A Cotswold Mystery Part 13

'Did you? I never noticed.'

'Only to myself,' laughed Jessica. 'I was glad, really. My friend Caz's mum was a rally driver and never at home. I preferred you to that a thousand times over.'

'That's good to hear. I think I might have relished a rally driver for a mother, actually.'

'And Fran's mum was a headcase. She spent most of the time in hospital. Imagine that!'

'I remember her. Poor thing. I used to worry that I'd have to have Fran to live with us.'

'Oh, well,' Jessica shrugged. 'You didn't push the history down my throat, after all. And it was nice when you'd stop the car and point out some crumbling old building where a famous speech was made or a riot happened in 1809. You seemed to have quite a thing about riots. I used to lie awake at night and try to imagine what they were like.'

'Good G.o.d! The things one never knows about one's children.'

They both laughed, harmony restored.

At seven, during a discussion about their evening meal, they had a visitor. Thea opened the door warily, to find a man she only half recognised, standing on the doorstep. He ducked his head, in a strange echo of an old-fashioned bow, and said, 'Good evening. We met briefly this morning, although it was your daughter, is she? was the one I spoke to. My name is Thomas Sewell. I was a good friend of Julian's.'

'Oh yes,' she said. 'Of course. Would you like to come in?'

'Only if it isn't a bother. I shouldn't be troubling you like this, I know. But the young lady did say I might It's just I was so very fond of Julian, and you two saw him I mean, yesterday I understand I was wondering...'

Thea was slow to grasp the import of what he was saying, but Jessica, appearing behind her, caught on instantly. 'You mean we saw the body,' she said. 'Actually, it was only me.'

'Oh!' The old man's face looked loose and grey, his eyes large and heavy in their sockets. Everything about him, from his pendulous belly to the wattles under his chin sagged and dragged downwards. 'Yes. His body.' The eyes became wet, the low lip tremulous.

'Come in,' Thea ordered briskly. 'Have a cup of tea, or some sherry or something.'

'Thank you.' He entered the house on shaky legs, and sat down in the first chair he came to. Thea recalled the way he had comported himself on Sat.u.r.day, his back straight, his gaze direct, and marvelled at such a collapse.

'You must be very upset,' she said awkwardly. For the first time, she experienced a pang of sorrow for the death of Julian Jolly, a man she had never known or even seen. He had had friends, and family and been loved at least by this old man.

'The police have been asking questions, of course,' he said, staring at the floor. 'Anybody they could find who knew Jules, I suppose. I've known him for fifty years.'

Thea exchanged glances with her daughter. It surprised her to think that these two men might have spent all their lives in Blockley. Like most Cotswold villages and small towns, there was a sense of impermanence amongst the residents. The buildings outlasted their occupants by a dramatic margin. They were briefly inhabited by people like Icarus Binns, not used as lifelong homes.

'Oh?' she said. 'Were you always here in Blockley?'

He shook his head, confirming her first a.s.sumption. 'Coincidence, mainly, that we both fetched up here. He spent decades working on the lost villages, and I'm a chartered surveyor. Retired,' he added with a rueful smile. 'Our paths crossed, as you might imagine.'

Jessica was clanking bottles in a drinks cabinet at the further end of the room. 'I'm sure we're allowed to use the sherry,' she said. 'Aren't we, Mum?'

Thea shrugged. 'Seems a bit rude,' she said. 'But if there is some...'

'Ron won't begrudge it,' said Thomas Sewell. 'He's a generous chap. Good hearted.'

Jessica poured a single gla.s.s of pale sherry and put it on a small table close to Thomas's elbow. 'We met Nick,' she said casually. 'Julian's grandson. He came here this morning. You know him, I suppose?'

'Barely. First met him when he was about twelve, if memory serves. Pudgy-faced lad, with jet black hair. His mother's got a touch of the tarbrush, I fancy. Indian something like that.'

Thea saw Jessica tense at this unreconstructed reference to race.

'Doesn't he didn't didn't he, I mean come here quite often to see his grandad? I rather got that impression.' Thea smiled, hoping she didn't sound like another police intervewer. he, I mean come here quite often to see his grandad? I rather got that impression.' Thea smiled, hoping she didn't sound like another police intervewer.

