The Cipher Garden E-Book

Martin Edwards

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Lake District Cold-Case Mysteries
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 428

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In the peaceful village of Old Sawrey, set in the idyllic Lake District, a murderer strikes. Warren Howe, a husband and father of two, is brutally slaughtered with his own scythe by a mysterious hooded figure. The police manage to identify several suspects, but due to the lack of evidence they fail to make an arrest. Years later an anonymous tip-off sparks the interest of DCI Hannah Scarlett, who heads the local Cold Case Review Team. Scarlett's investigations lead her to suspect Howe's widow, Tina. Meanwhile, someone is sending vicious poison pen letters to Tina and her two children. With the help of a historian, and his information on the goings on in his unusual garden, Inspector Scarlett delves deeper and deeper in her quest for the truth, discovering old sins that are casting long shadows. The clues are eventually pieced together, leading to a shocking revelation that will change Hannah's life forever.

Leseprobe

The Cipher Garden

MARTIN EDWARDS

Dedicated to Stephen

Contents

Title PageDedicationProloguePart OneChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenPart TwoChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorBy Martin EdwardsCopyright

Prologue

‘I thought you were dead.’

Warren Howe hadn’t seen the hooded figure approaching, hadn’t heard a footfall. He was digging in the rain and his work consumed him. Only when he put down his spade did he realise that he was not alone. Someone in a waterproof jacket stood on the ridge above the trench, someone he recognised. How long had he been watched? He didn’t care; nothing and nobody could rattle him. His jeering words were chosen to wound.

‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

Warren spat on the ground. ‘You might as well be dead, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘It’s time for us to talk.’

‘Nothing to talk about.’

‘You’re wrong.’

Warren clambered out of the trench and lifted his spade in the air, a gladiator wielding a trident. The hooded figure took a step backwards, bumping into the low trailer that held the garden tools.

‘Nobody tells me I’m wrong.’

The intruder edged down the path. The rain was slackening to a drizzle, but the stone flags were as sleek as a ski run. How easy to slip and pitch head over heels into the trench or down the uneven ground towards the silent cottage.

‘You hate it that I’m here, don’t you?’

‘I couldn’t care less.’

‘What do you care about?’

Warren stabbed the sodden earth with his spade. He’d never believed in explaining himself and he wouldn’t start now. He was what he was. A plantsman, and proud of it. Plants didn’t make demands the way people did, they didn’t nag or whine or sob. Even if they shrivelled and died, it was so easy to start again. He liked heathers, sedges and rushes as well as shade-loving field roses with purple stems. Tender buds, voluptuous blooms, seductive perfumes, all were to his taste. And there was something else. Once you understood how plants behaved, you could bend them to your will.

The hooded figure inched forward, as if along a tightrope, flicking nervous glances up the fell-side. But they were alone, even the ravens had fled from the trees.

‘We need to talk.’

‘For Christ’s sake.’

‘You can’t have what you want. It’s impossible. You owe it to…’

‘Listen.’ Warren took a long stride forward, felt his visitor’s breath on his cheek. ‘Watch my lips, I don’t owe anyone anything.’

The hooded figure grasped Warren’s wrist. ‘You can’t do this.’

Warren pulled his arm away in an easy, powerful movement. ‘Go before you get hurt.’

The hooded figure reached into the trailer and yanked out the scythe. Warren’s oldest gardening tool, a favourite since he was eighteen. He’d cared for it as others might look after a much-loved pet. He’d taken pains to keep the blade clean and sharp.

‘If you could only see yourself,’ Warren scoffed. ‘In that hood and holding a scythe. Fancy yourself as the Grim Reaper?’

The scythe rose in the air, blade grinning like a Cheshire Cat. Warren folded muscular arms, showing his tattoos. Two dragons, belching fire. He stood his ground.

The scythe wavered and Warren took a pace forward, arm outstretched. His boots skidded on the greasy stone and his legs gave way under him. As he sank to the ground, he saw the blade – his lovely blade – glint in a sudden shaft of sunlight.

For so many years, to hold the scythe in his hand had made him feel strong. Powerful. The blade could not betray him now. Yet it had such a wicked edge.

The sun blinded him. He could no longer make out the face beneath the hood. His heart was thudding, his forehead moist with sweat and yet he knew he must be strong. Without strength, he was nothing.

‘You’ll never do it.’ It might have been a prayer, but he made it sound like a dare.

The blade fell and for a split second he understood his mistake. When the metal sliced against his flesh and pain bit into him, he screamed.

PART ONE

Chapter One

Welcome to Paradise.

Daniel Kind shaded his eyes against the sun as it streaked the surface of the reed-fringed tarn with gold. He’d taken refuge from the heat and hard labour. The garden bench stood in an arbour formed by the stooping branches of an old copper beech. The breeze ruffled leaves of a fragrant lavender bush, an orange-billed oystercatcher emerged from a tree stump, then vanished from sight.

Even Paradise offered no escape from nettles or scratches by bramble thorns. His hands were stinging and blood smeared his forearm. Sweat glued his shirt to his skin. Hours spent digging out tree roots had left his body pleading for mercy. His spine yearned for the soft recesses of his battered leather armchair at Oxford, but the stone bench was cold, as if carved by a Puritan intent on deterring indolence. As he rubbed the stings with a dock leaf, his gaze travelled up the steep rise of Tarn Fell towards the straggle of fell-walkers on Priest Ridge. Heedless of pagan folklore, a young couple and their children were clambering on to a dour grey anvil outlined against the sky. The Sacrifice Stone.

