Trouble in the Cotswolds (The Cotswold Mysteries) (18 page)

‘Unless he was covered in blood.’

‘Gladwin said there might not have been much, to start with.’

‘Is there a back door? The killer probably used that way to escape.’

‘Oh yes. Marian Callendar used it yesterday. That’s
a whole other complication. You can get from this garden into both the others, on each side, quite easily. But I’m not sure how much further you can go.’ She sighed again. ‘It all makes my head hurt. Literally. It’s aching quite badly.’

‘But it matters,’ Drew said doggedly. ‘It could make a huge difference.’

‘I’m sure the police will have it all worked out.’

‘There’s a lady,’ said Timmy, staring at the window. The words echoed his earlier alert in the pub and Thea looked round expecting to see a freshly irate Rosa Wilson, with some new reason for being angry with her.

It wasn’t Rosa, but Gladwin, with her nose pressed comically against the glass. Thea laughed and waved her towards the door.

‘Who’s that?’ Drew demanded. ‘What does she want?’

‘It’s Sonia Gladwin. Police,’ said Thea, heaving herself out of the sofa. Her heart was thumping in cheerful anticipation of finally getting her two friends together in one room. She was in no doubt that they would instantly like each other.

‘You’ve got company,’ said Gladwin. ‘Sorry to intrude. I thought you’d be feeling all forlorn and abandoned.’

‘We are a bit forlorn, actually – both of us. It’s Drew. I want you two to meet. It’s fantastically kind of you, though, to think of me.’

‘Don’t be too effusive. It’s business as well. I was hoping to run a few things past you.’

‘There’s a mince pie or two still left and we can make you some fresh tea.’

‘Lovely!’ The slender dark-haired detective superintendent walked easily into the living room and greeted Drew and Timmy with a friendly nod. ‘Heard a lot about you,’ she said with a laugh.

‘Likewise,’ said Drew. They examined each other with interest. Gladwin was tall, very slim and not conventionally attractive. Her dark eyes were deep-set and close together, her nose a bit beaky and her accent unalloyed Cumbria. Drew’s boyish charm generally served him well, as did his automatic good manners.

‘You don’t look like an undertaker,’ said Gladwin.

‘And you don’t look like a police detective. Maybe we should do undercover work together.’

‘I thought you already did. I heard the Broad Campden story, don’t forget. You were heroic.’

‘As were you in Temple Guiting.’

They both laughed, and Thea felt the swell of pride that came from bringing two good people together, along with relief at the timely interruption.

‘Now then,’ said Gladwin, her eyes on Timmy. ‘Who’s this young man, may I ask?’

‘He’s called Timothy, and he’s my son,’ said Drew with mock formality.

‘So, Timothy. I’m going to ask you to be very patient with me while I talk to Thea and your dad. It would
be very boring for you, so I wonder whether you’d be interested in having a go on this.’ From a shoulder bag she produced a red plastic box slightly smaller than a paperback book. Timmy’s eyes widened. ‘It’s a bit old now, but it’s got Pokemon and all sorts of other stuff on it. I expect you know how to work it.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ Drew began, but Timmy grabbed the Nintendo and had it switched on before his father could say any more.

‘They’re
born
knowing,’ laughed Gladwin. ‘Just as they all seem to know all those insane Pokemon characters. I think it must get into their brains from the ether. Not surprising, really, when you think of all those invisible threads flying around all the time.’

‘I play with Jake’s,’ Timmy told his father, without looking up. ‘It’s exactly the same as this.’

Thea wondered at a woman who carried such a useful toy with her as part of a routine kit. How many male police detectives would have that much sense? Gladwin couldn’t have known there would be a small boy on the scene, which made it all the more impressive.

‘You won’t be able to save anything,’ Gladwin warned Tim. ‘I’ll have to take it with me when I go.’

‘Okay,’ nodded the little boy.

The three adults settled into the middle of the room, while Tim curled up in an armchair by the fireplace. Gladwin betrayed no sign of urgency, but even so, Thea knew better than to waste any time. ‘I saw Juliet Wilson a little while ago,’ she began. ‘She told me a
bit more about the death of her cousin, Eva. It didn’t sound altogether straightforward to me. And the man in the bath – we’ve already agreed that could easily not have been an accident.’

‘You’re telling me we’ve got
three
murders to investigate?’ Gladwin blew out her cheeks in protest. ‘Have mercy!’

