by Rebecca Tope
‘And I didn’t,’ protested Thea. ‘It was Caz Barkley who got there first.’
Clovis sighed at the memories he’d evoked. ‘Nasty business all round,’ he said.
‘Okay – so this Chinese woman,’ urged Ben. ‘Do they know who she was? How was she killed exactly? Where were you at the time?’ He was rummaging in his backpack, and to Thea’s wonderment he produced a notebook and pencil. ‘It seems remarkably mysterious,’ he added with relish.
‘They still don’t have an identity for her. I found her on Saturday afternoon and took her back to the Corner House, where she stayed the night. On Sunday morning, after I’d been out for a little walk, I came back and found her dead. The police weren’t sure whether it was murder or natural causes until they did a post-mortem. Turns out she was strangled. She told me she’d been driven to Barnsley from Manchester, and had to escape from the people who’d brought her there. She was genuinely terrified when I found her.’ She stopped for breath, wondering whether the summary had made any sense.
Ben was busy making notes. ‘Manchester?’ he echoed. ‘Driven from Manchester?’
Clovis answered. ‘Right. Which is another reason for linking it all to the pangolins. They’ve found a hoard of dead ones up there somewhere, according to the news.’
A waitress carrying a laden tray interrupted them, and they settled to their food with everything hanging in the air for a full minute.
Then Ben repeated Thea’s account back to her, almost verbatim. Then he said, ‘So who was she?’
‘Nobody knows. There don’t seem to be any real clues. They can’t find any record of her at the airport. The only thing they’ve found is that she had a wedding ring round her neck with initials inside. When I found her, she didn’t have anything with her at all. She said she’d left everything in the car. She was hiding under some bushes.’
‘So why Barnsley?’ He tapped his teeth with his pen. ‘Must be something dodgy going on at that business park. Uncle Edward worked there at one time – helped get it set up, in fact.’
‘But he’s retired now, isn’t he?’
‘Long since. Spends all his time in his garden these days.’
‘Not doing family history like his brother?’
‘Not as far as I know. That’s all got rather bogged down last I heard, anyway.’
‘You told me you couldn’t be sure the woman wasn’t lying about everything,’ Clovis reminded Thea.
‘I know. There was something very unconvincing about her. I mean – the story is pretty crazy, when you think about it. But she obviously had good reason to be scared, as it turned out. And she said, “We fear those we hurt” as if that explained a lot. It’s pretty obvious that she’d said or done something that really upset somebody.’
‘Enough for them to kill her. Right,’ nodded Ben.
‘Another big part of the mystery is how they knew where she was,’ put in Clovis. ‘Were they watching the house all night, waiting for a chance to get in?’ He looked at Thea.
‘It’s a horrible thought. It makes it more or less my fault – going out like I did, leaving the front door unlocked. I really made it easy for them, didn’t I?’
‘You keep saying “them”,’ Ben observed. ‘Do the cops think there was more than one person?’
‘They haven’t said. I guess I mean it just as a blanket word for “he/she/they”. For all I know, a woman on her own might easily have done it. Apparently, it’s just a matter of knowing where to press, and keeping hold for a few seconds.’ She shivered. ‘The poor woman might never have known what was happening.’
‘I think it takes long enough for the victim to realise they’re in trouble,’ said Ben, with a ghoulish expression. ‘And to kick and scratch and shout a bit, as well.’
‘So – for maximum efficacy, you’d want two people,’ said Clovis. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Ideally, yes,’ said Ben, adopting the air of an expert. ‘But not necessarily.’
Clovis spoke up. ‘Of course, if there was a whole gang of them after her, that wouldn’t be a problem.’
‘Come on!’ Thea protested. ‘Even in Barnsley, people would notice a gang of Chinese traffickers marching into that house and out again, ten minutes later. Don’t let’s get silly about it.’
Before Clovis said any more, Thea noticed Ben’s expression. He was watching the older man with great attention, as if trying to read his thoughts. Clovis was obviously not happy at the way she’d spoken to him, but when she reran his words, she was even more certain she’d been right to challenge him. For the first time, she questioned why he was there at all, and how seriously he was taking their discussion. If she was reading Ben Harkness’s face correctly, he was wondering much the same thing.
