Death in the Cotswolds (14 page)

‘Have you seen anyone else from the group since yesterday morning?’ he wanted to know.

‘Verona Farebrother came round this morning,’ I remembered.

Phil nodded. ‘Thea mentioned her,’ he said.

With a sense of superfluity, I proceeded with my report. ‘There’s a meeting tomorrow evening, but she can’t be there for some reason. I expect Daphne and Ursula will both turn up, as well as Kenneth and Pamela.’

‘What’s it for?’

Good question, I thought. ‘I think mainly it’s to decide whether we carry on with the Samhain ceremony at the Long Barrow. We’re not sure you’ll allow us to, of course.’

Phil gave a half shrug, careful not to dislodge the corgi. ‘We’ve done all we need to there – but I imagine it might seem a trifle insensitive to some people if you carry on as planned.’

For the first time it struck me that the Barrow would never be the same again to anybody living in the area. The scene of a violent death generally
acquired an aura that could last for centuries – especially if it was already a place of some mystery, with ghostly associations. Perhaps the killer even
intended
that to be so.

‘Well, thanks for the information,’ Phil said, having waited in silence for me to speak. ‘We’d better not keep you any longer. You’ve had a busy day from the sound if it.’ Then he added, ‘Oh, yes. Thea thought you might still have a mug with Verona Farebrother’s fingerprints on it. Is that right?’

I was too tired to bridle at the suggestion that I hardly ever washed anything up. I nodded. ‘And one with your ex-wife’s on as well, come to that,’ I said. ‘I’d better try not to muddle them up.’ I didn’t want to go out there into the dark, leaving the two of them so cosy and contented. By rights it ought to have been the other way around, with the unheated house and lack of ordinary facilities.

‘I’ll come and collect them tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Maybe you could label them and put them in a plastic bag for me?’

I was dismissed and took my leave with a smile from Thea. ‘Thanks for keeping me amused,’ she said, at the door.

As I crossed the street I looked around, at Greenhaven and the rest of the village, with the fields behind it. Everything seemed to have been sprayed with mildew. I could smell it, musty and
moribund. I couldn’t remember why I was bothering to stay alive, what I could ever possibly want to do with myself from that point on. People talk about broken spirits, and that was exactly how it felt. Some normally upright thread inside me, which pulsed and gleamed and kept me essentially sound, had drooped like an unwatered plant. I remembered the questions that Baldwin and Latimer had asked me, and their subtle lack of comprehension. They hadn’t mocked my lifestyle or rubbished my friends. They’d simply trampled heedlessly over everything I valued, blindly failing to grasp what mattered to me. They’d held a mirror up to my life, which showed it as pointless, a foolish failure in a world where everybody ought to have a proper job and a bland simplistic belief system.

I trudged into the living room without looking back, and noted that the Rayburn had gone out. The cat was nowhere to be seen. The piles of knitwear in the back room looked abandoned, little more than a lot of unwanted jumble.

I remembered the bottle of gooseberry and elderflower in the fridge, that I had not got around to drinking on Saturday. It was a rich sweet wine, good with fruit and cake and ice cream. It was at its best on a hot June evening, not a gloomy October one – but I drank it anyway, pouring out a large glassful as soon as I’d dealt with the fingerprinted mugs. Without them I wouldn’t be able to do much
entertaining. Almost all the others had chips or cracks in them.

Halfway down the bottle, the magic began to work. The world gained colour again, my head filled with dreams and insights that convinced me I was clever and creative and valuable. Nothing actually
mattered
, not even the death of Gaynor. People died. It happened all the time. We attached far too much importance to the individual, making such a fuss when a single person expired. I put a CD on at random, letting Macy Gray belt out her stuff, not caring if the whole village heard. It was like having someone in the house with me for a few minutes. Then I turned her off again. None of the songs had enough tune and most of the words were indistinguishable. I’m funny about music, anyway. Helen bought me the CD player, not long before she died, and I hardly ever used it. Then I found a stack of disks for sale cheap in Cirencester market, and decided to give it a better try.

The taste of the wine got more and more cloying as I finished the bottle. I could feel it turning thick and sludgy in my stomach. When I held up the glass to the light and tilted it, the liquid was oily, slow-moving. Behind it, the light bulb was diffuse, spooky. It seemed to have a face. I shut my eyes, and the whole world heaved.

