The Hanging Wood (11 page)

Fleur arched her eyebrows. ‘You have friends in the Cumbria Constabulary?’

‘My father used to be a police officer here.’

‘I didn’t know you come from the Lake District?’

‘I don’t. We lived in Manchester, but he left my mother for another woman and came up to the Lakes with her.’

‘And now you’ve followed him?’

‘He died some time ago.’

‘I’m sorry, Daniel.’ Fleur considered. ‘Perhaps Orla was seeking attention. You’re a well-known person, and if I may say so, a bit of a catch for anyone, let alone a girl like her. She probably wanted to make a big impression.’

‘She was genuinely interested in history. And I am sure about one thing.’ As he spoke, Daniel’s intuition hardened into certainty. ‘Orla had good reason to believe that Philip Hinds didn’t kill her brother, even if she wasn’t sure who did.’

Aslan knew the man and woman he’d seen at Lane End were police officers. They didn’t have to be in uniform or to be driving a Panda car; he’d had enough to do with representatives of law and order to recognise that mix of watchfulness and assurance common to cops the world over. Ironic, deeply ironic. He’d taken so long to make it to Mike Hinds’ home, and the moment he arrived, he’d needed to beat a hasty retreat to St Herbert’s.

But nothing was lost. On the way back, he’d kept thinking about Orla, and some of the fuzziness in his mind was clearing. It was like groping your way through the mist as it cleared from the slopes of the Langdale Pikes.

Orla’s muddled thinking and lack of coherence, coupled with the fact that in her last few days alive she’d rarely been entirely sober, meant that people paid little attention to what she said. Her habit, no doubt learnt from Callum, of keeping cards close to her chest, made matters worse.

Now he was getting somewhere at last after a false start the other day. He’d taken it into his head on a whim to break into Orla’s room at the library while she was off sick, and see if he could find anything of interest. He’d committed a few petty thefts in his time, and never been caught, even though he’d had a few narrow squeaks; the secret of success was not worrying too much. Orla’s door was locked, and when, in his frustration, he climbed up
on to the parapet outside, and began to prise open an
ill-fitting
window, Daniel Kind’s unexpected appearance in the garden, which was usually deserted in the morning, forestalled him. But once again, he’d got away with it. Daniel suspected nothing.

He’d toyed with the idea of picking Daniel’s brains, seeing if he could cast more light on what Orla had told him. It might be worth the risk. Or it might just be a big mistake.

With hindsight, he was unlikely to have found anything worthwhile in Orla’s room. She wasn’t the type to write stuff down, she just let things whirl around in her head, as she struggled to make sense of fragments of knowledge.

The last time he was with her, she’d talked about Callum, and Castor and Pollux. He was bored rigid with her fondness for talking in riddles; she only did it to make herself seem interesting, and the moment he showed any interest, she’d retreat into coy evasion. Typical Orla. Once she had your attention, she never made good use of it. As for Castor and Pollux, he didn’t have a clue who they were. But he meant to find out.

Orla was right about one thing: a library was the perfect place to learn stuff. He did a Google search the moment he got back to St Herbert’s, and supplemented his knowledge with a glance at a couple of reference books. Within minutes he discovered that, in Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux were twin brothers who had the same mother but different fathers. One boy was mortal, and the other immortal. One destined to live with the gods, another doomed to lie among the dead.

The librarian, a rotund woman in her sixties, had,
since his arrival at St Herbert’s, formed a deep distrust of his lack of interest in the literary treasures under her care, and watched him conducting his researches with
ill-concealed
suspicion. When he bestowed a charming smile upon her, she scowled like a gargoyle. The ungrateful old cow was impervious to charm. He found himself patting the butterfly knife in his pocket. Orla’s reference to the old legend didn’t make any sense to him, but he found it strangely disturbing.

‘Provoking a deranged farmer to attack us with a scythe,’ Greg Wharf said as Hannah accelerated away from Lane End. ‘I’ll be honest, ma’am, when we were discussing suicide, that particular MO never occurred to me.’

‘Yeah, well, a close-up encounter with a wannabe Grim Reaper adds a touch of excitement to our tedious lives. What do you reckon to him?’

