Shadows in the Cotswolds (25 page)

‘“I’m not drunk,” he says. “I’ve taken something, and I want to be left alone.”

‘“No, no, old son,” I tells him. “That’s not the ticket, now is it?” If I’d had a phone on me, I’d have called an ambulance there and then. ’Course I would. But he looks right at me, and tells me it’s too late, he knows what he’s about, and his liver would never stand a chance after what he’d taken. Scared me rigid, I can tell you. There wasn’t a soul to be seen, and I didn’t like to shout for help, not understanding the situation at all. And then, all in a minute, he folds up on me, right there on the floor, and breathes his last. Just like that.’ His pale face and quick breathing added further horror to his fantastic tale.

‘And you never called anybody?’ Jenny stared at him in disbelief. ‘How could you be so callous?’

‘He was dead, love. Dead and gone. I didn’t see much sense in shouting about it. And I wasn’t too keen to be involved, truth to tell. As I said before to Thea, I had a few reasons for keeping my car out of sight. Besides, it wasn’t going to matter if he stayed there a bit longer. I never did anything wrong, not really.’ His face acquired an earnest expression of appeal to their better feelings, clearly wanting them to agree that he was guilty of nothing more than a piece of selfishness. ‘He’d pegged it before I could have got through to the ambulance people, it was that quick.’

‘Did he say anything else?’ Gladwin asked. ‘Anything about why he’d done such a thing?’

Jason ducked his head and gave her a shifty look. ‘Not that I can recall,’ he muttered.

‘All right. So then what did you do?’

‘It’s daft, I suppose, but I laid him out tidy, and closed his eyes for him. I knew I was wrong, just to leave him there like that, but someone was sure to find him soon, and as I say—’

‘Yes, yes. So then you drove away?’

‘No. I went and sat in the car, up at the far end. I was too done up to drive, tell the truth. Must have been there half an hour or so, just sort of stunned. Nobody went past in all that time. Never known such a quiet place, and that’s an honest fact. Then I went to the railway place, which was daft, I know. Wasn’t ever going to make a difference to anything. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘What time was it?’ Gladwin wanted to know. ‘When you first met him?’

‘Dunno. Half ten, maybe.’

‘Because you see, sir, the times are puzzling me. When the police doctor examined him at one-thirty or thereabouts, he thought he must have been dead for about four hours.’

Jason bristled. ‘I’m telling you God’s honest truth, so help me,’ he protested. ‘How could I make up something like that? Besides, those doctors never get it right, do they? The poor bloke was shivering, said he’d been out most of the night – he was
already
cold when I found him.’

At the window, Thea silently agreed with him on all counts. The sheer strangeness of his story served to make it credible. But it must have been later than ten-thirty when Jason first saw Reuben, all the same.

Gladwin cleared her throat. ‘We are, as you know, investigating the murder of Miss Anderson, sometime during Saturday night. Could you help us, Mr Padgett, in resolving that case?’

‘I guess he did it. He was mumbling her name, sobbing about it.’ He threw an agonised glance at Jenny.

Gladwin’s eyebrows met in a glare of acute severity. ‘Mr Padgett, are you telling me now that you let the police waste two days of their time in an investigation that you could have resolved for us on Sunday morning? That’s a criminal offence, let me tell you. Obstructing the course of justice.’

To Thea’s surprise, Jason hung his head in a sheepish acceptance of the detective’s tirade. ‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry.’

But it’s hearsay evidence
, Thea inwardly protested.
It would hardly have affected anything
.

‘All right,’ Gladwin took a deep breath, having flashed a warning glance at Thea. ‘Then we can proceed on the clear assumption that Mr Reuben Hardy, at some point between six pm and midnight on Saturday evening, did unlawfully kill Miss Melissa Anderson by means of strangulation. His name will be officially and publicly registered as her killer.’

‘
No!
’ howled Jenny. ‘No, no, no. Reuben didn’t kill her. He
loved
her.’ She jumped up from her seat and stood face-to-face with the detective.

A deep silence enveloped them, as all three stared at her. ‘Pardon?’ said Gladwin, eventually.

