The door to the Old Library creaked open, and Daniel glanced down from his eyrie as Fleur Madsen walked in. Short rapid strides, this woman knew what she wanted. Cool and chic in white shirt and trousers, designer sunglasses dangling from a small hand with orange fingernails, she didn’t look as though she’d turned up for an hour or two of quiet scholastic research.
Daniel watched her scan the ground floor. Today he’d faced no competition for his favourite corner table. The sunshine was tempting, but his book wouldn’t write itself. No climate control system cooled St Herbert’s, and although the mullioned window behind him fitted its frame imperfectly, there wasn’t enough breeze to make the pages of his typescript flutter. The reek of leather and calfskin filled his sinuses. Readers came and went, only the books stayed for ever.
Looking up to the gallery, Fleur caught sight of him. She signalled with the sunglasses, and hastened towards the spiral staircase. Stiletto heels clicked on the metal treads as she climbed, cracking the silence like warning shots. What did she want?
Fleur arrived at his side, and bent her head. He caught a strong whiff of Chanel as she whispered in his ear.
‘Sorry, I know you’re working. Please tell me to go away if I’m a nuisance.’
She said it as though no man in his right mind would ever tell her to go away.
‘Great to see you again.’
‘Difficult to work in this heat, isn’t it?’
He smiled, said nothing.
‘Could you spare me five minutes? We could have a word outside in the garden if that suited you?’
He shut down his laptop and followed her down the staircase. Her figure was gym-toned, her movements lithe. She was in her fifties, but you’d never guess. An intelligent well-bred woman who had married a millionaire, Fleur Madsen had it all. So how come he detected a restlessness in her that hinted at discontent?
On the ground floor, she swept past the catalogues and the desk where the librarian sat, through folded-back double doors into the rear of the building. Daniel had bumped into Orla here, the last time he’d seen her, and they’d agreed to grab a bite together. She should have been working, but he sensed she’d lost interest in her job and preferred to browse through collections of old papers. Here the De Quincey correspondence was stored, along with Sir Milo Hopes’ extensive archives; thousands more volumes were packed into towering book presses.
‘I told Micah to put more warning signs on the presses,’ she murmured. ‘If you were crushed between them, you’d end up as flat as a dust jacket.’
Done to death by books? There were worse ways to go, even if you weren’t a bibliophile. Like suffocating in a mountain of grain.
Beyond the last book press lay a steep flight of stairs and a door marked Private. Fleur fished a key from her trouser pocket and, with the gentlest touch on his shoulder, guided Daniel through the door. Grey blinds masked the windows, and even on such a bright day, she had to switch on the lights. Gilt-framed portraits of solemn dignitaries, along with a scattering of landscapes, covered each of the oak-panelled walls. A dozen chairs were grouped around a mahogany table. There were no bookshelves, but a drinks cabinet squatted in one corner. Daniel’s throat felt dry and dusty. In the heat of the afternoon, the darkness of the wood and paintings was claustrophobic.
‘The trustees meet here. Even the principal is allowed to enter only by invitation.’ Fleur indicated the largest painting. ‘That formidable old chap with mutton chop whiskers is Sir Milo Hopes, founder of St Herbert’s and first chairman of the trustees. That is the house I was born in — and there you see the Hanging Wood in autumn.’
Two landscapes faced them. In fading light, Mockbeggar Hall was all flaking stonework and shuttered windows, a study in grandeur tainted by decay. But his attention was seized by the other painting, captioned The Hanging Wood. So this was where Orla’s brother was last seen alive, and their uncle committed suicide. At first glance, the woodland scene, with dense foliage glimpsed through morning mist, seemed tranquil, if sombre. Dew glistened on bracken and ferns, a bird drifted between the branches. But the fallen leaves were curled and dead, the small pond looked stagnant, and a fox sneaked through the undergrowth with something in its mouth.
‘The style is familiar.’ He pondered. ‘Not Millais, by any chance?’
She clapped her hands in delight. ‘Brilliant, really well recognised! This pair of pictures are not at all well known. I’m not a fan of his work, too often it seems cloying. But he must have been reading ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ when he painted the Hall — it’s as if he anticipates our family’s financial downfall. And The Hanging Wood haunts me. Not his best work artistically, you can see he rushed it. But I like the lack of sentimentality.’
He suspected Fleur Madsen didn’t have a trace of sentimentality in her DNA. How could she, if she’d annexed her ancestral home to a caravan park?
