Slaughter in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  Sam Webster, as Thea reluctantly told Phil, had been a close friend of Bruce Peterson since college days. He was unmarried, geeky, clever, dedicated to his academic career, and Thea had met him only a month or so ago at Emily’s house. ‘I remember him quite clearly – they put me next to him at a dinner party, because we were the only singletons. He was nice – very old fashioned and gentlemanly. I remember thinking how much his students must love him, if he treated them with the same respect and politeness. He was that sort of rumpled bachelor that girls especially take to.’

  ‘Did your sister like him?’

  ‘She did, I think. She talked about him a lot, and read his books. She was proud of having such a distinguished friend.’

  ‘Were they…? Was she…? I mean – did you detect any – um – undercurrents?’

  Too late, Thea saw where this was leading. She laughed scornfully. ‘Between him and Em? No, no, of course not. Don’t be stupid. He was a geek. She said that lots of times. Fine for an evening’s conversation about German cinema or melting ice caps, but not for anything emotional. Besides, why would she, when she’s got Bruce? The two men are cut from the same length of cloth. If Emily ever has an affair it’ll be with some earthy Spaniard, or leather-clad biker.’

  Phil persisted. ‘But Webster might have made advances to her?’

  ‘Not that I ever heard. No, it would be totally out of character. He was far too polite for anything like that.’

  ‘But you guessed it was him, didn’t you? When I said he was an Oxford don.’

  ‘Sort of,’ she admitted. ‘At least – I wanted to check that it wasn’t him.’

  ‘And here’s an even bigger question: Why didn’t she tell you who he was, right away? What in the world possessed her to keep it secret? She must have known you’d find out and connect him with her.’

  ‘Precisely. Obviously she couldn’t have realised it was him. That must be it – if his head was so badly damaged, she’d easily miss recognising him. I’m certain that if she’d known, she would have told me. Why bother to keep it from me? That makes no sense at all, when she’d know you’d identify him soon enough.’

  ‘You could be right,’ he said again. ‘It’s true his face was an awful mess. Not just covered in mud, but just about flattened. His nose was pushed right back into the cavity behind.’

  Thea shuddered, holding her stomach as if afraid it would do something violent. ‘They’ve done the post-mortem, then?’ she asked, hoping for some sort of diversion.

  He groaned. ‘After a fashion. There’s a locum at the mortuary, a doddering old fool who should have retired ten years ago. They wheel him in to cover for holidays. Bill Morgan’s gone off to Florida for three weeks. The locum went through the motions, and reported that death was caused by severe crushing of the skull, consistent with heavy blows. Small traces of rubber were in the wound, which could have come from the sole of a boot. He did the necessary, I suppose. No surprises, except that the only damage was to his head. And neck.’

  ‘Poor chap.’

  ‘Indeed. But it was pretty quick, we think. We’re still trying to figure out just how it was done. And now you tell me that your sister actually knew him – well, that’s a pretty big coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Emily knows a lot of people,’ said Thea, thinking suddenly of the forty-eight condolence cards she’d received. Had one of them been from Sam Webster?

  ‘Could be she also knew the killer,’ he said lightly, as if half hoping she wouldn’t really hear the words. ‘Could be, even, that she had some sort of assignation at that hotel from the start, which she didn’t want you to know about.’

  She wanted to feel rage and contempt for such outlandish ideas. She wanted to scream at him that he was living in a fantasy world and she would not hear anything so idiotic. But she remained calm. ‘No, I don’t think that can be right,’ she said. ‘I know my sister. She’s not a good liar, and she is probably the last person to get involved in anything as messy and chaotic as this is. I don’t blame you for exploring all the options, and letting suspicion fall on the only witness – but I hope that when I next see you, you’ll have wiped it from your mind.’

  She heard him swallow. Nobody spoke to Detective Superintendents like that. Even Thea had never been so icily uncompromising with him before. ‘I mean it,’ she added. ‘There are some things that ought not to be spoken, and what you just said is one of them.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ he countered. ‘There can’t be any no-go areas in a murder investigation. We have to go where evidence takes us. My mistake was to voice it to you. For that I apologise. I should have known better. I’ll try to come over later this afternoon, if you’d like me to. We don’t have to talk about this any more, if that’s how you want it.’

