Malice in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  Ideas could come at lightning speed, sometimes. Or they could take days to form themselves and push their tentative little heads above the surface of the unconscious mind. The shock and horror of Gladwin’s announcement that Gudrun was to be charged had paralysed some of Thea’s thought processes. It was too big a disaster for her to contemplate, the emotions too excruciatingly raw. The conversation with Clara Beauchamp had been close to unbearable, with the image of the struggling child fighting for his life. It had sent Thea’s mind into hiding, where all such imaginings were firmly tucked away.

  But now the dam was breaking and a whole lot of suspicions came tumbling through the breach. Somebody had framed Gudrun. Somebody had attacked Victor. Mark, she remembered, had dissembled as to his whereabouts at the weekend. And even Blake had changed his plans, with no credible explanation. Mark and Belinda were worried about something connected with Hyacinth House and their mother. Janice and Ruby generated many questions. And poor little Stevie was irreversibly dead. Thea could no longer just sit tight and let things drift. It wasn’t in her nature. She had to do something, and talk to somebody.

  And the only candidate for that discussion was Drew Slocombe.

  She couldn’t just phone him, she decided. It was only the day before that they had indulged in their childish escapade, and as they parted at Paddington, they both acknowledged that it could not mark any deepening of their friendship. It was obvious that he had more than enough to cope with at home, and there was no real reason for further contact, with things as they were.

  There were times when house-sitting felt like imprisonment, with the implacable routines of animal feeding making sure she was on duty at given times. And hadn’t Yvonne asked her to keep an eye on the cows in the field at the back, as well? She had done no more than cast a quick eye over them since Saturday. If one was lame or sick, would anybody know? Their owner, Yvonne had made clear, was the person ultimately responsible for them, but she had implied that daily monitoring was down to the occupant of Hyacinth House.

  Everything seemed to be normal when she went to the gate and looked over into the field. Five handsome beasts lay quietly chewing their cud under a spreading oak tree. Whilst it wasn’t possible to scrutinise their legs or gait, the picture of idyllic contentment was quite enough to reassure her. Stevie’s stones had only made glancing contact, as far as she had been able to judge. It was the intention that she had taken such exception to, the idea that a child could actively wish to inflict pain on an animal.

  The theories that had arisen when Gladwin told her about Stevie’s shoe re-emerged now: the possibility that Stevie’s killer had crossed this field with him, as the quickest way from the Horsfalls’ cottage. Looking at it now, she wasn’t sure it really would be quicker, unless the killing had taken place in the field itself. Then it would have been easy to use the gate into Yvonne’s garden, and past the house into the road beyond. As far as she could tell, there was no matching gate at the further end of the field – no direct access from the cottage.

  If she was serious about proving that somebody else, other than his mother, had killed the boy, then details of place and timing became crucial. Both Blake Grossman and Mark Parker could have been lurking around Snowshill at the time Stevie was killed, while maintaining alibis that they were elsewhere entirely. Both knew Gudrun and her boy and it wasn’t too hard to imagine motives for killing him. The main problem was that they both seemed too soft and sensitive to do such a thing. Blake less so, after his snappy words on Saturday, but surely the boneless Mark could never do such a thing.

  And yet she knew that people could dissemble, hiding their malice and obsessions under bland smiling exteriors. Trust was often found to be misplaced. In recent years she had really liked people who turned out to be killers. The role of a house-sitter was convenient in that respect – the friendships she formed were temporary and provisional. Even when she thought she had found a real chum in Ariadne Fletcher, during her stay at Cold Aston and again in Lower Slaughter, their relationship had soon foundered on the realities of lies and violence. She was very tempted to go home to her old friend Celia and her daughter Jessica and a few other stalwarts, and forget the tribulations of the latest commission in a gorgeous Cotswold village.

  But she couldn’t forget Drew Slocombe. He was beginning to feel like a constant, despite their geographical separation.

