The Cipher Garden

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Were you surprised when he settled down with Tina Howe?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by settled down. He liked his home comforts, did Warren, that’s why he got married. And Tina was famous for liking sex almost as much as he did. But it didn’t stop him wandering. Only death did that.’

  ‘I’m surprised you stayed in touch, after the way he’d treated you.’

  ‘I didn’t consciously avoid him, if that’s what you mean, Chief Inspector. Why give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he’d hurt me? Even if I’d tried to steer clear, it would have been pointless in a place as tiny as Old Sawrey. To a teenager it’s as claustrophobic as a prison cell. After leaving school, I found a succession of jobs in Hawkshead and Ambleside. Office junior, a bit of typing and reception work. Truth to tell, I didn’t know what I wanted. I had a few boyfriends, but no one special. After my parents died, I moved out of the village, decided to start again. Shortly afterwards, I met Tom.’

  ‘You told the original inquiry team that you saw more of Warren Howe after you and your husband took over The Heights.’

  ‘He used to drink here. Sometimes the family came for a meal. The last time they ate here was their wedding anniversary, not long before Warren was killed.’

  ‘You got to know them all?’

  ‘Tina and I were never going to be best pals, and Sam was always surly, but Kirsty’s sweet. Still is, poor thing.’

  ‘Warren tried it on with you?’

  Bel’s face was a mask. ‘It’s no secret. Nothing to be ashamed of. If Warren met a woman he couldn’t have, he saw it as a challenge.’

  ‘Yet you turned him down?’

  ‘Of course. Once bitten, you know? I was happy with Tom. After Tom took ill, I was wrapped up with caring for him. Warren’s flirting was a distraction. A nuisance. I wasn’t flattered, I knew that all he wanted was to get me into bed again. If you’ll excuse the expression, I’d been there and done that. He had nothing to offer me.’

  ‘Your husband was dying and he was pestering you to sleep with him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And after Tom died?’

  ‘He had the brass neck to say it would do me good. Take me out of myself.’ Bel kept her eyes on Hannah. ‘I hate to say it, but that’s the sort of man he was. He never took no for an answer.’

  ‘So how did you deal with that?’

  ‘How would you deal with it, Chief Inspector? I kept repeating myself, kept on saying no.’

  ‘And how did he react?’

  ‘He wasn’t happy. Said I might as well be dead myself.’

  ‘Not very nice.’

  ‘That was Warren. He could be cruel.’

  ‘You were very upset, I presume?’

  ‘You presume right. But if you’re wondering whether I killed him because of it, the answer is no.’

  Hannah turned to Oliver. ‘Were you aware that Warren Howe was making a nuisance of himself?’

  He shifted under her gaze. ‘I hardly knew the man. Once Jason left, I had my hands full, trying to make sure that the restaurant kept afloat. To me, Howe was just another customer. A married man with a roving eye. After my experience with Jason, I suppose I was glad it was women he was interested in, but I did feel sorry for Bel.’

  ‘In case you’re wondering,’ Bel said, her voice steady, ‘there was never anything – personal – between Oliver and me while Tom was alive.’

  The coffee was hot and strong. As she sipped it, Hannah wondered if Bel Jenner was telling her the truth. Maybe, maybe not. But what did it matter?

  ‘Later, when we became a couple, there was gossip,’ Oliver added. ‘Inevitable, I suppose. I overheard people talking behind Bel’s back, saying it was a disgrace that she’d become involved with a younger man when her husband was still warm in his grave. It was so unfair. She’d suffered a lot. I’m not an idiot, I realise people round here still say I was only interested in Bel’s money. But the honest truth is, Bel was all I was interested in.’

  Protesting too much? Hannah let it go. ‘Roz was another of Warren’s former girlfriends and her husband had left home around this time. Did he try his luck with her again?’

  Bel said, ‘You’ve talked to her, Chief Inspector, and I think she’s answered your question.’

