to his killer, do you think? You’ve had plenty of time to think back and ask yourself the same thing.’
‘It’s an unfair question. Far too subjective. But I would say no, with a fair degree of certainty. He was more concerned with Lucy, wanting to know what had happened to her. It sounds daft, but he was too relaxed to be a murderer. None of the wildness you’d expect. If you see what I mean. And now you say he’s fallen apart. Grief-stricken, in fact.’
‘That’s the impression Higgins got when he spoke to him. Have you ever seen anyone just after they’ve committed a murder?’
Thea said nothing, trying to sort through the many occasions when she had been close to a violent death. ‘I probably have,’ she said slowly, ‘but nobody specific comes to mind. I would venture to say that women hide it better than men. I’ve been very thoroughly taken in by women a few times.’
‘So everybody believed Ollie was on drugs, but nobody appears to have seen any evidence of it with their own eyes.’
‘More or less. You’ll have asked more people about it than I have. With me it was just a kind of background fact they all took for granted. Like that woman, Faith, who mentioned it this morning.’ A new thought struck her. ‘Oh – I should confess that I told Lucy that Ollie was dead. I went to see her in hospital and she hadn’t heard. She said something about drugs, as well.’
‘You went to see Lucy Sinclair?’
‘She was asking for me. She got over the coma or whatever it was, and seemed pretty well back to normal this morning. From what I could gather, there’s not much wrong with her, and she’ll be home again before long. She didn’t have the operation on her back as planned.’
Caz was visibly floundering. ‘This is what the super means about you,’ she groaned. ‘You get right in there, sorting out the relationships and passing on the latest news, before we’ve even got a list of relatives. I really don’t know how you do it.’
‘It’s not deliberate,’ said Thea humbly. ‘It just sort of happens.’
‘Well, it’s lucky for us. Who’s the Faith person?’
Thea repeated everything she could remember about Faith and Livia, finishing with, ‘They live next door to Lucy, and she doesn’t like them much. In fact, she more or less said she wanted me to guard the house against them.’
‘Really?’ Caz gave this some thought. Thea watched her as she sat in an armchair, leaning forward. Her hair was roughly tied back. Both feet were firmly planted on the floor. She had gained some weight since the previous summer, Thea noticed. Big-boned, as Thea’s mother would say. But no fool, as had been evident from their first encounter. ‘Why would that be, then?’
‘I don’t know, really. They seem perfectly civilised to me. But I could tell they don’t really like Lucy or approve of her. And she really doesn’t like them. Says they spy on her and make life impossible, and she doesn’t trust them not to snoop round her garden – even the house, if it’s left empty. She said that’s why she wanted a house-sitter. It might have all started when she wouldn’t join their committee, although that doesn’t seem any reason to worry about the house. She was annoyingly vague about it, but she did seem worried. I had a feeling she was trying to explain something without actually giving any details. If so, I was too thick to get the message.’
‘How well do you know her?’
Thea explained about the earlier house-sit in Hampnett. ‘She’d just got divorced and was celebrating with a month in the sunshine. I assumed she got quite a generous settlement. She seemed quite light-hearted and perfectly sane. I wouldn’t swear to either of those now.’
‘Which would imply that the husband was in the wrong and had a guilty conscience, if she got a good settlement,’ said Caz.
‘Or maybe she just had a better lawyer. The fact is, I hardly know her at all. It’s the same story with all my house-sitting jobs – I never get to spend time with the owners of the houses. They show me round, hand me the keys and leave. Sometimes there’s been a bit more time when they come home again – but not always. And quite often things have gone horribly wrong in the meantime,’ she said regretfully.
Caz laughed. ‘The way I hear it, that’s nearly always.’
‘No, no. I’ve had quite a few where nothing happened at all. But they don’t make the news, of course.’
‘But Lucy came back again, so you can’t have made too much of a mess of it in her case.’
‘Well, the house didn’t burn down. But I wasn’t entirely successful with her animals. And I kicked her dog.’ She sighed. ‘I wish I hadn’t done that.’
‘I expect you had good reason.’
