He wound up his window, and they set off in opposite directions. At Ravenbank Corner, the crime scene was still cordoned off with police tape. The fog was thicker here. Crawling towards Beck Cottage, he saw Robin Park, well wrapped up in Barbour and scarf, step out of the side porch, and raise a gloved hand in greeting. He pulled up on the verge by the low garden wall.
‘How are you, Robin?’
A grimace. ‘I still can’t believe what’s happened. It’s Mum I’m most concerned about. She thought the world of Terri. The shock has hit her very hard.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, she’ll get through it. She’s a strong lady. A survivor.’ He clenched his fist, willing himself to believe. ‘Going to the Hall? You must be, there’s nothing else the other side of this cottage.’
‘Lunch with the Knights.’
‘I’m due to meet your friend this afternoon. Hannah Scarlett. What’s she like, by the way?’
‘A very good detective, that’s all I can say.’
‘How discreet! Come in, why don’t you? It’s freezing out here.’ As Daniel checked his watch, Robin added, ‘I’ll only keep you a moment.’
The interior of the cottage was cramped but immaculate. All the curtains were drawn, an old-fashioned mark of respect for the dead. Through an open door, Daniel glimpsed a neat kitchen dominated by a wood-burning stove. The smell of freshly baked bread wafted out, inducing pangs of hunger. Robin called up the stairs to his mother that they had a visitor, and led him into a low-ceilinged living room. Horse brasses and an embroidered child’s sampler from the nineteenth century hung on the wall, and a glass corner cabinet was filled with old sporting trophies, silver plate cups, and crossed hockey sticks made from gold resin. A dozen photographs stood on a mahogany sideboard. A single publicity shot showed Robin posing at a piano; the rest were assorted family snaps from his younger days, when his father was still alive. The male Parks bore a strong resemblance to each other, with their regular features and ready smile. Where they lounged, Miriam stood to attention. Her stolid features habitually wore an expression of wariness, as if she expected the camera flash bulb to explode in her face.
‘Mum’s been resting. She’s not as young as she was.’
‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have disturbed her on my account.’
‘No, she’d be mortified if I invited you in, and she didn’t show her face. Anyhow, she told me you wanted to know about that conversation she overhead between Dorothy Hodgkinson and Roland Jones. By the way, how is Hannah Scarlett coping? I’ve been dying to meet her, just never expected it to be in these circumstances.’
‘Terri will have told you all you need to know. She was much closer to her than I am.’
Robin raised his eyebrows, and Daniel felt his cheeks burn. What had Terri said about Hannah and him?
‘Terri’s not here,’ Robin said quietly, as Miriam Park came into the room. ‘Oh, Mum, there you are. How are you feeling?’
Miriam’s face was drained of colour and her shoulders had a stoop. She’d looked better dressed up as a witch.
‘What can’t be cured, must be endured.’ She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Hello again, Mr Kind.’
‘Daniel, please. It’s very hard, to endure the murder of two people you knew.’
‘I was very fond of Terri, you know.’ She sounded defiant, as though she’d suffered a personal injustice. ‘She and Robin could have been so happy together here.’
Robin put a hand on her shoulder. ‘And she cared for you, Mum.’
‘You were friendly with Shenagh Moss, as well?’ Daniel asked.
‘Oh, she was good company. The two of us were talking, the very day she died, about the Faceless Woman.’ Miriam bowed her head. ‘Shenagh didn’t believe in ghosts, but you have to wonder, don’t you?’
‘I’m still curious about what happened to Gertrude Smith. That conversation you overheard …’
She shook her head. ‘It was such a long time ago. Like I said, I can’t swear to exactly what was said.’
‘But – roughly?’
Her features contorted as she dug into the recesses of memory. ‘Mr Jones said something like … “Your mother didn’t kill Gertrude, we both know that.”’
‘And she agreed?’
‘Yes, I’m sure she did. That was really all there was to it. Miss Hodgkinson left a few minutes later. She was obviously upset, didn’t even stop for a chat with any of us. Normally, on her visits, she liked to have a conversation with the staff. If you ask me, she’d always had a suspicion that Mr Jones killed Gertrude, but no more than that. She couldn’t take it in.’
