Thea had not anticipated the extent to which her social life would expand once she was living permanently in the Cotswolds. People made contact – people she had met so fleetingly during a house-sit in one or other of the small villages that she had quite forgotten them. Others came with painful or embarrassing associations. One or two had been strongly suspected of having committed murder. They phoned and emailed, and even showed up at the house. The establishment of a new natural burial service in Broad Campden had received a lot of publicity in the local media, making the Slocombes all too easy to find. Their new home was on the northernmost edge of the region, making places like Minchinhampton and Painswick seem a long way off. And yet here was a barely remembered voice from that area, phoning to invite her to lunch.

‘You’ve probably forgotten me,’ came the undisguisable London tones, with a metallic ring to them. ‘Valerie Innes, from Frampton Mansell.’

‘Oh.’ Frampton Mansell, where Thea’s sister Jocelyn had joined her and a boy had been killed, and people had felt strongly about the abandoned canal. ‘Yes. Goodness me, that seems a long time ago.’

‘It is, I suppose. A lot has happened, anyway. I read about your new venture. I have to tell you, I most heartily approve.’

‘Oh,’ said Thea again. ‘Good.’

‘So, listen. Would you like to come over for lunch one day? Is Friday any good for you? It’d be nice to talk over the old times, and now you’re living here permanently, I thought we might see something of each other. What d’you think?’

‘I …’ Had she ever regarded this woman as any sort of friend? If so, she could not recall it. She had felt no inclination to send a card at Christmas or exchange emails or establish some sort of Facebook connection. As far as she could remember, she had rather disliked Valerie Innes.

‘I was hoping to talk something over with you, actually. The thing is, I thought you’d be able to give me some advice. I remember how cool and objective you were when there was all that trouble. I don’t want to sound mysterious, but it does need something more than a phone call.’

Must be a funeral, Thea supposed. A tentative exploration into what the burial ground could offer. Probably for an aged parent, given the woman’s age.

‘All right,’ she said, trying to sound accommodating. ‘I mean, yes, Friday looks more or less free. I’m not sure what Drew’s doing, though. I might have to be back for when the kids come in from school.’

‘Kids?’

‘Yes, Stephanie and Timmy. They’re going to school in Chipping Campden now, and we’ve managed to get them onto the bus. But someone has to be here when they get home. They’re still very young.’

‘Well, come about twelve. Do you remember where I live?’

‘Not exactly.’

Valerie Innes explained, and Thea made a few notes. Cool and objective was still ringing in her ears. She’d thought herself to be almost hysterical at times during that particular adventure. Not to mention losing her heart to the detective conducting the investigations. There had been nothing at all cool about that.

She made no mention of the appointment to Drew. Partly, it slipped a long way down her list of priorities almost as soon as she put the phone down, and partly she hoped to surprise him with new business. Her role in the operation was still far from well defined, and there were times when she felt more of a dead weight than an active participant.

 

The entry in her diary ensured that she was prompt when Friday arrived. Driving into Frampton Mansell again was a strange experience. She even passed the property that she had taken charge of for a week or so, although everything there had changed in the past few years. One of the barns had been demolished, and where there had been a paddock full of poultry, with a small pond for the ducks, now there was a paved area with young trees encircling it. Thea stopped the car for a closer look, remembering moments of high emotion that had occurred on this very spot. Not a hint of them now, of course. New people, new lifestyle, and not a trace of the family that had lived there before.

Valerie’s house was close by – a beautiful, large stone house set on rising ground – but was not at all familiar. The details of all that had taken place between them had become hazy over time, with so many subsequent dramas pushing it to the back of her mind. She had no idea of the impression she might have left on the woman, causing her to renew the contact now.

The door was opened with considerable energy, moments after her knock. ‘Good timing!’ Valerie congratulated her. ‘Your hair’s different, but I’d have known you anywhere.’

