Revenge in the Cotswolds (15 page)

‘I doubt whether that’s going to happen, but thanks for the kind thought. You’re right about the people.
Those protesters have been gunning for us ever since we put that land on the market.’

‘They told me they didn’t actually object to it very strongly. Jack wasn’t one of their main targets, apparently. But they think it was him who …’ She bit back the words, unable to voice an accusation of murder, even indirectly. ‘I expect you knew about that?’ she finished weakly.

‘They’re so stupid, it makes me want to kill one of them myself,’ spat Sandy viciously. ‘They can’t see anything except for their own dogmatic opinions – which are mostly based on completely false information. Like those idiots who killed the paediatrician by mistake, years ago now. I’ve never been able to stop thinking about that. It shows how helpless we all are in the face of a mindless mob. No single person takes responsibility, that’s the real problem. They think they can get away with anything because there’s safety in numbers.’

‘Did you know Danny Compton? The one that was killed at the weekend?’

Sandy shook her head. ‘They were all the same to me – just a crowd of thugs.’

Thea hesitated, with a frown. ‘They’re actually quite ordinary and respectable, individually,’ she argued. ‘I don’t think they meant to hurt Jack badly.’

‘Are you defending them? Because if you are, you’re a lot more stupid than you look.’

‘Not at all,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I didn’t mean that.
I know they were totally wrong to do what they did. It’s just that, well … Tiffany Whiteacre, for one. I think she’s basically okay. She’s very young.’

‘You’ve said enough. Thank you for taking the dog. That was a nice thing to do. Here are the eggs. I need to make some phone calls.’

The eggs were in a section of cardboard, like the bottom half of the usual box they came in. It had ragged edges, as if torn from a bigger tray. There were four.

‘Thanks,’ said Thea. ‘I am sorry, honestly. How will you manage – if he’s away for a long time?’

‘I told you – Dennis can come and help.’

‘No other members of the family?’ Thea was slowly moving towards the front door, knowing there was much more she’d like to ask. ‘There was a chap called Steve who called him Uncle Jack.’

‘That’s stretching it a bit. Steve Hobbes, he is. His mother’s a cousin of some sort. We never see anything of them. But Jack has got two sons, who both live abroad. They’re in their thirties. They have no interest in farming – only the money that’s tied up in the land. It was their idea to sell the corner field, and see where that’s landed us.’

This time Thea swallowed down the reply she would have liked to make. It was one thing for a step-grandmother to criticise, and another for a stranger to agree. As Sandy herself had pointed out, Thea Osborne had already said enough.

‘Just one thing,’ she remembered, as she crossed the threshold. ‘Don’t the protesters object to your intensive chicken farming? I mean – it’s a long way from free range, isn’t it?’ The image of the packed floor and docile birds had stayed with her. ‘I would think they’d find it unacceptable.’

‘Not your problem,’ said Sandy Handy, and closed the door between them.

It was almost eleven on a sunny spring morning, and Thea had no obligations for a while, apart from lonely old Gwennie asleep in her kitchen. Elderly dogs, however, liked to sleep a lot. They liked a quiet life in a warm place with very little excitement. Staying away for much of the day was probably the best thing Thea and her spaniel could do. If the afternoon continued warm and sunny, she would move the tortoise outside and see if it woke up. Meanwhile, there was a lot of exploring she could cheerfully do. She would forget all about the belligerent Sophie and Nella and Ricky, and let them stew in whatever perverse ways they might choose. As they had quite rightly told her, it was none of her business.

There was nothing more she could do for Jack Handy or his stepmother, having returned the dog. The
only person she could be remotely useful to was Drew, who was very slowly inching towards a decision about his property in Broad Campden and might be helped along the way by somebody on the ground.

