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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Cotswold Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
Thea Osborne, Cotswold house-sitter with an infamous reputation for getting mixed up in crime, is determined to avoid trouble this time. Her latest commission in the village of Daglingworth seems straightforward, with most of her time spent looking after an old corgi and a hibernating tortoise. Thea is ready for a relaxing if rather boring two weeks, with phone calls to new boyfriend Drew Slocombe the highlight of her days. Until, that is, a dead body is discovered in a nearby quarry . . .
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Seitenzahl: 402
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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Revenge in the Cotswolds
REBECCA TOPE
For Gemma, Luke and Kola
Author’s Note
As with all the titles in this series, the setting is in real villages with real pubs, churches and other public buildings. The individual properties, however, are invented and all the characters are imaginary.
Contents
Chapter One
There had been other times, in the past, Thea supposed, when everything had felt out of control, but on nothing like the current scale. Her house, garden and bank account were all defying her feeble efforts to manage them. Her dog was in urgent need of a trim and her car was overdue for its MOT. Even her body was misbehaving, with alarming hormonal surges at unpredictable moments. ‘This is what comes of being in love,’ she muttered ruefully. It had been a shock to discover that romance could make life so unreasonably complicated. Such a very large element to be factored into everything one did called for considerable adjustment. It hadn’t been like that with Carl – probably because she had been twenty when they decided to get married, and at twenty life tends to be fairly straightforward. In one’s mid forties, it was a very different matter.
Money had become a serious issue, requiring that she continue with her career as a house-sitter, like it or not, because otherwise she might not be able to dress herself in anything other than jumble sale clothes. Worries over her little house in Witney escalated because there was a clear need to make it pay for itself. Either she must rent it out or sell it, and whichever course she chose, the window frames had to be replaced and the whole building redecorated inside and out.
All of which explained her Saturday morning drive to the little old settlement of Daglingworth in the Cotswolds. For two weeks, she was to take charge of a small house at the lower end of the village, containing one arthritic corgi and a hibernating tortoise while the owners were in Australia attending the wedding of a niece. Her own spaniel was with her, as always, although the homeowners had expressed some concern at this, during Thea’s preliminary visit, three weeks previously. ‘Gwennie isn’t very good with other dogs,’ they said.
Gwennie moved slowly, her rheumy eyes unfocussed. Thea did not admit to simmering concerns as to the behaviour of her own pet. Hepzie had been guilty of outrageous unprovoked aggression a few months earlier. There had been no warning and no explanation for it, other than something to do with canine hormones. ‘I’ll keep a close eye on them,’ she promised. ‘I bet they’ll soon be firm friends.’
The tortoise was asleep in a glass tank in the garage. ‘But she’ll probably wake up while we’re away,’ said Mrs Foster. ‘If that happens, you’ll have to make sure she’s all right. If it’s sunny, put the hibernation tank outside to get warm. Then if she wakes up, give her a tepid bath, and get the vivarium ready. It’s in the spare room.’ A quick guided tour and a comprehensive set of instructions followed. Thea noted it all carefully, with a little glow of excitement at this new experience. The prospect of a reviving reptile was definitely appealing.
There had then been a minor bombshell. ‘Oh, and is there any chance you could keep an eye on my sister’s house in Bagendon as well?’ asked Mrs Foster. ‘Just for the first week. She’s going to the wedding as well, but coming home the next day. We’re staying on for a bit. There aren’t any animals, so it would just be a matter of popping over every other day to water the plants and collect the post. It’s only a mile from here.’
The wedding must be midweek then, Thea thought, as she tried to keep track of everyone’s movements. So, straining for a businesslike response, she agreed, firmly adding that another hundred pounds would be payable for the extra service. Did the sister not have neighbours, she wondered. And was it really only a mile away? She had never had any reason to discover the exact location of Bagendon. If it was as close as that she might walk across country between the two houses, exercising herself and her dog in the process. ‘Let me have the address, then,’ she concluded. ‘And tell me where I can find the key.’
The Fosters handed over the keys to their own house, which they emphasised was the first priority, and explained in exhaustive detail how the Bagendon property could be found, with a hand-drawn map for good measure. ‘We’ll get Mary to write everything down and leave it here for you when you come,’ they promised. ‘Along with her front door key.’
For the past year or more, it had become clear to Thea that she had a distinct reputation in the area. She had featured in a number of reports in newspapers, even been glimpsed on the television, as a result of various violent crimes committed in villages where she happened to be. There had been a time when she feared it would put people off employing her, seeing her as some kind of jinx. But instead there appeared to be a notion that she was useful to have around. Nobody admitted to truly believing that any of the crimes happened because of Thea Osborne. But when they did happen, she waded in and asked questions or made connections that nobody else seemed capable of making. Her role as outsider gave her an objective picture of motives and relationships that others found hard to spot.
