A Cotswold Mystery Part 23

The atmosphere continued p.r.i.c.kly, for which Thea blamed herself. Jessica was not going to forgive her rudeness to Ick for a while, she realised. It was akin to blasphemy, and the chilly treatment was only to be expected.

But it was not the first time the two had hit rough patches. Friction between mother and daughter was surely an inescapable fact of life. The difference this time was that Jessica had somehow gained a superiority both moral and professional. She knew more than her mother did about police procedure. She also knew more about popular culture and the status of renowned performers. The previous sullen teenage despair at the general ignorance and obstructiveness of parents had matured into a genuine a.s.sertion of equality. Thea had been judged as an equal and found wanting. It was the fate, she supposed, of mothers everywhere edged to the outer boundaries of society, decade by decade, taken less and less seriously as looks faded and memory grew less reliable. But not at forty-two! But not at forty-two! Thea wailed to herself. Surely I've got twenty or thirty more years in which I might expect to be taken seriously? Thea wailed to herself. Surely I've got twenty or thirty more years in which I might expect to be taken seriously?

And with her habitual good humour and optimism, she answered her own cry. Obviously she was over-reacting. All that was happening was a minor adjustment in the balance of power between her and Jessica.

Through it all, they were both impatient to get back to the computer and check out the story of Joanna Southcott in more detail. At least, she congratulated herself, she had albeit faintly heard of that particular luminary, even if she was ignorant about Icarus Binns.

Jessica naturally a.s.sumed that it was for her to operate the keyboard, and when Thea began to hover behind her, she turned impatiently. 'Maybe you should go and see if Granny's OK,' she said.

Thea choked back the resentment at being ordered around by her daughter, and went to listen at the connecting door. The rea.s.suring murmur of the television was audible from the other side. 'She's fine,' she reported, when she got back. 'I suppose I'd better go and cook something now.'

'Mum.' Jessica stopped her. 'I really really think we should call Uncle James tonight, now we've got all this stuff about Ick as well.' think we should call Uncle James tonight, now we've got all this stuff about Ick as well.'

'Surely it can wait,' Thea said, trying not to let the note of pleading return. 'He won't thank us, if he's had a hard day.'

'Maybe you're right. But I know I won't sleep a wink, for thinking about it all.'

'And if you don't, I suppose that means I won't either.'

'Well, one of us should listen out for Granny in case she tries to run away in the night.'

Thea tried to laugh. 'I wouldn't put it past her.'

'What you mean is, you'd be quite glad if she did.'

The evening was only made tolerable by a determined pact to avoid the subject of Granny and Julian completely. They played a marathon tournament of Scrabble, with Jessica increasingly outraged by her mother's use of words n.o.body had heard of. 'What the h.e.l.l is an auklet?' she demanded. 'I'm definitely challenging that.'

'It's a baby auk, of course,' Thea defended.

They had found an impressively substantial dictionary in Ron's study and were using it to settle disagreements. Thea's definition proved almost right. 'Any variety of small auk,' they discovered.

'Duh!' said Thea as if it had been obvious from the start. 'That gives me forty-seven, if my calculations are correct.' She had placed the K on a triple letter score in two directions, turning the word thin thin into into think think.

'You're much too good at this,' grumbled Jessica.

'I've had a lot of practice. I was hooked on internet Scrabble this time last year. It ruins a person for the real thing. I ought to give you some sort of advantage, I suppose. Like making sure you always get the Z and the Q.'

'That wouldn't help,' said Jessica glumly. 'I don't have the right sort of mind.'

'You're doing very well,' patronised Thea. 'And it's a great distraction.'

It had been, until she said that. They were abruptly plunged back into anguished hypothesising about how Granny Gardner would react to being arrested and possibly charged with the unlawful killing of Julian Jolly and their pact evaporated.

'I suppose they'll do that awful trick of bashing on the door at six in the morning,' said Thea.

'They won't. Of course they won't. They know she isn't going anywhere. I've told you already, they'll be extremely sensitive.'

'She still won't understand what's happening. If she genuinely can't remember anything about it, she'll be terrified. Can you imagine it?' Thea shuddered.

Jessica sighed. 'I thought we weren't going to talk about it.'

'I can't help it. It's just so awful awful.'

'I think it might be less awful than you think. She's a tough old thing, and don't forget we're not sure how much of her forgetfulness is just an act. She could be playing games with us all. Being old in itself isn't any reason to give a person special treatment.'