‘Bad, bad news. Went to Cambridge, did he? Makes me thankful I screwed up my A Levels. Don’t worry, his wrist won’t have broken, but with any luck he’ll sport a nasty bruise.’

‘It’s his wife I feel sorry for.’

‘She doesn’t have to stay with him.’

‘Might not be easy to escape. He’ll keep tight hold of the purse strings. More than likely, Deirdre would rather stick with the devil she knows. The question is whether that temper of his will get him into big trouble one day.’

‘You suppose he knows more about what happened to Callum than he’s let on?’

‘He never mentioned the boy’s last visit to him before today. But why would he want a cover-up?’

‘He’s not stupid. He wouldn’t incriminate himself so casually.’

‘What if he wanted to protect somebody?’

‘Can’t see it. Why help someone who has done away with your child?’

Hannah slowed the car, and nodded towards a high fence and clump of beeches to the right. ‘See the big houses through the trees? That’s where the Madsens live, and Kit Payne.’

‘Hinds was right – not far for Callum to go. From Payne’s house, he could have nipped over to Lane End and got back home inside a couple of hours, with plenty of time to sink a couple of pints of his Dad’s home brew.’

At a fork in the lane, they halted at a large sign for Madsen’s Holiday Home Park. A steel security barrier barred the way in. Visitors were told to report to a reception lodge in the style of a Swiss chalet, occupied by two smart men in uniform.

‘Not so much a caravan site as an exclusive gated community, by the look of it,’ Hannah said.

‘I checked their prices on the website before we came out,’ Greg said. ‘My eyes haven’t stopped watering. You could buy a three-bedroom semi in Kendal for less than one of their top-range caravans. Amazing. The Madsens must be rolling in it.’

‘Not a business you’d want associated with the publicity surrounding a teenager’s apparent abduction.’

‘He might have done a runner, you know. Happens every day. His parents had split up, he wasn’t on the best of terms with stepdaddy.’

‘But to disappear completely, for ever …’

They drove on past a recently created second entrance to Madsen’s park, close to its southern tip. Again, the way in was barred, but a large signboard proclaimed the glories of a ‘State-of-the-Art Leisure Complex in Historic Mockbeggar Hall’. The new route linked in with the original service road to the site, and crossed a bridge over the stream that once divided the Hopes’ estate from the caravan site. All this land had once belonged to a single family, and now it did again. Only this time, the owners were business people, not the landed gentry.

‘I bet the Madsens shat themselves when they heard Callum was missing,’ Greg said. ‘Lucky for them that Philip was so quick to top himself.’

‘You don’t suppose they gave him a helping hand?’

‘Hanged him and staged it as a suicide scenario, you mean?’ Greg sucked in his cheeks. ‘Difficult to achieve, easy to foul up. Too much of a risk.’

‘Gareth Madsen is a risk-taker, even if his brother isn’t. It says in the file that not only was he once a racing driver, he also had a spell working in a casino in Las Vegas.’

‘Nah, why would he chance it? Philip Hinds’ death was investigated through a microscope. Having a suspect hang himself the day after you’ve given him the third degree is never easy to explain away. The inquest verdict was suicide. If there was any evidence of murder, surely the truth would have come out.’

Hannah put her foot on the brake and brought the car to a standstill. A small brass plate on a wall, as discreet as the Madsens’ signage was garish, announced that they had reached St Herbert’s Residential Library.

‘So that’s where Orla worked.’

‘Yeah, how long before the Madsens turn it into a pleasure palace, with rides and interactive fun days?’

‘They don’t own it, thank God. Milo Hopes set it up as a charity.’

‘Fleur Madsen is Chair of the trustees, isn’t she? That’s how people like that operate. They call themselves networkers. I call them control freaks.’

‘The rich are different, didn’t someone say?’

‘Yeah, like someone else said, they’ve got more money.’

Hannah squinted through the trees, trying to make out the library building. ‘This is so close to where Orla grew up. It must have felt like coming back home.’

‘Why would you want to come back, if home was Lane End Farm?’

‘She never found happiness anywhere else, so why not?’

Greg shook his head. ‘That’s what baffles me about the countryside. All these open spaces, yet it’s as claustrophobic as a broom cupboard. So many lives intertwined, it’s worse than a soap opera. No wonder
The Archers
has kept going so long.’