‘Okay,’ said Ben, after a few moments. ‘I think I’ve got it now. Just − where’s the incident room? Who’s the SIO?’
‘I think it’s all being run from Cirencester. That’s where they interviewed me. But they’re so short-staffed it’s not being given very high priority. There’s probably just one detective constable on a computer, trying to track down who she was. That could take ages.’
Thea looked around at the people sitting at other tables, nervous of being overheard. They were only three miles from Barnsley, after all. There could be locals listening in. From what she was beginning to understand, most residents of these villages were related to each other. She spoke in a low voice, answering the young man’s questions as thoroughly as she could, all the while surprised at her own willingness to co-operate with him. There was something magnetic in his intense interest, that simply drew information forth. An underlying competence gave her a sense of reassurance. He did not waste breath on emotional outbursts or peripheral remarks. He made Clovis look amateurish, in fact.
Clovis coughed and they both looked at him. ‘I don’t think I’m being silly,’ he said. ‘I’m only saying what the police probably think. They’ll be hoping there’s a direct link to the animal traffickers, and when they solve that, they’ll get someone to admit to killing Grace at the same time. So they won’t waste too much effort from this end, if you follow me.’
‘All that could well be true,’ said Ben. ‘But it’s no way to conduct a murder investigation, all the same.’ He grinned. ‘So it’s down to us, then.’
Now he was being silly, Thea thought. Just a boy detective with too much time on his hands. But Ben was still speaking. ‘We have to be methodical. Timing, distances, evidence. How much have the police actually told you?’
‘They couldn’t find anything wrong with her shoulder. She had a wedding ring round her neck. It had initials engraved on the inside. G. B. and K. A. W. We’re guessing the G stands for Grace, and the K. A. W. is her husband.’
Ben nodded and made a note. ‘What else?’
‘I told you – not a thing. They can’t find any trace of her on a flight into Manchester at the end of last week. But what if she was lying to me about her name? Then all they’ve got is what she looks like. It must be a big job to analyse every face on every flight.’
Again the young man nodded. ‘Possible, but time-consuming. I’m surprised they even attempted it.’ He thought for a moment. ‘So we don’t even know her nationality for sure? Did she have an accent?’
Thea shook her head. ‘She sounded like an ordinary English person.’
Ben blew out his cheeks. ‘She was certainly good at keeping a secret. Now let’s go back to Clovis’s point about how the killer or killers knew where to find her.’ He waved a hand invitingly at Clovis.
‘Well,’ the man responded. ‘As I said before, they could have set up a remote camera in a car, that would show them the minute Thea left the house.’
‘Blimey!’ said Ben, admiringly. ‘That’s right. Did you notice a car or van parked nearby?’ he asked Thea.
She shook her head doubtfully. ‘There’s a bit of a lay-by just across the road, where there’s often something parked. That would be the obvious place. I don’t rememb
er about Sunday, though. I wasn’t taking any notice of that sort of thing.’
‘The police should question all the neighbours, then,’ the youth decreed.
‘Except one of the neighbours might be the killer,’ objected Clovis.
‘That would be a big coincidence,’ said Ben. ‘After all, nobody knew Thea would take the woman back to her house.’
‘It’s not my house,’ Thea corrected him. ‘Remember?’
‘Ah! Can we go back over that, then? Whose house is it?’
‘A woman called Tabitha Ibbotson. She’s a professional pianist – quite famous, apparently. She knows Detective Superintendent Gladwin, who’s a friend of mine. She set this whole thing up, thinking I could do with a break from domestic duties.’
Ben frowned. ‘Isn’t house-sitting rather domestic?’
She laughed. ‘In a way. But I don’t have to do any cooking, or entertaining children, or answering the phone, or deadheading the roses. I can just slob about with a book.’
‘Ha!’ snorted Clovis. ‘Some chance of that. If I know you, Thea Slocombe, you don’t do very much of that.’
