Secrets in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Yes,’ said Thea. ‘And will be again, I expect.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Do you want coffee? We can probably get into a corner of the kitchen to boil water. They’re doing wall cupboards and tiling today.’

  Barkley nodded carelessly. ‘I’ll wait for you in the front room, shall I? I can’t stop long.’

  Thea had the coffee made in four minutes, and Caz launched directly into business. ‘We can’t find any trace of your woman. She didn’t land at Manchester Airport on Saturday morning, or any time on the two days before that. She must have told you a pack of lies from start to finish.’

  ‘She didn’t actually say it was the airport. She hardly said anything about what she was doing there, or how she got there. Maybe that was where she lived. Or maybe she got there on a train – or a ferry. Do ferries arrive in Manchester?’

  ‘No. Liverpool.’

  ‘Well, that’s not far away, is it?’

  Barkley sighed. ‘It’s too vague. We have no idea where she was this time last week. It could be anywhere in the world. There’s no way we can start searching every database and camera for her.’

  ‘Didn’t the pathologist find anything useful? Vaccinations? What about labels on her clothes?’ She was ransacking her memory for details of forensic examinations she’d read about in Jeffery Deaver books and others. ‘Exotic seeds lodged in her gut?’

  This time Barkley lost patience. ‘Stop it,’ she ordered. ‘We don’t have the manpower, right? She died of strangulation. The person who did it seemed to know exactly how to kill someone quickly. I had a quick read up on it last night,’ she admitted. ‘Did you know it can take less than twenty seconds for the victim to lose consciousness, if the jugular is constricted?’

  ‘I did not,’ said Thea, fingering her own neck. ‘I suppose that’s actually quite a long time to keep a tight grip on somebody.’

  ‘Not really.’ They fell silent for a moment, trying to imagine the whole process.

  ‘Anyway,’ Caz went on, with a little shake. ‘The killer – or killers − had to have been lurking around here on Sunday, waiting for you to leave the house, even though that’s difficult to believe. Had you told anybody you were going out? Did you phone anyone? Despite what people think, it’s fantastically unusual for baddies to hide in the undergrowth waiting for their chance to kill somebody.’

  ‘I know,’ said Thea. ‘I’ve spent my life telling people that. But these days, they can keep an eye on people electronically. I mean, with secret cameras and that sort of thing. They might even have planted some sort of tracker on Grace.’ She was well aware that she was quoting Clovis, and equally aware that she had never entirely believed what he’d said.

  Caz closed her eyes, and appeared to be counting. ‘We’d have found it on the body,’ she grated. ‘And where do you think these cameras would have been hidden? Apart from anything else, it’s illegal to watch people surreptitiously. All cameras have to be clearly visible.’

  ‘Well, I don’t imagine they’d be worried about legality, would they – if they were planning to murder somebody? That’s illegal as well, isn’t it?’

  ‘Okay. I’ll admit it’s technically possible.’

  ‘And it was you who said he – they – must have been watching for me to leave,’ Thea reminded the detective. ‘How did you think they were doing it?’

  Caz shook her head. ‘We’re agreeing, then, aren’t we. And we both probably think it’s more likely it was just luck that you were out at the time. If you’d been there you might have been killed as well. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘Not very seriously. I’ve been assuming that Grace was very much the target, for some very specific reason.’

  ‘There’s not much evidence for that.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ It felt important to Thea to argue this point. ‘She was scared of being found. She’d left all her personal possessions somewhere, in case she could be traced through her phone. She was tired out. Any other scenario implies a homicidal lunatic, just randomly killing women in houses for the fun of it.’

  Barkley shook her head. ‘That’s not what I said. I agree that Grace was the target – but if you’d got in the way, you might have been collateral damage. The phone thing doesn’t cut much ice. Ordinary citizens can’t trace a person through their phone. You’ve got to get a warrant and wait for the provider to co-operate.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘No, the problem is there’s absolutely nothing to go on. There’s no useful footage from the business park, either. There are plenty of blind spots where a car could park and somebody get out and run off without being caught by the cameras. Again, we haven’t got the resources to check the owner of every single car coming in and out on Saturday morning. It’s possible in theory, but much too labour-intensive.’

