Trouble in the Cotswolds (The Cotswold Mysteries)

by Tope, Rebecca

  ‘Surely not! It isn’t a horse. They won’t have to feed it.’

  Gladwin laughed. ‘That’s true. In any case, I’d have thought you’d be desperate for it. Don’t you feel trapped there without it?’

  ‘I would if I wasn’t so poorly. And if it wasn’t raining. As it is, I have no desire at all to go out. It’s bad enough taking the dogs for a pee in the garden.’

  Again, sympathy was minimal. ‘Well, nobody’s forcing you, I guess. You must have known it’d be pretty bleak spending Christmas in a strange village.’

  ‘You’d think so,’ agreed Thea, aware that bleak didn’t even come close.

  ‘Well, I expect I’ll be seeing you before long. Me or Jeremy or one of the team. You’re sure to come in useful one way or another. After what you’ve just told me, we’ll have to come back and check for what’s missing, and secure the back door somehow. That Callendar woman has a cheek, I must say.’

  The reaction struck Thea as rather belated. ‘Absolutely,’ she confirmed. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She was arrogant and bossy and thinks herself above the law.’

  ‘Yes, you said that already. I can’t believe she really does think that. If so, somebody made a serious mistake in selecting her as a magistrate.’

  ‘She’s still the most obvious suspect for the murder, isn’t she?’ Thea knew such remarks were close to the edge of what she was allowed to say. Despite Gladwin’s frank admission of her usefulness, there were limits to how involved she was ever permitted to be.

  ‘There are laws about slander, character assassination, false witness and so forth,’ Gladwin warned her.

  ‘I suppose there are,’ Thea sighed. Then she remembered how Higgins had withheld the details of exactly how Natasha had died. An artery had been breached, resulting in a lot of blood – that was all she knew. ‘But whoever did it must have got blood on them, according to Jeremy,’ she persisted. ‘That must help.’

  ‘The pathologist and SOCOs rather knocked that one on the head. The blood flow wasn’t too drastic to begin with, but seems to have increased after she dragged herself into the front room. There’s no certainty that the killer would be bloodstained. Nearly all the blood went onto the living room floor, where people knelt and walked in it.’

  ‘Oh. That’s a pity. What about the weapon? Did you find it?’

  ‘No. A sharp knife with a point is all we know about it.’

  ‘But the fact that you can’t find it proves that this is a murder. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, Thea Osborne, it is. Now I’ll have to go. You sort out that car, okay?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Thea.

  She fully intended to obey the order, and had even picked up her phone and started to rummage in her bag for the card on which the AA’s number was printed. But before she could lay hands on it, she noticed a certain droopiness in one of the precious potted palms in the living room. Nothing had been watered since Friday, and now it was Monday. Gloria had been very clear about the needs of her indoor greenery. Not only did they need water, their leaves had to be wiped and sprayed with a fine mist of foliage nutrients. It was a central element in her tasks, and to neglect it would be almost as bad as letting the dog get its ear half torn off.

  She was not irresponsible, she insisted to herself. Admittedly, there had been times when she felt she knew better than the homeowners just what their animals and possessions required. And she had once or twice totally failed to keep said animals and possessions safe. Death and destruction had taken place here and there. But on the whole she had done as asked, and handed the property back more or less intact. Jobs that had looked simple sometimes turned out to have hidden complexities. The people themselves had not always been entirely honest with her. In some cases there turned out to be quite sinister reasons for employing a house-sitter in the first place.

  Dealing with the plants proved to be quite a pleasant chore. There were cheese plants, ferns, a rubber plant and numerous other things, in the living room, hall and on the landing halfway up the stairs. They inhabited handsome planters, some of which looked to be valuable antiques. There were few ornaments or pictures in the house – decoration relied almost entirely on the plants. The hall seemed rather dark for maximum plant health, until she worked out that they were all shade-loving things – ferns in particular. The aerosol containing the spray was surprisingly good fun to operate, and she persuaded herself that the leaves perked up within seconds, after her ministrations.

