by Rebecca Tope
She presumed that by this time, Danny’s parents had been located and the dreadful news conveyed. She wondered if Nella had spoken to them about the funeral. If so, surely there would be a degree of open communication between the absent parents and the bereaved fiancee. Nella would probably make the arrangements once the body was released, and the bereaved couple would fly back in time for the actual funeral.
But she would have liked to know more, for reasons she was reluctant to investigate. Was the nagging curiosity mainly born of the aggressive instruction from the three young women to keep away, causing a perverse wish to do the very opposite? There did not appear to be any other explanation that she could find. It was a deep urge, going right back to early childhood, in which she hated to feel ignorant. She would grow furious at her sisters if she suspected they were keeping anything from her. Anybody whispering in her presence would suffer a torrent of insistent questions as to what they had said. And more than that, she had never liked to be told what to do.
Carl had found ways to soften her obstinacy, patiently explaining that people needed their privacy, that their secrets had nothing to do with her, and that there were more positive ways of channelling her curiosity. He encouraged historical research projects, often conducted purely for their own sake, following a topic as far into the past as she could, by means of the Internet and visits to museums and archives. For much of her thirties, she had made this a passionate hobby, intending to turn it into paid employment. But there never seemed to be a relevant job available, and gradually her interest waned. By the time Carl died, she had more or less abandoned it completely and hardly missed it. Only when the new career as a widowed house-sitter took over her life did she find that the basic nosiness that was her character had not gone away. She had not been able to resist burrowing into people’s lives and discovering how they connected and what they had done before she met them.
So here she was again. She was inescapably intrigued. There was enough personal emotion involved for it to matter directly to her. Jack Handy had been friendly. Sophie had been horrible. Sheila Whiteacre was fascinating. How anybody could possibly expect her to simply sit quietly for several days and ignore them all was a mystery.
‘Right, then,’ she announced to the dogs. ‘We’d better see how poor Rags is doing.’ It was a rhetorical ‘we’, because she had no intention of letting all the animals mingle. The spaniel and the corgi were given a few minutes in the back garden, and then shut in the kitchen before Thea went out to the garage carrying a small bag of dry dog food and cautiously pulled the door open a little way.
‘Rags?’ she called. ‘Are you okay?’
The building had originally been a large shed or small barn, separate from the house. The double doors had to be opened manually, with none of the usual Cotswold mechanisms that were operated from inside a car. There was no window, but it did have a light, which Thea switched on. Peering around, she could see no sign of her lodger. ‘Rags!’ she said again. ‘Where are you?’
From the shadows beneath her car, a long nose protruded, followed by a shaggy body crouched close to the ground. The dog whined and remained half concealed. ‘Come on, pet. I’ll take you home in a little while. You look as if you’ve had a miserable night.’
Rags glanced towards the door which Thea had closed securely behind herself. ‘You want to go out? Good girl. Here, wait a minute.’ She produced a lead from her pocket, and fumblingly attached it to the collar that the dog was providentially wearing, in place of the long piece of thin rope she had used as a tether during the night. Then she pushed the door open and led Rags out to the front drive, which was bordered with grass on either side.
Fifteen minutes later, with the collie looking more cheerful, willingly sharing the back seat of the car with Hepzie, they set out for North Cerney. It was nine-fifteen, the sun already showing every promise of a fine spring day.
The only details she remembered from Sheila Whiteacre’s directions were that she was seeking a farm on the left-hand side of the road which ran westwards out of the village towards Woodmancote. There was a cattle grid across the entrance, but somehow the farm’s name had not been mentioned.
It turned out to be perfectly easy because Rags knew the way, and left no room for doubt when her home gateway came into view. They rumbled over the grid and proceeded down the straight approach to a medium-sized stone farmhouse as lovely as any that Thea had ever seen. A stone barn beside it, a cobbled yard and well-kept dovecote all added to the picture-postcard impression. Woodwork was freshly painted, and the ground completely free of muck and mud. The house was shielded by mature trees and a garden to one side was thickly planted with budding daffodils. Long morning shadows lay across the yard and a field beyond.
