by Rebecca Tope
‘What? No, of course it’s not mine. What would I be doing with a barn?’
‘All sorts of things,’ replied Jocelyn robustly. ‘Keep spare furniture. Breed fancy rabbits. Store potatoes or logs. Loads of things.’
Still the man did not manage a smile. His dog stood meekly at his side, with no expectations. Thea felt angry with him for his disagreeable manner. ‘I’m an accountant,’ he said. ‘I do not breed rabbits or grow potatoes.’
‘Oh, well,’ Jocelyn shrugged. ‘We’ll be going now.’
‘Hang on,’ said Thea. ‘You didn’t see a Chinese woman over near that big house, as you call it, on Saturday, did you? Black hair, not very tall. I forgot about you when I was telling the police what had happened.’
‘Police?’ There was anger, but no alarm, on his face. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You must have heard about the murder on Sunday? In the Corner House; the one that belongs to Mrs Ibbotson. I’m the house-sitter. I took the woman back there, and somebody killed her.’
‘Oh—’ A thwarted expression crossed his face, as if he’d lost control of the conversation. ‘I knew it had to be you, when we heard the news on Sunday. Everybody in the village has been discussing you.’
‘So, what have they been saying?’
‘That there’s a lot more to the whole business than we’re being told. That you’ve brought trouble and gossip to a quiet village, just like you’ve done elsewhere. We know about your reputation, Mrs Thea Osborne.’ The tone was accusatory, implying a repugnance that Thea found hurtful.
‘Well you’ve got that wrong. My name’s Slocombe, not Osborne.’
‘Ah, yes. Married that peculiar undertaker in Chipping Campden, didn’t you?’
‘Broad Campden,’ Thea muttered.
‘So you didn’t see the Chinese woman?’ Jocelyn asked, trying to maintain dominance over the conversation.
‘Of course I didn’t,’ said the man impatiently. ‘The general view is that you brought her with you on Saturday when you arrived, and kept her shut up in the house so nobody would see her.’
‘The general view?’ scoffed Jocelyn. ‘A lot of brainless guesswork, you mean. What a stupid thing to think.’
Thea was finding it hard to stand her ground, despite her sister’s valiant defence. The interpretation made by the villagers was not so very far from the facts, after all. It was the implication of wholesale suspicion and hostility that undid her. ‘Do they think I killed her, then?’ she asked faintly.
The man stretched himself to maximum height, which was about nine inches higher than Thea. ‘I prefer not to discuss the subject any further. If the police feel the need to speak to me, then that’s a different matter.’ He put a hand to an inside pocket of his light cotton jacket and withdrew a card. ‘You’re welcome to pass my details onto them, if you see fit. It’s all on there. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Come on, Jess.’
The dog followed at his heel, casting a quick glance back at the woman she had recognised unerringly as a friend.
The sisters watched him go, not daring to meet each other’s eye. There was a lurking urge to giggle; the childish sense of adventure not quite quenched. ‘Well, that wasn’t very nice,’ said Thea, looking at the card in her hand. ‘His name is James Williams. And he’s a chartered accountant. How dull.’ Her voice was shaky, and her insides were quivering.
Jocelyn seemed to feel no matching sense of upset. ‘Don’t forget I’m married to one. They’re not all like that.’
Privately, Thea had always thought Alex was rather inclined to be humourless, if not actually stuffy. He had other defects, which had brought him close to public acrimony a few years earlier – but had quickly seen his mistake and behaved perfectly ever since, as far as Thea knew. But he had remained forever tainted in her eyes, and she’d done her best to avoid him. She changed the subject slightly, saying, ‘That poor dog! I don’t imagine she gets much affection lavished on her.’
Jocelyn was lukewarm about dogs and regarded Thea’s enthusiasm for them as unreasonable. ‘It’ll be fine. All it wants is for him to take charge and give it some exercise. Dogs are like doormat wives – they can’t do enough to please their beloved master. They’re pathetic.’
‘At least he didn’t catch us in the barn. He might have called the cops on us. He couldn’t have realised that we’d been in there.’
