Death in the Cotswolds (15 page)

‘Phil will be mortified if it turns out to have been her,’ said Thea, with a frown.

‘But he won’t try to hide the evidence, if it points that way,’ I said, making it a statement, not a question.

‘Of course he won’t,’ she agreed.

The morning continued to resist us. There was no clear plan, no impetus to get outside and do something constructive. Thea and I were still in the house at ten o’clock, trying to decide what, if anything, we could be doing.

‘Phil’s really sorry about you being embroiled in all this trouble,’ she said.

‘Only doing his job,’ I replied carelessly. ‘It’s a bummer for you as well.’

‘That’s true. I’ve almost written the week off now. It’s Thursday tomorrow.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ I groaned. When she made a questioning sound I explained briefly about the Gypsy Horse Fair and how I couldn’t face doing it without Gaynor.

‘That’s a shame,’ she sympathised. ‘It sounds like fun.’

‘Colourful,’ I agreed.

‘Can’t we go anyway?’ she asked, suddenly
excited. ‘I’d love to see it.’

‘But—’ I quailed at the thought of being there without the stall. The organisers might see me and wonder what was going on. There’d be a gaping space where my jumpers ought to be, and I’d have to pay for it, in any case.

‘Even better,’ Thea pressed on. ‘Let’s do the stall after all. I can help you. I could come over now and we’ll get everything ready.’

‘But…’ I repeated helplessly. ‘We’d have to leave at six in the morning. I was going to get everything organised, neat and tidy…’ I floundered, thinking of the work involved. No, I decided. I’d been right the first time. It wasn’t possible to have everything done in time.

But there was no stopping her. ‘Go and get started,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll corral the dogs.’

We spent the rest of the morning folding and labelling twenty-five assorted jumpers and jerkins, eighteen scarves, six woolly hats, one coat, four wallhangings and seven rugs. It took longer than it might have done because Thea kept stopping to admire everything and exclaim about it. ‘I want to buy all of them myself,’ she laughed. She also made a few suggestions about displaying the wall-hangings that I’d never have thought of myself.

Then we stopped, noticed the time and by mutual agreement set out for the pub, Thea readily
forgiving me for my non-appearance the previous evening. ‘We can make up for it now,’ she said.

The Plough was a pleasant enough hostelry, with a single bar, average sort of menu and friendly staff. But when we’d settled down with a pint for me and a white wine for her, she seemed to change her mind. ‘Can we go and eat somewhere else?’ she asked. ‘Somewhere with a view or a garden or something for the dogs. I feel like getting away from Cold Aston for a bit, and there isn’t really anything I fancy on this menu.’

I tried to think of a suitable place. ‘Hardly any of them allow dogs in,’ I said, secretly hating the idea of trying to eat with three sets of watchful eyes and slavering jaws at my elbow. I found her caprice irritating. I felt settled where we were and in no mood for driving around the area searching for a menu to Thea’s liking. Another consideration was the state of my fuel tank. I had enough to get to Stow and back next day and that was about it. I tried to limit my visits to the filling station to ten-day intervals, and the time wasn’t up until the weekend.

She understood that she depended on me for transport and said no more until her drink was almost finished. I hadn’t seen this lethargic side of her before, where she seemed heavy and indecisive. I was hungry and had no quarrel with what The Plough had to offer.

‘I’d rather stay here,’ I said eventually. ‘And I think I’ll have the sausage and chips.’

A flicker of her natural grace came through. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘You’re absolutely right. I’m being stupid.’

To my horror, her eyes glazed over with tears as she spoke. ‘For pity’s sake!’ I protested. ‘What’s the matter?’

She forced a weak smile. ‘Ignore me,’ she said, with a little flip of her hand. ‘I get like this every now and then. Life all seems too much sometimes, don’t you find?’

I thought about my regular recourse to the homemade wine, and nodded. She did have quite a lot to be weepy about, I supposed, with her new boyfriend disappearing to solve a murder and Cold Aston offering nothing but a lonely pub and blowy wolds.

‘It’ll be fun tomorrow,’ I consoled her. ‘The Horse Fair is a real experience.’

‘Good,’ she smiled bravely.

And it was. Phil helped us to load everything into my car when he got back much earlier than the previous two evenings. Thea and I explained self-importantly that we would have to get up at five-thirty, in order to set up the stall properly at the show.

‘What about the dogs?’ he asked. ‘They’ll be shut in here all day.’

