Crisis in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I don’t mean all the time. But when there’s been a death, and you get involved, it consumes your interest until it’s resolved. That’s how you’ve been since I met you. I’m not complaining. I’m glad you’ve got something to occupy you.’

  ‘Den’s been talking to you,’ she realised. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing much. Just that you seemed to have a knack for detective work, and there was probably a place for you with the police, if they could get around all the bureaucracy. Which they probably can’t, of course.’

  ‘That’s not new. We’ve talked about that already.’ She had a sense of impending reproach, despite his claim to be pleased. ‘I know you’d rather I was doing more with the funerals. I’ve let you down. I should probably try again, but I don’t think I’ll ever get it right.’

  ‘You’ve done those visits to the hospice. That went well.’

  ‘Mm. I don’t mind when it’s an old person who accepts that they’re dying. I like them. It’s the younger ones where I can’t seem to strike the right note.’

  ‘I’m not complaining,’ he said again, more firmly. ‘Stop rubbishing yourself. You’re nowhere near as cold and callous as you seem to think. I married you, didn’t I?’ he ended impatiently. ‘I still can’t believe my luck. But let’s not start analysing all that.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ she interrupted. ‘You started it, anyway.’ She gave him a playful smack, deliberately acting like a child.

  ‘I didn’t mean to. Have you said anything to Gladwin about this Rogers person?’ He took a deep breath and sat up straighter. Thea had the impression that he was making a big effort to steer them into safer waters, entirely for her sake. She could not shake off the feeling that she had been letting him down for at least the past few days, if not for much longer.

  ‘Not yet. I expect she knows all about him, anyway. And Rosa must have given her blessing, I suppose. I don’t know what the rules are, if any. Would they ever have let Juliet get married, I wonder?’

  ‘They’d have to, I think. If she was able to handle a job, she must have had quite a lot of autonomy. Did the boyfriend say anything about that?’

  Thea shook her head. ‘I don’t really think he was a boyfriend in any serious sense of the word. It was probably just a sort of game between them.’

  Drew frowned. ‘Tricky business. What if he really did think he could marry her, and lashed out when she told him otherwise?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Thea with conviction. ‘Besides – what about the tracking thingy, giving him an alibi?’

  ‘Ah yes.’

  ‘And while we’re at it, I forgot to mention that Lawrence Biddulph turned up this morning as well. He’s got wind of something murky in the family broom cupboard and wanted me to enlighten him. I didn’t even let him in, because I was cooking. He was quite annoying, actually. And I dare say he thought the same about me. He might complain.’

  Drew passed a melodramatic hand across his brow. ‘I don’t want to know. The Biddulphs can all wait until Tuesday. They’re not paying me enough to worry about them at a weekend.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ she applauded.

  They went quiet, Thea suspecting that Drew had been humouring her by engaging in talk about the murder case. She was grateful, as well as sorry that his interest was so shallow. After all, wasn’t that normal for married couples – for each to devote attention to topics they had little real time for? It was part of the give and take of couplehood.

  He was evidently reading her mind. ‘I really am involved, you know,’ he said. ‘They found Juliet right next to my land. The graves are sure to be part of Gladwin’s investigation. One of my people found the body.’

  ‘And you might have been the last person to see her alive,’ said Thea, without compunction. ‘Don’t forget that. You’re more involved than me, when it comes down to it.’

  ‘No need to remind me. It’s not the first time, is it? Not by a long way. I’m surprised Maggs didn’t say anything about the body we found in Peaceful Repose, before we were even open.’

  ‘That’s a long time ago now. She’s probably forgotten.’

  ‘And then again here. Right at the start, a bloke got killed just after Greta’s burial.’

  ‘And they thought you might have done it,’ she finished for him. ‘The first time I laid eyes on you, you were a murder suspect. Fate had designs on us from that moment on.’

  ‘But I still don’t find it exciting, or challenging, or something I want to get into. Which is where we’re different, you and I.’

  ‘And where we were half an hour ago,’ she said. ‘We’ve gone round in a big circle.’

