by Rebecca Tope
Over lunch she asked Simon about his hotel job. ‘Assistant manager,’ he nodded. ‘I get a lot of the unsocial hours. It’s relentless. We do a lot of conferences – something I’m not at all sure is worth all the hassle. The rooms are all full, but it’s at a reduced tariff, and the catering’s a nightmare.’
‘How big is it, then?’
‘Fifty-five rooms. Not massive, but we can fit seventy or so in, provided there are plenty of couples.’
‘At conferences? Unlikely, surely?’
‘You’d be surprised. I’m not saying they’re all married to each other, obviously.’ He grinned significantly, and she gave a smile in return that took an effort. When had she become such a prude, she wondered? What did it matter to her what businessmen got up to at their silly conferences?
The party ran its course, with Simon far more involved than Janina had led Thea to expect. He operated the music for musical chairs; blew up an endless supply of balloons to replace those that one small boy persistently burst; wiped up spilt juice and diplomatically intervened in an epic conflict between Benjamin and a screeching girl who had been delivered along with her younger brother who was apparently Nicky’s best friend. Thea had been intrigued by the woman who brought them – at least fifty-five, with an intimidating fringe and sturdy leather boots. Grandmother, Thea concluded. Ages of the party guests ranged from two to six, with the noisy girl the undisputed senior. They all lived within two or three miles of Hampnett, it seemed.
Nobody mentioned the absent Bunny directly, but Thea quickly gained the impression that the party was going with a much greater swing without her than it would if she had been there. There was an air of mischievous liberation, especially in Simon, that suggested the lack of a repressive hand that would otherwise have held sway.
Janina too seemed quite relaxed. She swung in and out of the kitchen with trays of delicious food designed to delight any small child, treading lightly and smiling broadly. Nicky followed her adoringly, finding pretexts to gain her attention, often winning for himself a quick hug. Thea remembered the conversation outside the church, when Janina had bemoaned the cruelty of gaining a child’s affection only to disappear from his life within a few months. She quailed to think of the pain of the inevitable separation.
Then she heard what the child was saying: ‘Where’s George? He said he would come to the party. I want him. He never gave me a present.’
Janina put her arms round him. ‘Maybe he’s busy with the snow. He might be working for people, digging it away from their doors. He likes to help.’
‘Yes. But I want him to help me.’
‘That is selfish, Nicholas.’ She tempered the words with a smile.
‘I want to go to his house and see him.’
‘You can’t. Tomorrow maybe. Now you have to be nice to your party guests.’
Thea’s own role was very small. She enforced a few game rules, selecting winners and consoling losers. She monitored food consumption, checking a chubby little boy after his fourth meltingly delectable home-made doughnut, and offering him a slice of fresh pineapple instead. She listened to garbled anecdotes about the snow from several youngsters who had been amazed at this unprecedented gift from Mother Nature. And before she knew it, it was four o’clock.
‘Gosh, I’ll have to go,’ she cried, feeling like Cinderella. ‘I’ve got animals to feed.’
Simon looked up from the party bags that were to be issued shortly. ‘If you wait until everyone’s gone, I’ll drive you,’ he offered.
‘I can’t. That’ll be another half hour or more.’ As yet, no parents had arrived to collect their child. If recollection served, it could be a very protracted process. ‘I’ll be all right walking. I’ve got the dog.’
The dog had to be enticed off the same armchair as before, where she and Benjamin had spent the major part of the afternoon. A flicker of worry about the withdrawn child went through Thea, and she began to say something to Simon about it, before he cut across her.
‘Dorothy’s dad might be going your way,’ he suggested. ‘They live in Northleach.’
‘Dorothy?’
‘The pugnacious one with the little brother.’ He indicated the child who had been fighting with Benjamin.
‘Ah yes. The ones that were brought here by their granny.’
‘Uh?’ Simon blinked. ‘Oh, no…that was Barbara. She’s their stepmother. But Bernard is meant to collect them, if I’ve got it right.’
‘So where’s their real mother?’ she asked boldly, always curious about unusual family patterns.
