Death in the Cotswolds (18 page)

‘What’s that got to do with Gaynor?’ Stella asked.

‘Probably nothing. Almost certainly nothing. But it was very strange.’

She gave it careful consideration. ‘A message for Hollis is my bet,’ she decided. ‘Somebody who knew he was coming, and decided it would have a special significance for him.’

‘I can’t imagine who,’ I said. ‘Or why. He didn’t look as if he was getting the message, either, if that’s what was going on. Plus, he might easily
never have gone into the attic all week.’

‘So if it was some sort of advance confession to Gaynor’s murder, it wasn’t clear enough for him to understand it.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I told her, annoyed that she should turn the whole thing into a bit of jokey nonsense.

‘I know. Sorry,’ she said.

I didn’t stay long after that. She took a few basic details about Gaynor’s funeral – a burial in a recently opened natural cemetery that she knew about. ‘It’s run by a nice couple, Drew and Karen Slocombe. They’ve expanded onto a second site not far from Stroud, having got one up and running in Somerset. They’re popular with pagans, I gather.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of them. But Gaynor wasn’t a pagan. It’s just that she’d have liked the atmosphere.’ I rode the wave of pain that came without warning. How did I know where Gaynor would have liked to be buried? The subject had never arisen between us.

‘Right,’ said Stella carelessly. ‘Whatever.’

I drove home full of determination to discover who’d killed my friend. There were unresolved niggles in my mind concerning Ursula and Verona, primarily. Ursula always had an edge to her, clever and frustrated as she was. There often seemed to be something on the tip of her tongue, some sharp
remark that she was biting back. She had an air of knowing a great deal more than she revealed. Sometimes at a moot she would sigh theatrically and roll her eyes, implying that she saw us all as her intellectual inferiors, but was too polite to set us straight.

And yet she was only a geography teacher. Even when I was at school, there had been little respect for that particular subject. Everybody knew that maths teachers were cruel monsters; English teachers wise and wonderful; games teachers dim-witted obsessives and geography teachers were just pathetic. It’s a game I’ve played a lot at parties and other gatherings, and it almost always works. The stereotypes persist across all schools and all generations.

But Ursula didn’t fit. I’d never seen her in action in the classroom, but I suspected she stood no nonsense, and made the subject at least slightly more interesting than most of her colleagues managed to do. She was, after all, exceptional in that she had actually travelled across the world, using every summer holiday to gather up her wide-bottomed daughter and trek across some of the deserts I presumed she made her pupils describe in their homework.

So why would she have any disagreement with Gaynor?

I tried to recall everything she’d said at my house,
the evening before Gaynor was killed. She had defended Gaynor’s request for some piece of magic that might attract Oliver to her. She had disagreed with the current ideas about sexual orientation. Not much to go on there, except that she had at least been listening. She had given some attention to my friend and her emotional state. Which was more than Leslie or Verona had done, I realised. They had seemed to ignore the whole topic, as far as I had noticed.

Verona was essentially mysterious. I never fully understood her motives for doing what she did. She was an unlikely pagan for a start. She loved money and influence and always wanted to be the best. But Verona as the killer seemed unlikely. I could not imagine any scenario whereby Gaynor was in her way, or presented any kind of threat.

I had believed I knew these people, what they wanted from life, where they stood on important issues. I also believed I knew how things stood between them – who was miffed with whom, and why. And I did not believe that any one of them had any issues around my friend Gaynor. Most of them scarcely even knew her.

Although, I reminded myself, I was learning that there were other things going on in Gaynor’s life that she hadn’t told me about. I realised I’d imagined her steadily knitting, hour after hour, during most of her days. She could read at the same
time, and sometimes told me about novels she’d consumed, as well as programmes she’d watched on TV. But I never visualised her outside, meeting people, riding around in Oliver’s car or gossiping about his clients. I tried to recreate her mood and manner the last time I’d seen her, wishing I’d paid more attention. Was I inventing the restlessness, and air of uncharacteristic decisiveness? A feeling that she was poised with gritted teeth on the brink of some new venture. I thought not. I thought I had been right in sensing a change in her – and it seemed reasonable to assume that this change had something to do with her death.