So it was that she waited for Mr or Mrs Foster to say something about this. They were a quiet couple, he over sixty and she somewhat under. They were unmistakably excited about their trip – very much further afield than they had ever been before. They had lived in this same house since they married, which in itself endeared them to Thea. They’d never had children, and Gwennie was the last of a dynasty of Pembroke corgis, many of which had their photographs displayed on the walls. They made no mention of work or careers, but they seemed unlikely to be retired.
Nothing was said about Thea’s reputation. ‘We don’t anticipate any problems,’ was the nearest they came. ‘Please don’t contact us, even if something happens to Gwennie. The vet in Cirencester knows her. We’ve left the number.’
‘I ought to have some sort of contact for you,’ Thea pointed out. ‘Don’t you think?’
They gave her the name and phone number of Mrs Foster’s Australian sister in Canberra, reluctantly. Mr Foster gave his wife a look, with eyebrows raised, and said, ‘Can’t think of anything that couldn’t wait, can you?’
His wife shook her head and laughed.
It was agreed that Thea would arrive during the morning of the day of their evening flight, an hour or two after they had departed for the airport.
Which she duly did, wondering at the level of trust implied in this. After all, if something had prevented her from turning up, poor old Gwennie might have died of dehydration before anybody realised. The house faced north-east, set back from a small road that seemed unlikely to boast much traffic. A century ago it must have been the main route into Cirencester, and probably fairly congested as a result, but now the A417 had taken over completely. She drove her car into the garage, which stood separate from the house, and closed the door behind it as instructed. Leaving her spaniel on the doorstep with her bag, she went in cautiously, chirruping to the corgi, which was nowhere to be seen.
The hall was narrow and rather dark, but extended some distance to the kitchen at the back. On each side was a door, leading to the living room and dining room. The sort of house a child would draw, or a medieval merchant of modest means might build for himself. There was nothing especially imaginative or surprising about it, but Thea could readily believe that it had provided comfortable shelter for the centuries of its existence. It was warm and quiet and faintly complacent.
Gwennie finally came out of the kitchen, sniffing the air suspiciously. ‘Hello, old girl,’ sang Thea. She squatted down to let the dog get her scent and gently stroked the head. The coat was warm and dense, the feet very white and the nose very sharp. ‘You’re a nice dog, aren’t you? We’ll be all right, won’t we? Nothing to worry about.’ The crooning came instinctively, and seemed to have a positive effect. The small stump that was all Gwennie possessed by way of a tail moved slightly.
There were two yellow envelopes on the little shelf holding the telephone in the hall. Before reading their contents, Thea collected her bag and dog and supervised the early stages of what she hoped would be a new canine friendship. Hepzie, when brought in from the front porch, made a casual advance, which was not rebuffed. Gwennie did a lot more sniffing, which the spaniel clearly found irritating, jumping sideways to get away from it. She gave her mistress the sort of liquid gaze of reproach that was a spaniel’s chief trademark. ‘Be nice,’ said Thea. ‘She’s a poor old lady, and she’s got no idea what’s happening.’
Hepzie sighed and went to explore the living room.
The Fosters kept a reasonably neat home, which was nonetheless well equipped with comfortable places to sit. Sheepskin rugs, soft cushions, heavy curtains all gave it a cosy feel. Nothing looked particularly new, and there was no attempt at a colour scheme. In the living room the main feature was a large, handsome Victorian clock over the fireplace. It was black and gold, with delicate filigree hands and figures of cherubs perched on top of it. It was certain to strike noisily every hour, if not more.
The dining room had a square table just large enough for four, with a set of chairs sporting needlepoint seats. A battered oak bureau stood in one corner, with a bookcase perched on top of it. Another corner held a sort of chest with a domed, hinged lid, which Thea suspected had been a cabin trunk in its former life. With a quick guilty glance around, as if to ensure the Fosters really had gone, she lifted the lid to see what it contained.
It was full of canvas, hanks of thick wool, books of designs and other paraphernalia fit for a keen needlewoman. So Mrs Foster had done the chair seats. Good for her.
When she opened the envelopes, Thea found exhaustive instructions concerning plants, security lights and burglar alarm – more so for the Bagendon house than the Fosters’. She sighed. Alarms and locks and lights were familiar territory for any house-sitter, but she had been lucky in keeping them to a minimum on most of her assignments. She made a speciality of caring for animals, with the actual property taking secondary significance. So long as it didn’t burn down or find itself invaded by drug-crazed vandals, everything was more or less all right. Disasters had regularly occurred, but very seldom as a result of Thea’s sloppy security practices.
The imposition of a second responsibility began to seem more of a burden than first assumed, with so many additional details to get right. The trick would be to make a virtue of it in some way. If it really was only a mile away, then the best thing would be to walk over the fields from one village to the other, exploring them both in the process.
