Secrets in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  At ten-fifteen she received a text on her phone. ‘Still impossibly busy. Will try to send Barkley later today with update. Don’t go anywhere till then. Might have found a car for you.’

  The promise of a visit from Detective Sergeant Caz Barkley gave Thea something to look forward to. The young woman had been transparently bemused by Thea and her ambivalent involvement in police murder investigations when they had first met a few months earlier. It would be good to see her again. Even more comforting was the suggestion of a car.

  Don’t go anywhere till then was rather an impertinent instruction, to Thea’s mind. Where could she go, anyway? Well – she might walk to Bibury and catch a bus back. It was Monday – there were two or three buses during the day. She was curious to have another look at the discreetly hidden Barnsley Park, and see how it looked on a working day. But even she could accept that this might not be a very good idea. Until the facts were known about Grace and how she might be connected to people who lived or worked at the park, it could be hazardous for Thea to venture there. And she’d be in trouble with Gladwin if she missed Barkley.

  All the same, a whole day confined to the house was clearly unacceptable, even if it was raining. The rain looked as if it would soon stop, anyway. The bus could take her into Cirencester, where she could go to their famous museum, or browse the Oxfam bookshop. Ironically, now she had the promise of a car, she suddenly discovered that there was plenty she could manage to do without one. She wondered how it was that Gladwin could conjure up a vehicle, just like that. Had it been confiscated from some hapless drunk driver? Did the police keep a small stock of cars for a variety of purposes? Or what?

  Sid and Dave were working quietly in the kitchen, and she wondered whether she should be showing a bit more interest in their progress. There was a cooker to install, and a dishwasher. Otherwise, as far as she could see, it was just a matter of slotting in a fridge and a freezer and getting the worktops in place, before tiling the new walls. She had to admit that she found the details of someone else’s kitchen entirely uninteresting. Tabitha Ibbotson had not gone overboard on solid marble or smoked glass, as far as Thea could tell. Everything she’d seen so far was more or less normal and unpretentious.

  Radio Two had stopped its warbling to give listeners the ten o’clock news headlines. Second from the top was a piece about the trafficking of rare animal species, especially pangolins. Items had been found in a garage in Cheltenham, and a large-scale police operation was under way, to track down the criminals concerned. There were leads in Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester. ‘Uh-oh,’ said Thea. Gladwin’s brief explanation of the previous day tallied exactly with the report on the radio, and amply accounted for her excessive busyness. What vile people these traffickers must be, she thought. And how short-sighted, the way they wiped out whole species for instant gain. But probably they didn’t think like that. They came from desperate mean streets in places like the Philippines and survival was all they cared about. But however hard she tried to be tolerant and understanding, she found her sympathies remained firmly with the animals. She visualised herself working as a ranger, tracking down the criminals and shooting them as they tried to trap the unwary creatures. She thought she would rather enjoy that.

  Such ferocious thoughts persisted through the next half hour or so. She had been sporadically enraged by elephant and rhino poachers, big-game hunters, with plenty of emotion to spare for tigers and orangutans. Her first husband Carl had been a committed environmentalist and much of his concern had transferred itself to Thea, even five years after his death. She found herself wanting to rush off and join Gladwin in her hunt for the cruel characters who’d brought their trade all the way to Britain.

  The association with Grace was inevitable for several reasons. The Chinese connection, mainly, of course. But the proximity in time between the Cheltenham discovery and Grace’s death might also be significant. Had the woman been deceived into transporting pangolin scales, perhaps? And when she realised what was happening, she had threatened to expose the gang, and thereby got herself killed? It all seemed to fit very neatly. It made Grace into a good guy, rather than a willing participant in a gruesome trade.

  Too much thinking, Thea decided. The only antidote was to get outside, and instinctively she looked round for the dog, intending to announce ‘Walkies!’ Yet again the absence made itself felt with a sharp pang. She would make a point of asking Drew for assurances that the spaniel wasn’t pining as much as her mistress was when she phoned him that evening. An evening that still seemed a long way in the future, with the rest of the morning and a whole afternoon still to fill.

