Free Fear in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope Page B

photographing children. Nicky’s long eyelashes and round cheeks made him a natural subject for the cameraman – but Tony had chosen instead to focus on the longer face and smaller eyes of the older boy. Although Nicky had not been entirely ignored; the pictures of him verged on the saccharine almost to the point of parody. There was some sort of message here, she felt – one thatperhaps she would rather not probe too deeply.
    ‘Wow!’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re brilliant. He seems to have a lot of talent.’
    She realised that she had not taken a great deal of notice of the photographer in the snowy fields, except to register that he was in his thirties with wavy brown hair and narrow shoulders. Simon was superficially similar, she supposed, and a few years older.
    ‘We think so,’ smiled Simon. ‘But he has difficulty making a living at it. Hence the police work. They pay rather well.’
    ‘Because he has to be on constant call,’ nodded Thea.
    ‘Right. That’s the bit he hadn’t really bargained for. When the mobile went off yesterday, he says he was only half dressed, and in the middle of doing something tricky on the computer. But at least he only had a mile or two to go.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Yes…he lives just the other side of the A40, at Turkdean.’
    ‘Oh, I know Turkdean,’ said Thea, remembering a brief visit there a year or so before. ‘Well, he probably got there ahead of the others. They came out from Cirencester. What a waste of time it was for all of them, though. I felt really bad about it.’ The impossible mystery of the vanished body washed over her again,leaving her paralysed for a moment. ‘And very confused,’ she added.
    ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Simon, his attention on his older son, who was sitting on an old armchair, cuddled up with Hepzibah, as if the dog had been his for years. ‘At least, I don’t suppose it was. Tony said there was absolutely nothing there.’ He frowned as if the puzzle were too hard for him, as well.
    ‘I really did see a body,’ she said defensively.
    ‘I believe you. It’s too bizarre to be a complete invention. Even Tony believed you, more or less.’
    ‘It’s not true that there was absolutely nothing, either. There were marks in the snow.’
    ‘Mmm. That was all he had to take pictures of. He was rather looking forward to his first corpse, you see, in a professional way. There’s a whole procedure laid down for getting the picture as accurate and helpful as possible.’
    ‘Oh dear. Well, the body might yet turn up, I suppose, and then he’ll be needed again.’
    ‘You’re still sure he was dead, then?’
    The relief of finally being able to talk about it was enervating. She looked for somewhere to sit down for a moment. ‘I certainly don’t see how he could have recovered enough to just walk away,’ she said from the small sofa she’d sunk into.
    ‘Have you ever seen a body before?’
    ‘Oh, yes. And I’m perfectly certain that the man I saw yesterday was just as dead as the others.’
    This, on a raised note, attracted the attention of Benjamin, who turned round and stared at her with very much the same expression as when she had first met him. A look that said he had a distinct impression that she was mad.
    ‘Sorry,’ she muttered to Simon. ‘He wasn’t meant to hear that.’
    ‘Lunch!’ Simon clapped his hands in a parody of a children’s television presenter. ‘Come on, everybody, into the kitchen.’ In a low mutter to Thea, he added, ‘That’ll distract him, you see.’
    Benjamin wriggled slowly off the chair, sighing deeply. Not a happy child, Thea diagnosed. Must be missing his mother, she supposed.
    Over lunch she asked Simon about his hotel job. ‘Assistant manager,’ he nodded. ‘I get a lot of the unsocial hours. It’s relentless. We do a lot of conferences – something I’m not at all sure is worth all the hassle. The rooms are all full, but it’s at a reduced tariff, and the catering’s a