‘Philippa?’ His attention wandered back to the roomful of children. ‘She has them sometimes, but she lives in a flat and works full time. Barbara’s more or less retired, so she minds them mainly. Dorothy was born the same week as Ben. Bunny and Pippa got friendly at the clinic, or somewhere.’ He smiled tolerantly. ‘She’s a bit volatile, as anyone will tell you. Bernard is much better off with this one. She’s his third, and you couldn’t find three more different women.’
‘Unusual,’ said Thea. ‘Normally they just go for a younger version of the same person.’
Simon drew in a hissing breath. ‘Ooh… cynical!’ he reproached.
‘Not at all. Simple truth,’ she defended.
‘Anyway, he might be good for a lift.’
Thea was increasingly anxious to return to her responsibilities, and since there was still no sign of any parents, she decided to walk. ‘I can do it in twenty minutes or so if I bustle.’
‘Up to you,’ he said, which made her blink. She realised she was accustomed to men who took charge and tried to manage her, which generally made her defiantly independent. Now this one was letting her go out into the freezing darkness alone, she felt a quiver of resentment.
‘Right, then.’ She retrieved the dog and went out to the boot room to collect her various garments. At least there was no new snow falling. And it wouldn’t really be dark once she got outside. The fluttering in her stomach was entirely groundless.
Calling brief goodbyes to Janina and the boys, she wended her way around the house and back towards the church. Two cars were approaching from the north, and she heard them slow and turn down towards the house she had just left. They won’t be any use to me, she thought, assuming they returned the way they’d come, up to the A40.
She was within sight of the turning down to Lucy’s Barn before a car came towards her. It was proceeding slowly on the inadequately cleared road, with its headlights on full beam. It passed her, leaving a wide berth, and she could get no glimpse of the driver. So much for any prospect of a lift, she thought. Besides, no car would have ventured down the final quarter mile – and that was the part she had been increasingly dreading.
The track was dark, shadowed by overhanging trees, some of them evergreen. Without Hepzie, she wondered whether she would ever have had the courage to keep on. The spaniel, however, had a reassuringly clear idea of where they were going, and was in some hurry to get there. Perhaps it was Jimmy who called to her, or simply the prospect of a warm house and dry feet. They plunged down the middle of the track, which was tolerably passable thanks to the passage down and back by the four police people, as well as Thea’s own upward trek. At least she could be fairly confident of avoiding any unexpected pitfalls, so long as she stuck to the tried-and-tested pathway.
The house was in complete darkness, and Thea reproached herself for leaving it for the best part of the day. She would have to feed the donkey and rabbits by torchlight, and give Jimmy a chance for some exercise in the yard.
Without warning, Hepzie made a lunge, squeaking with excitement. Holding tightly to the lead, Thea was dragged towards the front door of the barn, protesting, ‘Hang on, damn it. We’ll be there soon enough. What’s the rush?’
And then something strange was happening. Hepzie was on her hind legs, scrabbling at something hidden in the shadows close against the barn wall. ‘Hey, hey,’ came a strong female voice. ‘That’s enough of that. God, woman,
what kept you so long?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
In a confusion of unlocking the door, spluttering half-sentences of introduction, and Hepzie’s excessive hospitality, the two women got themselves into the house and the lights switched on.
‘I’m from the farm further down the track,’ the visitor managed to explain, at last.
Old Kate! Thea had forgotten all about her. But this woman wasn’t old. Mid fifties was Thea’s instant guess. Despite the weathering on her cheeks, her hair retained its colour and her neck was smooth. ‘Oh!’ was all she could manage. ‘I’ve got to do the donkey,’ she added distractedly. ‘He’ll be waiting for his hay.’
‘He can wait a bit longer. My need is greater than his, I promise you.’
‘Oh, all right. Are you stranded by the snow?’
‘Me? Of course not. I’ve been going in and out through the top road, same as I always do. I never thought of you until this afternoon, so I came to see if you were managing. When I found it all locked up and dark, I thought you must have deserted your post.’
