A Cotswold Christmas Mystery

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Not too late, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d think she’d phone to remind me if it was important.’

  ‘Maybe she did while you were out. Have you checked the landline for messages?’

  It transpired that Mrs Yacop was indeed anxious for her wine, and reproachful at its non-appearance. Thea snatched the bottles from the larder and put her coat back on. ‘I won’t be long,’ she said and left the house at a run. Then she came back, opening the front door again and calling, ‘Hey, come and listen. There’s music coming from somewhere.’

  Jessica and Stephanie went to the door. Outside it was unusually bright and a faint sound of music wafted up the lane. ‘Must be having a carol service in the church,’ said Stephanie, cocking her head. ‘I wouldn’t have thought there were enough people to make themselves heard all up here.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s actual people,’ said Jessica. ‘More like a radio somewhere.’

  ‘It’s coming from Mr Shipley’s house,’ Stephanie realised. ‘How nice.’

  ‘Do we like Mr Shipley?’ Jessica asked.

  Stephanie shrugged. ‘He’s okay. He doesn’t talk to children if he can help it, but he’s not too bad with me and Tim. We invited him here for Sunday lunch once, and he was very nice and polite. His sister died, and Dad did the funeral, which made us friendlier. But he spends a lot of time in London. I wonder why he’s here at Christmas? It doesn’t look as if he’s got any visitors.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him over here, then,’ said Jessica, as if there was no possible argument against the idea. ‘What about offering him Christmas lunch?’

  ‘I don’t think Thea would like that,’ sighed Stephanie. ‘We’ve got enough visitors already.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Thea’s thoughts were in a jumble as she trotted along the road to Mrs Yacop’s house. It had been a spontaneous burst of neighbourliness that had prompted her to offer, earlier in the week, to get the wine, prompted by the spirit of Christmas and a sense that Drew would approve. The woman had sprained her ankle and was relying on other people to do her shopping for her. Mulled wine, it seemed, was a crucial element of Christmas Eve in her house, but her husband had forgotten to buy the essential ingredients and was now too busy to go back for them. ‘Just get the ready-made stuff,’ Mrs Yacop had sighed. ‘That’ll have to do.’ And Thea had obediently bought two bottles, taken them home with her own shopping, and promptly forgotten about them.

  It wasn’t surprising, she told herself. There was far too much to think about already. As she walked, a host of dilemmas preoccupied her. Should she phone Gladwin? If so, how much should she disclose about the Frowses? Should she really keep the whole business from Drew? Should she think again about inviting his mother to come and stay? Had she got enough food for the next two days? Would the children like their stocking presents? Was Jessica going to be all right? Would Damien be as much of a pain as usual?

  She lingered only a few minutes over the delivery of the mulled wine. The Yacops were in no state to be hospitable. Their two boys were rampaging, the husband was slamming pans about in the kitchen, and the poor wife was pale and obviously desperate. ‘I shouldn’t be walking on it,’ she worried, looking down at her badly swollen ankle. ‘It hurts dreadfully.’

  ‘They say a sprain is more painful than a fracture,’ Thea sympathised. ‘You need to put it up.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ said the woman, who was forty-five, but looked and behaved ten years older. Thea did not much like her, but attempted to remain on good terms, if only because Timmy and the two boys were of a similar age and friends were always a good thing. There was always the hope of shared driving to and from the big school, too, once Timmy and the older boy left the primary.

  She turned back towards home, but was suddenly in no hurry. Jessica and Stephanie got along well and would probably be glad of some time alone. All that awaited Thea was more work – lighting the fire, feeding the dog, preparing the turkey, and then filling the Christmas stockings. Before that, Drew and Timmy would be back, bringing stories that would have to be listened to. It all made her feel weary.

  It was almost dark, but her eyes had adjusted and she could see well enough. A man was walking towards her, carrying something of an awkward shape. ‘Gosh – is that a gun?’ she asked him, without thinking.

  He laughed. ‘No, it’s not a gun,’ he said. ‘It’s a metal detector.’

