Ladies Who Lunch

Moreton-in-Marsh suffered perpetually from a ghostly the, missing from its name. Few people felt comfortable leaving it out, even while knowing it was right to do so. Some regarded it as a point of historical pride, an ancient usage that they might not manage to explain, but which was self-evidently significant.

Thea Slocombe sat at a small table in the pedestrianised area of the town and thought about it, in an idle sort of way. It was late September, sunny and mild. She was lunching in solitary splendour, having spent much of the morning running errands for Drew. She was officially a partner in his business, fully participating in the work of Peaceful Repose in various roles. One of these was to visit the dying and discuss with them the sort of funeral they desired. Most were in a hospice, but some were in their own homes and others in residential institutions. To date, she had interviewed seven such brave souls, her respect for them increasing exponentially. It took courage and a rather British sort of realism to confront the paradoxes that any funeral contained. The same questions repeatedly arose: who is a funeral really for? What is its central function? How can a life be most effectively concluded? The closer she came to such topics, the greater her understanding was of her husband the undertaker. He had spent much of his adult life at the heart of these enormous issues. It had made him a far more serious person than any she had ever met. The most prominent question this gave rise to was – did she really want to be quite so serious herself?

Hence the musing over the name of the little town. Was it even in a marsh anyway? Must have been, she guessed. It was on a junction of two prominent roads and still boasted a busy market once a week. It was unapologetically Cotswold in appearance, society and situation. Thea had once been something of a historian, and still found the past a source of fascination.

The cafe she was patronising offered quirky fare in the form of various baps, wraps and salads designed primarily for weight-conscious women with a healthy budget. She ordered a salad composed of exotic leaves, cheese and smoked meat that cost considerably more than she felt comfortable with. The Slocombe family were perpetually short of cash, with the funerals not only sporadic but low-cost. Profits were slender and attempts at ‘diversification’ limited. Drew acted as non-religious officiant at cremations, for which the fee was modest. He gave talks to groups and provided a prepayment scheme for funerals. Money trickled in, but they were depending alarmingly heavily on the proceeds from renting out Thea’s house in Witney. ‘It won’t be nearly enough for us to live on,’ she said, at least once a week.

Drew always replied, ‘It won’t have to be. The funerals are doing well, at least for now.’

True to the stereotype, there were a few nicely heeled women scattered around the shiny aluminium outdoor tables. Two of them, sitting at the same table, were tapping screens on little gadgets, which Thea supposed no longer qualified for the name of ‘mobile’. They were multifunction computers, with Internet and apps. Not very convivial, she thought. Were they competing to be seen as important businesswomen or surrounded by adoring friends? Did they detest each other, therefore opting for any excuse to avoid conversation?

Then a strange hoarse barking rang out from the same direction, and she looked around for whatever great hound might be giving voice. There was no sign of a dog. Instead she saw a woman, who was also alone at her table, put down her fork and bend down to rummage in the bag that was sprawled untidily at her feet. She lifted it onto her lap, and produced a mobile phone. There had been no repetition of the barking.

At that point Thea realised how nosy she was being and turned back. She concentrated determinedly on a fingernail that was minimally ragged. Perhaps she had a file somewhere, and she carefully and vainly went through her own bag item by item, trying not to listen to the voice behind her, which had begun a one-sided conversation. The barking had been an especially ridiculous ringtone, then, and the woman was now speaking to someone not present. She used normal volume, with no trace of self-consciousness. How quickly it had become ubiquitous to talk to an invisible person while surrounded by three-dimensional living, breathing, listening others. It often seemed to Thea that she must be very peculiar to even notice it any more.

The positioning of the tables meant that the woman was slightly behind Thea’s left shoulder. She could not look at her without being obvious. But something about the husky voice was familiar, making it impossible to resist taking another peek. The arrival of her salad gave her a useful cover for turning round, on the pretext of creating space for the waitress.

The second look revealed a thoroughly familiar woman of around sixty, middle height, substantial weight and regal manner. Her first name, Thea remembered effortlessly, was Thyrza. The surname, however, eluded her. More facts came to mind: the woman lived in Cranham and had given Thea some very direct comments about her life and character. Thea’s life and character, not her own. The barbs had rankled for months, and still had the power to cause discomfort.

