Trouble in the Cotswolds (The Cotswold Mysteries) (14 page)

On the step outside stood two people: a man and a small boy.

‘Hello,’ said Drew with his familiar wide smile. ‘I brought Timmy for a Christmas visit.’

‘It was Maggs’s idea,’ he went on, with a disarming lack of diplomacy. ‘She said Timmy was getting short changed just because he wasn’t poorly. She’s got Steph in bed with her, and Den’s running up and down with tempting morsels for them, while Tim and I came out for a drive in the rain.’

‘But how did you know where I was?’

‘Easy. Don’t forget what a good detective I am.’

‘The police tape, of course,’ said Timmy. ‘Across the house next door. Something bad happened there, didn’t it, Daddy?’

‘It seems so, son. Can we come in?’ He cocked his head at Thea and she felt herself filling up with relief and delight and amusement and …

‘Oh, it is nice to see you,’ she sighed. ‘You’ll never know how wonderful it is.’

He met her eyes with a long open gaze of frank agreement with her sentiments. Then he glanced down at the child and laughed. ‘First, we want to see the rats,’ he announced. ‘Tim’s always had a thing about rats, ever since Samuel Whiskers. Most kids find him rather scary, but not our Timothy.’

‘I used to have dreams about him.’ Thea blinked at the sudden memory. ‘I hadn’t given that a thought for nearly forty years. Dear me, now I feel really old.’ She probably
looked
quite old as well, and decidedly unattractive. She didn’t remember brushing her hair that morning, and felt frowsty after the restless hot-and-cold night. No way could she have faced a shower or a bath, but had simply dabbed herself here and there with a flannel. It hadn’t occurred to her that it would matter.

The visitors waited to be escorted into the rats’ room, which was slowly accomplished as Thea told the sorry tale of Blondie’s troubles. ‘You do have bad luck with dogs, don’t you,’ said Drew, with a hint of reproach.

Thea sighed. ‘I suspect I’m not strict enough with them. They take advantage of me.’

Timmy insisted on having a rat out of its cage to play. Drew promised to take full responsibility for what happened to it, and Thea knew when she was overruled. She watched the child delightedly handle the sinuous rodent, letting it climb onto his shoulder and down his arm. It looked like instant mutual
adoration. ‘Now he’s happy,’ said Drew. ‘He’ll bore me and Stephanie rigid with rat stories for weeks now.’

‘Do you want coffee? Come and meet poor Blondie.’ They left Timmy with the rats and moved into the kitchen. Drew admired the house, with its solid square rooms and flamboyant plants. ‘It’s typical Cotswolds,’ said Thea.

‘How did they do it?’ he marvelled. ‘The proportions and colours are always so perfect and timeless. It’ll all still be here in a thousand years.’

‘The new houses aren’t so nice. The yellow’s too bright, and the construction sometimes seems quite flimsy, compared to these older ones. They don’t have the same
soul
.’

‘New things are generally rather soulless. Give them time,’ he said easily. ‘Things have to happen in them to add that extra dimension.’

‘I know. But I’d hate to have to be the first person to make a mark. Wouldn’t that be horrible?’

‘I imagine some people would feel quite the opposite. The idea that somebody might already have died – or even been born – in their house makes them very uneasy.’

‘How ridiculous,’ said Thea.

He knelt down by Blondie’s bed and gently inspected the ear. Until that moment Thea had quite forgotten that he had been a nurse before he was an undertaker. ‘She’s been scratching it,’ he said accusingly.

‘I know. I hadn’t the heart to make her wear that awful collar in the night.’

‘She doesn’t seem to mind it. She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?’ He stroked the white coat, which was looking a lot less glossy and dazzling than it had done two days ago. The dog heaved a long sigh. ‘She seems very unhappy, though.’

‘She’s got a lot to be sad about. Her people have abandoned her, she’s coming into season, and her ear hurts.’

‘They’ve left her with you when she’s in season?’ He frowned his disapproval.

‘They didn’t know. It’s only just started. I think they’re planning to breed from her. Imagine a whole litter of little Blondies. They’ll be worth a fortune.’

‘You wouldn’t think the market would be very strong, the way things are. People are abandoning their dogs in droves, from what I hear.’

Thea shuddered. ‘Don’t get me started on that,’ she begged.

‘It looks sore,’ he judged. ‘Did they give you any painkillers for her?’

She shook her head. ‘I can swab it with Dettol, that’s all.’

