A Cotswold Killing

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘This car accident. There’s no way it could have been a deliberate attempt to injure you?’

  Thea laughed. ‘Absolutely not. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the truth is that it was almost entirely my fault. Susanna had pulled out a bit too far, but if I’d been going at a proper speed, I could easily have avoided her.’

  ‘She seems to want to take a share of the blame on herself.’

  ‘That’s very sporting. It’ll be a knock-for-knock job, then, will it?’

  ‘Except the driver of the third vehicle isn’t quite so relaxed about it.’

  ‘Oh? Who is he, exactly? I haven’t heard any details.’

  ‘He’s a travelling salesman, who lost some business, and says he’s been having severe headaches since the collision. He’s planning to sue you, I fear.’ It was taking on the atmosphere of a casual kitchen chat, Thea noted. Perhaps it was the effect of the coffee, or the general influence of Saturday morning sloppiness.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to worry about that now,’ she decided. ‘It doesn’t seem very important compared to a murder.’

  ‘I agree. So we have to allow for the possibility that somebody deliberately removed that cloth, thinking it might give us some sort of information. Probably used to clean fingerprints off the gun. Have you given me the full list of people who’ve been here since you found it?’

  She tried to think carefully. ‘I think so,’ she nodded. ‘But the days have got a bit blurred. I’m not even quite certain just which day I did find it.’

  Hollis leant back in his chair, wincing slightly. Thea understood that he liked her, enjoyed talking to her, wanted her to be safe and free from harassment. She wondered again at her earlier reaction to him.

  ‘Do you think much about pain?’ The question hurtled out of his smile, catching her right between the eyes.

  She floundered for an answer, but managed little more than a gasp or two.

  ‘Sorry. That was unfair.’

  ‘You’ve been speaking to Helen Winstanley,’ she accused. ‘What did she tell you?’ It was clear from his raised eyebrows and forward motion across the table that she’d got it right. Hurriedly she groped for the logical thread that she’d thought was securely between her fingers. If Helen had discussed her so intimately with the police detective, did that mean she, Helen, was immune from his suspicion, with regard to the Jennison murders? Did it mean that she, Thea, had got things badly wrong? Could she ever hope to go back to the time when she’d liked and trusted Helen?

  ‘She told me you’d found an unusual strategy for coping with the death of your husband. She told me you were still so raw from that loss that you were unlikely to be taking proper care of yourself.’

  This was so far from the expected line of questioning that Thea could do nothing but sit still and hold herself together, literally, with arms clutched across herself.

  ‘Look, you’re only here for another week. You’ve stuck to your post, let the Reynoldses enjoy their cruise, and made some good friends in a short time. You’ve been an excellent citizen, in very difficult circumstances. Several people are worried about you, alone in this house, next to the scene of a murder. Two murders. To be absolutely honest with you, I wonder a bit about your brother-in-law. He’s allowed you to put yourself into danger, and if anything encouraged you to increase your vulnerability.’

  Thea held up a hand. ‘Please stop,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘You’re making me feel awful.’

  He reached a hand out and took one of hers. ‘I didn’t mean to do that,’ he said.

  She pulled her hand away, slowly. ‘I’m completely confused,’ she admitted. ‘Just when I thought you were going to make things fall into place for me.’

  ‘No need to worry. What I would really like to say to you is – forget the murders. Enjoy your week as if nothing had happened. But it probably isn’t going to be possible. Not entirely, anyway.’

  She shook her head, trying to clear the confusion.

  ‘There’s still a lot I don’t understand. James hinted at some sort of organised crime, that you were already investigating. I suspected – still do, I think – that I’m here as a result of a setup, between you and James. Is that right?’

  He smiled. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment. I did know you were coming, and that you were connected to James Osborne. That’s all I’m going to say on that matter.’

  That felt like a dismissal and she got up to take Herring her coffee. He spoke to her retreating back. ‘This whole case is about pain,’ he said softly. ‘My broken ankle is just a small highlighter on that central fact.’

