by Rebecca Tope
‘Gosh, it’s so beautiful,’ Thea sighed. ‘You couldn’t improve on it, could you? Look at it!’
‘It’s a museum,’ Jocelyn dismissed. ‘Still no sign of any people, I notice. Though it looks as if something’s going on at that mysterious club place.’ She indicated the pink-painted Cotswold Club across the street. A small group of men was getting out of a large BMW and heading for the door. ‘Not a ladies’ thing, after all,’ Jocelyn added.
The food was, as far as Thea could tell, entirely authentic rustic French, the soup served in bowls of monumental proportions. ‘If they filled these, each one would be enough for a dozen people,’ Jocelyn said, a trifle sourly. ‘Seems a bit daft, really. Bad psychology, as well.’
‘Oh?’
‘Makes you feel cheated, with just the bottom inch or two covered.’
‘But it tastes all right?’ Thea wasn’t having the soup.
‘It tastes wonderful. I wasn’t talking about the taste.’
‘Oh!’ Thea’s attention had returned to the street outside, and a woman passing in front of the restaurant. ‘I know her!’
‘Mmm?’
‘It’s Frannie, from down the lane. I saw her on Sunday, when the cat got run over. She’s seen me.’ Thea waved cheerily at the figure now standing just the other side of the glass. ‘Oh help – I think she’s coming in.’
‘You shouldn’t have waved,’ said Jocelyn. ‘Waving’s often a big mistake. People feel encouraged.’
‘Shut up and smile.’
Frannie approached at a trot, ignoring the questioning look from the waitress she almost had to elbow aside to get to the sisters’ table. ‘Hello!’ she trilled. ‘Fancy seeing you here. I gather something dreadful happened, but I can’t get any details. Can you tell me?’
Thea hesitated. She remembered the parting injunction to say nothing, given by the policeman who had questioned her, and Hollis had not lifted the ban. ‘What have you heard?’ she said.
‘All sorts of rumours. Something about a boy hanging himself?’ The upward inflexion might or might not have been a question. Virtually all young women spoke like that these days, even when stating plain facts.
Thea strove to be transparent. ‘There was an incident, yes,’ she said. ‘But the police have asked me not to talk about it. I’m sure the whole story will come out in the next day or two. By the way, this is my sister, Jocelyn. She’s staying with me at Julia’s for a bit.’
‘Pleased to meet you. I’m dying to know what’s happened.’ She squirmed girlishly. ‘I hate to miss the excitement. We’ve been staying with Robert’s mum, you see, since Sunday.’
Thea automatically logged this apparent alibi until she remembered Cecilia Clifton telling her that Robert came from a local family. ‘Does she live here in Minchinhampton?’ she asked casually.
‘No, Chalford.’ Frannie seemed surprised by the question. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason. I remember you mentioned her on Sunday, that’s all. So, what brings you here?’
Jocelyn sighed, just loudly enough to be impolite, but Frannie took no notice.
‘Oh, the Club,’ came the ready reply and a wave towards the street outside. ‘I’d better go, actually. Robert’s waiting for me.’
Robert always seemed to be waiting for her, Thea noted. ‘Are you back home tonight, then?’ she asked. ‘It’ll be nice to know there’s somebody close by.’
Frannie pushed out her lips, in a coy grimace. ‘Well, we might,’ she said. ‘But it’ll be very late. More likely, we’ll be back at Ma’s. She likes having us, you see.’
Thea found herself imagining wild orgies at the Cotswold Club, lasting far into the night. Somehow its appearance suggested something very much along those lines, although common sense decreed that it was really rather unlikely.
‘Well, I’m sure everything will soon be back to normal,’ she said, wondering who she was trying to reassure. ‘And the weather’s certainly taken a turn for the better.’
