by Rebecca Tope
‘What?’ she said quietly.
‘Two men at the blanket stall. What do you notice about them?’
She was brilliant. Squatting down to fondle her dog, she managed to give the two a good long assessment without their noticing anything. Finally she stood up and turned her back to them.
‘In a relationship,’ she reported. ‘Definitely. One even touched the other’s bottom just then. Brave amongst all these gypsies,’ she added.
‘Huh?’
‘Aren’t they terribly homophobic? Or is that a myth?’
I had to think about it. I knew a fair few gypsies, all in secure marriages with huge numbers of children. ‘I’d say they prefer not to think about it,’ I concluded.
‘Well, that’s a gay couple, in my humble opinion,’ she insisted.
I’d been busying myself with the jumpers, hoping neither of the men would recognise me. They were twenty yards away at most.
‘Why? Do you know them?’ Thea went on.
I nodded. ‘That’s Oliver Grover – the one Gaynor fancied. And the other one’s in my pagan group. He’s married.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Thea. ‘Nasty.’
‘It’s totally unexpected,’ I said. ‘I can’t really believe it.’
Thea managed a few more glimpses before Oliver saw me and reacted by blushing. His fair skin turned the colour of a particularly successful madder dye, and he put out one hand blindly for Leslie. Not so much for comfort as in warning, I fancied.
‘Ariadne!’ Oliver said loudly. ‘I never dreamed we’d find you here.’
‘Thinking of buying a horse?’ I asked.
Leslie spun round, his face closer to the hue of old Cotswold stone; liverish in its yellowness. ‘But…’ he spluttered. ‘I thought you were—’
‘What? What did you think?’
Leslie mastered himself. ‘Well – too upset about Gaynor to cope with doing your stall. But it’s good to see you.’
‘You too,’ I smiled. ‘This is Thea. She’s staying in Cold Aston for a bit.’ I thought it best not to explain her connection with the SIO in the murder case, congratulating myself on my discretion.
Leslie glanced at Thea. ‘Yes, I saw you on Saturday evening,’ he nodded. ‘You were outside with the dogs – I noticed this one especially.’ He smiled at her for a second before transferring his attention to the dog. ‘Oh, isn’t she sweet?’ he cooed, bending to fondle the ridiculous spaniel ears. I was thunderstruck. Before my very eyes, the shy young husband had turned into a fully camped-up limp-wristed homosexual. It was bewildering.
Oliver kept a discreet distance. His colour had returned to normal and he had obviously persuaded himself that our encounter could be dealt with in a civilised manner. ‘Les,’ he said, in a tone of fond authority, ‘we’d better get on.’
‘Oh.’ Leslie straightened up. ‘Well, nice to meet you,’ he said to Thea. He gave me a little wave of farewell before catching up with Oliver, looking into his face exactly like the spaniel looked at Thea.
‘You seem rather shocked,’ Thea observed, when the men had gone.
‘Gobsmacked,’ I agreed. ‘I had absolutely no idea.’
‘So remind me exactly who they are and why this is so important.’
I did my best to explain. ‘I look after Oliver’s gran – Sally. I’ve known them for ages. Gaynor told me on Saturday that she thought Oliver might be interested in her. She had some dozy notion that they might get together. When Caroline came to see me, she let drop that she met Gaynor through Oliver, over a year ago. She said they were good friends, which I still find very peculiar. Sally then gave me some story about Gaynor getting him into trouble. I told Phil all this yesterday morning. Hasn’t he filled you in on any of it?’
‘I haven’t had much chance to talk to him since then,’ she said stoically. ‘Do you think Gaynor knew Oliver was gay?’
‘Apparently not. She could be very thick about that sort of thing. She had a sheltered life.’
‘Did she know the other one? What’s his name?’
‘Leslie. Vaguely. At least, that’s what I’ve always assumed. I’m not so sure now. She seems to have known a lot more people than I realised. Including Caroline, which is the weirdest of them all.’
‘You keep using that word. Everybody knows everybody vaguely.’
