Simon turned to the detectives and cast his eyes to the heavens.
‘See what we’ve had to put up with?’ he mouthed.
Tash rejoined them. ‘I just wanted to remind Tom that if there was anything he wanted to tell the police, now was the time. All you want is a bit of co-operation. You saw how he reacted.’
None of them said much as they trudged around the scattered buildings and sheds. Hannah’s headache had returned and her wellingtons were tight. Despite the fine weather, there was still mud on the ground, as well as a regular quagmire in her brain. If Allardyce had killed his wife, there were plenty of places in the vicinity of Underfell for him to dispose of the body at minimal risk. This was a lonely spot; as long as you weren’t careless enough to be seen by a walker over on the coffin trail, or someone watching from the Hall, you could do more or less as you pleased without fear of detection. It would take a painstaking search by a large team of officers to have a realistic hope of finding a well-hidden corpse on the farmland. If he’d buried her somewhere up on the fells, chances were that it might never be discovered.
She heard Simon Dumelow whisper to his wife, ‘Are you okay, darling?’
‘Yes, it’s just that – I’m afraid that he’s hurt her. You know what he’s like. Perhaps he hurt her more than he intended.’
‘Where next?’ Nick asked.
Simon rubbed his forehead; his stride had shortened in the last few minutes and he seemed close to exhaustion. Hannah noticed that his wife gave him a sharp glance. Her concern was almost tangible and Hannah wondered if she had already guessed that something was wrong.
‘What do you think, darling?’ he asked. ‘Is it worth taking them up to the sheep handling facility?’
She clapped him on the back. ‘It won’t take long. Then you can have a rest. You look as though you need it.’
‘Working too hard, that’s all,’ he mumbled.
The four of them made their way in the direction of the coffin trail and the slope of the fell, towards the small field near the beck. ‘This is where the sheep are gathered in,’ Tash said. ‘They are kept in those pens and there’s a dipper behind those dry stone walls.’
‘Twice a year dipping isn’t compulsory any more,’ Simon added. ‘Unfortunately, there’s been talk of an outbreak of sheep scab, so Tom dipped the animals the other week to give them protection.’
‘But the dipper isn’t enclosed?’
‘Not in a building. Sheep dip’s toxic, you know. Better to have the tank out in the open air.’
They reached a dyke and beyond it the walls enclosing the sheep dipper. It was about fifteen feet long, with a battered wooden cover. Simon said, ‘We can’t leave it open to the elements, of course. The tank’s protected to avoid accidents and keep the insurers off our back.’
‘The cover doesn’t look that secure,’ Nick said.
‘One more job to do and to pay for,’ Simon said with a hollow smile. ‘I’ve kept nagging Tom about it. He ought to get round to it soon.’
‘Mind if I lift the cover and take a look?’
Simon leaned against the wall for support. ‘Be my guest. I’d give you a hand, but…’
‘No problem, leave it to me.’
Nick strode to the sheep dip tank and, bending down, started to pull the cover to one side. Even in the open, the stench took Hannah’s breath away. As the tank came into view, they could see the grey milky fluid. And then they saw something else.
Tash screamed and buried her face in her husband’s neck. He seemed to be hypnotised. Nick’s face was empty as he kept on shifting the cover.
Hannah chewed her lip so hard that it began to bleed. She’d never once been sick at a post-mortem. Throwing up in the presence of death was an admission of weakness. But the sight of Jean Allardyce’s fully clothed body floating in the sheep dip tank was enough to make the strongest stomach heave.
Chapter Twenty
The morning after his talk with Hannah Scarlett, Daniel overslept by an hour, but as Eddie wasn’t due to turn up until ten, it didn’t matter. When Miranda opened the blinds, sun flooded the kitchen and as they munched croissants, she chatted about her plans to turn the barn into their office. It was as if they’d never exchanged a cross word.
In the course of a cold and invigorating shower, Daniel had resolved to stop worrying about Jean Allardyce and Barrie Gilpin. Hannah was right: he could do no more for them than he could for poor Aimee. If Jean had disappeared, no-one would try harder than Hannah to find her. Another decision was not to think too much about Hannah, either. Each time he remembered the way she’d put her hand on his, he felt like a schoolboy fantasising over a girl who is out of reach. Dangerous territory; better not to stray into it.