  There seemed to be nothing she could say. She felt wrong-footed and confused. ‘All right,’ she mumbled. ‘That’ll be nice.’

  Thinking the conversation through again, she was appalled. She felt breathless with the implications and the divided loyalties. Breathless, too, with anger – not just at Phil, but also at her sister for bringing another murder enquiry into her life. Damn, damn, damn, she repeated to herself, damn, damn, damn and DAMN.

  She did her best not to think about it as she checked the animals in her care and made herself a modest lunch. But the need to justify her sister and find a satisfactory account of what she had done and why, sent her to a large-scale Pathfinder map in her bag from which she tried to work out just where Emily had driven. As Phil had said, it made very little sense. She located Lower Slaughter Manor, which was indeed a hotel, just as Upper Slaughter Manor was, as well as The Lords of the Manor Hotel. Plenty of scope for confusion there, augmented by the existence of at least one Manor Farm and stretches of quiet country lane flying in every direction.

  Her heart was less and less inclined to pursue the researches. The sun was high and bright outside, and the knowledge that September was only a week away made it a matter of urgency to exploit fine days while she could. The map had shown just how many footpaths connected the various villages; lovely walks away from traffic via disused quarries and something called the Wagborough Bush Tumulus. She found herself drifting into her favourite topic of local history – a subject that forced itself onto her attention every time she spent more than a few hours in this area. How many people immediately made the leap from the presence of the distinctive stone houses to the necessity of digging all that stone out from somewhere? The awareness that there were innumerable deep man-made holes carved into the landscape, many of them now full of water and pretending to be natural lakes, had to be included in any appreciation of the way the land now looked.

  Cedric’s dogs must be desperate for some freedom, too. It was cruel the way they were kept cooped in that shed on days like this. Almost as bad to tie them to long chains, giving them no chance to run. She longed to untie them and let them roam around in freedom. How big a risk could that be, for heaven’s sake?

  Too big, came the reply. But if she kept one of them on a lead at a time, as Cedric himself had indicated would be acceptable, that would guarantee that there’d be no mischief. Feeling like a rescuer, she found a grimy leather lead on the back of the scullery door and went to tell the animals the good news.

  A problem arose immediately – neither dog was wearing a collar. There was nothing to which a lead could be attached. The chains that held them all day had their own built-in arrangement which looped off over the heads. Thea considered borrowing the collar from her own dog, but it was too small, and to leave Hepzie untetherable would be too worrying. With her usual determination, she went back to the scullery and rummaged amongst the old macs and donkey jackets hanging on a row of hooks in a vain search for a collar. But there was plenty of plastic bale string coiled untidily in the dogs’ shed. That could be looped and knotted and fashioned into a restraint for a dog, and she acted accordingly.

  Selecting the black and tan one, as being marginally smaller, she pull
ed her home-made collar over his head. The big ears had to be squashed flat and it seemed rather tight around his neck. The dog looked into her eyes trustingly, and she spent a few moments fondling his handsome head and murmuring sweet nothings to him. ‘I wish I knew your name,’ she said. ‘Can I call you Basil, just for a little while? Would that be all right? Basil!’ she chirruped. The dog wagged its tail tolerantly.

  ‘And you can be Freddy,’ she told the other one. ‘And you have got to behave yourself, OK? If I let you run free, you have to stay where I can see you.’

  Hoping that the plan would work, she set off with the three dogs. Hepzie ran loose, sniffing and zigzagging, pausing to grin at her mistress. Freddy tried to follow her, but his method of covering the ground was so much more direct and quick that he soon gave up any attempt at companionship. For the first quarter of a mile, Basil walked calmly at her side. They were on a footpath, heading well away from the farm that Cedric had warned Thea to avoid. Then, with a flurry and a sudden loud yelping, Freddy must have raised a rabbit. Thea’s spaniel joined the chase, and Basil, appalled at the prospect of being left behind, gave a powerful lunge and easily dragged the end of the lead out of Thea’s hand. In seconds there was no sign of anything canine.

