Revenge in the Cotswolds (5 page)

‘Was he there just now?’

She shook her head. ‘He’s working this weekend. Does funny shifts, three days on, three days off. I can never keep track of him.’

They were on the same road as the one Thea had
travelled in the Land Rover the day before. The A417 was just ahead. ‘Where do I go here?’ she asked.

‘Gosh – sorry. You should have turned left back at the last junction. I wasn’t concentrating. Never mind – we can go through Stratton. It’s not much further.’

Thea remembered seeing Stratton on her map – looking rather a sizeable place. She didn’t think she’d ever been there. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But make sure you direct me in good time.’

It was barely five minutes, along a very straight road, then a left turn to Baunton. Thea was glad of the excuse to see a new place, but was not unduly impressed. There were modern houses and a lot of traffic, compared to Daglingworth. But there were some beautiful buildings, one of which turned out to be their destination. ‘Gosh!’ she gasped.

‘I know. It’s been in the family for ages. Costs a fortune to maintain, of course. But it is rather special. We try to share our good fortune, and make good use of it. And we did fill it with children. Tiffany’s the youngest of five. We’re here all the year round, as well. We do our best to justify it.’

‘I’m not judging you,’ Thea said softly. ‘I think it’s gorgeous.’

‘Yes, well – I’m not going to argue with you.’ They sat for a moment in admiration of the property that was solidly Georgian, with perhaps six or eight upstairs rooms and a well-kept garden surrounding
it. Ivy adorned the facade. ‘Come in, why don’t you? We’ve got a couple of Labradors who’d like a romp with your two. Well – the spaniel anyway.’ She looked over her shoulder at the back seat, where Gwennie was slumped as if she’d walked miles in Bagendon instead of a dozen yards or so. Hepzie was panting in anticipation of being released from the car.

‘No, no, thanks all the same. I ought to get back. It must be nearly lunchtime. I don’t want to get in your way.’

‘We don’t do Sunday lunches these days. My husband will be making soup or something. You won’t be interrupting at all. And anyway – it’s only half past eleven. You could have some coffee.’

There was no reason at all to get back and coffee would be very welcome. ‘Okay – you’ve persuaded me,’ she capitulated. ‘Thanks very much.’

The inside of the house made her think of her sister Jocelyn, who also had five children. Large families meant scuffs and stains and heaps and things kept for sentimental reasons. Even if Sheila’s children were all grown up, their presence persisted. The big kitchen was festooned with pictures, dog leads, coffee mugs, and a dusty board covered in notices and lists. ‘How many of them still live here?’ Thea asked.

‘Good question. I’d have to say two and a half. Tiffany and Ricky are here full time. He’s my second one, the one I was just telling you about. He works for
what was British Waterways, always out and about, getting wet.’

‘Was?’ Thea had fond memories of British Waterways and canal holidays with Carl and Jessica.

‘It’s changed to the Canal and River Trust now, God help us. Much less money available. The usual business of making cuts and fudging everything.’

‘Nice job, even so. I love canals and locks and all that.’ She was tempted to recount the story of her stay in Frampton Mansell, nearly three years ago, which involved a very close encounter with the Cotswold Canal. But she resisted, finding it more interesting to encourage Sheila Whiteacre to keep talking. Which she did.

‘Then there’s Win. She’s a student, so she’s only here during the vacations.’

‘Win? Short for Winifred?’

‘I’m afraid so. We had rather a thing about names – wanted them to stand out from the crowd. Of course, we boobed spectacularly with Tiffany. It’s now in the top five or something, on all the urban estates. It’s so difficult to be original. I wish I’d thought of Thea. That’s a brilliant name.’

‘My parents felt rather the same as you. We’re got Damien, Emily and Jocelyn as well as me.’ Saying her brother’s name made her think again of his momentous news. It was sitting somewhere inside her, a blob of information that was rather like the foetus itself. ‘Have you got grandchildren?’

‘One. Thomas.’ She sighed. ‘I’m afraid I was a bit
rude when they told me what they were calling him. I mean – how very
dull
.’

