Blood in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  There was one of Janey’s Lives of the Saints volumes on a low table, the pages open and held down with a glass paperweight. Thea went to it, and picked it up. ‘Listen to this,’ she said, and proceeded to read aloud: ‘January 3rd. about AD 411. There was a duke, or prince, of Cornwall, named Melian, whose brother, Rivold, revolted against him and put him to death. Melian left a son, Melor, and the usurper only spared his life at the intercession of the bishops and clergy. He, however, cut off his right hand and left foot, and sent him into one of the Cornish monasteries to be brought up.

  ‘The legend goes on to relate that the boy was provided with a silver hand and a brazen foot, and that one day, when he was aged fourteen, he and the abbot were nutting together in a wood, when the abbot saw the boy use his silver hand to clasp the boughs and pick the nuts, just as though it were flesh and blood. Then it says, Rivold, fearing lest the boy should depose him, bribed his guardian, Cerialtan, to murder him. This Cerialtan performed. He cut off the head of Melor, and carried it to the duke…’

  ‘Right,’ said Phil, slowly. ‘Two murders, in fact.’

  Janey stirred. ‘We’ve never done St Melor,’ she said, a new focus in her eyes. ‘Honestly, we never have.’

  ‘You’ve been in the Club since it was first started, have you?’ Phil asked her.

  ‘Absolutely. Fiona, me and three others started it.’

  ‘And have you ever missed one of the ceremonies? Surely you can’t have been to every single one.’

  ‘I went on holiday once or twice, as well as visiting my parents in Tuscany every summer. And I did go to that horrible hospital a few times after little Alethea – well, you know.’ She frowned at the floor. ‘But Melor’s day is in January. I’ve never missed a January.’

  ‘It does say he died on October 1st,’ said Thea, consulting the book. ‘Maybe somebody thought it would be better to do him then.’

  Janey’s head went from side to side in emphatic denial. ‘You shouldn’t be accusing me like this. You’re suggesting the Club really kills people. That’s wrong. Of course it’s wrong. You think Rupert—’ She gave them an imploring look, ‘I can’t tell you anything. It isn’t fair to ask me. I haven’t done anything wrong, honestly. They just wanted to protect me, that’s all. You can’t blame anybody.’

  ‘But Janey – the body we found this week had a hand and foot cut off, just like St Melor. Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?’ Thea was holding one of Janey’s hands, shaking it gently for emphasis.

  The big woman made an obvious effort to reply sensibly. ‘I don’t know. I never heard of St Melor until now. I told you when you came before, there are loads of saints I haven’t properly researched.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Thea, flourishing the book. ‘I find that a bit difficult to believe, to be honest. As far as I can see, the great majority of them are ineligible for your club for various reasons. I’d have thought that by now you’d be scraping around for somebody to focus on each month.’

  ‘Well, we do some of them more than once. Like Kenelm. Because he’s local.’

  Phil let himself lapse into private thought as the two women discussed saints. He was still wondering about the confusion between Rupert and his father, Graham Bligh, and about the multitudinous comments to the effect that Rupert was a nasty piece of work.

  ‘Janey,’ he said, with a quick glance at Thea. ‘How do you get on with your brother? He obviously comes to the village quite often, because he told us so. He drops in to see Miss Deacon, and we’ve seen him nearly every day this week. Does he come to visit you as well?’

  Janey’s frown deepened and she obviously thought hard before answering. ‘Rupert and I own this house, you see,’ she said. ‘That is, the trust has to keep everything fair between us. Grandaddy said so. I need Rupert to be here, to keep everything running.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ Phil lied. ‘And you and he are good friends, are you?’

  ‘He’s my brother,’ she said. ‘But he wasn’t very nice about the Saints and Martyrs. He said some very nasty things about the Club, you know.’ She met his gaze briefly. ‘That was a long time ago, but it really wasn’t very nice.’

  Thea was still clutching Janey’s hand. ‘Some people don’t like Rupert much, do they?’ she said.

  Janey pulled her hand away. ‘Stop it!’ she cried. ‘Stop talking about nasty things. I told you before – I like to keep everything polite and happy in this house. We don’t have arguments or bad temper here. It’s a rule.’

