by Rebecca Tope
‘You do all right,’ said Thea impatiently. ‘Don’t go all self-pitying on me.’
This robust sisterly remonstrance seemed to restore Jocelyn to a more equable condition, and Thea softened. ‘Well, we’d better keep the hall table in front of the door, then, hadn’t we – and tell Hepzie she’s to guard us with her life.’
Jocelyn frowned at the floor for a moment. ‘Thea…’
‘Mmm?’
‘Do you think anything’ll happen? With this murder, I mean? Are we stupid to be staying here, with so much going on?’
‘I think we’ll have to trust Phil. We’ve told him the whole story, and he’s let us stay here. He must think it’s safe. Imagine the scandal if we’re murdered after all this.’
‘Gosh, yes. That makes me feel much better.’
Thea grinned fleetingly. ‘You’re not seriously scared, are you?’
‘Only on and off. It’s difficult to feel scared all the time, isn’t it. You sort of forget about it after a bit.’
‘Same routine as before then: door open and shout if you think anything’s happening. Even if I don’t hear you, Hepzie will.’
‘I need some distraction,’ Jocelyn asserted. ‘I’m going to go and cook us something.’
‘If in doubt, cook?’
‘It’s force of habit, I suppose. You don’t have to eat it.’
‘I’ll be delighted to eat it, and I might persuade Phil to stay as well. We can have it on our laps in front of the telly, can’t we?’
Jocelyn grinned. ‘That’s another thing Alex hates,’ she said. ‘He thinks a family should have every single meal sitting up round the dining table.’
‘He’s right, in theory,’ said Thea. ‘But if you ask me, once a week is good going, these days.’
‘That’s what I said,’ nodded Jocelyn.
While Jocelyn peeled potatoes, Hollis made himself at home at the kitchen table, playing with Hepzibah, who had her front paws on his thigh.
‘My dogs don’t jump up,’ he said mildly.
Thea blinked slowly. ‘You’ve got dogs? Why didn’t you say?’
He grinned. ‘A Welsh corgi and a Gordon setter. Possibly the daftest mixture you could wish for.’
‘Could you go away for a bit,’ Jocelyn requested. ‘I can’t cook with people watching.’
‘Fine,’ said Thea. ‘We’ll go into the lounge. Pity there’s no gin.’
‘There’s sherry.’ Jocelyn pointed to a rack of bottles in a corner of the kitchen. ‘And plenty of wine. I vote we help ourselves.’
The living room was dominated by the words painted on the wall, turning it from a comfortable space in which a family gathered to relax and talk into a scene of invasion and contamination. The upward tilt of the writing, the ragged drips of the hurriedly-applied spray paint, the aggressive sentiment, all contributed to a chilly feeling of wrongness. ‘Flora did that,’ Thea said. ‘At least, she didn’t deny it when we accused her. I assume the poor girl wanted her house back.’ She thought back to Flora’s refusal to explain. ‘She was angry with us for being here. I think that’s really the whole reason. And if you saw her bedroom, you’d know she has a bit of a thing about painting on walls.’ She looked again at the lettering. ‘It isn’t very nice, though, is it.’
‘Help me shift the sofa,’ Hollis ordered her. ‘We’ll sit with our backs to it.’
But Thea had no wish to sit with him on the sofa. Or rather, the wish was so powerful she couldn’t afford to indulge it.
‘I’ll sit over here, where I can see you,’ she said lightly, plumping into an armchair, having helped him move the sofa. The writing was still visible to her, but not full in her face.
He didn’t like her choice of seat, raising one eyebrow, and muttering, ‘It’s entirely up to you.’ She wanted to explain, and was annoyed that he didn’t understand.
The dry sherry seemed to revive him slightly, but he continued to give an impression of weariness. Thea watched him sipping from the glass, marvelling at the solidity of him, the three-dimensionality. She wanted to assess and compare, to maintain a grasp of her reason, to behave sensibly, but everything seemed clogged by the fact of his body in the room with her, despite the physical distance between them. She knew she’d acted wisely in rejecting a place at his side. From where she sat, she could watch his face, noting the way his eyes were set into his skull, small and deep. His nose was long, with narrow straight-sided nostrils. A dry mouth, thin-lipped, and an odd chin, square-cut. The face of a man not given to indulgences. No broken veins or pouches beneath the eyes. No grooved signs of pain or rage. A quiet face, she concluded, that gave very little away.