  It was 1.15, time for lunch, and she always tried to maintain at least some sort of daily structure designed around meals. Too much free time and too few distractions could lead to very sloppy habits, especially in someone else’s house. She made herself a sandwich, with some slightly stale sliced bread and cheese. ‘We can go shopping later on,’ she told the spaniel. ‘There’s hardly any food left.’

  Ever since Belinda had gone, there had been a growing sense of waiting for a report on what had been found at Victor’s flat. How long did it take to drive to Crouch End? She had asked herself the same thing on Saturday, when Yvonne failed to turn up as planned. She went out to her car and brought in the road map, plotting the most obvious route.

  Initially, she had assumed that this led down to the M4, then around the M25 to the M1 and down into north London that way. But then she realised that the A44 took you to Oxford, and then the M40 connected to the M25 not far from where the A4 did. And that would almost certainly be quicker. Two hours could do it easily, if there were no hold-ups. And Belinda loved the A44. Whatever her mother might have decided, Belinda would take the latter route, and might well be in Crouch End already. It had been eleven when she left Hyacinth House.

  What would she find when she got there? Suddenly it seemed hugely important to know. No further theorising could be fruitfully entertained until Victor’s whereabouts were established. Except that theorising came to Thea as naturally as breathing, and the more she tried to curtail it, the more it persisted. For example, if Belinda’s idea of his being Stevie’s father had any basis in fact, then he might have been in the habit of making secret visits to Gudrun and the boy. He might have done so on Sunday, having only pretended that Yvonne had stayed all morning at his flat. He might have had some reason to want the child out of his life. Financial claims, jealous new girlfriend, family complications … but that would give Mark and Belinda motives of their own, as well. Suddenly the very suggestion of Victor’s paternity brought oceans of implications, involving just about everybody Thea had met.

  She realised she was fitting puzzle pieces together that might well belong to a completely different picture. Poor old Blake, for one. He showed no sign of having any reason to kill Stevie. Unless … The more she considered, the more unsure she became about him. A whole list of possible motives came unbidden to her mind. She knew so little of the background history, of how Blake and Yvonne really felt towards each other, where Eloise fitted in, and what any of them truly thought about Gudrun Horsfall. Gudrun was a single woman with an obvious passion for life. She herself admitted to a wholly groundless local reputation as a loose woman, to give it an old-fashioned characterisation. She had also denied it in extreme terms, claiming to have had the most minimal of sex lives. Perhaps she had been lying. Perhaps Blake lusted after her, but saw Gudrun’s boy as an impediment.

  ‘This way madness lies,’ she muttered to herself, after fifteen steamy minutes spent mentally slandering half a dozen people. ‘Where are the facts?’

  There were very few hard facts. Stevie had lost a shoe, around the time he died. Again the image of him kicking out as he was being strangled forced itself into her mind. Had Gudrun killed him in her own house, then? That was apparently what the case against her would claim. The murder weapon had been cut from a length of washing line, the remainder found in Gudrun’s garden shed, despite her firm assertion that she had never owned that sort of washing line. Was that another element in the plot to frame her? Stevie had been essentially out of control, his mother inevitably blamed and criticised for her failure as a parent. Nobody had yet admitted to having liked him. A
nd Gudrun had steadfastly refused to reveal who his father was. Furthermore, Belinda’s suspicion on that subject could be wholly illusory, based on a few seconds of biased observation.

  The house phone rang at 2.45, just as Thea had finally settled down in the garden, despite the cloudy weather. She had been to Broadway for some supplies, including two books from the bookshop there. The expedition had taken just over an hour – much less than intended, but the sense of restless waiting had not abated, and she felt she was being neglectful in moving out of earshot of Yvonne’s phone. Too few people had her mobile number – not Belinda or Blake, anyway.

  ‘It’s me. Belinda,’ came a strained voice. ‘It’s just struck me that you’ll be wondering what happened.’

