by Rebecca Tope
Lucy’s phone was off, so Thea left a brief message saying she was unsure as to what she was expected to do. Then she sat down with a cup of strong instant coffee and slightly limp ginger biscuits and tried to think.
Chapter Twelve
She thought first about Ollie Sinclair and the new information she had been given about him. Nobody really likes Ollie, his girlfriend had said. Did that mean nobody would grieve for him, attend his funeral, care who killed him? She tried to rerun everything Kevin had said, looking for evidence that he did in fact love his son. On the face of it, there was plenty. He had looked ravaged, and had wanted to know all he could about the police investigation. And surely any father would be distraught at the death of his son. But the Sinclair family was beyond complicated. There were alliances and schisms that confounded expectations and logic, according to Vicky. And there were the people Thea had met here in Northleach who all seemed to be connected in one way or another. Even Hunter Lanning, who had effectively dismissed Ollie as a lost cause, thanks to drug addiction. Where, Thea wondered, had that slanderous belief come from? Had somebody done it deliberately, as part of a complex plan to murder the man? If nobody much cared whether he lived or died, it would be a lot easier to get away with killing him.
All this was successfully keeping her in Northleach, when she really ought to be at home, ready with tea and a listening ear for her exhausted husband. At least Stephanie was catered for, her lift home assured. The child could provide an intelligent and sympathetic ear for Drew, probably better than Thea could. Stephanie had watched funerals being arranged from infancy. She understood precisely how to pitch her remarks, not just to her father, but to families of the deceased. She had been allowed to answer the phone to them, take messages and even discuss the relative merits of cardboard coffins and willow baskets. She did all that with greater confidence than Thea did.
Having Hepzie with her was a mixed blessing. It was risky to leave her alone in Lucy’s house, with the owner potentially turning up and letting her out by mistake. Or objecting to her unsupervised presence. So Thea would have to take her everywhere with her – and since that was likely to be neighbouring houses, her reception was uncertain. Except for Bobby Latimer, who had made no complaint at all about a strange dog turning up. And Bobby Latimer seemed as good a place to start as any. She appeared to be familiar with all the main players, and yet to be sufficiently detached to be free from emotional outbursts. It was almost impossible to imagine her as a murderer, too.
So Thea took the dog and crossed the road and knocked on Bobby’s front door. ‘They should call me She Who Knocks on Doors,’ she murmured to herself and the spaniel, thinking of all the occasions when she had done something very similar in other Cotswold villages. Hepzie wagged her tail in agreement.
Bobby had her mouth full as she answered the door. ‘Lunchtime,’ she mumbled, rolling her eyes.
Thea took her to be thinking haven’t we seen enough of each other for one week? ‘Oh – sorry!’ she said. She noticed that she was more than ready for a midday meal herself.
Bobby made no move to invite her in, but simply stood there, slowly chewing. There were sounds of children from a room close by. ‘I’ll come back later, then,’ said Thea.
‘Uh-uh.’ Bobby shook her head. ‘Won’t be here.’ At last she swallowed. ‘Was it important?’
‘Not exactly. No – not at all, really.’
‘Go and talk to Livia, then. I think she’s there on her own at the moment.’
Such levels of neighbourly surveillance made Thea shudder. ‘Why? Where’s Faith gone?’ she asked, mainly to test the extent of Bobby’s knowledge.
‘How would I know?’ came the swift response.
Thea just tilted her head slightly and raised her eyebrows. Sometimes a look could speak volumes. ‘You think I’m a nosy neighbour,’ Bobby concluded. ‘I expect I am by some people’s standards. But I can’t see any harm in it.’
Still Thea said nothing. Silently she ran through a few options. Whatever turns you on was one of them. She smiled at her own thoughts.
‘Right, then,’ said Bobby decidedly. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ She was trying to be British, Thea realised – formal, pronouncing all the consonants and standing tall. It was actually quite endearing.
‘Of course. Sorry,’ she said again. And crossed the road for a second time.