If he didn’t start moving, his vertebrae might seize up. Bones creaking, he crunched over the gravel path that looped around the water’s edge. Fronds of an ostrich fern brushed his face, red admirals skittered around the Michaelmas daisies. The path curved around a rhododendron bush before coming to an abrupt halt in front of a cracked and ancient mirror nailed to a trellis on which ivy and flowering jasmine intertwined. The glass created the illusion of an arch festooned by climbers, beyond which the path continued past the tarn towards the damson wood. Even now the mirror had the knack of deceiving him.

His tanned reflection returned a wry smile, as if wondering whatever happened to the pale-faced academic who had downshifted to the Lakes and made this his home. He still couldn’t trust his luck. Last night in his dreams, he’d become a tourist whose fantasies of escape dissolved when duty dragged him back to college to teach Victorian history.

Turning back, he headed back past a mass of purple foxgloves. He loved this garden, but it mystified him. The serpentine by-ways and dead ends made no sense. There was something unnatural about them, a sense of something fashioned with a purpose. Three months after moving here, he still hadn’t fathomed that purpose.

Conundrums entranced him. He had this need to know. In the days when he’d read The Times, he’d never been able to abandon the crossword until the last cryptic clue was solved. He was his father’s son. Ben Kind had been a career detective; after the divorce, he’d come up here to the Lake District and the two of them never met again. The old man was dead now, leaving his son to nag away at the mystery of the garden. There must be a reason for it, a secret waiting to be uncovered.

Clouds sneaked into the sky as he checked his watch.

Does a chief inspector do lunch? I could call Hannah Scarlett, pass the time of day. Where’s the harm?

As he scraped soil off his spade, he surveyed the patch of ground that he’d cleared. Before he’d moved to the countryside, blackberries conjured images of sweet-tasting fruit pie and verdant hedgerows. Bramble was another name for the same plant, but more ominous. Brambles were sinister, the gardener’s foe. The first time he’d cut back their green foliage, they’d fooled him. It wasn’t enough to snap brambles off at ground level. If the crown was left, the stems grew a couple of inches each day, making the thicket ever more impenetrable. Today he’d taken care to extract the whole of the roots, tracing each stem back to the end to remove any runners that had anchored themselves. Solving crimes must be like this, all about taking infinite pains.

The shrilling phone shattered the peace. Hannah?

They hadn’t spoken for weeks, but he couldn’t scrub her out of his mind. A couple of days ago, he’d rung her mobile and left a message on her voicemail. She hadn’t called back. Of course, he didn’t want anything to happen between them, any more than she did. They both had partners, it was out of the question. But she’d worked with his father, they could talk about the old man over coffee, maybe a glass of wine.

He ploughed through foliage, his aching back forgotten. Following the paths was too roundabout a route. Seconds before he reached the phone, the answering machine started up.

Miranda’s soft voice knocked the breath out of him. She never rang when she was on her way back from London. He felt a twinge in his stomach. Disappointment? Couldn’t be. Miranda was the one he loved.

The train’s stuck in Crewe station, would you credit it? The guard says we may be stuck for a couple of hours, God knows why. I’m waiting for the excuses. Wrong kind of sunshine, something like that. Hope you’re OK. Why aren’t you answering? Don’t tell me you’re working in the garden. I bet it’s pouring down, I never knew a place like Brackdale for rain.

He wanted to protest, but when he glanced through the window he saw squiggles of damp spreading over the paving stones.

Not quite Paradise after all, then.

‘You want the good news or the bad news?’ Hannah Scarlett asked.

Nick Lowther went through a pantomime of deliberation as he stirred the coffee in its recycled paper cup. Not a bad actor, Hannah thought. A useful talent in a detective sergeant.

‘You know how I feel about the power of positive thinking,’ he announced. ‘Go on, then. Give me the bad news.’

The police canteen was filling up and so were the members of Cumbria Constabulary. In a campaign to prevent their officers’ arteries furring, the senior management team had insisted that the catering franchisee should wipe the Big All Day Breakfast off the menu during summer. The main difference was that the air was thick not with the smell of Cumberland sausages but the aroma of giant pickled onions from Hungry Ploughman’s Platters.

Hannah scowled at the briefing notes on her clipboard. ‘Half the general public doesn’t have confidence in the police. Which may be connected to the fact that we spend half our time on paperwork in the office instead of tedious front-line duties like catching criminals.’

‘Only half the time? Feels like more. And the good news?’

‘Cumbria Constabulary has clawed its way to the top of the Home Office’s performance league table.’

Nick pretended to choke on his chocolate muffin. The campaign to promote organic eating options had passed him by. He still preferred calorie-laden junk food that resembled an exhibit in a long ago poisoning case. Infuriating that he never seemed to carry a surplus pound.

‘You forget, I’m a Carlisle United supporter. So naturally I have a deep distrust of league tables.’

She slid a sheet of paper across the table. The diagram looked like the work of a statistician on an acid trip. A red-edged, irregular hexagon with a blue shaded area inside and black arrows flying around in wild confusion.

‘Don’t just take my word. Here’s the official spidergram to prove it. Only those Celtic super-sleuths in Dyfed-Powys performed better, if the police standards unit are to be believed.’

‘So Lauren’s cracking open the champagne?’

‘When she called us in to announce the glad tidings, she actually said that we mustn’t be triumphalist when we brief our teams.’

‘That’s like being told to stand up straight by the Hunchback of Notre Dame.’ He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and pulled a face. ‘Thought I’d try the new Guatemalan roast. Give me Tesco’s own brand any day.’

