Cotswold Mystery, A

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Dirty great ram lamb,’ Granny confirmed. ‘He’ll be in somebody’s freezer by October.’

  Jessica gave a little yelp of distress. ‘As soon as that? What a short life.’

  ‘All the more precious then,’ said Granny repressively. ‘Now get back to bed, both of you, and I’ll do the same.’

  It took them a long time to get to sleep again. Jessica went over and over her first experience of birth, marvelling at the size of the lamb, the maternal instincts of the ewe. ‘It was hurting her, wasn’t it? Just like people.’

  ‘Pretty much the same, yes,’ Thea said. ‘But instantly forgotten.’

  ‘And she loves him. You could see.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And Granny – what an amazing woman!’

  Thea let her prattle on, but she said little in reply. She was remembering that Granny Gardner did after all have a key to the connecting door, and that the old woman was suspected of bringing death as well as life, and thinking to herself that a person who could handle one with such calm confidence might well find little difficulty in inflicting the other.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘What time is it? What day is it?’ Thea struggled to wake up. Jessica had pulled back her duvet and ousted the spaniel from her nest. She was holding a mug of tea in one hand.

  ‘Nine fifteen on Wednesday, and a very fine morning it is too,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You’re wasting it.’

  ‘That was a dream, I suppose. About the lamb. It couldn’t possibly have really happened.’

  ‘I think it did. Either that or I had the same dream. And I haven’t forgotten about going to look at the scene of that accident on the main road, either.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why you want to. They’ll have cleaned it all up by now, anyway.’

  ‘If they have, I’ll tell you my idea. Otherwise it’ll be obvious. I want you to have a fresh eye, without me planting thoughts in your head beforehand. Basic technique for getting a good witness statement. No leading questions.’

  ‘Uurghh,’ mumbled Thea, still only half awake.

  ‘There’s eggs and bacon downstairs, if that helps to get you moving. And I might even do some proper coffee.’

  ‘Oh, to be young again,’ mourned Thea. ‘And not need sleep.’

  For the second time they walked through the woods and across the fields in the direction of the A44, this time carrying on straight instead of trespassing down the private track past the Dutch barn. They had left the dog behind. ‘She won’t be safe on that road,’ they agreed. Having consulted the map, it became clear that all they had to do was to follow the Diamond Way footpath, which crossed the A44 at a spot which Jessica thought would be perfect. They were quickly out of the trees and climbing up steep fields to where the road was shielded by a narrow band of trees. The noise of traffic grew louder as they approached.

  ‘These are fresh tyre tracks,’ Jessica observed.

  ‘Spoken like a true detective,’ teased Thea. ‘So what? We know a van drove along here. The news said so.’

  ‘Yes, but why? What was it doing up here?’

  ‘It could be anything. Bringing new fencing materials. Delivering something to the farm, and taking a short cut back onto the road. I don’t see why you think it’s important.’

  ‘Intuition,’ said Jessica unhelpfully.

  They marched on, the path quite dry beneath their feet, and were suddenly confronted by the road. ‘There!’ said Jessica, pointing to a pile of muddy soil some yards along the road. ‘That must be where it happened.’

  She had been right about the dangerous access onto the main road. The point where the van on the news report must have joined the road was not an official gateway at all, but a gap in the hedge that had evidently been recently enlarged. ‘Asking for trouble,’ said Thea. ‘How stupid to come out there in daylight. It might be OK at night, when you could see what was coming from the headlights.’

  There was a narrow grass verge on the opposite side of the road, backed by trees, where the spillage from the overturned van had obviously been swept into a relatively tidy heap. In a gap between the fast-flowing vehicles, Jessica darted across, leaving Thea to follow at her own pace. Watching her daughter running ahead, she was gripped by the age-old visceral terror of a mother in the face of traffic. Jessica was six again, heedless and vulnerable, and impossibly precious.

  ‘That was scary,’ she panted, as she reached the other side. ‘Thank goodness we didn’t bring Hepzie.’

