The Hanging Wood

by Martin Edwards

  ‘I’ve counted the days. I can give you the calculation in minutes and seconds if you like.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  Her cheeks tingled. The two old women had stopped talking. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw them studying her with thrilled curiosity.

  ‘Half a year of numbness,’ he muttered. ‘What happened was terrible, it was bound to take an age for us to get over it.’

  ‘I’m over it,’ she said. ‘I’ve moved on.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ he hissed. ‘You need more time.’

  ‘The great healer?’

  She meant to strike a sardonic note, but her voice sounded scratchy and she felt embarrassed. The old women were loving this. Lunch in the sun, with free reality entertainment thrown in. Who needed daytime TV?

  ‘I’ll give you all the space you want,’ he said. ‘There’s no rush.’

  She was about to say: forget it, I won’t change my mind. But the words stuck in her throat. How could she be so sure?

  He bent forward, and brushed his lips against hers. As her body tingled, he sprang to his feet. Crushing his paper napkin in his fist, he hurled it into the bin on the edge of the decking. His eye was good, it was a perfect shot. She wondered that their audience didn’t break out into applause.

  ‘What we have is precious,’ he said. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry to chuck it away like a piece of litter.’

  With the same lithe ease that so often set her pulse racing in their early days together, he moved past her, and disappeared down the stairs and into the darkness of his shop.

  As she stood up to go, her eyes met those of one of the elderly women. She waved towards Hannah’s table.

  ‘Don’t forget your book!’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Daniel Kind swung off the lane at the entrance lodge. On either side of the narrow drive, oak trees spread branches to form a tunnel with a roof of green. Daniel slowed the car to walking pace. It felt like passing through a portal into a different world. He loved travelling back in time, even if only in his head; for a historian, the past was a perfect destination. The drive curved, and through the thick leaves, he glimpsed the mysterious bulk of his destination.

  The magic of the extraordinary building lifted his spirits. In his imagination he was transported to fifteenth-century France, approaching a strange chateau, hiding place of treasures and countless dark secrets. St Herbert’s was constructed of freestone, tinted a greenish grey that seemed dour even on the brightest morning. The slate roofs were dark and austere, the design eccentric. The architect had let rip with flights of Gothic fancy, a confection of steep mansards and conical turrets jostling on the skyline with the parapets of a huge square tower. Above the tower’s battlements, a wrought-iron balustrade ran around the cut-off top of a roof in the shape of a pyramid. In the middle of the front elevation, a carriage porch had been elaborated into a two-storey gatehouse flanked by octagonal pilasters, with an oriel window jutting out above the arch. This was a residence fit for a marquis, viscount or duke.

  A grubby white delivery van shattered the illusion, tyres screeching as it hurtled around the building from the loading bay by the kitchens. It headed past him to its next drop-off in the real world, and Daniel spotted a slogan scrawled in the muck on the rear doors: I wish my girlfriend was as dirty as this. Not the level of literary sophistication associated with St Herbert’s Residential Library, but it brought him down to earth. Appearances were deceptive; this wasn’t the Loire Valley – St Herbert’s was English, through and through. The freestone came from Low Furness and the slate from Westmorland quarries.

  Daniel reversed into a marked space at the end of a row of parked cars. No sign of Orla Payne’s rusty old banger. Taking a second day off work in succession, by the look of things. Had she mustered the courage to speak to Hannah Scarlett? God, he hoped so. If anyone could make sense of Orla’s ramblings about her lost brother, it was Hannah.

  Lifting his laptop case from the passenger seat, he flicked the remote fob to lock the car. The Mercedes was a new toy; he’d treated himself after his agent sold translation rights to his next book throughout Europe. All he needed to do now was to finish writing it. Deadline only three weeks away. Fifteen thousand words and who-knew-how-much revision to go.

