While Thea was gathering information and making connections, Drew was managing something similar, once the children were finally in bed, and some urgent bill payments attended to. The hours since the conversation with Thea had passed somewhat blurrily, as he tried to stay abreast of work, children, supper, Maggs and his own chaotic emotions.
This would be the fourth time since he met her that Thea had become embroiled in a violent death. The first time, admittedly, it had been less her than Drew himself, who had borne the brunt of it. Since then, they had discovered a knack of bouncing ideas and theories around, working as an informal team, or – more accurately – a mutually supportive twosome. Karen had been a serious distraction every time, and Maggs a sternly disapproving figure. But here was a clear instance where he could provide helpful inside information. Nobody could object to that. And as if to exonerate himself of any subterfuge, he had asked Maggs, shortly before she went home, whether she knew anything about the Meadows family and their undertaking business in London.
‘Henry Meadows!’ she exclaimed immediately. ‘Yes, I met him on that conference thing you sent me to. Remember? About eighteen months ago. You thought we should make our presence felt. It cost a fortune, and I never thought it was worth it.’
‘Henry Meadows was there?’
‘The man himself. They treated him like royalty. Everybody wanted to be like him. There was a session on relations with the community – I had plenty to say about that, as you can imagine.’
‘I remember,’ he said patiently.
‘Well, the Meadows chap seemed to think he’d invented the whole idea. Went on about Chambers of Commerce and Rotary and that sort of tedious stuff. I kept interrupting and talking about the WI and the local Green Party. He was furious with me,’ she chuckled. ‘It was great fun.’
‘So he’s a pompous stuffed shirt?’
‘Well, no, not really. He’s youngish and good-looking and quite a charmer. Not oily at all. Smiles a lot.’
‘I’m impressed at your total recall.’
‘I haven’t given him a thought for over a year,’ she defended. ‘But you asked and I told you.’
‘Yes, and I’m impressed,’ he repeated.
‘So why the question in the first place?’
He took a deep breath. ‘I saw a news item on the telly. A murder in Winchcombe. Apparently it involves that Meadows brother who says he was abused as a boy, by another of the sons. His half-brother. There’s a trial happening in London as we speak.’
He could see her mind whirring. ‘Winchcombe? Where’s that, as if I didn’t know?’
‘Gloucestershire, I think.’
‘Come off it, Drew. It’s in the Cotswolds, isn’t it? That woman’s involved, I suppose. And you’ve been speaking to her.’ When I told you not to, hung in the air, but even Maggs wouldn’t go quite as far as that.
‘I can be helpful to her,’ he insisted. ‘So can you, if you stop being so pig-headed about it.’
She blinked and eyed him carefully. ‘You do look better,’ she acknowledged. ‘I suppose that’s a good thing.’
‘It’s all these new funerals,’ he said warmly. ‘Being busy is the best medicine. I still can’t quite believe it.’
Maggs yawned. ‘Well, I can. I had about four hours sleep last night. I can’t wait to get to bed.’
‘Get along, then,’ he encouraged. ‘Thanks for the info about Henry Meadows.’
‘Luckily you’re going to be far too taken up with the funerals to have time to slope off to the Cotswolds. I suppose a few phone calls won’t hurt.’
She spoke with the air of giving gracious permission, and he knew he couldn’t let it go at that. Drew Slocombe had always tried to address snide hints and innuendo wherever he found them. ‘Maggs, dear friend and partner, let’s get this straight. You’re not my mother, sister or wife. You actually can’t take responsibility for me and my life. I know your motives are perfectly pure and good, but you have to back off and let me make my own decisions. I owe you an enormous debt of gratitude for years of support and sacrifice and fantastic company. I rely on you far too much. The children even more so. It’s not good for either of us to keep on like this.’
She sagged, taking the full impact of this startlingly direct speech. But Maggs Cooper was made of solid steel. Drew often imagined a Jamaican grandmother somewhere, whose genes had passed wholesale into this young cuckoo who had been raised by a quietly decent couple in Plymouth. They had valiantly risen to the challenge of a mixed-race child, who from her middle teens had wanted nothing else but to become an undertaker. She had married Drew’s friend, Den Cooper, a very tall ex-policeman, who knew himself to be unworthy of her. Nobody, really, was worthy of Maggs.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Fair enough. I’m not going to argue with you about it. But I’m not going to change my mind, either. There’ll come a time when you’ll see I’m right, and be thankful to me.’
‘I’m thankful now. I just said so.’
‘Well, that’s all right then. Now let me go home to bed, will you?’
‘Right. I’ll see you in the morning, then. Busy day ahead.’
‘Night, night, then, Drew.’
All of which left him mildly confused. Whatever he might have said to Maggs, he still found himself feeling answerable to her, in need of her permission before he approached Thea again. But hadn’t she given that permission? And wasn’t he lapsing back into the old pattern of bowing to her superior wisdom, thinking along these lines in the first place? Almost from the start, Maggs had taken it upon herself to behave as his moral arbiter. She had defended Karen’s interests, working on the assumption that all men would stray and misbehave if you gave them enough rope. An assumption that Drew had almost confirmed, once or twice. Women liked him. They liked his boyishly open face and natural good listening. He met their eye and admitted to his feelings. They liked his way with children, and his easy professionalism when it came to burying the dead. And, to his own occasional surprise, they seemed to see in him a solid integrity that made him a man to rely on. That was the part that Maggs seemed to overlook. Drew was safe and much stronger than he looked. His back was straight and his shoulders square. He looked good in a suit. And he had small sensitive hands. Everybody looked at his hands, wondering with a variety of emotions just what he was capable of doing with them.
