A Cotswold Christmas Mystery

by Rebecca Tope

  His mother’s voice was growing faint. ‘The battery’s going and I haven’t got the charger. Ant, I think there’s going to be trouble. I’m in Win—’ and her voice disappeared, partly thanks to a loud horn honking in the street, but mainly because his mother’s mobile was dying. Helplessly, he shook his phone and called her name. Then he pocketed his device, shouldered the tree and marched along the pavement. Then he turned left into the front door of the Campden House Hotel and dumped the tree. He was detained for a further three minutes, while the manager came out of his office to shake his hand and present him with a ready-wrapped package. ‘We were expecting you,’ he said. ‘This is for all your work this year – it’s for your mum as well.’ He went on with a formal little speech that Ant barely had the patience to hear.

  ‘Gosh, thanks,’ Ant panted, when he finished. ‘Have a good Christmas. Sorry! I can’t stop any longer – I’m parked on the pavement.’ And he ran back to his van.

  He called his mother back, in desperation, but her phone remained unresponsive.

  Win? Where was Win? Winchcombe, probably. But there was also Winchester or Windermere or Windsor. And Winchmore Hill in North London was a place, as well. In a fit of hysteria, he even considered Winnipeg as a possibility.

  Then, with pounding heart and clammy palms, he called his father.

  Chapter Five

  Ant abandoned his plan to sell his remaining trees in a lay-by, and went home to talk to Digby. The words his mother had spoken on the phone echoed and whirled around his head, making less sense with every passing minute. He needed Digby to explain them to him.

  ‘Should I call the police?’ he wondered, having described the bizarre conversation.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody daft. I don’t see what’s so alarming in what she said, anyway.’ Digby was alternately impatient and reflective, taking a long time to respond to his son’s evident panic and confusion. ‘Listen – she said she was all right, didn’t she? Why would the police take any interest in it, if you did call them? She’s a grown woman, perfectly capable of looking after herself.’

  ‘Have you been listening to me at all?’ Ant shouted. ‘She said somebody’s dead, and she’s scared to come home. Who’s dead? What did she mean? Has she done something terrible? Run someone over and not stopped? Or what? Dad – you have to take this seriously. There’s something really weird going on.’

  ‘I’ll grant you that,’ said Digby, still infuriatingly calm. ‘But it sounds to me as if she’s working it out in her own way. We’ll just have to wait for her to get over it and come home. Might not be till after Christmas, though, by the sound of it. Pity about that.’ He rubbed the head of the dog sitting at his side. ‘Percy’s going to miss her,’ he added, with a little grunt of amusement.

  Ant was still breathing hard and quelling an urge to thump his father in the chest out of sheer frustration, when someone knocked on the front door. ‘Who’s that?’ said Digby. ‘Go and see, there’s a good lad.’

  The tone was intolerably patronising, and brought to mind the ‘little boy’ comment made by Bronya that very morning. ‘I am not a lad,’ he snarled. ‘I’m thirty-five years old.’

  ‘Just answer the door,’ said his father, with a sigh.

  A duo of uniformed constables was standing there, looking irritated and puzzled after struggling with the electric gate. ‘We didn’t have to speak to anyone before it opened,’ said one, waving back down the driveway.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ advised Ant.

  The other man was staring wide-eyed at the obvious mismatch between the main house and the battered converted stable. ‘We’ve just come from talking to Mrs Blackwood,’ he said. ‘She told us we would have to phone you to gain access.’

  Ant simply waited for them to explain their presence. The materialisation of police officers, when he had only just been suggesting he call them, felt like some sort of magic trick. And then as if by more magic, his father was at his elbow. ‘Morning, lads,’ he said, rather loudly. ‘What can we do for you, then?’

  ‘It’s concerning an item of jewellery that appears to have been misappropriated,’ said the first man stiffly. ‘It has been reported by the lady of the big house, who suggested we speak to you about it. In particular she mentioned Mrs Beverley Frowse.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ said Digby. ‘We heard that poor old Rufus lost track of his wife’s Christmas present. He’ll be in the doghouse, sure enough.’

