by Rebecca Tope
Two o’clock was the planned time for proceedings to begin. At one-fifteen, the telephone rang, and I answered it from the office. A small part of my mind formed the thought that it would be the school again, with Stephanie complaining of a blinding headache or double vision.
But instead – and I found my lack of surprise an indication of how all along this was what I had been expecting – it was the Gloucestershire Police.
‘Mr Slocombe – I’m afraid we need you here again as soon as possible. We have a new development.’
‘I can’t,’ I said flatly. ‘I’m conducting a funeral in half an hour.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘Forty-five minutes,’ I lied, multiplying by at least three.
‘So you could be here by five quite easily,’ he asserted.
No, I shouted inwardly. There wasn’t enough fuel in the car, I had no wish to spend another night in the Cotswolds, and the subtle humiliation that went with police questioning was to be resisted as far as humanly possible. ‘It would be extremely inconvenient. Can’t you send somebody to talk to me here?’
It seemed to surprise him, whoever he was. ‘Well…just hold on a moment.’
Surely, I thought, people were normally questioned in their own homes? It was a stratagem to find out more about them, seeing how they lived. If it came to a choice between that and being dragged yet again to Sodding Hampton or whatever Maggs had called it, I chose the former. But even that was far from inviting. Karen and the children would want to know what it was all about. The uncertainty on the part of the officer made me think I was in no very serious trouble, at least. If they believed they’d found evidence of my guilt, they’d have sent a car to collect me. Wouldn’t they? My friendship with Den Cooper, one-time police officer, had taught me that theory and practice seldom coincided. There were always constraints or distractions: issues about the weather or bank holidays, maverick individuals who broke the rules for the sake of it, and sheer clumsy incompetence, all leading to a reality that bore little resemblance to the slick operations we all watched on the TV.
The man came back. ‘We could leave it until tomorrow,’ he offered.
This was very strange. ‘And then what?’ I queried.
‘Then you come up here to answer some questions.’
‘Where, exactly?’
‘Cirencester.’
‘And it has to be there, does it? Not here?’
‘Definitely.’
‘And you can’t come to collect me?’
‘Normally, sir, that would be the procedure. But just at present we have nobody available. There are trains, I believe.’
His sarcasm went over my head, my mind racing down other lines. They wanted to confront me with tyre tracks, or shoe impressions, or a picture of my fingerprints on the dead man’s neck, or a witness picking me out of a line-up to say I was seen bashing the hapless Gavin with a rock.
I gave in. ‘All right. I expect I can be there by about eleven. How long will your questioning take?’
‘I suggest you bring a toothbrush,’ he said, with a very inappropriate little laugh.
I had to lie to Karen. And then I had to ask Maggs to do much the same. I could not bring myself to disclose to my wife the embarrassing fact that I was involved in a murder enquiry. Three years had elapsed since any of us had brushed against the violence and brutality of deliberate killing, but that wasn’t long enough to eradicate the trauma of it all. All it had done was lull us into a false sense of security. We had all three somehow forgotten that such things could happen. We had lost the ability to deal with it, the thick skin, the black humour, since Karen herself had almost died at the hands of another person. I remembered the startled little lurch that had happened inside me when Thea Osborne had said, ‘At least she wasn’t murdered,’ when speaking of Greta Simmonds. Perhaps, I thought wildly, Thea had somehow triggered the subsequent events. The word ought never to be uttered lightly. The imps and demons that lurked invisibly around us must have heard her and decided to do something about it.
‘I’ve got to go back to Broad Campden again,’ I told Karen, after the burial of Mr Everscott had taken place.
‘What on earth for?’ she demanded, unusually animated by her annoyance.
‘Oh, just more nonsense to do with the new grave. It’s completely my own fault, for not checking ownership of the land properly. They’re talking about exhuming the body, now, and I have to try to prevent that.’
‘Why didn’t you sort it out once and for all, at the weekend?’
