‘Right,’ said Thea, waiting for the next question.
‘And now she wants you to house-sit for her again,’ said Drew with certainty. ‘I can hear it in your voice. And you’ve waited until now to mention it.’
Everybody held their breath. Stephanie silently repeated to herself, It’s all right, it doesn’t matter, it’s not a big disaster. Because why did it feel as if it was very bad news?
‘It’s not definite,’ said Thea. ‘But she’s got to go and have an operation at some point. Her back’s got something wrong with it. And she took some of her animals with her, so they’ll need looking after.’
‘Is she the one with the rabbits?’ Timmy asked. ‘When Mrs Gladwin helped you feed the baby ones?’
It was a familiar story, one of the less grisly ones in Thea’s repertoire. Even so a rabbit had died by violence. ‘That’s the one,’ she said. ‘Fancy you remembering.’
‘I’ve never heard of Northleach,’ said Jessica.
‘It’s an old wool town. Made a fortune out of sheep. Enclosures, peasants’ revolts – all that stuff. Absolutely steeped in history, in fact.’ Thea spoke with relish.
Drew sighed, and then smiled ruefully. ‘So now you’ve broached the subject, I suppose I’m meant to get used to the idea for a bit, and then when it happens, not raise any objections?’
‘Something like that,’ said Thea.
Chapter Eighteen
Everything was happening at once at the Old Stables. Thea phoned to announce that she was walking over; the police showed up in force with a new SOCO team; and Beverley came home.
Ant had found himself yearning increasingly for the return of his mother. Without her Digby seemed like a different man, unpredictable and unsettling. Random new suspicions kept occurring to him. Was there another person involved somewhere? That didn’t strike him as at all probable. Living in a group of three nearly always meant that one person was at a distance from the other two, whose relationship was the dominant one. But in the case of the Frowses, it was not apparent who this third person was. If forced to say, he would suggest that he and his mother formed the central bond, with Digby further away from either of them. His father had taken outside work when the fruit farm was dismantled, often being out for ten hours or more in the summer. His expertise with trees came in useful, as well as a skill at building drystone walls and erecting fences. But the work had dwindled over the years, and now much of the equipment required for these tasks lay unused around the front garden of their house, along with his car-boot sale stock and other junk. When Aldebaran died, Digby had stayed upstairs for two days demanding to be left alone. When Beverley ranted about the Blackwoods, he would nod and say something sarcastic or mocking about them, but never suggested any action. His modest computer skills enabled them to circumvent the keypad on the gate, which Ant found deliciously enjoyable, while Beverley was even more ecstatic. Digby had refused to explain exactly how it was done, and from that point on, began to experiment with other technologies on the reconditioned laptop that Ant had got for him. ‘I’m a silver surfer now,’ he would say.
He would announce numerous arcane discoveries he had made thanks to Google – but he never ventured into the shark-infested waters of Facebook or Twitter.
‘I just wish she’d come home,’ Ant said, almost involuntarily. ‘This has gone on long enough.’
And then she did, five minutes before Thea and Stephanie Slocombe came through the gate, and yet another police car followed them up the driveway.
In the event, all five of the Slocombes had set out for the walk along Monarch’s Way. ‘Surely we can’t all descend on the Frowses?’ Jessica objected. ‘You didn’t say that when you phoned them.’
‘I thought maybe just me and Stephanie would go the whole way. The rest of you could circle back through Chipping Campden, if you’ve got the energy,’ said Thea.
‘How far is it?’
‘Probably three miles. No more than that, unless you get lost.’
‘That’s a lot for Timmy.’
‘He’s nine, not three. He could walk twice that and barely notice.’
Stephanie was proud to have been selected for the main purpose of the walk, even though it was fairly obvious all along that it would be her. She knew Ant and Percy better than anyone, after meeting up with them on several strolls along the footpaths. The young man and his dog would be out in all weathers, at most times of day, simply walking for the sake of it, as far as she could tell. ‘The dog likes a good run,’ was the answer she got when she made a comment to this effect. ‘And he likes to meet other dogs, like your Hepzie.’
‘I’m desperate to see if Beverley’s back,’ said Thea, trying to hurry things along. ‘And find out what the police have been saying.’
Jessica made a sort of throat-clearing noise, before saying, ‘It is a murder investigation, remember. It might get a bit nasty.’
Stephanie knew that this was a coded way of saying that Jessica didn’t think a child should be exposed to such situations. She smiled up at her stepsister. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen lots of dead people, you know. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me.’
Thea took her hand and gave it a funny little shake. ‘That’s my girl,’ she said. ‘Though this time’s rather different from anything you’ve come across before.’
Jessica pulled a funny face. ‘I thought I was your girl,’ she said, in a silly voice.
‘You don’t really want to come. You’re having a holiday from police stuff,’ said Thea. ‘And besides, it’s completely outside your patch.’
Jessica gave a little laugh. ‘Nobody says “patch” any more. You’re hopelessly out of date.’
‘They do on the telly,’ Thea argued. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It comes to us