Thea thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I
could take Hepzie with me. Are you going to be out the whole day?’

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘But I expect I could drop back at some point and let the others out for a few minutes.’ He sighed, as if she had somehow let him down.

‘That’ll be okay then,’ she breezed, ignoring his scratchiness as she had before, when we’d found the weirdness in the attic. What must that feel like, I wondered. Having somebody so determined to see only the nice, pretending the nasty bits weren’t there. Irritating, eventually, I suspected. But then I remembered her gloom at lunchtime and realised I was over-simplifying. Thea could do the whole range of emotions when it came to it.

The unusual thing about her, I was beginning to see, was that she was completely devoid of anxiety. If Phil was disappointed in her, that wasn’t anything to worry about. Most women would have bitten their lip, put on a brittle act of conciliation, even altered their plans, in this situation. She did nothing like that. If she even noticed his mood, she dismissed it as his problem, something that would pass in a few minutes.

The Horse Fair was just as much fun as I’d hoped. Even the spaniel was reasonably good company, sitting quietly under the stall for much of the time. Once she’d had my assurance that I could manage
on my own for a while Thea took the dog for a walk along the snaking line of stalls, down one side and back the other, with a detour to watch the horses and ponies in the field beyond the stalls. She was gone well over an hour, and came back infused with good cheer. ‘It’s
wonderful
,’ she gasped. ‘And I don’t even
like
horses. But those piebald ponies, with the little boys on them – they’re like elves, with their brown arms and dark eyes.’ She went on raving about how poetic and picturesque the whole thing was, until I had to stop her.

‘Yes, it’s all very grand,’ I said. ‘And I’ve sold three scarves and four jumpers while you were gone.’

‘Marvellous!’ she applauded. ‘Aren’t you glad I made you do it?’

I nodded with a genuine smile. ‘Definitely,’ I said.

Then I saw them. Oliver Grover and Leslie Giddins, walking side by side, just that bit too close together for normal comradeship and I made a startling and rapid deduction. Then I gave myself a shake – surely I was imagining it. Leslie had a wife – the admirable Joanne. I was just so surprised to see Oliver with anybody at all, that I’d surely jumped to a false conclusion. But as I watched them fingering some brightly coloured horse blankets and making each other laugh with some jokey remarks, it seemed inescapable. I leaned towards Thea and tipped my chin at the men, trying to make her look at them without being too obvious about it.

‘What?’ she said quietly.

‘Two men at the blanket stall. What do you notice about them?’

She was brilliant. Squatting down to fondle her dog, she managed to give the two a good long assessment without their noticing anything. Finally she stood up and turned her back to them.

‘In a relationship,’ she reported. ‘Definitely. One even touched the other’s bottom just then. Brave amongst all these gypsies,’ she added.

‘Huh?’

‘Aren’t they terribly homophobic? Or is that a myth?’

I had to think about it. I knew a fair few gypsies, all in secure marriages with huge numbers of children. ‘I’d say they prefer not to think about it,’ I concluded.

‘Well, that’s a gay couple, in my humble opinion,’ she insisted.

I’d been busying myself with the jumpers, hoping neither of the men would recognise me. They were twenty yards away at most.

‘Why? Do you know them?’ Thea went on.

I nodded. ‘That’s Oliver Grover – the one Gaynor fancied. And the other one’s in my pagan group. He’s married.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Thea. ‘Nasty.’

‘It’s totally unexpected,’ I said. ‘I can’t really believe it.’

Thea managed a few more glimpses before Oliver saw me and reacted by blushing. His fair skin turned the colour of a particularly successful madder dye, and he put out one hand blindly for Leslie. Not so much for comfort as in warning, I fancied.

‘Ariadne!’ Oliver said loudly. ‘I never dreamed we’d find you here.’

‘Thinking of buying a horse?’ I asked.

Leslie spun round, his face closer to the hue of old Cotswold stone; liverish in its yellowness. ‘But…’ he spluttered. ‘I thought you were—’

‘What? What did you think?’

Leslie mastered himself. ‘Well – too upset about Gaynor to cope with doing your stall. But it’s good to see you.’

‘You too,’ I smiled. ‘This is Thea. She’s staying in Cold Aston for a bit.’ I thought it best not to explain her connection with the SIO in the murder case, congratulating myself on my discretion.

