Fear in the Cotswolds (13 page)

The thought was somehow shameful. How could she fritter away a whole day doing virtually nothing other than a bit of shopping? It went against her nature, although she knew plenty of people who barely understood the concept of frittering time. They watched daytime television, phoned friends for long fatuous conversations about nothing, cleaned things that weren’t dirty and made not the slightest contribution to anything. They were, Thea sometimes thought, literally a waste of space. They were consuming energy and food without paying anything back. Carl, a deeply benign person, had raged at the mindlessness of so many people who lived in this way. He and her father between them had trained Thea into other attitudes to life. Sometimes the high-mindedness made her feel rebellious – more
often it left her weak and pessimistic. But mostly she was thoroughly convinced that she should earn her place on the planet, and that meant getting involved, paying attention and trying to do a bit of good here and there.

Jimmy seemed unusually stiff when she took him out for his midday airing. He took much longer than normal to get up, and then his back legs were quivering as he tried to walk. Worriedly, Thea examined him, unable to think what could be wrong. ‘Probably just cold,’ she concluded. He followed her out to the garden with a determined expression, but his head drooped and he failed to produce any urine. Hepzie kept her distance, as if embarrassed by him.

The conservatory was quite chilly, with the wind gusting against the glass and the heating minimal in that part of the house. Even the plants looked pinched, after so many cold days. Should she move
the dog into a warmer area? Would he settle in a different place? Perhaps some warmer bedding would be enough, at least until the evening.

Mindful of the cold, she went out to the rabbits’ shed, to inspect the babies again. Earlier, she had done nothing more than give them all some food and water, knowing it was risky to interfere too much with a nest of young ones. But if they were at risk of freezing to death, she ought to do something. The wind was strengthening, reducing the temperature considerably. Her hands were chilled, despite the gloves, and her feet inside the boots lost much of their feeling after a few minutes. Tentatively, she poked through the covering of soft rabbit hair to the little bodies beneath. It was as warm as any bed could be, as cosy and safe as the most cherished infant could wish for. Trying to see them in their shadowy corner, she noted that the babies were acquiring more and more hair, with different colours emerging delightfully. The mother sat nervously by, her nose working busily as she seemed to mutter to herself. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Thea murmured. ‘I’m just checking.’ She gave the rabbit an apple she had brought out with her, and the animal seized it with enthusiasm.

Another visit to Jimmy only increased her worries. He still shivered, lying awkwardly with his neck stretched out. Thea knelt beside him, and stroked him for a minute or two. It struck her that
she would have difficulty getting him to the vet, with her car a quarter of a mile away. He was light enough to carry, in a real emergency, but she wasn’t eager to try it. For one thing, the dog would only get more chilled, and for another the strange procedure would probably traumatise him. Besides, what good would a vet be, anyway? If Jimmy’s problems were emotional or psychological, there was no cure for them, other than keeping him quiet and safe as Lucy had said. The conservatory was on the north side of the barn, exposed to the bitter wind that continued to blow. The temperature inside had to be close to freezing, even by day. It couldn’t possibly be healthy for any creature as thin and hairless as this one to remain in such a cold place. Decisively, Thea set about moving him into the heated living room.

Gently she led him by the collar to one of the sheepskin rugs that were scattered over the floor. Leaving him standing obediently where she put him, she went back for his bedding. Beanbag, fluffy woollen blanket and a piece of colourless felt that he treated much as a child treats a familiar scrap of cloth – she brought it all through and arranged it in a corner, where the floor felt comfortably warm. ‘Come on, boy,’ she coaxed. ‘This is your new bed, OK?’

In reply, the dog released a stream of yellow urine directly onto the white sheepskin beneath him. Thea shrieked, unable to restrain herself.
The dog flinched slightly, but stood his ground. Hepzie, from her place on the sofa, gave a short yap of echoing reproach.

‘Oh, God,’ Thea moaned. ‘This is impossible.’ Evidently Jimmy associated being moved from his bed and spoken to encouragingly with relieving himself. Would it happen every time she said anything, if he was relocated to the living room? And how was she supposed to deal with the soiled sheepskin, in this weather? Wasn’t there something about laying them out flat in weak sunshine on a mild day? Would it be all right to put it in the washing machine? Would it be ruined if she just left it for Lucy to deal with?

