Death in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘That’s right,’ she nodded.

  Phil didn’t seem to be harbouring any grudges. ‘It makes sense,’ he endorsed, from the open car window. ‘If only so she can keep an eye on you.’

  I hadn’t expected to be factored into the decision and felt quite touched, even if he’d only meant it jokingly. ‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘You mean because I’m still a suspect?’

  He took a deep breath, steadying himself. Then he looked at Thea. ‘See you soon,’ he said. She leaned down for a final kiss and I turned my attention to the dogs for a moment. Those dogs had a great knack of milling. They circled each other, sometimes one of them giving a stiff little jump, the spaniel perpetually flirting with the others. Collectively they presented a constant presence of skirmishing energy that I found persistently irritating.

  I felt burdened by the events of the morning: Ursula’s mysterious behaviour in particular. I ought to have told Phil that Ursula had just been seen in a car with Eddie Yeo, but his manner had not been inviting. Let him get on with his own business, I decided. I wasn’t qualified to investigate murders. Anything I said or did was as likely to impede as to assist, and I was thoroughly sick of the whole thing.

  Thea and I were left on the main street of Cold Aston with three bouncy dogs for company. ‘So what happens now?’ She asked the question that had been on my tongue.

  I thought there was a serious risk of a rerun of a few days ago when we’d lost all enthusiasm for lunch, walking, driving – anything. I felt that it had already been a long day, and it wasn’t even half over. I had no answer to the question.

  But Thea seemed energised. ‘Well, we’re spoilt for choice,’ she said. ‘Finish the work on Helen’s things; go somewhere interesting for lunch; talk through the murders and come up with the obvious solution; walk ten miles along one of these footpaths – or all of the above.’

  ‘Or none,’ I said. ‘I’ve already walked three miles this morning and had a beer much earlier in the day than usual.’

  ‘We might go and visit Caroline,’ Thea said with a nervous look at my face.

  I smiled. ‘Don’t you think Phil or one of his minions will get there before us? They’ve probably got her in that interview room with Baldwin and Latimer as we speak.’

  ‘Baldwin and Latimer? Sounds like a make of fruitcake.’

  She was already cheering me up. I described the detectives in detail, making her laugh.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, after a moment’s thought, ‘I keep thinking about Daphne Yeo.’

  ‘Eddie’s wife,’ said Thea to show she was still keeping abreast of it all. ‘Why?’

  Before I launched into an explanation, I tried to lead her across to my house. But instead she insisted we go into Greenhaven and at least make a pretence of working.

  ‘Daphne is the angriest person I know,’ I said. ‘I can actually imagine her sticking a knitting needle into somebody.’

  ‘But would she sully the Barrow like that?’ Thea wondered. ‘I mean, as I understand it, it’s a sacred place to you pagans. Wouldn’t it ruin the vibes or whatever, to kill people there?’ She paused. ‘Or is that what it was always meant to be – a place of sacrifice? Would it be the normal natural place to perform an execution?’

  ‘Hold on,’ I pleaded. ‘You’re jumping all over the place. Sacrifice. Execution. Where did these ideas come from?’

  Thea was moving around the room, collecting the last few things from the mantelpiece and putting them on the central table. ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ she said. ‘It all seems so ritualistic, two identical killings in the same place. It doesn’t feel like the work of a furiously angry person at all. More like somebody making a very strong point.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t worked very well, has it? None of us seems to have got the point so far.’ I shuddered. ‘Do you think they’ll go on killing people until we understand the message?’

  ‘Not at the Barrow, anyway,’ said Thea. ‘There’s a twenty-four-hour police guard on it now.’

  ‘I still can’t understand why there wasn’t before.’

  ‘Nobody ever dreamed it would happen again. And they did send regular patrols past, to make sure it wasn’t being over-run with gawpers. They thought that would be enough.’

  I had more sense than to overdo any criticism of the police, so I just mumbled a faint s’pose so to that.

  ‘Where does Daphne live?’ she asked a few minutes later, moving to Helen’s big dresser and checking that there was nothing left in its cupboards.

  ‘Stow,’ I said. ‘She’s got two teenage kids.’

