Crisis in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘But wouldn’t the police have examined Juliet’s phone, and discovered she’d made the call?’

  ‘They never found it.’

  ‘A mystery to solve?’ Thea went on to the next startling fact. ‘What did that mean?’ Then she remembered. ‘Oh – it must have been the Biddulph funeral. She was watching out for it, because Luc had told her the whole story, about how they wanted to be there, but Linda wouldn’t tell them when it was.’

  Rosa was obviously bemused. ‘Biddulph? That’s the man who killed her, is it?’

  ‘No, no. His brother. She was watching our field from Wednesday to Saturday, for signs of a funeral. Then I suppose she’d phone Luc and tell him, so they could dash over in time for it.’ She shook her head. ‘Why didn’t she just ask Drew on Wednesday when she saw him?’

  Rosa was speechless with confusion. The church was open, and a small group of people who looked like tourists were strolling aimlessly around. Rosa and Thea hesitated, then began to look for discreet nooks where someone could hide. Rosa was holding back the dog, who was whining and tugging on his lead. ‘Are dogs allowed in here?’ Thea wondered.

  ‘Probably not,’ said Rosa carelessly. ‘He wants to go over there, look.’ She nodded towards a side chapel.

  ‘Juliet. The funeral,’ Thea prompted.

  ‘What?’

  Thea felt compelled to try to explain. ‘Maybe she did ask Drew when Stephen Biddulph was going to be buried, and he wouldn’t tell her. I’m not sure it had even been decided by then. But Luc – that’s her friend at the Paxford Centre – can’t have known what she was doing. His brother Clovis took charge, and they all showed up yesterday in a camper van.’

  ‘I was going in to see if I could find where she was hiding,’ said Rosa, cutting through this tangle of incomprehensible musings. ‘Do you want to come with me or not? Look – Buster knows where to go.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  On one side of the church was a raised area on which stood a large memorial with pillars and a canopy resembling a four-poster bed, with a marble statue lying on it. Directed by the insistent dog, Rosa made for it, and moments later gave a muted cry of triumph. Buster was sniffing and wagging excitedly, and by the time Thea caught up, Rosa was bending over a discreetly hidden little nest. Folded neatly into the gap between the memorial and the furthest wall was a woollen blanket. When Rosa picked it up, a phone and a notepad fell out, along with a pen and a bundle of clothes. ‘Oh!’ moaned the woman. ‘Look at these. Spare pants. She was always absolutely insistent on a new pair every morning.’

  Thea knew that it was through such details as this that grief was very much deepened. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’ll tell DS Gladwin what we’ve found. It completes the picture, just about.’

  Rosa was sobbing unrestrainedly, and had to be supported back through the church, with curious gazes following their progress. ‘Such a silly girl,’ she mumbled. ‘Getting the phones in a muddle. She should have called my other one.’

  ‘Easy to do, though,’ said Thea. ‘If both the numbers were in hers.’

  ‘And they were. It’s my fault. I should have made sure …’ Words failed her.

  Thea silently sent malevolent curses to every mobile phone in existence. In her opinion they were a bad influence on the world, in ways too numerous to count. Timmy was clamouring for one of his own, repeatedly insisting that he was the only one in his class deprived of such an essential tool. Even Drew mildly pointed out that the lack of a phone made his son a freak, albeit at the tender age of eight.

  ‘I’ll be all right now,’ Rosa sniffed, when they were in the street again, Juliet’s possessions in her arms, and the dog jumping up at them. ‘You get on with what you were doing. I’ll go home, and wait for the police person. I can show them this stuff then.’ She hugged the blanket to her chest. ‘Thank you, dear,’ she concluded.

  Thea felt dismissed before she was ready. She would have liked to be there when every piece in the convoluted picture was assembled and explained. But she accepted that her presence was in no way required. ‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure.’

  Thea’s own phone was in her bag. She leant against a wall, and took it out. She wanted to hear Gladwin’s voice, to tie up these final loose ends and share the sadness. At the end of the conversation, the detective said, ‘Oh, while you’re there, I’ve got something completely different to talk about.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’ve got an old school friend, who’s just bought a property somewhere near Bibury. You know – east of here. Said to be the prettiest village in England.’

  ‘Like five or six others,’ said Thea.

  ‘Very likely. Anyway, she’s having alterations done to it, and can’t be there to supervise. It’s just for a week or so this summer. I know you don’t do house-sitting any more, but I just thought I’d mention it.’

  ‘Bibury,’ said Thea. ‘Not too far from here. If it was just for a week … could I take the kids as well, I wonder?’

  ‘Absolutely not. The whole point would be to give you a break from the kids.’

  ‘Oh. I see. Let me think about it, anyway. I’ll let you know.’

  She got home in good time to greet the returning children, and have drinks and biscuits waiting. Although her head was still full of Juliet, Lawrence, Clovis and Kate, she was valiantly trying to clear a space for more personal and domestic matters. There was every prospect of a gruelling evening with Drew, thrashing out the momentous decision he had already more than hinted was about to be taken. She had to be clear-thinking by then. Any reference to murders and police personnel would be strictly off limits. And she didn’t think she would dare mention the prospect of house-sitting in Bibury without him or his children.

