Fear in the Cotswolds (10 page)

She could phone Kate and ask whether there was any prospect of getting her car out. Another day, and she feared she might get seriously worried. Walking to Northleach was not an appealing project, if she was honest. It was bad enough to think of putting her clammy boots on again to feed the animals, let alone walking a mile or more on the slippery road surface.

And she really did not want to walk anywhere. An insistent little voice claimed that it had nothing to do with cold boots or slippery snow. It was good old-fashioned fear that made her want to stay indoors. Something very strange had been going on out there since Friday, and she could make no sense of it. Without a logical explanation, anything seemed possible. Her stomach clenched at the memory of those footprints on Friday morning and her sudden terror at the sight of them. That had been illogical at the time – until she found a dead man,
twice
. 
Now there was surely every reason to be fearful, and she allowed herself to give in to it, just as soon as she’d got back from a swift visit to the donkey’s shed, and the issue of another armful of hay.

Too late now, anyway, to call Kate and ask for some tractor-based assistance. It could all wait for the morning – a Monday, when normal service could be expected to resume as far as possible. Schools would have to open again, snow or no snow, if they didn’t want their SATs results to suffer. Shops and pubs and doctors’ surgeries would all have pent-up queues wanting their services. Four days was more than enough time to be out of action.

But it seemed the elements had other ideas. When she took Jimmy out for his last toilet break, there were fine flakes of snow swirling in a noticeable breeze. Snow
and
wind equalled a blizzard, and that was the very last thing she wanted. Her bowels churned involuntarily as she imagined how it might be if further heavy snow fell and was banked up by the wind, concealing fences and obstructions even more effectively than before. The sense of isolation became acute, and she returned to the house actually shaking slightly with anxiety.

The wind created sounds that were hard to explain. A sporadic screeching had Thea
searching for the cat, thinking it was being tortured somewhere outside. She looked into every room before finding the animal sitting contentedly on a rug beside the warm air vent in Lucy’s study. The study door had been closed, or so she thought – presumably the cat had managed to nudge it open at some point.
Don’t
be so paranoid
, she told herself, as she glanced around at the computer paraphernalia wondering whether some intruder had left the door open. The latch was insubstantial and everybody knew how clever cats could be when they wanted to get through a door.

She worried about the rabbits, especially the babies, with little but their own fur and a somewhat flimsy shed wall between themselves and the cold snow. Was it possible that they could freeze to death? Were they originally from some warm exotic place that gave them little natural ability to maintain their temperatures? Indigenous bunnies had deep burrows to hide in, where the soil retained the heat of summer. So far these tame things seemed to be surviving well enough – but if it got any colder, perhaps she ought to bring them into the house.

She turned on the television, but the uniform banality on all channels only made her feel more at odds with the world. What she needed was a friendly face, an engrossing conversation,
with good food and wine. Not a lot to ask, she thought self-pityingly. What stupid mistakes had she made to bring herself to this lonely state? January in a snowbound barn, alone except for a load of dependent animals, and under siege by a menacing lunatic that carted dead bodies across fields for no discernible reason? It was no way to live, she decided with a long unsettled sigh.

Her dreams were full of long chase sequences where she hid behind bales of hay and forgot all about her dog until spotting the soaked spaniel head whirling away on a great flood. She was wearing hiking boots as heavy as lead, which fixed her feet to the ground and made movement impossible. She woke to find Hepzie snuggled against her feet, licking one paw with an urgency that spread moisture around a wide area. The dog had always been a messy licker.

It was dark outside, and still noisy with the wind. Nudging Hepzie with one foot, she hissed at her to stop licking and keep still. She ought to get up and check for snowdrifts, but no way was
she going to do that. What would be the point? Time enough in the morning for any really bad news. Everything would seem better in daylight. She drifted off to sleep again, thinking about those hardy human beings who made it through the ice age, without any of the comforts of electricity or oil or underfloor heating. But they did have wolf skins and log fires and each other, she argued to herself. Like the rabbits in their deep burrows, they probably chose the most sheltered caves to colonise, and managed to cope perfectly well.

