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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Cotswold Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
A brand-new collection of twelve short stories, featuring the popular characters from Rebecca Tope's Cotswold mystery novels. A suspicious funeral, a fatal encounter at a garden centre of all places, and a country walk marred by the discovery of a hidden corpse, are just some of the perplexing situations with which Thea Osborne, her friends and a further cast of characters must contend. In this expanded view of the world of her popular books, Tope reminds us that death and crime will visit even the most idyllic country villages.
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Seitenzahl: 364
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A Cotswold Casebook
REBECCA TOPE
In memory of my mother Sybil Tope who died just as the final pages of this book were being written
Author’s Note
While the pubs, villages and towns in these tales are all real, the houses, hotel and garden centre have been invented, or enormously changed from the originals.
Contents
Introduction
Although I have written perhaps twenty or thirty short stories over many years, the prospect of a collection of them was initially both daunting and thrilling. Would readers be put off by this sudden change of format? Only time will tell. But gradually I recalled some quite brilliant stories I had read and enjoyed, by Celia Fremlin, Roald Dahl, Saki, Piers Anthony, and others. Most of them were at least as memorable and delightful as any novel I had read. Then I remembered hearing Chaz Brenchley (a master of the short story) say a writer has more space and freedom in a story than in a novel. I wasn’t sure what he meant until I began writing these tales. Now I understand – I think.
As a reader of short stories I am aware of the effort demanded to engage with a new world and new set of characters, time after time. It is, perhaps, one of the factors that puts people off them. But here I have cheated. All the stories in this collection feature Thea Osborne (now Slocombe) or Drew or someone close to them, set in the Cotswolds villages and towns that feature in my series of novels about Thea and her house-sitting. The world will be familiar to existing readers, and for anyone coming to them for the first time, it has a consistency that I hope will reduce the resistance.
Perhaps it should also be said that while Thea’s world has a geographical accuracy, there are quite a few chronological anomalies in these stories when related to the novels.
There is also a minor element in the stories that might be called a game. Each story refers in some way to one (sometimes more than one) of the Cotswold novels. Either a character from it, or the place in which it is set, or something subtler. Here and there I have altered details of events or characters in order to avoid revealing too much of the plots in the novels. The key is at the back of the book.
Rebecca Tope
In Guiting Power
Guiting Power was unlike most other Cotswolds villages in its openness. Few of the usual narrow lanes and high hedges were included in its bounds. There were swathes of grassy bank, buildings set back as if trying to create more space for travellers to pass through, or for people to congregate together. Nobody hid away behind cluttered front gardens or high stone walls.
Drew had only been there once before, but he recognised it right away. There was a squareness to the buildings, including the church, and a serenity conferred by the big old trees standing watch over the village. The origins were Anglo-Saxon, and he fancied he could still feel the presence of those people.
He was there to meet a woman Thea had known a few years earlier. She had sent a card when the Broad Campden burial ground had first been opened, wishing them well and reminding Thea of their shared history. ‘I live in Guiting Power now,’ said the note. ‘Come and see me sometime.’ And she had added address, phone number and email.
‘She really means it, doesn’t she?’ said Drew. ‘When did you last see her?’
Thea had to concentrate in order to remember. ‘Must have been when I was in Lower Slaughter. I met her in a pub when I was out for a walk. I wonder why she’s moved.’
‘Interesting name – Ariadne.’
‘She chose it herself. She was Mary originally. She got very cross when Phil kept forgetting she’d changed it.’
‘Phil knew her?’ While Drew felt no hint of jealousy towards his wife’s first husband, he did have some difficulty with Detective Superintendent Phil Hollis, with whom she had been involved for a year or so.
‘In the dim and distant past. I’m not sure I want to renew my acquaintance with Ariadne. She was terribly intense. And I don’t think she really liked me very much.’
‘So why has she gone to all this trouble to remind you of her existence?’
‘Good question.’
‘We should acknowledge her, at least. It sounds bad, I know, but the more supporters and friends we can keep hold of in the Cotswolds, the better it is for business. We absolutely have to have at least one funeral a week if we’re to survive.’
‘I can see that. I’m not sure Ariadne’s likely to be of much use to us, but you never know.’
So he had carefully added the details to his database of contacts, and emailed the woman to thank her for the note. He signed it ‘Thea and Drew’.
