by Rebecca Tope
At much the same time, Detective Superintendent Gladwin was knocking on the Slocombes’ door, the post-mortem on Mr Blackwood having already been accomplished and a report having been transmitted to all interested parties. Thea told Stephanie and Tim to stay in the kitchen, while she led Gladwin into the living room, which smelt of woodsmoke and candles.
‘He died of electrocution,’ the detective said, after very few preliminaries. ‘And because he was at too great a distance from the electric fence for it to have been an accident, we have to assume it was a deliberate act of homicide. A relevant factor is his pacemaker, which was badly damaged by the electric current that passed through him.’
Jessica had resolved to detach herself from any conversation between Thea and Gladwin, but she quickly changed her mind when she realised the detective had not come alone. DS Finch Graham was at her side. And there was no denying the fascination of the case. ‘How?’ she demanded. ‘How do you electrocute someone, using their own fence?’
‘That’s what a team of officers is trying to establish as we speak. There’s a junction box thingy very close to where he was found, and it would not be impossible, apparently, to divert the current and send it through a human body.’ She sighed. ‘We did it in physics, a hundred years ago, and I can’t remember any of the details. All I can relate it to is the electric chair in America, and The Green Mile. It helps if the person’s wet, and if you connect to vital organs.’
‘One person surely couldn’t do it on their own,’ said Thea. ‘How would you keep your victim still?’
‘Bash him on the head, I suppose,’ said Jessica. ‘But there might well have been more than one attacker.’
Thea was thinking about Digby and his clever games with the keypad electronics at the gate across the track up to his house. Would that qualify him to operate a diversion of current from the fence as well? ‘It sounds awfully dangerous,’ she said.
‘It was a fairly high voltage, and it stopped his heart, thanks mainly to the pacemaker,’ said Gladwin. ‘The pathologist found minor burn marks on the skin, which confirmed it as electrocution.’
‘Are you saying that anyone could have died if they touched that fence?’ Thea was loudly indignant.
‘No, not at all. You’d have to be soaking wet, and holding it for at least a minute, preferably against a vital organ. Otherwise it’s just a nasty jolt.’
‘But was the Blackwood man wet?’ Jessica wondered.
‘He might have been. Hard to tell, given he was lying outside for two days or more before anyone found him.’
Thea was quick to jump on this. ‘That long?’
‘Or thereabouts. Could have been a bit more, but not much less. You know how it goes. It’s impossible to pin the time of death down closer than that.’
‘But it’s got to have been premeditated,’ said Jessica. ‘Wouldn’t the killer need cables and stuff?’
‘I haven’t got that far yet. Presumably one cable, a couple of those clips they use, and maybe a bit of sticky tape. Not the sort of thing you’d carry around with you. I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that it was a spur-of-the-moment attack.’
‘Doesn’t that sound like some business thing, then? Somebody with a grudge, wanting revenge? Catching him when he’s relaxed in the run-up to Christmas, luring him into the woods somehow?’ Thea’s mind was working fast. It seemed to matter a lot that no suspicion would fall onto the Frowses. But even as she spoke, she could hear a voice saying, Yes, but Ant and his parents had a massive grudge against Blackwood.
Jessica and Finch were sitting together on a window seat that was very seldom used. Mostly it was stacked high with magazines, toys, work in progress, so there was never any room to sit on it. The window looked onto a thick hedge at the side of the house. They were facing each other awkwardly, with a gap of a foot or more between them, but the message was clear that they had opted to withdraw from the main conversation.
‘What did you bring him for?’ Thea asked Gladwin in a whisper. ‘You won’t need any more metal detecting now they’ve found Blackwood’s missing necklace.’
‘Pardon?’ Gladwin blinked in puzzlement.
‘You know – the gold necklace that Blackwood was accusing Beverley of taking. They found it, apparently.’ She clamped her mouth shut, wondering if she’d been a complete fool to mention it. ‘I got a text a little while ago, from Ant. I haven’t spoken to him today,’ she added defensively. ‘It’s not as if Finch was actually searching for that, was he?’ she finished weakly.
