Deception in the Cotswolds (19 page)

He pouted exaggeratedly. ‘Too late,’ he told her. ‘The damage is done. Thea Osborne doesn’t like Cranham. We’ll never live down the shame.’

It ought to have been funny, but the sharpness
beneath the jokey words could not be ignored. It hinted at anger or a threat of some kind. As if she came to the village to pass judgement on it. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she protested. ‘What does it matter what I think?’

‘You have friends in high places. You come trailing clouds of influence.’

‘What? What on earth do you mean?’ She was genuinely bemused. Was he talking about Phil Hollis?

He cocked his head. ‘You really don’t know? Do you remember a lady by the name of Cecilia Clifton, down Frampton Mansell way? Not a million miles from here, of course.’

Ah. She
knew
the name Cecilia had rung bells when Donny had spoken about his daughter. It had conjured a fleeting image of a sturdy capable woman, which she had not bothered to examine in detail.

‘Now you mention it, I do. She was a college lecturer. My sister knew her ages ago.’

‘You made a big impression on her. And she makes a big impression on most of the people living between Stroud and Minchinhampton. She’s a veteran of a number of important councils and committees, let me tell you.’

Thea winced. Things had not ended very happily between her and Cecilia. ‘Oh,’ she said.

‘And then there’s Harry Richmond. I’m sure you remember him.’

‘Yes, I saw him just a few months ago. But he doesn’t live in the Cotswolds any more.’

‘But a lot of people know him. He comes back from time to time, and he talks about you. He’s been talking about you for two years now. And there are others.’

‘Fiona,’ she supplied. ‘Yes. Your mother mentioned her.’

‘So you see how it is. You’ve become rather a celebrity.’

The idea came as a startling revelation. She had somehow assumed that each house-sitting commission had been contained as a separate entity, with no overlap. The owners of the houses she occupied for a few weeks didn’t know each other. They contacted her via a website she kept minimally updated, and a presence in one or two directories of house-sitters – the less professional ones, which asked for little by way of guarantee or endorsement, plainly washing their hands of any responsibility for the outcome. She had inserted advertisements in local newspapers once or twice, when work was slow to arrive.

Not only was it startling, it was rather unwelcome. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I hope that isn’t true.’

‘Take Blockley,’ he went on, plainly enjoying himself. ‘Two deaths in the main street during your occupancy could hardly fail to raise your profile. And Cold Aston – now
that
was where you met the famous Ariadne Fletcher, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘I wasn’t house-sitting there,’ she flashed, before catching herself up. ‘Please stop it. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I don’t like it.’

He raised his shoulders and spread his hands like a true Frenchman. ‘All I’m doing is letting you know that I, and others, have been following your career with interest. Don’t worry – nobody hates you, or wants you to stop what you’re doing. It’s fascinating. But you do make people nervous – which I’m sure you can understand.’

She smiled feebly. ‘I think one or two positively hate me, actually.’

‘Oh well – you can’t please everybody. At least you’ve never been under suspicion yourself for any of the crimes you get involved in.’

Not yet
, she thought ruefully, remembering Drew’s recent difficulties in Broad Campden.

A thought struck her. ‘Did Harriet know all this about me, before she engaged me?’

‘Harriet makes it her business to know things,’ he said obliquely. ‘I think of her as a spider, watching from the centre of a web that very few people can see. Harriet loves to make things happen.’

Thea was feeling more and more unsteady at so many revelations. ‘She knew about Drew as well, then? She knew it was likely that I’d introduce him to Donny.’ She frowned. ‘But how
could
she know that?’

He watched her face and said nothing. ‘I liked Harriet,’ Thea went on. ‘She seemed open and genuine. And I can’t believe she had any idea that Donny would die while she was away. She was his friend.’

‘She’ll be very upset about it, I’m sure. But I don’t
think he was indispensable to her. There are plenty more where Donny came from.’

She frowned at him, wondering what he could possibly mean. ‘You make it sound as if she’s some sort of Frankenstein. Why does she need sick old men? What are you trying to say?’

‘She doesn’t
need
them. Don’t be stupid. She just likes to collect people to take an interest in. Grist to her mill, so to speak. She likes to study human nature.’

‘You’ve seen her book, I take it?’

His astonishment was gratifying. ‘Have
you
?’

She tried to minimise the breadth of her smile. ‘Oh yes.’

‘I bet she didn’t show it to you. Have you been snooping around the Manor? I’ll tell on you if you have.’ He said the last words with the sing-song lilt of a child in the playground. The fact that he was a heart surgeon returned to her with a sudden force. He simply could not be as frivolous and unengaged as he seemed. He was playing a manipulative game – and yet there was not the slightest hint that he cared about any of the people under discussion.

