Shadows in the Cotswolds

by Rebecca Tope

The three-way dilemma paralysed them all, until Thea knelt by the puppy’s head and gently stroked it. Above her, heavy hoofs were stamping, rocking the unstable horsebox. ‘Get out of there,’ said the man. ‘It could all tip over on you.’

  ‘What in hell’s name is happening?’ came a new voice. Nobody explained. The facts would quickly speak for themselves. ‘Patrick? Is that you?’

  ‘Cilla,’ he acknowledged. ‘We’ve got a right old mess here. Can’t decide what to do for the best.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, man. Get the horses out – tie them to the gate over there, look. Then we can unhitch the trailer and get the dog free. She might not be as bad as she looks.’

  ‘Do you know what this thing weighs?’ grumbled the man, who Thea was beginning to understand wasn’t the brightest spark in Winchcombe.

  ‘Come on.’ Priscilla was already rattling at the fastenings of the ramp at the back of the horsebox. ‘Have they got bridles?’

  ‘Yeah. But they’re big, mind. And not happy.’

  ‘Who can blame them? Take a corner here, will you?’

  Together, Patrick and Priscilla lowered the heavy ramp, and climbed in with the horses. Thea winced at the thought of yet more weight crushing the wretched puppy. Alarmed for herself as well, she crouched lower, half beneath the trailer. Her mother seemed to have disappeared from view.

  Providentially, another man materialised from somewhere, who added further calm efficiency to that of Priscilla. He took one horse, and attached it to the gate, hurrying the lifting of the ramp with brief orders. Then the two men manipulated the twisted mechanism connecting the two vehicles, and within moments had heaved the trailer backwards and off the trapped dog.

  Release made little difference, however. The flattened hips and back legs were plainly useless. Beyond pain, the eyes were filming over, and the head flopped onto Thea’s lap, as she ducked away from the slowly rolling horsebox. ‘She’s dying,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ came her mother’s voice. ‘What a terrible thing.’

  It was disproportionately terrible. It seemed to Thea at that moment like the greatest tragedy there could ever be. She felt a helpless rage against the dim-witted Patrick, and his useless horses, flashing him a venomous look. Tears dripped onto the yellow head, as the final breath was heaved: a long sigh of release, followed by an involuntary stretching of the front legs as the muscles fought one last time for oxygen.

  ‘I couldn’t help it. The stupid thing dashed right under the wheels. I was only going about twenty. They get confused by trailers, that’s what it is. I swerved as best I could.’

  The truth of this was unarguable. ‘I’m sure you couldn’t help it,’ soothed Maureen. ‘It was only a puppy. Can’t have had much sense.’

  Only then did Thea remember her own dog. She had dropped the lead to minister to the retriever, and left Hepzie to her own devices. Now, as she looked around, she saw the spaniel sitting patiently unconcerned, well out of the way of all the activity. The heartlessness did something to bring Thea back into balance. The spaniel was trusting everything to come right, accepting that there was nothing she could do. Even so, Thea sniffed, she might have come to offer me some sympathy. A cuddle from a warm living dog might have been consoling.

  ‘Who’s the owner?’ asked Patrick, of nobody in particular.

  ‘She’s called Jenny. Her husband’s just died,’ said Priscilla. ‘Typical, the way things always come together like this. One thing after another.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Maureen. ‘She must be too distraught to watch out for her dog properly. It should never have been out on its own.’

  ‘Who’s going to tell her?’ Thea quailed. ‘She’s going to be absolutely flattened.’

  ‘She’s flattened already. There’s no further down for her to go,’ said Priscilla. ‘I’ve just come from there, as it happens. I’ll go and tell her, shall I? If somebody can move the body and wrap it up in something.’

  The nameless man who had turned up to help went back to his car that nobody had noticed. He had apparently been trying to drive up to the main street, and finding his way blocked, decided the best thing to do was hasten the removal of the obstacle. ‘I’ll be off, then,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I think I can just about get through.’

  Watching him, Thea realised that several other cars were waiting for the blockage to clear, from both directions. The news of the accident would soon spread around town, she supposed. The handsome bay horses tied to the old gate added picturesque detail to the scene. The small dead dog would very likely escape notice, especially if it was quickly covered up.

