Caz was not altogether co-operative when Thea tried to explain the situation. ‘I can’t just drop everything to act as nursemaid to your girl,’ she protested. ‘It’s hectic here.’
‘Think about it,’ Thea ordered her. ‘This could be the breakthrough. It’ll take about an hour and a half, max, for you to do the whole thing. You’re safeguarding a potential witness, overseeing a delicate development in the investigation. If you won’t do it, I’ll ask Gladwin. Or Higgins.’
‘Honestly – you act as if the entire police force is at your beck and call. There are protocols, you know. Everything has to be logged, reported, shared with the team. I’ll have to keep a record of everywhere I go and who I see and what they say. Nothing’s simple.’
‘Your phone can do all that for you. I’m assuming Ramon can be in Broad Campden in the next few minutes, so you can pick them up together, bring them here, listen to what he says, and take them back again.’
‘It’s compromising. I can’t have them both in my car. Not with things at the stage they are now. But I can see it might be useful as well. Why don’t you tell Mr R. to make his own way to Oddington, and I’ll go for Stephanie? That could work. It might even be quicker.’ There was a pause. ‘Actually – do we really need Stephanie to be there? Isn’t she a bit young for all this sort of thing?’
‘It was her idea. She really wants to come. I can’t be so mean as to stop her now.’
‘Well, all right then. From what I know of her, she’ll have no great trouble coping with it.’
‘Thanks.’ Thea’s excitement ratcheted up another level. ‘You never know – this might resolve the whole case.’
‘It won’t,’ said Barkley flatly. ‘I’ll see you around five, or a bit before.’
Thea called Ramon, who answered instantly, and agreed to the plan with no discernible hesitation. ‘I’m really very grateful,’ he said. His Spanish accent made him sound very masculine and not at all like Jake Milner. Thea realised that she had carelessly bracketed the two men together – brother and boyfriend of the deceased, both stricken by grief and perhaps slightly limp as a result. Ramon Rodriguez did not sound the least bit limp.
There was little to do while waiting for the visitors. The salukis had been short-changed all day, but the return of their beloved master was so imminent that it no longer seemed to matter very much. At least, she assumed he was beloved. As a breed these dogs did not appear to be especially demonstrative. If pressed, Thea would put them on the snooty end of the spectrum, a long way from the undignified squirming displays of affection that a spaniel went in for. Their supper would either have to be very early or a bit late, given the timing of Stephanie’s invasion – but that too would be readily tolerated. She threw them each a small biscuit to be going on with. And then she stood watching them for a few minutes, noting with mild dismay that Rocket was scratching her neck rather viciously and Dolly was chewing her own tail. ‘I’ll comb you all later on,’ she promised.
Ramon was the first to arrive, walking confidently up to the gate. He had clearly been to the house before, probably several times. He and Gabriella must have been together for a while, then. Which meant that he very likely counted himself as part of the Kingly family. He was tall, with dark brown hair and broad shoulders. His eyes were deep-set and rather close together. Thea tried to grasp what it was about him that had won Stephanie’s affection. If she remembered her own schooldays, the favourite teachers were the ones who gave you attention, praise and comprehensible information. Their appearance counted for very little. Perhaps none of that applied here. As far as Thea could recall, Stephanie had barely mentioned this particular teacher until now. There had been some stressing about a Spanish test a week or so ago, which had not felt very important. All this ran through her head as she opened the gate and let him in, having made a big play of gazing down the street in expectation of Barkley’s car materialising.
‘They’ll be here in a minute,’ she said. Something about this man made her earlier wariness seem entirely sensible. He did not smile, or even hold out a hand to shake. His eyes were unfocused and his nose looked pink. The air rippled with strong emotion as he headed for the front door, having said nothing at all. Hepzie stood out of his way, abandoning any expectation of being admired or even acknowledged.
The silence was contagious and Thea forbore from making small talk, other than offering a cup of tea. It was twenty to five – her assertion about the others soon arriving had been deliberately exaggerated. It struck her that in her efforts to protect Stephanie she had blundered into placing herself in a very awkward position. Without the girl, Thea and Ramon were in no kind of relationship. This again was entirely different from the way Jake Milner had behaved. There had been an easy assumption as to their reasons for getting together – admittedly facilitated by Barkley. Here on her own with the boyfriend, it was infinitely more difficult.
But Ramon was gathering himself together, with an effort. ‘I like this house,’ he said. ‘Though it was nicer when Nonna was still here.’
For the first time, Thea made the connection between the Italian grandmother and the Spanish boyfriend. Had they shared nostalgic tales of Mediterranean experiences? Unlikely, she decided, when she remembered that Jocasta had lived the great bulk of her life in Gloucestershire. Even so, there could well have been an affinity between them, surrounded as they were by cool British relatives and neighbours.
‘When does Umberto get back?’ The question was uttered carelessly, as if the answer mattered not at all.
‘Tomorrow. About this time, or a bit later.’
‘Right.’ He looked at his watch.
