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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Cotswold Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
'As Rebecca Tope tells it, every rural idyll is blighted by underlying menace. Such is her writing skill, I'm inclined to believe her' Daily Mail As spring returns to the Cotswolds, so too does Thea Slocombe to house-sitting. She has agreed to look after Lucy Sinclair's new home in Northleach while she is away, and Thea is glad of the change of scene. She soon meets several of the locals who seem to irritate Lucy so much, and comes to the conclusion that Lucy is far from popular herself. When a man's body is found in Northleach, Thea needs all her wits about her. At the heart of the mystery are secrets betrayed and revenge exacted, and Thea is once again caught up in underhand dealings played out in the idyllic countryside.
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Seitenzahl: 394
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Echoes in the Cotswolds
REBECCA TOPE
Dedicated to Friendship in the abstract, and Liz, Margot, Sally and Flo in the particular.
They’ve all stuck with me for over fifty years.
Contents
Author’s Note
As with all titles in this series, the action is set in a real village. But the houses and characters are my own invention. The Updike sonnet ‘Iowa’ is well worth looking up, as are his other poems.
Chapter One
Drew was busy. Beyond busy, in fact. Seven funerals in one week was almost too much for a very small alternative undertaker with limited storage space and an assistant who could hardly move thanks to a vicious bout of lumbago, with the added woes of sciatica for good measure.
‘I’ll have to turn at least two of them away,’ he wailed, whilst knowing the idea was unthinkable. It was five to eight on a Monday morning and already the week was looking impossible. The weekend had bristled with phone calls about dead people.
‘You can’t,’ said Thea firmly. ‘We’ll get somebody else to help. Call Maggs and Den.’
‘They’re too far away and we need somebody now. This afternoon. There’s a man to be removed from the nursing home at Stow, and somebody from the hospice. And nowhere to put either of them. We’ll have the council onto us at this rate. Somebody’s going to complain. We can’t hope to keep it discreet if there are bodies lying around the garden.’
‘Calm down. Can Andrew drive at all? If he goes to Stow, there’ll be people at the care home who’ll do the heavy lifting. That’d be a start. If tomorrow morning’s is coffined-up, he can spend the night in the hall.’ Thea looked at Drew’s children, who were very much involved in the conversation, to the point where Stephanie was liable to be late for school. ‘Just don’t tell anybody, okay?’
Stephanie had already suggested they ask Mike, the window cleaner, if he had any free time for digging graves. He came every two months to do the windows, and the twelve-year-old had taken to chatting to him. It had, however, come as a surprise to Thea that her stepdaughter had his mobile number. Mike was over thirty with a wife and three children and was not at first sight a threat – but you never knew, as people would insist. ‘He left his card here, remember,’ said the child patiently. ‘And last time he came he said he was worried about losing some customers.’
‘So what did he say about digging graves?’ asked Drew.
‘I think he thought I was joking. You’ll have to call him.’
‘It’s an idea,’ said Thea. ‘Think how much time that would save. Get him to do all seven.’
‘Five. We only need five. I’ve done the first two already.’
‘So can Andrew drive?’ Stephanie asked.
‘Barely. But he might struggle as far as Stow, I suppose. I don’t want him to do anything that makes him worse. It was lifting that big coffin ten days ago that set it all off in the first place. The man weighed sixteen stone, Lord help us.’
‘Well, just being able to drive is better than nothing,’ said Thea, who had her own reasons for wanting everything settled. ‘And has tomorrow’s person got some sturdy relatives who can do the lowering?’
‘Luckily, yes. A sister and two daughters, all pretty well-muscled.’ The whole family giggled at the picture this conjured – Timmy loudest of all.
‘Don’t laugh,’ said Drew. ‘None of this is funny.’
‘It is, though,’ said Thea, with a glance at Stephanie. Her stepdaughter generally shared her subversive sense of humour. ‘So long as we can laugh about it, it’ll all work out fine.’
‘At least tomorrow seems to be okay,’ Drew conceded. ‘But on Wednesday I’ve got another two, and on Friday there are three. Not to mention the big one on Thursday.’
‘Big in what sense?’
‘Thirty mourners at least, most of them wanting to say something. It’ll last for ages.’
‘But not really any extra work,’ Thea pointed out. ‘Just a bit time consuming.’
Drew was in no mood to be mollified. ‘I just can’t see how it’s all that going to be possible.’
‘You must have thought it would be when you arranged them all,’ Thea said, with dwindling patience. ‘Couldn’t some of them have waited a bit longer?’
‘The two o’clock on Friday isn’t definite, but I did say I’d pencil it in. She only died on Saturday.’ One of Drew’s selling points was that families did not have to endure the excessively long hiatuses that mainstream undertakers inflicted on them. A week without embalming fluid could be a long time. ‘But they’d be very disappointed if we moved it. Plus, I thought I’d have Andrew. He said he was getting better. And all three families really do want it to be Friday. It’s always the favourite day.’
