Revenge in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘It’s the A435,’ he told her. ‘Just north of the A417. They’ll find it.’

  Jessica shook her head briefly and relayed the information, repeating it twice. Finishing the call, she turned back to the injured man. ‘They shouldn’t be very long. One of us can go back to the junction and wait for them. They might not see us otherwise.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Thea, but Steve was quicker. He got into his car and reversed the short way back to where they had turned off the larger road. Shrugging, she looked at Jack Handy. ‘Did somebody hit you?’ she asked.

  He gave no reply and Jessica threw her a sharp look. But Thea was already deep in thought, the murder of another man very prominent in her mind. If Handy had been attacked in a similar way – perhaps even intended for a tumble into the same quarry, which was barely a quarter of a mile away – then didn’t that prove that he had not killed the first victim? Didn’t that suggest that the original assumptions as to motives were awry?

  The man was terribly pale, his skin almost grey under the streaks of blood. The shoulders of his jacket were splashed with red, and his fingers looked as if they’d been stuck together by the congealing gore from his head wound. He was taking deep noisy breaths, which appeared to be calming him, but he swayed more and more until he flopped onto his back. But he was still able to lift his head at Thea’s question and his eyes met hers.

  ‘There was a gang of them,’ he said clearly. Then, ‘Ouch!’

  Jessica was gently inspecting the wound, which was to one side of his crown. Most of his hair was matted and dark on that side, and the girl had pulled some of it slightly. ‘The bleeding’s nearly stopped,’ she reported. ‘Did you black out?’

  He frowned. ‘Might have done. They’d all disappeared when I opened my eyes. That bloody dog was no use,’ he added thickly. ‘Just danced around them barking. Got hold of one lad’s ankle for a minute, that’s all. He soon kicked her off.’

  ‘It’s a collie,’ Thea defended instinctively. ‘What did you expect? And besides, she’s old. They might have hit her as well if she’d got too close.’

  ‘Could be,’ he admitted. ‘Anyhow, looks as if I’ll live.’

  ‘Your skull might be cracked. There could be a swelling of the brain. You’ll have to be watched,’ Jessica said briskly. ‘But the signs are fairly encouraging,’ she added. Thea suspected it was more for the sake of providing reassurance than an accurate observation. After all, he was obviously no longer able to sit upright.

  ‘A gang?’ Thea repeated. ‘Did you know them?’

  ‘Those protesters,’ he panted. ‘Girls, mostly. A couple of blokes. Shouting about their mate Danny and how it must’ve been me who chucked him in the quarry. Warning me I’d not get away with it. I told them to bugger off, and the one chap hit me with my own stick. Not just the once, either. The girls pushed me at him and he laid into me.’ He put a hand to his cheek. ‘Hurts here,’ he said. ‘And I’ve lost a tooth.’

  Mother and daughter peered closer through the obscuring blood, and found swellings in several places on his face. ‘Nasty,’ said Jessica. ‘You’re going to have to press charges against them. I assume you know who they are?’

  ‘Are you police?’ he asked thickly. His eyelids were fluttering and his mouth hung open after he’d spoken.

  ‘He’s losing consciousness,’ said Jessica urgently. ‘Where’s that ambulance?’

  ‘I can hear something,’ said Thea. ‘No siren, though.’

  ‘No need out here. It’s only intended to get traffic out of the way.’

  Less than half a minute later, an ambulance came down the road, only just getting past Thea’s car and into the gateway. Two bulky paramedics jumped into action, asking staccato questions and festooning the patient with devices presumably designed to record his vital signs.

  ‘Where’s Steve?’ asked Thea. ‘Chap in a dirty white car.’

  Nobody replied and she forgot him in the excitement. The ambulance people seemed worried, and one of them went to speak on the radio in the vehicle.

  ‘Where will you take him?’ Jessica asked the other one.

  ‘And what about his dog?’ wondered Thea. The shaggy animal was pacing restlessly, making little growls and whines. There was mud up its legs and around its neck.

  The ambulance man ignored the question that was beyond his remit and answered the other. ‘John Radcliffe, most likely. Don’t like his readings, to be honest with you. Don’t you know him?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Thea. ‘I’ve met him once, that’s all. He was talking to us two minutes ago, perfectly lucidly.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said the man unconvincingly. ‘The police are aware there’s an incident. They ought to show up any time. We’ll make sure they know it’s a case of foul play.’