  Ant was slowly processing his father’s behaviour. The hail-fellow-well-met delivery was one of his favoured methods of addressing those in authority; a refusal to show any sort of deference. It was not that so much as the words, and the haste with which he spoke them. The implication was that Digby did not want his son to reveal the truth about Beverley’s disappearance and subsequent phone call. Ant was strongly tempted to ignore these wishes and dump all his worries onto these official shoulders.

  He’s dead, you see, and I won’t be able to come home. Beverley’s words repeated endlessly inside his head, until it had reached the point where they had become almost meaningless. He wanted somebody to explain them to him in a way that would not mean trouble. Because on the face of it, they were very troubling indeed.

  But the police had come about the stupid Blackwoods and their missing package. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Her daughters spoke to me about that this morning. I bumped into them in town.’

  ‘You never mentioned that to me, son,’ said Digby. He smiled at the policemen. ‘Busy time, as you’ll appreciate. Trying to earn an honest crust in these last few days before the big event. Plenty of parcels and so forth going missing, I shouldn’t wonder. Shame you got called out for something so unimportant when you must have plenty of better things to do.’

  This comment was allowed to drop without response. ‘We have to ask you, sir, whether you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of the item in question?’

  Digby widened his eyes. ‘I don’t even know what the darned item is. Some tasteless piece of female ornament, I assume. Wasn’t it insured? Is Mrs Blackwood accusing us of taking it? That’s a bit rich, wouldn’t you say, son?’ He turned his wide-eyed gaze onto Ant.

  ‘We haven’t seen it, whatever it is,’ said Ant. ‘We’d be pretty stupid to steal something from our own landlord, don’t you think?’

  It was impossible to misinterpret the look that passed between the two officers. People who live like this are capable of anything it said. The word ‘Gypsies’ was silently circling around. All four men were standing in the cluttered hallway of the Old Stables, the dog gazing suspiciously at the intruders.

  Ant was still far more concerned about his mother than he was about some missing gewgaw. It seemed ludicrous to remain silent on the subject, when he had the police right there in front of him. They could find her, probably with ease, once they knew her car registration number. But now she had been named as a likely thief, it was all even more complicated, and he said nothing. They were perfectly capable of interpreting her words − assuming he quoted them, which he probably wouldn’t – as a confession to a killing. And if he didn’t quote them, there was hardly anything meaningful to say.

  ‘Well, then,’ the first officer finally concluded, ‘we won’t disturb you any longer. You’ll notify us if you happen to locate the item, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. But that isn’t going to happen, is it?’ said Digby. ‘Now, have a happy Christmas, lads, and don’t worry about that infernal gate. It’ll open if you just push the red button.’

  When they’d gone, Digby slumped back into his chair with a groan. ‘Takes more out of me than it used to – play-acting like that. Bloody Blackwoods, accusing us of taking their stuff. As if we ever would!’

  ‘You didn’t want me to mention Mum, then?’

  ‘Absolutely not. You did well, son. I was worried for a minute.’

  Ant went back to obsessing about his mother’s phone call. He squeezed every conceivable interpretation from her words as the day wore
on. She had killed someone and was afraid of being caught. She had been living a double life, married to two men at the same time, and the one who wasn’t Digby had died. The dead person had been suffering from Ebola and Beverley was afraid to contaminate her loved ones. Or it wasn’t a person at all, but a dog she had accidentally run over – a highly valuable pedigree dog whose owner would seek revenge.

  Digby appeared to be much less concerned. He immersed himself in his Internet discussions until mid-afternoon, when he began to prepare for his evening stall in Blockley. ‘Last-minute presents – that’s the thing,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Plants, knick-knacks, soap. Didn’t we have a boxful of soap somewhere?’

  Ant made no attempt to help. His father would have welcomed him as assistant stallholder but would never think to ask. While appearing to the outside world as a classic father−son team, in reality they had opted for quite different means of earning a living. Ant’s chief occupation was as jobbing gardener, with a regular part-time position at a large garden centre. Digby was a wheeler-dealer of the old school, with fingers in a bewildering number of pies. He went to auctions and house clearance sales, did private deals with men and women who lived much the same as he did himself. Only at Christmas did their activities overlap.