‘The important people weren’t around. I did my best. Don’t be cross, Kaz.’ I only called her Kaz when I was wheedling. She didn’t really like it as much as she had ten years earlier.
‘So we’re back to the school problem again. Honestly, Drew, we’ve got to get another car. This just gets more and more ridiculous.’ We had had two cars until one of them catastrophically failed its MOT, and the finances prevented either its repair or replacement.
‘I know,’ I said meekly. ‘I’ll go on the train.’
Maggs was every bit as confrontational when I told her the situation. ‘You still aren’t telling Karen what’s going on?’
‘I daren’t. I don’t know how she’ll take it.’
‘That’s daft. When will you be back?’
‘They didn’t say.’
She looked at me narrowly. ‘Have you really told me the whole thing?’ she probed.
‘I’ve told you most of it,’ I promised. After all, the only detail I’d omitted was the existence of Thea. At that moment, I understood that I was more afraid of the conclusions Maggs might come to than anything my wife would think. There were definitely too many women in my life, I thought next, all of them expecting unreasonably good behaviour at all times.
‘You didn’t kill him, did you?’ Maggs had the nerve to ask. ‘He does sound terribly annoying.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I snapped. ‘That isn’t funny.’ It was not only unfunny, it was rather frightening. She made it sound very nearly possible.
‘Sorry.’ She held up her hands in surrender. ‘How long do you think it’ll be?’
‘There’s rules about it. Something about twenty-eight days.’
‘That’s for terrorists, stupid. It’s only twenty-four hours for normal criminals.’
‘That’s a relief. See you on Friday, then. Or Saturday – when you won’t be here, so it’ll be Monday.’
‘And what if we get a removal?’ she said innocently.
‘I’m not taking the car. Karen can’t manage without it. Maybe Den would go with you?’
‘Drew, that isn’t very fair, is it? He’ll do it once in a while, but you can’t expect him to drop everything when he’s not part of the business.’
‘Once in a while is all I’m asking. When was the last time – eh? Well over a year ago, when I took my family on holiday for one week. You’ve just had a fortnight in the sunshine.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she shrugged. ‘Just don’t take us for granted, right?’
‘As if I would.’
Her attitude only increased my stress. She hadn’t seen what it was like to be interviewed by a detective inspector. Even being reprimanded by a young female constable was bad enough. ‘At least the car’s legal now,’ I said. A new thought occurred. ‘I wonder if PC Jessica told the Cirencester people about that? Would it make me a likely suspect, the fact that I didn’t keep my car in order? Put me in a category with members of street gangs and hopeless reoffenders?’
She grinned. ‘Instead of the fantastically upright model citizen that you really are?’
‘Precisely. Don’t they know who I am? An undertaker, for heaven’s sake. How much more respectable can a person get?’
‘Alternative undertakers don’t count. Especially if they drive untaxed cars with bald tyres. Why don’t they come and fetch you, anyway, if it’s so important?’
‘You might well ask. Something to do with pressure of work and nobody b
eing available. Budget cuts, in other words. I’ve a mind to just sit tight and see what happens. They’d have to come for me then, wouldn’t they?’
‘Try it – I dare you,’ she challenged.
I didn’t, of course. Nobody in their right mind alienated the police like that. I had promised to get there, and somehow I would. By Thursday morning – another windy day, reflecting my swirling thoughts – we had checked train timetables and found that I could just about manage to get to Cirencester, changing twice and taking several hours.
‘You need someone to give you a lift at least part of the way,’ Karen concluded. ‘Call the police and see if they can fetch you from somewhere along the way. And ask them when you’ll be able to come home again.’
It was a good suggestion, and I carried it out early that day. The person who answered the phone had no idea who I was or what I was asking, but finally passed me to someone who did. ‘We can make no firm commitments about when you’ll be released,’ he said pompously. ‘But perhaps you could speak to Mrs Osborne. She’s due here this morning, as well.’
