by Rebecca Tope
When she finally did fall asleep she dreamt about strange aggressive plants, leaning across narrow country roads towards her, with stings and thorns waving in her face.
The next three days were dramatically hot, sun blazing, animals sticking to the shady areas of field and garden. Thea saw herself as a still centre, hardly breathing, waiting, wondering what might happen next.
Oddly, very little did happen. She managed the insurance business with some difficulty, and even more embarrassment. It involved phoning her friend Celia and asking if she could recall the details of the policy. Celia was interested in that sort of thing, constantly watching out for special offers and trying to persuade Thea to go for them.
‘Oh yes, you idiot – you’re with Cornhill. Remember I tried to make you change to esure, and you wouldn’t? Anyway, I did. You said Cornhill sounded more solid, or something. But it’s no good calling them without your policy number. Shall I get it for you?’
And she’d gone to Thea’s desk, found the document and relayed all the vital numbers. It had all taken a long time, especially as Celia wanted to know all about Duntisbourne and Brook View and people and shopping. Thea had refrained from mentioning the minor detail about Joel’s murder on her first night, but there still seemed to be quite a lot to say.
Then she had to wait in for the replacement car to be delivered. Her own mangled vehicle had been collected from the Staceys, not before he or his wife had thoughtfully removed every item, including the radio, a pair of socks, three crumpled magazines, Hepzie’s blanket and the toolkit from the spare wheel compartment. Martin came round with it all.
‘They’ll probably write it off, you see,’ he explained. ‘You’ve got to assume the worst.’
‘Was it as badly damaged as that?’ Thea was incredulous. All she remembered was the inflated airbag.
‘Doesn’t take much,’ he’d shrugged.
In the evening, knowing she had already ruined her image by being so late, she phoned Julia Phillips at Minchinhampton. When the woman picked up the phone, Thea launched straight into profuse apologies. ‘I know I said I would phone last week,’ she began. ‘It’s just that I’ve been so awfully busy here…’
‘Oh, not to worry. I began to wonder whether I’d said that I would phone you. Then I realised I didn’t have a number. I thought you hadn’t liked the sound of us, or something.’
The lack of reproach was irresistibly seductive. ‘So, do you still want me?’
‘Of course. Didn’t I say so last time? I thought it was all decided. When can you come and see us?’
Thea saw no escape. ‘Well, how about tomorrow?’ she said. ‘In the afternoon, or maybe evening.’
‘Lovely. Let’s say five o’clock, shall we? Can you get away then?’
‘Could we make it five thirty? I feed the dogs at about five.’ She needn’t have bothered to make herself sound efficient and responsible. Julia Phillips was past caring.
‘Have you got a pen? I’ll give you directions,’ she said.
That was Wednesday. Thursday was spent largely on the laptop, trying to write a concise description of the accident, e-mailing the usual people, plus a few more further afield. Then she wrote a long letter to her parents, making her stay at Brook View sound idyllic and restorative. They had been dubious about the idea, warning her of the loneliness and boredom, and she was determined to prove them wrong.
Despite assuring herself repeatedly that she was unharmed, and that nothing very significant had resulted from the smash, she was aware of doing everything much more slowly than normal. She was wading through an invisible sea of resistance, pushing forward against a tide of foreboding that never seemed to abate. Something else was going to happen. It was the lull before the storm, the eye of the hurricane. There were moments when she had the physical sensation of holding her breath, her chest tight with the need to exhale and relax.
Her courtesy car arrived during Thursday morning, and she gave it a quick practice run along the dual carriage for a mile or two. It was an automatic, which needed a bit of getting used to. But by the time she got back to Brook View, she was quite comfortable with it.
Navigating through the small roads to the Phillips’s houses was complicated, but she managed it without any reversals. Julia and Desmond met her as she drove into their untidy yard. They promised it would be less of a mess by July, and introduced her to Pallo the palomino, numerous hens and ducks and one cat.
Thea confirmed the dates, offered references, made no mention of murder and mayhem at her current placement, and retreated wondering whether she really did want to carry on as a house-sitter. Presumably she did, because the prospect of a fortnight at Juniper Court was far from unappealing. Compared to the obsessive order of Brook View, it looked almost impossibly relaxed. Julia took her on a rapid tour of the house, indicating a girl’s bedroom that would most likely be hers. ‘Of course, I’ll make her tidy it up,’ the woman laughed. The room was a blur of scattered clothes and possessions which Thea deliberately refrained from examining.
On Friday, the phone came alive. James Osborne called her at nine in the morning, wondering what was happening. ‘If anything,’ he added.
‘I meant to e-mail you yesterday,’ she said. ‘I had a little contretemps with my car. Very embarrassing, actually. I suppose I ought to find out whether the other people are all right.’
‘I’m sure they’ll let you know if they’re not,’ came the dry retort. ‘Nothing more on the Jennisons then?’
‘Not really.’ A surge of resistance to discussing the Jennisons, or even thinking about them, washed through her. ‘It’s Joel’s funeral on Monday.’
‘Yes, I know. Will you be going?’