  ‘There must be people around who’ll take the dog, if they have to,’ said Jessica. ‘Hasn’t he got any family?’

  Thea blinked. ‘I really don’t know,’ she said, racking her brains for any mention of a wife or child during their brief ride four days ago. ‘I don’t even know where he lives.’

  ‘Won’t be too difficult to find out,’ said Jessica stoutly. ‘We know his name, don’t we?’

  ‘Jack Handy,’ nodded Thea.

  ‘I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, but I thought he said “Dandy”,’ smiled the girl. ‘Lucky you know better.’

  The sheepdog came slowly up to them and nudged Thea’s arm with her nose. ‘Poor Rags,’ Thea murmured. ‘We’ll see you’re all right, okay?’ She stroked the black-and-white head, and then ran her hand down one side. ‘You’re very matted, aren’t you?’ she muttered. ‘I bet you live in an outside shed or something. Might not even be house-trained.’

  ‘You know its name?’ Jessica was surprised.

  ‘We were introduced. I remembered because it’s a male name for a female dog. And I’ve got a thing about dogs, in case you haven’t noticed.’

  The ambulance was preparing to leave. ‘Not coming?’ they asked, not expecting a positive reply.

  ‘Where did Steve go?’ Thea wondered afresh. ‘Did he meet you at the junction, to show you where to come?’

  The paramedics shook their heads. ‘We saw your car down here,’ they said, ‘and assumed that was where we were needed.’ Then they drove off, leaving Thea to try to calculate how far away Oxford must be. It had to be thirty miles at least.

  ‘Doesn’t that seem suspicious?’ she asked, thinking about the Steve person.

  Jessica confirmed this with a frown. ‘Weird,’ she said.

  ‘We can vouch for him,’ Thea said slowly. ‘I mean – that he wasn’t one of the attackers. He drove up behind us. But he might have known it was happening. They were his friends. Although, he called him uncle. He might have been deliberately left out, because of that.’

  Jessica was standing with her arms wrapped around herself, leaning against Thea’s car. ‘I hope he comes round and tells the local chaps the whole story,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to get drawn into it.’

  ‘Do we have to wait here? Why are they taking so long?’

  ‘They’ve got my number, so they’ll find us, in any case. Or I can call again, and tell them where we are. Give them another couple of minutes and then we can go.’

  ‘We’ll have to take Rags. And what about the Land Rover? We can’t go, Jess.’

  ‘Right. Sorry. I ought to have thought.’

  They hung about for five more minutes, trying to reassure the worried sheepdog, until a police car finally materialised. Two uniformed officers got out and asked a lot of very basic and not very relevant questions. ‘I’m with the Manchester force,’ Jessica told them, after a while. ‘I know how this goes. Can we find out Mr Handy’s address and take his dog home? We’ll do it, if you tell us where to go.’

  The men blinked at the deviation from protocol. They were slightly older than Jessica, their uniforms neat and clean, their faces bland. They said ‘madam’ a lot, to both Thea and her daughter. They showed ve
ry little sign of grasping the significant features of the incident, and kept staring at the Land Rover as if expecting its owner to be somewhere inside it.

  ‘You can find his address through the vehicle registration,’ Jessica said helpfully.

  ‘Have you got ID?’ one of them asked her. ‘Anyone could say they were a police officer.’ He scratched his cheek. ‘Around here, it wouldn’t come as a surprise, either. You could be one of these eco-idiots, for all we know.’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Thea crossly. ‘And we’re getting cold and a bit impatient, quite honestly. Neither of us lives around here. We’ve just got involved by accident. The man was attacked. He knows at least some of the people who did it. We can help you to get it straight, if you just listen for a minute.’

  ‘All right, madam,’ said the man ponderously. The ghost of a mountain of paperwork hovered before all their eyes. ‘Might this be connected to the death of the man in the quarry at the weekend, do you think?’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ said Thea. ‘The same people are involved. Mr Handy was – last I heard – one of the prime suspects for having killed him. I think you probably need to speak to Detective Inspector Higgins, and get yourselves up to speed on it all. This is wasting everybody’s time.’

