A Cotswold Casebook Read online

  A Cotswold Casebook

  REBECCA TOPE

  In memory of my mother

  Sybil Tope

  who died just as the final pages of this book were

  being written

  Author’s Note

  While the pubs, villages and towns in these tales are all real, the houses, hotel and garden centre have been invented, or enormously changed from the originals.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Author’s Note

  Introduction

  In Guiting Power

  With Slaughter in Mind

  Making Arrangements

  When Harry Richmond Sold His Cottage

  Little Boy Lost

  The Stone Man

  The Blockley Discovery

  Ladies Who Lunch

  Humiliation

  In Which Thea Meets Tony Brown

  The Moorcroft

  Blood on the Carpet

  Key References to Novels in the Cotswolds Series

  If you enjoyed A Cotswold Casebook

  By Rebecca Tope

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Although I have written perhaps twenty or thirty short stories over many years, the prospect of a collection of them was initially both daunting and thrilling. Would readers be put off by this sudden change of format? Only time will tell. But gradually I recalled some quite brilliant stories I had read and enjoyed, by Celia Fremlin, Roald Dahl, Saki, Piers Anthony, and others. Most of them were at least as memorable and delightful as any novel I had read. Then I remembered hearing Chaz Brenchley (a master of the short story) say a writer has more space and freedom in a story than in a novel. I wasn’t sure what he meant until I began writing these tales. Now I understand – I think.

  As a reader of short stories I am aware of the effort demanded to engage with a new world and new set of characters, time after time. It is, perhaps, one of the factors that puts people off them. But here I have cheated. All the stories in this collection feature Thea Osborne (now Slocombe) or Drew or someone close to them, set in the Cotswolds villages and towns that feature in my series of novels about Thea and her house-sitting. The world will be familiar to existing readers, and for anyone coming to them for the first time, it has a consistency that I hope will reduce the resistance.

  Perhaps it should also be said that while Thea’s world has a geographical accuracy, there are quite a few chronological anomalies in these stories when related to the novels.

  There is also a minor element in the stories that might be called a game. Each story refers in some way to one (sometimes more than one) of the Cotswold novels. Either a character from it, or the place in which it is set, or something subtler. Here and there I have altered details of events or characters in order to avoid revealing too much of the plots in the novels. The key is at the back of the book.

  In Guiting Power

  Guiting Power was unlike most other Cotswolds villages in its openness. Few of the usual narrow lanes and high hedges were included in its bounds. There were swathes of grassy bank, buildings set back as if trying to create more space for travellers to pass through, or for people to congregate together. Nobody hid away behind cluttered front gardens or high stone walls.

  Drew had only been there once before, but he recognised it right away. There was a squareness to the buildings, including the church, and a serenity conferred by the big old trees standing watch over the village. The origins were Anglo-Saxon, and he fancied he could still feel the presence of those people.

  He was there to meet a woman Thea had known a few years earlier. She had sent a card when the Broad Campden burial ground had first been opened, wishing them well and reminding Thea of their shared history. ‘I live in Guiting Power now,’ said the note. ‘Come and see me sometime.’ And she had added address, phone number and email.

  ‘She really means it, doesn’t she?’ said Drew. ‘When did you last see her?’

  Thea had to concentrate in order to remember. ‘Must have been when I was in Lower Slaughter. I met her in a pub when I was out for a walk. I wonder why she’s moved.’

  ‘Interesting name – Ariadne.’

  ‘She chose it herself. She was Mary originally. She got very cross when Phil kept forgetting she’d changed it.’

  ‘Phil knew her?’ While Drew felt no hint of jealousy towards his wife’s first husband, he did have some difficulty with Detective Superintendent Phil Hollis, with whom she had been involved for a year or so.

  ‘In the dim and distant past. I’m not sure I want to renew my acquaintance with Ariadne. She was terribly intense. And I don’t think she really liked me very much.’

  ‘So why has she gone to all this trouble to remind you of her existence?’

