by Rebecca Tope
‘Can I say something about my sister first?’ she asked, looking at Ariadne. At a nod, she went on, ‘It’s the fact that she was there that somehow made you angry, and I don’t understand why.’
‘Nor do I, now I’ve calmed down,’ admitted the woman. ‘It seemed to give you some special claim, I suppose. It meant you had a place in the inner circle, and I didn’t. I just flipped. When I told Peter, he couldn’t understand it, either.’ She gave a giggle, which sat uneasily on her statuesque frame. ‘Can we just say I’ve been in a funny sort of mood for a while now? I never quite know how I’m going to react.’
Peter patted her hand and smiled indulgently at her. Thea began to wonder how much of such mush she could take. The word smarmy came to mind again. But why in the world should he pretend to be in love with Ariadne if he wasn’t? She had no great riches or influence, she could be awkward and inclined to utter outspoken remarks that made people uncomfortable. And she was genuinely lovable, as Thea had discovered for herself. She could do no other than believe him, just as Ariadne so obviously did.
‘And the coincidence seemed all wrong, somehow,’ Ariadne continued. ‘Peter’s brother and your sister, out of all the people in Gloucestershire, involved in such a bizarre incident right here on a wild wet night. It’s just so unlikely.’
‘It was wet, wasn’t it,’ she said deliberately. ‘It was really pouring when Emily left here. That’s why I didn’t watch her go, and didn’t give her proper directions for getting back to the main road.’
‘The layby was very muddy,’ agreed Peter. ‘It washed away most of the tyre marks.’
Thea frowned. ‘What tyre marks?’
‘Oh – none directly concerned with his death. But cars use laybys, don’t they? Especially all the tourists in the summer, stopping to look at their maps. And the view’s not bad from there, either. There was a dirty great puddle. He was more or less lying in it.’
‘The police told you that, did they?’ She tried to keep the question light, while inwardly tense with this unexpected revelation that had not been lost in the little rush of verbiage that Peter came up with. How did he know what the layby was like?
‘That’s right,’ he said, just as lightly. ‘They had to explain why Sam was so muddy.’
That could make sense, she assured herself. They’d have wanted the body identified before the post-mortem – although she wasn’t clear about the precise sequence of events on Sunday. She resisted the urge to ask him, not wanting to make any more of his slip – if it was a slip. Catching Ariadne’s eye, she did her best to mask the suspicions that were rumbling just below the surface.
‘So the murderer would have been all muddy as well as covered with blood,’ she said.
‘Right,’ said Peter with a firm glance at his beloved.
Thea’s thoughts turned unbidden to the mud on the dogs, Freddy and Basil, when they finally returned from their escapade. Could it be that it indicated their guilt, after all, just as it would on the mysterious human murderer?
And of course Peter Clarke could not have been covered in mud when he turned up at the Diocese Meeting or whatever it was, by nine that evening. He had to have been crisp and clean and calm, or somebody would have noticed and told the police when the alibi was checked.
Emily’s description of the attack had been brutally clear. Phil had not given any further detail, but neither had he said anything to contradict the basic story. Emily had still been shaking and white-faced some hours later, repeating herself and muddling the chronology. ‘The man who did it – do they think he had a car, then?’ Thea asked.
‘Presumably he must have done. I don’t remember anybody saying anything about it, though.’
‘No,’ said Thea slowly. ‘Emily didn’t mention it, either. She just said he ran away when she yelled at him.’ She had an image of the sudden cessation of the kicks and blows, the aggressor fleeing jerkily into the wet night. It was almost as if she had witnessed it herself. ‘It must have been terrifying,’ she added. ‘Thinking he might come back, as she knelt by your brother.’
‘She acted quite sensibly, calling 999 and not moving anything,’ Peter said. ‘After all, you never know how you’ll behave in a crisis as horrible as that.’