Within an hour he had a reply: ‘Great to hear from you. The burial ground sounds wonderful. Just my sort of thing. Can I draw your attention to my own new business? More of the same, actually, but better organised. Original hand-knits. Homespun yarn. See the website.’
In an idle moment, Drew looked at the website and found pictures of gorgeous jumpers, capes, scarves, and a whole lot more, none of it with prices attached. It took him barely ten seconds to decide to get something from it for Thea’s forthcoming birthday. Which explained his visit to Guiting Power, where Ariadne had most of her stock.
He found the house – a classic stone building set well back from the road – and walked up its front path wondering how the woman Thea had described could possibly afford such a place.
‘Hey, you must be Drew!’ chirped the person who opened the door. ‘Arry – your man’s here!’ she called over her shoulder.
There were voices and music coming from a number of directions on both floors. Two small children sat at the top of the stairs, watching him. A large black and tan dog strolled down the hallway, only mildly interested. There was an impression of a large disorganised house full of good cheer and noise, which was as far from his experience of the usual contents of houses in Cotswold villages as you could get.
‘Come in,’ the woman on the door urged him. ‘The kids and dogs escape if we leave it open for long.’
He crossed the threshold with a strong sense of walking into an alternative dimension. A flurry at the far end of the passageway announced another person. She trotted towards him, pushing her sleeves down and fumbling with cuffs as she went. ‘Come in,’ she echoed. ‘This is so nice of you.’
‘Not at all,’ he said stiffly.
‘Have you got time for coffee? You’re sure to be busy, I know. But you’d be very welcome.’
He gave her a thoughtful inspection. Solidly built, her hair tied up in a vivid scarf, clothes sprinkled with fibres and fluff, she had dark eyes and a wide mouth. ‘You’re Ariadne, I take it?’ he said, still sounding like a Victorian undertaker in his own ears.
‘Oh, yes. Sorry. I should have said. How’s Thea? I’ve heard a few stories about her since we last met, but I never expected her to take up the funeral business. Bit of a change from house-sitting. But then, nothing lasts for ever, does it? Things change. You’re married, right? Fancy that!’
He could see her mentally comparing him with Phil Hollis, who he remembered had been a friend of hers.
‘I thought one of your jumpers …’
‘Yes, that’s right. So nice of you. Although I have to say they’ve been taking off rather well just lately. I saw two people wearing them in Cheltenham on the same day last week. The high spot of my career so far.’
She led him into a large square kitchen, which while untidy was perfectly clean. The window sparkled and he could see no hint of a cobweb. In one corner there was a dog basket, containing a shaggy animal and a child even smaller than the ones on the stairs. ‘Okay, Mimsy?’ Ariadne asked carelessly.
There was no response, but the dog raised its head minimally.
‘We’re fostering,’ the woman explained. ‘It’s going pretty well. Mimsy does most of the work,’ she laughed. ‘The little ones adore her.’
‘Good for her,’ he said faintly. He cast his mind’s eye back to the hallway. There had been no stair gates. Were you allowed to foster children without using a stair gate?
‘It’s all approved by the Social Services,’ she went on, reading his mind. ‘They’re so desperate for people that they’ll turn a blind eye to a lot of things. The kids mostly love it here, and nobody’s broken a leg up to now. We’ve got so much space, you see. It would have been a crime to waste it.’
‘Who else is here?’
‘There’s me and two other women living here permanently. We all have a bit of income of our own, and with the fostering money we just about scrape along.’
‘But who owns the house?’ He looked around again, trying to calculate the value of the property.
Ariadne laughed. ‘Everybody asks that. The answer’s a bit complicated. It all goes back a long way, but technically, I’m afraid we’re probably squatters.’
‘Gosh! Surely the Social Services don’t like that.’
‘They don’t know. We told them it belongs to Gabriella – which is almost true. She’s Italian and came here when she married an Englishman. But now he’s gone off to Panama or somewhere, and hasn’t come back. The house is in his mother’s name. So there’s the answer to your question. It’s really hers, but she’s pretty well forgotten about it. I think we’ll be fine as long as she keeps occupied living the high life, as she does. She knows we’re here, and the house is being used and maintained.’ Her smile contained a hint of triumph, perhaps at arranging matters so cleverly.
Drew wasn’t at all sure he wanted to hear all that. The idea of anyone wealthy enough to forget about such a house was very hard to swallow. It sounded like wishful thinking to him, with the owner liable to come back and evict the lot of them at any time. ‘Let’s see the jumpers,’ he said. ‘I need to be somewhere fairly soon.’
