by Rebecca Tope
The atmosphere was definitely lighter, though. Thea was recovering her spirits, and soon he would have to get back in the car and confess his renewed disablement. No way could he manage a meal in a formal setting, or any sort of meal, come to that. She would have to take him home and fetch his painkillers and abandon the plan for him to sleep upstairs with her. It was so disheartening that he moaned aloud.
‘So – no ambulance for Soraya then?’ Thea said.
‘But she isn’t the only invalid, is she?’ said Fiona, looking probingly at Phil. ‘Your bloke looks in a bad way to me.’
‘Well, he’s not having an ambulance,’ said Thea decisively. ‘We know the only treatment is rest and time.’ She sighed. ‘I braked too hard,’ she said regretfully. ‘It can’t have done him any good.’
The three women all contemplated the helpless man for a long moment. He could read some of their thoughts and felt the shame and humiliation of the failed hunter, the useless defender. ‘Just leave me on the hillside to die,’ he said.
‘Fiona’s nice, isn’t she,’ said Thea, absently. They were eating scrambled eggs in Miss Deacon’s living room, Phil slumped on the sofa, surrounded by cushions. The plate was balanced on his knees. Thea was sitting beside him, crowded into a corner.
‘A bit dykey,’ he said carelessly. ‘But normal enough otherwise.’
‘What? Dykey? Just because she took Soraya home?’ She stared at him and he realised too late that he’d said the wrong thing. Would butch have been better? He doubted it.
‘And the look she gave you. You won’t have noticed.’ He smiled, hoping to get her back on his side – a man’s woman, who never even registered lustful glances from another woman.
‘I suppose you think she’s in a relationship with Janey, as well?’ she said, her voice full of angry accusation.
‘It never crossed my mind,’ he said, with perfect truth. The lurking images were too much to bear.
Mercifully, Thea seemed to catch a glimpse of them herself and a smile tweaked the corners of her mouth. ‘Well, just stop it,’ she said. ‘It’s not worthy of you.’
‘I don’t see what’s wrong with making an observation,’ he persisted. ‘And I just bet I’m right, as well.’
‘I don’t care if you are. It’s got nothing to do with anything. Besides, I like Fiona. To me she seems perfectly nice and normal.’
‘She can’t be entirely normal, though,’ said Phil. ‘She belongs to Janey’s saints thingy, after all.’
Thea heaved a sigh. ‘I still wish I’d gone with them that morning, just to see what they do. Every time it’s mentioned I get the impression it would have been something quite special.’
‘You could have gone. Why didn’t you?’
‘I told you before – I was too flummoxed, having you to deal with. And I was tired. And a bit cross.’
‘I guess I rather spoilt things,’ he admitted.
‘Don’t start that again,’ she said. ‘Do you want some ice cream?’
Chapter Thirteen
Phil’s prime emotion since the accident in the narrow lane was guilt. He had suggested cleaning the windscreen at the exact wrong moment. He had braced himself all wrong on impact, sending his back into regression on an epic scale. He had effectively wrecked all hope of Thea enjoying a final two days of outings and explorings, which was what she enjoyed most of all. Born of some vague sense of expiation, he focussed his mind on the police investigations centred on the village. If they couldn’t go out together, they would stay in and discuss murder and strange village cults. Thea could Google Templars and saints and large dignified manor houses, and perhaps locate a pattern. The fact that a team of dedicated police officers would be doing much the same thing at the station was neither here nor there.
‘I ought to make sure Soraya’s all right,’ Thea worried. ‘What if she’s got internal bleeding or something?’
Phil had been similarly concerned, fully aware that there were procedures they had ignored. The girl had been taken home by Fiona, after an assurance that she had no sign of any broken bones or concussion. ‘I promise you, it’s the best thing,’ Fiona had insisted. ‘Robin doesn’t like her to be away for long.’ Soraya had settled into the passenger seat of Fiona’s car and waited restlessly while Phil and Fiona exchanged a few further words.