  When Thea and Hepzie had gone, Jessica proposed a drink and a mince pie, rather than the biscuit she’d originally suggested. ‘We should eat some of them now. There’ll be so much other food tomorrow, they’ll get forgotten and go stale,’ she said. ‘And Drew and Tim won’t want much when they get back – if anything.’

  They had two mince pies each, sitting in the kitchen to eat them. ‘I don’t expect we’ll be moving the table into the living room, after all,’ said Jessica. ‘Too much of an upheaval.’

  ‘It would be nice, though. Candles and crackers and the thing you said you’d brought. It would be much more Christmassy than eating in here.’

  ‘It’s a centrepiece. We’ll see if we can persuade Thea to do it, then. We could get it done today, all ready for the big day.’

  ‘Better leave it till tomorrow. Thea’s going to need it to put things on, isn’t she?’

  Jessica swigged her tea and let the matter drop.

  Stephanie was still not quite free of thoughts of death and funerals. Instead of shaking them off, she found herself recalling her mother’s burial, and the wild emotions it had aroused. Poor Timmy had been inconsolable, and Dad had been a mess. But time had eased nearly all the pain, helped by a determination to talk about Karen without restraint. Now, by association, her thoughts slid to the death of her unknown grandfather. ‘Dad must be sad about his father dying,’ she said slowly. ‘It must be horrible, not seeing him for so long, and now never seeing him again.’ Tears filled her eyes at this sudden rush of sympathy. ‘We didn’t think about it properly, did we?’

  ‘There wasn’t time. Everything happened so fast. I think he wanted to try and get it over with before Christmas. But you’re right – he might not be very jolly tomorrow. We’ll have to remember what’s happened and be nice to him.’

  ‘Thea as well,’ said Stephanie with a small flicker of anxiety. Her stepmother was not always quite as nice to Drew as she should be. She complained about all the cooking she had to do, and snapped if he mentioned that there was mud in the hallway, which people coming to arrange funerals might see.

  ‘I’ll have a word with her,’ Jessica promised.

  Another abrupt switch took place in Stephanie’s mind. ‘I wonder if that metal detector man found anything,’ she said. ‘It was a funny place to be looking, wasn’t it?’

  ‘My guess is that he’d dropped something – a watch or a ring – and knew it happened when he was walking round the field. Don’t you think?’

  The man had seemed sinister when Stephanie had first seen him going down towards the field in near-darkness. ‘He was there on Friday as well, don’t forget,’ she said. ‘When it was dark and we were unloading your car.’

  ‘Are you sure it was him? Don’t people go past here all the time?’

  ‘Not really. And yes, I am sure. I thought he’d got three legs—’ She laughed in self-mockery. ‘Then I thought it was a gun. I was quite scared when I went to bed last night, thinking he might be coming to shoot us.’

  ‘God, Steph. You’ve got quite an imagination, haven’t you! Why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose there was too much going on, with Drew’s dad and everything.’

  ‘He was a bit suspicious, though, don’t you think? The man, I mean.’

  ‘Well, not so much. It looked rather innocent to me, actually.’

  Stephanie argued. ‘Well, I think it’s odd. They don’t do that sort of thing around here. They walk dogs and watch birds and take pictures, or go in
huge walking groups, yomping along the footpaths. That’s what Thea calls it – yomping.’ She chuckled. ‘Isn’t that a great word?’

  ‘Typical Mum word, anyway. So this man − maybe he’s just lonely, it being Christmas, and stuck for something to do. He might not have anybody to be with, so he decided to try and find some Roman coins or something.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Stephanie tried to recapture the whole scene. ‘Do you think he’d found a treasure map that had a big X right at that spot where we saw him?’ She grinned. ‘That’s what Timmy would say, anyway.’

  ‘It could be geocaching,’ Jessica agreed. ‘If you know what that is? Except I don’t think that requires a metal detector.’

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Stephanie admitted.

