Secrets in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I’m coming with you. I couldn’t see your car.’

  ‘It’s this one,’ said Thea, indicating the borrowed vehicle. ‘It belongs to the police. They’re just letting me use it while I’m here. Drew needs ours at home.’

  ‘Lead the way, then,’ said Jocelyn.

  Back at the Corner House, Thea was informed by the builders that she could move the kettle and microwave back into the kitchen, where one wall was finished. There were functioning power points, a spotless new work surface and running water. ‘Best not use the oven,’ said Dave, with a little frown of embarrassment. ‘But I guess the hob would be okay.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘Well, if I know Mrs Ibbotson, she’s going to want to christen it herself, if you follow me. Even if it’s only used once, it’s going to be just a bit spoilt – do you see? You can never really get an oven looking new again, can you?’

  It was a very delicate point and Thea was impressed at his sensitive handling of it. ‘I get it,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll be fine with the microwave.’

  It was approaching four o’clock when she and Jocelyn settled down in the big living room with mugs of tea. ‘Nice house,’ said the visitor. ‘But I’m not sure I understand what you’re doing here. Have you fallen out with Drew? He sounded pretty weird on the phone this morning.’

  ‘Did he? In what way?’

  ‘Well, for a start it was his little girl who answered. How old is she now? Don’t the funeral calls come through on that line?’

  ‘She’s eleven. She’s been answering it since Saturday, apparently. People keep telling me about it.’ She frowned. ‘I suppose he must be training her up, because he’s got too much else to do. She’s heard us both doing it often enough.’

  ‘She didn’t want to fetch him until I insisted.’

  ‘I’ll ask him about it when – if – I phone this evening. He did say I shouldn’t call again until Thursday, actually.’ She paused. ‘And you won’t tell him about Clovis, will you?’

  Jocelyn’s eyes sparkled. ‘Why not? I thought they were best chums.’

  ‘They’re not. And even if they were, that wouldn’t make much difference. Drew’s only human: he’s bound to worry, however much I assure him there’s nothing going on.’

  ‘Secrets, sis? Slippery slope and all that.’

  ‘Just saving him from needless bother. I could tell him – probably will, actually. It just needs to be the right moment. Besides, I thought everyone agreed there were times when it’s best to keep quiet about things. Clovis is getting married. He’s not interested in me.’

  ‘But he’s so appallingly gorgeous! How can you resist?’

  ‘It got easier,’ sighed Thea. ‘Three months ago, I’d have turned to jelly if he’d touched me. Now the spell seems to have been broken, thank goodness.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for that. Now tell me all about this murder. Was it right here, in this house? That’s what I’m hearing.’ She looked at the slightly ragged old carpet, as if for bloodstains.

  ‘Upstairs. While I was out for a walk.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  But Thea didn’t want to recount the whole story again. She’d had enough for one day, with Clovis turning out so unexpectedly different, and then her sister arriving out of the blue. ‘How long are you staying?’ she asked instead. ‘I still don’t understand why you came looking for me.’

  ‘School holidays, same as you,’ said Jocelyn astutely. ‘Every woman needs to escape for a bit. The whole thing is relentless otherwise. Thinking up amusements, wondering whether you’re doing enough to stimulate them, inventing treats that won’t break the bank. I don’t blame you for bunking off, even if poor Drew seems to have taken to his bed.’

  ‘What? You don’t mean that literally, I hope.’

  Jocelyn had gone pink, and put a hand to her mouth. ‘No, no. It’s just the way he seemed so absent. Even when I finally got to talk to him, he wasn’t paying much attention.’

  ‘But he told you where I was, didn’t he? And what I was doing.’

  ‘Yes. Forget I said anything. I came about Jessica, remember?’

  Thea chewed her lip for a moment. Something wasn’t adding up – there was definitely a sense of being excluded from a secret known to everyone else in the family. And yet it was only what she deserved. If exclusion was going on, then she had wantonly done it to herself and could hardly complain if life carried on without her back home. And Jessica – was she keeping secrets from her mother as well? ‘So, what do you think I should know?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘Toni thinks Jess is drinking too much.’