  He pulled her to him. ‘That’s okay. I like going round in circles with you, Mrs Slocombe. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.’

  She leant her head on his shoulder. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said, doing her utmost to believe him, and let it go at that. She managed it for two cosy minutes, before the mood cracked. ‘Gladwin’s sure to phone or visit tomorrow,’ she murmured. ‘I can tell her about Adam Rogers then.’

  Drew simply made a whistling sound between his teeth.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Monday dawned early, with birdsong and a ringing telephone. Drew answered it sleepily, walking around the bedroom as he listened to what was clearly a long story, finding socks and a clean shirt. Then he became more focused, rummaging for a pad and pen that normally sat on his bedside table. Night-time calls were rare – certainly far rarer than for a mainstream undertaker, but they did happen. Nursing homes in particular favoured them, hoping for removal of their dead resident before the others woke up. Drew was still trying to educate some of them into accepting that he and Andrew did not remove bodies outside normal working hours.

  But this was not a nursing home. Thea uncovered his notepad for him and handed him a pen. Then she watched as he wrote down a few words comprising a name and a phone number. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘Tell the hospital it’s me doing the funeral, and come over to arrange the details as soon as you like … The end of the week would be perfectly feasible, yes … Thank you very much … Yes, please. There’s only me, you see. We need to find a time when I’m not doing a burial. This afternoon or tomorrow after about two o’clock would be ideal … That’s right. Thank you.’

  ‘Anybody we know?’ asked Thea, trying to read the name on the pad.

  ‘Not the deceased, no. But that was Bernard Shipley, would you believe? His sister died and he wants one of our graves for her. Isn’t that amazing?’

  Bernard Shipley lived across the lane, and had become almost friendly towards them a few months earlier. The sister, however, was completely unknown to the Slocombes. ‘How funny. And what a time to phone! Has the sister got a husband or anything?’

  ‘Husband. Daughter. Another brother. She’s in the John Radcliffe. She had an aortic aneurism a week ago, and they thought they’d saved her, but she’d lost too much blood. No need for a post-mortem, apparently. The daughter’s got a long trip to Australia all booked for Saturday, and they couldn’t find anybody to do the funeral this week.’

  ‘Except you.’

  ‘Except me. Bernard’s been up most of the night trying to persuade the husband. He wanted a cremation, and there’s a wait of nearly three weeks.’

  ‘Scandalous.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good start to the week, isn’t it?’ she said cheerfully. ‘That’s three funerals booked.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Drew. ‘Busy, busy. Miss Cotton needs to come back tomorrow at the latest. She’s midday Thursday.’ He was speaking mainly to himself, using undertaker’s shorthand as he mentally reviewed his schedule for the week. Thea had just about learnt what it all meant.

  ‘Which gives you Wednesday to recover from the Biddulphs. I expect you’ll need it.’

  ‘Don’t.’ He shuddered. ‘It’s just the sort of funeral I can do without. Family complications, ancient feuds, secret
s and lies. It only needs another forgotten son to materialise, and we’ll have civil war.’

  ‘There sort of is another forgotten son,’ said Thea slowly. ‘Clovis has a brother, remember. The one in the wheelchair who had the accident. His name’s Luc, I remember now – probably spelt the French way, given the granny’s influence.’

  Drew groaned. ‘He’ll get bounced around dreadfully between the car and the grave. We had such beautiful paths in North Staverton. Maggs made them. It’s just bumpy grass here.’

  ‘Andrew can make paths, if you ask him. He should have done that months ago.’

  ‘We did mow it. It’s fine for normal walking. But there’s been a mole since then …’ He sighed. ‘Always something to worry about.’

  There was no time for further chat. The school bus wouldn’t wait; the dog needed to go out; the kitchen still wasn’t very tidy. For the thousandth time, Thea asked herself how they could possibly cope if she had a proper job. People did, of course, and compared to most, the Slocombes were criminally idle. Drew routinely had a few hours each day where nothing had to be done. Thea fitted in a lot of reading, walking, gardening and other pursuits generally associated with elderly retired people. But there were plenty of busy times as well – and Monday morning topped the list.

