A Cotswold Christmas Mystery

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘The ridge?’

  ‘That’s right. Monarch’s Way footpath, if you want to look it up on a map. It goes past the Bakers Arms pub in Broad Campden, but we didn’t get that far.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ demanded Digby.

  Ant had a sudden insight. ‘It’s not to do with my mother, is it? You wouldn’t be acting so cagey if it was that. Something’s happened. Is it Blackwood? His wife came over yesterday to say she couldn’t find him.’ He watched the officer’s face closely. ‘That’s it! Hey! Has something happened to our esteemed landlord?’

  The policeman was confused. Irony had not been mentioned in his training. ‘You were fond of him, were you?’

  ‘Well, we’d certainly notice if he wasn’t around any more. He’s a central part of our lives. And his wife, of course.’

  ‘So when did you last see him?’

  Ant exhaled, a long, complicated sigh of relief and gratification and his tongue became strangely loose. ‘So it is him. I last saw him … let’s see … must have been nearly a week ago. We coincided at the road gate – might have been Tuesday – and he gave me a short nod of recognition. Very decent of him, I thought, seeing as how he had to concentrate on driving his Jag. He’s got four cars, you know, and he takes them out in rotation. Keeps him quite busy, I guess. We’re shocked that not one of them’s electric, though. Somehow I don’t imagine Mrs Blackwood’s very interested in toxic emissions and that sort of thing.’

  ‘Ant!’ his father scolded. ‘Stop talking so much.’ He glanced at the policeman, who was clearly floundering. ‘We see Mr and Mrs Blackwood quite regularly, Officer. Usually when we meet at the road gate, or when they have a reason to walk past the end of our garden. That isn’t very often, and they seldom pause for a chat. We have very little in common to talk about, actually.’

  ‘What’s happened to him, then?’ asked Ant impatiently. ‘It can’t hurt to tell us now we’ve answered your questions. We already knew he’d gone missing, so whatever it is isn’t going to come as a very great surprise. Unless someone’s killed him, of course.’

  The silence spoke for itself. ‘Good God!’ said Digby, sitting bolt upright in the chair he had not left all morning. ‘Is that what’s happened?’

  ‘His body was found today, close to the perimeter fence around this property,’ the officer informed them, with a small frown.

  ‘Shot? Stabbed? Throttled?’ Ant’s excitement was impossible to conceal.

  ‘I’m not authorised to reveal any further information.’

  ‘Never mind. Blimey! This is going to shake things up a bit.’ Ant stared at his father. ‘What’ll happen to us, then?’ When there was no reply, he faced the policeman. ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Of course you are. And you think it was homicide, as the Americans say. Homicide …’ he repeated, his face suddenly drooping. ‘That’s what they called it when my sister died. And it’s never all right, you know. I never thought I’d say this, but I actually feel sorry for the loathsome Carla.’

  Digby was also shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘But where’s my wife?’ he asked, his right hand stretching out as if needing to feel her presence. ‘I want Beverley.’

  ‘Hush, Dad,’ said Ant. ‘She’ll be back. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  ‘Wife, sir?’ Both officers were suddenly alert. ‘You are unaware of her exact whereabouts?’

  Ant snorted at the clumsy sentence. He was still feeling giddy with relief. But Digby was ahead of him, frantically trying to backtrack. ‘Oh, gosh, silly me,’ he chuckled, in a perfect imitation of an addle-headed old man. ‘She went off to the shops, I remember now. Wouldn’t let me go with her, said I’d be in the way. Time she was home, though. She’ll be wanting to hear the news.’

  ‘We need to speak to her,’ said one of the men decisively.

  ‘You won’t want to waste time hanging about here,’ said Ant, picking up his father’s lead. ‘The shops must be awful today – all that last-minute panic buying.’

  The men exchanged glances. ‘Well … when she gets back, could you ask her to contact us?’ said the more talkative one.

  ‘Of course,’ said Digby, with a little bow. ‘Excuse me if I don’t get up.’

  The policemen took their leave, with a few scanty lines in a notebook. Whatever the situation on this peculiar fortified estate, it was beyond their pay grade to understand.

