Tash Dumelow had aged ten years in the week since their encounter in Tarn Fold. She answered the door herself in T-shirt, denim jeans and trainers. Her pasty complexion had become a make-up free zone and the red-rimmed eyes were dull and expressionless. Daniel thought she’d put on weight. He could smell gin on her breath.
‘Hello, Daniel,’ she said hoarsely.
His throat was dry and he was wishing he’d prepared a script. Too late now. All the way over here, a voice in his head had nagged like a termagant.
You should be ashamed of yourself. The woman is grieving and you’re making a terrible mistake. Why didn’t you wait and think this through, instead of letting yourself be bowled along by excitement? What will you say if you are proved wrong? You’re ruining everything, not just for you but for Miranda as well. Why didn’t you listen to Hannah and mind your own business?
‘I – we were sorry to hear the news about Simon.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Not good, is it? The nurse is with him now.’
He coughed and shifted from one foot to another. ‘I don’t want to intrude…’
It was a lie; he’d driven over here precisely because he was determined to intrude. But he didn’t know what else to say. If she said she wasn’t up to talking or slammed the door in his face, he didn’t have a Plan B. He would have to go away and decide whether he dared share with anyone the idea that had leapt unbidden into his mind. It was a credible idea, it made his spine tingle just like the comparison between nineteenth-century historians and Sherlock Holmes that had become the springboard for the book and then his television series. But as Hannah Scarlett said, there was a world of difference between academic theorising and building a case on the granite of evidence.
‘You must excuse me,’ Tash said. ‘I’ve forgotten my manners. What are you doing out on the doorstep? Come in for a few minutes. The nurse will be a while yet.’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this,’ he said, following her along the hallway. Their footsteps echoed on the floorboards. ‘It must be very difficult for you.’
‘It’s outside my experience,’ she said, not looking over her shoulder. ‘The man I love is dying and I’m being forced to watch.’
Brackdale folk had never understood the Dumelows’ relationship, he told himself. Glib and easy resentment of a glamorous trophy wife missed the point. So did envy of the rich man who’d dumped his childhood sweetheart for a younger, prettier model. For once the truth was tinged with fairytale romance. This couple really were truly, madly, deeply in love with each other. But it wasn’t a fairytale with a happy ending.
‘Would you like a drop of something?’ she asked as they entered the living room. A half-empty bottle of Gordon’s stood on a silver tray next to a solitary glass.
And Tash herself, people had never understood her. The snide remarks that they exchanged behind their hands were ludicrously mistaken. This woman wasn’t a city sophisticate who regarded slumming it in the valley as the price to be paid for a cushy lifestyle. Look at the watercolours that covered the walls, the shimmering dawns and the purple sunsets, the blue meres and the mist-fringed mountains. They weren’t masterpieces, but they were painted from the heart. She was infatuated with Lakeland, still crazy after all these years. Brackdale was her special place, a private refuge, an oasis of safety.
‘No?’ She nodded at one of the vast leather armchairs. ‘Do take a seat. You won’t mind if I pour myself another?’
‘Of course not.’
Lifting the bottle, she said, ‘I know I’ve had enough. Too many, in fact, but who’s counting? This is the best anaesthetic I know. Kind of you to call by.’
‘I’ll be honest with you, Tash.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I came to ask a couple of questions.’
Until this moment, she’d seemed dazed. Dazed by the drink and the fate of the man who was dying in this house. But something in his tone seemed to slap her into watchfulness.
‘Questions?’
The warning voice whispered in his brain: You’re going to regret this. Keep quiet, make your apologies and leave her to weep. There is still time.
‘As a matter of fact, when I was a student, I spent a few months learning Russian, just for fun.’
‘And?’
The longcase clock was ticking in the background. He focused on Tash’s white face, so beautifully structured. Cheekbones to die for. They were so high; a Slavic inheritance, he’d assumed.