‘Yes, I know. Which leaves you quite a lot of Thursday to get everything sorted. Think positive – think of how it’s going to boost the coffers. I’m already planning a celebratory trip to Waitrose with the proceeds.’
Timmy laughed again, but nobody else did. It was a somewhat anxious laugh, revealing the child’s unease at a situation he couldn’t trust to turn out well. Timmy, more than anyone, remembered all too clearly that his stepmother was planning to go away in the middle of the week, taking the dog with her, and would very likely be gone all weekend as well. This, he knew, was why she was so eager for Drew to get his funerals under control, so she wouldn’t feel too guilty about going. Not that she was ever much use with Drew’s work – and there wouldn’t be any actual funerals at the weekend. So she wouldn’t really be missed. There had been a full-scale family discussion about it, back in February, and everybody had agreed that there wouldn’t be a problem. Now it was almost April, with only a week left of the school term, and Thea’s person in Northleach was going for her operation on Wednesday. Probably. ‘You can never say anything for definite when it comes to medical matters,’ said Thea cynically. ‘She wants me to keep it flexible.’
The person in question was called Lucy, and Thea had worked for her before when she’d looked after an assortment of animals in a remote barn conversion and it had snowed. ‘I went to a children’s party,’ she reminisced. ‘And there was a very sad dog. Lucy says he’s dead now, and all the rabbits have gone, but she still wants a house-sitter.’
‘Rabbits?’ queried Timmy.
‘They were very sweet. Baby ones. Gladwin helped me with them.’
Gladwin was a detective superintendent, who had first befriended Thea years ago in Temple Guiting, during her – Gladwin’s – very first murder investigation in her new role. She came from Teesside and had an unorthodox streak that appealed greatly to Thea.
‘Why does she want a house-sitter?’ Timmy had persisted. It unsettled him when Thea went away, mainly because something awful always happened, and everybody ended up scared and cross.
Thea had rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘She just does, okay. She’s got some nice things and doesn’t want to get burgled. Anyway, I won’t be there all the time. Just enough to make it look as if the house is still lived in. I told you – I’ll pop back here at least once over the weekend.’
Drew had noticed something in her tone and took over from Tim. ‘There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ he said with a frown. This was after the initial discussion, during which he had been characteristically resigned, and Thea was sorry to have the subject raised again.
‘There really isn’t,’ she promised. ‘Some people just hate to leave an empty house.’ She wasn’t exactly hiding anything, she told herself. There were no hard facts to be concealed – just an impression that all was not well with Lucy Sinclair, regarding not just her physical health, but her mental welfare. She had been restless and distracted when Thea had visited her in February. She left sentences unfinished and constantly threw worried glances out of the window. ‘Are you expecting someone?’ Thea had finally asked.
‘What? No – I hope not. I was just wondering about the neighbours …’ She had tailed off with a shrug.
The Northleach house was semi-detached, its partner being a smaller dwelling than Lucy’s. Thea had conscientiously described it to Drew as being a considerable change from Lucy’s Hampnett home. ‘Talk about downsizing,’ she said. ‘The rooms are about a quarter the size of the ones she had before.’
‘Easier to heat,’ said her husband absently.
‘Right.’ In fact, the converted barn had boasted a highly efficient heating system that had kept Thea perfectly warm throughout the snowy and icy time she was there. ‘I think it’s her bad back that’s forced her to move,’ she added. When she had known Lucy before, there’d been nothing wrong with her back, as far as she could tell. The main detail she recalled was that the woman was freshly divorced and determined to celebrate.
But the funerals were the only topic that Drew currently wanted to think about. He had roamed around the house muttering about schedules and removals and giving a decent service, since seven o’clock that morning. Only Stephanie gave him any attention, remembering names and making suggestions. And then, at eight-fifteen, the phone rang.
All the funeral business was conducted on the landline, unless everybody was out, when calls were diverted to Drew’s mobile. If he was at home, only he would answer it – at least in theory. Now he visibly tensed, clearly afraid that here was a final feather that would break his back.
‘Shall I get it?’ asked Thea, on the third peal. She had been standing on the doorstep watching her stepson trotting up the lane to the bus stop, thinking how much better it was now the mornings were getting lighter. Timmy was still at primary school, entitled to a seat on a bus. Stephanie’s transport arrangements were more complicated, generally requiring Drew or Thea to take her there and back in the car.
‘No, no.’ Drew answered the one in the hall, rather than going into his office at the back of the house. Automatically he switched into his professional voice: kind and approachable, while also businesslike and reassuring. Thea always relished the sound of him soothing a newly bereaved person, remembering why she loved him and what was so exceptional about him.
