Cotswold Mystery, A Read online

  Jessica forced herself to try, imagining one hand on the dead shoulder, the other pulling the weapon free, stepping quickly back when it came, worried that a gout or even fountain of blood might follow, letting the body flop where it liked, perhaps not even noticing in the haste to escape and try to forget the terrible details of what you’d done. Only when she became aware of Bill’s eyes on her face, did she understand how fully she’d accepted the challenge. ‘Alarmingly easy, isn’t it?’ he said gently.

  ‘Scary,’ she admitted.

  The removal of the stomach and careful collection of the contents again found Jessica’s lurking nausea overlaid by her intense interest in the findings. ‘No recent food consumed, but signs that he had a drink. Looks like tea.’ Jessica tried to recall whether there had been unwashed cups in Julian’s kitchen. Had his killer drunk a companionable cuppa with him before knifing him to death? She remembered items on a draining board, washed and left to dry in their own time. She thought there had only been one mug, one small plate and a saucepan.

  When it came to the hands, things became even more interesting. ‘Fluff under the fingernails – which are a little longer than normal.’ Bill extracted samples with a curved metal probe.

  ‘Would he have clutched at the carpet as he died?’ Jessica wondered aloud, visualising the reflexive action.

  ‘He was found in the kitchen, which isn’t carpeted,’ said the constable, consulting his notes. ‘I thought you were there?’

  Jessica flushed. ‘I was. Sorry. I forgot. So – he might have been stabbed in the living room and crawled through to the kitchen?’

  ‘Just possible, if he was quick,’ agreed Bill Morgan. ‘But it would have taken the last seconds of his life.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jessica, gulping again. ‘I see.’

  They excused her after that, despite the post-mortem having some way still to go. She drove back to Blockley without noticing a single thing along the way. Her head was full of the images of violent death, and the puzzle created by this particular one. The task was obvious: discover the identity of the person who drove the knife into the old man’s back. Her training up to that point had included nothing about detection of murderers. Uniformed police constables had only a background involvement in murder investigations, in any event. The routine door-to-door questioning, the trawling through endless computer files, perhaps the eventual arrest of the villain – but little or none of the meticulous assembly of tiny forensic clues, building a case, closing in. And where would this one start? The post-mortem findings painted a confusing picture of a man in his seventies, up very early on a Sunday morning, drinking tea. Then stabbed in the back, probably whilst lying on a carpet, and either crawling or being dragged into the next room and left to die, the knife being removed from the scene. A lamp in the carpeted living room had been knocked over and left where it fell.

  She knew nothing about him. The contents of his house had suggested an orderly man, bookish, solitary, reasonably well off financially. She had noted his surname at the mortuary – Jolly. Mr Julian Jolly. Identified by a Mr Giles Stephenson, neighbour. Well known to Mrs Gladys Gardner, elderly friend and neighbour, unreliable witness.

  She felt very little emotion during the thirty-minute drive. It was all too cerebral for that. The mystery of what had happened possessed her, under the influence of the cool dispassionate post-mortem. The testing of a wide range of hypotheses consumed her attention. The back door of Julian’s house had been unlocked, and there was access into his garden from a small street through a door in the wall. The front door had been locked and bolted on the inside. The killer had taken the knife away with him, and was unlikely to have a single drop of Julian’s blood on his person. But there were always traces. Her sketchy knowledge of forensics told her that. Everyone left a thread or a fleck of skin or a hair. There could be no escape, in the long run.

  Thea had woken with the same sense of mild disgruntlement that she had felt the previous evening. The facts of Julian’s death were skittering away from her, leaving her to plod along behind everyone else, fighting to gain enough information to construct a sensible story for herself. Jessica had told her a few basics before they went to bed, but she had clearly not wanted to rerun everything she had seen and heard during the aftermath of discovering the body. The knife in the back was the central detail. And the absence of any blood. And then the revelation that her daughter was invited to attend the post-mortem had obliterated everything else. Thea hated the idea of the girl witnessing such a gruelling procedure, being forced to confront the full reality of human mortality. It seemed corrupting somehow, tainting Jessica’s youthful innocence.

