Deception in the Cotswolds Read Free Page B

couldn’t bear another one, knowing it would die one day. Silly, really. Same with Mimm. She’s like her mother, though she won’t hear of it if I say so.’
    Thea recognised a feeling of mutual understanding that went beyond the brief verbal exchanges on this first encounter. Rightly or wrongly, she thought she understood this old man, his wishes and fears, priorities and prejudices. She could hear a lot of his thoughts between the words, and even thought she grasped some of the essence of his daughter as well.
    He sat quietly for a few minutes, mastering his emotions, then he gathered himself and got to his feet. ‘Thank you, my dear. I’ll be going now.’
    He straightened slowly, and turned for the door. A final thought detained him. ‘But you’re not right altogether, for all that,’ he said, without meeting her eye. ‘One thing’s sure – I will end up dead. And I need to get the funeral sorted out. Mimm has some plan for putting me and Janet together in the churchyard, but I’m not sure that’s what I want. She won’t let me talk about it, you see.’ He gave her a searching look. ‘Have you any suggestions as to how I might go about fixing that?’
    ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ she said. ‘I know the very man to help you.’ And she detained him on the threshold for another ten minutes while she explained all about her friend Drew Slocombe and his alternative burial ground.

Chapter Two
    She phoned Drew soon after Donny had left, and explained the situation. ‘I’ve no idea how much time he’s got, or what he can afford. I only just met him this afternoon. But I thought you could maybe send a leaflet or something, and he could contact you,’ she said carefully.
    ‘But … will he want to be brought down here, away from where he lives?’
    It had been over two months since she had heard his voice, but it was as if they’d been speaking every day. Dimly she noted that she had established an almost instant friendship with Drew, much as she had with Donny. It made her feel slightly complacent, the way she could simply take up the threads again, despite not having seen or spoken to Drew for so long. Preliminaries had been minimal – she could heareverything she needed to know in his easy response to her initial words.
    ‘What about the Broad Campden field? Is that going ahead?’
    He sighed loudly. ‘Extremely slowly. Your man would have to live the best part of another year at this rate to stand any chance of a grave there. But at least it’s still under discussion, and I’ve completed a large mountain of paperwork for the planning committee.’
    ‘Oh. Well, I should think he might manage that. He’s still walking, and feeding himself. I don’t know what his prognosis is. I don’t even know what the matter is, except it looks like Parkinson’s.’
    ‘Poor chap. And you’ve only just met him, did you say?’
    She gave a self-deprecating snort. ‘I know. Seems crazy, doesn’t it? But we just seemed to hit it off from the first moment. He had no intention of settling for small talk. Just plunged in with the serious stuff.’
    ‘He’s lucky.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Well, to find you. Nobody but you would have let him talk about his own grave after five minutes’ acquaintance.’
    ‘Rubbish. You would. And your Maggs person.’
    ‘That’s different. It’s our job.’
    ‘He wanted to talk about it. He asked if I could give him some help with his funeral, a minute before he left, and I told him what you did, in a fairlygeneral sort of way. So where do we go from here?’
    ‘As it happens, I’m coming up on Tuesday, to see the legal people. I might be able to drop in and talk it over with him. Where are you?’
    ‘Cranham. It’s on the western edge of the Cotswolds, down a maze of little roads. Have you got a map? But let me check with him first and call you back. It’ll be this time tomorrow, I expect. He comes every afternoon, so we could easily fix something up for