Thea ran the scraps of theory past Drew, while he sat in her car and played with Hepzie’s ears. The spaniel had jumped from the back and was on his lap. There seemed to be a newly formed bond between them, built of frustration towards Thea and her implacable determination to drag them around the countryside, in a quest to do good of some kind.
‘Norah must have a hunch about who killed Richard. She might even have got the brother-in-law to hunt for the car. Which suggests one or both of them had an idea of where to look, and what might have happened. After all, she has known the family for ages.’
‘So why didn’t she go to the police?’
‘She said she’s learnt from experience that it can be a bad idea. She’s got an impression of me as an amateur detective, apparently, so opted to get me to do the dirty work.’
‘Which you did with enthusiasm.’
‘I haven’t done anything yet. The satnav was your idea. A very good one,’ she added with a smile. ‘So now we have at least a clue as to where Richard might have been on Friday.’
‘Have we? Those addresses don’t have dates on them. We have no idea when he last visited any of them.’
‘Hmm, that’s true. Well, it wouldn’t have been his mother. There’s no way he was at the care home all day. And he wasn’t at his own flat. Which leaves Chipping Norton or Gloucester. It says the Gloucester street is where Martin lives. That doesn’t seem very likely, does it? Wasn’t Martin in Stratford on Friday?’
‘Saturday,’ Drew corrected her. ‘We don’t know where anybody was on Friday, except Millie and Judith.’
‘Brendan probably lives at the Gloucester address as well.’
‘I thought he was Cheltenham.’
‘That’s what he said. But Millie says he tells lies all the time. I don’t know. Cheltenham and Gloucester are pretty close to each other. I think we should go there and see if we can get it straight, and maybe even talk to them.’
‘Thea!’ He almost howled. ‘You can’t just accost people like that, with no reason. Besides,’ he remembered, ‘the police are probably there already, asking about those stamps. The Gloucester connection will give them cause to ask some questions.’
‘So it will. I forgot about the stamps.’
‘I’m sorry, love, but I’m not going anywhere but home. I might stay if I thought there was any sense in it, but as it is, we’d simply be interfering and casting aspersions with no basis. I’m needed elsewhere more urgently than you need me here. The police have everything in hand now. Phone them and tell them the car’s here, and then take me back to Cirencester.’
‘I can’t. They’ll want to know how we found the car, and I can’t implicate Norah and Derek.’
‘I seem to recall that Norah was an “enemy” on Saturday. How come she’s suddenly flavour of the week?’
‘She’s intriguing. I thought she was just a rich and fairly brainless woman, with not much to show for her life. Some of that’s true, I’m sure, but she’s got hidden depths as well. All that business with the dogs and her cat. It sounds as if she really lost it, and made herself unpopular with the police. And now I’m wondering just what she does in that house all day. In any case, she knows Rita and Millie inside out, and that makes me wonder if she knows what happened to Richard as well.’
‘If she does, she’ll have to tell the police, eventually.’
‘I think I’m going to go and talk to her. I’d also love to talk to Rita again. There are lots of things I should have asked her this morning and never did.’
‘Phone her.’
‘I could, I suppose. I could even send an email – she’s got that laptop all set up, after all. I bet she spends half her time doing Facebook or a blog or something.’
‘Thea, I’m not getting any real sense of a theory here. I mean – have you any idea who killed Richard?’
‘Not exactly. But there’s something about Judith that’s niggling at me.’
‘That would certainly hit the headlines. Now, I beg you to take me back to my car. You’ve got those addresses in your little book. That’s all you can glean here, surely. Please let’s go.’ He gave her a pleading look, mirrored by the expression on Hepzibah’s face.
‘All right, then. It looks as if I’ll be on my own for the rest of the day.’ She gave a melodramatic sigh, which did not impress Drew at all.
‘Your choice,’ he said. ‘Now get in.’
As they drove, he tried to explain himself more clearly. ‘I do feel bad leaving you,’ he began, ‘but I just can’t go around it all again. I don’t want a repeat of yesterday. Don’t make this my problem, okay. Now that the police have decided it is murder after all, we can leave it to them with a clear conscience. Our work is done. Don’t you see that?’
‘I do, of course. I absolutely do. I’m not criticising you. But I can’t seem to pull myself free of it just yet, either. It’s my failing. But it would be like leaving a film halfway through, having been completely enthralled by it. I’ve got to get answers to all these questions, or I’ll never sleep. There’s something big and bad in the family’s past, and I want to know what it is.’
‘Where does that come from? Not your obsession, but this thing about their past?’
‘All those old clothes, kept so beautifully. The dead sister, Dawn. Even if that has nothing to do with the murder, I want to know the whole story. I think Brendan wanted to hook me in, telling me just enough, but not really explaining anything. I really would like to speak to Brendan again, as well,’ she finished wistfully.
‘You’ve no idea who killed Richard, have you?’ He sounded faintly accusing.
