A Cotswold Killing

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘How?’

  ‘She doesn’t see that he was her best best friend. She told him everything she did, what she was reading and thinking, who she’d met, what they said to each other. She listened to him, the same. Wanted to know where he’d been, who he’d seen – not in a jealous way, but interested, you know? So now, she keeps going into the living room, or upstairs or out into the garden, to tell him something, her mouth already open to say it, and then she remembers. And of course she doesn’t cry. It’s not a crying thing – it’s just a great big hole where he used to be. And she desperately wants to know who killed him. She used to phone the police every single day, for weeks, asking if they’d found out any more. But she looks all right. She laughs and smiles, and does her hair and gets the food in and cooks things, like a normal person. I’m the one who does the crying.’

  ‘He was a good father, then?’

  ‘Whatever that means. He loved me.’ Tears started flowing, with no change of expression, and no sound. Just running down her face, of their own accord. Thea’s heart contracted.

  ‘And you want to know who killed him, too?’

  ‘Sort of. It won’t make any difference, will it. I’m not going to hate them, or try to get revenge or anything. I want to know if it hurt him, if he saw the person, if he knew he was dying. I think I can understand some of that. You see, when I was nine, I was nearly killed by a car. I mean – it didn’t hit me or hurt me, but I was so close to being hit by it. I felt the wind, and imagined it had killed me. Like – there was a parallel reality where it did kill me, and I could get into that reality for a minute. Enough to know what it would have been like. Sounds crazy, I know. It’s hard to say it, the way it was – but it showed me that being killed isn’t so bad for the person themselves. It’s all over before you have time to know about it – unless you’ve got cancer or something. Or if you’re being tortured to death, or burnt or strangled. But other things, like being shot, aren’t so bad.’ She took a deep breath and sat up straighter, the tears abating. ‘Gramps understands. He knows exactly what I mean. Poor Gramps.’ She sighed.

  Thea was aware of a sense of privilege. How had she managed to unleash such intimate revelations? The answer came instantly.

  ‘And you – you probably understand it as well, because you’re a widow, aren’t you? Mum was quite chuffed when she heard that. She’s the same age as you, I suppose, and wanted to come and talk to you. And I did, as well – because most people haven’t had anybody die like that. Not when they’re still quite young, and not ill or anything.’

  Thea quailed at this. She had no excuses; after all, she’d encouraged these confidences from the outset. ‘My daughter wasn’t much older than you when my husband died,’ she said, aware of stretching the truth a trifle. Jessica had in fact been nearly twenty, which was immensely older than fifteen. Lindy watched her, not reacting to the thickening in Thea’s voice, the frequent swallowing. ‘And I don’t think we took it at all the way you and your mum are doing. It’s hard to remember now, exactly how it was. You tell yourself the story, a thousand times, and every time it changes just the tiniest bit, until it’s probably nothing like the truth. But just now, it came back – how it was in those first days. Jessica wouldn’t talk to me at all. She seemed to turn into a lump of wood. And I was angry with her for being so useless.’

  ‘That’s not what you said just now.’

  ‘No. No, it’s not, is it. I was fibbing just now. Just saying what I thought would be good for you to hear. What I hoped was true, I suppose. I mean, really, if we’re honest, we can’t help anybody else. We can’t say “I know how you feel” because we’re all different.’

  ‘Did you talk to Mum like this, last night?’

  ‘Not at all. We were a bit manic, I think, both of us. We talked about men, and ghosts and we drank a lot of wine. We thought we were being very grown up.’

  ‘Ghosts?’ Lindy’s eyebrows went up, her eyes widened. Hope, Thea diagnosed miserably.

  ‘Not the way you think. Just memories, really, and presences. We carry them inside us. I would think a daughter does that more than a wife. After all, you’re made out of him, aren’t you. Jessica sometimes has such a look of Carl, it’s as if she’s possessed by him. As if he’s there behind her eyes, in her voice.’

  ‘You haven’t asked me why I was in your field.’ If she was disappointed, she didn’t show it.

  ‘I assumed it was the same reason as your mother’s. You wanted to be where they died. As I said – ghosts.’

  Lindy snorted. ‘I don’t think so. I wanted to check the burrow – and look for clues. The police haven’t any idea what to look for. They’re so stupid.’