‘Of course,’ he was saying. ‘Would four o’clock be all right? Sorry I can’t manage anything sooner, but …’ Clearly the person at the other end found this quite acceptable, with no call for excuses. ‘All right, then. I’ll be here … Don’t worry about that. It’s all part of the service.’
He put the phone down and looked at Thea. ‘It’s the husband from Saturday. The Friday woman at the hospice. He sounds nice.’
Thea had no difficulty in interpreting the shorthand. A woman had died at the hospice – and was to be removed that afternoon, if at all possible, by the suffering Andrew. Her husband would be coming in at four o’clock to make arrangements for the funeral, which had already been booked for Friday of that week. ‘Will Andrew have her back by then?’ she wondered. ‘If so, where’s he going to put her?’
‘Good question. I think she’ll have to stay in the vehicle till he’s gone. Otherwise, there’ll be coffins in the passageway and we don’t want that. Actually – there’ll be people coming tomorrow as well, about the other Friday ones.’ He looked harder at Thea, as if trying to summon courage to ask a favour. She knew what he wanted to say – Can’t you do something practical to help? Like sitting down with a family and arranging the funeral? She had only done that once and found it far beyond her comfort zone. She didn’t have the right skills for it and didn’t think she ever would have. Stephanie would do a better job.
‘I could probably do a removal if you’re desperate,’ she said with a little laugh. ‘So long as I don’t have to actually carry anyone.’ She was five feet one, and not especially strong. The well-muscled females detailed to lower their relative into his grave the next day were a very different species from Thea Slocombe.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Drew with a sigh.
‘Listen – we’ve already figured out how it can all work. People will understand if you tell them how busy you are. They’ll be glad to step up and do more themselves. Didn’t you say one of them’s already got their own coffin? Things like that. You can make a virtue of it – which is all part of your ethos, anyway. Holding back so the families can be really hands-on. You might even find one or two of them would be happy to dig the grave as well.’ She looked at him hopefully, waiting to see if she was saying the right things.
‘Thanks,’ he smiled, much to her relief. ‘I needed that.’ He pulled her into his arms and rubbed his face against the top of her head. ‘There’s nobody in the world who could have made me pull myself together like you’ve just done,’ he mumbled.
She squeezed him tight, thinking that his former partner Maggs would have done just as good a job, and probably Stephanie too. But it was nice that he said it. They’d been married less than two years, having met right here in Broad Campden. They had all too short a history for the kind of risks she had been taking with the marriage. She had forced Drew to be supremely tolerant at times, frightening him and then neglecting him. This time she was going to be a lot more careful. ‘Mmm,’ she said.
‘But what about you?’ he asked, pulling back to meet her eyes. ‘Going off to Northleach, I mean.’
‘Well,’ she began, ‘it’s not for a few more days. I’ve got time to make sure everything’s okay here. I’ll take the dog with me, and I’m probably only staying two or three nights. If you need me here, I can come home – I told Lucy that.’
‘I know. I didn’t mean … at least …’
‘What? What are you trying to say?’
He was starting to look wretched. ‘Thea – darling – I keep getting the feeling I’m in your way. That you’d be having a far more interesting life if it wasn’t for me and the kids. All this agonising about burying people is hardly thrilling, is it? The Frowse business at Christmas seems ages ago now, and I was pretty boring about it, I know. I’m just a hopelessly dull person.’
She had heard this, or variations of it, before, and felt just as miserable as usual on hearing it again. ‘I wish you’d understand how awful that makes me feel,’ she said. ‘What sort of horrible person wants constant excitement? It’s childish. And honestly, Drew, it isn’t true. I’m perfectly happy here with you, ninety per cent of the time. At least ninety per cent. We’ve got the best two kids in the world, and just about everything we could wish for. If I get a bit antsy now and then, that’s not your fault, and it’s not important. Think of it as a sort of psychic malaria that strikes me down three or four times a year. It doesn’t do any permanent damage. Not if we don’t let it.’
He obviously felt a similar self-reproach to hers. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Really really sure?’
She took a deep breath. ‘What do I have to do to prove it? Other than break the speed limit to get Stephanie to school on time.’ The child was waiting on the doorstep pretending not to notice the adult intimacies going on in the kitchen.
‘I don’t know. Maybe if you came back saying that Northleach is even duller than Broad Campden, that would be a start.’
‘Right then,’ she said recklessly. ‘I’ll do exactly that.’ She grabbed the car keys. ‘Come on, Steph.’
Chapter Two
But almost immediately the brief harmony was disrupted. Shortly before midday, Thea got a call on her mobile from Lucy Sinclair. ‘Just to confirm that the hospital say I’m definitely on the list for Wednesday. There was a risk that I’d be bumped off until Friday, but that’s been sorted. I’m assuming Mr High-Up Surgeon wants to play golf or something instead of hacking into my lumbar region.’