Thomas nodded slightly. 'Might have done. He's taken up the same line of work, which Jules was glad about.'

'Archaeology?'

'That's it.'

'And you were working with Julian on a book? Have I got that right, too?'

The blank look suggested otherwise. 'Book? Where did you get that idea?'

'I think Mrs Gardner said something to that effect.'

One or two pennies appeared to drop. 'We were doing a bit of research,' he said tightly. 'That must be it. You don't want to listen to everything Gladys tells you. I rather a.s.sumed you'd have worked that out by this time.'

'He had a big file on Joanna Southcott, according to my daughter, and we saw the plaque further along the street. We've been meaning to look her up on the Internet, seeing that she appears to be Blockley's claim to fame.'

The old man's rheumy eyes acquired a momentary gleam of interest. 'Great woman, badly neglected. But I can't pretend I've ever encouraged Julian's researches in that direction. A bit too close to whimsy for my liking. Attracts the wrong sort of person altogether.'

'Oh?'

But Thomas had lapsed back into his grief, reminding Thea of Granny and her inability to stick to the subject in hand. 'I won't know how to carry on without Jules,' he moaned.

'Give yourself time,' Thea tried to soothe him. 'It's all very raw at the moment. More sherry?'

She chose to interpret the ambivalent nod as acceptance, and signalled to Jessica to refill his gla.s.s. 'Did he have any other family? Besides Nick, I mean?'

'Abroad, mostly. And there's his mother.'

Thea thought she had misheard. 'Mother? Surely...? I mean...'

'She's in a home in Bristol. Ninety-nine, she is. She and I used to get along famously. Still do, when I can get there for a visit. We go in the Rolls, you see, and take her out for a spin.'

Thea had forgotten the Rolls. 'What's going to happen to it now? The car?'

'It comes to me,' he said simply. 'But it won't be the same without Julian to drive it.'

For a daft moment, Thea ran a scenario where Thomas had killed his friend for the sake of the car. But it was quashed by his unmistakeable sadness.

'I expect I shouldn't have come,' he went on heavily. 'You must be finding the whole business bewildering.' He looked at Jessica. 'But you were kind this morning, and seemed, if I may say so, to have some understanding. It is right that you're a police officer?' He squinted at her from beneath bushy eyebrows. 'They say the police get younger every year.' He attempted a smile that might have been roguish in happier times.

Jessica completed the thought for him. 'You came because you want me to tell you about his injuries? Precisely how he died? Whether he looked peaceful? That sort of thing?'

'That's right, my dear. I can't settle, you see, until I know a little bit about how...' His voice cracked and he dropped his head to hide his loss of control.

'He must have died very quickly,' Jessica said. 'It wouldn't have been completely painless, but very nearly.'

Thea looked at her daughter in admiration. How careful she had been to omit any actual details of how the murder had been committed. Was this her police training, or an instinctive caution? It seemed to Thea unlikely that there had been any tuition in the management of murder cases in the first months of the course. Jessica was merely being intelligent, which made Thea feel even more proud of her.

Thomas heaved a deep sigh, and dashed a hand beneath his nose. 'I hope that's true,' he murmured. He raised his eyes slowly to Thea's. 'Have you ever thought how desperately important it is to die well?' he asked her. 'How it can undermine the whole of the life that went before, if death is ignominious? And how much more true that is when it's an old person?'

Something in the words made Thea think of Granny Gardner in her cottage. 'I haven't thought about it until now,' she said. 'But I can see how important it is.'

'It ought to go without saying,' the old man said, his voice stronger, as if Jessica's frankness had revived him. 'n.o.body wants to be remembered as a leaking bag of bones, without wits or dignity. Because that is is how you're remembered. All the past achievements and wisdom are wiped away as if they never happened.' how you're remembered. All the past achievements and wisdom are wiped away as if they never happened.'

'I'm sure that isn't true,' said Thea. 'Think of Churchill, or Clark Gable, or or-'

'Exceptions,' he waved an impatient hand. 'Think of your own grandparents anybody you've known who reached eighty or more. What's the first picture of them that comes to mind?'

Thea met his watery gaze. 'I see what you mean,' she whispered. 'It never occurred to me before.'

'But what can you do about it?' Jessica demanded robustly. 'Give everyone a lethal injection before they start to crumble?'