‘Do what you like,’ she said stiffly.

He seemed to catch himself up, giving himself a perceptible little shake. ‘No, but seriously – how did you find it?’

‘A friend of mine noticed it. I had no idea it was a secret. She uses her own name on the front cover, after all.’

‘True. But she felt confident that nobody in Cranham was going to come across it.’

‘Except you.’

‘I have special privileges where Harriet is concerned. Or rather, it’s the other way around, I suppose. I owe my daughter’s life to her, which tends to forge rather a substantial bond between us.’

‘That’s an interesting situation for a doctor,’ she remarked lightly. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, the peanut thing. We had no idea Tamsin was allergic until one day when she was in the playground with some little friends, while I stood guard with Jasper. The bloody dog distracted me, and I left my post for five minutes. Tam was offered a piece of Lion Bar by somebody’s stupid mum, and by the time I got back she was in full-blown anaphylactic shock. Harriet was kneeling over her, keeping the airways open, while someone else’s big sister produced the epinephrine that somebody always carries these days. There’s me, a consultant surgeon, completely at a loss.’

The familiar sense of unfathomable connections and histories in the communities she touched for a week or two flowed through Thea. If she was lucky, she would be adopted by a knowledgeable individual and apprised of the basics, which helped her avoid some of the pitfalls. But in Cranham nobody had taken on that role. Never before could she remember being so at sea, so unable to judge truth from falsehood, benevolence from hostility. Never before had people’s
motives been so obscure and difficult to read.

She rubbed her head irritably, and gave up the attempt to discern patterns or meanings in the things Philippe was saying. ‘I would ask you to tell me the whole story, but I don’t feel strong enough at the moment. I’ve just walked three or four miles, and it’s hot. Shouldn’t you be somewhere as well?’ For the first time, she wondered how it was he could escape from his family to go to the pub in the middle of a Saturday. She remembered her first impression of him, as a gay man, parading through Cranham with his peculiar dog, seeking to make an impression on whatever rare passers-by he might encounter. It seemed ludicrous now she knew that he had a wife and daughter and a very onerous profession.

‘I know what. Do you have any plans for tomorrow?’

She shrugged warily. ‘Not really.’

‘Come to lunch, then. You should meet my wife, for one thing, and Tamsin already took to you. Plus Jasper has something to show you.’

‘OK. Thanks very much. Tell me where you live, exactly.’

He gave her brief and easy directions. She felt a thread of anticipation at the prospect. She couldn’t remember when she last had a normal Sunday lunch in a house with a family.

‘Now I’m sure we should both get on,’ she said, wondering at her own restlessness.

‘I’m abandoned for the day,’ he said. ‘I’ve got all the time in the world.’

As if the Fates had been waiting for just this utterance, the pub door opened and a female figure appeared, quickly scanning the tables in the bar.

‘Philip!’ she cried, pronouncing the name in the English fashion, ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I need you to come and look at my computer. The drive thingummy isn’t working again.’

‘Coming, Mother,’ he said brightly. ‘Just give me one minute.’

Thea savoured this echo of the episode at the Manor when an impatient Jemima had summoned Toby every bit as imperiously. Was it the universal norm now for women to show no finesse when instructing their menfolk? Or was it particular to Cranham?

She wished she’d had the gumption to order a meal in the pub when she had the chance. Left alone with the dog in the still-crowded bar, she could not face eating in solitude. Besides, it was probably too late now, her watch informing her that it was almost half past two.

‘Come on, then,’ she muttered to the dog. ‘Time to go home.’

It was true that she felt tired and somehow overloaded. Philippe had not been a comfortable companion, on the whole. He gave an impression of playing a game, acting a part, leaving his essential character unknowable. Thea disliked games of that
sort. The older she got, the easier she found it to avoid them by deliberately turning passive and incurious. But this time, she had been drawn in further than she liked, to the point where she felt an imbalance, an unfairness, whereby the man was teasing her, exploiting her ignorance, while giving very little away. Even his dog had known better than to try to establish any kind of friendly relationship with Thea or Hepzibah. It appeared not to have much affection for its master, either, following him on its delicate little feet as if conferring a favour, its nose still aloofly pointing skywards.