  ‘What a weird day,’ Ant said at one point. ‘And I can’t help feeling there’s more trouble to come.’ This feeling, he realised, arose mainly from Digby’s strange reaction to the disappearance of his wife. It almost seemed as if he knew where she was and why she’d gone, so unworried did he appear. At last, he blurted a direct challenge. ‘You know where she is, don’t you? You know what’s going on. Why won’t you tell me?’

  Digby straightened from the cardboard tray he was filling with Christmas cacti and met his son’s accusing gaze. ‘No, I don’t know where she is. All I know is she’s safe enough, and she’ll come back when she’s ready. She’s got some crackpot idea in her head, and all we can do is wait for her to work it out in her own way.’

  ‘Crackpot idea? Like what?’

  But his father would only shake his head and said no more.

  In despair, Ant decided there was only one thing he could do – and that was to phone his friend Thea Slocombe and talk the whole thing over with her.

  There was a big meal at the Slocombe house that Saturday lunchtime, composed of all the things Thea assumed would not be wanted when Christmas actually arrived. She had been forced to reorganise the freezer a few days earlier to accommodate the extra food that would be needed for their entertaining, so there was stewing steak and pork chops in the fridge, urgently requiring to be eaten. Evidently the beef had been transformed into a nice casserole earlier in the day, because suddenly there it was, with some carrots and broccoli that were also due for consumption. Drew and Timmy were scheduled to leave mid-afternoon, on their adventurous trek north. ‘Of course, we could get there all in one go, but it doesn’t seem right to turn up halfway through the evening, does it? I doubt if she’ll want to put us up overnight,’ said Drew again.

  ‘Stop agonising about it,’ said Thea briskly. ‘It’s all decided now. She’s expecting you tomorrow morning. You stay four or five hours, and get back here for bedtime. Minimal disruption for all concerned.’

  ‘Don’t forget I need to hang up my stocking,’ said Timmy. ‘What if we get back too late for that?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as too late for that,’ said Thea. ‘But if you set out by three o’clock, you should be back by eight or nine. That leaves plenty of time.’

  The child seemed to have difficulty grasping the details. He looked round the kitchen in search of assistance and plainly had a new and unconnected thought. ‘Are we going to have Christmas dinner in here?’

  ‘Where else?’ asked Thea, slightly snappishly. ‘Surely we don’t have to rearrange furniture for Christmas as well as all the rest of it?’

  There was a silence as the three Slocombes remembered the succession of small disappointments that the previous Christmas had thrown up.

  ‘Why don’t we take this table into the living room, and push it up to the one in there?’ said Drew. ‘If we covered it with a big cloth, it would look all right. Then we can have candles and a centrepiece, and be beside the tree and the decorations.’ He smiled. ‘We could do it on Christmas morning, after we’ve opened the presents. It could be quite Dickensian.’

  ‘With my mum as Scrooge,’ laughed Jessica, not quite kindly.

  ‘I can make a centrepiece with holly berries and ivy and some silver spray.’ Drew rubbed his hands together. ‘I used to love doing that. Except I don’t suppose there’s time now.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Jessica, ‘I brought one with me. I wasn’t going to produce it until Monday.’

  ‘You brought a centrepiece?’ Everybody stared at her. ‘Really?’

  ‘Why is that so surprising?’ She looked at her mother. ‘Dad and I made one every year, remember? I’m just carrying on the tradition. Isn’t that the whole point of Christmas? Families creating their own special traditions and keeping them going?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Stephanie, despite not being entirely sure of herself. ‘Can we see it now?’

  ‘If you insist. It took me ages to make it. Had to drive out to some woods and find all the doings.’ Again she fixed her gaze on Thea. ‘It was funny doing it without Dad, but it felt as if he was there with me, in a way.’

  ‘That’s nice. Carl was always so good at that sort of thing.’

