The Dungeon House (Lake District Mysteries)

by Martin Edwards

  ‘My name is Joanna Footit. I booked yesterday for a fortnight.’

  He bestowed a cheesy grin, and extended his hand. ‘Ah, yes, Ms Footit. Or may I call you Joanna? My name’s Quiggin, pleased to meet you. Alvaro Quiggin, would you believe? My mother came from Almeria, and that was her dad’s name. She married a Manxman, and when I was born they named me in granddad’s honour. Never mind, it’s quite a mouthful, and as the song goes, you can call me Al.’

  Joanna hadn’t the faintest what song he was talking about, but shook his hand anyway. As she filled in the registration form, and went through the usual palaver with her credit card, she was aware of his sidelong appraisal of her figure. Her illness had left her painfully thin. In her schooldays, nasty boys had nicknamed her Stick Insect, but words no longer hurt her. At her age, better to be a Stick Insect than a Heffalump. Her new skirt was short enough to display her legs to full advantage, and for the first time since she’d sent Eoin packing, she felt attractive. Desirable.

  You-can-call-me-Al hauled her suitcases upstairs to a small but thankfully en suite room with chintzy decor and watercolours of Lakeland beauty spots on the wall. ‘Nice and comfy, eh? Watch yourself under the shower, the nozzle can be temperamental. In that cupboard, you’ll find a kettle and a basket with sachets of tea and coffee. There’s a map as well as a guidebook in the top drawer of the dressing table, if you’re planning excursions or need any information about the area.’

  She smiled. ‘Thanks, but I won’t need a map.’

  ‘Oh really? Regular visitor, are you?’

  ‘I grew up nearby and my parents lived at Holmrook until they died.’

  ‘So what brings you back here?’

  Obviously she didn’t intend to utter a word about Nigel. Certainly not until she’d decided how best to approach him. The merit of her cover story was that every word was true. ‘I’ve recently recovered from a long illness, and Ravenglass seemed the perfect spot to complete my recuperation. Healthy sea breezes …’

  ‘Oh aye, we’ve no shortage of sea breezes! Won’t take a jiffy for you to get the colour back in your cheeks. If you come from these parts, you’ll easily find your way around. Ravenglass never alters much. Revisiting old haunts, eh?’

  ‘And looking up old friends.’ Her eye caught the flamboyant signature on a landscape of Wasdale hanging next to the wardrobe. ‘Gosh, is that by Scott Durham? Is he still around?’

  ‘The artist? You know him?’

  ‘I did – very slightly. Twenty years ago.’

  ‘Well, well.’ You-can-call-me-Al beamed. ‘You’ve come to the right place. The Eskdale Arms next door offers our residents a ten per cent discount on evening meals. Scott lives in Seagull Cottage. He’s a regular in the saloon bar, and never misses a quiz night. Pop in for a bite to eat, and you’ll probably bump into him. Likes his pint, does Scott.’

  The conversation with Cheryl was never going to be easy. Hannah hadn’t seen or spoken to her since Ben’s funeral, a dismal occasion on a winter’s day when the rain never let up. The two of them had exchanged brief and civilised pleasantries at the door of the church, but Hannah’s mood matched the weather, and she kept her distance from the grieving widow. Cheryl had looked good, she’d had to admit, as they stood under umbrellas around the open grave. Black suited her. So did the pallor of mourning, and the opportunity to be the centre of attention, bereaved and brave and rather beautiful.

  Her call took Cheryl aback, but surprise soon gave way to suspicion. ‘Malcolm Whiteley? Of course I knew him. Lysette was very dear to me. Why on earth do you want to rake over the ashes twenty years on?’

  ‘As I said, I run the Cold Case Review Team …’

  ‘Yes, yes, I read about it in the papers. I was taken aback, to be honest.’

  ‘You were?’ A mistake, this, affording Cheryl a chance to twist the knife.

  ‘Absolutely, I thought you preferred investigating crimes in the here and now. You seemed very ambitious when you were young.’

  Hannah glared at the sanseveria. Wasn’t its alternative name mother-in-law’s tongue? It wasn’t as sharp as Cheryl’s scorn. ‘I suppose none of us are getting any younger.’

  ‘Time is precious, yes. Which makes me wonder, frankly, why it’s worth wasting time over an old story.’

