The Cipher Garden

by Martin Edwards

  ‘Your divorce, Mr Flint. Was it acrimonious?’

  He lifted his chin. ‘Aren’t all divorces?’

  ‘Was it your decision to part?’

  ‘After Warren’s death, it was as if for a time, in some strange way, the tragedy brought us together. But we were only papering over the cracks.’ More gesturing with the hands. You’re like a politician, Hannah thought, only answering the questions you like. ‘We’d become different people since our marriage. Both self-employed, working long hours trying to make ends meet. Between us, we’d sunk every penny into our businesses. We had very little time together. It was never going to work out, we both came to recognise that. A mutual decision, let’s say.’

  ‘The anonymous letter, did you see it?’

  ‘Tina destroyed it before she mentioned it to me. Quite right, too. Wicked nonsense.’

  Brakes screeched outside. Peter winced and through the window Hannah saw a white van pulling up. A burly figure clambered out and for a shocking instant she thought it was Warren Howe. The shape of the head and the dark tousled hair resembled the old photograph in the file. But of course this must be his son Sam. The dead never came back to life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The crowds at Hill Top gave Miranda a headache. Beatrix Potter had stipulated in her will that the old farmhouse should be maintained in its original state, and entry was restricted by a timed ticket system. They waited for an hour to get into the shrine, but within five minutes Miranda declared that she’d seen enough and wandered off to seek refuge from the worshipping sight-seers amongst the whitewashed cottages of Near Sawrey.

  Louise lingered in silence over the old bound volumes in the library while Daniel leafed through a pamphlet about the author’s life. She’d had an unexpected fondness for mystification, he discovered. It had taken years to crack the secret code in her private journal. He liked the story about her dressing up in sackcloth and being mistaken by a tramp for a fellow traveller. And for all her tales about dear little creatures, Beatrix could be clinical as well as cute. Skinning a rabbit, boiling the bones and then reassembling the skeleton with an autopsy technician’s attention to detail, questing for authenticity, determined to give her pencil drawings a cutting edge.

  The shaded room offered shelter from the heat and noise. Something was troubling his sister, he could tell; each time the room cleared, she seemed about to speak, but then more visitors came in and the moment passed. Only when they made their way out into the cottage garden did she reveal what was on her mind.

  ‘I’m outstaying my welcome, aren’t I?’

  ‘She’s tired, that’s all.’ He screwed up his eyes in the glare of the afternoon sun and reached into his pocket for his dark glasses. ‘This weather doesn’t suit her.’

  ‘It’s not about the weather, Daniel.’

  ‘Don’t take it personally. Miranda will be fine.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Louise exhaled. ‘I’ll check train times.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. There’s no need. Listen, I enjoy having you here. I don’t want you to leave.’

  She brushed his cheek with her lips. ‘Thanks, Daniel. The break’s done me good. But I don’t want to come between you and Miranda.’

  ‘Anyone would think you’re an old mistress, returning to haunt us. You’re reading too much into a few grumpy remarks.’

  ‘She wants you to herself.’

  She rested her backside on a low stone wall and he perched beside her, out of the way of people taking pictures of each other, gleefully snapping and posing in Mr Macgregor’s flower-filled back yard.

  ‘I want you to be happy together.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘I’m not just talking about the sex, Daniel.’ A rueful smile. ‘That sounds pretty good.’

  Early that morning, Miranda had woken him up and hauled her warm naked body on top of his. As they made love, she’d cried out in delight. Even with the thick stone walls of Tarn Cottage, it would have been a miracle if Louise in the next-door room had slept through.

  He groaned. ‘Christ, Louise, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. All I’m saying is that you need more than fun at bedtime to keep you together. Trust me, Rodney was surprisingly good in that department, but in the long run it wasn’t enough.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said, determined not to think about Rodney with his sister, ‘you and I aren’t the only people who’ve had a rough time. Before we met, Miranda had an affair with a married man that didn’t work out. Plus a lesbian boss who made a pass and then victimised her when she didn’t say yes. She’s been badly bruised. Healing takes time.’