It was March, Easter still some weeks away, and the trees reluctant to risk much in the way of new leaves. Buds were swelling, barely perceptibly, and the Cotswold gardens boasted their customary displays of crocus, scilla and iris amongst the infinite shades of daffodil. Traditionally a time of promise, combined with the treachery of late frosts and biting winds, it reflected Thea’s mood rather well. It was a year since she had first met Drew Slocombe, three years since she first began her career as a house-sitter, and four years since her husband had died. Anniversaries crowded into this time of year, including her own birthday in February. Hitting forty-five had been blessedly untraumatic, thanks to Drew’s attentions, and an unexpected celebration provided by a rare collaboration between her daughter and her brother. She had felt loved. What more could anyone ask?
A year ago, she had been in Broad Campden when Drew Slocombe turned up to bury the owner of the house she was looking after. That one, actually, had not involved any animals at all. She had been struggling with the third anniversary of Carl’s sudden death and Drew had been understanding. Now his own wife was dead, too, only eight months ago, and he was still in the early maelstrom of adjustment. ‘One of the worst things,’ he said, ‘is that people think an undertaker should handle loss more easily than everybody else.’
His shortcomings in that respect had been starkly symbolised by his inability to bury Karen in his own burial ground, which they had created together. The plans had been altered at the eleventh hour, to the horror and rage of his small son and larger colleague, Maggs. Only Stephanie, his little girl, had understood and shared his feelings. In fact, it had been Stephanie’s distress that cemented the decision, in the face of everyone else’s wishes and assumptions.
Thea trod very carefully around that topic, which continued to cause difficulties. Now and then she caught a look from Maggs that suggested it might all be her fault. Reflecting briefly on her own character, Thea concluded that people often thought she was at fault in a variety of ways. Accused of being impatient, opinionated and even patronising, she struggled to be a better person and to bring out the best in other people. She had learnt to bite back sharp remarks, at least some of the time. Drew, she hoped, had been a positive influence in that respect.
It was one o’clock, and there was nothing important to be done. Gwennie was glumly curled up in her basket, with her back firmly to Thea and Hepzie. Since her docked tail had briefly wagged on Thea’s arrival, she had not been friendly. The decision not to take her on a lengthy walk was easily made.
Unfolding the Ordnance Survey map, she calculated the distance across country to Bagendon to be just over a mile. Comparing it with the sketch map provided by the Fosters, she thought she could work out the location of the sister’s house. The way was not entirely straightforward, using a combination of footpaths, country lanes and open fields, but she had every confidence. ‘Start as we mean to go on,’ she told the spaniel. ‘Look at that sunshine.’ Hepzie glanced out of the open door without enthusiasm.
Chapter Two
Daglingworth was as pretty as a hundred other little Cotswold settlements. Built around the intersection of two insignificant little roads, it enjoyed a peace and quiet that undoubtedly elevated the property values. The map clearly showed how the modern A417 had replaced older routes to Cirencester, with Daglingworth most likely a point of some importance at some long-gone time. But now the little lanes led nowhere but to other secluded villages or simply formed loops back to the big main road. The starting point of the footpath was somewhere close to the Fosters’ house, and she scanned the lane for a sign. Back towards the centre of the village was an elevated path running alongside the road, presumably constructed in order to keep pedestrians and their dogs clear of any traffic. The houses in view were mostly discreet stone cottages, the colours showing their age.
Peering at the map, she concluded that the path she wanted was adjacent to the old school a little way further down to the right. She set off that way, and found she’d guessed correctly. Pausing to inspect the converted school, she drifted back in time to when it would have rung out with childish voices and a summoning bell. Now it seemed to have become a single dwelling, boasting very generous living space. ‘All right for some,’ she muttered.
A grassy lane presented itself, running in roughly the expected direction, but with no official indication that it was a public path. ‘Must be right,’ said Thea and let the dog off the lead. Hepzie ran ahead a little way and they proceeded comfortably along, enjoying the sunshine and listening to birdsong. The gradient was just enough to make her aware of her breathing. ‘Not as fit as I should be,’ she sighed. Perhaps if she did this walk every other day, she would notice an improvement.
The lane itself was interesting, and she wondered whether it had once been a well-used thoroughfare. It was hard underfoot even after a muddy winter, and was just wide enough for tractors and cars to traverse if necessary. It crossed the little road on which she had driven into the village a few hours earlier and headed for Itlay, which turned out to be almost too small a place to justify a name of its own. The view became more open and traffic was audible. The uphill slope had levelled out, much to her relief.
Hepzie seemed safe enough running free, and the absence of an eager dog pulling at her arm made it easier to pursue her own thoughts. Thoughts which tended towards Drew, as if to a magnet. Drew’s cool, gentle hands; his attentive grey eyes; his easy charm and boyish humour – five years Thea’s junior, he did strike her as inescapably boyish. Falling in love had not embarrassed Drew as much as it had Thea. She had still not disclosed the full extent of her feelings to her daughter, nor to any other relatives. The truth was leaking out, bit by bit, but nothing had actually been said to them. Since the dramatic events around Christmas, less than three months earlier, love had been a word she and Drew had used a lot, but only in private between themselves.
