Revenge in the Cotswolds (20 page)

‘You think it was this mother – the one whose baby was taken away? Did you tell the police?’

‘No need. They’ll work it out for themselves eventually. It took them until today to confirm my story. It’s not their top priority just now.’

‘And you thought they’d have left me thinking it was you?’

‘Everyone’s talking about you. I guessed you’d have heard my name from someone by this time. And I was right, wasn’t I?’

She nodded. ‘Seems we’re both rather famous, for different reasons.’

‘Those girls,’ he suddenly snarled. ‘Like witches, they are, poking their noses into other people’s lives. Shouting their rubbish about badgers and the rest of it. Always some new thing to make trouble over. Nobody’s safe from them. Poor old Jack Handy – just trying to make a living as best he can. If anybody’s going to commit a murder, I’d stake money on it being one of them.’

‘You mean Sophie … what’s her surname? Wells! She does seem very fanatical.’

‘I don’t know one from another. Except the little Whiteacre lass. She’s going to regret getting entangled with them, silly kid. My Graham took a fancy to her when they were in the sixth form together. He still carries a candle for her, tries to talk sense into her. I tell him, it’s a lost cause.’

‘She might need his friendship, then, when all this
is finally sorted out. I mean – her brother! It’s going to be dreadful for them, isn’t it.’ Her thoughts remained centred on the Whiteacre family and its sudden tragedy. ‘They seemed so …
carefree
… only a day or two ago.’

‘Nice people,’ he nodded. ‘No side to them. They might have that dirty great house, but they never flaunt it. Look at us, living in a poky little terrace – they’ve never made us feel beneath them at all.’

‘I liked them,’ she agreed.

‘I should go,’ he said suddenly. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’

‘Why aren’t you selling ice cream today?’ she wondered.

‘It’s only part-time. I thought I said. Not exactly a brilliant career move. They just needed to prove a point, basically. Now that’s buggered, as well.’ He put a hand to his lower back, pressing himself hard, then slapping the place angrily. ‘No way can I go back like this. How would I even get there?’

‘How will you get
home
? I’ll drive you if you can get in and out of the car.’

‘I can’t. Call my wife. She knows what to do. We’ve got an adapted vehicle, so I can swing in and out.’

‘And with all that, you still got accused of fraud? That’s appalling.’

‘It’s the times we live in,’ he said, fatalistically. ‘And plenty of people do swing the lead, after all. Can’t expect the system to know which is which –
it’s too big and too rule-bound. They don’t see the real person – just tick a lot of boxes.’

It was certainly enlightening, Thea thought. She had known, in theory, that her experience seldom brought her close to deprivation; life on welfare payouts, even living in a poky terrace house was strange to her. Jim Tanner was making her feel ashamed of herself and everybody like her.

‘I’ll call her, then. What’s the number?’

It was five o’clock before Mrs Tanner drove away with her groaning husband. She had been upset, and frosty with Thea, who readily understood what a blow his relapse must be to her. The brief encounter with her made Thea feel even more ashamed of the unkindness that prevailed throughout the country. A callous attitude towards the less fortunate had blossomed in recent times, allied to a complacency among those who did have their health and a job and a decent house.

Far better for Sophie and her comrades to fight against such inequity and ill usage, thought Thea, uncertainly. She had to concede that it would also be less glamorous and far less exciting. The task of improving the lot of the poor and disadvantaged demanded political engagement, persistent dogged work on points of law and hard cases. There was little or no scope for
direct action when it came to ensuring decent provision of social security. Saving badgers was a lot more straightforward, and infinitely more romantic.

And now they’d arrested Ricky. They would not have done that without compelling evidence against him. On the other hand, there was a big difference between ‘arrest’ and ‘charge’. People were often arrested and then released again
without
charge. It could yet turn out to be a mistake, despite Higgins’s message implying that the whole thing was over and Thea could safely settle down and forget all about it. He just wanted her out of his way, she suspected, and who could blame him? He was going to have his hands full with Sheila Whiteacre, who was highly likely to turn into a ferociously protective mother, employing skilled lawyers and ensuring there was no undue pressure or excessive questioning of her beloved son.

She was strongly tempted to defy Higgins and barge in somewhere asking questions of her own. But where? Even Thea Osborne had more sense than to try to speak to anybody in the Whiteacre family. Nor did there seem to be much chance of finding Nella or Sophie or Steve, since she had no idea of where they lived.