‘Oh. Right. Sorry. Through here, then.’ She opened a door close to the dog basket and ushered him through.
It must have been a pantry originally, he supposed. It was fitted with shelves on three sides, that would have held jam, cold meat, tinned food, condiments – anything that needed to be kept cool and close to hand. Now it was home to a bewildering display of handmade items. Not just Ariadne’s knitwear, but three shelves of pottery and two more of jewellery, mostly fashioned from twisted and curled wire. He moved slowly along, as if in a shop, admiring the work, and also the imaginative use of the space. ‘Phew!’ he said. ‘You’ve been busy.’ He fingered a pretty little milk jug, painted in blues and greens. A perfect present for almost anybody, he thought. Turning it over, he read the name scored on the bottom, Gabriella Mallon.
‘We have stalls at fairs and markets and all that. I’ve got one tomorrow.’
‘All this work,’ he sighed. ‘How do you keep up with it?’
‘Iron discipline,’ she said. ‘Gabriella has her pottery studio in the garden. I use my bedroom for the spinning. Helen uses hers for the jewellery. She doesn’t take as much space as me and Gabby. We have a rota for the kids. It all works well enough.’
‘How many kids?’
‘Five.’ She smiled. ‘One’s at school full-time, but we keep the rest here with us. No sense in paying for a nursery when we’re quite capable of doing it ourselves.’
‘And they’re all fostered?’
‘All except Harriet. She’s Helen’s own child. She’s the one in the dog basket.’
With a bemused shake of his head, Drew began to examine the jumpers on the shelves opposite the small window. What was Thea’s best colour, he asked himself. Blue, perhaps, or grey. They both seemed somewhat dull, and his eye was caught by a soft-looking garment in a shade of purple he thought might be officially fuchsia or magenta. It had white shapes scattered over it, with sequins sewn into the middle of them. ‘That’s nice,’ he said, pointing to it.
‘Mmm,’ said Ariadne. ‘Not sure it’s quite right for her skin.’
His eyes widened. What was wrong with Thea’s skin? Was there something he’d never noticed? His gaze fell on another jumper in orange and brown and yellow. ‘How about that?’
‘Far too big. She’d drown in it.’
‘Well, you choose, then. It sounds as if you remember her pretty well.’
‘I do.’ It was said darkly, hinting at a lot more significant an encounter than he had gathered from Thea. ‘She’d look great in this.’ She grabbed a lacy-looking pink thing and flourished it, letting it unfold and fall from where she gripped its shoulders.
Drew accepted that he was out of his depth. He suspected his impulse had been a misguided one. Was it not famously risky to buy clothes for other people? ‘You think so?’ he said doubtfully. ‘How much is it?’
‘Seventy-five pounds. It’s my own design.’
‘Oh,’ he said faintly. No way could he even begin to afford it. He had imagined something roughly a third of that price. Surely she couldn’t be getting sums like that at her market stalls? Was she deliberately trying to rip him off? ‘Too much, I’m afraid. We’ve had to tighten our belts quite a lot since starting up here.’
‘Pity,’ she said with a shrug. ‘So it’ll have to be a hat or scarf or gloves, then. I’ve got a few things around twenty. Not much under that. It’s the handmade thing, you see. It adds value.’
Twenty pounds sounded a lot for a hat that might only be worn on very cold days. Similarly gloves. And he was sure there was something feeble in giving a scarf. Thea already had quite a lot of scarves. ‘I’m very much afraid I’ve been wasting your time,’ he said regretfully. ‘I’m really sorry.’
Her reaction startled him. ‘No, no. I wanted you to come,’ she said urgently. ‘Never mind the jumpers. It was lucky for me you had the idea of buying something. Otherwise I’d have had to think of something else.’
‘What?’
‘The email I sent you – remember? I knew Thea had a birthday coming up. I never forget a birthday, even if I want to. I thought you might get the idea of buying something for her.’ Her voice lowered, and she glanced through the open door into the kitchen. Nobody but the child and the dog was in there. ‘Listen,’ she went on. ‘We’re going to need a quiet little funeral one day soon. It’s all rather awkward. Embarrassing. We don’t want any publicity. Nobody’s to come to it. Your set-up sounds perfect. Legal, but very discreet.’