  Jessica continued to admonish her mother about her determination to involve herself in the Crossfield business. ‘So now you know it’s not Beverley,’ she repeated, ‘you’ve got much less reason to be concerned.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But it’s still a major event. It’ll have enormous ramifications for the Frowses. The police are going to be all over them, because you only have to glance at the place to see there’s a stand-off between landlord and tenants. There’s probably a file on it all somewhere, because Beverley always contests any rent rises. And we still don’t know what’s become of her – Beverley, I mean.’

  ‘So what’re you going to do? It’s Christmas Eve, Mother. You’ve got responsibilities here.’

  ‘I thought I could go and see Ant and his father after lunch. The police activity will have settled down by then. You and Steph can come with me, if you like. We could make a nice walk of it.’

  ‘And Hepzie?’ asked Stephanie. ‘She likes playing with Percy.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Stephanie was feeling very grown-up, the way Thea and Jessica were including her in the whole discussion. While there was no definite suggestion that the Blackwood man had been murdered, there did seem to be a feeling that he might have been. Never before had she been around Thea when something like this had happened. She had only heard short summaries, after everything had been resolved. Now here they were, right in the middle of it from the start. She allowed herself a smug little thought that after all, Timmy was not having all the fun. ‘They call him Blackheart, you know,’ she said, when the dead man was under discussion.

  ‘What’s his real name, again?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘Blackwood. Like the magazine,’ Thea told her. At Jessica’s blank look, Thea sighed. ‘Before your time. Before mine, actually. I think it died when I was about ten. But I came across it when I was doing that history course. Blackwood’s Magazine was an institution. Very radical and satirical. I don’t suppose this man is connected in any way, although he is a Scot, I think, and it was an Edinburgh publication.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ said Jessica.

  They were eating another of Thea’s ad hoc lunches, with bread and bacon and scrambled egg. Jessica had called it ‘brunch’, which Stephanie found amusing. Another thought struck her – with so much happening, the day was going to fly by, bringing Christmas morning all the sooner.

  ‘So are we going out, then?’ Jessica asked. ‘Or what?’

  Thea was emphatic. ‘I don’t care what you two do, but there’s no way I can just leave it as it is. And this is the only chance we’ve got. Once Drew gets back, it’ll be non-stop here. That leaves about three hours to see what’s going on. You don’t begrudge me that, do you?’

  The stepsisters both looked at her. Stephanie waited for a decision that was completely out of her hands. Thea was small and dark and disgracefully pretty for her age, an unlikely amateur detective, and just as unlikely a stepmother, probably. Then she looked at Jessica – larger and fairer and strangely adult, as if she were the older of the two. ‘What are you looking at?’ said Thea. ‘You seem very judgemental all of a sudden.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Stephanie, not feeling at all repentant.

  A short silence ensued, in which all three adjusted their expectations for the afternoon and wondered about the implications.

  ‘So are we going?’ nagged Stephanie. ‘Or what?’

  ‘Surely we ought to go by car instead of walking?’ said Jessica. ‘How far away is it?’

  ‘Only about a mile. It’ll take half an hour at most, along the footpath. Wa
lking’s better, really – and nicer for Hepzie. It’s easier on foot, as well – we don’t know whether they’d let us drive in through that gate.’

  ‘What gate?’

  Thea briefly explained in greater detail than before about the Blackwoods’ efforts at security.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ Jessica worried. ‘It sounds as if we’ll be shot as trespassers if we’re not careful.’

  ‘And the fence on both sides of it is electrificated,’ said Stephanie.

  ‘Is that a word?’ wondered Thea.

  ‘It is now,’ said Jess.

  They followed the Monarch’s Way footpath in a westerly direction, with fields sloping away to their left. ‘Lucky it’s not windy,’ said Jessica. ‘It must get quite raw up here at times.’

  ‘Great for flying a kite, though. Timmy’s got one and we bring it up here now and then.’

  ‘It never works very well, though,’ Stephanie complained. ‘We need to be in a field, really, and Dad says we’re supposed to stay on the path.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Jessica vaguely.