She looked away quickly, hoping recognition had not been mutual. Thyrza must have been sitting there unnoticed, when Thea arrived. Her meal was more than half consumed. There was every chance that she had known who it was who had come to sit at the next table. But now their eyes had met, and surely, inescapably, the link must have been made. And yet, possibly not. That was another thing about people conducting conversations on their mobiles. You never knew how much of the actual world around them they were seeing or hearing. You wondered whether they’d duck if a stone was thrown at them, or whether they’d notice if their little child was wailing for attention. Mostly, Thea thought not. In her experience, wailing children were comprehensively ignored by mobile-addicted mothers.

‘Good Lord,’ the woman was saying – almost shouting now. ‘Use your initiative, why don’t you? Nobody has to take that sort of thing any more. Tell him you won’t stand for it. Tell him you’ll leave if he does it again.’

Sounded like an abused wife lacking the energy to fight back, Thea concluded, suddenly reminded of her own sister Jocelyn, who had once been struck by her husband, before he was frightened into getting help and thereby saving the marriage. Thinking about Jocelyn diluted the loud half-conversation at the adjacent table, but it was impossible to avoid completely. Even the moments of silence, when the invisible person at the other end of the line must be speaking, gave space for all sorts of guesswork. More hypotheses came to mind – a bullied teenager, perhaps, or a disgruntled employee. Clues were in short supply – no name, no revealing epithets such as ‘dear’ or ‘darling’ to hint at the relationship.

Thyrza was not afraid to be heard. She never had been, Thea recalled, along with other memories. Her brief time in Cranham would have been unrelievedly unhappy, partly thanks to this woman, if it hadn’t been for a surprise visit from Drew, whose sweet attentions had made everything else tolerable. Thyrza remained as a symbol of that time, with her accusations and painful insights.

‘Well, you know what my advice is,’ the voice continued. ‘I don’t know why you bother telling me about it if you’re not going to listen to sense. What am I supposed to say? You poor thing, it must be awful.’ She laughed. ‘That’s not going to happen, is it? Either you lie down and make the best of it, or you stand up and take control. Simple choice, to my way of thinking. You might think it’s complicated, but it really isn’t.’

A pause, in which Thea forced herself yet again to focus on her salad and try to plan her afternoon. Then, ‘Well, that would be going too far. You would never get away with it … No, you wouldn’t. The very fact that you’re talking to me about it proves that.’ The voice was considerably lower, and still dropping. Thea actually leant back an inch or two, the better to catch what was being said. ‘You’d be the first person they’d look at, you idiot. And more than that – believe me when I say it isn’t what you really want. Haven’t you read Dostoyevsky?’

Had anyone read Dostoyevsky, Thea wondered with a grimace of sympathy for the wretched listener. Who evidently had not, because Thyrza went on, ‘Well, you’d learn a lot if you did. We are all haunted and pursued by our own actions, believe me. They leave very deep wounds.’ There followed a kind of clucking that hinted at impatience mixed with a growing alarm. ‘Stop it, do you hear me? Stop that now. Get a hold of yourself.’

It was impossibly tantalising. There were surely many more interpretations than the obvious one, which nonetheless persisted. Perhaps they were rehearsing for a play, but who did that on the telephone? Might they even be discussing the disposal of a delinquent puppy? No, no. You didn’t threaten to leave a puppy. But it just could be the threat of undergoing an abortion. That would just possibly fit, although again the leaving part was awkward. It would, though, be appropriately distressing, without actually breaking any laws. Thyrza might well be of the opinion that it was a major transgression, doomed to cause everlasting guilt. This effort to find an explanation was like a game of Tetris, making the shapes sit neatly together, twisting and turning them until they did.

Picking at the remnant of her lamb’s lettuce, Thea persuaded herself that this was indeed the alarming act that was being contemplated. Getting away with it referred to the father of the foetus discovering the truth. Or maybe it was a puppy, after all. The husband loved and indulged it, thus making life intolerable for the complaining wife. She was going to kill it, somehow. And of course this was a very big step to take. You were not meant to bash any animal on the head and toss it into a pond, as she imagined the unknown person to be planning. That might well be a crime, both morally and actually. Although – had Thyrza used the word ‘crime’? Thea thought not. It was all more subtle than that. And yet, it really did sound serious.