Thea laughed, and Sheila made two mugs of instant coffee. She went to the door and shouted, ‘Coffee’s up, if you want it.’ Her accent, which had been puzzling Thea, came out as definite South London, when shouting. In response, two big chocolate Labradors came slouching into the room, shoulder to shoulder. ‘I said coffee, not supper,’ Sheila told them. ‘These are Bert and Jackson. They’re monsters.’

Two large male dogs did strike Thea as excessive, and she inwardly resolved to leave Hepzie firmly in the car. Romping with these two might well result in some bruises.

Then a man appeared. ‘Thea, this is my husband, Art. He’s American. This lady is called Thea and she’s house-sitting or something.’

So the house had been in
her
family, Thea concluded doubtfully. The accent and the bright hair and even the name Tiffany (however accidental) felt at odds with the inheritance of a Georgian mansion.

Art had an unruly grey beard and thick-rimmed spectacles. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘I’m not really American any more. She just says that as a way of apologising for me. I’ve been here since I was seventeen. This house belonged to my father’s brother, who had no kids, so I got landed with it. It’s a long story.’

Thea shook his hand and smiled. She liked him
instantly. He was everybody’s idea of the perfect father and grandfather. Even his clothes looked soft and warm and embraceable.

‘There’s been some sort of accident at the quarry,’ Sheila said. ‘Sounded as if somebody might have been killed there.’

Thea had actually forgotten about the helicopter and the police radio messages. Her heart thumped in self-reproach.

‘Good God! They don’t operate on a Sunday, do they?’

‘Not as far as I know. We’ll find out soon enough, I imagine.’

‘Guess so. Where’s Tiff?’

‘I left her there, with the car. They’re doing some sort of badger headcount. Thea gave me a lift home. She’s got two dogs out there.’

‘Bring them in,’ he invited, spreading his arms. ‘We like dogs.’

‘I’d better not. One of them’s very old and slow. I’m not sure she could cope …’

‘Oh, these two are real pussycats. They’d never do any harm.’

Thea drained her coffee and got up from the kitchen table. ‘Better not. I should go, really. I feel as if I’m deserting my post.’ She smiled again and wondered whether she would see them again, and possibly meet their son Ricky.

‘What does a house-sitter do, anyway?’ Art
enquired. ‘You make it sound as if you stand guard with a rifle on the front doorstep.’

She laughed. ‘No, I don’t do that. It’s the dog, really. I’ve got to keep her happy.’
And alive
, she thought ruefully.

‘Oh, well, if you get the chance, you should do some exploring. Baunton’s got a famous picture in the church, you know. St Christopher. It’s quite something. And we’re overflowing with fascinating characters. It isn’t just me and Sheila, you know.’

‘I’ve met some already. A man called Jack Handy, for instance. Do you know him?’

Two pairs of eyes rolled up to the ceiling. ‘Everyone knows Farmer Handy,’ said Sheila. ‘Makes enough trouble for a dozen farmers. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.’

‘He told me about wanting to sell a bit of land for building. I suppose it’s got permission, the amount of money he was offered.’

They both stared. ‘He told you all that? When?’

‘Yesterday. Why?’

‘He must have been drunk. He
never
reveals a word about money.’

‘He wasn’t drunk – just angry. He needed to get it off his chest.’

‘Something must have happened, then. That doesn’t sound like the man we know at all.’ Sheila was frowning in puzzlement. ‘Did he have a ratty collie dog with him?’

‘Yes. And he was driving a battered old Land Rover.’

Before any more could be said, a phone sitting on a worktop rang loudly. Art picked it up. ‘Hi, Tiff … what about that essay? What …?’ He listened for several seconds. ‘Good grief, girl. Just you get back here right away. Don’t have anything to do with it. Take a deep breath and head for the car. You can deal with your friends later. I want you
here, now
. Understand?’

After another few seconds, he put the phone down. ‘The body in the quarry – they’ve just heard that it’s Danny Compton.’

Thea hovered near the kitchen door, unable to interrupt the tension to say goodbye, and in no rush, anyway, to leave. She might miss something interesting.