As she filled the cafetiere, Miranda announced that she was itching to write again. She fancied producing a series of features about downshifting for a lifestyle magazine and she meant to ring every editor in London until she found a taker for it. After all, they’d have to start earning a bit of money soon. The house proceeds wouldn’t last forever.
‘How are you getting on with your article about corpse roads?’
‘Let’s just say it’s making appropriately funereal progress.’
She laughed and said, ‘I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t walked the coffin trail myself yet.’
‘You should. It fascinated me, imagining that I was treading in the footsteps of the villagers of three hundred years ago.’ He mimicked the sombre tone of a fellow historian who presented on television. ‘“Trekking over the fell through rain and mud, bearing their melancholy burden.”’
‘Weird.’ She shivered pleasurably. ‘I was thinking, maybe I might take Tash up on her invitation to pop round for a coffee one morning. I could leave the car at the farm and walk up the fell from there.’
‘It’s a long haul if you go all the way to Whitmell and you won’t find a bus to bring you back.’
‘I wasn’t planning to cover the whole route, just the easy bit. It isn’t far from Brack Hall Farm to the top of the fell and it looks like an easy climb. I could stroll along the top and take a look at the Sacrifice Stone from close quarters.’
‘Just as long as you don’t climb up and sit on top of it.’
When he told her about the warning words of the woman he’d met and the legend, she giggled and exclaimed, ‘So you’re doomed?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘Well, better be practical. Did I ask if you’d made a will?’
‘You inherit my books.’
‘Such generosity.’
Wobbling dangerously on her stool, she kissed him on the cheek. One thing led to another and a couple of minutes later she was leading him back upstairs. When she slipped off the last of her clothes and clambered on top of him, he found that sleep had washed away the tensions of the night before.
They were dressed again with five minutes to spare before they heard Eddie’s truck pulling up at the end of the track. Daniel reminded himself that if he had any discipline, he’d have made use of the time to work on his article. But what was so admirable about having discipline? That was the whole point about moving out to the sticks. No more deadlines; they could please themselves.
While Eddie set to work, Daniel retreated to his computer and tapped out a few paragraphs about the coffin trail. For the first time since the move, his prose was racing. Walking the trail for himself had unshackled his imagination; until now he’d needed to hack out every sentence, like a labourer using a pickaxe on granite. After he’d completed the second limb of the route as it zigzagged down into Whitmell Vale, he would turn his attention to other corpse roads. Rydal to Grasmere was an obvious choice, but he liked the sound of the more remote corpse way across the rugged western reaches of the Lake District, from Wasdale Head to Boot.
When the phone rang, for a moment he wondered if Hannah was calling him again. On hearing Theo’s voice on the other end of the line, he felt a wrench of disappointment coupled with surprise.
‘How did you get this number?’
‘Unlike a good historian, a good detective never reveals his sources,’ Theo said smugly. ‘That said, of course I would not claim to be any sort of detective, good or otherwise. Perish the thought. So I will admit to you that I spoke to Prittipaul and he let me in on the secret.’
Prittipaul was the editor of Contemporary Historian. Of course it had been naïve to imagine that he could stay out of reach of the past for long. Few institutions are as ruthless in tracking down their alumni as Oxford colleges, even if only so that old members can be urged to give generously to the Master’s latest pet project. Prittipaul was by nature tight-lipped, but Theo had probably called in some favour. Or indulged in a little blackmail, for the chairman of the company that published the journal was a member of his coterie.
‘My coming here wasn’t a secret.’
‘Even though your old mobile number has been disconnected and you left no exact forwarding address? You’ve even closed your email account.’ Theo’s tone was more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger. ‘Such a pity that you wish to cut yourself off from your friends and colleagues.’
‘So what can I do for you?’
‘I just wondered how you were getting on in your leafy retreat.’
‘I’m looking out through the window right now. I just saw a heron diving into the tarn.’