Thomas Sewell smiled sadly at her. 'The answer to that is too big for one old man to provide,' he said. 'All I wanted to know was that Julian died as he lived worthy of respect and dignity.'

'I saw nothing that would indicate otherwise,' said Jessica stiffly, and Thea thought again of Granny Gardner.

'Mrs Gardner was very fond of him,' she ventured. 'And I suppose she thinks of him in his prime, not as an old man.'

Thomas jerked his head forward impatiently. 'Julian was was in his prime! He might have been in his seventies, but he was fit and well. We'll in his prime! He might have been in his seventies, but he was fit and well. We'll all all remember him like that. There isn't anything else remember him like that. There isn't anything else to to remember.' remember.'

He put both hands on the arms of the chair, preparatory to standing up. His great belly seemed to surge ahead of him, rising into the air as his weight shifted. 'Thank you for the sherry,' he said, once he was upright. 'And the information.'

Jessica went to him, reaching a hand gently towards his arm. 'I hope it helped,' she said. 'And I'm sorry for your loss.'

He looked her full in the face. 'You can have no idea how great a loss it is,' he murmured. 'I have loved that man for fifty years.'

Once more Jessica was admirably careful. 'You and he were you, um partners partners?'

Thomas made a sound of irritation. 'Partners my foot! What a foolish word to use. We were never lovers, if that's what you mean. Julian loved his wife, and when she took to her bed and then finally died, he gave most of his attention to Gladys Gardner. No, we were never partners partners, as you mean it. We were mates, colleagues, brothers there is no word that describes it properly. But I'm d.a.m.ned if I know how I'm going to manage without him.'

And before the threat of female sympathy could reach him, he was out of the room and fumbling with the front door.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Thea made a large omelette with salad and bread for their supper, and afterwards they slumped together on the sofa, debating whether to search for something congenial on one of the plethora of TV channels. 'We've earned some mindless entertainment after today,' said Thea. 'It seems to have gone on for ever.'

'It has been an amazingly long day,' Jessica agreed. 'I can't believe it was only this morning that I was at that post-mortem.'

'It's taken me most of that time to really believe there was a murder next door,' Thea mused. 'I think I just wanted to pretend it hadn't happened, to start with. To let other people sort it out and leave me out of it.'

'Well, you could do that. You're not really involved. We could try to carry on as normal, whatever that is.'

Thea shook her head. 'They won't let us,' she said.

'Who won't?'

'All these people who keep coming to the door and phoning us. We've got to stay and watch out for Granny or I have and while I'm in this house, I'm involved. No escape possible. Besides, I was talking about how I felt at first. Since then I've been hooked. Now I really want to know the whole story.'

Jessica grinned. 'That's a relief,' she said. 'I thought I'd have to do it all on my own.'

Thea narrowed her eyes. 'Do what?' she asked, with a wholly false innocence.

'What do you think?' replied the girl.

But their banter was a variant on whistling in the dark, and they both knew it. Together they went around the house, firmly closing every window, and employing every bolt and lock on doors back and front. Jessica switched the buzzer on, and checked that the connecting door to the cottage was definitely locked.

'n.o.body can get in now,' said Thea. 'Not without smashing a window and waking the entire street.'

'I still feel a bit wobbly,' Jessica confessed, as she climbed into bed. 'I keep hearing funny noises out there.'

Thea listened to the night sounds of Blockley. 'I can hear a car quite far away,' she reported. 'And some sort of animal, even fainter. And water pipes gurgling in the roof. Nothing to worry about. Go to sleep. There's nothing to worry about.'

And within minutes, Jessica had done as instructed. Thea lay awake for a little while longer, relishing the warm weight of the spaniel against her feet, and steadfastly refusing to face the knowledge that there were only two more nights to go before she and the dog were on their own again.

Tuesday morning dawned cloudy and cool. Thea woke first, her mind instantly informing her that she was in a strange house, sharing a room with her daughter and her dog, responsible sort of for an old woman next door and trying to navigate the shoals of a relationship. The last to occur was the one she gave her attention to for the next five minutes, before Jessica was stirred by the spaniel. Hepzie knew Thea was awake and was suddenly all too energetic, shaking out her tangled ears and giving her hindquarters a seeing-to, which made far more noise than might be expected.