  As he’d sweated over the manuscript, he found it suited him to work at St Herbert’s. He was writing a study of Thomas De Quincey’s influence upon the history of murder. The library kept a small archive of De Quincey’s correspondence from his time living in Dove Cottage, together with a collection of nineteenth-century manuscripts so obscure that the online monoliths had neglected to digitise them. Each time he came here, Daniel found himself not wanting to pack up as darkness fell and set off home to Brackdale. St Herbert’s possessed a unique charm, a residential library where you could read by day, sleep by night, and then wake to stroll through gardens boasting some of the finest views in Britain. He’d stayed over a couple of times, sharing Laphroaig and conversation with the principal in front of a log fire in the drawing room before resuming work until the small hours.

  He wanted to fill his lungs with fresh air before finding a table in the library. Such a gorgeous summer afternoon was too precious to squander. A path curled past a yew hedge to the rear of the building. Beyond a neat lawn and a fountain with a cherub lay a walled garden. A wooden door in the middle of the stone wall was kept open during daylight hours. Gertrude Jekyll had presided over the planting, and the bulk of the garden was devoted to dozens of rose cultivars, sequenced by colour from red, through pink and white, to yellow, apricot and orange. Where the cross paths met in the centre stood a rondel of timber posts covered in climbing roses and clematis, alongside a tiny pond inhabited by fat goldfish.

  Daniel inhaled the fragrance of the blooms. The garden was deserted, and he imagined himself striding out like Sir Milo Hopes of Mockbeggar Hall, taking a morning constitutional around the monument he had built to celebrate his love of literature. Sir Milo, who fancied himself as a man of letters, had compiled an archive of memoirs and other family papers, as well as trying his hand at fiction. Having skimmed a couple of the historical romances which the squire of Mockbeggar had privately printed and expensively bound for display in the library, Daniel understood why Sir Milo was remembered for his munificence, not his plodding prose.

  ‘Daniel!’

  He spun on his heel. Above the wall, the upper part of the building was visible. On a narrow parapet, outside a first-floor window, a tall lean man with a wild mane of thick black hair and a flowing beard stood. His arms were held aloft, forefingers pointing to the sky. He might have been a demagogue in mid rant, intent on whipping up a frenzy in a raging mob. Or a zealot about to make the ultimate sacrifice.

  Jesus, what is he doing?

  The man’s dark eyes stared down and met Daniel’s.

  ‘Aslan!’ Daniel bellowed.

  He burst into a run, desperate to avert disaster. The man on the parapet stood motionless, as if deciding what to do, before relaxing, as if the tension had been squeezed out of him like paste from a tube.

  He shook his mane, and let his arms fall.

  ‘Sorry!’ he called. ‘Did I give you a scare?’

  ‘How did it go?’ the voice on the phone asked.

  Hannah switched off the ignition of her Lexus. Even though Terri was her closest friend, it had been a mistake to confide, in a moment of weakness, that she was planning to make the break with Marc.

  ‘We talked, which is progress.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We’ll talk again, I suppose.’

  ‘So he’s fighting to keep you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘It’s taken long enough for him to realise what he’s throwing away.’

  Hannah’s head was starting to hurt. She hadn’t realised how much she’d been building up to this face-to-face encounter with the man she’d loved for years, the man she thought had loved her. It shouldn’t be a spectator sport
, and she wasn’t in the mood for a bout of post-match analysis.

  ‘Listen, I’ve got to go. Sorry, things to do.’

  ‘You’re still OK for tomorrow?’

  Hannah had forgotten they’d arranged an evening out together, listening to a folk band. The last thing she needed was a bunch of amateur troubadours serenading her with songs about heartbreak, but Terri was not to be put off.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Try not to be late for once. You never know, that hunky Polish barman might pick me up, and you’ll wind up listening to the band on your own while Stefan and I make wonderful music in his bedsit.’

  ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  ‘What was all that about?’ Daniel demanded.

  They were outside the rear entrance to St Herbert’s, in front of the mullioned windows of the deserted dining room. Aslan Sheikh had shinned down to the ground by way of an iron drainpipe. Shades of Spiderman; agile and fit, he’d not even broken sweat. The sight of him standing on the ledge had left Daniel’s stomach weak and his knees feeling like mush. A flashback took him to the day his partner Aimee fell from the Saxon tower in Oxford’s Cornmarket. Daniel had arrived too late to save her, but he was haunted by a picture in his mind of the young woman, teetering on the brink, before she took a last breath and jumped.

