Fear in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  At least the power was still on, so the freezer and lights would work. Presumably the underfloor heating needed some kind of electrical input, as well. If that died on her, she’d have to assemble the livestock and huddle under blankets until the thaw came. She focused fiercely on the practicalities, the essentials for survival, trying to ignore the clenching spasms in her lower belly which gripped her every time she recalled the pessimistic forecast. She was, after all, trapped. The snow had obliterated the track, in both directions, and walking even a quarter of a mile in deep snow would take more fortitude than she believed she possessed. So she had to stop thinking about it, and keep to the feeding routines.

  The worst part was seeing to the donkey. She went out again at three, following in the same footsteps she’d made that morning, hoping some sort of track might form, which would make the walking easier. The hay was fortunately in an enclosed corner of the same shed, but water had to be carried in a black rubber bucket that was awkwardly large. Despite the expanses of white in all directions, the overall impression was of a pale grey, as the short day began to close and the sky sagged heavily just above her head. The silence too had a greyness to it, with no traffic or birds or animals audible. All sensory experience was muted, she realised. There were no smells, either, and nothing to taste or touch but endless cold white nothingness.

  For supper she took out a prepared frozen curry and microwaved it, boiling rice to go with it, and tracking down an almost-full jar of mango chutney at the back of Lucy’s store cupboard. The hot spicy food brought a welcome explosion in her mouth, warming her both physically and emotionally. If only a real log fire could have been blazing in the non-existent hearth, she could have felt quite cosy.

  She found herself constantly wrestling with anxiety. Of course she was in no danger whatsoever. She could surely walk out to the main road if really necessary, where there was sure to be traffic passing. She had her phone, and Lucy’s radio and her computer. Treat it as an adventure, she adjured herself. Enjoy it. Think what a good story it’ll make later on. But what if it lasted a week or more, nagged the worried little voice. How will you get food? What if the pipes burst, or the donkey falls ill, or…or…?

  But so far, nothing troubling had happened. There was food and water enough – the pipes must be made of some kind of frostproof material, in such a new building. And it wouldn’t last a week, of course it wouldn’t. Outside there was already a flurry of fresh snowflakes falling, just as the man on the radio had said.

  She went to bed early, Hepzie following her and curling up at her feet, as usual. For a while she read an absorbing novel about Australia, where it was always too hot. Then she slept soundly, dreaming about driving along a straight white road, where a windmill waited for her, some miles away in the distance.

  * * *

  The next morning was a rerun of the first. She went to the window, and tried to assess whether or not more snow had fallen. At first it wasn’t easy to be sure, until she focused on a low stone wall between the house and the yard, where she remembered sweeping all the snow off, just to gauge the depth of it. Now the area she’d swept was covered again, and the rest of its length had a higher step. Another three or four inches must have silently fallen during the night.

  Doggedly, she stamped her feet into the boots, the double pair of socks making it a tight fit. A woolly hat, which she had found in the drawer of Lucy’s Victorian coat stand, was pulled down over her ears. But when she went outside, her first sensation was not of cold, but of a renewed wonder at the transformation of the mundane world of fields and trees into a hummocky featureless expanse where even the hedges had been swallowed up. It took her a while to realise that this meant it would be difficult to locate the track up to the road into the village. She could easily find herself floundering in a ditch, or setting off across a field because she had forgotten the precise bends and turns of the lane.

  But she could still see the donkey’s shed, and the trail of footsteps leading to it. She had even taken the first few steps before it hit her. There ought not to be any footsteps still visible. Everywhere else, all signs of yesterday’s activity had been erased.

  Somebody else had walked across the paddock that morning. The ice that swept through her had nothing to do with the weather. She was abruptly frozen with fear – her arms and legs crackled with it, her stomach clenched. Without conscious thought, she turned and struggled back to the house, the puzzled spaniel slowly following her, when she called. Not until she had slammed and locked the door did she stop to ask herself why she was so frightened.