Hannah stifled a yawn. Not through boredom, for Nick never bored her, although she’d needed to fight to keep her eyes open during Lauren’s spiel. Maybe she should have risked a black coffee before seeing the Assistant Chief Constable. The bitter taste on your tongue was enough to make you retch, but it kept you alert. Another poor night’s sleep was taking a toll. At four a.m. she’d been lying in bed, trying to shut her ears to the boom of Marc’s snoring.

‘Yeah, our performance in the exotic hot drinks table was a big disappointment to Lauren.’

Nick grinned. The ACC was engaged in a passionate long-term love affair with official statistics. Data in bar charts and seminars on monitoring, these were a few of Lauren’s favourite things. Who needed handcuffs or DNA samples when they had key performance indicators? Once upon a time, the powers-that-be liked to boast that they were tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. These days they preferred to drive up standards through quality assessments and eye-catching initiatives. Lauren was a relentless moderniser, an evangelist for joined-up thinking and institutionalised number-crunching. In today’s police service, everyone was encouraged to remain permanently upbeat. Figures offered crumbs for the morale of hapless underachievers. Things could only get better. If detection rates fell, citizen focus might swing upwards. Solving fewer crimes could be explained away as a statistical quirk or due to more rigorous selection of cases for prosecution.

‘So the Cold Case Review Team lives to fight another day?’

‘She’s negotiating an extended stream of funding. As you know, what the ACC wants, the ACC gets.’

Nick leaned over the table, voice barely audible above the raucous banter between a couple of vice cops queuing at the counter and the cheeky girls behind it. ‘If my legendary powers of deduction aren’t waning, you’re not overwhelmed with gratitude.’

Hannah shrugged. ‘Would I lie to you? This project’s a backwater, we all realise that. Somewhere convenient to park me ever since I messed up the Rao trial. Out of harm’s way.’

‘Relax. You’re too hard on yourself. Heading up the unit will look good on your CV.’

‘You’re confusing me with Lauren.’ To her dismay, her face was hot with blushing. ‘I couldn’t care less about my CV.’

‘You all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Knackered, but fine. Sorry.’

‘Only…if you aren’t fine, you can tell me. OK?’

‘Thanks for the offer,’ she said. ‘Not that I expect to take you up on it. A good night’s rest is all I need. I shouldn’t moan. We have some good people in the team and we’ve had a couple of results. I don’t deny it, it can be fascinating to exhume the past.’

‘But?’

‘But it’s not forever. I want time off for good behaviour.’

The canteen door swung open and Lindsey Waller loped in. She was skilled at making an entrance and for a moment the aisle between the tables became a catwalk. Everyone’s eyes followed her swinging hips, especially the vice cops’. Accustomed to admiration, she took no notice. She’d have been unbearable, if she hadn’t been so down to earth and such good company.

‘Ma’am, you’ll want to see this.’ She was clutching a sheet in a protective plastic wallet. ‘We’ve had a tip-off about a murder that was never solved. Ever heard of a man called Warren Howe?’

Nick sat up. ‘Warren Howe was a landscape gardener, lived out by Esthwaite Water. I worked on the investigation. What sort of tip-off?’

Linz waved the sheet as if signalling by semaphore. ‘Someone’s given us the name of a suspect.’

‘Who?’ Nick demanded.

Hannah stared at him, struck by his uncharacteristic intensity.

‘His wife.’

‘Tina?’

‘Yes, Tina Howe.’

He leaned back in his chair, the metal legs scraping on the floor tiles with a screech that set Hannah’s teeth on edge. She watched as he weighed up the news.

Is it my imagination, or is he relieved it isn’t someone else?

As Daniel parked outside Tarn Cottage, Miranda flicked a stray blonde hair out of her eye and asked, ‘So where are the builders?’

He took a breath. Now for the tricky bit. Driving her back from the station, he hadn’t got round to breaking the news. Downshifting to a dream cottage in the Lakes was one thing. Rendering the house and outbuildings habitable was quite another. For weeks the air had been thick with dust and dirt. As well as varied and ingenious excuses for the slow rate of progress.

‘Eddie’s off sick. Asthma attack, allegedly. The other lad and his brother decided to go backpacking around the Philippines and didn’t give any notice.’

‘Jesus, so they haven’t made a start on the bothy?’

The renovated bothy was to be her sanctuary. She’d planned it out before they moved in. A studio flooded by light, a chart of acupuncture centres on the pine-clad wall, the decor in natural colours, oaten and wheatmeal, a massage bed in the centre, dominating the room. She’d written articles on the importance of de-cluttering your life. Less is more.

Daniel shook his head. ‘A week on Monday if we’re lucky.’

‘Get on to Stan Mustoe, tell him it isn’t acceptable.’

‘This is the best he can do, he claims we’re getting preferential treatment. Same with the plumber. The latest bulletin from Casualty is that he broke an arm playing cricket. Trying to fend off a bouncer when he should have ducked. We won’t be seeing him for a fortnight. You want to hear about the electrician?’

She put up her hands in surrender. ‘Taken hostage by terrorists? What’s wrong with these people?’

‘Can’t get the staff, Stan Mustoe’s very words. He mourns the old apprenticeships.’ Daniel put on a cod local accent. ‘“All the kids keep boogering off to university, that’s the trouble. Lads have got fancy ideas these days, they’re poncing around on courses about media studies and suchlike. What’s wrong with plumbing and plastering? That’s what I want to know.”’