  Aslan was not to know that. He was indulging in high spirits, not twisting the knife.

  ‘It began as a fag break, would you believe? I came out for a smoke, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t climbed for years. I was curious. Wondered what the view was like from the parapet.’

  ‘Curious?’ Daniel shook his head. ‘You could have borrowed a key and taken a look from inside one of the offices up there.’

  ‘Where’s the fun in that?’ Aslan pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his jeans, and lit up. ‘Hey, I’m a creature of impulse. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. A break, a chance of excitement.’

  For a creature of impulse seeking excitement, choosing to work at St Herbert’s was pretty counter-intuitive, Daniel thought. Aslan’s shock of hair, beaky nose and swaggering gait, coupled with his olive skin and handsome cast of features, suggested he was cut out for somewhere much more exotic than St Herbert’s. But he worked here as a part-time conference and events organiser. He’d explained to Daniel that he was half-Turkish, accounting for his unusual first name, and that he’d spent the last few years travelling, working in tourism and on cruise ships as well as having a spell in the United States. His late mother had once worked in a Keswick pub, and although they had deserted the Lakes for Istanbul when he was a baby, he’d vowed one day to make a pilgrimage back to the place of his birth.

  ‘So was the view worth it?’

  ‘Need you ask? You can see Mockbeggar Hall, the farmland owned by Orla’s father, and the fells in the distance. The caravans are the only blot on the landscape. They are supposed to blend in with the landscape, and priced to match, but it doesn’t quite work. The Hall is due to reopen any day now as a leisure complex, would you believe? Old Sir Milo must be revolving in his grave.’

  ‘Speaking of Orla Payne, I didn’t see her car. Is she around today?’

  Aslan clicked his tongue in mock disapproval. ‘It was my day off yesterday, but Sham tells me she didn’t show up then, either. Yet she hasn’t called in sick. AWOL two days running, naughty, naughty. The principal won’t be a happy bunny.’

  ‘I bet.’ Professor Micah Bridge could never understand how the conscience of any member of his staff allowed them to show less dedication to the library than his own. People management gave him palpitations. ‘She hasn’t been in touch?’

  ‘Sham hasn’t heard a peep from her. Nobody has any idea what’s up. Let’s hope she isn’t lying behind a pile of garbage down some back alley in a drunken stupor, eh?’

  ‘I thought the two of you are friends?’

  ‘We’re not seeing each other, if that’s what you mean.’ Aslan sniggered. ‘As communications manager, she showed me the ropes, and we went out to a pub in Keswick once or twice, nothing heavy.’

  An unexpectedly brutal denial. Orla was a nice-looking woman, but perhaps Aslan had his eye on Sham Madsen, with her anything-goes grin and very rich parents.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I really feel for Orla, you have no idea. Nothing can replace the loss of a brother or sister. Nothing in the world …’ Aslan’s voice trailed away for a moment before he collected his thoughts. ‘Saying that, it’s no solution to obsess about stuff. And you must admit, she does have an obsession. I’ve noticed her buttonholing you in the dining room.’

  ‘You’ve heard the story about Callum, then?’

  ‘Hasn’t everyone? As a matter of fact …’

  ‘What?’

  Aslan seemed to change his mind. ‘I don’t mean to sound harsh, not knowing what happened to her brother was horrible. But for goodness’ sake, it was twenty years ago. The world goes on, you know?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Daniel moved towards the main entrance, but Aslan stubbed out his cigarette, and caught him up with quick loping strides.

  ‘Hey, she’s making a mistake to dwell so much on the past, don’t you agree?’

  Daniel halted under the archway. ‘I’m a historian, remember? Dwelling on the past is what I do.’

  ‘Yeah, right. I only meant …’

  Daniel pushed open the double doors. He was worried about Orla, and he didn’t want to show how much. If Aslan was distancing himself, she needed all the friends she could muster.

