Fear in the Cotswolds (17 page)

It felt like a full stop. Whatever the woman had wanted, it seemed she had found it. She began to look round for her coat, and glance outside at the darkening sky. ‘Strange how impossible it is to imagine long summer evenings, isn’t it? And yet it’s only a few months ago. I don’t think I’ll ever really get to grips with the changing seasons and the way it all happens so
fast
.’

Thea nodded in full agreement, before another logical leap took place in her mind. ‘Do you know Phil’s new woman?’ she asked. Perhaps it was the idea of change, the need to keep up, and accept whatever came next. ‘I can’t remember her name. Jessica did tell me.’

‘Laura. Yes, I know her. She’s a really nice woman. I think she’ll be very good for him.’

The shock was not so much in the words as in their effect on her insides. If Gladwin had produced a gun and pointed it at her, she couldn’t have been more stunned. Did she still care about Phil that much, then? Enough for this surge of jealous rage to grip her, quickly followed by a return of the chilly fear of previous days. She wanted to turn back the clock by a year or so, when they were easy and happy together, and there had never been the slightest chance that she, Thea Osborne, would ever do anything to jeopardise the comfortable relationship she and Phil had had.

‘Oh, dear,’ she said weakly.

‘Why? Don’t you want him to be happy?’ The detective’s look was full of challenge – challenge to speak the truth and avoid the usual foolish female games.

‘I don’t want him to be miserable. I think that’s as far as I can go, just for now.’

‘I’m sorry, Thea, but I did see you two together, remember. You weren’t right for each other. I shouldn’t say it, but Phil’s not strong enough for you. Laura wants something different – something you hardly even believe exists.’

‘And what’s that?’

Gladwin shook her head, with a little laugh. ‘I’m not sure I can put a word to it.’

‘Try,’ Thea insisted.

‘Couplehood. Something like that. Nothing very surprising – it’s what all men want.’

‘But that’s what I had with Carl,’ Thea objected. ‘Why do you say I don’t believe in it? Of course I do.’

‘But you never wanted it with Phil, and he understood that only too well. He wanted it and you didn’t. End of story.’

The sense of betrayal was acute. ‘But he said he didn’t,’ she wailed.

‘Because he knew that’s what you wanted to hear,’ said Gladwin, patting her hand.

It was a bad time to be left alone with turbulent thoughts of suicide, abandonment, cruelty and failed relationships. Even Thea’s tendency to see the bright side was inadequate to the challenge of such an overwhelming onslaught. She had to get herself through another endless evening before she could decently give up and go to bed. It was these evenings that would drive her to find another source of income, she feared. They could be alternately tedious, depressing or frightening. The burden of keeping a house and its contents safe grew heaviest at the end of the day. If it hadn’t been for the dogs, she wasn’t sure she could have borne it.

As it was, the needs of Jimmy and, to a lesser degree, Hepzie, gave her a focus. The lurcher continued to shiver, but the conservatory was no longer worryingly cold. He ate a substantial supper, and permitted the spaniel to lie down with him while Thea cleaned up the kitchen and ran a quick inventory of the contents of the fridge and freezer. She had the radio tuned to Classic FM, for a change, and a bracing aria from
La Bohème
belted out, filling the barn with the manageable emotions of other people long ago and far away. Music had never had a very high rating in Thea’s list of pleasures, apart from a few obligatory teen years. But there were times when it could grip her and provide a useful diversion. She found it blanked out all conscious thought, much as swimming in a stormy sea might do. You simply let some outside force take you where it wanted, and relinquished all pretence of being in control. It didn’t stir her emotions as she knew happened for some people, but it created its own shapes and colours, that had nothing to do with the here and now of her personal preoccupations.

Then the phone rang, barely audible beneath the warblings of Mimi and Rodolfo. Muting the radio, Thea heard her daughter’s voice. ‘Mum? Can you hear me? What’s that awful noise?’

‘Opera.’

‘Good God…where on earth are you?’

‘The same place I’ve been for the past two weeks. I’m listening to Classic FM.’

‘Nice,’ said Jessica with dubious irony. ‘So you’re OK, then?’

‘Yes thanks. Why wouldn’t I be?’

She could hear her daughter’s sigh, loud and clear. ‘No reason, except you seem to be in a funny mood these days. At least the snow’s melted. That must make it easier, I imagine?’

‘The old man on the next farm says it’ll come back. He seems to think it’s going to snow until March.’

‘I expect he’s bonkers.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Meanwhile, you can get your car in and out, and there won’t be any scary footprints. That has to be an improvement.’

‘You’re right. It’s all much better now.’

‘You don’t really
sound
better.’

Thea made a major effort. ‘I’m fine, Jess. I was just getting carried away by the music when you phoned. I can’t think of anything to say.’

‘You’re not helping Sonia Gladwin with her murder, then? I rather thought you would be.’

‘She was here earlier on, as it happens. She seems to have everything under control.’

