Guilt in the Cotswolds (20 page)

‘Why hasn’t he told them about it?’

‘Well – he has his reasons. Neither of us is exactly popular with the local constabulary. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m worried about the effect it might have on Rita. I mean – doesn’t it make it look as if he did kill himself? And I have no doubt that she refuses to believe any such thing.’

‘Drew and I are here at the police station now.’

‘Good God! Can they hear what you’re saying?’

‘No, actually they can’t.’

‘Thank goodness. Now listen,’ she said again. ‘I’ve heard quite a bit about you and your undertaker friend. And I’ve learnt from experience that a person should think very hard before rushing to the police with information. It can go very much against you in the future, you see. I thought perhaps you might understand that. You of all people.’

‘Well …’ said Thea, thinking of the way she had taken the law into her own hands more than once. Cold Aston, Stanton and a few other places came to mind. Afterwards, trying to give an account of her actions, all she could say was that she had followed an instinct, however perverse it might look. The police could be glacially slow sometimes. They had to follow protocols and cover their backs and check for credibility – while criminals escaped or committed further violent acts. Thea simply dashed in and confronted them – generally with fairly satisfactory consequences.

It was as if Norah heard her thoughts. ‘You see?’ she said. ‘Now, there’s absolutely no need for you to do anything, if you don’t want to. But the car will be found by someone else at any moment, and they might well report it. If you’d like to go and have a look, Derek will wait for you. Derek was fond of Richard, you know. It’s personal for him as well.’

‘Derek’s your brother-in-law.’

‘He is. A man of many talents.’ She gave a sound part
sigh, part chuckle. ‘If you drive up towards the Roman villa, there’s a little road on the left shortly before the car park. It looks like the approach to a stately home – very straight. It runs beside the river. Drive down there, and on the right you’ll see an opening, not very far along. The car’s in there. I’ll tell Derek you’re coming. You can’t miss him. He wears a trilby hat and has very bushy eyebrows. And he’s quite short.’

‘It’ll take us nearly half an hour. We’ll probably get lost.’

‘No you won’t. Just go straight up the A429 and turn left at Fossebridge at the bottom of the hill. It’s less than twenty minutes from Cirencester. You are in Cirencester, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. We’ve got two cars. And a dog.’

‘Take one car. Quick as you can, dear. You won’t be sorry.’

Drew was sitting in his car by the time the call had finished, fingering the ignition key. His guilt and despair had mutated into impatience and annoyance. He looked up at Thea with a deep frown. ‘She’s mad,’ he said.

‘I don’t think so. I think she’s quite clever. Where are you going?’

‘Home, of course. Where do you think?’

‘I think that phone call was sent to us by one of your pagan gods. I think it’s exactly what you need – what you were praying for, if you’d only realised it.’

‘You’re as mad as she is.’

‘Well, I’m going back to Chedworth. I’m going
to speak to Derek-the-eyebrows and walk around Richard’s car and think about what it means.’

‘It’s only a car, Thea. It doesn’t mean anything. Do you expect the person who killed Richard to be quietly sitting in the passenger seat, waiting for you?’

‘No. But we’ve gone on and on for days about that car. We saw it as the biggest clue to the whole story. Now we know where it is, and I want to go and see for myself. It’s what I
do
, Drew. I can’t explain it. People think it’s bonkers of me, but here we go again. And I want you to come with me. Leave your car here and get in mine. That’s an order.’

Without another word, he did as she told him. With only one wrong turn, she drove northwards out of the town and back onto the familiar A429. Only nine minutes later they were at the left turn and heading for the Roman villa. Drew sat with eyes closed and shoulders stiff.

Everything happened as Norah had said. Derek turned out to be younger than expected, which made his hat and eyebrows even more noticeable. The vehicle he pointed to, parked under a row of trees, was a large metallic-hued four-wheel drive. ‘Haven’t I seen that before?’ Thea wondered.

‘On Thursday,’ said Derek.