‘Just as well I have a bit of good news, then.’

On the way home, he’d decided she was building up to something. Something he wouldn’t like, so she needed to pick her moment. They’d chatted about London and she kept saying how much of a buzz there was in the city. Suki, who edited the magazine she wrote for, had taken her out clubbing. Not that she really liked clubbing, she added quickly, but it made a change. And Suki was fun.

‘What news might that be?’

‘Suki’s introduced me to her old boss, Ethan Tiatto. He likes my work. Next month he starts publishing a new magazine and he’d like me to contribute lifestyle features.’

‘Perfect.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Congratulations.’

She drew back. ‘There’s just one snag. I’ll have to spend more time in London. Ethan wants me to attend the editorial conference every fortnight.’

‘You could go to Kendal or Lancaster or somewhere, talk to them by videolink.’

‘Sorry. It’s part of the deal. I have to be there in the flesh. Ethan sets a lot of store by brainstorming ideas. Remote discussions won’t do. But it isn’t so bad. I’ll need to stay overnight, though he did say he’d pay for me to fly from Manchester.’

‘They must be keen.’

She gave him a mock bow. ‘Of course they are.’

She loved writing, it was one of the things that had drawn them together in the early days of love’s madness. She saw her journalism in mystical terms; the way she talked about it was exhilarating. Once, after they’d shared a bottle of Merlot, she’d confided that although she wasn’t sure about having kids, every piece she wrote was like a child of her imagination.

Suitcase in hand, he led the way up the front path. ‘That’s great. I’m pleased.’

‘I thought you might be cross with me,’ she said when they’d settled in the living room. She was lying on the sofa and he was cradling her head in his arms.

‘Why?’

‘Well…this was my idea, wasn’t it? The rural idyll.’

‘It was a wonderful idea. I’m a convert to this way of life. Dangerous as it is out there. See the scratches on my arm?’

She laughed. ‘I never realised you’d go native.’

‘So you said in your last column for Suki.’

‘You don’t think I wanted to buy the cottage simply because I was looking for copy?’ Her voice rose. ‘I mean, nothing could have been further from my mind. I adore this place. It’s so peaceful, so – away from it all. It’s just that…well, I like London too. That’s why I don’t want to sell my flat. It’s a bolt-hole.’

‘Why do you need one?’

‘Hey, you don’t understand. I want a foot in both camps. I need to keep writing.’ A line of counter-attack struck her. ‘And we could use the cash. The money you made on your place in Oxford won’t last forever. Not at the rate we’re spending on these vanishing builders. Your TV royalties are down to a trickle. I want to live the dream too, but we can’t live on fresh air.’

‘At least here it is fresh.’

She feigned a coughing fit. ‘Am I imagining this dust?’

‘You know what I mean.’

When they’d met she’d been miserable and unfulfilled. He’d sacrificed his career to move here with her – his choice, no regrets. Yet he hadn’t managed to give her peace of mind. Not that she was a pessimist. She believed that happiness was just around the corner. Her life revolved around her latest passion, until a few months later, she was ready to move on. In dark moments, he wondered if one day her passion for him would burn out too.

He bent down and they kissed long and hard while he started unfastening her silk shirt. Soon they were making love on the rug by the hearth. Afterwards, she propped herself up on one elbow and smiled at him.

‘Trust me, Daniel, we can do it. You and me, we can get the best of all possible worlds.’

Before he could answer, the phone rang.

Chapter Two

Tina Howe was jealous of her husband Warren, so she murdered him.

‘Whatever happened to the finest traditions of anonymous mail?’ Linz tutted as she laid the message flat on the circular table for Hannah and Nick to see. ‘Me, I yearn for the good old days. The golden age of the poison pen. Letters cut out of a newspaper and glued on to paper. They always seem so spookily romantic and mysterious, don’t you think, Sarge?’

‘Too right. Brown capitals in broad felt tip? Hopeless. Totally lacking in character, let alone charm.’ Nick ran a hand through his eternally untidy hair. ‘Even if this note is in freehand, our correspondent might just as well have used a stencil. How bloody inconsiderate.’

‘Would handwriting analysis be a waste of time?’

‘Try it, we need to tick all the boxes. But if you ask me, we’d get better information from an ouija board.’

Linz giggled. She often giggled in Nick’s company. For an idle moment Hannah wondered whether there was something going on between her sergeant and DC Waller. Surely he wasn’t the type. Though in her head sounded the voice of experience. It belonged to Terri, her oldest friend and a woman so jaundiced about the opposite sex that she claimed she could scarcely bear to bank her exes’ maintenance payments.

All of them are that type, Hannah. Trust me. Men I know about, OK?

Terri had trotted down the aisle three times before she was thirty, and each time her wedding dress was cut lower and her heels were higher, but did that prove how much she knew about men or how little? Hannah had never seen Nick flirting with Linz. She always felt safe with him; in weak moments, she’d even found herself fretting that her own charms were fading. Terri must be wrong. Nick had never given Hannah any reason to doubt that he was a happily married man. The odds were that Linz saw him as a challenge. Which was fine by Hannah, as long as her attempts to curry favour with him didn’t mess up morale on the team.

‘What do you reckon, ma’am?’

‘The perfect tip-off. Clear, concise, no sitting on the fence. Only trouble is, there may not be a shred of truth in it.’

‘No signature, ma’am, no contact details. Obviously we have to view a message like this with a huge amount of suspicion.’

