Shadows in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

  The tour was over in no time, and Thea suspected that they were both feeling decidedly nervous as Oliver scrambled into his car. ‘I’m sorry this has all been such a rush,’ he said. ‘If it’s any consolation, I would far rather not be going, but I haven’t any choice. The exact day of my return is uncertain, I’m afraid. It could be any time next week – but not longer than that. Your mother knows my brother, of course. If you need any help, he might be slightly better than nothing.’ He pulled a rueful face. ‘Although I suggest you do your best not to need him.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she breezed. After all, she thought, how difficult can it be to feed the birds? Any eight-year-old could do it.

  In reality, the instructions had been deplorably sketchy. She wasn’t precisely sure how to operate the camera, for one thing. Oliver had embarked on a hurried elucidation of how it worked, but then interrupted himself at the sight of a goldfinch swinging on one of the feeders. ‘Hey – she hasn’t been here for over a week!’ he rejoiced. ‘I was worrying.’ He lapsed into an enchanted silence as he watched the gaudy little bird.

  ‘The camera?’ Thea prompted.

  ‘It’s not really difficult. Don’t bother with the panning, but if you could change the cards and batteries … and label the cards with the date, maybe? I hate to miss anything, you see.’ He was whispering, his eyes firmly on the finch. ‘It is rather important,’ he added. ‘The records will lose all their purpose if there’s two weeks missing, do you see?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she asserted bravely.

  As a final thought, he tried to assure her that it was going to be rather a treat. ‘You can go out any time you like, of course. There’s a lot to see around here. Winchcombe has more history than almost anywhere, right here on the doorstep. And then there’s Hailes Abbey and Belas Knap and all that …’ He smiled encouragingly at her, and started the engine. As he drove off, Thea found herself struggling to feel glad to be there, with new places to explore and bird species to learn. It was easy, she insisted to herself, and there were bound to be distractions.

  But the hurried arrangements began to strike her as unsettlingly irresponsible as she tried to find her way around the house, and resolve such urgent issues as what she would eat and where she would sleep. ‘Spare room, everything should be self-explanatory,’ Oliver Meadows had said carelessly, without even taking her upstairs. Although accustomed to a certain lack of formality in many of her house-sitting commissions, she found this one the most casual to date. All the man cared about were his birds, it seemed. She could neglect the house completely, so long as the feeders were full and the camera doing its job.

  Why had she agreed to do it, she asked herself, as she looked round at the dusty interior? The house faced south-west, with trees to the north and east, and a downhill slope to the south. It was shaded from the sun that morning, and as far as Thea could tell, would not get very much light at any time. The windows were small in the old stone walls, and the interior felt chilly. There was no actual garden with a lawn to sit on or a sun-filled summerhouse. The patio was bare of furniture, containing nothing more than two large plant pots in which grew a bay tree and a fig, neither looking particularly robust.

  The kitchen offered basic facilities in the form of a gas cooker, fridge and microwave, as well as electric kettle and toaster. It was almost as ascetic as self-catering holiday cottages used to be, with added dust on many of the surfaces.

  She felt unreasonably lonely and abandoned. She had not wanted another commission, as she had tried to explain to her mother. She had been busy being bored, she admitted to herself. Bored and rather depressed, thanks to events over the summer. She was forty-four and single, with no clear idea of her future and a growing suspicion that she was not making the best of her life.

  And she had no idea at all what, if anything, she should do about Drew.

  Chapter Two

  She was forced to go out to Winchcombe high street in order to buy some food for herself and her dog. The path at the rear of the property struck her as somewhat uninviting and vague, so she walked up Vineyard Street and out into the centre of the town, with Hepzie on the lead. She turned right and recognised the rectangular Square, dominated by a bank and a pub called the Plaisterers Arms. There was no immediate sign of a food shop, and she braced herself for the discovery that she would have to drive out to a supermarket somewhere to get bread and milk and cheese. There was, however, a butcher, which seemed to be a good start.