It sounded like a reproach. ‘That’s how it is,’ I said. ‘Friends of friends. You know the name, and one or two basic facts, but you hardly ever actually meet or talk. Although…’ I tried to grasp the flow of half-thoughts snaking through the back of my head.
‘Although what?’
‘I’m starting to wonder how well I really knew Gaynor. I think I might have got her wrong, somehow. You know,’ I laughed at myself, ‘I’ve always had this image of her sitting in her flat, just knitting, hour after hour. Maybe playing some music, or watching daytime television, but not seeing any people. I suppose it can’t really have been like that. She must have had more life than that. I’m finding things out that I never imagined.’
‘And she didn’t tell you about any of it?’
‘No,’ I said, feeling oddly wounded.
From somewhere close by a crescendo of shouts arose. It had been happening all day. Gypsies could be very loud, and in an animated discussion they would simply speak over each other, turning up the decibels to be heard. It was all quite good-natured, punctuated with great laughs. It added to the fizzy atmosphere of the Fair, but it made ordinary conversation difficult at times.
Underfoot the ground had turned to mud a good two inches thick. Sensible people were wearing boots, but a lot of young girls were picking their slippery way along the double row of stalls in high heels. The whole field sloped, so in places it was difficult to keep your footing.
‘Lucky you warned me to wear my boots,’ said Thea, as a girl of about twenty suddenly sat down heavily in the mud, her feet having skidded from under her. ‘Here,’ she said to the girl. ‘Let me pull you up.’
The winded young gypsy, in a fur-trimmed jacket and cut-off slacks, permitted herself to be hauled out of the mud and propped against my stall. She looked down at herself, twisting to see the damage to the back of her clothes. ‘Look at me!’ she squealed. ‘I’m filthy.’
‘It’ll brush off when it’s dry,’ said Thea.
The girl grumbled a bit more, and then turned her attention to me and my stall. I saw her giving my hair a critical examination. It was not the first time that day, and I’d already realised that it made me a misfit in gypsy circles. There was plenty of henna and artificial curl, but nothing as outrageous as my stripes. Then she fingered my wares. Again, I knew only too well that they stood out incongruously from the cheap synthetic clothes and furnishings on the other stalls. I’d brought all my brightest garments, including several waistcoats and scarves, and hats for children – but there was no disguising the handmade aspect. Handmade did not go down well in these circles. Nearly all my sales had been to affluent locals, who were definitely not Roma.
‘Well, thanks for helping me up,’ said the girl, and she went stiffly away down the hill.
Thea and I sold all but five jumpers and two wallhangings. The money weighed excitingly heavy in the leather pouch I’d put it in, even though half of it was cheques. The two gypsy purchasers had used cash, one woman paying for a scarf in pound coins and fifty-pence pieces. I expressed profound gratitude to Thea for forcing me to make the effort, and offered to stand her a cup of tea and a cake at the stall near the entrance, before we went home.
‘Better pack up first,’ she advised. ‘If we’re not going to be here to guard what’s left.’
That took five minutes. We put everything in my car that was sitting behind the stall, along with the dog. ‘Back soon,’ Thea told it, her voice all sloppy. ‘She doesn’t like being left on her own,’ she added to me as we walked away.
I made a sound that was no less sympathetic than I’d intended.
There was no tea tent or anything like it. The onl
y source of refreshment was a mobile caravan thing, sporting a lot of red flags and selling fizzy pop in garish colours. There was nowhere to sit to drink it, apart from a stretch of grass leading to the middle of the field where a few horses were tethered.
‘Hello!’ came a familiar voice at my elbow, as I stood wondering whether it was worth even getting a drink.
It was Daphne, and next to her was Pamela, the two of them reclined on the grass quite contentedly.
It was not a situation conducive to meaningful conversation. Thea was impatient to know whether we intended to buy some horrible drink or wait until we got back to Cold Aston. There were gypsy caravans all around, with dogs and irritable-looking people, glad that the long day was almost over.
Daphne seemed anxious to speak to me. She stood up and took hold of my arm. ‘Have you finished for the day? Did you sell much?’ she asked me.
‘Most of it’s gone,’ I said, absently.
