A Cotswold Christmas Mystery

by Rebecca Tope

  The moment was quickly over, and a small amount of tidying up was accomplished. The game was postponed until after they’d had some salad and cake, which was entirely surplus to requirements, but somehow expected.

  ‘But first we all have to go outside for a bit,’ Thea ordered. ‘If only for the sake of the dog.’ To Stephanie’s surprise, there was wholesale enthusiasm for this plan, despite a cold breeze and cloudy skies.

  ‘Can I take my drone?’ Timmy asked, picking the new toy out of his box.

  ‘Is it a real one?’ asked Drew. ‘Who gave you that?’

  ‘It was in his stocking,’ said Thea. ‘It’s not very high-tech, but it looks like fun. You wind it up, and then let it go. Let’s see it, Tim.’

  The child handed it over, and she read the notes on the packaging. ‘“Soars twenty feet into the air. Only to be used outdoors.” Sounds great. We can all have a go.’

  When they gathered in the lane outside, the same loud Christmas music was coming from Mr Shipley’s house over the way as they had heard the day before. ‘Isn’t that the same carol as yesterday?’ asked Jessica. ‘Is he just playing it all on a loop, or what?’

  Thea paused to listen more closely. ‘It’s odd that he’s there at all. I distinctly remember him saying he was going to London for the whole week.’

  ‘Maybe it’s done by remote control, to make burglars think he’s at home,’ Jessica suggested.

  ‘Not very likely. I don’t think he’s very high-tech. All he does is leave the landing light on when he goes away.’

  Drew and Timmy were striding down towards the field, chatting earnestly. ‘Look at them!’ marvelled Thea. ‘That trip to his mother’s seems to have done wonders for their bonding.’

  Stephanie was trying to peer up Mr Shipley’s driveway to see if she could detect any life in the house. She liked their neighbour, who was a middle-aged bachelor with old-fashioned manners. He had taken the trouble to talk to her about books and local history more than once, treating her like a grown-up and asking her opinion. When his sister died and Dad did the funeral, they had grown even closer. One of their conversations had dwelt with remarkable frankness on the merits of burial over cremation, with particular reference to environmental considerations.

  ‘Could we invite him to come for a drink, like we did that other time?’ she asked Thea.

  ‘Oh! That was Easter, wasn’t it? Didn’t he stay for the meal as well?’

  ‘He could come and have some cake.’

  ‘It’s much too short notice, Steph,’ said Jessica. ‘And what’s he going to think? That you’d forgotten all about him until now, probably. Or you had a sudden surge of Christmas spirit at the last minute. If he’s lonely or bored, he might not want you to know about it. And some people really prefer to forget the whole thing.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Stephanie, trying to imagine herself into such a person’s shoes. ‘I can’t see his car, anyway. He usually leaves it in front of the garage. He told me he’s got too many boxes and stuff to get the car in. So probably he’s not there, after all.’

  ‘So what’s with the music?’ wondered Thea.

  ‘That’s a mystery,’ shrugged Jessica, trotting after the menfolk. ‘Hey, you two, wait for us.’

  In the field, Stephanie was reminded again of the metal detector man who turned out to be a handsome young police detective. ‘Let’s go down into the next field and see if we can find some treasure,’ she said, and began running across the short grass with Hepzie flying after her. None of the human beings seemed inclined to follow, so she slowed down, but kept on in the same direction. ‘He was just here,’ she muttered to herself, arriving at the foot of a towering oak tree. Idly she scuffed her boots back and forth in the slowly decomposing leaves shed by the tree. It appeared to her to be a singularly improbable spot in which to bury stolen jewels, or whatever it was Finch Graham had been searching for. All the same, the idea of hidden gold was magical enough to fire her enthusiasm. ‘Nothing here,’ she soon concluded, and began to work her way along the hedge, before rejoining the others. Timmy’s drone was proving to be something of a disappointment, apparently. It wasn’t powered by batteries, but an old-fashioned clockwork mechanism that seemed slightly babyish to Stephanie. She watched an abortive launch in which it leapt to a height of about ten feet and then instantly flopped back to the ground.