Linz shook her mane, initial enthusiasm fading fast. She always took her cue from senior officers. Hannah wanted her to risk backing her own judgement more often, but Linz must have studied the methods that had taken Lauren Self to the giddy heights of ACC. Play the percentages. Never go out on a limb.

‘Chances are, it’s the work of someone with a grudge against this Tina Howe and it won’t take us anywhere in detecting the crime. But that doesn’t mean we should discount it. Especially since the ACC wants the Cold Case Review Project to keep on rolling.’

‘Cool!’

Linz showed a lot of white, hungry teeth. No hint of irony. Hannah felt a spasm of guilt for her own mixed feelings. She had a good team, loyal and cohesive. Not too clannish or inward-looking, like some police units, not too many monster egos. Nick worked tirelessly at keeping colleagues enthused. A natural gift; he’d never read a motivational handbook in his life. Perhaps that was his secret.

‘So in cases where we don’t have anything more than an anonymous tip-off, you might consider a detailed inquiry?’ Nick asked.

‘If it seems justified and we have the capacity to take it on.’

‘We can’t investigate every lead on every case from the past twenty years.’

‘We have to prioritise, but if this message takes us along an interesting road, let’s not turn back at the first bend. When did the message arrive, Linz?’

‘In the morning post, ma’am. The envelope’s on my desk. Same style of writing, addressed to the Cold Case Review Team. Local postmark, no fingerprints. Presumably whoever sent the message wore latex gloves. Should I arrange for the old files to be brought out of archive?’

‘Please. If we decide to investigate in-depth, we can have a full team briefing when everyone’s around. In the meantime, let’s go back to my office for ten minutes. DS Lowther can give us a quick overview of the case from his own recollection.’ She turned to Nick. ‘Did the original inquiry ever put anyone in the frame?’

His face might have been sculpted from the stone of Scafell. ‘One thing stands out in my mind about the murder. When we looked for whoever wanted Warren Howe dead, we only had one problem. We were spoiled for choice.’

‘Daniel, this is Louise.’

‘Louise?’

She’d caught him off guard, otherwise he wouldn’t have repeated her name into the handset in that baffled way, as if uttering a mysterious foreign term for the first time. Of course, being Louise, she allowed a pause long enough for the realisation of his stupidity to sink in. A familiar feeling, as if he were eleven years old again. His shoulders tensed. Never mind garden nettles; the sting of her sarcasm couldn’t be rubbed away with a dock leaf.

‘Yes, Louise. For Heaven’s sake, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten who I am?’

‘Sorry.’ He could hardly say: I’ve been hoping for a call from someone else. Especially not with Miranda draped over the rug a yard away. The moment she heard Louise’s name, she spread herself out in a pastiche of a Modiglani model, mischievously hoping to distract him into a further gaffe. She’d never met his sister, but from what he’d said about her, she guessed the two of them would never be soulmates. He dragged his eyes away from her and tried to focus on appeasement. ‘Louise, long time no speak. How are things?’

‘All right.’ She didn’t sound it. ‘And you? Settled into your leafy idyll?’

‘We can finally move from room to room without choking on dust or gagging at the smell of paint. I love walking the Brackdale Horseshoe and I’ve never felt fitter. At least I hadn’t until I started trying to civilise the garden. I’m not sure my back will ever forgive me.’

‘I would never have thought it of you.’

‘You sound like a priest scolding a choirboy for nicking the silver collection.’

Louise sighed, a low gust of disappointment echoing down the line. In her teens, she’d specialised in sighs the way impressionists specialise in funny voices. Tragic sighs, frustrated sighs, patronising sighs; her stock was inexhaustible. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. Ever since you were a child, you always had your nose buried in a book. You were so desperate to make it to Oxford. I never imagined that you’d leave of your own free will.’

‘Things change, Louise. Run their course.’

‘True.’ She spoke so softly that Daniel wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. Louise agreeing with him? Amazing. She’d be voting in favour of closer European integration next. ‘Mind you, I’m glad that Mum isn’t alive to hear you say that. Honestly, Daniel, I bet she’s turning in her grave. She was so proud when you started publishing. Let alone when you signed up with the BBC. She insisted on recording all your television programmes, you know.’

Daniel held his tongue. When Louise talked about their mother, it was usually the prelude to a dig about their father. She’d never forgiven the old man after he’d abandoned them for a blonde floosie. Their mother had made them promise never to speak to him again and Louise had kept her word, although many years later Daniel had talked to him on the phone. Like his sister, he’d been hurt by the betrayal, but he didn’t want to be soured by bitterness. He’d been sure his father loved them and he’d yearned to know Ben Kind’s side of the story. But he’d never heard it.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Miranda continued to distract him. She’d become bored with giving him a show and was hunting around for the bra that she’d dropped somewhere three-quarters of an hour ago.

‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called like this. Out of the blue.’

He groaned inwardly. Surely I remembered your birthday? What else can I have done wrong?

‘It’s good to hear from you.’ As soon as he said the words he realised, almost to his surprise, that he meant them. ‘We ought to keep in closer touch now I’m up here in Brackdale. The Lake District’s much nearer to Cheshire than Oxford. Straight up the M6; you could be here in no time.’

Miranda paused in the act of slipping on her thong as she heard him extend the invitation. She raised her eyebrows and mouthed: is that such a good idea?

‘Kind of you,’ Louise said.

She sniffed loudly. For a moment Daniel thought she might have a cold before realising to his horror that she must be trying to suppress tears.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes, yes, I am. Well…no, not really.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘No, it’s nothing. I feel so pathetic. Me, a grown woman, behaving like a soppy teenager.’