She was distracted from her theorising by fresh remarks, which did indeed continue to behave like Tetris blocks, filling the picture more and more.

‘Well, use your head, there’s a good girl. There’s a world of difference between standing up for yourself, and doing something you’ll regret for ever. Go and have a coffee and get some perspective back. You know you can phone me any time.’

A silence followed, in which Thea drained her elderflower pressé and kept her face averted. Now she had the gender of the listener established, her concerns grew more solid. Surely it could not possibly be as it sounded, because that would mean there was a woman on the brink of murdering her abusive husband, regardless of what her sensible friend was telling her. She had a peripheral awareness of somebody close by paying more than usual attention to events going on beside her table. Thea raised her head and met the gaze of an elderly lady with sharp brown eyes and the hint of a smile. An ally, Thea thought, without understanding why she might need such a person.

It then became apparent that her attempts at hiding her face had been in vain. ‘Don’t I know you?’ came the first woman’s voice, barely a foot from her ear.

Thea turned slowly, unsure whether to be offended that she was not better remembered, or relieved.

The woman went on, ‘I can’t quite remember … oh, yes! How stupid of me.’

‘We only met once or twice,’ said Thea.

‘More than that, surely. Still doing the house-sitting, are you?’ There was a nasty twist to her mouth as she said it, conveying scorn and distaste.

‘Actually, no, not any more. The last one was a while ago now, in Chedworth.’ She tried to sound casual, matter-of-fact, but it wasn’t convincing in her own ears. Chedworth had not ended any more happily than most of her other commissions.

‘So what brings you to Moreton? If I might ask.’ Again the snide undertone, the implication that Thea was due some sort of chastisement. She remembered Thyrza’s indignation at Thea’s habit of asking such questions of people she hardly knew, and wondered if this was a deliberate payback.

‘Nothing in particular. I was in the area, feeling hungry, and I found a parking spot right outside, so I decided to stop for lunch.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I’ve finished, anyway. I’d better be going.’

‘Not going to ask me why I’m here, then? After all, it’s quite a way from Cranham. And as you know, that’s where I live.’

‘None of my business,’ said Thea lightly. She was tempted to say something about the careless ease with which people used phones in public, heedless of who was listening. She wanted to hit back at Thyrza’s earlier imputations of intrusion and impertinence, with an accusation of rudeness. She could see the old lady, two tables away, making no attempt to conceal her interest in the scene. Loosen up, she told herself. This is how things are now. Stop being so reactionary. If old ladies were happy with the ways of the modern world, why couldn’t she be as well?

‘So true,’ said Thyrza, watching her face. ‘But minding your own business never was your strong point, was it?’

She was having a politely vicious fight in a quiet little Cotswold cafe for no reason at all. It was almost a rerun of a similar fight they’d had in Cranham. Was it unfinished business for Thyrza? Had she, Thea, done something unforgivable that warranted this attack? Perhaps she had – she did remember a feeling of shame at the extreme curiosity she had shown, the rude questions she had asked, the burning need to make people admit to what they had done. Looking back, she could hardly remember what had happened, and how all the people were linked together. An old man had died, and for a short time nobody had seemed unduly upset. Perhaps when they eventually did become distressed, they concluded that it was all Thea Osborne’s fault.

And then she thought of the phone call and much became clear. This subtle attack was a deliberate distraction from the strange conversation she had heard. She was not meant to pursue it; not meant to ask, ‘Who were you speaking to, and what is she planning to do?’

Instead she said, ‘That’s a very odd ringtone you have on your phone. It’s not your son’s dog, is it? I remember he had a poodle.’

Thyrza grimaced. ‘It’s idiotic, isn’t it? Philippe gave me his old phone, which had that thing on it. I have no idea how to change it.’

Suddenly the woman was human again. Thea laughed in spite of herself.

Thyrza went on, ‘Don’t you feel we’re completely dominated by all this technology? They know so much about you, where you are, who you’re talking to. And yet, it’s so useful. How did we ever manage without it?’