  ‘You’re supposed to wind it up,’ came Thea’s voice across the open field.

  The next attempt was far more successful, the little grey gadget whirring high overhead for at least twenty seconds. Everybody cheered.

  Jessica began walking over to meet Stephanie. ‘Find anything?’ she called.

  ‘No. It was a silly place to look, anyway.’

  They drew closer, until normal conversation became possible. ‘I don’t expect he stayed here for long. My mum found him up in the village somewhere, didn’t she? Presumably he was just trying different places at random. I wonder if he got proper permission?’

  ‘He was here on Friday as well, remember. Here in the field, I mean. He must have thought he’d find something. Enough to make him come back again.’

  ‘Probably just got carried away. Isn’t that what he said? They tell me it’s addictive – like gambling. You keep thinking you’ll miss something if you don’t just try for a few more minutes. And it’s all very Roman around here. Maybe he thought there was ancient treasure to find, as well.’

  ‘What’s this?’ came Thea’s voice behind them. ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to be thinking about that.’

  ‘What?’ said Jessica.

  ‘Gold jewellery and dead men in the woods, and people who are our friends getting into trouble.’

  ‘We weren’t talking about any of that. It comes under the heading of banned topics of conversation.’

  ‘Drew can’t hear me. Anyway, the day’s almost over now. You must admit I did a good job. I think I deserve a star.’

  ‘You just did what about five million other women have done, all across the country.’

  ‘Ungrateful brat,’ said Thea.

  ‘That’s probably what the five million other women are thinking – and saying – at this very moment, as well.’

  ‘I’m grateful,’ said Stephanie brightly.

  ‘Careful,’ Jessica warned her. ‘Even you can go too far in the sainthood stakes.’

  Thea laughed. ‘Oh well – it’s been nice, whatever you say. And right after breakfast tomorrow I’m going to go back to being my old self, and might well start with a phone call to Antares Frowse.’

  To her own surprise, Stephanie felt like cheering. Then she visualised the scene back indoors, with the underlying friction between all the adults, and the unresolved issues floating around, and she felt a powerful desire to stay outdoors a bit longer. ‘Can I see if I can find Mr Shipley?’ she asked Drew.

  ‘What? Why? Where do you think he is?’

  ‘He’s probably at home, although his car isn’t in the drive. I could go and knock on his door. I want to tell him about my new chess set.’

  ‘No, love. I don’t think so. Not by yourself.’

  ‘Timmy can come with me, then.’

  But Timmy didn’t want to. He had toys he had not yet examined, and besides that he was tired. Stephanie began to feel mulish. ‘It’s just across the road. You could hear me if I shouted.’

  Thea intervened. ‘She’s been worrying about him since yesterday, spending Christmas by himself. We don’t know for sure, of course, that he did. He might easily have been invited to be with people somewhere.’

  ‘The music’s still playing,’ Jessica pointed out. ‘Which is a bit odd, when you think about it.’

  ‘Just go quickly, then. We’ll give you fifteen minutes to do your bit of Christian charity,’ Drew decided. ‘After that, we’ll come looking for you.’

  ‘We’re meant to be playing more games, don’t forget,’ said Thea, with a glint of determination in her eye. Games were starting to feel like more of a duty than
a pleasure to them all.

  Stephanie crossed the road, still in an obstinate frame of mind. She had been out in the village by herself numerous times. She knew the paths and shortcuts, and how to avoid being mown down by traffic. She and Hepzie were familiar to all the permanent residents. She enjoyed solitary strolls around the fields, like a child from a much earlier time. It helped her to think, which was something she needed to do at this moment.

  With deliberate disobedience, she checked for any watching relative, and then turned to the left, avoiding Mr Shipley’s house altogether. She was going to go down to the houses by the church, and look at their decorations through their uncurtained windows. It wasn’t yet quite dark outside, but people would have turned their lights on indoors. It was always fascinating to peer in at this time of day. If she gave herself ten minutes, before finally seeking out Mr Shipley, all would be well.