‘I haven’t ventured into the wood.’
‘Not many people do. It’s fenced off to deter trespassers, but frankly there are plenty of pleasanter walks on the doorstep. Even on a day like this, the Hanging Wood seems gloomy. When I was a child, I didn’t play there, and to this day, I’ve never walked through it on my own. Millais stayed at the Hall a few times as a guest of Sir Milo. He was a dog lover, and he paid Millais a small fortune to paint the family pets. Those pictures are hack work in the style of his chum Landseer, but Milo proudly hung them in the dining room. I prefer these, which he dashed off and presented to Milo as a gift.’
‘This was after Millais ran off with Ruskin’s wife?’
‘Oh yes, forty years later. You know the story? Ruskin never consummated the marriage, although Effie was a lovely woman. They say he couldn’t cope with the sight of her pubic hair.’ She smiled and tapped her forehead in a parody of belated awareness. ‘Doh! Of course you will know, you’re a famous historian.’
He pointed to a door at the far end of the room. ‘Shall we?’
‘Of course. There aren’t many perks for trustees, I’m afraid, but at least we have our own private garden.’
They moved outside into a tiny knot garden, crammed with herbs and screened from the rest of the grounds by a tall box hedge, into which was set a small bolted door. An aroma of marjoram wafted through the air, strong and sweet. She sat on the solitary wooden bench and beckoned to him. He joined her, keeping a few inches between them. She wanted something from him, and experience had taught him to be wary of attractive women accustomed to getting their own way.
Fleur smiled. ‘Very Frances Hodgson Burnett, don’t you think?’
‘A secret garden, yes. Designed by Gertrude Jekyll, like the walled garden?’
‘Actually, no. There’s a rural legend that Beatrix Potter organised the planting, though I haven’t found any evidence to back it up.’ She put on a wistful little-girl face. ‘I yearn to find some truth in it. The Blessed Beatrix is a much bigger draw than Gertrude. Tourists are so besotted with Peter bloody Rabbit, we could fill our accommodation with pilgrims from Japan.’
‘Would the trustees be willing to sacrifice their privacy?’
‘A price worth paying,’ she said. ‘Anyway, the sacrifice would be mine. I’m the only regular visitor to this little haven. It’s so close to home, and believe me, if you live on a caravan park, you need to escape, every now and then.’
She made it sound as though she inhabited a dilapidated mobile home surrounded by washing lines and snivelling toddlers. Perhaps even a luxurious architect-designed mansion in a secluded enclave in Madsenworld represented a comedown from the splendour of living in a stately home, however dilapidated.
‘Now Mockbeggar Hall is renovated-’
‘It belongs to the company. And it’s not a home anymore. The ground floor and part of the grounds will be opened to the public. Soon, visitors will be roaming around the nooks and crannies I loved as a child. I’ve spent years planning the project together with my husband and brother-in-law, but now it’s almost complete, becoming involved with St Herbert’s has made a refreshing contrast. Which brings me to why I interrupted your afternoon.’
She leant towards him, closing the gap that separated them.
‘After we met, I started wondering if you …’
She paused, and he knew she was teasing him. He waited.
‘Yes, I wondered if you would care to become a trustee of the library? I’d love to have you on board. We have to make sure St Herbert’s is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. Lottery funding for building maintenance and more acquisitions is an option, but we need a higher profile. An eminent historian, working here on his latest book — what could be better?’
Daniel murmured something non-committal. Ungrateful to refuse on the spot, but there was no way he wanted to join the great and the good of Cumbria. He’d sat on too many committees in Oxford and London; he was determined to remain his own man. He temporised, hoping she was smart enough to realise he didn’t want her to push it.
‘Of course, you need to think it over,’ she said. ‘But I do hope I can tempt you.’
When she looked into his eyes, he felt again the magnetic force of her personality. Fleur Madsen didn’t take no for an answer.
‘I promise to get back to you next week.’
‘Fine, thank you.’
She touched him on the arm as they rose from the bench. As they retraced their steps, his eye was caught by a flash of sunlight on a window looking out on to the parapet on which Aslan Sheikh had stood the previous day.
‘The staircase outside the trustees’ meeting room,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t lead to the gallery of the Old Library, does it?’
‘No, it’s another route to the offices and guest accommodation.’
Daniel indicated the window glinting in the sun. ‘Fantastic views of the walled garden from a room like that. And of this garden too.’
