Death in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  I had given it no further thought, which I realised now was due to a difficulty I had in reconciling my perception of Gaynor’s character with the intense cut and thrust of an evening playing bridge. The Gaynor I knew did not have the wits or the stamina for such an activity. Rather than adjust my assessment of her personality, I had chosen to pretend it wasn’t happening. I had never asked myself about the skills involved, simply assuming that people’s attitudes to card games were formed in childhood. If their father sits them around a table after supper and teaches them three-card brag or whist or Texas Hold’Em, then they’ll have the habit for life. It’s a social skill, after all. One that I didn’t possess.

  But it seemed unlikely to me that Gaynor’s restrictive Welsh parents would have introduced her to cards. It had never occurred to me to ask her where she’d picked it up, and what it was she liked about it.

  ‘Better get on,’ Oliver said, still rather pale. ‘Could you drop in on Gran sometime tomorrow? I’m not going to get there before the weekend, and she’s going to want the sheets changing. She said something about winter curtains yesterday, as well, if you can face it.’

  I nodded. ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I like changing curtains.’ The sad thing was that this was nothing less than the honest truth.

  ‘It’s dreadful about Gaynor,’ he said, as if suddenly remembering what I’d told him, and still not quite understanding it. Then he said a very surprising thing. ‘But somehow, she’s absolutely the sort of person that would happen to, don’t you think?’

  My head jerked back before I could stop it. It was a terrible thing to say. ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘How could you think that?’

  He put up the hand that wasn’t holding the briefcase. ‘Sorry. My mistake.’ His face screwed up. ‘But – it’s true, Ari. She was always so compliant, don’t you think?’

  ‘That’s no reason for somebody to kill her,’ I defended.

  ‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘You’re right. Of course it isn’t.’

  I couldn’t properly grasp how I stood with the police, or with Phil Hollis, my longtime friend as well as Detective Superintendent – or with his girlfriend, Thea. It felt as if the facts refused to fit into any existing pattern. Rules were being flouted, because ordinary human relationships overturned them. Phil was on leave and had settled his primary attentions onto Thea. The couple had come to this forgotten corner of the Cotswolds to get to know each other, to test their feelings and take timid glances at the future. They had apparently met during a murder enquiry, some months earlier, and then found themselves embroiled in another during the height of the summer. It was obvious that Phil’s work was inevitably going to colour any long-term connection they might establish. From that point of view, the disastrous death of Gaynor had simply confirmed what they already knew. There would be no rest from crime and violence for Thea if she decided to take up with him permanently.

  But more apparent, and more immediately interesting from my viewpoint, was the extent of her involvement this time. The suspicion was slow to dawn on me, but I did eventually grasp that she was being used as some kind of minder. She was to keep an eye on me, draw me out, assess my capacity for homicide. Whether overtly requested by Phil, or simply filling in the empty time, she had taken this role upon herself. If I was a candidate for the role of killer, then it made sense for me to be watched. Not exactly tailed by a keen young Detective Constable, but kindly supervised by a friendly woman who refused to be drawn as to just what might be going on. The real surprise was that I didn’t have much objection to this. I was badly frightened, both by the sudden intrusion of death in all its uncompromising actuality, and by the perceptions of the police as to what part I might have played in it.

  It was reassuring to have Thea and Phil just across the street, for several obvious reasons. After all, tucked away behind the persistent image of Gaynor’s cold body was the knowledge that she had been deliberately slaughtered, like an animal, by a fellow human being. By a human being who was extremely likely to be somebody I knew.

  And there was one other thing: I was lonely. This last came as an unwelcome revelation when I went back to my little home. Those whom I called my friends were not really that. There was little true intimacy, and I could trust nobody to deal with this sudden crisis. On a psychiatrist’s couch, faced with the need for a quick answer, I would probably have named Gaynor as my second closest friend after Stella. And, if pushed further, I might have given Phil Hollis as the only man I could ever have completely trusted.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  My phone went twice in the hour after I got home, and I answered apprehensively, wondering what further trauma there might be in store for me. The first was my mother, trying to keep reproach and concern out of her voice as she asked about what had happened.