What had become of the mother of his two children? Why had she made the unquestioning assumption that he was now single and available? Why was she still so certain that this was the case?
‘You’re not married, are you?’ she blurted.
He gave himself a little shake, opening his eyes wider. ‘That’s a very direct question.’
‘Well?’
‘Divorced,’ he said. ‘Three years ago now.’
‘Right. I thought so.’
‘And otherwise unencumbered, for the record. Apart from the job, of course. That’s rather an encumbrance.’
‘And dogs.’
‘Oh yes. Except that I actually share the dogs. They don’t live with me full time.’
She waited for the explanation.
‘I have a sister, you see. She’s in Painswick and has some land. When things get busy, she takes them off my hands until I can be there for them again. It works very well.’
‘Useful things, sisters.’
‘So it would seem.’
Which would have been Jocelyn’s cue to call that the dinner was ready, except that there was still a few minutes to go. Thea fiddled momentarily with some loose cording on a cushion tucked beside her, remembering the dead Siamese, which had very probably done the damage to the furnishings. Then she looked up at him, mouth opening to speak.
He was asleep. His head flopped loosely against the back of the sofa, and his eyes were firmly closed. He breathed slowly and deeply. Thea sighed, aware of irritation and embarrassment threaded into the surge of protective affection she felt towards him. People talked about total certainty in their relationships, unalloyed devotion, unwavering loyalty. She didn’t believe it. Nothing could ever be that straightforward. She dreamed, for a minute, of setting up a permanent home with this man. Of waking in the morning and finding him there, of worrying when he was late back from his dangerous job, of the dickering about territory and control that every couple had to put up with. And the image of Carl, her real husband, the man she had actually lived with, floated before her eyes. It superimposed itself onto Hollis, and made her doubt whether she would ever feel wholly ready for somebody new.
She got up and went out to the kitchen. ‘He’s dropped off,’ she said, quietly.
Jocelyn mimed laughter. ‘How rude!’ she said. ‘How terribly unromantic of him.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Thea said.
They woke him up for the meal, which Jocelyn had managed to delay for ten minutes, and he briefly apologised, with minimal embarrassment. ‘Call it a power nap,’ he said, with a single uneasy glance at Thea.
‘We were wondering if you think anything’s going to disturb our sleep tonight,’ Jocelyn said.
Hollis sighed. ‘I hope not.’
‘Hope,’ Jocelyn repeated. ‘Is that the best you can do?’
He flexed his shoulders, backwards and forwards. ‘If things are going to plan, we’ve got the Innes boy under arrest by now, and he’ll be locked up overnight. So that’s one less worry.’
‘Which Innes boy?’ asked Thea.
‘Dominic, of course.’
The news was startling. Thea felt a sharp pang of concern for the boy. ‘Why have you arrested him?’
‘A – because he broke in here and behaved threateningly, and B – because he’s got a lot he can tell us and we’d
like to get it out of him.’
‘Are you going to keep him awake all night and then shine bright lights into his eyes?’ Jocelyn asked, with some aggression.
‘Leave him alone,’ Thea chided. Jocelyn gave her a mulish look, but said no more. They concentrated on the spicy chilli con carne that Jocelyn had prepared so effortlessly.
Thea thought about the bereaved parents and her suspicions of the boy’s father. There had certainly been irritation there, a bemused impatience with the person his son had been. She thought about Dominic Innes and his good-looking brother Jeremy.
‘You know what,’ she said, reverting to their earlier conversation, ‘of all the people I’ve met this week, not one of them seems to want the canal restored. Which surely puts them all on the same side as Nick?’