Gladwin looked over to the detective sergeant. ‘Have you any idea what she’s talking about? Because I haven’t.’
‘Come on,’ Thea urged her. ‘Somebody must have told you. That was the whole reason why Beverley went off when she did – or so they think. Back on Wednesday or Thursday, or whenever it was. Blackwood accused Bev of taking it.’
‘Gold necklace?’ Gladwin was still showing every sign of confusion.
‘Nobody told you?’ Thea concluded. ‘Well, fancy that. Cock-up on the communication front, because I seem to recall that Carla reported it to the police.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Who knows? I haven’t seen it. And now they’ve found it, so I suppose it was just a red herring all along.’
‘What’s the latest on that car crash?’ Jessica called from the far side of the room.
‘Five fatalities, all needing the pathologist. Everything got shifted up to make time for it.’ Gladwin was clearly pained by the accident.
Thea did a rapid automatic survey of the people she held most dear. No – none of them could possibly have been on the A44 on Christmas night. ‘Five?’ she echoed. ‘How terrible. The poor things.’
‘It hardly bears thinking about,’ nodded Gladwin. ‘Except of course I’ve got to, because it’s my job. And now I’ve got to figure out who killed our famous local plutocrat with an electric cable.’
‘And it’s still only Boxing Day,’ said Finch from across the room.
Jessica giggled briefly, but the others did not react.
‘I’m going over to Crossfield now, to see where things stand. We’ve got people there already, of course,’ said Gladwin. ‘Any chance of a coffee first? I missed breakfast.’
Thea got up and looked at Finch. ‘You want one as well, do you?’
‘If it’s no trouble. Thanks.’
In the kitchen, Stephanie and Timmy were sitting at the table doing nothing. There was no sign of Drew. It was obvious that Thea had interrupted a conversation that the children did not want her to know about. ‘What are you two plotting?’ she asked. ‘You look terribly guilty.’
‘They’re going to arrest Ant, aren’t they?’ Stephanie burst out. ‘They think he killed that horrible man.’
‘Whatever gave you that idea? Were you listening to us in the sitting room?’ She realised it would not have been difficult for the children to hear what had been said. The doors had both been open and nobody had thought it necessary to lower their voice.
‘Some of it,’ Stephanie admitted.
‘Well, you heard wrong. If you ask me, it’s far more likely to have been Mr Blackwood’s wife, or some businessperson he’s cheated or bullied – something like that. The man’s incredibly rich, and rich people nearly always have enemies. It’s probably bad news for Ant and his parents, as well, though. If the estate’s sold, there’ll be even more pressure on them to move out.’ This thought had only just struck her and she paused to examine it. ‘So that would give them the opposite of a motive, don’t you think?’
Timmy was looking very unsure about the whole conversation. His friendship with the Frowses focused mainly on the dog. Stephanie, however, was keeping up admirably. ‘But they do hate him. Everybody knows they do. And where is Mrs Frowse? How could she just disappear and leave them on Christmas Day? Poor Ant!’ She sniffed back a flurry of sympathetic tears.
‘Hey, Steph! Don’t get upset. It’ll turn out all right, you see. And it’s not such a big
deal about Christmas when you’re a grown-up. I don’t suppose they minded as much as all that. They know Beverley’s okay, because she phoned them on Saturday. At worst, she’ll have had a bit of a funny turn and decided she needed to get away. A sort of panic attack, probably.’ Thea was convincing herself rather more successfully than she was convincing the child. ‘I bet you that’s all it was.’
Stephanie sniffed again. ‘Are you going out now?’
‘Me? No – this is strictly police business. I’d only be in the way. But we could walk over there this afternoon, maybe, when things have settled down a bit. I’ll text Ant and see if he’d like that, shall I?’
‘Okay,’ Stephanie nodded. ‘And Timmy?’
‘Of course. Timmy’s Percy’s best friend, after all. And he missed out the last time.’ Their Christmas Eve visit to the Frowses seemed a long time ago now, as did Drew’s epic trip to see his mother. Everywhere she looked, Thea saw loose ends and unfinished business. Drew’s mother, especially. ‘Where’s Dad?’ she asked, then. She had assumed that Drew would be in the kitchen as well.
