A Grave in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Could be. But they need evidence. And they won’t get it, will they?’

  ‘I got the impression they’d found something, when they phoned yesterday.’ My skin began to prickle with a fresh wave of anxiety. ‘After all, I had recently met him. One of my hairs could just possibly have got onto his jacket.’

  ‘Did they take samples from you, for comparison?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ I had suppressed the memory of the faintly disgusting procedure by which they scraped the inside of my cheek. It reminded me unpleasantly of Saddam Hussein undergoing the same humiliation.

  ‘They’ll keep it on record for twenty years,’ she told me. ‘Doesn’t that make you furious?’

  ‘It might, when I stop to think about it. Maybe it’ll just be a very effective deterrent against my committing any crime during that time.’

  She turned her head quickly, to check my expression. We had scarcely looked at each other at all since I had got into the car. Real drivers, as opposed to those in films, only remove their gaze from the road ahead for the briefest half-second at a time.

  ‘You’re not serious,’ she accused. ‘You sound like my daughter, saying that.’

  ‘Well, I can see both sides. And I don’t think it is twenty years, is it? I thought it was less than that.’

  She snorted. ‘It shouldn’t be twenty minutes. It’s an outrage.’

  Her energetic indignation was a delight. ‘And you sound like my partner, Maggs,’ I said. ‘Although she’s got a lot more mellow lately, she’s still very certain about everything. And she had a lot to say about the song and dance she and her husband had when they tried to get back into the country from Syria last week.’

  ‘Syria?’

  ‘They were there on holiday. I’ve hardly had a chance to ask her about it, yet, but I gather they had a fantastic time.’

  ‘I’d like to meet her,’ said Thea simply. I tried to envisage such an encounter, and concluded that they would probably like each other enormously.

  ‘She’s a one-off,’ I said fondly. ‘There’s nobody in the world like Maggs.’

  For a moment I interpreted Thea’s silence as some sort of offence – praising one woman to another was not always a good idea, after all. But a glance at her face revealed no sign of displeasure. Behind us, the dog was curled contentedly, as if riding in the car was her natural condition.

  ‘Is your mother still alive?’ she asked suddenly. ‘And your father?’

  ‘Mother, yes, father, no. He died ten years ago. My mother’s only sixty-eight. She’s always very busy.’

  ‘Sisters?’

  ‘One. Married, no kids. Is this some sort of rehearsal?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘For my police interrogation.’

  She huffed out a little laugh. ‘Oh, sorry. I just wanted to put you in context. You strike me as a man surrounded by women, so I was just checking. Did I sound rude?’

  ‘No, not at all. But it was rather a sudden change of subject.’

  ‘Was it? It seemed quite logical to me.’

  ‘So tell me about your parents and siblings. Incidentally, you’re more or less right about being surrounded by women. But I do have a son.’ I thought about Timmy for a moment, with the usual niggle of self-reproach. ‘I’m afraid I favour his sister, though. Isn’t that a wicked thing to admit?’

  ‘Honest,’ she said. ‘I have a mother, but no father, as of a few months ago. Two sisters and a brother. I’m third in the family. We’re all quite close. Eight nephews and nieces – and the daughter you’ve already met.’

  ‘Eight! That’s a clan. A tribe. Your mother must feel a proper matriarch.’

  ‘She doesn’t, really. I don’t think she feels very connected to any of them. My big sister has three boys and my little sister has five.’

  ‘Five boys?’

  ‘No, no. Two boys and three girls. She just kept popping them out, but it looks as if she’s stopped now.’

  ‘So you’re still in mourning for your father.’ It was a statement, based on firm personal expertise. ‘Right after your husband. That must be hard.’

  ‘Not right after. There were nearly three years between them. But yes, it did bring it back, and I took it very personally, both times. They were too young, especially Carl.’

  ‘But it’s made you stronger,’ I observed.

