Malice in the Cotswolds Read Online Free Page B

implication was that Blake regarded himself as in some sort of relationship with Yvonne, the exact nature of which was unclear. ‘It’s a pity you couldn’t have watched the house,’ she said tiredly, ‘instead of going off on holiday.’
    ‘I know,’ he said carelessly. ‘Terribly bad timing. Plus I don’t like cats very much.’
    I see, thought Thea suspiciously. So it’s possibly rather auspicious timing, after all . Something about this man struck her as slightly too good to be true, as if he was playing a part, when his real attention was somewhere quite different. Which it probably was, with his girlfriend in Palestine and his own bags needing to be packed. But she had been given reason to think he actually cared what happened to Hyacinth House, its owner and its temporary sitter. Not just because the gardens had become connected, but from something less definable and more to do with feelings. Besides, he was, at that moment, all she had.
    ‘I’ll be left on my own, then,’ she said, feeling a daft kinship with the despised Victor. ‘How long will you be gone?’
    ‘Only five days. Back next Thursday, all being well. It’s business actually, not a holiday. Can’t be ducked, or I’d have helped poor old Vonny out, of course.’
    ‘Well …’ she began helplessly. ‘Not much I can do, I suppose. The cats still have to be fed.’
    ‘True. And the homestead guarded. You’ll be fine,’ he assured her, with the sort of expression that suggested quite the opposite.
    She nodded and turned away. In her hand, the phone jingled and she read a message on the screen:
    Mum – I need to talk to you. Can you call me asap?
Jess.

Chapter Three
    Her daughter was a probationary police officer in Manchester; a bright confident girl who had coped bravely with the loss of her father when she was nineteen, scarcely breaking step on her career path. Thea had been less successful in adapting to unimagined widowhood, the house-sitting a desperate attempt at distraction a year after Carl’s fatal accident. It had worked well, on the whole.
    Jessica answered the phone within seconds. ‘What’s the matter?’ Thea demanded.
    The answer came without prevarication. ‘It’s Paul. He’s dumped me.’ The voice was thick with tears and Thea’s heart turned a painful somersault.
    ‘Oh, darling! When?’
    ‘Yesterday. He was so horrible about it. He tried to do it in a text and when I phoned him he said terrible  things to me. Some of them about you.’
    ‘But why ?’ It was a silly question, but words were proving difficult. This was a totally shocking turn of events. Last time she’d seen Jessica and Paul, she’d begun to worry that they might be planning permanent togetherness. Had the young detective been aware of her reservations, which she thought she had kept well hidden?
    ‘He says we’re both racist, and he never felt comfortable around you.’
    Likewise, thought Thea. But it had nothing to do with his race and everything to do with his arrogant insensitive personality. She had also begun to suspect the existence of a hidden streak of cruelty in her last encounter with him, which Jessica now appeared to be confirming.
    ‘But surely …’ Again words were hard to find. ‘You poor girl. You sound dreadfully upset.’
    ‘I’ve been crying all day. I had to call in sick. I can’t go to work like this.’
    ‘It’s the shock.’
    ‘It’s much more than that. I had no idea . He must have lied to me the whole time, pretending he felt the same as me about us. I feel like a victim, absolutely powerless to do anything about it.’
    Thea could readily understand that – the helplessness in the face of implacable forces working against you. The bruised and battered emotions that nothing could assuage. ‘Do you want to come here?’ she asked, witha sense of history repeating itself. Over the many house-sitting commissions she’d undertaken, her two sisters had used her as a refuge, one after the other.