  Behind the welcome desk perched Sham Madsen. Her given name was Chamois, but everyone called her Sham. She had an elder sister, Perdita, always known as Purdey. Sham reckoned their mum picked the names of heroines in her favourite Mills and Boon novelettes for her daughters, and their father indulged her whim. Along with his brother Bryan, Gareth Madsen ran the caravan park, and Sham exuded the self-confidence that comes with glamour and wealth. With dark shoulder-length hair and a glamour model’s figure, she’d taken advantage of the heat to sport a top so skimpy that Daniel feared for the principal’s blood pressure.

  ‘Hiya, Daniel.’

  She beamed in greeting before treating Aslan to a flirtatious wink. Daniel noticed his companion respond with a sly smile.

  Close to the desk, a grand staircase swept up and out of sight, leading to the main offices as well as the residential quarters. To the right of reception, a corridor led to the dining room and the principal’s suite. Daniel turned left down the passage that led towards the main library, but there was no escaping Aslan, who fell into step beside him. He could smell smoke on the man’s breath and on his clothes.

  ‘Orla trusts you, Daniel. Can you persuade her to seek help with her booze problem?’ Aslan spoke in a rush; did he regret his earlier tone? ‘Medical advice, counselling, whatever works. I pleaded with her, said she’d go the same way as her mum if she didn’t watch out, but it made no impression.’

  The door to the Old Library opened, and a stooped bespectacled man ushered a companion ahead of him, making a courteous gesture with an age-spotted hand. The principal of St Herbert’s and a woman Daniel recognised as Fleur Madsen. Her picture appeared on the St Herbert’s website. Fleur was Sham’s aunt, and six weeks ago she’d been appointed as chair of the board of trustees of St Herbert’s.

  Fleur and Micah Bridge made an odd couple. What little remained of the principal’s hair was white, the top of his head bald and shiny. He wore a tweed jacket, yellow-and-red-striped MCC tie, twill slacks, and brown lace-up shoes that might have been bought from a charity shop. Fleur Madsen was elegant and elfin, a sort of blonde Audrey Hepburn in a blue linen jacket that matched her eyes, an ivory top and trousers, and a big buckled belt chosen to show off her tiny waist. At first glance, you’d think the pair belonged to different generations, though Micah Bridge was no more than five years Fleur’s senior. His entire wardrobe probably cost less than her statement necklace.

  �
�Daniel!’ the professor exclaimed. ‘Just the chap! Here is someone you really must meet.’

  Aslan coughed. ‘I’d better get along.’

  He sprinted away to the offices. Daniel noticed Fleur Madsen cast a thoughtful glance at his retreating back as the principal effected introductions. Next moment, he had her full attention. The full-wattage smile revealed inevitably perfect teeth.

  ‘How lovely to meet you – may I call you Daniel? I’ve been dying for our paths to cross ever since the principal mentioned you were working here. Of course, I adored your TV series. I’m a history junkie; I really can’t get enough of it, can I, Micah?’

  The principal’s well-scrubbed cheeks turned pink as he murmured assent. Fleur was a member of the landed gentry, the genuine article, with posh vowels picked up from some expensive private school to prove it. Mockbeggar Hall had belonged to her family for years before she teamed up with Bryan Madsen, elder son of the man who had bought a slice of the Hall’s estate to found a caravan park and make millions out of it. A smart lady, in every sense.

  ‘I’ve given up on television,’ he said. ‘Better than waiting for it to give up on me.’

  ‘Far too modest. And what a shame you abandoned your university teaching. Though I do admire a man who quits while he’s ahead.’ A teasing smile. ‘No regrets?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. How marvellous that you’ve agreed to give our Founder’s Lecture in September. I can’t wait.’

  Daniel stepped through the doorway. The lovely smell of the Old Library assailed him, the aroma of thousands of books packed tightly together blending with a whiff of leather upholstery and the tang of furniture polish. Shelves reaching ten feet high were separated by narrow aisles that twisted and turned like a labyrinth. A spiral staircase curved up to a gallery from which you could see the pattern of the maze. Behind the balustrades lurked desks with shaded lamps, where a handful of people read. But for an occasional fluttering of pages, the library was silent. To step inside was like entering church.