by Rebecca Tope
But his expression was serious, and Thea knew several long moments of horror; not only at his injuries, but her own desertion and his failure to inform her of the accident. Multiple horrors, in fact. ‘Oh, Drew,’ she said. ‘How absolutely terrible.’
‘Not really,’ he argued. ‘I’ll mend.’
‘Yes, but – I should have been here. I could easily have come home to look after you. Why did you keep it secret from me?’ How can I ever forgive you for that? asked an inner voice that made her shudder.
‘I didn’t want to make a fuss. There was no need for you to be here. It’s not as bad as it looks. I even did a funeral yesterday.’ He managed a lopsided smile. ‘Although one of the sons had to help Andrew with the lowering. I’m not supposed to do any heavy lifting.’
The horrors just kept multiplying, the more she let the facts sink in. ‘Stop it!’ she ordered brokenly. ‘Stop being so brave and British, and tell me to my face what a useless creature I am. The worst wife in the world, in fact.’
‘Come on, Thea,’ he said, sounding less gentle and forgiving than before. ‘There’s no need for this.’
‘Yes, there is. You know there is. The truth is, I’m impossibly selfish.’ She stood back from him, intent on listing all her failings, purging herself of the accumulated guilt from the past week and perhaps longer. ‘You didn’t tell me you were hurt because you thought I’d find it tedious being here with you, playing nurse. You were scared I’d act the martyr. Weren’t you?’
Drew tried to sit up straighter, but the lounger would not co-operate. Instead he gasped and clutched his chest. ‘Stop it,’ he begged. ‘I can’t defend myself in this position.’
She paused, wondering why he thought he needed to defend himself. Then she remembered the secrecy, which she was trying to explain as all her fault, but which just possibly wasn’t entirely. ‘I’m not attacking you,’ she said, ‘but it’s really not fair that you never even gave me the chance to be here. I can see why – there I was, so self-important with my stupid dashing about after a murderer, and not telling you any of the real story, when all the time you needed me here, but didn’t tell me. What sort of a couple are we, if that’s the way we behave?’ She was weeping, her voice clogged with tears.
A small hand gripped her shoulder. ‘Don’t cry, Thea. We understand. Daddy explained that there are some people who like to stay quietly at home, doing boring things, and some who feel as if they’ve got to go out and have adventures. It’s good that there are both sorts. We don’t think you’re selfish or stupid.’
She looked down at the little boy, and forced a watery smile.
‘We think you’re brave,’ said Timmy. ‘And Stephanie’s a really good nurse, you know. She’s looked after Daddy terribly well.’
It wasn’t enough, but at least it staunched her tears. She pulled both children to her in a cumbersome hug, while the spaniel retreated to sit under the rose bush. ‘There’s another thing,’ she said after a little while. ‘Jessica might be in some sort of trouble. Will you divorce me if I dash up to see her for a day or two?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Drew. ‘Come to that, I forgot to tell you there was a call last night from a person called Lucy Sinclair. Said you looked after her house in Hampnett—’
Thea was instantly transported to a snowy winter and a dead man in a field. ‘Yes, I did. Why? She doesn’t want me again, does she?’
‘She didn’t say much, but I got the impression she just wants to meet up for a chat. No hurry, she said.’
‘She was nice,’ said Thea, hearing echoes of the Hampnett experience and recalling the sudden terror she had felt in that house. ‘But I wouldn’t want to go through that again. Maybe I’ll just leave it and see if she calls back.’
Drew nodded absently, then said, ‘Oh − by the way, did you find the Barnsley murderer?’
She flinched. ‘Sort of. The dreadful thing is, if I hadn’t been there in the first place, the murder would probably never have happened. I was a catalyst, of the most malign sort. It just shows I should stay at home from now on and try to mind my own business.’ She stopped. ‘No, I won’t talk about it any more. It wasn’t an adventure, Tim, and I wasn’t brave. I was just messing about for no good reason, and did a lot more harm than good. I promise I won’t do it again.’
Drew and Stephanie gave identically fond snorts. ‘We don’t believe that for a moment,’ said Drew.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Jennifer Margrave, who, as always, offered generous advice on the legal aspects of the story.
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About the Author
REBECCA TOPE is the author of three bestselling crime series, set in the stunning Cotswolds, Lake District and West Country. She lives on a smallholding in rural Herefordshire, where she enjoys the silence and plants a lot of trees, but also manages to travel the world and enjoy civilisation from time to time. Most of her varied experiences and activities find their way into her books, sooner or later.
rebeccatope.com
By Rebecca Tope
THE COTSWOLD MYSTERIES
A Cotswold Killing • A Cotswold Ordeal
Death in the Cotswolds • A Cotswold Mystery
Blood in the Cotswolds • Slaughter in the Cotswolds
Fear in the Cotswolds • A Grave in the Cotswolds
Deception in the Cotswolds • Malice in the Cotswolds
Shadows in the Cotswolds • Trouble in the Cotswolds
Revenge in the Cotswolds • Guilt in the Cotswolds
Peril in the Cotswolds • Crisis in the Cotswolds
Secrets in the Cotswolds
♦
A Cotswold Casebook
THE LAKE DISTRICT MYSTERIES
The Windermere Witness • The Ambleside Alibi
The Coniston Case • The Troutbeck Testimony
The Hawkshead Hostage • The Bowness Bequest
The Staveley Suspect • The Grasmere Grudge
THE WEST COUNTRY MYSTERIES
A Dirty Death • Dark Undertakings
Death of a Friend • Grave Concerns
A Death to Record • The Sting of Death
A Market for Murder
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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London W1F 8AN
allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2019.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2019.
Copyright © 2019 by REBECCA TOPE
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2438–3
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