Saturday afternoon was half over, the sun intermittently breaking through the hazy cloud, only for a fresh bank of cumulus to stroll over the horizon from the west and obscure it again. It had been a long day already, with a great deal to process and try to understand – unless she chose to completely ignore the whole subject of Donny Davis and his unsatisfactory death. Unsatisfactory was precisely the way she regarded it. Nobody seemed quite satisfied with it, unless perhaps Jemima Hobson’s evident relief counted as satisfaction. If it had been Donny’s genuine and implacable desire to die, his end apparently painless, then wouldn’t his circle of family and friends be feeling that something had been achieved? They might be sad to lose him, but surely they would quickly conclude that he had got what he wanted and they ought to be … well … satisfied? Not happy, or triumphant, but with a sense of the right thing having been done, and no lingering reasons for guilt or anger. Instead, there was an atmosphere of secrecy and defensiveness.
And it was all because somebody chose to telephone the police and make an accusation. Jeremy Higgins would never have been involved without that call. The paperwork would all have recorded a verdict of suicide, the funeral would be arranged and people would be clear about what had happened. As it was, there was doubt and confusion, everyone asking questions of each other, frowningly comparing their experience of Donny with the apparent fact that he killed himself.
The word murder had been uttered because of that phone call. Edwina had been accused by a person unknown. And nobody knew who had made the call. The foolproof, fail-safe system at the police switchboard had not functioned. From her close associations with the police, Thea did not find this surprising, but it was definitely frustrating. It could not be dismissed as some mischievous crank taking delight in stirring up trouble for its own sake, because Edwina Satterthwaite had been named specifically. At least, if it was a crank, he knew enough of the people involved to home in on the most sensitive spot. Edwina had, after all, agreed that she would one day help Donny to die. The intention had been there, however faintly, and that made the morality unclear.
The post-mortem results had not been disclosed to her, but she had an idea that if they had unambiguously indicated foul play, then Higgins would have told her. Instead, there were niggles, worries and suspicions. The Gloucestershire police were busy; they were bound to be tempted to file the Davis case away as settled, and concentrate on more pressing crimes. It even struck her now that they might be unofficially and delicately using her as their front-line investigator. She had met the man; she was good at seeing to the heart of things; she had form as a good amateur detective, in a time when such figures were assumed to have disappeared completely.
And Drew – he was another one. Before his wife was injured, he had been involved in suspicious deaths, missing persons, unduly hasty cremations. The serendipitous initial encounter with him in Broad Campden ought to be ensuring that between them they established exactly what had happened to Donny now. They should not be wasting their talents, but pooling resources and solving the puzzle together. Did they not both possess an unusual level of curiosity and sense of justice? Admittedly, Drew cared much less than she did about civil rights and personal privacy, but he definitely had the right approach when it came to establishing the truth. She could tell that merely by looking at him.
Without further analysis, she phoned him at four o’clock.
He greeted her cheerfully. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked. ‘Did you find that dog?’
She had forgotten about the dog. ‘No, I didn’t. I set out this morning to see if I could locate its farm, but it was hopeless. There are too many trees.’
He laughed. ‘I’m sure there’s some sense in there somewhere. So … what’s been happening, then?’
She described the episode in Donny’s house, the poem and the window and the bed, and repeated her increasingly strong intuition that Donny had not died as he wanted to, which might mean he was coerced or worse, but that Edwina had been exonerated because Higgins had believed her protestations. She stressed the phone call, which felt increasingly malicious and important. She mentioned Toby and Jemima and Philippe, reminding Drew who they all were and what she thought about them. And Philippe’s mother, who called him Philip.
‘Wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have been busy. How many days is it since I saw you? It feels like ages.’
‘It was yesterday, you fool. But I must admit a day can be a long time, especially in the summer.’
‘I wish I lived closer,’ he said easily. ‘This is all so intriguing, I feel I’m missing an adventure.’
‘Even after Broad Campden?’ she quizzed him lightly. ‘Was that an adventure as well?’
‘That was different. I was much too deeply involved for comfort. This time, nobody can say I’ve got any sort of ulterior motive. I’d just like to help you sort it all out. He sounded like such a nice man.’
