by Rebecca Tope
‘Oh.’ The woman could be heard tapping a keyboard. ‘Yes, that’s probably a good idea, if he has a ruptured lung. How’s his colour?’
‘Rather blue,’ Thea reported, peering at the face that was now hanging lower. ‘I can’t see very well, but his lips look a sort of bluey-grey.’
‘Just talk to him. Reassure. Don’t ask him questions. Is there any blood on his face?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Is he breathing through nose or mouth?’
‘I’m not sure. His mouth’s open, so it must be that.’
The time passed quickly, with every breath a small triumph. The solid reality of the damaged body in the incongruous position consumed all her attention. When she looked up to see two girls staring at her in consternation, she had no idea how long they might have been there. ‘Go away,’ she told them. ‘Unless you want to meet the ambulance and show it where to come.’ At that moment, she heard a siren, and waved more urgently at them. ‘Go!’ she urged. The girls stumbled arm in arm towards the sound, their faces pale.
Tony was breathing more slowly, and she hoped that indicated a calmer, less painful, development. ‘Sit,’ he gasped. ‘Legs sore.’
She helped him twist gradually onto his bottom, both arms holding his shoulders, trying to keep him upright. It seemed to improve his condition, and he looked into her face. ‘Stabbed,’ he said, with wonder on his face. ‘She stabbed me.’
‘Who? Do you know her?’
He nodded, looking like a kicked dog. ‘Geraldine,’ he said, with a drunken-type slur. ‘My love. Why?’
The effort weakened him, and he gave a sort of squeal of pain.
Thea waited for the spasm to pass, resting one hand anxiously on his shoulder. His question still reverberated. ‘You mean – why did she do it, I suppose.’ Thea experienced a moment of cynicism. Why did a beloved stab the man she was supposed to adore? Because he betrayed or damaged her in some emotional way he might not even have been aware of. Because most men were annoying, some beyond endurance. Or perhaps the woman was a psychopath and the man the sweetest individual alive.
Then the ambulance came, and Thea was instantly superfluous. It had happened before, the almost rude elbowing aside by self-important paramedics. She had learnt not to take it personally, and willingly stepped away, looking around for her dog. Hepzie had been entirely forgotten in all the drama.
She called, already mildly concerned that the dog had got bored and pottered off yet again into the woods. It would not be so easily forgiven a second time. Thea was hungry and thirsty, and rather shaky. The stabbed man would probably survive, and tell his story much more coherently to the appropriate authorities. But if he didn’t, she was privy to a name that would probably be enough to justify arresting and charging his girlfriend for murder.
First she ought to phone Drew. It was surprising that he hadn’t tried to contact her, although he was not in the habit of making unnecessary phone calls. Presumably he would wait patiently for her to update him.
She felt in her pocket for the dog lead, and then remembered that it was still attached to the animal. She must have unthinkingly dropped it when called upon to administer whatever aid she could to the injured man. That meant Hepzie was at risk of getting caught in brambles or undergrowth, which would be bad. But she would also be slowed down, which was probably good.
‘Hepzie!’ she carolled, losing all former inhibitions, and trying to second-guess where the dog would go. She might retrace their steps back to where they met with Drew, and then follow him up to the villa. That would involve trailing her lead along a small road, inviting someone to apprehend her, and even possibly steal her. Would anybody want a muddy, middle-aged spaniel? Or would they think, in some misguidedly public-spirited fashion, that they were doing a good deed?
It was a great effort to trudge around in search of her pet and therefore very tempting to simply assume she’d found her way back to the others, and the car, and was patiently waiting for her mistress to catch up with her.
‘Hepzie!’ she shouted again. ‘Come here, will you?’
The ambulance was loaded and moving steadily back towards the road. The two bewildered girls had long since disappeared. A fresh group of walkers came into view, striding along purposefully with sticks and boots and pink cheeks. They waved one or two sticks at the incongruous vehicle, asking each other what might possibly have happened. Thea inwardly noted that if Tony Brown had been killed, there would now be legions of police people crawling all over the woods. As it was, he had been brutally attacked, and there ought actually to be officers combing the scene for evidence of the attacker. Somebody ought to be questioning her, and assessing the facts as far as she could provide them.
