Slaughter in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Here we are,’ the driver announced, drawing into the layby itself.

  ‘No, no, I didn’t park here,’ Emily cried. ‘This isn’t right.’ She gazed tremulously out of the front windscreen. ‘It looks completely different,’ she said, as if this realisation gave her some reassurance.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Thea. ‘It might not upset you as much as you think, then.’

  ‘I can’t believe it’s the same place. It was so wet and dark.’ She seemed to be focused on the far end of the layby, and more animated than she had been thus far. ‘It rejoins the road up there, does it? I mean, you can just drive in this end and out the other? I never realised that.’

  ‘You thought it had a dead end, did you?’ Jeremy’s voice held a sharp note of interest. ‘That you needed to turn round to get out again?’

  She retreated back into herself. ‘I never thought about it,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I see,’ he said, with a severity that struck Thea as unnecessary.

  ‘So what now?’ Thea asked.

  ‘Bear with me a minute.’ He too was looking fixedly at the far end of the layby. Suddenly a familiar uniformed officer came into view. It was Chaz, and he made a thumbs-up signal at the car.

  ‘OK,’ Jeremy said to his driver, who started the engine, and began to make an odd manoevre, sweeping first towards the field hedge, and then sharply left towards the bank between the layby and the road. The width of the layby was insufficient to permit a turn in one go. He had to reverse again, and still couldn’t get round on the next forward leg. ‘Nasty place to try to turn,’ said Jeremy, his eyes on Emily’s face. ‘Especially in the pouring rain, and the dark.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I was in the gateway. I scraped the car on the gatepost.’

  ‘Yes you did,’ he agreed. ‘You most certainly did. We’ll talk about that in a little while.’

  ‘Wait!’ cried Thea in sudden alarm. ‘There’s somebody behind us. You’ll hit him.’

  Emily erupted into life. With a strangled scream, she wrenched open the car door and half fell out. Before anybody could get to grips with what she was doing, she had begun running, to the end of the layby and out into the road. A car horn sounded, and then the squealing of tyres as a vehicle braked horribly hard.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jeremy flatly. ‘That’s the last thing we need.’

  Thea felt herself frozen to the seat. She could not get out and walk back to see if her sister was sprawled dead on the road. She struggled to move, to be the one to cradle the dying Emily on her lap, but something had withered inside her. It was too much. There were policemen on all sides – let them take care of it. But the paralysis departed as quickly as it had come, and ten seconds later she was wrenching at the handle of the car door to let herself out.

  Everybody was running to the spot, several yards ahead of her, and she listened closely for evidence that everything was all right, for Emily’s own voice apologising for her folly. It was like the moment after a baby has been born, when everyone holds their breath until the new infant splutters into life. People were talking, and somewhere near by a dog was barking crazily. But the paralysis was back, and she found herself rooted to the ground, still in the layby, fighting to prepare herself for whatever she might have to see in a few seconds’ time.

  Then a large body was holding her tight against its chest, murmuring soothing nothings, persuading her that everything was all right.

  For a few seconds, it was her father, and she was five years old again. But this person was softer, and smelt entirely different. With an embarrassed giggle, she pulled away and looked up to meet Ariadne’s gaze. ‘Is Emily all right?’ she said.

  ‘She will be,’ she said. ‘I’ve got good brakes.’

  ‘You! It was you?’

  ‘She ran out in front of me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I left her to the police and came to find you. Phil’s just behind me, as well.’

  ‘That was kind of you, to look for me, I mean.’

  ‘Not really.’

  She tried to work out exactly what had happened. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  Ariadne laughed. ‘They told me. The policewoman said you might need a friendly face.’

  ‘Too right,’ said Thea shakily. ‘It’s all been a bit—’

  ‘So I see. That’s your sister, then. She doesn’t look like you.’

  The whole assembly had moved into the layby, including a white-faced but ambulant Emily. Jeremy followed her, looking grim. Thea found herself acutely aware of all the implications and dilemmas crowding the poor man’s head. His witness had thrown herself into the path of an oncoming car rather than face his questions. She ought to be thoroughly cross-examined and challenged – but she was clearly in an even worse state than before.

