Trouble in the Cotswolds (The Cotswold Mysteries) (13 page)

Next door still had police tape around the entrance, but no sign of any personnel. The SOCO people seemed to have concluded their searches, departing at some point the previous day. Perhaps they had bundled up carpets, computer and clothes, taken all their pictures and samples and decided they had enough to be going on with. So far as they knew, the house would remain untouched until they chose to come back for more investigating.

A dilemma was niggling at the back of her mind, and the more she thought about it, the less complicated it became. She would have to tell Gladwin about Marian Callendar’s invasion of the sealed house. She owed no loyalty to the woman, after all. It had been a disgraceful thing to do, by any standards. How could she possibly expect Thea to stay quiet about it, when by doing so she would be obstructing the course of justice? Perhaps if Gladwin hadn’t been a friend she might have left it, pleading illness or forgetfulness or Christmas as an excuse, if the truth ever emerged. As it was, she could not contemplate the shocked expression of betrayal on Gladwin’s face if she ever found out.

Thinking it was still early, she decided to leave it for a while. Only when the reproduction grandmother
clock in the hallway began to chime did she revise her idea of the passage of time. Idly she counted the first eight notes, expecting it to stop there. When it did two more, she trotted out to stare at it, and check it against another clock in the living room. Her watch was still upstairs beside the bed. The kitchen only offered a small digital read-out on the cooker, which was hard to see. ‘Ten o’clock!’ she gasped. ‘It can’t be.’

Ten o’clock was halfway through the morning. It made her feel breathless with a whole lot of urgencies. Her car. The rats. The police. Blondie.
Christmas,
for heaven’s sake. She should compose messages for her family, to be sent in various forms depending on who it was. And Drew. She wanted to make a special effort with Drew, hoping for a chance to give him a careful expression of her hopes and concerns involving him and her. For the past weeks, she had kept Christmas as the moment for a proper conversation with him; the moment when his own obligations would be most apparent to them both, and the future possibilities for their friendship could be identified. With the looming new year the prospect of solitude and singleness was at its most acutely unappealing. People killed themselves in those final days of the year because Christmas had forced them to see how lonely they were, how unloved and insignificant. There was no risk of her or Drew doing anything so extreme – but they were still quite likely to make resolutions concerning each other. Too much time was being wasted, for no good reason.

Much of this was perfectly clear in Thea’s mind. But there was a lot more that remained confused. Drew’s children had to take priority, as did his business. He earned shockingly little money from his alternative funerals, taking handouts from relatives and top-ups from the state in order to buy shoes for the kids and meat for his freezer.

But it was ten o’clock already and she had to put her day in order. The flu was in abeyance, fortunately, and two large mugs of tea seemed to send it off even further. She would call Gladwin first and get that out of the way. Resentment against Marian Callendar was forming a tightness in her breast as she realised that without her, the whole business of the murder could have stayed firmly out of mind. It was a distraction too far, an annoyance she could well do without. If her own unwholesome curiosity had motivated her on previous occasions, this time it was almost entirely absent. She was being dragged reluctantly into it, simply by being in the neighbouring house when it happened. Anybody would agree that she had been deposited in the middle of something in all innocence. Something that had probably started with the death of Douglas Callendar nearly two weeks earlier, and which had nothing whatever to do with Thea Osborne.

So she made the call to Gladwin’s mobile, the number of which was in her own phone’s memory. It was answered swiftly, in a voice that conveyed a sort of brisk patience, that Thea found reassuring. As if the
detective was saying
I will listen to you, on condition that what you have to say is important and relevant.

There was no preamble. No ‘How’s the dog?’ or ‘Is your flu any better?’ Instead, Gladwin simply said, ‘Thea. What can I do for you?’

Normally quite fluent, Thea stammered out the first few words. ‘Mrs Callendar, the widow, came here again. She pushed her way in. I couldn’t stop her. She’s very forceful …’

‘What did she do?’

‘She went next door,’ said Thea flatly. ‘Round the back. Over the garden wall.’

‘She went
in
? How?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose she knew where Natasha kept a key.’

‘To the back door?’ Gladwin sounded sceptical.

