Malice in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘That’s families for you. Oh, hi, babe. Where’ve you been?’ His voice grew fainter as he greeted someone who had evidently just joined him. Thea hoped, with little grounds, that it was Yvonne, although the babe seemed somewhat improbable as a word he might use for his ex-wife.

  ‘Hello?’ Thea called, after some seconds in which muttered words were exchanged and the distant sound of a closing door reached her. Victor did not return to the phone. Instead a buzzer went and she heard indistinct voices. Then there was a sudden loud cry, which she was sure came from him, followed by a long silence. Pressing the phone tightly to her ear, she tried to work out what was happening. A door slammed shut, and then another silence filled the universe, until she thought she should just put down the phone and forget the whole thing. But the shrill scream from a female person apparently standing very close to the telephone sent shockwaves through her. Screams, cries, wails of ‘Victor! Oh, Victor!’ confirmed that something seriously bad must have happened. Repeatedly, she called ‘Hello? Hello!’ in vain.

  At least there weren’t any gunshots, she thought as she finally replaced the receiver. Briefly, she lifted it again, hoping somehow that contact had been resumed. All she got was a dialling tone. Moments later, she called Gladwin on her mobile and reported something very disturbing taking place in a Crouch End apartment.

  ‘Do you know the address?’ the detective superintendent asked her.

  ‘Um … no, but it must be here somewhere. Hold on a sec.’

  She went out to the spacious hallway containing an oak bureau, the top of which was crowded with a collection of glass millefiori paperweights. When she tried to pull down the flap, it resisted. Locked, she realised. Beneath the flap were two drawers, the upper of which came open easily. Inside she discovered neatly stacked notebooks, perhaps twenty in total, all with pretty art nouveau covers as far as she could see. The lower drawer was less tidy, the contents a motley assortment of brochures, leaflets, catalogues and other papers.

  She retrieved the phone from the kitchen window sill and reported her failure. ‘I don’t know where else to try,’ she said helplessly. ‘Where do people generally keep their ex-husband’s address?’

  Gladwin gave an impatient snort for reply.

  ‘Sorry. But you’ll find him easily enough. Victor Parker in Crouch End.’

  The next snort was almost angry. ‘Thea – we’ll have to involve the Met in this, if you think there’s been violence. Can you backtrack and just see if you might have got it wrong, before we do that? Couldn’t it just have been a bit of a domestic? After all, they’ve been separated for years, with quite some acrimony, from the sound of it. A bit of shouting isn’t so surprising, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know that it was Yvonne. It probably wasn’t her. He called somebody “babe”. Then I think he answered the door, after the babe person came in. It must have been a man, who attacked Victor.’ She racked her brains for the right sequence of events. ‘Yes, that was definitely how it was. You didn’t hear that scream,’ said Thea urgently. ‘I know something awful happened. And I never said it was Yvonne there. He called me to say he’d lost her again.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gladwin sighed as if the whole story was well beyond her area of interest. ‘Look, go and do 1471 on the phone and see if you can get his number.’

  Again, Thea put down the BlackBerry and did as she was told. ‘It’s a mobile number,’ she reported back and recited it.

  ‘Have you tried calling it again?’

  ‘No,’ said Thea. ‘I don’t really think it’s for me to do it.’

  ‘Well, if he’s hurt, it’ll be reported soon enough, I imagine. The screaming person will call for help. I will of course make some enquiries, but I am rather occupied.’ She spoke with restraint, but Thea could hear stress and impatience in her voice. ‘And I can’t see this has anything to do with the case,’ she added. ‘The man hasn’t lived in Snowshill for five years. What can he possibly have to do with anything?’

  ‘I’m sure he hasn’t, but other things can go wrong at the same time.’

  ‘Look – if the house is full of other flats and bedsits, whatever, somebody on the spot will have heard the screams. It’ll be all in hand. If you had the address, it’d be different. As it is, there’s hardly anything to go on – do you see?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Thea grudgingly. ‘But I know—’

  ‘Okay. Just take a breath. I wanted to call you, as it happens, to say you might want to be a bit careful.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Mark Parker – you say he drove from somewhere in Wales early this morning?’