  ‘Has it? I’m certainly different. If “stronger” means not being easily scared, then yes. I don’t feel I have very much left to lose, which is quite a powerful way to be. Except, in my last house-sit, I lost my nerve big time. I spent a week feeling sheer terror. It was all very cosmic – I was scared of being abandoned, losing my grip. It took all my energy just to want to stay alive. Gladwin saved me. And the rabbits.’

  ‘Rabbits?’

  ‘It’s a long story. And sad.’

  We were already in the Cotswolds, I noticed. The distinctive stone houses and tip-tilted land had begun to appear on all sides. ‘Do you always do your house-sitting in this area?’ I asked her.

  ‘Actually, yes. It began more or less by accident, but then I decided it would be fun to really get to know the place. The history is fantastic, once you start delving into it. Like Broad Campden, in fact.’

  ‘Really?’ All I had noticed was a big flamboyant hedge and a funny little church.

  ‘It was the absolute heart of the Arts and Crafts Movement a century ago.’ She said it with a flourish, as if revealing something amazing.

  ‘What’s the Arts and Crafts Movement?’ I asked humbly. ‘Sorry to show my ignorance.’ I ransacked my memory for some link, some piece of information buried deep, but found nothing.

  ‘William Morris? You’ve heard of him.’

  ‘Wallpaper,’ I managed. ‘My mother raves about it. Big flowers all over it.’

  ‘Yes, well, there was a lot more than that. It was a whole philosophy. Everything should be handmade and beautiful. I’d have thought you’d be in sympathy with all that. It’s like your coffins.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ I agreed.

  ‘We might be getting back to something of that way of thinking, with consumerism falling out of favour.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘Nobody recognises quality any more. My grandfather was a joiner. He made wonderful things. But we’re never going to get back to anything like that.’

  ‘Undertakers used to be craftsmen, didn’t they? I remember seeing photos of them, with the lovely handmade coffins. And they did all sorts of other things as well.’

  ‘Traditionally, yes, they’ve usually been builders. I did meet one, when I was working in the mainstream, who could make incredible furniture; he did it as a hobby. I’d forgotten until now. He was young, too. The youngest proprietor in the business, for a bit.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘I’m not arguing with you,’ I protested mildly. ‘But I just can’t see society going back to some idyllic way of life, where everything’s made by hand. There are too many of us, for a start. And everybody has such high expectations, wanting so many possessions but paying so little for them.’

  ‘That’ll soon change,’ she said darkly. ‘It’s going to have to.’

  ‘Well, I just hope it includes natural burials,’ I said. ‘Business really isn’t very good just now.’

  ‘There’s a taboo,’ she said. ‘See what’s happened to poor Mrs Simmonds.’

  ‘Right,’ I sighed, remembering again the way Mr Maynard had spat out his favourite word – travesty. ‘And that brings us back to what we should really be talking about.’

  ‘Murder,’ she said miserably.

  ‘Yes. And to be precise, whether there’s a connection between Mrs Simmonds and the unfortunate Gavin.’

  ‘Gavin? Is that his name?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I’m getting used to it now. At first I’d’ve put him down as a Dennis or a Malcolm, but I suppose he’s a bit young for either of them.’

  ‘But you can’t help feeling that a Gavin ought not to b
e murdered,’ she said, putting her finger on the exact feeling I’d experienced. ‘Nor a Malcolm or Dennis, come to that. But Bill or Shane or Jackson – they live much more dangerously.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I begged, trying to stifle my laughter. ‘This is awful.’

  ‘Childish,’ she admitted.

  ‘Silly.’

  ‘Unworthy. What would my daughter say?’

  ‘I can’t bear to think. And Maggs would be almost as bad.’

  She took a deep breath, and changed to a lower gear as we approached the lights at Stow-on-the-Wold. ‘We’re avoiding the issue,’ she said. ‘Not that anyone could blame us.’

  ‘Connections. We’re wondering about connections.’

  ‘And we can’t possibly draw any conclusions from the little we know. All the same, it might be interesting to go over it together. Pool our resources. Let’s suppose that somebody killed Mr Maynard because of his attitude towards Mrs Simmonds’ grave.’