‘No, since then.’ She stared at the tinted windows and chunky tyres. ‘It’s just like the one Judith was driving yesterday.’ She nudged Drew. ‘You saw it as well. Isn’t it the same one?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Drew. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it does. If she was using it yesterday, she must have left it here. Why would she do that? Isn’t it hugely suspicious?’

Derek cleared his throat. ‘Who’s Judith?’ he asked.

‘Millie’s friend. Jayjay Mason, the actress. She was very fond of Richard, apparently.’

‘Oh, right,’ he nodded uncertainly. ‘Not seen her myself. Famous, is she?’

‘Very.’

‘There was a girl driving a Nissan with tinted windows, the other day,’ he said. ‘Would that be her?’

‘Probably. Isn’t this a Nissan?’

‘No, it’s a Honda. And it’s Wilshire’s right enough. Look at all the stuff in the back.’ He indicated a jumble of plastic boxes stacked in the back part of the car, filled with medical-looking packets and bottles, as well as a folded set of overalls and wellington boots. ‘That’s all his vet stuff.’

‘So – what now?’ demanded Drew, plainly in a continuing bad mood.

Thea walked all round the car, trying to think of something that would give Drew a reason to stop feeling so cross. Something that would justify this foolish delay and give them some fresh idea as to what must have happened to Richard. She peered through the driver’s window. ‘It’s got a satnav,’ she observed. ‘Would it tell us where he last went?’

‘Only if he used it for directions,’ said Drew. ‘I mean –
if he went somewhere he already knew, he wouldn’t need it, would he?’

‘But it would still register the destination he last used it for,’ she persisted, trying to clarify her idea to herself as much as the others.

‘It’s locked,’ said Derek. ‘If we try to get into it, the alarm’s going to scream blue murder. And the satnav’s built in. It’ll only work if the ignition’s on.’

Drew was slowly showing interest. He went to the driver’s door and bent down to feel underneath the car. Triumphantly he produced a small metal box, which he opened to reveal a car key.

‘My God, Drew! How did you manage that?’

He explained quickly how Richard had shown him the system a month earlier. ‘I thought it was rather a good idea at the time. Might do the same thing myself.’

‘So now we have a look at the gadget, do we?’ Derek asked. ‘Never used one myself. Wouldn’t have the first idea.’

This came as a surprise to Thea, who had assumed she was the last person in Britain to adopt the habit. ‘Well …’ she began, when Drew unlocked the car, opened the driver’s door and climbed in. There followed a lengthy process of trial and error, with Thea peering uncomprehendingly across his chest at the little screen.

‘There are loads of places stored in the addresses,’ Drew finally announced. ‘But most of them are farms. There’s also the nursing home in Stratford, which says “Mum”; somewhere in Chipping Norton; his own
home – that says “home”; and a street in Gloucester labelled “Martin”. It doesn’t say which he went to most recently.’

‘What’s the Chipping Norton one, then?’ asked Thea.

‘No idea. Maybe we should make a note of the address. It says Wychwood Road.’

She found a much-used notebook in the bottom of her bag, and wrote the addresses in it. ‘We ought to have the Martin one as well,’ she said. ‘Just for good measure.’

‘So, what do we think?’ asked Derek, looking as if he’d been uncomfortably upstaged. ‘No signs of a struggle, or anything, is there?’

Drew got out of the car and locked it again. ‘My fingerprints are all over it now, damn it. I should have thought of that before.’ He heaved a great sigh. ‘Why am I here? This is ridiculous. Why didn’t we just tell the police the car was here and leave it all up to them?’

‘Derek and Norah didn’t want us to.
I
didn’t want to. We’ve been handed this final chance to get the whole horrible business put straight, and it would have been all wrong to just ignore it.’

‘How do we know we can trust this man? What’s in it for him?’ He gave Derek a hard look, which was calmly received.

‘Bit late to worry about that, mate,’ he said. ‘Our Norah isn’t often wrong about anything. When I called her and said I’d spotted the motor, she knew, quick as
a flash, what we should do about it. “Call that house-sitter woman and her boyfriend,” she said. “They’ll take it out of our hands.” “Call them yourself,” I told her, so she did, and here you are.’