  Phil sighed softly to himself. The woman was plainly unreliable as a witness. The rich voice has turned into the simpering tones of a little girl, visibly regressing as he questioned her. Also, he was sure she was concealing something. She was being careful not to speak without thinking first. He was on the verge of giving up and persuading Thea to leave.

  ‘Well—’ he began. ‘It’s been good of you to talk to us. We should go now and leave you in peace.’

  Janey cast him a look that carried flickers of panic. ‘Oh, no, don’t go,’ she said. ‘You could have some lunch. Fiona’s never here on a Saturday, you see. And when Sammy phoned – well, I didn’t know what to say.’

  Phil looked again at Thea, with a minute flick of his head, indicating that they ought to leave. But Thea was giving all her attention to Janey.

  ‘Sammy?’ she repeated. ‘Who’s Sammy?’

  Janey opened her mouth to reply, but the words never passed her lips. A shattering crash interrupted her, and all three of them turned in panic towards the window, which had imploded all around them. Janey had a hand to her neck, and Phil, wrestling yet again with the anguish of his back, was slow to notice that there was blood between her fingers.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ howled Thea. ‘There’s glass everywhere.’ Then she noticed Janey. ‘What—?’ she choked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve been stabbed,’ said Janey, eyes wide. ‘Look, I’m bleeding.’

  ‘Phil! Quickly – she’s got glass in her neck.’

  Already he had his mobile out and was tapping keys with his thumb. A closer look at Janey had reassured him that no major artery had been severed. The blood was not jetting across the room, merely trickling steadily over the woman’s ample shoulder, and down her fleshy front. ‘Press something over the wound,’ he ordered Thea. ‘Unless the glass is still in there, of course.’

  ‘Let me see,’ Thea told Janey, her own lips drawn back in distaste. Glass crunched beneath her feet as she moved. Janey withdrew her hand an inch or two, to reveal a gash about an inch long, but not especially deep. ‘It hurts,’ she whined.

  ‘Ambulance, Temple Guiting,’ Phil was telling his phone. He gave the address, and then got himself patched through to a special police number, where he made it clear that the incident was part of an ongoing investigation. Much of what he said was automatic, virtually coded, intended to prevent ignorant uniformed officers clomping blithely across a scene that could be rich in much-needed evidence.

  Thea peered at Janey’s neck for signs of lurking shards, and deciding it was all clear, pressed a pale blue antimacassar to the wound, having snatched the makeshift compress from the back of an armchair. Phil hoped it wasn’t too imbued with bacteria. It certainly looked clean enough.

  ‘That’s what did it,’ he pointed at a large grey stone sitting in the middle of the floor. It looked innocent, if out of place. Almost all the glass had fallen between it and the window, but he could see a few pieces further into the room. ‘Thrown with quite some force,’ he added. ‘Glass is lethal stuff – we could all be bleeding to death in here.’

  ‘Am I bleeding to death?’ Janey asked in a small terrified voice.

  ‘No, no, of course not. Look, it’s nearly stopped already. Nasty thing to happen, though.’

  ‘Not too good for the carpet, either,’ Janey giggled, valiantly trying for the customary British reaction to a crisis even in her traumatised state. ‘We’ll never get all this blood out of it.’

  ‘It’s not half as bad as
it looks,’ Phil said.

  ‘But who did it?’ Thea asked wonderingly, looking around at the devastation. ‘Do you have any idea, Janey?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ came the muffled reply. ‘I expect it was Sammy.’

  ‘Not Rupert?’ Phil queried.

  Janey laughed, a gurgling sound of amusement mixed with pain and confusion. ‘No, it wouldn’t have been Rupert,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s that ambulance?’ Thea chafed. ‘They’re taking ages.’

  ‘About four minutes so far,’ said Phil. ‘I’d guess we ought to allow at least twenty.’

  ‘Well, thank goodness we’ve got you to keep the murderer at bay,’ said Thea, who appeared to have abandoned any attempt at discretion or even common politeness.