  ‘Which was hostile. So the killer would have been sympathetic. And that brings it back to me. This is not a promising avenue.’

  ‘Plenty of other people must have approved of her choice of funeral.’

  ‘Oh? Who? The Watchetts come to mind first, and I can’t help feeling they were only pretending to be enthusiastic. But at least they knew Mr Maynard. They definitely ought to be on the list.’

  ‘The Talbots,’ she said succinctly.

  I shook my head. ‘They didn’t know him, they weren’t here when he was killed, and all they care about is getting the house.’

  ‘Even the young one? He’s a shifty character, if ever I saw one.’

  ‘Honestly, Thea – he’s just a typical teenager. You’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘Did you know,’ she began after a short pause, ‘that there’s a theory that Jack the Ripper was actually a philanthropist? He wanted to get the East End cleaned up, so he did those gory murders as a way of drawing attention to the conditions there. I often think about that – after all, the victims were all prostitutes, and in those days, they’d have seemed subhuman to almost everybody. Sacrificial lambs. Easy to reconcile with a person’s conscience.’

  ‘Ri…i…ight,’ I said slowly. ‘And your point is?’

  ‘Could it be that the murderer of Mr M wanted to highlight the scandal of natural burial – that they actually agreed with him, and wanted to make it a public issue?’

  I groaned. ‘Poor old Gavin, in that case! Rather a high price to pay to get his opinion heard, don’t you think? Besides, that sort of abstract motive isn’t very convincing. You do need to be really angry or really insane to bash someone hard enough to kill them. It’s not like pushing a forceful argument. Anyway, I still don’t see any indication that there’s a connection. He was a council official in charge of— Hang on…’ I stopped myself as a realisation dawned. ‘No, he wasn’t in charge of planning, was he? He was Parks and Recreation, which is different altogether. A much more lowly post, for a start. A ragbag of issues ranging from leisure centres to canal towpaths. The responsibility for burials must have arisen because it didn’t really fit in any other department.’

  ‘Um…’ she said, vaguely. ‘I think we’re almost there. Do we want to rehearse our stories for the police?’

  I looked around. ‘Where are we going? I thought we were supposed to go to the police station in Cirencester. That’s definitely what the chap said on the phone yesterday.’

  ‘God, no, that’s not what they told me. If we are, then we’re about twenty miles in the wrong direction. They want us in Blockley again, close to the scene of the crime.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ I said doubtfully. ‘He was pretty clear about it.’

  ‘I’m always right,’ she breezed. ‘They changed their minds. It happens all the time.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  And of course, I need never have doubted her. The detective inspector was waiting for us, smiling tightly, shadows under his eyes. The investigation appeared to have grown more pressured since the weekend, days passing with little progress, I surmised. Money being spent on a multitude of forensic tests, teams of officers asking repetitive lists of questions and not a lot to show for it. The people of Blockley were no doubt growing restless at the usurpation of their hall, and the increased traffic as police came and went.

  When Thea and I were ushered in, it seemed like a different place. Several more whiteboards had been introduced, and a whole lot more computers. Partitions had been erected, to give better levels of privacy for interviewing. Most of the tables sported piles of paper and plain-card folders. A nice-looking woman police officer was stationed near the door, to welcome in potential witnesses, who might be moved to contribute their ideas or fleeting sightings of something suspicious. The murder of Gavin Maynard had evidently risen higher up some mysterious scale of importance with every passing day.

  I needed to assess my own place in this investigative network. I had obviously featured fairly prominently at the outset, my apparent shelving in the meantime perhaps a figment of my own wishful thinking. The fact that I had been brought back suggested a return to basics, a going-back-to-the-beginning that very probably indicated an enquiry that had hit a brick wall. I could guess at the general direction of thinking, but had no way of knowing what actual evidence had been gathered, or what it might imply. The whole business of evidence was confusing to me, anyway. I had never liked the Sherlock Holmes stories, where wild deductions so often seemed to follow from a tiny flake of paint or mud. To my secret shame, I tended to feel that it was not playing fair, that the villain sometimes deserved to escape, such had been his care to cover his tracks. Walking backwards through snow, for example, seemed so clever that it earned a Get Out of Jail Free card.

