Barkley finally took charge and got to her feet. ‘This has to be part of an official interview,’ she asserted. ‘Names, dates, facts. It all has to be recorded and processed. All we’ve got so far is a jumble of old history. Arguments happen in every family. It might not have any bearing on the case, once we give it a proper look.’
‘What about that phone call?’ Thea remembered. ‘About who owns this house?’
Ramon frowned and Caz moaned. ‘Enough!’ said the detective. ‘This is not the place for any further talk. It’s all speculation and muddle as far as I can see. It needs to be set out logically.’
‘It’s not really a muddle, though,’ said Stephanie softly. ‘It’s given you something to go on. I mean, you can start your police work on computers and stuff, now you’ve got all this. Can’t you?’
‘Out of the mouth of babes,’ said Ramon, with a powerfully fond look at his pupil. ‘That’s my good girl.’
Stephanie blushed. Caz threw sharp looks around. Thea converted her sudden anxiety to more mundane matters. ‘I’ve got to feed those dogs,’ she said. ‘It’s an hour later than their usual time.’
‘We’ll go,’ said Caz, with a face that said If you think you’re busy …
‘Thanks for bringing Stephanie. Tell Drew I’ll phone him later on and try to mollify him. No harm done, eh Steph?’
The girl rolled her eyes. Thea hoped that did not mean she was being overoptimistic. Quite a lot of the conversation had been unsuitable listening for somebody so young, she supposed. The Spanish teacher hadn’t helped, with his implication of a special bond between himself and his pupil. Such relationships were treated with extreme suspicion these days. Caz had been alerted, opening the possibility of further unpleasant scrutiny. The police position was probably that Ramon Rodriguez was still very much a person of interest, playing a clever game involving a profusion of smokescreens and red herrings. Stephanie was his unwitting foil and Thea herself a gullible interloper.
Ramon made for the front door without further ceremony. Thea suspected that he had embarrassed himself as well as Stephanie and was eager to get away. He pulled the door open and stepped out. Only then did he turn back. ‘There’s one more thing you should know about Gabriella,’ he said. ‘She was very religious.’
The surprise rendered Thea speechless for ten long seconds. ‘So – why are you burying her in Drew’s field?’ she asked starkly. ‘It’s unconsecrated ground.’
Behind her, Thea heard Stephanie make a sound rather like chssk. She turned round and said ‘What? What’s wrong with that?’
‘Because nothing else would fit,’ said Ramon, before Stephanie could reply. ‘Her religion was not like most people’s. She could never give it a label. I called it Old Testament with overtones of Gaia Theory. She said that was simplistic.’ He smiled thinly. ‘But she never told me how she wanted her body to be disposed of. She was only twenty-five. A simple grave in a nice field is as good as we can get. Her mother thinks the same.’
‘Oh,’ said Thea helplessly. ‘Okay.’
The dogs were reproachful on the topic of their delayed supper. They gathered around Thea’s legs as she scooped food into their bowls. Then they ate voraciously as if the meal was two days late instead of under two hours. None of it made any impression on their temporary minder. Her head was whirling with the avalanche of impressions gained from all the different encounters there had been since breakfast. Names and theories, faces and facts thronged her mind and sparked an endless series of ideas and questions. And still there were gaping holes in the picture. Gabriella’s parents for a start. And what would be the precise implications of the discovery of Christian and Stefan, first cousins lurking invisibly in Central Europe? From what she knew of the Kinglys, cousinhood was a big deal. Although … she revisited this notion while making herself a much-needed sandwich … did Kirsty, Jake and Gabriella actually see very much of each other? The fact that there were so few of them suggested that they probably did behave more like three siblings, the Milners including Kirsty Peake in their lives. Especially as they all lived near each other. But Kirsty had not acquired new cousins, but two half-brothers. Had she always known about them, and been ordered by her mother to say nothing? Did people do that? Would it ever really work, if so?
And Gabriella herself, at last asserting herself as a real individual. Almost she had been characterised as ‘difficult’. On reflection, the last-minute revelation of her religious beliefs fitted very well with her moral superiority and judgemental attitudes. Self-confident, sure of her own rightness, ideological, even perhaps insensitive. Not, then, a Quakerish sort of religion, such as still survived – just – in Broad Campden. The image Thea now entertained of Gabriella was more of a warrior queen, battling for her beliefs, lecturing others on the errors of their ways.
Such a person might well be so infuriating that somebody could be tempted to kill her.