‘That’s it exactly. If somebody did kill him, they did a very bad thing, but because he was old and ill, nobody thinks it matters enough to raise a stink. That’s horrible. It’s a slippery slope. Although,’ she added, ‘to be fair, Higgins did get cross when I said something like that to him. He said every death matters, regardless of the circumstances – or words to that effect.’
‘He’s right,’ said Drew with emphasis. ‘Listen – maybe I could bring the family up tomorrow afternoon. We could visit a National Trust place or something, and have a meal with you in a pub afterwards. You could meet Karen.’
Did she want to meet Karen? she asked herself. Why wouldn’t she? Ordinary human curiosity suggested that she should, but somehow it didn’t feel entirely right. ‘We could show her this house,’ she said, before the we echoed loudly in her head and she wanted to kick herself.
‘Better not. The kids might break something.’
‘True. But yes, it would be fun to do something. I’ve been invited out for lunch, but I can meet you somewhere around half-three or four, if that’s not too late. I’m not sure what there is to visit, though. I tend to avoid National Trust places, for some reason.’
‘Well, it can be something a bit more downmarket. Isn’t there a children’s zoo somewhere, or a model village or something?’
‘All of the above, yes. Mostly in Bourton-on-the-Water, I think. That’s a good place to go with children. I could meet you there.’
‘OK then. Assume that’s on, and we’ll check in with you tomorrow to confirm. Is that OK?’
‘Fine,’ she said, wondering how true that was. What chance would they have of a decent discussion about Donny, with his family tagging along? But what did she want, she asked herself. She had phoned him with an idea of forming a team, of updating him about events in Cranham, and he had responded more readily than she could ever have expected. ‘I’ll look forward to it. Shall I phone you, or you me?’
‘I’d better call you. I think I’ve still got your number.’
‘You must have – you phoned me about Harriet’s book, remember?’
She had not thought it strange that he should have retained her mobile number for three months, since their first encounter. Now it made her wonder slightly. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Will you need to go to Broad Campden as well? To see your burial field or something?’
‘I might show it to Karen if there’s time. She hasn’t seen it yet. Who invited you to lunch?’
‘Philippe, son of Thyrza Hastings. He wants me to meet his wife, apparently.’
‘Really?’
‘Maybe he’s just being kind, although I hadn’t thought of him like that. I think it’s more that he regards me as some sort of rarity, and he wants to find out more about me. He knew about me before I even got here, and took great pleasure in telling me how famous I am.’
‘And you didn’t like that?’
‘Not much, no. But his child is sweet, and it’ll be a distraction. It never occurred to me to refuse.’
‘Why would it?’
‘Right,’ she laughed. ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Which left a long Saturday evening to be got through, with no duties other than checking and feeding the geckoes – a task that took barely ten minutes, even including lingering to search out the invisible creatures. The food disappeared regularly, so she supposed everything must be in order. If she left her visit to nine o’clock or thereabouts, the animals were more active and she might find one clinging to the side of its tank, the large eyes apparently watching the room beyond, although probably not dreaming of freedom or adventure.
Restlessly she prowled around the Manor with a duster in her hand, slowly inspecting objects as she whisked the cloth over them; objects that she had overlooked before. The paintings in the gallery received a long examination, the signature in the corner suggesting all of a sudden that they could be the work of Evelyn De Morgan, a female painter whose name had been unfairly dropped from the canon of Pre-Raphaelites. This was obviously exciting, if true, and Thea reproached herself for failing to realise the importance of them sooner. Her sister Jocelyn would have been a lot quicker to identify them and explain their history. With very few interests in common, the sisters did at least share a relish for the whole Pre-Raphaelite experiment, an enthusiasm which had begun when they were barely into their teens. Athena posters of paintings by Burne-Jones and Millais adorned their bedroom walls for years. Almost by osmosis they acquired knowledge of the Brotherhood and its wider circle. But the De Morgans had never featured prominently – William and Evelyn, husband and wife, were always on the periphery.
Thea’s initial assumption that these pictures had come with the house seemed increasingly likely on reflection. If Harriet had purchased them, she would know them for what they were and be aware of their value. There would be issues of security and insurance. The fact that Harriet had not mentioned them seemed to suggest she regarded them as of little importance. Was it possible that she had no idea of their history? They were poorly displayed, on the shadowy side of the gallery, in urgent need of cleaning. Perhaps Thea was the first person to spot them in a hundred years or more. The idea thrilled her, despite its improbability.