  ‘Easier to explain when we are face-to-face.’

  A pause, followed by a long-suffering sigh. ‘You always were very persistent, Hannah. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

  Was that another dig? Did Cheryl believe she’d spent her formative years in the police pestering an unwilling Ben Kind for sex? Hannah ground her nails into her palm. Cheryl hadn’t lost that knack of winding her up.

  ‘Are you free tomorrow morning? How about eleven o’clock? I’m happy to visit you in Grange. Don’t worry if it’s not convenient. You tell me when and where.’

  An ungracious sniff. ‘No, that will do. Might as well get it over with.’

  ‘Thanks very much, Cheryl.’ Hannah wasn’t a naturally untruthful woman, so she preferred to think of her parting words not as a lie, but as satire. ‘It will be lovely to see you again.’

  Maggie bustled in half an hour later. ‘I’ve fixed up a meeting with Lily Elstone’s Mum tomorrow. Les said he’d come along. I’ll do the talking, but he reckons I could do with a minder.’

  ‘Not a bad idea.’

  Anya Jovetic was notoriously volatile. Once, she’d scratched the face of a journalist whose questioning upset her. A mother whose teenage daughter vanished never to return could be forgiven the occasional outburst of anger and desperation, but there was always a risk that Anya Jovetic would take out her misery on the wrong person. She should be pleased about the case being reviewed, but she’d never be satisfied until Gray Elstone was under lock and key.

  According to Anya, he was a sexual deviant who couldn’t handle a mature woman. She claimed that he’d molested Lily, and that when the girl had resisted, he’d killed her to keep her quiet. Three years ago, a vast amount of time and resource had been devoted to investigating her allegations, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support them. Lily hadn’t confided in anyone about the supposed abuse, and school friends insisted that she was closer to her father than her mother. Even Anya had to admit that she’d never suspected Gray of misbehaving with Lily until the girl’s disappearance.

  It also turned out that Anya carried a truckload of baggage. Enquiries in Split, her home town, established that her own father had been sent to prison for indecently assaulting young girls, and she’d accused a former lover of something similar, although nothing had ever been proved. Some officers on the original team of investigators had a theory that it was her temper that had driven Lily away.

  ‘Would you mind talking to the father?’ Maggie asked. ‘He might open up more to you than to me.’

  ‘Because he knew Ben, and so did I?’

  ‘That’s part of it. When I told him that we were reviewing the case, he said all the right things, but seemed wary, perhaps because Anya has accused him of all sorts. And now this business about Nigel Whiteley’s daughter complicates the picture.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll give him a ring.’

  One more task for the to-do list. The mantra in the public sector nowadays was Do more for less, and Hannah had lost a sergeant and some admin back-up. She was overworked, and it made sense to delegate whenever she could. The snag was that she was a detective who had been sucked into management. What she loved about the job was detection, not filling in spreadsheets and attending endless meetings. Anyway, there was just an outside chance that Maggie was right, and she’d be able to tease some new information from Elstone to cast fresh light on the three-year-old mystery of his daughter’s disappearance.

  Once you-can-call-me-Al left her in peace, Joanna unpacked before taking off her shoes, and lying down fully clothed on the bed. Eyes closed, mind spinning. She’d never dreamt she’d ever set foot inside the Eskdale Arms again. That meal after the Dungeon House barbecue r
epresented a watershed, not only in her life but in so many others. No wonder she thought of it as The Last Supper.

  For twenty years, Joanna had banished that night from her mind. The horror of it all had driven her from the Lakes. Later, fresh entanglements gave her more than enough to fret about, without allowing old ghosts to roam. Now she’d returned to Ravenglass, must she face up to the past? Or was it best for her to don her rose-tinted spectacles, and forget everything other than how much she cared about Nigel?

  She dozed for half an hour, but once she’d got up and washed her face, she decided to fit in a walk before something to eat. As she wriggled into her jacket, she considered Scott Durham’s take on Wastwater. Yellow sunlight played on snow-covered fells and lit the surface of the grey-blue lake. A pretty picture, subtle hues harmonising with the room’s pale pastels. He was a talented artist, nobody could deny it. Yet was something lacking? She detected no hint of the secretive nature of those inky depths, or of the claustrophobia that the dark scree slopes always induced in her. Scott had turned a blind eye to Wastwater’s sinister side.