‘It’s nice to see you again,’ Thea ventured, not at all sincerely. She hadn’t liked the woman when she’d met her before, and very little had happened in the past ten minutes to alter that. ‘It seems a long time ago. How is everybody now?’

‘We survived. Most of us, anyhow.’

It was impossible to directly raise the subject of the phone call. Who, what, why? Was somebody really planning to commit murder? The answers, if there were any, would hardly be true. ‘I suppose there must be lasting damage,’ she said woodenly.

‘Indeed.’ Thyrza picked up her phone and dropped it back into her bag. ‘Well, I suppose I should get moving. Things to do, people to see.’ It was a clumsy quote, followed by a faint smile. ‘As they say,’ she added. ‘I don’t expect I’ll see you again.’

‘You might,’ said Thea. ‘I live here now. Well – not here, but in Broad Campden. It’s not far away.’

‘Oh?’

She knew, thought Thea in a flash. The syllable had been uttered in quite the wrong tone, with no surprise in it, no sense of accepting fresh information and tucking it away. Again she recalled the exchange in Cranham, where it became evident that Thyrza had a comprehensive knowledge of Thea’s movements, reputation and character. Now she knew that the Slocombe family had opened for business in Broad Campden. Of course she did. It had been front-page news in the area. They had gone overboard on advertising and publicity. So, some kind of game was being played, here in Moreton. Something malicious and threatening was going on. Had the call from the unhappy wife been part of it, or an annoying interruption? Thyrza hadn’t sounded annoyed. She had, if anything, revelled in the opportunity to give loud advice. Too loud, Thea now suspected.

‘Who were you speaking to just now?’ she asked, throwing manners to the wind. ‘You obviously want me to ask about it.’

‘Obviously?’ The woman tilted her head, conveying an air of complacent superior knowledge. ‘I haven’t the least intention of answering such a question. Goodbye, Mrs Osborne. Sorry – that’s changed, hasn’t it? I’m afraid I didn’t catch your new name.’

‘Slocombe.’

‘Oh, yes. Well, I’m sure I’ll see you again.’ There was a look on her face that seemed to be saying something more, along the lines of I am determined that we will meet again.

‘I’m easy to find, anyway,’ said Thea. ‘Broad Campden. There’s usually a hearse outside the house.’

It was all fizzling out, anyway. The waitress had come back to remove her plate and suggest a pudding. Thyrza’s table had been cleared and the bill was awaiting her attention. Time was going by and Thea had somewhere to be. Nobody was killing anybody. It was all smoke and mirrors and a pathetic attempt at a practical joke, obviously aimed at Thea herself. Even the old lady had started to read a paperback, and seemed no longer to be interested.

She left Moreton feeling puzzled and slightly victimised. Thyrza did not like her, and yet she really did seem to want to see her again. The phone conversation might have been conducted loudly and publicly, but it had not been initiated by her, which gave it authenticity. Something sinister was definitely going on.

When she got home she poured it all out to Drew, who was duly attentive and intrigued and mildly annoyed on her behalf. He made her repeat as much of the conversation as she could recall.

‘I can’t see any innocent explanation,’ he concluded.

They puzzled away at it for the rest of the day and into the evening, in between producing a family meal and listening to Stephanie and Timmy reporting the events of their day at school. The change of schools had been a trial for them both in different ways. Timmy was susceptible to teasing on the grounds of being the son of an undertaker. Stephanie had developed a precocious class consciousness and was scathing about the offspring of film directors and horse trainers who shared the classroom with her. It was a thriving school with wondrous results, making it attractive to Cotswolds-dwellers who might otherwise have paid for private education. The children wore expensive clothes and signed up for adventurous excursions that Drew found it impossible to afford. Rather than experiencing this inequality as an embarrassment, Stephanie had chosen to see it as an illustration of cultural dysfunction, flaunting her poverty with pride. ‘They’d have no idea how to survive in a holocaust,’ she said.

Drew and Thea smiled at her fondly, and agreed with every word.

‘She knew who you were, right from the start,’ Drew picked up the Thyrza discussion over the washing-up. ‘So she would know you’d react to what she was saying on the phone. What did she expect you to do about it, I wonder?’