  ‘I expect they need you to explain it to them. It can’t be easy for them, trying to work it out from scratch.’

  ‘I tried to explain, but they don’t listen to a kid, do they?’

  ‘Well, try me instead.’

  Lindy gave her a calculating look. ‘OK. Well, you know we used to live here, until last year. Dad didn’t want to move, and he used to come back to help Gramps, at weekends mostly. I came with him sometimes. You know, I suppose, that the field over there, the other side of this one, is our land? We’re on both sides of the road.’

  Thea blinked. ‘No, I didn’t know that. Where do you mean, exactly?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Confidently, Lindy led the way through to the dining room, where a large window looked over the back garden and field beyond. Outside all was darkness. Lindy giggled. ‘Oh! Well, anyway, it’ll still work.’ She waved her left arm. ‘On that side, I mean. Where the brook goes. Where the pond is, at the bottom. Well, the other side of that is Little Barn Field. It’s actually rented out at the moment, but we still go in it. There’s a fox earth in the far corner, and a big blackthorn that’s good for sloes. Dad always made sloe gin with them. There were mushrooms in it last year, too. It’s got a good fence, but we made a place where we could climb over it.’

  ‘But the burrow, as you call it, is on the other side of Clive’s field.’

  ‘Right. We used to cross his field to get to the crab apple tree.’

  ‘Did Clive let you?’

  ‘He didn’t know. We’d walk around the bottom hedge. You can’t see it from the house.’

  Thea took a few moments to appreciate the images of country life conjured by the girl. Father and daughter helping themselves to the bounty of the hedgerows, making free with other people’s property, forming secret routes, like wild animals. Something about it did not ring true. She looked closely at Lindy.

  ‘How long ago was all this?’

  ‘Oh! Um…a few years. I mean, when I was quite little, mainly. But we did it sometimes, right till when he died.’

  ‘You crossed this field, keeping out of sight, to pick crab apples?’

  ‘Mostly, yes.’

  ‘Mostly?’

  ‘And to see what the Staceys were doing. That was after we moved. Mum didn’t know about it.’ Lindy wriggled, and rubbed a hand around the back of her neck. There was a strong impression of unburdening.

  ‘What? Explain.’

  ‘You can see across to their place from there, without them seeing you.’

  Thea tried to work this out, realising that she hadn’t explored in that direction; realising too that she’d already calculated that Fairweather Farm must have a front entrance a little way down the road to the west of Brook View.

  ‘You were spying on the Staceys?’

  Lindy blushed. ‘Only Paolo,’ she admitted. ‘He’s so lovely. But I think he’s gone now,’ she added sadly.

  It began to come clearer. ‘You mean you’ve been watching him through the hedge. I see. How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Not long. About a month.’

  ‘Do you know who Paolo was? Where he came from? Where he’s gone now?’

  Lindy shook her head. ‘I think he was Turkish or something. Very dark, with gorgeous deep brown eyes.’

  ‘Did you ever speak t
o him?’

  ‘Course I did. He’s in the network. We’re all in the network. All except Mum and Gramps.’

  Thea didn’t have to ask. Lindy clapped a hand over her mouth, and stared wide-eyed at Thea. It was perfectly plain that she had said too much, and feared for the consequences. She took her hand away, and laid it on Thea’s arm. ‘You won’t tell anybody I said that, will you? We’re not supposed to say anything about it. Don’t worry – it isn’t illegal. Isabel and Martin promised us that, when it started.’

  Thea chewed a lip while she considered this. ‘Just tell me – were your dad and your uncle Joel in the network?’

  Lindy took a step back. ‘No!’ she almost shouted. ‘That’s the whole thing, you see. They wouldn’t have anything to do with it. That must be why they died.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Thea could get no more out of the girl, despite a barrage of questions. ‘Have you told the police about this?’ was one of the more urgent ones. Eventually Lindy said, ‘There’s no point. They wouldn’t understand, and anyway it would wreck everything. There’s a lot at stake.’ The solemn adult words sounded like a quote to Thea.

  ‘But – if it helps them catch the person who killed Paul and Joel…?’