‘What happened, love?’ asked a man who appeared to be leading the walkers.
‘A man was hurt,’ she said carefully.
‘Badly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that a police car up there?’ He waved his stick again.
‘Looks like it. I should go and speak to them, I suppose. I was the one to find him. But I’ve lost my dog. Have you seen a cocker spaniel, trailing her lead?’
‘Sorry. She’s not down that way. We’ve walked up from the Yanworth road. Skirted the southern side of the woods. How long’s she been gone?’
‘Half an hour or so, I think. I sort of forgot about her.’
‘They’re coming to you, look.’ He indicated two police officers walking down the track towards them.
‘Oh, yes. So they are.’
She hurried to meet them, rehearsing the briefest way she could explain what had happened, and remembering again that she should phone Drew. A flicker of resentment made itself apparent that there were so many things she should be doing, when nobody else was showing the slightest trace of concern. Resentment led to defiance and she pulled out her phone. She would speak to Drew before she did her civic duty.
‘Hey – you’ve been ages,’ he complained. ‘We’ve had our lunch. What’s been happening? We heard a siren.’
‘Have you got Hepzie?’
‘What? No. Haven’t you?’
‘She’s off in the woods somewhere. And now I have to talk to the police. Could you take the kids and go and search for her? Get Timmy to whistle. That might work.’
‘Well, all right. But I really need to get home soon. Did you say police?’
‘You know I did. A man was stabbed. I need to tell them some things. Phone if you find the dog, okay?’
The police officers were standing eighteen inches from her, their eyes on her face. The moment she disconnected the phone, one said, ‘Stabbed?’
‘You took your time. The ambulance has been and gone. I can give you names, that’s all. I have to go and find my dog.’
‘There’s been some other trouble that slowed us down. We’ve spoken to the paramedics. The man’s in a bad way. Lost consciousness, apparently. You know who he is?’
‘Only his name. Tony Brown. Nothing else. I met him about two hours ago, or less, walking in the woods. He said his girlfriend stabbed him. Her name’s Geraldine. No, wait – he said “my love”, not girlfriend. Probably the same thing.’
‘Probably not, if she was angry enough to do that to him. Where did all this happen?’
‘Over there. Down this little track.’
‘What was he doing there?’
She began to say How should I know? when she paused. ‘That’s a good question. He seemed to be heading back to the road, and then suddenly turned round and came back down here. It was quite odd, actually. As if he’d forgotten something.’
‘Was he on his own?’
‘Yes. Both times. We saw him first over there.’ She waved into the heart of the woods. ‘I was with my stepson, and we had a little chat.’
‘And then you saw him again here?’
‘Exactly. Now, I really don’t think I can help you any more. I’ve got to go and find my dog. She could be anywhere by now.’
‘Just give us your contact details. Then you can go.’ He threw a frustrated glance at the point in the woods where the man had been stabbed. ‘Not much there to go on,’ he muttered.
It had not been conducted according to any textbook, Thea suspected. But she assumed that reality never did follow the rules, anyway. The ambulance had been priority, and the interests of the police came well behind the need to save a life. Her own statement was probably the best lead there was to who had plunged the knife. A woman called Geraldine, known to the victim, wasn’t likely to be difficult to trace.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and trotted off into the heart of the woods, calling again for her dog.
She zigzagged along small paths, with some idea that Hepzie might have retraced the route she had taken with Thea and Timmy. The trouble was, she didn’t quite remember what that route had been. It was an old wood, with some big trees, as well as plenty of young undergrowth, fallen branches and tangled brambles. Evergreens mixed with those boasting tender new leaves, several had unusual twisty trunks, which she did not recall from earlier in the day.