It was galling to be seen to do exactly as Bobby had suggested, but there seemed to be little else available. She knocked on the door of the house next to Lucy’s and was rewarded by its opening instantly. She had been watched, she thought resignedly. ‘Hello! Good to see you. Come in. Have you had any lunch? How about a nice dry sherry first? I was furious when Faith told me she’d seen you yesterday morning without me. Now’s my chance to catch up.’
This too was appealing in its way. The people of Northleach were beginning to seem more likeable than they had at first. ‘Is it okay if the dog comes as well?’ she asked.
‘Of course. You wouldn’t get far around here if you couldn’t cope with a dog now and then. She’s not even muddy, as far as I can see.’
‘She’s not,’ Thea confirmed. ‘We haven’t been anywhere yet today.’
The sherry materialised with no further consultation, followed by a magical plate of food. ‘Sit down,’ Livia ordered in her husky tones. ‘Faith’s made one of her risotto things. It’s got mushrooms and lumps of haddock in it – hope that’s to your taste?’
‘Isn’t she here?’
‘She’s upstairs, I think. Wanted to get a cardy. It has turned a bit chilly, hasn’t it?’
‘Oh,’ said Thea, thinking that Bobby had been quite wrong in her belief that Faith was out somewhere, leaving Livia on her own. Perhaps the village surveillance system had its limitations, after all. She sat down as instructed, but was unsure about accepting food.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asked. ‘I can’t sit here and take your food if you’re not having it as well.’ She hesitated to explain that it made her feel at a serious disadvantage, like a waif who had to be rescued from starvation. Somewhere there was a suspicion that the woman was perfectly well aware of that already. Livia was standing beside a large pan on the hob. Thea couldn’t see whether there was one plate or three about to be filled – or any plates at all.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. We don’t normally have lunch until nearly two, for some reason. But it’s ready now, just keeping warm. We can eat with you.’ She turned and beamed in a parody of hospitality. ‘The thing is, it doesn’t always work to wait for a person to decide whether or not to accept an offer of food. Had you noticed? They try to calculate all the implications, and waste a lot of time in the process. Much simpler just to ladle out a plate of whatever’s cooking and take it from there.’
‘I suppose so,’ Thea said, thinking that while this might be true, there were subtler ways of handling it. You didn’t plonk it down in front of your guest without sitting down yourself – or waiting for the third person to put in an appearance.
But people were strange. They developed strange routines and forgot what normality looked like. In any case, the sherry was welcome and she sipped it thoughtfully. Hepzie was at her feet, having a gentle scratch to pass the time.
Then Faith was clattering down the stairs, coming into the kitchen, expressing a welcome at least as enthusiastic as Livia’s. ‘Well, this is nice,’ she gushed. ‘Lucky I made a good lot of risotto.’
Thea smiled uneasily and looked around the room. It was twice as big as Lucy’s kitchen, with a solid pine table at one end, at which she had been told to sit. A big window looked over the garden, and a tall dresser housed a quantity of china. As she watched, Livia took down three plates from the middle shelf.
‘We saw your visitor a little while ago,’ said Faith shamelessly. ‘Friend of yours?’ The wide-eyed gaze was far too guileless to be believed. Even Stephanie or Timmy would grasp the not-very-well-hidden agenda: We’ll have to tell Lucy Sinclair that you had a stra
nge girl in her house. Except that, according to Lucy, there was very little amicable communication between the neighbours. Wasn’t that a large part of the reason for wanting Thea there in the first place?
Thea still said nothing, bending down to make sure the dog was behaving, and then ostentatiously looking out at the garden, which had a big flowering cherry in a prominent position. Livia placed a generous lunch in front of her, and Thea smiled her thanks.
Neither woman had missed her failure to answer Faith’s question. They exchanged a very obvious glance, and Thea remembered the insistence that they were not a couple. She found herself trying to define the term in any way that would not include these two. They lived and ate together. They had specific routines. They read each other’s thoughts. Many a husband and wife lived in the same house for decades without being as intimate as Faith and Livia clearly were.