‘You didn’t get the impression that they both thought … Clifford Hodgkinson murdered Gertrude?’
‘What?’ Miriam’s eyes widened. ‘That never crossed my mind. I just assumed … well, I suppose you may be right. But we’ll never know now, will we?’
‘Sometimes the truth comes out, long after the event, and it’s not what everyone expected. The same may happen over the murder of Shenagh Moss.’
‘We all know who killed Shenagh,’ Miriam insisted. ‘That man Craig Meek, may God forgive him. I’m not just talking about Shenagh. He as good as put a bullet through poor Mr Palladino’s head, as well. To say nothing of poor Hippo.’
‘Hippo?’
‘Mr Palladino’s dog. Adorable, he was. Poor Hippo was getting on in years, and the shock was too much for him. The vet had to put him down not long after Shenagh’s body was found.’
One more victim, then. ‘What if there is a connection between Shenagh’s death and Terri’s?’
Miriam stared. ‘Impossible. It’s no secret who battered that dear girl to death. That vile Polish …’
‘We can’t fathom why the police have released him,’ Robin said quickly, as if to forestall a potentially racist rant. ‘I’m praying it’s just a temporary manouevre, that they’re playing for time while they make sure the case against him is watertight.’
Miriam passed a hand over her forehead. ‘It’s a nightmare.’
‘Mum,’ Robin said, ‘you need to get back to bed.’
‘And I need to get out from under your feet,’ Daniel said. ‘I’m sorry to have pestered you about what you heard from Roland Jones.’
Her face was ashen. ‘I used to feel sorry for Gertrude Smith, and her ghost, endlessly walking down Ravenbank Lane. She deserved justice, that’s what I thought. Now I’m older and wiser. It’s not the dead we need to worry about. It’s the living.’
‘You timed your arrival to perfection.’ Melody greeted him with a delicate kiss on the cheek. Her lips were cold. ‘The mist is clearing over the lake, though it’s only a temporary respite. Freezing fog is forecast for later on. I almost feel sorry for those journalists, shivering outside the gates.’
‘I used to live with a journalist,’ he said. ‘If she was here, she’d tell you not to waste your sympathy, it’s like commiserating with a school of sharks.’
‘Yesterday was surreal – a helicopter whirling overhead, reporters on a boat, taking photos of our grounds. Did they expect to spot another dead body, dumped in the old boathouse, or draped over the pergola? I thought they’d leave us alone today – we’ve told them everything we know. I took them a tray of tea and biscuits, to remind them we’re human beings, not creatures to gawp at in a zoo. And now, the police have phoned to say they want to talk to Oz and me again. Will it ever end?’ She closed her eyes for a split second, as if gathering strength. ‘Come on. Quick tour of the garden, before we eat?’
‘Thanks, I’d love that,’ Daniel said.
‘You can see where poor Letty is buried.’ She yanked a black Barbour waterproof jacket from a coat rack on the porch wall, and pulled on a pair of muddy wellingtons. ‘Some of our visitors think it’s creepy, having someone’s grave in the grounds of your house. To me, it’s sweet. This was where she and her husband and child expected to live happily ever after, before her mind started to give way. At least Clifford made sure that she would never
have to leave her home. Whatever else, I respect him for that.’
‘Guilty conscience?’
‘Yes, he must have felt rotten about his affair with the girl.’
Melanie’s brow furrowed as she zipped herself into the jacket. Thinking about her own husband’s lapse with Shenagh Moss? Apparently, it hadn’t crossed her mind that Clifford might be a murderer as well as an adulterer.
‘Oz is due back soon,’ she said, as if reading his mind. ‘He’s spent the morning with our bank manager.’
‘Expanding the business?’
‘I wish.’ She locked the front door, and led him along a path which wound around the Hall. ‘This is between you and me, right? I’ve seen enough of you to know you can keep a secret.’
‘Sure.’
‘I hate to sound selfish, but this dreadful business about Terri has come at the worst possible moment. You’ve seen the newspapers, the TV bulletins?’ Daniel nodded. ‘Our names are all over them. People say no publicity is bad publicity, but that’s simply not true. Not when you’re running an events company, that is, and all of a sudden you find yourselves associated with a murder case. And this morning we hear that the Polish guy has been let out. Things are getting grimmer by the hour.’