  I found myself in a partitioned box in one corner of the hall that felt remarkably like being in a small isolated room. DI Basildon was cordial, but well short of friendly. My heart rate increased as I envisaged the interrogation to follow. I had nothing to hide – I was perfectly innocent, and yet I felt I had to engage all my mental faculties and enter into a gruelling bout of jousting that had appallingly high stakes. Innocent people had been charged and convicted of murder many times before. It could happen to me, if I had left a hair on the dead man’s wrist. That would confirm the evidence of my footprints near his body. A jury might well arrive at the conclusion that it must have been me who killed him. In a strenuous effort to be objective, I tried to imagine myself on just such a jury – what would I believe? Unless the counsel for the defence came up with a plausible alternative explanation, my goose was very likely cooked.

  I wanted to trust this man, this detective who surely only wanted to uncover the truth, but my body wouldn’t let me. My hands were literally shaking as I took the chair he indicated and waited for the questions to begin. There was a small tape recorder on the table between us, and a different colourless young detective constable sitting next to the inspector was nonchalantly introduced to me. He said not one word throughout the entire interview.

  When it came, quite early in the conversation, the implied accusation was laughably easy to counter. ‘You have changed the front tyres on your car in the past few days,’ the DI said, in a neutral tone. ‘Could you tell me why?’

  ‘Because the old ones were illegal. Ask Constable Jessica Osborne – she pulled me up about them on Friday.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ He blinked in momentary confusion. ‘Osborne, did you say?’

  ‘Yes – you remember her. She was first on the scene on Saturday. Her mother is Mrs Simmonds’ house-sitter.’ Keep up, I wanted to tell him.

  ‘So where are the old tyres?’

  ‘I have no idea. Probably at the garage I went to for the new ones. It’s in Shepton Mallet.’ I had a vision of police being shown a large stack of bald tyres and invited to sift through them. ‘I suppose they melt them down for something, don’t they?’

  ‘It’s not important,’ he decided, apparently sharing the same vision. ‘We can che
ck with Ms Osborne.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I endorsed, wondering whether he meant Jessica or Thea.

  ‘More relevant to our enquiries is Mrs Simmonds’ will. I assume you are familiar with its contents?’

  ‘Relating to her choice of funeral? Well, yes. That is, she wrote it all out for me, and left it at my office, to be carried out when she died. Some people do put it all in their will, at the same time – my name and address and so forth.’ I was rapidly relaxing – this wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d anticipated.

  But then he hit me. Not physically, but metaphorical hitting can be very startling. ‘No, not that,’ he said. ‘The part I’m talking about is where she leaves you her house here in Broad Campden.’

  ‘What?’

  He was obviously joking, teasing me with a piece of unfunny police humour. I had always been an easy target for that sort of thing. The young constable beside him threw a glance at his superior, as if also gauging the sincerity of his words. I smiled warily. ‘You’re joking,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all. Although your reaction is rather similar to that of Mrs Simmonds’ sister and nephew when they heard the news. They had already embarked on preparations to sell the house, in full confidence that it had been left to them.’

  ‘Ergghh,’ I said, in an attempt to express sorrow on behalf of the disappointed family.

  ‘You can see, Mr Slocombe, I’m sure, that this makes for rather a bad impression.’

  I merely stared at him, trying to understand what I had been told. Why would the stupid woman do such a thing? I had only been averagely nice to her: agreeing to conduct her funeral according to her wishes; putting safeguards in place to cover the eventuality of my going out of business; noting down the exact location of her field and the name of her executor. It had been a bit more work than usual, but nothing outside my comfort zone.

  What was this detective trying to say? Any implications had yet to occur to me, although in a dim sort of way I knew that people who inherited surprising largesse were often under suspicion. ‘I didn’t force her to do it,’ I blustered. ‘I had no idea it was in her mind. Besides – she wasn’t expecting to die so soon. She ought to have lived another twenty years.’