The Cipher Garden (6 page)

‘He used to be her boss.’

Louise grunted. ‘That was her modus operandi, wasn’t it? Seducing men she worked for.’

They drove through the town in silence. As they turned on to the road that led to Brackdale, she said, ‘I know I look a fright.’

‘A bit wan, that’s all.’

‘I’ve lost a bit of weight too.’

‘Not a bad thing.’

‘Still not got any manners, then?’ She hesitated before saying, ‘Thanks for letting me stay with you.’

‘I’m glad you came.’

‘Who knows, in a couple of weeks people might start mistaking me for a country maid, with pig-tails and cheeks like apples.’

He laughed. ‘So this is your first time in the Lakes since that holiday?’

He’d wanted to keep their conversation on safe ground, but with Louise you could never be sure what was safe ground. In a moment, the temperature in the car plummeted.

She said in a low voice, ‘Do you ever wonder how he could sleep? How he could live with himself?’

Daniel kept his eyes on the road. ‘He’s dead now.’

After a pause she said, ‘Yes. And I’m sorry about that. And I know how much you cared for him. Like I used to. And I realise I’m a miserable cow, I fully understand. It’s just that…’

To his horror, she started to sob. In all the years since their father’s departure, Daniel could never remember his sister crying. Not even during those frail anorexic days. Louise didn’t yield to emotion, Skiddaw would crumble before she shed a tear. A flame of anger spurted inside him. That smug bastard Rodney, this was his fault.

He pulled off the road and parked on a grassy verge. If ever there was a time to put his arm around her, this was it, but she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and pushed him away.

‘I’m all right.’

‘You think so?’

‘Happens every day, doesn’t it? Woman falls for man, man shags woman, woman gets clingy, man meets another woman and runs away. And the whole cycle begins again. I’ll get over it.’

‘So you don’t like men too much at the moment, big sister?’

‘I don’t exactly like myself, come to that.’

A sudden instinct made him want to say, ‘But I like you, Louise.’

Thank God he bit the words back on his tongue. She’d never forgive him for such a horrendous outburst of sentimentality. For patronising her. For taking pity on her.

In the quiet of the car, as she dried her tears, he realised – with a shock, because he’d never turned his mind to it before, except in the shallowest way – that it was true. For all the years of bickering, for all the gulf between them whenever they discussed their father, there was a bond between them. They were all that remained of their family.

So Kirsty Howe was weeping buckets and the same day, her mother had been accused of killing her father. Hannah leaned back in her chair. She’d been in the job long enough to realise that coincidences, like cock-ups, were commoner than conspiracies. Interesting, though.

Nick looked in. ‘See you there in twenty minutes. Mine’s half a Guinness.’

She slipped the anonymous message into a plastic wallet and Charlie’s irritatingly uninformative crime-scene log back in its labelled folder. There were few less exciting virtues in an SIO than tidiness, but Ben Kind had always preached its importance. Mess wasn’t merely a nuisance, according to Ben, it could hamper an investigation if it prevented you seeing the facts with a clear eye. It wasn’t the end of the world if the facts were incomplete – an occupational hazard in an investigation led by Charlie. Spotting gaps might suggest fresh lines of inquiry. Even the lack of evidence is evidence. Like
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
.

She sat up in her chair, realising it wasn’t an original thought. She could hear Daniel Kind quoting those words, in a television programme. A week ago, she’d seen a DVD of his BBC series on special offer and picked up a copy.
One evening when Marc was out, she’d watched it for half an hour. The following day, she’d picked up a voicemail message. Daniel, suggesting that they get together again sometime. He wanted her to tell him more about Ben, fill gaps in his knowledge of his father. She hadn’t returned the call, wasn’t sure it would be a good idea.

He liked to compare the work of historians and detectives. She was reluctant to be convinced, but his arguments defied easy contradiction. Ben might not have been an academic, but he had had a sharp mind and was more down to earth than his son. To abandon fame and fortune to get away from it all – even in the Lakes – was daring. Reckless. She could never do what he had done. Yet she couldn’t help admiring his nerve in walking away from fame and money, to make a new life with the woman he loved.

