by Rebecca Tope
Thea had assumed this was a joke, until the police detective enlightened her.
‘No, they’re perfectly real,’ Gladwin insisted. ‘Mostly people from the Far East, with girls who thought they were coming to respectable lives and jobs. Trafficking, in a word. They move into an empty house, set up shop for a while, and then melt away if somebody starts to show any concern. My friend Tabitha would not like that at all.’
‘No,’ said Thea faintly. ‘I don’t suppose they tidy up after themselves.’
‘Right.’
Thea had acquired a minimum of background information about Tabitha Ibbotson. In her sixties, and already earning decent money as a professional pianist, she had been left a considerable sum by her mother, two or three years earlier. The mother, it seemed, had inherited it in turn from a husband, who had been big in lawnmowers. Months before dying, he had sold the enterprise for three million pounds, and then left it equally to his son and second wife. Even after inheritance tax, they were both very much the richer. ‘He was a nice old chap,’ said Gladwin. ‘I knew him before I knew Tabitha and her mum, actually. He used to play bridge with my neighbour, and I sometimes made up a four with them.’
‘You play bridge? You never said.’ The game had been a factor in a recent investigation, which had drawn Thea in to an uncomfortable extent.
‘Well, I’ve lapsed lately. I don’t think I was ever very good at it, but it was a refreshing change when I was a stressed-out Tyneside rookie.’
Tabitha Ibbotson, stepdaughter to the lawnmower man, found herself in possession of almost all her mother’s inheritance, because the old lady died barely six months after her husband. Before long, much of the money had been spent on this house, and Tabitha was expecting to part with another fifty thousand on the renovations. ‘At least,’ said Gladwin.
There were five bedrooms, counting the one in the attic, a large bathroom, a lovely dining room and living room, both with decorated ceilings, and a garden approaching half an acre in size. Built of the usual mellow Cotswold stone, it was old and solid and beautiful. ‘It’d make a perfect brothel,’ Thea thought to herself with a smile.
Chapter Two
Managing without a car was a new experience, and Thea began to worry about it halfway through her first day. Bibury, which boasted a big hotel, several very famous old buildings, a river and a trout farm, was three miles away. The round trip would be quite a long way on foot. She also realised that she had hardly taken a walk without her dog in the past seven years. There would be something very weird about doing so now.
In the other direction from Bibury were the three Ampneys, which she was eager to explore. Ampney Crucis, Ampney St Peter and Ampney St Mary formed a cluster around their three venerable churches and would occupy a whole day quite easily. But there was also Quenington, about five miles distant, which she would have liked to visit. ‘I should have brought a bike,’ she muttered, annoyed that this had never occurred to her or Drew. While it would have been scary to set out on an open road on two wheels for the first time in over thirty years, she could in theory do it, if it was true that you never forgot how to balance and pedal at the same time. Perhaps she could borrow one from somewhere, she thought vaguely. As for shopping, she supposed she might have to accept Stephanie’s suggestion and do it online. The prospect chafed her, as did most activities connected to her phone. Often the ghost of Carl, her first husband, was conjured when modern technology raised its annoying head. Since his death, the world had thrown itself wholesale into all the delights that a hand-held gadget could provide, and Thea regularly acknowledged how much he would have deplored it. Drew was hardly more enthusiastic, and between them they waged a low-level little war against the whole intrusive business. They tried never to send each other texts, much to Stephanie’s bewilderment. They were scarcely more willing to communicate by actual telephone. ‘Will you want me to call you every day?’ she asked him before leaving for Barnsley.
‘Perhaps you should,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure everybody’s still alive.’
They’d both looked at the dog, knowing that her survival was, if not the most important, the most likely to be jeopardised. ‘Okay, then,’ Thea agreed.