One thing about Louise, she’d never been a soppy teenager. After their father’s disappearance, she’d grown up fast. Mum had leaned on her and she never had the time for self-indulgence.

‘Rodney and I have split up.’

He had to restrain himself from punching the air. Rodney was an up-and-coming associate in a large firm of solicitors, a specialist in mergers and acquisitions, aiming to make partner in the next couple of years. Louise was a lecturer in law and they’d met at a seminar, proving that romance can blossom even over a chat about minority shareholders’ rights. Rodney had acquired Louise, it seemed to Daniel, in much the same spirit as he’d picked up the PG Wodehouse first editions that he kept in a display cabinet. He didn’t do a lot of reading; he didn’t have the time, and frankly he didn’t have much of a sense of humour. But a client had told him that Wodehouse was a sound investment.

‘Louise…’

‘He’s met someone else. She’s a junior lawyer in the corporate department. Name of Felicity, they call her Fliss, can you imagine? Sometimes they work through the night together, working on big deals. She’s set her sights on him from day one, if you ask me. And he’s fallen for it. Formed a merger all of his own.’

Better give her the chance to let all the poison out. He recalled one night in Manchester when, over a glass of Glenfiddich, Rodney expounded his business credo. His cheeks were pink, his breath had a touch of halitosis, and his pupils dilated as he described how much he admired his most aggressive clients. Actually, Daniel old chum, there’s no such thing as a merger. There are only takeovers.

‘You know what he said? He told me he’d been striving to fight temptation! Pity he didn’t fight a bit harder. Anyway, he says he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. No reflection on me, blah, blah, blah. He’s moved into her place in Didsbury. We’ll have to sell the flat, of course. The mortgage is crucifying.’

He could hear her crying and wanted to fling his arms around her. But she was far away and all he could do was scrape around for words.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Thanks,’ she said in a muffled tone. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t mind if I came to stay? The new term doesn’t start for ages. I have a few things to sort out here, but I could be with you on Friday.’

Miranda was checking her hair in the mirror for split ends. He covered the phone with his hand as he consulted her.

She shrugged. ‘If you’re sure you won’t be at each other’s throats.’

He said into the phone, ‘Louise? Yes, that’s fine. We’d love to see you.’

‘Warren Howe.’

Nick let the name hang in the air, for Hannah and Linz to absorb. Warren Howe, Warren Howe, Warren Howe. In murder cases, names of the dead echoed in your brain.

‘He was a gardener. Partner in a landscaping business with a man called Peter Flint. Tina Howe was Warren’s wife. They had two teenage children, Sam and Kirsty. They all lived in Old Sawrey, a stone’s throw from Esthwaite Water.’

‘Old Sawrey, isn’t that where Beatrix Potter lived?’ Linz asked. ‘So Warren Howe was a latter day Mr Macgregor?’

‘Warren didn’t chase rabbits. He preferred going after the ladies and by all accounts he usually caught up with them. As for the Potter house, it’s at Hill Top, a mile away in Near Sawrey. Old Sawrey is at the end of a lane that wanders around Claife Heights. There’s a restaurant and bar as well as a handful of houses.’

They were sitting around the small circular table in Hannah’s office. A whiff of peppermint came from the packet of sweets she kept in her top drawer. The icons on her computer screen were lined up in neat rows, Stone’s, Blackstone’s and the PACE manuals stood to attention on the single shelf. A pair of graceful palms arched over matching pots on the window sill. Nick said the room suited her craving for order, it was her refuge from the untidiness of the world outside.

‘How did he die?’ she asked.

‘The Grim Reaper called early. Warren was murdered with his own scythe.’

Linz wrinkled her nose, a favourite mannerism. ‘In his own back yard?’

‘No, he was working in a client’s garden, in between the Sawreys and Hawkshead, looking out over the lake. Lovely setting, Wordsworth probably wrote a poem about it, but the crime scene was a mess. Scythes may be old-fashioned, but they can do plenty of damage to soft human flesh. Trust me.’

Nick paused, letting their imaginations roam. In his twenties he’d acted in a local drama group. Charley’s Aunt and period thrillers like Gaslight, the occasional Oscar Wilde or Francis Durbridge. He’d given up because police work and marriage were incompatible with committing to weeks of rehearsals, but he hadn’t lost the knack of drawing an audience into his world.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but Linz beat him to it.

‘Who was he, the client?’

Obvious question, but Nick snapped, ‘She was Roz Gleave. Before anyone dreams up an exciting theory about her, let me tell you that she had a cast-iron alibi.’

Linz’s eyebrows zoomed up. Far enough to irritate Nick.

‘She ran a small press from home, literally a cottage industry. The day Warren was murdered, she was in Lytham St Annes, giving a presentation to a business that supplied books to libraries.’

Hannah said, ‘Did she live alone?’

‘Chris Gleave, her husband, wasn’t around at the time.’ Nick hesitated. ‘He’d disappeared from home a while before the murder and didn’t show up again until weeks after it. It turned out that he’d had a sort of breakdown and went off to London until he got himself straightened out.’

‘So. A woman on her own has given work to an inveterate womaniser. Perhaps he thought his luck was in.’

‘Warren Howe thought his luck was in every time any woman with a pulse exchanged a pleasant word with him. Single or not. Roz’s best friend, Bel Jenner, for instance, he’d always carried a torch for her. She ran the restaurant and had recently been widowed. But Warren didn’t get far with her. Bel had her eye on the young chef. Warren had more joy with his partner’s wife, Gail Flint. Gail admitted they’d had a fling, but claimed it was all over between them.’

