Malice in the Cotswolds (23 page)

‘Peaceful Repose Burials,’ he recited into the phone. Thea tried to put herself in the shoes of a recently bereaved person, looking for a funeral, and could not help feeling that Drew fell somewhere short of the ideal. His tone was flat and automatic, as if he was thinking about something else entirely.

Which he almost certainly was, of course.

‘It’s me. Thea,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t your phone tell you who’s calling?’

‘Yes, yes, but I just grabbed it without looking properly. The sun’s on the screen, so I can’t read it easily.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘More or less, if living in a perpetual state of limbo can be okay. I had rather an awful conversation with the kids this morning, and we haven’t entirely recovered from it yet. And Maggs is falling apart. She found out where I went yesterday and that led to a whole lot of aggravation. It’s been like a long line of dominoes knocking each other over. And it’s still going on. I have to go to the hospital soon, with all that that involves.’

‘I feel as if some of it at least might be sort of my fault,’ she suggested.

‘Maggs would agree with you.’

‘And you?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think my judgement can be relied on just at the moment. Why did you phone?’

‘Victor Parker’s dead. He was right there in that house, stabbed to death, as we stood outside talking to that nanny.’

Drew said nothing for several seconds. ‘Are you sure?’ he finally managed. ‘That seems incredible.’

‘I did tell you about hearing him cry out and a woman screaming. I
knew
it was something serious, but somehow talked myself out of getting too concerned. Everything there seemed so ordinary and normal, didn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure I know what’s normal for places like that – but yes, I suppose it did. So you’re a kind of witness to
two
murders now.’ He almost sounded envious, and Thea gave a short huff of laughter.

‘I sort of am, yes. At least I did everything right – contacted the police, as well as actually
going
to London. I think they should regard me as a model citizen. Obviously now there’s a massive murder investigation, with the Metropolitan people taking over, and media coverage and all sorts.’

‘And a rethink about the little boy in your village,’ he said slowly. ‘I assume.’

‘Right. Although I have a nasty feeling they’ll do
their best to pin both murders on Gudrun. Then nobody loses face.’

Drew made a low moan. ‘I can’t.’

‘Can’t what? What do you mean?’

‘I can’t get involved. I can’t even let you tell me about it any more. There’s too much happening here. The children need me, even with Karen’s mother here.’

‘Is she staying all through the holiday?’

‘We don’t know. She’ll have to be back and forth from North Wales, if so. Her husband’s having an awful time without her, or so he says. They’re both in pieces over Karen, of course.’

‘But she must be quite useful?’

‘Oh yes,’ he sighed. ‘She does free me and Maggs up to get some work done, at least. But the business can’t stand a lot more of this. We hardly dare book any funerals at all, in case we won’t manage to be here at the right time on the right day. Look at yesterday – I came within a whisker of missing that one.’

‘Which had nothing to do with Karen,’ she reminded him with a pang of guilt. ‘I do see what you mean about me and my problems being one demand too many.’

‘“Demand” isn’t the right word,’ he corrected. ‘Not exactly.’

‘I think it is,’ she argued gently. ‘I think it’s exactly the right word. Look – call me any time you think I
can help. Just to dump on, that sort of thing. Apart from that, I don’t really see …’ She didn’t know what she had intended to say, but he understood anyway.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Thea. Good luck with your murders.’

Maggs had watched Drew closely all day, while trying not to let him notice she was doing so. Her tearful outburst the previous evening had left her feeling ashamed and resentful in equal measure. And frightened. Peaceful Repose was all the life she knew, and she retained undimmed her high ambitions for it. So what if progress had been so halting since they opened nearly seven years ago? They were still in business, still attracting customers from a wide area, and even an object of some local pride. The Slocombe family had taken her into their midst, from the outset. Drew had always treated her as an equal partner, permitting her into his personal life without question. He had rejoiced when she and Den had got together, having been there from the first moments. His children regarded her as something between an
aunt and a big sister, and she cared deeply about their welfare. She worried about Timmy, disapproving of Drew’s obvious preference for his daughter.

