Guilt in the Cotswolds (17 page)

Drew made a quick snort of understanding.

‘I suspect they thought I would do just that,’ she went on. ‘Retreat into addled wits and refuse to accept what they were telling me. That would have made it easier for us all. For perhaps an hour I almost gave in. And then I remembered you, and all you had seen of Richard and myself. I remembered how reliable and straight talking you were when we met. Added to that, you – by some extraordinary chance – found my son’s dead body. I could hardly pretend to be senile, knowing that, could I?’

People didn’t say ‘senile’ any more, Thea thought
idly. She had not quite followed the logic of the last remark, but trusted that it had one. There was nothing illogical about this old lady.

‘I’d hate to think you let me influence you,’ Drew said uneasily.

‘That’s not what I mean. All I’m saying is that you gave me courage when I needed it. My reaction was all my own – a fierce refusal to believe what they were telling me and a determination to prove them wrong. That’s the part I fancy you might help me with.’

Thea felt a stab of pride hearing this, understanding better than before that Drew held a position of great privilege with newly bereaved people, never trying to divert them from the embarrassing fact of death or assuring them that everything would be all right.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said.

‘So please give me the whole picture, from the start.’

‘All right. Well, it was really his dogs who found him. We stopped at the barn for a look, because it was so … picturesque and the dogs got very excited.’

‘I remember it vividly. Richard used to go there with his little friends, when he was a boy. The farmer was forever chasing them away, but they always went back.’ Her eyes misted, less with grief than a sort of frustrated rage. ‘There is no way at all that he would kill himself there,’ she said with loud emphasis. ‘It has nothing but happy associations.’

‘You mean, he wouldn’t spoil that for you?’ asked Drew.

‘Or himself. Suicide is never a
happy
thing, is it?’

‘No.’ Drew shook his head. ‘Not unless the person was insane.’

Thea entertained a brief image of a lunatic launching delightedly into the void, arms outstretched, from the high barn platform. That most definitely was not Richard Wilshire.

‘So … you don’t believe it could have been an accident?’ Drew asked carefully.

‘Of course not. I know he wasn’t a boy any longer, but he was in good health and fit enough. No dizzy spells or wonky legs. You know,’ she went on, ‘I never had much sympathy for relatives who insisted so adamantly on knowing the exact circumstances of their loved one’s death. What did it matter? I thought. Dead is dead, however it comes about. And now I’m one of them. I can’t tell you how important it is to me that the world should have the right facts about how Richard died. I can’t allow him to be remembered as a suicide. Even his daughter doesn’t seem to fully understand how much it matters.’

To Thea, as she listened, this carried echoes of the conversation she and Drew had had the evening before.

‘We’ve met Millie several times since Friday,’ said Drew. ‘Have you seen her since they told you about Richard?’

‘She telephoned me at six o’clock last night. There didn’t seem to be much for either of us to say. We were quite unable to console each other. I have a horrid feeling
we each think our loss is greater than the other’s.’ She smiled wanly. ‘And that odd Judith girl, of course. She battened onto Richard like a leech.’

The old lady’s grasp of the current situation seemed almost miraculous to Thea. She thought of another aged woman, in Blockley, whose wits had wavered alarmingly. People varied, obviously, and stereotypes were always a mistake; but for someone so very old to keep abreast of relationships and emotions in others was definitely impressive.

‘But, do you know – and I can say this to you, and nobody else – the pain is actually more bearable than you’d expect. Perhaps I’m a monstrously insensitive creature, or it could yet be too early to say, but I am a lot more concerned to have the truth revealed than I am with nursing my misery. The police tell me he didn’t suffer, which helps a lot. And I am very sad about his dogs. They were devoted to him, you know. But he had no wife. That is, he has an ex-wife, who will certainly feel shock and sentiment, but she wasn’t dependent on him. Nobody was. That makes a big difference, I find.’ Her face contracted for a moment, giving the lie to some of her brave words.