‘Did she have the opportunity to commit the crime?’

‘We couldn’t prove it. She was laid up in bed at the time with a badly sprained ankle. No witnesses – and no evidence she was lying, either. The injury was genuine, but whether it was as serious as she cracked on was anybody’s guess.’

‘Would a woman have had the strength to kill him?’ Linz asked.

Nick nodded. ‘It looked as though he’d fallen or maybe been pushed, and attacked when he was on the floor. The scythe belonged to Warren, it wasn’t brought to the scene. The blade was a brute, you wouldn’t have needed to be Schwarzenegger to slash someone to pieces with it. The corpse wasn’t a pretty sight.’

‘An opportunistic crime, then?’ Linz asked. ‘The killer didn’t come equipped with a murder weapon. Presumably they quarrelled and the crime was committed on impulse?’

‘Not necessarily. Warren had used the same scythe for years, it was a prize possession. Roz Gleave’s garden was a jungle. Anyone who knew him might have expected he’d have it close at hand.’

‘Anyone seen in the vicinity around the time of the murder?’

‘The house is at the end of a track. We interviewed walkers, as well as the locals, but they gave us nothing to work with. The forecast that morning was bad enough to deter any faint-hearts and the all-weather fanatics kept their heads down, making sure they didn’t lose their footing in the wet. No reliable sightings of suspicious cars or vans around the crucial couple of hours.’

‘Any problems in the gardening business?’

‘Not if you don’t count Warren shagging his partner’s missus.’

Linz giggled. ‘Were they making money?’

‘Plenty. Flint was a studious type, a creative thinker, he specialised in garden design. Warren Howe provided the muscle and the green fingers. They were polar opposites, but the combination worked. If Flint knew Gail was sleeping with Warren, he didn’t open his heart to us. To listen to him, Warren Howe was the perfect foil.’

‘Tell us about Tina,’ Hannah said.

‘Some of the lads on the team reckoned she looked like a horse, nicknamed her Black Bess. But she was sexy. Strong, too. Had to be, to cope with Warren. My guess is that he could respect someone who stood up to him. If anyone was weak, he steam-rollered them. Tina knew what he was like, none better, but she coped. If his affairs bothered her, she didn’t let it show.’

‘Did she get her own back?’

‘During the inquiry, she played the loyal wife. I actually heard her saying that life with him had its compensations. Such as their kids. Kirsty was sixteen, Sam eighteen. And they looked after her. Both of them confirmed her alibi.’

‘Which was?’

‘Tina was a keen amateur photographer. The day of the murder, she took the SUV and drove over the Hardknott Pass towards Wasdale, looking for fresh scenes to snap. The kids came along with her for company. At the time her husband was killed, they were all up by the old Roman fort. No independent witnesses that we could trace, but she did show us the pictures she’d taken.’

‘Suppose the son drove and the daughter took the pictures?’

‘Quite a conspiracy.’

‘Stranger things have happened.’

‘You’re right. They could have been lying, but we couldn’t break their stories.’

‘Were the children suspects?’

‘We ruled nobody in and nobody out. Warren wasn’t exactly a caring father. But if there’d been sexual abuse, incest, whatever, nobody was admitting it. Kirsty constantly broke down in tears, but she was a kid and her dad had been murdered, so it wasn’t a surprise. We never got much sense out of her. When Sam was interviewed, he answered in sullen monosyllables. Chip off the old block. He’d felt the back of Warren’s hand more than once, even though he’d left school and was as big as his father. I could picture him retaliating with a punch or a kicking. But murder? We had nothing to pin on him.’

‘All the data tells us that patricide is rare,’ Linz said.

‘Sad epitaph for the tombstone,’ Hannah said. ‘Everyone wanted me dead.’

‘One more thing. Whoever killed Warren Howe pushed him into the trench he’d excavated and threw a bit of sacking and a few rose petals over him.’

A picture formed in Hannah’s mind, as dark as if painted by Cézanne in his bleakest mood. The torn and blood-soaked corpse, dumped in the damp ground.

‘To my mind,’ Nick said, ‘that was Warren Howe’s epitaph. He dug his own grave.’

Chapter Three

The gathering dusk had become a favourite time for Daniel. He wandered outside the cottage and savoured the scent of old roses, and the colours mingling on the fell, tints of blue and indigo deepening as the sky grew dark. The slopes looked so rich and sensuous that if he could only brush them with his fingertips, it would be like touching velvet.

The evening air was chill after the heat of the day, but he stoked the cast-iron chiminea and smelled the logs as they burned. A fox on the prowl rustled in the bracken, a trio of brown-breasted mallards squealed and flapped as they rose from the tarn and fled over the trees. But whatever the tourist brochures said, Brackdale wasn’t a wholly peaceful place. Years back, a young man who lived at Tarn Cottage, Barrie Gilpin, had been suspected of killing a woman whose body was laid out on the Sacrifice Stone.

Thank God, that was done with. Sitting down on an upturned crate between the potted lavenders, he shut his eyes. It awed him that the bedrock of the Lake District was as old as any in the world. The constancy of the lakes and mountains satisfied a need within him. Ever since his father had torn their family apart, he’d burned with desire to belong, to feel complete. At last he’d found a place he wanted to become part of.

He would love Louise to see the Lakes as he saw them. Splitting up with Rodney might be the making of her. Like a modern counterpart of a tightly corseted Victorian, she needed to unbutton herself, learn the art of relaxation. The last time they’d spoken, she’d made it clear that for Daniel to downshift to the Lakes at the precise moment his career was taking off was madness.