For an hour or so she managed to forget about Donny and his circle, but inexorably it all broke through her defences again as soon as she went downstairs. In the kitchen, his ghost seemed to linger, sitting in his customary chair, clutching the coffee mug in shaking hands. More vividly than ever she remembered his words, his moving complaints about the unpleasantness of growing old, his emphatic rejection of the entire medical machine.
As if a voice spoke it clearly into her ear she understood that Donny Davis did not die by his own hand. He had done no more than utter the universal wishes of every sentient being nearing the end of life: to avoid pain and degradation, to remain fully human to the final moment, to cause minimal trouble to his loved ones, to be remembered for the energetic creative person he had been in his prime. In the wider world, such sentiments were being expressed on all sides, in speeches and articles and blogs and TV documentaries, until it felt as if there was some easy means by which to achieve this ideal. But Donny had known there was not. She saw it in his eyes. Donny had known that his actual fate was far more difficult and undignified than he wanted it to be – than anybody wanted it to be. From that knowledge to suicide might seem a small step, but Thea knew that it was far from being so easy.
She felt a sudden urgent need to talk to Jemima, the only blood relative Donny had left in the country, apart from her children, his grandchildren. The distant Silas and his needy wife had apparently severed all meaningful links long ago. Despite her denials and distractions, Thea suspected that Jemima understood most acutely the position her father was in. And because she knew that there was no solution, no possible truthful reassurance she could offer, she sensibly strove to divert him from it. And that was why she said This is what I was afraid of when she found his dead body. She believed that her efforts had failed, that he had sunk into a slough of despair that she ought to have been able to steer him from. And some of that was surely Thea’s fault, in Jemima’s eyes.
It was one thing to want to see the woman, and quite another to organise a meeting. Jemima was busy. She had a husband, a farm and a number of offspring. No doubt she did a lot of cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing. She might make pies and jams and chutneys as well, for the store cupboard, even if such activities had virtually died out in the popular imagination. It was the strawberry season, very nearly – an extra busy time for the Hobsons. In fact, hadn’t Donny said something about people turning up to pick their own? If the berries were ripe already, that suggested polytunnels, which must entail a whole lot more work. What would Donny’s daughter be doing on a Saturday evening?
On several occasions Thea had gone uninvited to the homes of people she wanted to speak to. She had done it right from the start, in Duntisbourne Abbots, where she had found herself unable to sit quietly alone in a big house close to the scene of a murder. On the whole the outcome had been positive, but there had been enough hostile receptions to make her more hesitant since then. Her spaniel had been attacked as well, once or twice, which had also taught her not to be too cavalier. She had developed a habit of circumspection, rehearsing cover stories, or trying to make her approach look casual or accidental. And since the unsettling revelations from Philippe Ferrier, earlier in the day, she felt even more diffident about showing her face. If people regarded her as a celebrated amateur detective, they were unlikely to feel very pleased when she knocked on their front door and requested an interview.
But she and Jemima had a bond. They had found Donny’s body together. Of the three women she had come to know in Cranham, Jemima was the one she most nearly regarded as a friend, despite her prickly manner and occasional rudeness. Jemima was the one she thought she understood. It was perfectly acceptable, therefore, to track down her number and make a phone call.
Except there was no sign of a telephone book in Hollywell Manor. People hardly ever used them any more, Thea had gradually realised. With the advent of universal mobile conversations, landline numbers were falling into disuse, except for businesses – and even they probably received more emails than phone calls. She rose cheerfully to the challenge. There was a free local paper in the neat stack of mail on the hall table. Turning its pages and scanning their contents, she soon found a display advertisement for Hobsons Farm Shop and Pick Your Own, with a phone number at the bottom. Easy, she congratulated herself.
Without much preparation, she dialled the number on Harriet’s phone. A boy answered.
‘Is that the Hobson family?’ asked Thea.
‘Yeah. Who’s that?’
‘My name’s Thea Osborne. Is your mother anywhere about? I’d like a word with her.’
‘Yeah. Hang on.’ She heard him shouting ‘Mum!’ at some distance from the phone. ‘A woman for you. Don’t remember her name.’
