by Rebecca Tope
‘Thank you,’ said Kate Temperley. ‘That makes me feel a lot better.’
‘Good,’ said Thea, while wondering at the ease with which the woman had dumped all her worries squarely in the lap of a sadly unreliable house-sitter – who had so meekly accepted them. Kindness must be catching, she thought foolishly.
‘We’ll go at eleven,’ she told everyone. ‘You lot can go exploring while I talk to Lucy.’ She cringed inwardly at the prospect, so soon after making every effort to avoid the woman. The exercise was already appearing futile, or worse.
‘I’m not coming,’ said Drew, as if reminding her of an established fact.
‘Oh! But there’ll be plenty of time for you to remove that man when we get back.’
‘That remains to be seen. In my experience, life can become very unpredictable when you’re on one of your murder quests. I think you should leave the children and the dog here, and do whatever it is you think you have to, on your own.’
‘No – I want to come,’ Stephanie protested.
‘And me,’ said Timmy, with much less certainty.
‘Damn it,’ said Thea to the room in general. ‘When did it all get so complicated?’
‘About four days ago, at a guess,’ said Drew. ‘I’d rather you didn’t take anyone with you.’
‘Dad! Don’t be so mean,’ Stephanie reproached him. ‘We don’t have to take Timmy, but I’m definitely going.’ So there rang silently through the room.
‘Maybe I won’t go after all, then,’ said Thea. ‘I can leave it till tomorrow.’ Then she remembered. ‘No, I can’t. It’s the holidays. I’ve got you two here for two whole weeks.’ She gave a melodramatic sigh. ‘God help me.’
It was all still up in the air when Thea’s phone jiggled with an incoming text.
Can you meet me today away from northleach? I need to talk to someone. Bobby.
‘Well, that’s that, then,’ said Thea. ‘I for one am going to Northleach – or somewhere near it. Now.’ She texted a reply without any further discussion.
How about the Hampnett church at 11.30? T.
Perfect. There’s no service there today. Bobby.
Only then did Thea convey to her family what had been arranged. They all stared at her, wondering how it affected them, each with a difference conclusion.
‘What about me?’ said Timmy.
‘What about Lucy?’ said Stephanie.
‘What about lunch?’ said Drew.
‘It’s only ten now. I’ll make something quickly before I go. Stephanie – you can come with me. You might have to amuse yourself for a bit while I talk to this woman, but we can do some exploring as well. Timmy, you can decide whether to come or go. It’s up to you. I’m easy either way.’
‘He’ll have to go with you,’ said Drew. ‘I might have to go out before you get back, and he can’t stay here on his own.’
‘I can, Dad,’ said the nine-year-old.
‘You can’t,’ said Drew with utter finality. He looked hard at Thea. ‘Why does everything have to be so dramatic?’ he complained. ‘People having secret meetings, playing childish games. Hasn’t this woman got a husband? And children? What’s the matter with her?’
Thea thought wistfully of the Drew of only two or three days ago, who professed himself eager to hear all the details, to be included and kept informed. That person had disappeared, to be replaced by a tight-mouthed judge, who clearly thought himself considerably more mature and sensible than anyone else in his immediate circle. ‘What do husbands and children have to do with anything?’ she asked.
‘I think you already know the answer to that.’
‘Oh, Drew,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s not go through all this again. Isn’t it enough that I’m wanted by someone in Northleach? First Lucy, then Caz, now Bobby – they all think I have something to offer. They think I can be useful or sympathetic or …’ She couldn’t think of words for the other ways in which she might be appreciated. Just being on the spot, providing a watching eye or an intelligent insight at a crucial moment. Things she had done before, and which she did not like to boast about. She had gained a strange and not always accurate reputation amongst the Cotswolds villages, which served a purpose of its own that went beyond any present action. A murderer might hesitate, a witness might drop a hint, a suspect might reveal an exculpatory secret – all because it was Thea Slocombe who was on the scene. She was known to be fearless, clever and often illogical. She kept people off balance. Not least her own husband, she admitted to herself.
‘It’s what she does, Dad,’ said Stephanie, effortlessly summarising the situation.