Thea had only the most slender grasp of Lucy’s medical arrangements. She was going private to have an operation on her back – that was the whole story as far as Thea knew. She would be in a private section of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, and had hoped to be in control of the schedule as a result. But even private surgeons had constraints and conflicting calls on their time, it seemed. ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling an entirely inexplicable rush of apprehension flood through her. ‘So what does that entail, exactly?’
‘It entails me going in either last thing Tuesday or first thing Wednesday – if I go on Tuesday it’ll cost more for the extra night, so I decided to make it Wednesday. I might not be home until next Monday. They keep telling me, all reproachful, that I’m making it worse for myself by insisting on general anaesthetic. Slower recovery and all that. They don’t believe me when I say it would take even longer to recover my sanity if I had to listen to them chiselling away at my poor bones. And it strikes me that the site for an epidural is dangerously close to the area he’ll be operating on. You’d think he’d be glad to have me completely out of it.’
‘Mm,’ said Thea, thinking there would probably be headphones available to block any gruesome sounds and that the surgeon would already have considered the implications of the proximity of an epidural. ‘So – when would you want me, then?’
‘Well – would it be out of the question to be here for Wednesday night? And stay till Saturday? Then if I’m not home until the middle of next week, maybe come back on Monday for a night or two?’
‘Three nights,’ Thea calculated. ‘They can probably spare me for that long – although poor Drew’s got a terribly busy workload this week.’
‘I would be eternally grateful. I realise I sound stupidly paranoid – but the way things are … Honestly, Thea, if I couldn’t find somebody to be here, I’d never be able to have this operation at all.’
There are other house-sitters available, thought Thea. But Lucy was paying handsomely, and Thea did feel a certain degree of obligation, given how badly she had managed the previous commission in Hampnett. The surprise was that Lucy would even consider using her again. ‘None of it was your fault,’ she had insisted generously. ‘I think you coped magnificently. Anybody else would have run away screaming after the first night.’
When Lucy hesitantly explained precisely why she wanted a guard for her empty house in a peaceful little town, Thea understood that she had very probably been stitched up.
But by then it was too late to change her mind.
She sat down with Drew after lunch and gave him her full attention. Over the washing-up she had been struck by the idea of asking Andrew’s wife, Fiona, if she had any spare time to help with the burials, which she immediately conveyed to Drew.
‘She works,’ he said dismissively.
‘Not full time.’
‘What were you thinking she could do?’
‘Some heavy lifting,’ said Thea without hesitation. ‘Like Maggs always did. Fiona’s used to it, after all.’ The Emersons had been farmers until very recently, with all the hay bales and feed bags and floppy newborn calves that had to be routinely shouldered by everyone, male or female. ‘She could probably do a removal, if it came to it.’
‘My head’s all over the place,’ Drew complained, passing a dramatic hand across his brow. ‘I can’t think straight.’
‘Come on, then,’ she ordered, leading him into the office that had originally been a dining room. ‘We’ll write everything down, starting from this afternoon. One funeral tomorrow, two on Wednesday and three on Friday. Is that right? And a man coming today to make all the arrangements for one of the Friday people.’
‘One on Thursday as well. The biggest one of them all. Seven altogether.’ He groaned. ‘It can’t possibly be doable. What on earth was I thinking?’
‘It’s absolutely doable. Don’t be so pathetic.’ She sat down next to him, in the seat designated for relatives who came to arrange a burial. ‘Can I write on this?’ She tapped a lined notepad lying on the desk. Without waiting for an answer, she wrote ‘Monday’ at the top and underlined it. ‘Somebody has to go to Stow this afternoon. That’s the first thing. What’s the person’s name?’
‘Adrian Waters.’ He consulted a page of notes. ‘Two o’clock tomorrow. The relatives are carrying and lowering.’
‘Great. That’s him sorted, then. And you’ve got one of the graves dug for Wednesday, did you say?’
‘Penelope Allen,’ he nodded. ‘Half past ten.’
Rapidly Thea filled the page and moved onto a second and then a third one for Thursday and Friday. She listed the tasks to be fulfilled and likely people to be doing them. At several points she wrote ‘family?’ as possible participants.
Drew watched her, half amused, half impatient. ‘This is my job,’ he protested. ‘I shouldn’t need you to do it.’
‘I know. But another pair of eyes can’t hurt. You were getting all overwhelmed and panicked. You would have forgotten something. Writing it out like this makes us feel we’ve got it all under control.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I must admit it does feel much better now. Although it’s never that simple. The families always want to talk. They expect me to be available most of the day of the funeral. You know what they’re like. Somebody phones at seven in the morning to tell me they can’t find their husband’s favourite tie. And afterwards they call to thank me and talk for an hour. I won’t have time for any of that this week.’
‘Let Andrew do it,’ she said decisively. ‘He doesn’t need his back to take phone calls.’
‘Good idea – but they won’t have his number, and once I answer the phone, I won’t be able to just pass them over to him.’