‘Reuben loved her. They were having an affair. He bought me the puppy as a guilt offering.’ Tears began to stream down her face – more for the puppy than the errant husband, Thea suspected.

‘So he killed her because …? Was she trying to finish with him, perhaps? Or threatening to tell you?’ Gladwin spoke gently, persuasively.

Jenny’s head moved heavily from side to side. ‘Of course not. They were going to go away together. I found it on his phone, the bloody idiot.’

‘So it
was
his car outside the pub!’ Thea burst out, unable to contain herself any longer. ‘He was waiting for her there. She said there was someone at the pub. But why was she in the woods?’

‘She was early. I sent her a text from his phone, saying to meet at seven instead of six, but I’m not sure she ever saw it. And I tried to make him late by insisting we watch something we’d recorded, before going out.’

‘You knew he was going out?’

‘He said it was to play poker with some mates.’

‘So he met Melissa sometime before seven, in the woods?’ Gladwin repeated carefully. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No, no, of course it isn’t.’ She wiped her sodden face with one hand, and threw herself back against the cushions. ‘Won’t you even
try
to understand?’

‘All right,’ Gladwin said patiently. ‘You made him watch something you’d recorded, because you wanted to make him late.’ She looked briefly at Thea, with an expression that said
I don’t know about you, but I’m not convinced this makes any sense.

Jenny nodded. ‘Yes. Priscilla was coming here at seven, to watch
Doctor Who
with me. She often does. We both love it,’ she added with a defensive glance around the room, as if aware that her fractured shards of information were seriously lacking in coherence.

‘When
did
Reuben go out, then?’ asked Gladwin.

‘That doesn’t matter, does it? He took the car up to the high street at about six, and came back here, when he should have been waiting at the pub. He thought they were due to meet at six, you see.’

‘And you were here then, as well?’

‘No.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘You have to tell me, Mrs Hardy. Either here or at the police station. Well, both, actually.’

‘Reuben must have seen me going into the woods from here. See – the window looks over most of it. But he didn’t understand, at first, what he’d seen. It was getting dark, and there are trees in the way. But he did see enough to know something had happened.
It took him until Sunday to work it out. He came back here on Saturday evening, when Priscilla and I were watching the telly, saying he’d changed his mind about the poker. He just wanted a quiet night in. I suppose he thought Melissa had stood him up. He was very quiet and distracted, obviously upset and confused, but no more than that. He went to bed early.’

Thea remained by the window, looking out at the place where Melissa had died. She could see little of Winchcombe, looking to the south across the fields and woods and a few dotted houses, but she was aware of the fairy-tale town at her back, with its useful little river and the other-worldly gargoyles. She remembered the varied house frontages and their deliberately preserved roofs, free from modern technology. She wondered what effect, if any, this messy weekend of death would have on the people. Finally, she thought about Reuben again. ‘We saw him at Sunday lunchtime,’ she interrupted, both her own diversionary thoughts and Jenny’s disjointed confession. ‘Did he know by then that Melissa was dead?’

‘He hadn’t the slightest idea. I was careful to keep him busy all morning, with shopping and stuff. We took the puppy out in the car, for a run. Then he insisted on going to the Plaisterers for some lunch, on his own. I couldn’t think of a way to stop him.’

‘But if he’d
seen
it happen, why didn’t he go straight to the police when he realised they were in the woods investigating something terribly serious?’ Thea knew she was meant to keep quiet, but the questions
exploded out of her, beyond her control. ‘And you came to Thistledown late that same afternoon. What was that all about?’

Jenny made an awkward shrug. ‘Smokescreen. I wanted us both to seem ordinary and innocent. Of course, he’d realised by then that it was Melissa, and he was trying to behave normally with me, as well. He was already in meltdown, though. He’d seen me more or less where it happened, and something gave him the idea that I might have found out about him and the girl. I don’t know what that could have been.’ She swallowed painfully, putting a hand to her stomach, turning her face into a cushion for a few moments, before turning back again.