‘I might. I’ll speak to June about it first.’ The visit from the flippant Susanna seemed an age ago, and no longer felt like a credible invitation to the ceremony. ‘I’m worried I’d feel like an interloper.’
‘So you’re all right, are you?’ The query came belatedly, and Thea felt it as a somewhat casual concern.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘No harm done at all.’
‘Nice weather. I s’pose you’re out on that lawn with a book all day long, getting toasted?’
‘Something like that.’ Even Thea had begun to heed the alarms about ozone depletion and skin cancer. She was not especially dark-skinned and the sun certainly did seem to burn more fiercely than it used to. ‘The dogs are feeling the heat rather.’
‘Rosie loves it. Says it does her the world of good.’
Thea bit back the Well, bully for Rosie she was tempted to utter. It would be unthinkable to say such a thing. Even having it on her mind’s tongue was deeply disturbing. ‘Oh, well, better get on,’ she said instead. ‘Thanks for calling.’
‘Thea, wait. Hollis contacted me. He might want to speak to you again, and walk the field and garden for himself. He didn’t say much, but it’s only reasonable to assume the main evidence has to be around the place.’
‘But their forensic people must have found everything there was to find? It’s nearly two weeks ago now. What would be the point?’
‘I can’t answer for Phil, Thea. I’m just telling you what he said to me. I’ll have to go now. I’ll be seeing you.’
‘Bye.’
Her thoughts inevitably turning to the garden and field, two memories floated up. The pond with its strange red colouring, and the cloth the dog had found in the field. Both demanded action – both could possibly be of some interest to the police. Furthermore, after the hot weather, she surely ought to be adding some water to the pond, as Clive had requested.
She looked around the kitchen, expecting to see the muddy cloth still laid out on the worktop where she’d left it days ago, and then forgotten about it. She couldn’t find it. Spinning around, scanning all the available surfaces, she was forced to accept that it was gone. The dogs had to have taken it – although the dogs had never once jumped up to steal anything. She searched the floor, their baskets, the living roo
m, and the lawn outside.
It was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Late on Friday afternoon, she walked to Fairweather Farm, home of Martin and Isabel Stacey. She left the dogs behind, still wondering whether they were responsible for the missing cloth, and whether it mattered.
Her ostensible reason for the visit was to thank the Staceys for their kindness, and apologise for the disruption she’d caused. Her real motive was to snoop and spy and listen for careless revelations.
She approached through the back entrance, which was very much closer to Brook View than the front gate was, and involved hardly any road-walking. Over the stile in the hedge a short way down the road, down the bridle-path, and in through the gate where Binnie the collie had torn Hepzibah’s ear. The echoes of the dog’s howls still rang in her ears as she drew near. Glancing around, she caught sight of chimneys in a hollow behind her – which could only belong to Barrow Hill. The Jennisons and the Staceys really were close neighbours, then, with the Reynoldses completing the triangle. Even in stand-offish rural England, the three families must surely have close links, going back over time, necessitated by shared boundaries and occasional urgent needs.
And then there was Helen Winstanley, more remotely situated perhaps, but clearly very involved with Martin Stacey. Thea permitted a mildly optimistic feeling that some new understanding was almost within her grasp.
It was good to have a purpose, in any case. The three days of gloom had been wasted time, missing the improving weather and the delights of the area. Clive and Jennifer would be home in a week, and she wanted them to return to a gleaming house and happy dogs. A neatly resolved murder investigation would be the icing on the cake.
The back gate to Fairweather Farm was firmly closed. A spring-loaded latch nestled in a hole bored into the stout gatepost. To open it, you had to pull sideways against the spring, which was an unusual action requiring a strong wrist. Thea gripped it with both hands, and forced it back, grimly reminded of having to do something similar to the collie when its jaws were clenched onto Hepzibah’s ear. Once through, she had to repeat the process to return the latch to its hole. If anything, this was even more difficult, since the gate had dropped a few millimetres, and had to be lifted at the same time to make the alignment. The completion of this task left her feeling foolish and annoyed. Why, she asked herself crossly, hadn’t she just climbed over the damned thing?
The process had been additionally stressful for knowing there was a defensive collie bitch somewhere on the property, which might well appear without warning and start attacking her as it had done Hepzie a week earlier. With luck, it remembered the damage to its jaw and was cowering in apprehension in a barn somewhere at the arrival of its assailant.
Once on Stacey property, she felt nervous of proceeding for other reasons, too. Knowing that there was something nefarious going on, but hoping not to reveal this knowledge, made it difficult to strike the right attitude. With a sense of being watched from dark interiors and shadowed windows, she headed for the house, which she could see beyond a large open-sided barn. The ground underfoot was dry, the general impression one of tidiness and under-usage. There were no signs or smells of livestock; no bawling calves or squealing piglets. No hens or cats or pigeons. In fact it hardly seemed to qualify as a farm at all, by normal definitions. The barn sheltered a tractor, and some odd-looking implement she could not identify. An even larger barn away to the left was well-maintained, with closed doors and new roof. Thea increasingly scented money in the air as she approached the house itself.