‘Yes, that was poor Orla’s office, actually; it’s next door to the room I use for St Herbert’s business when I’m over here. She said she found the view quite inspirational — pity it didn’t inspire her fund-raising work.’ Sensing Daniel’s disapproval, she added, ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be unkind. Her death was a ghastly tragedy, but I have to say, I’ve always regarded suicide as a selfish act. Poor Kit was stunned by the news.’
‘He was close to his stepdaughter?’
‘He had a great deal to cope with because of Niamh’s alcoholism, but he never let either Niamh or her daughter down. After Niamh died, he put Orla through university, and made sure she wasn’t short of money, even though he’d started a new life with Glenys.’
‘Do you know any more about how Orla died?’
‘No, it’s such an extraordinary thing to do. On her father’s land, as well. None of us can quite believe it.’ And she did sound bewildered, although he also sensed that something else was bothering her. ‘Of course, we’re desperate to find out more about what happened. Mike Hinds must be beside himself.’
‘You know him well?’
‘We grew up together, but we have never been close. His father had a chip on his shoulder about the Hopes family, even though we’d become as poor as church mice. As Mike grew up, he had a reputation as a ladies’ man, but he never exercised his charm on me.’
She feigned a rueful expression, and Daniel shook his head in polite disbelief.
‘Besides, Bryan asked me out on a date not long after my eighteenth birthday, and after that I was pretty much spoken for. Mike always gave me a wide berth — he and Bryan have never been pals. Poor Bryan assured me that one day he’d be prime minister, though I never got to see inside ten Downing Street. But we’ve been together for over thirty years. Through good times and bad, so to speak.’
‘Mostly good, I’m sure.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh yes, I’m very fortunate. Bryan was never cut out for the national political stage, and he was badly injured in an accident ages ago, which didn’t help. But the combination of his business acumen and Gareth’s salesmanship and flair is hard to beat. The park has gone from strength to strength, while farming is a struggle these days. Mike isn’t an easy man, but he works damned hard.’
‘Orla gave me the impression she and her father weren’t close.’
‘There were bound to be tensions after Niamh left the farm to live with Kit.’ Fleur paused. ‘Sham tells me you spent a lot of time talking to Orla.’
‘We chatted, yes.’
‘She saw the two of you munching baguettes together the other day. Orla’s last at work, I think. She seemed upset, and you were trying to calm her down.’
Orla underestimated Sham, he thought, when she dismissed the girl as just a pretty airhead with rich parents, who played at working nine-to-five until she found a man she wanted to settle down with. The pretty face included a pair of lynx eyes.
‘Orla told me about her brother who went missing.’
‘Callum? That was heartbreaking. But … it was twenty years ago.’ Fleur’s brow furrowed. ‘She never seems to have reached closure; it was such a shame.’
‘I told her that if she had any concerns, she should talk to the police.’
‘Surely they want hard evidence, not wild speculation? The case was finished once Philip hanged himself.’ Fleur breathed out. ‘Poor Orla, she must have been depressed. She loved fairy tales, and I can’t help thinking she made one up for herself about Callum.’
‘So you believe Philip killed his nephew?’
‘Absolutely, no other explanation made sense. Callum was a strange boy, but he’d never run away from home. I can’t believe he is still alive, that he’s stayed out of touch for all these years. Why did Orla torment herself, when the passage of time made it more certain that Philip was responsible for his death, not less?’
‘She seemed to think someone else murdered him.’
‘But that’s ridiculous! Who else could have killed Callum?’ Fleur shook her head. ‘A passing tramp? I don’t think so. You’re not saying she had a suspect in mind?’
‘If she did, she never told me. I had the impression she was flailing around, trying to make sense of stuff she didn’t understand. Which is why I encouraged her to talk to the Cold Case Team. The woman who’s in charge of it is a friend of mine; I thought she’d give Orla a fair hearing, and see if there was anything worth investigating.’
Fleur arched her eyebrows. ‘You have friends in the Cumbria Constabulary?’
‘My father used to be a police officer here.’
‘I didn’t know you come from the Lake District?’
‘I don’t. We lived in Manchester, but he left my mother for another woman and came up to the Lakes with her.’
‘And now you’ve followed him?’
‘He died some time ago.’
‘I’m sorry, Daniel.’ Fleur considered. ‘Perhaps Orla was seeking attention. You’re a well-known person, and if I may say so, a bit of a catch for anyone, let alone a girl like her. She probably wanted to make a big impression.’