Rags yapped and leapt from window to window on the back seat. Hepzie began to voice her displeasure at this and Thea hurriedly drew to a halt. She reached back and opened the car door to release the dog, who, after jumping out, stood perfectly still listening for something.
Tempted as she was to simply pull the door shut and drive away, Thea debated with herself for a moment. What if the house were empty, and liable to remain so for days? Did the farm have livestock that had to be tended? It was the lambing season, and it seemed very unlikely that there were no sheep on the property.
The dilemma was resolved by the front door of the house opening and a woman appearing. ‘Hello?’ she called.
Rags manifested extreme relief and affection, bounding up to the woman and sitting down at her feet, tail wagging. Unlike Hepzie, Thea noted. Her dog would have leapt and bounced, leaving muddy marks on the woman’s clothes. There was a lot to be said for a collie, who did as it was trained to do, however extreme its emotions might be.
She pushed open her door and got out of the car. ‘I hope you weren’t worried about her,’ she said. ‘The police knew I had her.’
‘I’m afraid I never gave her a thought.’
Thea gave the woman a careful scrutiny. Middle height, wide hips, grey hair. Aged around seventy, wearing old clothes and wellington boots. A pleasant open face, with signs of strain and exhaustion. ‘How is he?’ Thea asked softly.
‘No change. They made me come home at eleven last night. I’ve only been up a little while. I have to do the hens. I didn’t hear you arrive.’ Belatedly, she reached down and stroked the collie’s head. ‘Poor Rags. You must have had quite an adventure.’
‘I’m Thea Osborne.’ She paused, as if waiting for a gesture of recognition. When none came, she added, ‘I met Mr Handy on Saturday. And again yesterday, actually. Just after he was attacked.’
‘I’m Sandra. Sandy. I don’t know you, do I?’
Thea was mentally reciting Sandy Handy to herself, wondering if that really was the woman’s name. Jack’s stepmother, which was how Sheila Whiteacre had described her, would be the wife of Jack’s father, and therefore surely Mrs Handy. She attended to the question distractedly. ‘No, no. I’m just here for a couple of weeks. I’m house-sitting in Daglingworth. It was just a fluke that I was driving past where it happened, and—’
‘Sorry. I really must do the hens. Come with me if you like.’
She led the way around the house to a very large low building. As they drew near, a warm sound could be heard, flowing like a rich liquid, rising and falling, throaty and calming. ‘I’m late,’ said Sandy. ‘They’re getting restless.’
She pulled open a metal door and revealed a scene like nothing Thea had ever witnessed. An ocean of brown and white birds covered every inch of the floor. They simply stood there, moving only slightly, crooning musically. ‘Golly!’ said Thea. ‘How many are there?’
‘Two thousand or so. Stay there if you’d rather. It’s a bit unnerving walking through them.’ She opened a tall metal canister at the top and scooped a bucketful of feed from it. Then another. ‘This takes a while. Do you mind? I would like to talk to you.’
‘I’ll help,’ Thea offered. ‘What do we have to do?’
&nbs
p; The routine was readily explained, with several feeders pointed out, in locations across the vast living floor. ‘They’re free range, are they?’ Thea asked.
‘Technically it’s called the barn system. They almost never go outside, even though in theory they can. They lay in those boxes.’ She pointed out a triple row of nesting boxes all along one wall. ‘It’s all very low-tech, compared to most. Labour-intensive, I think you’d call it.’
‘I can see,’ agreed Thea. ‘These feeders must take a lot of cleaning, for a start.’ The circular contraptions were covered with muck, some of which had fallen into the sections intended for drinking water.
‘I do them a few at a time. The ones at the far end are the cleanest at the moment.’
