Deception in the Cotswolds (11 page)

How much of a hole had Donny left in people’s lives? What about Toby, who somehow gave the impression of a man who had put himself on hold, treading water while he worked out how to live without his Cecilia? Thea would like to learn more about Toby and why he had tagged along with Edwina. She would even be
interested in meeting Philippe again and his big grey poodle, to check his reaction to Donny’s death.

She recognised her symptoms. All alone in this big house, still far from understanding the dynamics of the village community, shocked by the discovery of a dead man close by, she needed human contact. Whilst it was satisfying to have time for some serious thinking, too much time was destructive. Thoughts began to straggle into realms of fantasy, with no checks or balances from another person. False notions could flourish extravagantly, and take root when they really ought to be discarded.

She could email a few people – her daughter Jessica, her sister Jocelyn, for example – and tell the story of what had happened in Cranham. She could phone her mother or her friend Celia back in Witney where she had her cottage and her official life. But she and Celia had very much drifted apart since the house-sitting had begun. A stalwart confidante in the year after Carl died, Celia had since found herself a new man and been absorbed into couplehood. Thea’s frequent absences had damaged the friendship more than expected, until there was little the two had left to talk about.

In any case, you couldn’t phone people so early in the morning. After a leisurely breakfast she composed emails to daughter and sister, which said much less than she would have liked to convey, aware of a need to avoid worrying them. She permitted herself another pang of nostalgia for Phil Hollis, who would have
talked through with her the whole matter of Donny’s death, before she quashed it firmly.

She visited the geckoes, which were invisible again. They had eaten most of the mashed fruit from the day before, so she replaced it with a fresh helping, taking great care to fasten the catches of their tanks. Escaping animals, including a large snake, had caused trouble on more than one occasion in the past. These little reptiles would be impossible to find if once they got loose.

At eight-thirty, she took Hepzie for a short walk across a field or two behind the house. Then she shut her dog indoors and set out for the collie in the woods, which had been looming large in her thoughts for some time. The pups must be close to a week old by this time, growing rapidly and likely to start opening their eyes in another week or so. She hoped she would still be around to see them when that happened. Would Drew really take one? she wondered, remembering their slightly silly talk about him adopting the whole litter. Most probably not, she concluded. He wasn’t even likely to get the chance. If she left Cranham at the end of the coming week, the whole thing would probably be out of her hands entirely.

She would examine them more closely this morning, making sure of the number in the litter, and whether they were male or female. With each day that passed, she felt more confident of their survival, whilst knowing this was an ill-founded optimism. The
bitch’s owner could still kill them all if he chose. He might even be so angry that he shot his collie as well, she thought wildly. It wouldn’t be the first time. Farm dogs led a precarious existence, even in these more enlightened times. Cruelty was far from eradicated, and neglect seemed to be a growing plague, as people assessed the cost of keeping a dog and decided to fling the encumbrance out of their car on the motorway.

‘Stop it,’ she muttered to herself. She was all too susceptible to agonising about the ghastly fate of countless dogs, not only in Britain but around the world. It was a deep well of pain she kept inside herself, never quite forgotten. Not just dogs, of course, but other animals as well: elephants, baby seals, terrified suffering cows in American abattoirs – people could be appallingly savage in their treatment of other species, and it was never going to get better. The fact that many creatures could sometimes behave cruelly and viciously to each other was irrelevant. People ought to know better.

All of which contributed to a growing sense of foreboding as she approached the burrow. What if they’d been found, dragged out and hacked to pieces? What if they had just disappeared and she would never know what had happened to them? The situation was so insecure, the little family so vulnerable, that she could scarcely believe it when she found everything as normal. The mother dog came right out of the hole to greet her and sniff at the bag she carried. Small squeals
came from the shadows, and while the dog ate the food, Thea gently reached in and brought the pups out, one by one.

There were five of them, three girls and two boys. One was substantially bigger than the others, a grey male with the rippled coat of the first one she had handled. They all had white feet and white noses, ranging in colour from black to grey. They seemed perfectly healthy, clean and dry with fat, full tummies.

‘Well done, girl!’ she applauded. ‘You’re making a very good job of them, aren’t you?’

The dog trustingly wagged her tail, moved away a little to relieve herself, and then dived back into the hole to receive her offspring as Thea returned them to her. With a sense of virtue rewarded, Thea turned to leave.