  It was all accomplished by half past eight, and Thea found herself with a mug of coffee, waiting for Drew to go into his office and leave her to her thoughts. She had no more to say to him for the time being. Instead, she wanted to think about Gladwin, Juliet and Clovis Biddulph, although not necessarily in that order. Where Clovis was concerned, she fully intended to give herself a very stern talking to, in light of the heart-to-heart she had enjoyed the previous day with Drew. She was married, and that demanded an exclusive devotion to her husband. To jeopardise their future together in any way at all would be extreme folly.

  At least, she mentally amended, in any way that lay within her own control. She could not change her basic nature. She could not quell her inclination to get involved in murder investigations. And, if she had understood him correctly, Drew was never going to ask her to.

  So where was Gladwin? How had they left it after the previous day’s rushed visit? How was the investigation proceeding? Despite an assumption that she was useful to the police, she had to concede that she was far from the centre of whatever was going on. She did not even know exactly how Juliet had been killed. She knew almost no details of the woman’s daily life, apart from a self-styled boyfriend and a devastated mother. If she simply let it go, would Gladwin leave her alone, excluding her completely? She had witnessed nothing, after all. Drew was closer to the action than she was – a realisation that she found irritating.

  The doorbell came as a welcome interruption. Surely it was Gladwin, or one of her team, back in Broad Campden and wanting her input. She pulled open the door and started to treat the visitor to a wide smile, before observing that it was a woman who she realised was Linda Biddulph, after two or three seconds. Mother of Lawrence, stepmother of Clovis.

  ‘Oh!’ said Thea. The Biddulphs were not welcome. They were not on that day’s agenda. They had nothing to do with anything and she didn’t want to talk to any of them. ‘You’ll want Drew. Come in and I’ll see if he’s free.’ She didn’t know what Drew was doing, but she had heard him speaking on the phone. She reminded herself that it was perfectly normal for relatives to come and go in the days before a burial – and sometimes they called in afterwards as well. ‘Is it about tomorrow?’ she added.

  ‘Not exactly. Lawrence tells me he came here yesterday and you were very rude to him.’ Her eyes were large, of a shade between brown and green. They fixed Thea with a very accusing gaze. ‘Didn’t I make it plain that he’s not to be upset? That he’s very vulnerable at the moment, and I’m doing my absolute best to protect him?’

  ‘You did, yes. To Drew, anyway. He was out when Lawrence came here, and I was preparing a meal for seven people. It was Sunday morning. We saw him with his wife and daughter on Saturday as well. I’m sorry if I upset him. I didn’t think I was being rude – but I honestly didn’t have anything I could say to him. It’s very inhibiting, you know, having to keep a secret from somebody like that. I hardly dared say anything at all.’ She stepped back, inviting the woman into the house. ‘Come and talk to Drew. He’s the undertaker, not me.’

  Mrs Biddulph was staring even more intently than before. ‘Saturday? He was here on Saturday? What on earth for?’

  Thea shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t remember now. Just having a look at the field, I think. His wife seemed to want to show their little girl the place where your husband was to be buried. I expect Lawrence was a bit worried about the police being there, with the body and everything. We met them up by the church. They’d been looking for us, but we were at the pub.’

  ‘Police?’ Linda blinked and frowned. ‘What body?’

  Thea was about to remark that surely Linda had seen it on the news, before remembering that a common part of grief following a death was a total lack of interest in the world outside. She found herself explaining patiently. ‘It was found very early on Saturday. The police were here all day, looking for clues and all that. But they were doing their best not to interfere with the burial field. They kept right to the other end from the graves.’

  ‘Who died? Some vagrant or something? And where was the body found?’

  ‘On the edge of the woods, across another field, beyond ours. It wasn’t a vagrant. Somebody we knew, in fact. And she was found by one of our mourners. Somebody who’d gone to sit by a grave. People do that a lot, you know.’

