by Roz Watkins
‘It looks like he’d had some chocolate cake. It was in a plastic wrapper saying “Susie’s Cakes” – is that something you bought?’
‘No, never heard of it. But Peter loves cake. He’d never turn it down if someone offered. Was anyone else seen in the woods?’
‘We’re checking that.’
‘I can’t imagine him buying it for himself. There are no shops on the way down there.’ She tapped her fingers against her knee.
There was a buzzy energy about Kate Webster. Not the usual flatness of someone who’d lost a relative. I noticed my toes were curled in my shoes as if I was clutching the floor with them. ‘You say he’d been difficult recently?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Yes. I mean, he’d been grumpy with me. And drinking too much. I thought he was hiding something.’ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘Oh God, it’s going to turn out he was having an affair, isn’t it? I can’t bear it.’ She rose, walked again to the picture window, and stood with her back to us.
I kept my voice gentle. ‘I’m sorry to ask but I don’t suppose, if he was having an affair, you’d have any idea who it might possibly be with?’
She turned and stood silhouetted against the evening sunset, leaning against the window in a way which made me nervous. ‘Christ almighty,’ she said. ‘Of all the questions you hope you’ll never be asked. Who could your husband be having an affair with, in case they…’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Look, he didn’t socialise on his own outside work and they’re mainly men at his office. There was a client he mentioned a couple of times, Lisa something, but he didn’t even like her. No, he wasn’t interested in her.’ She rubbed her nose. ‘Oh God, he would give that impression, wouldn’t he? I can’t believe this is happening. How can this be happening to me?’
Beth stood and walked to the window, gently touched Kate’s arm, and led her back to the sofa. ‘Peter wasn’t having an affair,’ she said.
I took a biscuit. It seemed to relax people when you ate their biscuits. At least that was my story. ‘Can I ask,’ I said, ‘how was his sleeping? And eating?’
Kate crossed and uncrossed her legs. ‘He was always eating. Loved his food. But actually he’d lost a bit of weight recently. And I suppose he had been a bit more tossy and turny over the last year, always dragging the duvet off me. He’s had a few nightmares. I put it down to work stress.’
I turned to Beth. ‘Did you notice anything?’
She shook her head. ‘He seemed okay to me.’
‘Was he on anti-depressants?’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘He hated drugs. Ironic, given his job.’ A tiny smile twitched at the edges of her lips. ‘He thought they were a sign of feeble-mindedness.’
‘When did you get worried about his drinking?’
‘I wasn’t exactly worried. But, well, it started about a year ago and it’s got worse recently.’ Her lower lip shook. She took a deep breath and continued. ‘I’d get home and he’d be in front of the TV with a beer. He’d claim he’d only had one but sometimes he’d stagger when he got up. And he was hiding the bottles. And other times he smelt like he’d been smoking. Not tobacco either.’
‘Can you imagine him ever wanting to harm himself?’
‘What? No, no.’ She shook her head like a dog shaking off water. ‘No. He wouldn’t do that to me.’
Of course, relatives always said that. But some of us knew better.
I stood. Something caught my eye in the wood-burner. It was an expensive cast-iron thing with a glass front. The fire wasn’t lit, but inside were several half-burnt logs and a few pieces of paper, visible through the sooty glass. They were almost completely singed black but the end of one piece of paper was still intact and had handwriting on it.
‘What are those papers?’ I asked.
Kate jumped up and lunged towards the fireplace. ‘Oh, nothing!’ She grabbed a poker and reached for the door of the wood-burner.
‘Leave it!’ I shouted, as if she was a dog heading for a picnic.
Beth flashed angry eyes at Kate, who froze in a poker-wielding stance. She turned her head slowly towards me, as if wondering whether I had the right to do this. Presumably, she decided I did; she put the poker down on the hearth and stepped back. ‘Sorry.’ She retreated to the sofa. ‘It’s nothing. Just some old papers I was using as scrap.’
I exchanged a look with Jai. ‘Okay, I’d like our people to see them.’
