The Arsenic Labyrinth (20 page)

‘He was clubbed on the head. Chances are, the weapon was a torch. We’ve found one that someone chucked into the lake near the pier. They didn’t hurl it far enough and it drifted back to shore. We need to match up the bloodstains and matted hair on the torch with the victim, but it’s a formality. Looks like the killer panicked and tried to weight the body down with a couple of house bricks, but didn’t tie them securely. A twenty pound boulder would have done the trick, but we’re not talking a professional hitman here. It’s possible someone disturbed the murderer and that’s why the job was left half done. Lucky for us. At least one murder victim spent twenty years on the bed of the same lake before divers dredged her up.’

Another thing about Fern, she was a mine of information, a unanimous choice to captain the division’s pub quiz team.

‘When was he killed?’

‘Still waiting on Jepson, but the signs are, within the past 48 hours. You know how it works when someone is dumped into the water? The lungs fill up and the body loses its buoyancy. As it decomposes, gases start to inflate the corpse again and it comes back up. Timing depends on water temperature and stuff like that. The warmer the water, the sooner the body will rise.’

Hannah reached into her memories of a long-ago seminar on forensics. ‘Didn’t someone once tell me Coniston Water is bitterly cold?’

‘Dead right, if the murderer had bothered to row the body out in a boat and bung it overboard a hundred metres from the shore, it would have taken much longer for it to be found. By the time we’d dug the victim out of the silt, he’d have been unrecognisable. As it is, we have a clear idea of what he looked like before the side of his head was bashed in.’ Fern grinned. ‘Quite tasty, provided you use a bit of imagination.’

‘Have you managed to ID him?’

‘We have a promising lead. A woman called Welsby who runs a B&B on Campbell Road called in here yesterday to report her boyfriend missing. She’d only known him for about a week. He arrived on her doorstep as a paying guest and wormed his way into her bed in next to no time. Two nights ago, he said he was going away on
business, but he went out around seven and didn’t come back to collect his bag. Causing poor Sarah Welsby to sob her heart out to the PC on the desk yesterday morning. At first he reckoned she was a neurotic time waster, but the moment he heard about the man in the lake, he had second thoughts.’

‘Sounds like the chap used Sarah as a meal ticket, then got bored and did a runner.’

‘We’ve found a taxi driver who was supposed to pick him up from the village at nine that evening – but he never showed. Which is where the plot thickens. You don’t mind if I have another biscuit? I missed out on lunch and I’m starving.’

‘I’ll join you, make you feel better.’

Mouth full, Fern made an appreciative noise. ‘This chap was known to Sarah Welsby as Robert L. Stevenson. The taxi was hired by someone called Pirrip. His destination was a posh hotel in Ullswater. He was booked into a de luxe suite for one night only. Not quite what he’d suggested to Sarah. And when we went through his bag, we found an old cheque book in the name of Guy Koenig.’

‘A con man with a love of Victorian literature, huh?’

‘Yeah, he’ll have nicked the name Pirrip out of
Great Expectations
. Not often you come across a corpse with a highly developed sense of irony. He didn’t expect to finish up bobbing under Coniston Water, that’s for sure. We’ve done a check and hey presto! Guy Koenig is known to us. Plenty of previous, but nothing recent. A string of convictions on charges of deception. He served sentences
in Preston and Haverigg. And this will make you prick up your ears.’

Hannah finished her biscuit. ‘Keep talking, the suspense is unbearable.’

Fern beamed, showing a lot of closely packed white teeth. ‘Guy Koenig came out of prison for the last time just over ten years ago. A few weeks before your Emma Bestwick disappeared.’

Sylvia Blacon was such an assured hostess despite her age and frailty that it came as a shock to Daniel when, twenty minutes into their conversation, she told him that she was almost blind. Her body was twisted with the effects of arthritis and brittle bones and she had to hobble around with a frame, but he admired her determination not to surrender to self-pity. She lived in a large,
overheated
bungalow in a quiet cul-de-sac on the outskirts of the village and had a companion called Geraldine, a no-nonsense Geordie with the build and charm of an armoured personnel carrier. Geraldine had served them both with tea and now marched back into the room bearing a plateful of calorie-laden goodies.

