A Cotswold Christmas Mystery

by Rebecca Tope

  In Beverley’s room there was also a laptop and books, but her studies were much more focused. She was teaching herself law, with special regard to property rights, tenantry laws and council responsibilities. Nobody would have been surprised if she had suddenly announced an intention to go into local politics.

  ‘She’s probably just sick of this house,’ said Ant now. ‘Carla’s daughters will have been the final straw.’

  ‘You could be right. It’s like being under surveillance by the Stasi – even if we have worked out how to dodge the cameras.’

  The CCTV cameras, ostensibly intended to deter burglars and other intruders, overlooked the Frowses’ cottage at the front. If the family left by the main door, walked down to the small parking area and drove down the drive, every step would be captured. But they had soon devised a system whereby they left through the back door, walked in a loop around the side of the house, and reached their vehicles without being seen. Little by little, they had shifted the parking area out of range, too. But there was no avoiding the camera down at the electric gate. The only satisfaction there was that the landlord couldn’t see who was inside the car as it drove away.

  To Ant, this was mostly just a game. He didn’t let it affect him emotionally, beyond the concern he felt at the way it upset his parents. His mother was right in saying it was definite harassment and intimidation, and she wrote regular letters to the Housing Department to say exactly that. She kept a detailed dossier with every tiny event logged, and a copy of every letter. She was talking about buying a ‘dashcam’ to set up inside their car, so that any physical approaches that occurred in the driveway could be recorded. This was because there had been one occasion when Rufus Blackwood had stopped her at the gate and started accusing her of letting their dog Percy trespass on forbidden ground. Carla owned a precious pedigree Pekinese, of all things, and the existence of other dogs presented a direct threat to its welfare, apparently.

  ‘They’ll be too busy with Christmas to bother about us,’ said Ant. ‘They’ve kept at a distance so far, anyway.’

  Digby said nothing and Ant went on, ‘I’m going to try and phone Mum and see what’s she’s up to.’

  But when he did just that, the phone was unresponsive. ‘She’s switched it off,’ he said.

  ‘What’s new?’ said Digby.

  Ant himself had plans for the evening. Although not considering himself to be in a committed relationship, he did have a female friend whose company he enjoyed. Alice Whitworth lived in Chipping Campden with her young daughter and two corgis. Because of the child, Ant was never permitted to stay overnight – except when young Lydia was sleeping at her father’s, which did not happen very often, because he lived in Birmingham. Alice and Ant had known each other since school, off and on, and had an easy understanding that never developed into anything serious.

  ‘I’m going over to see Alice,’ he said. ‘I’ll probably be late back. I’ll go on the bike, so it won’t matter if I drink.’

  ‘Lydia not at her dad’s for Christmas, then?’

  ‘Certainly not. But she is going there for New Year’s Day, I think. Staying a night or two.’

  ‘Ah well. She’s right, you know. Best not to confuse the kid,’ said Digby, as he had said many times before. Ant didn’t argue. They had all seen enough bewildered children from broken families to understand the pitfalls. ‘It’s not as if you’re aiming to marry her, now is it?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ sighed Ant, who was beginning to resign himself to perpetual bachelorhood. ‘If I do, it won’t be till Lydia’s about sixteen.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry about me,’ said Digby. ‘I’m going to see if I can get that radio to work. I think if I give it a better aerial, I might get somewhere. And your mother’s sure to be back before bedtime.’

  ‘Maybe clean the place up a bit, as well,’ said Ant, with a cheeky grin.

  ‘I might just do that,’ said his father.

  Chapter Three

  Thea Slocombe was doing her best to concentrate on Christmas. She owed it to Drew and his children to make the best possible effort. The year before, everyone had been finding their feet and wondering how this newly formed family was going to work out. They had all been treading carefully, wary of hurting each other’s feelings or trampling on sacrosanct ground, so that Christmas had turned into a somewhat scrappy event, with everybody going through the motions with far too much care. It was more relaxed now, but expectations were higher. Memories of Karen were inevitably more vivid at such a time, her special Christmas touches still important to her children. The tree was a prime example. Drew had explained it, with some embarrassment, leaving it to Thea to decide whether or not to adhere to the ritual established by his first wife. ‘That’s not fair,’ she had wailed. ‘Can’t you take an executive decision and then explain it to them?’