The combination of urgent need for action with a basically trivial problem irritated her. Outside, people were dying. Two children had been left without a mother, and the police were going to be mounting a determined investigation. Inside, she was in a panic about a sad and difficult dog. The dislocation was uncomfortable. But Jimmy undoubtedly required the bulk of her attention, and she had to find a way to keep him as healthy and contented as she possibly could.

She was not being paid to get involved in murder inquiries – she had to remind herself of that. Her duty lay with Jimmy and the rabbits and the donkey. She was perfectly justified in forgetting all about Bunny and her family; about the dead
George, too, despite having been the person to find his body – twice. She meant nothing to Simon or Janina or the boys; she was just somebody passing through, who would soon forget them and leave them to gather up their lives as best they could.

It was a rational decision that ought to have brought some relief in its wake. But Thea Osborne was not a totally rational person. She was curious by nature, and liked to get involved with people, if only temporarily. She became enraged by cruelty or stupid selfishness. Killers, in her increasing experience, were generally unimaginative solipsists who could seldom see beyond their own short-term self-interest. They murdered for money, or in the hope of maintaining a shameful secret, or even for the preservation of some misguided ideology. And in the process they caused appalling distress and misery. She could no more let it all go than she could bring her own dead husband back to life. Somehow, in the murky illogical depths, there was a connection. The sudden stupid death of the innocent Carl meant that further sudden stupid deaths had to be confronted and given the dignity of resolution – not just for the sake of the families, but for the sake of Order itself.

Nonetheless, Jimmy had to be cared for. He certainly couldn’t be allowed to freeze to death under her watch. The incontinence had been
understandable, under the circumstances. She would just have to take more care from here on, and stick as closely as possible to the routine that Lucy had managed to establish. At least he wouldn’t need to go outside again for a while. His bladder must be quite empty.

She had forgotten to have any lunch, she realised, on noticing that it was past two o’clock. The light was fading dramatically, and when she looked out it was to see renewed snow falling, blowing diagonally in the ever-increasing wind, already piling up against obstacles in the yard. Her insides lurched, and her mouth felt oddly dry.
I’m
scared
, she thought.
Really scared, just because it’s
snowing.
She tried to analyse the cause of her fear, which was worse than she could remember feeling for years. The isolation, she concluded, and the responsibility, were part of it. She would have to slog through drifts and ensure the donkey was all right. She might not be able to get to the car, if it snowed all night. She might have to summon help from people too busy to bother with her. But an image was forming insistently in her mind’s eye: the image of the man, curled stiffly in the snow, his hair and skin so cold that snowflakes didn’t melt on contact. It had looked so easy to die out there in the icy white world. You merely lay down and let yourself fall asleep. It would be quiet and painless and imperceptible. As she let the picture
develop, the sensations of fear increased.
That
was what she found so terrifying, then. The appealing ease with which you could kill yourself; the vivid presence of death just a few seductive yards away brought with it a horror that wouldn’t go away. Thea, who had known pain and love and triumph and even some moments of nobility, was unexpectedly staring into the jaws of death and finding them dreadfully attractive.

Desperately, she sought for handholds that would return her to the normality of wanting to live, whatever the circumstances. There was Hepzie – her spaniel would be distraught without her. Except she wouldn’t really. She would go to live with Jessica or Jocelyn or Thea’s mother, and carry on with remarkable equanimity. But there was a future of forty years or more, in which she would meet new people, and love them. She would become a grandmother, in all probability, and see herself perpetuated down the generations. She would be useful and creative and caring.

As if waking from a nightmare, she shook herself and looked around at the solid world. What had all that been about, she asked herself? It had begun with George, the apparent suicide in the snow, and the slide into too close an identification with him. She had almost been possessed by him
for a few moments, and the experience had been frightening. But it had also brought a moment of enlightenment that she should hold on to. A valuable insight into the appeal that death could offer. Did all suicides glimpse that same allure? Did they go into oblivion with a sensation of relief and gladness in those final seconds? Nobody was encouraged to think so. It was almost a taboo to regard suicide in a positive light. Now Thea was not sure this was right. If life had become so untenably distressing, then why not simply leave it?

Not that this applies to me, she told herself sternly. I am a different case entirely. I might feel abandoned and aimless just at this moment, but I have plenty to live for. And for a start, I ought to go and feed that donkey before it gets too difficult to cross his paddock.

She needed human company – without it, she was liable to sink back into the same dark place again. Too much solitude was clearly a dangerous thing, especially in such hostile weather conditions.