‘You’ll have a cake?’

Black Forest gateau, meringues or profiteroles, Daniel was spoiled for choice. He helped himself to a profiterole.
Very tasty and besides, Geraldine looked ready to slap him if he turned up his nose at her home cooking. He relaxed in his armchair. In summer this room would catch the sun in the middle of the day. The pastel colours of the curtains and the floral coverings on the armchairs and settee were faded, and even the ebony sideboard and bookcase had lightened in tone. It was an old person’s room, but Sylvia was an old person who loved books and history and he’d warmed to her. Uniform editions of Wordsworth and Walpole’s
Herries Chronicles
sat above two rows of history books, classics from Macaulay, through
Trevor-Roper
and on to Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson. There was even one of his own early efforts.

‘So you talked to young Jerry Erskine?’

Sylvia’s deep voice contrasted with her skeletal frame. Her forehead and hands were covered in bruises. She hadn’t been beaten up by Geraldine, she’d explained with a throaty laugh, the marks were caused by minor bumps to skin worn by the years until it was as thin as cellophane.

Nobody else, Daniel suspected, would call the man Jerry, let alone describe him as young. ‘Yes, he was very helpful.’

‘Competent historian, Jerry. Doesn’t mean to be a prig.’

Sylvia had made it clear that she was a Daleswoman who prided herself on plain speaking. After a lifetime telling people what she thought about them, she wasn’t about to change now. The late Mr Blacon, who had lured her to the Lakes from her native Leyburn, had passed
away thirty years ago, but he’d made a packet from a dental practice in Windermere and left her well provided for. He suspected she’d engaged the intimidating Geraldine because no one else was strong enough to cope with her. Already he’d learned that the grammar school she’d taught in had been swept away by numbskulls who mistakenly despised academic elitism and why almost every reform since the 1944 Education Act had been a retrograde step. She had a degree from Cambridge, but she was prepared to concede that his Oxford pedigree wasn’t a bad second best. If she hadn’t had a sense of humour, she might have been intolerable. When he complained that Hattie Costello had beaten him to it with the Ruskin book, she said Hattie Costello was a painted trollop and even if now she couldn’t see what she looked like, she still
sounded
like a painted trollop.

‘So you no longer wish to study the lots my nephew Roger bought with the money Betty Clough left our Association?’

‘On the contrary, I’m crying out for fresh inspiration. I take it you were friendly with Alban Clough’s mother?’

Sylvia sighed. ‘Ah, Betty was a lovely woman. When I first met her, she was in her fifties, but when she stepped out, she still turned heads in a way I could only ever dream of. Not that she was a peacock, far from it, she always kept herself to herself. So sad when she died. There is little worse, Mr Kind, than seeing all your old pals shuffle off this mortal coil, one by one. It may seem a wicked thing to say, but I shan’t be sorry when my time comes.’

Geraldine had marched in again to tidy away the plates. The clicking of her tongue sounded like the snap of handcuffs.

‘You’ll see me out, you will.’

‘Betty recommended Geraldine to me, Mr Kind. You cooked for Betty at one time, didn’t you, dear?’

Geraldine scowled. ‘Aye, she was champion.’

She slammed the door behind her and Sylvia said, ‘She’s a treasure. Absolutely devoted to dear Betty and her family. As for me, I couldn’t manage without her.’

‘Alban Clough gave me a copy of the family trees for the Cloughs and the Inchmores. Fascinating stuff. Did you know Tom Inchmore, by any chance?’

Sylvia pursed thin, dry lips. ‘Tom was a dullard, I’m sorry to say. His grandmother was a friend of mine and she once confided in me that perhaps it was as well that the line had died out. She looked after the boy after he lost his parents, but he was a sad disappointment, sly and unpleasant. If Betty hadn’t insisted that Alban give him a job, he would never have found honest employment.’

‘So you knew Edith as well as Betty?’