  She ought to phone somebody, she told herself, to ensure that she was linked to the outside world. Somebody who could assure her she was all right, and talk her through her panic. In fact – why hadn’t Jessica or her mother called already, as soon as the first snow had arrived? Didn’t anyone care?

  They wouldn’t have understood how isolated Lucy’s Barn was, of course. They’d think she had neighbours and a shop close by, and all the usual services of civilisation.

  So she phoned her daughter, praying that there would be a response.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ came the breathless voice of the young police constable. ‘I bet you’ve got some amazing snow there, haven’t you?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Can’t you get the car out?’

  ‘I haven’t tried – but no, there’s no way in the world that I could move it. I can’t even see where the track goes.’

  Jessica paused, as if absorbing the fact that her mother was not excited at the adventure, as she ought to be. ‘But you’re all right, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. But there are footprints outside, Jess. Somebody’s been here in the night.’

  Stupid, of course, to expect the girl to understand the geography, to grasp immediately that there should not be people walking across the donkey’s paddock in any weather, at any time of day – and certainly not during a snowy night. She did her best to explain.

  ‘Somebody got lost, perhaps?’ Jessica suggested. ‘Did you notice which way they were pointing?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, if they were leading towards the house, you’ve got more to worry about than if they were the other way – haven’t you?’

  Slowly the sense of what Jessica was saying sank in. ‘If they were coming this way, the person would be here,’ she said. ‘In one of the sheds, at least.’

  ‘So just go out and have a proper look. It’s not like you to be so timid – what’s got you so jumpy?’ Jessica was genuinely curious to know, and yet there was no hint of concern in her voice. That alone made Thea feel better.

  ‘I think it’s the idea that someone was prowling round here while I was asleep. It was such a shock, seeing those footprints. At first I thought they were mine, but then I realised the new snow had covered mine up.’

  ‘Well, whoever it was obviously didn’t mind if you saw the tracks. Come on, Ma – listen to yourself. Get a grip.’

  ‘It’s fine for you to talk,’ Thea protested. ‘I’ve got rabbits, a donkey, a cat and a daft old dog to look after. It’s not easy in all this white-out, you know. I can’t find the paths, and keep thinking I’m going to fall into a ditch.’

  Jessica laughed. ‘But it’s an adventure. Stop sounding so middle-aged about it. Throw a few snowballs, why don’t you? You’re lucky. We didn’t have anything here except a bit of sleet.’

  ‘Mmm. So I have to get out there and feed that donkey – is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Precisely. Call me again any time and update me, OK?’

  ‘Aren’t you on duty?’

  ‘Technically, yes, but it’s Friday, and there’s not much doing, for a change.’

  ‘Well, you’ll probably get plenty of snow over the next few days, and then there’ll be people skidding into each other, and pipes bursting.’

  ‘Not my department,’ said Jessica complacently.

  So Thea took
some deep breaths, reminding herself it was broad daylight, and that a few footprints really were nothing to fear, and ventured outside again.

  Carrying the donkey’s water bucket, she followed the line of the prints, peering at them to see if she could distinguish toe from heel. It wasn’t easy, but she eventually concluded that they did indeed lead away from the house. When she reached the donkey’s shed, she saw that the person had veered to the left, rather than dive into the warmth of the shelter, where she might have found him sitting on the donkey’s hay. Puzzled, her gaze followed the wavering line of prints which went away to the left, and the neighbouring field.

  The donkey seemed to have grown resigned to the weather, and had even made a little track of his own, where he had emerged for a short walk at some point. Not his usual circuit of the paddock, but at least a brief bit of exercise, down the slope towards the big new gate. The snow was scuffed, as if the animal had been frisking as he went – and he must have retraced his own tracks, creating quite a definite pathway. ‘You’ve been walkabout, I see,’ Thea said. He nuzzled her amiably, and ate the hay she gave him with slow crunching movements. Quite how animals made soft hay crunch was a mystery she had stopped trying to solve some time ago.