‘Really? That’s good to know.’

‘Have you heard anything to suggest otherwise?’

‘No, Mum.’ The patience was much exaggerated. ‘I keep telling you, I’m in a different region. I don’t hear any of the West Midlands stuff.’

‘Except the gossip about who’s shagging DS Hollis.’

‘Oh-h-h, I get it. You’re upset about Ms Freckles. Has anybody else said anything?’

‘Not really. Gladwin knows her, apparently.’

‘And?’

‘And she seems to think she’ll be a lot better for him than I was.’

‘Oh-oh,’ said Jessica, with audible embarrassment. ‘Honestly, Ma, this isn’t really my territory. I hardly know the woman. She seems OK as far as I can see.’

‘She sounds wonderful,’ said Thea glumly.

‘Well, I hate to say it, but—’

‘Yes, yes. No need to go on. Too late now, anyway, to start saying you told me so. Besides, I’m not upset at all. Just…adjusting.’

Jessica made an inarticulate sound. Somewhere not far away another person was speaking. There was a muffled exchange before she spoke again to Thea. ‘I really phoned about Sunday,’ she went on. ‘I wondered whether I could come down and spend the day with you. Would that be all right? And…um…I might bring a friend as well. We could go out for lunch, maybe?’

‘A
boy
friend?’

‘Wait and see,’ giggled Jessica.

Sunday was three days away – a length of time in which anything could happen. Thea wondered at her own lack of enthusiasm for the suggestion. ‘Well, that sounds very intriguing,’ she said. ‘And there’s plenty here to show you. There’s a nest of baby rabbits. They’re ever so sweet.’

‘Mum, I’m not nine any more, you know. I’m not terribly turned on by baby rabbits.’

‘Oh…I thought everybody was, whatever their age. Well, there’s a remarkable church, as well – though Sunday isn’t a good day for seeing it, I suppose.’

‘You don’t have to think of things to show me. We can just sit around and chat, maybe take the dog for a walk. I haven’t seen you since Christmas.’

And then only for one day
,
Thea wanted to add, but stopped herself in time. How quickly one turned into one’s own mother, she thought ruefully.

‘You’re quite right. I’m looking forward to it already. Shall I give you directions?’

She described the track down to Lucy’s Barn, and where it turned off the road into Hampnett, thinking how far in the future Sunday suddenly felt.

Jessica rang off distractedly, the other person
evidently claiming the bulk of her attention. Thea was left wrestling with her role as mother to an almost-grown-up daughter. It was often following an exchange with Jess that she most missed Carl. He had been a better parent than her, in many ways. He had never ceased to feel and express wonder at the miracle of the creation of life, until Thea had felt ashamed of her resistance to producing more children. Somehow she had found her child less interesting than she ought to have been. Where she could feel profound curiosity about other people and their lives – people in different times and places – she found her own daughter mostly rather predictable. The fact of Jessica did not impinge on her own life in the deep visceral sense that other mothers seemed to feel. It had been a simple biological event, and while she had no problems physically – the feeding and cuddling and protecting; the singing and chatting and joking – Thea never felt that her very identity depended on the little girl. She had been more of a wife than a mother, and to lose Carl rather than Jessica had seemed the larger of the two possible torments. This led to an insidious little thought that she always quashed before it could take root; a stupid fate-tempting thought that no worthy woman would ever entertain for a second. After all, it didn’t work like that – you weren’t given any choice,
and even if you were, it would be impossible to let one survive at the expense of the other.

All of which made her think about Bunny Newby and her apparently poor showing as a mother. Never having met the woman, she could contemplate her death only through its effects on those she
had
met. The consequences of the murderous act were, in any case, arguably more important for her family than for Bunny herself. It was a terrible thing to do, and the idea that the killer was still ‘out there’ somewhere, in the fields and woods of Hampnett, made her shudder. It was no wonder she felt so scared, in the circumstances. Unlikely as Phil Hollis had always insisted it to be, there really were psychopaths in the world, who enjoyed murdering women, simply because they
were
women. An undefended female house-sitter in a remote spot might very credibly be regarded as a likely victim.

It had, after all, taken place horribly close to the barn. She should lock the doors and keep her phone within reach, and trust no one.

The house phone rang while she was in the middle of frightening herself with dark thoughts. She grabbed it quickly, before she could further scare herself with predictions as to who it might be. Even a phone call could be threatening and fearful, after all.

It was Lucy, sounding so cheerful that Thea suspected she might be slightly tipsy. ‘Everything OK?’ she trilled. ‘Has it stopped snowing?’

‘Yes and yes,’ Thea replied shortly.

‘And?’

‘And there have been two people dead found in the fields just over the hill.’ Her earlier determination to shield her employer from bad news had evaporated, as she envisaged Lucy’s carefree sojourn in the sun. There was an unfairness to it that she found hard to swallow.

‘What? Who?’