  The starkness with which this was said left no room for evasion or dismissal. Jessica had brought work troubles and boyfriend crises to Thea over the years, and shared in one or two of her encounters with violent crime – but not recently. Well into her twenties, the girl seemed focused and ambitious, with a promotion to the rank of sergeant imminently expected. ‘Oh,’ said Thea. ‘That’s the last thing I would have imagined.’

  Alcohol had never been much of a factor in the Johnstone household, and since becoming adults and leaving home, none of them had taken to drink. The eldest sister, Emily, had got into trouble in a particularly dramatic fashion, but even she was now back to almost-normal life, enjoying her first grandchild and taking things quietly. One or two of Jocelyn’s offspring had been dragged home from wild teenage parties a time or two, but nobody worried too much about it. The suggestion that the sensible grown-up Jessica might take to drink was too surprising to process. ‘Would Toni recognise a drink problem when she saw it?’ she wondered.

  ‘I’m not sure. She is quite sensible these days – and she saw drunks when she was doing that hotel job. It was finding a cupboard full of bottles in the flat that really alarmed her. Whisky, gin, loads of wine. All tucked away behind other things.’

  ‘Lord help us,’ groaned Thea. ‘I suppose I’ll have to go and see for myself, once I’ve finished here. Drew’s going to love that, isn’t he.’

  ‘There could be other explanations,’ said Jocelyn hesitantly. ‘Maybe she’s preparing for a party, or keeping it for somebody else.’

  ‘Didn’t Toni ask her?’

  ‘She didn’t like to. Couldn’t think how to phrase it, I suppose. They went out both evenings with some of Jess’s workmates and there was a lot of booze flowing both times. She came home pretty convinced there was an issue.’

  Issues, thought Thea. Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be stacks of them. Even murder was probably some sort of issue, as well. ‘I’ll phone her tonight,’ she said. ‘And fix up a visit in a week or two. Stephanie could come as well, maybe.’

  ‘You can’t take one without the other,’ Jocelyn warned. ‘Who’s going to mind Timmy if you do that?’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Thea. ‘It’s just one darned thing after another.’

  It was a family saying, gleaned from old Laurel and Hardy films, and Jocelyn obediently laughed.

  At six, they ate scrambled eggs, prepared on the new hob, with Thea taking extreme care not to spill anything. ‘I’m going at eight,’ said Jocelyn. ‘Can we have a little walk before then? I want to see this village.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Thea, thinking there really wasn’t very much to see. ‘There’s just a pub, a church and a village hall and a big hotel, basically.’

  ‘Show me where you went on Sunday, while that poor woman was getting herself murdered. Maybe we’ll find a clue or something.’

  ‘I don’t see how, but we could do that, yes.’

  Thea led the way out of the front gate and headed towards the centre of Barnsley. The houses were reliably gorgeous in the setting sun, the shadows deep and dark. The road at that point ran north−south, thanks to the sharp kink on the Bibury side of the village. The church tower was one of the few buildings on the eastern side to catch some of the light. Jocelyn glanced at it as they passed. ‘Have you been in?’ she asked.

  ‘Only the graveyard. I went
there yesterday and met some people. And I had a chat there this morning, as well.’

  ‘What else is there to see?’

  ‘There’s a rather wonderful barn. A little way along here, look.’ She pointed to the next junction and they walked on.

  ‘Wow!’ breathed Jocelyn, as they turned the corner. ‘That’s amazing! Who does it belong to?’

  ‘No idea. It’s totally abandoned, as far as I can see.’

  ‘Look at all those brambles and things. It’s like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. However could you get into it?’

  ‘Probably round the other side. There’s a yard, I think. But it all looks more or less disused.’

  ‘But it must be prime real estate, worth millions. They can’t just leave it.’

  ‘There could be stuff stored in there, maybe. The roof looks fairly watertight.’

  ‘Let’s have a look! There’s nobody about. It’s too intriguing to resist – don’t you think? We need a magic sword to cut through all these prickly things.’