‘So your infatuation has not run its course as yet?’
‘No,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s only just begun.’
In the pause that followed, he realised with a start that he’d been thinking of his love affair with the Lakes, not with Miranda. But in a way they amounted to the same thing, surely.
‘As it happens,’ Theo said at length, ‘a group of us in the University have been talking about starting a new historical journal. The editorial board meets for the first time in a couple of weeks. But we are a little thin on the ground so far as your specialisms are concerned. I wondered if you might care to join us? Nothing too formal. In fact we’ll be combining a little business with a spot of gastronomic pleasure. The meeting’s being held in a rather splendid new bistro up in Summertown. You might like to bring along your, ahem, lady friend. Make a long weekend of it.’
‘Thanks for the kind invitation,’ Daniel said. ‘And I’d be glad to offer the occasional article, if it helps. But I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Oxford yet awhile.’
‘Your social calendar is already crammed?’
‘What I like about this place is that I don’t have a social calendar any more.’
‘It’ll end in tears,’ Theo murmured. ‘You do realise that, don’t you? The world treats escapists roughly, Daniel. They learn that in truth, they cannot escape themselves.’
‘Thanks for the warning, Theo. It’s good to talk.’
The Master made a noise halfway between a snort and a yelp and slammed down the phone. For another hour, Daniel tried to recapture the rhythm of his writing, but it was no good. The spell had been broken. He went downstairs and told Miranda about the call and to his astonishment, she said that it might have been nice to go back to Oxford. Just for a weekend.
‘But we agreed…’
‘It wouldn’t hurt, would it? I mean, it’s not as if a few days make any difference. The cottage is bought. We’d come straight back.’
‘I’ve left the college behind me.’
‘Well, it’s up to you. But it would have given us a break.’ He blinked. ‘Do we need a break?’
‘Don’t tell me you’re not sick of the smell of sawdust. I feel like a case study for an ENT specialist. I don’t believe my sinuses will ever be clear again.’
‘Temporary inconvenience, nothing more. Remember what we agreed? No pain, no gain?’
‘I just never thought you’d take it all so seriously.’
‘Don’t you take it seriously?’
‘Yes, but…oh, it doesn’t matter. Forget I ever uttered a word.’
In the afternoon, he offered to fetch supplies from Tasker’s while Miranda cold-called the editorial desks of some of the magazines she’d never written for. The sky was blue, the sun high and it was an easy decision to walk. This is the life, he reminded himself as he left Tarn Fold and strolled along the lane towards the village. When talking to Theo, he’d felt no tug from the past, no harking back to Oxford and the career he had abandoned. He missed none of it: not the SCR politicking, not the interminable meetings to debate the latest financial crisis, not the city’s petrol fumes, not the crowded buses, not the bicycle thieves. Walking the lanes of Brackdale, the biggest threat to your well-being came when a tractor lumbered past and you had to press yourself into the hedgerow’s prickly embrace.
As the lane meandered, he eavesdropped on the conversation of the sheep and inhaled the smells of earth and grass. Lifting his eyes beyond the walled-off fields of Underfell, he gazed towards the Sacrifice Stone: sullen and hostile as ever, as though it resented the valley’s loveliness and wished it nothing but harm. After staring down over Brackdale in grim silence for so many centuries, he thought, the Stone would never yield its secrets.
Who had killed Gabrielle Anders and laid her body out upon it? He needed to know everything. It was no longer enough to merely establish that Barrie was innocent of the crime. An act of wickedness had destroyed the young woman whose only crime was to visit the Lakes and look up an old friend. She’d survived the sleazy joints of downtown Vegas, only to be brutalised and killed in an area that even aesthetically challenged bureaucrats recognised as possessing outstanding natural beauty.
Would Hannah find the culprit? He ought to leave the investigation to her, it was absurd to suppose that he had inherited some genetic instinct for detection. Yet he wanted to do more than rely on such crumbs of information as she deigned to pass to him. He felt pangs of hunger for knowledge that a police officer, trammelled by rules and procedures, could never satisfy. At college, he’d craved information about the past like a junkie yearns for one more high. This urge wasn’t such a different sensation, except that this time he sought to understand who had destroyed a fellow human being. And why.