‘They’ll be hitting the traffic,’ said Thea, realising that Stephanie’s idea of effecting an introduction had been spoilt by the change of plan regarding cars. ‘They’ll be coming through Stow, I suppose. It can be very slow.’ Slow through Stow, she repeated stupidly to herself. There was a flickering threat of hysteria somewhere not too far below the surface. What’s the matter with me? she wondered. Generally, this was what she did best – winning over potential suspects and extracting crucial information from them. This man came with too much emotion, too many possibilities of the wrong sort. He felt like an unexploded bomb sitting on Umberto’s chair and staring at her.
‘You’re Stephanie’s stepmother, is that right? What happened to her real mother?’
Thea frowned. Shouldn’t he know that already? And why was he asking? What did it have to do with anything? Was he trying to undermine her in some subtle way?
‘She died,’ she said.
‘Ah. Perhaps that explains it.’
‘What?’
He leant forward and instantly seemed more human. ‘Until a few weeks ago she was just another pupil. Nothing special. Average in her work. Quiet. Then she began to attract my attention. We were discussing Spanish culture and got onto the way we do funerals. She told me that her father is a funeral director. Undertaker. The class all knew it already, I think. But Stephanie gained size – I mean stature. A good word. Respect and attention. Because she had no anxiety about death as a thing to talk about. But she did not mention her mother.’
Thea listened in silence. What was there to say to this? Why was he telling her about it?
‘You might know what they say about the Spanish and death? The bullfight, and fierce fighting. Hemingway. The Civil War.’ He cocked his head at her. ‘We are supposed to be unusually good at facing up to it. Did you know that?’
‘Not really. I never thought about it.’
‘Well, it’s mostly just a myth, anyway. I don’t think human beings face death very well, whoever they are. They just have different ways of deceiving themselves about it.’
Thea felt inadequate. Being married to an undertaker was no help at all at times like this. Ramon’s eyes were glittering, the urgency and passion behind his words impossible to ignore. But she found herself no longer nervous of him. He wasn’t going to hurt her, and his interest in Stephanie appeared to be reassuringly academic. ‘My husband isn’t very keen on Stephanie taking an interest in murder,’ she said.
‘So I understand. I went to see him today, you know.’
‘And he wasn’t very co-operative, according to Stephanie.’
Ramon shrugged. ‘He loosened up after I said I’d like him to do Gabby’s funeral.’
Thea felt embarrassed on her husband’s behalf. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said. ‘He probably didn’t understand.’ Then she wondered whether Ramon would have the right to decide on the funeral in any case. Perhaps Drew had realised that from the outset. ‘You’re not actually her next of kin, I assume?’
‘That’ll be her mother – or father. Both? I don’t anticipate any difficulties, either way.’
Thea pulled herself up, and smiled. ‘We should probably wait for the others before we say much more. Stephanie’s going to be cross if we get everything settled without her.’
‘Settled?’ He glared at her. ‘How do you think that’s going to happen?’
‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘Let me go and make more tea.’
‘That’s them now,’ said Ramon, apparently having detected a car engine from fifty yards away through closed windows. ‘Look.’
‘So it is,’ said Thea, feeling less relief than she might have expected. She went to the gate and almost grabbed the young detective in one hand and Stephanie in the other. ‘Was the traffic bad?’ she asked.
‘A bit. It’s only just gone five,’ said Barkley.
Stephanie went to find her teacher, the others following close behind. Thea watched as the girl went up to Ramon, stopping a foot away from his chair. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hi. We’ve been talking without you. Your mother thinks you might be angry about that.’
The girl laughed. ‘Was it anything important?’
The man gave her a long look and did not answer. Thea interposed quickly. ‘We were getting to know each other, that’s all.’
Caz Barkley took a place on the sofa, and patted the cushion beside her, inviting Stephanie to take it. ‘Settle down,’ she said to the room in general. ‘What’s all this in aid of, anyway?’
‘As Mrs Slocombe said – we’re getting to know each other,’ Ramon replied. ‘I think we both felt we were missing something, not having met.’
Caz shook her head slightly. ‘I’m not sure I did the right thing, bringing Stephanie here. I got the icy treatment from her father just now.’
‘She’s the one who links it all together,’ said Ramon. ‘She had to be here.’
‘Actually, I would say it was Miss Milner who did that,’ said Caz stoutly. ‘Stephanie’s just a coincidence.’
‘Thanks very much!’ said the girl indignantly. Thea understood how she felt – still under the control of adults, who could not always be trusted to do the right thing. The fact that she had been permitted to join this group of adults must seem like a remarkable triumph, that might yet be snatched away.
‘What was she like?’ Thea interposed again. ‘Can you talk about her?’
It seemed to strike all four of them at once that the meeting was oddly artificial, achieved at the cost of Drew’s temper and liable to do more harm than good. Even Stephanie faltered. ‘I told you that,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Sweetheart – you only met her once.’
‘She was the last person you could think of as a victim,’ said Ramon. ‘She was strong and certain, knowing her own mind.’