  ‘We can’t, Joss. People know who I am. They’ll report me to Tabitha Ibbotson and Gladwin.’

  ‘Don’t be so wet. Come on.’ Jocelyn was already trotting around the long side of the building, searching for an entry point. Thea was transported back thirty years or more, when her younger sister would fearlessly lead them into one pickle after another. Even in their respectable Wiltshire home, there was more than enough scope for trouble, if you looked hard enough. She had little choice but to follow, while muttering darkly to herself.

  ‘People always say I’m nosy, but I’m nothing compared to you. And you’re always the one who falls over or disturbs the guard dog, leaving me to take the blame.’

  ‘Can’t hear you,’ her sister sang out, over her shoulder.

  ‘Keep quiet, can’t you? Somebody’s liable to come out and shoot us.’ It felt all too horribly likely, just at that moment.

  But Jocelyn had forged ahead, and was rounding the furthest corner, pushing through a half-closed gate in the process. Thea looked all around fearfully. They could be seen from several upstairs windows, if anyone had troubled to look. They were definitely trespassing, once through the gate. ‘Listen, Joss, will you? Come back.’ Memories of other finds in other barns were filling her head, and she began to feel sick. ‘Let’s just leave it all alone, okay?’

  ‘Stop fussing. Come and see what I’ve found.’

  There was nothing in the voice to suggest another murder victim, or even a pile of illegal tiger skins. That, Thea realised, had been one of the things she had half-expected to discover. Or perhaps a cage filled with desperate immigrants – probably Chinese adolescents shipped over in a metal box. ‘What, then? What is it?’ From Jocelyn’s tone, she was entertaining images of a litter of kittens.

  At first there was nothing to see. The interior was very dark, accessed through an open section that was only partly blocked by nettles. Jocelyn was standing a few feet away, gazing raptly at an arrangement that looked very like a church altar. But Thea’s eyes were still struggling to adjust to the gloom. How Jocelyn’s sight could have adjusted so quickly was a mystery. ‘I can hardly see anything,’ Thea complained.

  ‘You’ll be fine in a minute. It’s really not all that dark in here. Move right in, and you’ll see better.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘No, but look. Isn’t this amazing!’

  Thea’s focus rapidly discerned an area of the barn that was much cleaner than the rest. Halfway along one wall stood a table with a bright white cloth and two tall candlesticks on it. Her instinct for history immediately suggested a forbidden religious sect, practising its rituals in secret. Something from a long-past century where people passionately cared about such things, even in rural Gloucestershire.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  Jocelyn had approached the table with no hint of reverence. She reached out to an object placed between the candles. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ she said.

  Thea glanced back at their point of entry, still anxious about being discovered. Then she gave Jocelyn’s find more of her attention. ‘It’s an ashes urn,’ she said. ‘Good grief!’

  It was a brick-shaped container made of thick brown plastic. A screw-topped lid capped it. ‘What a place to keep it,’ said Jocelyn.

  Thea examined the object without touching it. It was much the same as several she’d seen Drew deal with in his line of work. While most of his customers were strongly in favour of burial over cremation, there were occasions where ashes had been interred in his field. ‘There should be a name label on it somewhere.’ She tried to think. ‘But how weird to leave it in this nasty plastic thing. Wouldn’t you expect it to be in something more … elegant … more tasteful? If this is a shrine, it’s rather a half-hearted one.’

  ‘But it’s still exciting!’ Jocelyn insisted. ‘I can’t see a label.’ She picked up the urn and turned it round. ‘Ah, here it is. We’ll need more light to read what it says. Here – take it to the door.’ She held it out to Thea, who stepped back, refusing to take it. ‘It’s much heavier than I would have thought,’ Jocelyn went on. ‘What a funny place to put it. Why won’t you touch it? I’d have thought you’d be perfectly comfortable with this sort of thing.’

  ‘I’m worried someone’s going to catch us, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s left right here, for anybody to find.’