  She looked back at him. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that the whole of human life is about pain?’ she said, as gently as she could.

  The experience left Thea having to sort through a complicated set of feelings. A sense of privilege at being so closely involved in the top man’s procedures; a frustration at not seeing through the mist to what had been going on with the Jennisons; and a subtle complacency at having elicited that attentive smile from him, before he left. The smile she expected from most men she met, and which left her uneasy until it came.

  Helen had obviously betrayed her by talking about her use of physical pain to quell the emotional anguish she was prone to. What if Hollis started prattling to James about that stuff? She’d never have a moment’s peace, with lectures and homilies and suggestions of counselling or some other sort of therapy. And it would all be futile. She knew what she was doing, what worked for her, and how much recovery she was capable of. There was nobody in the world who could affect the process or change its course. Sitting pretty in a lonely Cotswold house, besieged by the bewildering elements of a sudden death, was as good a therapy as any. Better than most. Besides, there was nothing she could learn from any therapist. She knew, after a year, that the self-torture was not merely an effort to overwhelm the pain of Carl’s loss. It was more subtle than that. The whole truth was that she was afraid to let go of this latter pain. With each week that passed, Carl became more shadowy, the memories of life with him more elusive. The loss actually did hurt less than it had at first. And Thea wasn’t happy with that. It felt like a wicked betrayal of a man who should not have died when he did. She could not yet permit herself to be happy or easy or free from suffering. Not yet – but in recent days she had come to believe that one day, she just might manage it.

  It was, however, necessary in some opaque way, to go and see Helen. There had been a brief point where June Jennison had felt more of a friend, a more likely soulmate, in the shared widowhood and articulate analyses of her condition. But the darker realms inhabited by Helen Winstanley were more directly appealing to Thea regardless of an apprehension that Helen might become clinging and needy. In some ways Helen embodied the spirit of the Cotswolds as they now were, despite, or even because of, her comparatively recent arrival there. Helen had the aesthetic taste, the money, the tangled background that typified much of the area’s population in these times. People who knew to their bones that they were privileged to live in a place of utter beauty, and struggled daily to do justice to their good fortune. Thea felt a kind of pity for them, burdened with the duties of care and conservation that went with the package. Every stone was cherished, and rightly so. No manmade change could enhance or embellish what was there already, settled so perfectly into the landscape by past generations who might easily not have realised just what they were doing. And thus Helen herself was caught in the amber of this perfection. It was as if she and all the other residents were holding their breath, afraid to shout or cough in case something lovely became dislodged. And, of course, their own untidy family relationships couldn’t hope to match this flawlessness.

  Which explained, Thea suddenly saw, why this whole murder business had been so very quiet. Everything was quiet and careful around here. Even the charabancs of American tourists, making a quick detour on the way to Stratford, nosed their way down the little lanes with acute delicacy. They disgorged in Stow or Bou
rton, for a brief invasion of the souvenir shops and tea rooms, but even there they behaved with decorum. The place insisted that they did so, with the force of its atmosphere, its very modesty. Once in Stratford the tourists could start shouting and jostling again, in the sub-Disney mess that the town had become. The Cotswold villages were made of stronger stuff. With no famous Bard to celebrate, they simply offered up themselves and their dull history of wool production, handsome profits, excellent climate and sheer geographical blesssedness.

  So Thea went to see Helen, not caring that it was a Saturday, and still lunchtime. Not caring if she walked in on the less than happy couple eating their pasta or pie in a state of weekend laziness. There was an urgency upon her born of the knowledge that in precisely one week’s time, she would have to leave this place. This she could not do without understanding much much more about how and why and by whose hand poor Joel Jennison had died.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  She had been right to follow the gut feeling that took her up the road to the Winstanleys’ house. Helen was in the front garden, beside the beautiful stone wall, the sun on her face, the perfectly proportioned house behind her. The husband was not in sight.

  ‘Helen,’ Thea said, not sure whether or not her arrival had been noted. ‘I’m asking you again – do you know who killed Joel?’

