The Hanging Wood

by Martin Edwards

  Hannah held her breath.

  ‘Why, Gareth, of course. He’s the one you see around the park, he’s much more hands-on than Bryan.’ The woman paused. ‘Don’t take that the wrong way. I’m sure there was no funny business going on with the girl. He was just trying to comfort her, that’s how it looked.’

  ‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’

  ‘Not a word.’ She sounded virtuous. ‘I kept my distance.’

  Mario exchanged a look of frustration with Hannah. ‘Of course, Mrs Birt. I’ll hand you back to my colleague now, if you don’t mind, so we can take one or two details, just in case we need to speak to you again. Thank you so much, it’s so good of you to take the trouble to call.’

  ‘I hope it helps.’ Mrs Birt was pleased with herself. ‘And don’t worry about the fact I didn’t hear anything. You can always ask Gareth, can’t you?’

  ‘We certainly can,’ Mario said.

  He transferred her back to Stacey, and clenched his fist in triumph.

  ‘Gareth will need a brilliant line in chat to wriggle out of this. He never mentioned talking to Orla on the day she died. If he followed her to the farm …’

  Hannah swivelled on her chair. ‘Say Orla challenged him about Callum’s death, and whether he was responsible. He might have threatened her – or simply laughed in disbelief. Either way, it was an unequal contest, a young woman with a history of mental health problems up against a rich and powerful businessman.’

  ‘Yeah, she could never prove anything, not after twenty years, even if Callum’s remains were dug up from the pet cemetery at Mockbeggar Hall.’

  ‘The chances of forensic evidence establishing who was responsible for putting him there are close to nil. If that conversation left her in despair, she might have been ready to end it all. Her brother was never coming back, and she’d made a deadly enemy of the man who employed her stepfather.’

  Mario nodded. ‘Time to give Gareth a ring?’

  He lifted his phone and called the holiday park. Impatiently negotiating the automated answering service, he demanded to be put through to Gareth Madsen the moment he made it as far as a human being. He got no further than Gareth’s PA. Hannah saw him wince at her response as he banged down the receiver.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘He left ten minutes ago, and didn’t say where he was going.’ Mario snapped his fingers. ‘We just missed him.’

  ‘You could have caught your death,’ the principal said.

  Daniel was ensconced in one of Micah Bridge’s armchairs, clad in an ancient and moth-eaten dressing gown that must have represented a fashion crime even in the 1970s. The rich smell of Turkish coffee filled his nostrils, the taste of it lingered on his tongue. While he’d recovered from his drenching in a hot bath, the principal had asked one of the staff who doted on him to set about the task of drying the sodden clothes. Thank God St Herbert’s was equipped for emergencies. A tumbler containing an inch of whisky squatted at his feet.

  Racing back from the Mockbeggar Estate had felt like something out of a low-budget horror movie. Even by Lake District standards, the storm had been hellish. A falling branch missed fracturing his skull by inches, and although he managed not to be struck by lightning, the rain whipped him with a sadist’s glee. As he squirmed around the holly hedge boundary, he tripped and fell into the stream. Scratched and bruised, he picked himself up and struggled on in the face of wind and rain, but the wildness of the weather drove out of his mind all thoughts of Mike Hinds and his dead children.

  Only as he relaxed in the steamy bathroom did he contemplate an alternative scenario to the one Fleur had conjured up. An explanation fitting all the facts, not merely those that suited her. When he finally clambered out of the vast old claw-footed bath, he wiped away the mist from the mirror, and saw the beginnings of a smile on his face. His mind was clearing, too.

  ‘Fleur showed me her office upstairs. I never realised there was a bedroom attached. Not that she needs it, of course, living so close by.’

  ‘She does not need to sleep here, that is true.’

  As with a lawyer or a politician, it was what Micah Bridge didn’t say that counted for more than what he did say.

  ‘But she did use the bedroom?’

  The principal’s face turned traffic-light red. He folded his arms, as if to repel further interrogation. ‘I can say no more.’

  ‘Hey, Micah, we’re both grown men. Don’t fret about telling tales out of school.’

  ‘This is a most delicate business.’ The older man hesitated.

  ‘We are speaking in the strictest confidence?’

  ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Very well.’ The principal lowered his voice, as though the walls had ears. And in St Herbert’s, of course, they did. If Orla hadn’t eavesdropped, she and Aslan might still be alive. ‘This morning I was provided with certain rather distressing … intelligence.’

  ‘About Fleur?’

  A nod. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  The principal looked over his shoulder, as if checking for eavesdroppers. ‘The librarian. She came to me in a state of considerable anguish, having kept her own counsel for some little time. But after the two deaths, and the unpleasantness of press intrusion, she felt I had to know. She fears for the very future of St Herbert’s if we fall prey to scandal.’

  ‘What scandal?’

  ‘It involves muffled cries coming from the chair of trustees’ room – her bedroom, the librarian thought. Sounds of a … shall we say … unequivocal nature.’

  Daniel gripped both arms of his chair. ‘She overheard Fleur having sex with someone?’

  The principal’s Adam’s apple bobbed in distress. He might have been a bishop, contemplating the desecration of a cathedral by heretics. As for Daniel, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘The librarian was passing along the first-floor corridor one evening. It’s a quiet area, hence her amazement at what she heard. Naturally, I questioned whether Fleur Madsen might simply have been exercising vigorously on her own, or something of the sort.’ Daniel fought the urge to giggle. ‘I have to say that the librarian was adamant. The chair was up to no good of a very particular kind.’

  ‘She couldn’t have been mistaken?’

  ‘Daniel, the librarian may be sixty-three and rather … um … rotund. But she was married once, long ago, and I believe she now has a … shall we call it an understanding … with a gentleman who keeps pigeons in Maryport. I can assure you, she is by no means as unworldly as she may seem.’

  Daniel tried not to be distracted by images of the librarian disporting herself in a remote pigeon loft. ‘Any idea who her companion was?’

  ‘No doubt whatsoever about his identity, Daniel. The librarian happened to see him leaving the first floor a few minutes after the … um … sounds died down.’

  Daniel pictured her lurking within eyeshot of Fleur’s door, holding her breath, flabby jowls trembling with a mixture of outrage and glee. The principal lowered his gaze.

  ‘He wore a cheery smile, needless to say. And the librarian noticed that his shirt was carelessly buttoned.’ The principal’s frown lines deepened. ‘He has a reputation as something of a ladies’ man, but even so – fornicating with his own brother’s wife!’

  ‘Gareth Madsen?’

  ‘I am afraid you are correct. Ghastly even to think of it. In all candour, I do not care for Bryan Madsen, but nonetheless, it is a shocking business. Such a sordid betrayal.’

  Daniel swallowed a mouthful of whisky. Glenmorangie, from the St Herbert’s cellar. It seemed sinful to sit here in the shabby comfort of Micah Bridge’s rooms, and savour its tang, while Hannah and her colleagues were striving to find the truth about the savage murder of Aslan Sheikh. And self-indulgent to want to satisfy his curiosity about the strange relationship between Fleur and Gareth Madsen. But it wasn’t prurience. He had the makings of a theory about Ca
llum Hinds’ death, and the historian in him could not resist testing it against the evidence.

  ‘You told me before that you don’t know Bryan well, but did you come across him all those years ago, when you first came to St Herbert’s, around the time that Callum Hinds disappeared?’

  The principal considered. ‘I think not. Of course, I was aware of him, given that he had married the daughter of Alfred Hopes of Mockbeggar Hall, and was the heir apparent to Joseph Madsen. My recollection is that he was incapacitated, following a road accident. He sustained very bad injuries, by all accounts, though obviously he lived to tell the tale.’

  ‘He told me he crashed his car not long before Callum went missing, hence his limp. Do you recall the circumstances?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. He was supposed to have been lucky to have escaped with his life, that’s about all I can remember. Presumably he was driving too fast and spun off the road.’ A wrinkling of the nose. ‘Gareth, of course, was once a racing driver, and I seem to recollect some rather distasteful gallows humour to the effect that Bryan was trying to emulate his younger brother. I’m sorry I cannot be of more assistance.’

  ‘Please don’t apologise, Micah,’ Daniel said. ‘You have helped, more than you can know.’

