Echoes in the Cotswolds Read online

  She walked past the town square and carried on along High Street, which was pleasingly varied with a mixture of houses from all those centuries. One or two appeared to be barely twenty years old, their stone still buttery and fresh. But for sheer exuberant variety it fell somewhat short of Winchcombe, which was Thea’s personal favourite. Having sampled close to twenty Cotswold villages over the past few years, she had developed prejudices and sudden judgements that were difficult to shake.

  Nobody took much notice of her. The locals were inured to strange faces, smiling vaguely at the visitors but seeing little more than necessary nuisance. Those who ran shops or offered accommodation were glad of the business. Actual permanent residents – like the Latimer family and Faith-and-Livia – were not numerous. Those there would mostly work on their computers all day, or drive off to somewhere bigger if they were teachers or doctors or solicitors. Although, Thea reminded herself, there were several ‘business parks’ tucked out of sight down tracks that looked as if they must lead to a farm. She had found just such a one in Barnsley, near Bibury, in a converted old mansion house. There was probably one in Northleach as well, if she cared to look for it.

  There was a knot of people on the pavement ahead, staring up at a house. Outside was a police car. As she watched from a respectable distance, an ambulance quietly arrived as well. ‘Oh, come on!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Just somebody fallen downstairs, nothing to get excited about.’ But the fact of onlookers was in itself mildly exciting. On the whole, Thea had discovered that people in this area did not easily get worked up enough to go out and gawp at anything.

  She would not get involved. It had nothing to do with her; there was no possible way that she could justify showing an interest. Even if somebody had died, having said they wanted a natural burial in Drew’s field – highly unlikely in itself – Thea ought not to intrude at this stage. She should turn around and go back to the square and perhaps sit in the little café on the southern side and have a pot of tea.

  As she hesitated, another police car arrived and disgorged a familiar figure. DI Jeremy Higgins stood there, four-square, tweaking his collar and flexing his elbows. A uniformed female constable approached him from the house as Thea watched from a distance of fifty yards or so. She tried to recall when she had last encountered Higgins. She remembered him helping her when she put the wrong fuel in her car. And he had been involved in Chedworth when she and Drew had found a body in a barn. Wasn’t Northleach a bit out of his usual area, she asked herself, never quite clear about such details. DS Gladwin seemed to roam all over the Cotswolds, wherever violent crime took place. Higgins probably did the same. It was all in the same county, after all.

  He had not noticed her standing there with the dog and she did nothing to draw his attention. Within a few seconds he was entering the house with the young constable, and the little group of onlookers rustled and whispered and one or two of them peeled away to get on with normal life. Thea began to feel uncomfortably conspicuous. ‘Come on, then,’ she muttered to Hepzie and began to walk along High Street in the same direction as before, taking her right past the house that was attracting so much interest. She crossed over, and gave it a good look from the other side of the street, not expecting to see anything. But as she looked, an upstairs window was thrown open, and Higgins himself leant out. ‘Mrs Osborne!’ he called. ‘Is that you?’

  Everybody turned to see who the detective was talking to. Thea grimaced slightly, and stood her ground. ‘The name’s Slocombe now,’ she replied, just loud enough to carry the short distance. ‘Remember?’

  He rolled his eyes. A passing lorry impeded her view of him, and when it had gone, he was no longer at the window. She supposed he would come down to ground level, so she waited, wondering at the very odd lack of professionalism. Surely he wasn’t going to saunter out and ask her how she was getting on, moments into some sort of investigation that carried all the signs of being rather serious? He could not conceivably have connected her to whatever it was, in those few moments. The idea was ludicrous. But she did not have to wait long for enlightenment.

  He came over the street to her and smiled. ‘Mrs Slocombe,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘What’s going on here? Whatever it is, it’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true – of course,’ he agreed. ‘All the same, here you are, and here’s a man dead, and I think I might be forgiven for thinking that this has happened before, and it would probably be a mistake to simply let you disappear.’