*
I left Jai to finish the interview, and asked to see Peter Hamilton’s study. According to Kate, he’d usually worked there before he went on his walk, and it certainly looked like he’d been planning to return – no suicidal tidying was in evidence. The room had a slightly musty but not unpleasant smell that reminded me of the libraries of my youth. An antique-style desk was strewn with papers covered with handwritten notes, much crossed out. The messiest page was headed ‘Claims’, and chemical formulae spidered their way across it.
Bookcases lined the walls, crammed with unappealing books about biochemistry and patent law, many covered with a layer of dust. But the bottom shelf caught my eye – a collection of photograph albums. I crouched and gently pulled out one of the albums. It was filled with holiday snaps. Kate Webster and Peter Hamilton, very much alive. All bright smiles, white villages and sunny skies. The other albums were similar – happy holidays, any discord well hidden. I eased out the album that looked oldest. The pages were stiff and the plastic sheets that were supposed to keep the photographs in place had yellowed and lost their stickiness. I turned the pages slowly, holding them at their edges.
The early part of the album included wedding photos – a man and a woman, presumably Hamilton’s parents. A later photograph showed the same couple, with two boys and a younger girl who must have been Beth. The woman now sat flaccidly in a wheelchair. On her knee was a cat of such a vivid orange it stole the light and made everything else look grey. All three children stared adoringly at it.
I flipped through pages of later childhood photographs – scorched lawns and yellow Cornish beaches; no mother in these. Then the university years – punting on the river and lounging in Cambridge college gardens, surrounded by glistening turrets and pinnacles. Most of those photographs featured a rather beautiful girl. Her huge, dark eyes gazed out of the photographs right at me. She was the central point, like the sun to the other people’s planets. She stared at the camera and Peter Hamilton stared at her. Even after I looked away, her face was in my head.
I stood and looked again at the papers on the desk. I lifted the one headed ‘Claims’. Something was written on the back. I turned it gently. One word covered the paper, written maybe one hundred times, in different-sized lettering and at different angles and with different pens.
Cursed.
Chapter 4
We pulled away from Kate Webster’s house. My mind was swirling with witches and curses and poison, and flashes of Peter Hamilton’s blood-stained face. I glanced back towards the cottage, perched resolutely on the cliff with the quarry falling away all around it. An outside light shone on a little rock garden which sprawled over the stone to the side of the house. I pictured the drop onto the rocks far below, and wondered if the cottage would ever surrender itself to the quarry, as if on an eroding coastline.
‘Did you find anything else useful?’ I asked Jai.
‘Not really. Apparently he goes for a walk every Monday when he works from home, but not always in the quarry. He was a greedy sod who’d take cake from anyone, but no one would have wanted to harm him.’
‘Clearly.’
‘All that stuff about a curse on the house was a bit weird. You wouldn’t think a doctor would fall for that.’
‘Or a patent attorney. It’s odd though, if people who live there keep dying. Did you ask if anyone had died recently?’
‘Yeah. No. Last one was that girl ten years ago.’
‘Ben Pearson told me about her yesterday. The duty sergeant. That Labyrinth is supposed to have th
e initials of the people who died cut into the rock.’
Jai glanced at me. ‘What, like in our cave?’
‘Yes.’ I steered the car down the steep hill towards the town centre, praying we wouldn’t meet anyone coming up. ‘So, it’s pretty strange that the girl came from the same house, don’t you think?’
‘Hmm, yes. And there was something else his wife said.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Okay, so when I asked if either of them knew about the carving in the cave, the wife started saying something that I didn’t quite catch, and the sister shut her up. Then the wife made out she hadn’t said anything. And you know how sometimes your brain pieces together later what someone said – well, I’m thinking she said something about the basement.’
*
I dropped Jai at his house in Matlock and took the A6 towards Belper. It was late and dark and the drizzle had morphed into a diffuse fog that distorted the headlights of the oncoming cars. Either my eyes were getting worse or driving at night had always been an act of faith. I squinted into the gloom and wished I was in bed.