‘You too,’ lied Thea. She found she could hardly remember Mrs Innes at all. She was the mother of three sons and had a loud voice. Nothing else came to her.

‘Have a drink. Gin. Martini. I might even have some sherry. Take your pick.’

‘Better not,’ said Thea, thinking of her driving licence. She looked around the house, wondering what had become of the husband she was sure she remembered. ‘Is your husband here? I’m afraid I’ve forgotten his name.’

‘We split up. Actually, it was falling apart before all that trouble. We were just waiting for the right moment.’ Her voice had a choked quality that cast doubt on the airy words.

‘I’m sorry. Have you got anyone here now? What about your boys?’

‘They all moved out. It was horrible. Within three months the whole family had dispersed. I’m rattling around on my own, and I hate it.’ She shivered. ‘I’m one of those people who has to be with somebody – you know? Someone to greet me in the morning.’

‘Get a dog,’ Thea said thoughtlessly. ‘They’re great for greeting.’

‘I loathe dogs. They smell and they chew things. We did have a cat, if you remember …’

Oh yes, Thea did remember the cat. A Siamese that shared its favours amongst various village residents. ‘Jeremy was upset when it died,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t really yours, was it?’

‘Never mind the cat,’ snapped Valerie impatiently and slightly confusingly. ‘I didn’t ask you here to talk about that. It’s people I’m concerned with.’

Thea waited, wishing she had been offered a soft drink or a bowl of nuts. She had nothing to do with her hands, and there was some awkwardness developing between the two of them.

‘Sorry. I’m not making much sense, I know. Let me go and dress the salad and we can talk over the meal. It’s nothing special, but I love having somebody to eat with me. I’m really grateful to you for coming.’

Again, Thea just smiled and said nothing. It was beginning to look as if she’d been wrong in assuming there might be a funeral in the offing. It felt more as if she’d been some distance down a list of possible confidants for a woman who struck her as rather low on friends. There was to be an outpouring of some sort by a lonely individual badly in need of advice.

Flickering memories of the time in Frampton Mansell were returning: the conflict over plans to restore the abandoned canal; her sister Jocelyn’s presence; a woman called Cecilia and another called Fran – or something like that. It had been horrible at times. Worse than that – much of it had been frightening and upsetting. But mostly she remembered Phil Hollis and how sweet she had thought him in those early days.

Valerie had only been in the kitchen a minute or two before she called, ‘Will you come through now? It’s all ready.’

‘That was quick,’ she said, following the call. A spread including smoked salmon, French bread, a perfectly arranged salad with slices of avocado, olives and cucumber, was laid out on the big table.

‘I hope you’re okay eating in here? The dining room’s a bit formal. I hardly ever use it now. It’ll be dusty, probably, as well.’

‘It looks fantastic.’ Thea found she was actually salivating at the sight of the food. It would have graced a professional cookbook with no difficulty.

‘It’s therapy for me. I enjoy it enormously.’

‘Well, I’m honoured. I don’t often get anything like this.’ Snatched makeshift meals were the norm in the Slocombe household, with Drew often called to the phone, the children wanting to be somewhere else and Thea ashamed of her poor cooking skills.

They each loaded a plate and began to eat. Then Valerie asked, ‘So what went wrong between you and the police detective, then?’

The question shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Hadn’t she been full of thoughts about Phil already? And yet it was so far from what she had expected that she was paralysed for a moment, in mid chew. ‘Oh! It’s hard to explain,’ she managed. It occurred to her that she had never precisely summarised it for herself. She felt a degree of shame at the way she had behaved, along with relief that Drew had come along to teach her how a relationship could flourish in the right conditions. ‘We never properly understood each other, I suppose,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t know what I wanted. It was probably too soon after my husband’s death.’

She noticed that Valerie had an avid, almost hungry look on her face, as if her words were of immense importance. ‘And you do know now? What you want, I mean.’

