by Rebecca Tope
She led them into a genuine original Regency conservatory at the back of the house, where a hundred potted palms and vines and fruit trees crowded the cluster of chairs and low table into a small clearing against the house wall. It ought to have been unbearably hot on such an afternoon, but all the windows were open, and the huge plants offered shade. A fan whirred exotically overhead, making Phil think of India or Singapore in the 1930s. He might not be as good a reader as Thea, but he had consumed the works of Somerset Maugham at one time, and suddenly found himself inside one of those stories.
A classic country garden could be glimpsed beyond, between the fronds and flowers. Stephen Pritchett was slumped easily in a wide cane chair, but jumped briskly to his feet as the newcomers entered. Thea was sandwiched between the two giants, looking like a fragile child as a result. Phil had to repress a smile, as his hand was seized and shaken by Pritchett.
‘I’ll go and get the tea,’ Janey said. ‘You can chat amongst yourselves for a few minutes.’
‘We meet again,’ said Phil to Pritchett.
‘So it seems,’ the man nodded. ‘Janey’s a hospitable soul. Likes to share this place with the less fortunate among us.’ He smiled weakly, knowing that it was a poor joke to characterise himself in such a way. ‘Funny, though, how little one’s material wealth matters in the end. We cling to it so tenaciously, terrified of losing it – or even a bit of it – and yet it can’t really shield you from tragedy.’
Phil could see Thea shaping up to disagree and decided to give her a free field. ‘But surely it cushions things?’ she challenged. ‘After all, if you were homeless and addicted to drugs and in trouble with the police, and then one of the only people you love disappears or dies, you’d be utterly annihilated. There’d be nothing left at all. If you’ve got a house and a bank balance and a car and a passport, you can find some sort of consolation for your misery.’ She looked at him. ‘Sorry – I expect that’s a bit rude of me, but I do think it’s true.’
‘I find, my dear,’ said Pritchett ponderously, ‘that it doesn’t do to make comparisons when it comes to suffering.’
Thea was visibly shaken, and Phil badly wanted to wrap his arms around her. ‘I am sorry,’ she said again. ‘I spoke without even thinking.’ She looked slightly wildly at Phil. ‘I forgot,’ she said in a thick voice. ‘I actually forgot Carl while I was saying all that.’
Pritchett raised his eyebrows, silently asking Phil for elucidation. ‘Thea’s husband died, two years ago in a car accident. We’ve all had our share, I suppose.’
‘But you’re right,’ Thea told the big man. ‘It’s wrong to make comparisons.’
They retreated from painful matters for the few minutes until Janey returned pushing a wheeled trolley loaded with a Worcester tea service, cream cakes, home-made biscuits and a dish of perfect glossy strawberries.
‘Wow!’ breathed Thea.
‘Good old Janey,’ chuckled Pritchett. ‘Always knows how to make a person feel better, eh?’
The sheer unapologetic style of the surroundings rendered Phil speechless. He would never have imagined there were still people who lived in this way. And hadn’t Thea told him the woman was a farm secretary? With all the images of muck and disarray and financial hardship that went with his idea of farming, there was a discrepancy that was causing him a growing unease.
‘I thought I’d show you some of the background to the Saints and Martyrs,’ Janey said, addressing Thea, once the tea and food had been duly distributed. ‘I’ve got quite a good collection.’
‘Saints and Martyrs?’ repeated Phil. ‘Is that what you call your club?’
Janey nodded. Pritchett uttered a melodramatic groan. ‘Oh – she’s got you onto all that nonsense already, has she? Sometimes she can be exactly like the Ancient Mariner, boring your socks off with her silly old saints.’
‘I don’t think they’re silly,’ said Thea, gravely. ‘I think Janey’s right, and they have a lot to tell us. If nothing else, they give us insights into how the medieval mind worked.’
Pritchett blew out his cheeks in a wordless acknowledgement that he’d been told off.
‘Pre-medieval in most cases,’ Janey corrected her. ‘But thanks for the support. I knew you’d be interested as soon as I met you.’