  ‘It’s not really, though, is it?’ said Thea slowly. ‘It’s actually hidden away where nobody would expect it to be found. I bet we’re the first people to come in here uninvited, probably ever.’ She recalled the nicely worded sign on the gate to the Barnsley Park mansion. ‘Proceed By Invitation Only’ it had said. She felt the same might well apply to this barn.

  Drew had often talked about ashes, and the problems they could present. People would get landed with cremated remains and not know what to do with them. They kept them in cupboards for decades at a time. Then, when someone else in the family died, the opportunity finally arrived for the ashes to go in a new grave along with the new body. ‘When you think about it, a barn’s as good a place as any to put them,’ she said.

  ‘I always thought a barn was for hay and corn and implements and owls and bats. This is odd, even for the Cotswolds.’ Jocelyn hefted the container again. ‘Well, let’s see what the name is, while we’re here.’ She walked towards the way they’d come in. ‘It says Gwendoline Phoebe Wheelwright. And a date.’ She peered closer. ‘Looks like 5th April 1997. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Not at all. Put it back, will you? We really do have to go.’

  ‘What happened to you? When did you get so gutless?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Thea helplessly.

  ‘Well, look over there, before you run away.’ Jocelyn indicated the furthest corner of the barn. There was a large rectangular object sitting on the floor. ‘That looks like an old trunk.’

  ‘We’re not going to open it,’ said Thea firmly.

  ‘Why? Do you think it might be Pandora’s Box?’

  ‘I think that’s almost possible. I certainly think we’d be laying ourselves open to a charge of unlawful entry, or something of the sort, if we start ferreting inside people’s private possessions.’

  But Jocelyn was unstoppable. She trotted over to the corner and lifted one end of the object. ‘Heavy!’ she announced. ‘Books, at a guess. Lots of big fat books.’

  ‘Or ledgers,’ said Thea, suddenly capturing an elusive thought. ‘Or record books. Or lost parish registers. Except they’re not lost, just turned to dust by silverfish or something.’

  ‘What records?’ Jocelyn finally decided to let it alone and turned towards the door. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s a long story, and can’t have anything to do with anything. Come on, quick, before somebody finds us.’

  ‘If this was the Famous Five, there’d be a man with a black beard waiting to grab us as we leave.’

  Instead there was a middle-sized
brown dog, slowly wagging its tail, ears perked in eager enquiry.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Hello!’ said Thea. ‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ The dog cocked its head, checking the words for something familiar. Thea knew instinctively that it was female, and ready to co-operate with any suggestion, however inconvenient. Basically Labrador, there was something of a bull terrier in the set of the shoulders.

  ‘Where’s its person?’ wondered Jocelyn.

  ‘Jess!’ came a man’s voice, answering the question.

  The dog gave a muffled woof and set off towards the road. Man and beast coincided at the corner, where the small road branched off the high street. The man showed no signs of affection or relief, just a curt nod of approval at the instant obedience. The animal clearly knew better than to jump up or show any demonstrations of fidelity.

  ‘Your dog’s got the same name as my daughter,’ said Thea, having followed the dog. ‘Fancy that.’

  ‘I’ve seen you before,’ he said, with narrowed suspicious eyes.

  ‘Yes. You were walking Jess on Saturday afternoon, near the business park.’

  ‘Business park? Oh, you mean the big house. Funny to hear you call it that.’ His tone implied that she had made a serious social gaffe.

  ‘It is, though, isn’t it? It’s got a lot of small businesses in the stables and whatnot. I saw the website.’

  ‘Got a business, then, have you? Looking to start something up here in Barnsley?’ His manner was every bit as unfriendly as it had been on Saturday. He looked as if a smile would cause him genuine pain.

  ‘Oh no. Not at all. I’m just staying a few days. This is my sister. We’ve been exploring. This barn’s unusual, isn’t it? I mean – there aren’t many left that haven’t been converted into houses.’

  ‘Not substantial enough. There are always people sniffing around it, talking about neglect and waste. None of their business, of course.’

  ‘Is it yours?’ Jocelyn asked him.