She found the Barnsley kitchen to be completely unusable, since its electric supply had been cut off. Instead there was a microwave and electric kettle in the big dining room, on the oak table sitting at one side of the room. Plates, mugs, cutlery and a plastic washing-up bowl were also provided, along with a sheet of paper with the advice on it to ‘get water for washing up from the downstairs loo in the jug that’s in there. Food can be kept in the cool box in the hall. Sorry it’s all so uncivilised. You can always eat at The Pub. It’s open every day.’ It was signed by Gladwin, but must have been dictated by Tabitha Ibbotson. Thea had already ascertained that the pub was officially entitled The Village Pub, and was uncomfortably expensive. It would make a substantial hole in the hundred pounds a day that she was being paid, if she ate there each day.
She continued to explore, finding that there was at least Wi-Fi provision, rather to her surprise. The password was taped to the router box in a small back room evidently destined to be an office, and her laptop placidly connected to the great wide world without demur. The presence of a small amount of furniture indicated that Tabitha had taken up residence here herself, to some extent, before being forced to go abroad for her job. ‘Which is what, exactly?’ Thea had asked Gladwin.
‘She’s a professional pianist – surely I told you that?’
‘You did not. Not a word. Will there be a piano at the house, then?’
‘Bound to be – but you probably shouldn’t touch it.’
And there was. In the main living room at the front of the house, with its tall mullioned windows and decorated marble fireplace, there was a grand piano. It was shiny and black and important-looking. What a peculiar way to live, Thea mused – always needing something like this close at hand, and what a business it must surely be to transport it from one place to another.
Tabitha Ibbotson’s lifestyle was becoming increasingly hard to grasp, as the exploration went on. Did she have some other home in Britain somewhere? A flat in London or a modest townhouse in Bristol or Manchester? After all, Gladwin had implied that she had been more than averagely well off even before her inheritance. Had she sold up and adopted the barely habitable Barnsley house as her sole base? How much did a professional pianist earn? Was she part of an orchestra or a solo performer? None of these questions had seemed remotely urgent until now, compared to the task of keeping Drew happy and reconciling herself to the separation from her dog.
It was midday and she was hungry. The cool box held milk, bread and some sliced ham, so she made coffee and a somewhat dry sandwich. By the evening, she would be ready for a much more substantial meal – provided presumably by the packets and tins she’d stacked on the floor. ‘Think of it as a camping trip,’ she muttered to herself. Beans on toast, cuppa soup, fruit cake, more ham. ‘Oops – no toaster,’ she realised. And no butter or any kind of spread. It was all much more irritating than she had anticipated, with the result that she decided there and then to go and eat at the Village Pub, regardless of the expense. At least it might be a way of meeting some local people. Which was another reason for resisting the idea of ordering a boxful of provisions from a Cirencester supermarket and waiting for a man in a van to bring it to her. She liked strolling around well-stocked aisles, seizing impulsively at random packs of exotic foods she would never have thought of while sitting at her laptop. And it would be good to find herself surrounded by people for a little while – if she could find a way to get there.
But before eating anything, she should go outside into the warm August sunshine and get her bearings. The house was at the northern end of the village, close to a junction with a small lane that ran westwards, and shortly before the road veered sharply to the east. Barnsley was on a kink in the Roman road known as Akeman Street (which was a lot more kinky than most Rom
an roads), presumably created in response to some long-forgotten exigencies arising from village life. A scrutiny of the map showed the little lane linked to another that ran in a nearly straight line from the A417 to the A429, with some zigzagging at its northern end. There was no shortage of minor roads in all directions, and without the dog to worry about, she could amble contentedly up and down them, even stopping to try her hand at a sketch or two if she felt so inclined.
So she set out to walk the bounds of the village, in a square route that added up to barely a mile in total. She went southwards, passing the usual handsome houses, the church and a particularly attractive village hall set back from the road. There were no other people travelling on foot, no dogs and no residents enjoying the sunshine in their front gardens. A small group could be glimpsed outside the church, and a pair of cyclists sailed past, smiling at her as they did so. Gosh, she thought, friendly cyclists. There’s a surprise. On a recent trip to the outskirts of Bristol by car, she had three times been treated to rude hand gestures from cyclists.