Which led me to the conclusion that I ought to go and see her flat. Except that of course I did not have a key. And the police might well have sealed it up, after crawling over it for clues. So I’d have to ask Phil Hollis, wouldn’t I?

He was not there; I could see by the absence of his car. Poor old Thea must be stranded yet again with all those dogs, even more trapped than she would have been as a house-sitter. At least then she’d have had wheels. I was surprised she hadn’t come knocking at my door when she saw – and she surely must have done – that I had come back from seeing Stella. It would be an act of kindness to go over and chat to her.

She didn’t answer the door, but there was a lot of
barking from the back, so I walked round and found her in the garden. It was the last hour of daylight, and not particularly warm, but she was sitting there on Helen’s old wrought-iron bench, wearing my jumper and writing on a pad of paper. The dogs were all romping wildly on the lawn, rolling each other over and making snarling sounds that I hoped were merely playful.

Thea didn’t notice me for several seconds. When she did, she took a few more seconds to focus on my face and remember who I was. ‘Oh! Hello,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I was writing a letter.’

‘With a pen!’ I exclaimed jokily.

She grinned. ‘I know. But we’re already living in the Dark Ages here, with no power, so it seemed appropriate. I didn’t like to light the lamps so early, so I came out here, hoping I’d be able to see better.’

I looked at the sky. ‘And can you?’

‘Oh, yes. My eyes adjusted very easily.’

I couldn’t think what to say next, aware that she would report all of it straight to Phil. Despite her friendliness I felt distanced, not only from her but everyone else I knew. The taint of having been the person who had found Gaynor’s body seemed to get worse with each day. I could hear in my mind’s ear people muttering about it and reviewing the relationship I’d had with Gaynor. Plenty of people must have heard me snap impatiently at her now and then. They must have seen me as a bossy
domineering character to Gaynor’s soft and meek personality. After all, I was about eight inches taller and four stone heavier than her. We must have looked odd together. In the malleable material that was most people’s minds, I could easily be transformed into a vicious murderer, I had no doubt.

‘I’m writing to my sister, actually,’ said Thea. ‘Normally I would email her, but I didn’t bring the computer with me.’

‘No. You said.’ Was life so impossible these days, I wondered, without a computer readily to hand? ‘Where does she live?’

‘Near Bristol. She’s called Jocelyn. Have you got sisters?’

‘Three brothers.’ It was bland stuff, with no discernible subtext. I had no patience for it. ‘Did Phil say any more about Eddie Yeo after I’d gone?’

‘A bit. The Caroline thing’s rather awkward.’

She seemed reluctant to talk about the murder, and I suspected that Phil had told her not to. The thought made me angry. ‘It’s nearly a week already,’ I burst out. ‘And they haven’t got anywhere at all, have they? I’m supposed to be sorting out Gaynor’s things, arranging her funeral. How much longer are they going to keep everything in limbo?’

She shook her head gently. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘All I know is that it’s been a wasted week for me, as well.’

Despite the soft tone, I could hear disappointment and worse. ‘Are you going home, then?’ I asked. ‘Are you supposed to be somewhere on Monday?’

She shrugged. ‘Not really. But Phil is officially back at work then, so there’s no point in staying here.’

I cocked my head. ‘What’s the difference? I mean, he’s working anyway, isn’t he? And Cold Aston is a lot closer to the centre of things than Cirencester. He’s still got the flat there, I suppose?’

Thea nodded. ‘About two minutes from the police station. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I don’t think he has, either. It would be nice to stay here a few more days. Especially with the dogs. They like it here.’

All three dogs looked at her, understanding the word. She devoted several seconds to smiling at them in that dopey fond way some people have. The animals smiled back at her. Sickening.

‘Sounds like a good idea, then,’ I summed up.

‘What about you?’ she asked.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘What about me?’

‘Have you got things you need to be doing next week?’