Drew leant towards her, but did not touch her. ‘I’ve heard the same sort of thing before,’ he said. ‘It’s the thing I most value in the British. No false emotion. The stiff upper lip is very underrated. And when a person genuinely is annihilated by the loss, it’s all right for them to show that, too.’

‘Authenticity,’ Mrs Wilshire nodded. ‘I’ve always liked that concept.’ She smiled again. ‘Would you believe I studied Jean-Paul Sartre in some depth, back in the sixties? I thought he was the most brilliant man alive. I still find that Existentialism is the best explanation available for the human condition.’

‘Wow!’ said Drew.

‘Well, never mind all that. I asked you here to help me discover the truth of what happened to my son.’ She looked at Thea, almost for the first time. ‘I hope you can stomach some direct remarks?’ she said. ‘I’m too old for euphemisms and evasions.’

Thea smiled. ‘I don’t think you need worry about me. This isn’t the first time I’ve been involved with violent and sudden deaths.’

‘So, please continue,’ the old lady urged Drew. He gave her a brief but honest account of finding her son’s body, his apparent injuries, and the arrival of the police.

‘It did seem from the start that they thought it was suicide,’ he concluded.

‘I thought so as well, at that point,’ offered Thea. ‘It did fit the way everything looked.’

‘I will not entertain that idea for a minute,’ said Rita Wilshire. ‘Not for a
minute
.’

‘No. Well …’ said Thea.

The woman regarded her for a moment. ‘What did you say your name was?’ she said then.

‘Thea Osborne.’

Mrs Wilshire’s eyes turned inward, where she
searched her memory. ‘The house-sitter,’ she concluded. ‘I have a good friend in Snowshill, who spoke of you a lot last year. Such a tragic thing, that was. My friend was deeply upset by it. I must say I feel rather privileged to meet you.’

Thea felt herself flush. Her burgeoning reputation was one reason for no longer wanting to carry on as a house-sitter. It was increasingly uncomfortable, forcing her to defend herself more and more often. ‘I’m sure the stories have been exaggerated,’ she said, refraining from asking the identity of the friend. It was not relevant to the case in hand, after all. She quailed at the knowledge that Mrs Wilshire had no idea that Thea was sleeping on her feather mattress and rifling through her possessions.

‘I hope not. I’m relying on you to solve this mystery for me.’

Drew produced a small notebook and pencil. ‘We should make notes,’ he said.

‘Of course.’

He found a clean page and poised the pencil over it. ‘There are a great many questions,’ he said. ‘For example, you say Richard knew the barn, and I wonder whether that’s of crucial importance.’

‘He didn’t have the dogs with him on Friday,’ said Thea, before the old lady could speak. ‘Was that unusual? And there seems to be no sign of his car. How far is the barn from the farm where he was supposed to be testing cattle? Would he have walked from one
to the other? Have the police asked all this?’ Suddenly she realised how scrappy and inadequate all their discussions had been thus far. Every time they seemed to be getting somewhere there had been an interruption or diversion. The car was a major element they had barely even considered.

‘Very good,’ Mrs Wilshire approved with a smile. ‘I can see you have a very clear mind.’

‘You don’t know the answers, do you?’ Thea said.

‘I’m afraid not. Nobody expected me to think about details like these, moments after being told my son had died.’

‘And they were right,’ said Drew. ‘Have you lain awake all night, thinking about it?’

‘Half the night,’ she admitted. ‘They gave me a pill that knocked me out until about three am.’

‘So write down what we need to ask the police,’ Thea told Drew, going over the same points again. ‘Where was his car?’ She paused. ‘The dogs were still here at his Stratford place on Thursday evening. Millie told me that. She was surprised he hadn’t taken them with him to work, as he usually did.’

Drew sighed. ‘That will have added weight to the suicide theory. They’ll think he planned it all along, which is why he didn’t take the dogs.’

‘But he might have been asked to meet somebody there,’ said Mrs Wilshire. ‘Some local farmer, perhaps, who had evil intentions. He wasn’t very popular, I know that, bringing such dreadful news about their animals.’

‘And the woman over the road from your house,’ Thea said. ‘Norah Cookham.’