But still I felt carefree and pleased with myself. I went to bed, moving carefully, making sure the
doors were locked and everything switched off. I fetched myself another blanket – one I’d made from thick and creamy wool, very loosely spun. Nothing in the world could be more comforting.

I woke next morning around nine, with an excruciatingly dry mouth. My head didn’t exactly hurt, but it was muffled and dysfunctional. I knew already that the day would have to be abandoned. I was never going to accomplish anything. I might not even get out of bed, except to fetch a large glass of water and drain it in seconds.

Then I went back to sleep.

It was midday when I woke again. I lay there thinking
Cat, pig, Sally
, listing the animals and people who might need me enough to make me get out of bed. No, I decided, they could all manage for a while longer without me. Sally’s curtains could certainly wait. The pig would have to find more acorns and worms for herself. And there was no sign of the cat. I sank into self-pity. Nobody cared whether I lived or died. Stella had her job and her family. My parents hardly ever saw me anyway. And Gaynor was dead. The sense that nothing mattered, which had been liberating the previous evening now thrust me into depression. It was all futile, pointless. Nobody would miss me if I died, the same as Gaynor had done. Nobody but me was missing Gaynor. We were superfluous to the world.
Not needed, barely even noticed. Best to just expire, and do some good by fertilising a nice natural burial ground somewhere.

I finally got myself together at about half past two. I went downstairs and unlocked the doors, back and front. There was no post for me. The Rayburn was not just out but stone cold. In the street outside everything was silent and still, although it wouldn’t be long before school finished and children would start passing on their way home. In Cold Aston, some courageous mothers still allowed their nine-year-olds to walk half a mile from school to home without supervision. One or two of the kids even waved to me if they saw me through the window.

With a shock, I realised I couldn’t possibly be ready for the stall at the Gypsy Horse Fair. I’d rather lost track of days, but when I worked it out, it seemed that this was Tuesday, with the Fair the day after next. A surge of rage against Gaynor’s killer, the police in general, and Phil Hollis in particular gripped me. By throwing me into such a useless state, the whole messy business had lost me a major part of my income for the month. From what I’d expected to earn at the Fair, I was planning to cover all the Christmas expenditure as well as running costs on the cottage into the New Year.

I had no desire to eat anything, or to get on with spinning or knitting. The loss of Gaynor was a
gaping hole in the whole enterprise. Without her brilliant work, there seemed little point in carrying on. I couldn’t do it all on my own, and expert knitters were hard to find. The older women who had done it all their lives were now falling prey to arthritis and rheumatism. If their hands still worked, they had fixed ideas about shapes and patterns that dated back to the Seventies or earlier, and had little appeal for modern customers.

The pagan group had not quite abandoned me, but I did not much relish the planned meeting for the evening. The death of Gaynor was too big an event for our rituals and ceremonies to deal with. All we were, at the final analysis, was a small bunch of people who wanted to retain some faint understanding of how human beings connected to the soil. How the seasons affected us, the sun and moon providing succour for body and spirit. It all crumbled to ash when faced with the violence that people can wreak, the deviousness and greed that we all possess, simply by virtue of being human.

When Thea came to the door at half past four, I almost didn’t let her in. What role did she think she was carrying out, running back and forth between me and Phil, barely understanding either of us?

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, peering intently at me. I had only lit one small lamp in a corner of the room, and the shadows were deep. ‘I haven’t seen anything of you all day. I’ve been keeping busy, but
Phil’s just phoned to say he can’t hope to be back before eight.’

‘I’m alive,’ I said, in answer to her original question, not caring that this statement carried more meaning than it would normally.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Hangover,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t get up until after midday.’

‘What a waste of time. Has it thrown all your plans?’ She was in the house by this time, roaming around the room as if searching for something.

‘Completely,’ I said.

‘You must be furious with yourself.’

Nobody likes to be told how they’re feeling, and my argumentative soul resisted her assumptions, despite their accuracy. Besides, there was an implied criticism in there somewhere. ‘Not really,’ I said.

She cocked her head at me, her clear eyes catching the light, her wide cheeks making her look like a pretty child. She made me feel like a carthorse, towering over her.

‘Well, none of this is very nice,’ she summarised, with irresistibly British understatement.

Then she surprised me. ‘Let’s go to the pub,’ she said. ‘You could probably do with a drink.’

I physically cringed, hanging back, holding onto a chair. Until that moment I hadn’t realised how
ashamed
I was feeling, how urgently I did not want to be observed by my neighbours. ‘God, no,’ I
gasped. ‘You must be joking.’ Then I saw my clock. ‘It won’t be open anyway.’