‘She was genuinely interested in history. And I am sure about one thing.’ As he spoke, Daniel’s intuition hardened into certainty. ‘Orla had good reason to believe that Philip Hinds didn’t kill her brother, even if she wasn’t sure who did.’
Aslan knew the man and woman he’d seen at Lane End were police officers. They didn’t have to be in uniform or to be driving a Panda car; he’d had enough to do with representatives of law and order to recognise that mix of watchfulness and assurance common to cops the world over. Ironic, deeply ironic. He’d taken so long to make it to Mike Hinds’ home, and the moment he arrived, he’d needed to beat a hasty retreat to St Herbert’s.
But nothing was lost. On the way back, he’d kept thinking about Orla, and some of the fuzziness in his mind was clearing. It was like groping your way through the mist as it cleared from the slopes of the Langdale Pikes.
Orla’s muddled thinking and lack of coherence, coupled with the fact that in her last few days alive she’d rarely been entirely sober, meant that people paid little attention to what she said. Her habit, no doubt learnt from Callum, of keeping cards close to her chest, made matters worse.
Now he was getting somewhere at last after a false start the other day. He’d taken it into his head on a whim to break into Orla’s room at the library while she was off sick, and see if he could find anything of interest. He’d committed a few petty thefts in his time, and never been caught, even though he’d had a few narrow squeaks; the secret of success was not worrying too much. Orla’s door was locked, and when, in his frustration, he climbed up on to the parapet outside, and began to prise open an ill-fitting window, Daniel Kind’s unexpected appearance in the garden, which was usually deserted in the morning, forestalled him. But once again, he’d got away with it. Daniel suspected nothing.
He’d toyed with the idea of picking Daniel’s brains, seeing if he could cast more light on what Orla had told him. It might be worth the risk. Or it might just be a big mistake.
With hindsight, he was unlikely to have found anything worthwhile in Orla’s room. She wasn’t the type to write stuff down, she just let things whirl around in her head, as she struggled to make sense of fragments of knowledge.
The last time he was with her, she’d talked about Callum, and Castor and Pollux. He was bored rigid with her fondness for talking in riddles; she only did it to make herself seem interesting, and the moment he showed any interest, she’d retreat into coy evasion. Typical Orla. Once she had your attention, she never made good use of it. As for Castor and Pollux, he didn’t have a clue who they were. But he meant to find out.
Orla was right about one thing: a library was the perfect place to learn stuff. He did a Google search the moment he got back to St Herbert’s, and supplemented his knowledge with a glance at a couple of reference books. Within minutes he discovered that, in Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux were twin brothers who had the same mother but different fathers. One boy was mortal, and the other immortal. One destined to live with the gods, another doomed to lie among the dead.
The librarian, a rotund woman in her sixties, had, since his arrival at St Herbert’s, formed a deep distrust of his lack of interest in the literary treasures under her care, and watched him conducting his researches with ill-concealed suspicion. When he bestowed a charming smile upon her, she scowled like a gargoyle. The ungrateful old cow was impervious to charm. He found himself patting the butterfly knife in his pocket. Orla’s reference to the old legend didn’t make any sense to him, but he found it strangely disturbing.
‘Provoking a deranged farmer to attack us with a scythe,’ Greg Wharf said as Hannah accelerated away from Lane End. ‘I’ll be honest, ma’am, when we were discussing suicide, that particular MO never occurred to me.’
‘Yeah, well, a close-up encounter with a wannabe Grim Reaper adds a touch of excitement to our tedious lives. What do you reckon to him?’
‘Bad, bad news. Went to Cambridge, did he? Makes me thankful I screwed up my A Levels. Don’t worry, his wrist won’t have broken, but with any luck he’ll sport a nasty bruise.’
‘It’s his wife I feel sorry for.’
‘She doesn’t have to stay with him.’
‘Might not be easy to escape. He’ll keep tight hold of the purse strings. More than likely, Deirdre would rather stick with the devil she knows. The question is whether that temper of his will get him into big trouble one day.’
‘You suppose he knows more about what happened to Callum than he’s let on?’
‘He never mentioned the boy’s last visit to him before today. But why would he want a cover-up?’
‘He’s not stupid. He wouldn’t incriminate himself so casually.’
‘What if he wanted to protect somebody?’
‘Can’t see it. Why help someone who has done away with your child?’
Hannah slowed the car, and nodded towards a high fence and clump of beeches to the right. ‘See the big houses through the trees? That’s where the Madsens live, and Kit Payne.’