The future didn’t worry them. ‘No need to decide anything irrevocable,’ said Drew, if the subject arose. She assumed that they intended to set up home together at some point, whilst knowing it had to be delicately arranged. She was not in any rush to take the role of stepmother to Stephanie and Timmy. Motherhood had never entirely suited her, even with her own child.
Before she knew it, there was a large square tunnel before her, and Hepzie was yapping at something inside it, the sound echoing and reverberating alarmingly. The dog herself was bewildered by the noise she was making and quickly fell silent. The squirrel she had spotted made a rapid escape and Thea joined the spaniel under the westbound carriageway of the A417.
‘Come on, silly,’ she said, quelling the urge to yodel and enjoy making her own echoes.
A second tunnel was a few yards ahead, and then they emerged onto another lane, with a dramatic and unexpected sight to the right. Through the spindly bare trees, a huge stone quarry fell away below them. Massive chunks of yellow rock were lined up and giant diggers sat waiting to be activated. Such an industrial scene was entirely alien in this soft self-indulgent region – and yet Thea had been aware all along that the lovely stone houses had been built from material dug out of the ground on their very doorstep.
There were quarries galore throughout the Cotswolds. Her map showed them on all sides. And yet this one was simply marked with a few discreet squiggles that only then did she interpret as suggesting stones. She recalled a road sign saying ‘Daglingworth Quarry’ and concluded that this enormous hole in the ground was the site it referred to.
A minute or two more walking brought her to a specific viewing spot, with a fence and chippings of yellow stone to stand on. She stood and peered over, wondering how many feet above the quarry floor she must be. Too many for comfort, as a nearby sign warned. You certainly wouldn’t want to fall that far. She glanced around for Hepzibah, hoping the dog wouldn’t find a hole in the fence and go bouncing down the rock face. Her pet was close by and met her eye with a reassuring wag, as if to say, I wouldn’t be such a fool as that.
They wandered on and exactly as the map predicted, the lane soon emerged onto a proper road, which was apparently part of ‘The Welsh Way’. Somewhere there should be a stile into a field on the left, a dotted red line showing a direct path to Bagendon’s Upper End. ‘Not far now,’ said Thea. The quarry was on her right, shielded by trees, and she soon forgot all about it.
A footpath sign confirmed her map-reading skill, albeit standing in the middle of a thicket of brambles that was impassable even in early spring. ‘Huh!’ Thea complained. ‘How do we get through that?’
Hepzie sniffed the ground, and trotted a few yards along the road. She then veered to the left, and jumped onto a pile of stones. Following her, Thea realised that this was the way into the field – not a stile, but a gap in an old wall, which you could simply step through. ‘Okay,’ she murmured.
A very faint path showed in the grass of the field, which sloped gently down to a strip of woodland. No further signs could be seen, but there was no alternative to entering the wood and finding a way through. Hesitantly, with another close examination of the map, she stepped beneath the leafless trees. Just to her left, two large upright square stones showed where shepherds of a century and more – probably a lot more – ago had built a permanent barrier to exclude or contain their sheep. She wished Drew had been there to see them with her. Such small indications of long-ago human activity always delighted them both.
Hepzie’s yapping drew her attention to people sitting amongst the trees on the horizontal trunk of a fallen birch or ash. They were talking intently together, and took almost no notice of Thea and her dog, apart from a visible flicker of irritation. Two young women were perched there, eating bread and swigging from a wine bottle. The conversation was obviously too absorbing to allow anything to interrupt.
‘He’ll get around to it in his own good time,’ said one. To Thea’s interested gaze, she appeared to be somewhere in her mid twenties, with hair rolled up and tucked inside a woolly hat. Long flexible limbs, straight back and high ringing voice.
‘That’s not good enough, though, is it?’ replied her companion. ‘Nella’s going mad, waiting for him to get his act together. And you can’t blame her. It’s been ages now.’
‘Less than six months. Loads of couples stay engaged for years without fixing a wedding date. I don’t know why she’s in such a rush.’
‘She wants a proper old-fashioned wedding, that’s why. And it can take a year to arrange it all. She thinks she’ll be middle-aged before they get around to it, at this rate.’ The second speaker was shorter, plumper and younger than her friend. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion and fair hair.
Thea knew she was expected to simply keep walking past them, but two things stopped her. One was that she genuinely wasn’t certain as to where the path had gone. There were narrow ways going off in at least three directions, and she could not see where any of them led. The trees might be bare but they were close together, screening anything further than a few yards away.
The other reason was that she felt it rude of the twosome to ignore her so completely. She wanted them to acknowledge her, to be friendly and interested. So she simply stood there, looking at them, waiting for a pause in which she might ask the way.