I thought about it. ‘The big thing at the moment is Samhain, really. I need to talk it over with the group, if they’re still speaking to me after I missed their special meeting the other night. I got waylaid
by Sally Grover and never made it. I haven’t heard whether anything was decided. We were going to use the Barrow – you knew that, I suppose. Now the police might not let us in. And I’m not sure…’ I realised I might not be able to go back to the Barrow without a major personal struggle. The memory of Gaynor’s cold curled body would be all too vivid.

‘What happens in the rituals?’ she asked. ‘I hardly know anything about it.’

‘They focus on the turn of the seasons,’ I explained. ‘The onset of winter, and the death of the sun. Other deaths, as well. People used to slaughter the surplus beasts and salt down the meat for the cold months. And burning – they’d burn all the rubbish that had mounted up over the summer. Then they’d have to make sure there was enough fuel to see them through. Firewood and peat. Old people would sometimes go off and die, knowing they’d be too big a burden on the family. It’s the season of death,’ I finished, not having answered her question.

She had given me her full attention as I spoke. ‘That fits with Bonfire Night,’ she realised. ‘Nothing to do with Guy Fawkes, after all.’

‘I think two things came together. That often happens. Like All Saints and All Souls. It sounds like mainstream Church stuff, but it’s really not at all. Samhain is the time when the other world
nudges up close to this. You can feel the presence of the dead.’

She pouted sceptically. ‘Isn’t that just because of the fog and the first frosts?’

‘If you like,’ I said. ‘I’m not trying to convince you of anything – just explaining what we believe.’ It felt like old ground. Hadn’t I already said much of this to her? Perhaps not, since she was listening so intently.

‘And you
really
believe that, do you?’

‘I
know
,’ I said, trying to keep it light. ‘It isn’t actually belief in anything. It’s my real experience.’ In spite of myself, my tone intensified. ‘I
live
it, every day.’

She smiled. ‘You sound like a born-again Christian.’

‘No,’ I snapped. ‘I sound like somebody who has a true faith. It doesn’t matter what it is, only that it goes right down to your marrow. When you find something that works, the language tends to be the same across the board.’ I heard myself with some relief. On Sunday, hadn’t I snapped at Kenneth that I did in fact doubt the sense or usefulness of our convictions? It seemed I had got back on course, almost without realising it.

‘Oh,’ she said, rather faintly. ‘I see.’

It was obvious that she didn’t, and in spite of what I’d said, I was niggled by that. ‘The rituals are mainly symbolic,’ I went on. ‘We use masks, which
you can interpret in all sorts of ways. The usual explanation is that there are demons and goblins abroad at Samhain and they try to snatch your soul. If you’re wearing a mask, they won’t get you.’

‘Very sophisticated,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t think.’

‘I agree, actually,’ I said. ‘But masks are powerful, just the same. As I often say, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. You become somebody totally different to everyone around you, while keeping your own self safe and secret, behind the mask. Anyway, that’s one thing we do. And we practise divination, plus some singing and dancing. Apart from anything else, it’s very liberating. None of the usual daily things matter. It’s just the big stuff.’

Thea said nothing for a little while, then she said, ‘Big stuff like death, you mean.’

‘Right,’ I sighed.

She left another silence before asking, ‘And you’ll go ahead with it all, as planned, will you?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I’ll have to speak to the others.’

It was getting dark, and the dogs obviously wanted to go back into the house. We heard a car come up the quiet village street, and stop outside the front of Greenhaven. ‘Phil,’ we said, simultaneously. Just like wives and sisters and daughters had done for centuries, we put aside our own lives to go and greet the homecoming male. It never even occurred to me to stand back and let
Thea have first contact. I followed her through the back door, only inches behind.

I’d expected her to give him a hug and a kiss, while I waited for the crumbs of a smile and a nod. Instead he almost ignored his girlfriend and looked straight at me. ‘Ariadne, I want you to come with me,’ he said, his voice strained and harsh.

‘What? Why?’ I stuttered.

He looked at Thea then. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know she’d be here. I was going to explain to you first, then fetch her.’

‘What’s happened?’ she asked, her voice steady. She was such an
adult
. I would have whinged and sulked if it had been me.

‘There’s been another killing. We’ve got another body at the Barrow.’