Fear in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  Gladwin held up a hand. ‘Stop, stop. You’ve left me way behind here. Who’s Tony, for a start?’

  Thea gave vent to a delighted little snort of laughter. ‘Your own police photographer, as it happens. Tony Newby, Simon’s brother.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Gladwin doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure I’ve met him. He’ll have been interviewed, of course, and I must have seen the report, but…’ She frowned and scratched at a rough patch of skin on her chin. Looking at her more closely, Thea observed signs that the senior detective had been out in the cold and got herself chapped. Thin and bony, Gladwin carried little natural protection against extreme winter weather.

  ‘He’s gay, and he had a thing for George Jewell – which I gather was not reciprocated. He seems rather a pathetic figure, especially at the moment. He’s caught a chill and is working from home in a dressing gown.’

  ‘You’re saying he might have killed George in some sort of jealous fit? And Bunny as well, for reasons that escape me?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Thea almost shouted. ‘I’m saying he knew both of them very well, lives a couple of miles away and was here on the morning I found George’s body.’

  ‘And he’s Simon’s brother? Are they alike?’

  ‘Fairly. I think Simon’s older, but Tony took charge when the news came about Bunny. I met them both in Northleach soon after. Simon was more or less useless with shock, and Tony was shepherding him about – seeing the people at the boys’ school, for one thing.’

  ‘Useless with shock? You thought that was genuine, did you?’

  ‘Very much so.’

  ‘He has to present a front as a matter of course, you know, at his hotel. Probably very good at hiding his feelings.’

  ‘I know, but even so…’ Why am I defending him, she asked herself? ‘I just don’t want it to be him,’ she admitted miserably.

  ‘Nor me,’ Gladwin agreed. ‘I hate to think what it’d mean for those kids.’

  ‘Right,’ said Thea. ‘The kids. It all comes down to them, in the end.’

  ‘I’m still not entirely sure why you called me,’ Gladwin resumed after a short silence.

  ‘Nor me,’ smiled Thea. ‘I think I just wanted somebody sensible to talk to. It used to be Phil, you see…’ she tailed off helplessly, resisting the slide into self-pity. ‘I used to be much more included. I suppose I miss it.’

  ‘You could still sign up for the force, you know. Even if you don’t qualify as a uniformed, you could be a special, or admin, or clerical. There’s loads of openings.’

  For a moment, Thea considered the prospect of such a life change. A real job, with regular income, with all the paperwork and commitment and a desk and colleagues. Things she had never in her life experienced. She’d worked at a succession of indifferent jobs after graduating and before Jessica was born, but that period of her life had been very short and inconsequential, overshadowed by Carl and the thrill of being married. ‘I doubt if they’d have me,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got anything you could call a CV, for a start.’

  ‘Phil’s not on this case, anyway,’ Gladwin went on, dismissing Thea’s objections with a flip of her hand. ‘There’s something up in Broadway that he’s focusing on.’

  ‘Anyway…you think you’ve cracked this one, then? Done and dusted?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that. Very strong suspicions, yes. Evidence, motive, means – no. And about a dozen loose ends.’

  ‘Such as George.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Gladwin stayed for a mug of tea, and then went with Thea to feed the donkey. ‘I’m intrigued by this animal,’ she admitted. ‘What does it do all day?’

  ‘Not a lot in this weather. Dreams dreams, I guess. Lets the time pass. What do most animals do?’

  ‘Work. Breed. Socialise. This poor fellow gets none of that. It’s cruel, if you think about it. Has he ever worked in his life?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Thea shrugged. ‘I can’t imagine there’s much call for donkey work any more. It’s a surprise, really, that there are any left. Don’t they say that once we all turn vegetarian, that’ll be the end of sheep and cows and pigs? Donkeys are obsolete already.’

  ‘And I’d say their days are numbered, at least in this country.’

  ‘Pity. He’s an inoffensive creature. They deserve to exist for their own sake, same as everything else.’