There was, somewhere, a question of dignity. For a man of forty to be publicly summoned by his mother in such a way might be seen as humiliating. And yet he had responded cheerfully, somehow managing to make her appear the ridiculous one – and even more cleverly, letting his dog maintain a regal air on his behalf. None of the people in the pub who had witnessed the little scene showed any sign of thinking it laughable or worthy of comment. Thea caught one or two exchanged glances, slight smiles, but nothing more than an acknowledgement that Mrs Hastings had come to find her son, and he had willingly gone to sort out her computer problem, as any decent man might do.

She took the path leading to the common, forking right to Hollywell, and tiredly walking up the drive to the Manor. She passed little girls sitting in a huddle
beside the front gate of a house, examining something with absolute concentration. It was a scene all the more appealing for its rarity in these days of captive kids, seldom permitted outside without supervision. But in the light of the alarming story about Tamsin in the playground, she had to concede that supervision was frequently a good thing. Certainly it could be effectively employed as an argument on the side of the risk-averse. Every child was so indescribably precious that much was readily sacrificed in the interests of their safety. Thea did not like it, but she could barely remember a time when it had been any different. Idly, she wondered how historians would look back at this period. Would they calmly comment that the actual levels of safety were so unprecedentedly high that people had to invent dangers for themselves? Would psychologists point out that without some sense of hazard, human beings could not properly function? After all, the vast majority of living creatures spent their lives in a state of acute alertness to danger. Or would the collective memory focus on maverick individuals who ignored the conventions of the time and went in search of challenge and adventure?

As always when such musings gripped her, she conjured her husband Carl, who had taught her to notice social changes and to kick against them if they met with her disapproval. Carl would definitely point out the scepticism that sprang up in response to establishment edicts. The fact that the establishment
always won in the end would not subdue him. ‘It depends what you regard as
the end
,’ he would say. ‘In the end, right always prevails.’

Drew Slocombe would probably agree with him about that; she’d have to ask him sometime.

Saturday afternoon was half over, the sun intermittently breaking through the hazy cloud, only for a fresh bank of cumulus to stroll over the horizon from the west and obscure it again. It had been a long day already, with a great deal to process and try to understand – unless she chose to completely ignore the whole subject of Donny Davis and his unsatisfactory death.
Unsatisfactory
was precisely the way she regarded it. Nobody seemed quite satisfied with it, unless perhaps Jemima Hobson’s evident relief counted as satisfaction. If it had been Donny’s genuine and implacable desire to die, his end apparently painless, then wouldn’t his circle of family and friends be feeling that something had been achieved? They might be sad to lose him, but surely they would quickly conclude that he had got what he wanted and they ought to be … well …
satisfied
?
Not happy, or triumphant, but with a sense of the right thing having been done, and no lingering reasons for guilt or anger. Instead, there was an atmosphere of secrecy and defensiveness.

And it was all because somebody chose to telephone the police and make an accusation. Jeremy Higgins would never have been involved without that call. The paperwork would all have recorded a verdict of suicide, the funeral would be arranged and people would be clear about what had happened. As it was, there was doubt and confusion, everyone asking questions of each other, frowningly comparing their experience of Donny with the apparent fact that he killed himself.

The word
murder
had been uttered because of that phone call. Edwina had been accused by a person unknown. And nobody knew who had made the call. The foolproof, fail-safe system at the police switchboard had not functioned. From her close associations with the police, Thea did not find this surprising, but it was definitely frustrating. It could not be dismissed as some mischievous crank taking delight in stirring up trouble for its own sake, because Edwina Satterthwaite had been named specifically. At least, if it was a crank, he knew enough of the people involved to home in on the most sensitive spot. Edwina had, after all, agreed that she would one day help Donny to die. The intention had been there, however faintly, and that made the morality unclear.

The post-mortem results had not been disclosed to her, but she had an idea that if they had unambiguously indicated foul play, then Higgins would have told her. Instead, there were niggles, worries and suspicions. The Gloucestershire police were busy; they were bound to be tempted to file the Davis case away as settled, and concentrate on more pressing crimes. It even struck her now that they might be unofficially and delicately using her as their front-line investigator. She had met the man; she was good at seeing to the heart of things; she had form as a good amateur detective, in a time when such figures were assumed to have disappeared completely.

And Drew – he was another one. Before his wife was injured, he had been involved in suspicious deaths, missing persons, unduly hasty cremations. The serendipitous initial encounter with him in Broad Campden ought to be ensuring that between them they established exactly what had happened to Donny now. They should not be wasting their talents, but pooling resources and solving the puzzle together. Did they not both possess an unusual level of curiosity and sense of justice? Admittedly, Drew cared much less than she did about civil rights and personal privacy, but he definitely had the right approach when it came to establishing the truth. She could tell that merely by looking at him.