‘It’s different.’ She was not going to be drawn into talking about her new marriage. The way women habitually disclosed intimate details to each other had always repelled her. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m sorry. It must seem a bit odd. It’s just that you always seemed so sure of yourself, and clever at getting out of corners.’ She must have caught sight of the alarm on Thea’s face. ‘Don’t worry – I’m not asking for advice. Not really. I know what I have to do.’ Tears began to gather, which only increased the apprehension that Thea was feeling. ‘I’ve been trying to come to terms with it for six months now, you see. And it doesn’t get easier. Not much, anyway.’

‘Did somebody die?’ Why else would this conversation be happening?

‘No, no. Although it did feel like that. I’ve been grieving as if he’d died, I suppose.’

‘He?’

‘His name’s Paul. He lived here with me for over a year, after my marriage ended. It was wonderful. We were so happy. So in love. I never knew it could be like that.’

‘He greeted you every morning.’ She was unable to conceal the hint of scepticism. There was something uncomfortable about a woman in her fifties talking about being in love.

Valerie laughed. ‘The mornings were glorious,’ she claimed. ‘He was always in such a wonderful mood, first thing.’

‘Incredible,’ Thea murmured. And obviously, it must have been incredible – or at least unsustainable – because Paul had gone, for whatever reason. She loaded her fork with salmon and waited for the sad story to come. How had she walked into this, she wondered. Wasn’t she well known for the difficulty she had when it came to showing proper sympathy? Well, no, she supposed there was no way Valerie could know this about her. Something was being asked of her, and she ought to earn this lavish lunch by providing it.

‘He was so sweet. But that wasn’t the whole story.’ Valerie’s mouth drooped, but the tears had drained away, to Thea’s relief. In the months with Drew, she had been cried on by people in the most extreme distress. People who had been widowed, or lost a beloved parent. And Drew had persuaded her that sympathy was not what they wanted from her. Simple acceptance was more than enough.

‘Whatever you do, don’t tell them it’ll all be okay,’ he warned her. ‘Because it won’t.’

At first she had been nervous of this approach, but it had worked miraculously well. The sense of liberation had overflowed onto the mourners, who had found themselves able not only to voice their sadness, but also to admit to relief and even occasional gladness. Not every death was a tragedy, Thea discovered.

But Valerie Innes was laying claim to some quite other kind of attention. ‘Oh?’ said Thea faintly. ‘What happened?’

‘It was just as if he was two different people. One was so loving and kind; the other was a real mess. That side of him made him tell lies to me. You see, he was starting up a new business …’

Uh-oh, thought Thea. Here it comes. She could predict the next part of the story, simply by a casual acquaintance with the many documentaries, consumer programmes, stories, plays that repeated it endlessly, with only minor variations.

‘He swindled you,’ she said.

‘No, no. I wouldn’t put it like that. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He always believed it was money well invested. But everything went wrong and he didn’t dare admit to me how badly it was going. In the end, of course, he had to. I didn’t have a penny left to give him. I’m going to have to sell this house and find a full-time job. At my age!’ The tears returned, and a few slid down her face.

‘Where is he now?’

‘Oxford. He’s got some work and a tiny little flat in Headington. I still speak to him. But I couldn’t go on living with him, could I? Not after that.’

‘You should have put the police onto him,’ said Thea. ‘He must have taken you for a soft touch, right from the start.’

‘How can you say that?’ Rage erupted without warning. Valerie dropped her fork and pushed back her chair. ‘You don’t have any idea what he’s like.’ Both hands were shaking, and her lips were drawn back in a snarl.

‘You’re right,’ said Thea, certain for a second that she was about to be slapped or pushed backwards onto the floor. She put up her own hands as a defence. ‘Of course you’re right,’ she repeated cravenly. ‘I didn’t mean it. Calm down, for heaven’s sake.’