Thea smiled sceptically. ‘Only because you already knew from Miss Deacon that history was my thing.’
Pritchett groaned again. ‘Polly’s even worse than Janey about it.’ He looked to Phil for some backing. ‘I mean to say – grown women charging about the countryside pretending to slaughter some forgotten character from a dusty history book. It’s not natural.’
Phil admired him for sticking to his guns, despite Thea’s obvious disapproval. ‘It’s typically British, though – don’t you think? Harmlessly eccentric. And it does seem a good idea to try to preserve some of these old stories.’ He preened slightly at his own diplomacy – surely everyone would calm down now?
‘It’s not just women anyway,’ Janey muttered. ‘There’s Robin. And Jasper, when he’s in the country.’
‘What about Rupert Temple-Pritchett?’ queried Thea, making her usual meal of the name. She giggled. ‘I love saying that. Rupert Temple-Pritchett,’ she said again. Then put a hand to her mouth with a look at Stephen. ‘Oh – he must be related to you? Sorry.’
Stephen Pritchett was watching Janey with a look of real anxiety, and Phil concluded that Thea had said something very much not to their liking. ‘Um,’ said Pritchett, confusedly, to be interrupted by a very forced change of subject by Janey. ‘Let me show you my collection,’ she said with a limp smile. ‘Much more interesting than trying to work out the local family trees.’ She shot Pritchett a look that clearly said, Don’t talk about it any more.
Thea turned to Phil. ‘Are you coming as well? It sounds interesting.’
He hadn’t intended to. The seat was comfortable, and the tea not quite finished. It seemed a pity to leave Pritchett all on his own. But then he caught Thea’s glance and began to lever himself out of the chair.
Janey escorted them into a room that could only be termed a library. A large Victorian desk occupied the middle of the floor, and shelves filled two walls. ‘Most of these belonged to my grandmother,’ Janey said, waving at the books. ‘Duller than ditchwater, some of them. But these are anything but dull. They’re the ones I wanted to show you.’ She tapped a shelf on which stood a row of brown-covered volumes that looked to Phil every bit as uninteresting as their neighbours.
Janey took one down, and proffered it at Thea. ‘Lives of the Saints – January’ she read. ‘By S. Baring-Gould.’ She shook her head slightly, to indicate lack of recognition.
‘It’s an amazing achievement,’ Janey explained. ‘Sixteen volumes. Nobody had made such a thorough job before. It took him years – though not as many as you might think, considering all the work that went into it. Grandma inherited them from her father. All first editions of course. And some of the entries are terribly funny. I read them to cheer myself up.’
Phil watched as Thea opened the book at random. It was as if the reference to Rupert had never happened, the whole incident skillfully swept away. ‘S. Pega, V. About AD 718,’ Thea read. ‘After her brother’s death, she used all her endeavours to wear out her life for the love of Christ by still severer austerities. She therefore undertook a pilgrimage to Rome – da-da-da – and she there triumphantly departed, on the sixth of the ides of January.’ She looked up. ‘What does the V. mean?’
‘Virgin,’ said Janey automatically. ‘It’s the Ms we try to stick to: Martyrs. Let me see that. I don’t remember her.’ She took the book from Thea and re-read the half-page. ‘I suppose she might count,’ she murmured. ‘British, and ended up dead.’
‘Don’t they all end up dead?’ said Phil, who was already wishing he’d stayed in the conservatory.
‘She killed herself deliberately for the love of Christ,’ said Thea. ‘Isn’t that a bit weird? Doesn’t the Church disapprove of suicide
?’
Janey flapped an impatient hand. ‘Oh, we don’t ask questions like that. It’s the story, don’t you see? Can’t you feel the wit behind those few words? You’ve never heard of Baring-Gould?’ She seemed to find this a source of some regret. ‘He was a most interesting man. Incredibly energetic.’
