A Cotswold Christmas Mystery

back, it’ll be non-stop here. That leaves about three hours to see what’s going on. You don’t begrudge me that, do you?’
The stepsisters both looked at her. Stephanie waited for a decision that was completely out of her hands. Thea was small and dark and disgracefully pretty for her age, an unlikely amateur detective, and just as unlikely a stepmother, probably. Then she looked at Jessica – larger and fairer and strangely adult, as if she were the older of the two. ‘What are you looking at?’ said Thea. ‘You seem very judgemental all of a sudden.’
‘Sorry,’ said Stephanie, not feeling at all repentant.
A short silence ensued, in which all three adjusted their expectations for the afternoon and wondered about the implications.
‘So are we going?’ nagged Stephanie. ‘Or what?’
‘Surely we ought to go by car instead of walking?’ said Jessica. ‘How far away is it?’
‘Only about a mile. It’ll take half an hour at most, along the footpath. Walking’s better, really – and nicer for Hepzie. It’s easier on foot, as well – we don’t know whether they’d let us drive in through that gate.’
‘What gate?’
Thea briefly explained in greater detail than before about the Blackwoods’ efforts at security.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ Jessica worried. ‘It sounds as if we’ll be shot as trespassers if we’re not careful.’
‘And the fence on both sides of it is electrificated,’ said Stephanie.
‘Is that a word?’ wondered Thea.
‘It is now,’ said Jess.
They followed the Monarch’s Way footpath in a westerly direction, with fields sloping away to their left. ‘Lucky it’s not windy,’ said Jessica. ‘It must get quite raw up here at times.’
‘Great for flying a kite, though. Timmy’s got one and we bring it up here now and then.’
‘It never works very well, though,’ Stephanie complained. ‘We need to be in a field, really, and Dad says we’re supposed to stay on the path.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Jessica vaguely.
There were a few people scattered along the path. It was a Sunday and Christmas Eve and several of the second homes in the area were suddenly occupied by people escaping their urban environment for something quieter. ‘Nobody you know?’ asked Jessica.
Thea and Stephanie shook their heads. ‘Anybody local will be shopping or calling in on each other for sherry. These second-homers bring all their provisions with them, and probably a skivvy to get it all cooked for them. So they’re free to come out for a walk and pretend they know their way around.’
‘No sign that anybody’s heard about a dead man, either,’ said Jessica. ‘You’d think there’d be snoopers by now.’
‘That doesn’t seem to happen around here so much,’ said Thea.
Jessica watched a couple coming towards them. ‘These two look as if they’ve dressed for the occasion. All very tweedy and shiny new boots,’ she murmured.
Thea laughed.
‘It’s a funny business, when you think about it,’ Jessica went on. ‘They’ve got to be seriously rich if they can afford to keep two homes running. It can’t be good for the economy here, and it’s sure to inflate house prices. Selfish, basically.’
‘They think if they’ve got the money they can do what they like. That’s what Ant says,’ Stephanie contributed. ‘And Blackheart’s the worst of the lot. He’s got at least two other houses, with nobody living in them. Except housekeepers and people like that.’
‘It’s quite feudal, in fact,’ said Thea. ‘The rich have always done whatever they liked. Until the revolution comes and they get their heads chopped off.’ She paused, hearing herself. ‘Well, he’s got his comeuppance now, apparently.’
They soon emerged onto the small road that ran towards Chipping Campden and turned left. ‘Here we are,’ said Thea, calling her dog to heel. ‘We go along the road a little way and it’s just off to the right.’
There were two police cars parked on the driveway leading up to the main house, and they glimpsed movement and odd white shapes in the woodland away to their left. ‘Come on,’ said Thea. ‘They won’t bother us if we just keep going up this way.’
Jessica was looking all around her, partly out of curiosity and partly from nervousness at the sense of intruding where she shouldn’t. She noticed the wording on a handsome signboard planted beside a pair of wrought-iron gates a little way ahead. ‘“The Crossfield Estate”,’ she read. ‘Those gates aren’t electrificated, then?’
‘I expect they are, actually. But they’re a lot grander than the ones we have to use.’ She pointed ahead to where the driveway branched off in two directions. The lesser branch was barred by a plain field gate, with sturdy wire fences either side of it, preventing access via the grassland that lay all around. ‘This one leads to the Old Stables. We’ll have to press the buzzer.’
‘How long has all this been here?’
‘At least two years, I think. Since before we came here, anyway. I popped over for a snoop a year or so ago, when I first got to know Ant. He told me all about it and I wanted to see for myself.’
‘It’s horrible,’ said Jessica in disgust. ‘A travesty.’
‘It certainly is,’ her mother agreed.
There was a buzzer and an intercom on a post beside the gate, at the right height for a car driver to use it. Thea prepared to bend down to speak into the grille, but before she could do so, the gate whirred and creaked and very slowly began to open. They pushed through as soon as the gap was wide enough, but the gate went on opening. ‘Stupid thing,’ said Stephanie.
Ant was standing in the doorway of his house as they walked up the driveway towards it. He was wearing a shabby brown jacket and green boots. His large dog was at his side, but when he saw the visitors, he came bounding towards them. The garden belonging to the Old Stables amounted to little more than a stretch of unkempt lawn strewn with rusting equipment, and half a dozen apple trees that Digby had rescued from the fruit farm days. A little old caravan