  ‘It wouldn’t. We don’t know who it was, and we’ve decided we don’t want to know. There’s a lot at stake,’ she repeated.

  ‘I think your mother wants to know.’

  ‘Then let her work it out for herself.’

  ‘Lindy, you’ll have to go home. How did you get here? Shall I give you a lift?’

  ‘I’m staying with Gramps tonight, and helping with the milking tomorrow. I will go now, thanks for being nice.’

  ‘What about school? You’ve got school tomorrow, haven’t you? It’s not half-term or anything, is it?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s a bank holiday,’ Lindy said, as if the knowledge had been at the forefront of her mind from the start. ‘That’s why the relief isn’t here. He was booked to do another farm.’

  How rare, Thea thought, to find a girl so collected, so competent and focused. It was more than a little disconcerting, too. She had been quite unaware of the bank holiday, and wondered inconsequentially where she would find more milk. The garage again, she supposed.

  She let Lindy go, watching her from the gate until she was out of sight, the beam from a small torch bobbing ahead of her.

  Illegal immigrants, she concluded, with a slew of mixed feelings. They must be harbouring illegal immigrants. Martin Stacey would be taking cash for his part in a major operation to get people into Britain. Some of the neighbours would be getting a cut for services rendered, but the Jennisons, for whatever reason, had not been trusted to take part, and had been kept out of the secret. Perhaps they’d made threats or were regarded as dangerous, and that was the reason they’d been murdered. It all made perfect sense, and Thea resolved to deliver the whole discovery to James Osborne first thing in the morning.

  She woke to sunshine, and remembered quickly that it was a bank holiday; the first Monday in May. An obscure sense of duties unperformed hit her. Not merely the duty to pass on what she had learnt the previous evening, but a duty to go out and enjoy herself just because it was a bank holiday. It was the same anxiety that made single people flinch at the prospect of a solitary Christmas, even when it had been their favoured option. Somehow it was against the rules to fail to take advantage of these special days when the world invited you to be free and happy and self-indulgent. That is, provided you went out, mingled, spent money and ate ice cream.

  As if to reinforce this unease, her daughter phoned as she was drinking her morning coffee. The mobile sang its mindless tune from her bag in the hall, summoning her from the kitchen.

  ‘Mum? How are you? Why haven’t you phoned me? What’s it like in the stately home?’

  ‘It’s not a stately home, you fool. It’s just an ordinary house. It’s nice enough. The dogs behave themselves, and I hardly bother with the sheep. Hepzie’s having a nice time, except for being attacked by a collie and having her ear torn. She soon got over it.’

  ‘There was something on the news about Duntisbourne Abbots. A man was killed.’

  It seemed extraordinary to Thea that she hadn’t told Jessica about Joel Jennison. And even more amazing that it had been on the news, without her realising. ‘When?’ she said.

  ‘Last weekend. I kept thinking you’d phone and tell me the whole story. I bet you’ve been getting involved, haven’t you? Making friends and trying to work it all out.’

  ‘Have you been talking to James?’

  ‘Not since I sent you that e-mail, saying he wanted to tell you something. He sounded worried. But then I remembered he always sounds worried.’

  Thea laughed. ‘I still can’t make him tell me just what his problem is. He’s not directly involved in the murder investigation; that’s a man called Hollis. I met him during the week.’ She paused, undecided as to how much to reveal. ‘I’ve met some of the murdered man’s family, actually.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘He came from quite near here. It’s not really in the village, you see. It’s a bit more remote, and less – well, you know.’

  ‘Pretentious.’

  ‘No, no. That isn’t fair. The village people aren’t that. They have a lot of money, and they keep their houses neat and tidy, but it’s more a matter of absence. On a normal day, there’s hardly anybody around. They all seem to commute to work, miles away. A lot only come here for weekends, I think. It leaves a feeling of emptiness.’

  ‘Sounds rather nice. This place could do with some emptiness. It’s bedlam today.’

  ‘Even on a bank holiday?’

  ‘That’s why. No lectures or anything. But it’s lovely and sunny, so we’re all outside, pretending to revise, but really just chatting and messing about.’

  ‘It’s only ten o’clock. I’m amazed you’re even out of bed.’

