Shadows in the Cotswolds (6 page)

Everything instantly changed. The first sensation was relief. It was no longer necessary to feel solicitous for the old man. His expected horror and grief, potential collapse or even worse, had all receded. From a precious daughter to an unknown stranger was a giant leap.

And then confusion rapidly followed. If not his daughter, then
who
? ‘But she
said
she was,’ Thea insisted. ‘Why would she say that?’

Nobody could suggest an answer to that. Gladwin kept her expression studiously neutral, her brain plainly whirring as she ran through the procedures for establishing identity. Find the handbag and the car. Examine the clothes. Publish a picture. Check missing persons records. Thea could readily guess much of the list, from her long-time
associations with the police. Was the woman’s name even Melissa? She had obviously told at least one lie – there were likely to be others. But why? She couldn’t have known she was about to be murdered; she had shown no hint of fear. Thea braced herself for yet another run-through of everything that had been said the previous evening, with a new twist. This time it would be in search of clues as to who this cold, stiff body had been.

‘Well … thank you, sir,’ Gladwin remembered to say. ‘That’s obviously come as rather a big surprise. You’re quite certain this is not a member of your family?’

The implication seemed to hit Thea and Fraser simultaneously. ‘I think I would know my own daughter,’ he said, huffily.

But would you?
Thea thought. How many men were there out there with offspring they knew nothing about? Thousands, at least. Would Gladwin order a DNA test, to establish the truth for sure? In straitened times, such expensive procedures were regarded as a luxury, to be used only when all else failed. But science trumped unreliable human testimony every time, and there seemed to be every reason to expect that it would have to be employed here.

‘Perhaps you could go back to your mother now,’ Gladwin said meaningfully to Thea. ‘Take Mr Meadows with you. We have things to do here.’

Which was code for
We’re going to remove the
body now, and we need clear access to this entire scene for the rest of the day.

Thea was opening her mouth to ask if she could just feed the birds first, when she realised that there would not be any birds visiting their feeding area today. Perhaps they had been frightened off for ever, and Oliver Meadows would be the one to suffer the greatest loss from all this. After Melissa’s actual parents, of course – whoever they might be. For surely she had some, somewhere, and surely they would soon note her disappearance with growing alarm.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and find Mum, then.’ She held out a friendly hand to Fraser Meadows, but he did not take it. Feeling foolish, she dropped it again. How ridiculous to think he might.

Her mother was listening to the radio in the car, ignoring the persistent gaggle of curious neighbours who were craning their necks for a glimpse of the Thistledown entrance and the woods beyond. Several walked past, as if heading for Sudeley Park, only to pause
self-consciously
a little further on, hoping to get a better view from there. Police vehicles occupied a stretch of roadside, with the undertaker’s inconspicuous Renault Espace closest to the gateway. Thea wondered whether they would manage to reverse it past her car, but felt unequal to the task of moving it. Escape felt like the preferred option now, and she had no qualms about taking her mother and Fraser to the nearest pub. 

‘We’d better drive up to the high street,’ she suggested. ‘They might need this space for something.’

‘No, we’ll walk,’ Fraser said firmly. ‘We’d already decided where we want to go for lunch.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘A bit early, but that’ll be all right.’

Thea looked at her mother, bemused by this new person who had apparently taken her over. Perhaps in the circumstances it would be too much to expect him to smile, but there was a dourness to him that was far from appealing. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’m hungry, anyway. I never had any breakfast. And if we’re walking, Hepzie can come as well, can’t she.’ It was a statement, made as firmly as Fraser’s had been.

‘Where is she?’

‘In the house. I’ll pop back and fetch her. I need to change my shoes as well.’ She looked down at herself, half expecting to see blood and other stains on her clothes. There was nothing visible, but she felt soiled, just the same. ‘And I think I might change. I’ll be five minutes.’ Without giving them a chance to argue, she went back up the track to the house.

‘Poor old Heps,’ she crooned to the abandoned spaniel. ‘What a rotten morning you’ve had.’ In fact the dog seemed to feel no resentment. From her point of view, events had been mildly interesting, although there had been an annoying spell in which she’d been shut in the kitchen. ‘Never mind, we’re going to the pub now with Granny.’