  ‘If you’ve just come from there, why didn’t you watch out for the dog?’ asked Maureen accusingly. ‘You didn’t let it out, did you?’

  Priscilla flushed, but said nothing. A scenario flitted through Thea’s mind, whereby the woman had carelessly opened the door, hardly noticing the departure of the puppy. Or perhaps it had been following her when it was hit. Perhaps she had shouted at it and pushed it away, so it had been bewildered and vulnerable to a confusingly large motor in its quiet little street.

  ‘She hardly suffered,’ Maureen said quietly to Thea. ‘It was all over very quickly.’

  ‘I know,’ choked Thea. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘Come on. We can go and have a drink and pull ourselves together. They don’t need us here any more.’

  It was the best and obvious course of action, and Thea got to her feet clumsily, brushing at her grubby clothes. There was blood on her trousers. ‘I’m a bit dirty,’ she said childishly.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. You need a few quiet moments somewhere, to get over the shock.’

  Slowly, Thea noted once again how competent and effective her mother could be. No distracting hysterics or helpless hand-wringing – she had been the first to spot the practical solution to the problem, even though nobody had acted on her words until Priscilla showed up and repeated them. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’

  ‘Come on, then.’

  They walked up to the main street and turned left, instinctively seeking the near-familiarity of the Plaisterers Arms. ‘It’s such a waste,’ Thea burst out. ‘A waste of a beautiful dog, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, it is. But animals die every day, lovely animals. It’s always there, in the background, even for me. I’ve never lived on a farm or even had many pets, but I feel it, just the same. All those cows and pigs, killed for us to eat. And badgers and rabbits on the roads. You know – I think that’s the single most dreadful thing about life on this planet, the way we torture animals. It’s the one we can’t bear to face up to.’

  ‘Gosh, Mum,’ Thea laughed shakily. ‘Where did that come from, all of a sudden?’

  ‘I’ve always thought it, from a girl. Hunters shooting bears and tigers; men on boats harpooning whales; Italians shooting little birds out of the sky; it just goes on and on, an endless list of cruelty and killing. It makes me hate the whole human race.’

  ‘Horses in the First World War is the one that gets to me – and I don’t even like horses very much.’

  ‘You don’t have to like them. What about rats in laboratories, and being poisoned because they eat the cattle feed? And those poor cane toads in Australia. I don’t expect they’re very nice, but people think it’s fine to be unspeakably cruel to them.’

  ‘Stop it. It’s too depressing to think about.’

  ‘My point exactly. We can’t bear to face our own wickedness.’

  The drift into philosophy had managed to divert Thea from the specific anguish over Blodwen and her surely distraught owner. ‘I don’t feel up to seeing Jenny,’ she admitted, after walking a short way in silence, Hepzibah trotting discreetly at her heel, dimly aware that she was not in her mistress’s best books, for some reason.

  ‘I wouldn’t think she’d want to see us, either. It perhaps wasn’t such a good idea, anyhow.’

  It was a little after midday when they entered the pub, and the p
lace was deserted. Thea looked down at herself again and flinched at the sight of her messy clothes. ‘I’m not sure …’ she began, but her mother had already started talking to the man at the bar.

  ‘I’ve ordered you a brandy,’ she announced. ‘And we’ll sit here in this cosy corner. Nobody’s going to care about your clothes.’

  Thea was forced to concede that this was undoubtedly true – since there was nobody else in the place to care. Only when sitting down did she become fully aware of how shaken she had been. Her spaniel put both front paws on her knee, gazing into her face with large liquid eyes. ‘Down, Heps,’ said Thea feebly. ‘There’s a good dog.’

  She briefly stroked the soft head, and flipped a long black ear through her fingers, in the old automatic gesture. Hepzie seemed satisfied, and slumped onto the floor with a sigh.

  ‘Brandy seems terribly decadent,’ she protested. ‘In the middle of the day.’

  ‘It’s what you need. That horsebox might easily have crashed down on you. My heart was in my mouth.’

  ‘So you need a brandy as well.’