But she was ahead of me. ‘You can’t hide away from everybody,’ she said. ‘I know that’s what you want to do, but you’ll have to live with these people after the business with Gaynor has all been sorted out. Believe me, in the long run it’ll be much easier if you get right back into it now. I’ll come back at six, and expect you to be ready. I can leave a note to tell Phil where I am. He doesn’t think he’ll be back until around eight, anyway.’

‘But I hardly ever go to the pub,’ I said weakly. She hadn’t understood on that particular point. It wasn’t the public exposure I dreaded so much as another bout of heavy drinking. ‘Plus I’m meant to be going to that meeting at Kenneth’s.’

‘What time?’

‘Eight, I suppose.’

‘So you can do both,’ she said. ‘And I’ll be home in time for Phil. Perfect for everybody.’

In the event, I didn’t go to the pub or the pagan meeting.

Sally Grover phoned me at half past five; something she almost never did.

‘Ariadne?’ she shouted, a relic of the days when telephones were newfangled and not to be trusted. Normally I might have found it endearing. As it was I was poleaxed by guilt at my neglect of her.

‘Sally,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

‘What?’ She wasn’t at all deaf, but somehow her approach to the technology of communications blocked her hearing.

‘Are you all right?’ I refused to shout. ‘Do you want me to come?’

‘Yes, I bloody do,’ she said, more quietly. ‘These sheets are a disgrace and you know I can’t tuck them in properly by myself. And Ollie said you were going to change my curtains. The draught’s whistling through the summer ones today, and it’s given me lumbago again.’

‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ I promised.
‘Leave the door unlocked, and I’ll come right in.’

Sally squawked. ‘I’ll do no such thing, what with all these murderers about. You knock like you always do.’

Sally lived in Naunton, which for my money is by far the loveliest of all the Cotswold villages. Phil might prefer Guiting Power, only a mile or two away, but Naunton is the one that does it for me. Bigger than most, it spreads over undulating ground, with the main road comfortably bypassing it. The old village street snakes along parallel to the Windrush, with the jumble of houses mostly on the northern slope. Tourists seldom venture there in any numbers, but it’s less deserted than many of the smaller settlements.

Sally lived in a small ancient cottage adjoining the main street and was always in and out of other people’s houses, gossiping merrily. There seemed to be fewer second homes in Naunton, too. On sunny days there were generally people in gardens, and once I saw a woman doing her ironing on her small patio outside her side door, in full view of passers-by. There was something about that which endeared me to the place.

I had even said to Helen, more than once, that she had made a big mistake in choosing Cold Aston. ‘Naunton would have been much better,’ I said.

But Helen liked the wind and the wide open
vistas and the chatter from the school playground. And she did not much like old Sally Grover – or anybody who thought it was all right to drop in on people without due notice.

I ran across to Greenhaven and explained quickly to Thea that the pub evening would have to be postponed. I didn’t give her time to ask any questions, but persuaded myself that she wouldn’t have long on her own. Whatever Phil might have said, he was unlikely to stay away from her if he could avoid it. It seemed a bit off of him to spend so long on his police work, as it was. Hadn’t the man ever heard of delegation?

As I got out of my car in Naunton, another vehicle came towards me, rather too fast for the winding street. In the unnatural glow of the street lighting I was unsure at first of the colour. But I recognised the man at the wheel, as well as the shape of the car. Eddie Yeo was heading straight at me, and for a moment I thought he might hit me. I stood my ground, chest out, and he slowed down, giving me a careless wave as he passed. It was too dark to see his expression, but I thought I could detect the white glint of a toothy smile.

I had never much liked Eddie, but with Daphne as a friend I’d managed to be civil to him while they were married. He was a difficult man to offend, in any case, accustomed as he was to the savagery of the Council Planning Office. Whatever anyone
might say to him, he’d heard it before. Little wonder, then, that it had taken Daphne so long to convince him that she really couldn’t stomach the marriage any longer. According to her he had gone quite willingly at the end, although nobody had suggested he had another woman to go to.

Sally took a full minute to answer my knock – punishing me, I supposed, for my neglectful behaviour. When she did open the door, she scowled at me unforgivingly.

‘I really am sorry, Sal,’ I said. ‘But things haven’t been exactly normal lately.’

‘Saw it on the telly,’ she nodded. ‘And then that Ursula Ferguson told me it was you that’d found the body.’