  Jessica did not reply, but moved to the side of the heap furthest from the road, pushing between the trees to do so. She dug at it gently with the toe of her shoe. ‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why cart this totally ordinary soil away in a closed van which was not designed to carry it?’

  Thea continued to feel vulnerable to the traffic, cowering as far as she could from the road. There was no pavement. She tried to concentrate on the heap of soil. ‘Was it loose, do you think?’

  Jessica’s eyes widened, as she considered the question. ‘Maybe it wasn’t.’ She scanned the road back to where they’d emerged from the footpath. ‘Aha!’ she cried, and trotted a short way along the verge to where something black was sitting. She dragged at it, revealing a black bin liner heavy enough to be containing something. Thea went to join her, stepping awkwardly in her effort to stay off the road. Before reaching the girl’s side, she had found a similar bag in a dip beneath a clump of newly grown cow parsley.

  ‘It was bagged!’ Jessica announced. ‘And the bags all got broken and jumbled when the accident happened.’

  ‘Which confirms my theory that they were taking it for a garden somewhere. A lot of nice topsoil, nicked from one of those fields.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of anybody doing that? Why would they come all out here for it? What’s special about this soil?’

  Thea felt she was being tested. ‘I have no idea,’ she said impatiently.

  ‘What did we pass on the way here?’

  ‘Fields,’ snapped Thea. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘And a deserted village,’ Jessica reminded her. ‘A very interesting deserted village at that. You told me yourself it was excavated back in the seventies, and a lot of questions were raised about it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I think somebody’s been doing some more unofficial digging, trying to find out more about it, while keeping the whole thing secret. And…’ she gave her mother an unsmiling stare ‘and we know Julian Jolly was involved. Isn’t it reasonable to think his murder might have some connection with this pile of dirt?’

  Thea gave her head a clarifying shake, hoping something would click into place. It didn’t. ‘Spell it out for me,’ she pleaded. ‘Just a bit more.’

  Jessica emitted a jagged sigh. ‘I already did,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to be the historian. I thought you’d be ahead of me by now.’

  ‘I’m sleep deprived, remember.’

  Jessica feigned patience. ‘What if Julian had discovered something important about the ruins of Upton village? He only had to stroll along the Diamond Way any time he wanted to and rootle about in a corner, somewhere discreet. He could have unearthed – oh, I don’t know – old pots or statuettes or something. Bones, even. Maybe he found evidence of a druid temple or neolithic grave or something. And then some rival archaeologist found out about it, got jealous and murdered him. Possible, don’t you think? So what we need to do next is see who was driving that van.’

  Thea stared at the soil strewn along the roadside. ‘Inventive,’ she acknowledged. ‘Do you mind telling me again what the van person was doing with all this earth.’

  ‘That’s obvious. The rival person has been trying to find the same evidence that Julian did. They needed to dispose of the earth they’d removed, otherwise it would be a giveaway that they’d been digging there.’

  ‘Jess, darling, I don’t think archaeologists work like that. What would be the point? They don’t need to be so secretive. And how would the rival have found o
ut what Julian was doing? Assuming he was doing anything.’

  ‘They write reports, don’t they? He’d be bound to want to tell people once he was sure he’d found something special.’

  ‘But why would somebody kill him for it?’

  Jessica scowled. ‘That’s where I thought you’d come up with some suggestions. You’re the historian, not me.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying that. I know practically nothing about the medieval period and even less about the neolithic.’

  ‘Well, never mind that now. We’ll have to go back to the site of the village and have a good look round.’

  Thea followed submissively, torn between admiration for her daughter’s mental and physical energy, and a growing concern that the one-woman murder investigation was descending into farce. Two-women, she corrected herself. Like it or not, she seemed to be cast in the role of sidekick.

  This time, as they marched down the track past the Dutch barn, Jessica had thrown aside her worries about private property. ‘This is important,’ she said. ‘We need to see for ourselves.’