  ‘I certainly do,’ agreed her mother. ‘Possibly two.’

  ‘It couldn’t have tipped over, though. Not while it was attached to the truck. I wasn’t in any danger.’

  ‘Fraser would call it a “ute”,’ said Maureen, with a fond smile. ‘That’s what they have in Australia. Huge great things, apparently, that cost a fortune to run. People take them into the outback, with very luxurious camping stuff. It’d be nice to see it. He says it’s incredibly beautiful down there. He showed me some slides he took when he first went out. It does look wonderful.’

  ‘Phil Hollis has been to Australia,’ said Thea. ‘Queensland. He didn’t like it much.’

  ‘Fraser says it’s much better in the west. Less conformist, apparently.’

  The idle chat was soothing, and combined with the brandy was serving to settle Thea’s nerves. The sadness over the dog was already more bearable than it had been fifteen minutes earlier. But she found that any thought of food was repugnant. ‘We’re not having lunch here, are we?’ she said. ‘I don’t think I could face it.’

  ‘Leave it a little while, then. There’s no rush. We don’t have to be anywhere.’

  It was true, and yet Thea felt uneasy at the idea of spending hours in a pub, when outside there was murder and misery swirling all around. She patted her pocket, reassured to feel her phone still in place. If anything drastic happened, somebody might phone her, she thought, pulling it out and switching it on. ‘What’s that for?’ asked her mother.

  ‘I just thought … Gladwin might want me.’ Or Drew, she added silently.

  ‘I’ve got mine as well.’ Her mother prodded the shoulder bag she’d brought with her. ‘Lucky I put my purse in, or we wouldn’t be able to pay for the drinks.’

  There seemed to be nothing to say. It was like being at the eye of a hurricane, waiting for the next onslaught. Except that it was an erratic sort of storm, coming and going unpredictably. Only an hour ago, she and her mother had been so happy, never guessing that a dog was about to die and plunge them into sadness.

  Maggs wouldn’t be back yet. Would she tell Drew about her meeting with Thea? What would his reaction be? Did he resent his partner’s influence over his life, needing her permission before he did anything? Or was it not like that at all? Would he collapse completely without Maggs at his side?

  And Gladwin? What was she doing at that precise moment? Thea felt a sense of obligation towards the detective, a need to be available at a moment’s notice, just like any paid employee.

  There was a small television behind the bar, which had been switched off when they arrived. Now the barman, apparently in an effort to add some cheery distraction to the place, turned it on. A news reporter was speaking, from in front of the Old Bailey. The name ‘Meadows’ crashed into the quiet bar like a small bomb.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Maureen, her hand to her mouth. ‘What’s happened now?’

  It took them a few moments to decipher the story. An old man was speaking to camera, with a quiet dignity that had plainly magnetised everyone around him. ‘Whoever might have killed her, it had nothing to do with my family,’ he said.

  ‘He means Melissa, of course,’ said Thea. ‘But how does he know?’

  Maureen slowly caught up. ‘That must be Cedric,’ she realised. ‘He doesn’t look much like the others, does he?’

  ‘Oliver’s collapsed – is that what they said? The trial’s been suspended. So what happens now? He’ll come home, I suppose, if he’s well enough.’

  ‘I must go to Fraser,’ her mother announced urgently. ‘I really must go to him right away.’ She stood up, her face pinched with worry. ‘I told him to stay away from all that nastiness. It’s got nothing whatever to do with him.’

  ‘That’s what Cedric just said,’ Thea remarked. ‘And yet surely it can’t be true.’

  Her mother was unstoppable. Thea followed her out of the bar, into a town square that was suddenly bright with sunshine. ‘But how will you get there?’ she protested. ‘What’s the hurry? Do you want me to take you to a station? The only one I know is at Moreton. It isn’t far away.’

  ‘Yes, yes. A station.’

  ‘To London? Are you going to London?’

  ‘Yes. No. I suppose so. Wherever Fraser is.’

  ‘We don’t know where he is. He might have gone home to Mo’s by now. Calm down, Mum. Stop and think for a minute.’