‘Why not? She was gone ten minutes or so. She came back carrying something. She said she’d gone for CDs, but that wasn’t what she had in her hand.’

‘So …?’

‘It was a sort of metal flask with a label on it.’

Gladwin was silent for some moments. ‘We emptied her fridge and checked the contents of her freezer. We looked in the bathroom cabinet. Nothing like that anywhere. I’ve seen the whole of the inventory.’

‘It looked like something medical, I think. I mean – what else would it be? She’s not going to go to all that trouble for a thermos to put soup in, is she? She told me it was
CDs
she wanted, which was totally untrue.’
The barefaced dishonesty of it was a shock. She wanted Gladwin to understand how she felt, and was not entirely disappointed.

‘But she let you see it. Wasn’t that odd? Wouldn’t she know you’d tell the police?’

‘Maybe she didn’t care. She seems to think she’s above the law, pretty much. She said it had nothing to do with your investigation. She just wanted to rescue something that was hers. But she
did
say it was CDs. And it wasn’t.’

‘Hmm.’ Gladwin sounded worried. ‘She could deny the whole thing, of course. Her word against yours.’

Thea had no reply to that. It was oddly offensive to be put into that position. Was it possible that Marian Callendar had thought this through already and knew exactly how it would turn out? She could insist that Thea had imagined the whole thing, and in her fluey condition, people might well believe Marian rather than her.

‘Not your problem,’ said Gladwin. ‘Don’t worry. Now listen – Jeremy says you have to do something about your car. They need your permission, I think. You have to call them today, if you want it back before the end of the week.’

‘Who? Who do I call?’

‘The AA, I suppose. They must have sent you a text. That’s what they always do these days.’

Panic set in without warning. She had no reference number for the incident, no idea where the car had
been taken. She had spinelessly let Higgins take over, without asking any sensible questions. No doubt he would have brought her up to date on Saturday if he hadn’t been distracted by the murder. She could hardly blame him. Even if there was a text, that would only be the start of it. She had the unappealing prospect of being endlessly transferred and put on hold through far-away call centres. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said.

Gladwin was not sympathetic. ‘Come on, Thea, it’s not that difficult, is it?’

‘You don’t know the full story. It’s going to take me all day.’

‘I doubt that. But I advise you to crack on with it. There’ll be charges for the space it’s taking up, otherwise.’

‘Surely not! It isn’t a horse. They won’t have to feed it.’

Gladwin laughed. ‘That’s true. In any case, I’d have thought you’d be desperate for it. Don’t you feel trapped there without it?’

‘I would if I wasn’t so poorly. And if it wasn’t raining. As it is, I have no desire at all to go out. It’s bad enough taking the dogs for a pee in the garden.’

Again, sympathy was minimal. ‘Well, nobody’s forcing you, I guess. You must have known it’d be pretty bleak spending Christmas in a strange village.’

‘You’d think so,’ agreed Thea, aware that
bleak
didn’t even come close.

‘Well, I expect I’ll be seeing you before long. Me or
Jeremy or one of the team. You’re sure to come in useful one way or another. After what you’ve just told me, we’ll have to come back and check for what’s missing, and secure the back door somehow. That Callendar woman has a cheek, I must say.’

The reaction struck Thea as rather belated. ‘Absolutely,’ she confirmed. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She was arrogant and bossy and thinks herself above the law.’

‘Yes, you said that already. I can’t believe she really does think that. If so, somebody made a serious mistake in selecting her as a magistrate.’

‘She’s still the most obvious suspect for the murder, isn’t she?’ Thea knew such remarks were close to the edge of what she was allowed to say. Despite Gladwin’s frank admission of her usefulness, there were limits to how involved she was ever permitted to be.

‘There are laws about slander, character assassination, false witness and so forth,’ Gladwin warned her.

‘I suppose there are,’ Thea sighed. Then she remembered how Higgins had withheld the details of exactly how Natasha had died. An artery had been breached, resulting in a lot of blood – that was all she knew. ‘But whoever did it must have got blood on them, according to Jeremy,’ she persisted. ‘That must help.’