The woman stood there, breathing heavily. Then, ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You caught me on a raw nerve. Nobody else has said anything like that. If you knew him, you’d understand it wasn’t done deliberately. He’s just unlucky, that’s all.’

‘Okay.’ Irritation was simmering inside her now. Why was she here in the first place? What purpose was she supposed to be serving? She took a bite of bread and a sip of the apple juice that had appeared in a glass jug. ‘So what happens now?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Selling the house. Getting a job. Have you got any plans?’

‘Not really. We bought this when I was pregnant with Jeremy. Twenty-two years ago. It’s awful to think of starting again in a new place.’

‘But it is yours, is it? I mean, what about your husband? Doesn’t he get a share?’

‘That’s the problem. I have to split it with him if I sell. It’ll leave me with enough for some hovel in Cirencester or Gloucester with no garden or garage.’

‘That’s dreadful.’ Finally Thea experienced a genuine pang of sympathy. The current house had a large garden and handsome double garage. ‘Although Cirencester’s not so bad.’ She realised that Valerie was still defending the rotten Paul, despite the catastrophic effect he’d had on her life. ‘The people there are really nice.’

‘I’m sure they are.’ The tone was bitter. ‘I’m sure I’ll be a great success on the checkout at Tesco, as well.’

Thea was tired of being lost for words. It was an unusual state for her and she did not like it. Something was being asked of her and she was fairly sure she was failing to provide it. If she wasn’t so afraid of being punched in the face, she might well say what she really thought.

And then Valerie said it for her. ‘You think I brought all this on myself, don’t you? That’s what people always think. The homeless only have themselves to blame. Bankruptcy is just punishment for greed. Bad health is the result of smoking or drinking or eating the wrong things. I’m in this mess because I’m a lousy judge of character.’

‘Well …’ said Thea. ‘Not exactly.’ And yet it was partly true – her view of the world did have some elements that chimed with Valerie’s accusation. Her father had embraced the philosophy of Sartre in his youth, and a doctrine that might be seen as somewhat heartless had still coloured a lot of his thinking in the years when his children were forming their own values. The whole family took it as a basic premise that people made their own luck.

‘People like you are so smug.’

Again the accusation was not entirely wrong. Determinedly, Thea spread pâté on her bread and slowly consumed it, absorbing the insult along with the food, and trying to process it calmly. She swallowed, and said, ‘What do you want me to say? Why did you invite me here?’

‘I told you. I wanted your advice as to what I should do. Stupid of me, I see that now. You’re all right, so everyone else can go to hell.’

Thea reminded herself that Valerie had said she wanted advice, when she phoned originally. And then, ten minutes earlier, she had contradicted herself, saying she wasn’t looking for that at all. And when did anybody listen to advice anyway, Thea thought crossly. Surely there must have been a friend or relative a year ago who’d told Valerie not to give her bloodsucker boyfriend any more money?

‘My advice, such as it is, comes much too late,’ she said. ‘And it’s probably just stating the obvious. Salvage what you can. Cut your losses and learn from your mistakes. Clichés, I’m afraid.’

‘Smug clichés at that.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Have you put money into this burial business, then? Can you be certain your new husband isn’t going to bleed you dry and lie to you about it into the bargain? Here you are, an independent widow, with a nice house somewhere, ripe for the picking. Don’t tell me you haven’t sunk all your capital into his scheme, without a second thought. Did you draw up a prenuptial contract? Of course not. Could you survive if the whole enterprise collapsed, leaving nothing but massive debts? I doubt it. So what gives you the right to be so disgustingly superior about it?’

It was humiliatingly clever. Every response she could think of sounded hollow and self-deceiving in her own ears. She could feel an overwhelming urge to stand up and stab Valerie with her fork. ‘Touché,’ she said with a painful smile. ‘All I can say is that Drew never asked me to put money in. And I just know he wouldn’t lie to me. Sounds feeble, doesn’t it?’

