Cotswold Mystery, A

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Well, they haven’t, have they? Or if they have, they’re not saying.’

  Jessica was thinking feverishly. ‘They can’t know. If they did, they’d have arrested her by now.’

  ‘Really? It was sixty years ago. It doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘We’ll have to tell them.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thea miserably.

  They reran the events of Sunday morning, compulsively fitting and refitting the known facts about keys and doors and unexplained noises. ‘Oh, and Uncle James said there were no fingerprints on the knife, just the blood residue. The handle had been cleaned more thoroughly than the rest of it,’ Jessica remembered. ‘And the blood on the mac is definitely sheep, not human.’

  ‘It’s all horribly simple, isn’t it,’ Thea sighed. ‘Granny gets up at six, goes out through the back gardens, into next door, does the deed and comes back. Just as James said yesterday.’

  ‘Did she say last night that she can turn off the buzzer?’ Jessica asked. ‘I wasn’t sure I heard her properly.’

  Thea nodded. ‘I think that just proves she’s much more cunning than she seems. It turns out she’s had the key to the connecting door all along. She just pretended to lose it. After last night and this morning, I’m afraid nothing would really surprise me. She’s incredibly cunning.’ She cast a look of anguish at her daughter. ‘But she’s such a nice old thing. I really like her. I don’t want to be the one to get her carted off to prison.’

  ‘But if you don’t, you’d be perverting the course of justice,’ Jessica said sternly. ‘Concealing evidence and obstructing the police. You could go to prison with her.’

  ‘At least I might be able to look after her then,’ said Thea. ‘Like I’m supposed to.’

  ‘It suddenly seems dreadfully straightforward,’ said Jessica, ignoring the moment of melodrama. ‘I think we ought to call Uncle James back and tell him, right away.’

  Thea panicked. ‘No, not yet,’ she pleaded. ‘Granny isn’t going anywhere. She’ll be asleep, anyway, after the disturbed night. Let her have a bit more time.’ She stopped, wondering at herself. What difference could another few hours make? ‘Sorry,’ she ended lamely. ‘I just feel we needn’t be in too much rush.’

  ‘You’ve got too attached to her,’ Jessica accused.

  ‘Maybe I have.’ Thea rubbed both hands down her cheeks. ‘I can’t bear to think of how it’ll be. Can’t we just try – I mean, there might be another explanation. What about this Joanna Southcott business? Thomas – he was working on it with Julian. And Nick…the car…Icarus. There is something going on there. Can’t we – that is – I think we could just have one last try. Let’s leave it till tomorrow, Jess. Please. Then if they take Granny away, I can lock up the house and leave at the same time as you. I won’t need to be here then.’ She was begging, despising the note in her own voice. But the more she carried on, the more vital it seemed.

  ‘All right,’ said Jessica reluctantly. ‘Although you realise we’ll be in trouble if they ever find out what we’ve done. We’ll need to say we didn’t know, or didn’t see the significance.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Thea. ‘We’ll call them tomorrow. After breakfast. When she’s got her strength back.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In the protracted daylight, before turning their minds to an evening meal, Thea insisted they took the dog out for another walk in The Warren. ‘But I’m tired,’ Jessica complained. ‘I wanted to just chill out on the sofa for a bit. Why do we have to go for walks all the time?’

  ‘It’s nice for the dog, and it’ll give us something else to think about. We’ll go mad if we just sit here doing nothing till bedtime. We can pretend everything’s normal, once we’re outside. We can listen to the birdsong and admire the spring flowers. Some of these gardens are really something.’

  ‘Except the ones the sheep have destroyed, thanks to us.’

  Thea ignored that remark and chivvied daughter and dog along to the woods.

  The Warren seemed gloomier than before, the laurels rising tall to their right, and the ground rather muddy underfoot. Hepzie disappeared ahead of them, and Jessica complained about the state of her shoes. ‘Why are we going this way?’ she demanded.

  ‘For variety, mainly. There’s quite a big wood down here. I was interested to see it. When I came here this morning, I didn’t manage to get very far.’

  But they didn’t get far this time, either. Jessica quickly baulked at going any further. ‘I don’t like these woods,’ she said. ‘They’re dark and boring. And I haven’t got the right boots for all this mud.’