Without further analysis, she phoned him at four o’clock.

He greeted her cheerfully. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked. ‘Did you find that dog?’

She had forgotten about the dog. ‘No, I didn’t. I set out this morning to see if I could locate its farm, but it was hopeless. There are too many trees.’

He laughed. ‘I’m sure there’s some sense in there somewhere. So … what’s been happening, then?’

She described the episode in Donny’s house, the poem and the window and the bed, and repeated her increasingly strong intuition that Donny had not died as he wanted to, which might mean he was coerced or worse, but that Edwina had been exonerated because Higgins had believed her protestations. She stressed the phone call, which felt increasingly malicious and important. She mentioned Toby and Jemima and Philippe, reminding Drew who they all were and what she thought about them. And Philippe’s mother, who called him Philip.

‘Wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘You
have
been busy. How many days is it since I saw you? It feels like ages.’

‘It was yesterday, you fool. But I must admit a day can be a long time, especially in the summer.’

‘I wish I lived closer,’ he said easily. ‘This is all so intriguing, I feel I’m missing an adventure.’

‘Even after Broad Campden?’ she quizzed him lightly. ‘Was that an adventure as well?’

‘That was different. I was much too deeply involved for comfort. This time, nobody can say I’ve got any sort of ulterior motive. I’d just like to help you sort it
all out. He sounded like such a nice man.’

‘That’s it exactly. If somebody did kill him, they did a very bad thing, but because he was old and ill, nobody thinks it matters enough to raise a stink. That’s horrible. It’s a slippery slope. Although,’ she added, ‘to be fair, Higgins did get cross when I said something like that to him. He said every death matters, regardless of the circumstances – or words to that effect.’

‘He’s right,’ said Drew with emphasis. ‘Listen – maybe I could bring the family up tomorrow afternoon. We could visit a National Trust place or something, and have a meal with you in a pub afterwards. You could meet Karen.’

Did she want to meet Karen? she asked herself. Why wouldn’t she? Ordinary human curiosity suggested that she should, but somehow it didn’t feel entirely right. ‘We could show her this house,’ she said, before the
we
echoed loudly in her head and she wanted to kick herself.

‘Better not. The kids might break something.’

‘True. But yes, it would be fun to do something. I’ve been invited out for lunch, but I can meet you somewhere around half-three or four, if that’s not too late. I’m not sure what there is to visit, though. I tend to avoid National Trust places, for some reason.’

‘Well, it can be something a bit more downmarket. Isn’t there a children’s zoo somewhere, or a model village or something?’

‘All of the above, yes. Mostly in Bourton-on-
the-Water
,
I think. That’s a good place to go with children. I could meet you there.’

‘OK then. Assume that’s on, and we’ll check in with you tomorrow to confirm. Is that OK?’

‘Fine,’ she said, wondering how true that was. What chance would they have of a decent discussion about Donny, with his family tagging along? But what
did
she want, she asked herself. She had phoned him with an idea of forming a team, of updating him about events in Cranham, and he had responded more readily than she could ever have expected. ‘I’ll look forward to it. Shall I phone you, or you me?’

‘I’d better call you. I think I’ve still got your number.’

‘You must have – you phoned me about Harriet’s book, remember?’

She had not thought it strange that he should have retained her mobile number for three months, since their first encounter. Now it made her wonder slightly. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Will you need to go to Broad Campden as well? To see your burial field or something?’

‘I might show it to Karen if there’s time. She hasn’t seen it yet. Who invited you to lunch?’

‘Philippe, son of Thyrza Hastings. He wants me to meet his wife, apparently.’

‘Really?’

‘Maybe he’s just being kind, although I hadn’t thought of him like that. I think it’s more that he
regards me as some sort of rarity, and he wants to find out more about me. He knew about me before I even got here, and took great pleasure in telling me how famous I am.’

‘And you didn’t like that?’

‘Not much, no. But his child is sweet, and it’ll be a distraction. It never occurred to me to refuse.’

‘Why would it?’

‘Right,’ she laughed. ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Which left a long Saturday evening to be got through, with no duties other than checking and feeding the geckoes – a task that took barely ten minutes, even including lingering to search out the invisible creatures. The food disappeared regularly, so she supposed everything must be in order. If she left her visit to nine o’clock or thereabouts, the animals were more active and she might find one clinging to the side of its tank, the large eyes apparently watching the room beyond, although probably not dreaming of freedom or adventure.