Thea spent the next hour on the phone. First, she called Drew, thinking it might be best to speak to him before Stephanie got home. As it was, the girl arrived only five minutes into the conversation. Those minutes were mainly spent in carefully worded expressions of concern, in which both Drew and Thea strove to avoid accusations, whilst feeling hard done by. ‘I really don’t think you have any need to worry,’ Thea repeated. ‘Can you explain what it is that most bothers you?’
This was a line that Drew himself sometimes used, when trying to get to the heart of a problem. His response now was stiff and unsatisfactory. ‘It’s obviously not good for a child her age to be faced with something so unpleasant,’ he said. ‘That ought not to need saying.’
‘I agree it’s very unpleasant. But Stephanie got herself involved with no help from me. And once that had happened, I can’t see what good it would have done to try and stop her from going further. Besides, Caz was with her.’ Thea had been hoping for some acknowledgement that this had been an excellent idea.
‘The saintly Caz,’ said Drew with a very untypical scorn. ‘A little clone of your beloved Gladwin, as far as I can see.’
‘They’re both very good at their job. They’re both good people, Drew. You know they are.’
‘And they’re both stealing my wife and daughter from me,’ he said in a low voice.
Her reaction was swift. ‘They’re not! That’s ridiculous.’ Then she hesitated. ‘Is that how you see it? Really?’
‘Can you blame me?’
‘Gosh! We can’t do this on the phone. I’m coming home tomorrow, don’t forget. And I won’t be going anywhere again for I don’t know how long. There’s nothing in the diary.’ The empty diary suddenly acquired a bleak aspect. If she wasn’t going anywhere, how was she going to spend her time? Being a good wife, as specified by some annoying code of conduct, was a very mixed prospect. Surely she could love Drew, admire him, support him, be a provider of emotional stability to his children and still have some freedom to do her own thing? Against growing evidence, she clung to a belief that there was a ‘win-win’ solution somewhere.
‘My diary is pretty full,’ he said, still cool and unyielding.
‘And they want you to do the funeral for Gabriella Milner,’ she remembered. ‘Even though he’s just told me she’s religious. Ramon, I mean.’
‘And you believe him? You really think they’ll genuinely want one of my burials? Once they understand what the limitations are, I very much doubt if they’ll go through with a funeral here. Besides, it’ll be a media circus. There’ll be film cameras and all that nonsense. Frankly, I’d rather duck out of that one.’
‘Oh.’
‘Stephanie’s here now. She can tell me all about it – if I let her, that is. I might decide it’s best to change the subject.’
‘If you do that, you’ll be deliberately excluding yourself from something important to her. You might want to think about that.’
‘I might want to think about a lot of things,’ he said, which coming from him felt like a very alarming threat.
‘Talk to her, Drew. Let’s make sure we all stay on the same side. You can be nasty to Caz if you want, but don’t alienate Stephanie because you’re angry with me. You know better than that.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, rendering Thea thankful that he had the sense not to say anything more. She already knew she herself had said too much.
‘Yes. I love you, Drew,’ she finished, choking on the words. They did not say them very often, but when they did it very much meant something.
‘Hm,’ came the grudging response. It was just about enough to give her hope that this latest glitch could be overcome.
The next phone conversation was with Caz Barkley. ‘Where are you?’ Thea asked.
‘Parked in Broad Campden, a hundred yards from your house. What do we make of all that, then?’
‘Ramon, you mean?’
‘What else? Did you believe him? What was he leaving out? Is any of it getting us any closer to solving the case?’
‘Not really for me to say,’ Thea objected. ‘You’re the detective.’
‘Don’t be like that. You sound like your husband.’
‘I’ve just been talking to him. He’s in quite a strop. I think it’s because we let Stephanie get involved.’
‘Yeah. You can see his point.’
‘I told him she’d be fine under your watchful eye.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Anyway – it never occurred to me not to believe Ramon. Which part do you mean exactly?’
‘Most of it. It’s more a matter of what he left out. It was a very threadbare story, when you think about it.’
‘I haven’t had much time to do that. It’s been like that all day, one thing after another. I need some peace and quiet to do any proper thinking.’
‘Well, I’ll report in now, and then go home. We can have a look at those cousins in Austria or wherever it is. First, we need to know their surname … I’ll get one of the plods to do that. I’m getting a few ideas, actually. Might move things along a bit at tomorrow’s briefing. Bit of brainstorming …’ She was thinking aloud, making no demands on Thea, who listened quietly.
‘So – thanks for getting me to come along. You didn’t have to do that. I thought it might have an inhibiting effect on the boyfriend, but he didn’t seem to care, did he?’