  ‘Ri-i-ight,’ ventured Thea cautiously. ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘He didn’t. We traced his car, and it’s on the cameras in Evesham on Sunday evening. He stayed in a small hotel there.’

  ‘Oh, Lord. You think he came over here and killed Stevie?’ She thought about it. ‘It doesn’t strike me as very likely. Why on earth would he?’

  ‘Who knows? As I feel sure I’ve said to you before, the why is generally the very last question to be answered.’

  ‘And it’s the most important one,’ Thea insisted. ‘Without having a reason, the whole thing becomes far too frightening.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Gladwin pleaded. ‘I’m just trying to explain that a scream in Crouch End doesn’t exactly factor in here, the way the investigation’s going.’

  ‘No. I understand what you’re saying. If it’s a problem at all, it’s my problem, not yours. You’ve got to establish who was in this area on Sunday afternoon, how and why they killed Stevie and dumped his body here, and to do that you’ve got to check a whole mass of facts. But you do think the Parkers might be involved – the son, at least. You’ve just made the connection yourself.’

  ‘I suppose I have, and I admit it’s perfectly possible that the fight in London – whatever it was – has some relevance on some level. We ought to check Parker Senior’s whereabouts for Sunday, of course. And we seem to have lost sight of Gudrun Horsfall.’

  ‘She’s here,’ said Thea unthinkingly. ‘Asleep upstairs. That’s if the phone hasn’t woken her up.’

  ‘My God, Thea! Why the hell is she there with you?’

  ‘She couldn’t face going back to her own house. She needs somewhere safe and undisturbed.’

  ‘Well, be careful. We don’t know what she might be capable of. She could be quite dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Some forces would have kept her in custody, if only until her psychological state has been assessed. It’s only my chief who thinks she’s okay to be released.’

  ‘Well, you know exactly where she is now. And she’s no danger to anybody, believe me.’

  ‘I’d really like to,’ said Gladwin glumly. ‘I guess I should be pleased it’s you. I know you’re reliable and sensible, and I should definitely take your concerns about the London chap seriously. We’ll get somebody to find his address and call round there to make sure he’s all right. I’m sorry to dither about it. It’s been a hell of a day.’

  ‘I know. It must seem ages since we first found Stevie, but it’s only been a day and a bit.’

  ‘That’s true. But speed is crucial in this sort of case. People can get a long way in twenty-four hours. We’ve spent about half that time thinking it was bound to be the mother who did it, and a whole lot more trying to discover the identity of the father.’

  ‘Poor woman,’ sighed Thea. ‘What must she be feeling? Maybe I should go and see if she’s awake and wanting anything. She seems happy to talk to me.’

  ‘I can trust you not to say too much.’ It wasn’t quite a question, but the worry was there, just the same. Thea’s special status had quickly become clear to Gladwin a year earlier, in Temple Guiting, when she was in a relationship with another detective superintendent – but Gladwin knew better than to take it for granted. ‘You won’t get carried away, will you?’

  ‘I can see it’s delicate. Officially I might even hav
e killed him myself. He certainly made me very cross.’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ the detective burst out. ‘He made everybody cross – including his mother. But there’s a gulf a mile wide between that and actually throttling the little beast. If that wasn’t so, there’d hardly be any small boys alive in the world, would there?’

  The truth of this gave Thea little comfort. Somehow it was less appalling to imagine somebody at the end of their tether, driven out of control by the invasions or transgressions of the delinquent child, grabbing whatever came to hand and wrapping it around his neck to restrain or silence him, than to accept the notion that it had been coldly planned in advance.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Is there anything else I ought to know?’

  Gladwin exploded a quick laugh. ‘I think I’m meant to ask you that. But no, that’s plenty for now. I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.’

  When the house phone rang again, fifteen minutes later in an evening that felt as if it ought to be winding down, Thea began to feel harassed. She had been on the brink of taking a large mug of tea up to her guest.