‘Take it out of your hands.’

‘That’s it. We don’t want our names mentioned to the cops at all, if you’d be so kind.’

‘So how will we explain being here, and just stumbling on the car? A car neither of us has seen before. Or not enough to remember and recognise,’ Thea wondered.

‘That’s your problem. Maybe not say anything about it. Just use the information you’ve got from that whatnot, and see where it leads.’

Everything seemed to stand still for a while. ‘What time is it?’ Thea asked worriedly, before looking at her watch. ‘Not quite half past two. That’s good, isn’t it? We’ve still got a little while to think about what to do.’

‘I should be halfway home by now,’ Drew said with an unnerving calm. ‘I should have gone home twenty-four hours ago, to be exact. I’m now stranded here, with my car in Cirencester. I hope,’ he finished with great severity, ‘we are not intending to hurtle off to either Gloucester or Chipping Norton? Because that would very probably stretch my patience to breaking point.’

‘Oh, Drew. I’m as confused as you are. But remember what we were saying, just before Norah phoned. We didn’t want to just leave everything in a mess here, did we? The police have let the trail go cold, doing nothing since Saturday. Now we’ve got a couple of possible
clues, handed us by this kind man. We’d never forgive ourselves if we didn’t do something about it. After all, it really is important. We’re not just playing silly games, even if it feels like that at the moment.’ She took a breath, trying to order several thoughts all at once. ‘And how
did
Norah get your phone number, anyway?’

‘She asked Rita,’ said Drew simply.

‘Of course she did.’ This small fact did something in her brain, like setting a clockwork motor going after it had run down. Cogs turned and ratchets connected. She opened her mouth to put some of these connections into words, and then stopped. ‘You’d better go,’ she said to Derek. ‘Because we’re about to make some wild guesses and accusations. You’d be wise not to hear them, in case DI Higgins decides to torture the truth out of you at some stage.’

‘Righty-ho,’ said the man cheerfully, and went sauntering away towards the woods.

‘Was he a real person or a leprechaun?’ asked Drew.

Thea ran the scraps of theory past Drew, while he sat in her car and played with Hepzie’s ears. The spaniel had jumped from the back and was on his lap. There seemed to be a newly formed bond between them, built of frustration towards Thea and her implacable determination to drag them around the countryside, in a quest to do good of some kind.

‘Norah must have a hunch about who killed Richard. She might even have got the brother-in-law to hunt for the car. Which suggests one or both of them had an idea of where to look, and what might have happened. After all, she has known the family for ages.’

‘So why didn’t she go to the police?’

‘She said she’s learnt from experience that it can be a bad idea. She’s got an impression of me as an amateur detective, apparently, so opted to get me to do the dirty work.’

‘Which you did with enthusiasm.’

‘I haven’t done anything yet. The satnav was your
idea. A very good one,’ she added with a smile. ‘So now we have at least a clue as to where Richard might have been on Friday.’

‘Have we? Those addresses don’t have dates on them. We have no idea when he last visited any of them.’

‘Hmm, that’s true. Well, it wouldn’t have been his mother. There’s no way he was at the care home all day. And he wasn’t at his own flat. Which leaves Chipping Norton or Gloucester. It says the Gloucester street is where Martin lives. That doesn’t seem very likely, does it? Wasn’t Martin in Stratford on Friday?’

‘Saturday,’ Drew corrected her. ‘We don’t know where anybody was on Friday, except Millie and Judith.’

‘Brendan probably lives at the Gloucester address as well.’

‘I thought he was Cheltenham.’

‘That’s what he said. But Millie says he tells lies all the time. I don’t know. Cheltenham and Gloucester are pretty close to each other. I think we should go there and see if we can get it straight, and maybe even talk to them.’

‘Thea!’ He almost howled. ‘You can’t just accost people like that, with no reason. Besides,’ he remembered, ‘the police are probably there already, asking about those stamps. The Gloucester connection will give them cause to ask some questions.’