‘Not really. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Andrew Emerson, which is lucky, if he’s really going to work for you when you open the new burial ground. And I can’t see how it could have been Millie or Rita. That leaves only a handful of people – amongst those we’ve met, anyway.’
‘You can’t really think it was Judith.’
‘She might have been an accomplice. I do know we can’t believe a word she’s said. The truth might be the complete opposite of her story. Maybe Richard was stalking her and she wanted him out of her life. Maybe she’s in love with Millie. Or Brendan.’
‘Or nobody we know. Can you drive a bit faster, do you think?’
‘Sorry.’ She accelerated, passing the Hare and Hounds, thinking she might never come back to Chedworth again, and wondering whether she’d miss it. Her plans for speaking to Norah, Rita, Brendan – and whoever else might enlighten her – seemed somehow forlorn and futile, with Drew so implacable about it all. Stratford would involve a long drive back up the same road, taking until late in the afternoon. There was a growing sense of an ending. She was not going to do any more house-sitting. At some point in the past week that had become a firm decision. But she wasn’t finished with the Cotswolds, it seemed. She and Drew really were going to settle down in Broad Campden and spread the message of natural burials and associated benefits.
But it wasn’t ended yet. Knowing they would be returning to the area made it more urgent that this mystery of Richard Wilshire’s death be confronted and solved, if humanly possible.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘About everything. We’re out of sync, I suppose. I really hope you’ll understand why I have to do it – at some point, if not now. I am going to talk to Rita again, in person. I think she’s the key to it all.’
‘I don’t get it. You’ve got nothing like a coherent theory. You’re just dashing about like a mad thing, asking random questions for your own gratification.’
‘I’m not, Drew. I’m really not. At least – there’s much more to it than that. My head’s full of odd facts and things people have said. They all fit together somehow, and I need to know how.’
‘That’s what I said. It’s all about you.’
‘Don’t be so vile. If I can get it straight for myself, that’s good for the family as well. You heard Rita, how much it matters to her to understand it all.’
‘I love you, Thea,’ he said thickly. ‘But I don’t know if I can carry on like this.’
‘You won’t have to. Give me twenty-four hours. Absolute maximum. Have faith. After that, I’m all yours, for ever and ever.’ She swallowed down the panic his words had evoked. One false word and it would all be over. She couldn’t let him see how terrified she was. Her sense of self-sabotage was overwhelming, and she came to the brink of capitulating to his wishes. But something stopped her. She was Thea Osborne, not Mrs Drew Slocombe – yet. She had to follow her own urges, whatever the consequences.
‘Twenty-four hours,’ he repeated, with little sign of agreement. ‘And then what?’
‘I’ll come down to you and tell you what’s happened and we’ll carry on as before.’
‘Don’t make promises. Do what you have to do. And I’ll do the same.’
‘Right,’ she said, feeling as lonely as she did in the weeks following Carl’s death. ‘Well, here we are, then.’ They were weaving their way through the northern outskirts of Cirencester, arriving at the police station within another few minutes.
‘I’m very tempted to go and tell Higgins about that car,’ Drew threatened. ‘That would be the responsible thing to do.’
‘They’ll find it soon enough. And I don’t expect it’ll help them much. It just means that Richard probably went to the barn under his own steam. Voluntarily. Somebody persuaded him to meet them there.’
‘Then hid his car, leaving flakes of skin and hairs and fingerprints and the rest of it, so the forensics people can identify them.’
She stared at him. ‘When did you think of that?’
‘About half an hour ago. Didn’t you?’
She shook her head. ‘Damn it, Drew. I don’t know where I am with you. One minute you’re washing your hands of it all, and the next you’re practically giving the whole explanation of what happened to Richard.’
‘I thought I was just stating the obvious.’
‘Well, yes. But I hadn’t thought about that aspect of it at all. I was thinking of the past and what motives people might have.’
‘It needs both, I guess.’
She said nothing to that, but gave him a sad-eyed look, hoping he could hear what he had just said. On his lap, Hepzie whined. ‘She probably needs a pee,’ said Drew. ‘How many hours has she spent in the car today?’
‘Too many. Again. Stop trying to get her on your side.’
Drew got out, carrying the dog. He set her down on the pavement, where she immediately squatted. ‘Oh God, she’s doing a great big poo,’ said Thea. ‘Right outside the police station. I’ll have to pick it up. I hate doing that. I haven’t got a bag or anything.’
Drew kicked the excrement into the gutter, where it was mostly hidden by the car. ‘Sorted,’ he said defiantly.
Thea giggled. ‘Nice to see you can be antisocial when it suits you,’ she said. He went to his own car, opened it and leant over to the back seat before straightening up with a folder in his hand. ‘You might need this,’ he said. ‘It’s got phone numbers in. Keep it safe, will you. I’ll want it back.’
It was the prepaid funeral plan for Mrs Wilshire. Thea took it with a smile, but they exchanged no further words. She watched him go, her mind blank. Just how she proposed to solve a murder all on her own was the greatest mystery of all.