The house was of substantial value and had been left to Drew a year before. There were, however, conditions. His benefactor had added a proviso that he open a natural burial ground on land she had regarded as hers, before taking full possession of the house. In compliance with this, he had obtained outline consent for just such a burial ground, and then simply stalled. The house stood empty and the consent was time-limited. Whilst potentially crucial to his long-term finances, in the short term it would require investment that he did not possess. Various strategies had been discussed, all of them featuring Maggs as a prominent participant. Now, if Maggs was to be interrupted by a baby, she could not be guaranteed as an active partner for a significant period of time. Her husband was already stating flatly that he was against any removal to the Cotswolds.

‘At least I can go and make sure the house is all right,’ said Thea to her dog. ‘And I promise we won’t go to that pub that refuses to let you in.’

Broad Campden was at the diagonally opposite extremity of the Cotswolds to Daglingworth, requiring a drive of several miles along the A429 through Bourton and Stow. It was a road she did not often use, despite a familiarity with some of the villages and
towns bordering it. In recent months, she had barely strayed from the 436 and the smaller roads running northwards from it. But the 429 was the old Fosse Way, with its glimpses of Roman presence still discernible in the straightness of the road and something ancient about the bordering walls and hilltops. The road had been built in a startlingly straight line from Exeter to Lincoln, something even modern highway builders might well find challenging. The place names often reinforced the fact of the road, from Fossebridge to Stretton-on-Fosse up beyond Moreton-in-Marsh.

She hummed as she drove, muttering sometimes to Hepzie when a thought occurred to her. Life always felt less complicated when she was out on the open road, anyway. Her phone was turned off for the duration of the journey, nobody knew where she was and the possibilities were almost infinite. A car was a marvellous source of freedom, just as a fast horse must have been in bygone times.

At Stow she forked left and followed the A424 towards Broadway. Here was very familiar territory. Blockley, Snowshill and Stanton were all within a very few miles, and all contained properties that Thea had presided over during the past three years. Broad Campden comprised a fourth in the same area, and Temple Guiting was only a short distance further off. Memories flooded in as she passed signs to the various villages, with Stanton the most recent and Snowshill perhaps the most agonising.

She kept seeing signs to Oxford, which reminded her of poor Jack Handy lying unconscious in the hospital there. The way was not direct, but she knew that it was a short hop from Stow to the A34, and from there a scant fifteen minutes into the city itself. Of course, even if she were to be crazy enough to make the detour, she would not be allowed to approach the bedside. And if she managed that, then what? Why in the world did she even feel tempted to try? Unwillingly she allowed herself to delve into the thought processes and motivations that had given rise to such an idea in the first place.

It was something to do with the way she and Jessica had found him, she concluded; his helplessness against a gang of attackers, and his futile anger. Nobody should lose dignity like that, unless as a fully deserved punishment for a proven crime. It was a premature revenge, by any reckoning. She would have liked to be certain precisely which of the campaign group had been there, adding their pushes and punches to the blows that had most probably been dealt by Ricky Whiteacre. The conversation that Jessica had overheard certainly made that a very reasonable assumption – but as many people had told her in recent times, hearsay evidence was not enough to convict a person of a crime.

Besides, they had already told the police about it. The warning given by Sophie and her henchwomen had come too late, and only served to render Thea more determined to follow her own promptings when it came to making moral choices.

But she turned away from any idea of going to Oxford and followed instead the little road into Broad Campden. Past the topiary hedge and the upmarket holiday accommodation and down the cul-de-sac to the left, memories of her first meeting with Drew came with every yard of the way. They had walked through the village deep in conversation, horrified by a violent death nearby, sharing the anxiety that came with it. Ever since that time, she had harboured a secret unacknowledged hope that she and he might one day find themselves permanently together in this very place.

The house looked chilly and forlorn. By local standards it was nothing special, standing four-square to the road, with a modest garden at the front. A garden that was now full of straggling weeds and a layer of blackened leaves that had been left where they’d lain for the whole of the winter. ‘Good news for the worms,’ Thea muttered. In a region obsessed with tidiness, there was seldom a dead leaf to be found in any garden. No doubt the lawn here would benefit in the long run. Looking closer, she found many of the usual spring flowers flourishing beneath the debris, and fat buds on all the shrubs. In essence, it was a good garden that would quickly forgive a year of neglect.

