Free A Grave in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope Page A

didn’t exist.’ It felt wonderful, like drinking whisky on an empty stomach. The detective scribbled busily on a notepad. ‘You can check the last part, because he used the police to get me back here. I mean…a police officer came to my house this morning and told me I needed to come and speak to Mr Maynard face-to-face.’
    ‘That must have been annoying,’ he said, with a straight look.
    ‘Very,’ I said. ‘But not to the point of committing murder. I expect I should add that I absolutely did not kill him.’
    ‘You’ll appreciate that I can’t comment on that, sir.’ I wondered, with a belated pang of anxiety, just how much of police work these days was performed by computers. Would there be a box to tick that said Suspect seems genuinely innocent , even if there were glaringly incriminating means, motive and opportunity? They’d have the evidence of my footprints beside the body, my stupid absence to make needless phone calls, my rage against the deceased. A computer might think that was ample proof of my guilt. I expected to be arrested there and then.
    But the detective inspector remained calm. ‘Could I take your address and other details, sir? I’m sure you’ll understand that we will need to speak to you again, given the circumstances.’
    It was a relief not to be driven away in handcuffs, so I rattled off my address and phone numbers with alacrity. ‘I can go home, then, can I?’ I asked.
    He frowned at the page in his notebook. ‘Might be best if you stick around here for a day or so, just to be on the safe side. We’ll need a full interview with you, later today. Please do not change your shoes or any other clothes.’
    ‘I couldn’t if I wanted to,’ I said. ‘I haven’t brought anything with me.’
    ‘Well, we’ll make it as soon as possible. We’ll be setting up an incident room somewhere close by, to make it easier for the local people. Do you know where Mr Maynard lived?’
    ‘No idea, but I suppose it’s around here somewhere. He didn’t appear to have a car when we met at the grave, so it’s probably within walking distance.’
    ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, with one eyebrow lifting at the way I was practically doing his job for him. I was being a trifle too cooperative, I feared. Falling over myself to assist the enquiries might lead to an interpretation of guilt as much as strenuous obstruction would have done. I quailed inwardly at the impossibility of my situation. Whatever I did would be open to suspicious interpretations, if there was already a presumption that I was guilty.
    ‘Those people don’t know him, then?’ I asked, indicating Mr and Mrs David and the women in the car. They’d been kept hanging about for well over an hour by that time.
    DI Basildon merely shook his head and pursed his lips, to indicate that I had no business asking such questions.
    I reviewed what he had said to me. A day or so was alarmingly vague. Where was I going to stay? ‘Until when do I have to stay here, exactly?’ I pressed him. ‘If you interview me today, can I go home after that?’
    ‘Impossible to say,’ he smiled. ‘Depends what we find here, for a start. Early days,’ he added inscrutably and very annoyingly. ‘“Assume the worst,” is my advice.’
    I looked to Thea, as the most reassuring face I could find. She didn’t fail me. ‘You could stay in Mrs Simmonds’ house with me, I suppose,’ she said. ‘There are three bedrooms, all ready to use.’
    ‘Now, there’s an offer,’ said the policeman, every bit as crassly as Detective Paul would have done if he’d heard Thea’s words. Already the damage was done.
    I shook my head regretfully. ‘I can’t do that,’ I said, thinking of how Karen would react if she heard I’d been alone in a house with a woman as lovely as Thea Osborne, for a whole night. People assumed the worst, just as this DI bloke advised them to. And their thoughts changed the reality; they jumped into my own head, whether I liked it