Don’t go anywhere till then was rather an impertinent instruction, to Thea’s mind. Where could she go, anyway? Well – she might walk to Bibury and catch a bus back. It was Monday – there were two or three buses during the day. She was curious to have another look at the discreetly hidden Barnsley Park, and see how it looked on a working day. But even she could accept that this might not be a very good idea. Until the facts were known about Grace and how she might be connected to people who lived or worked at the park, it could be hazardous for Thea to venture there. And she’d be in trouble with Gladwin if she missed Barkley.

All the same, a whole day confined to the house was clearly unacceptable, even if it was raining. The rain looked as if it would soon stop, anyway. The bus could take her into Cirencester, where she could go to their famous museum, or browse the Oxfam bookshop. Ironically, now she had the promise of a car, she suddenly discovered that there was plenty she could manage to do without one. She wondered how it was that Gladwin could conjure up a vehicle, just like that. Had it been confiscated from some hapless drunk driver? Did the police keep a small stock of cars for a variety of purposes? Or what?

Sid and Dave were working quietly in the kitchen, and she wondered whether she should be showing a bit more interest in their progress. There was a cooker to install, and a dishwasher. Otherwise, as far as she could see, it was just a matter of slotting in a fridge and a freezer and getting the worktops in place, before tiling the new walls. 99She had to admit that she found the details of someone else’s kitchen entirely uninteresting. Tabitha Ibbotson had not gone overboard on solid marble or smoked glass, as far as Thea could tell. Everything she’d seen so far was more or less normal and unpretentious.

Radio Two had stopped its warbling to give listeners the ten o’clock news headlines. Second from the top was a piece about the trafficking of rare animal species, especially pangolins. Items had been found in a garage in Cheltenham, and a large-scale police operation was under way, to track down the criminals concerned. There were leads in Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester. ‘Uh-oh,’ said Thea. Gladwin’s brief explanation of the previous day tallied exactly with the report on the radio, and amply accounted for her excessive busyness. What vile people these traffickers must be, she thought. And how short-sighted, the way they wiped out whole species for instant gain. But probably they didn’t think like that. They came from desperate mean streets in places like the Philippines and survival was all they cared about. But however hard she tried to be tolerant and understanding, she found her sympathies remained firmly with the animals. She visualised herself working as a ranger, tracking down the criminals and shooting them as they tried to trap the unwary creatures. She thought she would rather enjoy that.