It was Mo who finally got things going, after a slow morning of increasingly desultory conversation and rather too much coffee. ‘We can’t stay cooped up here,’ she announced. ‘Let’s go for a walk. We’ve got an hour or so before we’re due to meet Jason. I know somebody who rented one of the Sudeley Cottages last year, and I’d love to have a look at them. Sounded really nice, they did. Not something Jason would appreciate, of course. They must be just here somewhere – right?’
‘About two minutes’ walk,’ Thea confirmed. ‘We can go the back way.’ Only then did she remember that the back way involved walking past police tape and the scene of a very recent murder. But it was too late to change tack, and she led the group down the path, skirting the clearing with the bird hide, with minimal comment, and plunging down the barely visible track out into the bottom of Castle Street. ‘It all connects up, you see,’ she said. ‘These ancient towns generally have alleyways and footpaths linking the major buildings and thoroughfares.’
‘Like Tewkesbury,’ said her mother, surprisingly. ‘I love Tewkesbury.’
‘Really?’ Thea said. ‘When have you been there?’
‘We had a holiday there when Damien was a baby. Hired a cottage beside the river and spent a week exploring. It was utterly idyllic.’
‘First I’ve heard of it,’ said Thea uncomfortably. What hope was there of getting any sort of objective view of her mother’s early life, when things like this could happen? Anything was possible back there in those far-off days. Something like ninety-five per cent of it had obviously been forgotten; lost without trace.
‘We can go there again,’ said Fraser to his long-lost girlfriend. ‘Whenever you like.’
‘You can see Tewkesbury from that hill, on the road past the church,’ said Mo, to Thea’s surprise.
‘Really?’ she said. ‘How do you know that?’
‘We were a bit early this morning, so we went out there for a look. There’s a house called Tewkesbury View. It gets very high up there.’
‘I know. I walked it on Saturday afternoon. All I could see was Winchcombe.’
‘You need to look the other way,’ laughed Mo. ‘Tewkesbury’s west of here.’
‘For that, I’d have had to climb another hill, and I didn’t have the energy.’
They found the cottages, which were indeed enchanting, if perhaps somewhat too close together for a truly peaceful and secluded holiday. Ideal, though, for a large family or collection of friends to use, taking all of them together. Thea imagined a variety of scenarios where this might happen, although only one of them fitted her personally. In that one, her brother, daughter, mother and sisters gathered together for a week over Christmas and played old-fashioned games while snow and gales swirled outside. It wouldn’t work, of course – Jocelyn’s five children would never fit into any of these little dwellings. And the strain on the in-laws might be excessive. When all five Johnstones gathered together, there were in-jokes and age-old stories, and childish hilarity that excluded spouses, even of twenty years’ standing.
‘Where now?’ asked Mo, as if Thea had become the leader. Thea glanced at Fraser, wondering how much he knew of the hinterland of Winchcombe. She was still unclear as to just how closely he was connected to his brother and why he visited so infrequently.
‘We could have a look at Silk Mill Lane,’ she suggested hesitantly. ‘There’s not very much to see, but we can make it a circular walk, more or less. That’s always better, don’t you think?’
Mo said nothing, but appeared amenable enough. She did not strike Thea as a person who often went for walks of any sort. She scarcely looked around her, but talked of unrelated things, such as Jason’s business ambitions and the terrible man her middle daughter had taken up with. She virtually ignored her father, which Thea was increasingly aware of as odd. In her experience, daughters of all ages almost always flirted with their fathers, claiming the man as her special possession. She had certainly done it with her own beloved dad, and had enjoyed seeing Jessica do it with Carl, from the age of about twenty minutes.
Opposite the turning into the lane, Thea looked again at the very handsome old house facing the street, built in the ubiquitous Cotswold stone. It felt like only a few minutes since she had been there with Gladwin, and this second walk struck her as singularly aimless and surplus to requirements. She had no desire to behave as a town guide. Precisely why they had come out at all was obscure to her. But she had little choice except to do her best to remain on good terms with these Meadows, now they seemed inextricably linked to her mother. She stopped her companions a few yards after the turning, and ordered them to look back. ‘Isn’t that fabulous!’ she enthused, quickly persuading herself that there was, after all, something to draw their attention to. ‘I never get tired of these amazing places. It’s as if they’ve always been here, survivors of far-distant centuries. Just think what this one must have seen.’
‘Silk mills, for a start,’ agreed Mo, pointing to the name of the lane just to their right. ‘Must have been noisier then. And smellier.’
‘It’s certainly quiet now,’ said Thea’s mother. ‘Not a soul to be seen.’
‘It’s always like this,’ said Thea. ‘Some of the smaller villages seem to be completely deserted for most of the day. Even at weekends, there’s hardly anybody about. It’s part of the Cotswolds atmosphere. Everywhere’s beautifully kept, lovely gardens, fresh paint, immaculate roofs – and no sign of the people.’
‘Where are they, then?’ Mo was puzzled.
‘At work, mostly – earning the cash to pay for these places. And a lot of them are second homes. It’s a very affluent area.’
‘Yeah, but that should mean there’s gardeners and cleaners and all that. Somebody must be looking after it all.’
‘True,’ agreed Thea. ‘But I never seem to see them.’
‘Weird,’ concluded Mo, with a little shudder. ‘Me, I like a lot of people around.’
‘Not me,’ said Maureen. ‘I think this is nice. Where are we going, Thea?’ All three women looked at Fraser, as if to check that he had no objection to being escorted rather than deferred to. He showed no sign of caring, either way, so Thea simply carried on walking along Silk Mill Lane for a distance that felt longer than during the walk with Gladwin. She began to worry that they’d gone too far when finally a small opening revealed Murder Alley on the left. ‘Look, Mum – another alley for you,’ she laughed. ‘You don’t have to go to Tewkesbury to find them. Gladwin and I came down here earlier this morning. I don’t expect anybody’s used it since then.’
They had not seen a single person in the lane, but now they heard a car start up, further along. Automatically they stepped into the alley, to leave space for the vehicle to pass. ‘We go up here, anyway,’ said Thea. ‘It comes out at the end of the high street. We’ll get to the pub in the square just at the right time for lunch.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Thea’s mother, on a note high enough to alert her daughter. ‘Up there, look.’
The alley sloped upwards, the further end in shadow. It was narrow enough for two abreast to be uncomfortable, and for one person to obstruct the view of those behind. ‘What? Where?’ said Thea.
She found out soon enough. ‘It’s a person!’ shrilled Mo. ‘Lying on the ground.’
Something like fifteen yards ahead of them, there was indeed a person on the ground, lying on his back, hands folded peacefully across his chest, eyes closed.
Thea looked down at him, keeping her dog back as she did so. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said with some force. ‘It’s that Reuben.’ She looked at her mother. ‘Remember him from yesterday? It’s Reuben bloody Hardy.’
Quite why she felt so angry was obscure, but she experienced a strong temptation to kick the man’s body as it lay there dead in Murder Alley.