‘I expect she’s had antibiotics,’ he murmured to himself. ‘It’s not a very clever bit of stitching. There’s a gap.’

‘I saw that. I thought she might have pulled it out with scratching.’

‘No. It was never there. It’s been bleeding.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She was tiring of his observations about the dog. ‘But she seems to like you.’

‘She just wants lots of love and reassurance, like any patient.’ He went on stroking long sweeps down Blondie’s back. ‘Don’t you, lovely girl?’

‘I’ve never seen you like this with a dog. I thought you didn’t much like them.’

‘I like this one.’

Thea experienced a humiliating wave of jealousy at his attentions to the dog and wanted to give herself a sharp smack. ‘I’ll do the coffee,’ she said. ‘And we should make sure Timmy’s okay. He might let the other rats out or lose the one he’s playing with. Has he ever handled them before?’

‘Hamsters and a ferret once or twice. He’s got a little friend whose father’s a gamekeeper. They do a lot of outdoorsy country stuff together.’

She tried in vain to visualise the life down there in Somerset, for a young motherless boy with an undertaker for a father. ‘Sounds very …’ she couldn’t think of the word. Wholesome? Not quite, when gamekeepers were tainted with the trappings of privilege and mindless killing of defenceless birds.

‘It is,’ he smiled. ‘Very.’

She busied herself with the coffee for a minute, while he went on stroking the Alsatian.

‘So tell me about the murder,’ he invited. ‘You do realise that’s the reason I’ve come all this way, don’t you?’

It might well be true, she supposed, or half true, at least. Looking at his face, she thought he seemed strained, the witty banter an automatic veneer over something far darker and sadder. When she first met him, he had confessed to a tendency to interfere more than was wise in matters of crime and justice. He had his own experiences of violent death and cunning criminals. She hoped the Stanton situation had simply given him an excuse to visit, when he had already wanted to. He struck her as being in need of diversion, desperate for a break in a routine that was imbued with grief for his wife and responsibility for his children. She smiled weakly and did her best to convey everything she knew about Natasha Ainsworth.

He interrupted frequently, with sharp questions that made Thea feel soft-headed. He made her describe all the people she’d met – the Callendar mother and her sons, Cheryl Bagshawe, the Wilsons and Dennis Ireland. He was particularly interested in Dennis Ireland. ‘At first inspection, my money’s on him,’ he said. ‘Means, motive and opportunity.’

‘What motive?’ Had she missed something?

‘Oh, something about being neighbours, some old feud,’ he said airily.

‘They weren’t neighbours. This house is between them.’

‘That counts as neighbours. You don’t have to be right next door.’

‘Don’t you? I thought you did.’ She became aware
that her head was aching again, as badly as ever. The realisation came with a wave of disappointment. She had hoped she was getting better, and had believed that Drew’s mere presence would work as a cure.

‘You’re not well, are you? I should have asked sooner. You seemed okay at first, but now …’

‘It started just after I got here. This is the third day, I think. It hasn’t been so bad, really. Just achey and feverish.’

‘Stephanie was quite bad at first. Ever so sorry for herself. But it looks as if Tim and I have escaped it, for some reason.’

But what about me?
she wanted to whimper. ‘That’s lucky,’ she said.

‘Listen – why don’t you go and have a hot bath, and then go back to bed for a bit? I can answer the phone or even go and fetch some milk or something. I don’t imagine you want to go out, do you?’

‘I can’t, even if I want to. I haven’t got my car. I’m supposed to be doing something about that this morning. The AA took it away and now I don’t know where it is.’

He looked alarmed at this, but set the matter aside for a while, urging her to rest, instead.

‘I’d feel ridiculous,’ she protested. ‘How can I lie up there like Lady Muck, leaving you to twiddle your thumbs down here? That’s no treat for Timmy. He’ll soon get tired of the rats.’

As if to confirm her fears, there was a loud squeal
from the back room as she spoke. She and Drew both rushed to investigate. Timmy was holding the rat high over his head, as Hepzie made determined jumps at it. Thea grabbed the dog and Drew gathered both boy and rodent to him. ‘I opened the door and the dog ran in,’ gulped Timmy. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘We forgot to tell you,’ said Thea. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She shook the spaniel savagely. ‘You damn dog – what’s the matter with you?’ she shouted. The idea that another Shepherd pet might have been injured or killed by her own animal made her quite faint.

‘She’s just doing what comes naturally,’ said Drew mildly. ‘It’s up to us to keep them apart.’

