Guilt in the Cotswolds (8 page)

They were hungry and shocked, worried about the dogs and all the other implications of what had happened. ‘I feel stupidly responsible,’ said Thea. ‘I didn’t take Millie seriously enough. I didn’t do a thing to help her.’

‘There was nothing you could do. And actually, when you think about it, you did a huge thing by finding her father.’

‘By mistake, and too late.’

Drew was cutting a thick slice from a somewhat dry loaf of brown bread. ‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘Is there any butter? Jam? Cheese?’

‘Butter and cheese in the fridge. I brought it from home. There’s not much left.’

‘Want some?’

She shrugged. ‘We’ll have to go out for a proper meal. There are pubs.’

He frowned. ‘I’m not sure I want to go to a pub. Can we get a takeaway from somewhere?’

‘Cirencester. It’s not too far away.’

Drew was obviously thinking as he chewed. ‘I had an idea,’ he said. ‘Just now. Don’t you get a sense of being
directed
? By Millie, I mean. She dumps these dogs on you, and burbles about Yanworth and her dad disappearing. Couldn’t it all be a very subtle way of ensuring that it was you who found the body?’

She puffed out her cheeks, in an expression of sceptical disbelief. ‘That’s pushing things,’ she objected. ‘She’d have to be a mind reader or a hypnotist for that to work. I wasn’t thinking about her father at all when we set out towards Yanworth.’

‘You know – people are very predictable. If she’s clever enough, she could quite easily feed you suggestions that led to something very like what actually happened.’

‘No, Drew. How could she
possibly
predict that we would stop at that very barn? Besides, I don’t think she is particularly clever.’

‘I expect you’re right. It might be absolutely mad to even suspect it. There’s just a niggle about it all. Something too neat.’

‘But why would she? If she killed him, she wouldn’t want the body discovered. It’s not logical.’

‘No.’ He looked dubious. ‘But if she knows who did it, and is scared to say anything directly to the police, she’d have to find a devious way to get to the same point.’

‘You know what you’re doing, don’t you?’ she challenged him. ‘You’re reverting to your old self.
Drew Slocombe, detective. I thought we’d decided he was gone.’

‘Does that annoy you?’

She thought about it for a moment. ‘A bit. It makes me feel tired and peculiar. Unclean, almost. This whole thing – the Wilshire family, the house, the weird celebrity girl—’

‘What? Who?’

‘I forgot to tell you. Millie’s friend is an actor on
Random Road
. She’s one of the four sisters. Millie calls her Judith, but she’s Jayjay Mason to the rest of the world. It did take me a while to remember that,’ she admitted. ‘The point is, she’s about as famous as you can get if even I recognised her.’

‘Why is she weird?’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t say much. She gets driven about by a chauffeur. It’s a whole other world.’

‘Lots of famous people around here,’ he said, as if it was too obvious to be worthy of comment. Other thoughts were taking priority and the next one turned him pale. ‘You don’t think they’ll suspect
me
, do you?’

‘What?’ Thea was more concerned with food, and dogs and the mess the house was in. Her remark about feeling unclean had to do, in part, with the ransacked chests and cupboards and the decisions about the contents that might not now be made. She had intruded and interfered; and even though asked to do so, it was still unsavoury. The knowledge that a bereft old woman
was probably even now being informed of her son’s death only added to the feeling. Drew’s sudden panic struck her as rather beside the point.

‘It happened before, remember? They thought I was a murderer then. Why not now?’

‘What possible reason could they have?’

‘I’ve got a contract with the Wilshires for a funeral. I introduced you to them. And I found the body. They always suspect the person who finds the body.’

‘No, they don’t. That’s rubbish. Anyway, you must have a good alibi. Lots of people must have seen you yesterday.’

‘He didn’t die yesterday,’ he said, to her surprise.

‘How do you know?’

‘Rigor mortis. He wasn’t entirely stiff, which means he was probably dead for only ten or twelve hours. It was probably quite cold overnight, which slows it down, but his legs were hardly stiff at all.’

‘You didn’t touch him, did you?’ Alarm began to flicker through her.

‘I
nudged
him a bit. With my foot.’