The smell was strong but not unpleasant. The softness of the feathery creatures against her ankles was perfectly tolerable. The building was warm and alive and contentment altogether evident. The birds did not rush for food, but seemed to form orderly queues for a share. Thea had to remind herself that this was far more intensive than anything the hens might experience in nature. They could not scratch about for their own food, nor raise their own chicks. As she looked more closely, she saw how scruffy most of them were, with bald patches and missing tail feathers. She imagined their lives were short, boring and restricted.
‘I’ll give you some eggs,’ said Sandy. ‘As a reward for bringing Rags home.’
Thea laughed. ‘Just a couple would be nice, thanks.’
They went back to the house together, passing Thea’s car. ‘Is that your dog?’ asked Sandy.
‘It is. She’s called Hepzibah. She and Rags got along fairly well together, but I doubt they’ll miss each other.’
‘Is she all right there? I don’t allow dogs in the house.’
‘She’ll be fine, if I’m not too long.’ Rags had disappeared, presumably settling down in whichever barn or shed she called home. ‘You probably want to get back to Oxford, anyway.’
‘Not for a while. If Jack’s still in a coma, I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense, anyway. I wasn’t designed for hours of sitting by a bedside. It’s desperately dull.’
‘Apparently they can often hear you if you talk to them.’
‘I dare say, but after five minutes I run out of conversation. What am I meant to talk about?’
Thea gave a sympathetic grunt and left it at that. She was trying to work out how distressed this woman was, and therefore how close she was to her stepson. So far, the primary emotion appeared to be exasperation.
‘We can sit in here.’ Mrs Handy led her visitor into a very large kitchen, boasting a huge pine table and a wall full of shelves stretching to the high ceiling, painted in a duck-egg blue that Thea suspected had been out of fashion for fifteen years or so. Everything was polished and dusted and neatly aligned. Expensive copper pans gleamed from a shelf above a row of Poole pottery. She wondered whether Cotswold Life had got around to featuring this room as a classic farmhouse kitchen, and if not, why not.
‘What a lovely kitchen!’ she gasped.
‘Most of it’s due to my predecessor, quite honestly. She bought that table, and all those copper things.’
‘Jack’s mother?’ Thea enquired tentatively. ‘Is that right?’
Sandy blinked at her. ‘You have done your homework, haven’t you!’ There was no hint of annoyance. Rather she seemed mildly flattered. ‘Yes, I am the second Mrs Handy. I was married to Jack’s father, Roland, for three years before he died. He was twenty years older than me, but I still felt very cheated. Jack’s mother had only been dead a year when he married me. Jack himself was married at the time, but his wife moved out not long afterwards. I like to think it wasn’t my fault, but there were certainly some tensions. Now he and I are here together, causing all sorts of scandal, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Thea almost drooled at these freely given revelations. It was meat and drink to her, as well as implying that she had been deemed a safe and trustworthy confidante by this woman. ‘What a story!’ she murmured. ‘Do you manage the whole farm between you?’
‘There’s a girl who comes in every couple of days to help with the house and the food. She’s due tomorrow. And a rather decrepit farm worker called Dennis who manages a bit of ditching and tractor work when it’s busy. I’m going to have to call him today and see if he can lend a hand.’ She wiped a hand across her brow as if to remove sweat.
Thea diagnosed a headache. ‘Look – I should go. I’m really sorry this happened. There are obviously some very unpleasant people out there. I liked your stepson when I met him. I hope he gets better quickly.’
‘I doubt whether that’s going to happen, but thanks for the kind thought. You’re right about the people. Those protesters have been gunning for us ever since we put that land on the market.’
‘They told me they didn’t actually object to it very strongly. Jack wasn’t one of their main targets, apparently. But they think it was him who …’ She bit back the words, unable to voice an accusation of murder, even indirectly. ‘I expect you knew about that?’ she finished weakly.
