‘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.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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 pla
nning 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 Arsenic Labyrinth Page 23