‘All my life, as you might expect in a village this size. Edith was always in Betty’s shadow, of course. She lacked the money, as well as the looks. All she had was the Inchmore name. She never had much to say for herself, didn’t Edith. But she was a proud woman and if she was jealous of Betty, she took care not to let it show.’

‘Did the two women have much to do with each other?’

‘Not really. Edith always kept herself to herself. She didn’t have two pennies to rub together, though I remember Betty once telling me there was a bond between them.’

‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘The Hall, I suppose. And the way the families’ fortunes had been so intertwined.’

‘Which is why Betty insisted that Alban give Tom work?’

‘Even though it was common knowledge that Alban had no time for the lad. It must seem very old-fashioned to a young chap like you, Mr Kind, but Betty came from a generation with a sense of duty. That is why she made the bequest to our Association. She felt it incumbent on her to support our work. Also, she wanted to mark our friendship. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t herself interested in history.’

‘Unlike her son?’

Sylvia snorted. ‘Myth and legend? Stuff and nonsense, if you ask me. Betty and I didn’t discuss Alban or the dusty exhibits he set up in that old mausoleum of theirs. She guessed my opinion and neither of us wanted to fall out. Of course, she thought the sun shone out of his backside. All mothers are the same where their offspring are concerned. Not that I’ve had any of my own, but I’ve dealt with enough pupils’ parents to know how besotted they are.’

Without much hope, he asked about the curse of Mispickel Scar, but Sylvia sniffed and made it plain she could cast no light on the story’s source. A true historian,
she only trusted verifiable documentary evidence.

‘I suppose you’re wondering about these bodies they found in the old mine shafts? Heaven only knows what’s going on in this village. They talk about being tough on crime, but it’s getting more like downtown Detroit with each passing day. Now I hear that someone else has been found dead.’

Daniel almost choked on his last mouthful of profiterole. ‘Another body?’

‘Geraldine popped out to the shops earlier on, she’d run out of sugar. The news is all over the village. Apparently some fellow was fished out of Coniston Water this morning.’

‘Do you know who?’

‘He wasn’t a local person, by all accounts, just someone passing through.’

Her tone made it clear that this was a small mercy for which the villagers were thankful. Daniel said, ‘Was it an accident?’

Sylvia gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘I doubt whether an accident would justify hordes of police officers swarming around the lake. We’re not safe in our beds these days, and that’s a fact.’

She allowed Daniel a moment to reflect on this before saying, ‘So you want to study the material from the auction?’

‘Please.’

Sylvia nodded towards a huge ottoman, covered in green velvet, that stood beside his armchair. ‘That was
overflowing with old knitting patterns and wool and I’ve made my last cardigan, I’m afraid. So this morning, in readiness for your visit, I asked Geraldine to fill the box with Roger’s purchases. Take a look, and if you come across anything of special interest, feel free to borrow it.’

He opened the box and found it full of diaries, notebooks and manuscripts, each neatly preserved and labelled in tiny, cramped handwriting. ‘Has your nephew examined the material?’

‘Dear me no, Roger is such a busy fellow. Senior partner of an accountancy practice in Whitehaven, you know. When I heard that old books and other mementoes associated with Coniston were to be auctioned, I asked him to bid on our behalf, because I knew he would make good use of our funds. Of course, neither of us had any idea that he would be competing with Mr Daniel Kind.’

He grinned. ‘I disciplined myself to bid only for the items I was sure would be of interest. Big mistake. But my partner is always complaining that I hoard too much old rubbish.’

She returned his smile and for a fleeting moment he understood how much charm she’d had when young. ‘You’ll have to teach her the error of her ways. Nothing from the past is rubbish to the true historian.’

Within ten minutes of walking back into Divisional HQ, Hannah took a call from Fern Larter. Sarah Welsby had identified the dead man as Guy Koenig. Or, as she insisted, a supposed financial services guru called Robert L. Stevenson.

‘He was taking the mickey,’ Hannah said. ‘Maybe the worm turned and Sarah murdered him.’