  Outside again, she took another look at the footprints that had so alarmed her. Where had the person gone? What kind of a struggle must it have been to walk across open fields, negotiating fences and hidden hummocks? And why? Was it a recognised short cut?

  Belatedly, she recalled Lucy’s reference to ‘Old Kate’. Was there an even more isolated and struggling woman than Thea herself, further down the track? Had she made the footprints, walking home late at night, for some reason? In an instant, the walker was transformed from a sinister threatening stranger, male and aggressive, to a floundering elderly woman, stoically traversing the snowy expanses in an effort to get home.

  Hepzie had obviously exhausted her playfulness, and had not followed Thea to the donkey shed. Instead she remained in the yard, idly sniffing at the rabbits in their own quarters. Were they all right, Thea wondered? Did rabbits freeze to death in weather like this? They had seemed fine the day before. The niggling worry was swamped by the much larger concern about the maker of the footprints. Instead of rushing indoors in such a cowardly fashion, she should have thought about the poor person out in the cold, who obviously had no harmful intent.

  Doggedly she accepted that she ought to investigate. She ought to go to Old Kate’s and make sure she was all right. After all, it would be good to share the difficulties, and talk to another person, even one with a formidable temper, according to Lucy. And so she set out cautiously to follow the footprints and see where they led.

  It took ten minutes to traverse the paddock beyond the donkey shed. When she reached the wire mesh fence, she found no way through. The unknown walker must have climbed over, which a close examination of the prints confirmed. ‘Must have longer legs than mine,’ she muttered, before throwing one leg over the wire and finding herself uncomfortably straddling the fence, with no alternative but to pitch herself over, landing on her hands. Thankful for the woolly gloves, she picked herself up and pressed on.

  The field tilted downhill, the tracks following the fence down to a shallow bowl, typical of the Cotswolds where the ground undulated crazily like a rumpled duvet on an untidy bed. In the same field, but at some distance, she could see a small group of Hereford cattle, their red coats shaggy against the white snow. They were standing up to their knees in snow, and Thea paused a moment to worry about how they could find anything to eat. They had trodden down the snow for a wide area from the fence almost to a patch of trees at the other side of the field.

  But they had not followed the human track closely enough to obscure it. Thea spied it snaking away to the right and down a sudden slope. As she began on the same course, she could see something dark in the snow, huddled in the hollow, close to the point where the new fence turned at a right angle to form the northern boundary of the donkey paddock.

  Rapid movement was impossible, every step a heave and a plunge, the snow almost reaching the top of her boots at times. As she got closer, the dark patch resembled a heap of abandoned clothes, with a smaller item close by. A scatter of snow formed odd patches on the heap, which remained stubbornly shapeless and impossible to identify.

  But Thea had little doubt as to what she was going to find, from a distance of thirty yards. She approached steadily, her head thumping, her teeth clenched tightly together. As she came closer, she focused on the incongruity of a glass bottle standing upright in the snow, only the neck and shoulders visible. She barely glanced at it, only taking the time to recognise it as having held alcohol of some kind. Infinitely more significant was the person who had drunk its contents, and then removed his coat and waited for the painless oblivion of death by hypothermia. He was lying on his side, his back to her, his bare head half buried in the snow.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It took an impossibly long time to flounder back to the house, call 999, and try to explain that it would be a major operation to get any sort of vehicle to the spot in question. ‘Even a tractor would have difficulty,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do.’ As if to add emphasis, snow had begun to fall again – fat, fluffy flakes that settled comfortably on top of their fellows. The gentle soundless stuff made everything seem less urgent, as if rush and trouble were examples of human folly and nothing more.

  The girl at the end of the phone was clearly unfamiliar with rural realities. ‘I’m sure they’ll cope,’ she said dismissively. ‘What’s the postcode?’

  Thea opened her mouth to reply with her own home address, before remembering where she was. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘It’s called Lucy’s Barn, to the south-west of Hampnett. It’s not very easy to find.’