There had been moments when Maggs had worried for the Slocombe marriage, especially when Drew became inappropriately entangled with a woman named Genevieve, nearly ten years his senior. Then another, even older, named Roma, had become a close friend. Drew liked women rather too much at times. And they liked him with his open face and ready smile, even if he was an undertaker. They trusted him to accept their emotional turmoil without running away as many men did. They responded eagerly to his perfect mix of competence and sympathy. Maggs had learnt from him in countless ways. Born to be an undertaker herself, seeking out a job in a local funeral director’s while still at school, she was already halfway there when she went into the partnership with Drew. He had smoothed her rougher edges, whilst nurturing her unique manner that customers found so appealing. Maggs was not afraid to laugh, to ask the pertinent question, and to answer the uncomfortable ones.

But now it was all collapsing around them. Everything was going wrong at once. Karen might die, leaving the children entirely to Drew’s care. He would not be able to continue with the business, if that happened. Already it was losing custom, people being regretfully turned away, which would have been utterly unthinkable six months ago. There was also
the new burial ground supposed to be opening in the Cotswolds, which Maggs had initially resisted, but soon come to regard as potentially important to the growth of Peaceful Repose. Drew had talked about moving there with his family, leaving Maggs to run North Staverton on her own. They would have to employ people, at least part-time, and expand their advertising and promotional work. What would happen to all that now?

Since her encounter with the Osborne woman and her seductive little dog, a whole new ocean of worry had threatened to swamp Maggs. The woman was lovely – any man would fall for her at first glance, and Maggs had a horrible feeling that Drew had done just that. He had actually told lies to her and to Karen in the days following his first encounter with her, up there in Broad Campden. The Cotswolds now carried a bright-red danger sign in Maggs’s mind. She forced herself to jump ahead to a future without Karen, with Drew moving himself and the kids up to the new cemetery, sharing a house with this woman and forgetting all about Maggs and Den. It seemed all too horribly possible. Even Den, her stalwart husband, carried little conviction when he tried to persuade her that her fears were groundless.

She and Den had finally married earlier that year, in a low-key ceremony that echoed the low-key funerals she believed in so completely. They had spent almost no money on it, apart from a rather startling honeymoon
in Syria. ‘Just to be different,’ she had joked to Drew and others. In fact it had been beyond fabulous. They had seen things hitherto undreamt of and the people had been so magically hospitable that Den had taught himself some basic Arabic during the trip, in an effort to express his admiration for them.

She and Den were different enough already, of course. He was pure Devon, six feet five, tawny-haired and reddish-skinned. She was half black, half white, five feet three and plump. Her adoptive parents had lived in Plymouth for most of their lives, content to marvel at the clever little cuckoo they had bravely introduced into their home. When she asserted her intention to become an undertaker, they had not objected. The family had moved to Somerset and Maggs had forced herself on Daphne Plant, proprietor of a large funeral directing company in Bradbourne.

There were other worries lurking, too. Her father wasn’t well, having recently been diagnosed with diabetes. Den was treading water career-wise, and had been for years. And he had starting speaking wistfully about babies.

Maggs had decided from the outset that she never wanted babies. She thought she had made that clear. The discovery that he had not entirely believed her had come as quite a shock.

And so she watched Drew as he plodded through the day, spending long minutes in the office doing nothing, holding his head in his hands. He seemed to
her broken in some dreadful incurable way, having lost hope for Karen’s recovery. She wanted to make him smile, to remind him that life went on, that he had walked beside people in the same situation many a time, and helped them take their next steps without the loved one who had died.