The fog had cleared to allow them to see the bulk of Hallin Fell, looming up on the other side of the narrow strip of water separating it from the Ravenbank promontory, but patches of mist still obscured its upper reaches. Melody led Daniel under a pergola swathed in winter jasmine and honeysuckle, onto a paved area overlooking a fish pond, rose garden, and a huge spherical water feature made from stainless steel. Stepping stones meandered across a lawn cut in elaborate circular stripes before disappearing through an archway in a neatly clipped holly hedge.
‘Wow,’ Daniel said. ‘Even at this time of year, everything in your garden looks lovely.’
She sighed. ‘No expense spared, that’s our problem. Until August we had two gardeners working full-time. If things don’t look up, this time next year, I’ll be the one pruning the roses and feeding the Koi carp.’
Daniel murmured something vague and non-committal. Surely there were worse fates than pruning roses and feeding fish?
‘I tell a lie!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ll be forced to sell the Hall before then, you wait and see. It’s what happened to Hodgkinson, all over again.’
‘Surely things won’t come to that.’
‘Oh, the economy is in such a dreadful state, I can’t see a way out. Don’t believe what you hear about recovery, people are still watching the pennies. Umpteen of the events we manage have been scaled down, others have been cancelled altogether. Oz asked you to speak on the Caribbean cruise, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, I …’
‘Well, forget it. We won’t be handling that contract after all. We heard this morning, we’ve been undercut on our tender. The truth is, the cruise line took fright because of what happened to Terri. Two other clients have cancelled their retainers. They come up with endless excuses, but it’s all about the murder. It’s done us untold damage.’
‘Nobody can sensibly blame you for …’
‘Business isn’t sensible,’ Melody hissed. ‘It’s stupid. Everything’s falling apart. We have two holiday homes abroad, mortgaged up to the hilt, and we can’t even sell them at a knockdown price.’
Her slim body was rigid with tension, and she looked to be about to dissolve into tears. He didn’t know what to say, a sure sign it was best to keep his mouth shut.
‘I’ve always hated it, to be honest. It wasn’t so bad when I started out as the hired help, with no responsibility except to schmooze the clientele. When you start worrying about whether the bank is going to renew your overdraft, fun goes out of the window.’
‘The Literary Lakeland conference was a huge success.’
‘Thanks, but we were hired for that job nine months ago. Business has been going down the plughole ever since. Why do you think I was desperate to get out? We found Terri’s salary by closing our office in Penrith, and running everything from here. It was never going to work, I see that now. When Terri announced she was leaving to go and live with Robin, it was a blessing in disguise. Otherwise we’d have had to make her redundant.’
‘I’m sorry. I had no idea.’
A bitter laugh. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? In our line, it’s vital to keep up appearances. And we thought we managed that pretty well. Even Terri never guessed we were close to skint. It never rains but it pours. Now we can’t even host a small private party without having a guest battered to death at the end of it.’
The branches shivered in the wind, as if fearing for the owners of Ravenbank Hall. Melanie started down the low flight of steps to the lawn, and beckoned him to follow.
‘Watch your footing. The York stone is slippery when it’s damp.’ A brittle laugh. ‘You breaking your neck really would be the last straw.’
He followed her across the lawn. There were strict limits to his sympathy. He’d never forget discovering Terri Poynton’s ruined body, abandoned on a wintry night, for foxes and insects to do their worst. For Hannah Scarlett, Terri’s death was a personal tragedy, for the Knights, a flimsy excuse for financial headache caused by spending money as if it were going out of fashion.
Or was this all some huge kind of bluff? Making a fuss about the dire consequences of Terri’s murder to conceal the fact that Oz was guilty of it?
‘You disapprove of me, don’t you?’ she asked.
He dug his hands deep in his pockets. Melody might be naive, but she wasn’t stupid, and she didn’t lack intuition.
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
Two strides short of the archway, she stopped in her tracks, and looked over her shoulder.