‘There was a proverb I came across. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.’ He took a deep breath. If only his translation skills weren’t so rusty. ‘It goes something like this. Skazhi s kem ty drug, a ya skazhu kto ty takov.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m way out of practice.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Your native tongue?’
‘It’s a mistake to live in the past,’ she said with a tight smile. ‘I think of myself as English now.’
‘Yes, that’s one thing everyone admires. The way you’ve assimilated yourself into the English way of life. You speak the language like a native, no one would ever imagine that you came from Russia. The proverb, by the way, means Tell me who your friend is and I’ll tell you who you are.’
She sipped at her drink, watching him in the way a zoo keeper might watch a tiger with a reputation for unpredictability.
‘In case you needed a translation,’ he said. ‘Some things cling on in the memory more than others, don’t they? Like the stories we enjoyed as children.’
It must have been his imagination, but the clock was getting louder. Tick, tick, tick.
‘Sorry, Daniel,’ she said coldly. ‘It must be me. Perhaps I’ve had a drop too much, maybe it’s all the – stuff that’s been going on lately. My head’s throbbing and I’m afraid you’re not making it any better.’
He stood up. They were a yard apart, facing each other. ‘You reminded Miranda of the name of the character in a book by Arthur Ransome, didn’t you? A girl called Dorothea.’
‘Sorry?’ Her face was a mask and he guessed she was trying to freeze-frame the conversation in her mind and identify what exactly she might have said.
Tick, tick, tick.
‘You both identified with the escapism in the story. But what matters is that you were familiar with the name.’
Tash spread her arms. ‘I must have come across it somewhere.’
‘Not as a child in Russia, though. My sister was devoted to those books, she couldn’t get enough of the fun and games with Captain Flint, even though it was a fantasy world. Totally different from life at the local comprehensive. Mind you, Arthur Ransome was married to Trotsky’s secretary, wasn’t he? One of my favourite bits of Lakeland literary trivia.’
She stared at him. ‘You’re not talking sense.’
‘It comes down to this. I can’t believe that when you were a kid, Swallows and Amazons and Winter Holiday were recommended reading for Moscow schoolgirls. But – maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe you read Ransome after you came to England.’
‘Maybe I did. What are you talking about, for God’s sake? I invite you in as a friend and now you are practically persecuting me.’
The voice hissed: This is your last chance. Stop now.
But an almost sexual exhilaration was blazing within him and he knew he could not let go. No stopping now, he was past reason. Like when he and Miranda stripped off inhibitions along with their clothes and made love to each other that first time in Tarn Fold. Had his father felt this hot excitement, when he closed in the solution to a case? At last he knew why detecting crime had meant so much to Ben Kind. It kidnapped you, this burning urge to rip away all the wrappers and reveal the truth. It consumed you, it was everything.
Tash’s hands were on her hips. Inside, for all he knew she was breaking apart, but her lips were pressed together in a defiant line. He’d never seen eyes so cold and empty. She would not yield.
He took a step towards her. With each bit of flotsam, each snippet of information swimming into
his mind, he could feel himself gaining strength. The strength he needed to confront her with the truth.
You’d never imagine she was a foreigner.
He turned the King of Diamonds into the Ace of Spades.
Tell me who your friend is and I’ll tell you who you are.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
‘So Eldine Webber was the first?’ he asked.
‘Eldine Webber?’ Her voice broke. No mistaking her alarm.
She was playing for time, he could see it in her eyes. Making calculations. How much did he know, how much was guesswork?
‘Surely you haven’t forgotten him?’
‘He was – he was a friend of Gabrielle’s.’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘And Gabrielle killed him, didn’t she?’
Her face was ashen. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Gabrielle killed Eldine Webber. And you know that better than anyone, don’t you? You never were Natasha. You were always Gabrielle Anders.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘This is absurd,’ she said.
‘So much is absurd,’ Daniel said. ‘Including the idea that you and Gabrielle could exchange identities and get away with it. No offence, but neither of you exactly made a success of your acting careers. Even so, it worked. You played your part as if you were up for an Academy Award, but this performance carried on day in, day out. No one had the faintest idea that you weren’t who you claimed to be. Not even Simon, am I right?’