  ‘Does she know Caroline?’ Thea frowned, trying to remember the connections between the various individuals.

  I had to think about it. ‘Presumably not, since she didn’t recognise her at the Horse Fair when she saw her with Eddie. She just said he was with a new woman.’

  Then I remembered the latest snippet from that morning. ‘Eddie certainly seems to be spreading himself around. He was seen with Ursula Ferguson this morning, arguing with her in a car.’

  Thea looked blank. ‘Do I know her?’

  ‘The one from Turkdean who used to teach Phil’s kids. She was over here like a hare on Sunday evening. Phil gave her a cup of tea before you and I got back from our walk.’

  ‘So she’s the most local to the Notgrove Barrow,’ Thea realised. ‘Out of all your pagans, anyway.’

  ‘Just about,’ I acknowledged. ‘But Oliver’s gran lives in Naunton, which is only a couple of miles away, and the others are all within easy driving distance.’

  Thea’s look was of blank incomprehension. ‘Is she a pagan as well? Oliver’s gran?’

  ‘What? Oh, no, of course not. I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘So what did you mean? Is Oliver a pagan?’

  ‘No, no.’ I put a hand to a sudden throbbing pain in my head. ‘I have no idea why I said it – it just popped into my head.’

  ‘How peculiar,’ Thea said, with another strange look at me.

  Lunch was inexorably looming. I had food enough in my house, but it would all need cooking, and I wasn’t in the mood. On the other hand, I wasn’t keen to spend money in a pub, especially on a Sunday lunchtime when it might be crowded and noisy.

  Thea, however, had apparently worked it all out. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a plan.’

  It turned out that Thea had seldom been to Stow-on-the-Wold, despite living for much of her life in the next county. ‘Why would I?’ she demanded, looking around at it. ‘Once or twice is probably enough to get the general idea.’

  We meandered along the pavements, pausing to look in the shop windows, making rude comments about the prices and the shameless appeal to tourists. We had persuaded Daphne Yeo to come and meet us at the Queen’s Head on the main square, and she had reluctantly agreed that she might manage to be there shortly after one. We went into the organic shop next door to the pub, where Thea bought some provisions and I considered how much money I might be making from my own garden produce if these prices were typical. But the fact that we were the only customers made me think again. The fruit and veg looked dusty and past its prime, and there were repressive notices all over the shop forbidding prams and justifying the locked freezers.

  ‘Bit depressing,’ I muttered to Thea as we left. ‘What did you buy?’

  ‘Some very expensive apple juice and a cake made of carrots,’ she said.

  ‘More money than sense,’ I accused her. ‘If you want food, just ask me. I’ve got mountains of it.’

  She was quite excited by the Queen’s Head. ‘I’m still researching Cotswold pubs,’ she said. ‘So far I think I like The Butcher’s Arms best, but I’d never be able to find it again. It’s somewhere near Bisley.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ I threw over my shoulder as I asked for two pints of the local brew.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ she said, and I let her without a quibble.

  Daphne was five minutes late, looking worried and preoccupied. I introduced her to Thea, remind
ing her they’d met briefly at the Horse Fair. ‘Hi,’ said Daphne, with little show of interest. We went to sit in the small area between the main bar and the open air bit at the back. For a moment we considering going outside, but the sun had disappeared and it looked chilly. There were fewer customers than I’d expected, and we had no trouble getting a table in a recess, with just space enough for three.

  It was the first time I’d seen Daphne since Verona’s death. I was still having trouble absorbing the fact that Verona too had been murdered, and was gone forever. It was as if my emotional limits had already been reached with Gaynor, with no space left for further shock or grief. The only feeling that had grown with the second death was fear.

  Daphne wasted no time. ‘Have they caught him?’ she demanded, in a low voice, as soon as we were settled.

  ‘Who?’

  She stared at me as if suspecting I was deliberately teasing her. ‘The murderer of course,’ she hissed. ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘No, they haven’t,’ said Thea in a normal voice.

  ‘Why did you want to see me anyway? It sounded very sinister.’ She gave me a wild look. ‘You don’t think it was me, do you?’