  ‘Could you stand somewhere they can see you, then, and wave when they arrive?’

  ‘Not really. It’s at least a quarter of a mile from here to the road, in snow a foot deep. I can’t even see where the track runs. I don’t think you’re quite getting the picture. Even if I did struggle up there, it isn’t possible for anything to drive back to the Barn – and even less feasible to get to where the body is.’

  ‘Oh.’ The thread of panic in the girl’s voice found an answer in Thea’s insides. She was trapped here until the snow cleared. Nobody could get in or out, without an industrial-scale snowplough. There was a dead man two fields away and nothing anybody could do about it.

  ‘You are sure he’s dead, aren’t you?’ the girl asked, having exchanged some muttering with another person.

  ‘I think so,’ said Thea, suddenly not sure at all. ‘He was very cold and stiff. I tried to shake him, but he didn’t respond at all. Oh yes, he must be dead. It looks as if he committed suicide.’

  ‘Helicopter,’ said the girl. ‘Is there somewhere we could land an air ambulance?’

  ‘I doubt it. Can they manage snow? The field isn’t very level.’

  A defeated silence rebounded between the two women. It appeared that there was no script for such a situation, as all the modern means of transport were found wanting. Thea found herself wanting to say, ‘A horse could manage it,’ but bit it back. You’d need two horses and a cart, at least. Or a team of huskies and a nice big sledge. Or a couple of woolly yaks, accustomed to slogging up and down snowy slopes dragging dead meat and heaps of felt and wood which would transform into a cosy ger.

  ‘I’ll pass you to my superior,’ said the girl wearily. ‘I’m sure she’ll think of something.’

  In the end, a group of well-clad police personnel arrived on foot, an hour and a half after the phone call. Four of them came clumping down the track, in single file, one of them with a phone clamped to his ear, with which Thea had directed them to the Barn. They introduced themselves as a sergeant, a constable, the police doctor and a photographer. The last two carried bags containing their equipment, the photographer looking breathless and rumpled. The snow had stopped and
the sky had cleared, the sun shining coldly on the sparkling snow, having no thawing effect on it at all. In fact the temperature had fallen, if anything.

  ‘Can you lead us to it?’ the sergeant asked her, scanning the surrounding landscape apprehensively.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Thea sighed, with considerable reluctance. She had become increasingly agitated as she waited for them to arrive, checking her phone repeatedly, and then clearing pathways around the yard, from rabbit shed to barn and linking the garage to the house. She stayed at the back of the house deliberately, trying to close her mind to the wretched scene she had witnessed. At one point she heard the donkey braying, and Hepzie yapping in response, but she remained where she was, persuading herself that the clearance work took priority.

  It was hard work, the shovel cutting sheer cliffs in the snow. She checked her car to see whether it might be possible to move it, but was daunted by the prospect of having to dig tracks for it for a substantial distance. She was already exhausted by her exertions when the rescue party finally arrived. The fresh snowfall continued relentlessly, threatening to obliterate the work she’d accomplished.

  ‘You took your time,’ she accused, when the men finally arrived, just as the sky cleared. ‘Where did you have to come from?’

  ‘Cirencester,’ said the sergeant. ‘But that’s not the reason we were delayed. Never mind, we’re here now. Could you just show us what you found, do you think?’

  Wearily she escorted the police across the donkey’s paddock as far as the shed and then pointed out that she had climbed over the fence away to the left, when they might prefer to go through the gate at the bottom, and walk along the fence to the spot where the body lay. The donkey tracks could be seen going down to the gate, and coming back again, the snow sufficiently broken up to comprise a relatively inviting pathway. The men agreed to the suggestion with no hesitation, their heads hunched into hoods and their knees getting wet from melting snow, which had clung to their legs as they sank into the deeper parts, and was then turned to liquid by the heat from their bodies. The doctor looked especially damp, and the photographer sniffed. Looking at him more closely, Thea noted that his nose was red, and his eyes bleary. ‘Have you got a cold?’ she asked him.