  The remains of poor abandoned Upton were much the same as those of the Ditchfords. Barely visible furrows, ridges, grassy mounds were all that could be detected. It covered an area of some size, with a farmhouse at one corner. Thea was convinced the occupant must be watching them from a window as they trespassed on his field. Jessica took a few steps in random directions, plainly frustrated. ‘There’s nothing to see,’ she complained. ‘How do they know a village was here, anyway?’

  ‘Trained eye,’ said Thea. ‘And local tradition. Old records. Place names. It was excavated in the sixties, I think, and again briefly in the seventies. We’ll have to look it up.’

  Then Jessica yelped. ‘See there!’ she pointed eastwards. ‘There’s been some digging, look.’

  Thea looked, and had to concede that an area had been recently disturbed. ‘But they’d have been perfectly visible from that house,’ she objected.

  ‘So maybe they’ve got permission. Or are pretending to be doing something else. Digging drainage ditches or something.’

  ‘Then why smuggle out the spoil in a van?’

  ‘Spoil? Don’t you mean soil?’

  ‘I believe it’s a technical term,’ said Thea with dignity. ‘Now, come on. We’re not getting anywhere, and I’m starting to worry about Granny. We haven’t seen her yet today.’

  Jessica cast another look around the field and sighed with frustration. ‘We’ll have to remember the exact location of this digging,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know where we ought to go from here. I mean – look at it.’ She swept an arm in a broad half-circle. ‘It’s all just fields. What’s been going on? I know it has something to do with Julian. I can just feel it.’

  ‘Come and find some websites about it,’ Thea urged. ‘That’ll help.’

  They retraced their steps, down to the sheltered concavity that contained Blockley. They could see much of the town from the footpath, pausing to admire the shapes and colours that looked as if they’d occurred naturally, rather than being constructed by mankind. Thea glanced back at where Upton had once been, trying to imagine the peaceful pre-traffic atmosphere of the place.

  * * *

  Eager to learn more from the Internet, Jessica’s pace was brisk. At the gate from the Warren into the High Street, she paused and turned to wait for Thea. Birds were singing overhead, and sheep bleated.

  ‘I wonder how the lamb is this morning,’ Thea said, hearing the bleats. ‘We might be able to see it in a minute.’

  Through the generous gaps between houses, the field containing the sheep was quite easy to see. Several animals dotted the hillside, including three or four lambs. ‘It all looks quite calm and contented,’ Jessica observed. ‘We might not recognise ours again now.’

  ‘It was wonderful, though, wasn’t it? A little miracle at midnight.’

  ‘It was half past one,’ Jessica corrected her. ‘But yes, it was pretty amazing.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Thea, a few moments later. ‘Something’s happening.’

  A small group of people stood on the pavement close to Thea’s car. As they approached, mother and daughter became aware of increasing noise. Granny’s door buzzer, the furious barking of the spaniel and raised voices all combined to disturb the Blockley peace.

  ‘That bloody buzzer,’ said Jessica. ‘It’s enough to drive anybody mad. Besides, I thought you left it off during the day.’

  ‘I do usually,’ said Thea. ‘But with things as they are, I just thought…well, I switched it on before we went out. I don’t really know why.’

  Thea examined the tableau assembled before her. Granny Gardner was there, looking very subdued, her shoulders slumped. Thomas of the bulging midriff stood facing her like an enraged headmaster. Giles, the shambling hack, leant over her protectively and a woman Thea had never seen before was speaking loudly, wagging a forefinger to mark the import of her words.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Thea asked, only to be comprehensively ignored. Jessica had gone into the main house, returning with Hepzie under one arm, the hindquarters and long tail dangling inelegantly. The buzzer had stopped.

  ‘That’s better,’ said the girl. ‘Now if you people will just stop shouting, we can all relax.’

  The effect was magical. The whole group fell silent and gazed at her in stunned surprise.

  Then Granny said, ‘Hello, dear. How’s your little dog today?’ She reached out to fondle Hepzie’s soft head. The old woman was unrecognisable from the competent sheep-midwife of the early hours. She breathed heavily and her eyes looked damp.