Assuming that the encounter was about to conclude, Thea looked around for any sign of her fish arriving. It was with some surprise that she realised Frannie was not departing after all. Instead, she pulled a spare chair from the next table, and sat down without invitation. ‘You’re much better off staying out of all this bother, if you can,’ she said. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do.’ She bent closer, dropping her voice. ‘The thing is, Julia and Des aren’t exactly flavour of the month locally. I know they come over as happy-go-lucky and everybody’s friend. But there’s a lot more to it than that. They’ve got a lot of backs up over the past year or two.’
‘Including yours?’ asked Jocelyn, clearly relishing the whole situation.
‘Oh, not me. I get along with everybody.’ The winsome ingenuous smile emphasised the words. Pure Pollyanna, thought Thea.
‘Robert, then?’
‘Well, Robert’s more critical of people, that’s true. But he’s away a lot, and doesn’t get involved if he can help it. Of course, the people at the Club do make sure we get drawn in, sometimes.’
‘The Club?’
Jocelyn interrupted. ‘Do you mean the Cotswold Club?’ She pointed with her fork at the building across the street.
Frannie’s expression was undisguised bewilderment for a few seconds. Then she laughed. ‘Gosh, no. That’s not my sort of place at all. No – we’re just a sort of gang, a group, I mean. We’re mostly the old families – people with roots in the area. Wanting to keep things the way they’ve always been.’
‘Like the lady who came to tell me about Milo? Cecilia something,’ Thea suggested on a sudden hunch.
Frannie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Well, Cecilia’s a bit of a law unto herself. But she’s pretty much on our side, I suppose. She’s a friend of my mother-in-law, actually. They’re wicked sometimes, the two of them.’
Thea recalled some of Sunday’s conversation. ‘She told me a bit about your family,’ she offered. ‘How Robert’s grandfather was an important mill owner in Chalford.’
‘That’s right,’ Frannie smiled. ‘And mine was a drayman. Well, that was my great-grandad, actually. Did she tell you that?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Thea shrugged, very aware that Jocelyn was losing patience.
‘Anyway—’ she said, indicating the table. ‘It was nice of you to stop and chat.’
‘Oh,’ Frannie got the message. ‘That’s all right. I was a bit worried about you, to tell the truth. We don’t really understand why Julia thought she needed a house-sitter, you see. I could have fed the animals for her. It’s as if…’ But she didn’t finish. Outside a man was pressing his face to the window and beckoning imperiously.
‘Is that your husband?’ asked Jocelyn, with little effort to disguise her relief.
‘Oh gosh. Coming!’ she mouthed. ‘Sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I’ll have to go. I’m sure I’ll see you again.’
‘You should never have waved,’ said Jocelyn, when Frannie had finally gone.
In the last light of the evening, Thea opted for a scenic drive back, thrusting a map at Jocelyn and warning her that they were highly likely to get lost. ‘I want to show you the famous Common,’ she said, ‘and from there we might as well go up to Brimscombe, and then back along the valley. It’s only a few miles.’
‘Okay.’ Jocelyn was lukewarm about the plan. ‘If we must.’
The Common was deserted in the twilight, except for silhouetted cattle and horses, apparently wandering freely. ‘It’s certainly big,’ Jocelyn conceded. ‘Looks as if the golfers have taken most of it over, though.’
‘There’s more this way,’ Thea pointed out, driving straight over a five-way junction, marked with an old-fashioned sign, announcing ‘Tom Long’s Post’.
‘This isn’t the way to Brimscombe,’ said Jocelyn, after peering at the map. ‘We’re heading north now.’
‘Pretty, though,’ Thea countered. ‘Look at that down there.’ A steep valley lay to their right, the lights of scattered houses beginning to shine promi
nently.
‘It’s too dark to see,’ Jocelyn grumbled. ‘Take the next right, for God’s sake, and see if we can get back to Brimscombe.’
Twenty-five minutes later, the light had almost gone and they were in a place called Hyde. Both tempers had frayed, and Thea had belatedly noticed that the car was almost out of fuel. ‘Just get us home,’ Jocelyn ordered. ‘A right here will take us onto the A419. Then it’s only three or four miles to the Frampton Mansell turning. You’ll recognise it from there, I hope.’