She did not have a key, and knew there was no longer one hidden under the obvious flowerpot by the back door. All she could do was walk around and make a cursory inspection of drainpipes, roof tiles and pointing. And when it came to pointing, she couldn’t
guarantee to identify a genuine problem. The back garden had been mainly devoted to fruit trees, a patio and a pond. Between the trees, long grass was mushy underfoot and the patio was slippery with moss. Gazing up at the house, she could not see any sign of structural problems. Inside, when she peered through the streaky windows, the original furniture still stood, with curtains, carpets and fittings all as they were left when the owner died. There would be dust and cobwebs and dripping taps. She moved to the kitchen window. She could see a table and chairs, clear surfaces and closed doors. ‘Like the
Marie Celeste
,’ she murmured.

It was dreadful of Drew to just leave it like this. He had visited perhaps four or five times through the past year, tidying everything into cupboards and helping himself to a few items such as a lamp and a good saucepan. Thea understood that he was having difficulty in accepting that it really did all belong to him, legally and beyond challenge. He had not been related to the woman who left it to him, and those relatives she did possess had not been happy. They had made threats about challenging the will, but eventually they found themselves in no position to argue. In an effort to avoid outright hostility, Drew had offered them anything they wanted from inside the house, but they had rejected the gesture. ‘Who would want any of that old stuff?’ said the nephew disdainfully.

Perhaps because of the unpleasant events of the past few days, Thea found herself feeling nervous. The house seemed impossibly vulnerable to her after the fire at the
Fosters’. Anybody could burn it down, any time they liked. Neighbours had complained about the garden, she remembered. Where, she wondered, was the giant hogweed they’d found so objectionable? Either chopped down or destroyed by winter weather, she supposed, finding no sign of it as she scanned the garden.

But of course nobody who lived close by would risk setting fire to it. There was a lot of thatch in Broad Campden, and a single stray spark could bring devastation. Besides, these were law-abiding God-fearing people, who might write letters to the council, but certainly wouldn’t take anything like direct action. It was silly to imagine rural warriors and activists in every little Cotswold village. Daglingworth and Bagendon were different, lying so close to Cirencester. There, the clash of town and country became much more of an issue, the depredations on the land and its wildlife much more apparent. The contrast with sleepy northern Gloucestershire, where Chipping Campden and Blockley drifted dreamily and complacently through the days, was unmistakable.

And yet, she mused, nobody would have claimed that Cirencester was exactly an urban jungle. It only went to show what darkness could lurk just below the surface. She closed the front gate securely behind her and went back to the car, thinking it must be time for lunch. Never too happy to eat alone in public, she wondered what to do about it. There had been
a nice little eatery in Blockley, but the last time she’d been there, it had disappeared. Perhaps, she thought, something new had sprung up in its place, making it worth a small detour to go for a look.

The lane was narrow but fairly straight, enabling a degree of speed that was probably unwise. On the outskirts of the village she saw a sign, in large black lettering on a white background:
HEDGEHOGS USE THIS ROAD
. Then, fifty yards further on, another, reading
PLEASE DO NOT KILL THEM
. Finally, a third, to complete the request.
WE REGARD THEM AS OUR FRIENDS
. How sweet, thought Thea. But was it effective, she wondered? At night a lorry driver was unlikely to notice a small scuttling creature under his wheels. But a car might slow down, she supposed. The plight of hedgehogs was just one of many facts of British life that saddened her. She had heard that their numbers were steadily falling, thanks entirely to traffic. Why the wretched things couldn’t learn to keep off roads was a futile question. Like frogs, they found the smooth surface convenient for travelling, and persisted in using it. Coming out of hibernation, they would be intent on finding food, with grass verges a rich source, she supposed.