‘Bloody Norah,’ smiled the old lady. ‘We all called her that. You’ve met her, then?’

‘She told me the dogs killed her cat.’

‘I’m afraid they did. One of those sudden fits of madness that can happen to any dog.’

Thea nodded. ‘Even my spaniel has had her moments. She was absolutely awful at Christmas, suddenly attacking a dog four times her size.’

‘Norah isn’t really so bad. She’s had a sad life and it’s embittered her rather. She’s done a remarkable job on herself, you know. Now she’s all alone in that great house, a bit like me. We go back a long way and we’ve always got along well enough, provided Richard kept out of her way. She wasn’t hostile to me as long as he kept the dogs away. She visits me here now and then, which I appreciate.’

Thea had a sense of a logjam shifting, the pent-up waters ready to flow freely again. The waters of explanation and information, concerning family history, village relationships and reasons why Richard Wilshire might have given someone cause to commit murder. She settled back in her plastic chair and anticipated a flood of useful disclosures. ‘So, can we get one thing straight?’ she asked. ‘Was coming to live here your own idea, or did Richard persuade you?’

‘Thea!’ Drew protested. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

She glared at him. ‘It would settle the confusion about what was making him feel so guilty.’

‘Guilty? Richard was feeling guilty?’ Mrs Wilshire leant forward.

‘He told me he was,’ Thea confirmed. ‘And you could see it on his face.’

Drew sighed, but said nothing.

‘Well, whatever he felt guilty about, it couldn’t have been me,’ she said firmly. ‘I was quite ready to move here. I had no illusions about it. There are many disadvantages, of course, but nothing in life is ever perfect. We make the best of it. I worry about all the things left behind, I admit. They were entrusted to me, and I’ve done my best, all these years, to keep everything safe and in good condition.’ Then she frowned. ‘When did you see Richard, then?’

‘On Thursday.’ Too late, she remembered that Mrs Wilshire knew nothing about Richard’s decision to open up the various boxes and drawers in the house and list their contents. That, perhaps, was the source of his guilt feelings. Hadn’t Millie said something to that effect, on Friday? Or was that just a hunch on Thea’s part? In any case, the cat had escaped from the bag. ‘There
are
a lot of things,’ she said.

The old lady was quick to understand. ‘You’ve seen them?’

‘Yes I have. I’ve seen almost everything.’

‘You’ve been in my house?’

‘Yes. I’ve slept there the past few nights. Your son was employing me to make an inventory of everything that you have.’

Mrs Wilshire slumped back in her chair. ‘Why in the world would he do that? There was nothing that could interest him. And if there was, all he had to do was to ask me about it.’ She looked dazedly at Thea. ‘An
inventory
? Is that what he called it?’

‘I think so. A list, with descriptions of it all. I am most terribly sorry. I feel awful now.’

‘And so you should. Did it not occur to you to ask whether he had my permission to do such a thing?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ She swallowed. ‘And it gets worse.’

‘How could it get worse?’

‘Well, yesterday, your nephew –
great
-nephew, I mean – came to the house and asked if he could go up to the attic. We didn’t see how we could stop him, but we did go with him. He seemed to think there was something up there that would prove Richard was murdered. He said you’d got an email that Richard wrote, saying something about being worried he might be killed. We didn’t really believe him, but we still didn’t see how we could stop him going up there. He took a few things away with him.’

Mrs Wilshire’s jaw tightened alarmingly.

‘Just tell me he didn’t take the stamps,’ she said.

There followed a confused fifteen minutes, with Mrs Wilshire manifesting a depth of feeling that exceeded anything Thea could recall. Okay – old women were very often angry or bitter or resentful, but this was something more. This one was speechless at first, her face suffused with a deep red. Drew was clearly concerned for her health; a heart attack seemed only too likely. He fetched a glass of water from a carafe beside the bed, and nothing much was said for a while. When she did regain her equilibrium, she seemed inclined to blame Thea in particular for being so gullible as to allow Brendan into the attic.

‘I was there, too,’ Drew told her. ‘There was nothing we could do. We didn’t have the authority to prevent him.’