  There were a few people scattered along the path. It was a Sunday and Christmas Eve and several of the second homes in the area were suddenly occupied by people escaping their urban environment for something quieter. ‘Nobody you know?’ asked Jessica.

  Thea and Stephanie shook their heads. ‘Anybody local will be shopping or calling in on each other for sherry. These second-homers bring all their provisions with them, and probably a skivvy to get it all cooked for them. So they’re free to come out for a walk and pretend they know their way around.’

  ‘No sign that anybody’s heard about a dead man, either,’ said Jessica. ‘You’d think there’d be snoopers by now.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem to happen around here so much,’ said Thea.

  Jessica watched a couple coming towards them. ‘These two look as if they’ve dressed for the occasion. All very tweedy and shiny new boots,’ she murmured.

  Thea laughed.

  ‘It’s a funny business, when you think about it,’ Jessica went on. ‘They’ve got to be seriously rich if they can afford to keep two homes running. It can’t be good for the economy here, and it’s sure to inflate house prices. Selfish, basically.’

  ‘They think if they’ve got the money they can do what they like. That’s what Ant says,’ Stephanie contributed. ‘And Blackheart’s the worst of the lot. He’s got at least two other houses, with nobody living in them. Except housekeepers and people like that.’

  ‘It’s quite feudal, in fact,’ said Thea. ‘The rich have always done whatever they liked. Until the revolution comes and they get their heads chopped off.’ She paused, hearing herself. ‘Well, he’s got his comeuppance now, apparently.’

  They soon emerged onto the small road that ran towards Chipping Campden and turned left. ‘Here we are,’ said Thea, calling her dog to heel. ‘We go along the road a little way and it’s just off to the right.’

  There were two police cars parked on the driveway leading up to the main house, and they glimpsed movement and odd white shapes in the woodland away to their left. ‘Come on,’ said Thea. ‘They won’t bother us if we just keep going up this way.’

  Jessica was looking all around her, partly out of curiosity and partly from nervousness at the sense of intruding where she shouldn’t. She noticed the wording on a handsome signboard planted beside a pair of wrought-iron gates a little way ahead. ‘“The Crossfield Estate”,’ she read. ‘Those gates aren’t electrificated, then?’

  ‘I expect they are, actually. But they’re a lot grander than the ones we have to use.’ She pointed ahead to where the driveway branched off in two directions. The lesser branch was barred by a plain field gate, with sturdy wire fences either side of it, preventing access via the grassland that lay all around. ‘This one leads to the Old Stables. We’ll have to press the buzzer.’

  ‘How long has all this been here?’

  ‘At least two years, I think. Since before we came here, anyway. I popped over for a snoop a year or so ago, when I first got to know Ant. He told me all about it and I wanted to see for myself.’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ said Jessica in disgust. ‘A travesty.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ her mother agreed.

  There was a buzzer and an intercom on a post beside the gate, at the right height for a car driver to use it. Thea prepared to bend down to speak into the grille, but before she could do so, the gate whirred and creaked and very slowly began to open. They pushed through as soon as the gap was wide enough, but the gate went on opening. ‘Stupid thing,’ said Stephanie.

  Ant was standing in the doorway of his house as they walked up the driveway towards it. He was wearing a shabby brown jacket and green boots. His large dog was at his side, but when he saw the visitors, he came bounding towards them. The garden belonging to the Old Stables amounted to little more than a stretch of unkempt lawn strewn with rusting equipment, and half a dozen apple trees that Digby had rescued from the fruit farm days. A little old caravan was tucked into one corner, with a clematis growing over it. The winter twigginess of the climber added to the impression of general scruffiness.

  Hepzie was off the lead, as she had been throughout the walk, and now leapt to meet her friend Percy. The two performed their usual jerky game, feinting and pouncing on each other. A pair of white alpacas in a field the other side of the driveway watched warily.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Stephanie, belatedly spotting them. ‘Can I go and stroke them?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Ant. ‘That field is strictly out of bounds to the likes of us.’