At least, she supposed he loved his partner. When they’d last talked, he’d hinted that Miranda was having second thoughts about the move. If he felt let down, he hadn’t said so. She was sure he would be loyal, just like his father. Even though Ben, in an aberration, had left his wife and kids to move up here with Cheryl. Something else the Kinds had in common. On occasion, they acted out of character and surrendered to a wild impulse that changed their lives.

Frightening. Yet fascinating.

The Shroud, officially The Woollen Shroud, was a rambling free house set back from the road out of Kendal. The pub, like the name, dated back centuries, to the days when in an attempt to combat an industrial slump, the authorities forbade people to bury their dead in anything that wasn’t made of wool. To this day the Shroud retained a graveyard atmosphere, if graveyards ever smell of stale beer. But the bar boasted a series of secluded alcoves in which you could conduct a conversation with a degree of privacy seldom found outside the confessional, plus an ill-lit passageway leading to a discreet way out at the back of the building. Ideal for a quiet word with a publicity-shy informer, or a chat between colleagues away from the madding and insatiably curious crowd at police HQ.

Nursing his glass of Guinness, Nick said, ‘What do you want to know about Chris Gleave?’

Hannah took a sip of traditional-recipe lemonade and said, ‘What is there to know?’

‘Not a lot, if you’re looking for a suspect. He had an alibi.’

‘A surfeit of those in this case, don’t you think? Tina, Sam, Kirsty. Roz Gleave. And now her husband Chris?’

‘Yeah, discouraging.’

‘Alibis are made to be broken.’

‘Charlie never cracked them.’

‘That tells us more about Charlie than the strength of the alibis.’

‘If I had to name one man who truly would never hurt a fly, it would be Chris Gleave.’

‘They used to say Crippen was meek and he still got up the nerve to chop his wife into bits and bury them in the cellar.’

‘Even so, he was a sawbones. All Chris cared about was music. He wrote songs and played guitar. Sort of a Cumbrian answer to Paul Simon.’

Succumbing to temptation, Hannah said, ‘Don’t tell me – ‘Bridge Over Troubled Esthwaite Water’?’

Nick groaned. ‘Your jokes don’t get better. With respect. Anyway, when we were in our teens, we lived a couple of roads apart in Ambleside. We had things in common, though the Gleaves’ house was twice the size of ours. His father was an estate agent, his mum a lady who lunched. Sometimes the two of us would walk to school together. As a kid, bullies pushed him around, but by the time he was sixteen, he was able to enjoy the perfect revenge, because most of the girls were swooning after him. A very good-looking lad. I was jealous as hell, but the fact he never showed off made his company bearable. When he went off to Manchester to study music, I missed him.’

‘You said you kept in touch.’

‘Yes, though we went our separate ways and scarcely saw each other. His grandmother lived at Keepsake Cottage.
He was her only grandchild and she doted on him, just as his mum did. When Grandma died, she left the house to him. At the funeral, he met Roz Gleave. Within a couple of months they were married. I was invited to the wedding. Despite all that female admiration, it was his first serious relationship with a girl. Roz is someone who knows what she wants and makes sure she gets it. She wanted Chris, so that was that. After a few glasses of champagne, I joked that he couldn’t have had much say in the matter. But he made it clear he was head over heels.’

‘You said he had a breakdown. When?’

‘Three weeks or so before Warren Howe was murdered, Roz called me. She was in a wretched state. Chris had disappeared a few days earlier. She thought he was suffering some sort of psychological collapse. I was one of the first people to hear about it. She and I barely knew each other, but because I was in the police, she thought I might be able to help.’

‘And did you?’

‘As best I could. Which meant hardly at all. He left home one morning and never came back. To begin with, she wasn’t worried. They didn’t live in each other’s pockets and it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear every now and then. She put it down to the artistic temperament, whatever that was supposed to mean. Only when he didn’t get in touch after twenty four hours did she start to worry, make a few calls to friends. By the time she spoke to me, panic had set in.’

‘No hint as to why he might have upped and left?’

‘They didn’t have financial worries. Chris didn’t make a fortune from his music, but there was enough family money to make an impoverished sergeant’s eyes water. Roz’s business was thriving and they didn’t live
extravagantly. There was no suggestion of strife between them. According to Roz, they never quarrelled.’

‘Never? What could be more suspicious than that?’

He grinned. ‘I’m sure you and Marc never quarrel.’

Hannah refused to be distracted. ‘I know you said he was a sweet guy and all that, but do me a favour.’