But he’d needed to escape. For as long as he could remember – certainly since his father abandoned the family – Daniel had worked. And worked and worked. After school studies, academic research. Each year he set new goals, more demanding than the last. He didn’t care about the money, although he earned a lot of it. What mattered was to break new ground. Soon everyone wanted a piece of him. Success made him a minor celebrity, people he didn’t know envied him and he’d overheard someone in the Senior Common Room referring to him as The Lucky Kind. Always another project, always another offer he could not refuse. No time to think, no time to relax, but that didn’t matter because he was doing so well and you had to make the most of every opportunity and, and, and, and…

And he’d been away when his father died and he’d missed the funeral, and then Aimee, his lover, had embarked on another suicide attempt and he’d been too late to save her from throwing herself from the top of a tower.

* * *

Miranda came into the sitting room, wrapped in a yellow bath towel. She loved aromatherapy and there was a glow of contentment about her. He could smell rosemary and juniper.

‘Any luck at the church?’

‘I asked the rector if I could see the parish records, but all he could do was refer me to the County Records Office, and I didn’t find anything useful there. But I had a look around the graveyard and found where the Quillers were laid to rest.’

Their cottage had been built over a century ago, by a cousin of the man who owned Brack Hall. His name was Jacob Quiller and after he and his wife died the place had changed hands several times before the Gilpins arrived.

She feigned a yawn. ‘Am I right in thinking you won’t rest till you’ve made sense of that crazy garden?’

He glanced through the window. Outside, darkness had fallen. A lamp cast a pool of brightness over the path leading to the tarn, but the effect was to make the dark shapes of the trees beyond reach of the beam all the more mysterious. He caught sight of a movement in the plants by the side of the path. The fox was getting bolder. At night-time the garden became a different place, the kingdom of unseen creatures. The patterns that men imposed on the landscape were only skin deep.

‘I must admit I’m intrigued.’

‘Another crusade, huh?’ She wasn’t into the past; the present was all that mattered to her. Already she was preoccupied with unbuckling his belt. ‘Come and join me on the rug. Better make the most of our freedom before your sister arrives.’

He was glad she’d changed the subject. Too easy for him to develop a fresh obsession with the mystery of the garden. It had scarcely been touched for many years and he suspected that the underlying design dated back as far as the Quillers’ time. Their grave was situated under the leaves of a spreading oak in the churchyard. Its marble headstone was large, but lacked the grandeur of the vaults dedicated to the squires of Brack Hall and their families. No twee verses, no doleful epitaphs.

Three people were buried there. And here was an oddity: Quiller and his wife Alice had died on the same day, the first anniversary of the date given for the death of their son. He was named as Major John Quiller of 1st Northumberland Fusiliers and he’d died on 5 April 1902. The tail end of the Boer War, though there was no indication that he’d been killed in action. Beneath his parents’ names were four words.

Died of broken hearts.

Warren Howe’s face leered at Hannah out of the glossy file print, as if he were about to proposition her. Hannah contemplated the dead man, wondered how to climb inside his mind. Murder victims forfeited their privacy. Human rights? Forget them, they were an indulgence for the living. She stared into his eyes, searching for a clue to what he’d done to earn such a savage fate.

He wasn’t bad-looking in a louche kind of way. Unruly dark hair and old-fashioned sideburns, full lips, a wide fleshy face. Teeth marred by a chipped front incisor that accentuated a small gap. The deep-set eyes were his best feature, startling and blue. One ear had a discreet ring. A strong face, with a touch of devil-may-care. Easy to understand why some women fell for him, despite knowing he was a serial seducer.

The picture featured in a brochure extolling Flint Howe Garden Design and a dog-eared copy had been kept in the file. A footnote credited the photographer, Tina Howe. She’d also been responsible for the shot of her husband’s partner. Bespectacled, with a fuzz of greying hair, high forehead and long nose, Peter Flint looked as though he’d be more at home in a college library than getting his hands dirty in the great outdoors.

Family snaps spilled out of a buff folder. The Howes, parents and children, lifting celebratory glasses at a table in a restaurant. ‘In happier times’, as the gossip columns might say. A painting of a crimson sunset above shadowy heights hung behind them; Hannah guessed at nightfall over the Langdale Pikes. A card propped up next to an empty bottle of Bollinger depicted popping corks and proclaimed Have a Wonderful Anniversary!

Tina Howe’s equine appearance lived up to its advance billing, but her bone structure had a subtle elegance. Hannah understood why Nick had seen past the horsy jaw and tombstone teeth, and discerned a formidable spirit. Plenty of men would be attracted to such a woman, and not merely because her black top displayed a dramatic cleavage. Few would be a match for her.

Sam was a more obviously handsome version of his father. His sister had laid a hand on his arm, as though trying to protect him from committing some faux pas. A mass of auburn hair tumbled on to her shoulders, and her features were unmistakably those of a Howe. She must have been about sixteen and her demure cocktail dress hinted at a figure that might one day rival her mother’s, but Hannah thought the smile was misleading. Everyone else was enjoying themselves, but Kirsty Howe had anxious eyes.

Nick came in and glanced at the file. ‘Taken at the restaurant in the village, a couple of weeks before the murder. Warren and Tina’s china wedding anniversary.’

‘China?’

‘Twentieth.’

‘You know everything.’

‘I wish. Finished the file yet?’

‘Halfway through. Seems the team never got near to making an arrest.’

‘Spotted the name of the SIO?’