‘Get him over here, then. Sit him down with the phone and let him be useful. It’ll take his mind off his bad back. He can arrange any new funerals for next week as well, come to that. He’s always saying he’d like to do more of that.’
‘While I’m out in the rain and wind doing the dirty work.’
‘Precisely.’
‘The forecast is horrible for Friday – did you see?’
‘I never bother to look more than two days ahead. It won’t be right, anyway. Friday is ages away.’
‘You sound like Timmy,’ said Drew with a smile.
‘Do I?’ She paused, holding her breath. ‘Actually, there’s something I haven’t got round to telling you.’
‘About Timmy?’ Alarm filled his face.
‘No, no. About me. And Northleach. Nothing drastic – just that Lucy’s had definite confirmation that she’ll be done on Wednesday. There was a chance it would have to wait till Friday. She’s going in very early that day, and wants me to be there overnight for three nights.’
‘I always did think you’d be going on Wednesday. You make it sound like new news.’
‘Do I? I wasn’t sure you’d heard it as definite before. And knowing what hospitals are like, it’s still not a hundred per cent. The uncertainty must be awful for poor Lucy.’
Any other husband would have drawn suspicious conclusions long before this point. Any other husband would think she had been so unusually helpful and attentive as a way of compensating for a very inconvenient absence. But not Drew. He merely looked at her, and asked ‘So when are you going?’
‘She wants me on Wednesday evening. She says I can come back here on Saturday night, but I don’t think she’s very keen on me doing that. She’s hoping to be home on Monday. That leaves the house unguarded on Sunday, but it seems she’s less worried about weekends.’
‘Am I right in thinking she’s a very anxious person? That’s the impression I’ve been getting. What can possibly happen to her house for a few days, anyway? People go off on holidays, lock the door, cancel the milk and everything’s fine.’
‘I know. I expect it’s mostly the worry over the operation. She’s been agonising about a whole lot of “what-ifs” and got herself in a stew. After all, it’s quite a big thing she’s having done, and they’re not sure exactly what they’ll find once she’s on the table. Nobody’s going to feel very relaxed about something like that, are they? It’s all very scary, by any standards.’
‘Poor woman,’ said Drew. He sat back in his chair. ‘You know something? I’ve a nasty feeling that I ought to feel more sympathetic towards people with problems like that. All I can do is think – well, nobody’s dead, what are you so upset about?’
‘It’s your job,’ she reassured him. ‘And you’re brilliantly good at it. Almost everybody shies away from death, and won’t let anybody talk about it. I mean – remember that marvellous woman who kept saying how glad she was her husband had finally died? I bet you were the only person she knew who she could talk to honestly. Everybody else would have expected her to pretend to be grief-stricken. And you help them to understand the whole business. The way death’s at the absolute heart of everything, even if nobody will ever admit that to themselves. I heard you just the other day saying that to somebody. That girl whose granny had just died. Wasn’t she doing philosophy at college or something? You sat down with her for about an hour in here, just letting her try to work it all out. Honestly, Drew, you’re much better than any vicar – or doctor or anyone.’
‘Blimey!’ he said. ‘That’s twice in one day you’ve told me what’s what. It’ll get to be a habit at this rate.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s not the sort of thing a person says very often. I guess we both needed a bit of reminding, that’s all.’
‘That girl reminded me of Stephanie – if “reminded” is the right word. She’s how I hope Steph will be when she’s twenty. I had no idea she and I were in here so long. It felt like a real privilege to be talking to her, oddly enough.’
‘Well, at least you left the door open. We could all hear you. I think Stephanie was even more impressed than I was, actually.’
‘Isn’t it her chess day today?’ he asked, in a fairly obvious association of ideas. ‘We’re still all right about that, are we?’
‘Oh yes, I think so,’ said Thea. ‘I think they’re good for each other.’
Ever since Christmas Stephanie had gone across the lane to play chess with a male neighbour in his sixties. They all called him ‘Mr Shipley’ and treated him with a degree of deference. Drew had buried his sister, and Thea had invited him to a Sunday lunch many months earlier. He collected antique glass and seemed to have independent means. Regular trips to London were assumed to have a romantic purpose – probably with another man. Information concerning his private life remained in very short supply. Stephanie’s eager anticipation every Monday afternoon convinced Drew and Thea that the friendship was perfectly wholesome. ‘We talk about philosophy mostly,’ the child reported.
‘Although they can hardly leave the door open, can they?’ His expression suggested that he hadn’t liked the implication behind Thea’s earlier remark. ‘Which I did not do deliberately, let me tell you. The office was cold, and I was hoping to get some warmer air coming in if the door was open.’
‘It’s okay,’ she smiled. ‘I feel just the same as you about that sort of thing. It’s no way to live, expecting everybody to have lascivious motives all the time. Even so, it did cross my mind that Stephanie could be developing feelings for Mr Shipley that need to be acknowledged. You know what it’s like when you’re twelve.’