But the day was closing in, and people everywhere would be huddled indoors, or forcing their cars through the blizzard to reach the shelter of home. They would not be available to a lonely house-sitter who merely wanted to chat. And then, with
a thump that seemed to affect every internal organ, she understood exactly where the problem lay.

The woman with the freckles and the loud laugh who had replaced her in Phil Hollis’s life. Everything sprang from that overlooked detail, so carefully imparted by her daughter. Phil and Thea had agreed to part, in a mature and unemotional exchange, and left it at that. They had spoken on the phone a few times since, in polite tones, about nothing much. When Jessica gave her the news, she had swallowed down the jagged feelings of rejection and jealousy, sternly labelling them as unjustified. But feelings seldom did as they were told. They simmered persistently, emerging in disguise, sometimes so powerfully that you were undone by them. You thought you were going mad with the irrationality of it all. Why feel so afraid of a fall of snow, when it couldn’t possibly hurt you? Because it wasn’t the snow at all that was the problem – it was the terror of remaining single and unloved for the rest of your life, and a neat symbol for that state might easily be a featureless expanse of snow stretching as far as you could see.

When a very sweet and trusting little boy lost his mother to a violent and senseless death, that too represented abandonment and rejection. Plus the pathetic dog, similarly abandoned on the roadside, with whom it had been all too easy to identify – it all added up to a cold, lonely universe
in which there was very little comfort.

Not to mention poor George, she added to herself, wryly. As the pieces all slotted into place, she found herself feeling much better. There was sense in her alarmingly dark musings after all. Anyone would have reacted the same way. And it was all quite readily soluble. She would meet new men, make new friends. She only had to settle herself into the right frame of mind, and they’d be flocking to her door.

But it would never come right for George, or Nicky or even the wretched Jimmy. They were the truly tragic victims in this particular story, and she owed it to them to do all she could to offer at least some consolation.

She passed the rest of the day playing games on her computer, watching a long film on a DVD, cooking herself a generous quantity of spaghetti bolognese, with real ingredients, including two carrots that were strictly intended for the rabbits, and which had gone somewhat rubbery. She took Jimmy out, and then led him back to his new corner, trying to convince him that it was exactly the same as the old one. She added a small quantity of cooked mince to his dinner – as well as to Hepzie’s – hoping they would regard it as a treat. When the two dogs curled up together on Jimmy’s beanbag, she felt she had accomplished something important.

She awoke to Wednesday with a sense of trepidation. Had the snow deepened again? Would Jimmy be all right? Had it got even colder than the day before?

She pulled aside the curtains. Light bands of white cloud gave the sky a festive appearance. Water dripped past her window, and as she focused on the buildings and trees around the barn, they all appeared to be wet. Streaks marked the vertical surfaces, and the ground was patched with dark colours between the areas of snow.

Thawing! It was all thawing. Like a miracle, the snow was turning to water, even at this hour of the morning. The normal world was returning,
shaking off the unnatural white covering and getting itself back to business. As she listened, she could hear drips and gurgles as it all turned to liquid.

She turned on the radio just in time for the weather forecast at five to eight. The wind had veered to the south-west, raising the temperature by seven or eight degrees overnight. The fast-melting snow might cause flooding in some areas, as it rushed down the hillsides and into rivers that might not cope with the sudden influx.

Only in England, thought Thea, could one weather-related drama switch so abruptly into another. Should she now be worrying that Lucy’s Barn could be inundated with floodwater? She went outside and tried to assess the lie of the land, and where the snow melt might go. It seemed that the barn had been built on a slight rise, which was only to be expected from those sensible farmers of a century or two ago. To the left, the slope was obvious, leading down to Old Kate’s. Ahead, where the donkey had his paddock, the ground also fell gently away at first, and then more abruptly. Behind the barn was a level stretch, but a ditch had been dug twenty yards away, which would surely divert any runoff water. Only to the right, where Gladwin had helped her to get her car out, was there a little uphill slope. And anything running down there
would surely maintain the course of the track, and head off down towards the next farm.

So she could allow herself an inward whoop of relief. She could collect her car and bring it back to the yard. She could open one or two windows and let some milder air into the house. She might go for a walk across the fields behind the barn, where she had not yet ventured. There should be snowdrops growing, and catkins on the hazel. Regardless of it still being the middle of January, she felt stirrings of spring already. Six days of snow had been winter enough, surely?

