by Rebecca Tope
‘And things always do happen. That’s probably what scares me most.’
She swallowed hard. How was she going to avoid telling him about Grace? How could she tell such a large lie by omission? There was no possible justification for keeping it from him, other than knowing that a secret was only a secret if nobody talked about it. ‘Well, this is only the first day. I’m determined to do some sketching. It’s been on my to-do list for ages. I was good at drawing at school. And there’s so much material around here.’
‘Good,’ he said listlessly.
‘How’s Hepzie?’
‘Miserable.’
‘Oh dear.’ Thea felt an echoing misery on behalf of her abandoned pet.
‘She’ll survive. It’s not the first time.’
‘She thinks it is. She’s forgotten last year.’
‘We’ll take her for long walks and wear her out.’ He coughed briefly. ‘Tim says she’s got to go to the poodle parlour. Her lumps are a disgrace.’
‘Feel free,’ said Thea recklessly. She hated to see dogs all shorn of their natural coats. But it was true that as the spaniel got older, her hair became more matted and in urgent need of daily brushing. Nobody in the family had acquired the habit of giving her so much attention – not even her devoted mistress.
‘It costs thirty quid,’ Drew complained.
‘Shop around. There might be cheaper places in Gloucester. We don’t always have to pay Cotswold prices.’
The conversation smoothly diverted into domestic details, followed by a few words about the forthcoming funerals. It lasted another fifteen minutes and successfully dodged any awkward moments where Thea had to choose how honest to be. She finished the call with sincere expressions of marital commitment and dedication, which Drew accepted a trifle coolly. ‘I’ll phone again tomorrow,’ she said.
Tomorrow would be Sunday, and Drew would take the children and dog out somewhere. There had been talk of Dudley Zoo, as an attraction so far unvisited. But they couldn’t take Hepzie there, which left it near the bottom of the list. Thea had deliberately avoided asking her husband what he was planning. It was not her business. Entertaining the children was a relentless task that she had adamantly refused to undertake for the next week. She didn’t even want to think about it.
But she was not at all satisfied or contented for the rest of the evening. She had landed herself in a pickle, as her mother would say, and not even Gladwin was available to help her out of it. In fact, it was tempting to blame Gladwin for it happening in the first place. She had urged Thea to take this job, and then dropped her into a situation that was barely tenable. Not having a car was ridiculous. Everybody had a car. It was like another limb – or a whole set of extremely necessary limbs. Now there was another woman in the house with her, also in urgent need of transport. The damaged shoulder had gone untreated, which was almost a crime in itself. Given the nature of little Barnsley, there was every chance that a doctor lived two hundred yards away, if they only knew it – although Grace would never have agreed to go looking for such a person.
The thought, however, sent Thea to her laptop. If in doubt, do some googling had become something of a mantra over recent years. To that extent at least she had cheerfully overcome her aversion to modern technology. She started with another look at the website featuring Barnsley Park and found it provided accommodation for numerous people in cottages scattered around the village. Units were available for a wide range of small enterprises. How easy it would be to set up something innocent-seeming, and then carry on a much less wholesome business behind that front. The set-up seemed almost to demand such behaviour. Tucked away behind rolling wolds and age-old hedgerows, never even suspected by passing tourist traffic and readily ignored by the locals, anything could be going on.
Informative as the Internet was, though, there was far more direct information to be had from Grace herself – if she could be induced to reveal it. Thinking back over everything she had said, Thea realised there was virtually nothing of any significance. The woman had come from Manchester with an indeterminate number of people, and somehow during the journey – presumably in a car – she had become alarmed, perhaps even afraid for her life. Arriving in or near Barnsley, she had run away, leaving all her possessions behind. At some point she had wrenched her shoulder and then further damaged it by falling off the big stile. Then she spent several hours hiding amongst the undergrowth and scrubby little trees, not knowing whether or not there was still a search for her going on. Yet when Thea had approached, the fugitive had deliberately emerged into full view. The implication of that was that Grace had seen a lone woman coming towards her and decided to appeal for help. Perhaps carefully staging the way she would appear, she had moaned miserably, clasping her shoulder, the picture of destitution. Anyone would have stopped to ask if she needed assistance. But she would have had to work fast – nobody could see over that impossibly high wall. Thea had not come into view until she was at the top of the stile, perhaps only about twenty seconds before Grace had crawled out of her secret lair.