‘Great minds, Hannah. I’ve asked for a back-up ID of the deceased, in case Sarah is our killer and we can’t use her in court to prove identity. But Guy kept himself to himself. No mobile, and he didn’t make personal calls from Sarah’s place. Maybe he was in hiding. We found an old laptop in his bag, but he used it as a toy, it’s given us no clues. As for Sarah, she might have followed him out to the pier. What if she caught him with another woman and the red mist descended?’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘Can’t see her lugging a heavy torch and two chunky bricks all that way on the off chance she might want to biff him on the head, and tether the weights to his corpse so that he’d sink to the bottom of the lake.’ A long sigh. ‘No, if she wanted to kill him, she’d have done it nearer home. A couch potato like our Sarah wouldn’t fancy schlepping over to Monk Coniston.’

‘Does she have an alibi?’

‘Time of death is so uncertain, we can’t rule her out. But if you assume Koenig got his come-uppance before he was due to jump into his taxi, it’s hard to see how she can have killed him if he did leave the house at seven, as she says. At ten past, she called at a chippy in Campbell Road for fish and chips and mushy peas. That’s corroborated. One of the women behind the counter actually saw Sarah let herself back into her house on the opposite side of the road. Doesn’t leave her much time to switch from battered cod to battering Guy Koenig. And why would she report him missing so quickly?’

‘Cunning double bluff?’

Fern chortled. ‘Sarah Welsby couldn’t do cunning if her life depended on it. According to her, they had sex half an hour before he left, and he was much rougher than ever before. Sounds to me like he never expected to see her again. But if she was guilty, would she have shared that with us? I don’t think so. You know what really hacks me off, Hannah? Koenig was treating her like shit and that
poor bloody fool convinced herself the sun shone out of his pretty little arse.’

‘Thoughts on motive?’

The door swung open and Les Bryant popped his grizzled head round. When Hannah gestured towards the phone, he mouthed, ‘
Di Venuto is here
.’

Fern sighed. ‘It’s an amateurish crime, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t planned in advance. If the bricks weren’t lying around near the shore, the murderer must have brought them to the scene for the specific purpose of weighting down the body. Although they weren’t heavy enough to do the job properly.’

‘You think the murderer was disturbed?’

‘Uh-huh. I have a team doing house-to-house, trying to find anyone who may have been hanging around Monk Coniston the night before last. As for why Koenig was killed, it may have something to do with money. From what Sarah tells us, he was skint. I’d bet he was working some kind of scam. Then someone got wise to it, and got angry too.’

The Diva could scarcely conceal his satisfaction that another body had been discovered. One man’s tragedy is another man’s breaking story. When Les nodded him into the meeting room, he strode up to Hannah and offered the firmest of handshakes. The after-shave was more pungent than ever and self-assurance oozed out of every pore. Their last conversation might never have taken place. With a hide that thick, Tony Di Venuto
was surely destined for great things in journalism.

‘Good to see you again, Chief Inspector. I realise the investigation at Monk Coniston is separate from your inquiry, but no doubt you share my view that the case is inextricably linked with the bodies found at Mispickel Scar.’

‘We’re keeping an open mind.’

‘Of course, you’re bound to say that, but …’

‘Have you anything to tell us, Mr Di Venuto?’

The Diva smirked. ‘Actually, I was expecting you would be more than happy to cooperate, to share information.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work like that. As you well know.’

‘You disappoint me, Chief Inspector. If not for my investigations on behalf of the
Post
, the maggots would still be snacking on Emma Bestwick in her underground tomb. Never mind. I’ve already interviewed Sarah Welsby, the dead man’s lover.’

Jesus, he was quick off the mark. ‘DCI Larter hasn’t made any announcement about the identity of the deceased as yet.’

Di Venuto sniggered. ‘Me, I like to keep ahead of the pack. Which no doubt is why Ms Welsby contacted me. I gather she’s identified the deceased as her lodger, Stevenson? Though I have it on good authority that wasn’t his real name and that he was previously known to the police.’

Someone in Fern Larter’s team must be earning a few quid on the side by leaking stuff to the
Post
. Shit, that was
all they needed. ‘I can’t confirm that. DCI Larter will call a press conference as soon as she’s ready.’