  ‘Don’t I know it? But that’s the point, Daniel. The two of you need space, a chance to see if you can make this mad idea of running away from the rat race work out for you both.’

  ‘Is it such a mad idea?’

  ‘Not for you,’ she said. ‘But for Miranda? A different story, I guess.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be here if it she hadn’t persuaded me we should buy the cottage.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘Don’t you like her?’

  ‘I do, actually. I’m just not sure she’s right for you.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because I know you.’ She hesitated. ‘And I can tell that deep down you’re not sure either.’

  ‘You specialise in mind-reading now?’

  She tapped him on the shoulder. ‘You and me, we’ve spent too many years together to be able to fool each other. Don’t let me bother you. After all, you never did when you were younger. I want this to work out for both of you, Daniel, honestly I do. I just think you may have a better chance if I’m not here, getting in the way.’

  ‘You’re not getting in the way,’ he said stubbornly.

  Louise slipped off the wall and disappeared into the throng of camera-toting, ice-cream-licking tourists and National Trust volunteers. He closed his eyes and felt the sun burning his unprotected cheeks. He took in a breath of hot air and then headed out of the garden and in search of Miranda.

  Hannah arrived back in Kendal shortly after five. Chris Gleave had presented her with a CD of his songs and she’d been playing it in the car. His voice and guitar-playing were pleasant but unexceptional, his words and music much the same. If he’d ever hoped to earn fame and fortune as a latter-day Paul Simon, he’d been deceiving himself. He might entertain an undemanding audience here or in Keswick, but no singer so bland would ever fill Central Park.

  As the town baked, tempers frayed. Drivers tooted at pedestrians who took a chance dodging through slothful traffic, mothers yelled at infants and made them wail. Hannah’s eyes were dry and sore and her abdomen hurt. She called at a chemist’s and a bookshop and then hurried back to the station.

  At the water cooler, she bumped into Nick Lowther. They complained to each other about the temperature and he brought her up to speed with progress in the Cockermouth case. The good news was that they’d identified a likely culprit, the bad news was that he’d suffered a severe stroke a year back and would never speak or walk again. No one seemed to know whether the stats for the review team would record this as a success or a failure.

  Nick glanced up and down the corridor and lowered his voice. ‘Can we have a word sometime?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I mean, in private. Not here. It’s…personal.’

  Oh Christ. I’m not sure I want to know.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘One thing, though, Hannah. This has to be strictly off the record.’

  A young woman constable passed them in the corridor and they exchanged a word. As her footsteps receded, Hannah scanned Nick’s face. He was an attractive man; she could have fancied him if he wasn’t a colleague, but over the past few days he’d aged. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, his complexion pasty and untouched by the sun.

  This is about you and Roz Gleave, isn’t it?

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He swallowed. ‘I promise
I won’t compromise you.’

  ‘No worries, Nick.’ Should she say this? Not long ago she wouldn’t have thought twice. ‘I trust you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said in a tone that told her she’d said the right thing. ‘And I trust you. Which is why I need to talk.’

  ‘When?’

  He checked his watch. ‘I promised not to be late home this evening. The parents-in-law are coming round for a meal and I’ll be in big trouble if I don’t lend a hand.’

  ‘Call me when you’re ready.’

  Les Bryant strode around the corner. He was in shirtsleeves and it was the first time Hannah had seen him without a tie.

  ‘How did you get on?’

  Early on after his arrival in the team, he’d made a point of calling her ma’am, in sardonic acknowledgement of his unaccustomed position as a subordinate. At least he’d relaxed since then. One of these days he’d so far forget himself as to use her first name.

  ‘If you have ten minutes, I’ll update you.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Nick said. ‘I need to be getting off.’

  Les filled his paper cup to the brim as Nick walked away. He lapped at the drink like a grizzled old cat and then said,

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Les raised his eyebrows to indicate that he recognised a disingenuous reply when he heard one. ‘He’s not the man he was. Seems hassled about something.’