  Perhaps he too liked to pretend that the horror of the Dungeon House had never happened.

  On her way out, she passed you-can-call-me-Al, who was still perusing the story about Shona Whiteley. The photograph of the girl differed from the one shown on television. No sexy party dress this time, but a rather severe school uniform, navy blue, striped with magenta. Her braces were even more prominent in this picture.

  ‘Off for a constitutional, Joanna?’

  ‘I fancy a breath of air. The drive has left me with a stiff back.’

  ‘Yes, it’s quite a journey, getting here from pretty much anywhere.’ He sneaked another glance at her figure. ‘You’ll know that well enough, being a local lass yourself. No shortcuts to Ravenglass, eh?’

  She hurried outside. His interest was flattering, but faintly creepy. Perhaps he saw it as part of his job to befriend residents. If he was lonely, she sympathised. It had been so long since a man had taken an interest in her that she was out of practise. Even Eoin – hindsight left her sadder but wiser – had regarded her more as a meal ticket than a lover. Anyway, she didn’t fancy you-can-call-me-Al. Her mind was filled with a single question. How would Nigel respond to the brave new Joanna?

  Striding along the sea cobbles of Main Street reminded her of old times. Gulls wheeled and swooped overhead, and a burly fisherman loaded up his van. As a kid, she’d thought Ravenglass was like an island, and she still did. The tiny promontory might be part of mainland England, but it felt remote from the everyday world, surrounded by lakes and mountains and sea, miles from anywhere except a nuclear power station.

  A cottage painted canary yellow caught her eye. Wisteria clambered around the canopied front door, bluebells covered every inch of the postage-stamp garden, and pansies and pinks spilt from a window box and two hanging baskets. This self-same cottage appeared on one of the watercolours hanging in her room, and Joanna guessed it was Scott Durham’s home even before she saw the carved log house sign. Seagull Cottage was picture postcard pretty, though anyone who stared at it for long enough might suffer a sugar crash.

  A man of middle height opened the front door, and locked it behind him. He had an envelope in his hand. At first glance, the famously handsome Scott Durham hadn’t worn too badly, even if the tweed jacket complete with elbow patches, corduroy trousers, and scuffed Hush Puppies suggested a middle-aged schoolmaster rather than an artistic free spirit. His fair hair was greying, but as thick and untamed as ever. On closer inspection, however, he’d developed a paunch, and he looked in need of a shave.

  As he closed the front gate and turned into Main Street, they came face-to-face. He did a double take that was almost comical.

  ‘It’s … it’s not Joanna?’

  Forty-eight hours ago, she’d have found this encounter impossible to imagine, but now she felt confident, ready for anything. When he moved closer, to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, she noticed his cheeks were threaded with veins. The brilliance of those blue eyes had faded, and she caught the smell of alcohol on his breath.

  ‘How nice to see you, Scott. It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Yes.’ He rubbed a stubbly jaw. ‘What … what brings you here?’

  ‘Oh, revisiting old haunts, you know. I came on impulse, to be honest. I’ve booked into the Saltcoats View.’

  ‘You’re staying here?’

  ‘Yes, yes, for a fortnight.’ She hesitated. ‘At least.’

  ‘Holiday?’ he grunted.

  ‘I’m a lady of leisure these days, I come and go as I please.’ She smiled. ‘I live in Lytham, and I worked in St Annes for years, but I was poorly, and my boss suggested a severance package. An offer I couldn’t refuse, you might say. It left me footloose and fancy free, so I said to myself – why not go back to Ravenglass?’

  He swallowed. ‘Like you say, it’s been a long time.’

  She pointed to the cottage. ‘Such a lovely place. And your paintings are on the wall of my room.’

  ‘Yes, Al Quiggin’s a good customer, even if he does haggle me down on price.’

  ‘Hefty discount for bulk purchases?’ She laughed. ‘I’m so glad to see you’re still painting. And drawing inspiration from Ravenglass!’

  He indicated the cottage. ‘There’s a rickety old conservatory at the back, looking out over the estuary. I use it as my studio.’

  ‘Marvellous! Have you lived here long?’

  ‘Since Josh left college.’

