by Rebecca Tope
‘Apparently.’
‘Hollis said something about them, I remember. A lot of coming and going – always draws police attention.’
‘Hollis?’
‘The DS in charge of this investigation. Haven’t you met Hollis yet?’
‘Am I likely to?’
‘Highly likely, I’d say. Now, can you show me this famous field, do you think?’
‘Hang on a minute. I haven’t drunk my coffee.’
James leant forward, his big head close to hers as she put her mug down on the coffee table between them.
She laughed at his agitation. ‘You’ve got plenty of time. Don’t rush me. Ask me about poor Joel. Let me give you my impressions of him: he was single, attractive, bright, witty. It’s outrageous that such a nice man should be killed so young.’
James Osborne’s face changed. His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. ‘You met him?’
She pulled herself back, pressing into the cushions behind her. ‘Yes. He came here the afternoon before he died. Didn’t anybody tell you that?’
‘Only that you found the body. But surely – there couldn’t have been time? Clive and his missus had only just left.’
‘That’s right. Joel was on the doorstep about five minutes after they drove away.’
‘How very very odd,’ he muttered.
‘That’s what June seemed to think, as well. June thinks he came to tell me something. If he did, I have no idea what it was.’
‘June? Don’t tell me – wife of Paul.’ He hoisted the briefcase onto the coffee table and opened it. Thea half-expected to see a stack of reports and pictures, full of classified information. If James would just pop out to the loo, she’d be able to snatch a quick look. Instead there seemed to be nothing inside beyond a large A4 notepad, which he extracted.
‘The briefcase is a new touch, isn’t it?’ she said, with only a whisper of sarcasm.
‘We use them quite a lot in plain clothes,’ he said. ‘All part of the disguise, if you like.’
She grinned sceptically. ‘I see,’ she said.
‘Anyway – let’s make a few jottings. First, Joel Jennison came to the door here, the same afternoon that Clive left. Saturday. What time?’
‘A few minutes after four. I told the local chaps that.’
‘I haven’t seen the whole file. Bear with me, OK?’
‘Fine by me. The next thing that happened was a scream in the night. It could easily not have been Joel. A bird, fox, rabbit – anything, really. I was asleep. It was three forty-five am. I can’t even say for sure where it came from. I didn’t go outside to investigate and the dogs didn’t bark. The security lights didn’t come on, either.’
James nodded. ‘To be treated with caution,’ he said, before adding unexpectedly, ‘How do you feel about it?’
‘What?’
‘I mean – do you wish you’d gone outside? Or have you convinced yourself it had nothing to do with the killing?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t say I feel particularly guilty. Do you think I should?’
‘Not at all. You feel what you feel, never mind should. You know that as well as I do.’
‘Besides, the man is dead,’ she said. ‘Too late to dwell on how it might have been different.’
‘Precisely.’
‘But there seem to be questions about why he came here, why he died in this field, the same as his brother.’ She paused to think. ‘How about if he was searching for clues as to his brother’s death? That would make it all far less of a coincidence. I don’t like coincidences.’
‘Nobody does,’ James agreed. ‘But they do happen.’
‘Not here, though,’ she asserted. ‘There has to be a direct link. They were brothers.’
She caught him looking at her with a recurrence of the earlier impatience. ‘Sorry,’ she grinned. ‘I’m just stating the obvious, aren’t I?’
James glanced at his watch. ‘I’m sorry this is so short. I expected to be able to take you to lunch, but…you know…’
She frowned. ‘I was looking forward to seeing you,’ she began, ‘but now I’m not sure. You’ve got me very confused. Hinting at wicked goings-on and not telling me anything for sure.’
‘You’re right, I’ve been very unfair. Look, there’s still half an hour. Will you please show me the place where you found the body?’
She got up right away. ‘Come on, then.’
They set off across the field, Hepzibah at their heels. It was still breezy, but nothing like the previous day. ‘Do you know where the brother, Paul Jennison, was killed?’ he asked, scanning the whole field in a slow circle, from a central point.