‘When we were coming back here from that visit to you, he told me. He said, “It must have been you. I saw you,” and then he ran off somewhere. I never saw him again.’

Fresh sobs racked her, and for the first time Thea remembered that she was probably pregnant. If she lost the baby as well, that would be a horrifying threefold loss for a woman who had acted out of the most classic and predictable emotion of them all.

‘You have to say it,’ Gladwin pressed her. ‘Get it over with.’

Jenny looked up, her face completely ravaged. ‘All right! I strangled that girl in the woods, and left her there, for Reuben to find. I
wanted
him to find her. They used to meet there, in that hide. He would have
gone there to look for her. Except he didn’t. I still don’t know
why
.’

‘Perhaps he came back here to watch for her from the window? Didn’t you think of that?’

‘He was supposed to be at the
pub
. And Priscilla was going to vouch for me. I was only out for about fifteen minutes. I left Blodwen here …’ The sobs escalated, making her words barely audible. ‘Poor darling Blodwen. Priscilla says she died instantly, but I can’t
bear
it. She was so sweet. She was my only true friend.’

Thea began to feel sick with pity. It swirled inside her like porridge, heavy and thick. ‘She did die quickly,’ she said. ‘She was shocked, but not in any pain.’

Jenny tried to focus her blurred eyes on Thea’s face. ‘How do
you
know?’

‘I was there. She died in my lap.’

Jenny sniffed and said nothing, but she gave Thea a despairing look.

‘All right,’ said Gladwin. ‘I think that’s enough. Mrs Hardy, will you please come with me? I have a car waiting … or I will have in a few moments. Mr Padgett, you’re free to go for the time being, but I’ll need you again, so don’t go missing, will you? Thea, you’ll almost certainly be needed as a witness at some point.’

‘But she’s confessed, hasn’t she? There won’t be much of a trial.’

‘Let’s hope not. Even so … you might be needed.’

‘She’s pregnant, you know,’ Thea said in a whisper. ‘Apparently.’

Gladwin wiped her brow in a masculine gesture. ‘Oh, God! How do you know that?’

‘Her friend Priscilla told me. I suppose it might not be true.’

Jenny remained on the settee, looking drained of all emotion. ‘It went completely wrong, you see,’ she muttered, almost to herself. ‘I thought Reuben would come back to me, and we’d have the dog and the baby, and perhaps move away, closer to his work, and it would all be fine, without that Melissa seducing him away. It was easy enough to kill her.’ She looked up and gave a ghastly smile. ‘I used the strap of her bag to do it. It was already on her shoulder. All I had to do was loop it over and pull it tight. When you hate someone as much as I did – it was really very easy.’

‘Mrs Hardy … Jenny … you’ll need to see a doctor,’ said Gladwin.

‘Oh Christ,’ said Jason, who had retreated to the edge of the room. ‘She’s bleeding, look.’

Jenny’s pale blue trousers were tight around her groin, which was visible as she half lay on the settee. A purple stain was spreading as they watched. Thea realised that Gladwin had already seen it. ‘Oh, no!’ she cried. ‘We have to call an ambulance.’

‘I don’t care,’ Jenny moaned. ‘Why would I want it now? They wouldn’t let me keep it anyway, would they? Not in prison.’

The unorthodox interview was plainly concluded. Gladwin called Jeremy to go and fetch the car and
summon an ambulance. ‘Threatened miscarriage,’ she said. ‘Just to complicate everything.’

Thea had only a few more questions, and she knew they would have to wait, perhaps for ever. She could phone Gladwin in a few days, when the paperwork had been done and all the statements taken. For the time being, she left them to it, dragging herself miserably back to Thistledown the long way. She didn’t think she could face going through Oliver’s woods again. Winchcombe’s main street was quiet, a knot of people clustered outside the big Methodist chapel the only sign of activity. Nobody took any notice of her, as she passed the Plaisterers Arms and turned down Vineyard Street. She would leave soon – perhaps the next day. Oliver would be coming back, his own private anguish lanced, or so she hoped. The death of his young sister was a fresh sorrow, of course. He would miss her visits and the sense of being of use to her. But in some complex way, it might give him some comfort, or at least a validation of his solitary life. See what happens when you get involved, he might think.