‘I
knew
I should have brought the stamps here with me. I wanted them to go to Carol – Martin’s daughter. She’s a good girl. She emails me at least twice a week with all the news. She has a daughter who’s a valuer
for an auction house. She collects all sorts of things, including stamps. But Brendan has always had his eye on them. He’s what we used to call a spiv, years ago. No proper job – just wheeling and dealing. It was that ludicrous school they sent him to, in my opinion. Never taught him proper self-discipline.’ She was still enraged, but her colour was better. A glance at Drew told Thea that they were back on more predictable ground.

On the assumption that it might be therapeutic to encourage her to talk, Thea prompted, ‘School?’

‘Oh, it was one of those throwbacks to the sixties. No rules or exams. Little more than childminders. By the time his father saw sense, it was far too late.’

‘Mr Teasdale,’ said Thea softly to herself, simply in order to keep track.

Mrs Wilshire, in spite of herself, was equally anxious to keep things straight, it seemed. She nodded. ‘Martin Teasdale, my sister’s son. I raised him as my own, as they say, after his mother died. A long time ago now, of course. Then he swanned off to Abu Dhabi or wherever it was, when he was twenty-four and I was heartbroken all over again. Even worse than when he went to boarding school. But he never stopped writing and phoning. And now he’s back again, which is lovely. He’s going to be such a consolation to me now … I mean, with Richard gone.’

‘He seems a nice man,’ said Drew. ‘And Brendan isn’t all bad, I’m sure.’

She gave him a knowing look that to Thea seemed
almost cunning. ‘Oh yes, Martin’s been very attentive, I must say, and of course he’s the same person he always was. You never entirely lose that bond, I suppose, even after over half a lifetime. He was such a darling little boy.’ She glanced at her laptop. ‘But the
stamps
,’ she burst out. ‘You have to get them back. Brendan doesn’t care about them – he’ll sell them for a pittance. I
knew
I should have brought them here with me. I did so love them when I was young.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking in a much more obvious anguish than she had shown over her dead son. Thea had obscure thoughts about displaced pain and how this must be an example.

‘Should we ask his father?’ Drew suggested. ‘He must be the best person to retrieve them.’

‘I suppose so.’ She looked round, as if expecting Martin Teasdale to materialise. It was the first hint of confusion that Thea had seen. ‘I think he’s coming again today.’ She frowned. ‘Did he take anything else?’

Drew took a steadying breath. ‘Well, yes. A picture. He said it was of you and your sister as young girls. And a schoolbook. Just a nostalgic bit of rubbish, really. But it’s a good picture. I imagine it might have some value.’

‘Schoolbook? That can’t have been his. We’ve never kept anything from Brendan’s schooldays. Why would we? What possible connection would they have with me?’

‘Well, that’s what he said.’

‘No,’ Thea corrected. ‘He said it was his
father’s
, not his.’

‘That would make more sense,’ said Mrs Wilshire, as if an important point had been settled. Thea and Drew
both waited in vain for a reaction to the removal of the picture. Instead, Mrs Wilshire stuck to the subject of the book. ‘But I think it must have been Richard’s. Did it have a green cover? Scribbled on? I remember him putting it up there, saying it still had lots of blank pages, and he might use it one day.’

‘That sounds like it,’ said Drew.

All three appeared to realise at the same moment that they had drifted off the subject of how Richard had died, and what should be done about it. Mrs Wilshire gave herself a little shake, as if to force herself back to the main point. ‘Where were we?’ she asked.

‘We should tell you what happened yesterday evening,’ said Thea. She understood that Drew had a professional resistance to going into excessive detail as to the precise cause of a person’s loved one’s death, but she had little doubt that the old lady could cope better than most. Especially as there was nothing unduly gory about it and very little sign of suffering. ‘We went back to the barn last night,’ she said. ‘We were there when you phoned, in fact.’

‘Oh? Looking for clues?’

‘Actually, yes.’

‘Did you find anything?’

‘We’re not sure. It was dark.’

The old lady looked to Drew. ‘You didn’t say anything on the phone,’ she reproached.