‘Thea? What on earth for? She’s not a suspect as well, is she?’ Too late I remembered Karen at my elbow. I still hadn’t said anything about Thea to my wife, nor about anybody being a suspect for anything.
‘I can make no comment on that – but since the two of you are coming here, it just occurred to me that you might share a car.’
‘But she’s in Oxford and I’m in Somerset. How could that possibly work?’
I could hear his shrug. ‘We’re expecting you at eleven, Mr Slocombe.’
‘And what happens if I can’t manage it? Will you come and collect me? That would solve a lot of problems.’ The craziness of the situation hit me all over again. Whenever had such agonising over logistics featured so large in a murder enquiry?
‘We would have to, sir, but there would be no requirement for us to take you home again. And the inconvenience would be considerable.’
Just as Maggs and I had worked out for ourselves. I heaved a noisy sigh. ‘I’ll try to contact Mrs Osborne, then.’ It seemed a further bizarre twist that he should try to throw us together in this way. Didn’t the police generally endeavour to keep their witnesses apart?
‘Who’s Thea?’ asked Karen, as any wife would, having overheard the conversation. ‘And what did you mean about her being a suspect? A suspect for what?’
‘She’s the dead woman’s house-sitter,’ I said casually. ‘She was at the funeral. The police are raising a whole lot of difficulties about the grave, and now they think there’s been some sort of deliberate misdemeanour on my part. They suspect me of ignoring the rules. But I can’t understand why the police would want to question Thea. She lives in Oxford.’ My insides were spasming with the guilty risks I was taking by telling such lies to my wife. It was all the worse because she so readily believed me.
‘So she’s hardly likely to come all the way down here, is she? Is that what they were suggesting? It would take hours.’
‘Right. Though I suppose I could at least get a train to Bath or somewhere and meet her there.’ I looked at her, reading her face, trying to convey my sense of floundering in something that normal people would find a mere trivial detail. ‘Why is this so difficult?’
‘Maybe because you’re making it so,’ she suggested shrewdly.
I frowned. ‘Am I? What do you mean?’
But she had turned away from me, so I could only see the side of her face. She was pale, and listless, already dealing with my imminent absence and the responsibilities she would have to shoulder. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t feel well, if you must know.’
She would never lie about it. If she said she felt ill, then she genuinely did. The iron fist clutching my guts took a tighter hold. ‘Kaz,’ I begged her. ‘I would stay here if I could – you know I would. But too much depends on it. If we get embroiled in a serious legal battle, we could lose everything. I have to convince them I acted in good faith, and I can only do that face-to-face. I thought about just letting it go along without me, but I daren’t risk it. Honestly, love, there really isn’t any choice.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll cope. Just get back as soon as you can.’
Chapter Twelve
The plan worked almost too well. I phoned Thea on the number she’d given me, and she confirmed that she too had to return to the Cotswolds, for reasons she did not entirely understand. She would normally just buzz along the A40, but she could easily come down through Cirencester to Bath, and be there by ten. She gave the impression of having a map of the whole area in her head, rattling off road numbers, while I struggled to visualise her route. ‘It sounds terribly out of your way,’ I protested feebly.
‘It is a bit, but I really don’t mind. I’ll come and meet you at the station, then, shall I?’
‘If you’re sure. The traffic in Bath can be horrendous. I never go there if I can avoid it.’
‘Well, if I’m late, just hang about where I can see you.’
‘OK. I’ll have to go now. Karen’s taking me to Castle Cary. It’s all rather a rush.’
‘The whole thing is completely ridiculous,’ said Thea, with absolute conviction. ‘I don’t know why we’re humouring them. If they want us, they damn well ought to come and fetch us.’
‘Yes,’ I said briefly, wanting to articulate some more of my thoughts, but aware of Karen rushing the children into their coats, ten minutes earlier than usual. Luckily, the school was open for a breakfast club, and we could drop them at any time after eight.
I caught the train, along with hundreds of commuters, letting myself be jostled aside by more experienced travellers. I found myself without a seat, standing with two other men in the area by a door. Nobody spoke and the time passed slowly. Less than an hour, and it seemed like a whole day.
