Crisis in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Sounds exciting,’ said Thea. ‘I don’t think anyone believes it’s really like that.’

  ‘I hope not, because it isn’t.’

  ‘So, you get a decent night’s sleep, then. That’s good.’

  ‘Generally speaking, yes. We’re not like junior doctors, anyway. And even they get more sleep than people think.’

  They were back at the house, with Hepzie reluctantly trailing after them. ‘It would be good to meet your husband,’ said Caz hesitantly. ‘I’ve heard such a lot about him. He’s a bit of a local celebrity, according to the super.’

  Thea laughed. ‘He won’t like that.’

  ‘In a nice way. People like him.’ She stopped, with a look of embarrassment.

  Thea quickly grasped its import. ‘More than they like me, I suppose. I’m the busybody who can’t look after a house without letting a murder happen somewhere just down the road. Don’t worry – I know all about my own reputation. That’s mainly why I stopped doing the house-sitting.’

  ‘That’s not at all what I’ve heard.’ Again she stopped. ‘But if he’s busy, I can leave it for now.’

  ‘He might be. And I ought to be getting everybody some supper. There are funerals to arrange – always lots to do.’ The words sounded corny and hollow in her own ears, but she sincerely hoped the woman would not hang around any longer. ‘I’m sure we’ll meet again soon,’ she added.

  Drew was tousled and unmistakably stressed when she went back indoors. ‘Linda Biddulph’s cancelled the burial,’ he blurted, the moment he saw her. ‘There is no way she’s going to risk a confrontation at the graveside.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘She can’t do that,’ said Thea breathlessly. ‘Didn’t she sign an agreement or contract or something? What will she tell Lawrence?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nope. No contract. That’s not the way it works. A funeral’s too final – you have to get it right first time.’

  She had heard him say this several times before. The logical implication had to be that families could change their minds right up to the last minute. Not that anybody ever did – until now. ‘She’s insane,’ she said. ‘What difference is it going to make? Lawrence has got to know eventually that he’s got half-brothers. I still can’t see why it matters so much.’

  ‘No.’ Drew was thoughtful. ‘I think there must be more to it than she’s told us. She sounded really scared at the very idea of seeing Clovis and his mother.’

  ‘Not to mention Luc. Does Linda know he’s in a wheelchair, I wonder? Did his father hear about his accident when it happened? The weirdest part is that Lawrence never knew there was another Biddulph family, not so far away. Surely somebody would have mentioned it? In a shop or bank or something – they’d say “Oh, I know a Biddulph, lives – wherever it is. Any relation I wonder?” Wouldn’t that arouse his curiosity?’

  ‘It might. But his mother would fob him off with some story about third cousins, or the “Stoke-on-Trent Biddulphs” who come from a completely different family.’

  ‘I bet she and Stephen always made a big thing of him being the only son. Inheriting the house and any other stuff they might have. So now she’s got to admit she told him a pack of lies all his life, and that frightens her. She probably thinks he’ll never speak to her again.’

  ‘She might be right.’

  ‘With that wife of his, it’s fairly likely, I guess.’

  ‘So, what are we going to do?’ She knew how concerned he must be at losing the funeral. If the news got out, it would reflect badly. But, of course, Linda Biddulph would do all in her power to prevent the news from getting out.

  ‘She might think again, with any luck. She liked the place so much, when I took her to see it. She was in raptures about it – couldn’t wait to tell Lawrence all about it.’

  A thought rendered Thea silent. Other flimsy floating notions were coming faintly into focus. ‘When did you take her to see the field?’

  ‘Oh – I don’t know. The day she came to arrange the funeral, wasn’t it? Oh, actually, no, it was the day before that. Wednesday. She didn’t have time to come to the office, so I met her at the field so she could have a look at it first. We were only there ten minutes, at most. Then she drove off, and came back on Thursday to make the arrangements. That was when she told me about keeping it all secret.’

  ‘And you had your moral dilemma,’ Thea nodded. ‘Seems a long time ago now.’

  ‘It certainly does.’