  Thea was reminded of a similar walk near Cold Aston with her sister Jocelyn. The memory was not a happy one, and she was easily persuaded to turn back. She called the dog, which was slow to respond. ‘I suppose she’s had enough exercise for now. Maybe we should have taken the car and gone somewhere more interesting.’

  Jessica shook her head. ‘I’m not in the mood for a walk, wherever it might be,’ she insisted. ‘There’s too much else going on. This feels like avoidance behaviour to me. We ought to be talking to people, even if it’s only Granny.’

  ‘Granny’s probably fast asleep,’ said Thea.

  ‘Lucky her, if she is.’ Jessica determinedly began to retrace her steps, ostentatiously jumping across the worst of the mud in the rutted pathway.

  ‘All that energy drained away, then?’ Thea tried not to sound sarcastic, but the painful memory of that morning, being dragged out of bed and across the fields to stare at a pile of soil was still rankling somewhat. When it was her turn to lead an expedition, things were rather different, it seemed.

  But Jessica hadn’t heard her. She was already several yards ahead, and had apparently spotted something on the steeply rising bank that ran alongside, where Thea had scrambled after the dog the previous day. ‘Hello!’ she called. ‘How did you get up there?’

  There was no reply, but a figure came crashing down through the undergrowth at breakneck speed, very much out of control. It made a noise rather like ‘Wheeee!’

  Thea stood back, but Jessica positioned herself with outspread arms, intending to arrest the headlong descent. ‘Careful!’ Thea called.

  It was all accomplished untidily, breathlessly, but with no injury. Laughing heartily, hair flying in all directions, Icarus Binns hung with his arms round Jessica’s neck. She wrapped her own arms around him, and they stood in close conjunction for a long thirty seconds.

  ‘Put him down,’ Thea ordered crossly. ‘He can stand up by himself.’

  Gradually the two disentangled. Jessica’s eyes were sparkling with the thrill of being so close to a world-famous star. Icarus gave Thea a boyish grin, and started brushing at himself. ‘Dangerous, these woods, isn’t that the truth,’ he panted. ‘Once started, there was no stopping the tumbling Ick. Clever girl person saved the day.’

  It was the longest speech Jessica had heard him utter and the strange use of English instantly captivated her. ‘Clever girl person,’ she repeated with a giggle. ‘That’s me, all right.’

  ‘You should be more careful,’ said Thea, hating herself.

  ‘Hey!’ Jessica reached a hand to touch him again, as if helplessly magnetised. ‘We saw your girlfriend on telly last night. Why weren’t you with her?’

  He spread his hands. ‘Not my taste, that film scene thing,’ he said. ‘Speaking other man’s words, showing your face like a piece of artwork with all your bad bits taken out. No, no, not for Ick. Nobody’s words but mine pass these flawed teeth.’ He grimaced at them, displaying a set of incisors that had clearly never known a dentist’s braces. Overlapping, uneven, with long sharp canines and disconcerting grey crevices, his point was comprehensively made. Mother and daughter both laughed.

  ‘So why are you here in the woods?’ Jessica continued, more in order to keep the conversation going than any real curiosity.

  ‘Getting myself lost,’ came the disarming reply. ‘New friend Nick tells me – just an easy straight
walk from Upton, oh, yes. Not easy, far from straight. Then when I catch a sight of the pretty dog, hope is born again. These woods is dangerous, man.’ His voice rose to a high note of outrage.

  ‘Upton? The lost village?’ Jessica queried. ‘Is that where you’ve been?’

  He rolled his eyes for comic effect. ‘That very place.’ His voice turned quiet and low. ‘We is searching for the Box – though I should not be saying anything to you. Nick says it needs to be secret till it’s found. But…’ he sighed ‘…it’s gone past the moment now. Nick has mega trouble, killing that tragical girl the way he did. No more box-quest for him or me. Back to the seething city in the morning light, with Cleo to soothe and silence after my failings, how she sees it.’

  ‘Er – what box?’ asked Thea, thinking she had used the word herself quite recently, but unable to pinpoint the context.