‘The pathologist and SOCOs rather knocked that one on the head. The blood flow wasn’t too drastic to begin with, but seems to have increased after she dragged herself into the front room. There’s no certainty that
the killer would be bloodstained. Nearly all the blood went onto the living room floor, where people knelt and walked in it.’

‘Oh. That’s a pity. What about the weapon? Did you find it?’

‘No. A sharp knife with a point is all we know about it.’

‘But the fact that you can’t find it proves that this is a murder. Is that right?’

‘Yes, Thea Osborne, it is. Now I’ll have to go. You sort out that car, okay?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Thea.

She fully intended to obey the order, and had even picked up her phone and started to rummage in her bag for the card on which the AA’s number was printed. But before she could lay hands on it, she noticed a certain droopiness in one of the precious potted palms in the living room. Nothing had been watered since Friday, and now it was Monday. Gloria had been very clear about the needs of her indoor greenery. Not only did they need water, their leaves had to be wiped and sprayed with a fine mist of foliage nutrients. It was a central element in her tasks, and to neglect it would be almost as bad as letting the dog get its ear half torn off.

She was
not
irresponsible, she insisted to herself. Admittedly, there had been times when she felt she knew better than the homeowners just what their animals and possessions required. And she had once or twice
totally failed to keep said animals and possessions safe. Death and destruction had taken place here and there. But on the whole she had done as asked, and handed the property back more or less intact. Jobs that had looked simple sometimes turned out to have hidden complexities. The people themselves had not always been entirely honest with her. In some cases there turned out to be quite sinister reasons for employing a house-sitter in the first place.

Dealing with the plants proved to be quite a pleasant chore. There were cheese plants, ferns, a rubber plant and numerous other things, in the living room, hall and on the landing halfway up the stairs. They inhabited handsome planters, some of which looked to be valuable antiques. There were few ornaments or pictures in the house – decoration relied almost entirely on the plants. The hall seemed rather dark for maximum plant health, until she worked out that they were all shade-loving things – ferns in particular. The aerosol containing the spray was surprisingly good fun to operate, and she persuaded herself that the leaves perked up within seconds, after her ministrations.

Next, to prove conclusively that she was continuing to function, she went to refresh the rats’ food dish and give them some more bedding. Gloria had suggested mucking them out halfway through her stay, unless they got smelly before that. ‘People are far too obsessed with keeping their animals clean,’ she had said, rather to Thea’s relief. ‘If you change their nest every day, they
never get to feel it’s home, I always think.’ In any event, the rats had plenty of space in the cage, without having to sit on top of their lavatory. All three of them cuddled up together made quite a big furry heap. One head was raised and a beady eye inspected her, as she carefully poured some more corn into their bowl. ‘I
will
let you out one evening soon,’ she promised guiltily. ‘As soon as I summon up the nerve.’ After what had happened to Blondie, her confidence had slumped to zero when it came to the rats.

The window onto the back garden revealed a cessation of the rain, when Thea went to look. It remained a wet world, but there were no longer constant splashings in the puddles and pounding on the roof. Perhaps she ought to take Blondie out for a little walk, in her idiotic collar. The exercise would be beneficial and might make her feel more normal.

‘Not you,’ she told Hepzie sternly, and shut the spaniel in the living room.

Blondie took some persuading, and once outside simply plodded miserably across the soaking grass without showing the slightest interest in anything. Her head hung down, as did her tail, and she kept her belly close to the ground. The collar kept catching on the grass and every time it did so, the dog stopped walking and simply stood patiently like a horse pulled up by the reins. Thea tried to encourage her, but the dripping trees were making her wet and it was colder than she had expected. After a few futile minutes, in which the
dog showed no inclination to relieve itself or indulge in any meaningful exercise, Hepzie could be heard barking in the house. It was her bark that announced company, but Thea had not heard the door knocker. ‘Okay, then,’ she gave in to the Alsatian. ‘We can go back now, and see what’s happening.’

Hepzie was yapping excitedly inside the living room door, and Thea almost forgot to confine Blondie to the kitchen before letting her own dog out. She had no way of telling whether someone was at the front door, but Hepzie seemed convinced. She flew at the door and started whining. ‘I hope this isn’t a false alarm,’ said Thea, and opened it slowly.