  But at that moment the storm came back, and there was no time for thinking.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It began fairly quietly, with a minor kerfuffle in the pub doorway, in which a man tried to step around Hepzie and got entangled in her lead. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ Thea apologised, trying to unwind them.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ snapped the man. ‘Get out of the way, will you.’

  ‘Just stand still a minute,’ Thea ordered, as if to the dog. But since the spaniel was meekly waiting for release and the man was hopping and twisting, he rightly assumed the instruction could only apply to him.

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he shouted.

  ‘We’re in a hurry,’ put in Thea’s mother.

  The man jerked roughly and Thea dropped the lead. Aware of her freedom, Hepzie darted forward into the square, where cars were parked. Cravenly she scuttled underneath a silver Peugeot and crouched quiveringly out of reach.

  ‘Satisfied?’ snarled Thea at the man, and ran to retrieve the dog.

  It was accomplished without much difficulty, Thea’s mother eventually snatching at the trailing lead and hauling the dog out from just below the number plate. ‘Come here, you silly thing,’ she said. ‘There’s no time for this.’

  Thea found herself staring at the car’s registration. ‘RE08BEN’ she read aloud. ‘And look what somebody’s done to the zero – added a screw or something, to make it more like a U. Look, Mum! Is it just me, or is it trying to look like REUBEN? With two Bs, though. That rather spoils it.’

  Maureen stood back for a look. ‘I would never have guessed,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you being rather fanciful?’

  ‘Don’t you think it could be what Melissa had written on her hand, though? I wonder whose car it is?’

  ‘It must be Reuben’s – but why is it parked here, when he only lives around the corner?’

  ‘Hmm. It’s got something stuck on it – see. A parking ticket, presumably. Which means it must have been here …’ Thea peered more closely at the plastic-encased missive. ‘There’s a date – the sixteenth. That was yesterday.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been towed away by now? I thought the police were checking all the cars, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. They were. And this must surely have attracted their notice.’

  ‘Especially if it does belong to Reuben.’

  ‘But you don’t have to pay to park here on a Sunday, so it might just have come up as belonging to a local resident, when they ran the check, so it esc
aped their notice. Once Reuben’s body was found, they went on to something else and stopped worrying about cars.’ Thea was hypothesising wildly, her detective instincts suddenly activated. ‘It’s possible,’ she finished, rather lamely.

  ‘Well, never mind now. I want to get moving.’

  ‘No, Mum. I have to call Gladwin, and tell her about it. I can’t believe it’s not important.’

  ‘Afternoon, ladies,’ came a voice from the pavement behind them. ‘Can I be of service?’

  ‘Jason!’ gasped Maureen. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The man grinned cheerily at her. ‘Mo sent me. She thought you might be in need of some wheels. And the old man’s pining for you, so she says.’

  ‘Where did you go on Sunday?’ Thea challenged him. ‘You just disappeared. The police—’

  He spread his hands ingenuously. ‘Tell me about it. The phone’s been red-hot. How was I to know you’d fall over a dead body the minute I let you out of my sight?’

  ‘Come on, Jason. I’m not that stupid. You made yourself scarce for a reason. Nobody had an idea where you’d gone.’

  ‘Listen.’ He put his face close to hers. ‘There were a few things in the back of my car that I didn’t want people to see, okay? I got back to the high street here after looking at the trains, and saw the rozzers gathering, so had a quick look to see what was going on – just walked down to the end of that Silk Whatsit Street. I saw you two and the uniforms and thought I should keep my head down. When Mo didn’t show, I reckoned she’d get a ride with her dad, no trouble, so I went off on my own. No great mystery to it. Don’t know why you set the law on me like you did.’

  ‘They found you, then?’

  ‘As I said, only on the phone. Seems I wasn’t near as suspicious a character as you made them think.’ He turned to Maureen. ‘Now, milady, can I drive you to a reunion with your beloved? That’s what I came for. I was just about to turn down your road when I spotted you here. Couldn’t miss that pretty doggie, could I?’

  Thea struggled to find further flaws in his story. Whilst having no real fear that he had committed murder, or even behaved violently, she could still not believe him. ‘Did something happen?’ she asked. ‘After you left us to go to the museum?’