  The fading light gave everything a dreamy atmosphere, and it was great to be out of the house, wearing a woolly hat and scarf and not seeing another human being. She could pretend it was two hundred years ago, when a girl her age would be either working, or acting as an assistant teacher in a small local school. Before education was compulsory, when most people could barely read, she assumed she would have been one of the clever ones, with parents who valued learning. Before Queen Victoria; before electricity or cars or indoor lavatories – it was all deeply fascinating, and barely credible. At the big school, the history teacher had instantly become Stephanie’s favourite. They had been taken on a trip to Cirencester to look at Roman stuff, but that paled in comparison with the project they had done on local industry. Two centuries ago there had been needle-making in Chalford, and weaving everywhere. It was all done by hand, in poor light, for hardly any money. Girls of Stephanie’s age were an important part of the workforce. They had very little free time, and scarcely any luxuries. With all the talk of giving up fossil fuels and not using plastic any more, she made the inevitable connection to those pre-industrial days, finding the idea of going back to something similar more than a little enticing.

  Drew had understood and partly agreed. After all, his funerals were more or less the same as they’d been in the 1820s. ‘And how wonderful if everyone put their phones away,’ he’d joked.

  That had made her think again. What if there were no more planes or computers or washing machines or meat? All things she had heard listed as no longer acceptable. ‘That’s all a bit too extreme for me,’ said Dad, when she voiced her worries. ‘And one thing’s for sure – you can never go back. Whatever happens, it won’t be the same as it’s been before.’

  Another person who had encouraged such thoughts was Ant. He was naturally inclined to a simple life, wearing the same clothes for years and waging war on plastic, but even he had a phone and a van and cheerfully ate meat. He talked it all through with her in a straightforward way that she found reassuring and informative. ‘If we gave up meat, there’d be no cows or sheep or pigs, except possibly in a few children’s zoos. That might be okay, of course. But at least the facts need to be faced.’

  Thea was far less satisfactory. ‘Gosh, when I was your age all I ever thought about was fighting with Jocelyn and who my best friend should be. I did like history at school, I suppose, although it was mostly about the American Civil War and the development of medicine. That went on for years – all four of us did those same topics.’

  None of which meant anything to Stephanie. Her stepmother spared little thought for the issues of the day, and consistently advised Stephanie to have confidence that everything would turn out perfectly fine. ‘They’re always changing their minds about when the end of the world will be,’ she laughed. ‘You can’t take these things seriously.’

  It made a degree of sense, Stephanie supposed, and Thea had many virtues that balanced her tendency to flippancy. She did, after all, get personally involved in the search for murderers, often very bravely. Dad loved her and she made him happier than he would have been otherwise. Now it was their friends affected by a nasty mystery, and Thea could be trusted to march in and see what she could do to help.

  So it was only reasonable to assume that nothing would be different this time. Ant’s mother was a nice lady, who had given Stephanie and Timmy some delicious fruit cake a few weeks ago. The occasion had been a winter bazaar in Chipping Campden, at which Beverley had been running a stall, selling bags of fudge, jars of chutney, home-made gift tags and many other products. Everything was her own work. The whole family had been there, eating the first mince pies of the season and buying presents from the well-stocked stalls. Hepzie had not been allowed in and was in the car outside. ‘Bring her round to our house tomorrow and I’ll give her a nice beef bone,’ said Beverley. ‘Percy can easily spare it.’

  But they hadn’t followed up on her invitation. Drew had been too busy, and Thea hadn’t been in the mood. It was raining, and she persuaded herself the whole thing had not been meant seriously. ‘You have to phone her and say we’re not coming,’ Stephanie had urged. ‘It’s rude otherwise.’

  ‘She didn’t say a time, did she? Not even morning or afternoon. It’s Sunday. People don’t want visitors on a Sunday.’

  When Beverley had phoned at two o’clock to ask if they were coming, Thea had been severely wrong-footed. ‘Oh, Lord – sorry,’ she had spluttered. ‘I don’t think we can make it after all. The kids haven’t done their homework, and we’ve already been out with the dog half the morning.’