‘If it was only the canal, that might be true,’ Hollis agreed. ‘But we’re hearing all sorts of tales about other schemes, which the locals think will wreck their way of life.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, for one – Desmond Phillips wants to create a fishing lake, using the bed of the canal as the centre of it. Trout, apparently. Feeder streams, weirs, culverts, subsidiary ponds – all the trimmings.’
Thea choked on a piece of garlic bread, spraying crumbs across the table. ‘He can’t!’ she yelped. ‘He’d never get permission. That would ruin the whole canal project.’
‘Precisely,’ smirked Hollis. ‘As well as causing even more disruption to the wildlife, and attracting visitors, and so forth.’
Jocelyn spoke. ‘That must be why everybody’s so irate with the Phillipses, then.’
‘So it would seem,’ said Hollis.
Thea groaned wearily. ‘The plot is getting too thick for me. I’ll be glad when I can leave. The prospect of another whole week is beginning to look rather daunting.’
‘I’m not staying another week,’ said Jocelyn.
They both looked at her. ‘Aren’t you?’ said Thea.
‘Of course not. I’m not that irresponsible.’
‘Oh. When are you leaving, then?’
‘I thought probably tomorrow afternoon. Before Alex comes to drag me home.’ Thea wasn’t taken in by the casual tone. There was a lot of painful choice-making behind the words.
‘I understand, of course, that your family’s needs take priority. It’s just…’ Thea pulled a face. ‘You know.’
‘Thea, I never expected to have to chaperone you or guard you against local delinquents. I thought I was the one in need of sanctuary. It’s all got turned upside down and I’ve had enough of it now. This morning, quite honestly, was the final straw. I don’t want to have to go through anything like that again.’
‘I thought you’d just taken it in your stride.’
‘Have you ever had a strange man’s arm tight around your throat? No. It’s very unsettling, let me tell you. It shakes up some of your assumptions. Especially when…’ she glanced at the silent Hollis and stopped.
Thea heard the unspoken words. Especially when your husband’s started to use physical violence on you as well.
‘Don’t underestimate the effects,’ said Hollis softly. ‘Feeling vulnerable is a horrible thing. But Dominic Innes isn’t going to do it again, and he’s going to be very sorry before we’ve finished with him.’
‘There!’ Jocelyn triumphed weakly. ‘I knew you were going to torture him.’
* * *
It was still light when Hollis left. Both the sisters went outside with him, Thea remembering her duties towards the pony. All forensic examinations of the stable complete, Thea wondered whether it would be a kindness to return him to his old home. His temporary quarters in the barn were cramped and insecure, and after the discovery of Flora, the barn felt vulnerable to intrusion and interference, even more than the stable did.
When they went to him, he seemed forlorn and abandoned. ‘Poor old fellow,’ crooned Thea. ‘Not having a very nice time, are you? Come on then. Let’s put you back where you belong, and see if that cheers you up a bit.’
Leading him with a halter, Jocelyn following behind, Thea watched for sore feet or other signs of sickness. He trod delicately, but appeared acceptably relaxed. Until, that is, he reached the door of his former home. I am not going in there, he said, in clear Ponyese. Jocelyn tapped him encouragingly on the rump, but still he baulked. Hepzie joined in, yapping behind him, to no avail.
‘He’s scared,’ said Jocelyn. ‘He remembers what happened.’
‘I think he might prefer the barn after all,’ said Thea. ‘While the weather’s hot, it’s more airy in there. Not so many flies, either.’
They had both noticed the flies at the same moment. ‘Um, Thea,’ Jocelyn began, her nose twitching, ‘isn’t there rather a nasty smell?’
‘Too right,’ said Thea. ‘We’d better have a look.’
The body was not difficult to find. A cloud of greenish flies buzzed above it, giving its presence away. The spaniel darted forward, but as rapidly retreated. Some things were too appallingly dead even for a dog’s uncivilised tastes.
Thea edged closer, a hand to her nose. ‘God, what a vile stink.’
‘What is it?’ Jocelyn had remained in the doorway, holding the pony’s halter.
Thea tried not to see the heaving off-white movement in the decaying flesh, the skin shredding away from the skull and legs.