When morning came, Thea felt no urgency to leave the bed, despite the comfortable background temperature maintained by Lucy’s clever system. She could think of no reason to hurry, apart from Jimmy’s need to go outside, and he seemed to have an infinitely capacious bladder. The light seemed much as before, but small comfort could be derived from that. All it suggested was that there had not been a dramatic thaw during the night.

Her small travelling clock informed her that it was past eight – not yet late, but close to a dereliction of duty for a house-sitter. She was thirsty, but not desperately so. While she continued to think about it, she drifted back to sleep. When a loud knocking came on the front door, it shocked her awake with a painfully thumping heart. Hepzie gave a protesting yap and jumped off the bed.

She hurried down the stairs in her dressing gown, feeling bleary and confused. What time was it now? Had she slept the morning away? Was it some terrible news waiting for her on the doorstep? Fumbling with the lock, she called, ‘I’m coming,’ before finally getting the door open.

It was Janina, looking perfectly calm. ‘Why is there no doorbell?’ she asked. ‘I knocked for many minutes.’

‘Sorry.’ Thea rubbed her hair and tried to blink the fuzz from her eyes. ‘I was asleep. What time is it?’

‘Nearly nine.’

‘So why…? Have you got the boys?’ She peered out into the snow, expecting to see a snowball fight under way.

‘Benjamin is at school – although I think it wrong to send him. He is very upset about George, poor boy, and Nicky is at his nursery until lunchtime.’

‘So early?’

Janina shrugged. ‘They go at half past eight, for the working mothers’ convenience. Bunny believes Nicky should have social contact, so he attends for three mornings each week. I have him all the other time.’

‘Has Bunny come home yet?’

The Bulgarian girl heaved a deep contemptuous
sigh. ‘I am wondering if she will ever come back. She has gone silent now, and I suspect another man, perhaps.’

Thea belatedly ushered her visitor inside and closed the door. ‘They must be desperately worried, then? Simon and the boys. Surely she wouldn’t do that?’ She spoke to Janina’s back as the visitor sauntered admiringly into the main living room.

‘This is a pleasant home,’ she commented. ‘So warm and with good proportions.’

‘Do you want some coffee?’ Thea’s hand went to her hair again, aware of the mess she was in, tousled and undressed. ‘I’ll have to go and put some clothes on, and see to the animals. Did it snow again in the night? Did you walk here?’

‘A bit. I left the car at the top of your track. I like to walk in the snow, but I should have brought my skis with me. I could travel faster then.’

The image of a person skiing across the English fields made Thea smile. ‘I doubt if it would have been worth it. This can’t last much longer.’ She went to the window and looked out. ‘It doesn’t seem much worse than yesterday, thank goodness.’

‘Excuse me, but I came to speak to you about George,’ Janina burst out. ‘I am disturbed about his dying, and I do not understand some things I
heard about you seeing him in a field. Can you tell me the story, the whole thing?’

Thea began to feel harried. ‘I suppose I can, but first I really must get dressed.’ She could hear Jimmy whining from the conservatory, very much the first priority on a suddenly crowded agenda. ‘And before that I have to let Lucy’s dog out.’ She went quickly through the house to the back, where the lurcher was standing shiveringly by the French window that led out into the garden. This was highly unusual, and Thea felt instantly guilty. ‘Oh, Jimmy!’ she crooned, ‘I’m so sorry. Are you desperate?’

With a vestige of his customary politeness he went outside at the first opportunity and relieved himself as if turning on a tap. He did not cock his leg or squat, but simply stood where he was and relaxed the relevant sphincter. Thea was impressed at the degree of control that had prevented him from doing it indoors. A sizeable area of yellow melting snow was spreading beneath him.