  Helen’s head slowly turned. It wasn’t clear just what she’d been doing. There was a trowel in her hand, but she hadn’t been bent over a flowerbed – merely standing upright, as if in profound thought, face lifted slightly to the sun.

  ‘I’m trying very hard not to know,’ she said.

  ‘Which means you do. I’ve just been talking to the Hollis man.’

  ‘Oh yes. Philip. A good man. Broke his ankle, I hear.’

  ‘Helen, he said you’d seen him since he broke it.’ The obvious lie produced a surge of fury in Thea. She wanted to shake the woman.

  ‘Well I haven’t,’ Helen said. ‘I’ve spoken to him on the phone, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh.’ Thea scanned back through the morning’s conversation, and concluded that this did in fact fit with what Hollis had said. In fact she understood that she had knitted up a complete scarf and glove set from a few implications and facial expressions. ‘OK.’

  ‘You seem to be in a bit of a state. Shall I get some sherry or something? We always have sherry on a Saturday. Isn’t that weird.’

  ‘Whatever you like.’

  ‘Go and sit down, woman.’ Helen waved towards a garden table and chairs set out on a small paved area under a big cherry tree. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  The fury had rapidly turned to affection and something close to amusement. She couldn’t imagine Helen Winstanley ever becoming seriously, deeply upset, at least in public. She’d find a flippant comment, a wry acceptance that life was mostly crap, and all you could do was find the sweeter bits. Sherry was an interesting example. Thea hadn’t had sherry for at least a year and was already savouring the prospect.

  ‘Where’s James?’ she wondered, when Helen came back with a small tray.

  ‘Not here. He’ll probably show up soon.’

  ‘For his sherry?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘So what you just said means that you do know who killed Joel.’ Thea spoke with a slow unemotional delivery.

  ‘Not at all. And if I did I wouldn’t utter a name. You know, catching a murderer isn’t at all the way people think. Everybody can know quite well who did it, but unless there’s proper evidence and witnesses and so forth, you can’t do anything about it. It’s like catching a snake. There are so many narrow crevices and holes it can go down that you have to prepare well in advance. You have to stop up all the exits, but without it realising you’re doing it.’

  ‘Is that what’s happening?’ Somehow Thea didn’t believe it. She’d seen no sign at all of such activity. ‘Is that how they catch snakes?’

  ‘Probably not. Bad analogy. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘I assume I’m not involved in any of this? I’m just in the way – an inconvenience.’

  ‘I think that part is unclear. The timing suggests you might be significant.’

  ‘Helen, you’re not helping. It’s all whispers and mirrors, smoke and shadows – whatever it is they say.’

  Helen shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to have this conversation, Thea. I’m sorry if you think I’ve been going behind your back somehow – you do think that, don’t you?’

  Thea considered. ‘A bit, yes. Telling him about my finger thing surely wasn’t necessary.’

  ‘You don’t know his story then?’

  ‘Yes. Harry told me. His daughter died after taking Ecstasy.’

  ‘She did, yes. And seven years after that, his son was convicted of child abuse, and he’s still utterly certain of the boy’s innocence. He’s in the most ghastly trap, whichever way you look at it.’

  Thea tried to grasp the full import of these multiple disasters in one man’s life. There was an obvious implication that his wife was no longer with him, either. ‘You mean because he’s in the police, he has to believe in the system?’

  ‘Partly. It’s more that he has no credible options. Technically, it seems there’s no doubt the son did what he’s accused of. But he was a victim as much as the girl. It all came down to drugs.’

  Thea was reminded of her first visit to Helen. ‘Does this connect in any way with your daughter?’ she asked. That would perhaps explain Helen’s evident intimacy with Hollis, for one thing.

  Helen turned away without answering – which in itself felt like an answer. ‘Tell me,’ Thea pleaded. ‘What’s so secret about it?’