‘If there’s a story like that on every page for sixteen volumes, I can see why you find it all so exciting,’ Thea smiled. ‘I can almost see St Pega trekking down to Rome in bare feet, not eating anything, and triumphantly departing once she got there. Silly creature.’
‘Yes!’ Janey enthused. ‘But I have to admit they’re not all that good. You opened it at a lucky page. There are quite a few dull old bishops who did nothing to warrant sainthood. Even so, there’s plenty to keep us going. At least Fiona thinks so. I’m beginning to think we’ve done all the best ones.’
‘You’re talking about your club?’
‘That’s right.’ Janey hugged the book to her massive chest, like a beloved pet.
Phil found himself quite unable to share their glee. ‘I think I’ll go back to Pritchett,’ he said. ‘Splendid collection, Janey,’ he added, glancing around the room. ‘Must be pretty valuable, too. Hope you’re fully insured?’
‘Phil!’ Thea protested. ‘Stop being such a policeman.’
He forced a smile. ‘Sorry. But as a policeman, I think I ought to go and talk to a man who’s lost his son. Don’t you?’
‘Don’t you dare!’ flashed Janey, shocking in her sudden anger. ‘Not in this house. I don’t allow any talk like that here. It all has to be kept nice, do you see?’ she continued on a softer note. ‘I like to maintain a feeling of a haven from all the horrors of the world outside. Is that too much to ask? Besides, Giles isn’t really lost. Everyone knows that. He certainly isn’t… dead.’ She forced the word out as if it physically hurt her to do so. ‘So please don’t talk about anything so horrid any more.’
Phil wanted to stop and cross-examine her, demand to know what she meant and what evidence she might have for saying what she had. Instead he fixed his gaze on the book in Janey’s hand, full of stories of violence and death. ‘OK,’ he said, and walked stiffly out of the room.
‘Sounds as if you got told off in there,’ said Pritchett when Phil went back to him. ‘Janey can be a bit funny sometimes. We do our best to humour her. Everybody loves Janey, you see.’
Phil took the hint, at least for the moment. ‘So,’ he said, lowering himself gently into his seat, ‘who owns this place then? Did Janey manage to get it as a divorce settlement?’
The question bordered on the impertinent, he knew. But having been reminded of his status, he found himself firmly in policeman mode.
Pritchett showed no sign of offence, but shook his head vigorously. ‘Nothing to do with the Holmes chap. She’s got more to worry about from he-who-must-not-be-named. You saw the way she froze when your lady friend mentioned him. I won’t say any more now, but there’s a whole bucket of worms under the carpet where that bloke’s concerned.’
Phil glanced at the door. ‘Really? Surely he doesn’t own the house?’
Pritchett also looked at the door. ‘No, no. There’s a trust that was set up forty-odd years ago by Janey’s grandad. It’s got all kinds of conditions and so forth – I don’t know the whole of it, but for the time being, she lives here rent free, all the maintenance taken care of so long as nobody rocks the boat.’
‘Sounds too good to be true?’ Phil cocked his head. ‘Trusts usually have some sort of bad news attached to them as well, in my experience. Those conditions sound a bit ominous.’ He looked around at the flamboyantly anachronistic conservatory. ‘Does she have to keep everything just as it was in 1933 or something?’
‘Something like that,’ Pritchett nodded quickly, as if seizing the suggestion. ‘But then – we’re tucked away from the hurly-burly here anyway, aren’t we? Might as well be 1933 as far as we’re concerned. Your terrorists in the big city don’t worry us here.’
Phil looked at the man, ducking his chin as if to peer over non-existent spectacles. He had remembered, as if waking from being hypnotised, that he and Pritchett had spoken of matters that should by rights have been relayed to DS Gladwin in connection with the unidentified body.
‘But you know as well as I do that nowhere’s immune,’ he said softly, aware that Janey might object to what he was going to say, if she heard him. ‘And I’m sorry, but I can’t pretend I’ve forgotten the conversation we had only a few hours ago. I still don’t like to let it all drop.’