‘Not really. I have a feeling it’s different for boys.’
‘Everything’s incredibly intense. You can’t imagine how passionately I adored my French teacher – though I think that was fourteen, actually. Anyone who takes you seriously at that age is liable to become an object of worship. When the French teacher left, I instantly transferred my affections to Mr Clarke.’
‘History,’ Drew remembered. ‘Yes, you told me about him.’
‘It all seems a thousand years ago now,’ she sighed. ‘Just a faint echo somewhere at the back of my head. I can’t properly remember what it was like. I just know it felt terribly important.’
‘But she can still go and play chess with him?’
‘So long as it’s all right with him, I suppose. I did wonder if we should have a little talk to him about it. It might be awkward being the object of adoration.’
Drew said nothing, but tapped his fingers on the desk as if waiting for a change of subject. Thea fell quiet for a moment and then said, ‘Your customers must fall for you sometimes. All that heightened emotion and you so sweet and sympathetic with them. It’s obvious, really.’
‘Luckily it doesn’t last very long.’
‘Unless it’s Greta Simmonds.’
Drew laughed uneasily. Greta Simmonds had fallen for his charms to such an extent that she’d left him her house. He and Thea were living in it now. If they were entertaining echoes from the past, then Greta had to be one of the primary ones.
‘So it’s all right for me to go to Northleach, then?’
‘You aren’t really asking for my permission, are you? I thought we decided we weren’t that sort of couple. And I thought it was all settled months ago.’
‘I’m consulting your wishes, and your convenience. It’s not the same thing. And I’m trying to avoid making the same mistakes again as I made last year. We are a couple, after all – of whatever sort.’
‘We’re being ever so serious today, aren’t we? Checking that things are all right, and working as a team. It’s nice,’ he added hurriedly. ‘Very nice, in fact.’
‘That’s all right, then. And listen – I’m going to keep in better touch this time. I won’t just disappear and leave you to make the best of it.’
‘If I remember rightly, it was more a case of me not wanting to give you the full story, if we’re talking about when you went to Barnsley. I never did understand why you felt so guilty about it.’
She shook her head, feeling suddenly too weak to attempt any further soul-searching. She had done her best, and Drew showed no signs of annoyance or wounded feelings. His funerals would all get accomplished somehow, of course. After this hectic week, it was almost certain there’d be a period of inactivity and scanty income to balance it out.
‘I’ve got to collect one of the Friday people from Cheltenham,’ he said glumly. ‘Did I mention that? I hate Cheltenham – I always get hopelessly lost.’
‘So do I. And no, you didn’t specify that it was there. I thought they were all local. When would you have to go?’
‘It’ll have to be Wednesday afternoon, I suppose.’
Thea consulted her untidy list of tasks. ‘What’s the name? Which one is it?’
‘Julia Edwards,’ he said automatically. The names of his customers fixed themselves firmly in his mind from the first time he heard them. ‘She’s ninety-eight and lives with her granddaughter, who is sixty or so. They’re keeping her at home until I arrive to remove her.’
‘Ah,’ said Thea, tapping the relevant line on her pad. ‘And making their own coffin. Good for them. So you don’t really need to go until Thursday, do you? When did she die?’
‘Saturday night. It’s iffy leaving her till Thursday, although the weather’s not particularly warm.’
Thea could not repress the thought that any aroma of decomposition might just as well haunt Mrs Edwards’ granddaughter’s house as her own here in Broad Campden. Once in a while she wondered if any taint of the all-too-distinctive smell clung to the clothes of the Slocombes. Did the children go to school trailing clouds of mortality, thereby repelling potential little friends?
‘Well, that’s up to you,’ she said. ‘The satnav should be able to get you to the house, surely?’
‘Mm,’ said Drew. They had an elderly TomTom, which was not au fait with recent alterations to road layouts, and which seemed to find Cheltenham particularly challenging. ‘Sometimes it drops the signal at the crucial moment,’ he added.
‘Stephanie would tell you to use the phone, like somebody living in the twenty-first century.’
‘I would if she was there to hold it and tap it and stop it constantly switching itself off,’ he snapped, finally giving way to the stresses of the day. ‘When I’m by myself, the thing sets out to torment me. I’ll print out a map before I go – the old-fashioned way.’
‘It’s two o’clock,’ she observed with alarm. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?’ Again she consulted her list, having forgotten what they’d decided. ‘Adrian Waters has to be removed from Stow. And then you’ve got to coffin him up and check that everything’s all right with the family. And you’ve got that man coming at four. Right?’
The phone rang before he could reply. And while he was still speaking to someone who sounded like a bereaved relative, there was a knock on the door. Hepzie the spaniel barked. Thea opened the door to find Lucy Sinclair standing there, very white-faced.