  ‘A man’s dead?’ She looked again at the serene old house. ‘And it’s a matter for CID, is it?’

  ‘Apparently so. I need to get back – but can you stick around for a bit, just in case?’

  ‘Just in case what? I’ve never been near this house before. I have no idea who lives there. I only got here this morning. Honestly, Jeremy, this one is absolutely nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I believe you. All the same … aren’t you even a little bit curious? Don’t you want to know what’s happened? If you know people in Northleach, there could well be some sort of connection. It’s a small place.’

  ‘Is that house an ordinary residence or holiday lets, or what?’

  He twinkled cheerfully at her. ‘See? You’re hooked already. It’s both – neither – that’s to say, I’m told it’s an Airbnb property, but the owner lives there as well, most of the time, anyway. Somebody foreign, it seems.’

  Thea had no experience of Airbnb, and how it worked, but she assumed the fact of a murder in one of its houses would carry a good level of local interest. Already she understood that this was, one way or another, a murder. And ‘somebody foreign’ would be a good place to start when it came to finding a suspect, however outrageous that might be. ‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll go and have coffee in the café in the square. You can come and find me there. I’ll stay an hour.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and went back to his investigations.

  It was fifty minutes before he breathlessly joined her in the café. ‘They let the dog in, then?’ he said, giving Hepzie a quick fondle.

  Thea nodded. ‘I think they expected us to have gone by now. Or at least ordered some food. But I’d had my lunch already before I saw you. Seems a while ago now.’ She glanced at her watch to discover it was quarter past two.

  ‘I can’t stop,’ he said. ‘The wheels are rolling, as they say.’

  ‘So who died?’

  ‘Young bloke. Apparently goes by the name of Sinclair. Not much doubt that it’s foul play, judging by the state of his neck.’ He gave her a meaningful look. ‘And after a wee bit of googling, courtesy of a bright young detective constable, that name popped up in connection with events in Hampnett a year or two ago that involved a certain Mrs Osborne. Slocombe, as she is now.’

  ‘Longer ago than that. It was before I met Drew. But yes – I’m looking after Lucy Sinclair’s house here in Northleach, having previously looked after another house of hers in Hampnett. That is clever googling, I grant you. Did you say a young bloke? What’s his first name?’

  ‘Oliver. Still not confirmed, no official identification – but there’s no real doubt. Is there anything you might be able to contribute at this stage?’

  ‘Lucy is stepmother to a young man named Ollie, who I fear is your murder victim. She’s in hospital, so that’s one alibi you can put in your notes. I’ve met Ollie’s father, and his current lady friend, this very day.’

  Higgins was still standing beside her table, looking down at her with a sudden air of professionalism. Before he said any more, he pulled out a chair and sat down close to her, using his softest voice and keeping his back to the rest of the room. Since speaking to him in the high street quite a lot had changed, it seemed. Having listened carefully to everything she had said, he now placed her firmly at the heart of this latest crime. Thanks to the ‘wee bit of googling’ she was inextricably embroiled in it. ‘Tell me every single thing,’ he ordered.

  ‘Oh
dear,’ she said, before embarking on a somewhat jumbled account of that morning, including the existence of Kevin Sinclair and his lady friend. ‘He definitely must be the son,’ she concluded.

  ‘Helpful,’ said Higgins with a wide smile. ‘Very helpful, indeed.’

  ‘So how did he die?’ she asked, in a soft, reluctant voice. She was not at all sure she wanted to know.

  ‘Let’s just say there was a weapon, for now. According to rumours, it appears he was a drug user.’

  ‘His father said he was degenerate,’ Thea remembered. ‘That must be what he meant. But you’ve been amazingly quick to hear rumours.’

  ‘Facebook,’ he said, as if it was obvious. Which it was, Thea supposed.

  ‘You mean he’s got a blog or something boasting about his favourite illegal substances?’

  ‘Hardly. But there are several local people in a kind of discussion forum. The same clever young DC has highlighted one or two remarks that strongly imply that Mr Sinclair and the proprietor of the house shared a certain lifestyle that did not fit well with the quiet community of Northleach. Something like that, anyway. Nods and whispers. Nothing definite.’