  With sausages and bacon in her bag, she continued her exploration. Passing a small museum, she turned left into another street of shops, and paused to admire some of the window displays. As in many small Cotswold towns, there were clothes, expensive furniture, jewellery and antiques – lots and lots of antiques – to be found, and after a couple of minutes, a well-stocked Co-op which fulfilled all her basic needs and much more besides. She gave the town a mental gold star and began the return walk in a much improved frame of mind. The buildings were old and solid and lovely, with an assured sense of permanence that she found consoling. The settlement had existed for a thousand years and more, with occasional violence and trauma making its mark on history, but in essence a calmly prosperous spot, confident of its place in the scheme of things. Larger than Blockley or Chipping Campden, Winchcombe still hardly qualified as a full-sized town. Shreds of historical facts about the abbey and St Kenelm surfaced, thanks to a previous house-sit in nearby Temple Guiting, and a deepening fascination with the past. This had once been a very important place, she remembered, ten centuries ago. The abbey had been destroyed and its stone used to build Sudeley Castle and parts of the imposing St Michael’s Church. The inn had been host to countless pilgrims, and probably millions of Cotswold sheep had passed through the main street, from the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century.

  These disparate facts came effortlessly to mind, almost as if she could read them in the stones. Ubiquitous helpful plaques added further information, as she strolled the length of the main street. She tied the dog to the iron gate of the church and popped in for a look, spending much of the time in front of a fabulously old embroidered altarpiece that claimed to have been wrought by Catherine of Aragon, no less. A man approached her and started telling her random facts about the building. ‘Have you seen the gargoyles?’ he asked.

  ‘Um … no, I don’t think so,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘Well, when you leave, go across the street and look up,’ he ordered her. ‘They’re really something.’

  And they were. She wondered how she could have failed to notice them before she went in. She wished she had binoculars or a telephoto lens with which to inspect them more closely. Two large ones sprang from the corners of the big church porch, grotesque figures with big faces. She moved a few yards for a better view, and found the right-hand figure to be truly ghastly in its lifelike appearance. It had bulging eyes and bared teeth, with arms that appeared to be straining to push the creature out of the constraining stone and into the freedom of the open air. It had wings and a muscular chest. She stared helplessly at it, glad of her long sight that enabled her to pick out more and more detail. Furrowed brow; a suggestion of dog-like ears; a great misshapen nose. How terrifying it must have seemed, down the centuries, to anybody pausing long enough for a really good look. It would haunt the nightmares of children, and savage the conscience of a sinner. But she found herself almost liking the beast, and wishing it could succeed in releasing itself from the centuries of entrapment in the high stone wall of the church porch. It would flap cumbersomely around her head, miraculously using the small wings to keep its heavy stone body aloft …

  Stop it! she ordered herself silently. This is ridiculous. But the gargoyle had already endeared her to Winchcombe, by adding something magical and medieval to the atmosphere.

  For good measure, she gave the second gargoyle a look as well. This was more human, with a beard and a resigned expression. Deep-sunken eyes suggested sorrow, or perhaps a cosmic knowledge of the great weight o
f misery that was everybody’s due. ‘Thanks very much,’ Thea muttered to it and began to walk towards the town centre. The long wall of the church was adorned with more hideous faces, higher up and harder to see. One had his tongue out, and another wore a hat. Probably modelled on real people, Thea concluded.

  The weather remained benign, and it was good to be in the open air. Idly, she turned back towards the Meadows house, and after dropping the bags in the hall, went out again and kept on going, heading for the large gateway into Sudeley Park. She could see dogs and children ahead, and the sense of being part of a typical English weekend was irresistible.