‘I like it,’ Hannah said.

‘What,
The Archers
?’

‘When do I get the time to listen to the radio? No, the countryside.’

‘Come on. It may look pretty, but the beauty’s only
skin-deep
. There’s more poverty in Cumbria than in most urban areas. And fewer places to shelter from the rain. What’s so good about it?’

‘The sense of community, for a start. That’s what brought Orla Payne back, I guess. She was sick of being alone in the city.’

‘Her father and stepdad had both remarried and moved on. Coming back to the country killed her.’

Hannah pressed the accelerator. ‘Let’s take a look at where she left her car. It’s only half a mile away as the crow flies.’

‘Not expecting to find clues, are you, ma’am?’

‘I want to get into her mind. Try to figure out what drew her to that tower of grain.’

The lane wandered past the grounds of St Herbert’s, and the edge of the old Mockbeggar Estate, before Hannah dived off on a short cut along a narrow track, with barely room enough for a single vehicle, no passing places, and half a dozen bends. To her relief, they reached Mockbeggar Lane without a close encounter with a tractor coming the other way.

Mario Pinardi had shown them photographs of Orla’s car, prior to its removal, and they soon identified the flattened grass where she had parked. Hannah jumped out of the Lexus and walked up to the fence, Greg following behind.

‘She wasn’t keen for her father to see her,’ Hannah said. ‘Otherwise she’d have taken the same route we did, to Lane End, and approached the grain tower from the other side.’

‘So she did mean to jump into the grain.’

‘Must have done.’

Hannah swore to herself. She moved towards the electrified fence. Putting herself in the shoes of the young woman, who threw away her mobile phone, and contact with the outside world, followed by the scarf she’d worn to disguise the loss of her hair. Orla had given up. In her mind, life had nothing more to offer her; the abortive phone call to Linz Waller was the last straw. Not Linz’s fault, but the
accumulated failures had become too much. For everyone else, Callum was history. Nobody would listen.

In the distance, she spotted movement. A brown bird with pointed wings, hovering fifteen feet above the ground. A kestrel, with a field mouse, grasshopper or vole in its sights. As it swooped for the kill, she heard a rustling noise as Greg Wharf approached. She had a sudden awareness of his physical presence behind her. For a moment, she thought he was about to wrap his arms around her body.

‘Are you all right, ma’am?’

There was a concern in his voice that she hadn’t heard before. No trace of the laddish cynicism that she regarded as his default tone. And thank God, he didn’t lay a finger on her.

She didn’t turn straight away, needing to compose herself into the customary competent Hannah. She saw the kestrel rising, some small mammal caught in its beak. It whirled in triumph, as if expecting applause, before dashing for the trees to devour its prey.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

‘Hot, isn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘My throat’s parched; I’m not used to so much sunshine in the Lakes. I don’t suppose you’ve got time for a drink before you get back to Ambleside?’

She hesitated, aware that he was studying her. Weighing up his options, or simply waiting for the boss to make a simple decision?

‘Thanks, but I’d better drop you off soon. I’m seeing a friend this evening.’

‘Right.’

She guessed from his tone that he assumed the friend was a man. Tempting to let him think so, it was better to make it clear she wasn’t available. Just in case he might be wondering. Mixing work and pleasure was never a good idea, no matter what the temptation. She’d never succumbed with Ben, whatever private thoughts had whirled around her mind, and any fool could see it would be a colossal mistake to get too close to Greg Wharf. Verging on the unthinkable.

However.

‘She’s my oldest mate, we were at school together. As a matter of fact, she met Mario Pinardi years ago, and ever since she’s been a member of his fan club.’

Greg smiled an enigmatic smile.

‘Aren’t we all, ma’am?’

‘Daniel!’

He turned to see Aslan Sheikh walking towards him across the car park from the main entrance to St Herbert’s. Aslan’s shoulders were hunched, making it look like he’d lost a couple of inches in height. Mud covered his shoes, as if he’d returned from a marathon yomp through the countryside. His face looked pale beneath the tan.

‘Horrible news about Orla,’ Daniel said.

‘I never dreamt she would do such a thing. What could have possessed her?’

‘You knew her better than I did,’ Daniel said. ‘But who can tell what goes through another person’s mind?’