  ‘Could be the weather.’

  ‘Gets blamed for a lot of things, does the weather. Convenient scapegoat, if you ask me. Any road, Nick Lowther’s problems are none of my business. I had enough years worrying about my flock, believe me.’

  Despite her other preoccupations, she couldn’t help savouring the notion of Les as a caring shepherd. They went back to her office and she switched her new fan to maximum. The whirring set her teeth on edge, and the room seemed hotter than ever. As she summarised her interviews with Warren Howe’s family and business partner, Les didn’t utter a word. Slumped in his chair, eyes half closed, he seemed to be dozing off despite the racket from the fan. But Hannah knew better. She’d come to admire his quality of stillness, his ability to focus all his attention on the matter in hand when not playing up to his reputation as a cantankerous Yorkshireman. As a listener, he was up in the Ben Kind class.

  ‘Are they all fibbing?’

  She made an exasperated noise. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me. There are plenty of leads in this case, but none of them seem to go anywhere.’

  ‘You think she did it?’

  ‘Tina?’ Hannah considered. ‘She would be capable of killing him. And of covering her tracks.’

  He plucked a blank sheet of A4 from her desk and waved it in front of his face in the vain hope of creating a current of air. ‘Just because a tip-off is anonymous, doesn’t mean it’s untrue.’

  ‘I’d have more faith if we’d been given some ammunition to fire at Tina. A clear motive, for a start.’

  ‘She was married to the man, for God’s sake. What more of a motive do you want?’

  ‘They’d been married a long time. If she snapped all of a sudden, there must have been a reason.’

  ‘The affair with Gail?’

  ‘It was supposed to be over, remember? Anyway, why choose that particular moment to kill him? There’s no rhyme or reason. Even so, she has to be the favourite. Which suggests that the alibi her kids gave her is false.’

  ‘Unless she hired someone to do the dirty deed.’

  ‘I can’t imagine Tina wanting to put herself at someone else’s mercy. I’d say she’s a control freak. Besides, there aren’t any likely candidates for the role of hit man, are there? The Sawreys aren’t exactly awash with contract killers. Poaching rabbits is as wicked as it gets in that neck of the woods.’

  ‘How about Oliver Cox? A young man, newly arrived in the area. A chancer, probably unscrupulous.’

  ‘More rewarding to make a play for Bel Jenner, surely? And a lot easier than carrying out a hit for a woman he hardly knew. Even if he did see Bel as a meal ticket, he’s put down roots now. For all the age gap, the two of them are like peas in a pod.’

  ‘Who knows what goes on behind closed doors? Besides, they’ve never married. Never had kids.’

  ‘You can be happy together even if you’re not married, even if you don’t have kids,’ she murmured.

  Realising he’d touched a nerve, Les grunted. An acknowledgement, if far less than an apology. After a pause, Hannah carried on.

  ‘No, if Tina killed Warren, my guess is that she took the scythe to him herself.’

  ‘If you want to break her alibi, sounds like young Kirsty’s the weak link.’

  ‘Yes, she’s not as hard-faced as her mum or her brother. I felt sorry for her, even though I was sure she was holding out on me.’

  ‘I’ve never felt sorry for a suspect.’

  She could believe him. ‘I can’t see Kirsty slashing her dad to pieces.’

  ‘I’m not saying she wouldn’t feel bad about it afterwards.’

  ‘If she has a guilty conscience, I don’t think it’s because she’s a murderer. Frankly, if she’d killed Warren, I think even Charlie would have caught her. Kirsty’s the sort who would want to get it off her chest. Covering up for her mother might be different. If she was protecting someone else, she might force herself to be strong for their sake.’

  ‘Ask Linz to talk to her. They may have things in common. Pop music, fashion, lads, whatever. She’s a similar age to Kirsty, it may give us a way in.’

  ‘So I’m too old to bond with her? Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Horses for courses,’ he said, deadpan. ‘We’re none of us as young as we were. How about brother Sam?’