  ‘Yes, I was. How thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Not at all. The police will be after you soon, anyway. I’m going to tell them what you did yesterday.’ The tone had hardened into something like accusation.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s dead. That’s what I mean. My father – stabbed to death. I found him. There’s blood everywhere.’ For a woman who had screamed at the sight of a mouse, she sounded amazingly calm.

  Thea herself was stunned into silence. She tried to think. It could be barely two hours since the woman had made her ghastly discovery, and here she was phoning her mother’s house-sitter? ‘Where are you now?’ she asked.

  ‘At a police station. Waiting to be interviewed. I’m going to tell them all about you,’ she repeated.

  ‘That’s okay. I’ve got nothing to hide. I tried to tell them myself, but they didn’t seem very interested.’

  ‘You heard it, for God’s sake. You heard the whole thing as it happened. Dad’s mobile is on the floor beside him, with a dead battery.’ Hysteria was now audible, and Thea’s own heart rate began to accelerate painfully.

  ‘I did my best,’ she blustered. ‘I told Gladwin and she asked the London people to go and check. But they couldn’t find him.’

  ‘You found the house yesterday. Why didn’t you try to get in? You just walked away, with nothing accomplished. How do you explain that?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Thea hopelessly. ‘I’m not sure I do myself. I was worried about Victor. And then that nanny girl seemed to think there was nothing to worry about, so we just came home again.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and my friend Drew. He’s not relevant.’

  ‘Everybody’s relevant now,’ said Belinda darkly. ‘This is a terrible murder.’

  A double murder, thought Thea, remembering Stevie Horsfall.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Even as she was speaking to Belinda, her mobile began to ring. ‘I expect that’s Gladwin now,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The local CID superintendent. She’ll have heard what’s happened. Listen, Belinda – I’m terribly sorry about your father. It’s dreadful. Tell the police your end everything I’ve said. I’ll help in any way I can. And your mother – she’s going to have to be told as well.’

  ‘Never mind her,’ said Belinda hollowly. ‘It’s Mark that worries me most. This is going to destroy him.’ Her voice broke with emotion, as Thea grabbed the mobile and took the call.

  ‘Bye, Belinda. I have to go now,’ she said, switching ears like someone in a farcical office comedy. ‘Hello?’ she said into the mobile.

  ‘Thea? I’ve just had the Met onto me. About Victor Parker.’

  ‘He’s dead. I know,’ she said. ‘His daughter just called me.’

  ‘This is bad, Thea. For the police, I mean. I have a logged call here to say you heard violence occurring at 9.00pm on Monday while speaking to Mr Victor Parker. Two days later, his daughter finds his body. In the meantime, you actually went to the house in question.’

  ‘But the house isn’t registered in his name. He rents a flat in it – or his girlfriend does. How could anybody have found him?’

  ‘You did,’ said Gladwin flatly.

  But Thea did not respond. Girlfriend was echoing in her head. ‘Where is she? The woman he was living with? Why didn’t she report the attack?’

  ‘What?’ said Gladwin.

  ‘She must have been the one who screamed. She must have been in another room when it happened. After the killer had gone, she came out and found him. Why in the world didn’t she call the police or an ambulance?’

  ‘Thea, you were on the end of a phone. You couldn’t see what was going on. She must have been the one who did it. Do you know her name?’

  ‘I can’t remember. Something fancy. Like Floella, but not. Ask Belinda.’

  ‘They’ll have done that. It’s not my case. Except …’ she tailed off miserably. ‘Thea Osborne, this is a bloody horrible mess, and I can’t help thinking I should blame you.’

  ‘Feel free,’ Thea invited. ‘I have much the same feeling myself. Although I did—’

  ‘Yes, yes. You told me you’d heard something. And I told the Met. And they couldn’t find him. All nicely logged into the bargain. But he’s been lying there for two days, damn it.’

  ‘Nobody reported screams?’

  ‘Nope. Look – you’ll be needed for a statement.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘Probably not. Just don’t go anywhere, okay.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Belinda says he was stabbed. Is that right?’

  ‘Belinda? The daughter. You know her?’