‘They’re so stupid, it makes me want to kill one of them myself,’ spat Sandy viciously. ‘They can’t see anything except for their own dogmatic opinions – which are mostly based on completely false information. Like those idiots who killed the paediatrician by mistake, years ago now. I’ve never been able to stop thinking about that. It shows how helpless we all are in the face of a mindless mob. No single person takes responsibility, that’s the real problem. They think they can get away with anything because there’s safety in numbers.’
‘Did you know Danny Compton? The one that was killed at the weekend?’
Sandy shook her head. ‘They were all the same to me – just a crowd of thugs.’
Thea hesitated, with a frown. ‘They’re actually quite ordinary and respectable, individually,’ she argued. ‘I don’t think they meant to hurt Jack badly.’
‘Are you defending them? Because if you are, you’re a lot more stupid than you look.’
‘Not at all,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I didn’t mean that. I know they were totally wrong to do what they did. It’s just that, well … Tiffany Whiteacre, for one. I think she’s basically okay. She’s very young.’
‘You’ve said enough. Thank you for taking the dog. That was a nice thing to do. Here are the eggs. I need to make some phone calls.’
The eggs were in a section of cardboard, like the bottom half of the usual box they came in. It had ragged edges, as if torn from a bigger tray. There were four.
‘Thanks,’ said Thea. ‘I am sorry, honestly. How will you manage – if he’s away for a long time?’
‘I told you – Dennis can come and help.’
‘No other members of the family?’ Thea was slowly moving towards the front door, knowing there was much more she’d like to ask. ‘There was a chap called Steve who called him Uncle Jack.’
‘That’s stretching it a bit. Steve Hobbes, he is. His mother’s a cousin of some sort. We never see anything of them. But Jack has got two sons, who both live abroad. They’re in their thirties. They have no interest in farming – only the money that’s tied up in the land. It was their idea to sell the corner field, and see where that’s landed us.’
This time Thea swallowed down the reply she would have liked to make. It was one thing for a step-grandmother to criticise, and another for a stranger to agree. As Sandy herself had pointed out, Thea Osborne had already said enough.
‘Just one thing,’ she remembered, as she crossed the threshold. ‘Don’t the protesters object to your intensive chicken farming? I mean – it’s a long way from free range, isn’t it?’ The image of the packed floor and docile birds had stayed with her. ‘I would think they’d find it unacceptable.’
‘Not your problem,’ said Sandy Handy, and closed the door between them.
Chapter Sixteen
It was almost eleven on a sunny spring morning, and Thea had no obligations for a while, apart from
lonely old Gwennie asleep in her kitchen. Elderly dogs, however, liked to sleep a lot. They liked a quiet life in a warm place with very little excitement. Staying away for much of the day was probably the best thing Thea and her spaniel could do. If the afternoon continued warm and sunny, she would move the tortoise outside and see if it woke up. Meanwhile, there was a lot of exploring she could cheerfully do. She would forget all about the belligerent Sophie and Nella and Ricky, and let them stew in whatever perverse ways they might choose. As they had quite rightly told her, it was none of her business.
There was nothing more she could do for Jack Handy or his stepmother, having returned the dog. The only person she could be remotely useful to was Drew, who was very slowly inching towards a decision about his property in Broad Campden and might be helped along the way by somebody on the ground.
The house was of substantial value and had been left to Drew a year before. There were, however, conditions. His benefactor had added a proviso that he open a natural burial ground on land she had regarded as hers, before taking full possession of the house. In compliance with this, he had obtained outline consent for just such a burial ground, and then simply stalled. The house stood empty and the consent was time-limited. Whilst potentially crucial to his long-term finances, in the short term it would require investment that he did not possess. Various strategies had been discussed, all of them featuring Maggs as a prominent participant. Now, if Maggs was to be interrupted by a baby, she could not be guaranteed as an active partner for a significant period of time. Her husband was already stating flatly that he was against any removal to the Cotswolds.
‘At least I can go and make sure the house is all right,’ said Thea to her dog. ‘And I promise we won’t go to that pub that refuses to let you in.’