Upstairs she found sandals and a clean shirt that
felt more suited to a Sunday lunch in a pub that might well prove to be rather smart. In the Cotswolds, you could never be quite sure of the dress code. There could be mud-spattered hikers, or expensively turned-out celebrities, or a mixture of the two.

The walk did prove therapeutic to some extent. The houses at the upper end of Vineyard Street were sufficiently characterful for comment. They had distinctive porches, which set Thea’s mother talking about a porch on the house she grew up in, where a Mermaid rose trailed memorably. ‘Funny the things you remember,’ she concluded, with a little sigh.

This appeared to refer to an earlier conversation, to judge from the little laugh that Fraser gave. ‘Don’t fret about it,’ he urged. ‘Nobody can remember everything.’

‘But it seems so
mysterious
. None of the theories fit. I mean, with other things – like these porches, for instance – it just needs a small trigger for everything to come flooding back. I can clearly see that rose, and a swallow’s nest right over the front door, and my father’s old walking boots full of cobwebs, tucked under a rickety bench. I find it rather frightening,’ she added diffidently. ‘As if the only explanation is that parts of my brain have died.’

‘Familiarity,’ said Fraser with confidence. ‘You saw that porch every day for years. Whereas we … well, it was all very brief.’ He glanced shyly at Thea. ‘Brief but intense, at least from my point of view.’ 

The potential for embarrassment was prodigious. ‘You must remember
something
,’ Thea said to her mother.

‘I told you,’ came the curt reply. ‘I do, of course. It’s just … I thought it would come back in more detail, and it hasn’t.’

They decided they were still rather early for lunch, so turned left into what Thea gathered was Gloucester Street for a short way before transforming into Cheltenham Road, for no discernible reason other than a fair balance in acknowledging both the two large towns to the south.

Her mother seemed to give herself a silent talking to, before determinedly staring about her at the houses on either side. ‘Heavens, Thea – have you had a chance to really look at these?’ she breathed. ‘They’re amazing.’

‘I had a good walk yesterday,’ said Thea, distractedly. ‘I saw the church and its gargoyles.’

‘But the
houses
,’ insisted Maureen. ‘And the roofs.’

‘Yes.’ It seemed wrong to be admiring their surroundings, when a murder had just taken place, virtually under Thea’s nose. ‘I know.’

‘Fraser,’ Maureen appealed to her friend. ‘Aren’t they wonderful?’

Fraser in turn appeared to make an effort to concentrate. He looked obediently at the row of mismatched houses. ‘No two the same,’ he observed. ‘Must be very unusual.’

‘I
did
notice them,’ Thea insisted, childishly. ‘They’re all different sizes.’

But she had not fully appreciated exactly how varied they were. Some had three gables, some two and some none at all. The heights were uneven, and the widths of dramatically different proportions. Some had a door and a window on the ground floor, others a door between two windows. Chimneys were of crazily differing heights and there was not a satellite dish to be seen. Nor a solar panel, she realised. Most were faced with render, concealing the stone beneath. They were of many assorted colours, from white to blue, with creams and browns between. ‘It’s not so Cotswoldy, is it?’ she concluded.

‘It is, though,’ Maureen argued. ‘Just below the surface, there’s all that same stonework.’

‘Not to mention the antique shops,’ said Fraser, with a laugh. ‘Oliver thinks they must be a front for other things. He can’t imagine how they survive otherwise.’

‘We’d better turn back,’ said Thea, realising they’d walked almost the length of the town. ‘I’m getting hungry.’

The return walk gave them a different vista, with the long wall concealing the grounds of the erstwhile abbey gaining in prominence. ‘Goodness, look at these!’ cried Maureen, pointing to a row of almshouses, standing at right angles to the main street. ‘What have they done to them?’

‘Sold them for millions, if you ask me,’ said Fraser.
‘Turned them into a gated community.’ He put his face to the firmly closed gate of Dents Terrace, like a little boy.

Thea followed his gaze, realising she had not registered the houses previously. ‘They can’t be very big inside,’ she remarked.

‘Bijou,’ said Maureen. ‘Aren’t they beautiful.’