Pritchett wrestled visibly with conflicting emotions. His eyes skipped from side to side and a frown drove a vertical crease between his eyes. ‘I told you – leave it, man. No good can come of it now.’
Phil snorted impatiently. ‘I ought to have reported everything you told me about your son. Instead I let myself get distracted.’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘I don’t really understand why.’
‘What’s a day more or less?’ said Pritchett easily, taking a sudden new tack. ‘Nobody’s going anywhere, after this long time. Leave it until your back’s better, why don’t you? Enjoy the extra holiday while you can.’
Phil’s head felt tight with frustration and self-reproach. But they might be going somewhere, he thought to himself. Once the news had got out that the bones had been found, the killer might have gone into hiding. This case, he thought, was like no other he’d come across. Far too little pressure from any direction on the police to solve it. The media had virtually ignored it, there were no relatives howling for closure, no chief constable threatening dire consequences if it was not cleared up immediately. And yet there was a sense that the village was only pretending to be unconcerned. A vibration in the air, a sense that everyone was studiously looking the other way or eagerly chattering about some other subject, instead of taking due notice of the bad smell right under their noses.
‘Don’t talk about it here,’ Pritchett said in a quiet but steely voice. ‘Janey will tear you into shreds if she hears you. Pass it on to the chap in charge, if you must.’ He sighed. ‘But it won’t get you very far, I can tell you that for nothing.’
Chap? Did Pritchett not know that the Senior Investigating Officer was a woman? Had nobody interviewed him? He shook his head. Why would they? Without a name for the dead man, there were all too few questions that could meaningfully be asked. There would be no door-to-door enquiries in a straggling village like Temple Guiting. Only Janey and Fiona, who reported the fallen tree, and the owner of the field – and Phil had no idea who that might be – containing the beech tree could expect to be interviewed.
The visit had given them a mass of things to talk about, rather to Phil’s relief. The house; Janey’s resistance to anything ‘nasty’; Pritchett’s hints and evasions; the Saints and Martyrs; the whole unexplored family connections between most of the people they had met – it all kept them occupied for the rest of the day. Thea seemed to have recovered from her subdued mood and was eager to talk.
Phil was feeling more confident of his back after a day of relative painlessness, which had the effect of activating his conscience. ‘I’ve been a real slob,’ he accused himself. ‘The world’s in flames and I’ve just been sitting here ignoring it all.’
‘They seem to be coping well enough without you,’ she observed. ‘Not a single call since you got here. Maybe they’ve caught the ricin-makers and neglected to tell you.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said coolly. ‘I prefer to think I’ve got everyone so well-organised, they can get on with it without constantly needing me to nursemaid them.’
‘Do you worry you might be superfluous?’ she teased.
He smiled. ‘No, my love, I don’t worry about that. I have no doubt at all that my desk will be stacked a foot deep with paperwork when I get back. But the ricin-makers, as you call them, are the focus of a far bigger team than my little section. I’ve never been more than one tiny link in the chain. If I’m out of action, they’ll work a
round that without much difficulty.’ He sighed lightly. ‘But I doubt if I’ll ever get back into it now. I’ll find something completely different in the in tray when I get back.’
‘What a shame,’ she said insincerely. ‘Meanwhile, you could see how you get on here, working out why Pritchett wishes he’d never said anything about his missing son, and why Janey won’t have him mentioned. And why a dead man got stuffed under a tree, seemingly not missed by anybody.’
‘Except there’s already a perfectly capable DS working on that.’
‘She won’t mind,’ Thea said, with certainty. ‘She’s just waiting for you to come to her rescue.’
Phil laughed. ‘Thea, Thea, Thea,’ he murmured. ‘You don’t really get it, do you? The way the police force works, I mean. If I rescued Gladwin, she’d never live it down. She’d hate me for the rest of her career and do everything she could to sabotage me and my cases. A lot rides on how she performs over this business – her first in the new job. If I wanted to rescue her, I’d have to do it subtly, invisibly even.’