Before getting back into his own car, Phil must have indicated surprise bordering on suspicion at the girl’s anxiety to get home. Fiona paused, and stood facing him. ‘Oh, it isn’t what you think,’ she said in a hushed voice, which neither Soraya nor Thea could possibly have heard. ‘He’s not an abusive father in any sense. Actually, he’s completely dependent on her. He’s not well – one of those nervous system things – and needs her to do most of the farm work.’
And that’s not abusive? Phil thought to himself. ‘How old is she?’ he asked.
‘Twenty. Her mother went off years ago, and it’s been really hard for them.’
‘Just the two of them, there alone?’ He couldn’t help it – the scenario screamed alarm bells at him.
‘Yes, but Janey Holmes keeps an eye on them, helps out a bit. A few of us do, in fact. We still have a few vestiges of community spirit, you know.’
‘And does Soraya go with you on your saints’ festivals?’
Fiona grinned. ‘Sometimes. But it’s Robin who’s most interested. He’s a founder member, in fact, with Polly and Jasper. You don’t know Jasper, he lives in Italy.’
‘Janey’s father?’
Fiona blinked, before expelling a short laugh. ‘No, gosh no. He’s called Bernard. Jasper’s no relation. He lived here for a while, but he’s not really a local. He’s just – well, he’s just Jasper. Something of a Flying Dutchman, I suppose. We haven’t seen him for two or three years now.’
Phil held himself tightly as his back raged for a few moments. ‘Same as Giles Pritchett,’ he noted. ‘Did they know each other, by any chance?’
‘Vaguely, I suppose,’ she said absently. ‘And Rupert Temple-Pritchett? You all know him as well, I assume?’
The reaction was violent and entirely unpremeditated. ‘That bastard? We certainly did know him, before—’ Then she caught herself up, reminding Phil suddenly of the way Soraya had checked herself a few minutes earlier, as she spoke of going to see the house martins. ‘Why?’ Fiona asked him, with a penetrating gaze. ‘What have you heard about him?’
‘He’s been to see us at Miss Deacon’s. Twice. He appears to have a lot he wants to tell us.’
The woman’s eyes widened, and her gaze flittered from one patch of hedgerow to another, as her thoughts visibly whirled. ‘I see,’ she said eventually. ‘Oh well – he’s not really such a bad bloke. What was it you wanted to know about him?’ She glanced at where Soraya was sitting in her car, starting to peer around to see where her driver had got to. ‘Actually, I’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘Maybe we can talk about it another time.’
‘Thanks for taking her home,’ he said. ‘Thea and I have enough to cope with already.’
And they had parted company. The proposed evening out had been abandoned and Thea had slammed together some scrambled eggs and bacon with shaking hands. ‘I can’t believe I hit that girl,’ she said, more than once. ‘I ought to have stopped when I realised I couldn’t see anything. Why doesn’t she sue me for dangerous driving?’
‘Because she wasn’t hurt and she doesn’t want a fuss,’ he said patiently. ‘She’s got her own reasons for keeping things simple, I expect. Most people have. Although her father might yet persuade her to change her mind. You can’t be sure you’re out of the woods just yet.’
Thea groaned. ‘If the story gets out, you know what they’ll say, don’t you? That you exerted undue pressure on her, pulling rank as a senior police officer. Have you thought of that?’
He sighed. ‘Yes, I have. And it’s a risk I’ll have to take, isn’t it? I doubt very much if anything’s going to come of it. After all, the locals have got more interesting matters to gossip a
bout just at the moment, don’t you think?’
‘Hmm,’ was all she said to that. But a few minutes later, she spoke again with a characteristic shift of subject. ‘Do you think Giles Pritchett was in the Saints and Martyrs Club?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’ He looked at her. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, something about Janey’s reaction when you mentioned him yesterday. Saying he’s not lost. And she was so quick to change the subject when I mentioned Rupert. Not a word about him being her brother. Didn’t you think she was acting oddly?’
‘Definitely,’ he agreed. ‘But I’ve thought her odd from the start. Now we know about her personal tragedy, that isn’t so surprising, is it? Did I tell you what Pritchett said about the trust?’ He forced himself to concentrate on Janey, hoping to keep Thea’s mind off the road accident.
