A Cotswold Mystery Part 15

'Have you seen Julian?' came the shrill voice. 'He's terribly terribly late. I'm waiting to do lunch for him and it's going to spoil at this rate.' late. I'm waiting to do lunch for him and it's going to spoil at this rate.'

Thea made a soft moan, and Jessica went on muttering. 'Lunch at half past ten in the morning? That's a first.'

'Mrs Gardner, let me come in a talk to you for a minute,' said Thea. 'Let me help you remember what's happened in the last few days.'

'And where did Yvette go to? I want her. She's always going off, that hussy.'

Thea remembered the word hussy hussy occurring before. 'And who's that? That isn't Frances, is it?' Granny squinted at Jessica with a convincing show of perplexity. occurring before. 'And who's that? That isn't Frances, is it?' Granny squinted at Jessica with a convincing show of perplexity.

'No, that's my daughter, Jessica.'

'She looks like a nice girl. Kind. Friendly.' Mrs Gardner beamed suddenly, her sharp black eyes softening. 'Just like my Frances.'

'She's very nice,' Thea agreed.

'She can come in. And you might as well come too.' Granny pushed her door wider, and beckoned them inside. can come in. And you might as well come too.' Granny pushed her door wider, and beckoned them inside.

'I forget things, you see,' she explained as she led the way into her main room. As before, it was clean and tidy. 'They melted parts of my brain with some dreadful drug. I'm suing them, but it won't bring my wits back. They're lost forever now.'

'But you have your health,' Thea observed. 'You seem wonderfully fit.'

'I keep busy. Up and down the stairs. Polishing, dusting.' She laughed, a sudden witchlike cackle. 'I was such a s.l.u.t, you know. Filthy house, papers and books everywhere. I do remember that. People were very rude about it. Now I love to see it sparkling. Isn't that peculiar!'

Thea merely smiled. So much that Granny said left no room for a coherent response.

'We went for a walk you and me,' the old woman suddenly remembered. 'I fell over and hurt my wrist.' She extended the affected arm, and twisted it dramatically. 'Seems all right now.'

'That's right. And can you remember what happened to Julian?' Jessica interrupted, staring intently into Granny's face. 'Your friend Julian was murdered at the weekend. Giles wrote it down for you, so you wouldn't forget. Have you still got the piece of paper?'

The old woman made a show of searching. 'Try your bureau,' Thea suggested, taking a step towards it.

'Keep out of it!' screeched Granny Gardner ferociously. 'It's private.'

'Here it is,' said Jessica calmly. 'Behind the sofa cushion.' She flourished a crumpled white sheet of A4. 'Not a very good place to keep it.'

Granny s.n.a.t.c.hed it and peered closely at the large lettering. '"Julian is dead" it says here. Well, I knew that, didn't I?' She clamped her lips together and scowled at Thea. 'Fancy thinking you could go in my desk,' she reproached. 'Where were you brought up, I'd like to know?'

Thea adopted a submissive expression and mumbled, 'Sorry.'

The old woman consulted the notes again. 'It says I have to speak to the police. When will that be, I wonder? I can tell them who killed Julian, of course, if they ask me.' The air seemed to freeze, the only sound the loud clock on the mantelpiece. Jessica looked as if she couldn't risk taking a breath.

'Can you?' she whispered. 'Really?'

'Of course. It'll be Thomas's doing,' came the casual reply. 'Awful old queen, always jealous of Julian and me. We said he'd do one of us in, one of these days. Thomas is your man, you mark my words.' Granny's small dark eyes flitted from face to face, a.s.sessing the effect of her words. Then she cackled, a parody of a wicked old witch. 'You should see your faces,' she spluttered. 'What a hoot!'

Thea's mouth fell open, but no words came forth. The initial reasonableness of the accusation had silenced her, only for the following suggestion of malicious jokiness to utterly stun her. She looked to Jessica for rescue.

'You don't really believe Thomas could have killed Julian in cold blood, do you?' the girl said gently. 'After all, he loved loved him. He's going to be lost without him.' him. He's going to be lost without him.'

'Love, love,' tutted Granny dismissively. 'Stupid word. Doesn't mean a thing. Who wants love when they can have friendship?'

'Good question,' murmured Thea.

