Who but the most unfeeling monster could set all that aside while she sat in a field with a sketchbook?

So she fingered her phone and asked herself where she should begin. Barkley, probably – in the hope of averting the request for Constable Osborne to be seconded to Gloucestershire. Then who? It was all too difficult, so she put the phone away again. Barkley was quite capable of dealing with it herself, and would probably tell Thea as much.

Which left her feeling restless and ruffled and thwarted. She could do no good by phoning anybody, especially as most of them seemed to be annoyed with her. So it seemed she was going back to Barnsley, without having made any sketches or spoken to anybody in Bibury. She got up with a sigh, wondering how she was going to fill the remains of the day.

At the car were two people, staring at it with profound 235disapproval. ‘Oh – sorry,’ she said, approaching them from the field. ‘Is it in your way?’

‘This is private property,’ said a man holding a clipboard.

‘Is it? It looks like an ordinary lay-by to me.’

Wordlessly he pointed to a sign set into the hedge and barely visible for overgrown vegetation. ‘No Parking’ it said.

‘Ah.’

The second person was female, about Thea’s age, holding a mobile phone and looking impatient. ‘It’s easily missed,’ she said. ‘Now – can we get on?’

Thea made no move to get into her car. Instead she eyed the couple inquisitively, trying to work out what they were doing. The woman noticed her expression and smiled. ‘He’s an estate agent and he’s showing me this house.’ She pointed over the little road to a building behind another overgrown hedge. ‘Except we haven’t started yet. I was checking whether or not this land belongs to the property.’

‘It definitely does,’ said the young man. ‘There’s no question about it.’

Thea was trying to see the actual house. ‘It looks rather neglected,’ she said.

‘It’s been empty for eight years,’ the woman explained. ‘Some great legal wrangle over who owns it, and whether it could be sold. Apparently, it’s only just been resolved and they’ve finally put it on the market. I can’t wait to see inside it,’ she concluded, with another impatient look at the agent.236

‘What a waste,’ said Thea. ‘When there’s such a housing shortage.’

‘No shortage of places like this,’ said the woman. ‘When you start looking, you find there’s one in nearly every village standing empty for one reason or another.’

‘It’s a scandal.’ For some reason, both women glared at the agent, as if the whole thing was his fault. In response he sprang into action, leading his client through the rickety gates and up to the front door of the house.

Driving back, Thea mused on the complexities of families, inheritances, legalities and disagreements. It must be keeping solicitors nicely feather-bedded, she supposed. But you could hardly blame them, if families were daft enough to throw away their money and peace of mind on wrangles over a house.