  ‘Of course he does, in theory. But it depends on rich philanthropists like your Lucy. She’s got all this land just for one useless animal.’

  Thea sighed at the familiar turn of conversation. The donkey tore at his fresh hay, nodding his head up and down as if agreeing with the sentiments being expressed. ‘He goes for regular little walks as well, though I haven’t seen him down by the big gate since last week. He definitely went down there in the snow, because I saw his tracks.’

  ‘Ah yes. Tracks.’ It was as if she had been summoned back to work after a break. ‘I knew there was a good reason why I came out here with you. I wanted to check all that again. We need to draw diagrams, to get it all straight. It might be needed as evidence, if this business ever comes to trial.’ She spoke distractedly, her eyes flickering from one corner of the paddock to another. ‘It would be great to have a complete picture of what must have happened. I hope you can still remember it all?’

  ‘I expect I can,’ said Thea, mentally running through the events of the previous week. Seven days ago, the whole area had been blanketed with snow, pristine on its first day. ‘Though I’m slightly hazy about what happened on which day, now. Let me think. It was Friday morning I saw the footprints, wasn’t it?’ she asked herself. ‘So it was Friday when I called the police about the body in the field?’

  Gladwin said nothing, just giving a slight nod. Thea continued, ‘Saturday I went to Nicky’s party. Sunday I found George and you found Bunny on Monday night. Then you identified her and I met the Newbys in Northleach. It was still snowy then.’ She looked up in triumph. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes. Does it suggest anything to you, timing-wise?’

  ‘Not really. Do you mean that Simon might have been acting innocent all the time we were playing games and eating ice cream for Nicky’s birthday? That Bunny was already dead then, and he knew it? When did anybody last see her alive?’

  ‘Thursday. She was in Bristol at a meeting, that morning. Said she was going straight home afterwards.’

  ‘But she couldn’t because of the snow.’ The effort of keeping it all in her head was starting to cause Thea some trouble. There was definitely something amiss with the story, where Bunny’s movements were concerned.

  ‘Maybe,’ Gladwin agreed. ‘The roads were cleared by the middle of that day. The motorways were never really affected, anyway. She could have got to within a few miles of here, with no trouble.’

  ‘But instead she phoned them and said she couldn’t manage it.’

  ‘She didn’t phone. She texted. We saw the messages on Simon’s mobile.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So he could easily have sent it himself from her phone, to cover himself.’

  ‘She didn’t call Nicky about his party?’

  ‘Nope. Nobody spoke to her after Thursday morning, so far as we can gather. We’ve been trying the number of her phone every now and then, just to see if someone finds it and picks it up.’

  Thea was still focusing on the timing. ‘But she did come home, because she died here. When?’

  Gladwin shrugged. ‘That’s the big question which we can’t answer precisely. From the amount of snow on top of her, and the state of her insides, it looks like Friday, but we can’t be certain.’

  They were walking back to the barn, the light fading rapidly. Thea wondered at the apparent lack of urgency in the detective’s demeanour. Was this, then, a crucial interview – something she had planned to conduct in any case, regardless of Thea’s earlier phone call? ‘Do you want to see the baby rabbits?’ she a
sked. ‘They’re so sweet.’

  ‘OK,’ said Gladwin with a girlish grin, and Thea found herself rejoicing in the femaleness of her companion. Gladwin had twin boys of her own. She understood baby things and the minor miracles of motherhood. If it had been Phil, she’d have felt foolish in doting over such unimportant scraps of life.

  The babies were growing fast, their eyes open and tiny ears just starting to lift from their early flat position. Thea fished one out and handed it to the detective superintendent. ‘Aaahh!’ she sighed.

  ‘Lucy was amazed when I told her about them.’

  ‘Why? Was it an immaculate conception?’

  ‘Not at all. She’s a bit naive about it, if you ask me. She left the buck with all the does while she mucked them out. She’s lucky they didn’t all have babies.’

  ‘Do you think I could have a couple of them for my boys? They’re old enough now to do some of the cleaning and feeding.’