‘You’re very thick with Ursula these days,’ I noted. ‘Gossiping at Bernadette’s, last I heard. Seen her again since then, have you?’

‘That girl of hers keeps the horse in the field at the back. I give him a carrot now and then. They were seeing to him just this afternoon, as it happens.’

‘Well, let’s get on with those sheets,’ I said. ‘I’m meant to be going to a meeting this evening.’

‘Bit late then, you’ll be,’ she said. ‘Where is it?’

‘Bourton. I might not go, actually.’ I’d lost track of the time. Sally’s wall clock said half past twelve, which certainly couldn’t be right. ‘What time is it?’

‘Search me,’ she grinned. ‘Time for my supper, if my tum’s anything to go by.’

‘Have you got something cooking?’

She shook her head. ‘Cold meat, that’s all. The bread’s stale and Ollie brought that poisonous stuff made out of chemicals instead of proper butter.’

I ended up staying a couple of hours, turning out the fridge, putting some washing away, and giving her stair carpet a good brush. It was good therapy for me, having somebody else’s tasks to attend to. Sally was a friendly old thing, chattering on about nothing in particular, making the world seem more stable and ordinary than it really was. I used her phone to call Kenneth and tell him I would have to miss the meeting. He wasn’t very happy about it. ‘The whole point is so we can offer you our support,’ he whined. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re late.’

But I had decided, and was feeling quite liberated. The prospect of being
supported
by six over-emotional pagans was not very appealing. I thought of them crowding round me, asking questions, pretending to feel the loss of Gaynor as deeply as I did and quailed at my narrow escape.

‘Going to the Horse Fair then?’ Sally asked me.

‘I’m supposed to be running a stall,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got loads to do if I’m to be ready in time.’ I felt weak at the prospect. ‘I might give that a miss as well. It won’t be the same without Gaynor.’
Suddenly I seemed to be addicted to cancelling things. I could just lie in bed instead and indulge in total idleness for a change.

It was the first time my friend’s name had been mentioned. Sally had made oblique references to the murder, but asked me nothing directly. Now it was as if I’d granted permission.

‘You’re pally with that important policeman, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Has he told you who they think it was?’

‘They don’t seem to have any idea. It’s crazy to think anybody would want her dead. She was such a harmless creature.’

Sally grunted at that. ‘Not according to my Ollie, she wasn’t. Seemingly, she dropped him in some real trouble, a month or two back.’

I stopped brushing and looked at her. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Course I’m sure. Something to do with some business takeover. She must have seen the papers in his car when he gave her a lift home – he always did, you know, after their bridge evenings – and went and said something to the wrong person. Don’t ask me for names, because Ollie wouldn’t tell me that.’

‘How does he know it was her?’

Sally shook her head helplessly. ‘He just does,’ she said.

When I thought about it, I could see how Gaynor
might do something of the sort, in her innocence. But
who
could she have spoken to, and what exactly had been the consequences?

More central to my thinking was the unavoidable fact that Oliver had lied to me about how well he’d known Gaynor. He had deliberately played down his links with her, when I’d told him she was dead, if Caroline’s story could be believed. It seemed a foolish move on his part – surely he must know that I would find out the truth? If it had been the result of a sudden panic, that might make sense. If he had murdered her, only to suffer all sorts of terrors at being discovered afterwards, that might lead him to tell lies. Except that Oliver was a calculating kind of person, who would think things through much more carefully than that. The murder itself had a calculated aura to it. Whoever committed it would surely have planned what he would say afterwards, making certain it was coherent and credible. Then again, if it was Oliver, he might not have included me in his plans. He might not have considered his line with Gaynor’s friend who just happened to have discovered her body.

I gave it up. Here, it seemed, was yet another piece of information I had to pass to Detective Superintendent Hollis. I began to think I was doing a large part of his job for him.

It was after eight when I got back to my own home. The Rayburn was on good form and the
front room was warmly welcoming. I poured a modest glass of elderberry and sank into the armchair by the stove. The cat jumped onto my lap and nestled happily against my stomach.

On Wednesday morning, Phil Hollis came to the door at eight, to collect the bagged-up mugs for fingerprinting. I was still in my nightclothes – a pair of men’s pyjamas and woolly socks. ‘Sorry I’m so early,’ he said. ‘We’re working long days at the moment.’

‘No problem,’ I yawned. ‘I’ll fetch them for you.’