Phil Hollis was increasingly the default subject of Thea's thoughts in any quiet moment. She understood that the dilemmas and inconsistencies were the standard package for anyone in her situation, and the pitfalls no less inevitable for being able to foresee them.

He could turn her legs to marshmallow at one moment and crack her teeth with grinding frustration the next. There was a lot between them that worked, that was worth preserving. But she had found herself looking forward to the Phil-free times, too. Times when she could sit up until three in the morning with a book, or make herself a thick warm soup at three in the afternoon, without having to explain herself. Couplehood demanded routines and expectations that she found irksome. And for Phil it was the same, as she had forced him to admit a few weeks before. His erratic working patterns, profound preoccupations and sudden dives into depression were much to his surprise less bearable for having to give an account of them to another person.

'Don't make me give you a running commentary of how I'm feeling,' he'd begged her. 'Moods come and go, generally they're of no significance. If I have to describe them, and bring them to the front of my mind, that distorts everything. Do you see?'

'OK,' she'd agreed slowly. 'That makes a kind of sense although I don't know what a couple counsellor would say.'

The word couple couple lay at the heart of their difficulties, she realised. After two years as a single person, she still took it for granted that the ideal situation in the eyes of the world was to be half of a couple. It was the default position, surely? Only when she stopped to examine what this meant did she discover that it might no longer be true. There were single people everywhere she looked, and they seemed perfectly happy with their condition. The couple word had gathered a.s.sociations which were not altogether appealing. Phil, single for a few years longer, seemed no further forward in working out precisely what he wanted. In the end he had summed it all up. 'We're thinking too much about it,' he concluded. 'Why don't we just lay at the heart of their difficulties, she realised. After two years as a single person, she still took it for granted that the ideal situation in the eyes of the world was to be half of a couple. It was the default position, surely? Only when she stopped to examine what this meant did she discover that it might no longer be true. There were single people everywhere she looked, and they seemed perfectly happy with their condition. The couple word had gathered a.s.sociations which were not altogether appealing. Phil, single for a few years longer, seemed no further forward in working out precisely what he wanted. In the end he had summed it all up. 'We're thinking too much about it,' he concluded. 'Why don't we just live live and stop trying to give everything a label?' and stop trying to give everything a label?'

And Thea had striven to do just that, only to discover that she resented the endless struggle to remain in the present, when a large part of her wanted to know where they would be in ten or twenty years' time. She could not entirely quell the fantasies where they were both in their seventies, retired and relaxed, taking grandchildren on adventurous holidays and agreeing completely about all the big topics of life. Every time she caught herself at it, she replaced the dream with alternatives, where she still lived alone with a dog or two and a flourishing garden and stacks of fascinating books to read.

But her musings this grey morning concerned Phil as police detective. She had met him during one murder investigation, and fallen for him during another. She knew him for a patient committed professional, albeit p.r.o.ne to sudden flaring frustrations and serious mistakes. His mind worked methodically, he was an organised leader with a streak of kindness that did not go unnoticed. But he was no Sherlock Holmes, she had quickly realised. Small details pa.s.sed him by, connections and implications had to be worked at, and frequently led him in the wrong direction. Perhaps it was just as well that he appeared to have no involvement in the investigation into the killing of Julian Jolly. As far as she could tell, no senior officer had dropped all other work to solve this crime. It felt as if it was being fitted in around the edges of more important cases, a.s.signed to sergeants and the occasional inspector, with plenty of input from the uniformed sector. Little pressure was being exerted from the public, or the family, or the newspapers to find the deranged knifeman who had stabbed the harmless old historian in his own kitchen.

And this felt wrong to Thea, as she let her thoughts slide from Phil to Julian. Somebody other than his devoted friend Thomas ought to care that the man had been killed. Jessica thought so too. Well, Thea decided from now on, I I am going to care. Before Jessica had properly opened her eyes, her mother was speaking. am going to care. Before Jessica had properly opened her eyes, her mother was speaking.

'Hey, it's half past eight,' she said. 'Time to shift yourself. We've got a murder to solve.'

Jessica raised her head and grinned, with all the energy and tolerance of youth. 'Just what I was thinking,' she agreed.