  With little conscious thought, she turned right outside the house, heading towards the centre of the village as she had the previous morning. The trees were gently dripping on her as she passed the church and noticed again a small group of people amongst the gravestones. They could almost be the very same people as had been there the day before. Were they ghosts, then, or very realistic statues? Intrigued, she went through the wooden gate, next to an unusual stone arrangement that appeared to be designed to prevent sheep entering the churchyard. The people ignored her, as she strolled nonchalantly towards them, pausing to read headstones as she went.

  Quite soon she realised that they were doing the same thing, with cameras and notepads, making the point that there was some serious researching going on. Family history, then, Thea concluded. Gleaning dates and names and sometimes other details from the lichened stone. There was a woman with a very straight-edged dark-brown fringe just above her eyes, and a man with a pronounced limp. They were working in pairs, moving from one grave to the next at a regular pace. The very intentness caught Thea’s interest. There were muttered exchanges and a lot of note-taking.

  ‘Excuse me – I’ve got to ask what you’re doing,’ Thea said, as she came closer. ‘Are you recording every grave? Aren’t they already in the church archives?’

  The man with the bad leg paused in his note-taking and nodded at her. ‘We’re researching family history.’

  ‘Oh?’ Thea frowned. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to consult the records? Parish registers and so forth?’

  ‘Normally, yes. But it so happens that our local records have been damaged. We’ve offered to try to fill the gaps, while we’re working on our own project. There’s often a lot of useful information on a headstone.’ He waved at a pair of slightly crooked monuments, lavishly filled with lettering. ‘Look at these, for example. The whole family’s listed here. And there are sometimes little hints as to the people’s trade.’ He turned to his left. ‘Over there, you can see where the stone’s got a sort of pie-crust topping. It means the man was a baker.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Thea, who had heard of other instances where local records had come to grief through fire or flood or general neglect. ‘Must be fun.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ said the man’s partner, who was holding a professional-looking camera. ‘We’re learning such a lot. You think you know your own village families, but it’s been a revelation. Makes us want to delve much deeper and find out how all these people interconnect. It’s mostly nineteenth century, of course, so not terribly far back.’ The woman appeared to be about seventy. On a quick calculation, Thea realised that her grandmother could easily have remembered the 1890s.

  ‘I’m quite keen on history myself,’ said Thea, thinking of her abortive efforts to form a local group in Broad Campden to investigate some forgotten details of the Arts and Crafts Movement. ‘But how will you know where to stop? I mean – if you only researched the people buried here, it would take years of work. And the buildings … the drove road. I read about the drove road …’ She tailed off, aware that she was attracting an uncomfortable level of scrutiny. ‘I’m just staying here for a bit,’ she added.

  ‘You’re not the woman in the Corner House, are you?’ asked the person with the fringe. ‘Where somebody died? All those police. What a commotion!’

  ‘That’s me,’ Thea admitted. ‘And I sup
pose it was already a bit disruptive, with the builders and everything.’

  ‘That poor house won’t know what’s hit it. The old lady who was there before hadn’t touched a single stone for fifty years or more. This new one − what’s her name? − she seems all right in her way. Not that anybody’s seen much of her yet. Comes and goes without any warning. And now there’s you. A relative, are you?’

  ‘Friend,’ said Thea with a smile. ‘Just keeping an eye on things, making sure the builders do what they’re supposed to.’

  ‘So who died?’ burst out the older woman. ‘That’s what nobody can understand. Who in the world was she?’ Her expression was a mixture of eager curiosity and apparent concern for Thea herself. ‘It must have been dreadful for you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Thea found herself unreasonably grateful for even this crumb of sympathy. ‘The thing is, I’m not supposed to talk about it. It’s all under police investigation, you see.’