  ‘Oh shit,’ she said, before drawing a deep breath and shouting loudly for her own dog.

  She knew it was futile. Hepzie gave the appearance of obedience only because her wishes generally coincided with what Thea wanted her to do. When these wishes diverged, the dog did exactly what it liked.

  The hope – which she already knew was a faint one – was that the spaniel would eventually persuade the other dogs to give up the chase and return to quarters. There was no real worry that Hepzie would get lost, with her limited sense of adventure. Left to herself she would run round in a few circles, make noisy threats to the rabbit that its days were numbered, and then rejoin her mistress as if nothing had happened. Hepzie was not the worry.

  What she had done was unforgivable. She had arrogantly assumed she knew best what was good for the dogs. She had directly disobeyed an instruction. She deserved to be blacklisted and never allowed to house-sit anywhere again.

  Then common sense kicked in, and she told herself that the dogs would certainly come home again when they got hungry. They were relatively well-behaved and domesticated, despite their boring outdoor existence. Just so long as they committed no dreadful crimes while they were loose, everything was going to be all right.

  A man was coming towards her, his eyes narrowed with some uncomfortable emotion that looked at first glance like anger. ‘Were those your dogs that just dashed past?’ he demanded, from some distance, his voice raised.

  She smiled weakly. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘They flushed out a rabbit and decided to give chase.’

  ‘You’d better catch them quick,’ he advised. ‘Not much tolerance for stray dogs around here.’

  ‘They’ll come back soon,’ she said with feigned confidence.

  ‘I could be wrong, but that huntaway looked to me like Cedric Angell’s. Am I right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she admitted. ‘I’m the house-sitter.’

  ‘Did he tell you it was all right to release the dogs out here?’ The anger had segued into disapproval and suspicion.

  ‘Not exactly. I just thought a walk would do them good.’

  ‘A walk,’ he sneered. ‘You think dogs like that expect a walk? They’re workers; they know their job and do it well. Otherwise, they need to stay tied up.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, opting for submission, despite an argumentative inner voice insisting that Cedric Angell had no work for the dogs – that they were superfluous yard ornaments and nothing more. ‘So how do you suggest I get them back?’

  ‘Not my problem,’ he said unpleasantly. ‘I’ve got better things to do.’

  Thea gave him a closer look, wondering how to react to this lack of courtliness. He seemed to be in his fifties, slight and weather-beaten. There were crinkle-lines around his eyes, as if he might do a lot of sailing. He did appear distracted, impatient, moving his feet on the spot as if mentally still walking.

  ‘That’s perfectly true,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m sure it’ll all come right. Things usually do.’

  A look of contempt and disbelief crossed his face. ‘Do they? If that’s your experience, then all I can say is that you’ve been very lucky. As I see it, the very opposite is true.’

  She could feel him needling, wanting her to panic, infuriated by her persistent optimism. She smiled briefly. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ she said.

  He remained stationary for a few more beats, and then set off briskly without another word, leaving Thea to insist to herself that the chances of anything seriously bad happening to the dogs were very slim. They’d dash about for a bit, as the freedom went to their heads, then turn back for home full of cheerful rabbit-chasing memories. Even if Cedric had been right about the gun-toting farmer, it would be the direst of bad luck for him to encounter the dogs while armed and angry. Besides, they were half a mile from his land and heading in the opposite direction.

  Her instinct was to keep walking and calling, hoping for a glimpse of them. Basil would still have the string trailing from his neck; it might get caught in brambles or on a fence. Then what would he do – howl for rescue or sit quietly trusting that someone would know he was there? In spite of herself, she began to worry. It was a big wide world out there, with fields in every direction, not to mention disused quarries and roads and copses sacred to the pheasant and gamekeeper. A lot of booby traps for unwary dogs unused to having it all as their playground.