  ‘So, what’s going on?’ Ariadne wanted to know.

  ‘Good question,’ said Thea.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Phil materialised and took charge effortlessly after a quick briefing from Jeremy. The Detective Inspector seemed reluctant to abandon his plan, simply because his chief witness had sustained a few bruises. ‘We’ll take her to the hotel for a bit,’ Phil decided. ‘That’s the nearest place. Everyone can take a bit of a breather.’

  ‘Something was just about to happen,’ Thea said. ‘A man was behind the car. That’s what sent her off.’

  Ariadne looked all around in confusion. ‘It just looks chaotic to me. Why’s that car at such a weird angle?’

  ‘He was turning it round.’

  ‘Why?’

  Thea shook her head. ‘I’m not sure, really. I suppose he was testing a theory.’

  Ariadne put a firm hand on Thea’s arm. ‘Well I want to know what that theory is. It matters, Thea, in case you’ve forgotten. I thought all along that the key to the whole thing lay with your sister. Now she’s here and I want to know exactly what she saw.’

  Thea had a sense of waters closing over her head, or the lights going out inexorably, leaving her in a dark and dreadful place. ‘I know,’ she muttered. ‘I understand.’

  ‘What? What do you understand?’

  But Thea merely shook her head again.

  Raggedly, the whole party made its way to the hotel, Jeremy Higgins running ahead to warn the staff that a quiet room would be required, and some cups of tea and coffee. Thea found herself wondering how such a select establishment would regard the motley party that had insisted on invading their elegant sanctum. They must already be wishing they’d never had such a guest as Mr Sam Webster, whose death had put them in the headlines.

  Thea walked beside Ariadne, who clearly assumed she had a rightful place in the group. Emily was folded back into the police car, which Chaz drove up the long drive to the hotel’s imposing front door. The sense of disorganisation was strong. The policewoman seemed to have little idea of where she ought to be, missing a ride because she had been overseeing the relocation of Ariadne’s vehicle to a safe spot in the layby. She walked stolidly behind Thea and Ariadne, like a redundant sheepdog.

  It was her presence which prevented any meaningful conversation between the two friends. That, and a burgeoning reluctance in Thea’s breast to consider the implications of what had just taken place. In an effort to divert her thoughts from Emily and what she had done, she found herself thinking yet again of Freddy and Basil, the guilty innocents, the blameless killers – but that was little comfort. Somehow the dogs became entangled with her sister, and ghastly parallels began to arise in her mind.

  It took some time, but eventually everybody was settled in a small sitting room furnished with pristine mock regency objects – two-seater settees, uncomfortable chairs, low glass-topped tables. Emily was brought in, still white-faced, but with little sign of physical damage. The WPC took charge of her, sitting beside her on one of the fragile-looking two-seaters. Ariadne stared malevolently at her, plainly wanting to hurl accusations and reproaches, but just managing to keep a grip on her tongue. Instead she cha
llenged Phil, her old comrade.

  ‘The car in the layby,’ she began, her voice low and slightly breathless. ‘Why were you turning it round there, when you can just drive in one end and out the other?’

  Phil barely hesitated before answering. ‘Because we had a hunch that’s what had happened. We found some marks on the bank which made us wonder. Mrs Peterson has admitted she thought it was a dead end.’

  Slowly Ariadne looked first at Jeremy, then Emily, then Thea. ‘I get it,’ she said. ‘Bloody hell – it’s obvious, isn’t it. Nobody stamped on that bloke’s head. Not Peter, not some crazy psycho on the loose. That’s not what happened to him at all, is it?’

  ‘What?’ Thea asked, but got no reply. Jeremy was holding Ariadne’s gaze, with acute interest.

  ‘She killed him herself. It was your sister all the time,’ she pushed her face towards Thea with an expression of triumph mixed with indignation. ‘Wasn’t it?’ she turned to challenge Emily.

  ‘No!’ moaned Emily. ‘I parked in the gateway, and walked up here. It was muddy and dark, and I couldn’t see properly. There was a man lying there, with his head in a mess. I shouted and another man ran away.’