  ‘I’d never be able to make you understand.’ Helen turned back, and met Thea’s gaze. ‘You can’t have any idea what it’s like. And the law is no help. It’s worse than useless. Hollis knows that, you see.’

  ‘I don’t see at all. Has this got anything to do with the Jennisons?’

  ‘That I couldn’t say. That’s where it all begins to unravel.’

  Thea remembered another corner of the incomplete jigsaw. ‘The network!’ she said. ‘Something to do with a network.’

  Helen put a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,’ she mumbled.

  Thea ground her teeth, feeling the muscles harden in her jaw. ‘Come on! You’ve got to explain it to me now.’ Suddenly the whole thing was becoming farcical to her. Village people playing some distorted game to relieve their dull little lives.

  ‘I haven’t got to, Thea. It’s none of your business, and it would hurt too many people if I told you about it. Now let’s just change the subject. Will you be at the funeral on Monday?’

  ‘I suppose so. Will you?’

  ‘Oh yes. Who would dare to miss it? It would look like guilt.’

  Thea entertained this piece of logic for a few seconds. There was some sort of Catch-22 at work, which she couldn’t fully grasp. If you didn’t go to the funeral, you looked guilty. So if you were guilty, you’d obviously go. So anyone not there was actually very likely to be innocent. Something like that.

  The day was gloriously sunny, the air full of birdsong and spring scents. The cherry blossom had almost finished, but there was an exuberant lilac growing against the stone wall, attracting bees and hoverflies. Every few minutes, a car passed along the road, leaving a more noticeable silence behind as it disappeared. Thea determined to surmount the insult she felt at being told to mind her own business. ‘Isn’t it wonderful here,’ she said.

  ‘England at its best,’ Helen nodded. ‘Pity about the people.’

  Thea tilted her head thoughtfully. ‘That’s not right, though, is it? I mean, this area is beautiful mainly because of what people have done here. OK, so the trees are fabulous, and the way the land lies, but it wouldn’t be much without the buildings and hedgerows, let’s face it.’

  ‘They had a lot of help, though. What really does it is the stone. Handed them on a plate, you might say.’
>
  ‘A happy conjunction,’ said Thea, with a smile.

  ‘Quite.’

  They sipped the sherry and refilled the glasses. Thea found herself not wanting to talk any more. There was a process going on that she didn’t grasp, but which she felt she might be able to trust, when it came down to it. The killer snake was slithering confidently towards its crevice, little knowing that Hollis or Helen or somebody had already blocked it up. A light of confidence in Helen’s eye gave her reassurance that things were in hand. She didn’t have to bustle about being a detective, after all. She could proffer odd bits of evidence, and stand guard over the house that still seemed to be at the centre of the story.

  She was just preparing to get up and leave when she heard a car engine approaching, the gears changing down. ‘James,’ said Helen tightly. ‘There’s James.’

  She spent Sunday diligently pursuing the chores for which she was being paid. A team of police officers showed up and crawled around the garden pond for a while, but did not call at the house.

  Before they left she went out to them, intending to ask if she could top up the water level for the sake of the lily. Instead, she found that they had virtually emptied the whole pond, with shiny aluminium buckets brought for the purpose. The water was now in a matching aluminium tank, which they must also have brought. There was no sign of the water lily.

  ‘Good God! What have you done?’ she cried.

  ‘What we should have done a fortnight ago,’ said one man, ruefully.

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  Nobody gave an answer to that.

  ‘Well, can I top it up now?’ she insisted. ‘If you’ve taken everything you want out of it.’

  ‘No, madam. Please leave it as it is. We might have to come back again tomorrow.’

  Thea gave up. After all, Jennifer Reynolds could hardly hold her responsible for the demise of the precious water lily.

  It was obviously sensible to walk to the funeral, rather than take the car and try to slot it into a space on the grass verge with dozens of others. There was to be some food at Barrow Hill afterwards, but Thea had no intention of putting in an appearance there. Whatever her duty might be – and this was hazy even now – it did not extend to mingling with close family and friends at the home of the deceased.