  ‘How did you hear about it?’ I asked her.

  ‘It was on Three Counties radio just now.’

  ‘What? Did it give Gaynor’s name?’

  ‘No, but it talked about the Barrow, and I knew it was close to you – and you’d be having Samhain ceremonies there next week.’ She mispronounced it, as always, saying it as it’s spelt, instead of “Sow-en” as it ought to be. I swear she did it on purpose, at the same time being keen to show me that she kept up with my activities like a good mother should. But she was wittering on. ‘At first I thought it might have been you that was killed.’ Her tone was entirely level, stating facts, wanting facts in return.

  ‘I found her,’ I said. ‘It was a big shock.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to call and tell us?’

  ‘I probably would have done at some point.’ She didn’t need to be told that she was not first on my list of possible comforters. My mother and I had never been very good at adhering to the stereotype. She had reared me efficiently and without undue difficulty. We had even enjoyed each other much of the time. But the apron strings had been long and loose, and although I continued to live with them until I was nearly thirty, we were by then pretty thoroughly detached. I wondered, sometimes, what would happen if either of us became helplessly disabled, needing full-time care. The idea of being each other’s default caregiver was grotesque to us both – or so I believed. Maybe I was underestimating her.

  ‘I haven’t seen Gaynor for a long time,’ she said, with uncertain relevance. ‘Was she all right?’ It seemed an odd question, as if being murdered was a reasonable outcome after an illness or a period of mental instability.

  ‘She was fine. She’d done some brilliant knitting for me lately. Nothing special happening.’ I scrambled for something more meaningful to report and found nothing.

  ‘I heard she’d had some trouble,’ she said slowly. ‘Only a week or two ago. Something about a stone through her window.’

  ‘Surely not.’ I dismissed it without even thinking. ‘She’d have told me. It can’t have been deliberate. Kids, probably.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said dubiously.

  I gave her a bland description of my interview with DI Baldwin, trying to make it sound like a mildly educational experience, touching none of my emotions.

  ‘Well, it’s a dreadful thing to happen,’ she concluded. ‘You’ll miss her. Come over any time – you know we’re here, don’t you?’

  It was unprecedented gesture, acknowledging the severity of the event and the effect it might have had on me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

  The next call was Kenneth, his second since Sunday morning. ‘We’ve arranged a special meeting for tomorrow,’ he told me. ‘Will you come? It’s at our place.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Ari, listen to me. You must be badly shaken. We understand that. We want to offer you a healing, a cleansing. Don’t turn your back on everything we stand for, now of all times.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to. What makes you think that?’

  ‘Well – when I phoned yesterday. You sounded—’

  ‘Ken, I was shocked. I didn’t know what I was saying. I agree
with you. I’ll be there tomorrow. What time?’

  ‘Seven. Verona can’t come, but the others will all be here.’

  Afterwards I wondered why he couldn’t understand that the best therapy would have been for him and one or two of the others to rush to my side, and encircle me with light and warmth and hope. That an appointed ceremony, with formal preparations and self-conscious attenders, was a much colder exercise than I needed. It smacked of church and detachment and unreality. The words and clothes would be chosen with far too much care. Some meaning would survive, but the visceral human urge to offer comfort and protection would be badly diluted by the delay.

  And then I had a visit that came closer to filling my needs. I’d drifted through the afternoon somehow, wondering if Thea would appear and force me to walk the dogs again. But she didn’t. I supposed she was trying to get Helen’s things into some sort of order.

  It was almost five o’clock and I had been thinking about getting up, feeding the cat and myself, and forcing myself to start getting knitwear ready for the Fair on Thursday. I almost didn’t answer the door, from some twisted notion of self-sufficiency, grudging the effort it would take to speak politely to whoever it was. For a stupid moment I thought it might be Gaynor and we were back into the realm of normality. But even before I was out of the chair, I knew it couldn’t be her.