  Beverley took it well, but Stephanie could see that Thea felt guilty. And quite right too, she thought. As it turned out, that was probably weighing on Thea’s conscience enough to make her want to find Beverley now she was missing, and make sure she was all right.

  She realised she had walked further than intended, while her mind whirred on autopilot. She had passed the church and turned right, down a small lane that was home to the little old Quaker meeting house. She ought not to go any further. There were a few houses beyond the meeting house, and then a field, but she didn’t know their occupants. She should turn back to the big cherry tree beside the row of houses with the lighted windows. It was time she got home. Even Thea might worry a bit about an eleven-year-old girl being out longer than the allotted fifteen minutes, without even the dog for company. She was going to skip the Mr Shipley plan and tell them he hadn’t been at home.

  She began to feel rather brave, even intrepid, at having such freedom in a world full of paranoia. Teachers had endlessly repeated ‘Be safe’ as a mantra, all her life. The children tolerated it, chafing under the yoke of overprotection while ignorant of what real freedom might entail. Stories from the past where people aged six or seven walked two miles to school and back, or jumped on and off London buses any time they liked, were sheer fantasy to Stephanie’s generation. They were told repeatedly that there was danger everywhere, in all guises. There was a universal belief that determined abductors lurked behind every hedge, waiting to snatch an unwary passing child.

  Not a single car went past, and she could hear no human voices, although she could see people moving inside one or two of the houses. In a topsy-turvy way, she felt the outdoors was a cosy, appealing place to be. The darkening sky felt friendly, the magic of Christmas Day an ever-present delight. She had no need of a dog or small brother to defend her, even if either had been anything of a fighter. Why would they need to fight anyway? Nothing was going to happen to arouse any hostility. That was a message that Thea could take credit for. All her murders had been resolved, explained and efficiently dealt with. The motives for killing were evident – greed, fear, social pressure, unhinged ideas. None of those held any threat for children. Even thinking about all this gave her no cause for anxiety. Then a voice from behind her said, ‘Hello? Is that my friend Stephanie?’

  She jumped, but only slightly, and turned round to see the very man she was meant to be seeking – their neighbour, Mr Shipley, was coming from the small lane she had just traversed herself.

  ‘Were you behind m
e just now?’ she asked, with a little frown.

  ‘I was, to tell you the truth. I thought you might need someone at your back. Like a guardian angel, if that isn’t too presumptuous.’

  She gave it some thought. ‘It sounds quite nice, actually. Where’s your car?’ she wondered.

  ‘Oh – it’s fallen ill, the silly thing. I left it with the garage on Friday and have been stranded ever since.’

  ‘Oh dear. That sounds horrible. You can’t have had a very nice Christmas.’

  He smiled in the dim light, a few front teeth shining white. ‘Not as much as you have, I’m sure. It’s a time for children, after all.’

  ‘Is it? You mean the presents and all that?’

  He took a deep breath, and looked over at the church. She could sense a sort of sermon coming on, and found herself oddly eager to hear it. This, she dimly realised, was what had been missing from the day all along. Mr Shipley did not disappoint. ‘More that it’s a time to celebrate the mystery of birth. Not just the birth of Jesus, but every new child. I mean, it’s extraordinary, don’t you think? Where do those new souls come from? All those different personalities and talents and eccentricities. They just arrive from somewhere. I think that’s the real message of Christmas.’

  Stephanie felt a small thrill that a grown man should be discussing where babies came from with her. It was very slightly scary, in fact. ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I probably haven’t explained it very well. And it’s probably not what I should be saying to you, either. I can’t guarantee that I’ve got the orthodox theology of it right. In fact, I obviously haven’t. You’re supposed to focus on the Word made flesh, in just that one instance. In my own heretical view, the same goes for every instance of a new birth. Every single human being embodies the Word, if you ask me. That’s the Quaker line. I am something of an old Quaker, when it comes down to it.’

  ‘The Word?’ Stephanie queried, starting to feel that she was being exceptionally privileged to hear Mr Shipley’s views. It was, after all, something she had been hankering for.