The only person left, it seemed, was Sandy Handy – and what could Thea possibly have to say to her? She gave it some thought, and came up with nothing other than a pleasing diversion into other possible names the woman could have been landed with. Candy, Mandy – even Pandy. Wendy would have been almost as bad.

It all required an extended meditation, possibly with notes. She needed to go back over the week and try to figure out what truths, if any, could be established. If Ricky was the murderer, did that explain the reason for the visitation on Tuesday evening from his sister and her friends? Did they all know it was him, and were closing ranks? Where were the clues that she had missed? Was she being childish and naïve to think there was anything of the sort? Wasn’t plodding police procedure far more likely to arrive at the facts of the case?

She tried a succession of character analyses, starting with Sophie Wells, who was relatively easy to label as well intentioned but uncontrolled. Influential over others, but also often embarrassing. Impatient, intelligent and probably indulged as a child. Nella Davidson was less easy. Likely to be rich and at least as spoilt as Sophie, she must possess lovable qualities, since Danny had chosen her as his lifetime partner. Thea had seen small indications of passion – all her emotions had been exaggerated, from grief to impatience and anger. And yet somewhere there was an anomaly that Thea could not quite identify. Nella had said almost nothing about the environment or the reasons for being an activist in the first place. She had been detached when Thea first saw her, leaning carelessly against her fiancé’s – or officially her, as Higgins had disclosed – big car. Again, the next day, she had shrugged off the drama at the quarry as
nothing important. Nella, then, went her own way and was wary of following the crowd. Perhaps that had been her attraction for Danny.

Tiffany was another spoilt daughter. Her mother had ineffectually reproached her for being with the group on Sunday morning, but had all too easily abandoned her complaints and let the girl do as she pleased. There had been a suggestion of mutual trust, and an overall relaxation of rules, despite Jim Tanner’s disclosure that Tiffany had been in trouble not so long ago. Tiffany was, after all, the youngest of five. The worries and problems of raising children would all have been worked through already by the time it came to her. Mr and Mrs Whiteacre were probably just keen to focus on being grandparents, cruising towards retirement with a sense of a job well done.

Steve, with the big ears and the straggly beard, had endeared himself to her with his straight talking. He seemed to be a well-balanced young man, comfortable with his place in the world, while still immersing himself in the grey areas of activism. He conveyed a sense of invulnerability, impervious to the usual laws of society, with his eavesdropping app. Steve, she supposed, could all too easily fit the profile of a deliberate killer. Clever, amoral, and pleased with himself. Physically unappealing, he had developed a disarming manner to compensate. Steve knew everybody – probably including the Tanner family.

Jack Handy, of course, might yet turn out to have
murdered Danny. He remained the most convincing suspect in some ways, despite Thea’s liking for him. It would not be the first time she’d liked a killer, although she had yet to reach a position whereby the very fact of liking them became an indication of guilt. Laughing silently to herself, she gave up the whole task as a bad job. It was impossible without talking it through with someone else, someone who would point out any lack of logic or remind her of comments or incidents that might change her whole approach.

She had fed the dogs and visited the tortoise. Outside it was almost dark. Very little traffic passed the gate, even at the time of day generally regarded as busy. Anybody coming home from work in Gloucester or Oxford or Stratford would use the main road and come off at the roundabout. Only those from the Cirencester direction might choose the smaller road via Stratton. Presumably there were barely a handful of commuters living in Daglingworth anyway – nowhere near enough to constitute a rush hour. She had seen nothing of the people living either side of Galanthus House, their properties strung out sufficiently for there to be no unavoidable contact.
I’m in limbo
, she thought, with a wave of self-pity. Nobody was going to come and cheer her up. She’d be lucky to get five minutes’ chat with Drew, with all the other calls on his time. Jessica had told her to keep away, and Gladwin was on holiday.

So she did what she hoped would earn her some sort of cosmic brownie point and called her mother.

It was a year and a half since her father had died, and all the old balances and alliances in the family had shifted as a result. Maureen Johnstone had spent very little time in lonely grieving and even less waiting for attention from her children. She had picked herself up, made new friends, reminded herself of her former interests and abilities and given everybody a series of surprises. But she continued to live alone and to make it clear that she expected to be kept closely apprised of all family news. She was aware of Thea’s attachment to Drew Slocombe, but had not yet met him. Damien was the most dutiful, and Thea probably the least when it came to sustaining good-quality contact.

‘Maureen Johnstone,’ came the familiar voice, businesslike and very slightly suspicious.

‘It’s me.’

‘Thea? Or Jocelyn?’