The very elaborateness of the scene now made Thea suspicious. Had Grace waited all afternoon for the ideal rescuer to come along? Had she kept her eyes fixed on the stile, alert for a likely rescuer? Someone she could trust not to be associated with the gang or whoever it was that was hunting for her. Someone who looked easy to manipulate. Had Thea matched this specification in an instant, she wondered. And had she subsequently been found wanting? The lack of a car must have been a blow. Or was it, she slowly started to ask herself, even more sinister than that? Had Grace somehow known about the house-sitting, the lone woman in the insecure building, with no local attachments? Had she, Thea, been deliberately set up, not just by this one woman, but by a whole group of malefactors? Should she be afraid – or was it enough to simply feel very foolish?
Every word of what she’d been told could easily be fabrication. The shoulder wasn’t dislocated, for a start. It might actually be perfectly sound, the whole thing a pretence. The secrecy was alarming too, of course. People did not go into hiding, as a general rule. Battered wives, perhaps. Runaway teenagers. And criminals. All along, from the first words of the vague and shadowy story, Thea had understood, somewhere in the depths of her mind, that Grace had to be evading the forces of the law. This did not rule out the possibility that she was also being pursued by fellow felons, of course. But it now seemed glaringly obvious that she, Thea, was harbouring a wrongdoer of some description – with absolutely no good reason. There was no justification for remaining silent. And yet – perhaps there was. Perhaps Grace was a minor player, in genuine danger from more violent and ruthless crooks. Perhaps she intended to betray them to the police. Perhaps her shoulder had been wrenched by a large man grabbing her, intent on stifling her.
She took herself to bed, missing her dog as much as her husband, finding the bedding to be uncomfortably heavy for August, the water in the bathroom sadly tepid, the window impossible to open. The house itself seemed old and exhausted, reluctant to co-operate with the efforts to bring it back to life. There was a musty smell throughout the upstairs floor, with a hint of mice. There seemed little need for a house-sitter, anyway, given the absence of any valuables except for the piano. The fact that she had jumped at the offer, that she had rushed all too willingly back to her former habits, meant that everything that now happened was her own stupid fault.
With this unnerving thought, she firmly fitted a chair under the door handle, in the time-honoured manner so popular in films. It worked exceedingly well, she discovered when she tested it.
Sunday morning dawned bright and cheerful, sunshine flooding the bedroom. ‘Must face east, then,’ she murmured to herself. Which meant the attic window looked west, the room much less light. That might mean that Grace was still asleep – there were certainly no sounds issuing from the attic. Thea hoped so, for no reason she could explain. She found herself filled with resentment – blaming the woman for the poor night’s sleep she’d endur
ed, the shortage of food, the need to make decisions and ask questions. She wanted to be rid of her, to have a nice dull day with her sketchpad or a book in the garden, or a pleasant stroll around the lanes. Somehow all her curiosity had evaporated during the night, leaving only a residue of irritation and worse.
In a deliberately soft voice, she called ‘Hello?’ up the attic stairs, more than half hoping the woman would not be awake yet. When there was no response, she hurriedly went downstairs.
‘To hell with it,’ she said aloud. ‘I’m going out.’
It was ten to eight, the village wrapped in a Sunday silence. With no sense of purpose other than to shake off dark feelings, Thea crossed the road to a point where the street widened to provide a short stretch apparently designed to offer parking space. There were two or three vehicles on it. She then walked towards the church and the village hall. Shortly after the church there was a side road, which she decided to explore. Within a few yards she found herself staring at an image from a fairy tale. An old barn was barely visible behind a dense screen of small trees, nettles, brambles and long dusty grass. Ivy grew up the peaked roof facing her. It was totally inaccessible to anyone not wearing protective clothing and carrying a billhook or scythe. There was a farm of some sort up to the left, presumably claiming the barn as part of its outbuildings – but why let it get so derelict? She had passed another barn closer to the church, without really giving it any attention – but this one was far more arresting.