‘There was nothing
to
say. We thought it would be soon enough to tell you this morning. After all,’ he
went on, slightly desperately, ‘you were only told of his death yesterday afternoon. I didn’t want to overburden you with anything else.’

‘What day did you find him? Remind me.’

‘Saturday afternoon.’

‘Do they know exactly when he died?’

‘They haven’t said anything to us, but I know about these things, of course. I’d say he died quite early on Saturday. And that’s curious, because nobody seems to have seen him or heard from him all day Friday – and he never went home on Thursday night.’

‘So he wasn’t lying there all broken for very long, then. That’s a slight comfort, I suppose. I was afraid he’d been there since Thursday, prey to animals and weather – horrible thoughts.’ She shivered. Then she spoke with a visible effort, her gaze on the floor. ‘And today they’ll be performing an autopsy on him.’

‘That’s right. And they might find evidence that’s been missed so far.’

‘Evidence that he was attacked?’ She looked doubtful. ‘If that’s what you mean, I fear you have more trust in our criminal investigators than I do. Especially as I imagine it would suit them for it to have been suicide.’ Her face crumpled for a moment, and then cleared. ‘What other explanations could there be for his death? I can tell the two of you have been thinking about it.’

‘We have,’ said Thea. ‘And there are several odd aspects to the whole business. For a start, the
height
. It’s true that it is very high, and nobody would want to
fall off that platform, but you wouldn’t really expect it to
kill
you.’ She glanced at Drew, half-expecting a signal that she was being too plain-spoken. But he just nodded. ‘The thing is, as I understand it, a person seriously intent on killing himself will want to be as sure as possible that he really will die. The worst outcome is a horrible injury that makes you dependent on other people, but isn’t fatal. That’s what stops so many people from taking overdoses. They’re not sure it’ll work. Wouldn’t it be the same if you decided to jump off a high place? I mean – you’d choose the Clifton Suspension Bridge or the top of a skyscraper, wouldn’t you?’

Drew and Mrs Wilshire both shuddered at being forced to consider something so visceral. Then Drew said, ‘She’s right, isn’t she?’

‘The police appear to disagree. They told me in no uncertain terms that they did not suspect foul play.’

‘I know they did. For them it’s largely a matter of evidence.’

‘But they never looked properly for evidence,’ Thea protested. ‘They took the whole thing at face value.’

‘They’re trained to keep it simple, as far as possible. They saw a high place, a broken body, no trace of anybody else and nothing they perceived as a weapon. We told them the man was feeling very guilty, and the nature of his work was essentially depressing. With their limited interest in psychology, that would be more than enough to confirm suicide.’

‘But the autopsy?’ said Mrs Wilshire.

‘I’m afraid it won’t be very comprehensive. I don’t know a lot about it, but I suspect they’ll do a blood test for toxins, as well as matching his injuries to the known effects of striking a level surface at speed. If they found a wound made by a sharp edge or pointed object, they would have to think again. But I very much doubt that’s going to happen.’

‘Do you know precisely what caused him to die? Was it a broken head?’

‘Well, his skull was definitely damaged. But I think it must have been his neck. I think perhaps he fell awkwardly, head first.’ He grimaced, obviously reluctant to say any more. ‘A lot will depend on that, of course. I mean – which it was.’

‘Oh dear.’ She bowed her head again. ‘I keep remembering him as a baby. Isn’t that foolish?
That
Richard had disappeared long ago, so why does it feel as if I’ve only just lost him? What a silly thing the brain is – as if I believed I could one day rediscover that sweet little thing, if only he stayed alive. Ridiculous.’

‘I can’t explain it,’ said Drew. ‘But it does seem to be human nature.’

A short silence fell, and then Thea spoke. ‘I think we ought to focus on the mystery of how he got there in the first place, and why, don’t you? The police don’t seem to have followed up on that at all.’

‘We don’t know that,’ reproved Drew. ‘They will want to find out who saw him last and what his frame
of mind was at that time. They have to try to account for his last day, for their own records.’