‘Hinds was right — not far for Callum to go. From Payne’s house, he could have nipped over to Lane End and got back home inside a couple of hours, with plenty of time to sink a couple of pints of his Dad’s home brew.’
At a fork in the lane, they halted at a large sign for Madsen’s Holiday Home Park. A steel security barrier barred the way in. Visitors were told to report to a reception lodge in the style of a Swiss chalet, occupied by two smart men in uniform.
‘Not so much a caravan site as an exclusive gated community, by the look of it,’ Hannah said.
‘I checked their prices on the website before we came out,’ Greg said. ‘My eyes haven’t stopped watering. You could buy a three-bedroom semi in Kendal for less than one of their top-range caravans. Amazing. The Madsens must be rolling in it.’
‘Not a business you’d want associated with the publicity surrounding a teenager’s apparent abduction.’
‘He might have done a runner, you know. Happens every day. His parents had split up, he wasn’t on the best of terms with stepdaddy.’
‘But to disappear completely, for ever …’
They drove on past a recently created second entrance to Madsen’s park, close to its southern tip. Again, the way in was barred, but a large signboard proclaimed the glories of a ‘State-of-the-Art Leisure Complex in Historic Mockbeggar Hall’. The new route linked in with the original service road to the site, and crossed a bridge over the stream that once divided the Hopes’ estate from the caravan site. All this land had once belonged to a single family, and now it did again. Only this time, the owners were business people, not the landed gentry.
‘I bet the Madsens shat themselves when they heard Callum was missing,’ Greg said. ‘Lucky for them that Philip was so quick to top himself.’
‘You don’t suppose they gave him a helping hand?’
‘Hanged him and staged it as a suicide scenario, you mean?’ Greg sucked in his cheeks. ‘Difficult to achieve, easy to foul up. Too much of a risk.’
‘Gareth Madsen is a risk-taker, even if his brother isn’t. It says in the file that not only was he once a racing driver, he also had a spell working in a casino in Las Vegas.’
‘Nah, why would he chance it? Philip Hinds’ death was investigated through a microscope. Having a suspect hang himself the day after you’ve given him the third degree is never easy to explain away. The inquest verdict was suicide. If there was any evidence of murder, surely the truth would have come out.’
Hannah put her foot on the brake and brought the car to a standstill. A small brass plate on a wall, as discreet as the Madsens’ signage was garish, announced that they had reached St Herbert’s Residential Library.
‘So that’s where Orla worked.’
‘Yeah, how long before the Madsens turn it into a pleasure palace, with rides and interactive fun days?’
‘They don’t own it, thank God. Milo Hopes set it up as a charity.’
‘Fleur Madsen is Chair of the trustees, isn’t she? That’s how people like that operate. They call themselves networkers. I call them control freaks.’
‘The rich are different, didn’t someone say?’
‘Yeah, like someone else said, they’ve got more money.’
Hannah squinted through the trees, trying to make out the library building. ‘This is so close to where Orla grew up. It must have felt like coming back home.’
‘Why would you want to come back, if home was Lane End Farm?’
‘She never found happiness anywhere else, so why not?’
Greg shook his head. ‘That’s what baffles me about the countryside. All these open spaces, yet it’s as claustrophobic as a broom cupboard. So many lives intertwined, it’s worse than a soap opera. No wonder The Archers has kept going so long.’
‘I like it,’ Hannah said.
‘What, The Archers?’
‘When do I get the time to listen to the radio? No, the countryside.’
‘Come on. It may look pretty, but the beauty’s only skin-deep. There’s more poverty in Cumbria than in most urban areas. And fewer places to shelter from the rain. What’s so good about it?’
‘The sense of community, for a start. That’s what brought Orla Payne back, I guess. She was sick of being alone in the city.’
‘Her father and stepdad had both remarried and moved on. Coming back to the country killed her.’
Hannah pressed the accelerator. ‘Let’s take a look at where she left her car. It’s only half a mile away as the crow flies.’
‘Not expecting to find clues, are you, ma’am?’
‘I want to get into her mind. Try to figure out what drew her to that tower of grain.’
The lane wandered past the grounds of St Herbert’s, and the edge of the old Mockbeggar Estate, before Hannah dived off on a short cut along a narrow track, with barely room enough for a single vehicle, no passing places, and half a dozen bends. To her relief, they reached Mockbeggar Lane without a close encounter with a tractor coming the other way.
