Echoes in the Cotswolds Page 20

  ‘I know. I mean – I know he just rented the Northleach house, to work in. So what?’ Stephanie’s dawning detective skills were beginning to seem alarming. Drew was never going to approve. There were ominous echoes of that boy Ben Harkness who had worked such magic in Barnsley the previous year.

  ‘So where did he live? Why does everybody seem so sure the murderer is in Northleach, when he knew people all over the world?’

  ‘Probably because he was killed in Northleach. Who else knew he would be there? A local person could just come and go without attracting any attention. And because the entire town thought he and his friends were drug addicts and they wanted to get rid of them.’

  ‘They thought wrong, didn’t they?’

  ‘Apparently. That’s the weirdest thing about the whole case. Especially as his own father seems to have believed it.’

  Stephanie’s eyes widened, not so much at the information itself but because her stepmother was so freely disclosing it. Almost without knowing it, Thea was treating her as a fellow detective and she was thrilled. ‘His own father!’ she repeated.

  Thea’s eyes were half closed, as she tried to keep pace with her thoughts. ‘It was as if he needed to believe it,’ she said slowly. ‘For his own peace of mind.’

  ‘That’s very weird,’ Stephanie agreed.

  ‘Well, what about this … What if Kevin had been a really bad father, never seeing his son, never trying to find out if he was okay, off with his other women and driving his lorry and generally pleasing himself …’

  ‘Like Grandma,’ said Stephanie, thinking of the way Drew’s mother had been absent from their lives for years.

  ‘A bit, yes. But Kevin would say he had good reason, because there’s nothing you can do with a drug addict. They won’t let you help them, and they tell lies and steal your money and give the family a bad name.’

  Stephanie laughed. ‘Are you trying to put me off ever taking drugs?’

  ‘Only incidentally. I expect I’m exaggerating, but that is more or less what people think – isn’t it? I bet they tell you all the same stuff at school. Just Say No, and all that.’

  ‘More or less,’ Stephanie agreed. ‘Go on about the Sinclair family.’

  ‘Okay. So, what if Kevin absolutely can’t cope with any suggestion that Ollie was actually a perfectly respectable person, well thought-of and making his way in life – everything a father could wish for? If he had to believe that instead of the drug thing, when it was too late to make amends, he’d be in an awful state. He’d refuse to believe it, because it would make him such an awful father. Even more awful, I mean.’

  ‘I see. But what does this have to do with the murder?’

  ‘I don’t know. Except it does seem to mean that Kevin isn’t the killer. Don’t you think? Even if he wanted his son right out of his life, he wouldn’t kill him. He’d have no reason to go that far.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Stephanie doubtfully. ‘That’s a bit too complicated for me. Some of it seems a bit back to front.’

  ‘Real life can be like that,’ said Thea. ‘It’s not at all like what you read in Harry Potter.’

  ‘I never thought it was,’ said Stephanie stiffly. ‘It’s not like Frozen or Toy Story, either, whatever Mr Ellis might say.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The PSE teacher at school. He thinks the whole of human existence can be summed up by Toy Story Three, just about.’

  ‘Good Lord! Maybe I should watch it sometime, then.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ smiled Stephanie. ‘It’s just a film for little kids.’

  ‘This is great. It’s helping me think it all through, having somebody to bounce it off. Why don’t we just keep doing this, without bothering to drive anywhere? Apart from anything else, I really don’t think your father would approve of us going off without him.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Stephanie uncertainly. ‘Would it be good to take some notes, do you think?’

  Thea laughed. ‘I’m always intending to do that, but it never really gets very far. Maybe you’ll be better at it than me.’

  ‘We can try.’ The child gathered together an exercise book and pen, and turned to a fresh page. ‘Where do we start?’

  Thea stared at the blank paper, her mind as empty as the page. ‘I don’t know. With Ollie, I suppose.’

  Stephanie made a neat heading, underlined, pen poised. They looked at each other and giggled. ‘We must put something,’ Stephanie urged.