‘I think it must be Milo,’ she said.
Chapter Twelve – Friday
Thea didn’t sleep at all well that night. Despite an underlying anticipation of future delight, the fact of a murder close by persistently dragged her into darker thoughts, and another late night conversation with Jocelyn about men and violence and the fragility of trust had been unsettling, at the very least. The smell of the rotting cat lingered horribly in her nostrils, and the motive for leaving it there bothered her considerably. Nothing could be relied on, there were no guarantees of happiness, or even survival. Malice lurked behind every bush; people would kill to defend their own personal passions or perversions. In the deep of the night, she found herself reviewing a host of reasons to be afraid. The Phillipses were not as they seemed. People wished them ill. Thea had been lured into danger by substituting for Julia and Desmond. It was a betrayal, and she was angry about it.
She fell asleep on a whole new collection of thoughts, involving Jocelyn and Alex and the trouble ahead for them and their children. She admitted to herself that she disapproved in a free-floating way of people who produced five kids and then couldn’t maintain a secure protective parental shield over them. It wasn’t on, she thought, with a twitch of the lips, a brief rictus of condemnation.
‘Well, we survived the night,’ Jocelyn announced, at eight thirty the next morning. ‘True,’ Thea agreed. ‘Although I can’t pretend I slept very well.’
‘Neither did I. Let’s hope this business is settled quickly. I can’t cope with much more.’ Jocelyn was fingering her neck, pressing gently here and there.
‘Does it still hurt?’ Thea asked her, thinking how long ago the previous morning seemed.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Why is it always me, do you think?’
‘No reason. At least, nothing personal. Your bedroom window’s easier to climb through. He’d probably have opted for me, given a choice. I’m smaller.’
‘Oh, hell. We can’t go on like this, can we? We’ve got to face up to it all.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We’re in denial. If we don’t do something, there’ll be another murder. This house’ll be set on fire, and the pony slaughtered. Your dog’ll be shot, and my car tyres slashed. Bad people will do bad things to us. To be honest, I can’t wait to get away. Although I’m not relishing home particularly, either.’ She gazed miserably into her mug of coffee.
The peacocks had been quiet during the first hours of daylight, but were making up for it now. Their eerie cries gave an exotic backdrop to the yard and the wider area.
‘I think I could get to like the sound they mak
e,’ Thea mused. ‘It’s rather lovely, in a way. Maybe they can sense thunder coming. The forecast said there’d be storms later today.’
‘What? That ghastly screeching, lovely! You’re mad.’
Thea smiled forbearingly and wondered why she was feeling so tense. The obvious explanation was Jocelyn’s promised departure, and the unhappiness ahead if she went through with her decision to file for divorce. Plus the discovery of Milo’s body in the stable had been sickening and frightening. Somebody had deliberately put it there as a message, and the obvious candidate was Jeremy Innes since he’d been last to take possession of the corpse.
‘I think I’ll go to the Innes house,’ she said. ‘If that Jeremy dumped Milo on us like that, he needs a good talking to.’
‘You’ll report him to his mother, you mean? Isn’t he a bit old for that?’
‘I don’t need his mother’s support. I can deal with him myself. It was a disgusting thing to do.’
‘And somebody should come and help us scoop it up,’ said Jocelyn, rolling her lower lip in exaggerated horror. She paused. ‘Don’t you think we should tell the police about it? It’s obviously connected to the murder in some way.’
‘We should, and we will. But I don’t think it’s going to change anything. Phil seems to have all his plans laid already. And I have a very strong feeling we’re about to see the whole thing settled during today.’
Jocelyn gave her a narrow look. ‘Are you saying that to try to persuade me not to leave? You think I’ll want to hang on here to catch all the excitement? Because if so, it won’t work. I’ll stay until after lunch, and then I’m off.’
‘Alex hasn’t been to collect you, then,’ said Thea, with some obviousness.
‘I did say he’d have trouble getting away. But he won’t wait much longer. That’s another reason I’ll have to get my skates on. I don’t want to be dragged home like a naughty child.’