Mario Pinardi had shown them photographs of Orla’s car, prior to its removal, and they soon identified the flattened grass where she had parked. Hannah jumped out of the Lexus and walked up to the fence, Greg following behind.
‘She wasn’t keen for her father to see her,’ Hannah said. ‘Otherwise she’d have taken the same route we did, to Lane End, and approached the grain tower from the other side.’
‘So she did mean to jump into the grain.’
‘Must have done.’
Hannah swore to herself. She moved towards the electrified fence. Putting herself in the shoes of the young woman, who threw away her mobile phone, and contact with the outside world, followed by the scarf she’d worn to disguise the loss of her hair. Orla had given up. In her mind, life had nothing more to offer her; the abortive phone call to Linz Waller was the last straw. Not Linz’s fault, but the accumulated failures had become too much. For everyone else, Callum was history. Nobody would listen.
In the distance, she spotted movement. A brown bird with pointed wings, hovering fifteen feet above the ground. A kestrel, with a field mouse, grasshopper or vole in its sights. As it swooped for the kill, she heard a rustling noise as Greg Wharf approached. She had a sudden awareness of his physical presence behind her. For a moment, she thought he was about to wrap his arms around her body.
‘Are you all right, ma’am?’
There was a concern in his voice that she hadn’t heard before. No trace of the laddish cynicism that she regarded as his default tone. And thank God, he didn’t lay a finger on her.
She didn’t turn straight away, needing to compose herself into the customary competent Hannah. She saw the kestrel rising, some small mammal caught in its beak. It whirled in triumph, as if expecting applause, before dashing for the trees to devour its prey.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘Hot, isn’t it?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘My throat’s parched; I’m not used to so much sunshine in the Lakes. I don’t suppose you’ve got time for a drink before you get back to Ambleside?’
She hesitated, aware that he was studying her. Weighing up his options, or simply waiting for the boss to make a simple decision?
‘Thanks, but I’d better drop you off soon. I’m seeing a friend this evening.’
‘Right.’
She guessed from his tone that he assumed the friend was a man. Tempting to let him think so, it was better to make it clear she wasn’t available. Just in case he might be wondering. Mixing work and pleasure was never a good idea, no matter what the temptation. She’d never succumbed with Ben, whatever private thoughts had whirled around her mind, and any fool could see it would be a colossal mistake to get too close to Greg Wharf. Verging on the unthinkable.
However.
‘She’s my oldest mate, we were at school together. As a matter of fact, she met Mario Pinardi years ago, and ever since she’s been a member of his fan club.’
Greg smiled an enigmatic smile.
‘Aren’t we all, ma’am?’
‘Daniel!’
He turned to see Aslan Sheikh walking towards him across the car park from the main entrance to St Herbert’s. Aslan’s shoulders were hunched, making it look like he’d lost a couple of inches in height. Mud covered his shoes, as if he’d returned from a marathon yomp through the countryside. His face looked pale beneath the tan.
‘Horrible news about Orla,’ Daniel said.
‘I never dreamt she would do such a thing. What could have possessed her?’
‘You knew her better than I did,’ Daniel said. ‘But who can tell what goes through another person’s mind?’
‘When we talked yesterday, I didn’t mean to put her down, please believe me.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Was Aslan feeling guilty, or just trying to redeem himself in Daniel’s eyes?
‘She was just … hard work. I had no idea she was desperate enough to do something so terrible. If she’d given me a clue of what was going through her head, it might have been-’
‘Might-have-beens are a waste of time,’ Daniel said. ‘You said it yourself, you were just colleagues who went out together a few times.’ Aslan chewed his lower lip. ‘You’re right. I mean, we absolutely never slept together or anything.’
Too much information. Daniel flicked his key fob to unlock the door of his car.
‘I haven’t been able to concentrate.’ Aslan moved closer, reluctant to let him go. ‘I went for a long walk, trying to get my head straight. I finished up at the farm. From the lane, I saw the silo where she died. Imagine, Daniel, deprived of your breath by the sheer weight of the grain.’
‘Better not to dwell on it, it won’t help.’
‘But how can I get her out of my mind?’ Aslan exhaled. ‘I can’t stop thinking of Orla. She was fascinated by … by siblings.’
‘Hansel and Gretel, you mean?’
‘Hansel and Gretel.’ A faraway look came into his eyes, reminding Daniel of a gambler contemplating a last throw of the dice. ‘And Castor and Pollux.’