‘It was his idea to meet. I’m still not sure what it was he wanted. Oh – and Drew thinks the whole business of him doing Gabriella’s funeral was just hot air. Something to get on the right side of him, because of Stephanie.’
‘And if that was hot air, maybe the rest of it was as well. Maybe he was deliberately setting us chasing after a red herring, to divert attention from himself.’
‘Stephanie’s going to be terribly upset if it turns out to be him,’ Thea worried.
‘So is Drew,’ said Caz with a little laugh.
Thea was slow to get the meaning of this. ‘Why should Drew care?’
‘Because he will have entrusted his precious child to a murderer, however reluctantly. And he’ll have to cope with the fallout if she’s upset.’
‘Except he didn’t entrust her, did he? We got you to interpose yourself between them.’
‘Oh well,’ said Caz with an audible shrug. ‘This won’t get us anywhere. Let’s leave it now until after tomorrow’s meeting. I’ll update you then. Or the super will. She was saying earlier today that she hasn’t seen you for at least a day. She’ll be wanting to catch up.’
Thea entertained a vision of the whole police team constructing some sort of flowchart on the wall of their meeting room, full of arrows and question marks and an array of mugshots of the people involved. Was Umberto up there? she wondered. Or anyone she had not yet met or even heard of? Was the killer going to turn out to be a wholly unconnected stranger, after all? Or were they destined never to know – the case permanently unsolved?
It was half past seven, with a good two hours of daylight left. ‘Walkies,’ she announced to a rapturous Hepzibah. ‘We both need to clear our heads. Let’s go up to the old church again. We liked it there.’
She let the dog run ahead on the quiet little road that led to nowhere but the church. The sky had brightened gradually during the day, and was now a pearly layer of thin cloud, with a faint pinkness on the western horizon, patchily visible across the fields. The ground around Oddington undulated gently, with a scattering of trees here and there. Around the church the impression of a surviving ancient woodland was strong, but illusory. The big old beech trees were mere vestiges of the forest that must once have been there. Beyond the church, where Hepzie ran ahead and Thea contentedly followed, the band of trees widened slightly, and after a while relaxed its fierce insistence on privacy and actually admitted walkers through a small gate. On a whim, Thea went in and followed a path that looked as if it led somewhere.
There was nobody about and the light was dim under the canopy of spreading branches. The path was clear, and within a few minutes had taken them to the southern edge of the woodland. Stepping out, through another small gateway, the vista suddenly became almost ludicrously open. Great sweeping fields lay before Thea’s gaze, with a new-looking roadway bordering them. Not far off was a busy highway, which she could not immediately identify. It seemed to be at the wrong angle to be the A436, but there was nothing else it could be. English roads did not run straight, after all, except where the Roman influence persisted. The sound of traffic came clear across the empty fields.
‘This way,’ she told the dog, turning to the right. That would take them back to the church along the smart new road that had perhaps until recently been a weed-strewn track inhospitable to ordinary cars. There were new houses, needing better access, and there was something hinting at industry or commerce further down to the left.
Another right turn at the corner of the woodland took them back the way they’d come, before diving into the woods. As they approached the church again, Thea glimpsed the top of a very distinctive head amongst the graves, and paused. There was an equally distinctive voice, and her natural curiosity was engaged. Who was he talking to?
‘I can’t do that!’ The words came clear through the quiet evening. ‘It would only lead to more trouble.’
Thea went closer. Cliff Savage was standing a few feet from the church door with his back to her, a phone held to his ear. The next words caught her attention more powerfully. ‘You’ll have to ask Imogen about that. She’s your mother, not mine. Why would I know?’
Another pause while he listened to the person at the other end. ‘Well, I can’t see you need worry about that. It’s been four days now … all right, three days … but you can tell they’re not getting anywhere. But I’m telling you – stop trying to involve me more than I am already. It’s never been my battle. I’m starting to think the price is far too high … Yes, I know. What’s done is done, and it makes me sick … All right … I suppose so, but the way I feel now I could well be out of here next month and won’t be coming back. It isn’t worth it.’
Hepzie was still off the lead, and was all too likely to run and greet the man she might regard as a friend after a single encounter. This, Thea realised, would be a bad thing. There were some very alarming implications in what she had overheard and if he became aware that she was there things could get unpleasant. Better to dodge past unobserved, if that could be managed.