  It sounded like a badly spoken speech in a play. Words from which the meaning had drained away through too much repetition. But that didn’t mean it was untrue.

  Thea had been involved in enough murder cases to know that nothing could be settled without evidence. She assumed that Emily knew that, too, by this time. She’d had a whole week to think about it, after all. But then, so had everybody else, including Ariadne Fletcher.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Phil, appearing to remember his official role. Thea felt a flash of acute sympathy for him. Here he was, in the presence of two women who knew him intimately – knew his body, his family, and his life history. Easy enough, then, to slip from professional police detective to ordinary man, and muddle the two. ‘You two – you can go as soon as you’re ready.’ Thea and Ariadne looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Were they being dismissed?

  ‘But what about Emily?’ Thea asked. ‘I need to stay with her.’

  ‘We’ll look after her,’ he said gently. ‘She’s in our custody now, you see.’ He turned to Emily, and with scarcely any alteration of tone, recited the standard police caution to her.

  The effect was devastating, not only on Emily, but on Thea and Ariadne as well. All three emitted squeals or moans, as the import of the words sank in. Thea spoke first. ‘You can’t!’ she protested. ‘This is my sister you’re accusing.’

  ‘Yes!’ Ariadne rounded on her. ‘And a few days ago it was my boyfriend. Maybe you know what it feels like now.’

  Thea looked at Emily, who was still white-faced and withdrawn, but with a different look in her eye. A cornered animal, eyes darting from one corner of the room to another, desperate for a line of escape. And then, as Thea watched, the look turned to despair, a plain giving up in the face of such opposition. ‘Em?’ she said hoarsely.

  ‘I want Mum,’ her sister whimpered. ‘And Bruce.’

  ‘They’ll be here soon,’ Thea promised, thinking of the grim family gathering in store for them, under the gaze of uncaring police officers, with Emily confined to a temporary cell before the court hearing there was bound to be next day.

  And still, more than half her mind was shying away from a full reconstruction of what must have happened.

  Ariadne stood up. ‘I need to find Peter,’ she said. ‘Tell him the good news.’ She threw an apologetic little smile at Thea. ‘Sorry,’ she added. ‘But you know what I mean.’

  ‘No. I don’t,’ Thea insisted. Still she was expecting it all to come right, for Phil to suddenly smile and assure her that he could straighten it all out for her. She looked into his face expectantly.

  ‘Go with Mary,’ he said. ‘She seems to have got the picture. She’ll explain it all to you. We have to keep your sister with us now. She’ll have to be questioned again when she’s feeling better.’

  Nobody corrected his habitual use of Ariadne’s former name, the name he had known her by in his youth.

  And so Thea permitted herself to be walked back down the long drive, and into Ariadne’s car, and driven back to Hawkhill where Hepzie was reproachful and subdued, and the parrot was silent, and the world seemed grey and foreboding.

  Before getting out of the car, Ariadne made a call on her mobile. ‘He’ll be here in twenty minutes,’ she said to Thea’s back.

  They sat in the kitchen, neither of them risking the distraction of tea or other refreshment. Thea shivered like a dog waiting to be whipped. ‘Get on with it, then,’ she said. ‘Explain.’

  Ariadne took her hand, and Thea remembered again the broad receptive breast on which she had laid her head only an hour before. Ariadne could be relied on; she was kind. Why then did Thea feel as if she was about to be very badly hurt?

  ‘I think you can work it out for yourself,’ Ariadne began. ‘But I can see it needs to be put into words. It’s all very simple, really. There never was a murder at all. Sam was behind your sister’s car when she was turning it round in the layby. She can’t have seen him, and knocked him over in the mud, crushing his head under one of the wheels. An accident.’

  ‘But – why did she lie about it then?’

  Ariadne shrugged. ‘Panic, I presume. She might have been afraid she’d be charged with dangerous driving. You know her better than I do – what would she be most afraid of?’

  ‘Public criticism,’ Thea said slowly. ‘Scorn. Bruce thinking badly of her. Being tainted in some way. Losing her self-esteem.’ She looked up from the corner of the half-finished jigsaw that she’d been staring at blindly. ‘That sort of thing.’