  ‘He might be anywhere,’ Mario said.

  A burly young DC was easing their car through queuing traffic on the way out of Keswick. His hands, resting on the steering wheel, were the size of coal shovels. He was a broken-nosed rugby player, sixteen stone of muscle, and his nickname was the ‘Brick Shithouse’, but nobody was silly enough to call him that to his face. Handy man to have around if things turned nasty.

  They were heading for Lane End Farm. Hannah’s idea. Mario still wasn’t convinced, but he was struggling to make decisions. And someone needed to make a decision. Ben Kind used to say that you never regret what you do in life half as much as the things you don’t do.

  ‘Gareth won’t make a run for it.’ Her voice was calmness itself, despite the blood pounding in her temples. ‘Take it from me, that isn’t his style. He may never have made it to Formula One, but you need nerve to race fast cars. He’s a daredevil, a risk-taker. A fighter, not a quitter.’

  ‘But why would he go to Lane End?’

  ‘My guess is, he wants to stage a confrontation with Hinds.’

  Mario swore. ‘I should have left an officer stationed at the farm. But the staff cuts …’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up, it would make no difference. Gareth knows all the short cuts and ways in from the site of the holiday park to the farm. How else did he manage to keep Orla under surveillance before she jumped into the grain?’

  In the quiet of the car, the back-and-forth thrashing of the windscreen wipers sounded unnaturally loud. Pools were forming on the road surface, and the downpour had slowed the cars to a crawl. The DC revved his engine and rapped on his horn, before squeezing the car past a rusty Fiat full of pensioners out on a shopping trip. Wrinkled faces stared out through the misty windows in dismay, as if they feared being pulled over and arrested for tiresome driving.

  ‘You still think Orla jumped?’

  ‘Maybe Gareth pushed her, maybe after their conversation that morning, he just wanted to keep an eye on her to make sure she did get out of his hair by committing suicide.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  Hannah was breathing hard. Trying not to imagine what a man like Gareth Madsen might do if he became desperate.

  ‘Yes.’

  So Fleur and Gareth were lovers. How long had that been going on? Daniel sat in the deserted restaurant of St Herbert’s, wearing an old T-shirt and jeans borrowed from Jonquil’s brother, who worked in the kitchen, and savoured the peppermint taste of a slab of mint cake. He needed energy after the ordeal of the storm, and hadn’t Hillary and Tenzing famously consumed Kendal mint cake on top of Everest, celebrating their conquest?

  Micah Bridge said he’d heard gossip that, as a teenager, Fleur dallied with Gareth before teaming up with his elder brother. The switch made perfect sense from her point of view. Gareth was the charismatic one, but Bryan was destined to inherit a controlling interest in the caravan park and was a rising star in local politics. Fleur had her head screwed on. The Hopes family might have squandered a fortune, but she was determined not to give up the good life or allow Mockbeggar Hall to fall into the hands of creditors. Presumably, she and Gareth had reached an understanding. They could have their cake and eat it. Everyone would be happy. Now and then Fleur would flirt with a much younger man like Daniel or Aslan, simply to cover her tracks.

  But where to have their fun? There wasn’t much privacy around a caravan park, and a hotel room might seem a bit tacky for the lady of the manor. The tumbledown cottage tucked away in the middle of the Hanging Wood offered an ideal solution. What it lacked in luxury, it more than made up for with back-to-nature atmosphere. Gareth could shift poor Philip Hinds out of the way whenever he wanted, by giving him a string of time-consuming menial tasks, and they’d have the place to themselves. Everyone gave the Hanging Wood a wide berth, what could possibly go wrong?

  A sly inquisitive boy called Callum Hinds, that was what went wrong.

  Daniel took a gulp of spring water. The way he pictured it, Callum turned up at the cottage one day and spied on Gareth and Fleur in flagrante. So much more exciting than ogling a teenager in a bikini. Full-on sex between two of the most important people in the neighbourhood – shockhorror stuff! No wonder Orla saw he was excited just before he disappeared. He’d have hugged his secret to himself, relishing the taste of power. Two grown-up lives in the palm of his hand.

  Or perhaps he’d simply eavesdropped, and heard the couple talking. It wouldn’t take much to figure out they were having an affair. And what if they’d discussed some other guilty secret that they shared?