  The spaniel struggled to escape. ‘Put her down,’ said Thea. ‘She’ll be all right.’

  Jessica obeyed, and the dog began to sniff the legs of stout Thomas, before moving to the strange woman.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ Thea tried again. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Not your business, madam,’ said Thomas softly. The tone gave the words a sinister edge that was more startling than if he had shouted. She groped for a reply that would put him in his place, but could think of nothing that sounded sufficiently dignified. She looked to her daughter for rescue.

  ‘That’s rather uncalled for,’ said Jessica. Belatedly Thea realised that this was Police Probationer Osborne in professional mode. Chin up, bland expression, confidence in her authority – it was magnificent.

  ‘True though,’ said Thomas unrepentantly.

  ‘It was her sheep,’ said Granny suddenly. ‘In the night.’

  Thea leapt in. ‘But you should be grateful to her!’ she burst out. ‘She saved your animals, both of them. They’d have been dead otherwise.’

  The woman bowed her head in grave agreement. ‘I’m aware of that,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately, she failed to fasten the gate properly afterwards and the sheep have eaten several prize plants in Thomas’s garden.’

  Thea felt a relief of tension not unlike air escaping from an overfilled tyre. She laughed. ‘Is that all?’ she gasped. ‘As if that matters!’

  For a moment she thought Thomas was going to hit her. ‘All the buds from my young horse chestnut, every leaf from the eucalyptus, the climbing hydrangea ruined, and countless lilies stopped in their tracks,’ he enumerated, his eyes bulging more with each item.

  Thea stood her ground. ‘They’ll grow again,’ she said. ‘The eucalyptus especially will come back better than ever. Believe me – I know. The same thing happened at my house, a few years ago.’

  ‘Mum,’ came Jessica’s warning voice. ‘I think…’

  Thea looked round in time to see Granny Gardner slowly passing out in Jessica’s grasp. Giles, who might have been expected to take the main burden, appeared to be far too distracted by Thomas’s rage to even notice what was happening. The sheep woman squawked and tried to help, but the men were in her way.

  ‘She’s fainted,’ the woman yelped unnecessarily.

  ‘Get her indoors,’ said Thea. ‘Better go into the main house – the
re’s more space there.’ She led the way, hoping one of the men would come to his senses and give Jessica some assistance. ‘One of you should probably call an ambulance,’ she added.

  Nobody seemed to hear her. The whole party shuffled into the house, followed by the puzzled dog. Granny was laid carefully on the sofa and Jessica knelt beside her.

  ‘Her colour’s quite good,’ she said. ‘And she’s got a strong pulse.’

  The girl’s air of authority was, if anything, even greater in the face of a genuine crisis. Thea was about to repeat her instruction about the ambulance, when she remembered what had happened on Saturday afternoon. Then, while she and Icarus Binns had been discussing the best course of action, Granny had staged a dramatic recovery. Something about the flickering eyelids gave rise to a suspicion that the same thing could well be about to happen again.

  ‘Space!’ she said. ‘We must give her more space. Could you three go away, do you think? Jessica’s trained for this sort of thing. We’ll be perfectly all right on our own.’

  Giles was the first to sidle towards the door. ‘Come on,’ he said to the others. ‘I think these ladies have got things under control now.’

  ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about my garden,’ blustered Thomas, addressing the comatose Gladys. ‘I’ll be back when your daughter’s home again, wanting recompense.’

  The sheep woman was last to leave. She hovered in the doorway, a smile flickering on her lips. ‘She’ll be all right, won’t she?’ she said, with no sign of concern.

  ‘I think she will,’ said Thea, returning the smile. ‘She worked a miracle on your sheep, you know.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘We were there,’ said Thea simply. ‘We followed her and held the torch. Actually,’ she confided, ‘it was me who finally pulled it out.’

  From the sofa came a splutter and an indignant, ‘Only because I’d done the important part.’