It was half a minute or so before Jemima’s voice came through the receiver. ‘Hello? Who is it?’
‘It’s Thea—’
‘What do you want?’ The words came sharp and unfriendly. Thea entertained a groundless image of floury hands and hot dank hair needing to be brushed aside.
‘Just a chat. I’m all on my own here, and thought it would be nice to talk to somebody.’
‘Shouldn’t you have thought of that?’
‘Pardon?’
‘When you took on the job. You must have known what it would be like.’
‘Well, yes. But with what happened … I feel all unsettled.’
Jemima gave an unsympathetic tut, as if an importunate child had interrupted her for no good reason. ‘I’ve got Toby here,’ she said, ‘feeling all sorry for himself. I can’t cope with any more whining Winnies, just at the moment.’
Whining Winnies? Was that how she came across? ‘Oh,’ she said.
Jemima sighed noisily. ‘Oh bugger it. I didn’t mean that. It’s just … I don’t know. Saturdayitis, or something. They’re all milling about, trying to decide whether to go out or not, driving me mad. Matt’s furious because some stupid punter drove into our sign and knocked it over. You’d better come round. Maybe you can help to calm things down. I dare say you’re good at that.’
Thea was on the very brink of refusing, her pride damaged quite painfully. But she remembered why she had phoned in the first place, and accepted the grudging invitation. ‘How do I find you?’
The directions were far from straightforward, particularly as she still had only a very hazy idea of how Cranham connected to its neighbouring settlements. ‘I expect I can manage it,’ she said, with only moderate confidence.
Jemima repeated the directions with impressive patience. ‘It’ll take you ten minutes at most,’ she said.
Hobsons Farm was impossible to miss, once you got to the right road. For good measure, the sign announcing its presence, beside a wide gateway, was tilting alarmingly. Quite how anybody had managed to drive into it was hard to understand – but then accidents after the event seldom did make very much sense.
The sun had almost set by the time she arrived, but there was still a sense of a summer evening, designed for carefree gatherings on the lawn, with nibbles and Pimm’s and some highbrow music playing softly somewhere. Or the gentle thwack of tennis racquets indicating the young things disporting themselves in the court behind the house. A scene Thea had to admit was no more recent than Edwardian times, a century ago, before Britain lost much of its self-confidence.
But as she drove up the long approach, there were definitely vestiges of just such an affluent lifestyle still lingering. The house was large and lovely, with a creeper over the facade for good measure. The expected polytunnels were an unavoidable blight, but she discovered that they could not be seen from the patio at the side of the house, where rustic tables and chairs were placed to catch the westering sun. Toby whatever-his-name-was sat at one of them, with a bottle of beer at his elbow. He watched Thea sullenly as she got out of her car and waved a greeting, giving no answering gesture. Three teenagers, aged roughly from fifteen to eighteen, sat at a separate table, two of them with mobile phones in their hands.
Nobody was playing tennis or drinking Pimm’s, but there was a big old garden with big old shrubs and well-maintained stone walls. Matthew Hobson, it seemed, was doing all right, selling his summer fruits and whatever other agricultural pursuits he might be engaged in. There was a substantial flock of sheep in a big field behind the house, Thea noticed. She nodded and smiled at the youngsters, who nodded and smiled fleetingly back. There was a man standing in a doorway, broad-shouldered and complacent. He also watched her as she approached. When she reached the edge of the patio he called, ‘Mimm! Your visitor’s here.’
‘Come on in,’ Jemima’s voice floated from the house. ‘I’m a bit tied up …’
The man stepped aside and waved her into the big square room that opened onto the patio. As with Hollywell Manor, the proportions were perfect. It was an ordinary family room with a battered sofa and big rugs, television, and an oak table covered in papers, mugs, schoolbooks and a laptop computer, but the ceiling was high, the windows generous, lending an air of relaxed comfort and very little to worry about. ‘Through here,’ called Jemima. Thea followed the voice into a large kitchen, to find the lady of the house making sandwiches on a massive pine table.
‘They had a perfectly good meal an hour ago, but now they want more,’ she said with mock annoyance. ‘Helen’s friends are coming, apparently. She’s gone to fetch them.’