I was twenty minutes early for Thea, but waited obediently at the front of the station, watching every car as it swung off the road to drop or collect a traveller. The city of Bath was not a favourite of mine, despite the history and beauty. I could see some of the fine old buildings from where I stood, with a hill rising behind the busy streets. Traffic hummed on every side, and I was left with an impression of a tired old town no longer fit for purpose. At least the Cotswold villages offered peace and quiet, whereas here the demands of the motor car seemed to have created a sort of perpetual low-lying bad temper that was almost tangible.
As I stood there, my thoughts slowly calmed, the demands of family and business behind me. There was nothing more I could do to make life easier for Karen or Maggs. They had the car, and each other. I was stepping into a different world, with new things to think about, such as exactly why the police wanted to speak to me again, and whether one of the people I had met at the weekend was the actual killer of Gavin Maynard.
I had not previously noticed Thea’s car, so had no idea what to watch out for. Something small and environmentally responsible, I assumed. She had not struck me as a person interested in conspicuous consumption.
The first thing I saw was her spaniel, sitting on the seat in a red Fiesta that I expected to occupy myself. Its black and white head with the long flapping ears bobbed excitedly as the car turned into the station forecourt. As I stepped towards them, the dog reared up, scrabbling at the window in a frenzy of welcome, as if I was a long-lost master, pined over for years, and suddenly miraculously restored. I smiled, in spite of the silliness of the thing.
Thea leant over to restrain the animal, beckoning me to get in. I could hardly see her for the impossible ears and flailing paws. With an impressively powerful heave, she tossed the dog over her shoulder onto the back seat, and beckoned at me again. I opened the door cautiously, half expecting Hepzibah to escape into the traffic of Bath the moment I gave her the chance. Behind us a car horn tooted.
‘Hurry up,’ Thea encouraged me. ‘Sling your bag in the back with Hepzie.’
In seconds we were away. She threaded the car back into the str
eam of traffic and headed in a direction I supposed must be north.
‘This is very kind of you,’ I said. ‘It sounds pathetic, but we were really stuck.’
‘Anyone would have been,’ she sympathised. ‘The police are behaving very oddly. I have no idea what they think they’re doing.’
I remembered that she was already acquainted with members of the local police force, and therefore presumed some sort of special treatment. ‘I can’t imagine what they want with you, anyway,’ I said.
‘No. I’m very insignificant. I never even met the wretched Mr Maynard.’
‘But you were almost the first to see his body.’ I thought it through again, from the beginning, greatly facilitated by the atmosphere inside the car. The spaniel had settled down, and Thea drove reliably, with no sudden jerks or alarming manoeuvres. ‘Those other people – the birdwatching couple and the two women in the car – are they relevant, do you think?’
‘Unlikely. Although you never know. It isn’t always sheer bad luck when somebody finds a body. Especially one that’s only been dead a few minutes. I imagine they’ve all been thoroughly questioned by now. But the most important thing has to be that the police have persuaded themselves that there’s a connection between Mrs Simmonds and Mr Maynard.’
‘Which is where I come in,’ I said glumly. ‘I’m the missing link.’
‘But I can’t understand it. I mean…I get that the council don’t like the grave being where it is. But Mr Maynard was only doing his job. He wasn’t personally involved. So it seems a bit mean to murder him just because of his position in the council.’
‘But he was personally involved,’ I said slowly. ‘Very much so. He called it a travesty. His wife said he had strong religious beliefs, which implies he thinks my whole operation is blasphemous. That’s certainly the way he came over.’
‘So he was killed by an atheist. Is that you, then?’
I laughed. And then I remembered where we were going. ‘That’s probably what the police are thinking. It must look beautifully neat to them – a nice simple fight over the theological implications of burying somebody in an unconsecrated field. They want you to give a character analysis of the woman in the grave, plus adding your impressions of me, and maybe the Talbots.’