  ‘Good question.’

  ‘We should acknowledge her, at least. It sounds bad, I know, but the more supporters and friends we can keep hold of in the Cotswolds, the better it is for business. We absolutely have to have at least one funeral a week if we’re to survive.’

  ‘I can see that. I’m not sure Ariadne’s likely to be of much use to us, but you never know.’

  So he had carefully added the details to his database of contacts, and emailed the woman to thank her for the note. He signed it ‘Thea and Drew’.

  Within an hour he had a reply: ‘Great to hear from you. The burial ground sounds wonderful. Just my sort of thing. Can I draw your attention to my own new business? More of the same, actually, but better organised. Original hand-knits. Homespun yarn. See the website.’

  In an idle moment, Drew looked at the website and found pictures of gorgeous jumpers, capes, scarves, and a whole lot more, none of it with prices attached. It took him barely ten seconds to decide to get something from it for Thea’s forthcoming birthday. Which explained his visit to Guiting Power, where Ariadne had most of her stock.

  He found the house – a classic stone building set well back from the road – and walked up its front path wondering how the woman Thea had described could possibly afford such a place.

  ‘Hey, you must be Drew!’ chirped the person who opened the door. ‘’Arry – your man’s here!’ she called over her shoulder.

  There were voices and music coming from a number of directions on both floors. Two small children sat at the top of the stairs, watching him. A large black and tan dog strolled down the hallway, only mildly interested. There was an impression of a large disorganised house full of good cheer and noise, which was as far from his experience of the usual contents of houses in Cotswold villages as you could get.

  ‘Come in,’ the woman on the door urged him. ‘The kids and dogs escape if we leave it open for long.’

  He crossed the threshold with a strong sense of walking into an alternative dimension. A flurry at the far end of the passageway announced another person. She trotted towards him, pushing her sleeves down and fumbling with cuffs as she went. ‘Come in,’ she echoed. ‘This is so nice of you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Have you got time for coffee? You’re sure to be busy, I know. But you’d be very welcome.’

  He gave her a thoughtful inspection. Solidly built, her hair tied up in a vivid scarf, clothes sprinkled with fibres and fluff, she had dark eyes and a wide mouth. ‘You’re Ariadne, I take it?’ he said, still sounding like a Victorian undertaker in his own ears.

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry. I should have said. How’s Thea? I’ve heard a few stories about her since we last met, but I never expected her to take up the funeral business. Bit of a change from house-sitting. But then, nothing lasts for ever, does it? Things change. You’re married, right? Fancy that!’

  He could see her mentally comparing
him with Phil Hollis, who he remembered had been a friend of hers.

  ‘I thought one of your jumpers …’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. So nice of you. Although I have to say they’ve been taking off rather well just lately. I saw two people wearing them in Cheltenham on the same day last week. The high spot of my career so far.’

  She led him into a large square kitchen, which while untidy was perfectly clean. The window sparkled and he could see no hint of a cobweb. In one corner there was a dog basket, containing a shaggy animal and a child even smaller than the ones on the stairs. ‘Okay, Mimsy?’ Ariadne asked carelessly.

  There was no response, but the dog raised its head minimally.

  ‘We’re fostering,’ the woman explained. ‘It’s working pretty well. Mimsy does most of the work,’ she laughed. ‘The little ones adore her.’

  ‘Good for her,’ he said faintly. He cast his mind’s eye back to the hallway. There had been no stair gates. Were you allowed to foster children without using a stair gate?

  ‘It’s all approved by the Social Services,’ she went on, reading his mind. ‘They’re so desperate for people that they’ll turn a blind eye to a lot of things. The kids mostly love it here, and nobody’s broken a leg up to now. We’ve got so much space, you see. It would have been a crime to waste it.’

  ‘Who else is here?’

  ‘There’s me and two other women living here permanently. We all have a bit of income of our own, and with the fostering money we just about scrape along.’

