Shadows in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope

Her first thought was that he was a journalist, already onto the fact of a murder and cunningly tracking down the main witness. ‘I’ll remember that.’ 
    ‘I know you,’ he said, not to her, but to Fraser. ‘You were here a month or so ago, staying at Thistledown. You drive a big Renault. You had a dog with you.’
    ‘Oh?’ Fraser showed no inclination to respond any further.
    ‘And I think my wife met you yesterday, in the park,’ he went on, to Thea. ‘She was the one with the young retriever.’
    It felt like several months ago to Thea. She forced herself to remember. ‘How do you know that was me?’
    ‘Spaniel, pretty, friendly. Actually, it’s the spaniel, mainly.’ Hepzie took no notice of him from her spot under the table. Thea tried to assess the credibility of his claim. Had his wife described such a brief encounter in sufficiently fine detail for him to recognise her and her dog from it? There had been a dozen or more people strolling in Sudeley Park, many of them with dogs.
    She cocked her head sceptically. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.
    He laughed. ‘How wise you are, Thea Osborne.’ He got up and moved to sit next to her on the wooden bench. ‘I assure you it’s true. But there’s more to it than that, of course. Your reputation precedes you, you know.’
    She had been made aware in Cranham, a few months previously, that she had a certain fame throughout the Cotswolds. She had featured in newspaper reports and had made many acquaintances in a sparsely populatedarea where people were connected by extended family ties in a fashion that had been common a century or so ago.
    ‘Oh?’ she said, feeling a chilly hand stirring her insides.
    ‘Temple Guiting,’ he said shortly. ‘We never met, but I know all about what happened while you were there.’
    Temple Guiting had been over a year ago, but it was barely five miles from Winchcombe. Blockley and Snowshill were similarly within walking distance – if you could walk ten or fifteen miles. People did. The entire area was crisscrossed with well-used footpaths. It was not so much a revival of Victorian times as of medieval practices. News would travel from one settlement to another, exchanged in the taverns and marketplaces. As in Cranham, she found it a sinister notion. She did not want to be discussed and observed behind her back. It felt threatening, like being followed from in front, people anticipating her next move and lying in wait for her.
    ‘Who
is
this, Thea?’ came her mother’s voice, endearingly protective. Like Hepzie should have been. She nudged the dog with a foot, most unfairly.
    ‘My name is Reuben Hardy and my wife is Jenny. We’re quite harmless, I promise you. But we are good friends of people in Temple Guiting, as I say, and we actually saw Thea in the shop there, last year, just before all the trouble came to a head. You’re not easy to forget, you know.’ 
    It was impossible to ascertain whether or not the man knew there had been a murder close by, only hours earlier. If he did know, he was making an excellent job of concealing the fact – and why would anybody do that? Perhaps if he had come directly to the pub from a house on the other side of town, he could have missed all the activity down in Vineyard Street.
    She had forgotten that he had claimed to know Fraser as well. The old man reminded her.
    ‘You say you saw me, too?’ Fraser rumbled. ‘Strikes me you do a lot of it, watching people instead of minding your own business.’
    Right!
Thea silently applauded.
    Reuben Hardy merely smiled. ‘I have a good memory for faces, that’s all.’
    ‘And names,’ Thea accused.
    ‘True. And I have good ears, as well. I gather the police are wanting to speak to Mr Oliver Meadows. Well, we all know where he is, don’t we? I imagine they’ll have to await their turn.’
    ‘Please be quiet,’ said Fraser, with heavy pomposity. ‘My brother’s whereabouts are of no concern to you or anybody else.’