  ‘He was twenty-eight. His mother is from the Middle East somewhere. His father left her with two small children and married Lucy, then left her and took up with Tessa. There might have been others in between. I get the impression he’s not actually married to Tessa.’

  ‘That’s about Kevin, not Ollie,’ Stephanie pointed out. But she wrote it down anyway.

  ‘Ollie made films for YouTube or whatever it is now.’

  ‘Still YouTube,’ said the girl with a roll of her eyes. ‘The people in Northleach – what about them? Did they all know him?’

  ‘They knew Kevin. He came to Bobby Latimer’s house, even though she didn’t know him or Tessa. And that’s odd, when you think about it.’

  ‘How do you spell Latimer?’

  Thea was having new thoughts, making new connections. ‘Why didn’t all this strike me yesterday when I was telling Caz about it?’ she muttered. ‘She wasn’t very interested in the neighbours.’

  ‘Because they weren’t Ollie’s neighbours, were they?’ asked Stephanie reasonably. ‘Have I got that right?’

  ‘You have, but I can’t imagine how.’

  ‘Google maps,’ came the succinct reply. ‘West End, High Street, East End. Very logical. Bypass. Old turnpike road. I do really want to see it all with my own eyes, though.’

  ‘Well, we’re not going today.’

  ‘I realise that,’ said Stephanie with a sigh.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had been sheer delight to share all the Northleach observations with her stepdaughter. The questions she was required to think about were quite different from those asked by Caz Barkley, even though they were ostensibly aimed at the same final big one – who killed Ollie Sinclair? Caz had been satisfied with the simple fact that everybody in town knew everybody else, and had connections that went back for decades, if not longer. Even the Latimers, fresh from America a mere fifteen years ago – ‘At a guess,’ said Thea carefully. ‘It might be rather less than that’ – were thoroughly embedded into local networks. Stephanie wanted details, filling the page of her exercise book with names and ages and probable lines of work. As Drew had been, she was intrigued by the committee, writing it in large letters in the middle of the page. ‘That sounds as if it might be illegal,’ she suggested. ‘Hate speech. What if Ollie reported them, and they all got together to take their revenge on him?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ judged Thea, while enjoying the idea enormously.

  It had gone on for over an hour. Tim and Drew had wandered into the room, one after the other, and been ignored. The dog tried to interpose itself between Thea and Stephanie, to be pushed rudely away. Only when the flights of fancy began to enter realms of extreme silliness did Thea bring it to a halt. ‘Well, that’s it,’ she said. ‘No more for today. Thanks, though – you’ve been a great help.’

  ‘It was fun,’ said Stephanie. ‘Now I’m even more sure I want to join the police, like Jessica.’ Jessica was Thea’s grown-up daughter, recently promoted to the rank of police sergeant and aiming for the CID in another year or so. The stepsisters had become firm friends over Christmas, and Stephanie’s ambition had been conceived.

  ‘Could be worse,’ said Thea, thinking a bit of variety might be preferable. Her first husband’s brother was in the police as well. ‘Although maybe you could consider tree surgery or something, as a second string?’

  ‘Very funny,’ said Stephanie.

  Thea was preoccupied for another hour, niggling away at elusive ideas that arose from chance remarks that she could not precisely re
call. Something about Faith-and-Livia, who Stephanie had called ‘the witches’ for no better reason than that Thea had mentioned that Livia had a long nose. The implication was that they had secrets that they withheld from the people of Northleach – ‘It wouldn’t be accurate to call it a community,’ she told Stephanie. ‘I don’t think any of them care much for each other’ – and that they didn’t have very wholesome opinions about the world and its ways. ‘They’re fascists,’ summarised Stephanie with a nod.

  ‘Be careful about applying labels to people,’ Thea told her, not for the first time.

  When it came to Hunter Lanning, they found remarkably little to write down. ‘He seems like the king of the town, and yet I know almost nothing about him,’ admitted Thea. ‘He’s patronising, complacent – all that sort of stuff – but I think he’s all talk.’

  ‘But he’s big and strong?’