  Thea frowned sceptically. ‘Surely it’s not that hard? There can’t have been so very many, after all. Check the registration numbers against the DVLA records, and flag up anything that doesn’t belong to anybody who works or lives there.’ She paused. ‘Well, I guess there are various sorts of customers as well. I can see it would take some work. But the camera shows the people inside the car as well, doesn’t it? Check the ones with small dark females in them. There might only be one or two.’

  ‘They don’t show the people inside,’ said Barkley tiredly. ‘You get a glimpse of the driver, usually in profile, but not much more than that.’

  ‘Well, I still think there’s a whole lot of evidence you could find. Somebody who lives or works in one of the businesses must have taken Grace there in a car on Saturday. I bet there’s some nasty illicit business going on behind an innocent front. That’s not impossible, is it? She was very obviously oriental, even if her father was British. She must have stood out.’

  ‘What are you saying? That she’s been dealing in illegal ivory? Smuggling tiger cubs? And it’s not true that she’d stand out. You must have noticed that this is a very popular spot for Chinese tourists. It’s famous for it.’

  ‘I forgot,’ Thea admitted. ‘That’s got to be significant, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t see how. At least – I can think of about ten possible theories that might fit the few facts we’ve got.’

  ‘Can the pathologist say whether she was only half-Chinese? She told me her father was British. It might not be true, of course. But she did speak very good English and said she’d lived here for twenty years.’

  ‘And she had an English name,’ Barkley added. ‘He did think she was mixed race, yes. Without a DNA test it’s mostly guesswork. And we’re not asking for a test at the moment.’

  ‘Because it costs money,’ Thea nodded. ‘I’m getting the point.’

  ‘It’s crept up on us, somehow. Year on year, there’s less money for any forensic examination. As well as a smaller workforce. We’re always chasing our tails these days. And now there’s this huge trafficking case, everybody’s been diverted into that. The media aren’t helping, needless to say.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen it all? Everybody’s screaming about bloody pangolins. Headline news everywhere you look. The BBC News Channel have dug out every bit of film they’ve got with the things in, and seem to be showing them in a loop, twenty-four hours a day. There’s a new charitable campaign raising money specifically to protect them. It’s gone insane.’

  ‘I missed all that,’ said Thea. ‘I had a visitor yesterday – and went out for lunch before that. The telly doesn’t work and I’ve only heard a few minutes of radio.’

  Barkley blinked in disbelief. ‘Amazing,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t think it was possible to drop out that much. Don’t you go online at all?’

  ‘Not very often,’ said Thea. ‘Although I did play a game of online Scrabble the other day.’

  The detective rolled her eyes and actually groaned. ‘That doesn’t count,’ she said.

  ‘So – basically you’ve come to tell me it’s all bad news, you’ll ne
ver find who killed Grace, and I’m probably still the chief suspect. Right?’

  ‘Nobody thinks you did it. But the Big Boss is going to want us to keep a close eye on you, once he’s read all the reports. It looks bad to have a murder left unsolved.’

  ‘Should I be worried he’ll have me charged, just because there’s nobody else? Isn’t that what happens in America?’

  ‘No chance. Not with the superintendent on your side. But you might get interviewed again. You seem to keep remembering new bits of information.’

  ‘Do I? Like what?’

  ‘The woman having a British father – I haven’t seen that anywhere in the notes.’

  ‘Well, I told your Cirencester man yesterday. I’m fairly sure I told him absolutely everything. Oh – except for the accountant man. I did forget all about him.’

  Barkley flipped open her standard-issue notepad and dug a pen from a pocket. ‘Go on, then.’ There was a faint hint of excitement in her voice.