‘The first one was a man called George Jewell, which looks like suicide – and the second’s his neighbour, Bunny Newby. She was definitely murdered.’ There was relish in this stark telling, this dumping of ghastly news. She should have done it sooner.

Lucy was gratifyingly appalled. ‘Good God! What on earth happened to them?’

‘It’s under police investigation,’ said Thea stiffly. ‘Actually, I found George, over a week ago. I didn’t say anything about it last time you rang, but since then it’s all got a bit more…stressful.’

‘
You
found him? When?’

‘Last Friday. The second day of the snow.’

‘And Bunny, did you say? Bloody Bunny.’

‘Right.’

‘She’s Kate’s stepsister. George was friendly with her boys. I suppose they are neighbours, now you
mention it. Funny I never thought of them like that. George is – was – such a recluse. Damn it, I don’t know what I’m burbling about. I can’t take it in. You poor thing! No wonder you sound so… disenchanted.’

The word was so entirely apt that Thea’s mood instantly lifted. She remembered that she liked Lucy and had willingly enabled her to take herself off to the sunshine. ‘Jimmy’s fine, by the way. I’m sure that’s what you called to find out. He got a bit cold one day, but there haven’t been any ill effects.’

‘Is he still in love with your spaniel?’

‘No, not really. She cuddles up to him now and then, but I think they’ve cooled off a bit. Oh, and one of the rabbits had babies. I tried to tell you about that before, as well.’

‘No! Are you sure? I mean…
how?
’

Thea laughed. ‘The usual way, I suppose. There are six, in assorted colours, and they seem to be doing very nicely.’

‘It must have been that day when I was cleaning them out, and put them all in a box together, for about forty-five seconds. I never saw anything going on, though. Cheeky little beasts.’

‘So everything’s fine, as far as the barn and all the animals are concerned. The donkey eats everything I give him.’

‘I bet he loved the snow, didn’t he?’

Thea wasn’t sure whether or not this was
meant ironically. ‘I don’t think he did,’ she said. ‘He didn’t come out of his shed for about three days. I had to muck him out.’

‘Well, the soft thing. I’d have thought he’d find it fascinating.’

‘Not as far as I could tell.’

They both knew there was more – much more – to say about Bunny and her sudden death. Thea was curious to know how well acquainted Lucy had been with her, for one thing, and whether she had any theories as to what could have happened. ‘The police never contacted you, then?’ she said, already fully aware of the answer. She hadn’t told them where Lucy was, and she doubted that they would know who else to ask.

‘Certainly not. Why would they worry
me
about it? Obviously
I
didn’t kill her. How was it done, by the way? Knife, gun or garotte?’

‘Blow to the head, I gather. I’m probably not supposed to tell you, so keep it to yourself.’ It was, after all, perfectly possible that Lucy would phone half the people in Hampnett, once this call was finished.

‘It’ll be that foreign girl, I expect,’ said Lucy carelessly. ‘I shouldn’t think Bunny was very nice to her.’

‘So what was she
like
?’ Thea burst out before she could stop herself. ‘Nobody has said anything about her as a person.’ Except Janina, who had labelled
her employer as stupid and a rotten mother.

‘Gosh – well, I suppose she was typical of her generation and class, if I’m allowed to say that. She did something like business studies at college, and worked her way up the management ladder by mastering the jargon and getting on the right side of the people who mattered. I never thought she was very bright – never caught her having an original thought, anyhow. Actually, she’s rather bigoted in a lot of ways. The sort of person who believes everything they read in the
Daily Mail
. Simon’s not much better, of course. They seemed pretty well matched, as far as I could tell. She bossed him about, of course, but he never seemed to mind.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps that’s a bit unfair. I think he’s a lot
nicer
than her, as a person. She has – had – this awful friend, Philippa, who got her going on all the usual prejudices. Foreign workers, child molesters, people evading their taxes. She can rant for Britain, can Philippa. I always run a mile if I see her coming.’

‘So what does she think about Janina?’ Thea wondered.

‘Oh…probably rationalises that into being OK, because it helps Bunny cope. After all, Philippa managed to unload her kids altogether. Have you come across the sainted Barbara?’

‘Once. She was in a bit of a tizzy. Dorothy’s got a cold.’

A muted squawk from the other end suggested that Lucy had suddenly realised how long the phone call had become. ‘Gosh, I must go. At least it sounds as if you’ve got plenty to occupy you.’

Her voice contained all the detachment of a woman who had got away, and had no reason to particularly care what cataclysms were taking place back home. So long as her animals were alive, she was content to let everything else go to perdition.

‘Yes,’ said Thea. ‘It’s the children who’ll suffer, of course,’ she could not resist adding.

‘Not really,’ came the astonishing response. ‘She was never there for them. Now if it had been
Simon
, that would be very different. Some women never ought to have kids, and Bunny was one of them.’

Thea’s internal defences rose automatically as she heard this judgement. Once or twice she had accused herself of being just such a woman. ‘Maybe,’ she said coolly.