  Janey had remained in the chair, despite being showered with shards of glass. Now she began to struggle to stand up. Her manner was much more adult, as if the former childlike demeanour had fallen away like a coat. ‘I feel silly now,’ she said. ‘I’ve only got a cut on my neck. I don’t really think I need an ambulance at all, actually. I can’t abide hospitals.’

  The others made no reply to this. Phil was trying to peer outside through the shattered conservatory window. ‘Not double glazed,’ he noted with interest. ‘I didn’t think that was allowed any more.’

  ‘It is if you’re Listed,’ said Janey. ‘That glass has been here for two hundred years or more.’ She stared at the broken pane in obvious distress. ‘Doesn’t it look dreadful,’ she moaned.

  ‘Double glazing would have kept that stone out,’ said Phil. ‘Probably.’

  Janey ignored him. All three showed signs of impatience, the unreal suspension of time as they waited encouraging nothing more than small talk, despite Phil’s strong compulsion to ask again who Sammy might be. But he wanted DS Gladwin at his side – it was her case, she ought to hear any important testimony. Anything Janey might say to him now would only have to be repeated under proper conditions. It would comprise nothing useful by way of evidence otherwise. But Thea was less inhibited by protocol. ‘Giles,’ she said into the silence. ‘Tell us about him.’ It was an order, that Phil suspected was less easy to defy than if he’d given it.

  ‘Rupert’s little friend,’ Janey responded. ‘Ran off when somebody said something he didn’t want to hear. He was always a bit of a fool.’ Her voice was strained, her attention more on her neck than what she was saying, her attitude partly hostile, partly clinging.

  ‘Rupert must be twenty years older than he is,’ said Phil, who continued to have difficulty keeping all the ages under control.

  ‘You do know he tried to shoot Phil, don’t you?’ Thea demanded, when Janey simply ignored Phil’s comment. ‘Giles, I mean. What was he so angry about? Where has he been all this time?’

  ‘Stop it,’ Janey pleaded. ‘It isn’t fair, questioning me when I’m like this. It’s harassment.’

  She was probably right, thought Phil.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Phil went in the ambulance with Janey, since nobody else had materialised and he doubted the wisdom of letting Thea go. Her habit of asking important questions with no formal cautioning could wreak havoc with any subsequent prosecutions. Even though he might commit the same indiscretions, he would know better how to deal with the consequences.

  Nobody from the police had yet manifested themselves, which struck Phil as rather dilatory after his urgent direct call. Thea was left with the conundrum of how to take two cars back to Hector’s Nook. He handed her the keys of his and told her she’d work something out. ‘Thanks very much,’ she said crossly. ‘Aren’t you worried that I might get stoned as soon as I step outside?’

  ‘Stay inside, then, until the police arrive. They can’t be long now,’ was his callous reply.

  The truth was, he had lost his hold on what Thea was thinking and planning. The last conversation he had had with her had been all about Fiona as murderer, and a determination to prove it. Since then, his thoughts had run through endless hoops, until he was almost sure she was deliberately misleading him. ‘Stay here and tell them everything that happened,’ he ordered her. ‘And stay close to Gladwin if you can. She’ll make sure you’re all right.’

  A ginger-haired female paramedic had inspected Janey’s neck and decreed that there could be residual glass to be washed out, and some delicate stitching called for. Phil had the impression that there was another quiet day in Cirencester Accident and Emergency.

  Janey was not enjoying the attention. ‘I hate hospitals,’ she moaned. ‘They don’t listen to you – and at some point I’m sure to get a lecture about my weight.’

  Phil nodded sympathetically. They called it preventive medicine, when they nagged people about their habits so relentlessly. No doubt Janey would be offered a ‘programme’ with counsellors and nutrition experts, poor woman.

  ‘So, did Thea say anything to you about Fiona?’ he asked rashly. The need to resolve the issue was too strong to resist. ‘I believe her thinking was along the lines of Fiona having killed Graham Bligh as a kind of favour to you. It did make a sort of sense when she first explained it to me.’