There was a nausea developing somewhere in her middle, and she wanted quite badly to change the subject. Ironic, when she’d been the one to insist on gory detail. Much of her initial trust and confidence in Peter Clarke had been restored. Whatever Phil might have told her about the trouble he’d been in with the church, she could not believe he was a conman when it came to emotional matters. She believed what he’d said about his wife and the little girl, the brief glimpses of his childhood. But then she remembered the discrepancy over his mother. That had certainly been a deviation from the truth.
‘Your daughter,’ she blurted abruptly. ‘Where is she?’
‘Daisy? Oh, she’s with my mother. They’re great friends.’
‘Your mother can cope then, can she? I thought you said she was almost incapable when we talked yesterday.’
‘I said nothing of the sort. What do you mean?’
‘You were dreading telling her about Sam. Of course, the police would have told her by then, anyway.’
‘I had no idea of that. It never occurred to me.’
‘Thea!’ Ariadne remonstrated. ‘Why the third degree, all of a sudden? Why does it matter what Peter said about his mother?’
It was a good question, if slightly odd in its emphasis. ‘Sorry,’ she smiled. ‘I just wanted to get the picture straight in my mind.’
‘It was Phil, I suppose, seeing the dark side as usual. What’s he been telling you?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
The other woman was onto her in a flash, simply from the way she said those words. ‘Hey! Something’s gone wrong between you two, has it? And there was me thinking you’d be making an announcement any day now.’
Thea grimaced. ‘What – you thought I was going to marry him?’
‘Maybe not that, but moving in with him. You seemed so together, last year. What went wrong?’
‘He slipped a disc,’ said Thea sourly.
‘Oh, yes, you told me.’ Ariadne stifled a giggle and looked to Peter for rescue. The vicar was clearly not keeping up. ‘Phil?’ he queried. ‘That’s the police chap, is it?’
‘Hollis,’ Ariadne confirmed. ‘Detective Superintendent. I told you – I’ve known him since I was a kid.’
‘Small world,’ said Peter. ‘I feel as if I’ve walked into a very tight little community here.’
Thea felt suddenly weak. She wanted to hear more about Webster, while leaving Emily out of the conversation. She wanted to understand the jumble of feelings aroused by Peter Clarke. And she wanted to hang on to Ariadne as a friend and confidante. But it all felt out of reach. One or both of the others were in control of this conversation, effortlessly diverting it away from anything important and the struggle to guide it back was proving exhausting.
But at least she seemed to have her friend back. ‘It was very nice of you to come,’ she said, sounding pathetic in her own ears. ‘I was upset to think I’d made you cross.’
Ariadne waved a dismissive hand. ‘We’ve sorted all that,’ she said. ‘Don’t say another word about it. I was a cow, and that’s all there is to it.’
Thea watched Peter’s reaction to this. It was very much as she’d expected. ‘Hey, don’t do yourself down,’ he reproached his girlfriend. ‘You’ve explained what you were thinking, and it makes perfect sense to me.’
Smarmy, thought Thea. Definitely. It gave her a small sense of relief to know that this man she might have thrown herself at was actually less desirable than she’d first thought.
‘We’d better go,’ said Ariadne. ‘I hope you’re going to be all right?’ she asked Thea. ‘I mean – does this place have everything you need?’
It was an odd question, especially from a woman who lived in a cottage to which the concept of modernisat
ion was entirely alien. It was always intriguing to discover what people thought about house-sitting: precisely who was doing who the favour, and what was the deal regarding food and facilities.
‘It’s comfortable enough,’ she replied, looking round the dusty streaky walls and threadbare rugs. ‘It reminds me of my granny’s house, when I was very young. She had a rug just like that one.’ She indicated a handmade rug, with tufts hooked through canvas. In some places the canvas had frayed, leaving holes, and the colours had faded. ‘It’s a bit of a time warp.’
‘And you just love to be surrounded by dogs,’ Ariadne teased.
Thea groaned. ‘Not this time. Those dogs have got me into some pretty deep trouble already.’