‘That wouldn’t have mattered. You could have pulled rank and revealed your intimate friendship with a detective superintendent. Actually, I doubt if he would. I think he was rather shaken to come face-to-face with you. He took the offensive because he was worried you’d start asking him awkward questions.’
‘No,’ Thea protested. ‘He can’t have any reason to feel worried.’ Then she hesitated. ‘Although he was there on Saturday, when I found Grace. And he didn’t appear to be in a very good mood. Maybe he’d been trying to find her, using his dog as a tracker.’
‘Mark my words. He’s probably rushing off to pack a bag and disappear to the Orkneys as we speak.’
Thea stopped to think for a moment. ‘I didn’t get that impression, actually. I thought he was just irritated by all the publicity and disturbance. He didn’t have to give me his card, did he?’
‘Bluffing,’ said Jocelyn. ‘He hopes it’ll make you think he’s got nothing to contribute, so you won’t bother to tell the cops about him.’
‘In that case, I’ll text Gladwin first thing tomorrow and dob him right in it.’
And then Jocelyn really did giggle. ‘It’s so nice to see you,’ she said. ‘We ought to do this sort of thing more often.’
Back at the house, they both faced up to the harsh fact of a recent murder right there, above their heads. ‘You’d think there’d be a ghost,’ said Jocelyn with a shiver. ‘I’m not sure I could stay here on my own.’
‘I don’t have much choice. Besides, it doesn’t really bother me. If it had been somebody I knew and liked, that might be different. But she was just a stranger, who might have been telling me outrageous lies, for all I know.’
‘Like what? You haven’t told me anything at all about her.’
‘Because I’ve just spent hours telling Clovis the whole thing. I can’t go through it all again. Even Drew doesn’t know all the details.’
‘You haven’t told me about Clovis, either, for that matter.’
‘We met him back in May, when his father died. Drew did the funeral.’
‘And?’ demanded Jocelyn impatiently.
‘Nothing, really. He’s nice.’
‘Thea, stop it. He’s gorgeous. You can’t be such an old married woman that you can’t see that. There you were, standing in the road with him, two of the most attractive people in the country, and nothing was happening. It was unnatural. He’s not a long-lost brother of ours, is he? Even then, I doubt if that would stop me.’
‘I told you – I was quite smitten to start with,’ Thea said. ‘Just an automatic hormonal thing, I suppose. At that point I tried to persuade myself he was a rude and possibly violent character with nothing to redeem him, but that didn’t last long. It’s the way he looks at you. Eye contact can be insanely powerful.’
‘I’ll have to take your word for that. I seem to have missed out somewhere. I remember you going on about Mr Lodge at school – the way he looked right into your eyes all the time he was talking to you. He never did it to me, I have to say.’
‘I was his special favourite,’ said Thea complacently.
‘You were the prettiest girl in the school, that’s why. I don’t know why I haven’t hated you all my life.’
‘Yes, well, now he wants to play the boy detective and help me solve this murder.’
Jocelyn made a sceptical face. ‘Does he indeed? And why is that, I wonder?’
‘I’m not sure. He did sort of hint at ulterior motives. Something to do with rare animals. He’s got this high-powered girlfriend called Jennifer, who works for charities. Maybe he wants to impress her somehow.’
‘By spendi
ng time with a married woman?’
‘By showing how clever and brave he is. By trying to share in her interests.’
‘Oh. Right. So can we have some coffee and toast or something and then I’ll go. You should phone Drew. Don’t let him think you’ve forgotten about him. And for heaven’s sake don’t let him find out you’re seeing the lovely Clovis while you’re here all on your own. I was wrong before – it would only cause trouble if he knew about it.’
‘I won’t. If you don’t tell him, nobody else is going to, are they?’
‘Let’s hope not.’