  ‘But who owns the house?’ He looked around again, trying to calculate the value of the property.

  Ariadne laughed. ‘Everybody asks that. The answer’s a bit complicated. It all goes back a long way, but technically, I’m afraid we’re probably squatters.’

  ‘Gosh! Surely the Social Services don’t like that.’

  ‘They don’t know. We told them it belongs to Gabriella – which is almost true. She’s Italian and came here when she married an Englishman. But now he’s gone off to Panama or somewhere, and hasn’t come back. The house is in his mother’s name. So there’s the answer to your question. It’s really hers, but she’s pretty well forgotten about it. I think we’ll be fine as long as she keeps occupied living the high life, as she does. She knows we’re here, and the house is being used and maintained.’ Her smile contained a hint of triumph, perhaps at arranging matters so cleverly.

  Drew wasn’t at all sure he wanted to hear all that. The idea of anyone wealthy enough to forget about such a house was very hard to swallow. It sounded like wishful thinking to him, with the owner liable to come back and evict the lot of them at any time. ‘Let’s see the jumpers,’ he said. ‘I need to be somewhere fairly soon.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry. Through here, then.’ She opened a door close to the dog basket and ushered him through.

  It must have been a pantry originally, he supposed. It was fitted with shelves on three sides, that would have held jam, cold meat, tinned food, condiments – anything that needed to be kept cool and close to hand. Now it was home to a bewildering display of handmade items. Not just Ariadne’s knitwear, but three shelves of pottery and two more of jewellery, mostly fashioned from twisted and curled wire. He moved slowly along, as if in a shop, admiring the work, and also the imaginative use of the space. ‘Phew!’ he said. ‘You’ve been busy.’ He fingered a pretty little milk jug, painted in blues and greens. A perfect present for almost anybody, he thought. Turning it over, he read the name scored on the bottom, Gabriella Mallon.

  ‘We have stalls at fairs and markets and all that. I’ve got one tomorrow.’

  ‘All this work,’ he sighed. ‘How do you keep up with it?’

  ‘Iron discipline,’ she said. ‘Gabriella has her pottery studio in the garden. I use my bedroom for the spinning. Helen uses hers for the jewellery. She doesn’t take as much space as me and Gabby. We have a rota for the kids. It all works well enough.’

  ‘How many kids?’

  ‘Five.’ She smiled. ‘One’s at school full-time, but we keep the rest here with us. No sense in paying for a nursery when we’re quite capable of doing it ourselves.’

  ‘And they’re all fostered?’

  ‘All except Harriet. She’s Helen’s own child. She’s the one in the dog basket.’

  With a bemused shake of his head, Drew began to examine the jumpers on the shelves opposite the small window. What was Thea’s best colour, he asked himself. Blue, perhaps, or grey. They both seemed somewhat dull, and his eye was caught by a soft-looking garment in a shade of purple he thought might be officially fuchsia or magenta. It had white shapes scattered over it, with sequins sewn into the middle of them. ‘That’s nice,’ he said, pointing to it.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Ariadne. ‘Not sure it’s quite right for her skin.’

  His eyes widened. What was wrong with Thea’s skin? Was there something he’d never noticed? His gaze fell on another jumper in orange and brown and yellow. ‘How about that?’

  ‘Far too big. She’d drown in it.’

  ‘Well, you choose, then. It sounds as if you remember her pretty well.’

  ‘I do.’ It was said darkly, hinting at a lot more significant an encounter than he had gathered from Thea. ‘She’d look great in this.’ She grabbed a lacy-looking pink thing and flourished it, letting it unfold and fall from where she gripped its shoulders.

  Drew accepted that he was out of his depth. He suspected his impulse had been a misguided one. Was it not famously risky to buy clothes for other people? ‘You think so?’ he said doubtfully. ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Seventy-five pounds. It’s my own design.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said faintly. No way could he even begin to afford it. He had imagined something roughly a third of that price. Surely she couldn’t be getting sums like that at her market stalls? Was she deliberately trying to rip him off? ‘Too much, I’m afraid. We’ve had to tighten our belts quite a lot since starting up here.’

