Guilt in the Cotswolds (24 page)

She let herself and Hepzie into the car, but sat motionless for another minute. She wanted very much to phone someone. Just to hear a voice and feel less alone with such a terrible burden of knowledge would be a great relief.

But then something better happened. A car appeared, and pulled up beside her. At the same moment, the door of the house opposite opened and Norah Cookham approached her. She wound her window down.

‘I called them,’ Norah said, nodding to where DI Higgins was getting out of the vehicle just arrived. ‘I didn’t want to, but I saw no alternative. I’ve had a long email from Rita, just now. And another from Brendan Teasdale. I saw you talking to his father. And then you came back, looking so downcast. I couldn’t just leave it all alone.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I expect I did the wrong thing again.’

‘What did Rita say?’ Higgins was close by now, and Thea opened the car door.

‘She understands that the trouble is all her doing. She’s shouldering all the blame. She mentioned you. Said you’d been a very good listener and she was hoping you might be able to put a few things right.’ Norah looked at Higgins with exaggerated deference. ‘Inspector,’ she said. ‘I have a feeling this lady might want to talk to you. She’s carrying quite a load, I believe.’

Then she retreated to her house again, and nobody tried to stop her.

‘She called us, and I’ve dashed over here, and now she just leaves us to it,’ said Higgins, rubbing his head. ‘That’s not the way it’s meant to go.’

‘Were you at the barn?’

‘I was, as it happens. Wrapping it all up for the night. Nothing more to be gained there.’

‘Have you got any new evidence?’

He sighed, and gave her a schoolmasterly look. ‘You know I can’t answer that.’

‘I take that as a no,’ she said. ‘You haven’t arrested Brendan Teasdale, have you?’

‘We haven’t arrested anyone. I doubt if we’re going to. If we did, it might well be you, for wasting police time.’

She didn’t argue. ‘That’ll please Millie, at least. The thing is, Drew and I were wrong. That means you were right. Nobody murdered the wretched man. He brought it all on himself.’ She deliberately avoided looking at Martin’s car, hoping he wouldn’t come back from the church just yet.

‘And yet his head contained fragments of wood. How did that happen?’

‘Have a close look at a low beam up in the roof. I think perhaps he bumped his own head up there, and that made him wobbly. And then he fell off and died. Accidentally.’

Higgins scowled at her, more angry than she had ever seen him. ‘Which would have been our conclusion, if we had never listened to you.’

‘I know. I’m sorry,’ she said humbly. ‘I feel awful about it.’

‘Well, that’s the way it goes sometimes,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Nobody’s really guilty, after all.’

Nobody except Rita and Martin and me and Drew and Brendan and even Bloody Norah,
thought Thea.

She didn’t phone Drew, but drove down to Somerset, arriving just before nine o’clock. The children were in bed, and he was showing signs of following them before very long. He opened the door before she could knock, and swept her in without a word.

He made her some coffee and stood back while she emptied the last of some dry dog food into a dish for Hepzie. It was gone in seconds. Then all three of them sank into Drew’s old sofa, and gradually relaxed.

‘I have to hear the end of the story,’ he said after a little while.

‘The short version is that Richard picked a fight with Martin at the barn, and fell off the platform. The fall killed him. We were wrong from the start. He wasn’t murdered.’

‘But neither did he commit suicide.’

‘True.’ She went quiet, before going on, ‘The real guilt lies with Rita, originally.’ She explained. ‘But Richard was a fool to hold onto childhood jealousy like that, just
because Rita had a special affection for Martin. Richard didn’t lose by it. Finding out who his father really was didn’t help at all. It just reawakened all the same old grievances. He put everything onto Martin, quite unfairly. He wrecked his marriage for nothing. He was an idiot.’

‘You’re too hard on him. Where does Brendan fit in? And Millie?’

‘Nowhere, really, as I understand it. They’ve both been affected by the animosity between the half-brothers. Brendan was the key to Richard discovering the secret about his father. Millie has been too self-absorbed to notice her father’s state of mind. She might have done something to help him if she’d been a better sort of person. She’s just a giddy girl, enjoying the reflected glory of her famous friend.’