The conversation continued in the same vein for another minute or two – the hesitant fiancé, the increasingly frustrated would-be bride, each with a defender. Thea found herself siding with the younger girl who favoured a quick wedding, despite an irritation with the idea that it would take a year in the planning. Just tell them to get on with it, she wanted to call out. One lesson she had learnt was that delay was seldom a good idea. You never knew what might happen to snatch away your security and well-being. If the engaged couple really loved each other, they should sweep aside all doubts and grab every available moment together.
And then she quietly tutted at her own maudlin thoughts. After all, she and Drew were at a standstill in their own relationship. Undue haste could be just as bad as a moderate delay. Perhaps there were good reasons for this man to take it slowly.
In the end, Hepzie took the initiative and decided to introduce herself to the two women ahead, and ran between them, with complicated results when she tried to jump up at the longer pair of legs, stretched out from the tree trunk. Always awkwardly balanced, the spaniel twisted and landed back on the leaf-strewn ground with a squeak.
‘Good heavens!’ snapped the girl. ‘What on earth are you trying to do?’ She looked directly at Thea for the first time. ‘Is this yours?’
Silly question, thought Thea. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘This is Hepzie. She thinks it’s time she made friends with you.’
The interruption was plainly unwelcome, though more to the older person than her friend. The two seemed to be at least five years apart in age, Thea judged. The younger one was perhaps only about nineteen. She had a pretty mouth and grubby jeans. She laughed and bent down to play with the spaniel’s long ears. ‘Hello, Hepzie,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Tiffany.’
‘And I’m Sophie,’ said the other one, considerably less enamoured of the dog.
Thea seized the chance for a bit of information exchange. ‘I’m Thea Osborne. I’m house-sitting in Daglingworth, and thought we’d go for a good walk. Bagendon’s just down there, isn’t it?’ She pronounced it with a hard g, as seemed the obvious way to say it.
‘It’s Bajendon, actually. Soft “g”. Not that there’s much to it,’ said Sophie, with a little sigh. ‘Where do you live normally?’
Thea repeated the village name to herself, recalling that Mrs Foster had also said it with the ‘g’ sounding like a ‘j’. ‘Witney,’ she answered. ‘But I’ve done a lot of house-sitting in the Cotswolds. I like to explore these tiny villages – especially the ones nobody’s heard of. I was in Hampnett a year or so ago. Nothing could be smaller than that. Except possibly Itlay,’ she added, with a backward look towards the place she had recently passed.
‘Hmm.’ The scrutiny Thea was receiving reinforced her assessment of this Sophie woman as decidedly rude. ‘You value the countryside, then, do you?’
‘Pardon?’
‘You must be aware of the threats to it from all sides. Wind farms, hunting ban, barn conversions, badger culls, fracking, new roads, gated communities…’ The list seemed set to continue, but Tiffany interrupted.
‘Steady on, Soph,’ she laughed. ‘You’re sounding like a crackpot.’
Sophie frowned, but said nothing more. Thea sensed something unexpected and made no move to walk on. ‘That’s a lot of threats,’ she remarked. ‘I agree about badger culls and wind farms – but I can’t believe they’d put any up around here.’
‘Nowhere’s sacred. The whole thing has become so totally corrupt, you can’t rely on anyone. They say one thing and do another. Broken promises as far as the eye can see. And as fast as you see off one lot of developers, there’s two more popping up. All you can do is go to the source.’
‘Sophie,’ begged her young friend.
‘How would you ever be able to do that?’ Thea was intrigued. ‘Even if you change the government, things won’t alter very much. Nobody’s going to lift the ban on hunting, for a start.’ She was struggling to devise a unifying theme to Sophie’s list of outrages. ‘Besides, since when was hunting so good for the countryside? Don’t they break fences and make holes in hedges? All those thundering great horses churning up the fields, as well.’ Personally, she had never felt much sympathy for the practice.
‘You have to undermine them at the roots.’
‘Gosh.’ It sounded almost frighteningly serious, the way she said it. ‘Nothing short of revolution, eh?’
‘Ignore her,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s nothing like that at all. We just want to look after things like landscape and heritage, don’t we? And the badger cull’s barbaric, obviously.’
‘We?’ Thea was quick to ask. ‘Just you two, or a whole lot of friends and workmates as well?’
‘There’s a lot of us,’ Tiffany began. ‘Students, and loads of others.’
‘I’m not a student,’ Sophie said, as if the idea were demeaning.
‘No, you’re not,’ her friend agreed peaceably.
Thea’s unspoken enquiry as to what she was then went unanswered.
‘Come on, Sophie, we need to get a move on,’ Tiffany urged. ‘Nella’s going to be waiting for us.’ She and her friend stood up, brushing at their legs, and in unspoken accord, all three trod the obscure footpath in single file. ‘It’s this way,’ said Tiffany superfluously. ‘It comes out in a field just over there.’