  The familiarity of the face, despite a whole new hairstyle, prompted a rush of complicated feelings that left me paralysed. I simply stood there, staring blankly at her.

  ‘Can I come in?’ she said. ‘I’ve just heard the news.’

  The voice sparked my brain cells into action. ‘Gosh, Caroline. What a surprise.’ I let her in with a glance across the street. What in the world would Phil think if he saw his ex-wife paying me a visit?

  I took her into my front room and she sat down on the sofa. I could feel my insides churning, with a sick sense of apprehension. ‘Why?’ I blurted. ‘I don’t understand.’

  She launched into a rigmarole that sounded as if she’d rehearsed it. ‘I knew you were in Cold Aston with Auntie Helen, of course. And I knew…the girl who died…was your friend. I called Paddy at the police station, and he told me you’d found the body. It must have been so horrible for you, and they don’t ever give enough attention to the person who finds the body, do they? It sounds barmy, probably, but I’ve been thinking about Emily ever since I heard. You know how that friend of hers, the American girl, found her, and then got sidelined in the mayhem that followed. I always felt bad about that. The poor girl, none of it was her fault, and yet it must have scarred her for life.’

  She was saying such nice things to me, but her eyes told a different story. They were full of pain and suspicion. It was as if she needed to test me, to offer sympathy just to see what I’d do with it.

  There was a lot of history between me and Caroline. Twelve years my senior, she had watched me grow from a coltish teenager into something more assured and decisive. I remembered, with a rush, how sweet the friendship had once been between us, playing with the children, Caroline talking to me as if I was the same age as her. Then I had hurt her at a time when she was already dreadfully wounded. I had done it almost casually, which made it very much worse. It wasn’t possible that she had been thinking fondly of me now.

  But I chose to play her game, whatever it was. ‘It’s nice of you to come,’ I said, making the effort to focus on what she had just told me. Her continuing links with the Gloucestershire police surprised me. Her new husband, Xavier Johnson, had nothing at all to do with the Force, as far as I was aware. ‘How is Paddy, by the way?’ I remembered him affectionately – Phil’s partner on the cars for ages. A big fair-haired man, with an understanding smile.

  ‘He’s all right, I think. Of course, he’s always been fond of you.’ Her eyes roamed my room restlessly as she chose her careful words. The strangeness of seeing her again was compounded by the situation. My friend dead, and the people I had once counted my most beloved both here in Cold Aston all of a sudden.

  ‘You knew Phil was here, at Greenhaven, did you?’ I asked her. ‘With his new girlfriend? They’re having a little holiday while they sort out Helen’s things at last.’

  ‘I did hear something, yes.’ She betrayed no curiosity about Thea, and yet her tension almost made the air crackle. ‘So why’s he at work? Paddy said he was doing a lot of the interviewing.’

  ‘I suppose because it’s all happened right under his nose, and Thea – that’s the girlfriend – says it’s also because he knows me, and I found Gaynor.’

  She flinched at the mention of Gaynor’s name and her hands automatically gripped each other. I had been in the kitchen when she knocked, the light in the main room off. Now I switched it on, showing Caroline clearly for the first time. She looked older than I remembered, but more poised and confident. She had lost some weight and seemed fit. Her hair was a rich nutty colour, cut in a clever layered shape that ought to have taken years off. But somehow it just made her look like a fairly affluent middle-aged woman. She wore three or four rings, one of them a clunky thing on her right hand. I remembered the new husband and supposed it was only natural that a woman would adopt a new image to mark the change of partner.

  She looked around the room. ‘Still knitting?’ she observed. Although I tried to keep all the wool and equipment in the back room, things would persist in creeping through to the front.

  ‘Yup,’ I said. ‘Me and Gaynor.’ I had a perverse urge to repeat my dead friend’s name over and over, to summon her into the room and not let her be forgotten.

