Martin Edwards - The Frozen Shroud

A large rectangular table occupied the middle of a stone-tiled floor. Miriam walked round to the far side, and took a seat close to the stove, with her back to the window. Hannah and Robin sat facing her. Over Miriam’s shoulder, Hannah looked through a gap in the blinds into a neat garden, with a rockery full of purple and white late-flowering heathers.

‘So what can we do for you, Detective Chief Inspector?’ Miriam asked.

‘I wanted to meet you, Mrs Park.’

They gazed at each other, and Hannah realised they were each trying to read the other’s mind. But it was as much in vain as if they were time travellers from different centuries.

‘Oh yes?’ Miriam was sitting bolt upright, arms folded, a study in defiance. Hannah was conscious of Robin beside her, shuffling around on his chair.

‘You might like to know that Daniel Kind has discovered the meaning of the conversation you overheard between Roland Jones and Dorothy Hodgkinson. She killed her father’s mistress, and her mother took the blame for it.’

Miriam nodded. ‘I did wonder if was something like that.’

‘Dorothy couldn’t bear the prospect of her world falling apart.’

‘You can understand it,’ Miriam snapped. ‘Being separated from someone she loved. Even if her father was a good-for-nothing. Blood’s thicker than water.’

‘But the price she paid for refusing to let go …’ Hannah clicked her tongue. ‘She lost her mother, and her father didn’t live long. While she had to live with the consequences of that crime to the end of her days.’

‘What did you come here for?’ Robin’s voice was cracking. ‘To boast about solving the mystery of the Faceless Woman? Shouldn’t you be fully occupied, interrogating Oz Knight?’

‘There’s nothing I want to ask him. Knight didn’t kill Terri, any more than Stefan Deyna did.’

‘Ludicrous. The police have two perfectly good suspects, and they aren’t making any effort to …’

‘There’s no panic,’ Hannah interrupted. ‘I’m confident an arrest will be made before the end of today.’

He opened his mouth to speak, but his mother beat him to it. ‘Why did you want to tell me about Dorothy Hodgkinson?’

‘You kept her secret, didn’t you?’

‘I felt sorry for her. The others who worked at the Hall didn’t like her. Too severe, they said, too stuck-up. Not somebody you could have a laugh with. But each to his own. We can’t all be comedians.’

‘Did you feel equally sorry for Gertrude? Murdered for falling in love, and then cheated of justice?’

Miriam pursed her lips. ‘Some might say she brought it on herself.’

‘Was that true of Shenagh Moss?’

‘Craig Meek killed her. He was one of those men who always had to get his own way. She gave him the run-around and he made her pay for it, everyone knows that.’

‘Just as everyone knows Letty Hodgkinson murdered Gertrude Smith?’ Hannah sighed. ‘Ravenbank is an unlucky place. No wonder they called it Satan’s Head in the olden days. In the last five years, the old story turned into a template for murder. The same pattern recurred. A young woman came here, and disturbed the peace. Someone with no loyalty to Ravenbank, and a yearning to move away. Regardless of whether she was tearing people apart.’

Miriam’s expression was as bleak as the fells above Wasdale. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Actually, Mrs Park,’ Hannah muttered, ‘I think I do.’

‘No, you have no idea! Shenagh was good company. Terri was … a very nice woman.’

‘So you say. But it didn’t count for much when you faced the prospect of losing someone you loved. Nothing could compare with your devotion to Francis Palladino, could it?’ Hannah banged her fist on the table. She was losing the battle to contain her fury. ‘Except for your worship of Robin?’

Robin laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. ‘What do-?’

Hannah shook off his hand. ‘I suppose you put something in his breakfast, or in his dinner the night before, to make him ill? Nothing harmful, just something to get him out of the way for half a day, so that you were able to do what you wanted?’

Miriam’s features froze. ‘I’m saying nothing.’

‘You stole Terri’s phone, so that you could text Stefan Deyna, and invite him to Ravenbank. I guess you played a similar trick on Craig Meek, and then had an extra stroke of luck when he died in a car crash.’

‘Good riddance, if you ask me,’ Miriam said. ‘He was a bully, a good-for-nothing.’

‘Mum-’ Robin began.

She put up a gnarled hand to hush him. ‘I was sorry about Shenagh, but really, she was her own worst enemy. The way she played around with Oz Knight was bad enough, but to betray Francis with that queer — it really was disgusting. And yet, you know, I could have forgiven her.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. If she hadn’t insisted on taking Francis away. He was an old man, not in the best of health. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in Australia.’

‘Shenagh’s death killed him,’ Hannah said. ‘What’s more, it killed the dog too.’

‘That wasn’t meant to happen.’ Miriam’s voice rose in anguish. ‘I loved Hippo! But of course, he’d seen everything, and he couldn’t understand. For ever afterwards, he looked at me with such sad eyes, I couldn’t bear it. He was getting old, and I said to Francis it was kinder to have him put down.’

‘You wanted Francis all for yourself.’

‘All my life,’ Miriam said, ‘the people I’ve loved have been taken from me. My mam and dad. My husband, Bobby. Francis. As for Robin, who meant most of all, I couldn’t bear the thought of …’

Robin said hoarsely, ‘We would still have been in touch. There are aeroplanes. Phones. Skype. In this day and age …’

‘It’s not the same,’ Miriam said. ‘You know that, darling. Deep down.’

‘But why-?’

The doorbell cut off his question. Hannah said, ‘My colleagues have arrived. Can you let them in, please?’

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miriam rise from her chair. In the same instant, Robin’s face twisted in horror.

‘No!’ he shouted.

Half-hidden behind a bread bin at the back of the work surface beside the stove was a wooden knife block. Miriam reached over, and plucked out a steak knife. Her eyelids didn’t flicker as she held it up, serrated edge glinting under her nose.

Hannah tensed. Thank God the large table stood between them.

‘Put the knife down, Mrs Park.’

‘Mummy!’ Robin cried. ‘Mummy, please, no!’

Holding the knife in her iron grip, Miriam plunged it into her throat. As the blade penetrated the vein, she let out a gurgling howl that filled the cottage kitchen. An outpouring of agony, and defeat.

The doorbell shrilled again, and Robin started to scream.

After an overnight frost, Saturday morning dawned bright and crisp. Sunshine played on the surface of Ullswater, as Hannah caught sight of Daniel standing on the wooden pier at Glenridding. She felt light and free, as if a dead weight had been unstrapped from her back, and she found herself skipping like a child as she made her way to join him. A phone conversation with Fern had delayed her, but he cut short her apologies.

‘Occupational hazard. I’m the son of a policeman, remember?’

‘How could I forget?’

She enjoyed watching his cheeks redden. A bright guy, Daniel, and a minor celebrity, yet unexpectedly easy to embarrass. Not like his dad.

Or had Ben, beneath that grizzled exterior, been much shyer than she’d realised? Was that why …?

Daniel was talking; she must stop daydreaming about what was dead and gone. Including Ben.