  ‘Authentic box of prophecies, planted by the Southcott lady,’ he said, as if it was obvious. ‘Like holy grail, Nick says. Sell the story for big buck money, and giving me the subject for a hundred songs. Big coincidental thing, him and me bumping together at that manor house for sale. Both we two hunting down the magical treasure.’

  ‘What’s supposed to be in the box, then?’ In spite of herself, Thea was intrigued. But scepticism lingered, especially over the apparently lucky encounter between Nick and Ick.

  ‘A cure for the ills of the world,’ said Ick, clearly quoting. ‘The whole reason I brings myself to Blockley Town, when I heard it was that lady’s place.’

  ‘You knew about her before?’ asked Thea.

  He nodded. ‘Book of Revelation foretold her, so she said.’ His face registered something rueful. ‘My mother lady, she has a thing for old Joanna. All the books and sayings are on her tongue, all day long. She gave me this liking for the secret stuff.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe we write the Southcott Code, with all the world reading us.’

  ‘I wouldn’t rely on it,’ said Thea. ‘The world’s probably had enough of Codes for a while.’

  Icarus laughed, but Jessica threw her a furious look. ‘Don’t mock,’ she hissed.

  Thea met Ick’s eyes, confident that he wouldn’t recognise mockery if it stamped on his foot. ‘It sounds very interesting,’ she said. ‘Do many people in Blockley know about all this?’

  He wriggled his shoulders. ‘Some,’ he said. ‘Blockley Town and Joanna Southcott goes together in the history books.’

  ‘I’ve just been reading about the Box on the Internet,’ Jessica told him. ‘Something about all the bishops having to witness it being opened. Is that right?’

  ‘Visions and revelations, prophecies and warnings,’ Icarus intoned. ‘All in the lady’s box.’

  ‘And Nick Jolly thinks it might be buried in the ruins of Upton?’ Thea paused to get the chronology straight. ‘In her day, there’d have been even less visible evidence of a deserted village than there is now. At least, there’d have been less awareness of what the mounds actually were. Do the records suggest she placed the box there deliberately because she knew it was an abandoned village?’

  Ick put up his hands defensively. ‘Whoa! I is no student, reading dusty old records and such. Nick’s the professor here, not Ick.’

  ‘And he’s been digging around, trying to find it,’ Jessica summarised. ‘So what about Julian?’

  The question fell weightily, spreading ripples of sobriety. Icarus let his face go blank, the gold accessories somehow dulled. Thea felt her heart begin to thump. They seemed to be on the edge of something.

  Jessica spoke again. ‘Did he know about the box, and the idea that it might be at Upton?’

  Ick nodded slowly. ‘He began it,’ he said. ‘With his Thomas comrade-friend. Or so I think and believe. Nick’s old grandpa, he found some wormy documentations and the idea got itself born inside him.’

  ‘And he told Nick? Who else knows about this? How did you get to hear of it?’

  ‘Young Cleo girl,’ he muttered. ‘Listening too much to my demented mamma, getting herself excited. Speaking to film maker man, with story ideas. Get the whole business for us alone, making mega money.’

  Thea wanted to scream at his verbal convolutions. ‘For heaven’s sake!’ she exploded. ‘Can’t you speak more normally?’

  Jessica went white with rage at this. ‘Mother, how could you? Icarus is an artist. He’s famous for speaking like this. He’s a rap poet. This is his own unique way of communicating. What’s your problem? It’s easy enough to understand what he’s saying. It’s wonderful, in fact. He’s the modern Shakespeare.’

  Icarus put a calming hand on her back. ‘Easy, daughter lady, easy,’ he soothed. ‘Not any problem. It’s good you understand, but your momma don’t have such a fine ear, that’s all it is.’ He gave Thea a forgiving smile.

  And against her better judgement, Thea did find herself repeating wormy documentations to herself, forced to admit that it had a certain ring to it. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I’m just not used to it, I suppose.’ Icarus’s forgiving smile broadened, and he reached out to pat her shoulder.

  Jessica, however, was still ruffled. ‘You interrupted something really important,’ she accused her mother. She gave Icarus a straight look. ‘What you said just now sounded dangerously close to a motive for murder,’ she said unemotionally. ‘You and Nick and Cleodie in a gang, searching for the box and keeping Julian out of the picture. If he found out about it, you might well want him dead.’