Wordlessly, Thea stationed herself at Jemima’s elbow and started spreading pâté onto the sliced brown bread that was waiting. She added slivers of tomato and cucumber and pressed down the lid. She had the impression that none of the food was home-produced.
‘They’re all yours, out there, then?’ she asked, after a few moments.
‘Two of them are, last I noticed. The third one’s a friend who never seems to go home. We’ve got a few casual workers in a caravan, as well. They join us now and then. It’s all very informal. It means I never get a moment to myself, of course. They’re always wanting something to eat.’
‘Nice, all the same,’ said Thea sincerely, finding a romance in the easy-going rural idyll she had stumbled into. ‘That was your husband, I assume?’
‘Matt, yes. The master of all he surveys. He loves it. In his element he is, this time of year.’
‘A happy farmer! What a rarity!’ said Thea, thinking of some of the hostile curmudgeons she had met over the past two years. Then she remembered a man called Henry in Lower Slaughter, who had been another exception.
‘He was a swine when we had the cows. We never realised that his destiny was in fruit and veg and the sheep. He mostly keeps them for old times’ sake, although the lamb prices have improved lately, and that’s no bad thing. His father would be furious about selling up the herd, but we’ve got past that now. He’s been dead for seven years.’
The reference to dead fathers was inopportune. They both fell silent as the spirit of Donny filled the room. Jemima was first to recover. ‘My dad liked it here. He would have liked to move in, I think, but we never suggested it, and he never asked outright. There really isn’t the space.’
‘He seemed OK in the Lodge,’ said Thea, trying to offer reassurance, assuming Jemima was feeling guilty about it.
‘Much better,’ Jemima nodded. ‘Or so I thought. Maybe I was wrong.’ Her eyes clouded, and Thea expected tears, but instead Jemima shook herself and handed Thea a large plate of sandwiches. ‘Here. Can you take these out for me? Go and talk to Toby. He’s driving me crazy.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Says he’ll never work again, because the state won’t finance any retraining, or something. It’s all his own fault, pig-headed so-and-so.’
It was not the moment for eliciting the full story, but Thea was intrigued. ‘OK, I’ll try and cheer him up, then,’ she offered.
‘Good luck!’ Jemima called after her, with a little laugh.
Toby gave her a weak smile when she sat down opposite him and proffered the plate of sandwiches. He took one with an air of weariness and nibbled half-heartedly at it. ‘Isn’t it nice here?’ she began. ‘Great views. What’s that over there?’
‘Painswick Beacon,’ he said. ‘You can see for about a hundred miles in every direction from up there when it’s clear.’
‘Really? I should go up for a look, then.’
He nodded inattentively.
‘Are you staying here?’
‘For the night, you mean? No way. There’s no space here.’ She eyed him carefully. Here was another man well into early middle age, who acted more like somebody twenty years younger. It was high time he gave up saying things like No way.
‘Looks like a big house,’ she said.
‘Four bedrooms, two bathrooms,’ he recited. ‘They’ve got three teenagers, with a room each. Even when Helen goes off to college, she won’t let anybody use her room.’
‘Can’t blame her, I s’pose.’
‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Donny wanted to come and live here. Would have made things a lot easier if they’d have let him.’
She began to suspect that this had been a recent topic of conversation, with both Jemima and Toby telling her about it in the space of five minutes. Jemima had said something about Donny never directly asking her to house him, implying somehow that the old man’s real feelings had never been fully expressed to her. Perhaps he had confided in this son-in-law, who still maintained such a close connection. ‘Did he ever ask them if they’d have him?’
Toby shrugged. ‘Don’t know. But they could see it was the obvious thing to do. Anybody could.’
‘Instead of various relatives having to go and nurse him at the Lodge you mean?’
He grimaced unpleasantly. ‘Right.’
‘I see she put you to work, then,’ came a voice behind her. She turned to see Matthew Hobson eyeing the plate of sandwiches. ‘Feeding the five thousand.’
‘I volunteered.’
‘Good for you.’ He turned to look at the youngsters at the other table. ‘Gets more like a pub garden here by the day.’
Thea laughed, thinking she had been trying to work out what the set-up reminded her of. ‘Could be worse, I suppose.’