‘Nothing, surely? What on earth could I do?’

‘She might have been trying to alert you to something that’s going on. I mean – are you certain she really dislikes you? I didn’t pick that up at the time.’

‘You weren’t really there. The whole family found me extremely annoying.’

‘But they respected you at the end. They must have done. They’ll have followed your movements since then, with Stanton and Snowshill and all the rest, and read about us settling here. They probably see you as a solution to all sorts of problems.’

‘I don’t see how,’ she said.

‘You’re not seeing much, are you?’ he reproached her. ‘I don’t think you’re even trying.’

‘I’m too furious. She was pretty nasty. You should have seen the look on her face. Although she was quite friendly at times, as well. It was all very confusing.’

‘Hmm,’ said Drew, and shook dishwater from his hands. ‘I haven’t finished thinking about it, all the same.’

The children went to bed and the TV was switched on, and still Drew was on the case. ‘It seems such a coincidence that you were both there at the same time.’

‘She couldn’t have known I was going to come and sit at the next table. Even if she’d been following me before that – and I can’t believe she was – that couldn’t have been planned.’

‘Okay. So she thought quickly when she realised it was you. Maybe she did somehow initiate the phone call, with a signal you missed. After all, she was there first, and you didn’t notice her for a while. Let’s say she needed you for something. That’s my best guess. She dragged you in, knowing you’d be intrigued. There’s a connection with crime, you being famously nosy, all the stuff that happened in Cranham. She wants you to do something.’

‘Like call the police and tell them some nameless female is planning to kill a man?’

‘Exactly. She knows they’d listen to you, when they’d just laugh at anybody else.’

‘They’d laugh at me as well. Even if they did listen, there’s nothing to go on.’

‘Let me think a bit more,’ he said, and was quiet until bedtime.

In bed, he summarised his thinking. ‘What if the police did take you seriously, and went to Thyrza and asked to examine her phone? The number she was talking to would probably be in there. You can give them the time, more or less exactly.’

‘And where would that get them? Why not just ask her outright who she was talking to and what it was all about?’

He tutted. ‘Far too simple. They have to have hard evidence.’

‘Of what?’

‘At the very least, that she was getting at you personally. You could accuse her of harassment.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘You’re right,’ he apologised. ‘I got carried away. But it’s a nice little puzzle, just the same.’

Next day, Thea paid more than usual attention to the local radio station, half expecting to hear a report of a murdered man and missing wife, suspected of the killing. But there was nothing of the sort. She went over and over the conversation obsessively, trying to find any thread of logical elucidation that she and Drew might have missed. She tried to tell herself that such conversations were overheard every day and nobody worried about them. Then she decided that the whole thing was probably unreal anyhow, and that Thyrza might have been talking to herself, loudly attracting attention for some insane purpose that would be for ever obscure. Drew’s idea of getting the police to examine the phone gained in appeal, while at the same time being clearly impossible. Even so, the image of Detective Inspector Jeremy Higgins hovered at the edge of her mind’s eye. He was a patient man, benign and approachable. He trusted Thea’s judgement, most of the time, despite a few unfortunate exceptions in Stanton.

If she called him, he probably would at least listen.

But then she had a visitor. A small white car pulled up outside the house, catching Thea’s eye through the living-room window, where she was standing at the ironing board, dealing with an overdue pile of school shirts. Ironing the clothes of Drew’s children was a task she had failed to anticipate when she married him. He had readily assumed that he would do it himself, but Thea had, with absolute sincerity, assured him that it was something she would enjoy. Women, she had noticed, fell into two groups when it came to ironing. They either loved or loathed it. She was in the former group, savouring the hot smell and crisp results. Stephanie and Timmy were the proud wearers of the best-ironed shirts in the school.

Somebody wanting to arrange a funeral, she supposed, although it was almost unheard of for such a person to turn up unannounced. Perhaps they just wanted to make preliminary enquiries, which she could handle quite easily, after the few months of training she’d received.

But then she recognised the elderly woman emerging from the car.

Thea was at the door first, holding it open, her eyes wide with curiosity. ‘How did you find me?’ she asked. ‘You never even heard my name.’