‘Yes, you did,’ she replied. ‘If you mean the trust that owns her fabulous house.’ She sighed. ‘Gosh, though – wouldn’t you love to live there? She’s got it so beautifully done out, and clean and tidy. It’s like a palace.’
‘Probably has a cleaning woman,’ he said. ‘And I guess most of the houses around here are like that inside. We ought to try and get a peep inside Temple Guiting Manor. I bet that’s just as good.’
Thea wasn’t drawn. ‘Yes, but don’t you think Janey’s got reason to defend her lifestyle, if she thought there was a threat to it? I mean, something like that could provide a motive for murder, couldn’t it? What if there’s something in the trust to say she can only have it until she’s forty-five? Or provided she produce a son and heir to take it on after her? Or that she climbs Mount Everest before midnight on January 1st 2010?’
‘Stop, stop!’ Phil held up a trembling hand. ‘Please don’t make me laugh. It hurts.’
‘No, but seriously,’ Thea gazed hard at him. ‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’
‘Anything’s possible,’ he said weakly. ‘But I don’t think any of those ideas are very likely. Apart from anything else, the law wouldn’t uphold conditions like that, these days.’
‘But she might not know that.’
His ruse had succeeded better than he could have imagined. Thea was in full spate, brainstorming reasons why Janey might have felt driven to kill by a threat to her home. And gradually he found himself believing that she could have a point. After all, the facts of Janey’s birth were sufficiently bizarre in themselves for any theories to sound almost convincing.
‘But she reported the fallen tree,’ he remembered. ‘She’d never have done that if she knew a dead body had been buried under it.’
‘She might, because Fiona was there. She wouldn’t have had any choice.’
He reached out a hand to her, holding her forearm. ‘You’re so good at this,’ he sighed. ‘I feel I should resign instantly and let you take my job.’
‘No thanks,’ she laughed.
‘But what about the Templars?’ he remembered, a few moments later. ‘We mustn’t forget the Templars. After all, Fiona did say Janey had Templar blood. As does Giles, apparently.’
‘Ah! I was coming to that,’ she said, holding up a didactic finger. ‘I did a bit more Googling earlier today, when you were in the garden. Temple Guiting was a preceptory – which sounds a bit like a monastery or a hospital – but there’s no physical trace of it left, as far as I can work out. There’s a very tenuous sort of link with Janey’s saints. Thomas à Becket was a martyr who got canonised, right? Well, the knights who killed him had to hand over all their properties to the Templars, which seems to have been a serious punishment. Maybe there’s some sort of revenge still at work.’
‘Utterly tenuous,’ Phil confirmed.
‘I know,’ she admitted. ‘But there’s definitely something about the name Temple that we haven’t got to the bottom of.’
Suddenly he felt weary of the whole arcane discussion. ‘The fact is, we still have an unidentified murder victim,’ he said. ‘With all the usual questions and examinations that go with that.’
‘And a missing son and heir,’ Thea reminded him. ‘We shouldn’t ignore Giles Pritchett. He might easily be the key to the whole thing.’
‘It is strange the way his parents are behaving,’ he agreed. ‘All I can think is that they panicked when they heard about the body under the tree, and even though they don’t seriously believe he’s dead, they had to make sure – especially Trudy. That was why Stephen came over to see me the way he did, trying to keep it unofficial.’
Thea looked dubious. ‘I think there’s more to it than that,’ she insisted. ‘What if he – I mean Stephen – insisted they keep quiet about it, while she was convinced the lad was gone forever – and that’s why she has to drug herself into the twilight zone?’
‘That would be too cruel. Pritchett isn’t cruel.’
‘He might think he’s doing it for the best. But the poor woman, in any case. It must be awful for her.’
From some indirect mental association, Phil found himself permitting the memory of his daughter to filter carefully into the forefront of his mind, linked to the mysterious absence of Giles and the effect on his mother. Yes, he knew for sure that Emily was dead, and yes, he had a son as well, to cushion the loss at least slightly. And still his foundations had been shaken, his assumptions cracked and broken, his confidence in a stable, reliable universe rocked. To lose a child was truly terrible, and it took years to start picking through the wreckage for the core essentials that might just still be surviving.