Turning off the main street, she quickly found herself in a leafy country lane, bordering fields. There were no long views, and only a single farmhouse was visible. Two cars passed her before she turned again, into the lane that led back to the house. The whole walk took barely half an hour, and had taught her very little about the nature of the place. She was back again in the house on the corner – which she realised had no visible name. This omission was concerning – how did the postman find it? And all those delivery vans filling the minor roads across the land, reliant on satnavs and clearly displayed house names: where did they leave their parcels? Gladwin had mentioned that it was known locally simply as the Corner House.
The quiet of the place bordered on desolation, and Thea experienced a flash of panic at the prospect of several more days like this. At least there would be builders to talk to, she reminded herself. By the end of the week, she would probably be craving some peace and solitude after their depredations. Would they have Radio One blaring, shout to each other through the house and demand regular mugs of tea? ‘Having the builders in’ was not something she had ever really experienced. Her Witney house had been in good order, with no need for alterations, and the one Drew had been left in Broad Campden was equally satisfactory as it was. Any decorating was done by themselves, and the occasional minor job needing a professional could be accomplished in a day.
Meanwhile there was still half of Saturday and all of Sunday to get through. Thank goodness Tabitha’s living room did at least provide the television and dusty-looking DVD player. That was a major brownie point for Tabitha, given that most people ‘streamed’ their films nowadays, if their broadband was equal to it. But Thea, always a technophobe, had no idea how such a process was to be implemented.
The sudden absence of people (and dog) was uncomfortably difficult to adjust to. Although Broad Campden was no more vibrant or populous than Barnsley appeared to be, she did at least have Drew and one or two neighbours to chat to while the children were at school. And she had the use of the family car more or less any time she wanted.
All she could think of now was to explore the top floor of the house, and then sit out in the garden with a book and some tea. And a slice of cake. But none of that held much appeal. Make something happen, a voice insisted at the back of her head. She could send emails, make phone calls, even invite somebody to come and join her. She could stand in the little village street and try to thumb a lift to Cirencester from a passing stranger. She could hang around the church and accost people who turned up for a look at it.
She did at least carry her bag of clothes up to the bedroom she was to use, and then went further up to look at the attic. Thea liked attics for their potential to expose secrets. There had been one in Cold Aston, especially, which had been quite a revelation, and another in Chedworth. This one, she now discovered, was surprisingly clean, had a good-quality rug laid over most of the floor, and was entirely devoid of furniture. It had a dormer window overlooking the back garden and beyond. ‘No secrets, then,’ she murmured to herself. Except for its strangely pristine condition, perhaps. The whole inspection lasted barely two minutes, before she went down the little staircase again and out into the furthest end of the garden, beyond the piles of building materials.
She stood as far back as she could, inspecting the old house. It had obviously been added to at various periods, so there was no attempt at symmetry from this angle. The frontage had been left unchanged, while the back had been thoroughly interfered with, leading to an impression of two quite different buildings, depending on where you stood. A whole extra section had been attached to the back wall, fitting cleverly to the existing roof and rising above most of it to accommodate the attic space. It had a fairy-tale quality that Thea was only just starting to appreciate. She guessed the oldest part had to be eighteenth century at least, witness to the ancient droving road, and all the waxing and waning of fortunes that Barnsley had experienced.
