Secrets in the Cotswolds

Rebecca Tope

Contents (32)

Secrets in the Cotswolds

REBECCA TOPE

This one’s for Esther and Leonie

Title Page
Dedication
Map
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By Rebecca Tope
Copyright

Author’s Note

As with all the titles in this series, the setting here is a real village. Liberties have, however, been taken with the barn and the business park, and individual private houses have been invented.

Chapter One

‘I thought you said you were going to Bibury,’ said Drew, shaking his head in confusion. ‘What’s this about Barnsley? Isn’t that in Yorkshire?’

‘Yes, but there’s a little village in Gloucestershire of the same name, and that’s where I’ll be staying. It’s near Bibury. All very upmarket over there.’

‘As opposed to the poverty-stricken hovels we live amongst down here in Broad Campden, you mean?’

Thea laughed briefly. She had been trying to reconcile her husband to her forthcoming absence for a whole week of the summer, and still he seemed to think it wouldn’t really happen. She was leaving him in charge of his two children and his alternative funeral business, with the assistance of his colleague, Andrew. The school holiday was almost halfway through, during which Thea had conscientiously entertained Stephanie and Tim day after day. ‘Why can’t we go to the seaside for a bit, as a family?’ Drew had asked three days into the holiday. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’10

Thea had shaken her head impatiently, without really hearing the tone behind the words. ‘We can, if you organise it,’ she said. ‘I can’t do that for you, can I? You’ll have to clear the diary, let the nursing homes know – and all sorts of other things.’ Thinking back on it later, her words sounded cold in her own ears, but they were nonetheless true. People did not die to a schedule, and the small-scale operation in Broad Campden had no facilities for embalming or long-term storage of more than two bodies. To close down even for a week would risk disappointing people who were relying on having one of Drew’s burials. Thea had gone on to say, ‘I think it’s a bit late now. Everything will be booked up already.’