  A quiet, dignified reply. Sometimes this job made you feel uncomfortable, like a voyeur. Or was that, Hannah wondered, part of the appeal of police work, the chance to walk into other people’s lives and nose around their most intimate secrets? She recalled Nick’s phrase about ordeal by innocence.

  ‘You and she are still very close.’

  Bel folded her arms. ‘Lifelong friends. We’ve never had secrets from each other. You know how it is, with your best friend.’

  Hannah knew how it was supposed to be, though there was plenty she wouldn’t tell Terri. As for Marc, right now there was also something important she wasn’t telling him.

  ‘She must have been shocked when her husband disappeared.’

  ‘It was a terrible time for both of us. Losing the men we loved. At least there was a silver lining. In the end I found Oliver, and Chris came back to Roz.’

  ‘You’d assumed Chris was dead?’

  ‘What else could we think? We were afraid he’d committed suicide. He vanished without a word, which seemed so cruel. But he wasn’t himself; you have to see it from his point of view. When he had his breakdown he needed to run away, so he could get his head together.’

  ‘Ever any doubt that the breakdown was genuine?’

  Bel’s lipsticked mouth curved in distaste. ‘Really, Chief Inspector. I’m sure if you check your files, you’ll find that poor Chris was interrogated long and hard when he turned up. The very idea that he might have killed Warren is absurd. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Besides, he had an alibi.’

  Oliver turned to her. ‘Better be careful, darling. Remember, we were never able to come up with watertight alibis for ourselves. If the police run out of other ideas…’

  Hannah pulled herself free of the armchair’s seductive caress and sat upright. A bowl of nuts sat on the table and she helped herself to a handful. The interview wasn’t going well; she’d lost the initiative. Instead of making allies of these people, she was fast antagonising them. Time for an olive branch.

  ‘We worry about people with alibis almost as much as those without. According to your statement, Ms Jenner, you spent most of the day at home next door, sorting through your late husband’s business affairs?’

  ‘After he died, the last thing I wanted to do was to bother with paperwork, but the solicitors handling the probate were asking for various bits of information. I set aside that day to get to grips with it.’

  ‘Did you go out?’

  ‘No. The restaurant was closed that day until six-thirty. During Tom’s illness, and after Jason left, we cut back the opening hours. Bad for business, but money was the least of my worries. I walked over here at half five. Oliver was already hard at work.’

  ‘You’d moved in by that time, Mr Cox?’

  Oliver nodded. ‘There’s a flat upstairs. At present we have a couple of girls over from Croatia for the summer who share it. Jason lived there, but when he left Bel offered it to me in lieu of a pay rise for my extra responsibilities. I’d been holed up in a crummy bedsit in a Coniston back street, not far from Coppermines Valley. The first thing I saw when I woke up each day was a damp stain the shape of Africa on the wall. Of course, I jumped at the chance to move. On the day of the murder, I popped next door about nine-thirty. To see how Bel was bearing up, I wanted to keep my eye on her after everything she’d been through. I said I’d go into Hawkshead to pick up some food. The rest of the time I spent pottering around this building. No witnesses, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is there anything you might have overlooked at the time or forgotten to mention to my colleagues?’ Bel and Oliver shook their heads in unison. ‘When did you first hear about the murder?’

  ‘Roz rang while she was waiting for the police t
o arrive,’ Bel said. ‘She’s a strong lady, but she was in a dreadful state. First her husband had disappeared, now she’d found a man cut to the pieces in her own back garden.’

  ‘You knew Warren Howe was working for her?’

  ‘She and Chris decided to have the work done and she didn’t want to change the plans. Superstition, I suppose. If she acted as if Chris were dead, she’d somehow make her nightmare come true.’

  Hannah tried another tack. ‘I gather that Gail Flint supplies you with wine?’

  ‘We like to support local business ventures. And of course I’ve known Gail a long time.’

  ‘She had an affair with Warren not long before he died.’

  Bel allowed herself a mischievous smile. ‘Well, nobody’s perfect.’

  ‘So it wasn’t just a rumour?’