It was always irritating to be confused with her younger sister, and always her own fault for not announcing her name. ‘Thea,’ she said.

‘You’ve heard from Damien? Talk about a surprise. I’d completely given up on them. Of course, it could still go wrong. She
is
terribly old for a first one.’

‘He sounds pretty confident. You’re well, then, are you?’

‘Same as usual. Where are you? Not at home, I’ll be bound.’

‘It’s a very small village called Daglingworth.’

‘Anywhere near Winchcombe?’

‘Not really.’ Her mother had joined her at a housesit in Winchcombe the year before, having originally introduced her to the homeowner. She had shown little interest in subsequent commissions and even less approval. Somewhere under the surface there was always a flicker of disdain at the whole business.

‘I hope there hasn’t been any trouble?’

‘Well …’ Already she was asking herself why in the world she had made this call. What had she been thinking?

‘Thea! What is it this time?’

‘Nothing to worry about. It’s all sorted out now, anyway. Jessica came to see me on Tuesday. We had a nice pub lunch.’

‘How is she? I haven’t heard anything from her for a long time.’

Thea swallowed down an urge to defend her daughter. How she related to her grandmother was her own business, and
a long time
might easily be a mere two or three weeks. ‘She’s fine,’ she said, crossing her fingers. Until that moment, she hadn’t grasped quite how unfine Jessica might be. The girl had been anxious, uncomfortable, trying to say something that never quite emerged as a lucid account.

‘Good. There was a thing in Manchester, wasn’t there? A young policewoman got hurt. I saw it on the news.’

‘So did I. Nothing to do with Jess. I called her to check.’

‘You know something?’ Maureen burst out. ‘I don’t like the police. I don’t trust them. They tell awful lies when it suits them. They think the end justifies the means. Nasty people. She shouldn’t ever have joined them.’

‘Blimey, Mum! Where did that come from? You of all people.’

‘My friend Annie – you remember her? She’s got a grandson with long hair and tattoos. He was stopped and searched, for no reason at all. When he complained, they just made up a story that was
totally
untrue. What sort of a society is it, where that can happen?’

‘I know,’ Thea agreed vaguely. She
did
know, on some level. But it wasn’t anything she could hope to tackle. Like most people, she more or less believed that justice would prevail in the long run. ‘Although there are some very decent police officers. I know a few, after all. In fact,’ she went on, ‘I don’t know a single bad one. Some are rather thick, but that’s a different thing.’

‘Too thick to know how to behave with integrity,’ said Maureen sourly.

‘Anyway – it’s exciting about Damien’s baby.’ She changed the subject determinedly. ‘Something to look forward to. Especially a girl. A girl’s going to cope much better than a boy would.’

Her mother laughed. ‘I agree with you there,’ she said. ‘We’ll all have to make sure she’s not too brainwashed.’

‘Right.’

They parted with promises to meet up soon and Thea felt the glow of having done a good thing. There were times when she and her mother argued, where the essence of their relationship slipped back into criticism and self-defence, uncomfortable truths and a bitter feeling of falling short. But that seemed to have faded away almost completely now. It gave her hope that from that point on, she and her mother would become closer, more affectionate and of much more mutual support.

But there had been elements of the conversation that niggled, too. There was a sense that she had been lazy and evasive in her consideration of the place of the police in society, given that she often had dealings with enforcers of the law. It had been a shock to hear her mother state so flatly that she did not trust them, because Thea herself had never reached such a point of cynicism. Thinking of Phil Hollis, Jeremy Higgins, Sonia Gladwin, and her own brother-in-law, James Osborne, she knew she would trust any one of them with her life. Literally. The police in general might be defective, but the individuals of her acquaintance were remarkably decent.

She filed the whole matter away, to be given further attention. It did matter, she was sure. It connected with everything that had been happening in the past few days, but not in any way that she could properly distinguish. She would think about it when she went to bed, when she felt warm and safe and relaxed.

Meanwhile, she dithered about phoning Drew. An ill-timed call could cause stress and irritation, and if the children were still awake and wanting him, it would put her in the role of importunate girlfriend, wanting attention that rightfully belonged to Timmy and Stephanie. It would pull him in two directions, which could in no way be a positive thing. She could text him instead, but she wasn’t sure he would see it. He had never fully acquired the mobile phone habit, apart from keeping a dedicated number for the funeral work and never straying out of earshot of it ringing. Thea was not privy to that number.

Then Gwennie yapped, and the doorbell rang, and the clock in the living room struck seven.