‘So it will. I forgot about the stamps.’

‘I’m sorry, love, but I’m not going anywhere but home. I might stay if I thought there was any sense in it, but as it is, we’d simply be interfering and casting aspersions with no basis. I’m needed elsewhere more
urgently than you need me here. The police have everything in hand now. Phone them and tell them the car’s here, and then take me back to Cirencester.’

‘I can’t. They’ll want to know how we found the car, and I can’t implicate Norah and Derek.’

‘I seem to recall that Norah was an “enemy” on Saturday. How come she’s suddenly flavour of the week?’

‘She’s intriguing. I thought she was just a rich and fairly brainless woman, with not much to show for her life. Some of that’s true, I’m sure, but she’s got hidden depths as well. All that business with the dogs and her cat. It sounds as if she really lost it, and made herself unpopular with the police. And now I’m wondering just what she does in that house all day. In any case, she knows Rita and Millie inside out, and that makes me wonder if she knows what happened to Richard as well.’

‘If she does, she’ll have to tell the police, eventually.’

‘I think I’m going to go and talk to her. I’d also love to talk to Rita again. There are lots of things I should have asked her this morning and never did.’

‘Phone her.’

‘I could, I suppose. I could even send an email – she’s got that laptop all set up, after all. I bet she spends half her time doing Facebook or a blog or something.’

‘Thea, I’m not getting any real sense of a theory here. I mean – have you any idea who killed Richard?’

‘Not exactly. But there’s something about Judith that’s niggling at me.’

‘That would certainly hit the headlines. Now, I
beg you to take me back to my car. You’ve got those addresses in your little book. That’s all you can glean here, surely.
Please
let’s go.’ He gave her a pleading look, mirrored by the expression on Hepzibah’s face.

‘All right, then. It looks as if I’ll be on my own for the rest of the day.’ She gave a melodramatic sigh, which did not impress Drew at all.

‘Your choice,’ he said. ‘Now get in.’

As they drove, he tried to explain himself more clearly. ‘I do feel bad leaving you,’ he began, ‘but I just can’t go around it all again. I don’t want a repeat of yesterday. Don’t make this my problem, okay. Now that the police have decided it is murder after all, we can leave it to them with a clear conscience. Our work is done. Don’t you see that?’

‘I do, of course. I absolutely do. I’m not criticising you. But I can’t seem to pull myself free of it just yet, either. It’s my failing. But it would be like leaving a film halfway through, having been completely enthralled by it. I’ve got to get answers to all these questions, or I’ll never sleep. There’s something big and bad in the family’s past, and I want to know what it is.’

‘Where does that come from? Not your obsession, but this thing about their past?’

‘All those old clothes, kept so beautifully. The dead sister, Dawn. Even if that has nothing to do with the murder, I want to know the whole story. I think Brendan wanted to hook me in, telling me just enough, but not really explaining anything. I really would like to speak to Brendan again, as well,’ she finished wistfully.

‘You’ve no idea who killed Richard, have you?’ He sounded faintly accusing.

‘Not really. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Andrew Emerson, which is lucky, if he’s really going to work for you when you open the new burial ground. And I can’t see how it could have been Millie or Rita. That leaves only a handful of people – amongst those we’ve met, anyway.’

‘You can’t really think it was Judith.’

‘She might have been an accomplice. I do know we can’t believe a word she’s said. The truth might be the complete opposite of her story. Maybe Richard was stalking her and she wanted him out of her life. Maybe she’s in love with Millie. Or Brendan.’

‘Or nobody we know. Can you drive a bit faster, do you think?’

‘Sorry.’ She accelerated, passing the Hare and Hounds, thinking she might never come back to Chedworth again, and wondering whether she’d miss it. Her plans for speaking to Norah, Rita, Brendan – and whoever else might enlighten her – seemed somehow forlorn and futile, with Drew so implacable about it all. Stratford would involve a long drive back up the same road, taking until late in the afternoon. There was a growing sense of an ending. She was not going to do any more house-sitting. At some point in the past week that had become a firm decision. But she wasn’t finished with the Cotswolds, it seemed. She and Drew really were going to settle down in Broad Campden and spread the message of natural burials and associated benefits.