Rounding a bend, he realised that he was within half a mile of the village. The stone houses of Brack came into sight at the same instant as a siren punctured his reverie. It was a wail that haunted him. He could never hear the sound without being propelled back to the Cornmarket and the sickening presentiment that his lover was dead, that he hadn’t reached her in time to talk her out of destroying herself. The siren howled again and his stomach knotted.
Within moments he could see them thundering along the road. An ambulance, followed by a police car. Even as he watched, they skidded to the right and raced up the lane towards Brack Hall Farm.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hannah took two quick strides so as to stand between the Dumelows and the sheep dipper. When she breathed in, the fumes hit her like a smack on the face. Her head was still throbbing, but she dared not succumb to the horror. Fighting to keep a tremor out of her voice, she said to the couple, ‘This is a crime scene now. DS Lowther will stay here while I accompany you back to the Hall.’
Simon was stroking his wife’s fine hair as she wept, murmuring inaudible words of comfort. His eyes betrayed no expression. Hannah thought he was hypnotised by the sight of the body. Perhaps he was asking himself what death felt like.
A gull swooped over them, mewing keee-ya. Nick straightened his back. His face was white. Pulling out his radio, he said, ‘I’ll call the control room.’
Hannah led the Dumelows along the track leading to the farmhouse. The couple walked slowly; both husband and wife seemed unsteady on their feet. Hannah didn’t try to hurry them; her legs too felt heavy, her shoulders tense and weighted with dismay. A hundred yards from the dipper, the path forked and they came to a halt. Tash took out a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily. Her cheeks were blotchy and there were furrows around her mouth and eyes that Hannah had never seen before.
‘She didn’t fall in by acci
dent, did she, Detective Chief Inspector?’
‘Of course she didn’t,’ her husband said. ‘You saw the tank, how it was covered up. Jean didn’t do that. Couldn’t have done.’
‘She always was afraid of him,’ Tash said. ‘There are things she told me, in confidence…darling, I never even mentioned them to you, for fear you’d throw him out. That was the crazy aspect of it, you see. Despite everything, she still cared for him. And now he’s done – that.’
She pointed towards the sheep handling facility. Nick was standing by the stone wall, talking into his radio while he kept guard over the murder scene. And it was a murder scene, for sure; Hannah didn’t need an inquest verdict to tell her that.
‘The bastard,’ Simon said croakily. ‘I should have fired him years ago.’
‘What would have happened to Jean if you had? That’s what always bothered me, that’s why I didn’t want to rock the boat.’ A thought struck Tash. ‘Maybe she would be alive today if I had. Oh shit, shit, shit.’
‘Don’t be silly. You’ve always done your best to help her.’
‘Much good I’ve done her!’
‘Mrs Dumelow,’ Hannah said gently. ‘It won’t help to beat yourself up over this. Whoever has done this wouldn’t…’
‘There isn’t much doubt who’s done it, is there?’ Tash interrupted in a high-pitched voice. ‘That scumbag Allardyce…’
‘We don’t have proof…’
‘For God’s sake, how much proof do you need?’ Tash was almost shrieking. ‘There are so many things I could tell you. I begged her to leave him, make a new life for herself, but it was no good. He’d cowed her into submission, it was as if she didn’t have a mind of her own. That’s the way he operates. He’s vicious, a control freak. If she dared to stand up to him, he used to rape her.’
Hannah stared. ‘She told you that?’
‘Yes, and it wasn’t only when she defied him. He insisted on sex every night. Regardless of anything.’ Tash was speaking rapidly, as if a dam of reticence had burst. ‘Kinky sex was what he liked best. He used to tie her up, pretend to strangle her with her own tights. Occasionally there were threesomes, with his slimy pal Joe Dowling. Her own cousin. If she showed any reluctance…oh God, he’s a wicked man, a pervert, and I turned a blind eye to it, even though it was all going on next door.’
The Coffin Trail Page 25