‘You met him – what? Two years ago? The same as me and Paul, more or less. Long enough, most people would say, to be sure they were trustworthy. Too long for a deliberate swindle, anyway. He hasn’t made enough out of me to warrant that much time spent on it. You’re saying he never loved me, never saw me as anything but a source of cash. Think about that – how do you think that feels?’

‘Terrible,’ Thea acknowledged. The realisations were making her feel sick. She had trusted Drew the first day she met him, even though he was under suspicion as a murderer at the time. On paper, he was probably a worse prospect than Valerie’s Paul. And nothing anybody could say would change that trust. The nausea arose from the insight into other people’s situations. These people had felt as she would feel if Drew now turned into a swindling monster. Valerie had loved Paul – no doubt still did. Her anguish must be beyond bearing, now that he had so wantonly destroyed her.

‘But he feels terrible as well. And knowing that only makes it all worse. He’s lost all his self-respect. He’s just crawled away into a hole, and can’t see any future for himself.’

Well at least that fitted with an existentialist view of the world, Thea thought. ‘Serves him right,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t want him to get away with it, would you?’

Valerie’s eyes glittered with angry tears.

‘Sometimes I just want to kill him,’ she admitted. ‘And other times I want to call him back and live with him again, even if he does lie to me all the time.’

‘I’d just want to kill him,’ said Thea. ‘I could probably work out a way of doing it without getting caught, as well.’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

‘That’s not what you wanted my advice for, then?’

Their voices had both become light and jokey, Thea’s especially. She had come close to numerous murders since embarking on her career as a house-sitter, and while fully aware that it was not a matter for jokes, her experience had revealed a degree of dark humour associated with it.

‘I could never kill anyone,’ said Valerie with great solemnity.

‘I expect you could, in the right conditions. They do say revenge is sweet.’

‘He didn’t do it deliberately. He got caught in a spiral of bad luck and desperation.’

‘So why throw him out?’

‘We couldn’t bear to look at each other any more,’ said Valerie miserably. ‘It was all too horribly spoilt.’

 

The lunch trailed to a conclusion with neither woman saying very much. Valerie produced coffee, and Thea looked at her watch, making much of the need to get home for the children. No questions were asked or future plans discussed. Back at Broad Campden, she watched herself closely. Was she smug? Did she take Drew for granted, after only a few months of marriage? When he came in from visiting an old lady whose husband had just died, she gave him an elaborate hug.

‘What was that for?’ he asked.

‘It wasn’t for anything. Just checking that you’re real. I’ve had a very peculiar day.’

But he was prevented from hearing about it when Timmy demanded help with a school project, and the phone rang twice, and then Andrew came to the door to consult about the coming funeral. Valerie Innes and her miserable story were pushed aside by more urgent matters.

And yet the woman would not go away. She haunted Thea’s dreams and unsettled her equilibrium, although not in any predictable fashion. Nothing to do with trusting Drew or worrying about money. It was more personal than that – more a case of regretting her lack of feeling and the assumptions she had made. There was an unfinished argument endlessly looping inside her head. She found herself assessing the relationships of friends and family in an attempt to demonstrate to herself that Valerie’s Paul had been a far from typical example.

A week passed, and still she was unable to shake the obsessive comparisons. Strangely, she said nothing about it to Drew, after that initial moment had been lost in the whirl of family and work. It felt risky to talk about it before she could come to any firm judgement on the matter. And in order to do that, she needed evidence. It was a familiar situation, in some ways. There had been several mysterious crimes committed in the vicinity of her house-sits, which had prompted her to indulge in her own investigations, for her own inquisitive purposes. Something in her nature required that a story must always be finished, the questions resolved.