‘Easy,’ Thea assured her.
Mercifully it was, and they turned into Juniper Court just before ten o’clock. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Jocelyn. ‘Remind me to veto any more scenic routes.’
Thea was aware of something missing, as soon as she opened the car door. Why wasn’t Hepzibah barking? She always greeted the well-known sound of the car engine with a special voice of welcome. Thea’s insides somersaulted with terror at the implacable silence.
At a run, she approached the front door, fishing for the unfamiliar keys. ‘Hepzie!’ she called. ‘I’m home.’
‘She’s here,’ came Jocelyn’s voice, from the other side of the car. ‘She was in the barn.’
Quiveringly, Thea turned to look. A security light had come on, bathing everything in an unnatural brilliance. ‘Is she all right?’ she croaked.
‘Seems to be. Come on, Heps. What’ve you been doing?’
Thea saw her spaniel approaching slowly, tail slung low. ‘She’s not all right at all,’ Thea cried. ‘Look at her!’
But when she scooped the animal into her arms, running terrified fingers over the fur, feeling for blood or broken bones, everything seemed to be in order. There were no squeals of pain or matted hair. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Thea demanded. ‘Why are you so miserable? Who let you out of the house?’
‘Oh, God!’ Jocelyn groaned. The same thought hit them simultaneously: there was, or had been, an intruder in the house. ‘I’m calling the police.’ She extracted a mobile phone from her shoulderbag and keyed the three nines. As she did so, the yard light went out, plunging them into a darkness that seemed all the blacker for the abrupt contrast.
The eventual conclusion was that Hepzibah had been severely frightened, but not physically damaged. ‘Booted out of the house by a strange intruder, and left to fend for herself in a place she hardly knows – no wonder she was in a state,’ Thea crooned. ‘What if she’d tried to find me, running off down these dark lanes. She might have been lost forever.’
The damage to her dog occupied considerably more of her attention than the discovery that somebody had entered Juniper Court while it was empty. The lock on the front door was an ordinary Yale, which was all that Thea had activated when she’d left the house. As far as she could see, it had not been broken in any way. Either somebody had had a key, or they’d done the trick with the credit card, which Thea had always supposed to be a myth.
Inside, some furniture had been overturned, two pictures taken down from the living room wall and scratched, and a large message spray-painted on the expanse of pale peach emulsion thus exposed.
GET OUT OF HERE
‘Do they mean me, or the Phillipses?’ Thea wondered aloud.
‘I’d be inclined to take it personally, if I were you,’ said Superintendent Hollis, who had arrived from Cirencester barely ten minutes after Jocelyn’s emergency call.
‘But it must be about them, rather than me. What possible reason can anybody have to take exception to a total stranger?’
‘You’re in the way. You might see something incriminating.’
‘Mmm, maybe.’ She gave this some thought. ‘So I’m to go, am I?’
‘That would be my personal and professional recommendation,’ he nodded.
‘Right. So who looks after Pallo and all those birds, and the house itself?’
Hollis shrugged. ‘Not your problem.’
‘I think it is,’ she disagreed. ‘Definitely, when it comes to the pony. He’s got used to me now, and a new person might upset him.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘And where’s a new person to be found? Are they supposed to come in once or twice a day? Or what?’
He tilted his head at her, waiting for her to hear her own words. Jocelyn was in the doorway, trying to say something. Hepzibah was on the sofa shivering miserably.
‘I think we’ll be all right for the night,’ Jocelyn said firmly. ‘After all, whoever it was waited until we were out.’
‘That’s right,’ Thea endorsed. ‘The same as when the boy was hanged in the stable. I’d taken the dog for a walk. They obviously don’t want any direct confrontations.’ Oh, she wanted to add, and by the way, why didn’t you tell me you know who he was? But it was too late and the conversation was running down a different track.
‘It would be madness to assume that,’ said the police officer. ‘If you don’t take this hint, the whole thing’s liable to escalate.’
