Free Shadows in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope Page A

Maureen. ‘Aren’t they beautiful.’
    ‘1865,’ read Fraser from a circular plaque on the nearest house. ‘It’s like a film set.’
    Thea agreed with him. Perfect little gardens lined the short stretch of private street. Roofs and drainpipes and brickwork were all in immaculate condition. Slowly she began to wonder at the pressures involved in living in Winchcombe. You certainly wouldn’t be allowed to let any weeds grow in your front garden.
    They were in the square, where Thea had seen the Plaisterers Arms the day before. ‘Is this where we’re lunching?’ she asked Fraser. ‘It looks okay.’
    ‘We thought we’d give it a try. There’s a garden, if they don’t allow dogs inside.’
    They went in, and the initial impression was of an unpretentious old hostelry, that would never dream of excluding dogs or offering polenta on the menu. They peered into the bar on the left, finding it empty of customers. Steps led down to a shadowy area boasting a large sign reading TOILETS . They turned back and went through the right-hand door, into a larger bar containing five people, all of them elderly, and a fat old corgi lying under a table. No blackboards offeredSpecials, or uniquely creative cocktails. A piano had pride of place, looking as if it had been there for the past century or so.
    ‘Very nice,’ approved Thea. ‘Haven’t you been here before?’ she asked Fraser.
    He shook his head. ‘I very seldom come to Winchcombe. Oliver bought the property as a second home, originally. He and I have had shockingly little to do with each other, all our lives. Of course, it was my doing – I was in Australia for most of the time.’
    ‘And he never offered Thistledown to the family, as a place to come for a holiday? I’d have thought it was perfect for a week in the country.’
    ‘We’re not that sort of family,’ said Fraser obscurely.
    They ordered a lunch that was emphatically not a Sunday roast and headed for the garden, passing a shelf of old books that struck Thea as an incongruous attempt to mimic similar displays in other pubs. It was entirely superfluous, given the effortlessly simple atmosphere of plain food and drink and somewhere to sit.
    The fact that they had yet to return to the burning topic of vicious murder loomed larger as they waited for their food. Nobody in the pub had seemed to be talking about it, or even aware that something had happened. Thea had encountered this very British restraint before, particularly in Blockley – another small town like Winchcombe. And yet there had been curious onlookers, who must have picked up the basic fact of a sudden death, at the very least. 
    ‘Is Oliver very involved with the local community?’ Thea asked Fraser. ‘Does he belong to a discussion group or bridge club or anything?’
    ‘I think he goes on guided walks now and then,’ was the vague reply. ‘He isn’t a very sociable chap, on the whole.’
    At least it was clear that they really were brothers, Thea thought. Same height, same small mouth and loosely attached legs. ‘Which one’s the elder of you?’ she wondered.
    ‘I’m older, but not by very much. But we were never very close. Went our separate ways and so forth.’
    ‘Literally,’ Thea remarked. ‘With you going to Australia. You don’t seem to have picked up much of the accent.’
    ‘I was in Perth. It’s all remarkably English there, even now. I guarded my vowels most assiduously, I can assure you.’
    The flash of wit gave rise to the first stirrings of liking for him. She looked at her mother in the hope that she could convey some hint of approval. But Maureen Johnstone was obviously not listening. She was picking at the strap of her shoulder bag, with a nervous tension that drew instant concern from her daughter. Had she missed something seriously awry, in her preoccupation with murder and misplaced daughters?
    ‘Mum?’ she said gently. ‘Are you okay?’
    ‘Oh yes, I’m perfectly all right. We’re lucky with