‘No idea,’ she said. ‘Why would I?’
‘The hedge his killer wriggled through – it must have been over there.’ He pointed towards the next-door fields, where the hedge was tall, but well-kept. ‘Nobody could understand how he did it.’
‘It was winter,’ she said. ‘Easier to see where the gaps are. Maybe he’d prepared it earlier, and knew exactly where to go.’
‘It was dark. Pitch dark.’
‘It can’t have been, Jay.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Clive wouldn’t know he’d wriggled through the hedge if it was too dark to see him doing it. It was Clive who witnessed the whole thing, you know.’
He paused to consider this very obvious point. ‘I’ll need to read the notes again. You’re right, of course – unless Clive had some sort of searchlight.’
Thea shrugged and returned to the question about the hedge. ‘Desperation, then. You didn’t come to investigate for yourself?’
He shook his head. ‘No reason why I should. I didn’t see any of the notes until Saturday. It was the connection, you see. Two brothers, in the same field. It automatically bounced up the list of priorities.’ She showed him the pool, each of them standing a respectable distance away, automatically avoiding any disturbance, despite the forensic people having given the all clear. ‘Not much to see,’ said Thea.
James gave a brief laugh. ‘If I was Sherlock Holmes, I’d probably argue with that. As I’m only me, I can’t see a bloody thing. Just grass, mud and water.’
‘Er – hang on a minute.’ Thea had been looking up, listening to a buzzard mewing in the next field, and hoping to catch a glimpse of it. ‘Isn’t that something caught in the tree up there? Look.’
She pointed some distance along the hedge, up the slope towards the house. The tree was a well grown alder, which had been coppiced some decades earlier, giving it a bristly shape from about four feet above the ground. There was a colourful object hanging from a bough, twelve or fifteen feet up.
‘Just a bit of rag,’ said James. ‘Must have blown here.’
‘Maybe it did. Yesterday was very windy. But what if it’s important? Can we get it down, do you think?’
James groaned. ‘I never was any good at climbing trees.’
‘Maybe not, but I was. Just give me a leg up to where the branches sprout out.’
James, to his credit, helped her without further objection. Finding an easy foothold in the unnaturally low crown of the tree, she hoisted herself a few feet higher, and snatched the piece of material caught on a twig. Instantly, she knew what it was.
Without waiting for help, she jumped down, jarring an ankle, but doing nothing to betray the sharp momentary pain. ‘It’s Joel’s,’ she said, taking deep breaths as if she’d just run the length of the field. ‘He was wearing it on Saturday.’
The silk scarf, patterned in yellow and purple, could not be mistaken, despite the still damp blood stains. When James asked if she was sure, she nodded firmly. ‘But I don’t think it can have blown up there after all,’ she added. ‘It’s so heavy.’
It was indeed sodden with blood, and Thea badly wanted to wipe her fingers where they’d touched the scarf.
‘The policeman said there was blood. Do you know what happened?’
‘I do, actually,’ James said quietly. ‘His throat was c
ut.’
CHAPTER NINE
James was a few minutes late leaving, having first made a phonecall to the local police, reporting the discovery. ‘What do you think it means?’ Thea asked him. ‘After all, we already know Joel was in the field.’
‘I don’t intend to speculate,’ he said. ‘It’ll have to go to the lab before we know how useful it is.’
‘But it must be Joel’s blood?’
‘Never make assumptions,’ he told her, automatically. ‘Besides there’s other stuff on it. It’s so mucky, I’m surprised you could identify it so quickly.’
‘It wasn’t particularly clean to begin with. None of his clothes were. He was such a mess I thought he must be the gardener, at first.’
James wasn’t really listening. Thea could see him calculating his next moves, trying to fit everything in efficiently. She became aware of all the things they hadn’t talked about; all the questions and gaps and confusions surrounding the events of the weekend. She was very much aware of how badly she was going to miss him as soon as he’d gone.