But Karen had not died – that was the heart of the trouble. She hovered on the brink, but she was still in the world. And Maggs for one continued to believe that she might yet return to them. Whilst forcing herself to listen to Drew’s hopelessness, and accept its logic, she still thought he was wrong. Somewhere in another reality, Karen was still fighting and thinking and listening and loving. Behind some horrible thick curtain, she was groping for a way to return, and she needed Drew’s steady encouragement to do that. If he gave up on her, then it was as if he had killed her. And if Maggs could see the truth of that, then Stephanie and Timmy probably could as well. And none of them might ever forgive him.

Thea felt trapped and confused by the events of the day. It had taken her hours to remember Yvonne, whose husband was now dead, and who ought to be tracked down in France and informed of the disaster. She had gone off on the Eurostar oblivious of what had been taking place behind her, in the London flat she had so recently visited. Had they settled anything regarding Belinda’s wedding? She
had sounded reasonably cheerful on the phone, as if something had been resolved and she was free to indulge in a little holiday. Now she would presumably have to be consulted about the funeral of the murdered man, even if they were divorced. She, Belinda and Mark together would be the chief mourners. The exotic girlfriend, however devoted, would be relegated to a distant pew at the back, assuming she ever turned up again and managed to exonerate herself of his murder. Her current whereabouts was just another burning question in the whole bewildering story.

It seemed reasonable to assume that Belinda would be the one to inform her mother and brother as to what had happened. After all, she had gone to the trouble of phoning the house-sitter only a couple of hours after the discovery of the body, sounding to be in full control of herself. So Thea could be excused from any such task. It definitely wasn’t down to her, she decided.

The evening was much brighter than the day had been, with the low sun illuminating the garden beautifully. As usual, Thea threw open the front door, wanting to catch the light and air and bring them into the house. Along with them, however, came loud thumping music, which was far less desirable. Blake-next-door must have turned his sound system up to the maximum, something that came as an unwelcome surprise. He surely must know
that it would spread across the shared garden and into Hyacinth House. Had he always done it, with Yvonne’s blessing? Or was he making some peculiar point, aimed at Thea herself? There was something aggressive, almost malign, in the discordant bass notes and the harsh yowling vocals that accompanied it. It made her think of the awful things men could do if they were somehow turned away from goodness and decency. It conjured words like
hate
and
assault.
She most definitely did not like it.

But was she justified in going over and complaining about it? It was still daylight, so she couldn’t possibly claim that it was disturbing her sleep. She couldn’t even pretend to be trying to concentrate on anything important. And yet it was an intrusion, a nagging reminder that he was there and that she could not trust him. She should close her door, and perhaps even lock it, because Blake Grossman might be a murderer. But then,
anybody
out there might be a murderer. Somebody had killed Stevie, that much was certain. Just as they’d killed Victor Parker – although that was in London, which could be viewed as a very different country.

She did go to close the door, but met a willowy figure on the threshhold. ‘How can you bear it?’ Janice demanded angrily. ‘We can hear it right across the road. Come with me, and we’ll make him turn it off.’ Hepzie approached and did her usual annoying scrabble at Janice’s lower legs. ‘Your dog’s all right,
I see. I didn’t come over yesterday. You were back by four.’

‘Yes.’

‘So – come on. Let’s do it.’ She took a step towards Blake’s house, but stopped when Thea held her ground.

‘Oh … I don’t know. It’s not late, is it? I think he’ll turn it down before long.’

Janice looked at her sceptically. ‘You don’t know him,’ she said.

‘That’s true. Even so – why don’t you come into the kitchen and have a drink, or something? If we shut the door, we’ll scarcely be able to hear it.’

‘Wimp,’ Janice accused, with a mitigating smile. ‘You’re scared of making a fuss.’

‘There’s been more than enough fuss over the past few days already,’ said Thea feelingly. ‘I’m not keen to make even more trouble.’

‘Isn’t it all pretty well resolved now? It said on the news that Gudrun was under arrest. They showed a whole lot of stuff about her swimming career, and hinted that she had a doubtful reputation locally. I imagine you’ve seen it?’