‘I thought so at the time. He’s dead now, anyway. Nothing to do with me kicking him, I should add.’
Caz rightly shrugged the dog’s story away as irrelevant. ‘Faith and Livia – interesting names. Are they a couple, or what?’
Thea brightened. ‘Ah – that I can tell you. It annoys them terribly that everybody jumps to that conclusion just because they live together, and they go out of their way to insist that they’re just friends. Nothing more. No way. Absolutely not.’
‘As in, they protest too much?’
‘Sort of. Except I assume it’s true – that they’re not, I mean. After all, who cares?’
‘So what are they? How often do female friends live together like that?’
‘I suppose it’s possible. It probably makes perfect sense in a lot of ways. Faith said something about a divorce. And Livia’s got some sons. I can’t remember how many. They’ve obviously got a lot in common.’
‘What age are they?’
‘Sixties. Most people in Northleach appear to be in their sixties.’
‘You’ll have seen This Country I suppose?’
‘What?’
‘It’s a sitcom set there. I think the blurb calls the place “picturesque but depressingly dull” if I remember rightly.’
‘What – Northleach? Surely not!’
‘Thea Slocombe, you have to be the only person in the Cotswolds who doesn’t know about it. It’s very funny.’
‘But – Northleach! Aren’t the residents hopping mad about it?’
‘I’ll leave you to find that out for yourself,’ said Caz with a smile. ‘My guess is that they do their level best to ignore it.’
Thea nodded. ‘Nobody’s mentioned it to me. I’ve got to watch it. Does it point fun at anybody in particular?’
‘I think not. And it can’t possibly have anything to do with the murder. That’s what I’m here about, remember?’
‘Yes, and we’d better get on with it. My supper’s going to be cold at this rate.’
‘We’ve said most of it.’
‘Pity about the time of death being so vague,’ Thea said. ‘That must make everything a lot more complicated.’
‘We’ll get pretty close with a bit more work. The house is full of clues – we just have to sift through them all. There’s something suspiciously neat going on. The others renting the house, for a start, so conveniently hopping back to Poland and leaving him there all by himself. The friend who was worried enough to get someone else to investigate, but not to do it herself. It has a weird feeling of a kind of chess game, with every piece set up well in advance, cl
earing the way for the final blow. It’s premeditated murder times ten.’
‘They were making films, did you say? Not pornographic ones, I take it?’
‘We’re still looking into that. YouTube seems to carry most of them. And so far, they’re entirely innocent – aimed at quite young kids, encouraging them to take more exercise. More or less what you’d expect from a former athlete, I suppose.’
‘Right, but – kids? Doesn’t that ring a bit of an alarm bell?’
‘A bit,’ admitted Caz Barkley.
‘Anything’s possible. I realised years ago that the bland façade of these pretty villages hides an awful lot of bad behaviour. It’s actually easier to get away with it – whatever “it” is – here than it would be in central Birmingham.’
‘So Gladwin keeps telling us. It still feels wrong. I mean – Northleach!’
Thea laughed. ‘I thought that was my line,’ she said.
Voices from the kitchen were growing louder, and Thea understood that her absence was increasingly intolerable to the family. The door was open and she could see Stephanie laying the table and Drew peering into the oven. Even Hepzie had transferred her allegiance and was sitting reproachfully beside her empty dinner bowl. ‘You’ll have to go,’ Thea told Caz.
‘Okay. Thanks for talking to me. You’ve been helpful. I think we’re more up to date now.’
‘Ollie wasn’t into drugs,’ Thea recited as if ramming this idea firmly into her brain. ‘Is that for public consumption? It can’t be right for his reputation to be sullied like this.’
They were on the doorstep. Caz was thinking. ‘Actually, it might be good to keep that bit quiet for a few days – see if we can figure out who knew the truth and who didn’t. Somebody must have spread the story on purpose, don’t you think?’
‘Could have just been jumping to conclusions. A group of men living in someone else’s house, coming and going at odd times – it wouldn’t be much of a leap.’
‘Well, don’t say anything yet. Are you going back to Northleach any time soon? It would suit us rather nicely if you did. You could come in handy. Probably.’