Thea frowned, and sighed crossly. ‘Well, I’m not packing up and leaving at this time of night. There are two of us now – we can barricade the door, and think it all through properly in the morning.’
‘What about police protection?’ Jocelyn suggested. ‘Post a constable in the yard for the night.’
Hollis puffed out his cheeks in scornful amusement. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell us you haven’t got the resources,’ Jocelyn said. ‘Not when they send a senior rank like you for a little break-in. Shouldn’t you be seeing to something a bit more serious?’
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘This, in case you’ve forgotten, is the scene of a recent unlawful killing. I’m the Senior Investigating Officer on the case, and when we get a call at midnight from the same property, it would seem to me irresponsible not to investigate personally. All right?’
Thea listened to him with delight. His voice had a mellow bass range, the intonation confident and reassuring. He was well practised in dealing with argumentative females, she supposed, finding the perfect balance between patronising and bullying them. He seemed to detect her enjoyment, and turned to her with his face all open and honest-seeming.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘We’d really like to stay here until morning,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It would be a dreadful nuisance to leave now – for you as well as us.’ She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘And look at the time! It’ll be light in about five hours.’
He capitulated, as she’d known he would. ‘Just be sure you call me if there’s the slightest cause for concern,’ he ordered, as he prepared to leave. ‘Put something across this door when I’ve gone, since it looks as if somebody out there’s got a key that fits it.’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Thea laughed. ‘Honestly, you’ll have scared them off long since – if they were still hanging around, which I bet they weren’t.’
‘I’ll be back at ten tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘Go and get some sleep, for God’s sake.’
They slept fitfully, having debated sharing a room, only to decide it would be too much trouble to organise. Thea’s head whirled with half-waking dreams, where Pallo fell down a deep crevice in the field behind the house, and the entire Phillips family came tiptoeing up the stairs, standing silently in the doorway, watching her while she slept. When she finally noticed them, Julia rushed forward and started pulling her hair and shouting that she ought to be ashamed of the mess she’d let the house get into.
But when she awoke, finally, at ten past eight, her first thoughts were all on Jocelyn, who had decided to return to her violent husband, the entirely familiar and trustworthy Alex who had somehow turned into an unknowable monster. She hadn’t told Superintendent Hollis that item of news, knowing he would be implacably insistent that she leave Juniper Court, rather than stay there alone.
‘Are you awake?’ she called, quietly enough not to disturb a sleeper. The lack of response implied a negative answer to the question.
Hepzibah was
at the foot of the bed, head raised, expression questioning. Poor little dog, Thea thought fondly. From this point on, she promised herself, she wouldn’t let her out of her sight.
In bare feet, she crossed the landing, and looked through Jocelyn’s open door. The bed was a jumble of duvet and clothes, with no sign of an occupant.
‘Must be making breakfast,’ Thea concluded, trying to identify the chink of a teaspoon or whiff of toast from downstairs. Nothing struck ear or nose, and the first flicker of anxiety occurred.
‘Hepzie!’ she ordered, quietly. ‘Stay.’ She grabbed the spaniel, in a rush of paranoia. Never mind what had happened to her sister – the dog was her first love these days, and she picked up the awkward creature before going carefully down the stairs.
The front door stood open, and sunshine was streaming into the hall. The sky outside was a tropical blue and nothing stirred. ‘Joss?’ she called into the yard. ‘Where are you?’
‘Here,’ came a singing voice, full of good cheer and summer relaxation, from the lane outside the gate. ‘What do you want?’
Thea put the dog down and strode towards the voice. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Admiring wild flowers,’ came the infuriating reply. ‘There’s an orchid here. Can you believe it? Right here, beside the road.’
‘I was worried about you.’
‘Were you? Why?’
Thea inhaled in an effort to calm herself. Had she dreamed the whole of the previous evening? Had she woken into a parallel universe? Had Jocelyn received a phonecall to say the police had arrested the intruder, who also confessed to the killing of the hanged boy?