Thea and Pamela nodded at each other, without much interest. Daphne raised her eyebrows, and Pamela explained that Thea had been at the evening class on Monday.
Without getting drinks, Thea and I hovered indecisively near the others. ‘I wasn’t going to come, after everything that’s happened,’ I said, thinking Daphne and Pamela might be curious, ‘but Thea made me.’ I gave her a friendly look.
‘Ari, Eddie’s here,’ said Daphne. ‘I saw him looking at a pony. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Why do anything?’ I asked blankly.
She folded her arms impatiently. ‘Think about it. Why would he want a pony? It must mean he’s taken up with some new woman who’s got kids.’
I did not really want to talk about the errant Eddie. For some reason, people would insist on telling me all their relationship troubles, despite my total lack of wise advice on the subject. Usually I couldn’t think of anything to say at all.
‘So?’ was all I could manage now.
Daphne flinched, and Pamela threw me a withering look. ‘It will upset the children if he marries again,’ Daphne whined. All I could do was shrug.
Thea showed more interest than I did. ‘Eddie’s your husband, is he? Ex-husband, I suppose I mean.’
‘That’s right,’ Daphne confirmed eagerly. ‘We separated a year ago, but we’re not divorced yet.’
‘He didn’t leave you for another woman, then?’
Daphne shook her head. ‘We had irreconcilable differences,’ she said, the words in invisible quotation marks.
‘It must have come as a shock, seeing him again.’ Thea was well into her stride by this time.
‘It was as if a spotlight was shining on him,’ Daphne said. ‘Picking him out from the crowd. I haven’t seen him for six months, and there he was, absolutely familiar. It’s terribly strange.’
‘Did he see you?’ I managed to ask.
‘No. I got away before he noticed me. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction,’ she added obscurely.
‘He was with a woman,’ Pamela said, speaking for the first time. ‘I’ve seen her before but I don’t know who she is.’
‘The right age to have pony-riding kids?’ I asked. The whole conversation was getting on my nerves. I very strongly did not care what Eddie Yeo might be getting up to. My question went unanswered.
‘She didn’t look as if she liked him very much,’ Pamela went on, impervious to the various looks we were giving her. ‘She was telling him off about something.’
Even Thea was on the verge of giving up. ‘Well, I expect you’ll hear what it was all about sooner or later,’ she said. Then she glanced at me, head sideways, clearly implying that she wanted to get back to her precious dog.
I wasn’t quite ready to leave. ‘Did you know about Leslie and Oliver Grover?’ I asked, rather loudly.
Daphne looked at me blankly, but Pamela gave a revealing giggle. ‘You saw them as well, did you? What a place to choose to turn up like that. I mean – these are all gypsies! They ought to know better.’
‘That’s what Thea said,’ I told them. ‘I thought it was funny, them being together.’
‘Funny! It’s disgusting,’ said Daphne.
‘So what about Joanne?’ I asked.
‘She left him, three or four weeks ago,’ Pamela said. ‘I don’t think Leslie wanted anybody to know at first, but her sister works with Kenneth, so we heard about it more or less right away.’
‘But I asked after her, on Saturday,’ I protested. ‘You never said anything then.’
‘How could I, with Leslie there?’ Pamela said scornfully. ‘It was up to him whether or not to tell us officially.’
Suddenly it felt as if everybody was deliberately hiding things from me. What were they so afraid of? What did they think I’d do? ‘But he said she was fine,’ I protested stupidly.
‘It’s delicate for him, I guess,’ said Pamela. ‘You didn’t know about it, did you, Daph?’ she asked her friend.
‘I’d have said something if I did,’ said Daphne. ‘He ought to be ashamed.’
Thea, not knowing these women at all, had to assess the nuances as best she could. She looked from one to the other, a little smile on her face, content to be out of the loop. Lucky her, I thought. I wanted to be in the loop, and was feeling as though I’d been deliberately excluded.
I had had enough. ‘Did either of you know that Gaynor and Oliver were friends?’ I demanded, looking from one to the other.