  Thea hesitated. ‘Not for me to say,’ was her reply, covering herself. It was true, of course, but her resistance was much more due to the idea of the vulnerable little rabbits being consigned to the care of two growing boys. ‘Would they treat them properly?’ she couldn’t refrain from asking.

  Gladwin gave her a look. ‘Of course. They’re as soft as anything, real cissies. We’ve deliberately gone that way with them – which shouldn’t surprise you, if you think about it.’

  Thea thought. ‘You’ve seen too much of feral urban youth, knifing each other for no good reason,’ she summarised. ‘So yours resolve any arguments by rational discussion and a warm hug.’

  Gladwin laughed delightedly. ‘That’s the idea,’ she confirmed. ‘And being in charge of two adorable little bunnies is just the thing to cement that approach.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Lucy, then. I expect she’ll be more than happy to find a home for them so easily.’

  It was a stolen interlude from the serious business of investigating murder, and they both knew it couldn’t last. The detective was skilfully concealing the stress of her work, showing no overt sign of urgency or anxiety. Her skinny figure suggested a busy life with little time for food or idleness. Her dark eyes habitually darted from point to point, suggesting constant thought, her brain never resting. But she seemed to have a fair balance in her life, as far as Thea could ascertain. She was a good listener, and in Temple Guiting had shown herself capable of taking short cuts in her work which ran counter to the official regulations. She trusted her own judgement, and thereby earned the trust of others. Her parting remark accurately acknowledged Thea’s feelings. ‘Don’t worry about not being involved in this one,’ she advised. ‘You don’t want to get yourself murdered, now do you?’

  ‘Not really,’ Thea muttered, to the detective’s departing back.

  But it was too late, of course. She was involved, like it or not. She had heard disclosures from people close to a murdered woman, and in so doing had quickly come to care about them. She had let Janina and Ben leave without knowing what happened next – would Simon be at home to watch over Ben while Nicky was collected from nursery? Such minutiae of family life acquired great importance, essential for a sense of normality and security on the part of the children. She wished she had told Janina to call on her if help was needed, as she was increasingly convinced it would be.

  If evidence was found against Simon, he would be arrested and kept in custody for the lengthy period before the trial. If. Thea tried to assemble everything she knew of the case, searching for possible indicators that Simon had in fact murdered his wife, only to find herself hampered by the many gaps in her knowledge. Nobody had told her where Simon was on Thursday or Friday or Saturday, nor how he felt about Bunny. She knew nothing of his feelings towards George – or George’s towards him, or Bunny’s towards anybody. Janina was hypercritical of both the boys’ parents, but seemed well disposed towards George, and very good with Nicky and Ben. Other people such as Tony, Kate and Granfer Jack appeared to have a part in the picture, none of them with a good word to say about Bunny.

  The phone rang, and again her instant thought was of Lucy. It was time for another check-in from her employer, but this was somewhat earlier than her usual calls. And she was wrong again. At first she did not recognise the voice, which began hesitantly. ‘Yes, hello? I’m sorry, but I forgot your name. This is Kate, down the track.’

  ‘Oh! My name’s Thea. What can I do for you?’ Why were telephone conversations still so stilted, after all these years? There were times when it felt like a frightening new invention, even to someone whose great-grandmother had used it. Perhaps because it continued to carry associations of bad news or intrusive attempts to sell you something.

  ‘We thought you might like to come and eat with us. You must be lonely, up there by yourself.’

  ‘How kind of you. When?’

  ‘Well, we generally start about six, if that’s all right.’

  Six! It was already five-fifteen. No time for a bath and a hair wash, then. ‘Today?’

  ‘That’s right. Do you like liver?’

  Did anybody like liver? ‘Um…’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve had it since I was little.’

  ‘You’ll like it the way I do it,’ she was assured. ‘With bacon and onions and thick gravy. Just the thing for a cold winter evening.’