  It seemed to take forever to get the children to bed, with the apprehension about the coming talk doing strange things to time. Before supper, Timmy had finally remembered to tell his father about the Oakhurst boy, who was said to have only weeks still to live. ‘They want him to be buried in your field,’ said the child hesitantly. ‘Would that be all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ Drew smiled. ‘I would see it as a privilege.’

  Timmy was dubious as to the full meaning of this, but understood that his father was pleased. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Really, Tim, that’s fine. Should I call the family, do you think?’

  The little boy had no answer to that, and Drew realised his mistake. ‘If they talk to you about it again, just say I know about it, and will do everything I can for them. Can you do that?’

  Timmy nodded, and Thea promised herself that she would not forget about the unhappy Oakhursts again.

  Drew had been quiet all through supper, other than revealing that he had had a phone call from Clovis Biddulph, who was taking over arrangements for his father’s burial and still wanted Drew to do it. ‘With Linda’s blessing, apparently,’ he added.

  ‘Gosh!’ was the only response she permitted herself.

  ‘He’s hoping for this Friday. He has to go to Prague at the weekend, he says. He’s a music publisher – did you know?’

  ‘What does a music publisher do?’ she wondered, after shaking her head. ‘And why Prague?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. It sounds fairly lucrative, but beyond that I’m entirely ignorant.’

  ‘Poor Linda,’ she murmured, surprising herself. ‘What’s she going to do now?’

  Drew merely shrugged.

  And then, at last, it was eight-fifteen and they were sitting with coffee, television off and the dog warily eyeing them both.

  ‘So,’ said Drew heavily. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘Deciding what to do with the rest of our lives, that’s all.’

  ‘Except it’s me that has to decide, isn’t it? The whole thing is on me, and I’m not sure I’m competent to deal with it.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Just work out what you really really want, and it’ll all fall into place from there.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ h
e said, reaching for her hand. ‘Twaddle, balderdash and nonsense.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, maybe not entirely. If I tell you what I want, that might be a start, but I can’t quite believe it would get us very far on a practical level.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He sighed. ‘Okay. Well – first off, I want you to be happy. Second, ditto the kids. Third, I want to be useful to people. I want to provide a service that’s hard to get anywhere else. It doesn’t matter much where that happens. We’re here now, so it may as well be here.’

  Hope flared. ‘That’s all good,’ she encouraged. ‘Can’t see any problems so far.’

  He faced her and squeezed her hand. ‘I think we might have overstated the problems. Things have a habit of working themselves out, if you keep your nerve.’

  ‘Do they?’ She thought of Maggs, Gladwin and Rosa Wilson, in a jumble of melancholy and low-level satisfaction that there had, at least, been answers to most of the questions.

  ‘There are a few truths I had to remind myself of. One is: you can never go back. That thing about not stepping into the same river twice. It would be crazy to go back to North Staverton. So, I’ll sell it. I’ll advertise for an ethical undertaker to carry it on as it is now. I’ll do all I can to keep it independent, which means taking much less money than what Maggs was offered. She won’t be surprised. We’re staying here, Thea. We’ll spend the money on expanding, publicising, promoting what we do here. I’ll get it more businesslike in some ways – but the personal touch is crucial.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, hardly able to believe her ears.

  ‘And you can make your own arrangements with Gladwin – whatever works best. It’s absolutely fine with me. And I promise to do more of the cooking.’

  ‘Do you?’ she smiled. ‘Then I think we can safely say the crisis has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.’

  ‘Good,’ said Drew.

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  About the Author

  REBECCA TOPE is the author of three bestselling crime series, set in the stunning Cotswolds, Lake District and West Country. She lives on a smallholding in rural Herefordshire, where she enjoys the silence and plants a lot of trees, but also manages to travel the world and enjoy civilisation from time to time. Most of her varied experiences and activities find their way into her books, sooner or later.

  rebeccatope.com

  By Rebecca Tope

  THE COTSWOLD MYSTERIES

  A Cotswold Killing • A Cotswold Ordeal

  Death in the Cotswolds • A Cotswold Mystery

  Blood in the Cotswolds • Slaughter in the Cotswolds

  Fear in the Cotswolds • A Grave in the Cotswolds

  Deception in the Cotswolds • Malice in the Cotswolds

  Shadows in the Cotswolds • Trouble in the Cotswolds

  Revenge in the Cotswolds • Guilt in the Cotswolds

  Peril in the Cotswolds • Crisis in the Cotswolds

  ♦

  A Cotswold Casebook

  THE LAKE DISTRICT MYSTERIES

  The Windermere Witness • The Ambleside Alibi

  The Coniston Case • The Troutbeck Testimony

  The Hawkshead Hostage • The Bowness Bequest

  The Staveley Suspect

  THE WEST COUNTRY MYSTERIES

  A Dirty Death • Dark Undertakings

  Death of a Friend • Grave Concerns

  A Death to Record • The Sting of Death

  A Market for Murder

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.

  This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 by REBECCA TOPE

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–2377–5