  Ick smiled broadly, the jumbled fangs giving him a wolfish look. Thea found herself wondering how he got away with such a deviation from the stereotype of bright white teeth in a dark-skinned face. She also found herself wishing she had some of the background information on him that Jessica had. It was like never having heard of Paul McCartney or Elvis Presley. When had she got so dull and middle-aged and out of the loop?

  ‘Ick’s no killer,’ he said gently. ‘And that is my solemn promise.’

  Jessica manifested some internal conflict, twisting her mouth and taking in a deep breath. ‘You did know I’m in the police?’ she asked him. ‘I can’t just leave it here.’

  He nodded. ‘Nick man spoke about it. Pretty young police girl, his words about you were. New and full of ideals, but off duty for some days with mamma.’

  ‘OK. So why would he be interested? I mean, what did it matter to him?’

  ‘He likes you,’ said Ick simply. ‘Talks about you being so nice and friendly when he arrives to thank for finding the dead body.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Jessica doubtfully. ‘I see.’

  And that seemed to be it. Together they began to walk towards the High Street, Hepzie relieved that the people were moving at last, circling them in wagging approval. By mutual consent, the conversation lapsed into idle comments about the weather, with Thea still ruffled by her failure to appreciate the celebrated star and his poetry.

  Before parting at the Montgomery door, Jessica checked that Ick was still staying at The Crown and would notify her if he planned to leave within the next day. With complete dignity he bowed to her request.

  ‘If he’s a murderer, I’m the new Messiah,’ Jessica muttered to Thea as they went into the house.

  ‘I’m ruling nothing out,’ Thea said.

  The atmosphere continued prickly, for which Thea blamed herself. Jessica was not going to forgive her rudeness to Ick for a while, she realised. It was akin to blasphemy, and the chilly treatment was only to be expected.

  But it was not the first time the two had hit rough patches. Friction between mother and daughter was surely an inescapable fact of life. The difference this time was that Jessica had somehow gained a superiority both moral and professional. She knew more than her mother did about police procedure. She also knew more about popular culture and the status of renowned performers. The previous sullen teenage despair at the general ignorance and obstructiveness of parents had matured into a genuine assertion of equality. Thea had been judged as an equal and found wanting. It was the fate, she supposed, of mot
hers everywhere – edged to the outer boundaries of society, decade by decade, taken less and less seriously as looks faded and memory grew less reliable. But not at forty-two! Thea wailed to herself. Surely I’ve got twenty or thirty more years in which I might expect to be taken seriously?

  And with her habitual good humour and optimism, she answered her own cry. Obviously she was over-reacting. All that was happening was a minor adjustment in the balance of power between her and Jessica.

  Through it all, they were both impatient to get back to the computer and check out the story of Joanna Southcott in more detail. At least, she congratulated herself, she had – albeit faintly – heard of that particular luminary, even if she was ignorant about Icarus Binns.

  Jessica naturally assumed that it was for her to operate the keyboard, and when Thea began to hover behind her, she turned impatiently. ‘Maybe you should go and see if Granny’s OK,’ she said.

  Thea choked back the resentment at being ordered around by her daughter, and went to listen at the connecting door. The reassuring murmur of the television was audible from the other side. ‘She’s fine,’ she reported, when she got back. ‘I suppose I’d better go and cook something now.’

  ‘Mum.’ Jessica stopped her. ‘I really think we should call Uncle James tonight, now we’ve got all this stuff about Ick as well.’

  ‘Surely it can wait,’ Thea said, trying not to let the note of pleading return. ‘He won’t thank us, if he’s had a hard day.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. But I know I won’t sleep a wink, for thinking about it all.’

  ‘And if you don’t, I suppose that means I won’t either.’

  ‘Well, one of us should listen out for Granny – in case she tries to run away in the night.’

  Thea tried to laugh. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’

  ‘What you mean is, you’d be quite glad if she did.’

  The evening was only made tolerable by a determined pact to avoid the subject of Granny and Julian completely. They played a marathon tournament of Scrabble, with Jessica increasingly outraged by her mother’s use of words nobody had heard of. ‘What the hell is an auklet?’ she demanded. ‘I’m definitely challenging that.’