The Frozen Shroud (19 page)

Daniel murmured something vague and non-committal. Surely there were worse fates than pruning roses and feeding fish?

‘I tell a lie!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ll be forced to sell the Hall before then, you wait and see. It’s what happened to Hodgkinson, all over again.’

‘Surely things won’t come to that.’

‘Oh, the economy is in such a dreadful state, I can’t see a way out. Don’t believe what you hear about recovery, people are still watching the pennies. Umpteen of the events we manage have been scaled down, others have been cancelled altogether. Oz asked you to speak on the Caribbean cruise, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, I …’

‘Well, forget it. We won’t be handling that contract after all. We heard this morning, we’ve been undercut on our tender. The truth is, the cruise line took fright because of what happened to Terri. Two other clients have cancelled their retainers. They come up with endless excuses, but it’s all about the murder. It’s done us untold damage.’

‘Nobody can sensibly blame you for …’

‘Business isn’t sensible,’ Melody hissed. ‘It’s stupid. Everything’s falling apart. We have two holiday homes abroad, mortgaged up to the hilt, and we can’t even sell them at a knockdown price.’

Her slim body was rigid with tension, and she looked to be about to dissolve into tears. He didn’t know what to say, a sure sign it was best to keep his mouth shut.

‘I’ve always hated it, to be honest. It wasn’t so bad when I started out as the hired help, with no responsibility except to schmooze the clientele. When you start worrying about whether the bank is going to renew your overdraft, fun goes out of the window.’

‘The Literary Lakeland conference was a huge success.’

‘Thanks, but we were hired for that job nine months ago. Business has been going down the plughole ever since. Why do you think I was desperate to get out? We found Terri’s salary by closing our office in Penrith, and running everything from here. It was never going to work, I see that now. When Terri announced she was leaving to go and live with Robin, it was a blessing in disguise. Otherwise we’d have had to make her redundant.’

‘I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

A bitter laugh. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? In our
line, it’s vital to keep up appearances. And we thought we managed that pretty well. Even Terri never guessed we were close to skint. It never rains but it pours. Now we can’t even host a small private party without having a guest battered to death at the end of it.’

The branches shivered in the wind, as if fearing for the owners of Ravenbank Hall. Melanie started down the low flight of steps to the lawn, and beckoned him to follow.

‘Watch your footing. The York stone is slippery when it’s damp.’ A brittle laugh. ‘You breaking your neck really would be the last straw.’

He followed her across the lawn. There were strict limits to his sympathy. He’d never forget discovering Terri Poynton’s ruined body, abandoned on a wintry night, for foxes and insects to do their worst. For Hannah Scarlett, Terri’s death was a personal tragedy, for the Knights, a flimsy excuse for financial headache caused by spending money as if it were going out of fashion.

Or was this all some huge kind of bluff? Making a fuss about the dire consequences of Terri’s murder to conceal the fact that Oz was guilty of it?

‘You disapprove of me, don’t you?’ she asked.

He dug his hands deep in his pockets. Melody might be naive, but she wasn’t stupid, and she didn’t lack intuition.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

Two strides short of the archway, she stopped in her tracks, and looked over her shoulder.

‘Be honest. You think I’m a spoilt woman, playing at one thing after another, because I’ve nothing better to do. At one time it was knitting, now it’s journalism. If my husband and I have run out of money, it’s our own silly
fault for being so bloody greedy, and borrowing up to the hilt to renovate the Hall at the same time as trying to run a small firm in a dog-eat-dog business environment.’

‘What I think is this,’ Daniel said in a low voice. ‘Crimes of violence, most of all murder, harm everyone they touch. Not just the victim, and the victim’s family and friends. Witnesses, suspects, people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Collateral damage, eh?’ she sighed. ‘The woman in charge of this case, your friend Larter, we met her when Shenagh was killed. She interviewed Oz and me. She didn’t like us, specially not Oz. If Craig Meek hadn’t been so obviously guilty, she’d have made our lives a misery.’

‘She was only doing her job.’

‘Oz isn’t a murderer!’

‘I never said …’

‘No!’ She held up a hand. ‘Don’t say any more. We’ve talked enough about Terri – and Shenagh. Let me show you Letty Hodgkinson’s last resting place.’