  ‘I might if I knew what the decision was,’ he said reasonably.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ll do my best, I suppose, to keep things as they were. There’s no sense in making changes for the sake of it. The trouble is, I know I won’t make such a good job of it. We’ve already established that Karen put a lot more into the whole thing than I’m ever going to.’

  ‘They’re still very young,’ he had pleaded. ‘Just give it three or four more years. Stockings, treasure hunt, mince pie for Santa. It’s all quite ordinary, really.’

  ‘Treasure hunt?’ Thea had echoed worriedly.

  ‘Little presents hidden round the house. We bought them with money that Karen’s relations sent. Wrapped in colour-coded paper, red for Tim and yellow for Stephanie.’

  ‘Well, let’s cut that one out, at least,’ Thea said. ‘Not least because it doesn’t seem likely that the relatives – whoever they are – are still going to send any money.’

  ‘They didn’t last year, come to think of it. They must think that now I’ve got you, they can forget all about me and my kids.’

  There were further details, such as roasted chestnuts, mistletoe hung from a door frame, and the exact kind of satsuma. ‘The ones that are really easy to peel,’ Drew specified.

  It wasn’t, she acknowledged, that these were especially outlandish requests. They were much the same as she and Carl had included in their own Christmases. But that had been a long time ago and since Carl died, she had foisted herself on Jocelyn most years, leaving her sister to construct whatever festive frolics took her fancy.

  Thea herself liked Christmas well enough, recognising that without it the dark days of winter would be intolerable. December flew by in a whirl of preparations, so that by the time the decorations came down the evenings were lighter by a few minutes and there was hope for better days. She liked the excitement of children and the coloured lights everywhere. What she did not like was the expense and the relentless advertising. She had assumed that Drew felt the same, and was largely reassured in that respect. He did, however, insist on spending unreasonable sums of money on his children. The previous year had seen them both in receipt of lavish toys, which had been all too quickly abandoned, the money wasted. Although he was taking more care this year to fit the gift to the individual child, he was still spending far more than Thea thought necessary. From force of habit he continued to take charge of their clothes, making a special outing to select new outfits, letting them have whatever they wanted. Thea stepped back, thankful that at least one aspect of their maintenance could be avoided. Drew also saw to their haircuts, rather to Thea’s amusement.

  ‘You don’t have to get them anything,’ he had told her, regarding the Christmas presents. ‘These are from both of us.’

  ‘That’s something, I suppose,’ she sighed, eyeing the purchases with disfavour. ‘But they really don’t need such big things, you know.’

  ‘So you keep telling me. I happen to disagree.’ His firm stand was enough to silence her, at least for that year.

  Her share of the labour, as always, came down to food and household management – making beds, putting up decor
ations.

  ‘Is there anything else we need?’ she asked the girls, later on Friday afternoon. ‘Speak now, if there is, because I really don’t want to go to the shops again after tomorrow.’

  Jessica and Stephanie exchanged looks. ‘Cranberry sauce?’ said Jessica.

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘A present for everyone – that’s me, Drew, two kids.’

  Thea pretended to be horrified. ‘You mean I have to get you something?’

  ‘And Hepzie,’ said Stephanie.

  ‘Absolutely not. Dogs don’t do Christmas. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘You’ve got things for everybody, have you, Steph?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Ages ago.’

  ‘She’s not exaggerating,’ said Thea, rolling her eyes. ‘She had most of them wrapped by the end of October.’

  ‘Aunt Emily always did them in September,’ laughed Jessica. ‘Is she still the same?’

  ‘Not quite. I think she’s still a bit wobbly.’ Thea’s older sister’s life had taken a knock in recent years, making her withdrawn and uncommunicative.