Restlessly she prowled around the Manor with a duster in her hand, slowly inspecting objects as she whisked the cloth over them; objects that she had overlooked before. The paintings in the gallery received a long examination, the signature in the corner suggesting all of a sudden that they could be the work of Evelyn De Morgan, a female painter whose name had been unfairly dropped from the canon of Pre-Raphaelites. This was obviously exciting, if true,
and Thea reproached herself for failing to realise the importance of them sooner. Her sister Jocelyn would have been a lot quicker to identify them and explain their history. With very few interests in common, the sisters did at least share a relish for the whole
Pre-Raphaelite
experiment, an enthusiasm which had begun when they were barely into their teens. Athena posters of paintings by Burne-Jones and Millais adorned their bedroom walls for years. Almost by osmosis they acquired knowledge of the Brotherhood and its wider circle. But the De Morgans had never featured prominently – William and Evelyn, husband and wife, were always on the periphery.

Thea’s initial assumption that these pictures had come with the house seemed increasingly likely on reflection. If Harriet had purchased them, she would know them for what they were and be aware of their value. There would be issues of security and insurance. The fact that Harriet had not mentioned them seemed to suggest she regarded them as of little importance. Was it possible that she had no idea of their history? They were poorly displayed, on the shadowy side of the gallery, in urgent need of cleaning. Perhaps Thea was the first person to spot them in a hundred years or more. The idea thrilled her, despite its improbability.

For an hour or so she managed to forget about Donny and his circle, but inexorably it all broke through her defences again as soon as she went downstairs. In the kitchen, his ghost seemed to linger,
sitting in his customary chair, clutching the coffee mug in shaking hands. More vividly than ever she remembered his words, his moving complaints about the unpleasantness of growing old, his emphatic rejection of the entire medical machine.

As if a voice spoke it clearly into her ear she understood that Donny Davis did not die by his own hand. He had done no more than utter the universal wishes of every sentient being nearing the end of life: to avoid pain and degradation, to remain fully human to the final moment, to cause minimal trouble to his loved ones, to be remembered for the energetic creative person he had been in his prime. In the wider world, such sentiments were being expressed on all sides, in speeches and articles and blogs and TV documentaries, until it felt as if there was some easy means by which to achieve this ideal. But Donny had known there was not. She saw it in his eyes. Donny had known that his actual fate was far more difficult and undignified than he wanted it to be – than
anybody
wanted it to be. From that knowledge to suicide might seem a small step, but Thea knew that it was far from being so easy.

She felt a sudden urgent need to talk to Jemima, the only blood relative Donny had left in the country, apart from her children, his grandchildren. The distant Silas and his needy wife had apparently severed all meaningful links long ago. Despite her denials and distractions, Thea suspected that Jemima
understood most acutely the position her father was in. And because she knew that there was no solution, no possible truthful reassurance she could offer, she sensibly strove to divert him from it. And that was why she said
This is what I was afraid of
when she found his dead body. She believed that her efforts had failed, that he had sunk into a slough of despair that she ought to have been able to steer him from. And some of that was surely Thea’s fault, in Jemima’s eyes.

It was one thing to want to see the woman, and quite another to organise a meeting. Jemima was busy. She had a husband, a farm and a number of offspring. No doubt she did a lot of cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing. She might make pies and jams and chutneys as well, for the store cupboard, even if such activities had virtually died out in the popular imagination. It was the strawberry season, very nearly – an extra busy time for the Hobsons. In fact, hadn’t Donny said something about people turning up to pick their own? If the berries were ripe already, that suggested polytunnels, which must entail a whole lot more work. What would Donny’s daughter be doing on a Saturday evening?

On several occasions Thea had gone uninvited to the homes of people she wanted to speak to. She had done it right from the start, in Duntisbourne Abbots, where she had found herself unable to sit quietly alone in a big house close to the scene of a murder. On the
whole the outcome had been positive, but there had been enough hostile receptions to make her more hesitant since then. Her spaniel had been attacked as well, once or twice, which had also taught her not to be too cavalier. She had developed a habit of circumspection, rehearsing cover stories, or trying to make her approach look casual or accidental. And since the unsettling revelations from Philippe Ferrier, earlier in the day, she felt even more diffident about showing her face. If people regarded her as a celebrated amateur detective, they were unlikely to feel very pleased when she knocked on their front door and requested an interview.

But she and Jemima had a bond. They had found Donny’s body together. Of the three women she had come to know in Cranham, Jemima was the one she most nearly regarded as a friend, despite her prickly manner and occasional rudeness. Jemima was the one she thought she understood. It was perfectly acceptable, therefore, to track down her number and make a phone call.