  ‘Is that the same thing as Hunter and his committee?’ Thea mused. Higgins waited for enlightenment. ‘A man called Hunter runs a committee,’ she went on. ‘I get the impression that most of the town are involved, and if you resist, you’re cast into outer darkness. Or something.’

  ‘You can’t just have a committee like that. I mean, it has to represent some sort of organisation. And a whole town can’t be on it, can they?’

  ‘I suppose not. It isn’t likely to be relevant, anyway.’ She shook her head at her own vagueness. Repeating what she had gleant from Lucy, it sounded faintly ridiculous.

  ‘Early days,’ said Higgins.

  ‘But how sad it is,’ Thea sighed, thinking of Kevin Sinclair and wondering how badly he had failed as a father. Or whether he had failed at all. It was altogether too simplistic to assume that drug users had been driven to it by their parents. He had seemed relaxed – if somewhat lacking in affection – at the mention of his son. She remembered how he had been unsure of the poor chap’s age. ‘He was twenty-eight, apparently, if that helps. His father didn’t seem very interested in him.’

  Higgins nodded. ‘I’ll make a note, but I think his age is on record already.’

  There seemed to be nothing more to say. Thea got up and together they walked down the gently sloping town square to the bus stop at the bottom. ‘I go this way,’ she said, waving at the street to the left containing Lucy’s house and Thea’s car. She began to walk away, when she had a thought and stopped. Higgins was still standing there making jottings in a notebook. ‘Is Caz Barkley still around?’ Thea asked. ‘Is she going to be part of this case?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh yes, she’s around all right. Never makes a wrong move, that one. Must have a very powerful fairy godmother, if you ask me. And yes, she’ll be on this case, right enough. The super’s gone away for Easter. Took the boys and husband and flown off to Tenerife. Or was it Lanzarote? Somewhere nice and hot, anyhow.’

  ‘Really? So this one’s down to you and Caz, then.’ Thea remembered that DS Barkley had grown up in the care system, and had been forced to contend with a lot more trouble and damage than the average person.

  ‘She’ll jump at it. Another feather in her cap. Promotion before you can say “Whiskers”.’

  Thea laughed. ‘If that’s true, I’m glad. She’s earned it.’

  ‘That’s what the super says.’ He sighed. ‘It’s right, of course. But she can be a bit … exasperating.’

  ‘Well, say hello from me next time you see her.’

  ‘I doubt I’ll have to – you’re sure to see her one day soon, with this lot kicking off.’

  ‘Right,’ said Thea with very familiar mixed feelings. ‘And you know what? I’m going home this evening, whatever I promised Lucy. Everything’s changed now and I want my family round me.’

  ‘As you like. We’ve got your phone number.’

  She was left with a sense of several conversations not properly finished. Bobby had ejected her visitors with no resolution as to what to do about Lucy. Kevin Sinclair still had not been fully informed on that matter, either. Perhaps, Thea thought, the hospital would tell him if he phoned them. But now that his son was dead, he was less likely than ever to care what happened to his ex-wife. The death of Ollie Sinclair, apparently by violence, threw everything into far greater turmoil. And it inevitably meant that Thea Slocombe, renowned house-sitter, would be at the forefront of everyone’s attention.

  Chapter Eight

  Having securely locked up Lucy’s house, Thea went home at five o’clock, feeling like a deserter. This time the A429 carried even more echoes from the past. Here was another murder, only a few miles from Notgrove and Lower Slaughter and all the other little villages she had known for a few days. The trees, not yet showing many signs of spring, had a sinister aspect in the fading light. She remembered Phil Hollis in Temple Guiting remarking on them. Both trees and houses had stood unchanged for three or four centuries in some of these settlements, calmly watching the evanescent humans come and go like butterflies. Perhaps, she reflected, it was being married to an undertaker that made her so aware of the brevity of life – and often its futility, in her bleaker moments. Too strong a word she admonished herself. It wasn’t futile, exactly. Every life was precious in itself, almost by definition. Murder was and always would be the ultimate horror. To cast another person into oblivion could never be forgivable.