  ‘Yes, but …’ And Thea could give no foundation for her conviction that the man was no murderer. ‘It just seems too obvious, somehow. That sounds daft, I know – but I don’t believe it could possibly have been him.’

  Stephanie was tinkering with a tablet that was the joint property of the whole family, mainly used for checking websites. Drew consulted it every morning about the forthcoming weather. ‘Here’s Lucy Sinclair, look,’ she announced suddenly. ‘She’s put herself at the top of a page about the history of Northleach. With a picture. Lots of pictures.’

  ‘Let’s see.’ It was, Thea slowly realised, the website that Lucy had told her about, the one that had resulted in her becoming unpopular with the people of the village. One reason for that might well be that Lucy had given herself top billing as a local historian. A lot of densely packed information filled the page, with photographs of fields and old houses and prints from pre-photographic times. The main theme seemed to be wool and sheep and the arcane details of power struggles between various merchants and the peasantry. ‘I’m not reading all this now,’ said Thea. ‘It looks a bit dull, actually.’

  ‘I thought you liked history.’

  ‘I do. I love it. But this is very badly done. The pictures don’t match the text, and the dates are all over the place. Here’s a bit about Kett’s Rebellion, which was in the sixteenth century, all muddled up with how the church came to be built, with nothing to explain how they connect – if they do at all, which I doubt.’

  ‘Isn’t Lucy meant to be a computer wizard?’

  ‘When I knew her before, she was a fixer, a techie. She mended people’s computers. I suppose that doesn’t mean she’s good at websites. They’re not at all the same thing.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Stephanie, with a little frown. ‘Do you think the Northleach people paid her to do this?’

  ‘That’s a good question.’ Thea looked at the child in admiration. ‘Fancy you thinking of that.’

  ‘Well – money’s not very complicated, is it?’ said Stephanie. ‘Everybody wants it, so they fight over it, and it’s quite often a reason for murdering someone.’

  ‘So it is,’ said Thea.

  Mother and stepdaughter prepared supper in comparative harmony and Timmy recited his whole poem perfectly as the after-dinner entertainment. Everybody clapped. Then for good measure he gave a brief summary of the state of Iowa in relation to the rest of the country, and how only a minority of Americans could claim to have been there or even know exactly where it was. ‘They mostly think it’s further west than it is,’ he explained.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said Drew, and meant it.

  A while later, he asked Thea, ‘Are we going down to Northleach tomorrow, then?’

  She had not been looking forward to this, and made a face accordingly. ‘I’m not sure,’ she began. ‘I mean – I don’t really see a lot of point in going to the actual town. I’d be happier if we went a bit further on, to the Colne Valley. I could show you where I stayed in Barnsley. You never did come to see me when I was there.’

  ‘What about the pub? I thought it was just what we wanted. The Sherborne Arms – is that right?’

  She nodded. ‘It looks really nice,’ she admitted. ‘Better than the one in Barnsley, probably. The thing is, I don’t want to bump into anybody I’ve been talking to, and that’s quite a lot of people. Higgins is going to think I’m interfering.’ She had another thought. ‘The incident room was in the pub – they might not be open, because of that.’

  ‘You’re making excuses,’ he said in surprise. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain. Everything feels stuck, but also very delicate. I might say the wrong thing to the wrong person. I’m right out on the edge this time, and there’s too much that I don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh, I dare say you understand more than you think,’ he said, with the merest whiff of accusation. ‘I’m still wondering why you wouldn’t let that wretched woman stay last night.’

  ‘What? Mainly because I thought it would annoy you, as it happens. Anyway, it must have turned out all right, or we’d have heard by now.’

  ‘Heard if she’d been murdered in her bed, you mean?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Thea lightly, with her fingers secretly crossed.