  ‘Only since this morning. She called in for coffee.’

  ‘God, Thea, it’s impossible to keep pace with you. You told her about the cries you heard, right, and she went to investigate?’

  ‘Precisely. I assume she had a key to the flat and just walked in on her dead father.’

  ‘It must have been the girlfriend. Do you know where she’s from?’

  ‘The Philippines, I think. Somewhere like that.’ Gladwin made the wordless chhssk of disgust that wives across the land expressed at such relationships.

  ‘I know,’ said Thea. ‘Apparently it’s on the increase.’

  ‘We can talk about that another time. I suspect it’s our own fault – we’ve made too many demands on the poor dears.’

  ‘But she screamed. I don’t think it was her who killed him.’ Regret flickered through her. It would be all too comfortably neat if the girlfriend could be found and prosecuted for killing her sugar daddy. But it simply did not fit with everything she knew.

  ‘At least we know Gudrun didn’t do it. She was here with me at the time.’

  Gladwin’s bewilderment was palpable, even down the phone. ‘What? Damn it, Thea – why in heaven’s name would she kill him?’

  ‘There’s a suggestion that Stevie was Victor’s child. You could do a DNA test to prove it either way.’

  ‘We can ask her. That might be quicker, and definitely cheaper.’

  Thea chuckled, enjoying the detective’s wit, as always. ‘Maybe she still secretly loved him and paid somebody to go and murder him.’

  ‘Stop it. Nobody does that sort of thing.’ Uncertainty now filled her voice. ‘This is turning complicated, just when I thought we had it all sewn up. You’re not thinking that possibly Victor killed the boy, are you? That Gudrun realised, and got him killed in revenge?’

  ‘It did occur to me, about half a minute ago. But you’ve got the shoe evidence, haven’t you? How would that fit in?’

  ‘They could have done it together. A pact to dispose of their impossible kid, who was making their lives unbearable.’

  ‘No,’ said Thea emphatically. ‘That’s going too far.’

  ‘You’re right. I think. Although … Listen, I’ll have to go now. But you have to make a full statement, with every tiny detail of that phone call. The Met are going to want it. Victor Parker was a wealthy businessman, you know. This one has to be big. The papers are going to love it. Anything involving these Asian babes makes great headlines. There’ll be columns giving every angle on it. Look at the way you and I are so keen to talk about it. It’ll be
the same for everyone. They’ll assume he met her on the Internet and shipped her over to be a sort of sex slave.’

  ‘He’s got a cleaning lady already.’

  ‘How the hell do you know that?’

  ‘I told you. I spoke to the nanny from across the street. There’s a whole network of them, all related or friendly. I suppose they get jobs for each other. It’s like the mid-nineteenth century all over again.’ The historian in Thea was beginning to find some fascination in the modern version of the upstairs-downstairs scenario.

  ‘Slow down. Look, there’s a message just come through from London about your statement. Can you be here by three-thirty?’

  ‘Barely. You mean Cirencester, I assume?’

  ‘No, of course not. We’ve set up an incident room in Broadway. Didn’t I tell you? We were going to take it all down today, but there’ve been a few delays. Maybe just as well, as it turns out.’

  ‘Where in Broadway?’

  ‘There’s a little school. Turn right and then left. You’ll find it.’

  ‘I was in Broadway only an hour or two ago,’ Thea complained.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Gladwin unapologetically.

  The fact of a violent and mysterious murder in London was a lot less viscerally distressing than finding a child’s body only yards from the house she was occupying. It was more of an intellectual puzzle than anything else. She examined her conscience and found it to be relatively clear. After all, she had dutifully reported the alarming phone call to the police, and, for good measure, done her best to check for herself that nothing too terrible had happened. Nobody could have done any more. She had even conveyed her worries to Belinda at the first opportunity. It was very much thanks to her that the body had been found – although presumably the cleaning lady would eventually have shown up and made the discovery. She must be very much part-time, she concluded, sharing Victor with a number of other clients.