‘1865,’ read Fraser from a circular plaque on the nearest house. ‘It’s like a film set.’

Thea agreed with him. Perfect little gardens lined the short stretch of private street. Roofs and drainpipes and brickwork were all in immaculate condition. Slowly she began to wonder at the pressures involved in living in Winchcombe. You certainly wouldn’t be allowed to let any weeds grow in your front garden.

They were in the square, where Thea had seen the Plaisterers Arms the day before. ‘Is this where we’re lunching?’ she asked Fraser. ‘It looks okay.’

‘We thought we’d give it a try. There’s a garden, if they don’t allow dogs inside.’

They went in, and the initial impression was of an unpretentious old hostelry, that would never dream of excluding dogs or offering polenta on the menu. They peered into the bar on the left, finding it empty of customers. Steps led down to a shadowy area boasting a large sign reading
TOILETS
. They turned back and went through the right-hand door, into a larger bar containing five people, all of them elderly, and a fat old corgi lying under a table. No blackboards offered
Specials, or uniquely creative cocktails. A piano had pride of place, looking as if it had been there for the past century or so.

‘Very nice,’ approved Thea. ‘Haven’t you been here before?’ she asked Fraser.

He shook his head. ‘I very seldom come to Winchcombe. Oliver bought the property as a second home, originally. He and I have had shockingly little to do with each other, all our lives. Of course, it was my doing – I was in Australia for most of the time.’

‘And he never offered Thistledown to the family, as a place to come for a holiday? I’d have thought it was perfect for a week in the country.’

‘We’re not that sort of family,’ said Fraser obscurely.

They ordered a lunch that was emphatically not a Sunday roast and headed for the garden, passing a shelf of old books that struck Thea as an incongruous attempt to mimic similar displays in other pubs. It was entirely superfluous, given the effortlessly simple atmosphere of plain food and drink and somewhere to sit.

The fact that they had yet to return to the burning topic of vicious murder loomed larger as they waited for their food. Nobody in the pub had seemed to be talking about it, or even aware that something had happened. Thea had encountered this very British restraint before, particularly in Blockley – another small town like Winchcombe. And yet there had been curious onlookers, who must have picked up the basic fact of a sudden death, at the very least. 

‘Is Oliver very involved with the local community?’ Thea asked Fraser. ‘Does he belong to a discussion group or bridge club or anything?’

‘I think he goes on guided walks now and then,’ was the vague reply. ‘He isn’t a very sociable chap, on the whole.’

At least it was clear that they really were brothers, Thea thought. Same height, same small mouth and loosely attached legs. ‘Which one’s the elder of you?’ she wondered.

‘I’m older, but not by very much. But we were never very close. Went our separate ways and so forth.’

‘Literally,’ Thea remarked. ‘With you going to Australia. You don’t seem to have picked up much of the accent.’

‘I was in Perth. It’s all remarkably English there, even now. I guarded my vowels most assiduously, I can assure you.’

The flash of wit gave rise to the first stirrings of liking for him. She looked at her mother in the hope that she could convey some hint of approval. But Maureen Johnstone was obviously not listening. She was picking at the strap of her shoulder bag, with a nervous tension that drew instant concern from her daughter. Had she missed something seriously awry, in her preoccupation with murder and misplaced daughters?

‘Mum?’ she said gently. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Oh yes, I’m perfectly all right. We’re lucky with the
weather, aren’t we? It’s often lovely in September. Your father always used to say …’ She interrupted herself with a glance at Fraser. ‘Richard was full of sayings about the weather. He grew up in the country, you see.’

‘My husband was the same,’ added Thea, slightly too heartily. ‘It was one of the things they had in common.’

‘They got along well, didn’t they?’ said Maureen, with a soft sigh. ‘Such good men, both of them.’

It sounded strange, but it was nothing less than the truth. Carl Osborne and Richard Johnstone had indeed both been good men, and their loss was never going to cease to hurt. ‘They were,’ said Thea.

‘And a good man is hard to find,’ Fraser said, even more heartily. His attempt at a twinkling smile fell flat. Thea did her best to credit him with the right instincts. After all, he had just been presented with a dead body to identify. He could be forgiven for losing his bearings for a while.