  ‘But that wasn’t when you saw Juliet, was it? What time was Linda there? Did you go back again later that same day?’

  ‘Steady on, officer. Don’t I get to have my legal rights read to me first?’

  ‘Shut up. Listen – do you think Juliet might have seen Linda? Maybe she knew her, as well. She knew Luc, after all.’ She nibbled her lower lip in an effort to straighten her thoughts. ‘No, that doesn’t work. There’s no reason why Linda should have anything to do with the Paxford Centre. For all we know, she’s never even met Luc or Clovis.’ She sighed. ‘Sorry. I’m getting carried away, trying to connect everybody up.’

  ‘There was no sign of Juliet when Linda was there. It was roughly two o’clock, at a guess. I came back here for a couple of hours, and then went down again to mark Mr Fleming’s plot for Andrew. That was when I saw her. She came through that gate into the upper field, looking quite shy, and asked me if I liked being an undertaker. I’ve told you all this already.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that bit,’ she said mildly.

  He shrugged and the stressed look intensified. ‘What am I going to do? I’ve got Mr Biddulph here all coffined up. All the paperwork’s done. I’ve never had a situation like this before.’

  ‘I don’t see why you have to do anything. It’s all up to her and Lawrence, surely? She’ll find another undertaker, who’ll be happy to use your coffin, I imagine. You charge her for that and wasted time, and anything else you can think of, and wash your hands of the whole family.’

  ‘Meanwhile, there are three people camping in my burial field,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Oh yes.’ She was jolted into a new line of thought. ‘I could go down and tell them, if you like.’

  ‘They won’t believe you. They’ll think it’s a ploy to get rid of them.’

  ‘I’ll convince them,’ she said with groundless confidence. ‘They seem to quite like me.’

  ‘You mean you like them. But I can’t imagine you can make anything worse, and we owe it to them to give it a try.’

  ‘Do we? Why do we owe them anything?’ She gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘The sons, I mean. Doesn’t it strike you that all three of them have been treated like pawns in some horrible adult game? The father and his two wives, fighting over something we don’t understand, and keeping the brothers apart from each other all their lives?’

  ‘Yes – but it’s Lawrence who suffered most, not the others. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Not really. Seems to me it works both ways equally. If that’d been me, and my dad went off and had other kids, pretending I never existed, I’d have been … very upset.’

  ‘You were going to say “devastated”,’ she teased him. They both regarded that particular word as forbidden, on the grounds of serious overuse.

  ‘But I didn’t. Anyway, the point remains. It’s an outrageous thing to do.’

  ‘I agree. But Stephen must have been the one to insist on it. It’s all his fault, and now he’s dead everybody has to try and make the best of it.’

  ‘Which they’re not really doing, are they? They’re digging the hole deeper by the day. Or Linda is.’

  Thea gave a little moan. ‘Let me go and talk to them. Maybe they’ll make me a cup of tea and explain the whole story.’

  He waved an impatient hand in her direction, sweeping away the whole Biddulph family. ‘Are we having any supper today?’

  ‘Any other wife would tell you to answer your own question – but I’m far too nice for that.’

&
nbsp; ‘It’s my Achilles heel,’ he said. ‘Not only do I like to eat, but I like someone else to get it ready for me. So do my deplorable children. I realise this is desperately unfair.’

  ‘It is. But I’ve got a really nice salad practically ready. Scotch eggs, cold chicken, pickled onions – everybody’s favourites.’

  ‘How?’ he demanded. ‘When you’ve been out all day?’

  ‘Magic,’ she told him. ‘Go and see what they’re doing, and say it’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.’

  Alone in the kitchen she ransacked the back of the fridge, and its thinly filled salad drawer. There were tomatoes and beetroot in there. The scotch eggs were about to achieve their sell-by date, and the cold chicken had been bought for the Coopers’ visit and then somehow overlooked. There was also a small and rather dry remnant of the previous day’s roast. ‘Too much meat,’ she muttered to herself, before she remembered that she and Stephanie had sown some lettuces in pots on the patio, and one at least had grown big enough to provide a few leaves.