She wanted to meet the renegade Paul and see for herself what kind of man he was. For that, she would need his surname and current address. A tiny little flat in Headington was the only clue she had to go on. She needed to discover more than that if she was to stand any chance of finding him. And the obvious place to use for tracking anybody these days had to be Facebook. This was something she had managed to avoid until very recently. Only when Drew’s daughter Stephanie had begun to show an interest in social media, starting with YouTube, had both the adults realised their obligations to acquire at least some knowledge of the subject. Drew had already accepted that his business would benefit from a Facebook presence, and had elicited Thea’s help in setting it up. She could now navigate it, but still felt a strong emotional resistance to becoming personally involved.

Valerie Innes had a minimal profile, but two of her sons were much more forthcoming. The links and likes and friends and favourites swirled back and forth until anyone with the slightest diligence could formulate a picture of the whole family. And there was Paul Grover, with photos and boasts about his brilliant new venture into the world of instant displays of house plants. The postings dated back a year or so, and nothing was very recent. But a few more searches revealed an address in North Oxford where any creditors were invited to apply. There was something almost endearing about that detail. At least the man wasn’t trying to dodge his debts. Did that not suggest that he wasn’t actually a swindler, after all?

Oxford was not far away, although it was a place she hated to drive in. She always got lost and there was nowhere to park. There was no need to go there. Paul Grover was nothing to her. She was slipping back into the same bad old ways that had got her into trouble more than once. She had quite forgotten Valerie and Frampton Mansell and its canal until the woman reminded her. And yet here she was, indulging an itch that would not go away. Doubt had been cast onto much that Thea held dear, her assumptions shaken and her values undermined. If she could persuade herself that this Paul was an obvious scoundrel, everything would slot back into its normal pattern.

It was a quiet day, the children safely at school, the dog briefly walked around the field at the end of the lane, Drew on one of his visits. In fact, Drew’s visits were increasingly reminiscent of the daily round of an old-fashioned village vicar. He would call in on lonely elderly folk, letting them reminisce about their lives and drinking their tea. ‘They’ll suspect you of touting for business,’ Thea worried. ‘It must look awfully bad. Isn’t there some sort of protocol that says you shouldn’t do this sort of thing?’

He looked at her from under his eyebrows, saying nothing for a few seconds. ‘You haven’t paid proper attention,’ he reproached her. ‘Everyone I visit has been bereaved in the last year or so. Even if I didn’t do the funeral, they know I understand. And they mostly came to me first, asking about the burial field. I’m not doing anything in the least bit dodgy.’

‘Here I go again,’ she’d apologised. ‘Always thinking badly of people – even you.’

‘I forgive you,’ he said easily.

In some convoluted way, she felt she was correcting this failing in herself by seeking out Paul Grover. It would be good to find that he was nothing more than inadequate, and not a professional con man, greedily stripping vulnerable women of their assets.

So she took her little car to Oxford, using the satnav that she had long resisted, and quickly found the modest backstreet that was the address she hoped was Grover’s home. It looked like an ordinary house, but nobody came to answer her knock. She stood there, undecided, thinking she might wait in the car for a while, before trying again. It was parked some streets away, on a meter. She was reluctant to waste the money she had shovelled into it, and had a book to read while she waited.

Half an hour later she was back. Coming in the other direction was a woman of a similar age to her own. It soon became apparent that they were both calling at the same door. ‘After you,’ said the woman.

Thea knocked, and again there was no response.

‘I think it’s one of those places that lets itself be used as an address,’ said the woman. ‘As a sort of cover.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You know. All kinds of people are afraid of giving their true address, so they use a false one. Whoever lives here agrees to pretend to be the right name, if they’re asked. They do it for dozens of people, all paying a bit, and it adds up to a nice little earner.’

‘I see,’ said Thea slowly, thinking she must have lived a more sheltered life than she realised, for such a service never to have occurred to her before.

‘Who are you looking for?’

‘A man called Paul Grover.’

‘Never heard of him. I’m after an outfit called Blaskett Data Services. They owe me five hundred pounds.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Could be worse, I s’pose.’