‘How long does the public have to wait before it gets answers?’ he demanded. ‘The
Post
will be running Sarah Welsby’s exclusive story tomorrow. I simply wanted to make sure you were the first to know. I’ve spoken to her at length and I’m convinced that this lodger of hers was the man who called me.’

‘What makes you so confident?’

‘He slipped out of her house on the day he first arrived. She caught sight of him from an upstairs window. He was only out for a few minutes, but the timing coincided with the first telephone message I received about Emma Bestwick. Same story the second time around. When she lost sight of him each time, he was heading in the direction that would take him to the nearest public call box.’

‘She was spying on him?’

‘She was a lonely, middle-aged woman. That says it all.’

Hannah suppressed the urge to smack him. ‘It’s not much to go on.’

‘He read my article about Emma Bestwick before he rang the first time. She remembers him borrowing the newspaper and shooting some line about wanting to catch up with the local news after being away for years. That was the day we led on my story about the tenth anniversary of Emma’s disappearance. How much more evidence do you need?’

‘You can’t identify his voice.’

‘He spoke in a whisper, what do you expect? I mean, do you want me to give it to you on a plate, or what? Stevenson killed Emma, you can bet on it.’

She stared. ‘Why? You’re suggesting a sex crime?’

He contrived a theatrical groan. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Jeremy Erskine wanted Emma dead, but he was determined not to be implicated in her murder. So he hired a hitman to kill her. When his paid assassin came back to the Lakes, he was scared of exposure. Solution – kill the killer.’

Daniel had booked an early table at a seafood restaurant in Staveley as a peace offering. On the drive from Brackdale, neither he nor Miranda spoke and although the food was excellent, their conversation was desultory. Miranda was off to London again the following day and she seemed lost in a world of her own. She insisted that he order a bottle of Chablis, and although he only allowed himself one glass, she’d finished the rest before the end of the dessert course.

His mind kept straying to Sylvia Blacon and the gentleman in the lake. After leaving the old woman’s bungalow, he’d checked out the news on Radio Cumbria and learned the police were treating it as murder. The detective leading the inquiry sounded unexpectedly jovial, but gave no hint about any link with the bodies hauled up from beneath the Arsenic Labyrinth.

‘Daniel, we need to talk.’ Miranda fiddled with a shoulder strap of her little black dress. ‘I’ve come to a decision.’

He considered her flushed face. This wasn’t going to be good news.

‘About?’

‘About us.’ She pushed her cup to one side and leaned across the table, keeping her voice low. ‘It’s not working, is it?’

Two drunken couples at the next table were arguing about how to split their bill and a Scouse waiter was sharing a raucous joke with the girl behind the bar. At the piano, a young man who had hired an ill-fitting tuxedo was playing selections from the Barbra Streisand songbook. The background noise made no impression, he and Miranda might have been alone on a desert island. But she’d built a raft for herself and was planning to sail away.

‘No, I suppose not.’

The moment he admitted the truth, relief rippled through him. He wouldn’t protest, wouldn’t try to urge her to stay. She’d had the courage to say out loud what both of them had known for weeks. Months, maybe.

She reached out and ran her nails over the surface of his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Daniel. I so wanted this to work out.’

‘Me too.’

She folded her arms, a defensive gesture. ‘You think I’m sleeping with Ethan, don’t you?’

‘I don’t think about Ethan.’

‘Well, I’m not.’ Huge intake of breath. ‘But I won’t lie to you. I want to, and he wants it too.’

He picked up his napkin, crushing it in his fist. ‘What would you like to do about the cottage?’

‘I’ll move out as soon as I can, if that’s OK. I can’t bury myself here any longer. For me the Lakes will always mean me and you, and if we aren’t to stay together … as for my half-share, we can sort things out when it suits you. No panic. I’ve decided against buying the flat in Greenwich, so I won’t be desperate for cash.’

‘You’ll be moving in with Ethan?’