‘So Norah turned out to be a goodie. What else?’

‘Remember that picture from the attic? Martin’s got it in the back of his car. Or something very like it.’

‘I suppose it does rather symbolise the whole miserable story. The two sisters, with the world at their feet. Men were going to fall for them, they’d marry well and remain good friends. And then one of them dies leaving a sad little boy to be rescued by the other.’

‘And a useless man who fathered two boys and didn’t do a bit of good to either of them.’

‘Poor Rita,’ sighed Drew. ‘She’s the one I care most about.’

Thea turned her head and looked at him. She had heard depths and echoes in his voice. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘That I have a few things in common with her. I’m in danger of making the same mistake, aren’t I? Favouring one child over the other. Building up all sorts of future trouble as a result. I’ve got to change before it’s too late. There’s no excuse for it. It began badly, and I never did enough to put it right.’

‘I’ll help you. There’s plenty of time. Kids can be very forgiving.’

‘Unless they turn out like Richard Wilshire. Poor Rita,’ he said again.

‘I know. She’s in a bad way. I doubt it’ll be long before you have to do her funeral.’

He sat up straighter, one hand clamped decisively onto the arm of the sofa. ‘Then that settles it,’ he said. ‘We move heaven and earth to open the Broad Campden burial ground within the next six months. No more procrastination or excuses. Whatever it takes, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll phone Andrew Emerson tomorrow and tell him he’s got a job if he still wants it.’

‘I’ve just realised you’ll be Drew and Andrew. That’s funny.’

‘We can make a thing of it, somehow. I think he’s going to be a keeper. We’ll need to generate enough business to justify him, of course.’

‘We?’ she echoed. ‘That’s definite, is it?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Of course it is. My life is worthless, pointless, empty without you.’ A tear slid down her cheek. ‘I was afraid I’d blown it this time.’

‘So was I. I don’t know how I could have just gone off and left you the way I did this afternoon.’

‘You had no choice. I should have come with you.’

‘We do what we have to do. You know what I keep thinking about?’

‘What?’

‘The way you spoke up to that Mr Shipley. Remember? At the Broad Campden house. You gave him a clear manifesto for the rest of our lives. I keep hearing your words in my head.’

‘Well, we’d better be sure to live up to it then,’ said Thea.

No more house-sitting
, she thought joyfully. Instead, a whole new chapter, working with Drew, the green undertaker. Any lurking apprehensions about dead bodies, demanding clients, night-time calls and financial straits were quickly dismissed. It would be
fun
, she decided. The Cotswolds had earned a large place in her heart over the past three years, despite encountering so many dark seething reasons for committing murder lying behind the handsome stone facades, the ubiquitous human mixture of malice and benevolence causing so much confusion. None of that would change, but with Drew by her side, she might achieve a better relationship with the place.

With Drew by her side, she repeated to herself, what could possibly go wrong?

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T
HE
C
OTSWOLD
M
YSTERIES

A Cotswold Killing

A Cotswold Ordeal

Death in the Cotswolds

A Cotswold Mystery

Blood in the Cotswolds

Slaughter in the Cotswolds

Fear in the Cotswolds

A Grave in the Cotswolds

Deception in the Cotswolds

Malice in the Cotswolds

Shadows in the Cotswolds

Trouble in the Cotswolds

Revenge in the Cotswolds

Guilt in the Cotswolds

T
HE
W
EST
C
OUNTRY
M
YSTERIES

A Dirty Death

Dark Undertakings

Death of a Friend

Grave Concerns

A Death to Record

The Sting of Death

A Market for Murder

T
HE
L
AKE
D
ISTRICT
M
YSTERIES

The Windermere Witness

The Ambleside Alibi

The Coniston Case

The Troutbeck Testimony

The Hawkshead Hostage

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Guilt in the Cotswolds
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