  ‘He was walking towards me on Saturday afternoon, just about level with the big house at the business park. He’s got a nice Labrador bitch called Jess, who isn’t loved half as much as she should be. He’s a boot-faced boring accountant called James Williams. He lives somewhere hereabouts. He told me the whole village was talking about me and they think I’m a highly suspicious character.’

  ‘And you forgot to mention him? Sounds as if you know practically his whole life history.’

  ‘I met him again yesterday, with my sister. He gave me his card.’ She took it from the side table where she’d placed it the previous day. ‘He seems to think he might be questioned by the police, when I tell you he was out there on Saturday.’ She felt proud of her efforts, but Barkley looked doubtful.

  ‘You think he might have seen something?’

  ‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not possible enough to justify questioning him. The timing’s not right, is it? We already know the woman was hiding in the bushes when you were on your walk.’

  ‘But he might have seen her coming from another direction – or somebody chasing her. She could have only been there for ten minutes, and not all day as she told me.’

  ‘Too many variables,’ Caz asserted firmly. ‘We need to focus on her identity. You noticed, of course, that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring?’

  ‘I did, actually. And she never said anything about a husband.’

  ‘Well, she did have a ring after all, on a string round her neck. Eighteen-carat gold, beautifully made. With initials engraved inside. English characters, not Chinese.’

  ‘Please tell me there’s a G.’

  Barkley smiled. ‘There’s a G.’ She glanced at her notepad. ‘It’s G. B. and K. A. W. Look.’ She showed Thea the exact rendering. ‘And do not suggest we look through every marriage record for the past thirty years involving a half-Chinese bride with the initials G. B. Even with the search engines we’ve got now, that would take weeks.’

  ‘I don’t think marriage certificates record people’s ethnicity anyway,’ said Thea. She had a thought. ‘Did the pathologist say whether she’d ever had children?’

  ‘He says she didn’t. Not normally, and not by C-section.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And before you ask, there are no missing persons reports that come remotely close, either. It’s all one big blank, unless we call in every cop, every minute of CCTV and some impossibly brilliant forensic team – and even then, we might not find her. If everything she told you was a lie, then there’s virtually nothing to go on.’

  ‘There has to be something,’ Thea insisted. ‘We can’t just let it go. What’ll happen to her body? What would have happened if I hadn’t found her on Saturday?’ This was a new thought, bringing disagreeable implications. ‘Maybe she would still be alive. She might have walked along that awful jungly path to Bibury, in the dark, and stowed away on one of those tourist coaches and got clean away.’

  ‘The superintendent always says it’s futile to ask “What if …?” questions. What’s happened, happened and you have to take it from there.’

  ‘I know, but … So, why exactly have you come to see me, anyway? Just to tell me you haven’t got the manpower or whatever to carry on this investigation? Or what?’

  ‘The investigation will carry on indefinitely. I really came to warn you that you might have to be interviewed again. And to tell you to be careful. Don’t go making things happen locally. If there’s a killer somewhere in this village and he thinks you’re getting close to finding who he is, you’ll be in real danger. You do see that, don’t you?’

  ‘Is that what Gladwin told you to say?’

  ‘More or less. It’s common sense, basically.’

  ‘How exactly am I supposed to be careful? Avoid isolated spots? Get somebody to stay here with me?’

  ‘Use your common sense,’ Caz repeated.

  The idea of having Clovis staying as her guard and protector vibrated briefly inside her. Totally out of the question, of course. Impossibly transgressive. Jocelyn might be an alternative, but she sounded pretty bogged down at home. ‘I might phone my daughter and see if she can take a few days off,’ she said, knowing there was very little chance of that. If police resources were as stretched in Greater Manchester as they were in Gloucestershire, she would be committed to long shifts and no sudden days off for the foreseeable future. ‘You knew she was in the police, didn’t you?’ she added.

  ‘No. Where?’