‘How can they know so quickly?’ Sheila asked first. ‘They don’t give out names for ages.’

‘She didn’t say. But there doesn’t seem to be any doubt about it.’

‘Oh, God. Poor Nella! They were getting married. Tiffany was all set to be a bridesmaid.’ She spoke partly to herself and partly to Thea. ‘What in the world could have happened to him?’

‘An accident, I expect,’ said Thea. ‘I saw the quarry yesterday. It’s a long way down. If you slipped off the path and over the edge, you might easily be killed.’

‘But Danny isn’t the sort of person to slip,’ said Sheila. ‘He’s super-competent at everything he does.
Making placards, drawing maps, checking details. He’s the opposite of reckless, whatever that is.’

‘Cautious,’ said Art. ‘Thinks three times about everything.’

‘You know him well, then?’ said Thea sadly. ‘What an awful shock this must be for you.’

‘More for the girls. They all adored him. I think Sophie always expected she’d bag him, if anyone did. But he just fell for Nella from the start. It was ever so sweet.’ Sheila wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘What a terrible thing to happen,’ she sniffed.

‘Hey, honey, don’t upset yourself.’ Art put an arm around his wife’s shoulder and rubbed his beard against the top of her head. ‘The girls’ll rally round, and make sure Nella’s okay. You know what a great gang they are. They’ll get her through it.’

‘Mm,’ mumbled Sheila.

‘I’ll go,’ said Thea. ‘It’s been lovely to meet you both. I expect I’ll see you again. Tiffany will be home in a minute. She won’t want me in the way.’

They made no attempt to stop her and, as she drove back towards Daglingworth on the straight – and doubtless Roman – road, she met a car driven by Tiffany. She waved, but the girl showed no sign of having seen her. For the first time, Thea wondered why Art had been so concerned to have his daughter home. Why not encourage her to stay and support her friend instead? It was as if he feared for her safety. Or perhaps it was merely that he wanted to console her,
having heard acute distress in her voice. In any case, Thea hoped she would see them all again. She had liked the Whiteacres very much indeed.

The Fosters’ house was serenely Sunday-morningish when she got back. A bird was singing in a birch tree in the back garden and daffodil heads were starting to change their angle from vertical to horizontal, indicating an imminent opening into trumpets. A man called Danny was dead in a quarry and would never see such delights again. From the very little she knew of him, she assumed he had enjoyed the natural world, since he was working to protect it. Like her own dead Carl, who had been a conservationist before anything else, the fact of an early death was all the more terrible for knowing that this was somebody who would have made excellent use of a long life.

The dogs had been badly cheated, too. There had been nothing by way of a walk. No new smells or interesting encounters. They had been left in the car together – which had done nothing for their relationship. Corgi and spaniel each curled into a corner, as far from one another as possible. Hepzie leapt out as soon as the door opened, but Gwennie had to be helped down, her body unbending and her short legs unequal to the task of jumping anywhere. She made straight for her familiar basket and sat in it, breathing heavily. There was a subtle air of outrage about her.

‘Come on, Heps,’ said Thea. ‘Let’s go up to the church or somewhere for a bit. You can probably go loose, if you promise to behave yourself.’ This was unfair, she realised, and added, ‘You’ve been a very good dog up to now.’ Memories of the extremely bad behaviour in Stanton made her shudder and resolve to keep a closer eye on the two. Leaving them alone in the car had been rather reckless, on reflection.

There were still plenty of walks they could take in the coming days and she was resolute in her intention to explore them. Westwards lay Duntisbourne Leer, with a more southerly diversion into a large woodland. Beyond that lay Sapperton and Daneway, which she had visited nearly three years earlier with her sister Jocelyn, when they were house-sitting together in Frampton Mansell. That seemed a long time ago, with so many adventures in between, but the chat with Sheila Whiteacre had revived the memories and they now raced vividly through her mind.