  ‘Right,’ nodded Ariadne.

  ‘After all, she did kill him. She must have been utterly horrified, although I’m sure she had no idea who he was, until the police told her.’

  ‘Not so horrified that she couldn’t invent a convincing story to cover herself.’ Ariadne spoke less gently. ‘Which meant innocent people fell under suspicion.’

  ‘That explains the missing time,’ Thea realised. ‘She must have sat there working out what to say. Then she drove the car into that gateway and deliberately hit the post to make a scratch on the wing. Obstructing the course of justice,’ she concluded. ‘She’ll go to prison for that, as well as manslaughter.’

  Ariadne tilted her head. ‘Very likely she will, but not for long. Not if she can convince the court it was an accident.’

  ‘She was a fool. She called me stupid, but I’d never have been such an idiot as she’s been. And what about my mother?’ she suddenly remembered. ‘This is going to be so terrible for her.’

  There was no reply to that, and in the silence, they both heard a car engine approaching, and then the slamming of a car door. Ariadne got up and went out, coming back a moment later with the Reverend Peter Clarke. He smiled briefly at Thea, and she met the blue eyes with indifference.

  ‘Ari thought I might be able to help,’ he said softly. ‘But I’m not sure she’s right there.’

  ‘No,’ said Thea. ‘I don’t really see—’ Then she remembered who he was. ‘Oh God – he was your brother. My sister killed your brother. I am so sorry.’ It seemed hopelessly inadequate. What possible script could there be for such a situation?

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So I understand. But it had nothing to do with you. You don’t share her guilt. You’ve done the right thing from first to last.’

  ‘Have I, though?’ She struggled to examine her conscience. Hadn’t she been brusque to people who’d deserved more sympathy? Hadn’t she cared as much about two dogs as she had about the slaughtered Sam Webster? ‘I’m not sure.’

  They both remained quiet, standing close together, united in a warm bubble of relief and concern. They could afford to be gentle with her, now, in their liberation from suspicion and anxiety.

  ‘But she’s innocent, isn’t she?’ Thea went on. ‘I mean, she didn’t do anything really bad, apart f
rom telling lies after the event. She never meant to hurt anybody.’ She blinked. ‘Like the dogs, I suppose. The slaughters were all committed by innocents. What would the church have to say about it, I wonder?’

  Peter shook his head slowly. ‘Dogs?’ he asked.

  Thea explained clumsily, looking to Ariadne to elaborate. ‘I see,’ said Peter finally. ‘I’m not sure there’s a suitable Biblical text to cover all that – it’s more a matter of the Buddhist doctrine of mindfulness, I suspect.’

  Thea sighed. ‘You mean that Emily and I should both have been more careful. The crime of carelessness. I think my father would agree with you.’

  There were a lot of questions lying unanswered, but they addressed only a few of them. ‘Why do you think he got behind the car like that?’ Thea wondered.

  ‘My guess is that he recognised Emily, and was trying to attract her attention,’ said Peter. ‘Maybe he waved and shouted, but she didn’t see him. Or thought he was going to attack her.’

  ‘Maybe she skidded in the mud. Maybe he’d already fallen over and she couldn’t hope to see him lying behind the car,’ Ariadne suggested.

  Thea sighed. ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it?’ she realised. ‘All that matters now is that Emily tells the whole truth, and faces up to whatever the law decides to do with her.’ She winced. ‘She’s going to be so appallingly embarrassed about it all.’

  The expressions on both faces made her smile a little. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s meant to be far worse than embarrassing – and it will be, I’m sure. It’s just that for Emily, that’s almost the worst thing of all.’

  ‘Shame? Humiliation? Remorse?’ Ariadne supplied.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Thea nodded miserably. ‘Yes, yes and yes.’

  Thea phoned her mother as soon as Peter and Ariadne had left, wondering how much she should tell her. But of course it was Bruce who picked up the phone, demanding explanations. ‘Bruce – I’m sure Emily will call you any minute now. Do you mind if I speak to Mum first? There’s something I really need to say to her.’