You don’t know me, though, do you? she wanted to say. ‘I’m actually very lazy by nature,’ she told him.
‘Okay,’ said Ben, very businesslike. ‘So how long were you out? Where did you go? Did you see anybody?’
She gave him the wearily familiar report, feeling even more rehearsed than she had suspected Grace of being. ‘It was the next day I met your relations in the churchyard. I was very glad to chat to nice normal people.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Ben impatiently. ‘Let’s stick to Sunday, shall we? Here you are, in a nice ordinary little Cotswold village on a Sunday morning. That doesn’t really suggest violent killing, does it? And yet it happened. And we have to find out why it did.’
The others just looked at him. ‘Okay – so we’re finished here, are we?’ All their plates had been cleared and glasses drained. Ben checked his watch. ‘Listen – while we’re here, can we go and have a quick look at the churchyard? I think I should go and check out my great-granddad. My mum said she thought the headstone might need attention.’
‘No problem,’ said Clovis. ‘We can leave the car and walk. It’ll take about three minutes.’
Thea sat back and gave him a long look. His face was as gorgeous as ever, his attitude relaxed, his wallet clearly well filled. They all took it for granted that he was paying for the meal. But why was he really here? His contributions had been minimal, his engagement tepid. Did he care about Grace at all? Was he just passing the time? And how extensive was his local knowledge? They were three people who scarcely knew each other at all, discussing a horrible crime as if it was an intriguing puzzle and nothing more.
‘What?’ he said, aware of her scrutiny.
‘Nothing, really. Just a bit puzzled as to what the three of us think we’re doing, I suppose.’
Ben gave a melodramatic groan. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘It’s all me. This is what I do – I’ve done it umpteen times back where I live. I get everybody fixating on clues and evidence and motives and so forth, just by asking a few questions. I don’t understand how it happens, quite honestly, but it seems to work every time.’
‘Same as me, then,’ said Thea. ‘Welcome to my world.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Clovis once again took the role of leader. ‘We can go to the churchyard first, and then how about looking at Betty’s Grave? And Ready Token? That’s a village, by the way. And wait till you see the amazing place just over the churchyard wall.’
In spite of herself, Thea had to ask, ‘Ready Token? You can’t be serious.’
‘Honestly. We can go back that way, and you’ll see for yourself.’
They trooped up the quiet road to the church, glimpsing the tower ahead. Clovis continued with his history lesson. ‘The cross in the churchyard is extremely ancient. Fifteenth century at least. The church is called The Holy Rood, because of it.’
They let him prattle on, until they were standing around the object itself, which did indeed look old. A long slender stone stem supported a four-sided carving with religious images in remarkably good condition on all sides. ‘Nice,’ said Thea, before gazing all round at the graves. ‘Plenty of space for more,’ she remarked.
‘My great-granddad is over here,’ said Ben. ‘He died aged thirty-three in eighteen ninety-seven, leaving a wife and a lot of kids. I’ve got a very complicated family,’ he announced proudly. ‘So complicated that there’s a whole farm that’s been standing empty since the late 1990s not far from here because nobody can decide who should inherit it. The trouble is, there were no obvious claimants amongst my mother’s relations – I mean they all seem to have an equally valid claim. It’s bonkers, basically.’
Thea was reminded of the empty house she’d seen at Bibury. ‘Surely they can rent out the fields?’ she queried. ‘Won’t it all get overrun with thistles and brambles otherwise?’
‘Maybe,’ Ben shrugged. ‘I just know they’ve been spending big money on legal fees for umpteen years, and not getting anywhere.’
‘Your grandfather must have been pretty old when your mother was born,’ said Thea, having performed one of her habitual calculations. ‘If he was born in the nineteenth century. Which he must have been if his father died in 1897.’
He gave her an approving look. ‘Right. My mother was born in nineteen fifty-five, when he was sixty. Not so unusual, really. But don’t ask me to give you a full family tree. I can only do it if I’ve got something to write it all down on, and then I always forget about eight of them. Everybody two generations back had at least five children, and then they all seemed to run out of steam, apart from my mother. I’m the only one who comes from a big family now.’