‘I did, I suppose,’ Thea smiled ruefully. ‘I was at a birthday party.’
‘Oh…that must be young Nicky. You’ve met that family already, have you?’
‘I bumped into Janina last weekend, and then again this morning. They very kindly invited me. Sorry to have been away, though. It gets dark so early – there never seems to be time to get things done in daylight.’
Kate shrugged. ‘Well, you’re here now. The point is, would you like me to bring up the tractor and clear your way up to the road?’
‘Oh…well, if it isn’t too much bother. I mean – maybe the snow’ll melt in a day or two, anyway.’ What would Lucy have done, she wondered? It was awkward not knowing the protocols, and whether the offer was to be regarded as normal neighbourly behaviour.
‘No chance. There’s more due later tonight; haven’t you heard?’
‘Oh, God, there isn’t, is there?’ Thea felt weak at the prospect.
‘Never good to have snow in January – there’s no strength in the sun, so it hangs around for weeks. You ought to hear my dad on the subject. He’s like a pig in muck, with his weather stories.’
‘Does he live with you?’
Kate huffed a brief laugh. ‘Oh yes. That was never the plan, but he came for the New Year, two years ago, and hasn’t got around to going home again yet. He’s eighty-nine, and remembers back to the 1920s as if it was last week. Gets tedious, I can tell you. He’s been poorly over Christmas. I knew from the start he’d never go back – after all, it was his farm all his life. We got him a nice little cottage to retire into, but it was never going to work.’
Thea’s eyebrows lifted at the thought of a ‘little cottage’ standing empty for years. Little Cotswold cottages were worth very serious sums of money. ‘What’ll happen to the cottage?’ she asked.
‘It’s got a tenant in for the time being. If you can call him that, when he doesn’t pay us anything.’ The woman’s expression suggested that she was not inclined to discuss the details of the family properties, for which Thea could hardly blame her.
‘You must be busy,’ she said. ‘There’s no hurry for the tractor, if it’s a nuisance. I walked out to the road today – I can get to Northleach on foot if I need some shopping.’
‘Trust Lucy to go off like this. Fine thing, ducking out of it when things get tricky.’
‘She was quite open about it, and she’s paying me well. I knew what I was doing.’ And only then did she remember the dead man in the field, who was already acquiring a dreamlike quality in her mind. Had it really happened at all? Should she say something about it to Kate? It seemed to follow, in some back-to-front way, from what she had just said. ‘Although I hadn’t bargained for a visit from the police yesterday.’
Kate’s eyelids came down warily. ‘Oh yes?’
‘You haven’t heard, then? I found a dead man yesterday in the field below the donkey’s paddock. Or I thought I did. When I took the police back to the place, he’d gone.’
The woman avoided Thea’s eye, and chewed a bottom lip. Her colour changed to a lighter hue. ‘Mmm. I heard a commotion.’
‘Did you? When?’
‘I don’t mean it was noisy. But I had to take hay to the Herefords, and could see there’d been people trampling about.’
‘Didn’t the police contact you? It is your field, after all.’
Kate shook her head vigorously. ‘Why ever should they? Can’t have been anything to worry about, if he’d got himself up and away.’
‘I was certain he was dead. I think somebody moved him.’ Short of a direct accusation, she could hardly say any more. It suddenly seemed inescapably obvious that Kate was the person in question.
‘Well I hope you don’t think it was me,’ the woman said sharply, picking up the unspoken thought. ‘I’ve got better things to do than mess about with dead bodies, let me tell you.’
‘And you didn’t see anybody there? What time did you take the cattle their hay?’
‘Don’t you go questioning me.’ Kate’s eyes narrowed. ‘If I tell you I saw nothing, then that’s the truth of it. It’ll all get explained soon enough, without either you or me having to worry. Leave well alone, that’s my advice.’
‘But—’ What was she missing here? How bizarre was this apparent lack of concern? ‘I mean, he might be injured or ill, and still out there in the snow somewhere. Nobody seems to realise that.’
