by Rebecca Tope
She had to go through the centre of Snowshill to get to Broadway, passing the pub and the church and the Manor and all the lovely little cottages. Within minutes she was passing Broadway’s church on her left and turning into the main street that so many tourists found irresistible, but which left Thea rather unmoved. The only part of Broadway she admired was the cul-de-sac at the eastern end of the high street, where the houses were seriously gorgeous and historic.
The road took her round a bend to the left, and to the school where Gladwin was waiting for her.
The interview was recorded, and although everyone was perfectly friendly, with the detective superintendent the same as always, there was a subtle atmosphere of wary reproach. Why, she could hear them wondering, did this woman always know so much? Was she a witch? Or the cleverest possible arch-criminal? What amazing skill did she possess, whereby she landed herself in the midst of one murder investigation after another, all too often identifying the villain ahead of everybody else?
Thea herself had asked these questions many times. In Cranham, the glimmerings of an explanation had begun to emerge. The laws of cause and effect were working in the reverse direction from that which people assumed. The presence of a house-sitter acted as an enabling element in the minds of those plotting a crime. The normal systems were disrupted, leaving a gap for evildoing. It was a realisation that brought some shock with it. Taken to its logical conclusion, it would spell the end of her career before very much longer. The police would start to follow her from in front, as it were, staking out anywhere she was in charge of, in the expectation of a murder. No self-respecting householder was going to stand for that. Even with the positive spin she had managed to put on it – whereby she did at least help to catch the killer and restore order – the stain never quite went away. In Frampton Mansell and Temple Guiting, as well as Cold Aston and Cranham, she had been instrumental in blackening a few characters whom nobody had suspected of anything at all illicit.
And now, in Snowshill, it seemed to be worse than ever before. She was right in the heart of the murders, virtually witnessing them as they took place. Anybody but Gladwin might have harboured serious suspicions as to her culpability.
‘Is there anything else?’ the DS asked her, after twenty minutes of questions. ‘Even if it’s only guesses.’
Thea pondered, trying to review the five days since she arrived in Snowshill. Fragmentary images were viewed and dismissed: the long-legged black dog in the churchyard, the ghosts in the Manor and the pub, Janice and Ruby fretting over their garden and the feeling of being under siege, Yvonne’s ridiculous clutter, Gudrun winning international swimming races, the surreal dead mouse in her pocket … ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said, before adding, ‘You’ll speak to Blake Grossman, I suppose? He says he was in Ankara on a trade delegation.’
Gladwin looked away quickly, as if caught off guard by mention of the name. But she instantly recovered, with a wry smile. ‘Don’t worry. We’re speaking to everybody – again.’
‘Especially Gudrun,’ Thea suggested with an unhappy shiver. ‘Do you think this throws doubt on whether she really did kill Stevie?’
Gladwin pursed her lips and said nothing.
‘I’ll never be able to believe it,’ Thea said. ‘In spite of the evidence, I can’t imagine her doing it. You didn’t see her when I did. It feels almost criminal to accuse her of such a terrible thing.’
‘You’ll make a great witness for the defence,’ said Gladwin glumly.
‘How is she? Is anybody looking after her?’
The DS raised her eyebrows. ‘She’s in custody, of course. Solitary, for her own good. She obviously isn’t happy, but I’m not sure that being in a cell is making it very much worse than it was already. She’s shown a few fits of temper, I gather.’
‘I’m not surprised. If somebody had killed her only child, you’d expect her to be out for revenge.’
‘It’s not that sort of temper. It’s directed at us, “for being such fools”, to use her own words.’
‘Poor Gudrun.’ Thea’s throat was thick with the sympathy she felt. ‘I’m tempted to agree with her, to be honest, even if you do think you’ve got damning evidence against her. I think she was framed.’
Gladwin glanced uneasily at the tape machine, still running. She held up a hand, and dictated, ‘Interview terminated at 4.04 p.m.’ Then she switched it off. ‘Sorry – I should have done that five minutes earlier. That’s going to lead to a few awkward questions.’
‘Oh?’ Thea frowned in puzzlement.
‘You mentioned the evidence against Gudrun. You’re not supposed to know about that.’
‘Oops!’
‘It’s my own fault. Don’t worry – I can swing it … probably. You didn’t go into any detail, luckily. It depends on how this whole business turns out, of course.’
Thea glanced around at the school hall where they were sitting at a small table, with makeshift screens erected for a degree of privacy. She had seen these ad hoc incident rooms before, set up in any local space large enough to accommodate computers, whiteboards, telephones, and a team of dedicated police officers. Ideally this one would be in Snowshill itself, but nobody was going to expect the National Trust to accede to the use of their precious Manor, and the pub was hardly suitable.
What was happening in Crouch End, she wondered? Maybe there was a similarly empty primary school, although she doubted it. There would be busy holiday clubs and urgent staff meetings, probably throughout the summer holiday. Even in Somerset, Drew had said there was an activity week coming up shortly, which his children were signed up for.
‘Can I go now?’ she asked.