'It's going to rain,' came a sudden non sequiteur. 'Lucky I didn't put the washing out.'

'Is there a washing line in your little garden?' Thea tried to recall whether she'd seen one.

'Just a string for a few things.'

'Would you show me?' Thea had no clear idea why she made such a request, apart from curiosity as to how Granny felt about her imprisonment at the rear of the house.

The old woman narrowed her eyes. 'You know I can't get out of there, don't you?' Again the sheer normality in the words and tone threw everything into doubt. 'They built a cage and put me in it.' She clasped her hands together. 'Not that you can blame them. Who knows what I might get up to if I was free to do what I like?'

Again there was no answer that Thea could think of, apart from a growing sense of agreement that Granny might be best kept confined, after all.

'Why are you here?' The question burst out like a gunshot. 'Why are you bothering me?' The old woman rustled the sheet of notes, crumpling it savagely. 'Are you the police?'

Jessica quickly shook her head. 'No, we're just friends. We'll go now, if there's nothing you need.'

'You must be one of those celebrity people,' Granny said with certainty. 'That'll be it.'

It was like trying to track the beam of a very erratic lighthouse. When it did flash onto you, all was clear and lucid for a few moments, before darkness fell again. She looked at Thea. 'Or have I got that wrong? It isn't Frances, is it?'

'Never mind,' said Thea, less gently than she knew she should. 'We'll leave you now. Unless you need something? What about some shopping?'

'The van comes,' said Granny. 'It's in my notebook. You can depend upon the van.'

'Well, then,' said Thea vaguely. 'That's all right, isn't it.'

'Mum,' came Jessica's voice, in a tone of alarm. 'Look!'

Thea's gaze wavered from edge to edge of the area to which her daughter pointed, without any firm result. 'What?' she demanded.

'That,' said Jessica, and Thea was suddenly inescapably focused on a pale-coloured raincoat, hanging over the back of an upright chair. There were streaks down the sleeve that was visible, as well as the lower portion. Streaks that had the grainy browny reddish appearance of dried blood.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

'What happened here, Mrs Gardner?' Jessica asked, indicating the stains. 'Something made a nasty mess of your coat, didn't it?'

The old woman eyed the garment with surprise. 'Did it?' she said. 'That's my best mac.'

'It looks like blood,' Jessica suggested. 'All down the front and the sleeves.'

'How revolting,' said Granny, with no hint of emotion. 'Will it come off, do you think?'

'Would you like me to take it away and get it cleaned?' Thea winced at her own subterfuge, wondering if it was justified. Mrs Gardner nodded.

'If you like, dear. That would be kind of you. But I really shouldn't let you go to such trouble. Cleaners cost the earth, don't they.' Her eyes twinkled. 'And they might ask awkward questions.'

'Do you know how it happened?' Jessica spoke with stern authority, suddenly in role as a police officer almost for the first time since she arrived in Blockley.

'No idea,' Granny shook her head. 'Unless it was one of the lambs.'

'Lambs? What do you mean?'

'The sheep are lambing. I like to lend a hand if I can.'

'Where?' Jessica's eyes were prominent with amazed impatience.

Granny shrugged. 'Mostly at the Hugheses. They call for me if they're struggling. I'm First Reserve.'

'You help with delivering lambs? Wearing your mac?'

'Sometimes I do. Why not?'

Thea could hear the unspoken protests. You're You're supposed to be ninety-two, d.a.m.n it. How do you supposed to be ninety-two, d.a.m.n it. How do you expect me to believe a word you say? expect me to believe a word you say?

'It does look a bit sort of slimy, slimy,' Thea noted, giving the stains a closer inspection. 'Hardly arterial bleeding, I'd say.'

'Well, let me take it, anyway.' Jessica sounded defeated by the complexities of life.

'Thank you, my dear. You're very kind,' said Mrs Gardner, with a complacent smile.

'It could could be true,' said Thea for the third time. 'All sorts of people pitch in at lambing time. The woman I met in Cold Aston last year did it. It gets so busy at times. Twenty or thirty lambs born in a day, apparently.' be true,' said Thea for the third time. 'All sorts of people pitch in at lambing time. The woman I met in Cold Aston last year did it. It gets so busy at times. Twenty or thirty lambs born in a day, apparently.'