‘Castor and Pollux?’ Daniel frowned in puzzlement. ‘That’s not a fairy tale, though, is it?’
‘You’re right.’ Aslan closed his eyes, and Daniel sensed he was playing a game, but didn’t intend to explain the rules. ‘Sorry, my head is spinning. There’s too much to take in, it’s not easy to make sense of things.’
Footsteps came clip-clopping over the gravel, and Aslan spun round. Sham Madsen aimed an infrared key at the door of her sports car. It bore this year’s registration plate. A present from Daddy, no doubt.
‘Too nice to work overtime!’ she called, gesturing to the cloudless sky. ‘Fancy going into Keswick for a drink, Aslan?’
‘I’m not-’
‘Oh, come on. It’ll do us both good. We deserve a pick-me-up after what’s happened.’
Daniel watched the pair climb into the natty yellow car. Sham gave him a cheerful wave as she revved the engine, shattering the quiet of St Herbert’s. Not everyone was in deep mourning for Orla Payne.
‘The folk singer reminded me of Marc,’ Terri said, as she returned from the bar to rejoin Hannah at their table under the spreading branches of a willow tree. ‘Are you going to ask him to do a request after the interval?’
They’d come to listen to a folk singer perform in the beer garden of a pub-cum-hotel in Windermere. He wasn’t exactly Paul Simon, and not simply because he was fair-haired and flat-voiced, but while the sun shone and the wine flowed, who cared?
‘Marc’s taller, and he doesn’t have a cleft chin.’ The wine was dry and strong. Already her head was starting to swim. ‘And this guy is way less gorgeous.’
Terri squealed so loudly with merriment that a couple of heads turned. She never had many inhibitions at the best of times, and she’d got stuck in to the pina colada while waiting for Hannah to arrive. Just as well they’d booked cabs home.
‘Tell you what, if you really are serious about giving up on dear old Marc, would you mind if I gave him a call?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Hannah almost choked on her drink. ‘I thought he wasn’t your type.’
Terri smirked. Three marriages and countless other relationships had ended in tears, yet her faith remained unshaken that Mr Right was waiting for her out there. Preferably on the deck of his own private yacht or beside the drawbridge of a baronial castle, but she wasn’t that fussy, over and above her golden rule of getting rid of all her underwear every time a relationship broke down: new man, new pants. Hannah loved her relentless optimism, even though there were moments when she could understand why she drove so many people to distraction.
‘Hey, I couldn’t misbehave with a bloke who lived with my best friend, could I, now? So I covered up. But if you’re moving on …’
‘Jesus, I don’t believe this.’
‘Honest, kid, if you let him go, there will be plenty queuing up to take him off your hands. I’m asking for a head start, that’s all.’
‘Do me a favour.’
‘Hannah, you don’t realise. Good-looking bloke like that? Intelligent, with oodles of charm. Did I mention he reminds me ever so slightly of Hugh Grant? I might as well stake a claim.’
Flowering jasmine spread over a small pergola close to their table. Hannah breathed in the perfume before fumbling for her dark glasses. Not so much to keep out the sun as to disguise any trace of mistiness in her eyes.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Seriously?’
‘It’s more than six months now. No sign of these frantic women battering down the doors of his bookshop to get their hands inside his dust jacket.’
‘He’s fobbing them off, I bet. Waiting for you to give him the chance to make amends.’
‘It will take more than making amends.’ Hannah swallowed a mouthful of wine. ‘We’ve been through this before.’
‘All right, then, where are you up to with Daniel Kind?’
‘Not seen him for ages. We bumped into each other at a lecture about criminal narratives, and that’s about it.’
‘But?’ Terri would have made a good prosecuting counsel. She could spot the slightest gap in a witness’s testimony. ‘Anything planned?’
Hannah groaned. As if her own labyrinthine romantic entanglements were not enough, Terri was addicted to matchmaking. ‘Well, he referred a cold case to me.’
‘He’s definitely interested.’ Terri pronounced her verdict with the supreme assurance of an agony aunt. ‘Just cautious, if you ask me. I’d say he’s been hurt in the past, and doesn’t want to make himself too vulnerable.’
‘Maybe. By the way, you didn’t tell me about your blind date with that bloke from the driving school?’
Terri’s face was a picture. ‘When I first saw his stomach, I thought he was eight months pregnant — enough said. And don’t think you can get away with changing the subject, Hannah Scarlett. I know what you’re like. So when are you seeing Daniel again?’