Drew and Thea both laughed, the tension instantly defused. Timmy looked confused, while Stephanie squared her shoulders and repeated, ‘But what about Lucy? You told the nurse you’d go and see that she was all right.’
Thea also squared her shoulders. ‘We can do that as well. I’ll peel some potatoes now, and get some mince out of the freezer, and get some lunch going. Drew – you can finish it off. Just mash the potatoes, add some onions and tomatoes and stick it all in the oven. Why am I telling you this?’ she interrupted herself wildly. ‘You’re a grown man. Get your own lunch.’ She playfully punched him on the shoulder. ‘What am I thinking?’
‘I can do it, if you let me stay here,’ offered Timmy. ‘I know how.’
‘He does,’ Stephanie confirmed. ‘He did it in cooking at school, remember?’
‘Stop!’ commanded Drew. ‘This is getting out of control. I refuse to leave Tim here alone, if I’m called out.’
‘So take him with you. Tell the people they’ll have to wait. Call Fiona. There are any number of options. Stop being pathetic,’ said Thea, already reverting to impatience and something even darker. ‘Just listen to yourself.’
‘Mr Shipley would have him,’ said Stephanie quietly. ‘He wants to teach him how to play chess.’
‘Cool!’ said Timmy, enjoying being at the centre of attention.
Thea and Stephanie drove off at ten-twenty, leaving their menfolk to argue over lunch. ‘As if it matters,’ grumbled Thea. ‘Nobody’s going to starve, are they?’
‘Poor Dad,’ said Stephanie. ‘He’s probably tired after going out so early this morning.’
‘I forgot about that,’ Thea admitted. ‘It seems ages ago now. So, listen. We’ll go to Lucy’s first, and just make sure she’s all right. I might tell her about the nurse being worried. She didn’t tell me not to. We’ll only stay a few minutes and then go to Hampnett. It’s a lovely church, by the way. There are very unusual decorations all over the walls. All a bit bonkers, really. You can look at them while I talk to Bobby. She might not want you listening in.’ Thea had been worrying about the possible direction the talk might take, ever since getting Bobby’s text. But she was confident that it would all work out somehow. Things usually did. This time, with Stephanie at her side, it was crucial to be careful and clever and possibly even kind.
‘What are we going to say to her?’ the young girl asked in the car.
‘I don’t know. It’s going to be a bit embarrassing, I expect. We probably shouldn’t explain about the nurse, if we can help it. I’ll say I felt bad about Friday, and that you wanted to have a look round Northleach, and I’ve got a little job to do a mile away, so we thought we should make sure she’s all right. Does that sound okay?’
‘More or less,’ said Stephanie.
The roads were reasonably clear and Thea drove fast until they were passing Sezincote. ‘We must come here one day and look round,’ she said. ‘Isn’t the view amazing?’ In fact, the view was not at its best under low cloud. It was another disappointing day as far as weather was concerned.
‘I’m not sure I really get views,’ said Stephanie. ‘I mean what are you meant to look at? Is it just that we’re supposed to get excited because we can see a long way?’
‘That’s pretty much it, really. There comes a moment in your life when something suddenly clicks and you understand why it’s special. I watched Joce
lyn’s Noel, when he was younger than you, on a day out in Somerset. Near Glastonbury. There’s a tor that rises out of flat meadows, and somehow we’d got to a spot where it’s framed by trees, and that boy just stood there with his mouth open. Transfixed. It was magic.’
‘I must be a slow developer,’ sighed Stephanie.
‘Not at all. I think I was at least seventeen before it happened to me.’
The last part of the drive was taken up by reminiscences from Thea about the many small villages she had known, close to the A249. ‘I have a lot of associations with this road,’ she concluded. ‘They get stronger every time I come down here.’
‘All those people!’ Stephanie marvelled. ‘You must know nearly everybody in the Cotswolds.’
Thea was reminded of her surprise encounter with Priscilla Heap in Northleach on Friday. ‘I do know a lot,’ she agreed. ‘I bump into them now and then. In fact, I saw one only two days ago. The trouble is, I mostly knew them when something horrible had happened, which means they’re not always very friendly towards me.’