‘Certainly it could. I’m not complaining. You could say we’ve been having a bit of a wake for poor old Donny, in advance of the funeral. Should be an open coffin and all the grandchildren kissing the body, by rights I suppose. I quite like the idea of all that old-fashioned sentimentality.’
Toby made a small noise, attracting the attention of the other two. ‘What?’ said Matthew.
‘Nothing. Just …’
‘I don’t expect you agree with him, do you?’ she said.
He stared at her, his light-blue eyes bulging slightly. ‘Why shouldn’t I? What d’you mean?’
‘Sorry. That was stupid of me. I was thinking about what you were saying to me this morning … but ignore me. I don’t know anything about anything.’
Toby shrugged as if she was making no sense at all, and he didn’t really care anyway.
‘At least the police don’t seem to be bothering you. Maybe they’ve changed their minds about Donny being murdered.’ As soon as she said it, she wondered how she could possibly have been such an idiot. Had she, deep down, felt a mischievous urge to shake these people up? Were they coming across as just a bit too complacent for comfort? If so, she had achieved the desired effect.
‘Murdered?’ Both men uttered the word in shocked disbelief. Hobson went on to demand, ‘What the bloody hell are you saying, woman?’
She gazed from one to the other, aware of a sudden hush on the other table, and Jemima just then coming to the door with two more plates of sandwiches. ‘Well – the phone call. Edwina … You know. Edwina saying she’d help him, if … I mean …’ She tailed off under the collective stares, harsher than any spotlight. Much too late she tried to recall just who would know about the phone call, and Edwina’s promise, and what each person had said to her over the past week. ‘Sorry,’ she faltered. ‘I’m completely out of order. Ignore me.’
‘You are, rather,’ said Jemima wryly. ‘Bloody out of order, if I may say so.’
‘Donny committed suicide,’ said Toby, loudly. ‘He said he would and he did. End of.’
Nobody looked at him, instead acting as if he had given them permission to carry on as before, as if nothing had been said to spoil their summer evening. Jemima met Thea’s eyes warily, giving the impression she wished she had never invited her.
‘Edwina’s not well, apparently. She’s gone down with some sort of summer flu.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Thea flatly. ‘Poor thing.’ She remembered that she was due for lunch with Edwina’s nephew and his family the next day. The temptation to reveal this to the Hobson gathering was quickly suppressed. Much better say nothing for a bit, eat a couple of sandwiches and go.
But Jemima was more forgiving than expected. ‘We found Donny’s will, you know,’ she said chattily. ‘Rather a surprise, actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘He’s left everything to my mother, for her care. Once his things are sold, we can upgrade her to a better place, even if only a modest improvement.’
‘Things?’
‘Not much, admittedly, but he did have some useful bits of silver, that he collected years ago. We had it all valued when he moved, and it’s mounted up quite dramatically.’
Thea recalled the unlocked house and the spartan furnishings. ‘Oh?’ she said.
‘They’re all in a safe-deposit box in Gloucester,’ Jemima informed her, with a raised eyebrow. ‘If that’s relevant.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Thea smiled feebly. ‘You really don’t have to tell me.’
‘No reason not to, after all that’s happened,’ Jemima shrugged. ‘We did go through something big together, after all.’
‘Yes, we did.’ It felt as if permission had been granted, so she risked a further question. ‘And you didn’t know about his will?’ How was that possible, she wondered. Didn’t Jemima have power of attorney, or something? Wasn’t she the executor of the will?
‘We had no idea. I never read the thing, just taking it for granted it would come to me and Silas. With something for Edwina. She’s not even mentioned.’
‘That’ll be why she’s sick,’ said Toby, with a hollow laugh. ‘Sick as a parrot, most likely.’
Matthew echoed the laugh. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Serves her right for not moving in and doing the decent thing. Leaving the poor old bugger fending for himself like that, she should be ashamed.’
A silence followed, during which Jemima flushed and Toby stared into his empty beer bottle, twisting it in his hands. Thea wanted to make some comment on Jemima’s faithful visits to her father, when she had so many other claims on her time. Even Toby had appeared to be more attentive than the average son-in-law. Jemima spoke first.
‘Edwina did her best, Matt. You’re both being unfair on her. Dad would never have let her go and live with him. There was nowhere near enough space.’
‘I suppose his wife is the official next of kin,’ said Thea. ‘He would want to be sure she was well looked after.’