  I decided it would be too complicated to play games, and wouldn’t get us anywhere anyhow. ‘Daphne, you’ve been so angry lately. I know it’s all about Eddie and your separation, but now people are dying all around us, well…’ It was impossible to voice my thoughts. They already sounded stupid inside my head.

  Daphne turned very pale. ‘What?’ She was no longer whispering.

  ‘He’s obviously putting himself about rather a lot,’ said Thea. ‘People are talking about him being with at least two different women. This sounds awful, I know – but what if he’d been with Gaynor and Verona as well? How would you have felt about that?’

  I blinked at this, realising Thea was way ahead of me. She’d thought through far more motives and scenarios than I had. And she was a lot braver in making her accusations. She didn’t even know Daphne. How could she be sure she wouldn’t find herself on the receiving end of a steak knife or a broken beer glass?

  There was a horrible hush, and then Daphne laughed. It sounded quite genuinely amused. ‘Eddie doesn’t “go with” women,’ she said. ‘And if he did, why should I care?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded. ‘What are you saying?’

  Daphne seemed perfectly relaxed. She swigged her beer. ‘Not that he’s gay, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s just not interested. Never has been, really. If you knew the trouble I had to go to to get those kids…’ She rolled her eyes and Thea giggled.

  ‘So he didn’t know Verona or Gaynor?’ Already I was crossing Eddie Yeo off the suspect list, and trying to bring myself to replace him with Caroline Johnson. But that had so many painful implications I found myself grasping for other names. Kenneth, perhaps. Or even Leslie.

  Daphne gave me a patient look. ‘Ariadne, I don’t know who he knows, do I? I haven’t seen the bastard for six months. The kids go off with him at weekends, and come back saying practically nothing. I gather he’s doing well at work, fingers in all the usual pies, slapping all the right backs. I’m getting along fine without him.’ She smiled. ‘I’m not even as angry as I was. You pointed that out yourself last weekend.’

  ‘So what do you know about Caroline?’ Thea asked, leaning across the table.

  Daphne’s response was blank. ‘Who?’ she said.

  Before we could go further, the food arrived. We all had baguettes, mine filled with tuna. Eating out was sometimes tricky for me, partly because of the cost, but also because I routinely produced much better food than the average pub or restaurant did. I had even made my own ham the previous winter, steeping it in brine and molasses for a terrifying six weeks, and eating it for the next three months with no ill effects. It was infinitely more delicious than anything you could hope to buy. Tuna was one of the few things I was never going to produce for myself.

  I finally got us back to the subject. ‘You don’t know her then?’

  ‘I might by sight. What’s her surname?’

  ‘Johnson. She’s the woman he was with at the Horse Fair.’ I checked myself. ‘And you did seem rather disconcerted then, to think of him with a new woman.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not that. It was just so strange to see him, out of the blue.’ She took a bite of the bread and turned to Thea. ‘Are you separated or divorced?’ she asked.

  Thea shook her head. ‘Widow,’ she said briefly.

  ‘Ah. Sorry. Well, I hadn’t realised what it would be like to see him again unexpectedly. Whatever I might feel about him now, there’s a terrible familiarity that you can’t escape from. That’s why I was in a bit of a state on Thursday. I don’t suppose it’ll be the same next time I see him.’

  I tried to guess what Thea was thinking. Was she jealous that at least Daphne’s husband was still alive? Or was it cleaner and simpler to be widowed? Had she saved herself all the mess and muddle of a divorce in years to come? And where did she fit Phil into such questions?

  ‘Have you got anybody else?’ she asked Daphne.

  Daphne choked slightly and shook her head. ‘Do me a favour,’ she said. ‘I’m not that daft.’

  I remembered that I had been inclined to wonder if Daphne herself had been the killer. That, more or less, had been my reason for asking her to have lunch with us. In a few minutes, the whole theory seemed to have crumbled to dust. I had known her for four or five years and had always liked her. She seemed steady, intelligent and determined to make a good life for herself by her own efforts. As a pagan she was more interested in the preservation of ancient wisdom than in gaining anything for herself. She was essentially a rural person, enjoying the vagaries of the weather and the changing seasons.