  ‘And Damien will bring his presents – assuming there are any – when he comes on Wednesday.’ She sighed, as she often did at any mention of her brother.

  Andrew Emerson and his wife Fiona arrived at seven on Friday evening, having been warned by Drew that they could only expect drinks and nibbles, rather than a full-scale meal. This was perfectly acceptable, it seemed, as Fiona made clear from the outset. ‘Saving ourselves for Christmas,’ she said. ‘We signed up for a big meal with all the trimmings at the hotel in town. You know – Chipping Campden House. I’ve got out of the habit of cooking.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ laughed Thea, heady with relief at not being required to provide serious quantities of food.

  Stephanie liked Fiona a lot. She and Timmy were staying up until the visitors had gone, which seemed only right and proper. ‘They won’t stay later than nine anyway,’ said Drew.

  But Drew was oddly distracted throughout the whole visit. One by one, the others noticed, though long after Stephanie had become aware that he wasn’t right. It had started with the phone call before supper. He had come out of his office into the disorganised preparations for a scanty supper, before the visitors arrived. There had been no opportunity for a coherent conversation. ‘Can you feed the dog for me?’ Thea had asked him.

  ‘Can you bring some more logs in?’ was the next request.

  ‘Dad – what time exactly will you bring the stockings up on Christmas morning?’ Timmy wanted to know.

  ‘Drew – when are you going to take me down to look at your burial field?’ Jessica wondered.

  They ate quickly, and washed everything up, while Stephanie continued to observe her father and his obvious preoccupation. She was none the wiser when the Emersons arrived.

  Andrew was the next person to realise something was awry. ‘What’s up, mate?’ he asked, in his plain-speaking fashion.

  Drew flinched, and forced a smile. ‘What? Oh – nothing. Worrying about whether everyone’s going to like the presents I’ve got them. Families and all that sort of thing.’

  Andrew gave this some thought. He was nearly twenty years older than Drew, a lifelong farmer driven out of business by TB in his cattle, and a fatal loss of hope for the future of agriculture. He and Fiona had sold their farm near Chedworth and accepted Drew’s offer of low-paid sporadic work as his assistant in the undertaking business. Fiona had remained in her job at the council, increasing her hours and enjoying the absence of livestock. ‘Everyone said we would miss the cows and sheep, but they were wrong,’ she repeated regularly, with a liberated laugh. The money they had managed to salvage from the sale would see them through to old age, even after buying a small bungalow on a new estate in the area.

  ‘You’ve got your family right here in front of you,’ said Andrew.

  ‘The most important ones, yes,’ said Drew. Only Stephanie overheard this remark, and wondered what it meant. She found herself sliding into a meditation about herself and Timmy and how they were Drew’s real family, more than Thea and Jessica were. And that brought her to the subject of Drew and Timmy, and their clumsy attempts to love each other. Because Timmy really wasn’t an irritating person. He was thin and small for his age, but he wasn’t stupid or mean or fussy about food. His very existence seemed to be the problem – a conclusion that Thea had once accidentally confirmed, when Stephanie heard her say, ‘You can’t blame him for being born, Drew. You’ve really got to try harder with him, you know you have.’ They’d been in their bedroom, and hadn’t seen Stephanie outside on the landing. Drew had groaned and agreed, saying, ‘Yes, I know.’ Nothing much had changed, though.

  Except it had got better in the past week or so, because of Christmas. Timmy made a modest list of the presents he would like, all very serious stuff, and Drew had gone over it with him and told him he was very advanced in his grasp of history and maps and that sort of thing. He even said Timmy’s mother would have been proud of him, which was particularly kind, because Karen dying had probably been worse for Timmy than for anyone else.

  Jessica was being kind to him now, as well. She let him go on about Pokémon for ages, and then said she’d read to him when he went to bed. Two more sleeps till Christmas Eve and she suggested a whole lot of things to do that would please him most. ‘Stephanie and Thea can see to the food, and we’ll go out for a walk,’ she said. ‘With the dog.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ Thea had said with a smile. ‘It’ll be good to have you out of the house for a bit. It’s all going to be terribly busy, with school breaking up so close to Christmas. I don’t know what they were thinking – the poor teachers must have hated it.’