She had only gone twenty or thirty yards before she heard somebody coming. Her heart leapt foolishly at the prospect of her secret being discovered. She glanced back, hoping there was no trace of the hidden dogs. The empty plastic bag in her hand might have to be explained. She couldn’t pretend to be gathering mushrooms or nuts in June.

A large man came into view, between the trees. He carried a shotgun under his arm, and wore leather boots. His eyes were deep set and his cheeks pink. Thea felt a momentary terror at the sight of him, struck dumb by it, simply staring at him, wide-eyed.

‘Morning,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Thought I heard a voice. Who’re you talking to, then?’

She recovered her composure with an effort. ‘Oh, nobody. Just muttering to myself, I suppose. It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?’
Too lovely to be out here shooting things
, she wanted to add.

‘Best day of the week, anyhow,’ he agreed. ‘It’ll rain tomorrow, they say.’

‘Really? That’s bad news.’

‘It is,’ he affirmed.

‘You live locally, do you?’

‘Not far. And yourself?’

‘I’m house-sitting at Hollywell, for Harriet Young.’

‘Ah – I thought it must be you. But they said you’d got a dog.’ He looked all round, eyes narrowed. ‘Can’t see it.’

‘No. I left her behind.’

‘Why’d you do that, then? Good for dogs, in these woods. Why would you leave it behind?’

Suspicion washed across his face like a dye. Thea’s mind went blank – what possible explanation could she give? The sight of his gun gave her an answer. ‘Somebody said there was shooting going on, and I was worried she might get hurt.’

He shook his head slowly, like a teacher in despair at a pupil’s pathetic response to a question. ‘There’s nobody around here would shoot a dog by mistake, least of all me,’ he told her.

‘So – what are you shooting?’

‘Pigeons. Crows. Magpies. All the nuisances.’

‘I see.’

‘I’m missing a dog,’ he said suddenly. ‘Collie bitch, with a black face. Haven’t see her, have you?’

The need to tell a direct lie was regrettable. Worse, it went against some deep principle that she had barely known existed until then. She played for time, pretending to think hard. ‘Black face? No, I don’t think so. How long has she been lost? You must be awfully worried.’ She gabbled the words, convinced that he could see right through her. ‘I’d be distraught if my Hepzie was lost.’ It occurred to her that he might start calling his dog, and at such close quarters, she might well be unable to resist responding and showing herself. If Thea could keep him talking and convince him there was no trace of the animal in the woods, that disaster might be averted.

‘Best part of a week,’ the man replied to her question. ‘I’ve a notion she was in pup, and has hidden herself away somewhere to keep them safe.’

‘The poor thing!’ Thea exclaimed. ‘Why? What was she afraid of?’

‘She knew I’d drown them if I found them. It’s happened before.’

He showed no hint of shame at this admission. ‘You cruel beast!’ Thea accused him, too angry to mince her words. ‘No wonder she’s run away.’

‘She’s a working dog. Pups would keep her useless for a month or more.’

‘Is it legal to drown puppies?’

He shrugged. ‘So long as it’s quick and they’re newborn, it’s nothing much.’

‘But if you’re right and she’s been gone a week, they wouldn’t be newborn now, would they?’

He tilted his head at her, still manifesting suspicion. ‘I might be persuaded that she’d earned the right to keep one or two, at least,’ he conceded. ‘It’s not so hard to manage without her, this time of year.’

It was tempting to believe him and disclose his dog’s hiding place, but something prevented her. There could be a cruel game going on, in which he sought to entrap her into giving the dog away. And keeping ‘one or two’ pups really wasn’t good enough.

‘Are you fond of her?’ she demanded. ‘Do you have the slightest feelings for what she must be enduring, if you’re right that she’s trying to rear puppies all by herself?’

‘She’s a bright girl, I’ll give her that. Doesn’t have to be told twice. Never been disobedient in her life.’ He was frowning at the question. ‘We’re a team, you might say.’

‘So don’t you think she deserves consideration? If you don’t want pups, why the hell don’t you have her spayed?’ Anger had been rising since the admission about the drowning.

‘Costs money,’ he said shortly. ‘Thought I’d kept her in this time, but some bloody dog broke in one night. Jumped right in through a window five feet off the ground.’

‘You don’t know who he was, then?’

‘Something big, that’s all I can say. There’s a lurcher lives over towards Slad. Might be him.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you if I see her. Where do you live?’

He waved unhelpfully in the Sheepscombe direction. ‘I walked there yesterday,’ said Thea. ‘With my dog. I saw the most fantastic view of Painswick from the top of a hill.’