Drew’s first thought was that one of the foster children had expired, and needed a hushed-up burial. Then he chastised himself for being overdramatic. Nothing of the sort could possibly be happening. ‘Who died?’ he asked starkly.
‘Nobody yet. The person’s very ill. We’ll contact you when the inevitable happens. It won’t be very long.’
‘There has to be some official paperwork,’ he warned her. ‘Doctor’s certificate. Next of kin. All sorts of things.’
She sighed. ‘Don’t give me that. All we need for you is the death certificate. The registrar wants the other stuff, not you. Why are you being so suspicious?’
‘That’s what I meant – the registrar. And you must admit it sounds a bit odd.’
‘It’s not odd at all. We all approve of woodland burials without the church stuff. Here you are, married to my old friend Thea, and everything’s going to work out nicely.’
‘All right. Yes. Of course. Just give me a call when the time comes and we’ll take it from there. Sorry about the jumper. I’ve wasted your time.’
She was still holding the pink thing. Now she thrust it out at him. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Call it advance payment on the burial. It’s perfect for her. I’ll wrap it if you like.’
He stepped back, his hands at his sides. Something wasn’t right and by accepting the jumper he would be colluding in a transaction that his guts told him he would regret. But it was very pretty. Feminine and cuddly, he could absolutely see Thea wearing it in the evenings, snuggled against him on the sofa. The size looked perfect, too.
‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘You know you want to.’
‘Well … Thank you,’ he muttered awkwardly. ‘Though I’m not sure how to square it with my books. The accountant is sure to query it.’
She blew out her cheeks scornfully. ‘I bet people pay you in kind all the time. As I understand it, that woman in Broad Campden paid you with a house.’
‘No, she didn’t. Is that what people are saying?’ He was appalled at the idea.
‘More or less, yes. Why does it bother you?’
‘I don’t know.’ He thought about it. Looked at in a certain way, it was true that Greta had done something of the sort. ‘It was less commercial than that,’ he began. ‘She just liked me.’
‘Right. Fine.’ Ariadne appeared to lose interest. The child in the basket stirred and whimpered, and its canine nursemaid jumped up as if stung.
‘I should go,’ he said. ‘Let me know when you need my services.’
‘Oh, I will,’ she said.
He wrapped the jumper carefully, wishing he could report his unsettling experience to Thea. But it would be impossible to explain why he had gone to Guiting Power without revealing the secret of her birthday present. He went over it many times in the next few days, marvelling over the numerous children and the creativity in every room. Where did everybody sleep, he wondered. There must be bunk beds and shared rooms, and long waits for the bathroom.
And who was the person on the brink of death? Despite many encounters with the dying, he found this a very unusual situation. He would go to hospices and private homes to talk to people about their own funerals, on a regular basis. He had been approached countless times with vague enquiries as to how his business actually worked in practice. But this was both more and less definite than usual. Ariadne knew someone who was dying and who presumably wanted a natural burial. But who and where was this person? The situation in the big stone house seemed too full-on to allow very much outside activity, and certainly not the kind of full-time care that a dying person required. Even if in hospital or a care home, there would be a demanding schedule of visiting. Nobody left a loved one to die unattended and unvisited if they could possibly help it.
He worried away at it for days, wishing he had asked more questions. He had met either Helen or Gabriella at the front door – nobody had told him which it was. One of them might well have a parent at the end of life, although Helen, at least, had to be rather young for that, if she had a small child. He did his customary automatic calculations. Perhaps if Helen was in her early forties, having left motherhood late, and her own parents had done the same, then it would all fit. As for Ariadne herself, he realised he knew nothing whatever about her background, except that she had been friendly with the Hollis man for much of her life.
And yet, it had not sounded like a dying parent. There would have been no need for secrecy, surely, if that had been the situation. Perhaps a detested stepfather needed to be kept at bay, or a cousin laying claim to the family jewels? He recalled a funeral at the undertaker where he had first worked, at which half the family had to be excluded. It involved barefaced lies and left a very nasty taste afterwards. His boss, Daphne Plant, had herself been uneasy about it, ‘But they’re paying us to do what they ask,’ she’d shrugged.
On the evening before Thea’s birthday, events began to unfold. The phone rang and Drew heard Ariadne’s voice, with its low notes and West Country vowels. She could probably have been a remarkable contralto singer, he thought, with the right training.
‘It’s happened,’ she said. ‘Even sooner than we thought it would.’