  ‘I heard the relationship was over before the murder. And Gail would never have killed him. She can be tough, but she’s squeamish. I can’t imagine her doing – what the murderer did to Warren.’

  ‘Their affair was over, perhaps she was unhappy?’

  ‘It happens, don’t I know it? She’d have got over it in time. As I did, as Roz did.’

  ‘You employ Warren Howe’s daughter, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bel glanced at her watch. ‘She will be here soon. I don’t know whether you want to talk to her?’

  ‘Does she know I’m seeing the two of you this morning?’

  Bel shook her head. ‘Don’t forget, the girl’s father was murdered. We tread on eggshells every time the subject comes up when she’s around.’

  ‘She’s a good worker?’

  ‘Excellent, when she puts her mind to the job.’

  Oliver coloured. ‘The fact is, Chief Inspector, she has a bit of a crush on me. Of course, she’s wasting her time. I don’t encourage her. Bel knows all about it.’

  Bel snuggled even closer on the sofa. ‘Persistence runs in that family, you see. But there’s no harm in her, she’ll be fine as soon as she finds someone her own age to moon over.’

  Wasn’t Kirsty closer in age to Oliver than Bel? In a casual tone Hannah asked, ‘Who did you think killed Warren?’

  ‘Isn’t it your job to find out, Chief Inspector?’

  Not helpful. ‘You knew the man well. Intimately. Surely you speculated?’

  ‘Of course we did,’ Bel said. ‘Poor old Warren wasn’t short of enemies. Plenty of people had a motive. The one thing we didn’t know at the time…’

  ‘Yes?’

  She hesitated. ‘I…I’m not sure it’s fair to say.’

  ‘Come on, Ms Jenner. The man was brutally murdered. And he did mean something to you once.’

  She winced. ‘Well, we didn’t know that Tina and Peter Flint would get involved together – one day.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that they were having an affair at the time of the murder?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Chief Inspector. After all, Tina had an alibi, didn’t she? She couldn’t have killed Warren, even if she wanted to.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Miranda squeezed Daniel’s hand as they stood on the shingle at the head of Mardale, looking towards the remains of the drowned village. Holding him tight, as if not wanting him to stray to his sister’s side. Louise stood a few feet away, gazing over the bleached and barren stretches left exposed by the receding water. The mountainous ridge known as High Street lined the horizon. In front of them, the preserved remnant of a grey tree stump rose from the stony ground. Other lakes had lush green shores, but Haweswater was different. The drought was revealing a landscape from a lost world.

  An elderly couple waved a greeting and stopped to take in the view. The woman’s weather-beaten face was a patchwork of wrinkles, her husband reeked of tobacco. They were both wearing white floppy hats and khaki shorts that stretched to their brown, bony knees.

  ‘My grandma came from Mardale Green, y’ know,’ the old man said out of the blue. ‘The buggers flooded the valley seventy years back so folk in Manchester could tap into the reservoir.’

  ‘It’s weird,’ Miranda breathed.

  ‘Gran told me about the vicar standing in the graveyard, before he was supposed to take the last service. Weeping for his doomed church. When they pulled it down, they used the stones for that draw-off tower, see? The yew trees were eight hundred years old, but did that stop Manchester Corporation taking an axe to ’em?’

  ‘What happened to the bodies?’ Louise asked.

  The man’s wife said, ‘Don’t get him started, love.’

  ‘Dug ’em up and took ’em to Shap.’ The old man took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a yellow-stained hand. ‘They were supposed to be reburied, but I bet their ghosts still wander round here at night.’

  For all the heat of the morning, Miranda gave a little shiver. She pulled Daniel closer. ‘Let’s get back to the car.’

  ‘Fascinating, don’t you think, Daniel?’ Louise was motionless, as though mesmerised by the resurrected walls and pathways. ‘The homes of a whole community, deluged and lost forever.’

  ‘They got reservists to dynamite the cottages.’ The old man gave a dry smoker’s cough. ‘Good practice for the war, my grandma used to say.’

  As he and his wife pottered away, Miranda jerked Daniel’s hand. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘How about we go up the old corpse road?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Louise said.

