Secrets in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘She’s very good-looking,’ he said, managing to convey a wealth of meaning in these words. Thea thought she had caught most of it. He meant there would be no imbalance in the eyes of the world, no sense that Jennifer had somehow used underhand methods to capture him. They would be Posh and Becks or whoever the more recent golden superstar couple might be.

  ‘That’ll help,’ she said.

  He flinched. ‘We’re both very ordinary, you know. The main worry is probably going to be that she’s got far more money than me. If we have children, I’m going to be the one staying at home to mind them while she forges ahead with her career.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Oh – she’s a consultant to the big charities. All very worthy and politically correct. She advises them on how to get the best value for money, and which projects are likely to have the most effect. She favours the conservation side of things.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Thea, wondering how ethical it was for someone in such a line of work to earn big money. ‘Which charities in particular?’

  ‘Most of the big names. World Wildlife Fund. RSPCA. RSPB. A few of the smaller ones. She’s independent, you see. Goes wherever the need is. They put her on short-term contracts, and she spends a few months going through their procedures and setting them straight. She’s very clever.’

  ‘But she doesn’t go into their basic ideologies? I mean – she doesn’t tell them whether to save rhinos over elephants, or African children over South American ones?’

  He frowned. ‘Indirectly, she probably does. It’s not just her, obviously. There are legions of people doing similar work. It’s a whole industry.’

  ‘Does she have to travel much?’

  ‘Not really. Mostly she can do it in London, or wherever their head offices are. I travel quite a lot myself, remember.’

  Thea never had fully grasped the nature of Clovis’s work. Something about music, and going to Prague. ‘Remind me,’ she said.

  ‘I scour the world for original music. New young composers in need of a publisher. All very high risk and low reward, except when I hit the jackpot. That happens about once every three or four years. There’s some good stuff coming out of Eastern Europe, funnily enough.’

  ‘Why is that funny? What about Chopin? Wasn’t he Polish?’

  Clovis looked down his shapely nose at her, and gave no reply.

  ‘Sorry. Tell me more.’

  He relented and treated her to a short lecture on the many vibrant new forms of jazz and rock and metal emerging from the region. Then, for good measure, he added a few remarks about Bulgaria and Croatia. Their food arrived while he was in full spate, and he began to eat at the same time as talking. He had selected a curry, with popadums, which he crunched cheerfully.

  Thea listened while tackling her own good-sized pie. When he finally stopped, she gave him an approving smile. ‘Sounds thrilling,’ she said. ‘The woman whose house I’m looking after is a musician, as well. She plays the piano.’

  ‘Tabitha Ibbotson,’ he nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Of her,’ he corrected. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever met. She’s a bit too traditional for my taste. But she’s a fine performer, for all that.’

  ‘You do know a woman was murdered in the house on Sunday, don’t you?’ The words burst out of her, with scarcely any conscious thought. It was as if she couldn’t hold them back any longer; that everything they’d said thus far was beside this main point. Clovis and his upcoming marriage no longer seemed to be the real motivating force behind this encounter.

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded, with unmistakeable eagerness. ‘I mentioned it yesterday on the phone, if you remember.’

  ‘So you did. Well it’s looming rather large in my mind, as you’d probably expect. I’m not sure I can think about much else, just at the moment.’

  He gave her a long look that implied complete understanding. ‘That’s not surprising. So tell me.’

  ‘How come you don’t know? It must be the talk of the whole area.’

  ‘I know a couple of basic facts. I’d be very interested to hear the story from the inside, so to speak.’

  She told him the whole story over the next five minutes, including the police interview and her frustration at not being able to talk to Gladwin. ‘But Barkley’s doing her best to keep in touch,’ she conceded. ‘You remember Barkley?’

  ‘Vividly.’

  She laughed at that. ‘Well, that’s more or less it. I suppose I should be feeling a lot more scared than I am. Somehow, I can’t believe anybody’s after me. And after today, I think there’ll be a proper door at the back, which will help.’

  ‘So who are the main suspects, then?’

  ‘Well – on paper you could probably say I am. But luckily nobody takes that seriously. I ought to be thankful the media haven’t made more of the story – they’d be tearing me apart by now. Think how ghastly that would be! I suppose it’s because it’s August and they only want silly soft news. Plus, all this about the pangolins, of course. Nobody’s very interested in an unidentified woman getting killed in a sleepy Cotswold village.’

  ‘I heard about the pangolins,’ he said, with a serious expression. ‘Vile business!’

  ‘I know,’ she nodded. ‘Horrible for the poor things.’

  ‘And that’s just the tip of a loathsome iceberg.’ He took a last draught of his beer. ‘So I’m not lunching with a murderer, then?’

  ‘Wasn’t me, guv. I wouldn’t know where to squeeze to strangle somebody so quickly and quietly.’

  ‘Who says it was quick and quiet?’

  ‘It must have been. I was only out for twenty minutes at most. And if she’d screamed, even in Barnsley somebody would probably have come to investigate.’

  ‘Hm. Not too sure about that. People mind their own business around here, in my experience.’