Leslie glanced at Thea. ‘Yes, I saw you on Saturday evening,’ he nodded. ‘You were outside with the dogs – I noticed this one especially.’ He smiled at her for a second before transferring his attention to the dog. ‘Oh, isn’t she
sweet
?’ he cooed, bending to fondle the ridiculous spaniel ears. I was thunderstruck. Before my very eyes, the shy young husband had turned into a fully camped-up limp-wristed homosexual. It was bewildering.

Oliver kept a discreet distance. His colour had returned to normal and he had obviously persuaded himself that our encounter could be dealt with in a civilised manner. ‘Les,’ he said, in a tone of fond authority, ‘we’d better get on.’

‘Oh.’ Leslie straightened up. ‘Well, nice to meet you,’ he said to Thea. He gave me a little wave of farewell before catching up with Oliver, looking into his face exactly like the spaniel looked at Thea.

‘You seem rather shocked,’ Thea observed, when the men had gone.

‘Gobsmacked,’ I agreed. ‘I had absolutely no idea.’

‘So remind me exactly who they are and why this is so important.’

I did my best to explain. ‘I look after Oliver’s gran – Sally. I’ve known them for ages. Gaynor told me on Saturday that she thought Oliver might be interested in her. She had some dozy notion that they might get together. When Caroline came to see me, she let drop that she met Gaynor
through
Oliver, over a year ago. She said they were good friends, which I still find very peculiar. Sally then gave me some story about Gaynor getting him into trouble. I told Phil all this yesterday morning. Hasn’t he filled you in on any of it?’

‘I haven’t had much chance to talk to him since then,’ she said stoically. ‘Do you think Gaynor knew Oliver was gay?’

‘Apparently not. She could be very thick about that sort of thing. She had a sheltered life.’

‘Did she know the other one? What’s his name?’

‘Leslie. Vaguely. At least, that’s what I’ve always assumed. I’m not so sure now. She seems to have known a lot more people than I realised. Including Caroline, which is the weirdest of them all.’

‘You keep using that word. Everybody knows everybody
vaguely
.’

It sounded like a reproach. ‘That’s how it is,’ I said. ‘Friends of friends. You know the name, and one or two basic facts, but you hardly ever actually meet or talk. Although…’ I tried to grasp the flow of half-thoughts snaking through the back of my head.

‘Although what?’

‘I’m starting to wonder how well I really knew Gaynor. I think I might have got her wrong, somehow. You know,’ I laughed at myself, ‘I’ve always had this image of her sitting in her flat, just knitting, hour after hour. Maybe playing some music, or watching daytime television, but not seeing any people. I suppose it can’t really have been like that. She must have had more life than that. I’m finding things out that I never imagined.’

‘And she didn’t tell you about any of it?’

‘No,’ I said, feeling oddly wounded.

From somewhere close by a crescendo of shouts arose. It had been happening all day. Gypsies could
be very loud, and in an animated discussion they would simply speak over each other, turning up the decibels to be heard. It was all quite good-natured, punctuated with great laughs. It added to the fizzy atmosphere of the Fair, but it made ordinary conversation difficult at times.

Underfoot the ground had turned to mud a good two inches thick. Sensible people were wearing boots, but a lot of young girls were picking their slippery way along the double row of stalls in high heels. The whole field sloped, so in places it was difficult to keep your footing.

‘Lucky you warned me to wear my boots,’ said Thea, as a girl of about twenty suddenly sat down heavily in the mud, her feet having skidded from under her. ‘Here,’ she said to the girl. ‘Let me pull you up.’

The winded young gypsy, in a fur-trimmed jacket and cut-off slacks, permitted herself to be hauled out of the mud and propped against my stall. She looked down at herself, twisting to see the damage to the back of her clothes. ‘Look at me!’ she squealed. ‘I’m filthy.’

‘It’ll brush off when it’s dry,’ said Thea.

The girl grumbled a bit more, and then turned her attention to me and my stall. I saw her giving my hair a critical examination. It was not the first time that day, and I’d already realised that it made me a misfit in gypsy circles. There was plenty of
henna and artificial curl, but nothing as outrageous as my stripes. Then she fingered my wares. Again, I knew only too well that they stood out incongruously from the cheap synthetic clothes and furnishings on the other stalls. I’d brought all my brightest garments, including several waistcoats and scarves, and hats for children – but there was no disguising the handmade aspect. Handmade did not go down well in these circles. Nearly all my sales had been to affluent locals, who were definitely not Roma.