  ‘What’s the point?’ Miranda made an impatient noise. ‘We’ve got a coffin trail of our own in Brackdale.’

  Daniel said, ‘OK. Where would you like to go this afternoon? Another walk, or maybe take a look at Beatrix Potter’s old house? Hill Top is only a stone’s throw from the restaurant I’ve booked for this evening.’

  ‘I don’t mind a bit more exercise,’ Louise said.

  ‘Haven’t we walked enough in this weather?’ Miranda sighed. ‘Come on, Hill Top it is.’

  Kirsty huddled up in the armchair, as if trying to disappear. Her T-shirt depicted a parachutist coming down to earth. Hannah remembered the girl weeping, the first time she’d seen her. No tears yet, thank God. Her fists were clenched and her eyes darted around, as though trying to spot a pair of hidden handcuffs. For ten minutes she responded in quiet monosyllables to Hannah’s attempts to break the ice by asking her about skydiving as well as gentle questions about the murder, before the dam burst under the weight of her resentment.

  ‘This isn’t getting anywhere. I can’t help you, Chief Inspector, do you understand? My father died a long time ago and I’ve spent years trying to forget about it, not cast my mind back. I don’t want to be hounded any more. Why must you people keep harping on?’

  ‘I explained that my team reviews unsolved cases in the county.’

  ‘You must have plenty to choose from. Why bother with Dad? It’s not right, it’s not fair on those who have to carry on.’

  The ordeal by innocence. But surely you’d want to know who murdered your father – unless you already had a good idea?

  ‘We never close a murder file, Kirsty. The other day, we received an item of new information.’

  The girl twitched like a lumpy marionette. ‘What do you mean, what new information?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s confidential.’

  ‘But I’m his daughter! I have rights, you know.’

  ‘Of course you have, Kirsty. Including the right to have us try to find out who killed your father.’

  ‘That’s rich! A bit late for that, I’d say. Your lot never got anywhere last time. All they did was make our lives a misery.’ Her voice faltered. ‘They – they didn’t seem to trust us. As if they didn’t believe we were up on the Hardknott, the day that Dad was killed.’

  ‘And all three of you were?’

  ‘You must have read our statements. We said so right from the start!’

  ‘You went up the Pass with your brother, yes. And – your mum was with you too?’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ />
  Soon Hannah would lose count of the lie-signs. Fingers touching the chin, the nervous cough, traces of perspiration on her brow. Poor Kirsty, she was an amateur in deception. Trouble was, if pushed too hard, she’d fall apart.

  ‘OK, Kirsty, if there’s nothing else you want to tell me at present, we’ll leave it for the time being. Here is my card. Call me any time if you’d like to talk.’

  Kirsty thrust the card into the pocket of her jeans. ‘Why would I want to talk anything over with the police?’

  Hannah luxuriated in a yawn. ‘You’d know that better than me, wouldn’t you?’

  Sam’s scornful voice burned into Kirsty’s brain as she held the mobile to her ear. He was within earshot of a client, so he couldn’t shout, but he didn’t hide his anger. She felt tears scratching at her eyelids. Thank God the overflow car park was deserted, and she couldn’t be seen or overheard. Hannah Scarlett had driven away, but you couldn’t trust anyone. Not even Oliver.

  ‘You stupid cow, I bet you’ve got her wondering what you’re keeping back.’

  ‘Honestly, Sam, I didn’t even hint…’

  ‘What did you say to her?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all. It was only a short conversation. She gave up in the end, I think she realised she wasn’t getting anywhere.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive, but I don’t think she’s going to let go.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Listen, Sam, she knows something we don’t. You know the anonymous letters? I think whoever sent them has written to the police as well. This Chief Inspector won’t let go, she isn’t the type. She’ll want to talk to you soon, for sure.’

  ‘Fit, is she?’

  ‘You won’t get anywhere if you try to chat her up, Sam. Why don’t you tell the truth? Please?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what you were doing the day that Dad died.’