He ducked his chin in agreement. ‘Pretty enough,’ he said shortly.

‘I’ll be getting back, then,’ she said, afraid to leave the hidden dog when her master was so close by, but with little choice in the matter.

‘And bring your animal next time,’ he called after her. ‘She’s in no danger from me.’

It was a cleverly chosen parting remark, she guessed. He had a hunch that she was protecting his collie, and wanted her to believe everything would be all right if she revealed what she knew. Or perhaps she had penetrated his armour and made him see that he was behaving in a cruel way – not just by drowning puppies, but by shooting birds at a time when they had nests full of youngsters depending on them. The quick death of the parents would lead to slow starvation in the chicks. That was intolerable, to Thea’s mind.

All she could do was hurry back to the Manor and liberate Hepzie, passing the Lodge with a mixture of unpleasant emotions. There was still such a lot she didn’t know about Donny and his earlier life. Where had he lived before? What had his profession been? What would happen to his house now? She slowed her pace, in a vague gesture of respect, wishing she could bring him back to life again and resume their afternoon chats.

Hearing voices behind her, she turned to see two women coming through the gates towards her. They progressed slowly as she watched and wondered whether she should greet them. The distance was still slightly too great for conversation, so she used the moments before convergence to examine the two together. Jemima Hobson and Edwina Satterthwaite made a curious pair.
They might have become stepmother and daughter, if Donny’s senile wife had died and he had then married his lady friend – an awkward relationship at the best of times. Had his death brought them closer, or set them at odds, Thea wondered.

‘Where’s your little dog?’ asked Edwina, her face level with Thea’s, neither of them much over five feet tall.

‘I left her in the house.’

‘That’s a shame on such a sunny day.’

‘It was only for a little while. I’m going to fetch her now.’

Jemima seemed distracted, impatient. She was hovering beside the front door of her father’s house, showing no inclination to talk, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other.

‘I’ll get out of your way,’ said Thea, not at all wanting to leave them.

Edwina’s face had sagged since the previous day and acquired an unhealthy colour. Her Victorian hair, previously so smooth and neat, was now escaping in wisps. Thea guessed that the woman had spent a sleepless night, and was feeling the sharp physical pains that nobody told you accompanied grief. By comparison, Jemima looked robust and efficient.

‘No Toby today, then?’ Thea said. ‘I suppose he had to get back to work.’

Jemima snorted. ‘What work?’ she demanded. ‘How did you come to meet him, anyway?’

Had there been something surreptitious in the visit that he and Edwina had paid her on Tuesday afternoon? Too late now, anyway. The older woman was not discernibly discomposed by the reference. ‘It was Tuesday,’ Thea said vaguely. Further remarks occurred to her, but were dismissed as potentially tactless or somehow treacherous. Perhaps because of her recent encounter in the woods, she felt that there were secrets on all sides, and she should be careful what she said.

‘Toby’s very upset,’ Edwina put in, her voice toneless. ‘So is Thyrza.’

‘What!’ Jemima’s voice was strident. ‘She couldn’t
stand
him. Neither could that lunatic son of hers.’

The lunatic son must be Philippe, Thea noted. She opened her mouth to say she had met him as well, but closed it again, remembering her resolve to remain quiet. Any urge she might have to show off how well she was keeping up would have to be quashed. Besides, there was enough to interest her in this exchange between the two women.

‘That isn’t true,’ mumbled Edwina unhappily. ‘You just don’t understand. You’ve never been any good at the more subtle things of life, Mimm. It isn’t your fault, but it can make you say very hurtful things sometimes.’

‘How long have you two known each other?’ Thea asked. After all, Donny still had a wife living. Had Edwina been his ‘other woman’ for decades?

‘Twenty years or so,’ said Jemima with an air of relief at being asked something factual. ‘Dad and Weena worked together for ages.’

‘Oh?’ Thea did her best to imagine what sort of work would bring together a philosophical Donny and a Queen Victoria lookalike. ‘What was it? The work, I mean.’

‘He was a social worker, and I was a volunteer visitor.’ Thea watched as Edwina focused briefly on earlier times when other people were sad and needy and she was the strong charitable one. A weak smile came and went, followed by a deep sigh. ‘In West Bromwich.’

‘Is that where you lived?’ Neither Donny nor Edwina had anything like a Midlands accent. Nor did Jemima, come to that.

‘At the time, yes.’