  The way was bordered with trees, some of them immensely ancient and toweringly high. Beech, chestnut, and one or two exotic specimens she was unable to name. The sense of permanency was familiar to her. She and her former boyfriend, Phil Hollis, had noted the same feeling in Temple Guiting, something over a year before. However much the traffic might increase and people come to rely on electronic gadgetry, these trees and the houses they protected felt as if they would last for ever. The park was freely available to any who wished to feel grass beneath their feet and let their dogs run loose. Whilst a small cynical voice might suggest that all these common people were only here on sufferance, provided they behaved themselves, that was not the overall impression. Here and there a gate might be locked or a ‘Private’ sign forbid entrance, but the space was ample enough to be experienced as expansively generous.

  Thea let the spaniel off the lead, and watched as she zigzagged off the path and onto the grass between the trees. An exuberant young dog on a lead held by a young woman approached, and duly abased itself before the matronly older dog. It was yellow and soft and, impossibly endearing, it squirmed and yapped in the hope of persuading Hepzibah to play. ‘What a sweet little thing!’ Thea exclaimed. ‘A golden retriever, right?’

  The woman smiled, and said, ‘Right. She’s five months old.’ Thea dimly perceived a person in her early thirties, wearing a long cotton cardigan and leggings. The cardigan was a light tan colour and looked expensive. There was a halo of very fair hair above an unremarkable face. The dog was considerably more interesting and appealing than its owner.

  ‘She’s adorable,’ laughed Thea, bending to fondle the grinning creature. The hair was impossibly soft, the body warm and energetic. Hepzie showed a coolly polite interest, plainly perplexed as to what the attraction might be.

  Thea’s spirits had been raised by the encounter, her hand still warm from the puppy’s coat. The sheer delight in life that puppies displayed always melted her heart. How wonderful the world would be if people could acquire the same approach. She smiled to herself at the absurdity of the notion. After all, even dogs had their share of pain and misery, fear and neurosis.

  She thought back over the year since her father had died, during which she had undertaken several house-sitting jobs, four of them involving deeply unpleasant behaviour on the part of various people. There had been very little cause for celebration during that time. The loss of her father in itself had been a great sadness. A decent, affectionate man, he should have enjoyed at least another decade of life. Rapidly following on from his death, there had been a turbulent episode involving her sister Emily, and then, six months or so later, she had met Drew Slocombe.

  And Drew Slocombe was a major part of the reason for her restless, bored, depressed, worried condition. They had become friends and partners in confronting three instances of violent death. They had found themselves in harmony, at the same time as knowing they had to maintain a proper distance between them. Because until six or seven weeks ago, Drew had had a wife.

  And with Karen’s death, more than his family life had fallen apart.

  It was no longer possible to phone him, or send emails or texts or even letters. His profound grief had removed him from her completely, much to Thea’s own surprise. He had phoned her to give the news, in a deceptively calm voice, and for fifteen seconds it had felt as if it could be overcome without too much difficulty. They had nothing to feel guilty about; they were balanced adults already well along the way towards a mature relationship. Drew was good and kind and funny and conscientious. He had two children and a business based entirely on principle. She approved completely of everything about him, and believed he felt the same towards her. Only after those first heady seconds did she understand that it was an infinitely great distance from being so simple.

  It was silly and sad and complicated. She herself had been abruptly bereaved at a point where she had assumed she’d be married to Carl for another forty years. Drew had been amply forewarned – Karen had been ill for years. On the one hand, Thea knew that if another man had shown interest in her, barely two months after Carl died, she would not even have recognised him as human, in the midst of her stunned and anguished grief. On the other hand, she and Drew had already laid the foundations before Karen died. They had been funny together, and devious in their strategies for exposing miscreants. She had met his children and shared in some moments of danger and disaster.

  And now she could not even phone or text or write to him, because all she could truthfully say was that she urgently wanted to be there for him. And she could not say that because Maggs and Stephanie and his mother-in-law and the entire female population of North Staverton were all in total agreement that this could not be allowed. He did not need Thea, they said – a rapacious and irresponsible house-sitter who consistently managed to find herself embroiled in murky murder and mayhem. No, they agreed, Drew was much, much better off without her.