‘The thing is,’ Thea went on doggedly, ‘they all connect somehow to Callendar Logistics. I’m sure you’ll have delved into all their doings already, but there’s something about animals – they donate money for medical research – that could be at the root of it. Them. The murder or murders,’ she finished clumsily.

‘You’ve been talking to that vet,’ Gladwin accused her.

‘Yes.’ Thea was impressed. Gladwin had instantly put her finger on the key moment when her suspicions had coalesced into something faintly approaching a theory. ‘And Juliet. They said the same sort of thing.’

‘Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we’d more or less arrived at the same conclusion. Natasha Ainsworth was certainly in that same loop even though we’ve trawled through her computer and can’t see anything that would explain why anybody should murder her. Callendar Logistics is basically just a courier service, with a hand in some of the pharmaceutical side of things. They transport drugs, semen, blood – all pretty hi-tech, with dry ice and all that. They have refrigerated vehicles and their own generators, keeping
everything at the right temperature. All three of the sons are connected to the business, which is pretty unusual. They all get along, and have their own areas of responsibility. It’s a textbook set-up. The only hiccup was when the middle one – Sebastian – turned out to be defrauding some of the customers. That nearly wrecked the whole business. But they came through it, and after he’d done a stint in an open prison they took him back again. Everyone believes he’s a reformed character. Nobody has a word to say against any of them. We spoke to a couple of the big stables with fancy expensive racehorses, and they can’t speak highly enough of the efficiency and customer care and all that stuff.’

‘Even the ones Sebastian swindled?’

‘They took their business elsewhere, not surprisingly. Except the one that went bust.’

‘Was that down to Sebastian?’

‘Probably. We didn’t get into the detail.’

‘But why not? If Natasha and Eva were both somehow involved as well, that would be a motive for killing them, wouldn’t it?’ Thea watched the detective’s face closely. ‘Well, wouldn’t it?’

‘You’re going too fast,’ Gladwin told her. ‘Making too many leaps. It’s much too tenuous to support any sort of arrest or prosecution. And why would the killer wait till now? Why focus on such peripheral people, instead of going for Sebastian himself?’

‘Mr Callendar wasn’t peripheral. What if he was murdered?’ Drew interposed, with a hint of impatience.

‘It’s too late to have a view on that. Unless someone confesses, it’s going to remain an accident forever.’

‘And Eva?’ Thea asked.

‘No idea. It’s the first I’ve heard of her.’

‘Somebody – it turned out to be Juliet, actually – stole the flowers from her grave on Saturday. Ask Higgins. He went to investigate. Or rather, he probably sat in the car while Kevin went to talk to the family.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, against the throbbing pain in her head that persistently impeded her usual logical processes.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Drew.

‘My head. Every time I think it’s getting better, it comes back again, worse than before.’

‘Have you taken a paracetamol?’ asked Gladwin, already fishing in her capacious bag.

‘Not recently, no. Things keep happening to distract me. And I’ve forgotten where I left them.’

‘Here. Have this with a mouthful of tea, if there’s any left.’

There was a tepid half-inch in Thea’s cup, which she obediently drained, to chase the pill down. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Marian Callendar,’ Gladwin pressed on. ‘She still has to be top of the list. Except nobody saw her here on Saturday afternoon, and she’s got a reasonably tight alibi. If she hadn’t come back here yesterday, like somebody needing to finish off a job, I’d have cleared her by now.’

‘The thing is, she must have known I’d tell you about it, with everything that implies. So she’s either insanely overconfident or innocent.’

‘You did say she’s got leukaemia, didn’t you?’ Drew said. ‘That might mean she feels she’s got nothing to lose. That she’s impervious to the usual laws and punishments.’

Gladwin shook her head emphatically. ‘She’s a
magistrate
,’ she said. ‘Law and punishment are central to her life. She’d never be able to just ignore them.’

‘I think that makes it even more likely, actually,’ Drew argued. ‘She knows the limitations, the sort of mitigating circumstances that count for something. She sounds rather dangerous to me.’

‘Hmm,’ said Gladwin.

‘But I’m still most interested in the man next door, Dennis Ireland. He phoned here an hour or so ago, and sounded very miffed when I answered. He had easy access to Natasha’s house through the gardens, according to Thea. Even if he’d simply walked up to the front door, Natasha would have let him in without a second thought. And he could just have slipped home again without being noticed. It all seems to fit very neatly.’