  ‘I’ll walk down, then, shall I?’ The track would be slippery and dark, and coming back would be even worse. But you couldn’t drive such a short distance – that would be stupid.

  ‘Granfer can come and fetch you. He knows every inch of the way. That barn was ours, you realise. Used to keep the big implements in it, when I was a girl. There were owls roosting in the beams.’

  The nostalgia was palpable, the usual sweet mixture of regret and rose-coloured memories. ‘I’d love to hear more about that,’ she said, stilted again. ‘I’ll wait for your father to get here, then, shall I?’

  ‘He’ll be half an hour or so. I told him he has to shave first.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The old man crooked his arm gallantly, and Thea willingly took it. They walked slowly down the track, which was lit by a great moon that Thea had not previously noticed, to her shame. The silvery light glittered on the frost forming on every surface, and she groped for the lines of a poem she had learnt at the age of six or seven. ‘With silver paws there sleeps the dog’ – something like that. But her dog had been left behind in the barn with Jimmy, and she was not aware of one at Kate’s place.

  In that, however, she turned out to be wrong. A chubby corgi greeted her at the door, wagging its non-existent tail and grinning. ‘This is Beryl,’ said Kate. ‘She’s a curmudgeon most of the time, but seems she’s taken to you.’

  ‘I’m good with dogs,’ said Thea immodestly. ‘Hello Beryl.’ She bent down and rubbed the animal’s shoulders in both hands, enjoying the thick creamy coat. But she was also wrestling with an avalanche of associations, due to the fact that Phil Hollis also had a corgi. Claude was its name, and it was virtually identical to this Beryl. She hadn’t known how much she missed the Hollis dog until this moment.

  The house was brightly lit, with unreconstructed high-energy light bulbs, at least a hundred watts apiece. She was ushered into a large kitchen with lino on the floor and painted wooden panelling on the walls. Everything was immaculately clean. There was a sense of openness that stood in utter contrast to what Thea had been expecting. Something about farmhouses suggested dark secrets in her mind: grubby corners containing dying lambs, stacks of neglected DEFRA paperwork and overheated kitchens where the Aga was king.

  There was no Aga here, just a faintly battered electric cooker, on which two bubbling saucepans sat. A table was laid for three, covered with an oilcloth boasting pictures of large red flowers. Beryl’s basket stood near a back door, lined with clean bedding. There was almost nothing on any of the surfaces – tidiness taken to a disturbing extreme.

  ‘Right…now you’re here, I’ll get frying,’ said Kate briskly.
‘It doesn’t take long. Can we get you a drink?’

  That was another thing – farmers were famously abstemious when it came to drink. If you found a dusty bottle of sherry in the back of a cupboard you were doing well. Where, Thea asked herself, did these stereotypes come from? Cold Comfort Farm, probably. ‘Thanks,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Gin? Wine? Apple juice? Sherry?’

  With a wry inward smile, Thea opted for sherry, only to be offered a choice of sweet or dry, and Granfer poured a generous glass from a new-looking bottle of Amontillado.

  The smell of the liver and bacon frying was undeniably appealing. Then Kate added onions and it became irresistible. ‘Wow!’ Thea inhaled. ‘I can’t wait.’

  Deftly, the woman produced mashed potato and sprouts, served from a large, warm dish onto large, warm plates. Then, with a flourish, she doled out three slices of liver and two rashers of bacon per person, returning to the cooker to make gravy from the fat and juice left in the pan. Granfer fetched a bottle of rich red wine, which had been previously opened, and poured it out without being asked.

  ‘This is fantastic,’ Thea approved, after her first mouthful, which did not include any liver. ‘Incredible.’

  ‘Well, we always say if you can’t enjoy the fruits of your own labour, then what’s the point of it all?’ said Kate. ‘This is from our own lambs, of course. They were a good lot last year. Pity the price was so poor. We reckon we made about fifty pence on each one.’

  The moment had come – she could not defer it any longer. Cutting a small piece of liver even smaller, she coated it with gravy and popped it in.