But Thea could not rid herself of the memory of that girl, so blithe and sure of herself. A girl who drove a white van, moving from town to town in it, helping people with their disasters, listening to their tales of fire and flood and loss. A girl who was never supposed to have been born, but who had earned her brief place in the world, and had not deserved to leave it so soon.

Four people gathered at Richard Johnstone’s grave, the following Saturday. ‘Funny place to meet, I know,’ said Thea. ‘But oddly appropriate, I suppose. Mum, Fraser, this is Drew. He’s my friend.’

Fraser reached out and shook Drew’s hand, with a melancholy smile. Maureen gave him a little pat on the arm. ‘So pleased to meet you,’ she said.

‘So I missed the whole Winchcombe story,’ said Drew. ‘I still don’t quite understand what happened.’

‘It’s simple enough,’ Thea said. ‘Jealous wife kills husband’s girlfriend. But husband happens to see her on the way to doing it, and can’t take the consequences, so kills himself.’

‘But there’s a lot I still don’t understand,’ complained her mother. ‘How could they possibly have seemed so normal on Sunday evening, knowing what they knew?
She’d done a murder, and he’d found out about it. Nobody could behave as they did, after that.’

‘They were doing it for each other,’ Thea explained. ‘She had no idea that he’d been watching from the window. And he didn’t know that she knew about his affair with Melissa. So they were both fighting to keep everything as usual, hoping to keep each other in the dark, and they were sort of practising on us. And they wanted to check up, probably, on how much the police had discovered. They thought we might tell them.’

‘So how did he work it out?’

‘Must have been something she said or did. Or he couldn’t deceive himself any longer. After all, he knew she was out somewhere, leaving him alone in the flat. Any fool could have worked it out eventually.’

‘So what was on that memory stick?’ Drew asked. ‘That seemed like the biggest clue of them all to me. I’ve been desperately trying to guess what it could have been.’

Thea laughed. ‘Nothing. There was nothing on it. It was new, never been used. She must have simply wanted it for work or something. She lied to me about it, anyway. I can’t think why. They found it in her bag, which Jenny had thrown into a big clump of brambles.’

‘Oh,’ said Drew, rather crestfallen.

‘It’s Jason I feel sorry for,’ said Fraser.

‘He was an idiot,’ said Thea heartlessly. ‘What did he think he was doing?’

‘Playing at being an undertaker, maybe,’ said Drew.

‘What?’ Thea and her mother said simultaneously.

‘It’s a sort of repressed instinct, I think, to make a body look tidy. And with him, it was maybe a sort of penance. He’d let the chap die at his feet, and was too selfish and scared to do the right thing and call the authorities. So he did what he could. I think it shows he had a basic decency.’

‘Oh, he has that all right,’ confirmed Fraser. ‘Jason has always been very kind to me.’ His eyes lost focus, and he smiled faintly. ‘But that’s another story.’

‘You must tell me all about it,’ said Maureen, squeezing his arm. Then she turned to her daughter. ‘Have you any work coming up? Any more
house-sitting
in the diary?’

‘Actually, yes. Somebody emailed me yesterday. The week before Christmas, in a village called Stanton. It isn’t far from here, but I’ve never seen it. I gather it’s amazingly beautiful.’

‘Aren’t they all,’ sighed Maureen, with a visible mix of emotions.

Thea changed the subject. ‘I like the headstone, Mum.’ She examined her father’s name and dates, with a sense of detachment. So many other deaths had overlaid that of Richard Johnstone, in the intervening year. Her mother was here in some muddled sort of quest for permission to begin a new partnership with Fraser. Fraser Meadows, who was going to need solicitude and reassurance as he caught up with the facts of his family’s past, and their ongoing implications.

And it was, in a way, a sort of prelude to a similar scenario in the next generation. One day, she and Drew would have to stand over Karen’s grave, and seek a similar sanction on whatever new relationship they might construct together. Whether as colleagues, lovers, friends or mere acquaintances still remained to be seen.