A weathered slate slab bore Letitia Hodgkinson’s name and dates, nothing else. It stood beneath a copper beech at the end of a neat gravel path laid between vast, dripping rhododendrons. Through the trees, Daniel glimpsed Ullswater’s inky depths. The wind was rippling through Melody’s hair and she had to keep brushing it out of her eyes.

‘When we bought the Hall, this was a jungle. Nobody would believe it if we hadn’t kept before and after photographs.’ She waved in the direction of Hallin Fell. ‘The old boathouse is over there, can you see it through
the trees? When we came here, it was a ruin, in need of complete restoration. Now it’s Oz’s pride and joy, he loves to go out rowing on his own. As for poor Letty’s headstone, it was invisible. Covered by a mass of bindweed and brambles.’

‘Looks like Clifford tucked his wife’s grave as far out of sight as possible.’

‘The poor, poor woman,’ Melody said. ‘Coming here, and wondering about what drove her to kill Gertrude, set me thinking about whether she’d suffered a terrible injustice.’

‘I promised to tell you what I discovered about Dorothy and Roland. Not that it explains what happened to Gertrude.’

She listened with lips slightly parted. It was difficult not to feel flattered when an attractive woman hung on your every word, but Daniel did his best. Her loveliness was just another mask. He still couldn’t figure her out. Shallow and self-absorbed, selfless and smart, or subtle and scheming? Or simply a mass of baffling contradictions?

‘Fascinating,’ she breathed. ‘You’ve discovered so much in twenty-four hours. I suppose that shows the difference between a professional and a dilettante. I didn’t know where to start. I just want to find out what happened here a hundred years ago. When we met, it was simple curiosity. Now, after Terri’s death, and all the angst about money, it seems like a lifeline. Something to take my mind off … all the other crap.’

‘The conversation Miriam overheard proves nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s no proof that Letty didn’t kill Gertrude. I’d love to know what her suicide note said. If she knew
Clifford had murdered Gertrude, and she was determined to cover for him …’

‘How could she go so far – however much she loved her husband? I know I wouldn’t take the rap for Oz.’ She flushed, and added hastily, ‘Not that I’d ever need to.’

The wind stung Daniel’s cheeks. He kept quiet, content to let her talk.

‘I mean, even when he picked up penalty points for speeding on the M6 that meant he lost his driving licence for six months, he knew better than to ask me to pretend I was behind the wheel. He has his faults, but he’s no bully. Anyway, I simply wouldn’t do it. He had to pay his dues.’

‘Things were different a century ago.’

‘I guess so. Letty had mental health issues. It must all have become too much for her. Perhaps she simply couldn’t face living, knowing her husband was an adulterous killer, and that everything was about to fall apart. Whatever the truth, I’m grateful to you, Daniel.’

She switched on a smile, as sudden as it was ravishing. He recalled that before her marriage, she’d not only been a model, but also an actor. ‘I needed you to show an interest, to convince myself I wasn’t simply romanticising about Letty because she and I had stuff in common.’

So she identified with Letty Hodgkinson. Two women married to men with a wandering eye. Two women whose rivals had been beaten to death with raw and unforgivable savagery.

‘You’re frowning,’ she said. ‘Not convinced? It’s true, I’ve been so much luckier than Letty. But … I know what it’s like to feel suffocated by depression, as if a thick towel
is pressing down over your nose and mouth. I know what it’s like to go to bed hoping you won’t wake up the next morning.’

Above the trees, a buzzard squealed. A squirrel that didn’t want to become its next meal scampered down an oak trunk, and vanished into the safety of the undergrowth.

‘I had a very rough time in my teens. I can’t bear to go into details, but it was horrendous, I promise you.’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and he had to move closer to hear. ‘My uncle was sent to prison for what he did, and I had a lot of problems. Partly physical – I was pretty messed up, and I can’t have children. But the doctors were wonderful, and a fantastic social worker helped me regain confidence.’

If she’d kicked him in the stomach, he couldn’t have felt worse.

‘Melody, I’m so sorry.’

‘Oh, shit happens. I was never going to make the big time as a model or an actor, but the work helped me escape from the past. Start a new life.’ She drew breath. ‘Yet I never quite got over my habit of getting mixed up with untrustworthy men. Trust me, compared with his predecessors, Oz is a saint.’