‘Mrs Hastings sent me. That is, she told me your name and where you live, and I took it from there.’

Hastings! Aha! ‘Why?’ she said, completely at a loss.

‘You caught her making that phone call yesterday. That wasn’t supposed to happen.’ The old lady smiled. ‘Let’s start again, shall we? My name is Doreen. I live in Moreton. I first met Mrs Hastings six months ago, through my daughter.’

‘Wait a minute. Come in and have coffee or something. It’s so nice of you to take the trouble to come and explain. I’ve been going mad trying to make sense of it all.’

‘It’s not nice of me at all.’ Suddenly the visitor’s expression was much less friendly. ‘It’s purely self-interest, I assure you.’

‘Oh?’

‘I need you to be a witness, when I contact the police.’

Thea sat down at the untidy kitchen table, where she had gone to make coffee. Doreen had followed her, and was standing in the doorway. ‘So there is a murder being planned,’ said Thea.

‘That’s what I’m still trying to discover.’

‘Wait,’ begged Thea. ‘I’m completely lost.’

‘I really wish I didn’t have to tell you. Can I sit down?’

Thea waved at a chair, and half-heartedly pushed some papers and magazines aside. ‘Of course,’ she said.

‘Make the coffee, love, and I’ll see if I can explain. Mrs Hastings has behaved very badly, I can tell you.’

‘She never did like me much, but I always thought she was decent enough.’

Two mugs of instant coffee were produced, plus a tin of rather dull biscuits.

‘Is that so?’ said Doreen.

‘Didn’t she tell you? She must have said something when she told you who I was.’

The woman flushed. ‘Well, I fibbed about that,’ she admitted. ‘It wasn’t her who gave me your name – I heard enough in Moreton for me to track you down. Alternative undertakers are fairly thin on the ground. You’ve got a strong Internet profile, too. You and your dog. There are pictures of her on a number of websites.’

‘Heaven help us.’ The local press had included Hepzie in some of their reports, including photographs. ‘So, please explain. I’m dying to know what it was all about.’

‘She robbed me,’ came the stark reply. ‘She stole from me when I invited her into my home.’

‘Gosh!’

‘You might well say “Gosh”. She’d been sent by my daughter because we thought she might have some assistance to offer me. As it turned out, all she did was to steal from me.’

‘I don’t remember what she does for a living. I’m not sure I ever knew.’

‘Among other things, she’s a valuer for an auction house.’

‘Is she? I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, the thing is, I was hoping you could arrange to meet her again, somewhere public, just for a chat. She did sound as if she’d welcome the chance, after all.’

‘She did,’ Thea agreed. ‘Although I have no idea why.’ She frowned. ‘There are two completely different things going on here, it seems to me. That girl on the phone, and your grievance against her for robbing you. Is there any connection?’

‘I think there might be. Let me explain.’

Thea listened in rapt fascination.

With Doreen’s help, Thea made an arrangement to meet Thyrza again, in Chipping Camden. It was a lot further from Cranham than Moreton was, but the woman made no objection. The day was dry, and they sat outside in the garden of the Eight Bells. ‘Expensive,’ groaned Drew, when she told him. But it turned out not to be as bad as feared. The building itself was as lovely as any other ancient Cotswold hostelry. Thea knew she would never tire of them.

Doreen was sitting inside, close to a window that looked out on the garden. ‘How come she didn’t recognise you in Moreton?’ Thea suddenly wondered.

‘She’s only seen me once, and I made a few changes,’ was the reply. It was increasingly clear that there was more to this woman than first appeared.

Thryza was prompt and lunch was ordered. She settled comfortably on the outdoor wooden seat, bag on her lap. Thea tried to broach the subject of the overheard conversation in Moreton. ‘I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind,’ she said. ‘I absolutely have to know what happened next. Was it as drastic as it sounded?’

The woman smiled broadly. ‘I knew it would hook you,’ she gloated.

‘You were right. So …?’

‘So I’m afraid I can’t tell you. It’s all very confidential.’

‘How can it be, when you were practically shouting down the phone in front of all those people?’

‘People who had no idea who I was, or who I was talking to.’

‘Except me.’

‘Exactly. Except you.’ The smile grew even broader.