  Nothing had been decided by the time the children were in bed, which Thea experienced as a real failure. The indecision was born of a reluctance to disappoint Drew and Stephanie, balanced against a worry that the police would never forgive her if she interrupted some careful strategy to ensnare the killer. All the police officers she knew constantly stressed the absolute necessity for evidence. It was entirely possible to know full well who had committed the crime, but unless they could prove it strongly enough to withstand the onslaught of clever defence lawyers, it was all a waste of time. Even a confession, caught on tape or signed in blood, was not enough without supporting evidence. As a layperson and an amateur, Thea was not constrained by the many limitations imposed on the police, but even she could not just poke a man in the chest and say ‘J’accuse.’

  ‘Let’s watch This Country, then,’ said Drew. ‘There’s time for most of the first series.’ And before Thea could reply he had clicked and toggled and produced the programme like magic.

  It was undeniably Northleach in the very first scene. There was the bus shelter, large as life. But most of the action took place in a modern house that could be anywhere. There were few glimpses of the famous Cotswold stone, or the big church or anything else she recognised. Until towards the end of the series, when there was Kurtan standing in front of a house that was either Lucy’s or one close to it. The whole thing was gone in seconds, but it gave Thea a jolt.

  There had been little laugh-out-loud comedy to it, as far as she could see. It was actually very bleak and depressing and she wondered what Stephanie would make of it. She asked Drew if his daughter had seen it.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I doubt if she’d like it.’

  ‘She’d hate it,’ said Thea with conviction. ‘She’d say that life around here is nothing like that.’

  ‘It is for some people,’ said Drew.

  ‘That line, early on, something about the locals having “utter hatred of each other” – that was a bit near the bone, don’t you think?’

  ‘You mean because one of them has actually murdered someone in real life and not on the telly?’

  ‘Quite a few times, in fact,’ said Thea. ‘If you count the whole of the Cotswolds. And that vicar loves Midsomer Murders, remember.’

  ‘I think that’s quite funny,’ said Drew.

  ‘A bit obvious,’ said Thea critically. ‘And the bit where she lets the hamster die because she forgot about it. When she’s babysitting people’s pets, as they put it. I hope none of my clients thought that was a reference to me.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Drew. ‘Don’t take it so personally.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Thea.

  ‘You’re not meant to take it seriously, either. It’s just a bit of fun.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said insincerely. She didn’t
think the programme was actually intended to be fun. She thought it was very much darker than Drew would acknowledge. She wondered what the people of Northleach thought about it. Although the village wasn’t named, several surrounding ones were, and it was clearly public knowledge that theirs was the chosen spot. At least there hadn’t been any mention of drugs, which might have been a step too far for the residents. ‘I like the vicar,’ she added. ‘He’s the most realistic person in the whole thing.’

  It was late by the time they’d watched every episode, and they scrambled up to bed without any further delay. ‘Sunday tomorrow,’ said Drew with a relieved sigh. ‘And we still don’t know what we’ll be doing.’

  ‘Sufficient unto the day,’ said Thea, hoping he realised she was quoting her father. Her family was rich with sayings, whereas Drew’s parents had apparently never coined phrases or bowdlerised existing ones. ‘Who knows – you might get three new funerals again.’

  At six the following morning, at least one part of Thea’s prophecy came true. The phone rang and a nursing home reported a death. ‘They want us to come before breakfast,’ Drew told Thea. ‘Apparently there’s a scramble for the room, and they want everything cleared away instantly. It’s just like old times.’

  Thea was hazy about the details of the mainstream undertaker where Drew had learnt his craft, but she understood that, by comparison, his present operation was considered slow and sloppy. Nursing homes were notorious in wanting their dead removed quickly, and were not always sympathetic towards the Slocombe limitations. Several times Drew had had to recruit families in his support, who willingly resisted the unseemly rush on his behalf. He had grown adept at shaming the care home into admitting that it really wouldn’t do any harm to wait a day or two. They all had a room somewhere to accommodate a deceased resident in some degree of dignity.

  But this one was adamant. There were special circumstances. And, they threatened, if Drew couldn’t do it, they would have to ask someone else. The deceased person in question had expressed a general sort of wish for a natural burial, but nothing was in writing. They had only come to him because he was the closest geographically.