They blinked at me. ‘Yes, of course. You told us at the moot. You said she wanted us to see if we could…oh!’ Pamela grimaced. ‘Leslie was there, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, but I’m not interested in that for the moment. Oliver’s gran told me that Gaynor had interfered with one of his clients, and lost him some business. Does that mean anything to either of you?’
Daphne made a little sound, as if a penny had clinked inside her head. ‘Oh, that’ll be to do with the Johnson man – Gervase, or whatever he’s called. It was months ago. I don’t know any detail, but it soon blew over, I think.’
I gave her a fierce look. ‘How did you hear about it?’
She drew away from me and flapped her hand as if I was a large persistent wasp. ‘It involved Eddie,’ she said reluctantly. ‘My kids were having one of their weekends with him when it happened. They came home with some garbled story about Oliver shouting at Gervase outside Eddie’s flat, when they were in bed. They were upset, so I phoned Eddie and made him tell me what it had all been about. He said it had all been Gaynor’s fault, and I should take my complaints to her. She’d told Gervase that Oliver couldn’t handle his accounts as he’d promised, because he was going to be busy with her. All a complete fuss about nothing.’
I put my hand to my forehead, trying to make some sense out of so many random scraps. Caroline had said something about Gervase Johnson knowing Gaynor, hadn’t she? It sounded like something she would do, getting the story wrong, failing to understand when she should keep her mouth shut. But the biggest element in the story was the idea that she should tell someone she came first with Oliver. That had to be pure fantasy on her part.
Then, by a sudden consensus we all got up to go. ‘They’re both pagans, right?’ said Thea, as we got out of earshot. ‘In your group.’
‘Mmm,’ I confirmed.
‘I thought so. Pamela was wearing a necklace with a five-pointed star on it. I assume she isn’t a Freemason, so it must be a pagan thing.’
‘There you go again,’ I said crossly. ‘Making it sound as if Masons and pagans are the same thing.’
‘Sorry,’ she said insincerely.
In the car, with the dog wobbling about on her lap, she asked about Daphne and Pamela again. ‘This Eddie,’ she said, ‘did he know Gaynor? It sounded just then as if everyone knows everyone around here.’
I spoke without thinking. ‘Vaguely, I suppose, yes.’ Thea’s laugh surprised me for a moment. ‘Oh,’ I realised. ‘Another vaguely. But it’s true, all the same. He might have met her at my place when he was still with Daphne. I hav
e a lot of people over two or three times a year, in the garden mostly. We have a barbecue and dance about a bit.’
‘Should we say something to Phil? About him being here unexpectedly, I mean? His wife seemed to think it was out of character.’
It took me nearly a minute to follow her line of thought, and even then I didn’t think I could have got it right. ‘You mean Eddie Yeo might have killed Gaynor?’ I looked at her, slowing the car. ‘But he’s on the square,’ I protested idiotically. ‘A Freemason,’ I explained, seeing her blank look. ‘The same as Oliver.’
She laughed, a single huff of shocked amazement. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said.
I had to think about that. My remark had surprised even me, but when I examined it, I found it did accurately reflect my feelings. Masons might be a bit daft, with a lot of delusions about their own status and influence, but they were essentially benign. Just because I didn’t want to associate with them didn’t mean I hated them the way Daphne did. They raised money for charity, they helped each other and talked a lot about making the world a better place. But more than that, they never really did anything. That had been one of Daphne’s strongest criticisms. They talked and pranced about, and wore dopey symbolic clothes and jewels, and learned pages and pages of pseudo-Egyptian gibberish – but they were, in my image of them, incapable of doing anything as energetic as killing somebody. I tried to say some of this to Thea.
‘But we’re not talking about them as a group,’ she objected. ‘Just two individuals, who happen to be Masons. That probably isn’t at all relevant to what happened to Gaynor. Although…’ she hesitated. I wondered how much she’d been told about the way Gaynor’s body had been arranged in the Barrow, and how tempting it had been to read symbolic significance into it.
‘What?’ I prompted.
‘Nothing, really. It’s just that we do seem to come back to the Freemasons rather often, don’t we?’