‘Explain,’ Ariadne ordered, settling back into the chair she’d been about to leave. Thea did as instructed, with gratifyingly serious results. ‘My God, Thea – you don’t want to mess with Henry Galton. He’s practically the Squire of Lower Slaughter.’
‘Too late,’ said Thea. ‘The damage is done – except I still maintain that Freddy and Basil are innocent.’
‘Freddy and Basil – is that their names?’
‘No, not really. I don’t know their real names, so I rechristened them.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ grinned Thea unrepentantly. ‘Anyway, I don’t think the Galton man is as bad as he’d like me to think. He calmed down eventually, when it got past the point where he might have shot them out of hand.’
Ariadne made a sceptical face, which did nothing for Thea’s peace of mind. Peter Clarke, listening quietly, finally made a contribution. ‘They’d have been shot on sight in Africa,’ he said.
‘They would have been here as well, if Galton had been able to catch them,’ Ariadne assured him. ‘It happens all the time – the law’s on the side of the sheep farmer even these days. And – well, Thea, I hate to say this, but it does sound bad. I mean, it all points to them having done the worrying, doesn’t it? I don’t want to alarm you, but I think you’ll find you haven’t heard the last of it.’
It was an unsettling note to end on, but nobody appeared able to think of a new topic. The visitors got up to leave, and Thea resigned herself to a quiet evening with the spaniel and parrot for company.
‘Lock the doors, Daddy! Lock the doors!’ cried Ignatius, suddenly waking up and noticing that something was going on.
‘Good God!’ gasped Peter. ‘That’s extraordinary. I’ve never heard a parrot say a whole sentence like that.’
‘Didn’t you have parrots in Africa?’ Ariadne asked him.
‘Of course not. They’re in South America and Australia, not Africa.’ He didn’t quite add you idiot, but the scorn hung unmistakably behind his words.
‘What about the African Grey, then?’ Thea asked. ‘Where does that come from?’
‘Doh – silly me,’ he said, easily. ‘But I’ve never seen one.’
She watched them go without regret. They’d given her more than enough to think about for one evening.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When Wednesday morning dawned almost as wet as the previous one, Thea’s spirits sank. What was a person supposed to do in a rainy Lower Slaughter? Abandon it, she concluded, for somewhere that had more indoor facilities to offer. A library or a museum or even, in a real emergency, a cinema. There were numerous attractive pubs in every direction, but she had never seen any appeal in sitting alone in a bar, whether it be crowded or deserted.
The ‘fine by eleven’ rule worked at least to the extent that the rain turned to a very English mizzle, but not enough to persuade Freddy and Basil to emerge from their dogwood shelter. Poor things, Thea thought for the fiftieth time. What a rotten life they lead.
Her mobile chirruped at her at half past eleven. A man’s voice said ‘Thea?’
She knew she knew him, a familiar voice that she just couldn’t name for a moment. Damien? Uncle James? ‘Bruce!’ she finally managed. ‘What a surprise!’
Her sister’s husband was phoning her on a mobile number she couldn’t believe he knew. ‘How did you get my number?’
‘It’s on our pad by the phone,’ he said, as if this was obvious. ‘Listen – I want to talk to you. Can you get away for lunch?’ He spoke hurriedly, his voice low, as if expecting to be caught at any moment.
‘Today?’
‘Absolutely today. There’s a pub in Lower Oddington. The Fox, it’s called. It’s got virginia creeper all over it and flowers. Do you think you could get there for – say – twelve fifteen?’
‘I suppose so, except I’ve never been there.’
‘It’s east of you, on the A436. Go to Stow and turn right. It’s easy enough. If you get to Adelstrop, you’ve gone too far. But be aware that there are three Oddingtons, and you want the third one. Turn right at the sign for Lower Oddington, and the pub’s a little way along there on the right.’
‘This is very cloak and dagger, Bruce. Is there a password I have to say at the door?’
His sigh caused a slight turbulence in her ear. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I can tell it’s something important. I’ll set off in ten minutes – will that get me there in time?’