‘Good boy!’ she approved, giving him a pat. ‘Very good boy. Do you want to go for a little walk?’ She looked round for her spaniel, but could see no sign of her. ‘Hepzie!’ she called. ‘Where are you?’

‘She’s here,’ came a new voice from a new direction.

Thea’s first thought was that it was very bad form to be seen by two different people still in her dressing gown. It was sure to get back to Lucy, and reflect poorly on her showing as a house-sitter.

‘Hello?’ she called. ‘I’m in the garden at the back.’

There was still an unsullied patch of snow around the western side of the house, and it was with a small pang of regret that Thea watched Old Kate stomp vigorously across it towards her in her stout rubber boots.

‘Morning,’ she said, ignoring Thea’s costume. ‘More snow in the night, then.’ It was a flat statement of fact, requiring no response.

‘You didn’t bring the tractor.’ Thea also spoke factually.

‘Too busy. The Herefords need feeding, and one of them looks like calving any time now. I should bring her in, but she’s being bolshy about it. I did wonder…’ she eyed Thea consideringly ‘…if you’d give me a hand. Lucy sometimes shows willing when it comes to this sort of thing.’

It felt rather like having to climb up a long ladder, carrying something heavy and needing to get to the top quickly. She remembered her dream, with the lead boots encumbering her movements. ‘I’ve got rather a lot going on, just
at the minute,’ she said. ‘Janina’s here, and I haven’t done the donkey or the rabbits yet.’

Kate said nothing, merely waiting.

‘Hello,’ came Janina’s firm voice from the conservatory. ‘You did not come back.’ She fixed Thea with an accusing stare, only flicking a quick glance at Kate.

‘Sorry,’ Thea apologised, beginning to think it a word she was uttering rather too often this morning. ‘And now I really am going to get dressed, and then I must do the donkey. You two can stay and make yourselves some coffee if you like. I suppose you know each other?’

Both women nodded briefly, as if preferring not to make much of their acquaintance. Thea continued, ‘Everything’s more or less self-explanatory in the kitchen.’ And before either Kate or Janina could reply, she had kicked off her boots, carried them through the house and hurried upstairs to her bedroom, Hepzie following her.

‘We’re not used to visitors, are we?’ she said to the spaniel as she quickly pulled on several layers of clothes. The feeling of being invaded was strong, and with it came resentment and some resistance to the demands being made on her. Normally the dog would be delighted to meet new people, and she did seem to have warm feelings towards Kate, but Janina had failed to
impress her. She followed Thea back down the stairs, placing her feet carefully on the bare wooden treads.

Without a word, Thea pulled open the front door and went outside, having stamped back into her boots, and grabbed the jacket hanging on the back of the door. This one was hers, not Lucy’s, only just warm enough for these wintry temperatures, and not at all waterproof.

The donkey’s paddock had clearly been sprinkled with a new fall of snow. The grass that had begun to show through was once again invisible. ‘Where will it all end?’ she asked Hepzie dramatically. ‘I’m fed up with it already.’

This was the fifth day, she calculated, since the first snowfall last Thursday. Less than a week, and she was already wondering how much more she could take. A foolish question, she knew – she, Thea Osborne, had long been rather a specialist in levels of endurance. She lived by the motto that if she was all right at this precise moment, then she was all right, full stop. It had been the mantra that she clung to in the first weeks after Carl’s death, focusing on it instead of asking herself how she was ever going to manage, how she could ever hope to recover from such a catastrophic blow.

And it worked, she reminded herself now. She was coping, wasn’t she? Carrying water to
the donkey, cleaning out the worst of the muck around his stall, giving him fresh hay – all quite normal and efficient. But on another level it wasn’t working at all, because she was still quite uncomfortably scared.