‘When he suggested it, I said no way. You know something? I actually said I would be sticking with you, trying to make things work between us. He and I had a blazing row, actually. A hundred times worse than when you and me fell out. Sparks fly off the two of us when we’re together, it’s a weird relationship. But right now it feels like what I need. While you were out this afternoon, he called me to apologise for putting me under too much pressure too soon. Things seemed to fall into place while he was talking, I couldn’t fight my feelings one moment longer. Though if you’d changed your mind about sharing the flat … well, it might have been different.’

The pianist was humming as he played that song about people who need people. The luckiest people in the world. Daniel fixed the man with a stare, willing him to stop.

‘Thanks for telling me.’

She tapped her saucer with a teaspoon, a little
clink
of irritation. ‘You’re taking this in a very English way. No ranting, no raving. If we don’t watch out, we’ll finish up acting like characters in a 1940s film.’

‘You’d rather I scream blue murder?’

She ventured a smile. ‘If I were a suspicious soul, I might
wonder if I’ve played into your hands. Is that what’s going through your mind?
I’ve got rid of the needy cow, I’ve won back my freedom?
’

He shook his head. ‘At this precise moment, my mind is a vast empty void.’

‘Louise will be thrilled. She really can’t stand me.’

‘Feeling’s mutual, isn’t it?’

‘Louise is so protective of you, I’ll never measure up. I can understand why, after what happened to Aimee. You were a wreck, you kept blaming yourself, even though it wasn’t your fault she jumped from the tower. All I wanted was to make things better for you.’

God, she was so gorgeous. That flawless skin. Those eyes.

‘And you did.’

The familiar dreamy look spread across her face. She’d battled through the worst of the conversation, she was ready to rework it, as any good journalist might revise a piece of hasty writing to smooth out the flaws. Create a better impression.

‘Whatever you may think, I fell head over heels in love with the Lakes, same as with you. And I don’t regret it, please don’t imagine I do. But it’s a mistake to become infatuated with a place. When I was a kid, I used to love our holidays in Great Yarmouth. When my parents took me there one winter week-end, with the amusements shut up and a gale howling in from the sea, it wasn’t the same. The spell was broken forever and I’ve never gone back since.’

He intercepted the glance of the Scouse waiter, who was running his eye over Miranda’s curves, and asked for the bill. ‘So it’s back to London for good tomorrow?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll take as many of my things as I can carry. The rest I can leave till I’ve moved in with Ethan. I suppose you’re still determined to stick it out here?’

Why did she have to make it sound like a feat of endurance? ‘Me, I’m still infatuated.’

‘But with the Lakes, not with me.’ She sighed. ‘That’s the difference, Daniel. The countryside just doesn’t do it for me, I need the excitement of city life. Sheepdog trials and ivy-clad coaching inns are fine, but they aren’t enough. For me, something always needs to be happening.’

Pictures flickered in his mind. Strap-hanging commuters on the London Underground, glancing nervously at their fellow passengers’ rucksacks. Drunken youths smashing bottles outside the doors of a nightclub and pissing in shop doorways. Oxford dons bickering at High Table.

‘Depends on what you want to happen, I guess.’

At five to eight, Les put his head round the door and said, ‘Time to go home.’

Hannah pulled her eyes away from the columns of figures on the spreadsheet on her screen. She’d spent the last hour juggling overtime and equipment budgets. Even in cold case work, making the numbers add up was more of a challenge for a DCI than detecting crime.

‘See you tomorrow.’

‘I meant time for you to go home,’ he said, stepping
into her room. ‘For me, it doesn’t matter. Long hours are good, it’s like the old days, takes me out of myself. It’s different for you. Don’t make the mistake I made.’

‘What was that?’

‘Forgetting that there’s someone waiting for you at home.’

She felt her cheeks burning. ‘Marc is out visiting a customer in Carlisle this evening. Besides, he knows what the job involves.’

‘And he’s happy about it?’

‘He spends all his time with his books, anyway.’

Les raised bushy eyebrows. ‘I used to say my old lady liked not having me under her feet. She was able to suit herself. Watch trash on telly, natter on the phone to her mates. In the end, it wasn’t enough.’