‘Yuk!’ It struck her as a very odd thing for an undertaker to do, trained as they were in total respect for the dead. ‘You
kicked
him?’

‘Not at all. What a dreadful idea. It was done very gently. It’s a sort of instinct. When we go to collect a body, we always check for rigor. It affects how we carry them. And I was trying to fend off the dogs, as well. Anyway, I would guess he died sometime early today.
Not that it matters what I think. The pathologist will figure it out better than I can.’

‘So where was he all day yesterday?’ Her insides began to flutter. ‘Oh, Lord, Drew. I wonder if anybody has seen him since Thursday evening, when he left me here. What if I was the last person to see him alive?’

‘You mean he was hiding away somewhere the whole of yesterday, all by himself?’

‘That’s what it looks like. But why go to the barn like that? And where was his car?’

‘These, dear Watson, are the big questions. But you’re right – we don’t have to find the answers. Once the cops have interviewed young Millie and the farmer chap, it might all fall into place. Our work is done. We found the body for them. They can take it from here.’

‘Brave words. But we’ve still got the dogs and the house and no idea what we should do next.’

‘What we do is find a Chinese place in Cirencester, phone an order and feast ourselves on lemon chicken and beef satay. My favourites, as I hope you remember,’ he twinkled.

There were quite a few subtexts to this suggestion: Thea’s poor showing as a cook; the hint of celebration and indulgence; the reluctance to show themselves to the public gaze, and more. ‘We can find somewhere with Google,’ she said. ‘They might have the menu, as well.’

It was readily accomplished, thanks to the Digital Age. So easy and smooth was it that neither thought
back to a time in their youth when the process would involve digging about for a printed menu in a messy drawer, and ransacking pockets and purses for cash to pay for it. Only when Drew had set off to collect the order did Thea pause to acknowledge how convenient life had become in so many areas.

And he wouldn’t even get lost on the way back, with his trusty satnav to keep him straight.

‘I could do it with the map,’ she insisted, as if it was an argument she might yet win. ‘You turn left off the 429 after the Hare and Hounds pub, then right at the farm shop, and aim for the church.’

‘Can you see the church in the dark?’ he wondered, with feigned innocence. ‘I rather fancy not.’

‘Just go,’ she said.

He had been gone ten minutes when the door knocker ominously shook the silence of the village. Someone was very eager to gain entrance, by the sound of it. Wishing there was a way of seeing who it was, Thea cautiously opened the door.

‘What’s been going on?’ demanded Norah Cookham.

Thea acted dumb. ‘How do you mean?’

‘My brother-in-law just called me and said there’s been some dreadful find at the barn on the Yanworth road. You and those dogs were there, he says. And a man,’ she added with a narrow-eyed accusation.

‘How does your brother-in-law know me? Where does he live?’

‘That’s irrelevant. But if you must know, he saw your car when you arrived here on Thursday evening. He never forgets a car.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ said Thea angrily. ‘It has nothing to do with you. Or if it has, then you should speak to the police and do what you can to assist them. It sounds as if your brother-in-law could be extremely useful, with his encyclopedic knowledge of where every car in Gloucestershire was at any given time.’ She was quite proud of this quick piece of repartee, but Norah Cookham was unimpressed.

‘How
dare
you?’ The narrow eyes glittered with a rage that far outdid Thea’s. It conjured visions of catfights in East End pubs, with scratching and hair-pulling. Norah Cookham’s inauspicious roots were still very near the surface. ‘Who do you think you are?’ she finished.

Thea almost laughed in the woman’s face. Throwing caution to the wind, she continued in the same defiant vein. ‘I think I’m a person who’s been landed in a very difficult situation, with nothing to feel guilty about. I have no obligations whatsoever towards you. You obviously have some sort of problem that has nothing to do with me.’ Never inclined to prevaricate or skirt around an issue, she relished the provocation that had sparked this speech.

It was highly effective. Norah Cookham’s mouth opened and shut and her face turned red. ‘You have no idea,’ she gasped. ‘No idea at all.’

‘That’s absolutely true. And I’m hoping to keep it
that way. Now please leave me alone.’ She began to close the door, forcing the woman backwards. Her own anger was flaring almost out of control at the realisation that the Cookham woman had waited until Drew left before accosting the undefended house-sitter – or whatever she was. It was an act of aggression, against which Thea felt fully justified in defending herself.