What of, she asked herself? What was the source of the unpleasant sensation in her guts, the dry mouth and the semi-paralysis of her thought processes? As she approached the donkey’s shed, she had hardly been able to bring herself to go inside, convinced that a crazy attacker would leap out at her with a knife or a gun. Now she emerged again, unscathed, she was sure there must be someone lurking in the snow behind the building. The fact that two women were in the house, within easy earshot, hardly assuaged her fear at all. Ever since those shocking footprints on Friday morning, she had been frightened – pushing it aside for hours at a time, admittedly, but unable to quell it completely. Following those tracks the day before had been a courageous attempt to confront the fear, to discover a rational explanation for the various mysteries, and for a while it had done what she wanted – but since discovering the dead George, with the complete absence of explanation as to who had moved him and why, she had felt the same breathless panic as on Friday.

The unpredicted arrival of Janina and Kate had
made it worse: the loud knocking, and then the sudden voice from around the corner of the house – it made her feel that she could be surprised at any moment by anything or anyone. It made her jumpy. It made her see herself as quite unbearably vulnerable to all sorts of ghastly attack.

When she finally got back to the kitchen, it was obvious that conversation had been in full swing. The two heads were close together, the room warm with female revelations and hypotheses. ‘Been talking about George, I suppose,’ Thea said casually.

‘Among other things,’ agreed Kate.

‘So I was right, wasn’t I? He
was
dead, and somebody
had
moved him.’ It was less important now that the police had already conceded the victory, but it still had to be said.

‘You were right,’ said Kate, with a nod. ‘I hoped you weren’t, but you were. I hope it makes you happy.’

Wrong-footed again. ‘Of course it doesn’t. But it’s horrible not to be believed.’

Janina was looking from one to the other, as if watching a tennis match. ‘Did nobody believe you?’ she asked Thea.

‘Well, they didn’t exactly say that, but it was fairly obvious when they decided not to set up a search for him. They definitely didn’t think somebody had come along with a sledge and
dragged him home.’ There was still a warm glow of triumph inside her, at the way she had vindicated herself.

‘But
who
?
’ asked Janina, her eyes wide.

‘I thought you might have an idea about that. Haven’t you and Kate solved the mystery while I was outside?’

The two restrained smiles were oddly alike on the faces of her visitors, as if she had trespassed on a taboo, and should be politely ignored. ‘We have no idea,’ said Kate. ‘There’s no sense in it at all, as far as we can see.’

‘Poor George,’ murmured Janina. ‘That poor man.’

‘Indeed,’ nodded Kate. ‘Though I have to say my conscience is clear.’

Thea looked at her sharply. It seemed a very odd thing to say. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ she asked.

‘No reason. What I meant was – we’d given him a roof over his head when he needed it. That’s our cottage, you realise. We let him live there rent free.’

‘I see,’ said Thea, thinking there might be unforeseen consequences to allowing someone to occupy such a prime property for an indefinite period. Perhaps Kate already understood that such an idea might well occur to people. That some might wonder at the convenience of George’s abrupt removal.

‘I do need to get back in a minute,’ Kate
reminded herself, and the others. ‘About that Hereford…’ She cocked an eyebrow at Thea, who was still wearing her outdoor jacket.

‘Oh, God,’ sighed Thea. ‘I’m not sure I’d be much use. And I haven’t had any coffee yet. I’m desperate for a drink. And I wondered whether you know much about rabbits. One of them’s got babies, and I suppose that means the father is in with them. Does that matter, do you think?’

‘Rabbits!’ scoffed Kate. Janina laughed with an echoing note of contempt.

Thea found herself tiring of the Bulgarian girl’s disdain for everything she encountered. ‘Yes, rabbits,’ she said. ‘They deserve to be looked after as well as anything else. It’s what I’m being paid for, after all.’

‘If there’s a buck in with a group of does, there’ll be more babies, won’t there?’ said Kate, evidently willing to suspend her own priorities for a moment.

Thea smiled for the first time that day. She could feel the pull of the muscles loosening as she did so. ‘I hope you’re wrong – the shed’s not big enough for a whole maternity ward. We could end up with dozens of them at this rate.’

‘How many babies are there in this litter?’

‘Six, I think. I haven’t investigated much yet.’