Back home, I let myself into my tiny, rented cottage. The heating was on and the hallway felt cosy for once, the long, rust-coloured rug warming the stone-flagged floor and books sitting in chaotic piles on the shelves. A phone balancing on one of the piles flashed a tiny red light. At what point in my life had answer-phone messages transformed from exciting to depressing? I kicked off my shoes and pressed the button. Mum’s voice. The usual stuff. How was I? How was work? Was I eating? (Seriously, had she not seen this body?) There was something about her voice – high-pitched but breathy, as if she was trying not to be overheard. She’d seemed different recently, as if she was worried about something, but I was damned if I could get her to tell me what it was. Probably just the strain of looking after Gran. A wave of guilt and helplessness washed over me. I probably wouldn’t find time to visit her tomorrow. I’d be up to my neck in the investigation.
I glanced into the living room, then walked to the kitchen with the message still playing. Hamlet burst through the cat flap in a haze of black and white fur. I leaned and scooped him into my arms, somewhat against his wishes, and buried my face in his soft belly. He purred grudgingly and wriggled out of my grasp. I gave him food even though he’d have been stuffing his fat face at my indulgent neighbour’s house all evening, grabbed a glass of water, and sat at the kitchen table with my laptop.
I eventually found it on a website about Derbyshire myths and legends – the story of the Labyrinth, the witches and the initials on the wall, just as Ben Pearson had said. It was classed ‘not verified’. The cave house was also mentioned. It was said to be haunted by a woman as thin as a skeleton, who wailed for her lost lover. I snapped my laptop shut, and rubbed my arms to get rid of the goose pimples. I didn’t believe in ghosts.
I climbed the steep stairs, Hamlet forming a trip-hazard at my ankles, and tried to resist the compulsion to check the upstairs rooms. I had to stop doing this. I closed my eyes and leant against the wall of my tiny landing. I pictured the noose deep inside the Labyrinth. Straight and empty. That other image flickered at the edge of my consciousness. A young girl hanging. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and forced my fists into my temples. She faded away.
I poked my head into the chaotic study and the overflowing spare room, glancing up at the ceilings, as always.
Chapter 5
‘It’ll be that one.’ Jai nodded at a Georgian building which had a smug look and stood out from the shabbier buildings on the street, as if lit from below. ‘You can just tell it’s stuffed full of fat-cat lawyers.’
He was right. The weak morning sun shone on a brass plaque which announced, Carstairs, Hamilton and Swift – Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys. I shoved open the heavy door, and we walked into a surprisingly modern reception.
The receptionist sported the kind of permed hair that surely went out in the eighties, and a badge saying Wendy. I silently applauded Carstairs and Co for employing someone so far from the archetypal Barbie-esque legal receptionist. Her eyes widened at the sight of our ID, and she said, ‘Ooh yes, you’re here to interview the suspects. Let me show you to the conference room.’
She led us towards an oak panelled door on our right. As she reached for the handle, a woman burst through the front door from the road, swerved, and knocked me in the stomach with a pointed elbow. ‘I need to talk to someone about the cases Peter was handling.’ She had one of those sharp, rodenty faces common in the girls who’d bullied me at school.
Wendy turned to her with a tight-lipped smile and said, ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’
I bashed the woman with the oak door as we entered the conference room, and added her to the list of suspects.
The room wouldn’t have looked out of place in a minor stately home. Hefty books lined the walls and stern, lumpy-nosed old men gazed disapprovingly from gold-framed portraits.
‘What did I tell you?’ Jai settled himself on an upright chair facing a Georgian window overlooking the road outside.
‘Yeah, you’d be quivering about the charges if you were a client.’ I sat round the corner of the table from Jai, so we weren’t lined up in battle formation, and removed my coat and my special, crazy scarf. It was far too long but my sister, Carrie, had knitted it for me, vowing to keep knitting until she could knit no more, so I wore it even though I had to coil it in a bizarre double loop to avoid it dragging on the floor.