‘How am I going to find him?’ Thea wondered aloud. ‘It’s meant to be easy to find people these days.’

‘Do you know where he works?’

‘No idea. I think he’s just got a new job, although nothing about him’s at all definite. He might not even be in Oxford at all.’

The woman shrugged. ‘Well, I guess you’re out of luck, then. Same as me.’

‘Can we be sure this place is what you think? That in itself would be a bit of a giveaway.’

A man was approaching them, his expression a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. He seemed to be in late middle age. ‘Uh-oh,’ he said, stopping beside them. ‘Is this what I think it is?’

Neither woman answered him.

‘A drop house,’ he explained. ‘False address, and all that.’

‘Looks like it,’ said Thea. ‘Who do you want?’

‘A bastard by the name of Baxter. Harold Baxter.’

‘Not Blaskett?’ asked Thea’s new friend.

‘Nope. Who’s Blaskett?’

‘The swindlers who did me out of five hundred quid.’

‘There must be hundreds of letters in there, at this rate,’ said Thea.

The others looked at her. ‘Why?’ said the man. ‘Nobody writes real letters any more. All they need is an address. The house is probably registered to someone who lives abroad, just kept as a front. If there was someone living here, they’d never get a moment’s peace, would they?’

A kind of collective shrug emphasised the futility of standing there, and they dispersed. Thea’s car had ten more minutes of parking time, some of which she spent in thought. On the back seat was a map book, and she reached over for it, wanting to get an overall idea of just where she was. A satnav was hopeless in that regard, which was the main reason she had always disliked them.

A tiny little flat in Headington repeated itself inside her head. This address was not in Headington, which was a complication she had overlooked, but there could be no possible sense in going in any further search of the man, when she had no idea what Paul Grover looked like. Facebook hadn’t offered a picture of him. In the olden days, there would have been the simple expedient of looking him up in the phone book. But even then, if he had only recently moved, he wouldn’t be listed.

She would go for a look anyway. Having lived in Witney for many years, she was familiar with Oxford and knew that Headington was an expensive address. Even a tiny flat would set a person back considerably. Grover might be renting, unless the flat had been a bolt-hole he had kept up his sleeve while living with Valerie. Think, she adjured herself. Valerie had approached her for some specific reason. Was this madcap trip to Oxford a result of a deliberate plan? Was she so predictable? It seemed impossible. There had been far too little information provided to ensure that she came here to this spot on this day.

And yet, this North Oxford address had been easy to find. The nature of the building had quickly become apparent. The strong implication was that Grover was indeed a con man. Why else use such a place?

So what was Valerie’s intention? Thea drove westwards with that question ringing loud in her ears.

So loud did it ring that she went again to Frampton Mansell, zigzagging confidently via the A429 and then the 419. She was there in well under an hour, ignoring the fact that it was the middle of the day and lunch was going to be an issue before much longer.

There was a mud-splashed Renault outside Valerie’s house. Thea parked behind it and walked up the short driveway to the front door. She could see movement through a window, but nobody answered her knock. This was annoying, and she tried the door. Plenty of people still left them unlocked, after all. But not Valerie.

Angrily, Thea went around to the back. There was a gravel path, and a flimsy garden door that she easily unlatched. The rear of the house had its own porch, full of plants and a chest freezer. She could faintly hear a shrill voice. But this door did not open, either.

She went to a window and pressed her face close to it. The interior was shadowy, but she recognised the kitchen she had eaten in a few days earlier. A woman was standing in the furthest corner, her arms raised. As Thea watched the arms came down, and the object held between them collided violently with the balding head of a man sitting at the table. He was facing Thea, slowly focusing on the surprising appearance of a face at the window. It was hard to be sure, but she thought he smiled at her, before slumping forward.

The woman leant over him, carefully placing the heavy iron skillet beside him on the table. Then she looked up and saw Thea at the window. Her lips drew back in a snarl, part horror, part triumph.