‘The badger cull is appalling,’ Thea said. ‘You would think they could find a better way. All those experts and scientists ought to come up with something.’
‘“Experts and scientists”!’ scoffed Sophie. ‘Just a lot of self-interested idiots, that’s all they are.’
If Thea hadn’t heard the woman sounding perfectly sensible ten minutes earlier, when discussing their friend Nella, she would have begun to wonder about her sanity. As it was, she was rapidly concluding that Sophie was obsessive and unbalanced, at the very least.
‘You need to talk to Nella,’ Sophie went on. ‘She puts it all a lot better than I can.’
‘And Danny, of course,’ said Tiffany. ‘Between them, they can convert just about anybody.’
‘Danny just does what Nella tells him to,’ said Sophie with scorn.
‘Apart from fixing a date for their wedding,’ Tiffany flashed back. ‘She’s really cross about it, you know. You didn’t see her last night.’
Thea was losing interest in the romantic tribulations endured by the oddly named Nella. Her dog was running impatiently ahead, and the western horizon was filling with unwelcome grey clouds. ‘How far is it?’ she asked. ‘That looks a bit ominous over there.’
‘We can be at the church in ten minutes if we bustle.’ Sophie’s long legs began to stride out, regardless of her companions. Thea was regretting the impulse to grab any chance of conversation, reproaching herself for such a bad choice of local informants. Sophie and Tiffany were apparently deeply involved in some sort of protest activity against a bewildering array of issues. Whilst faintly aware of a major feeling of disaffection in Middle England, she had hardly expected to walk into a hotbed of revolution in the rolling wolds of Gloucestershire.
Feeling very much surplus to requirements, she began to allow a space to develop between herself and the others. Fiddling with Hepzie’s lead gave her the excuse to hang back. She had a murky sense that she ought not to advertise the fact that she was responsible for Mrs Foster’s sister’s house, or that it was empty and vulnerable for the coming week. Tiffany glanced back and gave a little wave as Sophie increased her pace. They disappeared through a gap into another field, and Thea imagined she would never see them again.
Upper End turned out to be a loop of quiet road due west of the rest of Bagendon, with the church and a huge manor house on rising ground above it. On a whim, Thea decided to carry on past the house she was supposed to monitor, and walk down to the church for a quick look. For all she knew it would rain for the next ten days and she wouldn’t fancy any more walks. According to the map provided by the Fosters, the house in question was to her left and around a curve. She would come back to it and give it a good inspection, before walking back to Daglingworth. The day would be almost done by then.
It took a further five minutes to arrive at Bagendon Church, past a selection of large houses plainly owned by people of means. A massive barn conversion, and a second defunct village school destined to become a house caught her eye. To her relief the clouds had come no closer. A shiny Freelander was parked outside the church, and Thea could see her new acquaintances standing beside it with a third young woman. She chewed her lip, wondering whether they would object to her following them again. Then she squared her shoulders and marched forward, with Hepzie firmly on the lead. She had every right to go and have a look at the church, after all.
It was very obvious that Tiffany had muttered a quick explanation as to who she was, before she came into earshot. The third woman looked enquiringly at Thea and her dog and said nothing. She was older than the other two, and very thin. Her dark hair was pulled back in a straggly ponytail and her eyes had shadows beneath them. She wore green wellingtons and a blue duffel coat.
‘Here you are again,’ said Sophie. ‘She’s a house-sitter,’ she told the thin woman. She flipped a hand and added, ‘This is Nella.’
Thea had already understood that this was the would-be bride, who did a sideways little nod of acknowledgement, and patted the vehicle behind her.
‘Why’ve you got Danny’s motor, anyway?’ asked Tiffany.
‘He wanted me to take it for its MOT and then meet him here. He’s walking back from Woodmancote, apparently. There’s a badger sett up there that they missed in the culling. He’s trying to camouflage it.’ Nella’s explanation was certainly comprehensive, Thea thought, imagining the absent Danny as a bearded, sandalled protester with more money than was good for him, if he could afford such a vehicle.
‘They’ll find them, in the end,’ said Sophie bitterly. The slaughter of hundreds of badgers should have been old news by this time, but it had continued to remain in the forefront of people’s minds. Thea suspected it was because of a wholesale sense of shame that proved surprisingly difficult to shake off. Inevitable stories of appalling injuries and lingering deaths had circulated widely, as well as rumours of underground workers saving animals as if they’d been wartime resistance personnel. Even at a remove from the centre of the action, Thea had gleaned something of the heightened emotion and dogged determination to obstruct officialdom that rippled through the countryside.
‘So – what are we doing?’ asked Tiffany. ‘I’ve got an essay to write by Tuesday. I can’t be out here all day.’
‘We’ll wait a bit longer. What did you find for me at Itlay?’ Nella’s voice was low, and her gaze roamed across the rising ground towards Daglingworth and all the places Thea had traversed during her walk.
