Free A Cotswold Ordeal by Rebecca Tope Page B

What about the pony?’ She made a wry face. ‘Although I don’t have to worry about the cat any more.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘The poor thing was killed on the road yesterday morning. Not a very auspicious start.’ She grimaced again. ‘Even worse than I realised.’
    ‘You didn’t mention this to Sergeant Barnfield this morning, did you?’
    ‘Why should I?’
    He raised his eyebrows at her flash of defensiveness. ‘No reason. But you’ve told me now, and I’m making a note of it.’ He took out a small notebook, found the next available blank page and wrote something with a pencil kept attached to the book by a red cord. There was something old-fashioned and almost endearing about the neat efficiency of it all. He kept the book in his hand.
    She paused. ‘If he was hanging, why are we talking about murder? Why wasn’t it suicide?’
    Hollis smiled at this. ‘It wasn’t suicide because somebody else killed him,’ he said with annoying literalness.
    ‘Can you be sure? Isn’t it more likely that he had a friend with him and they were mucking about, and this poor boy slipped? Something like that? An accident.’
    ‘Why do you say “boy”?’
    The question caught her up short. ‘Oh! I’m not really sure.’ She reran the image of him hanging in space. ‘Something about the knobbly wrists, maybe. A look of having grown too fast. Narrow shoulders. I don’t really know. Why – how old was he?’
    ‘We think around twenty.’
    ‘There you are then.’ She was more and more impatient. ‘You don’t have a name for him then?’
    The Inspector shook his head. ‘Early days,’ he said.
    ‘I don’t suppose you’ll tell me why you think it was murder. Was it something to do with him being so pale? I thought people went purple when they were hanged. Or black.’
    ‘A common misconception. Do you want details?’
    Thea experienced conflicting emotions. One of them was a sharp awareness of her suffering sister, who very likely did not need to hear about the pathology of strangulation.
    ‘Maybe not just at the moment.’ She smiled athim, and something twisted or expanded or leaped within her when he smiled back. She swallowed with difficulty. ‘My sister’s just got here, and it seems she’s going through some kind of domestic crisis.’ She lifted her eyebrows at Jocelyn, trying to convey sensitivity and sisterhood. ‘I feel as if I need to be in several places at once.’
    ‘Are you staying here?’ he asked Jocelyn.
    She spread her hands helplessly. ‘I thought so, ten minutes ago,’ she muttered. ‘Though I hadn’t bargained for murderers in the outbuildings. I’ll have to have a think about it.’
    ‘I came here intending to order you to go home,’ he said to Thea. ‘But now—’
    ‘Now I’ve got a minder you can stop worrying. And what makes you think you’ve got the right to order me to do anything?’
    He cocked his head, his eyes on hers. ‘I’m a policeman,’ he said, with a cautious smile. ‘And I do need to ask you some more questions. To start with, can you tell me exactly who you’ve met since arriving here on Saturday. Have there been any visitors?’
    Thea stifled a snort, remembering the dreadful Valerie Innes of that afternoon. ‘It’s been like Piccadilly Circus,’ she joked, before catching his expression and quickly sobering. ‘Sorry. Well, let me see.’ It wasn’t easy to recapture all the events since Saturday. Hollis waited patiently while she gathered her thoughts, but Jocelyn fidgeted. Beforeresponding to the man’s questions, Thea turned to her sister. ‘Why don’t you take your bag upstairs and get settled? You’ve got the room with the picture of the horse on the wall.’
    Jocelyn got heavily to her feet. ‘I’m staying then, am I? Is that decided?’
    ‘Yes.’ Thea was emphatic.
    ‘Right, then.’ And Jocelyn left the room.
    ‘A man came to the door yesterday afternoon,’ Thea began, adding as much detail as she could recall, at Hollis’s