Wendy returned with coffee and biscuits.
‘Do you have a moment?’ I said.
She put her tray on the table and puffed up like a courting bird. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘We were just wondering what Peter Hamilton was like to work with?’
‘Oh, he was very nice. Such a shame. He was the nicest of the three partners. The other two can be terribly difficult. Although poor Peter had been somewhat moody recently.’
I caught Jai’s eye. You take over, and charm some dirt out of her. He stepped in beautifully, with a sympathetic smile and an intimate tone. ‘You must have to put up with a lot. So Peter Hamilton had been a bit moody?’
‘Only in the last six months or so. Snapping at me about things.’
‘Have you any idea why?’
‘Not really. They all get very stressed. And of course the other two partners—’
‘That’s Felix Carstairs and Edward Swift?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, they were concerned about Peter.’
‘What makes you say they were concerned?’ Jai was good. Wendy rested one leg and leant against the door frame as if she was chatting to a friend.
‘They’ve been having meetings, just the two of them. Between you and me, I think they were trying to get rid of him.’ She took a tiny in-breath as if realising the implications of what she’d said. ‘Oh, no, not like that. I mean, trying to get him to leave the firm. I think Peter was behind with his work. Apparently Edward was snooping through his files when he was on holiday. Edward’s a funny one though. A little bit on the spectrum, if you know what I mean.’
‘The autistic spectrum?’
‘A teensy bit.’ She held fingers up to give a visual representation of teensy, and lowered her voice. ‘And make sure you ask Felix about StairGate.’
Jai leant forward to encourage her, and spoke quietly. ‘What was that?’
‘Oh, it’s just what we called it. Like Watergate, you know, but it all happened on the stairs out there. Felix was shouting at Peter and then it was terrible – Peter fell.’ She took a step towards us and whispered. ‘We think Felix must have pushed him.’
‘Really?’ Jai’s tone was conspiratorial.
‘Oh yes, Felix isn’t the easiest man. He ran over a cat in the car park out the back and he didn’t seem upset at all.’
‘That’s not good.’ Jai sat back.
I put Felix to the front of my list of suspects, ahead of pointy-elbowed-woman. ‘And who’s that in Reception?’
Wendy looked like she’d eaten
vinegar. ‘The one that’s having a tantrum because her patent attorney had the cheek to die on her? That’s Lisa Bell. I think she’s part of the problem. I heard one of the secretaries saying Peter had been undercharging her, and the other partners weren’t happy.’
So that was the client Hamilton’s wife had mentioned. Lisa something. Could he have been having an affair with her? It would take a brave man to tackle that woman.
An assertive knock rattled the door, and a man strode in like he owned the place, which he possibly did.
Wendy jumped. ‘Oh, I’d best get back.’
The man held out his hand. ‘Felix Carstairs.’ He sat opposite Jai, round the corner of the table from me, and spread himself out, stealing space in an alpha-male kind of way. I could practically see Jai’s hackles rising, but there was nothing overtly offensive about the man. He had a symmetrical face and the sleek plumpness of a well-groomed show pony.
‘Terrible news about poor Peter.’ He spoke with the slow diction of those brought up to think everyone listened to them. Whereas I’d learnt to spit it out quick before someone interrupted.
‘Yes, terrible,’ I said. ‘Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about him?’
‘Of course not. Happy to help.’ Felix smiled, his confidence cocooning him like a magic cloak. He was the kind of person everyone had assumed I would meet at Cambridge, but in reality I’d been drawn to a group of fellow comprehensive school students, as if by an invisible magnet.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Friday. Oh, and I was at work all day Monday. Wendy in reception can verify that.’
Interesting that he was getting his alibi in before I’d even asked. Jai wrote in his notebook and eyed Felix with deep suspicion.
‘Okay, thanks,’ I said. ‘Had you noticed anything unusual about him in the last few weeks?’
‘I wondered if he was a little depressed. It was suicide, I assume?’