‘Poor old Trudy,’ he muttered quietly. Thea didn’t hear him.
He couldn’t manage the stairs that night, either. Thea put him to bed like a child, bringing him a glass of water and another painkiller, kissing him goodnight. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured into his ear. ‘Really sorry. If it’s still bad in the morning, we probably ought to find you a doctor.’
‘No, no,’ he argued bravely. ‘There’s no point. When I get home, I’ll go to my usual GP. He’ll have had a note from the hospital and know what’s happened. I’ll need him to sign me off work, in any case. I can’t see me going back for another week or two yet.’
‘Well, we have to leave here on Sunday,’ she reminded him. ‘Although I thought I’d have heard from Archie by now.’
‘What if he doesn’t show?’ Phil wondered. ‘Will that mean we can stay here?’
She smiled at him. ‘Would you like to?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Just at the moment, all I can think of is never again getting out of this bed. Ask me again tomorrow.’
‘Well, you won’t be too hot in the night. I’ve left the front window open at the top. And you must have got used to the fish tanks by now. Sleep tight, and I’ll see you in the morning.’
His dreams, when they came, were pleasurably erotic – at least at first. A cool body was pressing against his, seductive and sensuous. His partner – a faceless woman heavier than Thea – wound herself around him, weighing him down even as she stimulated him. Her arms and legs were everywhere: on his chest and thighs, moving in small waves. There was something oddly persistent and inhuman about it, which steadily changed the pleasure to something closer to panic. Only when something touched his face did he awake with a jolt, his eyes flying open.
There was a faint grey light coming through the window, but not enough to see properly by. Instead, he was forced to use his hands, bringing them up to the peculiar sensation at his neck. His fingers encountered a solid dry substance that moved at his touch. Fumbling, he tried to lift it away, dimly aware that there was also something on his belly and beyond. Logic failed him, as he struggled to name the thing he was touching. The very strangeness of it was terrifying, even though he felt no pain and could not identify any actual threat.
Finally, after perhaps ten seconds of pure bewilderment, he screamed and contorted his body in an effort to escape what he had belatedly understood. The snake! It was Shasti the python, draped on top of him, her head tucked into the crevice below his jaw, and her other end flicking provocatively at h
is genitals.
‘Thea!’ he screamed at full decibels. ‘For God’s sake, Thea!’
Shasti, annoyed by the noise and the writhings of her new friend, slithered down from the bed and across the floor, and was gone from sight long before Thea could get up and stumble down the stairs to the rescue.
‘But why didn’t you hold onto her?’ Thea wailed again, having searched the house in vain for the third time. The back door had a cat flap, despite the absence of any feline inhabitants, and it was increasingly obvious that the python had dived through it moments after abandoning Phil.
He made no attempt to reply, having given his answer to the question some time earlier, and finding no useful elaboration to make. Thea’s total lack of sympathy had reached epic new proportions, once she understood what had happened. Initially blaming herself for forgetting to close the shed window, she had transferred her reproaches to Phil for his spineless reaction to finding himself in bed with an amorous snake. ‘She wouldn’t have hurt you,’ Thea insisted. ‘She’s not strong enough to damage a fully grown man.’
Not a word about his back, he noticed. When he had tried to sit up and give a coherent account of himself, the muscles had spasmed excruciatingly. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like,’ he whined. ‘It was like being in a horror film.’
‘Well, we’ll have to find her. She’s in terrible danger out there with idiot people reacting so stupidly. Someone’s going to chop her in half with a spade, or she’ll get run over.’
‘Or she’ll eat somebody’s pet guinea pig, or scare someone out of their wits,’ added Phil.
‘But where do I start to look? How fast can they travel? Will she find a warm, dark place to curl up in?’
‘Probably, yes, judging by the warm, dark place she headed for the moment she was free,’ he said. ‘How did she get in here, anyway?’
‘The window was open.’
‘Yes, but at the top. Can she slither up glass? They don’t have suckers to hold on with, do they?’