She fed the animals quickly, her toes still unfrozen inside the boots, and gloves quite unnecessary. The baby rabbits remained invisibly in their luxurious nest, and the donkey had already come outside for a look at his changing world. Jimmy was at least alive, and there was no sign of further incontinence. After his visit to the garden, Thea put him back in the conservatory, making up his bed as close as possible to how it was.

Then she got the dog lead and wallet and took Hepzie out to collect the car. There was still a lot of slushy snow on the ground, but it seemed to disappear on contact with her feet. Water lay in pools all along the track, and trickled musically on all sides. After the silence of the snow, this evidence of movement and life was a delight to the ears.

The car was where she’d left it, which seemed like another cause for relief. ‘We’ll go to the shops in Stow,’ she told the dog. ‘And get something nice for supper.’

The car was facing north, and rather than turn it round in the still-slushy and possibly slippery road, she drove off in the direction it faced, towards the centre of Hampnett. The road was very wet and splashy, the trees on her left looking drenched in an oddly different way from usual. A rainstorm left its own patterns of drips and rivulets. Melting snow was quieter, more gradual and more penetrating. The world looked as if it had been dipped in a large pool and brought up again, streaming with water. The water came from below, not above, and it looked nothing like rain. Thea drove slowly, savouring the oddness of it all.

At the village centre, she paused, wondering whether she might see someone familiar. Then it occurred to her that the only people she knew were directly involved in a murder, and were unlikely to be in any mood for chatting to an ephemeral house-sitter. All the same, she drew the car to a halt, thinking it was high time she investigated the famous church. It was there to her right, with its own parking area. A slightly sloping path led through a small gate and along to the porch and big old door.

Glad of her sturdy boots as she trod through the puddles, she approached the building. Hepzie stayed unprotestingly in the car, which Thea had not bothered to lock.

Inside, the church was light but chilly. At first glance it seemed unremarkable, until she turned east and was abruptly dazzled by the stencilled decorations on all the walls of the further end, where the altar stood. Slowly, she approached, noting the arch between the two sections, carved and painted with such exuberance it felt nothing like a place of Christian worship. The patterned walls were more like those of a papered sitting room than a chancel, or whatever it was. There was a joyful decadence to it that struck her as defiantly nutty. She had read of the arguments many years ago, in the parish, and the near victory of those who wanted it painted over and decorum restored. That it had survived for something like one hundred and fifty years was amazing, and glorious. Now, of course, it attracted tourists and anything that did that acquired a sanctity all of its own.

The archway was as flamboyant as the stencilling, with crinkly stonework and stylised little carvings of men who were probably saints. There was also an intriguing pair of birds at the top of a column, drinking from a bowl, their wings half open. She stared at it for a full minute, wondering about its age, and the
motivation behind the choice of subject.

But it was the stencilling that gave the place its character. There was something foreign and pagan about it that Thea found mildly unsettling, here in the heart of rural England. But then she remembered that William Morris had once lived close by, and that the very architecture of the area stood witness to the spirited imagination of people who had lived here. They might have been shepherds for the most part, and stolid merchants, but they had not been immune to beauty, both natural and man-made.

A sound amongst the scanty rows of pews attracted her attention. She had walked past them with her eyes fixed on the painted walls, seeing nothing else. Now she looked back, and saw a small head close to the floor. ‘Hello?’ she said quietly, half convinced that it was something insubstantial that would vanish on closer inspection.

It didn’t vanish, but neither did it move. She went closer, bending down to look between the pews. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. There was a little body crouching on the floor, parallel with the seats, its bottom towards her. ‘Hey…come on out of there,’ she persisted. ‘It must be cold on that stone floor.’

Awkwardly, the child shuffled backwards, before standing up and turning to look at her.

‘Nicky!’ Thea cried, in recognition. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Where’s Janina? Or Daddy? What’s been happening to you?’

The little boy said nothing, simply staring at her with eyes full of unshed tears. Thea sat down beside him and pulled him to her, fighting back her own urge to weep. ‘Oh, Nicky,’ she moaned. ‘It’ll be all right.’ But it wouldn’t. How could it be? Nicky shivered and stood stiffly in her encircling arm. He was wearing a thin shirt, with no coat or jumper. Only then did Thea wonder just how he had got there, and why nobody had missed him. Why was there no frantic search party out there calling his name?

‘I want George,’ whispered the child. ‘I’m finding George.’