Thea considered this clumsy statement with as much objectivity as she could muster. A jumble of conflicting impressions of the old woman collided in her head, crystallised by the strange walk they'd undertaken on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. One moment Granny had been surging ahead, firmly grasping Hepzie's lead and very much in control of herself. The next she was a helpless heap of old bones on the pavement. And then she'd got up again and walked home only slightly the worse for the experience. It had gone on like that ever since. Bewildered and frail one moment, deftly delivering a stuck lamb the next. She was like two people in one body. Maybe more than two. And at least one of those personae was capable of driving a knife into an old man's back. An old man she knew well and could manipulate just as she manipulated everybody around her. Thea recalled the contradictory instructions left by Ron and Yvette. What they had actually been saying was along the same lines if Granny A manifests, you have to do this this. But if she wakes up as Granny B then this this would be better. would be better.

Thea struggled to a.s.sure herself that whatever happened would be for the best. If nothing else, the murder of Julian Jolly had provided a powerful distraction from Jessica's trouble in Manchester, but for all that it was only a distraction. Jessica would have to go back the next day, face a reprimand, learn how to avoid such calamities in future and make herself vulnerable once more to whatever the criminal urban cla.s.ses might elect to throw at her. James's undoubted generosity in allowing the girl access to the Blockley investigations ought to earn Thea's grat.i.tude, she knew. But it had also deprived her of the lazy little holiday she had envisaged. She had been drawn in to the horrid little murder, against her will, and now found herself forced to face the imminent arrest of an old lady she had come to admire and respect.

The idea that somehow Icarus Binns and Nick Jolly had been involved in murder was tempting, if only because it exonerated Granny. But in her heart, Thea couldn't believe it. The complications of the locked doors, the closed access through the gardens, the timing, all worked against it being a viable explanation.

Before turning out the light and trying to sleep, Jessica said, 'Granny mentioned Julian and Thomas writing about the box do you remember?'

'When the police asked her what she knew about Julian,' Thea confirmed. 'Yes. It didn't make much sense at the time.'

'It means she knew about it. It links everything up, in a way.'

'You mean they all all killed him? One held him, another kept lookout, and a third stabbed him. You think one of those was Granny?' killed him? One held him, another kept lookout, and a third stabbed him. You think one of those was Granny?'

Jessica pushed her face into the pillow and moaned.

Thea switched off the light.

They woke with the dawn light, with most of the same emotions of the night before still active. Jessica's last day Jessica's last dayThea remembered, with a stab of unease. Outside it was raining.

'I'll phone Uncle James at nine,' said Jessica. The portentousness swelled around them, as if they'd named a moment for an execution.

Somehow nine o'clock arrived without Thea rushing into the cottage to warn Granny and help her to hide inside a hollow tree in The Warren. She sat listening, gesturing occasionally and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her face. From Jessica's end of the lengthy conversation, it seemed that it was not running to the expected script. Almost, Thea thought, there could be room for optimism.

'Well? What did he say?' Thea demanded, a quarter-second after the call was finished.

'He knew about her record already.'

'And?'

'It isn't evidence. It can't be revealed in court. It means nothing to this investigation.'

'Oh. That's good, isn't it?'

'Is it?'

'Well, it means they're not charging round here with battering rams to arrest the poor old thing.'

'After what he just told me, I think they probably should.'

Thea leant back gingerly in the chair. 'Go on, then tell me,' she invited.

'Gladys Fielding, as she was then, had a baby boy. He was two when he contracted meningitis. He died in hospital. She killed the doctor who tried to save him.'

'My G.o.d! How?'

'Stabbed him with a pair of sharp scissors. In the back.'

'And they called it manslaughter?'

'She was out of her mind with grief for the child. The doctor was insensitive. A nurse testified to say she thought anybody might have done it, under the circ.u.mstances.'

'And she was pregnant.'

'Pardon?'

'I might have forgotten to tell you that bit. She was expecting Yvette, and had her while she was in prison. Yvette's father brought her up for the first eight years.'

'Blimey!' said Jessica.

They sat quietly contemplating the tragic story for a few minutes. Then Thea said, 'So they don't see it as an indication that she stabbed Julian in the back with a kitchen knife?'

'They do. Of course they do. But it isn't evidence. And they're still hoping it turns out to have been somebody else.'

'What about Nick, then?'

'Nick?'

'Yes Nick. The grandson who's suddenly best buddies with Icarus, owner of the van carrying soil from diggings in a restricted site, while searching for a mythical object.'

'Ah. That Nick. Yes. Uncle James actually thinks he could possibly be the perp.'

'Perp? Do English police officers say perp perp?'

Jessica giggled. 'Not very often. It's rather good, though, don't you think? Better than killer killer or or murderer murderer.'

