Free Trouble in the Cotswolds (The Cotswold Mysteries) by Rebecca Tope Page B

some years before. ‘Do we?’ she said, appalled to find herself close to tears.
    ‘Of course. Aren’t I helping you now?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ said Thea, too poorly to prevaricate.
    ‘Listen – I’ll make some tea. I’ll take that dog out into the garden for you. I’ll make one or two phone calls, if you want me to. I’m sure there must be
someone
you can find. Otherwise, the people will have to come back. Gloria and what’s-his-name. Where’ve they gone, anyway?’
    ‘Bermuda,’ said Thea, with a flicker of satisfaction. ‘They can’t come back. That’s ridiculous.’
    ‘So … ?’
    Thea avoided Cheryl’s eye and said nothing. In an odd way it no longer felt like her problem. She was prepared to struggle on by herself – it was other people who kept saying she couldn’t. After a pause, the woman went into the kitchen and started clattering much more officiously than necessary. Thea let her go, and let her head flop back on the cushions. Cheryl was mid fifties or so, and bossy. Further than that, Thea had not observed, unusually for her. Questions began to form dimly, many of them childishly dreamlike and irrelevant. Why did she possess a Great Dane? Why had she not been at work in the middle of a Friday, instead of walking the dog, when Thea first met her? How well did she know the people of Stanton? Somewhere, behind everything that had happened, there simmered an awareness of the usurper next door who had to be interesting and worth getting to know. Even through her embarrassment at what she’d done to her car, and the headache and theimpatient Kevin, the snippets about the girlfriend of the dead man had taken root in her mind. They waited for her attention. And when she had accorded it, she would want to tell somebody the story.
    Not just any old somebody, of course. There was only one person who would properly appreciate the intriguing implications of a mistress taking over the funeral of a man who already had a perfectly viable wife.
    When Cheryl came back with two mugs of tea and some fruitcake, Thea stared at her for a moment, wondering whether she would dare ask her to phone him on her behalf. What would she say? What would
he
say? What possible good could come of it? ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘So you don’t know the girlfriend, then?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Next door. Where they had the funeral party.’ She wasn’t sure how much of this she had already said – or had she just silently thought it? Memory of recent events felt blurred and unreliable.
    ‘Oh. You were saying something about that when you fainted.’
    ‘I didn’t faint.’ It seemed important to win that point.
    ‘I know who she is, but we’ve never had any real contact. I think I should maybe go and talk to her – tell her you’re here and not too good. What did you say about Douglas Callendar? Something I didn’t understand.’
    ‘After his funeral,’ Thea said, with an effort. ‘Theycame back here for the wake. Except, it’s not technically the wake, you know. There isn’t a proper word for what people do these days. The wake is meant to be
before
the burial. It’s a sort of vigil over the body. It’s nothing to do with all that noisy stuff that happens afterwards.’
    Cheryl made a sound that hinted at disapproval. Thea suspected she was rambling again, and lapsed into silence. They both drank their tea thirstily.
Must keep up the fluids,
Thea thought, with a sense of obeying an ancient edict. Cheryl finished first and slapped down the mug with an air of firm decision. ‘Right, then. I’ll leave Caspar here for a minute, and pop next door for a word. Won’t be long. You just lie there and rest.’
    Thea shook her head half-heartedly. ‘I don’t think we should bother her, though. She’ll be busy with … you know … all that stuff that you have to do when a person dies.’ Then she thought about it. ‘But she won’t, though, will she? She’s not the wife.’
    ‘You’ve got that right, anyway. But