  Jessica laughed. ‘Force of habit. Most people get up on a Monday. Anyway, you’re OK then, are you?’

  ‘Of course. Are you?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘I’m not sure you sound it.’

  ‘Yeah, I am. It’s just Finals, and jobs and decisions and that stuff. Stressy.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine. Thanks for ringing.’ Thea firmly curtailed the call, before it became any more maudlin, and ruined her mood completely.

  Finding something to do became more urgent, thanks to Jessica’s call. The usual old platitudes about single women having to amuse themselves at weekends and holidays came surging in, all too horribly true. She couldn’t go and visit Helen Winstanley because her husband had come back, and it was axiomatic that you did not intrude on couples on a bank holiday unless very convincingly invited. She might try Harry Richmond, but that required a lot of careful thought beforehand. She didn’t know how to contact June Jennison, and really there was nobody else. She hadn’t made enough of a bond with Muriel, mother of the murdered brothers – and wouldn’t much want to spend time with her, anyway.

  And all that was in reality a diversion away from the news she had to impart to the police. Initially she had only thought of telling James, but then it struck her that there would be far more sense in passing it on to DS Hollis in Cirencester. He would listen, and then take a team of officers to Fairweather Farm, where the entire property would be comprehensively searched for evidence of wrongdoing. The chances were that blood, knife, threads, DNA would all turn up and indicate clearly who had killed Paul and Joel Jennison.

  But the more she rehearsed this process, the less inclined she was to set it in motion. For one thing, was it credible that the farm had not already been searched? Next door to Barrow Hill, the scene of fairly public and surely strange goings-on, it wasn’t possible that the police had ignored it in their investigations. They would have heard of the existence of Monique and Paolo and the others, whoever they were. They had probably interviewed them. If they were there illegally, it wou
ld have been discovered, and the appropriate procedures performed.

  Had Lindy been making it all up, or had she, Thea, jumped to unwarranted assumptions? Was the ‘network’ something the girl had invented from nothing – a few kind looks from visiting students, some e-mails perhaps, a system of financial support and repayments from the herb farm that looked like something it wasn’t?

  Whenever she had asked about Fairweather, the answers had been freely given. Helen in particular had tried to explain how it was there. People – Helen especially – had invested in the herb business, and helped out with seasonal work. Nothing sinister in that. The Monique girl had shown herself without obvious signs of reticence, in a group of local people. If she’d been part of something illegal, would she have done that? The only cause for suspicion was her foreign name and arguably foreign looks. And if Paolo was Turkish – well, so what? As far as she was aware, Turkish Kurds were welcomed in Britain as genuine refugees from ill-treatment.

  Besides, it was a bank holiday, and she should not bother James with her flights of fancy at least until the next day. Worse than that, the prospect of trying to contact DS Hollis and explain herself to him was deeply unappealing. He hadn’t seemed like a man who would take kindly to being told how to do his job.

  Despite the familiarity of the mood swings, she hated the sudden dip into glumness. The world turned grey, there was no prospect of a better future, nobody cared about her and she’d stupidly blundered into something very puzzling going on right outside her temporary gate. She gathered her spaniel onto her lap, and absently combed her ears, looking for grass seeds or burrs that might be entangled there. The damaged ear had a three-inch split in it that was healing around the edges, but not knitting together. The dog would always have the marks of her stay in Duntisbourne Abbots. She’d never win a dog show now, Thea thought, with a self-mocking little smile. Entering dog shows was not an activity she had ever seriously contemplated.

  But the stream of consciousness took a new turn from there. My trouble is, I don’t have a proper hobby, she told herself. Something to lose myself in, with other people similarly obsessed. It could, after all, be anything. Astronomy had occasionally appealed, or a concentrated study of Arabic. Not ballroom dancing, although she had a friend who swore by it. Not pottery or feltmaking or book-binding, because they would all lead to a great deal of clutter and mess. Not cookery because that would make her fat. Possibly painting, although she was very sure she lacked all talent in that direction. The only thing that had her even mildly hooked was pathetic solitary anonymous online Scrabble. Most of her opponents maintained a complete silence. If they did say anything it was usually just hi, gl, and at the end thx gg. As human intercourse went, it was about as dull and minimal as it could get.