Secrets in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Well?’ she prompted, once they were settled at a table under a blue umbrella, in the company of one other small group of people. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

  The young detective answered almost too starkly. ‘It was murder. Pressure on both the carotid arteries by someone who knew what they were doing. It’s not as easy as it looks on the movies, but it’s not especially complicated, either. Your lady had pressure on both sides of her neck, cutting off blood flow to her brain very quickly. She actually died of heart failure, according to the pathologist.’

  ‘Oh, hell.’ The words were less forceful than they might have been, due to Thea’s anticipation of just such a revelation. She felt wary and puzzled. ‘So – I must be a suspect, surely?’

  ‘Well – on paper, perhaps. But anybody who knows you can see the idea’s ludicrous. And just about everybody in the Gloucestershire police does know you, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘Okay. That’s a relief.’ She paused, visualising the helpless woman, probably still barely awake, facing a determined killer looming over her. ‘She was right to be scared, then,’ she said. ‘All along, she was right. She said “We fear those we hurt”. It sounded wise at the time, but I suppose it’s obvious when you think about it.’

  ‘Someone out for revenge, then,’ said Barkley, with fresh animation. ‘That gives us something to go on.’

  ‘Only if you know who she was, surely?’

  ‘We’ll soon work out an identity for her. Everyone’s so well documented these days, it can’t take long.’

  Thea’s mind had drifted sideways. ‘Oh Lord − what’s Drew going to say?’ Her abandoned husband loomed large in her thoughts. She could feel his exasperated concern from twenty miles away.

  ‘Don’t ask me. Wasn’t he in something of a similar situation, a while back?’

  ‘That’s how we met, actually. I suppose it’s good that he’ll have an idea of how it feels. But what are the Cirencester people going to think? They don’t know me, do they?’

  ‘Gladwin’s going to have a word with them, when she gets a minute.’

  Thea forced down a feeling of panic. It was irrational and distracting. There was nothing for her to worry about, she insisted to herself. But it certainly gave added force to the need to discover precisely who did kill Grace. And for that, she needed as much information as she could possibly get. ‘Do you have any idea what time it happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I imagine you know how that goes. She was warm, virtually nothing in her stomach, and a few other details that all point to only an hour or so from the time the police doctor got to her. That has to be a guess, of course. But it seems reasonably solid.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that, at least. I mean – that must make it less likely to have been me. If I was going to kill her, wouldn’t I have done it in the night?’

  Caz shook her head reprovingly. ‘Don’t start thinking like that. You know you’re going to have to go through every moment from when you met her on Saturday to when you called 999 yesterday. You are technically a person of interest, obviously. The only one, come to that. We’re checking her teeth, clothes, DNA – anything that can identify her – but you’re the only one who saw her alive.’

  ‘I realise that,’ sighed Thea. ‘So – are we doing that now? Here?’

  ‘Of course not. It’ll all be done formally in the interview room in Cirencester. I shouldn’t be talking to you now, actually. You probably figured that out already. I’m nothing to do with this investigation. I’ve got no reason to be here, and if you quote anything I’m telling you, I’ll be in serious doo-doo.’ She grimaced. ‘I’m not too pleased about it, to tell you the truth, but Gladwin says we can trust you, and we owe it to you to make it as easy as we can, after she got you to come here in the first place. But there’s a limit to what we can do. All I’m saying is you’d better have a really good think about everything the woman said to you. Any tiny clue about her background, why she was here, who she might know in the area – the sooner we’ve got an identity for her, the better sense we might make of her death.’

  ‘So, I’ve only got myself to rely on to get me out of this mess,’ Thea summarised, feeling suddenly unafraid. If anything, there was a sliver of exhilaration somewhere inside her. Another murder mystery to pass the time was shamefully welcome. ‘It’s almost as good as an old-fashioned locked-room puzzle, isn’t it? Except the doors weren’t actually locked,’ she added. ‘I do feel bad about that. If I’d behaved like a responsible house-sitter, the poor woman would still be alive. Maybe I should be charged as an accessory – if only an unwitting one.’

  Barkley gave her a severe look. ‘Don’t go trying to make things worse than they already are. You’re not like most people, Mrs Slocombe. On the one hand, you wander off, leaving the house completely insecure, and on the other, you invite a totally strange woman in and give her a bed for the night.’

  ‘Most people would think both those things were criminally careless. And I didn’t give her a bed – just a room, and some cushions on the floor.’

  ‘Better than a ditch,’ said Barkley.

  ‘Marginally.’ Thea agreed. ‘But I know Drew for one is going to say I brought all this on myself. I told him most of it last night, and he was fairly unimpressed. Didn’t seem to want to talk about it, which I assume means he’s cross with me.’

  ‘Superintendent Gladwin said he was a bit short with her, as well. Can’t expect him to be happy, I guess. How long have you two been married – not long, I gather?’

  ‘A year.’

  The word echoed inside her head. ‘A year exactly. Oh, my God – what date is it today?’

  ‘The twelfth.’

  ‘No! Is it really? Yesterday was the eleventh, then? That was the date! Our anniversary. I forgot all about it. Never gave it one single thought for months. How idiotic of me – I knew we’d been married a year, but never associated it with an actual date. Does that make any sense? Lord help me – what’s he going to think?’