‘All right. Give me the name. Where’s the body now? Has the death been registered?’
‘Hang on. I told you, didn’t I, that it wasn’t going to be straightforward. We need a day or two to get all that done.’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
Apprehension, suspicion, resistance all swirled together inside Drew. Alarm bells were ringing loudly. After dealing with hundreds of deaths, he was highly sensitive to the range of emotions that would come his way. Ariadne was completely outside that range. The hushed voice might be explained by listening children. Difficulties with paperwork were not unusual. But there remained several aspects that did not fit with anything he had encountered before.
‘So where’s the body?’ he asked again. ‘Do you want us to come and remove it now?’
‘Oh, no. Tomorrow will do. She’s here, quite safe and sound.’
An earlier thought gripped him again. Was it one of the children? Had there been some awful abuse that resulted in a child’s death? Had they somehow covered it up? Was Ariadne capable of something so appalling? He took a long, slow breath and told himself not to be such a fool.
‘She?’
‘That’s right. Her name is Jennifer Alice Millingham.’
‘A doctor has seen her, right?’ He had written down the name, noting the initials with a faint smile.
‘Yes, yes. Drew, this is all quite legal and normal. You sound very peculiar about it. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, I hope. But getting the basic facts from you is like pulling teeth. You’ve got a dead woman there, with a house full of children. Is she someone’s mother, or what? Has she been laid out? Orifices and all that? Do you know what happens otherwise? Is she in a bed?’
‘Oh, Gabriella’s seen to that side of it. The children aren’t bothered. She’s nobody they know. At least … well, they don’t care about her, anyway.’
‘All right. Well, we’ll come tomorrow morning, then. Is ten o’clock convenient for you?’
‘Fine. Who’ll be with you?’
‘My assistant. He’s called Andrew. We’ve got a van specially modified for the purpose.’
‘I’m sure you have,’ she said lightly. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
He had to tell Thea. He could keep back the existence of her birthday jumper, with luck. Even if he had to deliver it a few hours early, that wouldn’t be a disaster. He went to find her in the kitchen, where she and Timmy were doing a big jigsaw. It took up half the table, and had been there since just after Christmas.
‘That was your friend Ariadne,’ he said. ‘She’s got a funeral for us.’
Thea looked up, her expression blank. ‘Has she? Who died?’
‘Somebody called Jennifer Alice Millingham.’
‘Is it her mother? I can’t remember her ever mentioning a mother.’
‘I think not. It sounds very odd, but she insists it’s all perfectly normal. Andrew and I are doing the removal tomorrow morning.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘I hope so.’
To his frustration, nothing more was said. He went into his office at the back of the house, and consulted his file covering the legal requirements for a death. He knew that it was the usual practice for a doctor to view a patient who had died, and that almost everybody assumed it was an essential part of the process. The strict, but minimal, requirements were that all a doctor had to do was give the cause of death, on a form that was then taken to the registrar. It was this person who really held the line against murder, fraud or other criminal behaviour. If this Jennifer Millingham had been ill, visited by a GP and cared for by a competent, trusted relative or friend, then it was possible that the GP would issue a certificate simply giving the cause of death when this caring person told him – or her – that the patient had died. Drew had a hunch that this might well turn out to have been what happened in this instance.
If so, it would be a first for him. Every doctor he had ever met would regard it as a clear, ethical duty to see the body of a patient. But the law did not insist. He realised that he was rushing ahead; that Ariadne had not overtly stated that the dead woman had been uninspected by a doctor. It was just an implication that grew stronger the more he thought about it. He found an unambiguous line in his file: Thus, there is no requirement in English law for a general practitioneror any other registered medical practitioner to see or examine the body of a person who is said to be dead.
It was followed by pious recommendations that any responsible doctor should turn out not only to examine the body but to do anything possible to console and advise the relatives.
Which left a certain degree of responsibility on the shoulders of the undertaker, he thought ruefully. A responsibility at the very least not to bury someone who was actually not quite dead, despite the paperwork all being in perfect order.
The jumper was received with something less than rapture. ‘Pink?’ said Thea. ‘I never wear pink.’
‘She said it would suit you. Hold it up. It does suit you. It looks great.’
Thea looked down at herself doubtfully. ‘Does it? It feels nice, I must say. Where did you get it? Is it handmade? It must have cost a fortune, if so.’