All three then glanced at Thea, as if fearing she might be a spy. ‘Tell you later,’ said Sophie.
‘Well, so this is Bagendon,’ said Thea heartily. ‘I’m going to have a quick look at the church, while I’m here.’ She smiled vaguely and went to the small gate into the churchyard.
‘Nice meeting you,’ said Tiffany. Of the three, this was definitely Thea’s favourite. The other two both seemed faintly bonkers.
‘Danny’s behaving himself, then?’ asked Sophie, as Thea tried to operate the unusual latch.
She caught Nella’s laugh as she finally got through and up towards the small low-slung church. ‘Oh yes. You should have seen him this morning. Really apologetic. He’s going to be fine from now on. It was all just a silly mix-up.’
Tiffany’s yelp of pleasure echoed in Thea’s ears as she entered the porch.
Chapter Three
The church was probably very historic and interesting, for an aficionado. Thea liked wall paintings, gargoyles, and the ungrammatical little leaflets and notices that were sometimes to be found. In this one, she liked the red kneelers, each with a different animal or bird embroidered into the centre. She thought the kneelers were lovely. And then, idly reading the memorial plaques, she found one dedicated to a man called Rev. John Lewis Bythesea and his brother Edmund. She almost crowed with delight, much as Tiffany had just done outside. She wished passionately that Drew were with her to see this incredible name fixed for eternity on a marble slab. The brothers had been born in the 1760s, she calculated. John had previously lived in Wiltshire – which was not at all by the sea. How, how, did anybody acquire such a surname? She was transported and fascinated. Here was a glimpse of eighteenth-century rural life in a single surname. Did anybody still carry it, centuries later? Almost certainly not, she assumed. They’d change it to Blythe or Birtlesea or something.
With a final giggle, she went back to retrieve the dog she’d left in the porch and retrace her steps back to Upper End – which was also vaguely eighteenth century, she supposed.
The three women had disappeared, along with the vehicle. The village was deserted, as all Cotswolds villages habitually were. People remained indoors or in their back gardens, if they weren’t away in London, where their real daily lives were conducted.
Mrs Foster’s sister’s house was a large traditional stone building, with the usual tidy garden and well-kept paintwork. It was more recent than the Daglingworth one, but still a good century old, she guessed. She extracted the key and long list of instructions from her backpack and took a deep breath. The door opened smoothly, and she went into a shadowy hallway, feeling unusually apprehensive. After all, she had never met the owner, and had not even been told her name. The arrangement struck her as uncomfortably ad hoc, on reflection. If the woman was only away for a week, couldn’t the plants manage on their own? Was there some sinister ulterior motive for bringing her here? Was she being foolishly naïve, or foolishly nervous? The burglar alarm had to be deactivated, and she carefully keyed in the numbers she’d been given, wondering what her chances were of successfully setting it again when she left.
Her worries were allayed as she tiptoed into the living room. Hepzie had been left on the doorstep, her muddy feet rendering her ineligible to walk around a strange person’s house. It turned out to have been a wise decision. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in spotless fabric of a creamy colour, surrounded by spindly antique objects all too easily knocked over. A deep window seat was full of exotic indoor plants. Beyond that room lay another, containing a massive oak dining table and a lot more plants. It smelt of polish and frangipani and air freshener; clean, fresh, hygienic smells that betrayed nothing organic or agricultural. Modern oil paintings hung on the walls and a shelf of books bridged an alcove next to a fireplace. Underfoot, there were short-pile rugs in colours that echoed those of the curtains. The walls were neutrally painted in almost-white shades.
Who were these people, Thea wondered. How much time and attention did they devote each day to maintaining this perfection? What else did they do with their lives? Except, there had been no reference to a husband. Just a sister. Had she cleaned up after a divorce, perhaps? A guilty man handing over his house and cash at his injured wife’s insistence? There was no trace of children, no family photographs. The niece in Australia presumably stood to gain quite a substantial inheritance from these two country aunts, if there were no others in her generation to share the spoils.
She gave the plants some water, picked up the meagre scattering of letters and flyers from the doormat, and prepared to leave. At the last minute, she realised she needed a pee, and found a downstairs lavatory with immaculate modern accoutrements. So modern, in fact, that when Thea tried to remove the plug from the bathroom basin after washing her hands, she could not see how to do it. There was no chain, no little lever, nothing to grip hold of. There had to be a trick to it, but she could not for the life of her work out what it was.
Why on earth had she pushed the plug down in the first place, she asked herself. The answer was that her hands had been rather grubby from the various things she had touched during the walk, and she had very much liked the smell of the soap provided. So she had made a thorough production, half filling the basin in the process. The only thing she could think of was to bail out as much as possible of the water with a small glass she found in the kitchen, and pour it down the loo. It left a puddle of rather grey water that she could not scoop up. Shrugging helplessly, she left it, promising herself to see to it on the next visit.