‘In the office, I think,’ said Stephanie.
The implication was that he was sulking, hiding away from Gladwin because he did not approve of her presence in his house. But there was no sense in trying to placate him yet, since Thea was highly likely to compound her misdeeds further before the day was done. Stephanie was right, of course, in her assumption that at least one of the Frowse family was liable to be taken in for questioning now that it was established that Blackwood had been murdered. Thea wasn’t sure why she had been so slow to grasp that herself. Her momentary relief at realising it would probably work against them to have the man dead had quickly evaporated. They hated him quite strongly enough to override such a consideration.
And Beverley Frowse hated him worst of all.
Only a few minutes after Gladwin and Graham left, Thea thought better of her judgement on Drew, and went to find him. He might be wanting some coffee, even if he was disinclined to speak to her. She tapped lightly on his office door and opened it without waiting for a reply.
He was sitting at his desk, writing on a pad of old-fashioned notepaper. ‘Gosh – is that Basildon Bond?’ she laughed. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘I think Karen gave it to me about fifteen years ago. Or rather, perhaps somebody gave it to both of us as a wedding present. It was in a big blue box with a ribbon attached to one corner. Most of it’s still left, as well as about two dozen blue envelopes.’
‘And you’ve kept it ever since.’ It made her feel fond of him, for some reason.
‘It’s not the sort of thing you can just throw away. It’s excellent quality. I rather wish I was using a fountain pen, to do it justice.’
‘You’re a dinosaur. The only forty-year-old in the land to write a proper letter by hand.’
‘I expect I am. I don’t know why I’m doing it, to be honest. And I won’t be forty for a long time yet.’
‘It can only be a letter to your mother,’ she realised. ‘Better than an email, easier than a phone call. I get it.’
‘Do you?’ He looked up at her for the first time. ‘Thank goodness for that.’
‘Do you want to tell me what you’re saying to her? Do you think I should put a note in as well?’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘I should, of course. Do I call her “Mother” or “Sandra”?
‘She doesn’t like Sandra much. Her friends – and my father – call her Sandy. I think you’ll have to ask her, not me.’
‘Tell me more about her. I feel stupid, hardly knowing a thing about my own mother-in-law.’
Drew sat back in the chair and nibbled his pen. ‘Well, let’s see … She was born in nineteen fifty and worked in a racing stable before she was married. Some of her horses won big races. She always followed the Grand National and all the rest of them, on the telly when I was little. I never liked horses myself.’
‘Was your father horsey as well?’
‘Not so much. He preferred mechanical things. But they followed the hunt on Boxing Day every year. On foot, not horseback. They never actually owned a horse of their own, which I think my mother still resents to this day.’
‘Boxing Day’s today,’ said Thea, superfluously.
‘Yes, I know. That’s why I’m writing, partly. I was just saying I remember how it was thirty years ago – although I haven’t put the bit where I refused to go with them, when I was about twelve, because I said the hunt was cruel and barbaric and outdated and morally unacceptable. She probably hasn’t forgotten, which means it’s probably daft of me to mention it.’
‘Tricky,’ said Thea. ‘But your side came up trumps in the end. The whole thing’s banned now.’
‘There’ll be people out there today, dragging a pretend fox about and letting their horses and hounds rush about over the wolds, much the same as before. The hope is, of course, that they’ll accidentally stumble on a real one, and accidentally let the hounds go after it.’
‘You think?’ Thea had never given the topic much thought. ‘I get the impression this is going to be quite a long letter, then. Do you want some coffee to fortify you while you write it? Lunch is in about an hour. Leftovers. Including the uneaten Christmas pudding, which isn’t going to be very nice.’
‘It’s bringing an awful lot of stuff back,’ he said, ignoring the inconsequential food talk. ‘Most of it makes me feel horribly guilty. My mother up there, waiting for his funeral all over Christmas. It’s all wrong. What was I thinking, letting it carry on for so long?’