  Next, to prove conclusively that she was continuing to function, she went to refresh the rats’ food dish and give them some more bedding. Gloria had suggested mucking them out halfway through her stay, unless they got smelly before that. ‘People are far too obsessed with keeping their animals clean,’ she had said, rather to Thea’s relief. ‘If you change their nest every day, they never get to feel it’s home, I always think.’ In any event, the rats had plenty of space in the cage, without having to sit on top of their lavatory. All three of them cuddled up together made quite a big furry heap. One head was raised and a beady eye inspected her, as she carefully poured some more corn into their bowl. ‘I will let you out one evening soon,’ she promised guiltily. ‘As soon as I summon up the nerve.’ After what had happened to Blondie, her confidence had slumped to zero when it came to the rats.

  The window onto the back garden revealed a cessation of the rain, when Thea went to look. It remained a wet world, but there were no longer constant splashings in the puddles and pounding on the roof. Perhaps she ought to take Blondie out for a little walk, in her idiotic collar. The exercise would be beneficial and might make her feel more normal.

  ‘Not you,’ she told Hepzie sternly, and shut the spaniel in the living room.

  Blondie took some persuading, and once outside simply plodded miserably across the soaking grass without showing the slightest interest in anything. Her head hung down, as did her tail, and she kept her belly close to the ground. The collar kept catching on the grass and every time it did so, the dog stopped walking and simply stood patiently like a horse pulled up by the reins. Thea tried to encourage her, but the dripping trees were making her wet and it was colder than she had expected. After a few futile minutes, in which the dog showed no inclination to relieve itself or indulge in any meaningful exercise, Hepzie could be heard barking in the house. It was her bark that announced company, but Thea had not heard the door knocker. ‘Okay, then,’ she gave in to the Alsatian. ‘We can go back now, and see what’s happening.’

  Hepzie was yapping excitedly inside the living room door, and Thea almost forgot to confine Blondie to the kitchen before letting her own dog out. She had no way of telling whether someone was at the front door, but Hepzie seemed convinced. She flew at the door and started whining. ‘I hope this isn’t a false alarm,’ said Thea, and opened it slowly.

  On the step outside stood two people: a man and a small boy.

  ‘Hello,’ said Drew with his familiar wide smile. ‘I brought Timmy for a Christmas visit.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘It was Maggs’s idea,’ he went on, with a disarming lack of diplomacy. ‘She said Timmy was getting short changed just because he wasn’t poorly. She’s got Steph in bed with her, and Den’s running up and down with tempting morsels for them, while Tim and I came out for a drive in the rain.’

  ‘But how did you know where I was?’

  ‘Easy. Don’t forget what a good detective I am.’

  ‘The police tape, of course,’ said Timmy. ‘Across the house next door. Something bad happened there, didn’t it, Daddy?’

  ‘It seems so, son. Can we come in?’ He cocked his head at Thea and she felt herself filling up with relief and delight and amusement and …

  ‘Oh, it is nice to see you,’ she sighed. ‘You’ll never know how wonderful it is.’

  He met her eyes with a long open gaze of frank agreement with her sentiments. Then he glanced down at the child and laughed. ‘First, we want to see the rats,’ he anno
unced. ‘Tim’s always had a thing about rats, ever since Samuel Whiskers. Most kids find him rather scary, but not our Timothy.’

  ‘I used to have dreams about him.’ Thea blinked at the sudden memory. ‘I hadn’t given that a thought for nearly forty years. Dear me, now I feel really old.’ She probably looked quite old as well, and decidedly unattractive. She didn’t remember brushing her hair that morning, and felt frowsty after the restless hot-and-cold night. No way could she have faced a shower or a bath, but had simply dabbed herself here and there with a flannel. It hadn’t occurred to her that it would matter.

  The visitors waited to be escorted into the rats’ room, which was slowly accomplished as Thea told the sorry tale of Blondie’s troubles. ‘You do have bad luck with dogs, don’t you,’ said Drew, with a hint of reproach.

  Thea sighed. ‘I suspect I’m not strict enough with them. They take advantage of me.’