When she emerged from the house, having used extreme care in resetting the alarm, she found that rain had set in to an uncomfortable degree. A mile’s country walk with a reproachful dog and only a flimsy jacket was not a happy prospect, and she hovered on the front doorstep, unsure what to do. Already the return walk was acquiring a daunting new prospect. The first part would be uphill, the gap into the woods probably difficult to find. She had taken no precautionary notice of landmarks on the way down. The bare trees would drip on her and provide very little shelter from the rain. And her shoes were hardly more resilient than her coat.
She extracted the map from her bag and peered at it. Walking back via roads was hardly any longer, and probably much more sensible. Negotiating the big roundabout where several small roads joined the new A417 would be the biggest hazard. On the map a tangle of green and yellow lines made it look worse than she remembered it from that morning. So long as she had Hepzie firmly on the lead, it should be all right.
She went back down to the church and turned right towards something called Perrotts Brook on the map. Her shoulders were already wet and Hepzie was turning frizzy. Her mood, which had lifted somewhat during the past few hours, dropped back to worry and frustration. She should have prepared better for such weather. She should have got a move on, and simply checked the house and turned back. If she’d done that, she’d have dodged the rain completely.
When a noisy engine came up behind her, she was in a narrow part of the lane, so dragged Hepzie closer and turned to face the vehicle. It was a muddy Land Rover, of an age and condition seldom seen in the affluent Cotswolds. When it stopped beside her, a man in his fifties with greyish-ginger hair and a lean face leant over the passenger seat and pushed the door open. ‘Want a lift?’ he asked.
A black-and-white sheepdog was in the back, pushing its face eagerly towards her with a wide grin.
‘Yes, please,’ said Thea without hesitation. ‘I’m getting soaked.’ She didn’t have to apologise for her dog or her wet feet, as she might in a proper car. She lifted Hepzie in ahead of her, and climbed up onto the grubby seat. When she slammed the door behind her, she was aware of a rich smell that could only be labelled as ‘farmyard’. It was lovely, and she sighed.
‘Where to?’ he asked.
‘Daglingworth. Lower End, if that’s all right. Is it terribly out of your way?’
‘Terribly,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I was going to North Cerney. Totally different direction. You’ll owe me.’ His accent was that of any educated middle-aged Englishman, with no rolled rs or archaic grammar. ‘This is Rags,’ he added. ‘She’s an old girl now.’
Thea reached back and gave the collie her hand to sniff. ‘Hello, Rags,’ she said.
‘Did you break down or something?’
‘Oh, no. I decided to walk across the fields. I had no idea it was going to rain. It was fine when I set out.’
‘Not local, are you?’
‘No. I’m house-sitting for a couple of weeks. I like to explore when I’m on a job. It gets a bit boring otherwise.’
‘House-sitting?’ He repeated it as if the words and the concept were both entirely new to him. ‘Who for?’
‘They’re called Foster. Do you know them?’
He frowned. ‘He’s not the auctioneer, is he? The Cheltenham one. Does antiques and stuff.’
‘Might be. I don’t know what they do, actually. If it is him, there aren’t any antiques in the house.’
‘Don’t worry – I’m not planning to burgle them.’
‘Oh no – sorry. I didn’t mean that.’ She was hot with embarrassment and he laughed. She babbled on. ‘They’ve gone to Australia for a wedding. Makes a change from cruises, at least. They seem to be a real growth industry.’
He snorted. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’
She managed a faint laugh of her own, thinking this man was just about the last person ever to find himself on a cruise liner. ‘Anyway. I’m Thea Osborne. It’s very nice of you to give me a ride, I must say.’
‘Doesn’t happen so much any more. You were brave to take me up on it.’
‘Desperate, more like. I was talking to some women an hour ago. I should have asked them to take me back, if I’d known it’d rain.’
‘You mean those idiot protesters, I suppose? I saw them in that Freelander, outside the church.’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t want to get mixed up with them. They’re all crazy.’
‘I did wonder,’ said Thea, feeling briefly disloyal. Tiffany, for one, had been perfectly nice and not at all crazy.
‘You can’t imagine. There’s a dozen or more of them, men as well. Never sure who’s going to join them next. All they do is find things to complain about. They make a lot of people very angry, I can tell you.’
‘Including you?’
‘Yes, including me. They’ve got no idea what it’s like trying to run a decent farm with a bloody great debt around your neck and prices going nowhere. Do they think I want to sell land? Nobody wants to do that. My dad’ll come back and haunt me for it, any time now. But it’s a scrappy bit, off in a corner, and they asked me if I’d part with it. It was never my idea. Some bloke knocks on the door one day and says it’s worth a hundred grand as a building plot. Good access, nice outlook – all the boxes ticked. So what am I going to do? That sort of money doesn’t come along more than once. It’s one acre