‘Like Lucy.’
‘Oh dear – I suppose that’s right. Like Lucy.’
But Lucy Sinclair was surprisingly amiable when she answered their knock, although she did not invite them in and her face looked as if she had not slept for days. Thea glanced up and down the street, feeling awkward and conspicuous. People might think she and Stephanie were Jehovah’s Witnesses, she thought wildly. And what did it matter if they did, came a reassuring voice.
‘Come to check up on me?’ It was said with a smile. ‘Well, everything’s fine. I was just having a wobble on Friday. Hunter even came to see me yesterday, and gave me some chocolates. I can’t imagine why, but it was friendly of him. Hunter never was the problem, really,’ she added in a low voice.
There was a note of defiance that Thea found unsettling. It seemed entirely out of character for Lucy to stand in full view of the neighbours, talking to a woman and child on the doorstep. Those who did not conclude they were on a religious mission would probably identify Thea Slocombe, maverick amateur detective and incompetent house-sitter. And the knowledge that Bobby Latimer might be watching from across the street was even more uncomfortable.
‘Well …’ said Lucy, taking hold of the edge of the door. ‘Now you’ve seen me …’
It was a clear instruction to go away. Thea and Stephanie looked at each other, their eyes full of questions. In the still grey morning, the sound of singing floated down from the church. ‘There’s a service on,’ said Thea, in foolish surprise.
‘It’s Sunday,’ said Lucy. ‘There’s one every Sunday here. It’s an important church. Quite a lot of people go.’
‘Not you?’ asked Stephanie boldly.
‘Not me,’ said Lucy emphatically. ‘I have better things to do.’
Stephanie instantly morphed into something not too far from a proselytising Christian. ‘Oh, but why not, when it’s such a fabulous church, and you live so close? It would be a good way of making friends. And if you’ve got worries, don’t you think it might help?’
Both women stared at the child as if she had stepped out of The Exorcist. Thea recalled the vicar from the television sitcom, wondering whether the reality was anything at all similar. ‘Stephanie?’ she said. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘Oh – Mr Shipley, mainly,’ said the girl easily. ‘He thinks we’re wrong to forget about the church and what it has to offer.’
‘Blimey,’ said Thea.
‘That’s very sweet,’ said Lucy, her face much softer. ‘What a very nice girl you are. A hundred years ago you’d be saving the souls of the heathen in China or Zanzibar or somewhere.’
‘Yes, I might,’ smiled Stephanie. ‘But none of my family like to hear talk about religion. Not even Dad,’ she finished ruefully.
‘It worries people,’ said Lucy. ‘It worries me. A lot.’
Nothing was going as Thea had expected. Her assignation with Bobby began to feel both urgent and irrelevant. There was a subtext that she completely failed to understand, but could not bring herself to interrupt. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Why don’t I leave Stephanie here for a bit, so you two can discuss forgiveness of sins or the transmigration of souls or something, while I go and sort out a little job I’ve got to do? Would that be possible?’
‘Why the hell not?’ said Lucy, with a laugh that sounded slightly manic. Stephanie’s expression of enthusiasm was almost wounding. Apparently, Thea and Drew had been very remiss in not noticing that the child had religion. A minefield lay ahead, it seemed.
‘I’ll be back by half past twelve and then we can go for lunch,’ she said. ‘If that’s not too long.’ She looked at her watch. ‘An hour and a quarter?’
‘Sounds perfect,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ll give her a drink.’
As she got back into her car, Thea could hear loud voices in her head, telling her that it was one thing for her to go walking into strange houses and accosting potential murderers, but it was quite unacceptably another to leave her stepdaughter unprotected in the house of a woman she barely knew. But it was in an ordinary street, with people on all sides, and Lucy Sinclair was no murderer.
She drove off to Hampnett, wondering whether Bobby Latimer had been watching her for the past ten minutes, and would be following right behind her.