  The effort to remain polite was plainly considerable. ‘Mother!’ Jessica gasped. ‘Behave yourself.’

  ‘Well, they’re impossible. We’ve stayed here waiting for them in the cold; we’ve offered to take the dog home, when that’s obviously their job; we’re trying to explain what’s happened and all they can do is ask for identification and what our mother’s maiden names might be.’

  ‘DI Higgins?’ said the second man, who was smaller and quieter, but no quicker on the uptake than his partner.

  ‘Yes. He knows me. I’ve seen him very recently. Haven’t you got access to the case file about all this? Didn’t anybody even make the connection when Jack Handy’s name came up?’

  ‘It didn’t come up, Ma,’ said Jessica. ‘I didn’t give a name when I called the nines. They have no way of knowing.’

  ‘Well, now they do. Just get his address, and we can go. Jeremy knows where I am if he wants me.’

  The use of the DI’s first name was a calculated gamble. She hoped it would intimidate these constables into a better quality of attention. It could easily have gone the wrong way, but it seemed to have worked.

  ‘That’s your car?’ queried the talkative one.

  ‘Yes. And the spaniel inside it is mine as well. This dog here, named Rags, belongs to Mr Handy. We’re hoping he has a wife or other relative at home who can take custody of it.’ A thought struck her. ‘A person who presumably by now is aware of his injuries and might be on her – or his – way to Oxford, or wherever they’ve taken him.’ The ramifications began to overwhelm her. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned. ‘This is too much. How do we know what to do, if you can’t even get the simplest details sorted?’

  The officers decided to give up. ‘We have your contact details. We can call you when we know more about Mr …’ he glanced at his notes ‘Handy’s situation. If you could kindly take charge of his dog in the meantime, that would be appreciated. We need to secure this crime scene and wait for back-up.’

  ‘We can go?’ Thea could hardly believe it.

  ‘They don’t need us, Ma,’ said Jessica tightly. ‘Let’s get back to the house. The corgi will be feeling neglected.’

  ‘God, yes. So she will, poor thing. And stop calling me Ma,’ she added. It was bad enough in a text – out loud in front of policemen, it was outrageous.

  Rags climbed onto the back seat beside Hepzie with a look that said I will do as you say, but I’m not at all sure it’s wise. Thea sighed. Intelligent dogs always bothered her, the way they could see through human failings, and yet still maintained their loyalty. This one was muddy and scruffy, as well.

  ‘That was a completely ludicrous business,’ she snapped, as they drove away. ‘Why were they so stupid?’

  ‘They weren’t really. They had to get things in the right order. It was us as much as them. We were wrong to assume they knew who the man was. That was fairly stupid, actually. They’ll get it all straight in no time and let us know what to do with the dog.’

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ Thea’s sense of losing control gained ground as she imagined the next few hours. ‘I can’t just introduce a strange dog into the Fosters’ house. It might kill Gwennie. It might pee on their carpet.’ Looking at the road layout ahead, an association struck her. ‘I know! I can go to Baunton and see if the Whiteacres can help. They’ll know where Jack Handy lives, for a start, and whether he’s got a wife. I might even leave Rags with them.’ The dog was licking urgently at a front paw on the back seat. When Thea glanced back, she whined, and rubbed at her nose with the licked foot. ‘I hope they didn’t hurt her,’ she worried. A sudden choking-cum-coughing sound only increased her anxiety. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked. The dog wagged a slow tail, and coughed again.

  ‘It’s nearly half past three,’ Jessica said in alarm, ignoring any concerns about the dog. ‘It’ll be midnight before I get home at this rate.’

  ‘More like about seven,’ said Thea. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I need a good night’s sleep. I told you. There’s a lot going on. We’re all meant to be on top form.’

  ‘Better than that dozy pair we just met, then.’

  ‘Stop it. Who are these White-what’s-it people, anyway?’

  ‘A very nice family who I met on Sunday. I told you about them, remember? They’ve got five children and two dogs. They seem to know all the local characters, and Sheila turned up just after the fire yesterday. She’ll be wanting to know how I’m getting on. I think I can find the house again. It’s Baunton. That’s left here, on the main road, look.’