  ‘I’m certainly past it as far as he’s concerned. Talk about a chip off the old block. I bet that every woman he meets, he undresses them with his eyes.’

  ‘That obvious, eh?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes. I’m sure he’s not as stupid as he likes to make out, but subtlety isn’t his strong point. I’m afraid that what he saw when he looked me over mustn’t have met his high standards.’

  ‘Can’t believe that.’

  She grinned. It was the closest she’d ever heard him come to gallantry. Possibly the closest he’d come in years.

  ‘Trust me, the bloke didn’t make the slightest effort to make friends or influence me. Even Tina seemed embarrassed by his rudeness.’

  ‘Suppose you prove the alibi is fake. Even if one of them admits that Tina wasn’t up on the Pass that day, we’d still be a mile off having a strong enough case to put to the CPS. You know what most prosecutors are like. If you can’t give them a video of the mad sniper as he guns down his victims, the file goes straight into the “too difficult” cupboard.’

  Hannah sighed. ‘For all we know, she and Peter took the opportunity to have a quick shag while Warren was working at Keepsake Cottage.’

  ‘Or maybe Tina persuaded Peter to kill him.’

  ‘I can believe he would be putty in her hands. But if that’s what happened, it was an own goal. The business struggled and Peter and Gail didn’t split up for years.’

  ‘What if they were playing it long term?’

  ‘Peter might be capable of that,’ she admitted. ‘But Tina? If she wanted Peter for herself, I can’t see her letting him stay with his wife for so long afterwards. Even if they were having it off together on the quiet in the meantime.’

  Les glared at the clattering fan. ‘Some choice, eh? Either fry or be deafened. All right. We’ve spoken about Cox. Other candidates?’

  ‘Gail Flint must be worth another look. Bel Jenner – I don’t think so. She’d not long since lost her husband and was in the process of seducing Cox. Or being seduced by him, same difference. I’m not sure she’s bright enough to get away with murder so successfully. But even if I’m wrong, her relationship with Warren was ancient history.’

  ‘Would he take no for an answer?’

 
‘Depends on what his options were.’

  ‘You’d rule out Chris Gleave?’

  ‘Difficult to see past his alibi. Or find a motive.’

  ‘What if Warren took up with Roz again after finishing with Gail? Suppose he used the garden job as cover for the affair? Could that be what drove her husband away?’

  ‘And then she took a dislike to the way he was planting the hollyhocks?’

  ‘You can’t expect me to hand you a solution on a plate like one of them armchair detectives.’

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Les.’

  ‘All right, then. If you run out of ideas, how about this? All of them were in on it. The whole bloody village.’

  She laughed. ‘No chance. This is Cumbria, we have narrow-gauge crimes. Not the conspiracy killings you get on the Orient Express.’

  The world was turning upside down. Kirsty had been drunk a few times in her life and she remembered the ground tilting under her feet, the dizzy sense of being out of control. Somehow she’d stumbled back home from Keepsake Cottage, but she could recall nothing about the journey except the blaring of a horn when she’d nearly walked under a car’s wheels.

  Tears stung her eyes. She wandered aimlessly around the kitchen; a couple of times her hips bumped against the edge of the breakfast bar. Her leg hurt; she’d barked her shin and not even noticed. A mirror on the wall distorted her features, like something out of a fairground. How ugly she was. Red-faced, fat and repulsive. How could she ever have imagined that Oliver would want to touch her? They had no future together, that was for certain.

  The house seemed like a foreign land, she’d forgotten where everything was. Her stomach hurt; she hadn’t had any lunch, but she wasn’t in the mood for eating. This was one of those times when even chocolate couldn’t solve a thing.

  It would have been better all round if that driver hadn’t swerved to avoid her. At least before you got drunk you could relish the buzz of the alcohol. She felt dazed, as though someone had clubbed her on the head. In a way, someone had.

  Roz Gleave was a friend, how could she be so cruel? What she said, how could it be true?