She waited until Jocelyn had been gone for fifteen minutes and then made the call to Drew, having come to the conclusion that he had not really meant it when he told her to skip a day or two, if there was nothing urgent to report. There was too much mystery circling around the Slocombe household for her to stay silent. She used the landline. It was nearly half past eight – a time when the children would normally be in bed, baths and stories all finished with. But if it was still under way, she didn’t want his warbling mobile to intrude and lead to a prolonged exchange with Stephanie and Timmy that would probably delay their getting off to sleep. Nor did she want her young stepdaughter to pick up the call.
To her relief, it was Drew himself who answered the phone. ‘Hello? How can I help you?’ he said, sounding just like his normal self.
‘It’s me. When are we going to get one of those doings that tells you who’s calling?’
‘Sometime. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. Had an interesting day. Did my interview with the police this morning. Talked to a nice dog with a nasty man. Jocelyn showed up.’ She was carefully editing as she spoke, smoothly filling in the lunchtime hole left by the absence of any mention of Clovis. ‘How about you?’
‘One new funeral. Timmy says he’s going to be an accountant when he grows up. Your dog found a dead ferret or something and brought it in.’
‘Ferret? Surely not! It’ll be somebody’s pet, if so, and she’ll be in trouble.’
‘Weasel, then. Might be a weasel. Pretty little thing.’
‘I am missing her,’ Thea sighed. ‘And you, of course. The time is passing rather slowly. I feel as if I’ve been here for weeks, instead of three days.’
‘I can’t let him be an accountant, can I?’
‘Absolutely not. We’ll tie him in chains in the cellar before we can allow that. The nasty man with the dog’s an accountant, and he’s enough to put anybody off.’
‘Alex isn’t so bad, though.’
‘That’s what Joss said. He is quite dull, though.’
‘Should I worry about you being murdered by a nasty accountant?’ For the first time in this call she heard a repeat of the weariness and something hinting at a deeper malaise that had bothered her the previous day. Something flat and unengaged in his tone.
‘No. Not at all. Are you okay? You sound peculiar.’
‘Tired. I can’t get used to the empty bed. I keep waking up in a panic and not getting off again for ages.’
‘Oh dear.’ She tried to resist the feelings of guilt, irritation, concern and other negatives. She liked sharing a bed with him, she reminded herself. She almost liked the fact that he couldn’t sleep without her. But she also liked having a bed to herself for a little while. And she definitely did not like the implication that her rightful place was at his side, day and night. ‘Well, it won’t be for very long.’
‘Did they solve the murder yet?’
‘Not as far as I know. They might have found out the woman’s identity by now, with any luck. I haven’t heard anything from the police for a bit now. I met two quite nice men from the village,’ she offered, as an afterthought.
‘Two out of three isn’t so bad,’ he said.
‘What? Oh – I see. That’s right.’ She was thinking about the Jackson brothers and the way they’d seemed to have time on their hands. And then she began to wonder what she would do the next day. ‘The police have lent me a car, so I can go for a drive tomorrow,’ she told her husband. ‘I’ll have a look at Bibury, probably.’
‘Yes, you told me that. It’ll be nice to have some better options.’
‘Mm. I’m not sure about Bibury, actually. It’s always full of Chinese tourists, apparently.’
‘You told me that as well. What’s wrong with Chinese tourists?’
‘Nothing, really. I just wonder why they home in on that particular village. It seems a bit brainless, somehow.’
‘And your murder victim might have been one of them – do you think? Somehow missed her bus and got into a pickle.’
‘A bit more than a pickle – but yes, there might well be a connection somewhere. Although it wouldn’t fit with what she told me.’ She was hoping he would start to show a genuine interest, asking for details and offering theories, as he had done in the past. Instead, he just mumbled something that sounded like uh-huh, and said he should go because he’d got a mug of coffee getting cold.
‘Right, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone you again tomorrow evening.’
‘There’s really no need.’
‘I want to, Drew. I need to hear your voice, okay? I’m going to keep phoning every evening whether you like it or not.’
‘Oh, well, then,’ he said with a fond little laugh, ‘I suppose I’ll have to let you, if you feel like that about it.’