  But when Jess came back, at half past ten, Thea’s distress took a different form. Her daughter was not upset or disgusted, as expected, but fired with curiosity and determination to tackle the puzzle of Julian’s death. She answered Thea’s concerned questions – ‘Was it horrible? Did they take proper care of you? Did you learn anything?’ – impatiently. ‘I want to try and work out exactly how it happened,’ she said. ‘Why did he get up so early? Didn’t you hear anything? It was all going on just a few yards away from you.’

  Thea waved a hand before her face, as if swatting cobwebs aside, experiencing an impatience of her own. ‘I’ve told you already – it was my first morning here. I didn’t know which sounds were normal, and which might be something sinister. All I remember is that buzzer going off loud enough to rouse the whole street.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Half past seven or thereabouts.’

  ‘Old time or new?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The clocks went forward that night. Was it half past seven or actually half past eight?’

  Thea sighed. ‘Half past eight, I suppose. There were people out and about. I saw a little girl carrying some flowers for Mother’s Day. I wondered why they were all so early. All day, people were doing things at the wrong time.’

  ‘Honestly, you’re getting as senile as the old bat next door.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Thea gloomily. ‘She’s fifty years older than me.’

  Jessica laughed at that, but kept up her questions. ‘So before the buzzer – you didn’t hear anything?’

  ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you yesterday, soon after you arrived. There were some noises early on. Thumps and bumps, which I still think were probably Granny getting up. Her bedroom’s through the wall from ours, I think. Which reminds me,’ she said abruptly. ‘The police phoned and they want to come and interview her. They thought I should be there, with her daughter away. I tried to explain how impossible it would be, but they wouldn’t be told.’

  ‘It’s got to be done,’ Jessica nodded. ‘And I’m keen to meet the old thing properly at last. I’ve hardly seen her yet.’

  ‘You’ll get your chance,’ Thea assured her. ‘That looks like the police car now.’

  Out in the street, a few feet below the level of the pavement, the top of a car was visible. As they watched, both front doors opened and the heads and shoulders of two police officers appeared. One was female.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Thea. ‘Let’s just hope she remembers me.’

  They managed to persuade the officers to stand back slightly while Thea knocked on Granny’s front door. It was opened with comparative alacrity, and something akin to recognition dawned in the old woman’s eyes. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said. Something about the dear rang false to Thea, despite it having been used before. Somehow Gladys Gardner didn’t strike her as a person who would have used the word very naturally at any point in her life.

  ‘There are some people here to talk to you,’ she said, trying to make it sound quite a normal event. ‘Could we come in, do you think?’

  ‘I expect so. Giles told me I should. He wrote it all down, you know. That was kind of him, don’t you think?’ She proffered a sheet of paper with several lines of large black writing on it – the calligraphic version of shouting.

  ‘Very
useful,’ said Thea, wishing she’d had a similar idea two days ago.

  The four of them crowded into the living room, making it seem very small. The Mother’s Day flowers seemed as fresh and exuberant as ever, and Thea found herself speculating as to whether they really had come from Frances, or whether Giles Stevenson had taken it upon himself to get them on her behalf, in the hope of pleasing Granny.

  The old woman consulted her crib sheet. ‘It says “Don’t be worried by questions. Answer them to the best of your ability.” That’s clear, isn’t it.’ She looked chirpily from one face to another. ‘Go on, then. Ask me.’

  ‘Does it say anything there about Julian?’ Thea wanted to know.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Granny was almost eager. ‘That was the whole purpose, do you see?’ She held the paper under Thea’s nose. The top line read, ‘Julian is dead.’

  ‘A bit stark,’ Thea murmured faintly.

  Granny shook the paper irritably. ‘Facts are the thing,’ she said. ‘If he’s dead then I need to remember, don’t I?’