* * *
Late afternoons had always been Thea’s least favourite time of day. The long evening still stretched ahead, with its limited options, the events of the day bringing strands of emotion that had to be processed. Summarising the day so far, the word ‘surprise’ seemed to be pre-eminent. Surprise that first Blake and then Belinda had come to the door of Hyacinth House, and something bigger and nastier than surprise at Belinda’s subsequent discovery in Crouch End.
But there was also surprise at her own responses. The suggestions and implications that perhaps Gudrun was after all innocent of killing her boy brought hope with them, and some flickers of excitement at having a new mystery to think about. It was shameful, surely, to feel anything positive in the face of such dreadful happenings. She ought to be deep in sympathetic misery for the losses endured by the survivors. The trouble was, she realised, that at that precise moment she had no idea which survivors were deserving of her compassion. Somebody had done wicked and terrible things, and it might well be one of the people she had spoken to during the past week.
It was five o’clock when she finally allowed herself to phone Drew, after ten minutes of inner wrangling. It was an unequal contest – of course there was no earthly reason not to update him on the news, after his involvement the previous day. With luck Maggs would have gone home, and so not catch him speaking to his forbidden friend. He might be getting tea for his children, or watching them play outside, or finalising the business of the day. She had only briefly glimpsed his burial ground and the house and office that formed part of the same property, but it was enough to be able to imagine him in a variety of activities.
‘Peaceful Repose Burials,’ he recited into the phone. Thea tried to put herself in the shoes of a recently bereaved person, looking for a funeral, and could not help feeling that Drew fell somewhere short of the ideal. His tone was flat and automatic, as if he was thinking about something else entirely.
Which he almost certainly was, of course.
‘It’s me. Thea,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t your phone tell you who’s calling?’
‘Yes, yes, but I just grabbed it without looking properly. The sun’s on the screen, so I can’t read it easily.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘More or less, if living in a perpetual state of limbo can be okay. I had r
ather an awful conversation with the kids this morning, and we haven’t entirely recovered from it yet. And Maggs is falling apart. She found out where I went yesterday and that led to a whole lot of aggravation. It’s been like a long line of dominoes knocking each other over. And it’s still going on. I have to go to the hospital soon, with all that that involves.’
‘I feel as if some of it at least might be sort of my fault,’ she suggested.
‘Maggs would agree with you.’
‘And you?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think my judgement can be relied on just at the moment. Why did you phone?’
‘Victor Parker’s dead. He was right there in that house, stabbed to death, as we stood outside talking to that nanny.’
Drew said nothing for several seconds. ‘Are you sure?’ he finally managed. ‘That seems incredible.’
‘I did tell you about hearing him cry out and a woman screaming. I knew it was something serious, but somehow talked myself out of getting too concerned. Everything there seemed so ordinary and normal, didn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure I know what’s normal for places like that – but yes, I suppose it did. So you’re a kind of witness to two murders now.’ He almost sounded envious, and Thea gave a short huff of laughter.
‘I sort of am, yes. At least I did everything right – contacted the police, as well as actually going to London. I think they should regard me as a model citizen. Obviously now there’s a massive murder investigation, with the Metropolitan people taking over, and media coverage and all sorts.’
‘And a rethink about the little boy in your village,’ he said slowly. ‘I assume.’
‘Right. Although I have a nasty feeling they’ll do their best to pin both murders on Gudrun. Then nobody loses face.’
Drew made a low moan. ‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t what? What do you mean?’
‘I can’t get involved. I can’t even let you tell me about it any more. There’s too much happening here. The children need me, even with Karen’s mother here.’
‘Is she staying all through the holiday?’
‘We don’t know. She’ll have to be back and forth from North Wales, if so. Her husband’s having an awful time without her, or so he says. They’re both in pieces over Karen, of course.’
‘But she must be quite useful?’
‘Oh yes,’ he sighed. ‘She does free me and Maggs up to get some work done, at least. But the business can’t stand a lot more of this. We hardly dare book any funerals at all, in case we won’t manage to be here at the right time on the right day. Look at yesterday – I came within a whisker of missing that one.’
‘Which had nothing to do with Karen,’ she reminded him with a pang of guilt. ‘I do see what you mean about me and my problems being one demand too many.’
‘“Demand” isn’t the right word,’ he corrected. ‘Not exactly.’
‘I think it is,’ she argued gently. ‘I think it’s exactly the right word. Look – call me any time you think I can help. Just to dump on, that sort of thing. Apart from that, I don’t really see …’ She didn’t know what she had intended to say, but he understood anyway.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Thea. Good luck with your murders.’
Chapter Twenty
Maggs had watched Drew closely all day, while trying not to let him notice she was doing so. Her tearful outburst the previous evening had left her feeling ashamed and resentful in equal measure. And frightened. Peaceful Repose was all the life she knew, and she retained undimmed her high ambitions for it. So what if progress had been so halting since they opened nearly seven years ago? They were still in business, still attracting customers from a wide area, and even an object of some local pride. The Slocombe family had taken her into their midst, from the outset. Drew had always treated her as an equal partner, permitting her into his personal life without question. He had rejoiced when she and Den had got together, having been there from the first moments. His children regarded her as something between an aunt and a big sister, and she cared deeply about their welfare. She worried about Timmy, disapproving of Drew’s obvious preference for his daughter.