  Linda Biddulph shook her head. ‘This is dreadful. Poor Lawrence …’ She paused, before saying, ‘And Modestine was here as well, you say? What on earth were they thinking of? The child’s far too young for this sort of thing.’

  This woman had to be a control freak, Thea decided, despite having very scanty evidence. It felt as if nobody could make a move without her permission. So how had her precious son managed to marry and father a child, she wondered wickedly. The wife had seemed pretty assertive herself. Did the two women fight over the man? If so, the whole picture would start to resemble a cliché and become much less interesting.

  The question addressed to her was not as rhetorical as she had first assumed. Linda Biddulph repeated it.

  ‘Why did they come here without me on Saturday?’

  ‘I told you. I think it was to show your granddaughter where her grandfather was to be buried. Rather sensible, in my opinion.’

  ‘There’s absolutely no question of the child being at the funeral,’ asserted Linda. ‘The idea’s grotesque. She’ll go to school as normal. And how did that woman die, anyway? What happened to her?’

  ‘She was murdered,’ said Thea recklessly. ‘I don’t know how exactly, but she was a very sweet and innocent person, and whoever did it has done a truly appalling thing, wrecking a lot of people’s lives.’ She spoke with force, letting her outrage spill out, regardless of how it might be perceived.

  ‘And you know a good deal about murder, don’t you,’ muttered Linda.

  Thea was distracted and failed to respond to this remark. She had noticed movement across the lane, behind the shrubs that grew around the house. It was Mr Shipley, whose sister had just died, doubtless coming to see Drew. She waited for him to emerge into full view, and then stepping around Linda Biddulph, she called to him, ‘Are you coming here?’

  He paused on the driveway, and then shook his head. His car was close by, which was unusual. Normally he put it away in its garage after every trip. She couldn’t see his face very clearly, but he looked bowed and slow. She could hardly yell, ‘Sorry about your sister,’ across the lane. It was bad enough that she’d called to him at all. Instead she just waved, and returned her attention to the woman. ‘Busy morning,’ she said. ‘Sorry to keep you on the doorstep like this. You really ought to come in.’

  ‘Seems it’s a habit with you,’ snapped Linda. ‘Lawrence
said you did the same to him.’

  Thea silently counted to ten. ‘I know – it’s awful of me. People start talking and I just stand here letting them, instead of bringing them in. But you didn’t seem to want to. And with Lawrence, I was just so busy.’

  ‘Yes, you said. Cooking for seven people. Bully for you.’ She cast a critical eye over Thea, and said, ‘It strikes me you don’t do a lot of that sort of thing. Cooking, housework, ironing. All that’s a bit beneath you, isn’t it?’

  It was a direct attack, unprovoked and unfair. And it wasn’t the first time. Looking at Linda, Thea understood that once again her reputation was well known. The house-sitter who repeatedly found herself at the heart of a murder. The newspapers loved her, and when she had married Drew and set up the alternative burial service, they had really loved her. Drew had borne it well, saying it was good for the business. His children had been less sure. It meant everyone at their new school was fully aware of what their father did for a living – and not everybody wanted to associate with the family of an undertaker.

  ‘That’s a beastly thing to say,’ she defended. ‘You don’t know anything about my domestic life.’ She swallowed back any further protests. The woman was a customer, after all. She was newly bereaved, so allowances had to be made. It felt as if everybody she met was newly bereaved, over the past few days – even Bernard Shipley. And she, Thea, was horribly prone to saying the wrong thing, treading on sensitivities and causing offence. ‘But I admit I’m not terribly keen on housework,’ she finished with a feeble smile.

  ‘Right, then.’ Linda seemed discomforted, perhaps regretting her outburst. ‘I’d better go. I shouldn’t have come. It was silly of me. I’m just so jittery about tomorrow, you see. And the next day, when I’m going to have to tell Lawrence the whole truth about his father. I can’t leave it any longer. I have no idea how he’ll react.’ She fell silent, before looking up into the trees a short way down the lane. ‘Listen to those birds,’ she said. ‘Aren’t they wonderful?’