Chapter Three
‘Oh!’ said Thea. ‘It’s you. Come in. What’s the matter?’ It was only a matter of hours since they’d been speaking on the phone. Seeing the woman here in the flesh was unnerving. She could not recall an instance when one of her house-sitting employers had visited her in her own home and she realised that she did not like it. The two aspects of her life had always been kept as separate as possible, although she could not exactly say why.
Lucy walked in carefully, as if expecting an ambush. For the second time in the past week Thea was struck by the change in the woman she had known a few years earlier. Quite what had brought about the transformation remained unclear. From the confident, affluent owner of a large barn conversion surrounded by fields, Lucy was now transformed into the nervous inhabitant of a small ancient house in a row, with hardly a glimpse of a field to be had. All her pets had disappeared, too. In the process she had aged and now looked to be in her mid fifties, where before she could have passed for ten years younger. She was only an inch or so taller than Thea, with grey hair that looked as if it had been returned to the wild, with none of the dye so common in women her age. Her work had been as a computer fixer, with legions of desperate customers wanting instant rescue. Thea presumed that Lucy still did this work in Northleach, although she had not observed a comparable computer-filled space to the one in the previous house.
‘I had to speak to you face-to-face,’ Lucy said. ‘I couldn’t explain properly on the phone.’ She looked around. ‘Is your husband here? Oh – I recognise the dog.’ She bent down awkwardly to pat the spaniel’s head. ‘Do you remember poor old Jimmy?’
‘Very much so,’ said Thea, who had the dog slightly on her conscience, even after so much time. The rescued lurcher had shown more spirit than expected, and asserted his ancestral instincts to a fatal degree. Thea had not taken it well. ‘You told me he’d died.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Lucy. ‘Not long after you were there, actually. I had him put down in the end. He was an absolute wreck – not enjoying life at all.’
Thea’s conscience twanged like a piano string. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I hope it wasn’t my fault. I don’t think he and I ever really understood each other.’
Lucy worked her shoulders in a half-shrug. ‘Never mind that now. The thing is—’
‘Come in here,’ Thea interrupted, indicating the kitchen. ‘Drew’s on the phone in the office. It’s all rather hectic here this week.’
Lucy settled at the kitchen table and started again. ‘The thing is, I came to the conclusion I should tell you more about what’s been going on with my neighbours. I was hoping I needn’t explain – that just having you in the house would be enough to keep everything – well, to prevent anything bad happening. It’s my own fault, I know. I’ve never found it easy to get along with people like them. To begin with I thought they probably meant well, but the truth is, they really don’t.’
‘What have they done?’ Thea asked impatiently.
‘Nothing specific. It was me, really, if I’m honest. I said the wrong thing, and caused offence without meaning to.’
‘All too easy these days,’ Thea sympathised.
‘I suppose so. But it wasn’t anything like that – none of the usual sensitive areas. It’s a long story and will sound very silly, I expect. But the fact is, I’m actually quite scared. There’s a man called Hunter, who preaches free speech and personal liberty and then doesn’t like it if somebody says the wrong thing.’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘It’s fine as long as it stays in the abstract, but try telling him anything about himself, and all hell breaks loose.’
‘So you’re scared he’ll actually do something violent?’
‘Not exactly. It’s just the whole atmosphere. The women next door are always spying on me, and even the girl over the road is terribly intrusive. They all tell me what to do and what to think, and try to drag me into their pathetic societies.’ She looked miserably at Thea, with wide blue eyes. ‘I should never have moved. It was a huge mistake.’
‘Oh.’ Thea was briefly transported to the weeks she spent in Lucy’s barn, snowed in and frightened. The absence of colour or sound or human company had shown her new areas of vulnerability that she had mainly avoided up to then. It seemed to her that living in a quiet village street had to be preferable. ‘Are you trying to warn me about something in particular?’
‘In a way, yes. After last time, I’m surprised you even agreed to come, although everything’s completely different this time, because I’m not doing much of that any more. And I know it all seems back to front. Nobody could think of Northleach as threatening. But they probably won’t leave you alone, once they see you’re in the house. Although you won’t be bothered by people with broken computers, like last time, because I’m not doing that any more.’ She sighed. ‘That’s sort of the problem, really.’
‘Oh?’ said Thea again.
‘I make websites for people now. They do still phone or come knocking on the door, at odd times, but nothing like so much as before. The thing is, I’ve been doing some work for a group in Northleach. All to do with old songs and broadsheets and the wool industry.’
Thea laughed in bewilderment.
‘Honestly – it does all link up. But there are some very strong characters, and they get very passionate about it all. My crime was in not taking them seriously enough. I stupidly hurt some feelings and put some backs up, and now they seem to want to kill me.’
Thea held her breath for a moment. Not only was she the wife of an undertaker, but she had personal experience of far too many violent deaths. Lucy obviously didn’t mean it literally, but it was still a statement not to be taken lightly. ‘Why?’ she asked, thinking she must be missing something.