  ‘It’s a sort of treasure hunt, in a way. People hide little collections of objects all over the place, and then tell other people the map reference, and they go out looking for the hidden stuff. Something like that, anyway,’ she finished vaguely.

  ‘Sounds nice. How do you get into it?’

  ‘No idea. Try Google, I suppose. You probably have to sign up to a website or an app.’

  ‘Right,’ said Stephanie weakly. It was an intriguing piece of information, fitting so nicely with the fantasy she’d suggested, but it did not quite ring true. Without quite understanding how it had happened, there now seemed to be almost too much to talk and think about. The calamity that had befallen the Blackwoods and the Frowses, on top of Drew’s dash to County Durham and Christmas and Thea and families and whether people would like her presents, and what they were having for supper, and whether she’d see Tim before they got their stockings, and when she would ever catch up with the stories he was surely going to have to tell her.

  Jessica seemed to read her mind. ‘The Frowses seem like nice people,’ she began.

  ‘Ant’s nice. He won’t have a good Christmas, will he, not knowing where his mother is, and what she’s been doing.’

  ‘I guess not. Did you have any thoughts about that – anything you tried to say but couldn’t make us listen?’

  Stephanie shook her head. ‘Not really. Nothing sensible, anyway.’

  ‘So tell me something unsensible.’

  ‘Well – it’s really stupid, but that parcel. The one the landlord said was lost. It’s all part of the mystery, isn’t it? I just thought it could be that the metal detector man might have been looking for it.’

  ‘That really is bonkers, Steph. The field is nowhere near the Frowse place. I mean – it might make a bit of sense if we’d seen him burying something. But he was trying to find something. Wasn’t he?’

  ‘I know. I said it was stupid. Things don’t have to connect like that. I mean – they really don’t connect. But in my head, they sort of do. And there is a bit of a straight line from there to here, with a kink in the middle where you go along the road. And we do know the Frowses, and there aren’t many places where nobody could see you from a house if you were doing something secret. Even on the big footpath there are always people and dogs everywhere. So it wouldn’t be such a huge coincidence, really.’ She paused for breath, wondering where all those thoughts had come from. Most of them had been hidden until she started talking.

  Before Jessica could reply, the front door opened, letting a gust of cold air into the house, along with Thea, Hepzibah and a man who Stephanie instantly recognised.

  When their visitors had gone, Ant and Digby found themselves at a loss as to how to go on. Things had been said that they were both beginning to regret. ‘We ought not to have told Thea and that daughter of hers so much about your mum,’ said Digby. ‘It won’t have done any good.’

  ‘Can’t do any harm,’ Ant argued.

  ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we? Things are different now.’

  ‘I know that!’ Ant was suddenly angry. ‘They were bad enough before, and now we’ve got to worry about being charged with killing our landlord. I’d say that was quite a big difference. And even if he died of a heart attack, we’ve still got more than enough to worry about. It’s a rock and a hard place, if you ask me. Either Carla stays on and ups the intimidation stakes, or she sells the place and we’ve got a whole new set of problems.’

  ‘Could be we get someone with a liberal social conscience, who has no problem with tenants who pay their rent regularly and don’t cause any nuisance.’

  ‘Dream on,’ said Ant bitterly.

  It was almost dark when they were disturbed by a persistent knocking on the front door. ‘It’s the police again, you see,’ said Digby – wrongly, as Ant discovered when he answered it.

  It was Bronya, eldest daughter of the newly widowed Carla. She looked straight past Ant at Digby, who jumped out of his chair as if jabbed with a stick. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded.

  ‘To talk,’ she said. ‘I just want a quiet talk, that’s all.’

  ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’

  ‘Mr Frowse,’ she said, with great dignity, ‘I am not a child. And my mother is in no condition to concern herself with my whereabouts. But she has jumped to a conclusion about her husband’s death that I think I should warn you about.’

  ‘Huh!’ said Ant, following her into the house. ‘You think we need any warning from you? After the way you spoke to me yesterday? Accusing us of taking that packet that’s gone missing.’