‘Hepzie!’ she bellowed. ‘Where are you?’
‘She’s here,’ came a voice, and Thea was thrust right back to a repeat of the scene of two hours ago. The same large woman was receiving lavish attentions from the spaniel, again. But this time she was sitting on the ground, her back against a tree. Hepzie was cuddled up close to her, apparently rather more welcome than otherwise. ‘What is it about me that she’s so obsessed with? What do I do to make everything follow me about like this?’
‘I have no idea. She’s not usually like this. But I’m extremely glad to see her, I can tell you. I was beginning to think she was lost for ever.’
‘Where’s the little boy who was with you? Have you lost him as well?’
The jokey words were not echoed in her face. She looked ill, even paler than before and dishevelled.
‘No, he’s with his father. There’s been some trouble. I … I got distracted and the dog ran off when I wasn’t looking.’
‘We’ve been here a long time.’ There was no reproach in the voice. ‘A few people passed by, but nobody noticed us.’
‘Are you all right? You’re not, are you?’
The woman gave a tight smile. ‘That trouble you talked about. Was it a man? Is he dead?’
Thea’s mind gave an almost audible click. ‘You’re Geraldine, aren’t you?’
The woman nodded. ‘He’s not dead, then? I suppose I’m glad about that. I just hope it’s enough to make him stop persecuting me.’
‘What?’
‘He’s a stalker. I’ve been stalked by him for two years now. Ever since the baby. His baby was stillborn. I was the midwife. He went to pieces and I was the one to mop him up. I suppose I was too kind to him, at the exact moment when he was most vulnerable. He came back to talk to me a few times, and I never saw any harm in it. Then his wife left him and moved away, and he just fixated on me from that time on. He follows me. Like today. I’ve got the weekend off, and thought I’d come here for a little break, staying in a B&B. He’s been hacking into my emails, which is how he knew I was here. He knows my car. It wasn’t hard to find me. When I saw him early today, I just flipped. I deliberately led him here, into the woods, determined to make him understand, once and for all.’
‘Taking a knife with you?’
‘That’s right. That’ll count against me, I suppose. But I can prove he was harassing me. I’ve reported it to the police twice, but nothing ever came of it. He’s absolutely convinced that I’m the love of his life, and that I feel the same as he does. It’s the weirdest thing, you know. His wife was so sensible and sweet. They were just a normal couple.’
‘What was wrong with the baby?’
‘Nothing. It was placental failure. No reason for it. It just happens sometimes. A nightmare for the parents, obviously. They called her Edith. Isn’t that a nice name?’
Thea was clutching her dog to her chest, partly to prevent any further escape and partly as a sort of protection. There was madness in this story somewhere, although she was less inclined to attribute it to this Geraldine, the more she listened to her.
‘I’ll give myself up, of course. They’d catch me anyway. How do I do that, I wonder?’
‘Best to go to Cirencester police station, I would think.’
‘All right, then. I deliberately missed his heart, you know.’
‘But he had his back to you.’ There was something viscerally treacherous in attacking a person from behind, an impression gleaned perhaps from all those westerns where you were meant to shoot a man while looking him in the face.
‘That’s true. He was looking for me, pacing around amongst the trees, and I jumped him. He saw me, though. I’ll never forget the look on his face.’
‘Come on, then. Let’s get back to the car park.’
Geraldine stumbled heavily as she got to her feet. ‘God, I feel terrible,’ she said.
‘You’ve had quite a day of it.’
‘And more to come.’
‘They’ll be okay with you. They’re all quite decent. I know a few of them.’ She refrained from mentioning Tony Brown’s lapse into unconsciousness, with the implication that he might yet not recover. ‘He seemed such a nice man,’ she burst out, instead.
‘What? Who?’
‘Tony. He chatted to me and Timmy, and was perfectly ordinary and pleasant. He didn’t look as if he was searching for you, or obsessed at all.’