Chapter Eighteen
Three ancient pathways met in Hampnett. One, the Diamond Way, came directly from Northleach. Timmy’s beloved Monarch’s Way swirled crazily around, looping and dog-legging up from Chedworth, and after a merry dance around the A40, it proceeded waveringly all the way to Chipping Campden and beyond. Plotting it on a map, you could almost see the fleeing king desperately trying to evade his pursuers. To add to the tangle, there was a bridleway cutting across the fields.
Bobby was sitting on her coat on a patch of grass outside the church. She looked pale and cold. Thea parked her car close by and got out. ‘Isn’t that grass wet?’ she said.
‘It is, but I had to sit down. I walked here. It’s barely a mile, but I was early and went on a bit.’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Do you want to go in the church?’
‘If you like. If there’s nobody in there. Tourists come here a lot.’
‘I know.’ Thea was experiencing strong echoes of her time in Lucy’s barn – which was not visible from the centre of the village. She had not been back since, but the whole scene was vividly familiar, despite the fact that there had been snow on the previous occasion. ‘It’s nice in there, though,’ she added weakly.
Bobby followed her, head bowed, saying nothing. Thea chose a pew near the front of the church and ordered the young woman to sit next to her. ‘So, what’s all this about?’ she began, more like a police officer than a counsellor.
‘I’ve had a spat with Artie. A row. A fight. Whatever you want to call it. I had to talk to somebody, but there’s no one in town I can trust. They probably all know what he’s done, and will be thinking I’m an idiot.’
‘So what has he done?’
The reply was both predictable and startling. ‘He’s been sleeping with Faith, from over the road.’
‘Gosh!’ said Thea, feeling hopelessly English. ‘Really?’
‘I can see you’re trying to imagine it. She’s eight years older than him, for the Lord’s sake. And thin, and plain and not even all there half the time. It’s humiliating.’
‘It must be. Gosh!’ she said again.
‘What about the kids?’ Bobby suddenly wailed. ‘I can’t leave him – I’ve got nowhere to go, and hardly any money of my own. And Millie – she’s such a Daddy’s girl. I can’t tear them apart. He’d insist on keeping her, and letting me have Buster.’ By her tone it was evident that Buster was a poor substitute for his sister.
‘I’m not sure …’ Thea began, feeling helpless. What was she supposed to say? Or do? ‘Why me?’ she blurted. ‘Haven’t you got a sister or mother or something? I’m a complete stranger.’
‘Because of Ollie,’ said Bobby Latimer. ‘It’s all because of Ollie.’
Thea shivered. The interior of the church was several degrees colder than outside. ‘Are you sure you want to tell me?’ she said. ‘You know I work with the police – sort of. I’m not going to protect anybody if it means withholding information or telling lies.’
‘I just want the whole truth to come out,’ said Bobby. ‘For better or worse. I grew up with secrets, and I know what it’s like. It warps you. It makes you mistrust everybody. I don’t want that for Millie. Even less for Buster, I guess.’ Her eyes suddenly filled. ‘Poor Buster. What a mess! I’ve already made his whole existence into a secret, Lord help me.’
It was all there, behind the flimsiest veil and Thea felt little surprise. The child’s dark colouring was impossible to ignore. ‘He’s Ollie’s, isn’t he?’ she said.
Bobby’s tears overflowed. ‘Is it that obvious?’ she sniffed.
‘No, not really. But you’ve practically said it already. I just took the next step.’ She looked directly at the weeping woman. ‘Does Artie know?’
‘He knows there’s a chance, and the older Buster gets, the less doubt there is. Artie’s always been very civilised about it. Until now. Ollie never took any interest, never seemed to matter much, to be honest.’
‘But something changed?’
‘Right. He came back – in that house nearly all the time, just down the street. I didn’t dare go anywhere in case I bumped into him. The pub, shops – anywhere. I didn’t want him to see Buster. It was all I could think about. And then bloody Lucy Sinclair told me about Artie.’
‘Hang on. What?’
‘A couple of weeks ago now. Said she’d been noticing for a while that he was meeting up with Faith, and they’d go off in her car together. Didn’t know whether to tell me but had always thought women should stick together and it would be too awful if I realised later that she’d known about it. I didn’t believe her. I mean – Faith!’