  ‘It’s me,’ said a soft female voice. ‘Mrs Parker.’

  It seemed an odd way to introduce herself, when Thea had assumed they were on first-name terms. ‘Oh … what a relief. Is Victor all right? Was that you screaming? Are you still at his flat?’

  ‘Screaming? Why would I be screaming? What are you talking about?’

  ‘He phoned me, and then something happened. Where are you now?’

  ‘St Pancras Station. I’m catching the Eurostar in a few minutes. It’s very noisy – can you hear me?’

  ‘Perfectly.’ All Thea could hear was vague engine noises and some muffled voices. ‘So when did you last see Victor?’

  ‘Yesterday. I went back to the hotel for another night. I still don’t understand—’

  Thea struggled with a growing confusion. ‘He said your car’s still in his street.’

  ‘What? I’m sorry, I missed that.’

  Still Thea could hear no serious background noise. But she caught herself up, and decided it was not for her to cross-question the woman. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she shouted. ‘Why did you phone me?’

  ‘Mark – my son – called just now and said he’d met you. He was in a panic about something, silly boy. They think I’m incapable of doing a single thing without their assistance.’

  Thea bit her tongue and tried to think clearly. At least there were some things that were plainly no longer secret.

  ‘You do know that little Stevie Horsfall has been killed, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The little boy from the cottage, a quarter of a mile from this house. Fair-haired. His mother’s called Gudrun.’ She found herself shouting, and therefore liable to be overheard by Gudrun herself upstairs.

  ‘Oh. Not killed, surely? Was he run over or something?’

  ‘No, he was not run over—’

  But Yvonne interrupted. ‘Oh – they’re letting us through now. I’ve got to go. I just wanted to confirm with you that I’ll be out of the country until Friday of next week. Are the cats all right?’

  ‘The cats are fine,’ said Thea defeatedly. ‘But isn’t it a bit late to be setting out for France—?’

  But again Yvonne seemed not to hear her. ‘Bye, then,’ she trilled and disconnected the phone.

  The woman’s voice had grown stronger in the course of the conversation, but there remained a timid little-girl quality to it, as if she was being immensely brave to be travelling all the way to France on her own, having found somewhere to leave her car. There had been no response to Thea’s alarming news, both of Victor and Stevie. Just a slightly peculiar reference to Mark. She had met this kind of woman before – selfishly obsessed with her own frailties and calamities, unable to admit that others had problems too. She would be consumed with anxiety about finding her seat on the train, getting out at the right station, meeting up with her sister. It would be after midnight, surely, before she reached Avignon, allowing for the hour’s time difference. Thea doubted whether there were trains so late at night. Yvonne would stay in Paris, then, before going on next morning. Again, she felt exasperation at the complexities of the woman’s movements and the inadequacy of the information she gave. It was clearly typical of Yvonne to be vague and distracted. Perhaps she thought nobody could be sufficiently interested to listen to a full account. It could be diffidence that kept her disclosures brief and confusing. But she had sounded reasonably cheerful, the meeting with Victor on Sunday apparently not too traumatic.

  On a whim, she pressed 1471 and noted the mobile number that came up. Sure enough, it was the one Yvonne had given her before she left. Why wouldn’t it be? she asked herself. It was even possible to explain the mystery of the woman’s car. She could have decided to leave it where it was in Crouch End, given the difficulty in finding spaces anywhere in London. Then she could have got a taxi to St Pancras from there, quite reasonably. For all Thea knew, there was even a direct bus.

  None of which went any way towards explaining what had just happened to Victor Parker, or who the screaming female with him had been.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Drew spent the early part of Monday evening at the hospital, watching his wife slowly disappear. Her eyes were closed, and did not flicker in response to the monologue he was painfully reciting. He told her about the children, and how he had decided it was better not to bring them in for the time being, although he wasn’t sure that was the right line to take. He told her that Maggs had complete faith that all would be well and they would come through this and be a normal family again. He said he hoped this was so, and would be able to believe it if only she would waggle a finger or blink an eye to reassure him. He repeated several times that many people had said she could hear him, that hearing survived when other senses closed down, that he knew of cases where this had been so, even though incredible to those observing the patient. He tried to tell a joke whereby he compared her to one of the corpses in his little cool room, at Peaceful Repose, and how he had sometimes talked to them, with a similar level of non-response. ‘That sounds a bit awful, I suppose,’ he added, with a rueful frown. ‘If you can hear, and if you wake up and remember, feel free to tell me off about it.’