‘No, I don’t suppose he did. He’d have been happy to think I was engineering a meeting with him. He turned everything around to suit his own delusions. And I don’t mind admitting that I often wondered if I was the crazy one, and not him.’
Instead of reassuring her, this remark gave Thea grounds for concern. Wasn’t it more likely that the overweight, overworked midwife would conceive an excessive passion for the bereaved father and abandoned husband? Had she pressed herself on him, offering the sympathy and medical information that he craved, and mistaking gratitude for adoration?
‘I have to phone my husband,’ she said. ‘He’ll be worrying.’
Geraldine said nothing, so she made the call. ‘Hey, love,’ said Drew. ‘Did you find the dog?’
Love. Tony Brown had said Geraldine was his love and she had denied it. Which was all Thea or anybody needed to confirm the woman’s version of events, because it was not really love if it went unreciprocated. Obsession, delusion, whatever else you called it, it was definitely not love. Throwing Geraldine a smile, she said to Drew, ‘Yes, and someone else. We should be in the car park in about fifteen minutes. Sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘That’s okay. Timmy says he’s glad he didn’t go to the villa, and he had a great time with you in the woods. Now he’s playing with one of those balsa wood planes. He bought it in the shop.’
‘I’ve made you awfully late,’ she persisted. ‘You must be fed up with hanging about.’
‘I don’t mind. And I know you’ll have a fascinating story to tell me when you get here.’
‘You can’t even begin to imagine,’ she said.
The Moorcroft
Den Cooper was finding the responsibility of parenthood more of a worry than he had expected. The finances especially were of concern. His job as security officer at Bristol Airport paid modestly, and Maggs was never going to earn much working for Drew Slocombe. In fact, during the year or so she was taking off, she earned nothing beyond what the welfare system allowed her. Baby Meredith was equipped with second-hand or borrowed items, and their food was both simple and repetitive. ‘I need to find some way of getting more cash,’ he said, every few days.
‘You can’t. You haven’t got enough spare time,’ Maggs always argued.
It was Maggs’s mother who made the fatal suggestion. ‘What about buying and selling on eBay?’ she said, having overheard one of these conversations. The new grandmother spent a great deal of her time at the Coopers, proving to be alternately useful and infuria
ting. ‘Maggs and I could do the parcels, if you handle all the computer side of things.’ Den was no computer wizard, but his skills far outstripped those of his wife or her mother.
‘I have no idea where I’d start with something like that,’ he objected. ‘How do you get the stuff in the first place?’
‘And what sort of stuff would it be?’ wondered Maggs. ‘You probably need to specialise.’
‘And you have to do all that business with pictures. I haven’t any idea how to do that. My phone can barely make calls, let alone take photos.’
‘I don’t think it’s very difficult,’ said his mother-in-law. ‘All sorts of very ordinary people seem to manage it. For that matter, I’ve got very attached to Twitter myself. You do read such very amusing remarks there, not to mention all the funny pictures.’
Den was not persuaded. ‘I’d have to buy a new phone, at the very least. And there’d be no certainty of making a profit. I need something more reliable than that.’ But he had a thoughtful expression that was not lost on Maggs.
‘Well, what are you interested in?’ she pursued. ‘I’ve never noticed you bothering with antiques, or old books or models. You’re not the type for collecting war medals or spoons, are you? You need special knowledge if you’re going to start dealing.’
He looked at her from his considerable height, impressed at the way she had detected the most subtle manifestation of pique in his tone. Because his attention had been snagged by the idea, despite the many objections. His words had been dismissive, but his eyes had widened a little, gleamed a little, at the images of auction rooms and flea market stalls that had flickered into his head. Not eBay, no, but something more immediate and controllable could be the answer.
‘Maybe we could go to that antique place in Bristol at the weekend,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Get a few ideas. I do rather like china,’ he finished unexpectedly. He had surprised himself just as much as he surprised Maggs and her mother.
‘It’s a flea market,’ said Maggs. ‘If you mean the one in Corn Street.’
‘Even better,’ smiled Den.