‘Actually, I found it easy enough to believe her. Chris wasn’t one for confrontation. If he found himself in…an impossible situation…he wouldn’t want to tough it out. He hated any sort of strife, he’d sooner make himself scarce.’

‘Did he have a lady friend on the side that Roz wasn’t aware of?’

Nick wiped a trace of froth from his mouth. ‘I’m sure he didn’t. And before you ask, there was no suggestion his disappearance was involuntary. I could only assume that Roz was on the right lines. Chris’s temperament was always fragile. A small independent label had brought out a CD of his music a few months earlier and he’d had high hopes of it. But there were distribution problems and it sank without trace. He’d been a bit quiet about that and Roz thought maybe he was more depressed than he’d admitted to her. Or to their GP. He wasn’t taking
tranquillisers
or anything.’

‘Suicidal tendencies?’

‘No history of attempts at self-harm and I’d never known him give any hint that he might want to take his own life. But people who kill themselves don’t always give any advance warning.’

‘No suggestion someone might have wanted to kill him? Bearing in mind what the ACPO manual says?’

‘“Every missing person report has the potential to become a homicide investigation”.’ He was quoting from guidelines issued by the crime committee of the
Association of Chief Police Officers. The Murder Investigation Manual was the closest that serious crime squads had to a Bible, but even the Bible didn’t tell you everything. ‘Sure, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest foul play. He was a likeable man. Still is.’

‘So you couldn’t help?’

He spread his arms. ‘What could I do? There was no role for the police, nothing to suggest that he was a victim of crime. It’s a free country, people can come and go as they please, however much distress they leave behind. All she could do was wait – and hope.’

‘And then…Warren Howe was killed.’

‘No connection.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Howe knew your pal?’

‘Through Roz, yes. She’d grown up in Old Sawrey and her married home wasn’t far away. Her best friend Bel Jenner had a fling with Warren as a teenager, then Roz had a turn. Long in the past, and all three of them had married other people. For good measure, Warren was having it away with Gail Flint. Roz’s only interest in the man was as a gardener, I’m sure of that. The cottage grounds were a mess, the old lady had let them become over-run with weeds and nettles and neither Chris nor Roz had green fingers. They liked the idea of a wild garden, but even a wild garden needs to be planned. So they signed up Flint Howe to do the job.’

‘No evidence of any hostility between Warren Howe and Chris Gleave?’

‘Nothing. The only connection was Roz.’

‘Tight-knit community, huh?’

‘They don’t come tighter.’

Hannah pointed at the empty beer glass and Nick nodded. One compensation of the Shroud’s lack of popularity was that it didn’t take an age to be served and she was back with fresh drinks inside a couple of minutes.

‘When did Chris Gleave reappear on the scene?’

‘A month after the murder. He called on his mobile and then minutes later showed up on the doorstep of Keepsake Cottage begging Roz to take him back in. Which she did.’

‘No hesitation?’

‘If she was in two minds, I never got to hear about it.’

‘What was his story?’

Nick indulged in a little crude origami with the beer mat, as if in aid to thought. The Stygian gloom made it hard to read his expression, but Hannah thought he was wondering how much to reveal.

He took in a lungful of musty air and said, ‘Basically, he’d lost the plot. The failure of the CD hit him much harder than anyone realised. Harder even than he realised. He felt overwhelmed, his life was spinning out of control, he just needed to get away from it all for a while. Long story short, he ended up down in London, busking on the Northern Line.’

Hannah made a face. On her rare trips to the capital, she’d found the Underground noisy, smelly and
claustrophobic
. It must have been a severe breakdown for Chris Gleave to be tempted to exchange the serenity of Keepsake Cottage for the subterranean murk of the Tube.

‘Takes all sorts, I guess. What brought him back to his senses?’

Nick shrugged. ‘His story was that when he managed to straighten out his thinking, he realised he belonged in the Lakes. With Roz. A sad story, but they managed to conjure up a happy ending.’

‘Unlike Warren and Tina Howe. Presumably Chris Gleave was questioned about the murder?’

‘As soon as he resurfaced. Not by me, of course. I’d declared that Roz and Chris were known to me, but Charlie was happy to keep me on the team. Obviously I took no part in interviewing the Gleaves. As suspects they were a long shot, but by that stage we were desperate. We were all acutely conscious that the best chance of picking up a murderer is within twenty-four hours of the crime being committed. After a month had passed, we were clutching at straws.’