They roamed amongst the graves until Ben called, ‘Here he is! Look – Samuel Thomas Wheelwright. You can only just read it. My mum was right – the stone needs straightening. Another year or two and it’ll fall over completely.’
‘Wheelwright,’ Thea repeated slowly. ‘I’ve seen that name just recently.’ Before she could snag the exact memory, her phone began to jingle in her bag. ‘Sounds as if I left it on for once,’ she said, as she fished it out. ‘Oh – it’s my sister.’
It transpired that Jocelyn was calling to check that Thea had contacted Jessica, and to ask whether she’d seen any more of the delectable Clovis. ‘Can’t talk to you now,’ said Thea firmly. ‘I’m standing in a churchyard, with two other people. It’s all a bit busy. Jessica sounded fine when I spoke to her. I’ll be seeing her in a few weeks anyway. I’ll keep you posted … yes, Joss, I know. Thanks, but it’s not necessary. I’m going, okay?’ And she firmly terminated the call before the name of Clovis could be uttered again. Irrationally, she feared that he would hear it and want to know what was being said.
But the call had conveniently reminded her of where she’d seen the surname on the headstone. ‘We found the cremated remains of a person called Wheelwright in a barn in Barnsley,’ she said succinctly. ‘What do you think of that?’
Ben stared at her. ‘What? In a barn?’
‘That’s right.’ She paused to think. ‘I don’t suppose it belongs to this family farm you’re talking about, does it? Right in the middle of Barnsley?’
‘No, it’s the other side of Cirencester, I think. I’ve never actually been there. How do you know they’re somebody’s ashes?’
Clovis was equally bemused. ‘You never told me about that,’ he reproached her.
Ben had lost all interest in the churchyard or walking to Betty’s Grave. ‘Can you take me to see? When was this? Will they still be there? Whose barn is it?’
Thea answered his questions to the best of her ability. ‘They’re in an urn – the sort provided by the crematorium. There’s a name label and a date. Gwendoline Phoebe Wheelwright. It was only Tuesday I saw them. Dozy of me to forget the name so quickly. Anyway, I shouldn’t think anyone’s going to move them.’
‘Well, l
et’s go and see,’ urged the youth. Clovis allowed himself to be hustled back to the car and instructed to drive back to Barnsley immediately.
‘The thing is,’ said Ben breathlessly, as they drove, ‘I remember my mum talking about her Great-Aunt Gwen. If I’ve got it right, the whole argument about the farm started when she died. Must be more than twenty years ago – I wasn’t born, nor Wilf. He’s my older brother. Mum always says if she’d been a bit quicker off the mark, she might have inherited the property herself.’
‘So who else is after it?’
‘Pretty much everybody, to start with. It’s all gone quiet lately. There are all sorts of descendants staking a claim. Gwen’s father was one of Great-Granddad’s offspring. Gwen was a childless widow when she died, and everyone thought the place belonged to her. But in fact she was just living there by default, you might say. It was never officially hers – nobody did the necessary paperwork. She had an older brother, Eric, who was killed in the war, which was one reason everything got so muddled. He didn’t make a will, and even if he had it might not have been valid. There were cousins who contested his claim on the farm, even back in the nineteen-forties.’
‘So why not sell it and share the proceeds?’ asked Clovis.
‘Good question. Stubbornness, I assume, or maybe they couldn’t if they didn’t know exactly who it belonged to. Anyway, Uncle Dick’s been researching into it recently, and he thinks he’s got a pretty good case for claiming it. Most of the others are dead by now.’
‘But they’ll have descendants of their own who might be interested,’ said Thea.
‘Dick thinks there’s really only one surviving branch that might cause trouble. When I was here a week or so ago, he was talking about getting in touch with them and seeing where things stood.’
‘Well, just looking at these ashes won’t tell you anything,’ said Thea, who was half-regretting her revelation. A nice afternoon walk would have suited her perfectly.