  ‘Greater Manchester.’

  ‘Where your woman said she’d come from on Saturday?’

  ‘As it happens, yes.’

  ‘Maybe we could persuade them to lend her to us for a bit. She could get seconded, as a liaison officer.’

  ‘Really? Could it be done quickly? I’m only here for the rest of this week. Once the kitchen’s done, they’ve got the bathroom, and then I can go.’

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to ask,’ said Barkley.

  ‘Will you do it – or should I?’

  ‘It’s got to be official. But you could give her a heads-up and see what she thinks. You’re close, then, are you?’ There was a wistfulness in her voice, and Thea remembered once again that Caz Barkley had grown up in the care system, presumably not at all close to her mother.

  ‘Fairly. We like each other, if that’s what you mean. I don’t see her terribly often. But my sister’s girl, Toni, has just been to visit and seems a bit worried. Something’s not entirely right, apparently. I ought to see if there’s anything I can do about it.’

  ‘I’ll get onto it this morning. She could be here tomorrow with any luck. She’d have to be properly briefed and given a complete set of assignments to justify bringing her here.’

  ‘Amazing. Are you sure?’

  ‘Obviously I can’t be sure they’ll let her go. But it must be worth a try.’

  The prospect of having someone to share the nights with was embarrassingly welcome. But there were difficulties. ‘Where would she sleep? I can’t put her in the attic and we’re not allowed to use Tabitha’s room. There aren’t any beds anywhere else.’ And if Jessica was going to be there, that put paid to any hope of having Clovis turn up to help with the detective work.

  ‘Tell her to bring an air bed, then.’

  ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘It won’t help the investigation,’ said Barkley with pessimistic certainty. ‘It’s been three days now. Whoever killed your woman could be on the other side of the world by this time.’

  ‘More likely he’s just carrying on as normal, and nobody suspects a thing.’

  ‘You sound as if you believe it’s a local.’

  ‘Do I? I suppose nothing else makes much sense. The way I see it, somebody fetched her from somewhere – maybe Manchester – and drove her here, for a reason. There’s a Barnsley connection somewhere, I bet you.’

  ‘But it’s such a small place. Hardly any people live here permanently.’

  ‘Just over two hundred,’ said Thea. ‘I looked it
up.’

  ‘Pity they didn’t find any fingerprints, then.’ She looked at the ceiling. ‘Up there, I mean.’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘Yours and the dead woman’s on the door and light switch, that’s all.’

  ‘Not the builders’? Or Tabitha’s? Well, you wouldn’t have hers for comparison, would you? She must surely have gone up there sometimes.’

  ‘Yes, but not in the past three days. Fingerprint traces fade with time, you know. You can easily tell which are the fresh ones.’

  ‘Well, I never. I didn’t know that.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘I suppose it’s obvious, really. If they all remained intact for years, you’d have to eliminate hundreds of people.’

  ‘Right.’

  Barkley got to her feet. ‘I’m going. Tell me your daughter’s name, rank, home station, and I’ll see if I can wangle a transfer. You never know – she might actually turn out to be useful.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thea sent a text to Jessica, five minutes after Barkley left. ‘Have suggested you be sent here to help with murder investigation. Hope that’s okay? All a bit sudden, I know. You’d stay with me in a village called Barnsley. Phone me when you’re free.’

  It seemed only fair to give as much information as she could – not that Jess would have much say in the matter, from the sound of it. She might even be seriously annoyed, if it clashed with things she wanted to do.

  There was still more than half of Wednesday to get through. The plan of driving to Bibury remained her best option, as far as she could see. The day was dry, if not especially sunny, and she realised that she might find a spot to park in, from which she could discreetly make a drawing. A vague notion persisted that if she could show Drew some artwork made during her absence, she would thereby demonstrate her innocence of any secretive behaviour. ‘It took me hours,’ she would say, proffering the sheet of A4 covered in pencilled detail.