The mugs were my two best ones, both made of bone china. ‘Don’t break them, will you?’ I begged. ‘The blue one’s from Verona. The other one is Caroline’s.’

‘You think I might need her prints, do you?’ he asked levelly.

I matched his tone with care. ‘She did know Gaynor,’ I reminded him. ‘They might come in useful.’

His face was a picture, turning to oak in his efforts not to show his feelings. ‘I suppose that is sensible,’ he said at last. ‘Thanks.’ I had noticed that during our recent encounters he had steadfastly refrained from using my name. At least that was better than getting it wrong.

‘There are a few more things I should tell you,’ I said, almost having to hang on to his arm to stop
him rushing off. He paused, with a faint sigh, and I quickly summarised what Sally had told me the night before about Oliver’s annoyance with Gaynor over some piece of business.

Phil nodded. ‘I’ll send somebody to question him,’ he said.

I waited for the
again
that never came. ‘Haven’t you done that already?’ I demanded. ‘After what I told your Baldwin man on Sunday?’

‘Not yet,’ was all he would say to that.

As soon as I was dressed I went across the street. On the doorstep I took hold of the doorknob, intending to walk right in, before remembering myself. Helen wasn’t there any longer – I couldn’t treat the place like a second home. Instead I banged the knocker loudly, setting off all the dogs. Their racket made me wish I’d followed my first impulse.

‘What are your plans for today?’ I asked Thea when she opened the door.

She kinked her mouth ruefully and asked me the same thing.

‘The weather’s not bad,’ I pointed out. A breeze was blowing, but the sky was blue.

‘Okay for a walk then,’ she said.

I had never been one for ‘walking’ as a leisure activity. It was perfectly all right as a means of transport – often more direct than driving and just as quick in the narrow lanes. Cheaper, too. But
wandering along footpaths, meeting ramblers and hikers in their comical costumes, was not my idea of fun. I had to walk to visit Arabella because there was no road to the coppice – but Arabella didn’t need a visit again so soon. It occurred to me that Thea might expect me to act as a kind of local guide, showing her places of interest, but this role held little appeal for me, either. I might have taken her to the Barrow if it hadn’t become imbued with grim associations. It never occurred to me that we might investigate the churches in Turkdean, Notgrove or Naunton, pretty as they doubtless were.

‘We could try and find some sloes,’ I said, half-heartedly. ‘I usually make lots of sloe gin about now.’

‘Sounds good,’ she agreed.

We were still in the hallway of Greenhaven, with the door open. The cries of children rang from the school playground where they gathered before the day got started. It reminded me of Helen, who had always enjoyed this proof of life and energy close by. And remembering Helen led to remembering Gaynor and how differently the two deaths had affected me.

‘How’s the sorting going?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I’ve given up on it,’ Thea said impatiently. ‘Phil doesn’t agree with any of my categories. He just wants the whole lot disposed of, with no more messing about.’

‘In that case why didn’t he just use a house clearance outfit, months ago?’

‘Good question,’ she said, narrowing her eyes crossly.

I felt a pang for Helen’s precious possessions. She had loved them all, keeping them dusted and polished, savouring the stories and memories that attached to them. In her middle years she had travelled to romantic places such as India and Guatemala, collecting rugs and cushions in the process. They were faded and patched now, but still very much part of her life story. A story that nobody cared about any more, not even me most of the time. I couldn’t share the experiences that were summoned by a hand-embroidered cushion bought in Jaipur or a woven woollen bedspread that had been attacked by moths.

‘Have you had breakfast?’ I asked, shaking the sadness off with a great effort.

She nodded. ‘Yes, thanks. Weetabix and a banana.’

‘Right,’ I said. The dogs were milling around us, trotting in and out of the open door, plainly hoping for some kind of excursion. They were a pack, noisy and impossible to ignore. The spaniel repeatedly jumped up at Thea, paws scrabbling at her upper thighs, jaws flopping open in an unselfconscious grin.

‘I should shut the door,’ said Thea at last. ‘It’s
letting the cold in. Although I’m not sure it’s not colder in than out, this morning.’

I followed her through to Helen’s morning room, which faced east. It was full of light, as always. I had laughed at Helen’s routine of being in here until midday and then moving to the cosier back sitting room for the afternoon and evening – but it had made perfect sense. ‘Always make the most of the light,’ she said.

For want of anything else to talk about, I told Thea about the mugs. It led to a renewed analysis of precisely who could have murdered Gaynor, with Caroline embarrassingly joining the list.