Slaughter in the Cotswolds (4 page)

The mobile, which was dutifully attached to its charger on the bedside table, went off at seven fifteen. Blearily, Thea reached for it, only opening her eyes as an afterthought, to find sunlight streaming through the window.

‘Hello?’ she croaked. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Thea? Are you awake?’ It was her mother.

‘No, of course not. What do you want?’

‘I tried to phone Emily just now, and Bruce says she’s with you.’

‘You tried to phone her at seven in the morning? What on earth for?’

A whine entered the maternal voice. ‘She
said
it would be all right to phone any time. I’m not
managing this very well, Thea. One of you should be here with me. I’ve got four children, and they’re all too busy to spare a few days for me. Daddy and I were married for forty-nine years. You can’t imagine what it’s like not having him here any more.’

I can, Mum
, Thea wanted to shout.

‘Emily says you told her you didn’t want anybody staying with you.’

‘Well, of course, I could see you all had better things to do. I didn’t want to
impose.’

‘Right.’ It seemed to Thea that her mother, having read or seen on TV scenes where the new widow berated her selfish children, was now adopting the role for herself, in preference to taking on the task of discovering what she really felt and wanted.

‘So,
why
is she there?’

‘She came over yesterday, to talk about Daddy. And something happened last night, so she decided to stay.’

‘Something happened? What?’

‘Oh, nothing to worry about. She’s perfectly all right.’

‘Did you get drunk?’ The tone was accusing, with the merest hint of envy.

‘No, not at all. Listen, Mum, it’s awfully early. You must have woken Bruce as well as me. Why don’t you go back to bed with a mug of tea, and
spoil yourself? Think about what you really want us to do. But it isn’t fair to say you’d rather be on your own and then complain when we take you seriously. You don’t want to turn into that sort of silly old nuisance, do you?’ The phrase was a special one within the Johnstone family, with its roots in the generation before Thea’s mother. It was used as a gentle joke, albeit with a warning note.

But Mrs Johnstone was in no state to take it as it was meant. She gave a protesting yelp. ‘You know what I mean,’ Thea went on quickly. ‘Remember your Auntie Pamela.’

Auntie Pamela had been the original silly old nuisance, self-pitying and impossible. A figure of legend, she had lived to ninety-six. Thea remembered her mainly as an object of terror, although the appeal of hearing first hand memories from the 1890s had done much to overcome her reluctance to visit.

‘Don’t be so unkind,’ her mother sniffed. ‘It isn’t like you.’

‘I didn’t mean to be,’ Thea apologised. Where was her father when she needed him? He would have laid down his newspaper and come quietly into the room to say exactly the right thing. ‘But you really can’t expect us all to know what to do if you contradict yourself so much.’

There was a brief silence. ‘You’re right,’ came
a small voice, finally. ‘Thank you, Thea. I can always rely on you to cut through the crap.’

This time Thea yelped. ‘Mum! You don’t have to go that far.’

Laughter converged on the airways, relief verging on hysteria, and Thea congratulated herself on averting a decade or two of self-pity and manipulation.

‘So why is Emily
really
there?’ came a suddenly acute question. ‘Why didn’t she go home again last night? Precisely what happened?’

‘Well—’ Thea heaved a sigh. After the bracingly honest way she’d just confronted her mother, she could hardly start telling lies now. ‘She saw something horrible, on her way home, and came back here because she was upset.’

‘What – like a dog being run over? Horrible like that?’

‘A bit like that. She saw a man beating up another one, and he died. She was a witness to one man killing another man. She had to give a statement to the police.’

‘You
are
in the Cotswolds, aren’t you? Did I get it wrong? Are you house-sitting in the middle of Birmingham?’

‘No, Lower Slaughter,’ said Thea miserably.

‘That’s what I thought. I suppose your policeman will be called in to sort it all out.’

‘I doubt it. He’s only doing desk work at the
moment, and from what Emily said, it won’t be very difficult to catch the killer. It wasn’t a very subtle attack.’

‘Poor Em. She won’t have liked that, will she?’

The phonecall tailed off, and Thea went down to see if her sister was awake.

Emily was curled awkwardly on the sofa, her head pushed into a corner and her feet angled against the arm at the other end. It looked about as comfortable as a seat on a longhaul flight. ‘Are you awake?’ Thea whispered.