‘You’ve been busy with your own life. It seems to me it was up to them to make the first move. Where were they when Karen died? And before that – when you needed help with the kids? I know it’s not all on one side, but nobody could doubt that they were the pig-headed ones.’ She went to him and cuddled his head against her front. ‘If you ask me, you did what you had to, to survive. I know I’ve never heard the full story, but it’s obvious that they were pretty rubbish parents.’
‘Don’t say that.’ His voice was muffled. ‘They probably did their best. It goes back generations, if you start looking for blame.’
‘Well, I think people can learn to do things better.’
‘Which is why I’m writing to her now. I want to do things better.’ He gave her a tragic look. ‘It’s about Timmy, you see. I woke up this morning and it hit me. If I don’t watch myself, I’ll end up doing to him what my father did to me.’
She kissed the top of his head. ‘Timmy’s going to be fine,’ she assured him. ‘From here on, we’re going to make darn sure he is.’
He grabbed her tightly and squeezed. ‘I love you, Thea Slocombe,’ he said. ‘And I absolutely don’t deserve you.’
‘That could go two ways,’ she laughed. ‘Some people might wonder what you did to deserve such a terrible wife.’
‘Some people don’t know what they’re talking about,’ said Drew.
Over lunch, Jessica talked about Finch Graham. ‘He was telling me a bit more about the metal detecting. It’s been a hobby of his for years, and he’s got really good at spotting likely places where stuff might be hidden. He liked to think he’d find stolen goods out in that field, but really he’d heard a whisper that there might be some Roman hoards still to discover. There must be quite a few villas that haven’t been unearthed yet, even round here.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Thea. ‘The whole area’s been gone over minutely in the last century or so. More than anywhere else in Britain, probably.’
‘Even so, it would be easy to miss a small one. And even easier to miss a stash of buried coins or jewellery. Think about it – in the first place, the person hiding them would use a secret place, not close to a road or buildings. Maybe near a big tree, so he could find it again. Then the tree blows down, and brambles and nettles grow all over it, and new baby trees spring up and eventually it’s a real little wood, and nobody thinks of it as having been open ground at one time. All this rewilding that’s g
oing on shows how quickly a patch of land can change. It’s all very exciting,’ she finished with a sigh.
Stephanie and Timmy were both following this with wide-open eyes. ‘I want a metal detector,’ said Timmy. ‘I’m going to find some treasure with it.’
Jessica beamed at him. ‘So am I,’ she said.
Drew was inattentive, eating quickly. ‘Dad?’ Timmy said. ‘Can I have a metal detector for my birthday?’
Drew looked up in confusion. ‘Birthday? That’s not till September. You’ve only just had Christmas. And I’m not sure they’re suitable for children, are they?’ He looked at Thea and Jessica for enlightenment.
‘Finch might let you go with him sometime, when he’s using his,’ Jessica told Tim.
Stephanie had been watching Drew and Thea since before lunch. Something nice had happened; they were being all lovey-dovey, like they’d been a year ago, before Thea started getting bored. It was probably just Christmas, she concluded. The presents and the food and the candles had all conspired to make everybody happy, after all. And now it was almost over, the cold meat and stodgy rewarmed pudding’s faint echoes of the wonderful Christmas lunch – but the niceness of it, not just the meal but the whole day − were lingering on. She tried to think of a better word – ‘warm’, perhaps. ‘Loving’ seemed a bit strong, but ‘affectionate’ wasn’t strong enough. Dad was distracted, but not in a worried way. He was looking at Timmy as if he was really glad to have him. And Jessica was being mushy about the Finch person.
Only Thea was making her uneasy. Even now, when she was smiling at Dad, and putting her hand on his shoulder when she went to get something from the fridge, there was something unreliable about her. She never let you forget that there was a world just outside their front door where strange and scary things were happening. There was always a mystery of some sort, always a reason to go out and involve herself in other’s people’s trouble. Stephanie herself was torn between that unsettling lure of the outside and the comfort and contentment of a person’s own home. Timmy, she suspected, was essentially a stay-at-home sort of person, like Dad.