‘Easily, if you don’t get lost.’
She didn’t get lost, and found Bruce sitting in his distinctive black 1978 Jaguar in the street outside the self-consciously traditional Cotswold pub. ‘You’ll never make a spy if you insist on driving that thing,’ she said, once they were within speaking distance. ‘It must stand out a mile on the CCTV and sattelite surveillance systems.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said shortly. ‘I haven’t got anything to hide.’
She refrained from launching into her customary diatribe to the effect that there wasn’t a person alive who could honestly say that. And even if there was, why did that make it all right for Big Brother to track his every move?
Leaving Hepzie yet again in the car, they settled down in the fox-obsessed bar, having ordered beer and baguettes, and Bruce wasted no time in getting to the point. ‘I need your help with Emily. She isn’t sleeping and looks like death. I have no idea what to do for the best.’
‘How should I know?’ she flashed. ‘I’d have thought a husband trumped a sister when it came to that sort of thing.’ Bruce had always been essentially useless in a crisis, she remembered. When Emily miscarried their first baby, Bruce had become a neurotic mess, leaving others to support his wife through her misery. Over the years, the habit of shielding Bruce from anything unpleasant had spread through the family, despite mutterings about how over-protective they were being. His vulnerability had a dreadful power, which none of them was strong enough to resist.
Now he gathered his dignity, raising his chin and meeting her eye. ‘Not at all. If it’s grief over your father that’s affecting her so badly, then you’re in a much better position to understand than I am. After all, isn’t that why she drove over to see you on Saturday?’
She had almost forgotten about her father, she realised to her shame. ‘But what if it isn’t about Dad?’ she said. ‘What if it’s about your friend Sam Webster?’
The idea seemed to surprise him. ‘Sam? But Emily has no reason to care particularly about him.’
Thea blinked. Was it possible that Bruce knew nothing of what had happened? ‘Um – Bruce – you do know he was killed on Saturday evening, don’t you? Emily did tell you what happened?’
‘Of course she did. Damned bad luck, in one sense. But she did the right thing, scaring the chap away by blaring her car horn at him. For all we know he might have decided to have a go at her as well.’
Thea tilted her head thoughtfully. Had she heard the bit about the car horn? If not, did it matter? ‘I thought she yelled at him and that’s what sent him off into the dark.’
‘Bit of both, probably,’ he said carelessly.
‘But – she’d left the car in the gateway. How could she have sounded the horn?’
‘Thea – I don’t know. She didn’t want to go over i
t all again. I had trouble enough getting the basic story. You know how much she hates anything unpleasant.’
A classic piece of transference, Thea noted complacently.
She left the matter of the car horn, assuring herself that there was scope for both versions to be true, as Bruce had claimed.
‘So how well did you know him – Sam, I mean? Emily seems to think he was more your friend than hers.’
‘That’s perfectly true. We were at college together. He was always a clever clogs, but we both liked old cars and Alice Cooper and we were in a bit of a group together for a while. I always thought he’d end up working for MI5, with his brains. He would invent codes just for the fun of it.’
She realised she’d assumed that Webster’s subject was something like History or European Literature. ‘Was he a mathematician, then?’
‘Didn’t you know? I thought you met him that time at one of our dinner parties?’
‘Yes, I knew he was a don. But I don’t remember asking him what his subject was. He talked about Proust mostly, if I’ve remembered right.’ She paused to assemble her thoughts. ‘Are you sure he didn’t? Work for MI5, I mean. Maybe the Oxford thing was just a cover. He must have had plenty of money, to afford to stay at that Manor Hotel place. You should see it – it’s like a castle!’
Bruce laughed. ‘I’m fairly sure he wasn’t with MI5, yes. Why – do you think he was murdered because he was working for a secret organisation? The way I see it, it was some drug-crazed psycho, choosing a victim at random, assuming anybody at that hotel must be carrying a wallet full of cash.’