‘No, I couldn’t bear to. Did they interview anybody from the village? There’s usually some old codger who says they’d always suspected something sinister.’

‘Actually no. Not a one. We’re not like that in Snowshill.’

‘When the media realise the link with Victor, they’ll be trying all over again, I suppose.’ She spoke absently,
almost to herself, shuddering at the prospect of more reporters and cameras trying to formulate a story ahead of the police investigation. It took a moment to notice Janice’s reaction.

‘
Victor?
Victor Parker? What link do you mean?’

‘Oh, damn. I’m probably not supposed to say anything. As usual.’

‘What? You’ve got to tell me.’

‘You knew him, then.’

‘We were neighbours for twenty years, for God’s sake. Of course I knew him.’ Janice checked herself. ‘
Knew?
Why the past tense?’

‘He’s dead,’ said Thea, not especially gently. ‘Somebody killed him on Monday. They’ve only just found the body.’

Janice folded up like a collapsed string puppet, landing on a kitchen chair by sheer good fortune. ‘Jesus!’ she gasped. ‘That’s incredible.’ She wiped a large hand across her lower face, rubbing at her mouth. ‘It must have been Gudrun, thinking he’d killed their kid.’

‘So Stevie really was Victor’s?’ A thread of excitement quivered inside her. Was everything to be suddenly explained by this woman?

Janice nodded. ‘I think Yvonne must have found out, which explains why she forced him to leave.’

Thea considered this for some moments. ‘That would be unbearable – for her and for Gudrun. Wouldn’t it? How could they go on living so close
together?’ She remembered Belinda’s disclosure. ‘I don’t think Yvonne could possibly have known. Did she ever say anything to you about why they separated?’

Janice shook her head. ‘I just had to guess, the same as everybody else. I only know it was very sudden.’

‘So Victor kept the secret as well. Wasn’t that rather noble of him?’

Janice pulled a face. ‘Selfish, more like. Worried about his image. “Deny everything” is Victor’s motto.’

Again, Thea rummaged through her memory, grasping at snippets of conversation that might be assembled and formed into a coherent picture. ‘Hmm …?’ she said.

Janice’s eyes had somehow elongated, her skin turned grey. ‘Dead,’ she muttered. ‘After all this time spent hating him. I almost feel as if I’d done it myself.’

For a moment, Thea almost thought the same thing. ‘I went to his flat yesterday,’ she said. ‘That’s where I was going.’

‘But you didn’t find him? You said that was today, didn’t you? Finding his body, I mean.’

‘Right. Belinda.’

Janice inhaled deeply and gripped her big bony hands together. When she spoke, it was with her gaze focused intently on the tabletop. ‘He never acknowledged her, not for a second. Just acted as if nothing had happened. He was such a swine!’ She looked up at Thea, who was standing close beside her.
‘A villain. That’s what I called him to myself. Victor the Villain.’

‘He was Ruby’s father?’ Thea hazarded. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’ She hardly needed the slow nod the woman gave in reply. ‘And he lived here, right across the road? How was that possible? Didn’t Yvonne know? Didn’t
Ruby
know?’

‘It isn’t so unusual. The trick is never to let anybody guess the truth. So you tell some convincing lies. Luckily, I was away a lot at the time, so it was easy to invent a fling with a married businessman in a conference hotel. Happens all the time.’

‘Were you living on your own in that big house? How old were you? Under thirty, anyway.’

‘Not on my own. My father was still alive. It was his house. He only died last year. Dear old Daddy.’ She went misty. ‘He was terribly good with Ruby. I was sorry to lie to him, but it was for the best. Hell’s teeth – fancy bloody Victor being
dead
. I still can’t believe it.’

‘So – you knew about Stevie, but Gudrun didn’t know about Ruby? That they were brother and sister?’

Janice shook her head. ‘I didn’t
know
about Stevie. I just guessed. The kid had a look of him. Something about his feet, as well. The toes turned out. Not the kind of thing most people notice.’