  ‘I can’t get the geography straight,’ Jessica admitted. ‘I don’t know how anybody managed before there were satnavs.’

  ‘Maps,’ said Thea shortly, thinking that Carl would have been horrified at his daughter’s remark. He had taught her how to work a map when she was about six.

  ‘Right. Hey, you two – settle down.’ Both dogs in the back were standing up and jumping about, in a dance that was not entirely friendly. They gave Jessica mutinous looks. ‘Behave yourselves,’ she ordered.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Thea asked, trying to see them in the mirror. ‘If they start fighting, I’ll probably crash the car.’

  ‘They’re not happy. Why do your adventures always involve troublesome dogs?’

  ‘They don’t. Sometimes I don’t have any dogs at all to worry about. Except Hepzie, of course, and she’s no trouble when she’s on her own.’

  ‘That Steve person,’ Jessica said slowly. ‘Have I got this right – he’s one of the eco-warriors or whatever they are? And Mr Handy said they were the ones who attacked him? So Steve must have known them. That must be why he made himself scarce instead of waiting for the ambulance. But he knew we’d seen him.’

  ‘Right.’ Thea was still worrying about the dogs.

  ‘It was a crime scene, in that field. They’ll have to go over it – and the Land Rover. And if he stays unconscious, we’re the only ones who’ve got any idea what happened to him. That’s awkward,’ she concluded. ‘Very awkward, if he doesn’t wake up soon and tell the story for himself.’

  ‘He won’t die, will he?’ The idea had not occurred to her up to then.

  ‘Probably not. The John Radcliffe’s pretty good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Famously so. But it’ll take them half an hour at least to get there. He might die on the way.’

  ‘They have a whole mass of machines and stuff in the ambulance. He’ll be okay.’

  ‘It must have been a sort of vigilante thing. Taking revenge, because they don’t think the police will ever charge him for killing Danny,’ Thea mused. ‘But it’s odd that it’s a weekday. They’ve all got proper jobs, according to Sheila. They only do the protesting and campaigning at weekends.’ />
  ‘Lunch hour,’ Jessica suggested. ‘Stop it, you dogs.’

  The sudden shouted order had some effect and things quietened down on the back seat. ‘Nearly there,’ said Thea. ‘It’s one of those, if I remember rightly.’

  Two large houses stood on opposite sides of the road, and Thea pulled up outside the one on their left. ‘Isn’t it gorgeous!’

  ‘Looks as if they’re in.’ Three cars were parked in the generous driveway, forcing Thea to stay out in the road. ‘You go, and I’ll stay here to keep order,’ Jessica suggested.

  ‘Okay.’ Feeling overloaded and mildly resentful, Thea walked up to the house. She rang the doorbell and waited.

  After a lengthy silence, the door opened and Tiffany was there, looking pale and puzzled. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  It was difficult to tell the story succinctly, standing on a doorstep, but she thought she did it rather well. ‘Jack Handy has been attacked and he’s been taken to hospital. I’ve got his dog. I need to take it home, but I don’t know where he lives.’

  ‘Mum!’ shouted the girl, into the hallway behind her. ‘Can you come here?’ She turned back to Thea. ‘I don’t get why you’re involved in it. Why can’t you just mind your own business?’ She spoke softly, with a furious cat-like hiss. Her eyes widened and her lower jaw jutted. ‘You have no idea what you’re doing, have you?’

  Thea had been spoken to in similar ways many times. It always struck her as very unfair. She would mind her own business, if people gave her the chance. Speechlessly, she reran the events of the afternoon, in an effort to justify herself. Surely nobody would simply have driven past that gateway without looking to see if there was a problem? Any normal person would have stopped as she had. Except, she admitted to herself, they probably wouldn’t and hadn’t. Most people assumed that it was not their concern, that whatever was happening could happen without them. ‘It was your friend Steve,’ she blurted. ‘He saw something, and I thought we should have a look as well.’

  Then Sheila Whiteacre was standing beside her daughter, both of them significantly taller than Thea anyway, and even more so from the extra height of the doorstep. ‘Where does Jack Handy live?’ she asked wearily. ‘That’s all I want to know.’