  ‘It’s generally the man who forgets,’ said Barkley with a little smile.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ moaned Thea. ‘Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t somebody remind me? I’ll have to phone him. What am I going to tell him?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. It’s not something I’ve ever had to think about. I guess you could send him a text right away if you don’t want to phone him.’

  Thea shook her head. ‘No, that would be cowardly. I do want to phone him, but I daren’t do it now. He might be in the middle of a funeral. I think he’s got one today.’

  ‘Cowardly,’ Caz repeated thoughtfully. ‘I don’t see that, to be honest.’

  ‘You’ll have to take my word for it, then.’ She sighed. ‘Well, I deserve whatever I get,’ she decided. ‘I’m a rubbish wife, going off and leaving him like this and completely forgetting the date we got married. I can’t imagine how I’ll ever make it up to him.’

  ‘Well …’ Barkley clearly didn’t like the direction the conversation had taken. ‘I think we’re done, aren’t we? Didn’t you say you had to be somewhere at two?’

  ‘Oh – I should have told you. I’ve got to take some police people to the place where I first found Grace. You could come as well, I suppose. If you wanted to.’

  Caz shook her head. ‘No, I’d better not. No time, anyway. Now, let’s see – how much was that omelette?’

  Thea realised that she could not expect a free lunch courtesy of the Gloucestershire Constabulary. In fact, she got the impression that she might be expected to pay for both meals. She made a mental note to ask Jessica what the protocol was for such a situation. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and settle up.’

  ‘No, that’s not allowed,’ said Caz sharply. She proffered a ten-pound note. ‘I think this is about right. Can you get them to give you a receipt?’

  ‘Okay, then.’ Thea performed the transaction, and they went back to the quiet village street. All Thea’s thoughts were on Drew and her u
tter failure as his wife. She wanted to phone him the moment she got back to the house, but he was highly likely to be conducting a funeral. It would have to wait until later in the afternoon. Generally, there would be no pressing commitments after about 3 p.m. ‘Thanks a lot for coming to tell me all that,’ she remembered to say. ‘Tell Gladwin I’m not panicking at the thought that I’m suspected of murder. I’m panicking a lot more about forgetting the anniversary, to be honest.’

  ‘She’ll think it’s her fault. Wasn’t this whole thing her idea in the first place? I think she already feels bad about it.’

  They were standing in the driveway of the Corner House, right beside Barkley’s car. ‘She’s hopelessly busy with this pangolin thing,’ Caz went on, with a dark look. ‘Honestly, I thought I’d seen the worst of human nature, but this is a whole new level of barbarism. There really aren’t any words for it. And I’ve only heard some odd bits – Gladwin’s up to her elbows in it.’ The detective’s face seemed to glow with black thoughts. ‘If you ask me, it’s almost as vile to torture and kill animals as the things they do to children and other human beings. I know I’m not meant to say that, but I think I’ve got the right. After all, I was an abused child, and I’ve got over it. I can even almost understand what drove them to do it, and how having a kid tipped them over the edge. But when these total monsters do it for money, and it’s all based on such utterly brainless superstition, I see red.’

  ‘I know,’ said Thea, still not properly attending. ‘That idiotic Chinese medicine.’

  ‘If you ask me, there’s too much respect paid to primitive beliefs and practices. Look at FGM. And about a million other things.’

  It was a rant with which Thea had some sympathy, but she was in no mood to encourage it. Barkley was young and ideological and uncompromising, as well as a lot more experienced than Thea herself was, at least in some respects. She would no doubt make a fine police detective when she’d had time to absorb some of the nuances that governed human behaviour. She had sharp wits and more than adequate self-confidence. ‘Mm,’ she said. ‘I guess we’ll have to leave all that for another day.’

  ‘What? Oh – right. I should go. Good luck with the Cirencester people. I’ll try and call you to see how it went – maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks, Caz,’ said Thea.

  ‘Sorry about the anniversary date,’ said Barkley as she got into her car. ‘You’d never have remembered if it hadn’t been for my big mouth.’

  ‘I should be grateful, then. What if I never remembered it?’

  ‘That might have been the best thing,’ said the detective, before starting the engine and driving away.

  The older builder met her in the hallway, holding a steaming mug. It smelt like strong sweet coffee. ‘Bloke came looking for you,’ he said. ‘You just missed him.’

  ‘Oh?’ Her first thought was that it must have been Drew. Then, that it had been somebody from the Cirencester police station, arrived early. ‘They could have phoned me, whoever it was.’

  Sid shook his head. ‘Didn’t seem to want to do that. Said he’d rather see you in person.’

  ‘What did he look like? Did he have a bad leg?’ It must have been the man from the churchyard, she assumed, come to offer her some company.

  ‘Not that I noticed. Youngish. Tall. Bit of a beard. Nice smile.’

  Something chimed in the depths of her memory. ‘Was there a dog with him?’ Although the man with the dog was unlikely to have a pleasant smile, on reflection.

  ‘Didn’t see one. Might’ve tied it up at the gate. He came round the back when nobody answered the knocker at the front.’