‘He was perfectly all right on Wednesday,’ said the old lady. ‘He spent an hour here in the evening, before going home.’

‘And he never said anything about hiring me to go through your things?’

‘Not a word. I don’t expect I’ll ever forgive him for that.’

‘But you were very close? He visited you a lot?’ Drew was instinctively trying to soften her fury. As an undertaker, he never wanted his mourners to be unduly angry with their loved ones. It made for an uncomfortable funeral.

Mrs Wilshire gave him a long look. ‘Mothers and sons,’ she said. ‘A very fraught business, as I’m sure you are aware. We were quite typical, I imagine. A lot of pretence involved, following the usual pattern expected by society. He visited me and we chatted about the weather or politics or food. We seldom strayed into anything personal. With one big exception, of course.’ She held her gaze on Drew’s face. ‘My funeral. He tried to put me off, you know. Said it was morbid. Said I could trust him to follow my wishes without making it a formal agreement with an undertaker. Ha!’ She almost spat. ‘I don’t think so. I have always found trust to be a very insecure business. Where would I be now, with my son dead before me, if I didn’t have the arrangements made already?’

‘Your granddaughter might take it on. Or your nephew,’ Drew suggested.

‘They might. But they wouldn’t want to. All they want is to ransack my house and rewrite the family’s history.’

‘I was thinking,’ began Thea, ‘you were sure to find out about me being at the house eventually. How did Richard know that Drew wouldn’t say anything to you? And Millie knew I was there because she and Judith came to see me on Friday.’

‘A remote risk. I had no plans to meet Mr Slocombe again, until he came to collect me feet first, as they say. And Millie was very probably told to remain quiet.’

‘She
was
very angry about it,’ Thea remembered. ‘At first, anyway.’

‘But not angry enough to come to me and help me to put a stop to it.’

A rap on the door silenced them. Mrs Goodison came in, followed by a girl of about eighteen in a white uniform. ‘Time for coffee,’ the woman almost sang. ‘You must be parched from talking so long.’ She made way for the girl, who was carrying a tray. There were three mugs on it, as well as a jug of milk, bowl of sugar and a plate of biscuits.
Presumptuous
, thought Thea. What made them think she and Drew both drank coffee?

‘What time is it?’ Drew wondered.

‘Eleven o’clock. You’ve been here for quite a time. Rita must be worn out.’ The accusation was no less real for being veiled with a smile.

‘I am nothing of the sort,’ said Mrs Wilshire.

‘That’s lucky, because Mr Teasdale telephoned just now and said he would be along shortly. He said he would be happy to take you out to lunch, if you were up to it.’

‘There won’t be anywhere open on a Monday,’ said the old lady. ‘Not in October, anyway.’

‘Plenty of places are,’ the matron argued. ‘As I’m sure you know.’ She smiled approvingly at her charge’s robust manner. All very right and British, she was plainly thinking.

Thea and Drew sipped their coffees and signalled to each other that they would be more than pleased to stay and meet Martin Teasdale, if it could be arranged. If for no other reason, there was the potential disagreement about the stamp collection and the part Brendan had played so far. The matron and her minion withdrew, with some reluctance.

‘We still have a lot to talk about,’ said Thea. ‘We haven’t come to any kind of a decision about what to do next.’

Mrs Wilshire appeared to be revived by the coffee. She spoke to Drew, ‘I had little idea what to expect from you, other than a listening ear. You have given me that handsomely and I’m grateful. My sole purpose is to discover exactly what happened to my son.’ Then she looked at Thea. ‘You mentioned his car once or twice. Is that not a significant clue as to what his intentions were? Is it hidden somewhere? Have the police perhaps found it and failed to inform us?’

‘Very likely,’ said Drew. ‘They have no reason to keep me or Thea informed, and as I understand it, they still haven’t spoken to you directly.’

‘They’re afraid I’ll drop dead on them, I suppose. I must say I had not quite bargained for the way a person becomes less than human once inside a place like this. You’re no longer regarded as a person with abilities and faculties and opinions. The only thing I lack is functioning feet and legs. The rest of me works well enough.’