‘Not really. That was a
very
long night, let me tell you. I had quite nasty dreams, with Daddy covered in blood. I’m
traumatised
, you know. I’ll have flashbacks for the rest of my life. There was all that vile
stuff
on me.’

Thea was struck by a sudden resemblance between this sister and the other one. Jocelyn, so different in appearance, could adopt the exact same voice and use the exact same words. ‘You sound just like Joss,’ she giggled.

‘Oh, I might have known there’d be no sympathy from you. Did I hear you talking to somebody upstairs?’

‘Our mother phoned. She wanted to know what you were doing here.’

‘And I suppose you told her,’ Emily groaned.

‘Yup. She said it must have been horrible for
you. That was after I told her to stop being a silly old nuisance.’

‘Aunt Pamela,’ Emily nodded. ‘Did it work?’

‘More or less.’

‘Good.’ Emily seemed to lose focus, staring as before into a corner of the room, and seeming to forget where she was.

‘I’ll go and make some tea, then.’

‘Coffee,’ Emily corrected, giving herself a shake. ‘I’ve got to have coffee. And I’ll need to borrow some of your clothes.’

Emily left soon after eight. They went out to the car together, and Thea inspected the small scratch on a rear wheel arch, which Emily said had been inflicted by her clumsy turn in the gateway. The car was very clean, otherwise, treated as it was to a weekly wash. ‘That’ll be easy enough to fix,’ she said reassuringly, fingering the scratch.

‘Maybe. They’re usually worse than they look. It might need a whole new panel.’

‘Surely not.’

Emily was scrutinising her car with close attention. ‘Looks all right otherwise,’ she said softly. ‘Now I see it in daylight.’

‘So – the police took you to Cirencester and back, did they?’ Thea was still trying to flesh out the picture of what had happened. ‘Or did they let you drive yourself there?’

Emily heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘That was another thing – there was
endless
discussion about it. In the end they drove me, because I was “emotionally disturbed” – and covered in yuck. I didn’t really want to get it all over my seats. They brought me back again later.’

‘Did they keep your clothes?’

Emily nodded. ‘They want to do tests on them.’

‘You’re their only witness,’ Thea said, as if this fact had only just dawned on her. ‘Whatever you tell them has to be vitally important. Especially your description of the killer.’

‘Killer,’ Emily echoed. ‘Yes. Except I’m a lousy witness. I never even glimpsed his face.’

For the tenth time, Thea tried to visualise the precise details – the shouts and shadowy figures; the rain and mud and sense of unreality. ‘It’s like a nightmare,’ she said.

‘I know it is.’ Emily was suddenly forceful. ‘A total bloody nightmare.’

It was a signal to shut up, but Thea still had niggling questions. ‘So tell me again,’ she insisted, ‘why you came back here, instead of going straight home?’

‘I
told
you. It seemed too far to drive. I was so shaky and confused. And Bruce would have made such a
fuss
. Plus the boys would have woken up and demanded to know what was going on. Besides you needed to know everything that had
happened, and it was much easier to tell you face to face.’

‘Right.’ It made good sense, and Thea felt vaguely flattered that she had been given such a prominent status by her big sister.

Emily had helped herself to a long-sleeved top and cotton trousers from Thea’s meagre collection of clothes. ‘Will you ever get yours back?’ Thea wondered. ‘And what about shoes? I haven’t got any I can spare.’

Emily shuddered. ‘I don’t want them,’ she said. ‘But there’s a pair of sandals in the car somewhere, luckily. I drove in bare feet last night,’ she added wonderingly. ‘I’ve never done that before, but I didn’t want to waste time looking for the sandals.’

‘Well, it was only half a mile or so, as far as I can work it out.’

They found the sandals on the floor in the back, and Emily got into the driving seat. She was pale and frowning. ‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ she said, making no move to start the engine. ‘I’m really sorry about all this. If only I hadn’t been such a fool, turning the wrong way like that. I wasn’t really thinking, you see. Not about roads and stuff. And now look at the trouble I’m in.’

‘You’re not in trouble,’ said Thea. ‘You were just the innocent bystander.’

‘Right. Yes. But all those questions…they’re
not going to leave it alone, are they?’

‘Obviously not. Until they catch him, of course.’

Emily sighed. ‘Oh, well…’ she shook her head with an effort.