‘Listen, he’s a friend, no more than that. Right now, friendship is all I want from any man, believe me.’
Terri became solemn. ‘This isn’t just about Marc straying off the straight and narrow, is it? The miscarriage knocked you back more than you realise, Hannah. It takes a long time, believe me, I know. But-’
‘The miscarriage is nothing to do with it.’
Apart from Marc and Terri, nobody else knew about her miscarriage. Oh, and Daniel, she’d mentioned it to him in a moment of weakness. But she hadn’t made a big deal of it, and he’d probably forgotten. Might Terri be right? From day one, she’d tried not to dwell on her loss, but once or twice it had featured in bad dreams. Invariably she awoke in a cold sweat of fear and self-loathing, for the inadequacy of her mourning for the child that never was. Would she ever have a baby of her own? Time kept moving, the odds against lengthened with every year that slipped by.
‘OK, OK, keep your hair on.’ Terri adopted a confidential tone. ‘Anyway, Marc isn’t the only show in town. Stefan, that hunky Polish bloke behind the bar, was telling me about Krakow, where he comes from. Sounds fabulous. Maybe he’s hoping to whisk me off for a mini-break.’
Hannah let her friend’s chatter slosh over her as the folk singers made their way back through the crowd. Was she being too harsh on Marc? They’d been together a long time, it might be a mistake to throw away all those shared memories. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Stefan the Pole emerge from inside, carrying a tray of drinks to a table of his fellow countrymen. He cast Terri’s bare legs a very frank glance, and Terri treated him to a coquettish smile without pausing for breath in the midst of an account of the latest idiocy of the girl she’d just hired at her makeup studio.
Chances were, Terri might find a reason to cancel her taxi home tonight. Oh well, good luck to her.
The singer who looked a little like Marc cleared his throat and tapped the microphone.
‘And now we’d like to do one of our favourite songs from the Fifties, “Bye, Bye Love”. Maybe it’s one of your favourites too.’
Yeah, Hannah thought, you’re singing my song. And I didn’t even need to put in a request.
The early hours, and Aslan staggered off the pavement and on to the road that led to his bedsit. At last, he’d shaken off Sham; he wasn’t in the mood to take her back, and they’d both had so much to drink that they’d probably have fallen fast asleep the moment they climbed into bed.
A car hooted from behind and he ducked out of the way. Once again, he thought how easy it would be to stumble into the path of a passing vehicle. But suppose you didn’t die? Some people were maimed for life, and he didn’t fancy that. Sham had talked endlessly about her family; she wanted him to be impressed that on one side she was descended from the landed gentry, on the other from successful business executives. Money turned her on; she said her father always said that money was power. But famously, it didn’t bring happiness, and it gave Aslan a rush of pleasure — much more than when she let her legs brush against his while they were drinking — to hear that even the Madsens were not as content as they seemed. He’d never figured out what he really wanted from life — apart from loads of money and no-strings sex, obviously — and it made him feel better that other people hit the same snag. He’d hate to think of himself as some kind of sad loser.
According to his daughter, Gareth Madsen felt twinges of envy, because his brother had control of the family company. Bryan resented the fact that he’d never made a mark in national politics, while Fleur was, in her niece’s eyes, an older woman who flirted shamelessly with younger men, but never got up the nerve to do anything about it. Sham was right there; during his fleeting encounters with the chair of St Herbert’s, he’d felt conscious of her appraising stare, and when they talked, she never allowed him enough personal space. But she gave the impression she was just amusing herself. Perhaps she guessed that he didn’t fancy shagging someone old enough to be his mother.
Weird though it was, Purdey appealed to him more than the other Madsens, something he’d had the tact to conceal when Sham persisted in running her sister down. Maybe it was just Purdey’s ruthless determination to succeed that he envied; she must have inherited it from their dad, as their mother, an ex-model, was apparently no Einstein. Sham was better-looking, but she was jealous of Purdey. Not a bit like Orla, who idolised Callum, even though he’d treated her with disdain.
Aslan found himself on the doorstep of the whitewashed cottage converted into bedsits and fumbled with his key in the lock. He meant to get up early tomorrow when his head had cleared, and follow through on what he’d gleaned from Sham. In the end, it had been just as well he’d agreed to go out with her. Orla had made no sense with her drunken hints about Castor and Pollux, but tonight Sham had unwittingly given him a glimpse of the truth. He’d have kissed her, but she’d only have got the wrong idea.