'So where are they? I haven't seen any sheep.'

'They keep them indoors these days,' Thea said, feeling very unsure of her facts. 'In any case, we haven't been anywhere much, have we? This whole area was founded on sheep and wool, after all.'

'OK.' Jessica flapped a hand to indicate she'd heard enough about sheep and lambs. 'The easiest thing is to take the coat for forensics to examine.'

Thea laughed. 'This is getting to be a habit. They'll start wondering whether we killed Julian, at this rate.'

Jessica didn't smile. 'It doesn't look good for the old lady that's what they'll think. If this is human blood, and turns out to be Julian's, that's enough evidence to arrest and charge her. Especially if she's left traces on the knife as well.'

'They'd never get her to trial, though. There can't be many better cases of diminished responsibility in the history of murder investigations.'

'They'd send her to a special prison,' Jessica nodded. 'For the criminally insane.'

'How dreadful!' The implications struck Thea for the first time. 'We can't let that happen. Jess, we really can't.'

'We'll have to if it's proved that she killed him. She might do it again.'

'But what if she genuinely doesn't know she did it? What would she think about being sent to some gruesome inst.i.tution? What about Yvette?'

'What about her?'

'The scandal,' Thea explained feebly.

'Listen,' said Jessica. 'There must be something significant about the timing the way it happened just as they went off to the back of beyond, where n.o.body can contact them. It can't possibly be a coincidence.'

'You think they had something to do with it? That they could even have paid paid someone to kill him and left the knife and the coat deliberately to incriminate Granny? Surely n.o.body would do a thing like that? They seemed really someone to kill him and left the knife and the coat deliberately to incriminate Granny? Surely n.o.body would do a thing like that? They seemed really nice nice.'

Jessica snorted. 'Lots of people seem seem nice,' she said sourly. nice,' she said sourly.

It was a little after eleven, and Thea was already feeling it was to be another long day. 'What is it about time, when you're a house-sitter?' she demanded rhetorically. 'The days always seem endless, whether or not something's actually happening.'

Hepzie made no reply. Jessica had driven back to the Incident Room with Granny Gardner's mac, leaving her mother and the dog in the house. 'It doesn't need both of us,' she said.

Thea's head was full of visions of the arrest of a demented old lady, whose reaction was impossible to predict. She might laugh, or scream, or curse or weep. It would be intensely distressing whatever she did, and Thea had no wish to witness a development that was starting to feel inevitable. She was also tending to blame herself for the whole ghastly business. If she hadn't asked Jessica to join her, Julian's body would still be lying undiscovered next door. Not until the whiff of decomposition began to filter across the fence and through the kitchen window would anything be found. That, Thea judged, would have been a far preferable outcome. She would probably have gone by the time the stench began to be bothersome. Granny could have washed her mac, and probably n.o.body would ever have noticed the knife in the hallway drawer. Fiercely, she tried to rerun events, rewrite history, and make everything all right again.

Then Phil Hollis phoned her and told her there was no way he would be able to take her and Jessica for lunch that day.

'You sound a bit stressed,' she said.

'Pressures of work. There's something brewing and we're all on edge about it.'

'What sort of something?'

'You know I can't tell you. If our information is right, you'll be hearing it on the news tonight or tomorrow.'

'And if it's not?'

He snorted. 'You'll be hearing about it on the news with k.n.o.bs on. "West Midlands cops blunder again."'

'Fingers crossed, then,' she said lightly, fighting to ignore the surges of anxiety afflicting her insides.

Jessica's return went some way towards improving her fears about Granny, at least. 'They don't think it's human blood,' she said, slightly crestfallen.

'They can tell just by looking?'

'No, but you were right that there's a lot of mucus with it. The lambing story sounded fairly credible to them.'

Thea's eyebrows rose. 'What does a bloke from Solihull know about lambing?'

'Nothing, but there was a girl there as well, and her father's a farmer.'

'Right,' said Thea, trying to imagine the family dynamic whereby a self-employed free-thinking farmer managed to produce a daughter who opted to go into the police. Uncannily similar, of course, to the independent rebellious Carl and his increasingly inst.i.tutionalised offspring.