But it wasn’t ended yet. Knowing they would be returning to the area made it more urgent that this mystery of Richard Wilshire’s death be confronted and solved, if humanly possible.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘About everything. We’re out of sync, I suppose. I really hope you’ll understand why I have to do it – at some point, if not now. I am going to talk to Rita again, in person. I think she’s the key to it all.’

‘I don’t get it. You’ve got nothing like a coherent theory. You’re just dashing about like a mad thing, asking random questions for your own gratification.’

‘I’m not, Drew. I’m really not. At least – there’s much more to it than that. My head’s full of odd facts and things people have said. They all fit together somehow, and I need to know how.’

‘That’s what I said. It’s all about you.’

‘Don’t be so vile. If I can get it straight for myself, that’s good for the family as well. You heard Rita, how much it matters to her to understand it all.’

‘I love you, Thea,’ he said thickly. ‘But I don’t know if I can carry on like this.’

‘You won’t have to. Give me twenty-four hours. Absolute maximum. Have faith. After that, I’m all yours, for ever and ever.’ She swallowed down the panic his words had evoked. One false word and it would all be over. She couldn’t let him see how terrified she was. Her sense of self-sabotage was overwhelming, and she came to the brink of capitulating to his wishes. But something stopped her. She was Thea Osborne, not Mrs Drew Slocombe – yet. She
had to follow her own urges, whatever the consequences.

‘Twenty-four hours,’ he repeated, with little sign of agreement. ‘And then what?’

‘I’ll come down to you and tell you what’s happened and we’ll carry on as before.’

‘Don’t make promises. Do what you have to do. And I’ll do the same.’

‘Right,’ she said, feeling as lonely as she did in the weeks following Carl’s death. ‘Well, here we are, then.’ They were weaving their way through the northern outskirts of Cirencester, arriving at the police station within another few minutes.

‘I’m very tempted to go and tell Higgins about that car,’ Drew threatened. ‘That would be the responsible thing to do.’

‘They’ll find it soon enough. And I don’t expect it’ll help them much. It just means that Richard probably went to the barn under his own steam. Voluntarily. Somebody persuaded him to meet them there.’

‘Then hid his car, leaving flakes of skin and hairs and fingerprints and the rest of it, so the forensics people can identify them.’

She stared at him. ‘When did you think of that?’

‘About half an hour ago. Didn’t you?’

She shook her head. ‘Damn it, Drew. I don’t know where I am with you. One minute you’re washing your hands of it all, and the next you’re practically giving the whole explanation of what happened to Richard.’

‘I thought I was just stating the obvious.’

‘Well, yes. But I hadn’t thought about that aspect of it at all. I was thinking of the past and what motives people might have.’

‘It needs both, I guess.’

She said nothing to that, but gave him a sad-eyed look, hoping he could hear what he had just said. On his lap, Hepzie whined. ‘She probably needs a pee,’ said Drew. ‘How many hours has she spent in the car today?’

‘Too many. Again. Stop trying to get her on your side.’

Drew got out, carrying the dog. He set her down on the pavement, where she immediately squatted. ‘Oh God, she’s doing a great big poo,’ said Thea. ‘Right outside the police station. I’ll have to pick it up. I hate doing that. I haven’t got a bag or anything.’

Drew kicked the excrement into the gutter, where it was mostly hidden by the car. ‘Sorted,’ he said defiantly.

Thea giggled. ‘Nice to see you can be antisocial when it suits you,’ she said. He went to his own car, opened it and leant over to the back seat before straightening up with a folder in his hand. ‘You might need this,’ he said. ‘It’s got phone numbers in. Keep it safe, will you. I’ll want it back.’

It was the prepaid funeral plan for Mrs Wilshire. Thea took it with a smile, but they exchanged no further words. She watched him go, her mind blank. Just how she proposed to solve a murder all on her own was the greatest mystery of all.