Daniel heard screaming. The buzzard was being mobbed by a gang of hooded crows intent on defending their territory. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to tell who was the predator, who the prey. He glanced at Melody’s profile. Heedless of the birds, she was staring towards the lake. Barely holding herself together. He had to stifle the urge to put his arms around her. The silence between them was uncomfortably intimate.

‘There you are, darling!’

Oz Knight was standing in the archway. A man with more to worry about than the weather, to judge by his gaunt appearance. In the past couple of days he’d aged ten years. That once-magnificent mane of hair was flapping in the wind, straggly and grey. Perhaps he’d had too much on his mind to remember to dye it.

His wife groaned. ‘Oh God, back to reality. Come on, Daniel. Time for lunch.’

‘Hannah – a word?’

Les Bryant’s dour features never betrayed emotion, but his voice had a scratchy quality that Hannah hadn’t heard before. She nodded, and he followed her into her room, closing the door behind them with exaggerated care.

‘Terri was a decent kid,’ he said. ‘I know how much she meant to you. And you to her, believe me.’

‘Thanks.’

She tried to decipher his inscrutable expression. In one of the least likely romantic pairings conceivable, Les had once gone on a blind date with Terri. Once and only once, needless to say.

‘She told me you drove her crazy, forever doubting yourself. Her opinion was that you were wasted on Amos. Reckoned you’d do far better with Ben Kind’s lad.’

‘There you are, then.’ She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Poor old Terri, she had no idea.’

‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘She was a smart lady. No good for me, obviously. Too young, too good-looking, too bloody dizzy. We’d have killed each other within a week. Tell you what, though.’

‘Go on.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Before we did kill each other, I’d have enjoyed that week more than any I can remember.’

Daniel swallowed the last of his casserole and said how much he’d enjoyed it. His host and hostess had only picked at their own portions. It was as if Terri’s murder had robbed them of their appetites.

‘Credit where it’s due,’ Melody said. ‘This is Miriam Park’s recipe. Such a wonderful cook. Francis Palladino used to say she was worth her weight in gold. She’s in a bad place at the moment. Robin, finally on the brink of settling down with someone, and then …’

‘You think his relationship with Terri was strong enough to last?’ Daniel asked.

‘Why not? You only had to spend five minutes in their company to see they were very much in love. He was besotted, and so was she.’

‘Miriam jumped the gun about their getting married,’ Oz muttered. ‘Wishful thinking, if you ask me. Terri was a sweet lady, but she’d already divorced three husbands, and Robin’s never come close to tying the knot. They’d only known each other a few weeks.’

‘You proposed to me a fortnight after we first met,’ Melody said.

‘And you turned me down flat.’ Oz turned to Daniel. ‘Not that anyone could blame her, with the age difference and everything. Took a long time to wear down her resistance.’

‘I never planned to marry the boss,’ Melody said. ‘It just worked out that way in the end. For better, for worse …’

‘For richer, for poorer.’ Oz grimaced. ‘Definitely for poorer after this morning, I’m afraid.’

At Melody’s confession that she’d told Daniel about their financial problems, he’d flinched, as if she’d poked him in the eye, before rallying with a tirade about greedy bankers and the havoc they’d wreaked on the world’s economy. As well as on the Knights’ prospects of keeping their business afloat. The overdraft facility had been renewed this morning, but on punitive conditions. He feared the stay of execution was only temporary.

‘How will you put things on an even keel?’ Daniel asked.

Oz spread his arms. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Neither of us has taken a wage out of the business since April; we’re living on our investments, and they are shrivelling fast. The situation’s out of my hands, that’s what I hate. We need to stop the haemorrhage of clients and revenue. And pray the police get their finger out, so we can start putting our lives back together.’

Daniel concentrated on Melody’s rum-and-raisin pudding. Oz was a control freak, and he’d yet to meet a happy control freak. Was that need to be in charge a source of tension in their marriage?

‘I can’t believe they let that man go.’ Oz drained his third glass of Rioja, and raised his voice a little, as he warmed to his theme. ‘Terri was scared stiff of him, we were concerned for her safety, like any decent employer. She said he’d beaten up his wife, and hit the woman so hard she was lucky not to lose an eye. Someone like that shouldn’t be roaming the streets.’