'No it isn't. It's a nasty American euphemism, like pa.s.sed on pa.s.sed on and a thousand other silly phrases.' and a thousand other silly phrases.'

'Mum, please, not now. I can feel us about to start on political correctness and I don't think I can face it. Did you hear what I said about Nick?'

'James thinks he could be the person who killed Julian his own grandfather.'

'Right. But it's no more than a hunch, because of the road accident and his suspicious behaviour. There's no evidence against him, either.'

'So how is he?'

'Recovering. They think he can be discharged tomorrow or Sat.u.r.day.'

Thea could think of nothing to say. Suddenly the whole process felt as if it had nothing to do with her at all. She merely had to keep an eye on Granny, the wonderful nonagenarian who delivered lambs in the middle of the night and aroused complicated feelings amongst the people of Blockley, and savagely killed insensitive doctors. Had the sympathetic nurses applauded her, she wondered? Had she done them all a favour by removing a tyrant from their midst?

Perhaps it was because the old woman was so independent and stoical that Thea felt such a desire to protect her. The life spark or spirit or whatever you called it was simultaneously strong and fragile, arousing admiration and concern in equal measure. Granny Gardner was like silk, Thea concluded, in her flurry of poetic musings. Slender filaments spun together to form a cord as tough as steel that was Gladys Gardner, formerly Fielding.

'You're not saying much,' Jessica noted crossly. 'Tell me what you're thinking.'

'I'm thinking about Blockley, I suppose, and how much more there is to it than appears at first glance. Not just the history going back to the Dark Ages and beyond, but the silk mills and Joanna Southcott and the sheep and there's bound to be more. I bet if we went to the church we'd find a whole new load of stories. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, I suppose but in a nice way. There's no possibility of being bored you only have to walk fifty yards in any direction and there's some amazing new thing to find out.'

'Yeah.' Jessica was doubtful, but Thea suspected she was getting some of the same feeling in spite of herself thanks to Google as much as Blockley itself, admittedly. 'I'm with you on the Southcott woman. That really is something you could get your teeth into.'

'Pity you're going back this afternoon.'

'Yeah,' said Jessica again, with a shudder. 'Don't remind me.'

'It's going to be fine. Didn't James manage to persuade you it would?'

'Sort of. But it still feels like being summoned to the Year Head at school. You remember Mr Mattingley.' She shuddered again. 'Terrifying man.'

'Last of his kind,' Thea recalled. 'Not afraid to enforce discipline. I thought you'd approve of that now.'

'I do, in a way. But he still makes me tremble, just thinking about him.' She was visibly struck by a thought. 'And you wouldn't believe the number of times I fantasised about killing him. I yearned yearned to stick a compa.s.s between his ribs, or push him out of the art room window. And there's Granny, who really did it. Maybe twice. Makes you think, doesn't it.' to stick a compa.s.s between his ribs, or push him out of the art room window. And there's Granny, who really did it. Maybe twice. Makes you think, doesn't it.'

They lapsed into silence. An unsettling mixture of urgency and paralysis seemed to have gripped them. The weather became less and less inviting, but to remain indoors with nothing to do but bicker between themselves until lunchtime did not feel like a valid option.

'We still haven't been to look at the church,' Jessica said without enthusiasm.

'Perhaps we should. It might have some link with Joanna Southcott.'

'Will it be open, do you think?'

'We could go and see. It's practically next door, after all. And maybe we'll meet somebody who'll invite us back to theirs and tell us some good stories.'

'n.o.body's going to be out in this weather,' said Jessica. 'But we might as well give it a try.'

Shrugging into waterproof jackets and shoes, they left the dog behind and headed along the street. Before reaching the church, Jessica drew her mother's attention to the small brown sign indicating 'The Little Village Hall'.

'Pooh!' scorned Thea. 'That's tiny. No wonder I didn't notice it.'

'Tell you what,' Jessica said. 'Let's see if that art exhibition's still on. The one Julian went to on Sat.u.r.day.'

The Little Village Hall, as it was officially designated, was very close by. 'It's photographs, not art,' Jessica corrected, tapping the publicity poster on the door.

A woman sitting just inside gave them a fierce look as they entered. 'And what makes you think photography isn't art?' she demanded angrily.

Jessica's jaw dropped, and Thea felt the disproportionate sense of alarm and outrage that comes from unexpected aggression in a stranger.

'Well,' stammered Jessica, 'I suppose it can be sometimes. I didn't mean to...' she trailed away, wondering why she felt the need to defend herself.

'Just you look at the pictures before you pa.s.s judgement,' the woman told her. 'That's all we ask.'