And through it all, she could not ignore the little voice that kept asking, What are you doing? Why had she so violently and uncompromisingly escaped from her family, despite their obvious need of her? It had been Gladwin’s idea, and coming with such an endorsement, it had been irresistible. Thea had missed the novelty and unpredictability of her house-sitting years. She disliked routine and familiarity and tedious domestic chores. She had complained to the detective about it and hinted that she might be available for more official police work than the entirely unorthodox and disorganised help she currently gave them. ‘I could be some sort of consultant,’ she had suggested. ‘After all, I know my way around the Cotswolds better than most, by now.’ She had looked after houses in a dozen different villages, unearthing old secrets and making intelligent connections that had very often assisted police enquiries into violent crimes. Gladwin had ducked the question and come up with her own temporary solution to Thea’s lack of purposeful activity. ‘After all, they’re not your children,’ she had said, which had felt to Thea rather a dangerous remark. By marrying Drew, they had in effect become her children, surely? She loved them and was grateful to them for the easy way they had accepted her as a replacement mother. But there was something inescapably relentless about their very existence. She had raised her own daughter without really thinking about it. Carl had done a good share of the cooking, for a start – which Drew seldom did. Somehow, even ten years ago, life had felt simpler than it did now. Or perhaps it was merely that Thea felt under much greater scrutiny in her current role. Married to a well-known alternative undertaker, as well as being almost notorious in her own right, she could never shake free of the sense of being watched. Perhaps it was this that Gladwin – who was at heart such a very good friend − had noticed, and tried to help her to evade. And having successfully accomplished the evasion, she owed it to all concerned to make the most of it.
It was still only mid afternoon. Perhaps, she decided, she should go out again and take a different direction, getting as full a picture of the village as she could. She might even make a start on working out how all the footpaths connected, preparatory to devising a route to Bibury that did not require a risky march along a road that made no provision for pedestrians. According to the map, a path ran northwards for a short distance, then veered to the east and eventually connected to a small track that emerged shortly before Bibury itself. It looked an easy walk, provided the signs were adequate. A patch of green along the way was labelled ‘Barnsley Park’ − not to be confused with Barnsley House. ‘Not very original in their naming,’ Thea muttered, before setting out to have a look.
It was frustratingly difficult to locate the path and took some time. Finally discovering that it began at a point behind the church, she was immediately confronted by a kind of stile she had seldom seen before. It was a solid slab of stone set into the wall, with chunky steps up to it on both sides. A dog would have to be lifted over unless it was extremely agile. She climbed over and found herself in a field li
berally covered with cow pats, but no sign of any cows. The path was a thin thread of slightly browner ground, passing a tantalisingly secluded little cottage with roses growing up its back wall. Two large trees turned out to be walnuts on closer inspection.
By the time she’d crossed the field, she had almost forgotten her purpose. There was more than enough to look at and enjoy for its own sake. Another two stiles took her over the road and into a long straight track that bore all the signs of having once been a handsome avenue approaching a substantial property. When she finally noticed the property itself, it was with a small shock. On her right, behind a wrought-iron gate, stood a lovely Georgian mansion, which appeared to be the main component of the tucked-away Barnsley Business Park. A sign on the gate said, ‘Proceed By Invitation Only’, which she thought must be the politest way of saying ‘No Entry’ she’d ever seen.
Still wondering about the business park, she pursued the path, and found herself in a time warp. To the left was a large Elizabethan-style garden, full of roses, herbs, privet hedging in geometric patterns and generally exuberant vegetation. To the right was a huddle of old stone buildings that must comprise the workshops and commercial units she had read about on the computer. There were also small houses, and parking areas. Between Thea and the big house was an overgrown ha-ha to catch unwary intruders. There was no sign of movement. No voices or engines or barking dogs. In that respect it was familiar Cotswold territory, but here the silence seemed deeper and less easy to explain.
Creeping closer, she could just see several cars neatly parked around a central yard. The whole enclave seemed secretive and unwelcoming. She had not yet located the road by which vehicles could access it. There was something deeply ambivalent about the notion of business people pursuing their twenty-first-century careers in this particular spot. They could be doing absolutely anything, tucked away from the public gaze, no doubt minding their own business where their neighbours were concerned. Asking no questions, turning blind eyes. Thea’s mind began to toy with a range of hypothetical activities going on within those solid stone walls.
