“Where did you enter?”
“I prepaid at Blenheim. It was part of the tour, I have the receipt somewhere just here for…”
“If you don’t have the proper paperwork then you can’t—we have to protect the Cotswolds for the residents, for paying visitors, the purpose of the…”
“Here.” He handed over the stolen paperwork, smiled and waited.
“Says you’re with a family,” the man muttered at last, cautious.
“Yes; they’re still in town, enjoying the fair.”
“Where are you going?”
“We parked the car back on the hill. I’m going to pick it up; my wife and son don’t want to walk it’s…”
He stumbled on the words, picked himself back up, smiled.
The man returned his papers. “Have a good trip, sir. The Cotswolds are the perfect place to enjoy the English countryside without anxiety or bother!”
Theo nodded, and kept on walking.
After a while it started to snow.
He looked down on a land turning from green to white, and it was beautiful. It was one of the most beautiful things he thought he had ever seen, and as he stared across the slow slopes he said out loud, “So Lucy, you may not like walking holidays but surely even you can appreciate…”
And stopped himself.
Put his hands in his pockets, lest they grow cold in the empty, biting air.
Kept on walking.
“Hi, Edward Witt again. Yes, the Cumali case—I was wondering yes I was thinking could I maybe talk to her, it’s just
no.
no I understand of course.
Of course.
You have to…
Well thank you. Sorry to have bothered you I’ll just…”
Theo sits a while, and stares at nothing, and only moves when the cold becomes unbearable. In the valleys below, the bells are singing a joyful song, and somewhere there is the laughter of children, behind the walls.
Theo reached Danesmoor on the early afternoon of his second day of walking.
Paced around the great stone wall that cut it off from the rest of the land.
Paid £19.50 for the entrance fee, showed his Cotswold papers, hoped no one cross-checked, for by now surely the theft would have been reported.
An old woman in a heavy lambswool coat sat behind the counter in the gatekeeper’s lodge, and did not cross-check his papers.
“There’s tearooms by the stable,” she barked, handing him his receipt. “We close at 4 p.m.”
Theo thanked her, walked up the neat gravel path, framed by yew trees carved into clownish spheres, towards the front door.
A beautiful house.
Three storeys of light brown stone, pitched grey roof, smaller windows on the top floor, servants’ quarters. A series of stone arches and pillars had been raised at the end of the garden, mimicking something Roman. Beyond, forest began to intrude into the tended knee-high yew mazes and cherub-capped fountains.
Approaching the house down a gravel path, he found white doors standing half-open despite the cold, a blast of heat from radiators tucked away behind carved wooden facings striking his face as he went inside. A wooden sign in the shape of a pointing hand directed VISITORS towards a staircase, and a plinth invited him to remember that Danesmoor was a working family house, and guests were welcome only to appreciate a fascinating historical and cultural heritage.
Black and white marble floors, locked together in geometric squares and triangles to create a map of a madman’s chessboard. Plaster ceilings, adorned with horsehair carvings of Greek gods and heroes: Hercules fighting a lion, Persephone reaching out towards fading summer as Hades dragged her down into perpetual night, Venus and Mars locked in an embrace, the Goddess of Love glancing a little away from her husband’s shoulder as if catching sight of some other entanglement more interesting than the limbs of the God of War.
Paintings. Lords, ladies, their spaniels and babies, the dynasties that had gone before. A statue of a woman, veiled, weeping; a marble carving of a boy throwing a javelin, muscles tight and buttocks bare, head turned to one side as if, at the moment of truth, he had heard a voice cry from the crowd, but it was too late now to stop the spear’s flight.
A roped-off route for guests to walk, little stands explaining the significance of this room or that flowerpot, the history of a fireplace, the craftsmanship of a chair. Theo wandered, and was the only wanderer, while outside the snow grew a little thicker, until he came at last to a sign that said NO ENTRY and, trying the door handle, found it unlocked.
The private family rooms of Danesmoor had all the painted grandeur of the public areas. Portraits still hung on the walls, but on the mantelpieces above the pink-veined fireplaces were photos of younger men and women, drunk, tongues waggling at the camera or dressed up in heroic swatches of leather and paint for a stag do. On the sofas, tattier, softer than the sculpted furniture in the rest of the house, out-of-date newspapers, magazines ringed with coffee stains, the sound of a TV somewhere below playing a reality show in which the contestants had to eat bugs, or a snake’s heart, or their own vomit or some such, to win prizes and the adoration of the texting crowd.
TVs in most rooms, playing at empty air. Once Theo heard someone move, and ducked through a white wooden door disguised as another piece of panelling which turned out to hide a toilet, complete with a bottle of bleach on top of the cistern and a waste basket containing a collection of old tampons wrapped in tissue.
Footsteps passed by, and he waited, and when they were gone, he let himself out and continued wandering.
A room
potted plant a portrait above a long table he
knelt down by the plant and looked up and saw in that moment the image he had seen in a film on a USB stick, where once Simon Fardell and Philip Arnslade had stood and said, “The problem with the excess is that…”
Another room.
Crystal glasses, the port decanter had been refilled, thick purple liquid behind shimmering glass. A white cat with a black spot at the top of its tail, curious, brushed against his ankles. He stroked its head, rubbed under its chin, tickled its belly, until, too excited by this play, it flicked out joyfully at his wrist and nearly scratched him, at which point he pulled back, and it grew bored and slunk away, a king disappointed by a courtier.
A flight of stairs. A bin filled with blue latex gloves, a golden drinking chalice on a table next to a half-drunk bottle of Diet Pepsi. Light fading through the windows, the end of the day; a man ringing the bell in the courtyard outside to summon the tourists away.
A noise from the corridor. He ducked through a closed door because it was there, shut it quietly, pressed his ear against the wood, listened, waited, heard footsteps pass, let out a breath.
Looked around the room.
A single bed, long dressing table, a mirror, a picture of a cat, ginger, hackles raised, painted in oils, hissing from the wall. A TV, the volume turned down, showing a programme about organising garden parties. On the dressing table—pills. Over two dozen bottles, orange plastic, containing fat ones thin ones square ones round ones, big red horse-pills and small yellow stubs that vanished under the tongue, and boxes in which these pills could be laid out in order—Monday morning, lunch, dinner, bed; Tuesday morning lunch dinner bed Wednesday morning lunch
Someone was halfway through filling a box, and had been called away by something else. Theo picked up a pill between thumb and forefinger, rolled it around, put it down, turned to go.
Saw the door, big black key in the lock, the sound of a radio playing static-cracked Russian classical music from the other side, something triumphant and brassy.
Hesitated.
Went to the door.