Tash – he couldn’t help thinking of her as Tash – stared at him. ‘You haven’t any proof of this.’
‘Come on, we’re past that stage, aren’t we?’ He spoke as patiently as any counsellor, but how could you counsel a recidivist murderer? ‘Webber was a brute and somehow you killed him. From what I’m told, no one could blame you. I suppose it was an act of despair. But it meant you were in danger. Webber had plenty of enemies, but he also had ruthless friends. So you did a deal with your friend Natasha. In return for the money Webber had lavished on you, she agreed to swap identities. Why not? She was sick of the low-life in Leeds and she had an incurable wanderlust. It was a chance for a fresh start, for both of you. Something we all yearn for. Believe me, I know.’
‘If you say so.’
‘It was a conjuring trick.’ He mimicked his father’s jokey tone, that wet afternoon with Barrie Gilpin. ‘Hey presto! and you became Natasha. Before our very eyes! she became Gabrielle.’
The clock was still ticking. So loud now, he could scarcely hear himself speak.
‘You took her passport, everything. She headed for America and you ran off across the Pennines and fetched up in the Lakes. Where you couldn’t resist trying your luck with another rich man. Had you heard of Simon through Eldine Webber? Doesn’t matter. You crossed his path and the rest is – well, history.’
‘I love him.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘And you love the Lakes. “The most perfect place in the world.” Which is why Gabrielle’s return was such a catastrophe. She threatened your security, she could destroy you with one careless word. You gave her money, lots of it, but that didn’t work. She was enjoying herself too much to be bought off so easily. You were terrified, thought you’d never be free from danger.’
Tash didn’t speak. Her expression had frozen, as though all the muscles in her face had ceased to work. If she was still making calculations, he could not guess what they were. Right now, he didn’t care.
‘You’re keen on scapegoats, aren’t you? People to blame make things so much simpler, so much safer. Changing places with Natasha got you off the hook with Eldine Webber’s associates. When you decided that she had to die, you didn’t have far to search for a fall guy. Poor Barrie Gilpin. I suppose you made up the story about his being a Peeping Tom and started all the gossip?’
She moistened her lips. ‘Call it artistic licence.’
‘You persuaded Natasha to meet you. An offer of more money, something like that? But then you killed her and made it look like the work of a maniac. You lured Barrie out on to the fell and then you had a stroke of good fortune. In his panic he lost his footing and plunged into the ravine.’ He paused, trying to stifle his bitterness. ‘It must have been a horrifying way to go. Slow, painful, inescapable death. But so what? Who cares, as long as you are free?’
‘Listen, he may not have peeped through my bedroom windows, but he loved getting an eyeful of my cleavage whenever he could. Whenever he worked well, I wore a low-cut top and no bra, that was his reward.’
‘Talk about performance management, huh?’ Daniel said mirthlessly.
A bleak smile. ‘I never saw anyone so motivated. He wasn’t exactly subtle, your friend. He fancied Natasha like mad, I could tell that from the start. The way he tried to chat her up, it was pitiful to watch. I rang him up that night, pretending to be her. I took her mobile from her bag, so the call couldn’t be traced to me. It was scary, becoming Gabrielle again after so many years, a few minutes after I’d hit her over the head and then – used the axe. I didn’t enjoy that, I promise you, but it had to be done, it was part of the narrative. Just like bundling her body into the four-by-four and taking it up the fell. When I called Barrie, I could almost hear him salivating as I suggested getting it together on the Sacrifice Stone.’
‘He’d have seen it as the chance of a lifetime.’
‘He was a man. Utterly predictable.’ The smile flickered, then died. ‘Don’t look at me that way. It was a matter of survival. Him or me.’
‘No contest, then.’ Anger raged inside him. ‘After you’d dumped the body, I guess you drove back down the fell along the coffin trail. You still had work to do. Clothes to destroy, evidence to eliminate. How much did Simon know, or guess, about what you’d done?’