‘I won’t have anybody to talk to,’ she said aloud, like a little girl. ‘I want to try and work the whole thing out, and for that I need somebody to bounce it around with.’
‘Lonely business, house-sitting,’ he said with little evident sympathy. She could almost hear him add, You should have thought of that.
The lack of compassion was bracing, as James had probably intended it to be. ‘I could go and talk to Helen again, I suppose,’ she said.
‘No, don’t do that. Go and see June Jennison. She’s the one I’m interested in.’
Thea bridled. ‘Then you go and see her,’ she flashed. ‘One minute you’re telling me to be careful because there are funny people around here – the next you want me to do your job for you. Which one is it?’
He sighed, glancing yet again at his watch. ‘OK, point taken. But you’re just as bad. Either you sit here all on your own for three weeks, going quietly bonkers, or you get out and about, meet the neighbours, hear their stories, have a cup of tea here and there…’ He raised his eyebrows, to check that she understood. ‘Right?’
She shook her head slowly, in an exaggerated arc. ‘Not really. June Jennison lives in Cirencester, remember. Nobody else seems to be at home during the week. Admittedly there were eight or nine locals gathered at the gate on Sunday, when they realised something was going on – but that was a Sunday. Not one of them introduced themselves, or invited me over for a drink. What you’re really asking is that I do an informal house-to-house for you.’
James laughed. ‘Wrong. The Gloucester lads did that days ago. You wouldn’t know what to ask, anyway.’ He was edging out of the door by this time, showing every sign of a man worryingly late for something important. ‘Look, Thee, I’ve really got to go now. Phone or e-mail me this evening, if you like. Thanks for the coffee. It was good to see you.’
There were moments when he was unbearably similar to Carl. He tilted his head now, with a kink at the corner of his mouth, displaying apology, self-deprecation, helplessness, which was exactly his brother. Thea’s heart lurched, and the ragged old curtain of misery and loss came down over all other emotions. She could hardly see James through it.
‘Yes, all right,’ she said, taking a half-step back into the house. ‘Thanks for coming.’ He got into his car, winding down the window to stick his head out.
‘Bye,’ they both said, simultaneously.
For lunch, she made herself some scrambled eggs, washed down with half a bottle of Clive Reynolds’ Chardonnay. The Instruction List said, There are six bottles of wine in the rack in the pantry. They are for your use. She fully intended to avail herself of all six bottles.
Her mood was an uncomfortable mixture of defiance and frustration. Here she was, ostensibly in the midst of a first class murder enquiry, and yet nobody came to talk to her, nobody told her what was going on, and she saw no way of grasping the first thing about village politics. The house-sitting job, which had seemed daunting on Saturday, had now settled into a routine that left acres of empty time, especially in the middle of the day. Bonzo and Georgie were livelier than at first, but they still seemed to like nothing better than dozing their lives away. Hepzie shadowed Thea, contentedly sitting at her feet, going for walks or riding on the passenger seat of the car. Now she had a sore ear, she was obviously unsettled, sticking even more closely to Thea than before. Like one of those daemons in the Pullman books, Thea thought.
‘Well, this won’t do,’ she said out loud. ‘We’ve got hours before we have to do anything. Come on, Heps, we’ll go to Cirencester.’ The Chardonnay probably meant there was a suspicious quantity of alcohol in her bloodstream, but what the hell. Getting stopped on a Wednesday afternoon was unlikely enough for her not to worry. And she’d always been able to hold drink much better than most women.
Taking the dog into town was complicated. Unlike those long-suffering collies and mongrels you saw tied up quietly outside shops, Hepzibah would howl and bark without pause if Thea went out of sight. On the few occasions she’d done it, she’d emerged to a knot of reproachful dog-lovers, all trying to comfort the distraught animal. Thus it meant either leaving her in the car, or walking the streets without actually buying anything. Almost no shops admitted dogs through their doors any more. By rights, she should leave her here with the labradors, but somehow that wouldn’t do. The spaniel’s place was by her side.