  The rain hammered at the windows, frantic as a convict on the run, desperate to be let in to a place of sanctuary. Daniel digested the last morsel of mint cake. He could make a pretty good stab as to what that other guilty secret might be.

  From the lane, the farm appeared to be at peace. The rain had relented, but there wasn’t a glint of light in the sky and Hannah supposed that this was just a lull before another storm. The tractors and muck spreaders were motionless, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Presumably Zygmunt’s colleagues had jacked in their jobs as well. A silent earthquake was ripping apart Mike Hinds’ world.

  ‘Ready?’ Mario asked.

  Was Gareth Madsen here, and how would Hinds respond to their arrival? Only one way to find out. She yanked her hood up over her head as she scrambled out of the car. Above the drumbeat of the rain, she heard in the distance the mournful bleating of neglected calves.

  Mario, a couple of strides ahead of her and the DC, stopped in his tracks.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Yes, there was something else. Hannah strained her ears.

  ‘Someone sobbing?’

  ‘Sounds like a woman.’

  ‘Deirdre?’

  ‘Who else?’

  Mario broke into a run, side by side with the young DC. The crying came from behind the farmhouse. All the curtains were closed, an old-fashioned mark of respect for the dead. Last time she was here, Hannah hadn’t clocked the paint peeling from the door-frame or the fact that the lavender in the pot outside had died. You could be forgiven for believing the Hinds had abandoned their home.

  As she rounded the side of the house, she saw Mario and the DC standing over Deirdre Hinds. She had screwed herself up into a foetal ball, crouching on the cobbles. From head to toe, she looked a sodden mess, with her cheap and scruffy clothes drenched through, and her hair tangled like a ball of coarse wet wool. What little Hannah could see of her face was blotchy, and it looked as though someone had blacked her eye. No prizes for guessing the culprit, but thank God he’d done nothing worse to her. Hannah had feared he was about to lose it big time.

  Mario stood at the woman’s side. ‘Where is he?’

  Shoes
slapping on the cobbles, Hannah came closer. Deirdre’s grey eyes were cloudy with tears. She tried to answer Mario, her lips moved, but no sound came. It was as if she’d been struck dumb.

  Hannah knelt down so that she and the other woman were face-to- face.

  ‘What is it, Deirdre?’ she asked.

  The woman stared at her.

  ‘Did he hurt you?’

  Deirdre Hinds shook her head. In denial about her husband’s abuse, or was something more shocking on her mind?

  ‘Tell me where Mike is,’ Hannah said.

  Deirdre clamped her eyes shut.

  ‘Please, Deirdre, talk to me. Is Gareth Madsen here?’

  Deirdre took a deep breath and let out a long shriek of pain. She might have been one of the animals in the shippon, waiting to be fed. But Hannah heard the truth in the horror of her cry. It was not hunger that drove the woman to despair. Nor even a smack from her husband’s heavy hand. What tormented her was something she could not bring herself to describe.

  ‘How could you do that to your own brother?’

  Orla Payne’s words echoed in Daniel’s head as he walked out of the restaurant. She’d quoted Callum, quoting someone else. If he was right in believing Callum had spied on Gareth Madsen having sex with his sister-in-law, chances were that he’d been fascinated by their post-coital chit-chat.

  Bryan had been seriously injured in an accident shortly before Callum disappeared. What if Fleur suspected Gareth of fixing Bryan’s car so that he would crash? If she’d challenged Gareth about the accident in the boy’s hearing, there would have been boundless scope for blackmail. Callum might not have taken it seriously, but if he’d dropped so much as a cheeky hint to Gareth that he knew about Gareth’s affair with Fleur, and his attempt to kill his brother, so that he could take both Bryan’s inheritance and his wife, he’d have placed himself in serious jeopardy. A man willing to murder his own flesh and blood wouldn’t scruple at disposing of a teenager who threatened his comfortable existence. The risk-taker in him might have relished it. Killing Callum in the Hanging Wood, burying his body in the pet graveyard nearby, liberating the pig, and encouraging Mike Hinds to put the blame on his own brother. Cruel and conscienceless, but very neat.