‘Not a thing, thanks to a sedative. The most terrifying moment was when I thought I’d given him too much and he’d never wake up again. I hated being the cause of the terrible headache he had the next day. But what else could I do? Simon always wanted to protect me and make sure I had everything I wanted. I almost took him into my confidence, but it was too great a risk. Better for only one of us to have to keep the secret. And it all worked out so beautifully.’
There was a dreamy look in her eyes. Almost self-congratulatory. She had the chilly detachment that he presumed was the stock-in-trade of any successful murderer. But in the end, it hadn’t been enough. Maybe Theo had been right that escapists can never escape their fate.
‘Only one thing went wrong. The farmhouse windows look out towards the coffin trail and Jean Allardyce saw you.’
‘I didn’t even realise.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Jean was often subdued when we were together, but that was her nature. Hardly surprising, when she was sleeping with a man like that. I never guessed she had a clue. No hint of blackmail, all she wanted was for the pair of them to keep working here until it was time to pick up their pension. She was genuinely decent in an old-fashioned way. One of life’s victims, what more can you say? We got on well, of course, she wasn’t too bright. I think she was happy to persuade herself that Barrie was the killer, even if she didn’t believe it deep down. She told me it had preyed on her mind, seeing me bumping down the coffin trail late at night when I was supposed to be tucked up in bed with the flu.’
‘So you hit her on the head, threw her in the sheep dipper, and pulled the cover across to hide her from view.’
‘You make it sound so cruel,’ she said, pouring herself another drink. ‘I didn’t have much choice, did I? From the moment she told me she’d rung the police – she actually apologised – it could only end one way. I tried to allay her suspicions, said I’d been worried that Gabrielle was missing and had gone out looking for her. She was so relieved, said she knew she must have misunderstood. She promised she’d call them again and say she’d made a mistake. But how could I trust her? My life was in her hands, that’s no way to be. Then, when I saw the two of you chatting in her car, I was afraid she’d said something to you.’
He shook his head. ‘You misjudged her. She was confused and unhappy, she didn’t know what to think. But she never betrayed you.’
‘So you told me, but I couldn’t be sure what might happen in future. Suppose she talked to her husband?’
‘You spun her some yarn over tea in the baker’s shop and arranged to meet her the following day. You’re stronger than Jean, she didn’t have a chance once you’d decided to kill her. After that you wanted to point the finger at Allardyce as well as checking that she hadn’t blurted out too much while she was giving me a lift. So you parked up in Tarn Fold and waited for me to show up.’
‘You scared me,’ Tash said, taking a sip of gin. ‘Even before we met, when I heard someone had moved into the Gilpin cottage, someone with the same surname as the detective who interviewed me about Natasha.’
Softly, he said, ‘You fooled my father.’
‘Did I? I was never sure. All the other police officers were sympathetic because I was a kind of victim, I’d lost my friend. And they liked casting sidelong glances at my tits. Your father was different. Gruff and guarded. He intrigued me, because he gave nothing away. I used to lie awake at nights, wondering whether he’d add up two and two. However much care I took over my statements, he never seemed satisfied.’
He cleared his throat. ‘You were lucky with your scapegoats. Barrie fell, quite literally, into a trap. Tom Allardyce you managed to push over the edge in an entirely different way.’
‘One thing Natasha told me about the high rollers in Vegas,’ Tash said. ‘The guys who make the big money make their own luck. They take risks, yes, but they make their calculations first. Good advice, I kept it in mind when I was working out how to get rid of her.’
‘And now,’ he said, ‘your luck’s run out.’
Tick, tick, tick.
‘It ran out the day Allardyce was shot. There I was, thinking the whole mess was sorted and then Simon broke his news. The only man – the only man – who ever understood how to treat me. And I’ve lost him. Twenty minutes before you arrived, I said goodbye but I’d left it too late. He didn’t recognise me. It’s almost over.’
The Coffin Trail Page 28