She didn’t know the town well, except for a vague awareness of a very large park and an imposing church. Plus a lot of Roman associations and a popular open market. She hoped it wasn’t market day: that would surely mean difficult and expensive parking arrangements.
As it turned out, she was not to discover whether it was market day at Cirencester or not. She had driven less than a mile when she changed her mind. There was a pub indicated, named Five Mile House, the other side of the main dual-carriage A417, which she concluded must be her nearest hostelry. Although it was likely to be closed for a break between lunchtime and evening, it was worth a look. There was just a chance that one day in the coming weeks she would be so desperate for company, she’d break the phobia of a life-time and venture unaccompanied into a bar.
The manoeuvring she had to do to reach it almost put her off. It involved driving underneath the main road, and venturing along an uninviting stretch that turned out to be a rather odd cul-de-sac. A large gate barred the way, just beyond the pub. Why, she asked herself, was she doing this? Was it merely that she was so starved for company that the mere suggestion of a pub had her completely distracted?
Five Mile House was decidedly pretty. It had a friendly unpretentious air, which Thea absorbed as she sat in the car outside for a moment. She hoped she wasn’t being whimsical in drawing this conclusion; after all, the inside might be completely different, and to be unduly unspoilt and ‘local’ wasn’t necessarily a good thing. She had been into pubs where a handful of silent old men glowered at the intrusion, with malevolent dogs at their feet. Tacky decor and tasteless background music was preferable to that. What she wanted, she realised, was somewhere with some life. A simple need, on the face of it, but Thea sometimes wondered whether she was a sort of jinx, attracting death and solitude to herself. As a young girl she had vowed to surround herself with a big noisy family of children, with jokes and laughter and affection.
But ‘You don’t really want that,’ her father had told her one day, when she’d been about twelve. The quality of this attention had thrilled and frightened her. It seemed that all along he had effortlessly known precisely who and what she was.
‘I do,’ she’d insisted.
‘No – you’ll have had enough of all that, with this lot.’ He’d made a sweep of the brothers and sisters – Emily, Damian and Jocelyn. ‘Take my word for it.’
She had worried and fumed at this unfair prediction ever since. It was as if he had carelessly written her fate for her, against her own will. All the worse because Jocelyn, now thirty-eight,
had produced five children, and if it was all right for her, Thea couldn’t understand what was different in her own case. She was the third of the four, had always fitted in perfectly well, was on easy terms with all the others. What was it that her father had seen that day? The answer – or answers – revealed itself in the occasional flash of insight, which she generally buried as quickly as she could. So what if she hadn’t liked the pain of childbirth, the broken nights, the constant nagging worry of the dependent child? Two or three wouldn’t have noticeably increased these negatives, and might have actually diminished them. Carl had been accommodating. ‘It’s up to you,’ he’d always said.
The truth, or part of it, was to do with a kind of spiritual selfishness, which Thea knew she possessed. Much of the time she redefined this as an assertive style whereby she did what she wanted to, followed her inclinations, and sidestepped many of the martyred games other women played.
All of which brought her back to a bewildered sense of disappointment at her current solitary existence. Was this what she’d always wanted, deep down, as her father had implied? Was she in fact not good at relationships? Was her reluctance to walk alone into a busy pub a symptom of this very defect?
She shook herself, and muttered, ‘Stop it, for goodness’ sake.’ Hepzie looked at her, wondering just what was going on. ‘We’ve no intention of going to a pub now anyway.’ Giving it a last considering look, she started the car again, and turned it round.
Coming out of a garden gate a few yards away was a bearded man she recognised from Sunday morning. The man who, with a real effort, she remembered Helen Winstanley had told her was named Harry Richmond. Without thinking, she stamped on the brake, and wound down the window.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said, with the biggest smile she could muster. ‘Remember me?’
He looked at her with an oddly expectant expression, and smiled back. She confirmed her earlier assessment of his age as late sixties. ‘Oh, yes. You’re the lady looking after Clive’s house,’ he said lightly, as if amused by being asked the question.