  It was still unclear to me why Caroline had come. ‘Do you want some tea?’ I offered.

  She got up, apparently to follow me into the kitchen. ‘That’d be lovely,’ she said. Then she went to the front window, exactly as Gaynor had done on Saturday. And somebody else in the past day or two had done the same thing, too. For the moment I couldn’t remember who it had been. ‘It looks very cold and dark over there,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no power. They’re managing with an open fire and camping gaz and candles. They thought it was romantic at first but now they’re talking about trying to get the electricity connected.’

  ‘They’re here all week, did you say?’

  ‘That’s the plan. I expect they’ll leave at the weekend. Sunday, probably. They’ve got three dogs with them.’

  ‘Three!’

  ‘Two of his and one of hers.’

  ‘Baxter,’ she said softly. ‘Has he still got Baxter? I was fond of that dog.’

  ‘What sort is he?’

  ‘A Gordon setter. Big and beautiful and brainless.’ She sighed.

  ‘Sounds like one of them,’ I confirmed. ‘And a corgi with a long tail. Ridiculous creature.’

  She nodded. ‘Steve said something about that one. Funny the dogs people choose, isn’t it? Do you remember Mavis?’

  I shuddered and groaned. ‘How could anybody forget Mavis?’ I said, trying to laugh.

  ‘Dear old girl,’ said Caroline, with another sigh. ‘That all seems a lifetime ago now.’

  The reference to Steve had opened another window in my memory, too. Phil’s son, who I hadn’t seen since his sister had died, was another person lost to me. How rich my life had been, all those years ago, compared to what it was now. Steve and I had played ball games in the garden together many a time when he was nine or ten and I was in the habit of dropping round there any time I felt like it.

  I made the tea and showed Caroline some of the jumpers and hangings in the back room. She’d bought things from me once or twice when I first started serious knitting. ‘You’re so amazing with colours,’ she said, as if stating a plain fact. ‘Really clever.’

  ‘I’ll miss Gaynor. She did a lot of these things. She was a much better knitter than me.’

  ‘Gaynor had a lot of talent,’ Caroline said, with a rare straight look into my face, as if waiting for me to betray something important. And yet, she was the one who had just done that very t
hing.

  It took me a moment to catch up. ‘You knew her?’ Why had I assumed that the two had never met? Why was I so surprised? Why did I mind so much that Gaynor had never once mentioned Caroline to me, even when we’d been talking about Phil?

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said easily. ‘Quite well, as it happens.’

  ‘How? Why didn’t you say so sooner?’ My head was spinning. Did Caroline know that I had no idea of such a connection? Was she really playing with me, or did it just feel that way?

  She tapped a front tooth thoughtfully, giving a stellar performance but not quite hiding her agitation. ‘I’m not sure how we first met. Probably just bumped into her somewhere and got chatting. You know how it is around here. People just know each other.’

  This was true to some extent, but affluent middle-aged women from Painswick don’t generally form friendships with self-employed knitters from Stow-on-the-Wold on the basis of a casual meeting in the street. Then I remembered. ‘She knew your husband’s name,’ I said, the brief exchange coming back to me from Saturday. ‘But she never said she knew you.’

  ‘I know!’ She was triumphant. ‘It was through Xavier. His brother plays bridge. There’s a chap called Oliver Grover in the bridge club who does people’s accounts. Xavier took him on last year, on Gervase’s recommendation, when old Rupert Lack died. He came to the house a few times. The first time, he brought Gaynor with him, and she sat in the kitchen with me and we got chatting.’ The story contained too much detail to be spontaneous. She had rehearsed it, I was sure. The tone was just slightly off key, so it sounded exactly like a speech given by a clever actress in a well-written play. Fine in context, but just somehow wrong for the real world. But the information it contained demanded my attention.

  I stared at her, my insides forming into lumps. ‘When was that?’ I choked.