It had all been so tepid, she thought sadly. Like people who had been married for fifty years. How had it got to this point so quickly? Was it entirely her fault? She automatically assumed it must be, because Drew was indisputably good. He had no vices. Everybody who met him liked or even loved him. They trusted and respected him. He was principled, sensitive, patient and sweet-tempered. And a whole lot more along the same lines.
She gave an irritable shake. She’d been through all this before, and concluded that nobody could be perfect, and if Drew made a better job of it than she did, then this was a problem for them as a couple. She wanted life to be dangerous now and then, to make mistakes and lose her temper. A couple counsellor might very well say that she was doing all that for two. That between them the Slocombes made a fully rounded person, but that splitting the positive and negative elements of personality between them was not entirely healthy. She knew the theory, but saw no way of changing the way she and Drew were implementing it in practice.
And then, inevitably, images of Clovis Biddulph began to sneak into her head. He wasn’t tepid. He was smouldering and brave and reckless. He wanted to know all about the murder, and actually get involved in digging for clues. If she allowed him to participate, that too would be reckless. Whatever he might say about his beloved Jennifer, there would be definite danger in spending time with him. While her own turbulent hormones seemed to have gone off the boil somewhat, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t fire up again. She had no doubt that she could seduce him if she set her mind to it. He had delicately indicated that she was safe from attack, if that was how she wanted it. The ball was in her court, and the way she was feeling about Drew just now, she might well decide to lob it back with an invitation pinned to it.
She went to bed with a milky drink and a paperback. Just above her head, the attic seemed to exude mystery and long lists of questions. There was no ghost; nothing fearsome or macabre – just an insistent need to find an explanation for what she had realised immediately, on Sunday morning, was the strangest death she had yet encountered.
Chapter Sixteen
And then it was Wednesday, and Dave and Sid showed up bright and early. They were installing worktops and cupboards, drilling through the walls and sorting through the stack of flat-pack boxes out in the back garden. Again, Thea was impressed at the lack of ostentation. When the first batch of appliances was in place, the doors opening and closing smoothly, everything straight and true, it looked like any ordinary kitchen she’d seen. ‘That’s the easy bit,’ said Dave, standing back to admire his work. ‘It gets a lot noisier now.’ He indicated the blac
k space on the wall. ‘I suggest you leave us to it for a couple of hours, if you’ve got anywhere to go. We’ll be tiling this afternoon, so that’ll be quieter.’
It was ten-thirty, and she had been content to sit with her coffee and the radio, and not make any plans for the day. ‘I suppose I should go to Bibury,’ she said, with scant enthusiasm. ‘I might take my sketchpad and see if I can find an unusual angle for a picture.’
‘Ooh – an artist, are you?’ said Sid.
‘No, not at all. But I did used to like drawing, when I was about sixteen. It might be a bit embarrassing, though, if the place is very busy.’
‘It’s always busy,’ said Sid.
It was not what she really wanted to do, but however much she urged herself to make something more exciting happen, there didn’t seem to be very much opportunity. Without a companion – in which category she very much included her dog – she could not think of a pretext to go knocking on doors or questioning random people walking across the fields. Making sketches felt like the sort of thing under-occupied elderly ladies did, at least in the eyes of the world. If she wanted to have something to show for her time in Barnsley, she should probably just take a few photos with her phone. But where would be the satisfaction in that? To make her own original drawing would surely be more worthwhile.
But she could not motivate herself right away. She spent half an hour tidying the living room and then skirting the garden looking for a few flowers to bring into the house. There was some crocosmia left, and a bed of neglected hollyhocks that were valiantly flowering regardless of their crooked stems and weedy competition. Thea didn’t have the heart to cut them, but found some white daisies and orange day lilies to make a halfway decent display.
As she carried them back, again navigating around all the building materials, she came face-to-face with Caz Barkley.
‘Oh!’ she yelped. ‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘Sorry. I did ring the bell, and one of the builders showed me where you were. This must have been a nice garden at one time.’ The young detective gazed over the patchy lawn to the apple trees and dilapidated shed at the far end. The garden was roughly square, and probably a quarter of an acre in extent.