The signs worked on her, anyway. Even though hedgehogs were nocturnal, and she had never once seen one out in the middle of the day, she slowed down. Her thoughts turned to the tortoise in the Fosters’ garage. The emergence from hibernation was a little miracle, like a rebirth, which ought to be supervised carefully.
According to the notes she’d been left, it could be a hazardous business. Perhaps, after all, she was in dereliction of duty by wandering around the countryside miles from Daglingworth. She had no obligation to stay indoors the entire time, but equally she should remain close by. The rules might not be carved in stone, but they were easy enough to understand. She ought to go back and make herself a sandwich. Then she should take Gwennie for a gentle stroll around by the church, where she could sniff familiar scents and reassure herself that all was well. Blockley could wait.

She left the car outside, thinking it would be easier to examine the tortoise with the extra space. It was not a large building, with shelving all down one side and tools hanging on the wall facing the entrance. Rags had been given a cramped corner, which was now just a tangle of bedding that she must have struggled to make comfortable. It was to be hoped that she was a lot happier back in her own familiar barn. It had not occurred to Thea until that moment that there could have been trouble for the tortoise if the collie had jumped around too much. The glass tank was on a shelf about four feet from the ground, at the back of the garage, where the warmth of a car engine ought not to make a significant impression.

The tank was two-thirds full of soil, with a tiny area of shell just visible. The animal had buried itself almost completely, which increased Thea’s sense of
a rebirth – even a resurrection. Hibernation was as close to being dead as she could imagine, especially submerged in cold dark earth like this. She did hope it would emerge while she was there, so she could greet it with food and sunshine and welcoming words. It might compensate in some small foolish way for the death of Danny Compton. He would surely have appreciated the notion, even if ambivalent about the keeping of a non-indigenous reptile as a pet in the first place.

While she was there, she supposed she could tidy away the temporary dog bed. Picking up the muddy blankets and shaking them out, she noticed a small object fall out and roll away. Going after it, she slowly identified it as a slimy scrap of material, barely two inches square. There was something on it that looked like blood, as well as mucus, and her first thought was that Rags had been injured and bleeding, without anyone noticing. Then she thought of how the dog had been coughing, and wondered if this had been an obstruction in its throat. The stuff appeared to be denim, with three ragged edges and a hem. She frowned, trying to account for it to herself. Had Rags torn it from the leg of Jack’s attacker’s jeans and then kept it in her mouth all the way to Daglingworth?

She remembered Jack’s criticism of the dog and her own defence of it. She had, he said, caught his attacker by the ankle, at one point. Was it possible that Rags would now provide a slender piece of evidence against one of the protesters, where none existed before? Carefully,
she carried the scrap to the house and slipped it into a plastic bag. It could easily turn out to be nothing, a bit of rubbish already in the garage, but she thought not.

In the kitchen, stroking Gwennie’s head and promising a change of scene in a little while, she wondered what she should do about her discovery. She could either phone or go in person to the Cirencester police station. Higgins would probably be preoccupied, not wanting to speak to her. He was the detective inspector on the local team. His superior was Detective Superintendent Sonia Gladwin, who was almost certain to be the senior investigating officer on the case of the murder of Danny Compton. And yet nobody had mentioned her, and she had failed to make an informal visit, as she sometimes did when Thea found herself drawn into a criminal investigation. The two had become friends in Hampnett, a bond that had survived through events in Snowshill and Winchcombe. She could call Gladwin and tell her about the discovery, making it only semi-official. But as she rehearsed what she might say, it began to seem foolish. Any meaningful evidence must surely have been lost amidst dog spit and garage dust. Any torn jeans would have been destroyed already. Besides, the identities of Jack’s attackers were pretty obvious. Without Tiffany Whiteacre or Sophie or Nella – assuming their denials were truthful – there surely could not be so very many remaining candidates? It was possible that Tiffany could be readily persuaded
to reveal their names, under a degree of police and parental pressure, even if – or maybe
especially
if – her own brother had been the prime aggressor. The girl would want to make a mitigating plea, explaining how Ricky was really a sweet chap, with no intention of causing real harm.