‘I haven’t heard from Lucy,’ she said. ‘Not a word. I’m not sure what I ought to do.’
‘One assumes she remains in hospital,’ said Livia, apparently intending to be funny with her pompous syntax. She smiled, as if to make the point more clearly. Then she took a mouthful of the risotto, which Thea had already judged to have been cooked by an expert. Something herby, something else slightly tangy, all combined to create highly enjoyable food.
Having taken a matching mouthful, Thea replied, ‘I suppose that’s it. I can’t think of anywhere else she would go.’ But then, Thea thought, she did not know very much about Lucy’s life. There could be friends who would whisk her away for recuperation – but everything she did know strongly suggested otherwise. The death of her stepson could have changed all her plans, or simply rendered her too upset to remember to speak to her house-sitter. Then she tried to remember everything that had been said between herself and Faith the day before. It seemed a long time ago. She’d had a lot more conversations since then. In fact, the whole of the past two days had been filled with dense conversations that she could not hope to recall verbatim. She just trusted that the salient points remained in her head.
‘I went to see Lucy in hospital, actually,’ she said. ‘She didn’t seem too poorly. She said she might be home by now. But I haven’t heard anything since.’
‘Have you tried her phone?’ asked Livia.
‘Yes, but it’s switched off.’
‘Does she know about Kevin’s boy – being dead, I mean?’
Thea nodded, with a strong sense of a minefield right in front of her. The central issue had finally been brought into the limelight, giving her a theoretical opportunity to discover more about it. But somehow it felt impossibly difficult. Who knew what; who had said what to whom and when; and who was telling outright lies – it all sat there in a great tangle, and she could see little prospect of sorting it out. Far more likely that she could make it worse with a few careless words. So she ate some more, wishing the plate had been even more generously filled.
‘We all knew him by sight, of course. Such a handsome young man was bound to turn heads. Not that we ever saw him visit Lucy, even though she was only just down the street.’
Thea smiled and gave a wide-eyed look that said That’s interesting.
‘She’s quite an unreasonable person, you know,’ Livia went on mildly. ‘Takes great exception to the most innocent remarks. Hunter’s in despair of her.’
‘I saw him yesterday,’ said Thea, thinking she’d done impressively well in collecting local characters, most of whom had links with the murder victim. Hunter Lanning was of growing appeal as a likely killer, if only because he seemed to be so prominent. By some kind of logic, that gave him more to lose and therefore a more powerful motive than any other that had occurred to her.
‘Oh? What did you think of him?’ This was Faith, whose prominent eyes were fixed on Thea’s face with great interest.
‘I imagine he must be a very good orator. Persuasive. Even a bit charismatic on a good day.’ Thea had good reason to know charisma when she saw it, having come dangerously close to falling under its spell not so long ago.
Faith and Livia both glowed; Faith even put down her fork and clapped her hands. ‘That’s right!’ she applauded. ‘Exactly right. He’s a wonderful man.’
‘What are his politics, I wonder?’ She held her breath, expecting defensive reactions, or a lot of flummery about individualism or freedom of speech.
Instead there were two matching smiles, with the merest whiff of condescension. Livia spoke first. ‘It would be impossible to put a label on him in that regard. He deals with every topic on its own merit, as he sees it. He agrees with aspects of every political theory, and votes for the candidate he thinks will do the most good.’
‘Or least harm,’ supplied Faith.
Livia nodded, and went on, ‘Although sometimes he might opt for abstention. You should hear him talking about democracy. It’s a revelation.’
Thea thought she spotted a flaw. ‘And you all agree with him, right?’
It backfired. ‘Of course not. That would go against everything COM stands for. We’re not there to agree with each other. The whole point is that there is no single truth on any subject. There’s always another side to the coin.’ It was Livia again, looking down her nose like a Victorian schoolmarm.
‘Oh. Is there, though? I mean surely there have to be some absolutes?’