  ‘No, we don’t see at all,’ said the lame man, with a short laugh. ‘From the very few facts we can glean, it sounds as if you must be the prime suspect in a murder. That’s what my young relative would say, anyhow. Sudden suspicious death of an unnamed woman. Our Ben would love it. As soon as he gets to hear about it, he’s going to come dashing back down here, you see if he doesn’t.’

  ‘Oh, Dick!’ scolded his partner. ‘Don’t make it sound as if that would be a bad thing. You know how you love having him.’

  ‘He’s a bright boy, I’ll say that for him,’ conceded the man.

  The second man, who had said nothing so far, finally spoke up. ‘Pity he’s at the other end of the country. We’d all like to see more of him – and the rest of his family. They’ve been the only ones who managed to keep the whole thing going.’ He pulled a rueful face. ‘Not one of the rest of you has done your bit.’

  ‘As you never tire of reminding me,’ said lame Dick.

  ‘And it’s no use accusing me of letting the side down,’ said the woman. ‘As far as Dick’s concerned, females don’t qualify. And I’m only a distant second cousin anyhow.’

  ‘Come on, Norma – that’s not fair,’ Dick protested. ‘I never said any such thing.’

  ‘Well it’s too late now,’ said Norma with a slightly uneasy laugh.

  The second man joined in. ‘And it’s none of my business anyway – as I’m sure you’re itching to remind me. Even so, I’d be happy to have young Ben back again. He was invaluable when he was here last week, the way he helped us get a proper website up and running, and talked us through the mysteries of spreadsheets.’

  Both the men appeared to be in their seventies. Again, Thea performed her instinctive calculations as to generations and their relative ages. Since marrying Drew, the compulsion had only grown stronger. The most fascinating aspect of his funerals to her was the way the families were constructed. There would be devoted in-laws, committed cousins, second marriages and teenage mothers. Aunts and uncles could be younger than their nieces and nephews, and it seemed that society abounded in step-relations. Thea loved to disentangle them with Drew at the end of the day.

  It was a refreshing relief to be chatting to such normal people, pursuing such a wholesome activity. Even though they were understandably curious about the Grace business, they hadn’t been especially persistent. They all seemed considerably more interested in their family history project.

  ‘Well, I should get back,’ she said. ‘I’m meant to be keeping the builders happy.’

  ‘Keeping them at it, you mean,’ said the woman with the fringe. ‘I know how that goes.’

  ‘They seem very good, but there’s quite a tight deadline.’

  ‘Good luck, then.’ That seemed to be a polite dismissal, and Thea started to drift away. It had killed about half an hour, at best, but she felt more grounded for the little outing. The very existence of these friendly villagers made a big difference to her mood.

  The builders seemed to be hard at it when she returned to the house. She went round to the back garden and observed an obvious change in the stacked boxes and materials that had been there. As far as she could tell they were installing the dishwasher already. But there was no sign of the new window that had to be put in before the missing wall could be built and a new back door provided. She found herself impatient for better security, mentally rehearsing a whole new set of reassurances for Drew that evening.

  For no reason at all, she decided to see if the online Scrabble website was still there. It had been four years or more since she last participated in a game and she supposed she would have to start again with a low ranking since there was no way she could remember the password she’d used. It was, though, still the same computer, and when she found the site buried in her lengthy ‘favourites’ list, it sprang into life as if nothing had changed at all. Everything was exactly as it had always been, including her username (thewit, which was short for Thea and Witney) and the last place she’d achieved on the score chart.

  With a sense of reverting to an earlier self, she clicked on someone called wozz0855 and was soon immersed in a fast game. She found herself recalling obscure words like qoph and trez, baju and qanat and cheerfully placed her tiles to spell fulmine on a triple word. When the game was over, and her ranking had jumped a few points up, she opted to observe a high-rating game, where almost every word was at least six letters in length, and the points scored were astronomical. It was hard to believe these were real human beings, rather than robots, but she admired their skill just the same. The idea that she might actually be learning something removed any lingering sense of guilt at indulging in such a time-wasting activity. What else should she be doing, anyway, she wondered. Nobody needed her to go anywhere, even if she could have done. A bus trip to Cirencester and back was the height of her ambition until released from this very ambivalent commission.

