Martin Edwards - The Frozen Shroud

‘You can say that again.’

‘Why don’t you come over to Tarn Fold? Louise can cook a meal. Stay over, if you like. After what’s happened …’

His voice trailed away. Hannah filled the silence.

‘That’s a kind offer. I’ll take you up on it before you have second thoughts.’

Hannah still hadn’t absorbed the news of Terri’s death, but she knew she couldn’t surrender to grief and misery. The choice was to sink or swim. She steeled herself for a return visit to the dreaded hospital, and a difficult conversation with Marc. What, unaccountably, she forgot to bargain for was the brooding presence by his bedside of his mother. Mrs Amos had never taken much trouble to hide her belief that Hannah had never been good enough for her son. Nothing personal, really. Kate Middleton wouldn’t have come up to scratch, either.

‘Hello, Glenda.’ Marc’s eyes were clamped shut. Fast asleep, or engaging in a tactical retreat from tricky questions? The latter, more like. ‘How’s the patient?’

Glenda Amos grunted. Hannah thought the old woman had shrunk since their last meeting. Age and disappointed expectations were taking their toll. The atmosphere in the ward was stuffy, but she hadn’t undone a single button of her lime green overcoat. From the look on her face, she hadn’t quite worked out how to justify accusing Hannah of causing her son’s car crash, but it wouldn’t take her long. She was a grand mistress of the blame game.

Marc stirred, and made a little moaning noise, as if contriving a protracted return to consciousness. His mother gave a truculent sniff.

‘The journey here was a nightmare. It’s a long way from Grange by public transport, you know.’

‘Why don’t you take a break?’ Hannah suggested. ‘Treat yourself to a cup of coffee, or a snack from the shop?’

‘I had my tea before I came out.’ She considered her son’s flickering eyelids. ‘I think he’s coming round. I’ll go and powder my nose. Back in a couple of ticks. Don’t you go upsetting him in the meantime.’

As she stomped off, Hannah pulled her chair closer to the bed and inspected the patient. The gash was bandaged, and he wasn’t instantly recognisable as the good-looking bloke she’d shared a bed with for so long. But it could have been so much worse.

‘How are you?’

He opened bloodshot eyes and said croakily, ‘They tell me I’ll live.’

‘How are the ribs?’

‘Hurt like hell.’ Was he calculating whether self-pity would attract sympathy, or be counterproductive? He really ought to know better by now.

‘The doctor tells me you’ll be as good as new before long. Thank God.’ She took a breath. ‘About last night.’

The battering his face had taken made it easy for him to hide emotion. ‘Yes?’

‘It was a one-off. I’d had a couple of drinks and I was feeling sorry for myself. Stupid. It’s not that Greg took advantage …’

‘No?’

‘No! My fault, and I’m not going to make a habit of it. But …’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Even if I wanted to make a habit of it, that would be my choice. Marc, you need to understand, it’s over between the two of us. I’d already made that clear. It’s none of your business what I do or who I’m with in my private life. Such as it is.’

Slowly, he said, ‘I’ve had a bit of time to chew things over since I regained consciousness.’

‘And?’

‘I agree.’ He expelled a long sigh, as though the admission had cost a vast physical effort. She wasn’t convinced; he often resorted to play-acting when things got tough. Or was she just a cynical old witch who had never deserved a man’s devotion? ‘I kept hoping, couldn’t help it, but …’

‘But?’

‘Last night I finally saw we were finished, and it was forever.’

She sat tight, sure there was more to come.

‘It’s not about Greg Wharf, is it? It’s about … me. And you’re not going to change your mind.’

‘’Fraid not.’

‘I was furious with you. I felt betrayed, even though I had no right. That’s why I drove like a maniac.’

‘You could have killed yourself.’

‘Last night, I didn’t care.’ He was gritting his teeth, whether against the physical pain or the despair of admitting defeat, she couldn’t say. ‘I wasn’t drunk, you know.’

‘Just as well, you’d have had a court case and a driving ban to worry about, as well as your cuts and bruises.’

She was doing it deliberately, this ostentatious lack of sympathy, so he was in no doubt that playing mind games would be a waste of time.

‘Apparently I might still get prosecuted.’

‘For driving without due care, yes.’

‘Making an example of me, I suppose. No favours shown to a DCI’s ex. That sort of thing.’

‘What do you expect? You smashed your car into a tree. It could have been so much worse. And for what? No reason.’

‘Losing you was a pretty good reason,’ he murmured. ‘Or so it seemed last night.’

She patted his bruised hand. ‘In the cold light of day, you can see how wrong you were.’

‘I can’t write all those years together off as if they counted for nothing, even if you can.’

‘They did count for something. But at the risk of sounding like some idiot counsellor on daytime TV, we both need to move on. All right?’

‘All right.’ He forced a smile. ‘Maybe I’d better ask you for Terri’s number … hey, what’s the matter? It was only a joke. We’re friends, that’s all. Why are you looking at me like I just spat in your face?’

Driving through Brackdale half an hour later, Hannah took a call hands-free from Fern. Her friend’s exultant voice echoed around the Lexus.

‘We’re getting warmer with every passing hour. There is CCTV footage of Deyna arriving at Euston. We even see him splashing out on a taxi. What a gift! We traced the cabbie, who says he took him to an address in Hammersmith. A lot of Poles live in that part of London, apparently, so maybe he’s asking a favour from an old friend. Begging a loan, I suppose, or help in getting out of the country.’

‘Fantastic.’ If Hannah hadn’t needed to keep both hands on the steering wheel to negotiate the winding route that led to Brack, she’d have clenched a fist in triumph. ‘Any chance of lifting him tonight?’

‘Keep everything crossed. Of course, he may not have stayed all day in the house where the cabbie dropped him off, but with any luck, he won’t have gone far.’ A pause. ‘So where are you off to?’

‘Daniel and Louise Kind offered a meal and a bed for the night.’ She was making them sound like a married couple. ‘I took your advice and said thanks very much. I’m only a few minutes away.’

‘Glad to hear it. Daniel and his sister were good witnesses, by the way, as you might expect. Told us all they could, without wasting time. Are you taking some leave, as well?’

‘Tomorrow, yes. Right now, I feel like I could sleep for a week. I’ve just left the hospital. Marc is okay, all things considered. His mother was there, hating me more than ever these days. But it was worth running the gauntlet. He accepts that we’re finished, which is progress.’

‘About time, if you ask me. Enjoy your evening with Daniel. I’ll let you know when we nab Stefan. Oh, there was one tiny piece of good news. I forgot to mention it earlier on.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Stefan didn’t kill Terri’s cat after all. In fact, he’d been looking after it in Patterdale, and left a note asking his poor old landlord and landlady to take care of the poor little creature.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘No, but it’s weird behaviour for a man who had just bludgeoned his ex-lover to death. The torn photo must just have been his attempt to rattle her. Or maybe he couldn’t bring himself to harm an animal. Human nature, eh? You couldn’t make it up.’