  ‘Pity,’ she said with a shrug. ‘So it’ll have to be a hat or scarf or gloves, then. I’ve got a few things around twenty. Not much under that. It’s the handmade thing, you see. It adds value.’

  Twenty pounds sounded a lot for a hat that might only be worn on very cold days. Similarly gloves. And he was sure there was something feeble in giving a scarf. Thea already had quite a lot of scarves. ‘I’m very much afraid I’ve been wasting your time,’ he said regretfully. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  Her reaction startled him. ‘No, no. I wanted you to come,’ she said urgently. ‘Never mind the jumpers. It was lucky for me you had the idea of buying something. Otherwise I’d have had to think of something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The email I sent you – remember? I knew Thea had a birthday coming up. I never forget a birthday, even if I want to. I thought you might get the idea of buying something for her.’ Her voice lowered, and she glanced through the open door into the kitchen. Nobody but the child and the dog was in there. ‘Listen,’ she went on. ‘We’re going to need a quiet little funeral one day soon. It’s all rather awkward. Embarrassing. We don’t want any publicity. Nobody’s to come to it. Your set-up sounds perfect. Legal, but very discreet.’

  Drew’s first thought was that one of the foster children had expired, and needed a hushed-up burial. Then he chastised himself for being overdramatic. Nothing of the sort could possibly be happening. ‘Who died?’ he asked starkly.

  ‘Nobody yet. The person’s very ill. We’ll contact you when the inevitable happens. It won’t be very long.’

  ‘There has to be some official paperwork,’ he warned her. ‘Doctor’s certificate. Next of kin. All sorts of things.’

  She sighed. ‘Don’t give me that. All we need for you is the death certificate. The registrar wants the other stuff, not you. Why are you being so suspicious?’

  ‘That’s what I meant – the registrar. And you must admit it sounds a bit odd.’

  ‘It’s not odd at all. We all approve of woodland b
urials without the church stuff. Here you are, married to my old friend Thea, and everything’s going to work out nicely.’

  ‘All right. Yes. Of course. Just give me a call when the time comes and we’ll take it from there. Sorry about the jumper. I’ve wasted your time.’

  She was still holding the pink thing. Now she thrust it out at him. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Call it advance payment on the burial. It’s perfect for her. I’ll wrap it if you like.’

  He stepped back, his hands at his sides. Something wasn’t right and by accepting the jumper he would be colluding in a transaction that his guts told him he would regret. But it was very pretty. Feminine and cuddly, he could absolutely see Thea wearing it in the evenings, snuggled against him on the sofa. The size looked perfect, too.

  ‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘You know you want to.’

  ‘Well … Thank you,’ he muttered awkwardly. ‘Though I’m not sure how to square it with my books. The accountant is sure to query it.’

  She blew out her cheeks scornfully. ‘I bet people pay you in kind all the time. As I understand it, that woman in Broad Campden paid you with a house.’

  ‘No, she didn’t. Is that what people are saying?’ He was appalled at the idea.

  ‘More or less, yes. Why does it bother you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He thought about it. Looked at in a certain way, it was true that Greta had done something of the sort. ‘It was less commercial than that,’ he began. ‘She just liked me.’

  ‘Right. Fine.’ Ariadne appeared to lose interest. The child in the basket stirred and whimpered, and its canine nursemaid jumped up as if stung.

  ‘I should go,’ he said. ‘Let me know when you need my services.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ she said.

  He wrapped the jumper carefully, wishing he could report his unsettling experience to Thea. But it would be impossible to explain why he had gone to Guiting Power without revealing the secret of her birthday present. He went over it many times in the next few days, marvelling over the numerous children and the creativity in every room. Where did everybody sleep, he wondered. There must be bunk beds and shared rooms, and long waits for the bathroom.