He swallowed back the explanation he’d been about to give her. Would she approve of the transaction whereby her birthday present had been accepted in part payment for a funeral? ‘Don’t ask,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you it’s one of Ariadne’s. I went there last week and chose it. She’s got a big house in Guiting Power, with two other women. I’ve been dying to tell you all about it.’
She was pulling the garment over her head, and standing in front of the mirror over the fireplace. ‘It is nice,’ she said. ‘Just not what I would ever have bought for myself. It’ll take some getting used to. I never see myself as a pink person.’
‘Good,’ he said.
‘What were you telling me just now? You went to Ariadne’s house? Is that the same house you’ve got to go to in a minute to collect a dead woman?’
‘Yes. Remove, not collect,’ he added, for the fiftieth time.
‘Sorry. I can never see why that matters.’
‘I suppose it doesn’t, really.’
‘She’s an odd person. I can’t imagine her living with other people – she was very solitary when I met her. Eccentric.’
‘She’s that, all right. So are the others, I imagine. They’ve got a whole lot of foster children. Little ones. And dogs. And no stair gate. We had a stair gate until Timmy was at least three,’ he remembered. ‘A real nuisance it was, too.’
‘I don’t think there’s any law about it,’ she said mildly.
‘Yet.’
‘Foster children? Now that really is odd. I thought they were only given to people within their own area. Something about consistent community experience – some jargon like that. So they can keep the same friends and go to the same schools. Of course, it can’t possibly work.’ She made a slightly sneery face; one that Drew had seen before and didn’t like.
‘It’s a good aim, though, don’t you think? I suppose the children in Guiting Power might have people in Oxford or Stratford – somewhere within reach, at least. Poor little things,’ he sighed.
‘I suppose so. It all sounds a bit mad. Is the dead person in the same house as a lot of little kids, then?’
‘Yes. That’s what I’m trying to say. The authorities would go crazy if they knew.’
‘They would. Well, you’d better go and sort it all out, then. The sooner the better.’
‘I’ve got a few minutes. You like the jumper, then?’
‘I love it. Thanks ever so much for it. It’s gorgeous. Tell Ariadne she’s got magic in her hands. I wonder if she used a natural dye for the wool. I think she spins it all herself, as well as knitting it.’
‘I’ll ask, if I remember. Ah – there’s Andrew now. See you later.’
In the van, he explained some of the story to his employee. Andrew Emerson had been a farmer until very recently, the funeral business a late change of career. Repeated bouts of tuberculosis in his cattle had finally driven him out of business. He still got up with the sun, spent every possible moment outdoors, and made anxious predictions about the weather. His face was rugged and grooved, but some of the worry lines were smoothing out as he relaxed into his new life. He had turned out to be extremely good with the families during the funerals, treating them all as equals, offering a light but sincere understanding of their grief. He conveyed a sense of everyone being in this together, life proceeding somehow or other without the lost relative or friend. Drew was delighted with him, while worrying at times that there would not be enough income to sustain his salary.
‘What’s your real problem with this, then?’ Andrew asked Drew now. ‘How’s it different from usual?’
‘Where do I start? All I’ve got is a name. I don’t know how she’s related to anyone in the house – or even if she is. I keep coming up with unlikely explanations, and none of them is very reassuring. She could be an obstructive social worker, threatening to take the kids away. Or a rich old aunt. I know I’ve seen too many murder victims for my own good, and this can’t possibly be another one – but suddenly it looks all too easy to cover up foul play, if you’ve got a lazy doctor on side.’
‘Lazy doctor?’
‘I checked the law again last night. It’s not a legal requirement for a doctor to examine a patient after they’ve died. If he’d seen her within the past week or so, and knew there was a life-threatening illness, he could issue a certificate of the cause of death without seeing her again.’
Andrew thought this over. ‘That seems okay to me. The important bit is the life-threatening illness, isn’t it? If a person was murdered, they wouldn’t have been ill beforehand, would they? So ill that the doctor wasn’t surprised when they died.’
‘Ill people can be murdered,’ said Drew. ‘If there was a proper plan in place, there could be ways of convincing the doctor that it was worse than it was really.’
‘Come on, Drew. That’s really over-egging it. You’ve got far too much imagination.’