  ‘Home-grown lettuce,’ she announced, when everyone turned up at the appointed moment.

  Stephanie squealed in protest. ‘You can’t pick them yet.’ Thea remembered that the child’s mother had been an avid gardener, selling produce in a local market and knowing precisely when to sow and when to reap.

  ‘It’s just a few outer leaves,’ she soothed. ‘Not the whole plant.’

  ‘Yummy,’ said Drew, having nibbled one of the tiny offerings.

  They ate dutifully, and Thea thought about the thousands of meals she was going to have to prepare in the coming years, until Timmy was eighteen and finally left home. She was completely determined that both children would leave home at or about eighteen, albeit only for about thirty weeks of each year for a while.

  She remembered her own mother sighing about ‘the endless bloody meals’ that her life consisted of. Not given to swearing as a rule, the demands made on the mother of four children were never fully accepted. And then Jocelyn, her younger sister, had produced five, who presumably all wanted regular food. Even if they could cook and wash up, and make their own beds (did anyone actually make beds these days?), and feed the pet guinea pigs, somebody still had to buy the raw materials and pay for them, and generally keep track of it all.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, pushing back her chair. ‘You won’t be needing me for an hour or so, will you? I’ll be back for bedtime.’ She looked at Drew hopefully: he hadn’t put them to bed for a few nights now.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ he said, with a smile that looked effortful. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Where’s she going?’ asked Timmy of his father.

  ‘To talk to some people. I should really be doing it, but Thea’s probably going to make a better job of it.’

  The little boy appeared to be considering a further string of questions, and then to change his mind. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Did Maggs and Den get home all right?’ asked Stephanie, who worried about road accidents.

  ‘I’m sure they did,’ said Drew.

  ‘But you don’t know for certain?’

  ‘We’d have heard if they didn’t. Maggs had some funeral work to see to today. If she hadn’t shown up, the people would have phoned me to ask where she was.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘That’s enough, Steph. You can get down now and go and finish that homework.’

  As a last-minute thought, Thea invited her dog to go with her to the burial field. The brief run a couple of hours before had barely been enough. And the company would be nice. They set off together on the short walk that was becoming extremely familiar, and in only a few minutes were at the entrance to the field.

  The camper van was still there, nestled into the hedge on the farthest side. Again, there was no sign of life until she got closer. Then she heard voices, and found the little family on camping chairs out of sight behind the vehicle. At least they’re being discreet, she thought. Hepzie bounded up to them, tongue lolling, tail wagging.

  ‘Hello, nice doggie,’ came a female voice. ‘And what’s your name, then?’

  ‘She’s called Hepzibah,’ said Thea, still fleetingly proud of the inspiration that had chosen something so distinctive, seven or eight years before. She looked at the three faces, noting how similar two of them were. Clovis Biddulph looked very like his mother. Something about the deep-set eyes and convex brow matched an instinctive aesthetic appreciation that conferred an impression of beauty on them both. Kate was grey-haired and weathered, but her bones would never change. Her long neck and well-defined jaw was also echoed in her son. ‘Isn’t he like you!’ she breathed, in spite of herself.

  ‘So they say.’ She smiled, not at Clovis, but at her other son. ‘And Luc’s very like his dad.’

  Clovis was giving Thea one of his looks, which she was doing her best to avoid. He stood up and took a step closer to her. ‘We didn’t expect to see you again this evening,’ he said.

  ‘No. Well … I’ve got something to tell you. Drew says you won’t believe me, but—’

  ‘Try us,’ he invited.

  ‘Drew called Linda and told her you were here. He had to, you see. She’s his client. He’s answerable to her. And he’s worried about the funeral going wrong. Anyway,’ she ploughed on as they all silently attended to her words, ‘she said she’s cancelling the whole thing in that case. The burial’s off. Some other undertaker’s going to have to do it. So your being here is for nothing. You might as well go.’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Kate. ‘But I’m not sure I believe her. What if it’s all bluff? She’ll wait till your husband calls back to say we’ve gone, and then carry on as planned. Look – the grave’s there now. She’ll have to pay you for wasted time. And from what I know of young Linda, she’s not one to waste anything, least of all money.’