  So she phoned her mother instead.

  ‘Maureen Johnstone,’ came the reply, impressively brisk and businesslike.

  ‘Hello again, Mum. It’s me. I’m in Winchcombe. Thanks to you.’

  ‘Oh, Thea … yes. Good. Is it nice?’

  ‘It’s sunny, at least. Listen – have you ever actually met Oliver Meadows?’

  ‘No, I told you. It’s his brother who I knew. Fraser. I thought I explained.’

  ‘I suppose you did – sort of. But it all seems rather odd. Were you at school with the brother or something?’

  ‘No, no. I knew him in London, in the early sixties. He lived in Notting Hill Gate and I had a bedsit in Bayswater. He took me to Crufts.’

  ‘Crufts. Isn’t that in Birmingham?’

  ‘It is now. It used to be at Olympia. I only went that one time. I remember the poor dogs were all terribly hot.’

  ‘And somehow he’s found you again, after all this time. Did you say it was Facebook? I didn’t know you were on there.’

  ‘Well, I am. It’s great fun. I use it to keep track of Emily’s boys, mainly. You’d be amazed the things they say. I feel I know all their sins.’

  ‘What a modern granny! The whole thing makes me feel weak.’

  ‘You’re old before your time. I always said that. You were a dreadfully sensible child.’

  ‘And I never made a fuss about food; yes, I know, Mum. There are some people now who might tell you that’s all changed. I don’t think I was very sensible in Lower Slaughter last year, for a start.’

  Her mother groaned. ‘Don’t talk about that awful time. You did your best. If only Emily …’

  ‘Okay.’ Thea headed her off. The topic of Emily and the events in Lower Slaughter was a taboo area within the family. After a year, it was still too raw for casual mention. ‘Oliver Meadows said you might be here with me for some of the time. Is that right? Where did he get that idea?’

  ‘I’m sure I told you. Fraser suggested it. He says the house is big enough for us all for a few days, and he’d like to explore the area. That’d be all right, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘There are only three bedrooms. One’s Oliver’s and I’m in another.’ The appalling notion of her mother and the rediscovered boyfriend sharing a bed in the third room rendered her dumb for a few moments. The woman was in her seventies, for heaven’s sake. She had sagging wrinkled skin and mottled legs. Such thoughts were probably proscribed by the
demands of anti-ageism, but they were insistent, for all that.

  ‘Whatever are you thinking?’ her mother demanded, with a scandalised laugh. ‘Fraser can use his brother’s room, of course.’

  ‘Are they Scottish?’ Thea asked, registering the name for the first time.

  ‘What? No, I don’t think so. His accent is perfectly English. They grew up in the East End. He went to the LSE and did that PPE thing they were all doing then. Although, actually, he was a bit ahead of the crowd. Wasn’t it 1968 when all that was so fashionable?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum.’ She was struggling to keep up. LSE was the London School of Economics, but she was still puzzling over PPE. ‘What’s PPE?’

  ‘Politics, philosophy and economics. I always thought it sounded terribly dry, but he seemed to think it was something to be proud of. He’d only just graduated when I met him.’

  ‘Did he have a job?’

  ‘Not that I can recall. He seemed to be around in the daytime a lot. I think he might have worked in a cinema – that little one in Hampstead, maybe. I can’t remember the name, but it was where they all went. It showed unusual foreign films.’

  ‘It all sounds like the Dark Ages to me.’

  ‘Yes … it does to me sometimes, as well. He seems to remember it all far better than I do. Strange as it might sound, it looks as if I made a lot more of an impression on him than he did on me. He says I was his first love and he’s never forgotten me.’

  ‘But you’ve forgotten him?’

  ‘I remember some things. He was very young and innocent. I was a bit older than him. But he did know London and showed me around. I know we did a Jack the Ripper tour, looking at all the places where the murders happened. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the East End since then.’