Thea had called him, he reminded himself. She had made the first move. Whether or not that was relevant was obscure to him, in his adult persona; to the adolescent who never quite disappeared completely, it was highly significant. For the girl to make the call meant the rules had changed, and the boy was expected to remain alert and serious. Karen had often made the first call in their long-ago courtship. It struck him that the pattern was unlikely to change now, whatever happened. He was required to remain alert and serious for ever, where women were concerned.
So he phoned her. He used his house phone, because it was cheaper, and he sat in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs, automatically picking up the pen that was firmly tied to a nail in the wall. In his business, the telephone was crucial and making notes an essential part of almost every conversation.
She answered quickly, warmly. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked her. ‘Are you still in Winchcombe?’
‘I am. My mother’s staying another night. The others have gone. We’ve got an identity for the girl, thanks to you. A lot’s been happening.’
‘Thanks to me?’
‘Absolutely. Nobody had made the connection with the London trial. I’m not sure they ever would have done, without you – unless Fraser had spoken up. He was hoping it could be kept quiet, I think. He declined to tell Gladwin where his brother was, when he was being questioned.’
‘The middle brother. The one my mother’s with. Or whatever the phraseology should be. Did I tell you about that? They knew each other in the sixties and he’s just found her again. It’s all very weird.’
‘Yes, you told me. It sounds like something we should probably be worried about.’
‘That’s what Gladwin thinks as well. He seems to remember a lot more than she does. I’m not sure she’s even convinced it’s the same man.’ She was speaking softly, presumably not wanting her mother to hear.
Drew considered for a moment. ‘And how do we go about proving it, either way?’ he wondered. ‘I suppose she does remember his name?’
‘His first name, anyway. You know – I think she might well have forgotten his surname. It was a very brief affair, and not serious on her side, at least.’
‘Fraser’s not a common name. If the man she knows now really is Fraser Meadows, then I suppose it must be right. Anyway, tell me about the Melissa person.’
‘She’s their half-sister. Fifty years younger than Cedric. Isn’t that amazing! Gladwin sent a London detective to talk to Oliver, and he told them, just like that. As far as I can work out, he and Cedric are the only ones who knew about her. Fraser was in Australia when she was born. I’m not even sure she knew who her father was. She called Oliver “Uncle Ollie” and she told me she was Fraser’s daughter. I think she really believed it. It’s still very vague. Poor Gladwin’s in a terrible state, with two murders to investigate. I never get a proper talk with her.’
‘And the other chap? Today’s victim?’
‘Reuben Hardy. Early thirties, married. He lived near here but worked long hours at something lucrative. I met his wife on Saturday and him on Sunday. They’ve got a lovely dog.’
‘God, Thea – you met him?’
‘And I found his body. Did I tell you that?’
He snorted. ‘You did mention it, yes. You told me the whole thing in about forty-five seconds. I was very impressed.’
‘It’s all such a whirl,’ she complained. ‘I can hardly remember who said what, and when. And we have no idea why Reuben should be killed, except that he must have seen something or known something that might incriminate Melissa’s killer. We thought at first the two murders were almost identical, but now we’re not so sure. There are some differences.’
‘Such as?’
‘Her face was terribly pale, and there was a horrible mark round her neck. He looked a fairly normal colour and I couldn’t see any marks at all. Priscilla said he was cold.’
‘Priscilla?’
‘Oh, a local woman who knew him vaguely. She came round this evening, and we went a little walk with her. She’s nice, in a horsey sort of way.’
‘And she felt his body?’
‘Yes. She turned up soon after we found him, and she felt his cheek. She says he was cold.’
‘But he was outside, and it’s what – twelve degrees or so today. He’d get cold in no time. That doesn’t prove anything.’
‘They were arranged, Drew, both of them. Laid out, like statues on top of a tomb. Hands folded, eyes closed. That alone shows it was the same killer both times.’
‘I suppose it does,’ he agreed. ‘So what happens next?’
‘I have no idea. I imagine Gladwin will wait for Oliver to give his testimony, whenever that happens.’
‘That’s tomorrow, I think. According to the news, anyway.’
‘So then she’ll bring him back here for a proper interview.’
‘Maggs has met Henry Meadows,’ Drew remembered to say. ‘That’s what I called to tell you. She says he’s youngish, charming, self-confident. I forget exactly what she said, now.’
‘Charismatic, probably. I wonder whether Cedric is the same. And I wonder what this trial is doing to Henry. It must be excruciating for them all. They must really hate Oliver.’ Somehow she had failed to fully grasp this aspect of the story until now. ‘And I have no idea how Fraser feels about it all. He manages to keep everything calm, with no sign of any emotion. Even when he was told his daughter was dead, he kept his head.’
‘Thea, stop. I thought I was keeping up, until now, but you keep throwing in bits I haven’t heard before.’
‘Sorry. I suppose it would take all evening to tell you every single thing. Melissa said she was Fraser’s daughter, so that’s what I told the police. Then Fraser showed up here with my mother, and the police asked him to identify the body, and he said he had never seen her before in his life. And he did it all with very little sign of emotion. Does that cover it?’
‘It certainly helps.’
‘So, I’ll tell Gladwin what you said about Henry. She’ll probably have some ideas, and maybe some forensic findings or something. At least they won’t have to do a DNA test now. Anyway, I should go. My mother’s going to feel neglected at this rate.’
‘Keep me posted, okay? Tell me if there’s more I can do.’
‘Thanks, Drew.’
When he put the phone down, a little voice floated down the stairs. ‘Daddy? Have you been talking to that lady? The one on the telly? I heard you saying her name.’
He sighed and turned to reply. ‘Go back to bed, Steph. You should have been asleep ages ago. There’s nothing for you to worry about.’
When had his own daughter turned into a miniature version of Maggs, he wondered?