Thea’s heart was thumping irregularly. She had just witnessed a murder. Valerie Innes had just killed the man who had ruined her life. A swindler who deserved whatever came to him – within reason. Hardly anybody deserved to be killed like that, though. And he had actually looked rather nice, in that final second. ‘Hey!’ she shouted stupidly. ‘What have you done?’

The double glazing muffled all sound, but Valerie clearly understood. Then she looked up at a point above Thea’s head, and her expression changed.

‘Bad luck, love,’ came a man’s voice. ‘In the wrong place at the wrong time, well and truly. You know what they say about cats and curiosity.’

She whirled round and met the face of a handsome man. Paralysed for a moment, the next thing she knew, Valerie had come out to join them.

‘Roger – it’s done. I did it. I never thought I would, but this woman helped me to decide that I had to.’

Thea simply stared from one face to the other, unable to find words.

Valerie went on. ‘She’s called Thea Slocombe, and she’s the nosiest woman I have ever met.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, ‘Val’s play-acting worked, then? You swallowed the story she spun you.’

‘She did,’ said Valerie triumphantly. ‘You should have seen us, arguing about whether a man could be trusted or not. Now, what do you think we ought to do with her? I never thought she’d come back here, I must admit.’

‘Play-acting?’ Thea managed to speak. ‘That wasn’t play-acting. Nobody could act as well as that.’

Valerie cast a nervous glance at the man she’d called Roger. ‘It was. I made it all up.’

Thea’s mind was in turmoil. ‘But why involve me at all? I don’t get it.’

Valerie gave her a complicated look. ‘Credibility,’ she said briefly.

‘What?’

‘If I could make you believe I’d finished with Paul, once and for ever, I’d know we could safely follow the plan through.’ She grimaced. ‘But you turned out to be even more nosy than I thought.’

‘And now she’s seen a lot more than she should,’ said Roger grimly. ‘This changes things you know, old girl.’

Before either woman could react, he had grabbed Valerie around the neck in a tight hold from behind. ‘You’ll be joining lover-boy in the old well, my darling. Sorry about that.’

‘What about me?’ Thea realised she could simply run away and report the entire episode to the police. But that would entail abandoning Valerie to her fate, which was clearly unthinkable. A phonecall was the obvious answer, but as usual her mobile was in the car, and time was clearly crucial. Roger could break his captive’s neck in a second.

‘You can go to hell,’ said Roger calmly. ‘I’ll be off where nobody can find me before your thumb hits the first nine.’

‘But Roger,’ Valerie choked out. ‘Why?’

‘You’ve served your purpose, my pet. Paul was never a swindler. I was blackmailing him into taking your money. He loved you, every bit as much as you loved him. But he couldn’t take the humiliation of you thinking so badly of him. He was doing everything in his power to get back on track and redeem himself. He’d have done it, too – which very much did not suit my plans. Not at all.’ He tightened his grip on her, and Thea braced herself for some sort of ineffectual rugby tackle, which might at least slow him down. It did not occur to her for another fifteen seconds that she might simply scream as loud as she could.

‘Lucky for me that it’s true what they say – Hell hath no fury like a woman who believes herself scorned. Stupid bitches,’ he added.

Thea launched herself forward, with a shout that was nowhere near as loud as she’d intended. Her face met Roger’s knee, and came off very much the worse.

Then a voice came from the side of the house. ‘Hello? Is anybody there? Hello?’

‘Yes!’ squealed Thea. ‘Help!’

Round the corner came the man from outside the drop house in North Oxford. He was holding out some sort of card. ‘Good afternoon, everybody. I’m Detective Sergeant Vernon. I’m conducting an investigation into a fraud, involving false addresses. I thought perhaps this lady might be able to help, so I followed her as she drove down here.’

Thea crumpled into a boneless heap. Roger began to run down the garden, before realising there was no way out. Valerie Innes simply wailed.