‘Apart from motive,’ objected Thea. ‘And he’s just a fussy old buffer. I quite liked him. He’s almost as nice as Ralph Callendar.’ She turned to Gladwin. ‘I’ve seen all three Callendar sons now, you know. Sebastian drove past us when we were talking to Juliet, on that
little road that runs through Charnal Plantation.’

Gladwin moaned gently. ‘I have no idea where that is,’ she pleaded.

‘Well, I dare say nobody really calls it that. It’s what it says on the map, that’s all.’

‘Thea, I know I’ve said this to you before, and I’m sure other people have as well – but the whole thing about a murder investigation is about
evidence.
We need
facts.
Admittedly it’s important to have some sort of hypothesis to go on, but the moment a fact contradicts the theory, you change it. And gut feelings take a very minor role.’

‘Yes, I know. What’s your point?’

‘You saying you like Dennis Ireland,’ Drew answered for the police detective. ‘That’s got nothing to do with anything.’

‘Except I would be interested to know who you
don’t
like,’ teased Gladwin. ‘Just in case.’

‘Rosa Wilson and Cheryl Bagshawe,’ came the prompt reply. ‘Both angry women. Rosa’s got a whole lot of emotional problems, which are probably a nasty mixture of cause and effect of her daughter’s illness. She’s not very nice and I can’t see that she’s at all good for Juliet. I’m surprised the authorities let them live together, to be honest.’

‘And Ms Bagshawe?’

‘She’s dishonest. Evasive, anyway. Slippery. I thought she was being friendly when she came here on Saturday, but really it was just nosiness.’

‘Higgins interviewed her,’ said Gladwin thoughtfully.
‘She seemed fairly normal, I think. He didn’t flag anything up.’

‘It’s a fair old list of suspects, isn’t it?’ said Drew with relish. ‘A wife, three sons, a mother and daughter, a woman with a Great Dane and a smarmy man next door. And we’ll never know if he killed one person or three.’

‘He or she,’ said Thea firmly. ‘There’s as many women as men on the list.’

Drew ticked his fingers. ‘Four of each, I make it.’

Gladwin snorted. ‘Those are just the ones that Thea’s met. It doesn’t have to be one of them at all.’

‘True,’ Drew nodded solemnly. ‘Perfectly true.’

Gladwin eyed him suspiciously, as if doubting his sincerity. ‘So tell me about meeting Juliet Wilson and Sebastian Callendar this afternoon. What happened?’

‘Actually, before that we met Cheryl Bagshawe and Rosa Wilson in the pub,’ Thea said. ‘And Ralph Callendar was there as well.’

‘Did any of them say or do anything you think I should know about?’

‘Hard to judge. Rosa shouted at me for drawing Juliet to the attention of the police – which I didn’t do. Cheryl seemed furtive. Ralph was far too relaxed for a family man on Christmas Eve.’

‘I thought he was the one you liked,’ Drew accused her. For a crazy second, it occurred to her that Drew might be jealous; that he found it disagreeable to hear her favouring another man.

‘I did like him, yes. He was kind and sensitive and
understanding. But now I think he might have been a bit too good to be true.’

‘So you’ve seen everyone today except Marian and Edwin Callendar,’ Gladwin summarised.

‘And Dennis Ireland – although Drew spoke to him on the phone, so maybe that counts.’ Thea glanced at Timmy, bent avidly over the electronic toy. What did they sound like to a child, with their bantering tones and obsessive tossing to and fro of people’s names? It was a bizarre conversation by any standards, and she had little confidence that it was furthering the investigation into Natasha’s murder.

‘So what did Mrs Callendar take from the house next door?’ Gladwin went on.

‘Haven’t you asked her?’

The detective huffed an explosive breath that indicated shocked denial. ‘Did you want us to?’

‘Why should I care either way?’

‘Because she would know where we got the information from and be unlikely to react kindly towards you.’

‘Gosh! You were protecting me? As your informant?’

‘That surprises you?’

‘It does rather. What do you think she’d do to me?’

‘That’s not the point. It doesn’t work like that. There are protocols, guidelines. You don’t just confront a person with something another person has said about them. Not if you can avoid it, anyway. It seldom gets you anywhere.’

‘It’s not
evidence,’
said Drew with something approaching sarcasm.

‘Isn’t it? Surely it is, if I testify to something I’ve seen? That must be evidence. What else is it?’