  Timmy insisted on having a rat out of its cage to play. Drew promised to take full responsibility for what happened to it, and Thea knew when she was overruled. She watched the child delightedly handle the sinuous rodent, letting it climb onto his shoulder and down his arm. It looked like instant mutual adoration. ‘Now he’s happy,’ said Drew. ‘He’ll bore me and Stephanie rigid with rat stories for weeks now.’

  ‘Do you want coffee? Come and meet poor Blondie.’ They left Timmy with the rats and moved into the kitchen. Drew admired the house, with its solid square rooms and flamboyant plants. ‘It’s typical Cotswolds,’ said Thea.

  ‘How did they do it?’ he marvelled. ‘The proportions and colours are always so perfect and timeless. It’ll all still be here in a thousand years.’

  ‘The new houses aren’t so nice. The yellow’s too bright, and the construction sometimes seems quite flimsy, compared to these older ones. They don’t have the same soul.’

  ‘New things are generally rather soulless. Give them time,’ he said easily. ‘Things have to happen in them to add that extra dimension.’

  ‘I know. But I’d hate to have to be the first person to make a mark. Wouldn’t that be horrible?’

  ‘I imagine some people would feel quite the opposite. The idea that somebody might already have died – or even been born – in their house makes them very uneasy.’

  ‘How ridiculous,’ said Thea.

  He knelt down by Blondie’s bed and gently inspected the ear. Until that moment Thea had quite forgotten that he had been a nurse before he was an undertaker. ‘She’s been scratching it,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘I know. I hadn’t the heart to make her wear that awful collar in the night.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to mind it. She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?’ He stroked the white coat, which was looking a lot less glossy and dazzling than it had done two days ago. The dog heaved a long sigh. ‘She seems very unhappy, though.’

  ‘She’s got a lot to be sad about. Her people have abandoned her, she’s coming into season, and her ear hurts.’

  ‘They’ve left her with you when she’s in season?’ He frowned his disapproval.

  ‘They didn’t know. It’s only just started. I think they’re planning to breed from her. Imagine a whole litter of little Blondies. They’ll be worth a fortune.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think the market would be very strong, the way things are. People are abandoning their dogs in droves, from what I hear.’

  Thea shuddered. ‘Don’t get me started on that,’ she begged.

  ‘It looks sore,’ he judged. ‘Did they give you any painkillers for her?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can swab it with Dettol, that’s all.’

  ‘I expect she’s had antibiotics,’ he murmured to himself. ‘It’s not a very clever bit of stitching. There’s a gap.’

  ‘I saw that. I thought she might have pulled it out with scratching.’

  ‘No. It was never there. It’s been bleeding.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She was tiring of his observations about the dog. ‘But she seems to like you.’

  ‘She just wants lots of love and reassurance, like any patient.’ He went on stroking long sweeps down Blondie’s back. ‘Don’t you, lovely girl?’

  ‘I’ve never seen you like this with a dog. I thought you didn’t much like them.’

  ‘I like this one.’

  Thea experienced a humiliating wave of jealousy at his attentions to the dog and wanted to give herself a sharp smack. ‘I’ll do the coffee,’ she said. ‘And we should make sure Timmy’s okay. He might let the other rats out or lose the one he’s playing with. Has he ever handled them before?’

  ‘Hamsters and a ferret once or twice. He’s got a little friend whose father’s a gamekeeper. They do a lot of outdoorsy country stuff together.’

  She tried in vain to visualise the life down there in Somerset, for a young motherless boy with an undertaker for a father. ‘Sounds very …’ she couldn’t think of the word. Wholesome? Not quite, when gamekeepers were tainted with the trappings of privilege and mindless killing of defenceless birds.

  ‘It is,’ he smiled. ‘Very.’

  She busied herself with the coffee for a minute, while he went on stroking the Alsatian.

  ‘So tell me about the murder,’ he invited. ‘You do realise that’s the reason I’ve come all this way, don’t you?’