  Stephanie tried to get a sense of the father and husband whose death balanced that of her own mother. He sounded nice, taking his daughter out to pick berries and nuts and things and showing her how to make a decoration out of them. Drew had never done that.

  ‘No, don’t get it now,’ said Timmy. ‘It’ll spoil it if you do. Wait till Christmas Day. It’ll be a nice surprise then.’

  There was general enthusiasm for this plan. ‘Good thinking, Tim,’ said Thea with a sweet smile. Watching her, Stephanie understood that she was making a real effort to play the part of a devoted wife and mother, determined to create the perfect Christmas for her family. She was being noticeably more present, compared to usual. Having Jessica there was a big help, too. On the face of it, Thea had nothing and nobody beyond their four walls to worry about. Even the imminent visit by Damien and his family was keeping her focused on the house, and all the tasks required to feed and accommodate the extra people. Stephanie welcomed the effort her stepmother was making, and hoped her father was equally appreciative. Of course, now it was him who was spoiling it, rushing off to see a mother he had barely mentioned or considered for the past ten years.

  But Jessica was still the real centre of attention. ‘I have got a few more things that I can show you now,’ she said, and went to her half-emptied box. A moment later, she flourished a gold-coloured tin labelled Fortnum and Mason spiced Christmas tea and proposed that they try some there and then, having almost finished lunch. ‘Even the kids might like it,’ she said.

  Nobody objected, and the only teapot in the house was commandeered. Even a tea strainer was located at the back of a drawer. Jessica ritualistically infused the tea leaves, to Stephanie’s great fascination. She lowered her face over the steam and inhaled ecstatically. ‘It smells heavenly,’ she said. ‘Like a magic land where they eat nothing but Christmas food all year round. Oranges and chestnuts and even a whiff of chocolate.’

  ‘Steady on!’ laughed Jessica. ‘You’ll be dreadfully disappointed when you taste it at this rate.’

  But everyone sipped it, as if at a solemn ceremony involving Mongolians or American Indians, and judged it at least … interesting, and at best delicious. ‘Where did you get it?’ asked Thea.

  ‘It was my present from Secret Santa at work. Lucky me, eh?’

  The merry atmosphere continued for the next half-hour, giving Stephanie a swelling optimism for the entire coming week. So many good things were going to happen once Dad and Tim came back again from their trip, all combining to make her
feel infinitely light and warm inside. Boxing Day would be spent playing with her presents – whatever they turned out to be. Uncle Damien and his family would create great additional diversion, as well. And after that there was still ages before they had to go back to school. She squashed next to Timmy on the sofa, where he was doing one last calculation of the minutes before having to get ready for the drive northwards, and gave him an excited little punch. ‘Not long now!’ she whispered.

  He gave a cheery smile, which further improved Stephanie’s day.

  But then there were coats and an overnight bag, and the dog casting anxious looks at the obvious signs of departure. Stephanie was suddenly filled with anxiety. What if they had a crash, or the car broke down, or Drew decided he had to stay with his mother all over Christmas? ‘You will come back tomorrow, won’t you?’ she said, her voice wobbling.

  He gazed at her blankly. ‘What? Of course we will. Why should you doubt it?’

  ‘I don’t know. No reason, really. Just …’

  ‘Things happen,’ said Jessica understandingly. ‘You should realise that by now, Drew. Nobody in this family is ever going to take anything for granted, are they?’

  ‘What’s this heavy talk?’ Thea demanded. ‘Trying to jinx it, or what?’

  ‘Only Steph having a moment,’ said Jessica, putting her arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, pet. They’ll be back in no time. The weather’s good, look. No rain or ice. And think of the story Tim’s going to be telling us when he comes home.’

  Timmy himself was looking doubtful, as if he was seeing himself as a brave hero venturing into a dangerous unknown realm without adequate preparation. ‘Will I?’ he faltered. ‘I’m not very good at stories.’

  ‘An experience,’ Jessica clarified. ‘You’re going to have an experience. That’s always a good thing.’

  ‘I’ll go instead, if you don’t want to,’ Stephanie offered, well aware that this was not a realistic option. Drew had already decided which child he was taking.