There had also been a barn in Chedworth, much bigger than this one, but similarly unused. When first exploring the Cotswolds, she had come to the conclusion that virtually every stone-built barn in the region had been converted into a house years ago. If a farmer wanted somewhere to keep his hay, he erected a steel and concrete monster of no aesthetic appeal, and certainly no mystery. But now she had to revise that conclusion. There were still a number of these handsome, historic empty spaces, home to birds and spiders and small scuttling creatures. Here was an example so tucked away and secret that it made Thea’s heart skip to see it. Remembering the grim discovery that she and Drew had made in Chedworth, she felt no desire to push through the undergrowth for further investigation. It was enough just to know it was here, in this modern world of business parks and computers and far too many cars. Had it seen the days when the old drove road was the only way through Barnsley? Was it under the protection of some kind of preservation order? Had the farm gone out of business, with everybody too distraught to give an old barn any attention? Or was something hidden in it behind all these weeds? Something that had been there for decades, carefully wrapped against moss and rust and bird droppings?
Perhaps Sleeping Beauty was in there. That had been Thea’s first childish thought. An unembellished photograph of this forgotten scene would perfectly illustrate that particular fairy tale.
She followed the lane round to the right, where she could glimpse the side of the barn with more ivy climbing over the tiled roof. A little way further, and she found herself in a car park attached to the smart Barnsley House Hotel. She could see the gardens and main entrance, through a gateway in a wall, before turning back the way she’d come. She paused again by the old barn, listening to birdsong and wondering where to go next.
In the main street again, she saw people starting the day. She drifted along to the short approach road leading to the church and observed three or four people standing amongst the headstones. It was Sunday – they were probably preparing for a morning service. Not wanting to get involved, she turned back towards the Corner House. Two cars passed and a woman came out of her front door, locking it behind her. Thea knew she should go and tend to her guest. She’d been gone ten or fifteen minutes already. Ancient rules of hospitality might never have been as strong in Britain as elsewhere, but vestiges remained. She should make tea and produce some scraps of food. Under more normal circumstances, the two of them could have enjoyed an early lunch at the Village Pub – but Grace would never agree to an appearance in public – and besides, Thea wanted her gone before then. The irritation and resentment were coming back. She was more and more certain that she had been ‘played’. Deceived, exploited, made a fool of. She would have to insist the woman left. She might even give the wretched creature some money, if it helped to get rid of her. In fact, she thought crossly, she could scarcely avoid giving her money for a taxi or a bus, or whatever transport Grace could find. That in itself was going to raise a host of difficulties, especially on a Sunday. With a sigh, she turned back the way she’d come, walking slowly like a reluctant schoolgirl, knowing she had no choice.
The house showed no signs of life. Thea had left the front door unlocked, and pushed it open impatiently. It still scraped on the floor. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, the sound would be enough to rouse Grace if she was still asleep. She went down the hallway, glancing into the living room and then the dining room, wondering whether Grace had come down. She then found herself wondering what she had failed to do to acquire properly hot water. The boiler must have been turned right down, or put on a very intermittent time switch. Gladwin’s lengthy list of instructions had omitted that vital detail, probably because it was deemed to be self-explanatory. There had to be a temperature control somewhere that could be turned up. It was sure to be a clunky old-fashioned system, like everything else in the house. Nothing had been upgraded since the nineteen seventies.
The door into the kitchen did at least have its stout bar in place. After the many brushes with extreme violence that she had experienced, she had finally learnt to take more care. Except in this instance she had barred the back, but left the front unlocked. Most people might see this as careless, if not downright irrational, while to Thea it seemed perfectly sensible. The door had been closed, after all. And to lock her visitor in would have seemed quite wrong.