  She gave herself a shake as she took her customary shortcut through Sezincote, where evening shadows stretched across the landscape and a flock of starlings celebrated another passing day. She was going to have to present a cheerful face to the family. Beside her, the spaniel was curled up trustfully on the passenger seat, not knowing or caring where they were going, because life for Hepzie was always all right.

  She had not told Drew she was coming, so walked in on a scene of domestic competence and self-sufficiency that made her feel excluded – which was entirely her own fault, of course. Stephanie had decided to prepare the evening meal, without any prompting, as Drew announced with pride. ‘Sausages and potato wedges with peas,’ his daughter announced. Potato wedges had become something of an obsession with both children, sprinkled with oil and herbs and reliably delicious. Also extremely easy to prepare, although Thea often managed to burn them.

  Drew was slumped in the living room, having achieved two more of the week’s funerals without mishap. He smiled up at her as she came in, and said, ‘Hey! It’s you! What a surprise!’ He waved a glass at her. ‘I’ve earned a G&T today, I don’t know about you.’

  ‘I’d be happy to join you,’ she said. ‘As soon as I’ve fed the dog.’

  Gin on a weekday was unusual, but very welcome. True to her word, Thea sat next to her husband on the sofa and told him all she could remember of the day’s events, having been briefly assured that his day had gone satisfactorily. ‘So,’ she concluded, ‘it looks as if I’ve landed up with another murder.’

  ‘What if you didn’t go back? What if you just stayed quietly here and forgot all about it?’

  ‘Higgins or Barkley would hunt me down,’ she sighed. ‘Although maybe not. After all, I told Jeremy everything I know, which is hardly anything. I can’t just abandon Lucy, though. Apart from anything else, she hasn’t paid me yet.’

  ‘Hm. Stephanie’s doing supper.’

  ‘So I see. She’s a remarkably good girl.’

  ‘She is. But she had some sort of contretemps at school today. I tried to follow it, but lost the thread. Something to do with two other girls and a torn pocket.’

  ‘Is her pocket torn? Am I expected to mend it?’

  Drew shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask her. I think it wasn’t hers, actually.’

  ‘I tore a pocket in my school skirt once,’ Thea remembered. ‘It was a serious trauma at the time. You could see my pan
ts through the hole. I caught it on a doorknob.’ For a moment she experienced again the panic and horror of the incident. She had been about nine, and prone to embarrassment. The boys had made a big production of it, describing her knickers in lurid and inaccurate detail. ‘School is so horrible,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how anybody survives it.’

  ‘And yet they all do,’ said Drew. ‘More or less.’

  ‘I’ll ask her about it after supper. I expect I should phone the hospital again and ask about Lucy’s progress.’

  ‘Do that in the morning. You haven’t asked me about my funerals.’

  ‘Yes I have. You told me they went perfectly well.’

  ‘And nothing more than that. I was hoping you’d ask for details.’

  ‘Were you?’ She was torn between a sense of inadequacy as a wife, and impatience with his indirect approach. ‘I’m happy to listen if there are things you want to tell me.’

  Drew was clearly impatient too. ‘That’s putting it all wrong. After the way you were so helpful on Monday, I assumed you’d want to hear how they turned out.’ He made a muffled sound that seemed to indicate frustration. ‘But I can see that today’s events have distracted you.’

  ‘They have,’ she confirmed. ‘Monday seems quite a long time ago now. But you have every right to be disappointed in me – I’ve put my own business before yours again. I don’t seem to manage to get the balance right.’

  ‘No, no – it’s me. I’m whining for attention.’

  ‘You are a bit, but that’s okay. A modicum of whining is allowed. And I did think about you a lot today, wondering whether you were coping. And see – I came home, because I reckon I do more good here than sitting in a stupid empty house for no reason.’