  Janey frowned in utter confusion. ‘Graham Bligh? My mother’s old boyfriend? He isn’t dead.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he is. That’s who the bones belonged to. I mean – it was his body buried under that tree.’

  She was lying flat on a fixed trolley, her bulk overflowing the sides, the flesh of her arms and cheeks vibrating slightly as the ambulance traversed the small country lanes. Phil could see her thinking hard, and wondered again just what level of intelligence there was beneath the rolls of fat.

  ‘Who told you that?’ she asked.

  ‘They matched the DNA,’ he said. ‘They’ve got your whole family on the database, you see, because of your father’s legal case.’

  ‘And they think those bones are Graham’s?’

  ‘Well, yes. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that, because there must have been some mix-up. But yes, that’s what they think.’

  ‘Then they’re stupid,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They’ve got it so wrong, it makes me feel tired,’ Janey said. ‘What you just said is pure nonsense.’ She exhaled a huff of frustration. ‘I won’t talk to you any more. If you’d just left things as they were, everything would be all right. It’s all your fault.’

  ‘That’s what Giles Pritchett said.’

  ‘It’s what everybody’s saying.’

  ‘But I didn’t make the tree fall down. Isn’t that where it all began?’

  ‘You didn’t need to go crawling all over it. Robin was going to cover everything up again when he’d finished milking. But instead, you had to go and stick your nose in. It’s all your stupid fault.’ And she closed her eyes, saying no more. Tears started trickling down her cheeks and running into the papery covering of the trolley. The paramedic, who had been watching over Janey with an air of disapproval, said ‘Hey! You’re not meant to make her cry.’

  Phil held up his hands in apology and shifted a few inches along the plastic bench they’d allocated him. The ambulance was driving fast but smoothly, his back no more than a dull ache. He thought about what he knew of Janey Holmes.

  He had once heard a theory that very fat people are trying to draw notice to themselves, often after a childhood spent being ignored. Perhaps a twin would feel this need more strongly than most. Or a middle child in a big family. Or somebody consigned to a day nursery from their first few weeks. Distractedly, he thought he might have suddenly stumbled upon an explanation for the epidemic of childhood obesity – but he brushed it to one side.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ he noted. ‘We ought to call somebody to come and be with you, and take you home again. I doubt if it’ll take very long to deal with your neck. In the olden days, they’ve have sent a GP out to the house to patch you up.’

  ‘The good old days, eh?’ she said, with a brave effort at maintaining her aplomb. He wondered at her flurry of tear
s. Who was she weeping for?

  * * *

  At the hospital, Phil phoned Thea and ascertained that she was well protected by two uniformed officers, and was trying to explain to them just what had happened. ‘It isn’t much of a story,’ she said. ‘All I can think to say was that a stone came crashing through the window and a shard of glass got Janey in the neck.’

  ‘That’s about it,’ he agreed. ‘Which is why I didn’t think I’d be needed there as well. Plus—’ the full truth of this only now became clear to him ‘while I’m here I’d better talk to Giles, if he’s well enough.’

  ‘Officially or unofficially?’

  ‘Both,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t think there’s any real distinction.’

  ‘You think he might confess to the murder?’

  ‘Unlikely. As I see it, he’s never really been on the list of suspects.’

  ‘I could have been right about Fiona, you know,’ Thea said stubbornly. ‘It did make sense.’

  ‘We’re a long way from closure yet,’ he said.

  ‘Closure! Please!’ Thea begged. ‘I thought we’d agreed that was on the banned list.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, quelling the irritation at her continuing flippancy. ‘Look – I’m going now. I’ll try to keep you posted.’

  ‘Are you phoning from inside the hospital? You know that’s against the rules.’

  ‘Not any more. They gave up trying to enforce it a year ago. Bye, love. See you soon.’

  Giles Pritchett looked young and very poorly. From the chest down, he was a mass of technological enhancement – tubes, monitors, dressings. It was dreadful to witness the consequences of just one bullet fired into a man’s abdomen. ‘Hello?’ Phil said quietly. ‘Giles?’

  The eyes opened blearily, and took some time to focus. ‘Hello,’ he said, with a frown. ‘What do you want?’