This chimed with what Jake Milner had said, Thea realised. ‘Is that why someone killed her, then?’ she asked, just as stoutly as Caz. ‘She trampled on their feelings?’
‘Hardly a motive for murder,’ muttered the detective.
‘You’d be surprised,’ Thea told her, conscious that she had been involved in a lot more murders than the young police officer had. She addressed Ramon. ‘Did you know about Christian and Stefan – Imogen’s sons?’
‘Know about them?’ He snorted. ‘I’ve met them. Gabby and I spent last Christmas with them in Innsbruck.’
It felt like a bombshell and the room went quiet. Stephanie wriggled impatiently, wanting an explanation. Barkley took out a notebook and flicked through the pages. Thea simply gazed at the man and tried to insert this revelation into the picture of the family she had constructed. A balance had been set askew somewhere. She was determined to learn more.
‘Did the others know about that? Imogen? Umberto? Penny?’
He shook his head. ‘Not even Gabriella’s mother knew until we came back. But it was all down to her that it happened, really. She found the boys more or less by accident last year, and came home all excited about it. Gabby couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it, but her mother swore her to secrecy. That didn’t last long, though. Nonna soon got hold of the secret, and the shit hit the fan, as they say so rudely in this country.’
Stephanie giggled. Ramon went on, seeming keen to unburden himself now the dam had been breached. ‘Gabby felt we owed her cousins some sort of explanation, I think. But it wasn’t very successful. They were pretty frosty with us, to be honest.’
Thea was struggling to calculate the implications. Was it possible that Ramon was playing a complicated game of some kind? It did not feel like that. Rather, he was relieved that Thea had raised the subject of the absent cousins. Quite why she had done that remained obscure. It had suddenly felt as if the only way to cut through the inconsequential chat and make the whole encounter mean something was to address the most mysterious and perhaps even taboo element in the story. But there was ample scope for misunderstanding. Ramon might well have felt that she was trying to take control, manipulating him, or startling him into giving something away. In which case he had certainly called her bluff.
‘Okay. What about since then? Christmas was ages ago.’ She remembered that it could be helpful to ask Why now? in a murder investigation.
Caz Barkley was leaning forward, holding her notebook and opening her mouth as if to speak. But no words emerged. She shut it again. With a minimal gesture she indicated that Thea was welcome to continue the questioning, despite its obvious unorthodoxy.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ramon, slumping back in his chair. ‘I had a quarrel with Stefan on our last day and said I agreed with the family that it would have been better if we’d never found out they existed.’
‘Who said that?’ Somewhere Thea recalled having been told that the grandmother had deeply resented the way these boys had been hidden from her all their lives. ‘I thought your Nonna was very upset at having missed seeing them grow up.’
‘She was,’ said Ramon, sounding more foreign than he had up to then. ‘I’m talking more about Penny and Umberto, really. First Nonna was upset, and then when all the trouble began, she was angry. All on the same day – and then she had her stroke. Then another one, which killed her.’
‘Trouble?’ Caz had come to life at the word. ‘When?’
‘Well, I was not really involved. Nonna was like Gabriella – they both set high standards for behaviour. And Imogen had not been married to the father of her boys. She had raised them in secret, telling lies and never inviting her family to visit. There was a blazing row about it. Poor Imogen was ostracised. Nobody had any sympathy for her, except Kirsty, of course. Even though she became perfectly respectable after coming back to England and marrying Mr Peake. I never met him, actually.’
‘Wait,’ begged Thea. ‘When did Imogen get married?’
‘Oh – many years ago, twenty-five or so. Kirsty was born a few months later. It was a small affair, and the family were annoyed about that – when they realised it was because she was pregnant.’ He laughed. ‘I suppose that made her all the more determined not to admit to the existence of her sons.’
Caz groaned. Stephanie had given up and was ostentatiously fondling the spaniel which had found its way onto her lap. Thea was positively sparkling at all this new information. ‘But it was Theresa who first discovered them?’
‘So I understand. I think possibly Umberto knew more than he let on. When Gabriella got to know about it, she wanted to meet them right away. She was very shocked and angry with Imogen, but she was very glad to have more cousins. She told her grandmother about them, because they were always so close and it seemed such a big thing. That was last year. I was away visiting my family in Cadiz. Gabriella was unhappy when I got back, because Nonna did not thank her for what she did. It really stirred things up for everybody.’ He spoke almost automatically, revealing facts with no emotion. Thea understood that none of it mattered any more, at least to him.
‘Wait,’ Thea said again. She looked at Caz. ‘This must be it. The motive behind the murder. Something about Christian and Stefan being kept a secret.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But there are so many people involved, all of them close relatives. Is it possible that one of them could have so brutally slaughtered Gabriella?’
Stephanie looked up, startled by the harsh words. Thea threw her a reassuring smile.
Ramon’s face drooped and darkened. ‘That’s the question that has kept me awake every night since Monday,’ he said.