That area, in the lower left-hand corner of the Cotswolds map, was wooded and secretive, the levels as dramatically uneven as any she’d since encountered. Starkly contrasting with the open sweeps around Snowshill and the rootedness of Winchcombe, she remembered the Frampton Mansell experience as one of sudden shocks and passions, both personal and geographical. The constantly changing landscape, from wide open wolds to hidden glimpses of long-gone industry, by way of country lanes and
characterful churches, was unfailingly appealing. Every mile contained a wealth of interest, enough for a day’s contemplation and enjoyment. She didn’t have to concern herself with a dead man in a quarry. It had nothing whatever to do with her.

But the image that persistently floated before her inner eye was that of the red-haired farmer, Jack Handy. Red-haired and red-faced, as he raged about the protesters. He wouldn’t shed any tears over the death of one of the leading members of the group, that was for sure.

The walk up the gentle rise to the church was brief, but pleasantly distracting. Daglingworth had its own quirks, the best of which was a garden at the central road junction, raised considerably above ground level and full of many different herbs. They were at head height, flopping over the wall beside the road. Rosemary, mint, marjoram were easy to identify, but others were either too dormant or too unfamiliar to put names to. It was original and entirely delightful, making Thea smile.

She had left her mobile behind, carrying nothing but the house key in a pocket. Wispy aromas of Sunday roasts and woodsmoke made her dreamy, drifting back in time, conscious that the same smells would have persisted in this place for countless centuries. The enveloping sense of history was one of the main attractions of the Cotswolds. Everywhere you looked there were ancient stones and earthworks that betrayed the millennia of human activity. The herb garden
reminded her that this too was a time-honoured practice. Despite the comfortable affluence of the villagers, they still burnt wood and put lavender in their drawers. They surely maintained some sort of feeling for the particular elements of the past that had created this extraordinary region.

At least I’m not spending any money, she thought to herself, as she turned back to Galanthus House. Mooching around the country lanes with the dog was a gratifyingly cheap way to pass the time and, weather permitting, would amply fill the coming days, without any need to engage with activists, dead or alive.

She automatically checked her phone when she got back. It had been a sporadic progression from never even thinking about the thing to a pitiful reliance on it to maintain contact with Drew. Other people used it to call or text her, but not on the same regular basis. It had some abilities that she had come to value, such as access to websites and use as a camera, but she had not yet dived into the world of apps or games. She suspected she was just too old to feel comfortable letting her whole life be controlled by a small electronic gadget. As for Facebook, she still utterly failed to see the slightest appeal to it.

There was a text message.

It had happened before, of course. Not just Jessica, but both her sisters and her mother had joined her on various house-sitting commissions, to a mixed reception. The company was welcome, but the complications that came with it much less so. Her relatives tended to show up with the aim of pouring out their latest troubles. They saw her duties regarding the houses as minimal and unimportant. As far as they were concerned, she was having yet another little holiday, all expenses paid, and they may as well share in the bounty.

Without further deliberation, she called her daughter back. ‘I’m in the Cotswolds again,’ she said, after brief preambles. ‘It’s all beautifully springlike and peaceful.’

‘So can I come?’

‘Of course you can. It’ll be lovely to see you. We can investigate one of the pubs.’

‘No murders, then?’ Jessica teased. Murders did happen a lot when Thea was around.

‘No. Some chap fell into a quarry, apparently. That’s all.’

‘Fell? Are you sure he wasn’t pushed?’

‘I know nothing about it. I’ve met a few people who knew him, that’s all.’

‘Right. So Tuesday, then? Tell me where you are. I want to talk to you.’

‘You’re talking to me now.’ It was a shameful evasion, which she knew even as the words left her
lips, but she was in no mood to provide counselling for a young policewoman, even if she was her daughter.

‘Come on, Ma. Don’t be like that.’

‘Don’t call me Ma,’ said Thea automatically. It was a recent development that she very much disliked.

‘I’ve got a dilemma and I want your advice. That’s what you’re for, remember? Most mothers never stop giving advice. Why do you have to be different?’

Most mothers
jogged Thea’s memory. ‘Did you hear about your Aunt Judy?’

‘What? What about her?’