‘At least it comes to you when she’s gone,’ said Matthew. ‘And you have control of it now. It’s much the same thing, if you ask me.’
Jemima rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t think so. If she lives another ten years, there won’t be a penny of it left.’
Toby kept his gaze on the bottle in his hands. ‘She won’t, though,’ he muttered. ‘You know she won’t.’
‘She might if she’s moved to some palatial home that tends to her every need. There’s nothing much wrong with her physically.’
‘There is, though,’ Toby insisted. ‘You don’t go to see her, remember. Not like me.’
The Hobsons exchanged a long questioning glance. ‘They would have told us if she was ill,’ said Jemima.
‘It’s not something easy like that. It’s not cancer or angina.’
‘So what is it?’
Toby’s hands twisted together, the bottle abandoned. ‘Go and see for yourself. She’s not eating, for a start. She’s miserable and scared. She won’t be any better in a new place, either. Worse, if anything. Donny was daft to think money would make her any better.’
‘Did he think that, though?’ Thea asked slowly. ‘Or was he just making a point?’ She looked at Jemima, trying not to seem accusing.
‘Something about being looked after, maybe. If he felt he wasn’t being properly cared for, he thought at least he could make sure his wife didn’t miss out.’
She wasn’t prepared for the abrupt flare of rage from Jemima’s husband. ‘Didn’t miss out?’ he repeated furiously. ‘What the hell do you know about it, Miss Interfering House-sitter? Mimm goes over there practically every bloody day, washing his sheets and leaving him everything he needs to eat, even when she’s got a thousand other things to do. She spoilt him rotten. What a damned stupid, mean-spirited thing to say.’ He turned from her in disgust, and she got shakily to her feet.
‘You’re absolutely right,’ she said, the words emerging jerkily from a tight throat. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of. I didn’t mean it to sound the way it did. I’m terribly sorry.’ She looked at Toby, half hoping he would come to her rescue. ‘I’d better go.’
Nobody tried to stop her. She struggled to keep her head high as she went back to her car, all the while knowing she had been rude and hurtful. She was tempted to see the whole episode as Toby’s fault: he had paved the way for her, raising the question of just how well the older generation were being looked after. But Jemima had obviously been doing her best, and to suggest otherwise was wrong. She, Thea, had been wrong, whichever way you looked at it. Her words had emerged thoughtlessly and had been badly chosen. She had not meant to hurt anybody, but had not taken enough care to ensure she didn’t. The family were still suffering from the shock of Donny’s death, still vulnerable to any suggestion of neglect or culpability. Despite the fact that she had only been trying to see things from Donny’s viewpoint, she had been grossly insensitive. Aware of the teenagers watching the whole episode with mute fascination, she got back in her car and drove back to Cranham.
At least she tried to drive back to Cranham. At some point she turned the wrong way, finding herself in the middle of Painswick, having failed to locate a small right turn in the twilight. Crossly she forced her attention onto the geography of the area, visualising how the various villages sat in relation to each other. Cranham was behind her, more or less. If she turned right and right again, she’d get there eventually. The road signs weren’t bad, on the whole. She’d been lost like this before, and had learnt not to charge heedlessly on, getting further and further away from where she wanted to be.
The right turn took her along a rising street of handsome old buildings to which she gave little attention. Lights were on in people’s front rooms, the curtains mostly still open, and she passed them feeling very much an outsider. She had no welcoming lights waiting for her back at Hollywell. Only a cellar full of geckoes who had no interest in the lives of human beings. And, of course, the dog. Hepzibah would be on Harriet’s best sofa, curled up trustingly, waiting for the return of her mistress. Without her, Thea might have simply driven at random, hundreds of miles in a meandering excursion of England, easily reaching places like Nottingham and Stoke and Derby, if she kept on going, working off the bitter thoughts of self-dislike that filled her head.
Instead she concentrated, and found a sign mentioning Sheepscombe, which led in turn to a familiar approach to Cranham. The village hall welcomed her like a squat little friend, the common was still there, the hidden road to the Lodge and the drive up to the Manor were all just as before.
‘What a day!’ she exclaimed to the dog, which flew at her with absolute joy the moment she opened the front door. ‘What a bloody day it’s been.’