‘I expect I have.’ He drove on, past Stow-on-the-Wold and turning right onto the B4068 that meandered westwards towards Naunton, before the turning up to Guiting Power. He was still very unsure of the way all the many Cotswolds villages linked together, remembering brief visits to Thea in a number of them when she’d been house-sitting. Some had been hard to find, leaving images of deep, dark lanes and large, shady trees, to be abruptly followed by wide, sweeping plains, without hedges or woodland for a hundred acres. It was more like this latter landscape on the final stretch. Beside him, Andrew was commenting on their progress. He knew people across the whole region, and was related to several of them. ‘That’s where my cousin Raymond lives. Letting his fences go, look. Sold off all the stock a couple of years back, so not much need to keep the fences sturdy. Seems a shame.’ He sighed. ‘He’ll be growing rape or linseed, most likely.’
They were in good time, arriving ten minutes early. ‘Shouldn’t think they’ll mind,’ said Andrew.
They were ushered into the house by Ariadne and a woman she introduced as Gabriella. Small children were much in evidence, apparently in good health and clean clothes. Drew corrected his notion of them as waifs and strays, dressed in Dickensian rags. The house was warm and music was playing in a back room. ‘She’s up here,’ said Ariadne.
The body was of a woman who had evidently lived a long time. White hair, sunken mouth above an unusually long chin, and thin mottled skin. ‘Who is she?’ asked Drew, his fascination only increased by the reality before his eyes.
‘Jennifer Alice Millingham. I told you,’ said Ariadne. ‘Everyone called her Jammie, for obvious reasons.’
‘Have you got all you need for the registrar? They ask about fifty questions, you know. Birth certificate, marriages, divorces, National Insurance. The whole works.’
‘Not all that, no. But enough, probably. Not your problem, really. Just so long as I get the death certificate, you’re covered, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but …’ He bent over the body. At least she was definitely dead, he concluded. Had been for a while.
‘Listen, Drew Slocombe. She was a homeless vagrant. We met her a year ago and she used to come here to get warm and have some food. She was nice with the kids, and when her dog died, we let her bury it in the garden. There really isn’t any mystery to it. We haven’t got much paperwork for her, admittedly. But the doctor knows about her. She had a very damaged heart, and some kidney disease. He was surprised she lived as long as she did. We promised her she would have a decent funeral. She’d a bit of money stashed away to pay for it. I can’t imagine we’ll have much trouble with the registrar when we tell the whole story, can you?’
She left the room without waiting for a reply. Drew and his colleague set about wrapping the body, preparatory to carrying it downstairs. ‘Not a murder, then,’ muttered Andrew.
‘Seems not.’ The simple explanation was slow in dispelling Drew’s suspicions. ‘Although …’
‘What?’
‘Well – has she been up here dying for the past week or more? This looks like one of the main bedrooms. The house isn’t big enough for them to spare a whole room like this. There are five children living here.’
‘Can’t see the problem. Kids can double up. There must be sofas downstairs.’
‘True.’
‘Come on, mate. It all makes sense to me. People are kinder than you think, when it comes to something like this. She’s clean enough, look. They’ve done a good job on her.’
‘All right. Let’s get her down the stairs, then. We can’t refuse to take her now.’
Andrew stared at him. ‘And why would we? I don’t get it. What are you so bothered about?’
‘I don’t know. There’s something, I know. It just isn’t right. I feel it in my gut.’
‘Double Indemnity,’ said Andrew, confusingly.
‘What?’
‘The boss man at the insurance company. Edward G. Robinson. He can feel a scam in his gut. Something like that. Turned out he was right, of course. But real life is different. Guts are not reliable.’
‘I expect that’s true. Come on, then.’
They kept the body in the cool room until Ariadne turned up two days later with the death certificate all signed and sealed and legal. ‘It wasn’t quite as easy as I hoped,’ she admitted. ‘But we got there in the end. The registrar phoned the doctor, who convinced her it was all okay.’
The burial was arranged with more expedition than people in Britain had come to expect. Drew deplored the lengthy delays that had become the norm, and made it one of his key selling points that he could easily perform a funeral within three days of a person’s death. ‘There really isn’t as much to be done as they tell you at big undertakers,’ he would tell his customers. ‘And because we never do embalming, it’s in everyone’s interest to get on with it.’
Ariadne was more than happy to endorse this approach, and a small gathering assembled in the field on a blustery afternoon, to bid farewell to Jennifer Alice Millingham. A very young copper beech tree was standing by to be planted at the head of the grave. ‘I got it for two pounds at the Moreton Garden Centre,’ said Ariadne. ‘It was in the bargain corner. I’m sure it’ll grow perfectly well.’