  ‘That’s true. But the only possible explanation appears to be that somebody knew she was there, and just walked in and killed her when I was out. They must have been watching the house pretty closely to seize the moment like that.’

  ‘Not so difficult, actually. They could have put a camera in a parked car, with a feed into a house or van just down the road. Technology’s amazing nowadays, you know. There could have been some sort of tracker on the woman who was killed, so they knew which room she was in. Almost anything’s possible.’

  She stared at him. ‘How do you know all that?’

  ‘It’s common knowledge. And I know people who use cameras like that. Neighbourhood disputes are fertile ground for all that sort of thing. And then there are the drones. You can put a camera on them, as well.’

  ‘Surely not in the Cotswolds?’ She hated to think of it.

  ‘Why not? There’s a man round the corner from me who’s got three separate cameras on his house, with a bank of monitors in his spare room. He sees everything that goes on within at least a quarter of a mile. The cameras can be swivelled by remote control. And he’s just an ordinary Joe Bloggs with an obsession about his marrows.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ she accused.

  ‘Marrows, pumpkins and prize tomatoes. It sounds like a joke, I know, but it’s deadly serious – and not even very original.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Thea faintly.

  ‘So, you see, it would be easy enough for your killer to grab his chance the minute you went out. He probably knew already that the back door was missing.’

  Thea waved her fork at him. ‘Actually, the back was quite well barricaded. It was the front that I didn’t bother to lock.’

  He laughed. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

  She found herself smarting at this. ‘What do you mean? You can’t possibly think you know me well enough to say a thing like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Was that rude of me? I meant it to sound approving, as a matter of fact. The thing is, my mother really took to you, and said you were a kindred spirit. She never locks anything, either. She just … re
cognised you, I suppose.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Thea, wondering whether everyone found her as transparent as Clovis and his family seemed to.

  ‘Anyway, let’s stick to the point. I presume it wouldn’t take long to search the house for the woman, even if there wasn’t a tracker on her somewhere. As for knowing where the pressure points are, that does imply some kind of medical training. It’s not as easy as people think.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s easy,’ muttered Thea. She found herself thinking of a strangled child in the village of Snowshill, where there had been nothing very subtle about the attack. ‘And how do you know whether it’s easy or not?’

  He grimaced. ‘I don’t really. I’m not claiming to have any direct experience, if that’s worrying you.’

  She merely shook her head at that, and they finished the final morsels of their lunch. ‘I’m having another beer,’ said Clovis defiantly.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she shrugged. ‘With your body weight, you’ll be fine. With me, a pint’s probably enough to put me over the limit.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m fat?’ He looked down at himself in wonder.

  He was back to the old philandering manner, putting on a playful act and forcing her into a defensive response. Except she dodged it all and told him to shut up. ‘Don’t start,’ she added warningly.

  He collected his drink and they continued to analyse every detail of Thea’s weekend. In summary, Clovis suggested that there might be two possible lines of enquiry. ‘Either she was involved in the trafficking of rare animals, working with a criminal Chinese gang or else she was being trafficked herself. They could have told her she was coming to work in a hotel or other respectable business, and then broke the news that she was their prisoner in some way.’

  ‘I can’t see it,’ Thea objected. ‘Neither one seems to fit with what I saw of her.’

  ‘But she was escaping? So she must have been a captive, surely?’

  ‘I suppose so. But there are just too many possible explanations. I really hope the police can find out who she was, and with any luck they might track down some film of her running away from the business park.’

  Before they knew it, it was half past two and every scrap of food and drink had long ago disappeared. ‘You’ve missed your vocation,’ she told him. ‘You’re a born detective.’

  ‘I enjoy a good puzzle,’ he admitted. ‘So many people’s lives are riddled with secrets, and I like to ferret them out.’

  ‘Not much chance of secrets, with all these cameras everywhere.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘They still haven’t invented a camera that can see inside people’s heads.’

  They’d drifted a long way from his stated intention to seek her guidance concerning his forthcoming marriage. She began to wonder whether that had all been a ploy, in any case. Had he just used it to gain her confidence? To convey the message that he was not looking for a passionate affair? Neither idea explained why he should seek her out as he had. If it wasn’t sex, then what exactly did he want from her?

  ‘Did you ask me out so we could talk about the murder?’ she asked him on an impulse. ‘You seem awfully interested.’

  He hung his head, and looked at her from under his immaculate eyebrows. ‘You weren’t supposed to suss that out,’ he said. ‘But yes – the fact is, I did want to hear more about it. It’s all totally hypothetical at the moment, but we did just wonder whether there could be a link to the pangolin smuggling. It seemed too good a chance to miss, with me knowing you and you being on the spot – do you see?’

  ‘We?’ she echoed. ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘Me and Jennifer,’ he said simply. ‘Who do you think?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘We can’t just leave it like this,’ he said, as they went back to their cars. ‘I’m free for a couple of days, and you’re here all on your own. Can’t we team up and solve this murder together?’

  ‘You sound like Just William or some boy detective, talking like that. You don’t just solve a murder like a Rubik’s Cube.’ She knew she sounded tetchy, but his confession of a deliberate plan to extract information from her in collusion with his girlfriend had annoyed her.

