Stan tasted a biscuit and nodded his head. “Moreish.”
Ryan held the packet up to Keya.
“No, thanks. I ate a late lunch.”
Keya’s meeting with Gilly had been cut short by a coach load of tourists arriving to visit the antique centre, but they actually made a beeline for the cafe. Only after they, and the cafe’s usual customers, had finished lunch did Keya try her sandwich. And it had been wonderfully fresh and tasty.
Everyone had been impressed by Daisy’s bread. Monica and Millie thought Keya should consider it for the cafe sandwiches, and Maitri said she’d definitely be interested in stocking some in the deli.
“How was your meeting?” Ryan asked.
“Lots of hooded figures performing pagan rituals?” Stan enquired.
“It’s nothing like that. And to be honest, I had the impression that some members of the committee which looks after the standing stones would rather the summer solstice event didn’t happen at all.”
“I don’t blame them, but the stones are good business for such a rural area. Besides the Stone Circle Flour mill, there aren’t many employment opportunities locally,” Stan remarked with unusual seriousness.
The burly, brown-suited figure of Inspector Dai Evans entered the room. His round face was red-cheeked and stippled with broken veins, and his head was bald on top with short grey hair at the back and sides.
Tending towards sarcasm and crankiness, the recent loss of his mother had mellowed the inspector, and Keya often found him staring absently into space. She hated to wish for it, but he needed a major case to sink his teeth into.
“Afternoon, Sergeant. How were the Rollright loonies?”
“Sir! They’re actually a very pleasant bunch, in the main. Somewhat eccentric, but that’s not exactly unusual in the Cotswolds.”
“Well it seems that the rise in temperature is getting to the residents. We have a road rage incident between a tractor and a Range Rover over in Guiting Power, and a shopkeeper has accused a tourist of shoplifting in Lower Slaughter and locked the offender in a toilet. I know we’re short staffed, and you have plenty of work to do, Sergeant, but would you mind accompanying Constable Jenkins to check out these incidents? I don’t think either of you should face the locals on your own when they’re in this sort of mood.”
Keya glanced across at the two empty desks in the team room. She and Ryan occupied desks facing each other, next to Inspector Evans’ small office. Sujin, the station’s crime scene technician, had insisted he didn’t need a desk, as he spent all his time in his compact workroom next to the custody suite.
The other desk had been occupied by Inspector Sue, a family liaison officer, but she had retired and, although she now worked in a consultancy role, she had a desk elsewhere in the station.
“Chief Inspector Greg assures me he has applied to headquarters for at least one new member of our team. Hopefully, a constable who can take over from Constable Jenkins when he passes his sergeant’s exams.”
“No pressure there,” muttered Stan, whose broom cupboard of an office was actually further along the corridor. He was in charge of files, but his extensive knowledge of people, places, and historic crimes was very useful to the team. As was his willingness to make hot drinks.
“Cuppa anyone?” asked Stan on cue.
CHAPTER FIVE
Keya and Ryan drove across the Cotswolds, chatting amicably and enjoying the views and the white, purple, and yellow wildflowers covering the verges. Ryan, who was driving, did complain though, “It’s not easy to see traffic up ahead when the council leaves the verges untended.”
“I suppose, like everything else, they don’t have the money to spend on rural areas.” Keya thought of her own position as the Cotswold’s Rural Engagement Officer. It was technically a part-time role, yet she had over four hundred and fifty square miles of countryside to patrol and manage.
Thinking back to their discussion at the police station, Keya asked, “Are you worried about your sergeant’s exams?”
“Yes. Everyone thinks I’ll find them easy, but I won’t. Computers, tech, and dismantling and rebuilding electrical items and the like, that I understand, but not exam papers. It was the same at school. English was my worst subject.”
“Oh, you don’t have to write long essays. It’s all multiple-choice questions.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Haven’t you looked through your handbook?”
Ryan stared at the road in front of them. “No, I haven’t got round to it,” he said defensively.
Keya realised he really was worried about the autumn exam.
“I tell you what, why don’t I sit down with you sometime and we can go through it? It’s not nearly as scary as you think, and as your role is so wide, you’ll instinctively know the answers to many of the questions. But you will need to read up on procedures and policies.”
She decided to lighten the tone of the conversation, so she asked, “Have you and Millie recovered from last month’s triathlon at the Cotswold Wildlife Park?”
“Oh yes. We were both fit, so we soon recovered.”
“And do you have any more competitions lined up this month?”
“No. Our next one is in July in Cheltenham. So now the weather is better, we’ve decided to run the Cotswold Way.”
“All of it?” Keya asked in surprise. She knew the trail consisted of over a hundred miles of tracks and footpaths following the edge of the Cotswold escarpment. It started in Bath, to the south, and finished in Chipping Campden, to the north. Even for Ryan and Millie, who were both extremely fit, it was a challenge.
“Not all at once,” Ryan laughed. “Mum’s going to drop us off in Bath on Sunday, before she goes to work at the cafe, and I’ll leave my car in Wotton-under-Edge, so I can drive us home when we finish. That section is thirty-one miles. And we’ll have all day so we can stop for breaks and even walk sections if we feel like it.”
Even walk sections, thought Keya, shaking her head.
“Rather you than me. Dotty and I are going to Chipping Campden on Friday evening for their alternative Olympick Games. I thought you might be taking part in their running race?”
“I did think about it, but we decided to do the Cotswold Way instead. Are you or Dotty going to enter the shin-kicking?”