‘She’s pregnant. You’ll have a new cousin.’ Every time she thought of it, it seemed more ludicrous.

‘Wow! How did that happen?’

‘I’m sure they’ll be happy to explain it to you, if you ask them. I had to stop him before he talked me through it.’

‘He? Uncle Damien told you? When?’

‘Yesterday evening. I think he was working through the family. I imagine Jocelyn will say all the right things. She likes babies.’

‘Everybody likes babies when they’re your own relations. I think it’s lovely. Don’t be such a curmudgeon about it.’

‘I’ll try. It’s just such a surprise. I can’t really imagine it enough to be happy or excited about it.’

‘It’s good to have plenty of people in that generation. They’ll have to keep you in your old age, remember.’

‘So they will. I’d better buy it a lot of educational
toys and books, then, to make sure it gets a good job.’

‘You’ll have to pretend to be pleased. They must be terrified. How old are they?’

‘He’s forty-nine and she’s forty-four. Nearly. You must admit that’s awfully old to be first-time parents. I was twenty when I had you.’

‘And now you’re old enough to be a grandmother. Yes, I know. So what?’

‘I don’t want to be a grandmother. And your gran’s got plenty of grandchildren, so she doesn’t need another one.’

‘Well, I think it’s lovely,’ insisted Jessica. ‘Now tell me where you are, and I’ll be there before lunch on Tuesday.’

‘Great.’

The idea that her brother and his wife might be frightened had not occurred to her. Damien had never shown fear in his life. He had embraced religion in his early thirties and sustained an unshakeable faith ever since. This had given him a patina of complacency that caused irritation, bewilderment and occasional envy in his sisters. The message he put out was –
I have everything sorted, and if you are so blind and stupid as to reject what I have to offer, then that’s your problem
.

‘It’s not proper religion,’ Jocelyn had complained once. ‘Really religious people have doubts and dark nights of the soul, and endless moral dilemmas. He doesn’t do any of that. He’s so bloody
certain
all the time.’

Thea had agreed. So perhaps this baby was God’s way of showing her brother that the way was not always smooth, and that he’d had it much too easy up to then.

What would they do if the baby was found to be defective on the scan? She had no idea what Damien thought about abortion, but the assumption had to be that he was against it. Thea herself, with her low levels of maternal passion, would have found it a gruesome decision to have to make. In the end, she thought she’d have ducked it and kept whatever child fate landed her with. While not actively seeking to have a second baby after Jessica, she believed she would have accepted an accidental one with good grace. She wasn’t sure people should have quite that much control over something so fundamental – which she supposed was very much out of line with orthodox thinking. Going against nature, as Carl very often remarked, could rebound on you rather painfully at times.

And then a small voice whispered to her –
Just be careful the same thing doesn’t happen to you and Drew, then
. That would be a very neat revenge on her, she realised. It would ally her with Damien, and probably separate her from Drew. The idea gave her the shivers. She was only a year older than Judy. It could happen. But of course it wasn’t going to, even if – as everybody knew – births and deaths always came in threes.

She made herself a modest and rather late lunch, and began a list of shopping for the following day. Cirencester was close by, and well worth an hour or so pottering up and down the streets. Except she’d be lucky to find anything so mundane as bread and milk in any of the town-centre shops. There would be a Waitrose somewhere – she knew she’d visited it on previous occasions, but had forgotten exactly where it was.

The afternoon loomed ahead of her, as Sunday afternoons so often did. The risk of loneliness and self-pity made her feel cross and determined to ensure they didn’t take hold. She wanted Drew. She could see his face before her, feel his warm hugs and hear his hearty laugh. But Sundays were his sacred time with the children, and she seldom found herself included as part of the family. She was
not
part of the family, with Karen dead so short a time. There had been a few wintry walks since Christmas, and a dozen or more evenings together, which extended into the night, but not to the following morning. She had driven all the way back to Witney in the small hours, feeling both lucky and unlucky, blessed by Drew but thwarted by his children, with whom things were still liable to be awkward and difficult. Stephanie had a way of looking at her that made her itch with embarrassment.