  ‘Don’t you? I thought that was what you did.’

  ‘You thought wrong. I’m a house-sitter, that’s all. Or I was. Now I’m an undertaker’s wife. This job is a one-off. It was all Gladwin’s idea. She seemed to think I needed a break from looking after Drew’s kids.’ It sounded worse, every time she said it – or even thought it. It was so irresponsible … selfish … unkind … to go off as she’d done, leaving poor Drew to cope.

  ‘Be that as it may, I think we might want to take this a bit further. I didn’t mean to deceive you. It’s all terribly tentative, but there’s a niggling little idea that Jen wants sorted out. It’s horrible to talk like this, I know. Something and nothing. But I can’t tell you any more until we’ve got something concrete to go on.’

  ‘Is it something that might identify Grace?’

  ‘We thought it might be. But that isn’t the name of the person we’re following up. So it’s almost certainly a complete mistake. And that’s why I can’t say any more.’ He looked genuinely wretched at having to be so evasive.

  ‘Well I can’t force you,’ she said tightly. ‘But thanks for the lunch.’ Clovis had insisted on paying for her pie. ‘It was delicious.’

  ‘Good. Well don’t take any silly risks, at least. Lock all the doors when the builders have gone and keep your phone by your side. Make sure it’s charged, as well. The damn things can let you down at the crucial moment if you don’t watch out.’

  She took her mobile out of her bag and gave it to him. ‘Put your number in, then.’

  He thumbed the screen, and reported that she only had sixteen per cent battery life left. ‘Plug it in the minute you get back,’ he ordered her.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It was nice, of course, to have a big handsome man looking after her welfare. It reminded her of former times, with attentive boyfriends all competing for her favours. But then she had married two men who each insisted that she could quite well stand up for herself. Somewhere inside, she presumed, there was an assertive female who actually wanted to go her own way, without a champion hovering behind her to catch her when she fell. But even the most ardent feminist must be permitted the occasional lapse, she supposed.

  ‘Is it all right with you if I tell Jennifer everything you’ve told me?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say, is it? The fact that the woman was killed at the Corner House is common knowledge, anyway. And you don’t want Jennifer thinking you’re keeping any secrets from her, do you?’

  Her words were almost instantly drowned by a cheerful voice calling, ‘Hi, Thea! Fancy meeting you here.’

  Thea was stunned to the point of immobility. The person calling to her was both intensely familiar and wholly alien. ‘Jocelyn! What …? How …?’

  Her sister laughed. ‘Well, I was actually coming to find you, so it’s not really such a coincidence.’ She stared hard at Clovis. ‘But I never expected to find you with a gentleman friend.’ Her expression added, And such a beautiful one, too.

  This development was becoming more disastrous with every passing second. Jocelyn was the youngest in the Johnstone family, the mischief-maker and their mother’s favourite. She was also the mother of five children, several stone heavier than Thea, and four inches taller. Nobody would ever take them for sisters. But they had grown up as ‘the little ones’, both of them in possession of a strand of fecklessness and defiance in the face of two critical and impatient older siblings.

  ‘Jocelyn,’ she said again. ‘This is Clovis. My sister,’ she explained to him. ‘Why were you looking for me?’

  ‘A few reasons. I gather there’s been a murder. I wondered how you were coping. And I wanted to talk to you about Jessica. Toni’s just been to see her, and she thinks there might be something going on that you ought to know about.’

  Jessica a
nd Toni were their respective daughters; cousins who had always liked each other, despite six years’ difference in age.

  ‘Oh,’ said Thea, thinking that it must have been at least a week since she had given her daughter a single thought. ‘She hasn’t said anything to me.’

  ‘No … Well …’ said Jocelyn with a small sigh. ‘Did you say “Clovis”? That’s a very unusual name.’

  ‘French,’ he told her, having followed their fractured exchanges with undisguised interest. ‘Thanks to my grandmother.’

  ‘You do know she’s married, don’t you?’

  ‘Joss!’ Thea was mortified.

  Clovis just laughed. ‘Yes indeed. And I know and respect her husband. You don’t have to worry.’

  Jocelyn’s expression was complicated. Dubious, concerned, curious – and more. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ Thea asked her sister. ‘Why have you come to Quenington? Are you on your own?’

  ‘I’m going,’ said Clovis. ‘Nice to meet you, Jocelyn.’ He got into his car and flashed an all-embracing smile at them both. ‘Be seeing you.’ And he drove off.

  They watched him go before Jocelyn said, ‘My car’s up by that gorgeous archway. I thought I should go and have a look at it while I was in the area. Noel told me about it – all that guff about Knights Templar is an obsession with him at the moment.’ Noel was her youngest, eleven years old and something of a geek. Thea was extremely fond of Noel.

  ‘So is he with you?’ Thea looked around hopefully.

  ‘No – he came here with his father a few weekends ago. They’ve taken to Sunday outings, just the two of them. It’s rather nice.’

  ‘I should get back to Barnsley,’ said Thea. ‘I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on everything at the house.’