‘Oh, it’s too silly to explain in detail. You know how committees can be. There are factions and vendettas and all that sort of thing that matter terribly at the time, but sound ridiculous to an outsider. There are these two women next door, Faith and Livia, not to mention Bobby. They live together but make a great point of insisting they’re not a couple, as if anybody cares. And Hunter, who thinks about sex at least ninety per cent of the time. Everything he says is innuendo and can be incredibly offensive. That was my mistake – trying to get him to back off. I dare say he doesn’t really mean it, but it’s very annoying. I guess he’s done it all his life and can’t change now. He’s an utter fool, believe me.’ Lucy’s expression suggested that she might have some personal history in connection with Hunter, but Thea didn’t ask.
‘I’ve never been on a committee,’ she said irrelevantly. ‘They sound awful.’
‘They are,’ Lucy confirmed. ‘Anyway, the point is, Faith and Livia are right next door, with our gardens adjoining at the back. They’ll talk to you over the fence every time you go outside, all chummy and interested. But really they’ll be wanting to ferret out how long I’m away and whether there’ve been any phone calls, and did the book I ordered ever arrive. All sorts of stuff like that.’
‘Doesn’t sound too bad,’ said Thea cautiously.
‘They’ve taken over my life,’ Lucy wailed. ‘It’s a nightmare. Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve ever lived with neighbours, and it’s absolute hell. I feel watched and judged the whole time. Honestly – in the Cotswolds, where everybody’s usually too busy or too rich or just too stand-offish to bother with the people next door. Why did I have to land up with neighbours who think my house is just an extension of theirs? If I don’t keep the back door locked, they think nothing of hopping over the fence and coming in without even knocking.’
‘Put up a bigger fence,’ Thea advised.
‘I can’t. They’re responsible for the one on that side.’
‘And what about Hunter? Where does he live?’
‘The other end of town, on the high street. Five minutes’ walk away. But he does at least wait to be invited.’
‘And Bobby? Who’s he?’
Lucy looked blank for a moment. ‘Oh – Bobby’s a she. The one across the road. Her name’s Bobine, apparently. American. That’s a whole different story.’ She reached for a biscuit that Thea had placed on the table. ‘And then there’s Kevin,’ she said, as if keen to complete the picture. ‘He’s my ex. He keeps turning up in Northleach, for some reason.’
Despite herself Thea was intrigued. She liked meeting new people, learning as much as she could about the undercurrents in a village or small town. Northleach was inescapably lovely, as so many Cotswolds settlements were. No two were the same, and yet they almost all achieved the effortless appeal of old stone and colourful gardens. In an undulating landscape, many of them seemed to have perversely chosen to perch on a hillside or nestle discreetly in a valley, giving their streets odd angles and elevations that led to the need for flights of steps or sudden little alleyways. Footpaths ran in all directions, and stone walls required stiles of every description for people to gain access to the other side.
Lucy’s little house was in a row that formed part of a street called West End. It was indeed the western end of Northleach, albeit barely two minutes’ walk from the centre, where there were a dozen or so shops and the big famous church. The houses opened directly onto a wide pavement, their front windows mostly blanked out by thick curtains or internal shutters. Why, Thea wondered now, had Lucy elected such a conspicuous site, when she clearly hated to be seen? The front rooms inside the houses must be sadly deprived of natural light, where the inhabitants were so keen to elude observation. Many of them probably contained valuables, which had to be concealed from aspiring burglars.
Closer to the centre of town the houses were set well back from the pavement, with intervening gardens. They were bigger and far more expensive, Thea presumed. And a great deal more private. There were gates into the gardens and hedges or fences. All this she had observed on her preliminary visit some weeks earlier. She had described it all to Drew.
‘So – you’ve come here now to warn me not to fraternise with the neighbours? Is that right?’ She frowned at Lucy, trying to assess the exact level of difficulty in what she had heard.
‘In a way, yes. If I’ve understood you as I think I have, you won’t be any keener than I am on being interrogated by people with too much time on their hands. I don’t want you to get in a state about any of it, if it comes as a surprise. But believe me, you’d be wise not to encourage any of them.’ Lucy mirrored Thea’s frown. ‘That sounds garbled. I probably shouldn’t have come, but you can see why I couldn’t say all that over the phone. But I did want to ask you one more favour.’ She took a breath. ‘Do you think you could drive me to the hospital early on Wednesday?’
‘What – all the way to Oxford? No, sorry. I can’t possibly.’ The refusal came readily, with no need for thought. She made no attempt to find excuses. The idea was preposterous.
Lucy was startled, but refrained from begging. ‘I suppose I’ll have to get a taxi, then,’ she said.
‘There must be somebody that can do it. What about taking your own car? You’ll be all right to drive when they discharge you, surely?’