  Another instinct was to approach all the houses she could find and report the missing animals, hoping for assistance and concern. But after the encounter with the unhelpful man, she could not rely on a positive reception. And her impression of Cotswold residents was that they were too busily involved with their computers and social clubs to perform anything as time-consuming as combing the landscape for lost dogs.

  It was only a couple of hours before Phil was due to arrive. He was the fond owner of a pair of dogs himself, and could surely be relied on to make useful and sensible suggestions. He would also chastise her for such careless disobedience. With a sense of walls closing in, she understood that she really might be in trouble. There really might be cause to fear for Hepzie, too, if the delinquent influence of the others overwhelmed her already shaky response to her mistress’s calls.

  They knew the way home, that much was certain. They could retrace their own scent and that of Thea. She should go back and wait for them to give themselves up. If they still hadn’t returned when Phil arrived, then the two of them could conduct a search. But it felt entirely wrong when she turned round and started back, empty-handed and ridiculously lonely.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Phil had other things to think about than missing dogs, and he listened irritably to the story, tutting to himself and shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe you were such a fool,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew about dogs.’

  ‘I know about Hepzie. I’m sure she’ll be back any minute now.’

  ‘How long ago was this, did you say?’

  ‘Nearly three hours,’ she admitted.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve no intention of traipsing over hill and dale in the faint hope of finding them. When I was a boy, our dogs could be gone for twenty-four hours at this time of year. Even in those days, it was a worry – you never knew what they’d get up to. Nowadays, they stand a real risk of getting themselves shot. Luckily for you, there don’t seem to be any sheep farms left around this area.’

  ‘There’s one – just over there.’ She pointed towards the back of the house. ‘Mr Angell warned me about it.’

  Phil sighed and tutted again, and Thea fought against the image of herself as an irresponsible teenager. She looked at him closely, analysing him as if for the first time. There was nothing especially remarkable about him; his skin was good, lightly t
anned and smooth. The brown hair had a narrow fringe of silver over the ears and temples. His eyes were set deep, blue and thoughtful. Even before the onset of political correctness he would have considered the effects of his words before he spoke. But inevitably he had lost some of the natural human bounce he must once have possessed, thanks to the deadening influence of the police force. He had seen too much, suffered too many traumas and crises and attacks to maintain the kind of smiling resilience that Carl had had. The damage to his back a few months earlier had further weighed him down. Now he thought twice before making any sudden movement. It had added to his air of caution, and made him a more frustrating companion in Thea’s eyes.

  The murder of the previous evening had quickly been transformed from a simple piece of one-on-one aggression to something much more complicated. Phil plainly had a lot he wanted to say about it, but was inhibited by her words on the phone. The diversion of the errant dogs was as annoying to Phil as it was a relief to Thea. She found herself more and more resistant to the thought of discussing Emily and the suspicions that the police were apparently entertaining.

  ‘I’m sorry to ask you this,’ he began stiffly, once the subject of the missing dogs had been brushed aside. ‘But you can’t evade it entirely. Did your sister tell you she’d got lost almost as soon as she left here?’ he asked.

  ‘More or less, yes.’

  ‘But did you know she had a SatNav in the car?’

  ‘Is that the thing she calls a TomTom?’

  He kinked a reproachful eyebrow. ‘You know it is,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, well, it’s all a mystery to me. As it happens, though, I did ask her about it, and how come she’d got lost in spite of it. She said she didn’t like it giving her orders. That’s typical Emily, by the way. It might be that she didn’t know how to work it properly, either. I had to give her directions for getting here.’ A thought struck her. ‘Aha!’ she chirped, holding up a finger to suggest a sudden enlightenment. ‘I know why she turned right when she left here. I directed her that way when she was coming here – I told her to come through the middle of Lower Slaughter, because I wasn’t sure she’d find this road from the south. So naturally she tried to retrace her steps. Then she must have missed the next right turn into the village, and headed straight for Upper Slaughter. It all makes perfect sense,’ she concluded, with satisfaction.