‘And we were in Derbyshire, before moving to the Black Country,’ said Jemima. ‘Dad was promoted. Mum hated it. So did Cecilia. He moved down here the week after he retired.’

‘Into the Lodge?’ Thea eyed the little house doubtfully.

‘No, no. They bought a bungalow up by the church. But Mum’s nursing home fees meant they had to sell it.’ Jemima fixed a sharp gaze on the older woman, and added, ‘And Edwina came too.’

Edwina bridled. ‘It wasn’t like that at all!’ she objected. ‘My family has lived here for centuries,
and I wanted to return to my roots. It was Donny who followed me, not the other way around. I might remind you that Thyrza is still in the same house that we grew up in, and I found Donny the bungalow in the first place. Furthermore, when they had to sell up, I suggested the Lodge. That was before Harriet bought the Manor,’ she added.

Thea was in her element. She loved piecing together the history of people’s families and residences and where the turning points had come. Where women like her mother became obsessed by the names of people’s children and the various ailments their friends were prone to, Thea wanted to know about reasons and connections and ambitions. Why did people move from one part of the country to another, and how did they settle in the new place? What made them happy? What were they most afraid of?

‘So Thyrza stayed here all her life and you moved away – right?’

‘Exactly. She was married twice, first to a local solicitor who died and then to a teacher who worked in Painswick. He used to walk to work across the fields in all weathers. People thought he was crazy. He’s dead now as well. A sudden heart attack when he was fifty-nine.’

Thea made a suitable face at this unspectacular piece of cruel irony, and stored it up to report to Drew, if and when she saw him again. Already she had understood that he rather enjoyed swopping stories
of noteworthy deaths, although they had shared only one or two thus far.

‘It happens a lot, I think,’ she said. ‘It’s not just the fat and lazy who have bad hearts.’ Too late she remembered Cecilia, and her ghastly transplant. A glance at Jemima suggested that there was no call for remorse. Cecilia’s sister was growing increasingly impatient, barely heeding the conversation. Thea accepted that she was not going to hear the story of Edwina’s past, or what became of Mr Satterthwaite. She told herself not to be greedy – she already had a lot more detail than before.

‘We ought to get on,’ Jemima said. ‘We’ve come to look for Dad’s will. I thought his solicitor would have it, but apparently Dad insisted on keeping both copies here. Seems peculiar to me, but that’s Dad for you.’

Edwina gave a little whimper of protest, but said nothing.

‘And I must go and rescue my dog,’ said Thea. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you again.’

Jemima evidently had a thought. ‘There’s no date for the funeral yet. The coroner’s officer is prevaricating over releasing the body.’ Her staccato manner reached new heights. She seemed tight with frustration. ‘You’d think they’d take my word for it, wouldn’t you?’

Thea frowned slightly, wondering what that meant. ‘Um …’ she said.

‘You can back me up, come to that. You’ll probably have to, at the inquest. It’s an obvious case of suicide.
I don’t know why they’re wasting time and money in questioning it.’

‘Are they?’

‘Apparently.’ Jemima looked at Edwina. ‘But nothing’s settled. And I’ve been thinking that perhaps we should think again about the funeral, especially if Dad’s left a note about wanting a particular sort of burial. Mind you, I’d be surprised. It’s just that Matt says we ought to keep an open mind.’

‘Matt?’

‘My husband. And there’s Silas, of course. He’s trying to force us to fix a date for the funeral, so he can book a flight. He won’t come for more than the bare minimum, because his wife can’t let him out of her sight.’

‘Why doesn’t she come as well, then?’

‘She won’t fly.’ Jemima rolled her eyes in undisguised contempt. ‘Can you believe it, in this day and age?’

‘It’s quite common,’ said Edwina. Something in her tone made Thea give her a close look. ‘It’s a sort of claustrophobia usually.’

‘Don’t
you
defend her, for heaven’s sake,’ snapped Jemima. ‘That’s taking saintliness a bit too far.’

Edwina gave an embarrassed little laugh. ‘I’ve no reason to dislike Susan. It’s Silas who’s got the problem.’

‘Um …’ ventured Thea.

Both women looked at her. ‘Silas feels a somewhat misplaced loyalty to his mother,’ Edwina explained. ‘It’s perfectly natural.’

‘He’s an idiot,’ said Jemima succinctly. She puffed out her cheeks in exasperation at all the demands piling on top of her. ‘Now, come on, Ween, we’ve got work to do.’