She found herself actively looking forward to the arrival of the builders next day. That, if nothing else, would probably send Grace away. The men might well need to go upstairs, for ill-defined reasons. Turning water on and off, perhaps. They were installing a range of modern equipment in the kitchen, with wholesale disruption to be expected, not least to the plumbing. Thea was required to remain on-site, dealing with any unforeseen crises – quite how, she didn’t know, but it was pleasing to think she could be useful. She could take notes, perhaps, or offer sympathy. And she had to make sure nobody hurt the grand piano.
It was nine o’clock. She set the kettle boiling and went upstairs. ‘Grace!’ she called, much more loudly than the previous attempt, at the bottom of the flight to the attic. ‘Are you awake?’
There was no response. Oh well, thought Thea. She must have been very tired. And she decided to leave her a bit longer. She went into her own bedroom and tidied the rumpled duvet. Again, she missed her dog. Hepzie had always given shape to the day, needing to go out, wanting a walk, having to be fed. The gap she left was alarmingly large, and Thea felt a pang of dread against the day when the dog would die. She would get another one, of course. Perhaps it would be sensible to get a puppy soon, so there would be a generous overlap. Hepzie was only eight, with perhaps six or seven years still to go. But it would be unfair to introduce a new dog when the spaniel was old and set in her ways. Now, it would keep her young and active. The idea was appealing and boosted Thea’s mood considerably. She made a note to mention it to Drew when she phoned that evening.
She went down again and made tea, discovering that the milk had gone sour overnight, with no fridge to keep it cool. The so-called cool box was a poor substitute in August. There was no avoiding the necessity to do some shopping. There had to be buses in and out of Cirencester, even on a Sunday. That would be the main task for the morning, then. It would be a good diversion from the problem of Grace, who could huddle in her attic as much as she liked. The laptop would find a timetable, and location of the nearest bus stop. But when she turned on the computer, a quick consultation revealed the shocking news that buses did not run on a Sunday. She sat back in disbelief
. The problem could only be solved by walking to Bibury and back, or asking Drew to bring more supplies. Why had she been such a fool as to not bring enough food in the first place? She had not thought past Saturday evening – and neither had Drew. Unless, she thought cynically, he had planned all along to pay regular visits with food boxes, as a way of keeping an eye on her.
Well, the day could not be allowed to run away like this. She went back upstairs and shouted, even more loudly than before, ‘Grace!!’
When there was still no reply, she stomped up the steep stairs, and banged on the door at the top. Then she pushed it open and went in.
The woman was lying on the pile of blankets, one arm flung out. Her legs were bent and splayed in an unnatural, graceless position. Her face was very white and still, the eyes open.
‘Oh, God,’ said Thea.
Chapter Five
The body was warm when Thea put a trembling finger to the neck, but there was no sign of life. How? came the question repeatedly. And When? And shamefully, there was also a thread of selfish panic that she, Thea, would be blamed for this. She had been stupid, dishonest, gullible. She had kept her visitor secret when she should immediately have told Drew, and probably Gladwin, of her existence. She had left the door unlocked and gone for a self-indulgent walk for no good reason at all.
Now she had to tell the world about it. She had to attract the attention of the people of Barnsley, and admit to Tabitha Ibbotson that she had seriously messed up. What would happen next? Would the police forbid the builders entry to the house? Would they send Thea home to her rightful place at her husband’s side, feeding and entertaining his children?
She swallowed and looked again at the body. Police? Was this a deliberate killing, then? Given her substantial previous experience, that had been her immediate assumption. There was no blood, no visible wounds. Grace was wearing a T-shirt and pants, lacking any sort of nightwear. Again, Thea reproached herself for failing to offer anything of the sort. Not that she had a spare nightie with her anyway. The pale legs looked pathetically vulnerable, and the outflung arm suggested at least some feeble effort at self-defence. If the cause had been heart failure or a brain haemorrhage, would there have been less movement?