‘This way,’ she hissed at the dog, taking a few steps down the lane, hoping Savage would be too engrossed to notice. But was this the most sensible way to go? The ideal would be to hurry down to the village street and back to Positano, leaving the man in ignorance of her eavesdropping. But she was fatally reluctant to miss any further revelations in the phone conversation – which had not yet finished. Hepzie was looking puzzled, standing a little way further along the lane, close to the gate into the churchyard. Savage still had his back to them, making it reasonably safe to simply jog past and off before he saw them. But still she lingered. If she squatted down, she might safely wait another minute, in the hope of overhearing more incriminating words.
But then a squirrel jumped down from one of the big beech trees, flicked its tail flirtatiously at the spaniel and Hepzie gave loud and joyous chase. The man turned round, and instantly fixed his gaze on Thea, who could not conceal a guilty expression. Neither could Cliff Savage, who took his phone from his ear and looked at it as if trying to pretend he had not known it was in his hand. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘It’s you.’ Anger, anxiety, defiance all crossed his face.
‘Can’t stop,’ breathed Thea, and made a show of running after the dog, which had vanished into the forbidden woods. ‘Hepzie! Come here!’ she called as she ran. If the man came after her, she would keep running and assume her faithful pet would follow. Or so she insisted to herself. But what if Hepzie didn’t follow? And how would she get into Umberto’s house, once Thea had closed the gate – which had no space through which anything larger than a mouse could pass? And Thea would have to close the gate because she was afraid the Savage man would chase her down and do whatever was necessary to stop her reporting what she had heard. All these worries were confirmed by a loud shout behind her. ‘Hey! Come back!’ It sounded horribly close.
Then things were further complicated by a sudden howl of pain that could only have come from the dog. Thea veered sharply to the right and was over the fence and into the shadowy wood before anything else entered her conscious mind. ‘Where are you?’ she shouted, before listening for a response. A whimper came from a point at the far edge of the small patch of trees. Hardly a forest, Thea reminded herself. The whole thing was probably less than fifty yards across. She found the dog thanks to the patch of white on her back. She was sitting on a slight mound, holding up one foot like a cartoon animal. Trodden on a thorn was the clear unspoken message. ‘Come here,’ ordered Thea. ‘You idiot. We can’t stop here.’
There was no sign or sound of the man. Was he simply waiting for her to go back the way she’d come? Or perhaps sneaking quietly after her, wary of alerting any listening residents – of which there were all too few. Or could it all be over already, with the man giving up and scurrying back to his rented house in the hope she had not heard enough to raise any suspicion? He would try to recall his exact words, and guess what she might make of them. He might consult the person at the other end and take advice. In any event, surely he was most unlikely to try and murder her, even if he was in close touch with Gabriella Milner’s killer. That crime had been meticulously planned in advance and was increasingly unlikely to be solved. It would be a very unwise move to whack Umberto’s house-sitter on the head without due preparation. Apart from anything else, what would he do with her dog? Nothing felt safe or sensible. There was little prospect of a helpful passer-by and no way of knowing what Savage intended.
Meanwhile, the animal was already having second thoughts about the extent of her injury. Thea fingered the dangling paw and found nothing wrong with it. This had happened before – Hepzie was a first-class wimp. ‘Come on,’ Thea whispered, and picked her up. ‘We’re going a different way.’
This felt like a clever strategy until she reached a much higher and stouter fence on the further edge of the wood, with a very well-kept garden on the other side. It was intended to keep deer, people and dogs out. There was barbed wire along the top. Thwarted, Thea followed it for a few yards, the dog under her arm, and came to a high wooden gate with a padlock keeping it closed. It had bars like a field gate. ‘I’m climbing over,’ she murmured. ‘Brace yourself.’
It was awkward but not especially difficult to get halfway up, hoist the dog over the top bar and lower her down the other side, before quickly following. The gate was barely three feet wide, and Thea’s foot caught on the top, so she landed in an ungainly heap that caused some concern for her left wrist. ‘At least it wasn’t my ankle,’ she breathed, and headed across the manicured lawn, letting the miraculously healed spaniel follow at her heels.
It was still light, but past most children’s bedtime. She recognised the spectacular tree house that she had seen from the lane, but assumed there would be nobody in it. The chances were there was nobody in residence in the main house either. The more pressing issue was whether or not Cliff Savage had worked out where she was. He could very easily be lying in wait for her out in the road. But then she remembered that this property also had a gate, with a keypad and intercom. A smooth metal gate that would be tricky to climb. She was effectively locked in.
At that point a light went on in an upstairs room of the house and she took a deep breath and changed direction.