  It might well be true, she supposed, or half true, at least. Looking at his face, she thought he seemed strained, the witty banter an automatic veneer over something far darker and sadder. When she first met him, he had confessed to a tendency to interfere more than was wise in matters of crime and justice. He had his own experiences of violent death and cunning criminals. She hoped the Stanton situation had simply given him an excuse to visit, when he had already wanted to. He struck her as being in need of diversion, desperate for a break in a routine that was imbued with grief for his wife and responsibility for his children. She smiled weakly and did her best to convey everything she knew about Natasha Ainsworth.

  He interrupted frequently, with sharp questions that made Thea feel soft-headed. He made her describe all the people she’d met – the Callendar mother and her sons, Cheryl Bagshawe, the Wilsons and Dennis Ireland. He was particularly interested in Dennis Ireland. ‘At first inspection, my money’s on him,’ he said. ‘Means, motive and opportunity.’

  ‘What motive?’ Had she missed something?

  ‘Oh, something about being neighbours, some old feud,’ he said airily.

  ‘They weren’t neighbours. This house is between them.’

  ‘That counts as neighbours. You don’t have to be right next door.’

  ‘Don’t you? I thought you did.’ She became aware that her head was aching again, as badly as ever. The realisation came with a wave of disappointment. She had hoped she was getting better, and had believed that Drew’s mere presence would work as a cure.

  ‘You’re not well, are you? I should have asked sooner. You seemed okay at first, but now …’

  ‘It started just after I got here. This is the third day, I think. It hasn’t been so bad, really. Just achey and feverish.’

  ‘Stephanie was quite bad at first. Ever so sorry for herself. But it looks as if Tim and I have escaped it, for some reason.’

  But what about me? she wanted to whimper. ‘That’s lucky,’ she said.

  ‘Listen – why don’t you go and have a hot bath, and then go back to bed for a bit? I can answer the phone or even go and fetch some milk or something. I don’t imagine you want to go out, do you?’

  ‘I can’t, even if I want to. I haven’t got my car. I’m supposed to be doing something about that this morning. The AA took it away and now I don’t know where it is.’

  He looked alarmed at this, but set the matter aside for a while, urging her to rest, instead.

  ‘I’d feel ridiculous,’ she protested. ‘How can I lie up there like Lady Muck, leaving you to twiddle your thumbs down here? That’s no treat for Timmy. He’ll soon get tired of the rats.’

  As if to con
firm her fears, there was a loud squeal from the back room as she spoke. She and Drew both rushed to investigate. Timmy was holding the rat high over his head, as Hepzie made determined jumps at it. Thea grabbed the dog and Drew gathered both boy and rodent to him. ‘I opened the door and the dog ran in,’ gulped Timmy. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘We forgot to tell you,’ said Thea. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She shook the spaniel savagely. ‘You damn dog – what’s the matter with you?’ she shouted. The idea that another Shepherd pet might have been injured or killed by her own animal made her quite faint.

  ‘She’s just doing what comes naturally,’ said Drew mildly. ‘It’s up to us to keep them apart.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s ever killed anything in her life – I don’t know what’s come over her.’

  Drew evidently felt he’d had his say on the matter. ‘No harm done,’ he pointed out. ‘I want my coffee. Drink, Tim?’

  The little boy was pressed against his father, cradling the threatened rat and softly crooning to it. ‘She wants to go home now,’ he said. ‘She was very scared.’

  ‘So was I,’ said Thea with feeling. The subtle implication of reproach that seemed to follow her around the house was beginning to irritate. She passed her annoyance directly to her dog. ‘Hepzibah Osborne – you are in big trouble, do you know that?’

  ‘Is there somewhere you can confine her?’ asked Drew. ‘At least while we’re here.’

  ‘The bedroom, I suppose. But she’ll yap. If I had my car, I could put her out there for a while. That’d teach her.’

  They put the rat back in its cage, and shut the door with exaggerated care. ‘She can stay in the living room while we’re in the kitchen with Blondie,’ said Thea. The earlier suggestion of having a hot bath and crawling back to bed began to gain allure. Normal life was so turbulent, so unpredictable and demanding. But it seemed that Drew had changed his mind in the other direction. ‘We could go out somewhere for lunch,’ he suggested. ‘And take the dog.’ He looked at her critically. ‘It might do you good, if you wrap up warm.’