Thea was sitting across the table, leaning forward eagerly. ‘Have you spoken to her again? Whoever she was.’

‘I can’t tell you that, either.’

As instructed by Doreen, Thea made a sudden grab for the bag on Thyrza’s lap. It was a long way to reach and her grasp was shaky. But she succeeded in overturning the thing, so that several items spilt out onto the ground.

Thyrza grabbed fruitlessly at the tumbling contents, while Thea, leaning down to intercept as much as she could, caught an odd cylindrical object, covered with printed paper and quite heavy in her hand. She tilted it curiously and it emitted the same gruff bark that had first alerted her to Thyrza’s presence at the Moreton cafe. She tilted it again, and it made the same sound. It was a toy of some kind, the picture on the outside that of a large brown dog with its mouth wide open.

She blinked, her mind stuck in thoughts of old-fashioned toys. Thyrza, with a sound like a hiss, reached out and snatched it from her. Thea looked into her face, and caught a flash of alarm. The expression then quickly changed to one that was half amused, half wary. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It belongs to my granddaughter.’ She returned to gathering her scattered possessions.

When Thea’s thoughts finally began to fire up, they were to confirm the theory propounded by Doreen.

‘You’ve been playing with me,’ she accused loudly.

Thyrza said nothing, still crouching under the table and refilling her bag. Mobile phone, pack of tissues, purse, keys – the usual stuff. Thea waited impatiently. Finally, the woman straightened, again clutching the bag to her chest.

‘That wasn’t the ringtone on your phone, was it? It was this toy.’ She waved the object under the woman’s nose. ‘So what on earth was going on?’

‘Revenge,’ said Thyrza. ‘When I saw you arrive at the cafe last week, I just couldn’t resist it. I wanted to teach you a lesson.’

‘It was clever,’ Thea acknowledged. ‘But pretty childish. And I’m afraid it’s going to rebound on you in the long run.’

She beckoned to the watching Doreen, who was at their table in seconds. She took hold of the barking toy that was still in view. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I had one just like this, as a child.’

Thyrza gave her a sharp look, evidently realising who this sudden interloper was. ‘It’s you,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid it is. And I am surprised you were such a fool as to carry this around with you, once you’d stolen it from me. You used it in public to deceive this poor young lady.’

‘You were there?’

‘Unluckily for you, I was. But it was no coincidence. Having nothing better to do, I followed you that day. It wasn’t the first time. I had a feeling I might catch you out eventually.’

‘Hang on,’ said Thea. Doreen had told her only the barest facts, enough to convince her to arrange this lunch. Several details were still obscure. ‘You were following her?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? But I had no idea she’d got one of my most precious possessions in her bag.’

‘But you did think she might incriminate herself somehow?’

‘Not even that, really. I don’t really know what I was doing. Possibly preventing her from robbing anybody else.’ She looked almost benignly at Thyrza. ‘I have read Crime and Punishment, you’ll be pleased to hear.’

What an adorable old lady, thought Thea.

It was all determinedly civilised. There was no sense of danger, no hint that anybody would behave with violence here at the respectable Cotswold pub. And that made it unreal. Thea had in recent years witnessed the worst of criminal acts – or at least their consequences. She had cradled a dead child in her arms and been terrified more than once. This was nothing – a silly game played by a woman with a grudge.

‘Well, please yourself,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough of this. Whatever you meant to do to me hasn’t worked. It’s all too convoluted for my simple brain. Thanks for the diversion, but I’d like to finish my lunch in peace from here on.’

Thyrza narrowed her eyes. ‘Hoity-toity,’ she said.

The elderly Doreen made a clucking sound of disapproval. ‘You have been a very wicked woman,’ she accused. ‘Not just stealing valuable antiques, but teasing this harmless young person.’

Thea laughed at that, despite a certain turbulence in her insides. Thyrza had gone to considerable trouble to upset her, after all – and it had worked. The fictitious telephone conversation had occupied her thoughts for far too many days.

‘A wicked woman, indeed,’ she said. ‘You deserve to be prosecuted.’

But Doreen was apparently of a different opinion. ‘I’m just glad to get this back,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, we can just leave it at that.’

And Thea could hardly argue with her.