  ‘He’s not going to call her back,’ said Thea, not at all certain that this was true.

  ‘She’ll call him, then. They can’t just leave it up in the air, can they? Stephen died nearly a week ago now, and I know you don’t go in for embalming. To put it as delicately as I can – there’s an issue here about time. I also know that undertakers in this country are nearly always booked up at least a week ahead – more often two weeks.’

  ‘That’s not quite right,’ said Thea. ‘There’s always something early or late in the day that can be fitted in at short notice.’

  ‘For their mates, maybe. Not some hysterical female who can’t make up her mind.’

  ‘Ma’s right,’ said Luc. ‘And why does it matter so much to bloody Linda, anyway? What’s she so scared of? That’s the bit I can’t understand. Never have been able to. What’s so terrible about us, that we have to be kept such a secret, even now that our father’s dead?’

  ‘It’s just a stupid sort of pride,’ said Kate. ‘Women as a rule don’t like to be the second wife. They think it demeans them somehow. So she’s always pretended to everybody that she was Stephen’s one and only.’

  ‘I’m a second wife,’ said Thea. ‘I can’t say it bothers me.’ But even as she spoke she knew it wasn’t strictly true. She had never met Karen Slocombe, but never forgot that she had known and loved Drew for ten years or more, and was therefore both senior and superior in ways that could never be expunged.

  ‘How do you know so much about Linda?’ asked Clovis of his mother. ‘You’ve never said any of this before.’

  ‘I have my spies,’ she said with a laugh. Then, when nobody even smiled, she elaborated. ‘You probably don’t remember your father’s Aunt Etty? She died a couple of years ago, in her nineties. Until then, she often visited Steve and Linda. Well, she always liked me, and we’d get together every now and then for a gossip. She disapproved of Linda, especially keeping such a secret from her boy, but she blamed Stephen for it mostly. He doted on the boy, you know. Spoilt him, really. Kept telling him he was the best thing that ever happened to him, and how like himself he was. Not just in looks but interests and abilities – the whole
package. So according to Etty, the very idea of other sons would have shaken Lawrence to the foundations.’

  ‘So that’s why Linda’s so terrified of him finding out,’ said Thea.

  ‘Pretty poor show for me and Luc,’ said Clovis. ‘Disowned so completely by our father.’

  ‘Probably healthier in the long run than being so overprotected, like Lawrence was,’ said Kate.

  ‘Was Etty the sister of the French grandmother?’ asked Thea, trying to construct a family tree in her head.

  ‘No, no. She was Stephen’s father’s sister. Henrietta, to be precise.’

  ‘I do remember her, actually,’ said Luc. ‘Very frizzy hair and a long chin. Wasn’t she my godmother?’

  ‘Good God, I think she was,’ said Kate. ‘I’d quite forgotten that. You went to stay with her for a few days when you were twelve.’

  ‘She let me sort out her stamp collection,’ Luc reminisced. ‘She said she’d leave them to me – but I suppose she never did.’

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ Kate admitted. ‘She probably sold them ages ago.’

  ‘So,’ said Thea, aiming for a decisive tone, ‘what’s going to happen now?’

  ‘Nothing this evening,’ said Clovis quickly. ‘We can’t up sticks now. We’ll see what’s what in the morning.’

  ‘Lovely time of year for camping,’ said Kate. ‘Dawn chorus and all that. No sign of rain for days yet, apparently.’

  Which sent Thea’s thoughts rushing off to the Spillers, Mr Fleming and his early morning burial. She wondered whether Luc Biddulph knew Nancy Spiller, and whether she dared ask him. A pattern or network was coming into focus, more all the time. Or, more accurately, it was as if a drawstring were being slowly closed, pulling all the disparate individuals together into a picture that really ought not to include them all. At the centre was Juliet Wilson, known to them all, and killed violently by somebody who could so easily be one of the people Thea had spoken with over the past few days.