Thea watched as they went to the front door. It was Edwina, she noted, who produced a key and unlocked it. Remembering the way Jemima had smashed her way in through the back door, it looked as if she still hadn’t remembered to bring the one she had at home. She had not yet broken the habit whereby she took it for granted that the door would always be unlocked and she could walk in any time she liked. But Edwina could let herself in through the front, with a key. So which was the favoured visitor, Thea wondered – the daughter or the girlfriend?

It was still only half past ten, she noticed with surprise, when she got back inside the Manor. Hepzie jumped up at her in unreproachful greeting, and then ran outside to sniff around the front lawn as if tracking some wild creature. She always did that, Thea reminded herself. It did not necessarily mean that a badger or fallow deer had been there in the night; even less did it suggest that a human being had silently watched the house in the small hours. On the other hand, it
could
mean that. Just occasionally, the spaniel had tried to convey something important, which had only become apparent with hindsight. ‘My next dog is going to be a beagle,’ Thea told her.
‘They’re much more reliable informants than you.’

Time for some housework, she decided, with the sunshine highlighting dusty surfaces and demanding a polish to help create good reflections. The house was a pleasure to work in, with good-quality carpets and rugs on the floors and a general absence of clutter. The wood panelling was in excellent condition, waxed in the old-fashioned manner, without any crass varnish or synthetic polish. A light buffing with a soft cloth brought out the grains and colours of the wood like magic. A duster whisked over the window sills and shelves brought them up to scratch. The sofa cushions needed more attention, which seemed rather a wasted effort, given that Hepzie would only flatten them again, and leave a veneer of her hair at the same time. There was no sign of any cobwebs in the corners, or scuffs on the skirting boards, which meant the whole project was completed well within the hour. It was a therapeutic interlude, in which Thea pretended she was living in 1860, working as chief parlourmaid to the wealthy and enlightened owners of the house. The Master was a publisher, she decided, producing liberal works by people like John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer – a man she had encountered in her youthful studies and always liked the sound of. The Mistress would be a bluestocking, reading everything her husband published and holding large dinner parties of highly intelligent people at which to discuss them. The servants would be contented and fairly treated.
The delightful house, newly built, would be a joy to maintain.

The fantasy was rudely interrupted by the house telephone ringing. Somebody for Harriet, Thea assumed, putting down her duster and going to answer it. It had not rung since Edwina’s call on Tuesday, and she fumbled it from its base, where it sat in the spacious hallway.

‘Mrs Osborne?’ The voice was familiar, but not immediately identifiable. ‘It’s DI Higgins again. Sorry to bother you.’

‘No problem,’ she said, wondering whether that was true. The police often gave rise to problems, after all. She found herself unexpectedly wishing they would leave the whole matter of Donny Davis’s death alone. What good would it do now to try to work out precisely what happened? It was a wish that must have been born from her meeting that morning with the two women who might be most aware of the secrets of Monday night and Tuesday morning. She had found herself liking them both, wanting things to go well for them in the aftermath of their loss. Even Jemima with her prickly stoicism must surely be experiencing some quiet relief at her father’s death.

‘Thank you,’ said Higgins. ‘I expect you can guess what I’m going to say?’

He overestimated her. ‘Not really,’ she said.

‘The coroner’s officer isn’t satisfied with the circumstances of Mr Davis’s death. He wants us to
make further enquiries. Not surprising, of course, after that phone call we had, but a shame, in a way.’

‘A terrible shame,’ she confirmed. ‘I can’t believe anybody actually killed him against his wishes. It seems a waste of your time.’

‘Right,’ sighed Higgins. ‘But ours is not to reason why. Rules are rules, as I think you and I agreed the other day.’

‘So what do you want from me?’

‘An objective assessment of Mr Davis’s frame of mind,’ came the prompt reply. ‘You saw him only hours before he died. Did he come across as a man about to kill himself?’

She took a deep breath. ‘I can’t answer that,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been with a suicide just before they did it. A whole lot of things might have happened after he left me.’ She was dodging the question, and she knew it. The true answer was that, no, Donny had not seemed at all like a man contemplating suicide within the next twenty-four hours. She had been so surprised by his death that her brain had seized up on the day she and Jemima found him. Then she had struggled to convince herself that there was no good basis for her astonishment; that she hadn’t really known the man and was in no position to judge his state of mind.

She found herself growing more and more certain that Edwina had been actively involved, probably at Donny’s request. The woman’s demeanour might be interpreted as that of a person carrying a guilty
secret, a burden more complicated than simple grief.