‘It will,’ Drew promised. ‘I’ll put it in when you’ve all gone.’
A month later, Thea and Drew were going through the small pile of accumulated newspapers that somehow built up on the corner of the dining table of its own accord. Local news was a minor passion with Drew, who maintained that it helped him with the business. He needed to understand connections, changes, who the important people might be. Thea liked to spot familiar village names, as well as very occasional references to people she had met.
Two items caught their interest. First Thea, then Drew, exclaimed aloud before reading out the piece in question.
Thea’s had the headline, ‘Well-known local character found dead.’ The text then explained, ‘A homeless woman known to all as Jammie, has sadly been found dead in an outbuilding near Stroud. On investigation, police learnt that she had left the area around Bourton and Naunton, where she had been in the habit of spending the winter months. A witness reported that she had been told by Jammie that she had been paid to relocate to Bristol, but that she had so disliked the change of scene that she was returning to more familiar parts. Police say there is no suggestion of foul play.’
Drew read an article that had a photo attached. ‘Wealthy widow’s whereabouts in question,’ said the headline. Then, ‘Mrs Barbara Mallon, widow of the successful entrepreneur, Jack Mallon, has been missing since the New Year. Friends have informed the police, although it is thought that there may not be any real cause for concern. Mrs Mallon was known to travel widely, often with little preparation. She has a son who lives in Central America. However, the police would like anybody with information as to her whereabouts to contact them.’
The picture showed an elderly woman with white hair and a long chin. It was a face that would remain in anyone’s memory. It was not, however, the face of a vagrant called Jammie. Instead, it was the wealthy owner of the house in Guiting Power, whose death, if made known, would lead to considerable difficulties for its occupants.
‘Oh dear,’ said Drew.
With Slaughter in Mind
Toni was disappointed not to be offered accommodation at the hotel when they agreed to employ her as part of the catering staff for the summer. She had not yet passed her driving test, and home was forty miles away. ‘I can’t do it, then,’ she told the man interviewing her.
‘Why did you apply for something so far from home?’ he wondered.
‘I thought it would be good experience,’ she said, sounding feeble in her own ears. ‘I’m going to university next year, and wanted to see what it was like, fending for myself.’
‘You’re only seventeen,’ he pointed out.
‘I know I am. That’s why living in sounded a good idea.’ How to explain the feelings of claustrophobia and frustration that had been building up for months, living with six other people? ‘I’m actually quite capable of looking after myself,’ she asserted. ‘And I’ve got an aunt living not far away.’
‘You could stay with her, then,’ he suggested.
‘I could ask her, I suppose,’ she said doubtfully. That was not at all the plan. It would be too much like being at home, with young children getting in her way. Toni had had enough of children, at least for a while. She wanted to get out into a world full of adults, and learn some of the quirks of human nature. She was intending to study psychology once she got to university, and life in a hotel seemed to her the ideal source of material to analyse.
‘Well, we really would like to have you here until September. It’s booked solid, and it’s never easy to find the right people for the work. You strike me as unusually bright and energetic for an English girl. It’s mostly the Poles and Ukrainians who get the jobs, because they try so much harder. That’s fine, but the guests really like a chat sometimes, and I think they’d go for you.’
‘That sounds ominous,’ she said with a little smile.
He laughed. ‘Sorry. Bad choice of words. We take care of girls as young as you, don’t worry. Everything’s perfectly respectable here.’
‘I don’t think I can take the job,’ she said regretfully. ‘Not if I can’t live in.’
He scratched his thinning hair. ‘Well, maybe I can do a bit of juggling. Phone me this evening, and we’ll have another little talk about it.’
‘Okay, then.’
She went back to where her mother was waiting outside in the car, and explained what had been said. ‘They really want me, but they don’t think I can live in. So I said that wouldn’t work. And he said I should stay with Thea and Drew, but I don’t really want to. Anyway, they’re ten or twelve miles away, so that’s not going to work, is it? I’ll be working evenings a lot. How would I get back there?’
Jocelyn rolled her eyes. ‘I said it was a mad idea, coming up here like this. Especially Lower Slaughter. It’s got so many bad vibes for the family. I don’t know why I let you talk me into it.’
‘Because the money’s good and you’ll be glad to get rid of me for a couple of months.’