There had been moments when Maggs had worried for the Slocombe marriage, especially when Drew became inappropriately entangled with a woman named Genevieve, nearly ten years his senior. Then another, even older, named Roma, had become a close friend. Drew liked women rather too much at times. And they liked him with his open face and ready smile, even if he was an undertaker. They trusted him to accept their emotional turmoil without running away as many men did. They responded eagerly to his perfect mix of competence and sympathy. Maggs had learnt from him in countless ways. Born to be an undertaker herself, seeking out a job in a local funeral director’s while still at school, she was already halfway there when she went into the partnership with Drew. He had smoothed her rougher edges, whilst nurturing her unique manner that customers found so appealing. Maggs was not afraid to laugh, to ask the pertinent question, and to answer the uncomfortable ones.
But now it was all collapsing around them. Everything was going wrong at once. Karen might die, leaving the children entirely to Drew’s care. He would not be able to continue with the business, if that happened. Already it was losing custom, people being regretfully turned away, which would have been utterly unthinkable six months ago. There was also the new burial ground supposed to be opening in the Cotswolds, which Maggs had initially resisted, but soon come to regard as potentially important to the growth of Peaceful Repose. Drew had talked about moving there with his family, leaving Maggs to run North Staverton on her own. They would have to employ people, at least part-time, and expand their advertising and promotional work. What would happen to all that now?
Since her encounter with the Osborne woman and her seductive little dog, a whole new ocean of worry had threatened to swamp Maggs. The woman was lovely – any man would fall for her at first glance, and Maggs had a horrible feeling that Drew had done just that. He had actually told lies to her and to Karen in the days following his first encounter with her, up there in Broad Campden. The Cotswolds now carried a bright-red danger sign in Maggs’s mind. She forced herself to jump ahead to a future without Karen, with Drew moving himself and the kids up to the new cemetery, sharing a house with this woman and forgetting all about Maggs and Den. It seemed all too horribly possible. Even Den, her stalwart husband, carried little conviction when he tried to persuade her that her fears were groundless.
She and Den had finally married earlier that year, in a low-key ceremony that echoed the low-key funerals she believed in so completely. They had spent almost no money on it, apart from a rather startling honeymoon in Syria. ‘Just to be different,’ she had joked to Drew and others. In fact it had been beyond fabulous. They had seen things hitherto undreamt of and the people had been so magically hospitable that Den had taught himself some basic Arabic during the trip, in an effort to express his admiration for them.
She and Den were different enough already, of course. He was pure Devon, six feet five, tawny-haired and reddish-skinned. She was half black, half white, five feet three and plump. Her adoptive parents had lived in Plymouth for most of their lives, content to marvel at the clever little cuckoo they had bravely introduced into their home. When she asserted her intention to become an undertaker, they had not objected. The family had moved to Somerset and Maggs had forced herself on Daphne Plant, proprietor of a large funeral directing company in Bradbourne.
There were other worries lurking, too. Her father wasn’t well, having recently been diagnosed with diabetes. Den was treading water career-wise, and had been for years. And he had starting speaking wistfully about babies.
Maggs had decided from the outset that she never wanted babies. She thought she had made that clear. The discovery that he had not entirely believed her had come as quite a shock.
And so she watched Drew as he plodded through the day, spending long minutes in the office doing nothing, holding his
head in his hands. He seemed to her broken in some dreadful incurable way, having lost hope for Karen’s recovery. She wanted to make him smile, to remind him that life went on, that he had walked beside people in the same situation many a time, and helped them take their next steps without the loved one who had died.
But Karen had not died – that was the heart of the trouble. She hovered on the brink, but she was still in the world. And Maggs for one continued to believe that she might yet return to them. Whilst forcing herself to listen to Drew’s hopelessness, and accept its logic, she still thought he was wrong. Somewhere in another reality, Karen was still fighting and thinking and listening and loving. Behind some horrible thick curtain, she was groping for a way to return, and she needed Drew’s steady encouragement to do that. If he gave up on her, then it was as if he had killed her. And if Maggs could see the truth of that, then Stephanie and Timmy probably could as well. And none of them might ever forgive him.
Thea felt trapped and confused by the events of the day. It had taken her hours to remember Yvonne, whose husband was now dead, and who ought to be tracked down in France and informed of the disaster. She had gone off on the Eurostar oblivious of what had been taking place behind her, in the London flat she had so recently visited. Had they settled anything regarding Belinda’s wedding? She had sounded reasonably cheerful on the phone, as if something had been resolved and she was free to indulge in a little holiday. Now she would presumably have to be consulted about the funeral of the murdered man, even if they were divorced. She, Belinda and Mark together would be the chief mourners. The exotic girlfriend, however devoted, would be relegated to a distant pew at the back, assuming she ever turned up again and managed to exonerate herself of his murder. Her current whereabouts was just another burning question in the whole bewildering story.