‘Be honest. You think I’m a spoilt woman, playing at one thing after another, because I’ve nothing better to do. At one time it was knitting, now it’s journalism. If my husband and I have run out of money, it’s our own silly fault for being so bloody greedy, and borrowing up to the hilt to renovate the Hall at the same time as trying to run a small firm in a dog-eat-dog business environment.’
‘What I think is this,’ Daniel said in a low voice. ‘Crimes of violence, most of all murder, harm everyone they touch. Not just the victim, and the victim’s family and friends. Witnesses, suspects, people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘Collateral damage, eh?’ she sighed. ‘The woman in charge of this case, your friend Larter, we met her when Shenagh was killed. She interviewed Oz and me. She didn’t like us, specially not Oz. If Craig Meek hadn’t been so obviously guilty, she’d have made our lives a misery.’
‘She was only doing her job.’
‘Oz isn’t a murderer!’
‘I never said …’
‘No!’ She held up a hand. ‘Don’t say any more. We’ve talked enough about Terri – and Shenagh. Let me show you Letty Hodgkinson’s last resting place.’
A weathered slate slab bore Letitia Hodgkinson’s name and dates, nothing else. It stood beneath a copper beech at the end of a neat gravel path laid between vast, dripping rhododendrons. Through the trees, Daniel glimpsed Ullswater’s inky depths. The wind was rippling through Melody’s hair and she had to keep brushing it out of her eyes.
‘When we bought the Hall, this was a jungle. Nobody would believe it if we hadn’t kept before and after photographs.’ She waved in the direction of Hallin Fell. ‘The old boathouse is over there, can you see it through the trees? When we came here, it was a ruin, in need of complete restoration. Now it’s Oz’s pride and joy, he loves to go out rowing on his own. As for poor Letty’s headstone, it was invisible. Covered by a mass of bindweed and brambles.’
‘Looks like Clifford tucked his wife’s grave as far out of sight as possible.’
‘The poor, poor woman,’ Melody said. ‘Coming here, and wondering about what drove her to kill Gertrude, set me thinking about whether she’d suffered a terrible injustice.’
&nbs
p; ‘I promised to tell you what I discovered about Dorothy and Roland. Not that it explains what happened to Gertrude.’
She listened with lips slightly parted. It was difficult not to feel flattered when an attractive woman hung on your every word, but Daniel did his best. Her loveliness was just another mask. He still couldn’t figure her out. Shallow and self-absorbed, selfless and smart, or subtle and scheming? Or simply a mass of baffling contradictions?
‘Fascinating,’ she breathed. ‘You’ve discovered so much in twenty-four hours. I suppose that shows the difference between a professional and a dilettante. I didn’t know where to start. I just want to find out what happened here a hundred years ago. When we met, it was simple curiosity. Now, after Terri’s death, and all the angst about money, it seems like a lifeline. Something to take my mind off … all the other crap.’
‘The conversation Miriam overheard proves nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s no proof that Letty didn’t kill Gertrude. I’d love to know what her suicide note said. If she knew Clifford had murdered Gertrude, and she was determined to cover for him …’
‘How could she go so far – however much she loved her husband? I know I wouldn’t take the rap for Oz.’ She flushed, and added hastily, ‘Not that I’d ever need to.’
The wind stung Daniel’s cheeks. He kept quiet, content to let her talk.
‘I mean, even when he picked up penalty points for speeding on the M6 that meant he lost his driving licence for six months, he knew better than to ask me to pretend I was behind the wheel. He has his faults, but he’s no bully. Anyway, I simply wouldn’t do it. He had to pay his dues.’
‘Things were different a century ago.’
‘I guess so. Letty had mental health issues. It must all have become too much for her. Perhaps she simply couldn’t face living, knowing her husband was an adulterous killer, and that everything was about to fall apart. Whatever the truth, I’m grateful to you, Daniel.’
She switched on a smile, as sudden as it was ravishing. He recalled that before her marriage, she’d not only been a model, but also an actor. ‘I needed you to show an interest, to convince myself I wasn’t simply romanticising about Letty because she and I had stuff in common.’
The Frozen Shroud Page 20