In rapid succession, she noticed a burglar alarm, security lights, satellite dish and decidedly tasteless gold-painted weathervane incorporating a silhouetted horse – all as she scanned the upper part of the house. None of these items were particularly unusual on modern farmhouses, of course, but the contrast with the Barrow Hill house was dramatic. She recalled the muck, the lack of maintenance and air of disintegration on the Jennison farm, and concluded that whatever Lionel and his family were doing wrong, the Staceys had managed to avoid the same pitfalls.
The back of Fairweather Farmhouse was augmented with a clutter of small outhouses and sheds, some actually attached to the house, others forming a row at right angles to it. The place was a warren, like so many farms. It presented the common impression of a secretive settlement, where only the initiated came and went without challenge. Just about anything could be going on here, and nobody from the outside world would ever get to know about it.
Thea decided it would be more politic to approach from the front. Another gate separated the yard in which she stood from the driveway that led down from the site of her accident. This time a simple catch lifted to open the wooden gate, and she walked the gentle slope along the side of the house, and then down across a gravelled sweep to the front door.
Built of the usual Cotswold stone, the house had been positioned on uneven ground, so that one end was against a bank, while the other looked over an incline that had been grassed over and looked quite tricky to keep mown. The neatness was even more noticeable than that at Brook View. Surely somebody had to be employed to keep it in such immaculate condition? More signs of affluence, Thea presumed.
She had also begun to presume that the place was deserted, bereft of man or dog, wife or child. Not that there’d been any reference to a child, nor could she see any toys. It struck her as wasteful for a youngish couple to live here without a family around them. She hoped there was a child.
The doorbell rang inside the house, and nobody responded. No barks, either. Had Binnie gone off, abandoning her offspring? Was it possible that Helen had lied, and there never were any puppies? Thea had reached the point where she was quite willing to believe such a deceit had taken place.
With thundering heart, she turned to give the place a closer exploration. Where were Monique and the shadowy seasonal workers that had been referred to more than once? Was there some large workshed further afield, out of sight and sound of the main buildings? She would say she was looking for Martin or Isabel if anybody caught her. Wouldn’t anyone do the same – just take a peep into a few of the barns and sheds?
But it proved impossible to just ‘take a peep’. There were padlocks on the doors of the large stone barn and the first shed she tried. The shed had a window, but she soon discovered that it was covered by some sort of blind. Suspicious in itself, of course, but not helpful in assembling evidence against the Staceys and finding cause to connect them with the murders of the Jennison brothers. Stacks of pallets were standing neatly against the barn wall, but she found no other visible evidence of herb production.
With a strong feeling that she should make an escape while she could, she started back towards the metal gate with the stiff catch. This time she was going to climb over it and avoid another struggle with the fastening.
She was literally perched on top of the gate when the dog rushed towards her out of nowhere. The same dog she had fought with previously, and every bit as unpleasant as before. It leapt at her, teeth bared, and she kicked at it, holding tightly to the top rail of the gate, knowing she was going to lose her balance. The rail was a smooth round metal pole, impossible to grip properly whilst under attack.
Where was the damned animal’s owner? At this rate it was going to develop into another bare-handed conflict between Thea and the dog, and this time it might be less easy to win. One leg was on the farm side of the gate and both hands clung tightly to the rail. That left a single foot and leg with which to fend off the snapping animal. If it managed to get a grip on that leg, she’d be pulled off the gate and was sure to land in a vulnerable sprawl on the ground.
Leg and voice, she realised, immediately starting to shout at the dog. ‘No! Get down! Down!’ She tried to make her voice low, with sharp authority overlying the growing fear. Collies were famously obedient, after all. And Thea liked dogs. She understood them and wanted their friendship. She could hardly blame this one for attacking her: she was an int
ruder on its territory, and she had hurt it in the recent past. Two good reasons for going onto the offensive, in Binnie’s mind.
‘Binnie!’ she tried. ‘Go! Go back!’
She would never know just which of the many ensuing elements were most effective, but events combined to save her. The dog’s jaw was evidently still not fully restored, after Thea’s rough treatment the week before. Snapping and snarling were clearly proving uncomfortable. The firm orders, associated with her name, seemed to register – and a woman finally appeared from the direction of the village, along the bridlepath, too breathless to call out, but apparently claiming some connection with the dog.
It was Isabel Stacey.
‘Get her off me,’ Thea ordered, although the dog had already retreated to a much safer distance.
‘What are you doing here?’ Isabel grasped the dog by the scruff of its neck, in the absence of a collar. ‘Binnie’s only protecting the property.’
‘Mrs Stacey?’ Thea jumped down from the gate, managing, she hoped, to retain a vestige of dignity in the process. ‘I came to thank Martin for his kindness on Tuesday. He doesn’t seem to be here.’
‘No. He’s out all day today. God, I’m puffed. I ran all the way from the top of the village when I heard you yelling.’
Thea gave this some thought. The top of the village was almost half a mile away. Surely she hadn’t been shouting at the dog for more than a minute? If this was so, Isabel Stacey had just broken the world record for the half-mile. Obviously, she exaggerated. Or perhaps she was very much fitter than Thea had first assumed.