‘And the alibi?’

‘Four hours after Warren Howe was scythed to death at Keepsake Cottage, a Good Samaritan hauled Chris Gleave out of the gutter in a side street near Leicester Square and called an ambulance to take him to Casualty. He’d been mugged and had his wallet stolen by a couple of teenage thugs.’

‘What sort of an alibi is that? Four hours might have been long enough for him to do the deed in Cumbria and get back to London.’

‘The train times didn’t fit and he’s never learned to drive.’

‘There are other means of travel. He could have made a secret journey, killed Warren Howe and then hotfooted it back to the city, with everyone none the wiser. Who’s to say that the breakdown wasn’t a part of the plot? A very convenient way of removing him from the scene at the vital moment.’

‘Even Charlie had to rule out push-bikes and making a getaway by hot-air balloon. Logistically, it didn’t make sense that Chris was the killer. Quite apart from the absence of any apparent motive.’

‘Perhaps Charlie should have dug deeper.’

‘For all his faults, Charlie did at least understand that when you’re in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging. We didn’t have an infinite budget. Whichever way we turned, we ran into a blank wall. Trouble is, some cases just aren’t meant to be solved.’

‘All cases are meant to be solved.’

He drained his glass. ‘I’m not holding my breath.’

Would Louise and Miranda hit it off together? Daniel had been full of foreboding. Tact wasn’t his sister’s strong point and Miranda’s moods changed like the weather. They could hardly be more different: the sceptical academic lawyer and the free spirit. But they were making an effort. Louise had changed into a svelte new frock and he guessed she’d dropped a dress size since he’d last seen her, with the odious Rodney in tow. She said all the right things about the cottage, while Miranda rhapsodised about his sister’s taste in fashion before starting to pump her for embarrassing anecdotes from his childhood. He was content to be the butt of their humour until it was time to sidle off to the kitchen to cook dinner for three.

Later, as they relaxed in the living room, Miranda mentioned Barrie Gilpin and Daniel found himself having to explain the part he’d played in one of Hannah Scarlett’s cases, the murder of the woman found on the Sacrifice Stone.

‘As a boy, he could never resist a mystery,’ Louise told Miranda. ‘That’s why he loves unravelling the past. So this police officer was Dad’s old sidekick? Or more than that? Was there something between them?’

‘She isn’t like that.’ Before he could stop himself, he added, ‘Neither was he.’

Louise’s eyebrows arched. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten, he had form. Look at the way he left us in the lurch for a young woman on the make.’

Miranda saw his brow clouding and quickly changed the subject to the tribulations of dealing with tradesmen. But the mellow mood had been spoiled and he finished his drink in silence. The slur angered him. He was angry for his father, even more so for Hannah.

‘A good haul?’ Hannah asked.

‘Fantastic.’ Marc was sitting cross-legged on the rug in the dining room, marooned in a sea of old books. ‘The chap was a connoisseur. I mean, there he was living in this ordinary semi in Ravenglass and up in the spare bedroom he’d assembled this treasure trove. His sister couldn’t care less, she had no idea of what he’d collected over the years.’

‘I hope you paid a fair price.’

‘Of course.’ He was all injured innocence. ‘You know me.’

Well, yes. When it came to business, he was like every dealer she’d met. Books, antiques, whatever, they were all the same, they took as much pleasure from contriving a little extra profit on the negotiation than from contemplating the rarities they’d bought.

She joined him on the rug and picked up a couple of thin books in gaudy wrappers. She liked to take an interest in his business, just as she was happy to talk when he asked about her latest case. With police work, some things had to remain confidential, but her instinct was to be open. There were too many secrets in the world. He’d kept one or two himself, not least the affair with Leigh’s sister that he’d briefly resumed years back, in the early days of their own relationship.

‘You’re like a pig in muck this evening.’

He beamed. ‘I know you worry about this idea of murder for pleasure, but there’s wonderful escapism here. Red harvest, green for danger, five red herrings, nine tailors, murder in Mesopotamia and on the Orient Express. See these Inspector French books? Written by a railway engineer whose culprits concocted alibis based on the assumption that trains ran precisely to timetable.’