  The police woman nudged her way forward, eyebrows raised patronisingly. ‘When did you last see him?’ she asked. ‘Can you remember that?’

  Granny narrowed her eyes, but another glance at Giles’s instruction kept her on track. ‘Possibly last week,’ she said. ‘He came here often, you see. We were friends. He and I worked together in the past. He understands me and how my poor brain doesn’t work so well. He can help me.’ Only Thea appeared to have noted the slip into present tense, and understood the significance. Granny’s gaze wavered, and the hand holding Giles’s notes dropped to her side. ‘Where is he? I’m worried about him. Did something happen to him? And where’s Yvette? My own daughter’s left me all alone, and now my house is full of strange people.’

  As if to compound the situation, someone knocked briskly on the door, startling everyone in the house. Jessica, being nearest to the door, went to answer it. Granny, with some sense of domestic courtesy, elbowed her way after her.

  A loud male voice could be clearly heard. ‘Oh, Gladys, there you are! What’s been happening here? Are you all right? Did something happen to Julian?’

  ‘Thomas,’ said Granny, as if to herself. ‘Thomas is at my door.’

  Jessica took charge. ‘I’m afraid this isn’t a very good moment,’ she said. ‘The police are here.’

  ‘Police? But Gladys can’t – I mean, she won’t be able to—’ he floundered. ‘And who are you?’ he finished.

  ‘It’s a bit difficult to explain,’ Jessica said. ‘If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, I’m sure we’d like to have a word with you. Are you a neighbour?’

  Thomas waved an arm across the street. ‘I live down there,’ he said. The down suggested one of the cottages approached via a small lane leading off the main street. ‘But please tell me. I need to know the truth. Julian and I – that is, we’ve always been such friends, and now they’re saying he’s dead.’ He quivered uncontrollably for a few seconds. ‘Dead! Can that be possible? I must speak to Gladys. Why did nobody come to tell me? Me – his best and oldest friend.’ His voice cracked, and his head drooped forward with the weight of his emotions.

  Jessica put a hand on his wrist, and said gently, ‘I assume you haven’t been interviewed yet?’

  ‘Interviewed?’ He mumbled the word as if it made no sense to him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The police will be calling at every house in the area, as part of their investigations into the sudden death of Mr Jolly.’

  ‘So he is dead.’

  ‘I think you knew that already, didn’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps I did.’ He raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘And if they’re interviewing us all, then that must mean he was murdered.’ Jessica made no attempt to contradict him.

  Granny had been standing alongside Jessica throughout this exchange. ‘Murder?’ she echoed breathlessly. ‘You mean manslaughter, don’t you?’ She smiled earnestly at Jessica, and then turned a stern face on Thomas. ‘Not murder, you see. Not at all.’

  Thomas gave her a long mournful look, shook his head, and turned to go. ‘I’ll wait for my interview, then,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to intrude.’

  Jessica watched the shambling figure as it retreated across the street, and then went back into the house, ushering Mrs Gardner ahead of her.

  Granny was impossibly animated after that. Despite repeated references to her notes, in particular the top line of them, she appeared quite unaffected emotionally. ‘Dead,’ she mouthed, as if tasting the word. ‘Julian is dead. Well, well. It comes to us all, of course. We mustn’t feel too sorry for him. Where would be the sense in that?’ Her peculiar reaction to the word murder had evidently already slipped away beyond recall.

  The police officers were completely out of their depth. One of them urged Jessica out into the hall, and whispered, ‘Is she for real? Can she possibly be acting?’

  Jessica rolled her eyes. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. It’s a brilliant performance, if it’s all for our benefit. But does it really matter? She’s no use as a witness, is she? Even if she’s treating the whole thing as a game, that makes her unfit. Either she really can’t remember, or she’s deranged in some other way.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The woman scratched her hairline fiercely. ‘Never met anything like this before.’