  Her mobile came to life as she was still wondering what to do. ‘Mrs Slocombe? Cirencester constabulary here. We understand you’re expecting us to call you about the fatality under your roof yesterday?’

  ‘Not exactly my roof, but yes, I knew you were going to want to talk to me.’

  ‘Can you come in, then? Do you know where we are?’

  ‘I do, yes. But I haven’t got any transport. Do you want me to get the bus?’

  ‘Um … hang on a second …’ There was a muttered exchange and then he came back. ‘We’ll send somebody for you. Give us twenty minutes.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  But within ten minutes, the same person had called back to say they thought there would be more to be gained by Thea escorting a couple of officers to the place where she first met the deceased. That being so, it would have to wait a little while. ‘Can we say two o’clock?’

  ‘No problem,’ said Thea.

  And then it was noon, and she began to think about trying the pub for lunch. Another self-indulgence that her mildly puritanical husband would doubtless disapprove of, but she considered she’d earned it. She’d already established that the pub served food on Mondays, unlike some, and its somewhat pricey menu no longer felt like a deterrent. She resolved that she would limit herself to a maximum of two meals there during her stay, with perhaps a third on the last day as celebration if the mystery of the dead woman had been solved by then.

  She was wondering whether to change into a more respectable outfit when there was a knock on the door. She had an idea who it would be – an idea confirmed when she went to open it.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure whether I should be expecting you. I was just off to the pub for lunch. We’d have to go now, because I’ve got to be back here by two.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘I’ll come with you, then,’ said Caz Barkley. ‘How far is it?’

  ‘About three minutes’ walk. Didn’t you notice it when you came through the village?’

  The detective sergeant shook her head. ‘I was too busy trying to find this house. I was sure Gladwin said the gate was green.’ They both l
ooked at the wide wooden gate that was unambiguously brown. ‘Maybe it’s just been painted.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Thea. ‘It doesn’t look as if anyone’s touched it for decades. The hinges are all wonky, so you can’t really open or shut it. But you found me anyway, so that’s all right.’

  ‘I’ve got the results of the post-mortem.’

  ‘That was quick.’ But then she realised that the revelations mined from Grace’s body must be informing the Cirencester police, and would explain their need to speak to Thea.

  ‘Not really. They start early. It was all done by ten, and they emailed the report right away.’ She waved her smartphone, to indicate that every pathological detail was securely lodged in its inner workings. ‘I can show you in the pub, if it won’t put you off your food.’

  ‘Why? Is it very gruesome?’

  Caz Barkley did not reply, throwing a cautious glance towards the kitchen, from where builder noise was issuing. ‘Better not say much here,’ she said.

  ‘Okay. Come on, then. I expect I’m respectable enough, aren’t I?’

  Barkley eyed her baggy shirt and cut-off jeans and shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t think it matters,’ she said.

  During the short walk, it occurred to Thea that Caz was behaving oddly unprofessionally. She must surely be aware that Thea was officially ‘a person of interest’, indeed, the only identifiable suspect in what was now looking very like a murder investigation. Yet here was Detective Sergeant Barkley intruding on a case that did not include her on its team, and about to reveal findings that certainly ought to be kept secret.

  There were only a few people at the pub, scattered around the three distinct rooms. ‘Let’s order the food and then sit outside,’ said Thea, who had developed the habit thanks to the almost constant presence of her dog. Caz quickly ordered a fruit juice and a cheese omelette, making a face at the price. Thea dithered before opting for fishcakes and a pint of Butty Bach ale. It seemed to her that she was getting better value for money than the young detective.