  He watched closely for a minute muscular reaction, a kink of a lip, a tightening of the jaw. Nothing. She lay there, breathing, her heart beating, a living body with no discernible spirit. He lapsed into silence, thinking about personality and souls and brains and blood. If ever there was a moment for some consoling piece of supernatural intervention, this must be it. He glanced up at the ceiling, remembering tales of out-of-body experiences, where the anima, or whatever it might be, floated above the body, looking down on proceedings in the physical world. Was Karen up there somewhere? Could she give some sign, like swinging the emergency cord that dangled down, within her reach? Could she cast a shadow somehow, in the bright white room? Could she emit her own special scent, that he would unerringly recognise for the rest of his life?

  Nothing.

  His wife was not ever going to come back. The stranger lying there no longer cared about him, could no longer argue or challenge or tease or satisfy. Desolation swept through him like never before. He was alone in a hard dark place, and would never again find comfort. His children would carry the scar of this early loss for ever. Timmy, his accidental son, who he never quite managed to adore as he should, would grow up withdrawn and resentful. Drew suspected that Timmy knew, at some level, that he was not as precious to his father as his sister was. It was a shameful fact, which Drew had tried hard to rectify, especially in recent months, but it remained stubbornly true, just the same.

  In the first days of Karen’s coma, it had felt almost exactly the same as when she had originally been injured, three years before. His thoughts and feelings had flooded back, as if he had travelled back in time and was living those same hours again. She had recovered then, and so he as
sumed that she would do the same this time. She would stir and smile and say something witty. She would look round at her assembled family and take up the business of living, perhaps shakily and intermittently, but she would return to her old self, just as they needed her to do.

  But after all these weeks, this assumption had withered and died. It was not at all the same this time. There would be no jokes, no connections made, no awareness of Drew or Steph or Timmy as people with their own wishes and needs. Karen had become useless in the most profound and unalterable ways.

  She had always shielded him from the essential loneliness of his work. She had helped him to feel normal, by being so very normal herself. She had been sociable, cheerful, energetic, bridging the gap between Drew and the rest of the world. Now he had Maggs and Den, who were themselves somewhat awkward in society, for different reasons. Maggs was of mixed race, adopted, clever, and highly unusual in her choice of career. She liked people as a general rule, but found all too many individuals disappointing. They found her, Drew suspected, a bit too strong to handle at times. She could be far too outspoken, as poor Thea had discovered to her cost.

  Den was almost freakishly tall, inclined to melancholy and preferring his own company to that of most others. ‘What a bunch we are!’ Drew said aloud. ‘Without you, my sweet, we’re going to be a seriously peculiar lot. Come on, Kaz!’ he almost shouted. ‘Wake up, and do us all a favour.’

  Nothing.

  He got up blindly, pushing his chair back noisily and covering his mouth and nose with one hand. Why that moment rather than any other brought an end to his vigil, he had no idea. But it did. He’d had enough. Without any obvious drama, with no discernible trigger, he had given up on his wife. He was wasting himself sitting at her inert body, watching so intently for a signal that she might one day return to him. Some men might wait years, lovingly tending the hollow shell, but he wasn’t going to. Karen was gone. In many ways, she had been gone for a long time, and now the final fading days had arrived, and it was pointless to cling to hope that she would or could come back. She had made all the effort a person could, in the years since her injury, clinging to ordinary existence for the sake of her children, perhaps. Now it was over. Anybody could see that. Even her breathing had lost its rhythm, catching every minute or so, pausing, stumbling, resuming slowly. The monitors had begun to show blips and plateaux that had not been there a week earlier.