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said carelessly. ‘That’s you in the clear, then.’

  She changed in seconds, her eyes boring into mine, her nostrils flaring. She looked at Thea and then back to me. ‘Are you working for the police or something?’ she demanded. ‘Is this some sort of interview, with me as a murder suspect?’

  Thea put a calming hand on Daphne’s arm. ‘Of course not,’ she said urgently. ‘It doesn’t work like that, you know it doesn’t. Ariadne didn’t mean it to sound the way it did.’ She gave me a withering look, which I didn’t think I deserved.

  Daphne calmed down only very slightly. ‘You always manage to wind me up,’ she accused. ‘You never give it a rest, do you?’

  Give what a rest? I wondered, startled by this attack. What was she talking about? It wasn’t long before she enlightened me.

  ‘Forever on about Eddie, for a start. And arguing with me every time I open my mouth. I don’t know what I’ve done, apart from rubbishing your precious Freemasons, but I’ve had enough of it.’

  I couldn’t breathe for the injustice of it. All I could think was that Daphne must have gone mad. ‘You’re crazy,’ I spluttered. I was worried that Thea might believe what Daphne was saying, but couldn’t find words to defend myself. ‘Completely mad,’ I added. ‘I’ve got no brief for the Masons, any more than you have. Why would I?’

  Thea was having no luck with her efforts at restoring calm. Daphne pushed herself up from her seat, red in the face, her curly hair looking as if it had a life of its own. ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why it is, Ariadne, but you always seem intent on having a dig at me.’

  I couldn’t let her have the last word. ‘You’re wrong,’ I insisted. ‘Horribly wrong. I don’t support Freemasonry – of course I don’t. Whatever gave you that idea?’

  She snorted at me, like a dragon. ‘Liar,’ she snarled. ‘You and the others, forming your ridiculous women’s Lodge. Don’t think I haven’t heard all about it.’

  I felt sick. ‘What makes you think I’m involved in that?’ I managed.

  ‘Don’t try to deny it,’ she threw at me, already walking away. I couldn’t call after her – other people in the pub were already much too interested in ou
r row as it was. It wouldn’t have done any good, anyway. She’d just have ignored me.

  Thea hardly moved. When I looked at her, she seemed frozen – I assumed with embarrassment or something like it. It so seldom happens that people get into real fights in public, at least in picturesque Gloucestershire they don’t. Extreme anger, violence, rage are all kept firmly out of sight in our circles.

  Finally, Thea spoke. ‘I see what you mean,’ she said. ‘That is a very angry lady.’

  ‘It isn’t true,’ I assured her. ‘Honestly, it’s a downright lie. I had no idea there even was a women’s Lodge until yesterday.’

  ‘So who do you think told her about it?’

  My mind was blank. ‘I have no idea,’ I said.

  Apparently we were still on course for the remainder of Thea’s plans for the afternoon. We finished our lunch, with me still feeling shaky at the unprovoked assault from Daphne. The weather was better when we emerged onto the town square, with the impressive library dominating the top end and a few more people strolling about.

  ‘Home, James,’ she ordered. ‘Next we walk those dogs.’

  Trekking across the fields again with Thea reminded me how imminent Samhain was, with the mists and imaginings that went with it. I wanted to clutch hold of its significance, and not let it flit by without due observance. At least I was in the right setting – much more so than being shouted at in a pub, anyhow.

  The dogs were ecstatic, remembering the path and confidently bounding ahead of us. The absurd long-tailed corgi waddled cheerfully behind the others, occasionally moving up a gear and bounding in a comical motion like a speeded-up toy. The spaniel flittered back and forth, the long hair giving it a fuzzy outline, the crazy ears flapping. I had gathered up some beans and apples for the pig, filling a carrier bag with autumn bounty for her.

  ‘I’ll have to get some proper food for her this week,’ I noted.

  ‘Proper food?’

  I laughed at myself. ‘What a thing to say! I meant commercial pig nuts. She needs building up before she farrows. And there won’t be much left in the woods by this time.’