‘We haven’t found any yet – but it’s always enormous fun trying.’ Faith gently tapped her fork against her plate to indicate enthusiasm. ‘It’s so marvellously stimulating. Like sunshine on a frosty morning. Just so liberating, as well.’
‘Sounds great,’ said Thea, struggling to find any grounds for thinking otherwise. Scraping the last grains of rice from her plate, she let a few moments elapse, during which she remembered that she was supposed to be asking about Ollie Sinclair, not the local debating society. Because probably that’s all it was, when it came down to it. Nothing remotely linked to violence in any form. ‘Hunter told me that Ollie was a drug addict,’ she ventured, once again forgetting that Caz had asked for discretion on the subject.. ‘The same as you did,’ she addressed Faith. ‘But other people insist that wasn’t true at all. It’s not a very nice thing to say about a person without any proper evidence.’
All three plates were empty, and the diners sat back to enjoy the residual flavours loitering in their mouths. Thea took some water from the tumbler beside her plate.
Faith was the first to speak. ‘There never seemed to be much doubt about it. The drugs, I mean. Not that the people in the house were causing any actual nuisance. It was always very quiet – not even very much coming and going. We thought it was all a bit of a joke, actually. I mean – lots of socially acceptable substances are really drugs, aren’t they? People get addicted to all sorts of things.’
There it was again, Thea noted. Open-mindedness taken to the level of a rigorous doctrine. It sounded good, but somewhere there was a strange lack of substance to it, as if words were the only thing that mattered.
‘So you never bothered to find out whether or not it was true?’
Both women blinked at this. Clearly the idea had never crossed either of their minds. ‘Why would we?’ asked Livia. ‘It has nothing to do with us.’
The concept of community flashed through Thea’s mind, bringing echoes of other Cotswold settlements where nobody interfered with anybody else, but simply left everyone to battle or flounder or exploit or kill in whatever way they saw fit. Community existed only as a negative. Even Hunter Lanning’s club obviously failed to qualify. At least, she thought wryly, he had used a different word for it, based on the first three letters. ‘Committee’ might not be an accurate description, but it was closer than ‘Community’. ‘You might have helped to save his life if you’d shown a bit of interest,’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t you think?’
A curtain of silent hostility descended. ‘No,’ said Livia. ‘We really don’t think anything at all like that.’
No further lunch courses were in evidence, and Thea knew we
ll enough that her welcome had expired. It was apparently one thing to express an outlandish opinion about Israel or race or people changing their gender – but personal criticisms were clearly unacceptable. The openness or otherwise of a person’s mind did not extend to tolerating insinuations about their actual behaviour. ‘It’s all theory with you, then,’ Thea accused. ‘That’s the long and short of it.’
‘We’d rather you didn’t pass judgement,’ said Livia, stiffly. ‘If it’s all the same to you.’
Thea got up and jerked her head at the spaniel under the table who moved an inch or two with an enquiring expression. ‘I should go,’ she said, wary of finding herself in the wrong. ‘That was the best risotto I have ever had. It was truly delicious. Thank you very much. Come on, Heps.’
‘We had heard about you, of course,’ said Livia thoughtfully. ‘But we reserved judgement until we’d met you. I have to say your reputation is entirely justified.’
‘Oh?’ Thea’s blood felt chilly in her veins.
‘“Impertinence” is the word, I think. Overstepping normal bounds of acceptability. Intruding where you have no business to go.’
The automatic instinct was to defend, either by making counter-attacks, or by disarming through humour or apology. Over the years, she had taught herself to do none of these things. ‘It gets results, though,’ she said. ‘That’s the trouble. I’ve learnt something from you today, and if it takes a bit of plain speaking to get there, then so be it. But I didn’t want to upset you in the process.’
‘Is that an apology?’ asked Faith, obviously hoping it was.
‘Not really. You see, there are other people far more upset than you, not far from here. And they have a lot more reason to be. The truth is, you two are just mildly offended, and I don’t feel a bit sorry about that.’