  ‘That packet contained an extremely valuable gold necklace. And there can be no doubt that it has been stolen by someone on this estate. It was handed to a person here on Wednesday afternoon, who scribbled an illegible signature for it, and it has not been seen since. My mother believes that Rufus was out searching for it when he died. He was in his pyjamas, you know. He must have died during the night.’

  ‘Which night?’ asked Ant.

  ‘That appears uncertain. We have to assume it was Thursday, but nobody seems to know where he was that day, so it might have been as long ago as Wednesday. The police have spent an hour or more trying to understand his movements on those days.’

  ‘He was in pyjamas?’ Ant was astonished. Then it became clearer to him. Of course, a wealthy plutocrat, idling his affluent way through the approach to Christmas, might well slob around the house all day in silk pyjamas and a cashmere dressing gown. ‘All right for some,’ he added cynically.

  Bronya turned feline. If she’d had claws, his face might well have felt their points. ‘What do you mean?’ she hissed.

  ‘I mean we live in different worlds, divided only by a six-foot electric fence.’

  Bronya turned back to Digby, who was standing stiffly beside the kitchen table, his face pale. ‘Steady on, son,’ he mumbled. ‘Let her say what she came to say. Something about this gold trinket – am I right? So who signed for it? Was it a male or female?’

  ‘Female. If the delivery man can be believed, which my mother is convinced he can.’ She narrowed her eyes, as if in triumph. ‘And it’s her belief it was your wife.’

  ‘Well, she’s wrong. Rufus upset her badly by accusing her of having it. She told him days ago that she knew nothing at all about it.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘So please fetch her now and let me ask her for myself.’

  ‘She isn’t here.’

  ‘Where is she, then? Listen, you stupid man – my mother is convinced that this is obviously a motive for murder. If, as she suspects, it’s established that Rufus was deliberately killed, you and your family will be the main suspects. The police have already found footprints in the woods, all kinds of evidence that somebody was there where he died. They will form a theory that you were hiding the necklace and my father found you doing it, and you killed him. Perhaps both of you together. Perhaps all three of you. That’s what my mother believes is going to happen. I came, actually, to warn you.’

  Ant tried to quell his pounding heart, blustering loudly, ‘That’s ridiculous. Nobody here’s stolen anything. It’ll turn up. One of your staff must know where it is. One o
f them might even have stolen it.’

  Digby waved at him to stop. He was frowning, deep in thought. ‘Does your mother know you’ve come here to warn us? Wouldn’t it suit all of you better to just have us arrested and carted off, so you can come and demolish this house, as you’ve always wanted?’

  The woman stood taller than ever, her broad shoulders seeming to expand sideways. She did not answer his first question. ‘I am not like my mother,’ she said. ‘Nor am I like my sisters. They enjoy plotting and cheating and getting something over on people. They will make things far worse for you than you can imagine, now that Rufus isn’t here to keep them in check. For myself, I prefer to keep everything clear and open.’

  ‘Makes no sense,’ Ant protested. ‘You’re no more concerned about us than your mother is. I think you’re here to stir up more trouble, for your own reasons. I know your sort,’ he finished, belligerently. He had squared up to her himself, closely matching her for height and width, so they looked like two bulls about to charge each other.

  Bronya glanced at him speculatively. ‘You know nothing,’ she concluded. ‘You are the least concerned – although my mother might not agree.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’ Digby said, then chewed his lip for a moment, as if holding in words that might be best unspoken. ‘I know you better than you think.’

  ‘Nothing you know can do me any harm.’

  ‘Believe it or not, my dear, I wish you no harm. If I have to take it that far, it’ll be out of self-defence. So if we’re throwing warnings at each other, then there you have it. You get your mother to drop her crazy accusations, and I won’t make any trouble for any of you.’

  Again she narrowed her eyes, but to Ant’s bemused gaze, she seemed to have softened a little. ‘You overestimate my influence on my mother,’ she said, with a grim smile. ‘And none of us should forget Annika. My sister is a vixen.’