  Jessica, flattered to be consulted, hurried to agree. ‘She’s such a sweet old thing, isn’t she? Like a child.’

  ‘Right,’ said the officer dubiously. ‘Though I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen some of the things children can do when the whim takes them. It isn’t very sweet, usually.’

  Jessica remembered the savage little boy she’d smacked, and shuddered. ‘That’s true,’ she muttered.

  ‘So what do we do about this old Granny? She’s the closest to the victim – the only friend we know of up to now. Quite likely the last to see him alive, come to that.’

  ‘You’ll need to talk to my mum. She came here on Saturday and spent most of the day with the old girl. She’s got a better idea of how her brain works – or doesn’t work – than I have.’

  ‘OK. Well let’s have one more go.’ The woman squared her shoulders and marched back into the room.

  Granny was sitting on her sofa, with Thea beside her. The other police officer – a sergeant – was bending towards her. ‘Can you tell us everything you remember about Mr Jolly?’ he was urging her.

  Granny met his gaze, wide-eyed. ‘Everything?’ she repeated. ‘That might take a while.’ She began a disjointed litany of facts, most of them concerning Julian’s career as an archaeologist dating back to the nineteen fifties or thereabouts. ‘And he’s writing about Joanna Southcott’s Box,’ she threw in, apparently for good measure. ‘With Thomas. Did I see Thomas recently? I can hear his voice in my head. Awful man. Fat Thomas.’ She giggled. ‘He and Julian are always fighting. Like boys, they are. What was I saying?’

  Everybody sighed. Thea patted the blotchy old hand, remembering the injured wrist from Saturday afternoon. There was no sign at all of any lasting damage. The grip on her own hand was strong, almost clawlike.

  ‘Well, I think we’ll call it a day,’ said the police sergeant, flipping his notebook closed. ‘I’ve tried to get most of that down.’

  Thea smiled sympathetically at him. The jumble of information could be vitally important or utterly irrelevant and how was anybody to know the difference? The snippet about Thomas, which did in fact chime with the encounter on Saturday afternoon, was the only remark that seemed remotely to pertain to current events.

  ‘Mrs Osborne?’ said the police woman, tilting her head slightly. ‘Could we—? Do you think we could go next door and have a little talk?’

  ‘Give me a minute,’ said Thea, gently withdrawing her hand from the old woman’s grip.

  Awkwardly, the party left the house, with Granny nodding and smiling at their retreating backs. Thea turned to her on the doorstep. ‘I’ll come and see you again later on,’ she said, knowing
such promises meant nothing. If she failed to honour it, Granny would never notice. Or would she? The frequent gleams of intelligence in the small dark eyes were impossible to ignore.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The ‘little talk’ never properly happened. ‘We were basically only sent to assess the old lady,’ said the sergeant. ‘I just wondered whether there’s any more you can tell us that might help with that?’

  Thea sagged helplessly and shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘What you see is what you get, more or less. She’s very changeable.’

  ‘OK,’ he nodded. ‘We’ll have to report back, and they’ll send a CID team to go on to the next stage.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Right away, I would guess. Our job now is to get on with the door-to-door. Last sightings, unusual noises, suspicious characters – all the usual.’ He sighed. ‘That old girl’s really off with the fairies, isn’t she?’

  Thea grimaced unhappily. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he huffed carelessly. ‘It usually is.’

  * * *

  Thea and Jessica slumped together on the sofa, trying to catch up with events. ‘So we can take it that it definitely wasn’t suicide,’ said Thea, after a few minutes. ‘Can we?’

  ‘Absolutely definitely, it was not. Even if he attached the knife to something and rammed himself onto it backwards, he could hardly have pulled it out and hidden it before dying. The pathologist said he’d only have about thirty seconds, at the very most. As it is, he seems to have crawled from one room to another, which was remarkable.’

  ‘Pity,’ Thea sighed. ‘Suicide would be such a relief. So much better than a murder.’

  ‘Christ, Mum – listen to yourself. The man’s dead.’