  ‘Josh, yes, I remember him well.’ The boy was a blur to be honest, she could just about picture him strumming his guitar at the fateful barbecue. The curly fair hair was all she remembered. ‘What is he up to now?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  His abruptness took her aback. ‘No reason, Scott, just curious. Such a nice-looking lad, is he married?’

  Overhead, a gull wailed. Scott glanced up to the sky, as if he suspected the bird of mockery.

  ‘He went into teaching.’

  ‘Oh lovely!’ Something made Joanna persist. ‘Teaching music, I expect? Passing on his enthusiasm to the young folk?’

  ‘Yes,’ Scott said through gritted teeth. ‘He teaches music.’

  ‘Here in Ravenglass?’

  ‘No, no. At a private school. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He waved the letter. ‘Things to do. You know how it is.’

  She was on the verge of pointing out that he’d missed the post anyway, but something in his demeanour stopped her. ‘Hopefully we’ll bump into each other again. I gather the Eskdale Arms is your local?’

  He made a non-committal noise. ‘Got to be on my way. Bye, Joanna. Take care.’

  He strode off toward the village, leaving her to reflect that he hadn’t asked a single question about how she was, or what she’d been up to over the past twenty years. Typical man. Not an ounce of curiosity.

  How strange to walk back into the Eskdale Arms after twenty years. At first glance, the only change was the arrival of a huge television screen in the saloon bar, where once a dartboard was the centre of activity. Even the aroma of beer and steak and onions seemed reassuringly familiar. A group of men were watching some football match, and she mistook their loud collective groan for an unkind comment on the arrival of an unaccompanied woman. In fact, one of the players had just missed an open goal.

  A colourful poster pinned on the wall caught her eye. There was a photograph of a chap she’d seen once or twice on television a few years ago, a historian called Daniel Kind. He was coming here in a couple of days’ time to talk about his new book. The subject was the history of murder. Even in the warmth of the pub, she found herself shivering. Would he talk about the deaths at the Dungeon House?

  The large oak table where they’d eaten the Last Supper still occupied the same nook. That night, she’d sat in the corner, with Nigel at her side, their legs touching under the table. Chatty and charming, he had paid close attention to everything she had to say, ignoring
Amber’s self-absorbed prattle. When the younger girl’s increasingly clumsy attempts to chat him up failed, she lapsed into monosyllabic surliness. Joanna recalled her twinge of sadness at the thought their friendship was unlikely to survive.

  She could picture the faces around the table as if it were yesterday. Scott Durham had turned up late, after giving Josh a meal at home, and Joanna remembered wondering why he’d bothered to come. Did he really carry a torch for Lysette? The pair barely exchanged a word all evening.

  Cheryl had changed into a low-cut top and tiny skirt, and was giggly after an afternoon’s drinking. Her partner Ben watched and listened, and made sure she didn’t make a fool of herself. His taciturnity made Joanna wonder if policemen could never be completely off duty.

  Malcolm Whiteley was conspicuous by his absence, and by common consent, the barbecue wasn’t discussed, nor was his excruciating drunken speech of welcome. Lysette seemed tense, and more than once she bit Amber’s head off. Joanna shivered. To think that, a few hours later, both mother and daughter were dead.

  In this day and age, pubs couldn’t survive simply by selling beer and traditional chicken in the basket. The dining area had been extended, taking in most of the old beer garden, so that outside there was just a tiny paved area, and steps leading down to the sand. She claimed the last vacant table before ordering a vegetable balti with garlic and coriander naan bread, plus a small glass of house white to wash it down.

  Her thoughts turned to Nigel. She’d need to pick her moment in contacting him. Poor soul, he was bound to be preoccupied while his daughter remained missing. She’d be happy to help take his mind off things, but obviously, tact was required. Scott Durham might be in touch with him. If Scott came into the pub, she’d wheedle out any information he had about Nigel.

  The food arrived, but Scott Durham was a no-show. Surely he wasn’t avoiding her? Never mind, perhaps she’d track down Gray Elstone. He’d lost a daughter, just like Nigel. Surely there was no connection? Because of her medication, she had to be careful how much she drank, but a couple of units wouldn’t do any harm. Dr Chanderpaul’s pills were doing the trick. The doctor had sympathised about the setbacks she’d experienced, but urged her not to waste time feeling sorry for herself, and the advice was spot on.