  There was a large modern barn at the top of the drive. ‘Who uses that? I’ve never noticed it before,’ said Thea.

  ‘Local quad bike business. Mowers and stuff, as well. He keeps his surplus stock in there. Blackwood knew him yonks ago, apparently.’

  ‘He hangs onto old friends, then?’ said Jessica, with a little tilt of her head. ‘Sorry – I’m Thea’s daughter. I’m in the police, as it happens.’

  Stephanie watched Ant’s face as he absorbed this information, thinking that she herself had actually forgotten about Jessica’s job, for the moment.

  ‘Better come in,’ said Ant, with a nervous glance around. ‘It’s all kicking off down there. You’ll have heard, I suppose? That’ll be why you’re here.’

  ‘Your landlord died,’ said Thea. ‘Gladwin told me. Remember her?’

  Ant shook his head. ‘Remind me.’

  ‘She’s the detective superintendent, based in Cirencester. They called her out, presumably, when they found the body.’

  Ant frowned. ‘Why would they do that? I mean – it must have been before they’d even had a proper look at him.’

  ‘Good question,’ said Jessica, giving herself a light smack on the brow. ‘Why didn’t I ask that? Normally, there’d be all kinds of preliminary work before calling someone that senior.’

  ‘Trying to save time, most likely,’ said Thea. ‘What with it being Christmas. If they thought she’d have to be called at some stage, they’d have opted to do it sooner rather than later. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said Ant, with a vague little nod.

  ‘So what exactly has been happening up to now?’ Thea asked.

  ‘Come in first. I wouldn’t put it past Carla or one of her daughters to be spying on us, even now.’ He flicked a quick look at a CCTV camera mounted on a high pole, about twenty yards away.

  ‘Surely not?’ said Jessica with a little laugh. ‘Not when her husband’s just been found dead.’

  ‘I promise you,’ said Ant. ‘They’re so desperate to get rid of us, they’re gathering any tiny scrap of evidence against us. They’ll have persuaded themselves that one of us did the old man in, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s second nature to them, to fit us up for anything that goes wrong.’

  ‘This is a bit more than something going wrong,’ Jessica protested. ‘The man’s dead.’

  Ant’s face cha
nged abruptly. ‘That’s what my mother said.’ He turned towards the house, stumbling as he went.

  Stephanie could see sudden creases under his eyes and round his mouth. It was like looking at a totally different man. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked him, grabbing his hand.

  He pulled her to him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he choked. ‘It just hit me, that’s all. Funny the way that happens.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Stephanie understandingly. ‘Delayed shock. I know about that. You should have a mug of sweet tea. Is Digby here?’

  They moved into the house, pulling their boots off in the small front porch and filing through to the kitchen, where Digby Frowse sat in a sagging old armchair by a small black stove, both dogs now at his side. The mud on Percy’s feet was dry, but Stephanie hoped he wouldn’t jump up at her, all the same. The house felt damp and draughty. There were no Christmas decorations; no piles of vegetables waiting to be peeled and chopped; no sign of a turkey or sausage meat or seasonal drinks. ‘Don’t you do Christmas?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s all meant to be happening – but without Bev, everything’s on hold. She’s put a tree up in the sitting room, and bought a goose last week, and that’s about it. Not very spectacular, I know. Doesn’t seem so much point when there’s no kiddies to enjoy it.’ Digby looked at Stephanie with a feeble smile. ‘Where’s your little lad, then?’

  ‘Oh, he’s gone north with Drew. Family crisis,’ said Thea shortly.

  ‘Don’t tell me. Seems as if there’s a lot of it about.’

  ‘Don’t joke, Dad.’ Ant was scowling. ‘Not when there’s all this trouble. And we still don’t know whether Mum’s involved. I don’t know about you, but I can feel myself getting into a fair old panic.’

  ‘So tell us the whole story,’ said Thea, taking a chair at the pine table. ‘Jessica – maybe you could rustle up a nice big pot of tea. Ant won’t mind you rummaging in his kitchen, I’m sure.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Ant, with a very unhappy sigh.

  Chapter Ten