‘I doubt that. What did he look like?’
‘I couldn’t really see. Grey hair, fairly long. A beard, I think. His face was almost buried in the snow, and I didn’t move him.’
‘Well, if you ask me, he can’t have been really dead. Surely you’d have checked pulse and breathing? Anybody would.’ The defensive fury seemed to have passed, Kate’s tone back to something more normal.
‘I was convinced he was dead. I touched his shoulder and it was stiff. The snow wasn’t melting on him.’ She felt as if she was doomed to repeat these lines for the rest of her life.
‘So what? Snow doesn’t melt on a coat when you’re outside, does it? Even a living body isn’t warm enough to melt it through three or four layers of clothes.’
‘He was dead.’ Thea spoke with greater certainty than she felt. ‘Somebody moved him.’
Kate shook her head, still pale. ‘The police obviously don’t believe you. They know better than anyone that you can’t just leave a dead man out for the birds and foxes to dispose of.’
‘Right. I hope you’re right. But I still think there should be a search party.’
‘Maybe there would be if it wasn’t for this weather. Everything’s different in this snow. But you’re right – there should have been a search for him.’
Somehow they’d reached a fragile understanding, for which Thea was grateful. The brief glimpse she’d had of Kate’s steely temper had not been reassuring. Far better to stay on the right side of her, if possible. But what did the woman really think had happened? How much had she already known? There was an uneasy sense of being humoured, lurking somewhere.
A brief silence followed, and Thea took the opportunity to try to assess her temporary neighbour’s credibility. She was tall, straight-backed and decisive. It was easy to visualise her driving a tractor or striding across the hillsides after a large flock of sheep. But beneath that there was a kind of camaraderie that Thea found appealing. She had met a number of well-intentioned women during her spells in the area, and this seemed to be another to add to the list. The temptation to take her at face value and make use of her as a friend and helper was almost overwhelming.
But there had been others, Thea reminded herself, who had not been what they seemed. There had been women capable of murder, habitual liars, their rage concealed beneath amiable exteriors. And Lucy had spoken of a violent temper. ‘There was a bottle beside him,’ she offered. ‘That disappeared as well. I think it was empty.’
Kate merely nodded, as if enough had been said o
n the subject. In the silence of Lucy’s big living room an antique clock ticked loudly. ‘I really must feed that donkey,’ Thea remembered. ‘And the rabbits. And take the dog out. He’s been in since the middle of the morning.’
‘Jimmy,’ Kate said. ‘That poor creature. How are you coping with him?’
‘He’s easy enough,’ Thea shrugged. ‘It was noble of Lucy to take him in.’
‘She’s like that,’ said Kate, flushing slightly. ‘I wouldn’t have the patience.’
It occurred to Thea that Kate could have done the job she was doing – popping up to the Barn twice a day to feed and exercise the animals. Was it possible that anybody could be too busy for such neighbourly tasks? But even as she thought about it she remembered that Lucy was away for a whole month, and that Kate was probably lambing – and it had snowed. And Jimmy would be left, hour after hour, in his lonely conservatory.
Which prompted her to waste no more time before attending to him, after which she had to slog across the paddock to the donkey’s shed and throw him another slice of hay. Kate readily accepted that her visit was over, but on the doorstep she said, ‘You never told me whether you want me to bring the tractor up.’
‘Not much point if there’s going to be more snow. Leave it until tomorrow, and we can decide then.’
It had not been the correct response. ‘I wasn’t proposing to come this evening,’ came a snappy reply. ‘I’m not sure how much free time I’ll have tomorrow, after the way you kept me hanging about this afternoon.’
The injustice burnt in Thea’s breast, but she resisted the urge to argue. ‘Well, it’s up to you,’ she said with dignity.
‘That’s right.’ She gave Thea a long assessing look. ‘Seems to me you’ve taken on a lot, here. I wouldn’t like you to get into any trouble. You know where I am – come down to the farm any time, if you need to.’
‘Thanks,’ mumbled Thea, feeling horribly small and young and feeble.