When it was finished, and the dogs were belatedly showing solicitude, she thought it over. One stark impression was that Norah Cookham was obviously someone to treat with care. For a few moments, it was tempting to cast her in the role of killer – pushing Richard Wilshire to his death in a fit of rage. But the same doubts arose as had done where Millie was concerned. Would anybody be such a fool as to show themselves in such an aggressive and untrustworthy light if they really had just committed murder?

It had to be an infuriated farmer who’d done it. There was no other credible explanation. The police would quickly grasp the facts and pinpoint the perpetrator. It was even tempting to hope that she and Drew would not be required to make any further testimony. They had given every detail to the detective sergeant who’d questioned them at the scene. Drew’s worries about being under suspicion were clearly silly.

He was a long time coming back with the food. It was almost nine when he finally appeared. Thea had
warmed plates and wished there was some wine to go with the meal. She fed the dogs from the supplies left by Millie, and worried a little about what was going to happen to them. They were subdued and anxious, glancing towards the door every few minutes. Their fate might be a tragic one, if there was really nobody in the family to take them on. They were not really suited to domestic life, anyway. Their instincts were to work outdoors with sheep; lying around all day in a house would drive them to bad temper and destructive behaviour. For the hundredth time, Thea wished people had more sense than to take such animals into their urban homes, when there were far more appropriate breeds available.

Richard Wilshire had not been entirely urban, of course. He had visited farms, where the dogs were probably allowed to explore and meet others of their own kind.

All was bustle as they opened the foil containers and dived into the delayed meal. To Thea’s great approval, Drew had acquired a bottle of white wine on his foray into Cirencester. ‘You clever thing!’ she said.

She then reported the visitation from Norah Cookham, proudly repeating her own response. ‘She was so cross,’ she said with a smile.

He shuddered. ‘You’ve made an enemy,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t that worry you?’

‘Not really. I don’t expect I’ll ever see her again. I’m leaving here tomorrow. I’ve decided.’

‘Have you?’ He nodded to himself, as he considered the implications. ‘I suppose you should, by rights. I’m sorry, love. This is all my fault for suggesting you come here in the first place. I do feel bad about it.’

‘You meant well.’

‘That makes it sound even worse. Meaning well is seldom a good thing. The path to hell, and all that.’

‘I didn’t have to agree to it. Anyway, it sounded perfectly all right. Neither of us could have anticipated the way it turned out.’

‘Except you didn’t really like it, even before this afternoon – did you? It isn’t a very pleasant job.’

‘And now I’ve got these dogs to worry about. I’ll have to find somebody to take them, before I can leave.’ This gave her cause to worry about her decision. ‘I hope we can get hold of Millie tomorrow.’

Drew had a worry of his own. ‘I really have to go to Broad Campden. I can’t come up here and not even look at the house.’ He blew out a long breath. ‘Every time I think about it, I feel burdened with obligation. I wish, really, she’d never left it to me. It’s an awful thing to do to a person, when you think about it.’

‘She meant well,’ said Thea, and they both laughed.

‘I know it’s all going to work out right in the end. It’s mainly a matter of timing, with Maggs out of action. Moving house is so
violent
, don’t you think? Uprooting the children, packing up all your possessions, and dealing with estate agents. Except I won’t have to do that, of course. That’s one blessing. I don’t think I could
ever face trying to sell a house these days. It sounds a totally insane business.’

‘I’ve got to sell mine,’ she reminded him.

‘So you have. I forgot. Are you sure …?’ He gave her an anxious look.

‘Stop it. It’s all going to be all right.’

Somehow the reassurance had the opposite of the desired effect. Just at that moment, the future felt treacherously unreliable.

Thea’s phone pinged, and she found a text message. ‘We’re to go for interview in Cirencester at nine-thirty tomorrow,’ she announced. ‘Summoned by text. What’s the world coming to?’

‘Do you have to reply?’

‘Doesn’t look like it. They’ll assume we’ll obey.’

‘At least it’s nice and early. We can be away by coffee time, with any luck – straight to Broad Campden.’ He looked relieved. ‘That should work quite well.’