  Nobody cared about the teachers, and Stephanie was of the opinion that it was quite a good idea to jump straight from school to the main business of the holiday, without lots of boring days to wait for something to happen. She shook herself, and returned her attention to Andrew, who was watching her face.

  ‘No new funerals, then?’ he asked Drew. ‘Or have you turned the phone off?’

  ‘Just the one that came through yesterday. Luckily, the hospital’s keeping him for me until Wednesday, which is very decent of them. And the phone stays on. Anything that happens from now till Wednesday will have to wait, but at least they can call and tell us about it. Although we could do a removal on Tuesday, I suppose, if we absolutely had to.’

  ‘No problem,’ Andrew nodded. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘We could do a burial Thursday or Friday, at a push,’ Drew went on. ‘But I have a feeling we’re not going to have any new business before the end of the week.’

  ‘People aren’t allowed to die at Christmas, are they, Dad?’ said Stephanie, pushing up under his arm, and gazing into his face. She wanted him to remember she was there, at his side, on his side, if it came to a disagreement. She was acting like a much younger child, clinging to the magic of Christmas in the face of a threat that growing up meant losing her grasp of all that part of it.

  ‘Right,’ said Drew, with a sigh. ‘Although not everybody sticks to that particular rule, sad to say.’

  ‘Anybody you know?’ asked Andrew astutely.

  Drew made a gesture that meant Hush! and quickly changed the subject. ‘Timmy’s counting the minutes till Christmas. It’s still quite a lot, eh, Tim?’

  The child was not far away, sitting next to Jessica on the sofa. Fiona Emerson was leaning over the back of the couch, joining in a three-way conversation about the various animals you could keep as pets. ‘My sister’s got rats,’ said Fiona. ‘She absolutely adores them.’

  Timmy heard his father and looked across at him. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Counting the minutes,’ Stephanie explained. ‘Dad’s telling Andrew about it.’

  ‘Oh.’ Even Timmy understood that his father had just been making conversation for the sake of it. The pet rats were a lot more interesting.

  Andrew came to the rescue. ‘I ga
ther there’s been some bother up at Crossfield,’ he said. ‘Some priceless bit of jewellery’s gone missing. We heard about it yesterday.’

  Drew seized on this with alacrity. ‘Really? No, haven’t heard anything. Thea – did you know there’s some ructions at Crossfield? You were there a few days ago, weren’t you?’

  Thea had been circulating with bowls of crisps and peanuts. ‘What sort of ructions?’

  Andrew shrugged. ‘The Blackwood bloke was in the post office in Chipping Campden, shouting about a mislaid package that had been sent special delivery from London, and never turned up. They told him he would have to try tracking it online, and he said he’d done that and the fools insisted it had been delivered and signed for. The signature was one of those done with your finger, which always looks like a bit of meaningless scribble. He said the delivery man must have stolen it, which was going too far for the woman in the post office. She turned her back on him. It was rather fine, actually. That man’s a complete bully.’

  ‘It was Sunday when we were there. This must have happened since then. Or else the Frowses didn’t know about it.’ Thea regarded Stephanie. ‘They didn’t say anything, did they?’

  Stephanie shook her head. ‘Ant just said there were two daughters visiting and Beverley was annoyed about that.’

  Thea nodded. ‘Right – I remember. It’s dreadful the way those people make them live. The Frowses, I mean. I’m sure there must be a law against it, but Beverley says it’s all very complicated and inexact. And Ant says it’s the wife that’s the real pig. Rufus wasn’t too bad before he married her.’

  Stephanie absorbed the new story about the necklace with interest. A fight in the local post office must have been quite a drama. And priceless jewellery sounded like something out of a book. Jessica seemed to think so too. ‘Have they reported the loss of the necklace to the police?’ she asked.