‘I don’t think she’s ever killed anything in her life – I don’t know what’s come over her.’

Drew evidently felt he’d had his say on the matter. ‘No harm done,’ he pointed out. ‘I want my coffee. Drink, Tim?’

The little boy was pressed against his father, cradling the threatened rat and softly crooning to it. ‘She wants to go home now,’ he said. ‘She was
very
scared.’

‘So was I,’ said Thea with feeling. The subtle implication of reproach that seemed to follow her around the house was beginning to irritate. She passed her annoyance directly to her dog. ‘Hepzibah Osborne – you are in big trouble, do you know that?’

‘Is there somewhere you can confine her?’ asked Drew. ‘At least while we’re here.’

‘The bedroom, I suppose. But she’ll yap. If I had my
car, I could put her out there for a while. That’d teach her.’

They put the rat back in its cage, and shut the door with exaggerated care. ‘She can stay in the living room while we’re in the kitchen with Blondie,’ said Thea. The earlier suggestion of having a hot bath and crawling back to bed began to gain allure. Normal life was so turbulent, so unpredictable and demanding. But it seemed that Drew had changed his mind in the other direction. ‘We could go out somewhere for lunch,’ he suggested. ‘And take the dog.’ He looked at her critically. ‘It might do you good, if you wrap up warm.’

‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ she reminded him.

‘So?’

‘I don’t know.’
People will think we’re a family
was one of many instinctive objections. ‘It’ll be chaos out there. Office parties,’ she added wildly.

He laughed cheerfully. ‘Maybe they’ll let us join in, then.’

This was a man who had been widowed less than six months earlier, an impoverished father of two with every reason to be bowed down with worry and grief. He shouldn’t be laughing so merrily. It made her very happy that he was. ‘All right, then. You win,’ she capitulated. ‘Give me ten minutes to make myself respectable.’

‘I expected you to be in a dressing gown, actually,’ he said. ‘You were up and dressed at eleven o’clock, which is quite impressive in the circumstances.’

‘Pooh!’ she said, which made Timmy smile.

They left the house just before midday, and climbed into Drew’s car. ‘So where are we going?’ he asked.

‘Um …’ Her mind went blank. ‘I can only think of The Mount, and we could walk there. It’s at the end of this street.’

His hand hovered over the ignition key. ‘Is that where you’d like to go, then?’

The decision was ridiculously difficult. ‘I had intended to give it a try while I was here. And it is up a steep hill that I don’t think I’ve got the strength for. We could drive there, I suppose. It might rain again and we’d get wet if we walked.’ It went against all her instincts to drive a quarter of a mile, but she
was
ill, she reminded herself. ‘I don’t expect you were planning to have a lot to drink, were you?’

‘Pints and pints,’ he joked.

‘All right, then. Let’s go there. It’s that way.’ She pointed ahead and they set off.

The pub’s two car parks were each half full. They left the dog in the car and stood for a moment, getting their bearings. ‘I hope I’m not infectious,’ Thea worried. ‘I could pass flu to the whole village. By the look of it most of them are here already.’

‘You’re probably okay now. And it’s everywhere by this time, anyway. Anyone in the habit of going to the pub will have been exposed to the virus long since.’

‘You’re always so reassuring,’ she told him. ‘It must be your chief quality, I think.’

‘Comes with the job, I guess,’ he said modestly.

‘Speaking of which – have you closed down for Christmas, then? What if somebody dies and you’re not there? Maggs isn’t going to go and collect any bodies, is she? Not if she’s ill.’

‘Remove,’ he corrected her automatically. ‘Not collect. And yes, we’re closed for Christmas. Not even answering the phone. If anybody really wants to use us, they’ll have to wait a bit. It’s not such a risk, really. We might lose someone from a nursing home, but it’s unlikely.’

‘And how’s business in general?’

‘Middling. We’ve done a hundred and four burials this year, which is pretty good. It puts me below the poverty line, but that doesn’t seem to mean much these days. You get used to not buying stuff, and there’s loads of people worse off than us. Karen’s parents have been very generous.’

‘Aren’t they coming for Christmas?’

‘No. The old man doesn’t travel.’ Drew had stopped in his tracks to gaze at the view from the car park. The village of Stanton was spread out below them, blurred by the low cloud, like an abstract painting of greys and browns. The wet roofs pointed in jumbled directions, with numerous winter trees around and amongst them. Beyond was a dimly discernible stretch of farmland on rising ground. ‘We came that way, didn’t we?’ he asked uncertainly.