‘Take it easy,’ Thea said kindly. ‘It’s been a ghastly shock for you. You must have actually seen him die.’

Emily shook her head more vigorously. ‘So please don’t go
on
about it. I don’t know exactly what I saw. It was
dark
. And pouring with rain.’ She looked more miserable than Thea ever remembered seeing her. ‘I’ve got to go. Thank God it’s Sunday. At least I don’t have to get myself to work.’

‘Take some days off,’ Thea advised. ‘Compassionate leave – on two counts. Don’t try to be brave and British about it.’

‘And sit about at home obsessing instead? I don’t think so.’

‘OK. Well, they’ll probably have it all sorted out in a day or two, anyway. Even without a description from you, this bloke’s liable to give himself away. As we agreed last night, he’s sure to be covered in blood and not behaving normally.’

‘For heaven’s sake, stop sounding like a detective,’ Emily snapped.

‘Sorry.’ Thea felt a need to justify herself,
leaning down to speak through the open car door. ‘It’s just – the cases that Phil and I have come across up to now have all been rather more, well –
civilised
.’ She grimaced at the word. ‘Sounds daft, I know. A killing’s a killing, and you could argue there’s less wickedness in a spur of the moment rage than something that’s been planned. But this is so – shattering. The violence of it.’

‘Right,’ said Emily shakily. ‘And now I want to go home, if that’s all right with you.’

It was past nine when Phil phoned, as Thea had known he would. Even without Emily’s murder, he would have called to check how she was getting on at Hawkhill. It wasn’t instantly apparent whether or not he knew about the connection between Thea and the killing

‘What’s it like?’ he asked. ‘Does the parrot like you? Has it eaten Hepzie?’

‘The parrot seems to be keen on security. The only thing it’s said so far is “Lock the doors, Daddy” which is rather funny in a way.’

‘What else is there – I can’t remember?’

‘Ferrets, cats and dogs. All quite amenable and easy. A bat which won’t leave me alone. You haven’t heard, have you?’ she added.

‘Pardon? Heard what?’

‘Last night. A violent incident where a man died? Somewhere quite near here, apparently.’

‘I did see something,’ he said warily. ‘But you’re quietly minding your own business, aren’t you, and not encouraging any mysterious or unlawful activity?’

‘I am, yes. But Emily isn’t. Emily – my sister, that is – is the only witness and she saw the whole thing.’

He went quiet, and she heard a keyboard tapping. ‘Mrs Emily Peterson. That’s your sister?’ His voice had gone faint, as if there was hardly any breath behind it. It was an unfortunate coincidence that Thea’s sister had the same name as Phil’s dead daughter, a fact which ought not to have made any difference to anything, but which caused Thea to mention Emily less than she might otherwise have done. Now she felt as if this delicacy was rebounding on her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Thea said. ‘I really am. But yes, she was trying to turn round in a gateway, and heard shouts and went to see – and there was a murder happening before her very eyes.’

‘Could happen to anyone,’ said Phil, utterly failing to sound amused. ‘Did he see her seeing him?’

‘Very much so, I’m afraid. She frightened him off.’

‘Well, we’ll do all we can to keep her identity confidential. But her name’s here on the file – open for anyone here to read. It could easily
get out. Where does she live?’ He didn’t wait for a reply, but supplied the answer himself. ‘Aylesbury. Far enough away, I should think.’

‘Phil, stop talking to yourself and explain. Do you know who the victim was?’

‘Not confirmed yet, as far as I can see. I’ll have to get Jeremy in to brief me. It won’t be my case. At least, I’m assuming it won’t.’

‘Hang on – it’s Sunday. Are you at the station?’

‘No, no. I’m on the laptop at home – but I checked in first thing, to keep up with what’s been happening. All done by remote control. All I need is a password and I can see everything that’s been put on file. Saves a lot of time.’

‘And you don’t even have to get out of bed.’ She was thinking how flimsy the barrier of a single password was, and how a clever criminal or dodgy police officer could be accessing Emily’s details as they spoke.

‘Excuse me. I was up before eight, doing my exercises.’

‘Is it better?’

‘Every day and in every way. I can actually twist sideways now. I’d forgotten that such a thing was possible.’

‘Good.’

‘So where’s Emily now?’

‘She’s gone home already. I was hoping I could settle down with my jigsaw and forget there
was ever an incident last night. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’