  She was still thinking about the sour-looking man with a large dog that she’d met on the path the day before. He’d been the first person she had seen after her arrival, before encountering Grace under the trees. Why in the world he should come calling on her now was beyond imagining. And anyway, she thought confusedly, it wasn’t him, because she was fairly sure he didn’t have a beard. So who was it? The idea of a strange visitor, given recent events, was profoundly unnerving. ‘Didn’t he leave his name?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, well – he did, actually. Said he was called Clovis, and you’d remember him.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Why didn’t you say that at the start?’ she burst out, loud with relief and surprise.

  ‘You didn’t give me a chance,’ he said reproachfully. ‘All those questions.’

  ‘Right. Sorry. Did he say if he was coming back?’ Did she want him to come back? Could she cope with the disgracefully glowingly handsome importunate Clovis Biddulph? How on earth had he found her, anyway? Could he have simply gone to the Broad Campden house and asked Drew where she was? And would Drew have told him?

  She had met him a few months earlier, during a very upsetting murder investigation and, completely against her will, had found him disconcertingly attractive. Nice smile was a massive understatement. When Clovis Biddulph smiled, the world was bathed in light. She had just about kept her feelings hidden from Drew, even after the case was over and she assumed she would never see any of the Biddulphs again.

  ‘Said he had to be somewhere, but might manage a quick return visit later today.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Sid.’ She wouldn’t be there then, either, she told herself. She’d be out showing police officers points in the Barnsley undergrowth, and then answering questions at the police station, and perhaps acquiring a car through Gladwin’s kind offices. If Fate had any sense, she would make absolutely sure that Thea Slocombe and Clovis Biddulph would never find themselves alone together in a lovely old Cotswold house.

  She should phone Drew. She needed the grounding that he would provide, and a reminder of her identity as his wife. She also needed to update him on the matter of the dead Grace. The woman had been murdered. Somebody had stolen into the house during the few minutes that Thea had been just down the road admiring a forgotten barn and inventing fairy tales. That was a lot more frightening than she had permitted herself to acknowledge. It could only mean that somebody had been watching her and Grace, waiting for an opportunity. But then, as she rehearsed her account for Drew, it struck her with a shock that there was another possible scenario. The killer could have come into the house and crept up to the attic while Thea was still asleep in the spare bedroom. He could have silently listened at her – Thea’s − door. Luckily, the chair she’d used as a barrier would not have let him get in. Without Hepzibah to sound the alarm, it would have been easy for anyone to gain access to the attic. Thea had always slept deeply. As a child, her siblings had performed numerous practical jokes on her while she slept, and now Stephanie and Timmy were learning that they could get away with all sorts of mischief within inches of their dormant stepmother. But no – the back and front had at least been securely locked overnight. There was no chance that a killer could have gained entry without noise and damage.

  She could reassure Drew, then, that she personally had not been in danger. She would emphasise the walk she’d taken, exaggerating its duration, and the way she had so carelessly left the door open at the house. She would tell him about Sid and Dave and how sensible and hunky they were. It was much more permissible for her to flirt with the builders than to entertain seriously adulterous fantasies about Clovis Biddulph.

  She spent the next ten minutes thinking about Drew, their life together, the business, and the various ways in which the future might unfold. She thought about where he was at that moment – almost certainly outside with Andrew. It had become their daily habit to meet at the burial ground, whether or not there was a funeral, and discuss plans for the coming days, monitor the existing graves and any saplings or markers for which they were responsible. ‘People pay us to make sure they’re looked after,’ Drew had explained, when Thea had remarked that he seemed to be as much a gardener as an undertaker, at times.

  But this week would be different because he was in charge of his children. He might take them with him to the field, or even leave them
for half an hour – but he might equally well decide on a family outing at short notice. She wouldn’t know until she phoned.

  The knock on the door came five minutes late. A man and a woman stood there, both wearing plain clothes. They did not smile. The woman carried a large camera. ‘Mrs Slocombe?’ asked the man. ‘We’re from Gloucestershire CID. I’m DS Goodbody, and this is DS Tompkins.’ He showed his identity card, for good measure. ‘We understand you have agreed to take us on an examination of a … position on a footpath?’

  ‘Sort of,’ she agreed. Fancy sending two sergeants, she thought. Wouldn’t a constable have been good enough?

  ‘Lead the way, then,’ Goodbody invited.

  ‘Right. Yes. Although … um …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The thing is, the path I took starts behind the church. But there’s really no need to do that again. We could take it from where it crosses the road, which is that way.’ She pointed to the left. ‘It’s a bit dangerous, though. There’s a bend, and no footpath. But it would be a lot quicker.’

  ‘I see,’ said the man, not quite convincingly.

  ‘We’ll be all right. We’ll go in single file. There’s not a lot of traffic, is there?’ The female officer spoke decisively. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  So Thea led the way at a brisk march, along the road towards Bibury, only with difficulty recognising the stile she’d used to get onto the track that ran alongside Barnsley Park. She climbed over quickly, anticipating with some amusement the faces of the officers when they reached the monumental crossing place over the high wall, at the far end of the track.